Nothing could have. He swayed against the door frame.

'Hey, lost in that head of yours, are you?' asked Diera, free arm linked through his.

They moved left to the long passageway which led up to the banqueting hall and overlooked the orchard all along its length. A long door-studded wall ran the other side.

'A little,' he said. 'You can't stop the memories coming back.'

'You fought up here?' asked Diera.

The Unknown looked down at her as they walked. Hirad kept a respectful silent distance behind. She was glancing about as if trying to imagine the scene. Jonas had snuggled into her shoulder and looked asleep.

'All the way from front door to kitchen. When we weren't running, that is.' He tried to smile but she shuddered.

'It must have been awful,' she whispered.

'I thought we were all going to die,' he said.

Diera leant a little further into him and he squeezed her shoulder.

'Gets to you, doesn't it?' said Hirad, coming to his side.

'You could say,' he replied.

'It fades but it never goes away,' said the barbarian.

'Come on,' said The Unknown. 'Let's get The Raven together. I'll worry about my mind later.' Rebraal led the Al-Arynaar into the dome of Aryndeneth and at once the majesty of the temple surged through his body and he felt, as they all did, the pulsing life of the harmony. Sweet and soothing, it swept away the threat that lay without and filled him with the surety of the everlasting. It stoked his belief and imbued his mind with the determination that set the Al-Arynaar apart.

He breathed deep and walked further into the cool of the great dome, towards its magnificent statue and glorious pool. Rebraal still found it hard to believe that Aryndeneth and all it contained had been built five millennia ago.

Beyond the threshold, marble and stone flags patterned the floor, the multicoloured slabs positioned exactly to catch the light of the sun at a dozen different times of the day, when prayers could be offered to the Gods of the forest and the land, of the air and mana, and of harmony. There were no seats in the main dome, although contemplation chambers at each corner of the temple provided rough benches and stands for candles. And further back, a corridor had other chambers on either side, the doors of which opened only at given times of the day or season. The dome itself was the place for silent reverence and hands touching the ground when praying brought the Gods closer.

Between the precisely set windows, the walls and domed ceiling were covered in intricate murals. They depicted the rise of Yniss and the trials of the elven peoples as they grew to longevity and earned the right to live with the land, vibrant colours tracing the history of Calaius. And, in the centre of the domed ceiling, was painted the only fully rendered impression of the Balaian dimension, with Calaius at its centre. Radiating out from the Southern Continent were the energy lines the elves believed linked the lands and the seas together. They were the lines that gave elves their innate sense of home anywhere in the world and originated from one place. Aryndeneth.

Beautiful though the murals, maps and line tracings were, they were as nothing in comparison to what dominated the temple. In the exact centre of Aryndeneth, a statue rose seventy feet into the dome.

It was of Yniss, the God the elves worshipped as the Father of their race and He who gave the elves the gift of living as one with the land and its denizens, the air and with mana. Rebraal's eyes tracked down the statue, which was carved from a single block of flint-veined, polished pale stone.

Yniss was sculpted kneeling on one leg, head looking down along the line of his right arm. The arm was extended below his bended knee, thumb and forefinger making a right angle with the rest of the fingers curled half fist. Every detail of the sculptors' vision had been intricately included. Yniss was depicted as an old elf, age lines around the eyes and across the forehead. His long full hair and beard were carved blowing back towards and over his right shoulder.

Romantic idealism had led the sculptors to depict the God's body as toned and muscled perfection. There was the odd age line but nothing to really divorce the body from that of a pure athlete. A single-shouldered robe covered little more than groin and stomach, leaving open the bunching shoulders, stunningly defined arms and powerful, sandal-shod legs.

Though there was no colour other than that of the marble itself, Rebraal always stared hard at the slanted oval eyes, their powerful lines and clever use of the temple's light and shadow making them all but sparkle with life.

The majesty of the statue, though, was all mere dressing for its purpose. The scriptures of Yniss spoke of him coming to this place to give life to the world and construct the harmony that made the elves, gave them long life and showed them the beauty of the forest and the earth. Yniss had channelled his life energy along forefinger and thumb into the harmonic pool, from where it spread throughout the land, bringing glory where it touched. The scriptures laid down the exact design of Yniss's hand for the sculptors who came after him, their precision ensuring the flow of life energy was forever unbroken. Pipes concealed within the statue's thumb and forefinger fed water from an underground spring into the pool beneath the statue's outstretched hand.

Rebraal believed the harmony was what kept him alive, though the scriptures were vague on the consequences of disruption, save that it would cause disaster. Perhaps the forests would wither or elves would die. It mattered little. While the Al-Arynaar lived, no one would damage the harmony, either by accident or design.

Rebraal knelt before the statue and in front of the thirty-foot-wide crescent-shaped and sweet-smelling pool into which the waters of life energy fed. He placed his hands firmly on the stone and bowed his forehead to touch its cool surface before lifting his head to look into Yniss's eyes and pray again for his miracle. Selik, commander of the Black Wings, had travelled much of eastern Balaia since the death of Lyanna, Erienne's abomination of an offspring. He'd seen what the child's filthy magic had done to his country. He'd seen smashed towns and villages, ruined fields and livestock corpses strewn across flattened pasture, rotting where they lay. He'd seen forests uprooted and levelled, rivers flood plains and lakes double their size, drowning all they touched. And he'd seen where the earth had opened to swallow the land, leaving great scars on the landscape that seeped death and disease.

And worse than the ravaged countryside was the suffering in those towns and cities where people still lived because they had nowhere else to go. In Korina, the extravagance of earlier years had come back to haunt the capital. With farm produce from outlying areas all but gone and no sensible provision for grain storage, the population was reliant on the remnants of the city's fishing fleet. But it was in a pitiful state. Less than thirty seaworthy vessels remained, the wreckage of the rest still lying among the smashed docks. But Korina's population exceeded a quarter of a million and even with the huge outflow of refugees to inland towns, they were fighting a losing battle.

The population had survived a harsh winter but were now close to starving, and though the storm and flood waters had receded, their legacy was disease and rats. He knew it was the same throughout Balaia. With four exceptions: Xetesk, Dordover, Lystern and Julatsa.

Magic. Travers, his leader when the Black Wings he now led had been formed, had been right all along. Though magic did superficial good, it upset the natural balance. And where its hand had been then abandoned, people suffered and died. How fragile Balaia was and how blind so many had been to that fragility. But magic had always had the capacity to create disaster and now no eyes were closed to that fact. The evil child and her untamed magic had blighted a whole continent and left the innocent to struggle with the consequences.