In growing dimness, Greenwillow sat on a stone wall and stared at the space where Sunbright had disappeared. Perhaps, wherever he'd gone, he'd find a way to escape and come back to her. She doubted it, but didn't know what else to do.

A cool evening wind swirled from the mountains and kissed her cheek, whispering in her ear seductively. Elves weren't supposed to fall in love with humans, the message seemed to remind her. The two races stood apart for good reasons. And all along on this benighted quest, her doomed mission to deliver condemnation from a haughty elven council to an undead king, she'd fought to stay aloof, reserved, cool. She'd battled against love harder than any mortal enemy she'd ever fought. In vain. She Who Shapes All had laid the path before Greenwillow's feet, and the half-elf could but walk it.

Until now, when the one she loved had catapulted after a temptress, a trollop, a…

Without any tickle to her keen elven senses, a man stood by her side.

Instinctively she shot up, laid a hand to her sword's pommel, and slid the weapon from its sheath a hair. Certainly there was magic about the human, for he hadn't walked to this spot. That she knew. But too, he looked vaguely familiar, was podgy, bald, and bearded, dressed in a plain linen smock. Then she recalled.

"You… talked to Sunbright that day just before he joined our party of merchants. In the village of Augerbend, it was."

"Did I? Oh, yes, yes." Candlemas was distracted. A lot had happened since then. He stepped across the road to where the portal had materialized.

"But who are you?" demanded the elf. "Sunbright said you were steward of the castle, but that was untrue."

"Hmmm?" The mage studied the wreckage of Tinnainen, the gaps pounded in the walls, the trickles of smoke in a dozen places, the collapsed roofs and gutted palace. He shook his head in wonder at what he and Sysquemalyn had stirred up-all for a silly wager, or was it something more? Now the air reeked with the residue of mighty magics, of dragons and liches and others, power only a Neth could master. But at least that battle was over, the fires out, Wrathburn departed. Within days, Tinnainen would be a backwater again-unless the Nine Hells erupted nearby.

He frowned at the sky. Was his eyesight fading? No, he'd just come so far east the sun had already set here. He felt old, was all. Constant intrigue and tension ground a body down.

"I asked," Greenwillow said, jerking her sword from its scabbard with a steel whisper, "who are you?"

He turned to look at her. Despite smudges and nicks, she was more lovely in real life than when seen through a palantir. Always swayed by feminine beauty, the mage spoke formally. "I'm sorry, my dear. I am a steward, but of another castle, uh, higher up. I'm a friend."

Frowning again, the mage knelt stiffly and ran his fingers over the soil. Still warm. Then he flinched as something black fluttered near his face. But it was only the raven, which said nothing.

Greenwillow did, though. "You're a friend to the raven, too?"

"Eh?" Candlemas craned to see her face. "Oh, ah… What do you know of the bird?"

"That it talks. I followed Sunbright a few times, just to-" Now she hesitated, even blushed. "Just to watch him. He didn't see me, but I saw him converse with the raven. Did you send it?"

Candlemas nodded absently. Lifting his hand palm up, he felt for the exact spot where the portal had been. Waving his hand slowly, he traced the outline: the rift in the fabric of reality. "Good, good. Or very bad. For me anyway."

Rising, extending his hands with fingers spread, he keened again, a long, loud wail.

The portal winked into being. Nothing showed inside it, just a view of the stone wall.

With a cry, Greenwillow jumped up, slapped her sword home, and started to push past Candlemas. But the mage swept her back with a thick arm. "Stand back, young woman. There's nothing you can do."

Sighing, he hiked his skirts and stepped through the portal. The golden shimmer tingled around his legs, then his body, as if he crept into lightning-charged water.

The mage paid no notice to Greenwillow. For too long had Candlemas been steward of a castle, where his orders were obeyed immediately without question.

Greenwillow didn't question him either. She just shadowed the bulky man, hovering inches behind him, and held her breath.

Seconds later, the portal winked out, and the road to Tinnainen stood empty.

Candlemas stepped onto a platform of black glass. Not much wider than a public fountain, it curved up all around, so he slid toward its center. The mage didn't recognize the conveyance, but it resembled the bottom of a palantir, as if he stood inside. Perhaps he did.

Around the platform was nothingness, a blank limbo like fog. Candlemas didn't dare touch it.

Sprawled like a rag doll on the glass platform lay Sunbright, his sword under him. The barbarian was dirty and scraped up, but alive and breathing. For now.

A cry sounded. With mild annoyance, the mage found the half-elf Greenwillow had followed despite his orders. She stooped to gather Sunbright in her arms, smothering his face with fervent kisses. That brought the barbarian around better than a bucket of water.

His first words were accusatory, aimed at the mage. "Chandler! What are you doing here?"

Single-minded, barbarians were, Candlemas thought. If humans were dumb brutes, as Sysquemalyn argued, the tundra people were no smarter than their reindeer. This young hide-wearer leaped to battle instead of waging love on the elven beauty. The mage sighed, "I'm not a simple steward. I'm more than that."

Clutching his throbbing head, Sunbright clambered up from Greenwillow's embrace. To her questions, he rasped, "That yellow fiend that grabbed Ruellana. It saw me following somehow, and crushed me with a hand like a hayrick. I don't know where it went from there."

Still groggy, he slid a pace on the glass platform and almost pitched over the side-if there was a side. No noise or feel or smell came from the foggy limbo. They might have been bugs in a bottle, Candlemas thought, and perhaps were.

Sunbright leveled a scarred arm and calloused finger at the older man. "You're a filthy mage, aren't you?"

A tiny shrug. "A mage. My name isn't Chandler, by the way. It's Candlemas. A chandler makes candles, see?" His rueful smile was not returned.

"So everything you told me was a lie?"

"Not everything." Candlemas scanned their surroundings, which were the blankest he'd ever seen. How could he entice the barbarian to penetrate the not-fog? "About half, well, much of what I said was true."

"You used me!" A finger stabbed downward. "Even that damned raven is yours, isn't it?"

Candlemas blinked at the platform and saw the raven. Funny, he hadn't seen it enter the portal.

The raven cocked its head as if also confused as to how it had gotten there. It croaked, "Sorry. That's how the egg breaks."

"The raven is an avatar," Candlemas explained. "A shade of mine sent to watch over you. Like a homunculus, only more reliable."

Sunbright rubbed his throbbing temples. He snarled, "I don't want any more of your damned magic near me! Wait, you sent Ruellana, too, didn't you?"

"Ah, no." The chunky mage cast about again, then settled creaking onto his hams, which slipped down the glass toward the middle where Sunbright stood. He had to drag his hands to stop his slide. "Ruellana is an avatar-no, a persona-of another mage named Sysquemalyn. She's chamberlain while I'm steward of, uh, a castle. She got us into this current pickle. And I'd have to say that, while I've used you somewhat-but kept you from harm repeatedly-she's used you worse and meant you harm. Of course, you probably don't believe anything I say. I understand. But the latest round involved sending you after that book, and she arranged it! No doubt she whispered in the One King's ear that he needed the book, so he dispatched the next able warrior who strode into his court to fetch it before-"