The quiet was unsettling. Creatures of the forest became silent in the presence of great danger. Tol’s approach was not enough to cause such alarm. Something else had disturbed them.

He approached the hilltop with care. This place was known to him. On the other side of the hill was a wide, shallow ravine, filled with closely growing alder and beech saplings.

As he crested the hill, there was an intense flash of light. Heat seared his face and his bare left arm when he threw it up to shield his eyes. Hair sizzled away on the back of his exposed arm. For an instant he wondered if lightning had struck at his feet, but he felt no pain, and the brilliant light did not fade. Gradually, his eyes adjusted. Lowering his arm, Tol beheld a marvel.

The ravine at his feet had been transformed. In the midst of the slender saplings was a great orb of light, whiter than the sun. It hovered a few steps off the ground, its radiance hot, but not unbearable.

Tol took cover behind a nearby tree. Instinctively, his right hand went to a spot just below the waist of his trews. This was where, for decades, he’d kept the Irda millstone, sewn into a secret pocket in his smallclothes. However, he no longer carried the artifact. Not trusting himself to destroy it, he’d asked Miya to do it for him when they arrived in the Great Green.

Now, staring at the bizarre orb of light that pulsed, like some enormous heart, at the bottom of the ravine, he wished he’d kept the artifact. His dealings with the rogue wizard Mandes had given him a healthy distrust of magic, whatever its purpose. It had had no part in his life in the forest. Still, it seemed to have found him again, even here.

Tol…Tol…

Someone was calling his name, a faint, barely discernible sound. He raised the bow, his final arrow nocked, and prepared to draw the bowstring back.

Tol, where are you? Come to me!

Strange. The voice sounded female. In fact, it sounded like-but couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her.

Tol, it’s Valaran. I need you. Come to me!

He nearly dropped the arrow. It was her voice!

“Valaran,” he whispered. Then, more loudly: “Valaran!”

He hadn’t spoken her name aloud in years. Once his injuries healed, he hadn’t allowed himself even to think of her. Such thoughts were pointless, bringing only pain.

“Val! I hear you! Where are you?” He stepped out from behind the tree. The bark on the other side was beginning to smolder. Leaves scattered on the forest floor had turned brown, edges curling.

Do you hear me, Tol? A messenger will come for you. Hurry to me!

Tol called to her several more times, but it seemed that Valaran could speak to him, but not hear him. When the orb began to dwindle in size, Tol threw down his bow and raced down the slope toward the fading light. He had to let her know he had heard her message!

Shouting her name, slipping and sliding in the loose leaves, he lost control near the bottom of the slope and blundered forward. One of his outstretched hands penetrated the very center of the shrinking globe. He half-expected to be burned, but instead the orb exploded in a noiseless flash, lifting him off his feet and tossing him into the scorched saplings.

By the time he’d shaken off the impact and recovered his sight, he beheld a very different apparition. The pulsating orb of light was gone. In its place was a city.

Small as a child’s toy, the city lay dead center in the ravine, bathed in bright sunlight. The walls and towers were no higher than Tol’s knee, as though he viewed a real town across a great distance. The apparition was so perfect and life-like, Tol recognized the place immediately. It was Juramona.

Smoke billowed from various buildings, and flames topped the old wooden walls. The High House, residence of the Marshal of the Eastern Hundred, was engulfed in fire. Swarms of men on horseback galloped through the smoke and chaos. The south gate was breached, as was the east. Sabers rose and fell. Tiny figures on foot fell like scythed grain. Juramona was being sacked.

Gradually Tol heard the noises. Softly at first, and garbled, they soon sorted themselves into distinct sounds-the crackle of flames, hoofbeats, the clash of arms, and above it all, the wailing cries of the dying. A thousand swords struck down a thousand victims-men, women, and children. The smell of blood filled the air, an odor as thick as the smoke.

A new sound arose, slowly growing louder. At first he couldn’t credit it, it was so utterly out of place. Soon it drowned out all the other noises and there was no mistaking it: laughter.

A single male voice was laughing at the carnage. As surely as Tol knew his own name, he recognized that laugh. It was Nazramin, who now ruled Ergoth as Emperor Ackal V.

The laughter swelled in power and volume until it beat at his ears, pounding in his head like a relentless sea. Eyes squinting against the agony, Tol fell to his knees.

Was this the same kind of strange, waking dream that had tormented him on his journey to slay Mandes? If so, then Tol could make it stop. He could wake himself from it.

Lifting a hand high, he slammed his palm down on a sharp stone.

The burning town and killing laughter vanished. Tol was lying on his back, staring up at the stars through gently waving tree branches. Over the ringing in his ears, normal night sounds-tree frogs, crickets, birds-made themselves heard once more.

Tol sat up. Blood stained his right hand, and his bow lay in the leaves a short distance away. The bowstring had burnt in two. As he moved, the leaves around him disintegrated into ashes.

The vision was gone. The ravine was populated by nothing more than the closely growing trees, their spring foliage dark in the filtered moonlight. The taste of the experience lingered strongly: Valaran’s piteous call, the wails of the dying in Juramona, and the emperor’s malevolent laughter.

He wrapped his torn hand with a strip of leather, and started hack to the village. On the way he thought about what he’d seen. Valaran must be searching for him, which meant something had changed in Daltigoth. Why now, after six years, would she reach out to Tol? Were the twin invasions by bakali and nomads reason enough for her to risk the emperor’s wrath, should she be discovered?

The second vision was equally troubling. How could a town as large and as well-defended as Juramona fall to nomad tribesmen? Had Val sent him the second vision as well? It made no sense that he would be shown something that had already happened, something he could do nothing about. He must have been given a glimpse of the future-a future he might yet be able to change.

In spite of his rapid pace, midnight had come before Tol reached home. With a shout, he roused the inhabitants of the sod hut. Kiya and Egrin sprang awake with bare blades in their hands. Eli sat up, blinking in confusion, black hair wildly awry. Miya, sleeping next to him, only shifted slightly.

Tol briefly described his second vision in the forest. The first, of Valaran calling to him, he kept to himself.

Kiya was disposed to think it was a trick, but Egrin wasn’t so sure. The changes in the town’s defenses that Tol had described had been added only after Tol’s exile, by Egrin himself. Although not compelling proof, Egrin felt this was significant evidence the vision was a true one.

Whether trickery or truth, Tol had made up his mind already. If there was a chance he could prevent the town’s destruction, he had to try.

“I leave for Juramona. Tomorrow,” he announced.

Kiya felt he was acting hastily, but knew there was no point trying to dissuade him. Eli jabbered excitedly about horses and swords, journeys and battles. Egrin, still trying to absorb the news, asked Tol what he planned to do when he got to Juramona.

“What I can.”