Flattered, I let my hand uncover the brooch. Longwalker lifted his eyes and regarded the stones from a distance. They seemed to glow under his gaze, as they had in the rainy dark of the woodlands.

"Yes," the big Plainsman pronounced. "There are six of them. It may be all Firebrand needs."

I returned to the fireside, glancing once over my shoulder in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of Ramiro, Dannelle, and Oliver, who waited somewhere in the high foothills. Instead, there was the sun descending, blazing red and obscuring everything westward but the mists of night rising on the nearby lowlands and the play of sun and long shadow. Throughout the bare countryside, the cries of birds rose into the darkening air- birds stunned by the downpour of rain, who took to the wing now, seeking high wind and drier lodging.

I had not realized how late it was. Suddenly I felt cold, vulnerable. I leaned toward the fire, extended my hands to warm them.

"I'm sorry, Longwalker. I'm perilously at sea when it comes to the spiritual. I have no idea who this 'Firebrand' is, or how many stones he needs or what he needs them for. I'm not quite sure what worth these opals are to begin with, but I've seen things in the bottom of them, and I know there's more to them than the adorning of a cape."

The Plainsman nodded. He smiled faintly, picked up a branch, and stirred the fire. The blackened kindling at the heart of the flame broke at his touch, hurling red sparks and ashes harmlessly into the air.

"You have never seen the bottom of them, Solamnic. For the bottom of them lies with the gods, since the Age of Dreams. So has been the story since that time," Longwalker said as the boy-the lookout-approached us quietly, handing each of us a cup containing a clear, fiery liquid that made Thorbardin spirits taste like weak tea. I sipped once and thought I had made a cultural error-had swallowed a lamp oil or a tanning agent or some exotic explosive. But across the fire from me, Longwalker tilted his cup back and drained it.

I thanked the gods that Ramiro was not here in my place.

"Since the Age of Dreams, Solamnic," Longwalker continued. "As everything did in that distant time, the story begins with a god. For the gods had brought us these stones in the time before the Telling-before the tribes assembled in Abanasinia to renew our stories. The stones go by many names-glain opals, godseyes, wishing stones. Whatever men call them, they are magical and rare, and showing us our visions and dreams and words, and the visions and dreams and words of others. Used in wisdom, they helped our scattered brotherhood, the Que-Shu, Que-Teh, Que-Nara, Que-Kiri, and the others, to know each other over miles and years."

"I'm not sure I follow you," I confessed. Longwalker paused and explained patiently.

"In our tribes, there were always the Namers-what you might call clerics, but more than clerics. For the Namers remembered the histories of things-the wanderings of our peoples for a hundred generations back, unto a time when the gods walked among us and there were as yet no stories to remember."

"A weighty calling, that of the Namer," Shardos said.

"The burden was lighter because of the opals," Longwalker continued. 'Tor placed in the Tribal Crowns- the great circlets forged by Reorx in the Age of Dreams, one for each tribe and one alone-the stones would hold memory. The Namer could look into the godseye and see what had passed and what was passing. Que-Kiri could speak to Que-Shu through the opals, though mountains and waters lay between them. And through them, we spoke to the past."

"There in the crowns lay the memories of our peoples, the memories we sang of and shared at the Telling."

"The Telling?" I asked.

"A Plainsman conclave," Shardos explained. "A great get-together of the tribes that takes place every seven hundred years or so. They tell their tribal histories there, set aright any mistakes in them, so that the lore of the Plainsmen gets passed down correctly and the deeds of the ancestors are remembered."

Longwalker nodded. "A crown to each of the twelve tribes," he continued. "Each crown with twelve opals. A sign of our unity, but also magic itself, they tell us. Whatever the power of the stones, it is only when they are set in a god-forged crown that they bind and spark a greater power. In the godforged crown only."

"But what about… those in my brooch?" I asked. "I can see things through them without this crown."

"The visions that two opals provide are fleeting. They go wherever they wish, like the shape of a face in a cloud, so that they mean one thing to one eye and something else to another. The more stones that are set together, the clearer the vision. The best of all numbers is twelve, and twelve was the number in each of the crowns. It is said that the wisdom of twelve stones abides with the Namer for years-that once he has worn the crown, he is never the same again.

"I cannot say for sure that is true. Nor can I tell you of the danger, for it is also said that if thirteen opals were set into one of the crowns, then the wearer would have power over life and death."

I looked at Shardos, who shook his head and frowned.

"Power over life and death?" I asked. "What does that mean, Longwalker?"

"I cannot say for sure," the tall Plainsman answered. "Nor could I tell you why anyone would want such a power. For I have heard that the dead come back at the bidding of the thirteenth godseye, and I am told that in each of the Naming Crowns is a thirteenth setting, always left empty, to remind us of that legend-to tell us that it was our choice not to seize what is forbidden. Not until now."

Longwalker raised the sleeve of his deerskin tunic. Beneath the sleeve lay a rawhide armband, glittering with black eyes in the firelit night. "For someone is about to take that power, Solamnic. Indeed, someone has waited for you to bring him that power."

"Not so fast!" I warned, the worst of my suspicions returning. For what could someone waiting for the power of the opals possibly mean but that he had been waiting for me all along, had followed us this far and set up camp, knowing that I would fly to his fires and to my destruction like a dim-sighted, dim-witted moth?

I leapt away from the fire toward the darkness, where I knew my horse was tethered. But Longwalker stayed close to the flame and called out to me, his level voice reaching me suddenly and softly, as though I was thinking his words to myself.

"Not so quickly, Solamnic. I have been waiting for you, but I am no thief."

I paused, my back to the fire and the Plainsman.

"Now," he said, after a silence. "Linger awhile longer and listen to the rest of my story. Your brother, lost amid stones and darkness, would thank you for hearing me out."

I turned to face him, breathing more slowly, my hand relaxing its grip on the hilt of my sword.

I could not have left anyway-not without Shardos, who had not stirred from his place, intent on Longwalker's tale. I muttered an oath at the circumstances: Everywhere I looked, I was responsible for someone, it seemed, and though I had known the man scarcely more than a day, I could no more abandon him than I could Dannelle or Ramiro. Or Brithelm, for that matter.

The sudden flight toward the horses, away from all of this history and magic, was simply the ridiculous first of my options. I sighed and returned cautiously to the fire. When the Measure orders you to defend the rights of the poor and oppressed and the helpless, it never says how large and powerful and downright frightening the oppressing forces can be.

"I was speaking of the crowns," Longwalker said. "Of the crowns and their powers, and a time in which the people held them and used them wisely."