"But… why?"

"I think there will be further omens," Glenshadow said softly, his voice as chill as a winter's night. "Then, perhaps, we will know."

Ahead of them, the path approached what might have been a huge, open gate in a great wall, except that whatever gate might once have been there was long since gone. All that remained was a ragged cleft in a long, high structure of broken stone which ran off to left and right into moon-shadowed distance. An ancient wall, sundered here and there to rubble. Near the wall, just off the dark path, was a separate mound of rubble that looked familiar. It was like the mound they had found back in the forest – a clutter of what might once have been various things all connected together, with stumps and odd shapes protruding from it.

"Another gnome machine?" Chess wondered. "What do you suppose it was for."

"Old," the wizard nodded.

"Very old," something unseen seemed to agree.

"A siege engine," Glenshadow said. "They kept building them until they got through the wall."

"Who did?"

"Gnomes. Who else?"

"What did they want?"

"What Gargath had. The source of all magic."

"I never heard of a gnome using magic," the kender pointed out.

The wizard frowned and seemed to shudder. "We had better go on," he said.

Beyond the wall the path pitched steeply downward and entered a forest so dense that the light of the moons was only a patchwork through interwoven branches.

"I'd just as soon make camp here," Chane said, then went silent as the singing voice came again, this time much nearer. Someone just ahead was singing in a language none of them knew. The singer's tonal range was tremendous, the voice so utterly lovely that it caught their breaths and tugged at their hearts.

A siren? Chane thought and realized it didn't matter. The voice held him in thrall, and he couldn't have turned away if he had wanted to.

Beyond the trees ahead was a glow of firelight, and the voice seemed to be coming from there. They hurried on. The slope lessened to level ground, and the trees ended abruptly at a circular clearing. The black gravel of the path ended at a clean-swept expanse of black flagstone paving – a circular band of ebony stone nearly one hundred yards across. Thick, short pillars of red granite stood like sentinels around the circle at brief intervals, and within the circle of black was a circle of white, then another of black. The concentric pavings narrowed toward the center, where stood a tall, cone-shaped monolith with a small, dim object at its apex.

The firelight came from wood fires set in wide sconces at the four points of the compass, on the inside faces of the surrounding short pillars. The travelers stood where they had stopped, peering around, trying to see detail in the erratic light. In the semi-darkness around the circle, shadows moved. "Cats," the dwarf noted. "Dozens of them. They must live here."

The kender peered into the gloom, then straightened and pointed. "Wow!

Look at that one!" Chane looked. A breeze flared one of the flames, and his eyes widened. Beyond the paved clearing, cats were everywhere. And among them was one, huge even by comparison with the others. Half again the size of the rest, it stood staring directly at the dwarf, great golden eyes thoughtful in a massive indigo head capped by a flowing, snow-white mane.

The wizard seemed to pay no attention. He gazed instead at the monolith, his eyes ranging upward toward its top. The crystal device on his staff no longer looked like a crystal. Its luster was gone, and it was a dull, opaque gray in color. "The temple of Gargath," he muttered. "Where the graygem was entrapped."

"What?" Chane glanced around.

"This is where it happened," Glenshadow said, as though talking to himself. "Up there… is the Spellbinder."

"Woe," something voiceless mourned.

The impatient kender had scampered away, out toward the edge of the paving for a better look at the huge, white-maned cat. When it noticed him, he backpedaled, reversed his course, and went to have a closer look at the obelisk. He disappeared beyond it.

"There's somebody here," Chane decided. "Somebody keeps these fires, and somebody made that song." He looked toward the hut beyond the obelisk.

"Maybe…" Then he turned again, alerted by movement close by. A creature like nothing he had ever seen had stepped onto the pavement. She was far taller than Chane, taller even than the wizard.

Her skin was the color of midnight and caught the light in patterns of indigo and ebony that flowed sensuously over a face and form beautiful almost beyond beauty. Her hair was silver-white, long and flowing, and the single garment she wore – a brief tunic caught at one shoulder and falling to her sleek thighs – seemed to be woven of spider silk.

Chane stared, open-mouthed, stunned by her beauty as he was stunned by her song. Never had he heard such a voice – the power of thunder and the gentleness of summer clouds resonated in perfect balance as she seemed to sing to each of them separately, yet all at once. Never had he heard such a voice, and never had he seen a creature so hauntingly lovely, or radiating such intense, patient power. The dwarf had the feeling that she could crush him with a touch if she chose… or could touch as softly as a butterfly landing on a petal.

Behind and above Chane, the wizard whispered, "Irda."

Almost without changing, her song became speech. "Welcome again, man of magic," she crooned, "to the place where magic fails. Is this the one? The

Derkindescendant? Holder of the destiny?" Great eyes in an ebony face turned to Chane, perusing him with a gaze very like the gaze of the great cat moments before.

The dwarf's heart thumped as he realized they were the same eyes.

"Shapechanger," he breathed.

"Of course she is a shapechanger," the wizard said. "I told you, she is the Irda. She can take many forms."

"Welcome, small warrior," the Irda crooned. "The moons have promised that you would come, following the path of your -"

Another voice, far less enchanting, shattered the spell: "Come look at the back of this thing!" Chestal Thicketsway called. "There's something like a stairway, and…hello? Who is this?" The kender scampered toward them, then stopped and blinked as the Irda turned to regard him. "Wow!" he finished lamely.

"This one is no Hylar kin," the Irda chuckled.

Chess blinked again and gave the tall, stunning creature a slow gaze from top to toe and back. His lips pursed in a low whistle. "Wow," he said again. Then, "Chestal Thicketsway's the name. I'm a kender, from Hylo.

What on Krynn are you?"

"Inquisitive," the Irda murmured. "I am Irda, little one."

"I wondered what you'd look like," Chess nodded. "My great-uncle,

Tauntry Rimrunner, used to talk about the Irda. I must say, you don't look anything like an ogre."

Chane whirled on the kender, offended and astounded. "What a thing to say!" But a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Ogres and the Irda," Glenshadow whispered, leaning close, "a long time ago, they were the same people… before ogres became ogrelike and ugly.

They aren't at all the same any more."

"The cats are gone," Chess noted suddenly, turning to look all around the clearing.

'They won't bother you again," the Irda said. "They have seen you with me, and I've assured them. They've gone now to patrol the valley. Waykeep likes its privacy."

"Those cats are a pretty effective way of discouraging visitors," Chane noted.

"Come to my home," the Irda beckoned, turning away. "There is sweetnog for refreshment, and we can talk in comfort." She headed for the hut among the trees, and they followed.

Chane paused for a moment as he passed the monolith, and looked up toward its top. A strange feeling gripped him, an intuition that raised the hackles on his neck and sent a shiver down his spine. Just for an instant, he felt as if something atop the monolith had spoken to him… something that awaited him, that called out to him. He felt as if he had been here before, though he knew he had not. And the feeling of the place was like the feeling of his dreams.