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Chapter Thirteen

When he folded back the blanket covering him and looked at his left shoulder and upper arm, he asked Erg’Ran, “Did she do as good a job on my jacket as she did on me?”

“Oh, yes, Champion. When you have the chance, you won’t see a thing wrong with your left ear, either. It was partially torn away.”

Garrison raised his left arm. It was a little stiff, but worked. He held his Rolex next to his left ear. He could hear it ticking.

“We are where?”

“Edge Land. Just off shore. It will soon be dawn.”

“Swan, I take it, is—?”

“The Enchantress’s magical energy is very much depleted, and she’s a very physically exhausted girl. There were more than fifteen seriously wounded to whom it was necessary to attend.”

“How many dead?”

“Just the one of whom you know, Champion—Lii’Ku.”

“Any sign of a reception committee?”

Erg’Ran puzzled over the phrase for an eyeblink or so, then answered, “So far, we are unmolested. Either the magical energy of my sister is still very much depleted, or she has lain a trap for us.”

“Could be both,” Garrison noted. “You’re good with this sort of stuff, I imagine. Am I okay to get up and around?”

“You may feel a tad debilitated, lacking in strength for a short time, but you will soon feel your normal self.”

“Nothing has been normal at all since I came to Creath, Erg’Ran.”

The older man’s face seamed with laughter. “True enough, I suppose, Champion. True enough. It hasn’t really been a happy time for any of us.”

“I disagree. I’ve been happier here than I’ve ever been where I come from. I know; I’m strange.”

“You love the Enchantress a great deal, Champion.”

“You’re supposed to be the resident smart person, Erg’Ran. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’m nuts about your niece. By the way?”

“Yes, Champion?”

“When I get around to asking Swan to marry me, you being her uncle and all, do I need to ask your permission?”

“Swan is the only one who can give the permission you will seek. But, for what it is worth, you already have my blessing, Champion.”

“Jeepers! Can I call you Uncle Ergy? Huh?!”

Erg’Ran’s hearty laughter filled the room. Garrison suddenly thought to ask, “Where the heck are we, anyway?”

“The Enchantress felt that you would rest more soundly aboard the Storm Balder. And, your Gle’Ur’Gya host provided you with his personal quarters, Champion.”

Garrison looked about the room, correcting himself to think of it as “the captain’s cabin.” As one would have supposed, an enclosure which would comfortably house a Gle’Ur’Gya was proportioned about ten or fifteen percent larger than ordinary human scale. A backless chair by a chart desk at the center of the cabin seemed halfway between the height of a normal chair and a high chair, and the desk itself was closer in height to a kitchen counter than a table.

There was no knock, but the oversized door opened and Bre’Gaa entered, ducking his head to avoid the top of the doorframe. “Al’An! You have returned to the living!”

“Apparently so.”

“Excellent. I am personally glad that your Enchantress is so skilled in her healing. I would have missed having you as someone with whom I might confer.”

“I’m flattered, Bre’Gaa, but I don’t follow you.”

Erg’Ran smiled. “What the good Captain Commander Bre’Gaa means, Champion, is that as someone from the other realm, he considers your opinions a little more evenhandedly arrived at.” And, Erg’Ran stood and faced Bre’Gaa. “Is that not true, Captain Bre’Gaa?”

“Quite true, brave and learned ally. Quite true, indeed.”

“Thank you for the loan of the cabin, Bre’Gaa.”

Bre’Gaa bowed slightly and flung back the hood made from the upper portion of his great kilt. “The weather is cold, even for a Gle’Ur’Gya. I came for my cloak. You are both welcome to my cabin as long as you wish, or to join me on deck.”

“I think I’d like that,” Garrison told him honestly. Enclosed as they were, Garrison felt the motion of the sea more pronouncedly. And, still feeling a little weak, he had no desire to experience nausea.

“Excellent,” Bre’Gaa declared. He ducked his head again, this time to avoid an overhead mounted oil lamp, as he crossed the cabin floor to an armoire. He opened one of the doors and pulled out a hooded cloak. “Your swordsman friend and his lovely lady are on deck and I am certain that you’d be interested to know that the Enchantress is supposed to arrive shortly. At least as far as I am able to ascertain from her flagships signals. By the way, I was very impressed watching your firespitters against the ice dragons. You must let me try them at our first opportunity.”

Garrison sat up too fast, his head reminding him of that fact. “Yes, I will—both join you on deck and let you try my firespitters. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Anon, then.” Swirling his cloak about his shoulders, Bre’Gaa was at the cabin door in two strides, ducking through the doorway and gone in another.

Garrison swung his legs over the side of the berth. His feet didn’t touch the cabin floor. “These guys are tall,” Garrison observed to Erg’Ran.

“Let me help you, Champion.”

Garrison let him help. He clambered down from the bed to his feet, unsteady the moment they touched the cabin floor. “This is getting to be a habit with us, Erg’Ran, you helping me to keep from falling down.”

The older man merely smiled, then, after a moment, suggested, “I think that you ought to lean against the bed here for an eyeblink or two whilst I get your things. Save your strength until you have a good feel for your legs under you, Champion.”

“Good advice,” Garrison agreed.

Erg’Ran went to a second, matching armoire on the opposite side of the cabin, opened its double doors and began rummaging about inside. “The Enchantress has restored your weapons as they should be. Your bombing jacket—”

“Bomber jacket, Erg’Ran. Not bombing.”

“Ahh! Bomber jacket. Yes. It has been seen to as well, Champion. But, I fear you’ll need a cloak, considering the cold weather. The Enchantress anticipated your requirements and has provided one for you.”

“Question?”

“Yes, Champion?” And Erg’Ran turned away from the armoire and looked Garrison in the eye.

“Are you really as afraid as it seems that Swan could turn evil, like her mom did?”

“Just a casual question, I see. One of little import. Yes, well... You see, Champion, my niece is as fine as fine could ever be. Yet, you saw yourself how she resolved the issue of the ice dragons. Indeed, I encouraged her to bring on the tempest, to use the lightning. Lightning was all that either of us could think of as a weapon which would destroy the ice dragons. But my niece surpassed anything I had imagined as possible. You heard the Old Tongue words come from her lips? You saw the energy form around her, flash through her? I would doubt that my sister could do that in quite that way, with so much power.

“In short,” Erg’Ran concluded, “if the Enchantress should succumb to the enormity of the power which she can already wield and were to become obsessed with possessing still more—and she will have that opportunity—she would have greater magic ability than anyone Creath has ever known or had, more magic than all of the K’Ur’Mir who have ever lived combined. Such power cannot help but seduce even the Enchantress, make even the best of us teeter on the brink of falling victim to temptation. Should the Enchantress succumb, she would lust for more and more power until becoming so lost within her personal desires that she would have become oblivious to her own evil. I fear for her because I love her. And, because you love her, Champion, do not forget what I have told you.”

“You never give simple answers.”

Erg’Ran returned to getting things from the cabinet, but said over his shoulder, “Where you come from, are there simple answers to complex questions, Champion?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then, I shouldn’t expect that you would hope to find simple answers here, either.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, Erg’Ran.”

The older man was through with his search. His arms weren’t laden with its results—Garrisons pistols, his sword and the golden Shield of IBF, the bomber jacket, a cloak. They floated in the air beside him.

“Magic? You?”

“You’ll note that it serves you, not me.”

“But, your magic, although it levitates my belongings serves your ends, means that you don’t have to carry my stuff.”

“That is a good point.” Erg’Ran let the items slowly sink to the cabin floor. “When you’re ready, then. I’ll see you on deck, Champion. No rush.”

Erg’Ran walked to the doorway and left.

Alan Garrison lit a cigarette the old-fashioned way, albeit with considerable difficulty. Because of the strength of the wind which whipped over the Storm Raider’s deck, he was forced to shield his windlighter in his cupped hands and still screen it within the cowl of his hood. After all of that, it took three tries.

The temperature felt bitingly cold, despite the heavy outer shell and lining of the cloak he wore and the bomber jacket underneath.

To what Garrison mentally labeled the east, he saw the faintest hairline of sunrise on the horizon.

He was rested enough, he supposed. He was hungry, but there’d probably be food forthcoming. He had looked at himself reflected in a sheet of brightly burnished copper which was hung like a mirror over a wash basin in Bre’Gaa’s cabin. He was clean shaven—Swan had seen to that—and there was no trace of a mark or scar where his ear had been partially ripped away by the dragon scale.

Despite the dangers and resultant injuries, Garrison was having the time of his life. Every day was a new challenge, a new adventure, just what he’d hoped to find in life “in the other realm” and never had. He was living the novel he had always wanted to write, and the willowy, drop-dead gorgeous heroine of the story was his girl.

Garrison inhaled on the cigarette, staring out to sea.

He’d slain a dragon, fought monsters, been instructed in the use of a blade by a master swordsman, done all lands of neat stuff and met the greatest girl ever. The business of almost dying twice he could have done without, but one had to take the bad with the good.

By the same token, the venture in which he was engaged was deadly serious business, the fate of all of Creath in the balance, not to mention his own life and, most importantly, the life of the woman he loved.

“The woman I love,” Garrison murmured to the dark waters, saying the words very slowly so that he could savor them.

From beside him, he heard Swan’s voice. “Who is she, the woman that you love, Al’An?”

Garrison snapped the cigarette into the water, turned around and took Swan into his arms. “Who is she! Are you going to just magically appear without warning all the time? And, this virgin thing. Let me tell you! It’s driving me nuts, Swan. Who do you think’s the woman I love?”

“Me?”

“You know it, darling,” Garrison whispered to her. He drew Swan’s body tightly against his own, looked into her eyes, then put his mouth to a better use than talking.

“The six of us are all that will be required, and any more people will just get in the way. That’s assuming, Bre’Gaa, that you really do want to come.”

“If you wish me to, Gar’Ath.”

“You’d be an asset,” Mitan declared. “A definite asset.”

“Then we are six,” Erg’Ran announced.

Garrison took a cigarette from his pack, but replaced it before Swan could light it or the pack magically refilled itself. There was no ashtray in Bre’Gaa’s cabin. “If there were seven of us, we could saddle up and go out and save a Mexican village from banditos. But I’m not gonna be the guy who shaves his head.”

Erg’Ran just looked at him. “What in Creath are you talking about, Champion?”

“Cross-cultural reference to my world. You couldn’t be into Yul Brynner movies, so don’t worry about it.”

“As you say, Champion. I shall not worry, nor do I believe that any head shaving will be required.”

“Then, I won’t worry either.” Quickly trying to redeem himself after the absurdly obscure reference to the classic western had made him sound like an idiot, Garrison asked, “Is everything planned for the diversions? I missed a lot while I was recuperating.”

“See this chart, Al’An,” Bre’Gaa said, rolling it out across the nearly waist high table at the center of his cabin. “We ply these coasts regularly looking for whatever we may find to plunder.” Bre’Gaa’s middle finger, nearly as long and thick as a small banana, traced along an impossibly rugged looking outline of Edge Land. “My crew knows every inlet where there’s depth enough that the Storm Raider won’t run aground. All of the tides—high, low, neap—are as familiar to us as our names. My first officer is working with your Bin’Ah and the commanders of the Enchantress’s other vessels. Short of the use of powerful magic against a widely dispersed array of targets all at once, which the Enchantress tells me is impossible, Eran will never be able to catch us. She can second-sight us all she wants, and I hope that she does. That will just keep her infernal Horde of Koth in constant motion. The Queen Sorceress will have no way of knowing where we’ll strike, where we’ll land, if we’ll strike or if we’ll land.”

Garrison was concerned about what seemed to him an obvious flaw in the plan. He asked about it. “Bre’Gaa mentioned the second-sight. I’ve been thinking about that. What if Swan’s mother second-sights every ship in the armada and doesn’t find her daughter, or Erg’Ran—doesn’t find any of the six of us? Isn’t she going to get suspicious?”

“My sister probably will be suspicious,” Erg’Ran agreed. “However, not to worry, Champion. First of all, as you may have noticed or may not have realized, the second-sight allows one to view at great distances in exquisite detail. It does not allow one to see through walls, however. Even if Eran were to use a bird through which to project her second-sight, to see inside this cabin aboard this ship the bird would have to be inside the cabin. The only exception to that would be if the structure—in this case, the Storm Raider—were protected by a guarding spell. Only the person who had initiated the guarding spell would then be able to second-sight through walls.”

Garrison nodded. “I get it, then, I think. We make it obvious that the six of us are inside this cabin, in the hope that she does second-sight us, or is second-sighting us now. Then, somehow, we slip out the back.”

“Actually, with magic, which I will be able to use because my mother’s attentions will be so much divided and her magic cannot be used to accomplish two tasks at once,” Swan supplied.

“Aye, and we hope that our naval diversions keep the Queen Sorceress so busy that indeed we can get inside Barad’Il’Koth and get ourselves out again,” Gar’Ath declared. “At least, it sounds simple. I like that.”

Garrison laughed. “Everything sounds simple, unless Erg’Ran is telling us about it.”

“Champion!”

Garrison clapped the older man on the back. “Only joking, my friend. Only joking.” He looked at the others, then threw out the question, “How’s this little raid of ours supposed to work, guys?”

“My magical energy,” Swan began, “was severely depleted, as you know, but is almost completely restored; this occurred much more rapidly than I had supposed that it might, Al’An. I have no idea why. But it should be easy enough for me to place shift us from Bre’Gaa’s cabin to Barad’Il’Koth, although whether or not I will be able to place shift the six of us all at once remains to be seen.

“Despite the diversions,” Swan went on, “my mother might still sense us arriving; but I doubt that she will be alert to what we are about. She should be too busy to notice.”

“How about getting out of Barad’Il’Koth when we’ve done what we need to do? Especially if—by some quirk of circumstance, let’s say—your mother somehow does catch on to us being there,” Garrison persisted.

“We will have some options, Al’An,” Swan assured him. “Magic would certainly be one of the options. Others may prove more viable. We’ll simply have to determine our means of escape after we’ve accomplished what must be done.”

Garrison told Swan and the others, “There’s a wonderful old expression where I come from, about doing something by the seat of the pants.” Garrison looked around the cabin before saying anything else. Bre’Gaa wore a great kilt, Erg’Ran a monkish robe. Gar’Ath was dressed in a brown leather jerkin, dark green tights and knee boots. Mitan was attired in next to nothing, as usual (a bra-like top and matching short skirt of brown leather, boots to her thighs and lots of edged weapons). Swan wore a full-skirted, floor-length charcoal grey dress.

“By the seat of the pants?” Erg’Ran repeated quizzically.

“Oh, never mind.”

Swan could not bring herself to be as scantily attired as Mitan. Mitan looked wonderfully pretty that way, but Swan would have felt so self-conscious that she wouldn’t be able to think straight. And think straight she must if they were to accomplish their mission at Barad’Il’Koth and have any hope of getting out alive.

Swan compromised, magically attiring herself in traditional male clothing. She wore a full-sleeved white blouse, a black leather jerkin, black stockings and black knee boots. Swan belted her sword at her waist, swinging aside her hair, which was done in a single heavy braid extending well below her waist.

Using a little magic which she hoped that she could spare, Swan made a full-length looking glass appear. Dressing like a man made her feel silly, but it was practical under the circumstances. And there was a certain land of almost wicked fun just in doing it.

The dagger, which she usually carried under her skirts, she sheathed at her right side in such a manner that it could be drawn conveniently with either hand.

Swan wheeled around so that she could see herself more fully, trying to convince herself that at least, had she really been trying, she could have made a convincing looking boy—except for the braid, of course. Resignedly, Swan just shrugged her shoulders. Even her shoulders looked obviously too little. She looked like a girl, a girl trying unsuccessfully to look like a boy. “Oh, well,” Swan sighed acceptingly.

Swan still felt self-conscious about her legs. The stockings revealed every curve and contour of them. She made a long black cloak appear, which she threw over her shoulders. That’s better.” The cloak restored at least a glimmer of decorum and made her look a little bigger in the shoulders (she tried to convince herself). She made the mirror vanish.

She’d used Bre’Gaa’s offered cabin in which to change, and she wandered about it while she waited for the others to arrive. The diversions were already underway, all six ships moving to different positions along the coast of Edge Land.

The Gle’Ur’Gya vessel was certainly much more comfortable than the tiny ships to which she was accustomed. That one person aboard the vessel could have living quarters as comparatively capacious as these was fantastic. There was a comfortable looking bed; she’d seen to Al’An s healing while he’d slept in it. There was a chamber pot, a washbasin. She glanced casually at her reflection in a burnished copper plate over the basin. There were cupboards and cabinets. There were books aplenty, and scrolls. The map of Edge Land’s coast was attractively illuminated. The Gle’Ur’Gya weren’t the uncivilized brutes she’d always thought of them being.

Swan had never tried place shifting six living things at once, and she still felt a little nervous about something going wrong. Inside her head, she rehearsed what she must do, but her eyes were wandering over charts and instruments used for plotting courses. The Gle’Ur’Gya were talented seafarers, to be sure. After what was about to transpire, if she lived, she would make it her business to once and for all see to it that there was peace between the Gle’Ur’Gya and her own people.

There was a polite knock at the door. “Please come in,” Swan called out.

Mitan entered, followed by Gar’Ath, Erg’Ran, Captain Bre’Gaa and Al’An, Al’An wearing his sword and carrying his shield, but without a cloak. Before leaving her alone to change, Al’An had asked, “If I gave you a description, do you think you could make me something called a sweater? This greatcape is nice and warm, but I’m not used to moving around in one.”

The “sweater” turned out to be easy enough to magically fabricate for him. Once he described the process—he called it knitting—by which it was made, she had the general idea clearly in mind. Although she hadn’t mentioned her observation to Al’An, she felt that the green sweater went rather poorly with the rest of his clothes (which were blue), not to mention clashing with the leather harness for his firespitters.

Al’An came up to her, kissed her lightly on the lips, and, as he held her, whispered, “You look cute.” It took an eyeblink to comprehend “cute” and, when she did, Swan smiled.

They all assembled at the center of Bre’Gaa’s cabin. “I don’t think that we’ll have any problems,” Swan told them, “but I’d be remiss not to remind all of you that I’ve never performed a place-shifting spell for six people all at once. If I have any reason to believe that there will be any problems, I’ll stop at once and send us out two or three at a time.”

“Do you have any idea where we’ll arrive?” Mitan asked.

Swan answered, “We all studied the sketch which Erg’Ran made for us of the interior of Barad’Il’Koth as he remembers it, and you, Mitan, as well as Erg’Ran and I have second-sighted Barad’Il’Koth’s exterior. I think that I can make us arrive somewhere safe. I’m hoping that we’ll be in the anteroom to my mother’s great hall. From there, if Erg’Ran has recalled correctly, we will have direct access to all of the main passageways within the keep.”

“I believe that I speak for us all,” Erg’Ran announced. “We are ready.”

Swan merely nodded.

Swan outstretched her arms, her hands grasping for the magic in the air around her, feeling its current surging through her body, strengthening her. She uttered the words of the place-shifting spell. Swan pressed her palms together between her breasts, becoming one with the energy around her.

Light, dazzlingly bright, filled her, exploded from her. There was a sound, soft, like the rumble of thunder heard at a great distance.

A darkness that glowed like light but was neither light nor dark was all around Swan and the others. The glowing darkness lingered, nothing replacing it. For an eyeblink, Swan’s concentration nearly failed her, as she feared that somehow, in some way, she had made a mistake. There was a light again, and Swan beheld bleak stone walls on either side of her, smoldering tapers going on and on, endlessly into darkness. When she looked around, Al’An, Erg’Ran, Mitan, Gar'Ath and Bre’Gaa were with her.

They were inside Barad’Il’Koth, but not where they should have been.

“Where are we?” Mitan whispered, voicing Swan’s own concern.

“Not the anteroom,” Erg’Ran declared. “This is the passageway leading between the barracks for the Horde of Koth household guard and the keep itself. Down a hundred swordlengths or so there is an additional passageway, which leads to the barracks for the Sword of Koth. That is on the right. On the left, another passageway leads to the main stables. The passageways are here in order to facilitate movement between the principal structures within the fortress in the event of attack. They are chiefly used, however, when the snows are too heavy above.”

Gar’Ath, sword in hand, asked, “And, to the keep?”

“That way, swordsman.” Erg’Ran jerked his thumb in the opposite direction from which they were faced.

“I’m sorry,” Swan announced. “I must have misjudged.”

Al’An took her hand, telling her sincerely, “Hey, we’re inside, we’re not surrounded by bad guys and we know which direction to go in. You did great, darling.”

Swan smiled and kissed Al’An’s cheek, then drew her sword.

They began moving along the passageway, Swan following close behind Erg’Ran who led the way, Al’An beside her. Erg’Ran’s axe was lashed to the girdle at his waist, a sword in his right hand. For the first time, Swan truly noticed the sword. She touched at Erg’Ran’s shoulder and he glanced back at her. “Is that your father’s sword, uncle?”

“Indeed, Enchantress. The very same.”

Swan understood why he carried it, and a chill ran along her spine at the very prospect of encountering her mother.

Periodically, as they crept along the dank passageway, they would stop, Swan and Mitan second- sighting ahead and behind them. Each time, they spied no sign of life and continued along their route.

“We near the keep, Enchantress,” Erg’Ran announced after a time.

Gar’Ath whispered hoarsely, “Let Mitan and me go ahead, Enchantress. She can second-sight for danger, and if there is any...”

Al’An volunteered, “That’s a good idea, but I’m going with. If there is a trap, my firespitters might be the only way out, assuming that they work.” Al’An didn’t wait for her approval, and Swan secretly liked that. “Bre’Gaa?”

“Yes, Al’An?” Bre’Gaa responded.

“Would you keep an eye out behind us? If there’s a trap, the logical thing would be for them to close us off from both ends of the corridor.”

“The minions of the Queen Sorceress will only reach the Enchantress over the corpses of Erg’Ran and myself. Be assured of that.”

“You guys wait a little while so that we have a head start,” Al’An told them.

“Al’An—be careful,” Swan heard herself saying to him.

When they were still fifty yards or so from what looked to be the end of the passageway, Garrison, Gar’Ath and Mitan stopped, so that Mitan could second-sight. “There is a chamber beyond the passageway,” Mitan whispered. “This is very bad, very bad.”

Alan Garrison failed to grasp the cause for such enthusiasm. “What do you mean?”

“Come ahead, but quietly, Champion, and you and Gar’Ath will see.”

They continued to the end of the passageway. It had seemed to go on forever. Looking at his watch was useless in Creath, of course, but Garrison guessed that Swan, Erg’Ran and Bre’Gaa would be about ten minutes behind them.

The passageway opened onto a low-ceilinged, pie-wedge-shaped chamber—narrow where Garrison, Gar’Ath and Mitan lurked in hiding, gradually widening toward a very high, arched opening at the far side.

There was absolutely nothing on the chamber’s floor. But, at regular intervals along the chamber’s walls were mounted a succession of sculptures, grotesquely shaped icons which resembled horribly shaped miniature humans about the size of small monkeys, all of them naked, with huge, bulging eyes.

“I had heard that the Queen Sorceress had done this, but I was unbelieving of it.”

Garrison looked at Mitan. “Unbelieving of what? They’re just ugly little statues, right?”

Gar’Ath answered for her. “They are Tree Demons which the Queen Sorceress has spell-changed.”

“She turned them to stone?” Garrison asked.

“Yes, but they still live and will know when we pass them and they will attack us,” Mitan told him.

“Tree Demons were the things which nearly got Erg’Ran and his father years ago, right?” Garrison asked.

“They are some of the evil creatures which, before the Queen Sorceress undertook to destroy Creath, lived only in the deepest recesses of the forests,” Gar’Ath informed Garrison. “I was attacked by such creatures, as you know, but was able to speed past them, suffering little injury.”

“What do they do? Bite?” Garrison queried.

“Worse than that. They will bite, but their goal is to sink their teeth in so deeply,” Mitan recounted, a shiver visible as she spoke, “that they cannot be torn free without the victim ripping away a large piece of his own flesh. They eat anything living, but are especially fond of human flesh.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Garrison said, shaking his head. “And, if I get this right, when we walk past them, they’ll come alive and attack us?”

“Yes, Champion,” Gar’Ath nodded gravely.

“Anybody have any brilliant ideas?” Garrison looked at Mitan, then at Gar’Ath. Neither of them seemed ready to volunteer. “Okay, we can’t go in a different direction without walking into troops. We can’t magically transport ourselves past here, I imagine, because if there was a remote chance that Swan’s mom would somehow sense us entering the castle, using magic to transport ourselves within the castle would probably be a dead giveaway, right?” Garrison looked at Mitan.

“Correct, Champion.” Mitan nodded.

“If we make too much of a racket fighting these ugly little guys, we’ll alert some of Eran’s troops—probably. Right?”

Gar’Ath answered, “That is true, Champion.”

Mentally, Garrison stepped back from the problem. The petrified Tree Demons were being used like motion sensors in an Earth-style alarm system. “That’s it!”

“What is it?” Gar’Ath asked him.

“Question, Mitan?”

“Yes, Champion?”

“Could Swan use magic which didn’t involve place shifting, just natural magic, the low-energy kind, without a great risk of alerting her mother?”

Mitan seemed to ponder Garrison’s question before responding. At last, she told him, “There must be magic in use throughout the entirety of Barad’Il’Koth. There are witches here, who are magic users, of course, and she would have guarding spells in place, other types of magic in constant use. No, I don’t think that the Queen Sorceress would sense a reasonable amount of natural magic. Otherwise, she would be constantly interrupted by the magic all around her.”

Garrison still had to work out whether the answer was heat or cold...

Her skirts bunched in white knuckled fists, Eran ran along the passageway toward the closed chamber door at its far end. Her magic had almost been fully restored when the naval maneuvers along the coast of Edge Land began, but, in a very short time, between whisking entire units of Sword of Koth from one point to another and second-sighting six separate ships, it had become sorely depleted once again. It was obvious that this was her daughter’s plan, to exhaust her magical energy. It was working.

“Damn her I will!” Eran screamed. The masked Sword of Koth was barely able to drop to one knee and bow his head as she streaked past him.

Normally, the shackles and her spells were sufficient to secure the chamber’s occupant, but she could take no chances with her daughter’s followers afoot. Eran stopped at the doorway and willed the door to open, ran through and kicked the door closed behind her.

“You’re upset again, Eran.”

“This is your last chance, Pe’Ter! I have had enough of your insolence!”

“What are you going to do? Kill me? Turn me into something vile and disgusting? Oops! I forgot. You already did that, when you decided that there was only one thing you needed from me.”

“I want an answer, not philosophy, Pe’Ter!”

“I’d give you an answer the way you deserve to hear it, but you’d think it was an invitation.”

Eran thrust her right hand toward him and willed him to be seized with pain throughout his entire body.

Pe’Ter had been standing beside the solitary window when she entered the room and confronted him. Now, he writhed beside the window, collapsing to all fours, then rolling across the floor in agony.

Eran cleared the spell. Breathless, Pe’Ter looked up at her from the floor, whispered, “You are afraid, aren’t you, Eran?”

“You will be, Pe’Ter. You will be.” Eran had done what she was about to do only once before in order to force Pe’Ter to cooperate, bend his iron will to her own needs. But it pained her to do it, making her recall feelings she did not wish to remember that she had ever had. And it was particularly dangerous at this juncture, because she would consume all of her remaining magical energy in order to achieve the result which she so desperately needed...

Peter Goodman fingered his pack of Luckies, his eyes focusing on the green on the package. “You think she’ll come?”

“She’ll come, lieutenant.”

Goodman stared at the cigarettes. “Ya know, my mother used to tell me that smoking cigarettes would kill me, Dave. My dad used to call ’em coffin nails. He smoked Fatimas till the day he died.”

“Look, lieutenant. The way I figure it, if some damn Nazi shell don’t fall on us or GI food don’t poison our guts out, we got life by the tail. I ain’t even seen my littlest kid, ’cept them box Brownie Kodaks Betty sends me in her letters. And I got the garage waitin’ for me. I’m gonna live to be a hundred. And I’ll still be smokin’.”

Goodman offered Dave Spaulding a Lucky and he took it.

“You really think she’ll come, Dave?”

“I really think she’ll come, Pete.”

Peter Goodman sipped at his wine, shrugged his shoulders. All his life, he’d heard about how terrific French wines were. Evidently, whoever had started those rumors had never drunk wine in this village. “This wine is the pits.”

“Man, I tell ya’. What I wouldn’t give for a bottle of real American whiskey, lieutenant!”

“You’ve been reading my mind again, Dave.”

“A good platoon sergeant’s s’posed to read his platoon leader’s mind, sir.”

“So that’s the reason we got off Omaha Beach alive, huh? Glad you told me, Dave. And here I figured the Germans were just lousy shots last June.”

Dave Spaulding laughed.

Peter Goodman swallowed some more of his wine. With the three-day pass, everybody else in Second Battalion C Company had hit the road for Paris. Spaulding, for all his tough talk, was a quiet family man with a wife and two more kids besides the little one, all living in a little house right next door to his repair shop in New Jersey.

When all the guys hot-footed it to Paris, Spaulding—who was also Goodman’s best friend in this part of the world—confided to him, “I’m not goin’ to no Paris, Pete. See, lieutenant, it’s like this. I ain’t been near no woman in so long, I’m afraid I’d do somethin’ damn stupid runnin’ loose in Paris and all. These French ma’amselles wanna make every GI feel like he liberated Paris all on his own. Know what I mean, lieutenant?”

“Hell, we didn’t liberate Paris anyway. It was Ernest Hemingway who led the first troops in. Remember?”

“Yeah! How’d’ya like that guy! A damn reporter leadin’ the army into the city like that! What a crazy thing to do, huh, lieutenant? Beatin’ all them big-shot officers to the punch like that. Gosh! He’s gonna have some swell stories to tell.”

“He already tells some swell stories, that Hemingway guy. So, what you gonna do with three days if you’re not going to Paris?”

Spaulding figured that if he went to Paris he’d be too weak-willed not to cheat on his wife, and cheating on his wife would be wrong. There she was, working in a defense plant, raising three kids and writing him letters all the time about how she missed him and everything.

Spaulding wasn’t going to go to Paris, no matter what.

There was no wife or sweetheart waiting back home for Peter Goodman, but he stayed behind anyway near the little village fifty kilometers outside of Paris, just to keep his friend company.

But a curious thing happened this night. He and Spaulding were tooling down the dirt road into the village in their borrowed Jeep—just like they had planned—when both of them spotted a bright flash of light from just inside the treeline in the woods, just to the north.

After exchanging a couple of worried looks, they stashed the Jeep by the side of the road. Dave had rigged the Jeep’s battery cables so that he could pull the positive one and drop it in his pocket. That way, whenever they parked the Jeep, they didn’t have to worry about a downed German aviator or even an ordinary car thief stealing it. Back in England, before the invasion, the Brits were taking the rotors out of their cars for the same reason, but it was rumored that German pilots were carrying spare rotors that would work in the most commonly encountered English automobiles.

Goodman and Spaulding crossed the road and started into the woods. Spaulding clutched the Rock-Ola Ml Carbine (lighter and handier than his own Garand) which he perennially borrowed from Peter Goodman, Goodman his genuine Colt 1911A1 .45. Armed but hardly ready, they entered the woods.

“If that’s some sorta Kraut signal flare, lieutenant, then—”

“Yeah, I know. We could be looking at a paratroop regiment crawlin’ up our butts in five minutes. Just keep your eyes peeled, Dave.”

The night was particularly dark, only a few stars peeking out from behind the overcast and no visible moon at all. Goodman had his anglehead flashlight stuffed in his field jacket pocket, but wasn’t about to turn it on and reveal his position, just in case there were Germans in the woods and one of them was looking for a target.

But when they reached the spot where they’d seen the flash of light, they found nothing. Goodman ordered Dave Spaulding, “You circle around to the right. I’ll cut around left. Meet ya back here. Be careful.”

“My middle name, lieutenant.”

Goodman only nodded, but racked the slide of his .45 just in case.

After a solid, scary fifteen minutes stumbling on broken branches and sidestepping deadfalls in the darkness, Goodman and his sergeant returned to the road.

That was the first time Peter Goodman saw Eran. Eran was striking, the green of her eyes visible despite the darkness, as if they shone with a light from within. Her hair—it was past waist length—was blacker than the night surrounding her. Her skin was perfect, almost luminescent. She was dressed rather oddly, Goodman thought at the time, her clothes looking more from some style of hundreds of years ago instead of 1944.

She was standing beside their Jeep, looking at it as if she’d never seen something with an internal combustion engine before.

“Parlez vous English, ma’amselle?” Dave Spaulding sang out.

She just looked back at them, saying nothing at all. Goodman tried a significant amount of his paltry French, asking her name, what she was doing on the road after dark, if she were in trouble. For several moments, she said absolutely nothing in response.

Goodman finally said, “Je ne comprens pas Francais tres bon,” which he was sure that he hadn’t said quite right. He followed that up with, “Do-you-speak-any-English?”

She was totally silent.

“I don’t think this little cupcake speaks no English, lieutenant. And your French must be worse than we thought.”

“She could have been injured during the Nazi occupation, maybe deaf or something. Maybe she’s just afraid, Dave.”

“She’s a looker though, ain’t she, sir?”

“Yeah, she’s a looker.” And he looked at her, asking one more time, “Do-you-speak-English?”

“Yes, I do. Who are you?”

Goodman was totally lost. “Look, lady, I gotta ask who you are! Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Eran, and I am looking at this.” She gestured toward the Jeep.

“No, I mean, I can see that. How’d you get here?”

“I was looking for something. I think I found it.”

The conversation went like that for some time, Peter Goodman unable to take his eyes off her, Eran looking prettier by the minute. But he got no information.

When pressed for a last name, Eran told him that it was “something-Mir” that he didn’t quite catch, but he assumed was French.

“I’m First Lieutenant Peter Goodman, United States Army. This is Staff Sergeant Dave Spaulding.”

“Pe’Ter. I like that name.”

“Thank you.”

Peter Goodman knew procedures, and he should have hunted down the Provost Marshall or found some MPs at least. She didn’t have any ID, he assumed, and she didn’t even offer an explanation for being on the road at night. Maybe her bicycle broke down or something. He didn’t put her under arrest. He made her an offer, instead. “Need a ride to the village, miss?”

“I would like a ride to the village. Have you a horse nearby, Pe’Ter?”

Goodman laughed. “No, but the Jeep works fine. Get in.”

Spaulding chuckled under his breath, “Pe’Ter! Well, la-de-da.”

“See to that battery, sergeant.”

“Yes, sir!”

Spaulding popped the hood, replaced the cable and they were on their way. It was a short drive to the village, but Goodman had time to ask, “What was that light out in the woods?”

“I saw it, too.”

“How did you learn to speak English so well?”

“I was always very interested in translating things from one language into another.”

“So, you’re just good with languages, huh?”

“Yes, good with languages.”

Goodman couldn’t help asking the next question. “Can I see you later? I mean, I know we just met five minutes ago, but—”

“Where will you be later?”

“The inn down there in the village. Have a glass of wine with me, Eran?”

“Yes.” When she smiled at Goodman, his heart melted. They dropped her near the village fountain and she disappeared into the shadows between two buildings and Goodman and Spaulding found a table at the inn.

Goodman’s thoughts returned to the present. “You think she’s coming?”

“She’ll be here, lieutenant. Relax, already.”

Peter Goodman looked down at his hands, his fingers beating a tattoo on the table top.

“Yo! Here she is, lieutenant! Snazzy!”

Peter Goodman nearly fell out of his chair. “Holy smoke!” There were maybe a dozen GIs at the inn that night and, if eyes could really pop out of their sockets, there would have been two dozen funny looking marbles rolling across the floor.

“I shoulda gone to Paris!”

“Down, boy. Down. Remember New Jersey.”

Peter Goodman stood up and walked across the room, at least three other guys—two sergeants and a major—doing the same thing. But Eran walked right past everyone else and stopped just in front of Goodman. “Pe’Ter.”

“Eran. You are beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.”

Goodman swallowed hard and licked his lips, which didn’t help because his tongue was dry. “Uh, we’ve—we’ve got a table. It’s over there.” Goodman pointed toward the table with fingers which felt thick and stiff.

“Will your friend the sergeant be with us all night?”

“What?”

“I wasn’t sure of the customs.”

“What?”

“I want to be alone with you.”

“You—all right.” Goodman ushered her back to the table, made eye-contact with Dave Spaulding and announced, “You’ll see to bringing that Jeep back for me sometime tomorrow then, sergeant. I’ll be spending the—I’ll stay in the village tonight.”

Dave Spaulding’s grin went from ear to ear. “Yes, sir! Very good, sir! With the lieutenant’s permission, then, sir! I will take my leave, sir!”

“Very good, sergeant. That’ll be all.”

“Yes, sir!” Spaulding grabbed his steel pot off the table, put it on and saluted. Goodman returned the salute. As Spaulding walked past him, Goodman heard him mutter, “Lucky son-of-a-gun!”

“May I sit down, Pe’Ter?”

“Oh! Yeah!” Goodman stopped just standing beside the table and pulled out a chair for her, helped her into it, then sat down opposite her. He already had a glass for her and poured wine into it, nearly spilling the dark green bottle as he reached across the table.

Eran was dressed totally differently, in a white blouse kind of off one shoulder, a simple dark blue skirt and a shawl around her shoulders which partially covered her bare arms. “It’s kind of chilly tonight. You must be warm-blooded,” Goodman said lamely.

Eran smiled at him. “You are the man that I want. Can we drink wine later?”

Goodman didn’t know what to say.

Eran spoke again. “Is there someplace that we can go?”

“Uh—”

“If that is what you want, of course, Pe’Ter.”

Goodman blurted out, “Look, I think you’re the swellest looking girl I’ve ever seen in my life. But we just met.”

“Then, let’s drink wine first. And then can we go someplace to be together?”

Goodman heard himself saying, “Yes.”

They each drank a glass of wine and Goodman left the table for a few moments, found the innkeeper and paid her twenty dollars US over the cost of a room and threw in two packs of American cigarettes.

When he went back to the table, a major was drifting toward it and Eran, but vectored off. “I got us a room.”

“A room is what we need?”

“Yes. I mean, if you still want—”

“You are very sweet, Pe’Ter.” Eran started to stand up and Peter Goodman got her chair, then ushered her from the table to the stairs just outside. “This way?”

“Yes, Eran.”

Eran started up the stairs, Goodman right behind her. They had room number five. The lock worked—sort of—and they went inside, Goodman lighting the oil lamp beside the doorway before closing the door. Heavy bombardment drapes were hung over the window.

The bed looked clean. Peter Goodman looked around for a place to put his helmet, then started to unbuckle his pistol belt.

When Goodman turned to look at Eran, Eran stood naked before him, but there hadn’t been time for her to undress. “How did you do that?”

“Magic,” she smiled...

Eran screamed, “Pe’Ter! More! More! Fill me!” Pe’Ter’s body thrust against her, within her, then rested over her, still lying between her thighs, his heartbeat strong against her breast.

When his eyes met hers, they hardened and he pushed himself away. “You rotten—”

Eran laughed. “You gave me what I needed, Pe’Ter. Think of it this way: for a short while you were free of this place.”

“Damn you!” Pe’Ter clambered out of the bed, staggered toward the window overlooking the courtyard below. He was staring at the shackles on his wrists. “How could you do that to me?”

“As you told me, Pe’Ter, there is only one thing which I need from you, and you just gave it to me. Admit it! You enjoyed it.”

Pe’Ter, his voice controlled, even, said to her, “That’s just the point, Eran. There’s only one thing you need from me, but I actually loved you that night. And despite what you are, I still love you.”

“Then why must you resist giving me what I need, Pe’Ter?”

“Loving you doesn’t mean I condone what you do, Eran. When you came to me, a million guys just like me were fighting a lunatic, a goosestepping madman, a dictator who didn’t care how many people he killed, who he stepped on. Like some cheap gangster, but with an army behind him. I don’t know how long it’s been, what’s happened back there, but I know one thing. If we haven’t knocked out the Axis by now, then we’re still fighting. Americans, Englishmen, Canadians, Free French, Aussies, Norwegians. It doesn’t matter. We’re still fighting and we’ll keep fighting. And you’re just the same as Hitler. You want everybody to bow down before you and you don’t care a hoot who you hurt or how many you kill. You don’t care about love or honor or human decency. You just care about Eran, and all the power you can get your dirty hands on.

“But the people here are gonna stand up against you someday, too. Just a bunch of ordinary joes and janes, and they’ll come after you and keep fighting you until you and all you stand for is nothing! Nothing, hear me!? Nothing!”

“Are you finished, Pe’Ter?”

“Why don’t you kill me? Let’s see some of that power you’ve got, Eran. Come on! You can do it. Let me have it. Kill me.”

“Never. If it’s true that you still love me, Pe’Ter, then I’ve found the perfect torture for you, haven’t I? Killing you would be merciful, and I don’t deal in mercy.”

Pe’Ter turned his face away.

Eran felt the power surging within her as it had not for longer than she wanted to remember. And she began to laugh, just considering all of the truly marvelous possibilities...

“I have spells for whatever phenomenon that you might wish,” Swan told Al’An. Her eyes were not gazing at the man she loved, but at the disgusting stone creatures instead. “Whether it is heat or cold, couldn’t we use such a spell directly on the Tree Demons?”

“I mean, I don’t know for certain, Swan, but if these things are at all analogous to what are commonly called motion sensors, where I come from, then changing their temperature would create the opposite effect from what we want. We want those yucky-looking little guys to be unaffected by temperature.

“Now, if somehow they’re able to see through those stone eyes, my plan won’t work at all, regardless of heat or cold. But if they work like I hope that they do, we can fool them.”

Swan, Al’An and the others stood within the passageway, well back from the sculptures. Bre’Gaa asked, “Do you believe that they will feel us as we cross before them rather than see us?”

“Eran needs something that can be relied upon as an intruder defense, but doesn’t require constant monitoring,” Al’An answered. “If it were visual, even with magic, the problem would be the same as where I come from—either a human being somehow monitors what the statues see or there’s some machine to do it. You guys don’t use machines for most things, and I don’t see one guy or a group of guys looking out for what the little stone creatures have passing in front of their eyes. If that were the case, Eran would be just as well off cutting the cutsey crap and having live human guards instead of stone Tree Demons.

“There’s got to be some sort of trigger which awakens the creatures from the spell. Visual, maybe. But, like I said, very doubtful. Could be smell, but even in a technology-based society, that would be quite complicated and not too reliable. Temperature is the best guess I can come up with,” Al’An concluded.

“Then how shall we accomplish things in order to obfuscate the capability of the stone Tree Demons to sense temperature?” Erg’Ran asked.

“Where I come from, again, the normal human body temperature is ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit.”

“What?” Gar’Ath asked.

“How hot it is inside your body, or mine, or Mitan’s or Swan’s.”

“Why would one care to know this, Champion?” Gar’Ath asked Al’An.

“For medical reasons,” Al’An responded. “If the body is a little too hot or too cold, the body may sicken. Very hot or very cold and the body can die.”

“I am familiar with this concept in the treatment of bodily ills, but we gauge the heat of the body differently. Be that as it may,” Erg’Ran went on, “I take it that you intend to prevent the air which surrounds our bodies from radiating the heat of our bodies.

“Two ways of doing it,” Al’An declared. “Whichever one is most handily accomplished magically would suffice.”

“And, Al’An, what are these two ways?” Swan asked him.

“The first would be the more common technique, in my realm, at least. Each of us would need some kind of suit, a suit which completely covered the body from head to toe, and filtered our exhalations to cool them, either that or had its own self-contained breathing apparatus.”

“What?” Gar’Ath asked.

“Like a container that you draw the air from when you breath and another container which would capture the air you breathe out. That air will be heated by our body temperatures,” Al’An explained.

“The other method?” Swan persisted. She understood Al’An’s words, and the basic idea behind them, but had no idea herself how she could magically fabricate what he described in such a manner that the suits would work. Swan hoped that his other alternative would be simpler.

“The other way,” Al’An told them, but looking at her, “is to construct some sort of barrier which would seal around the stone Tree Demons, preventing them from sensing our body heat. It has to be a perfect seal, air tight. If they’re not alive, at the moment, they’re not breathing. If we seal them in something, we shouldn’t trigger a response.”

This latter alternative Swan easily comprehended; and, almost before Al’An stopped speaking, she was recalling the spells and formulating the technique by which she could transform Al’An’s idea into reality.

Using the second-sight, Mitan accurately gauged the dimensions of the stone Tree Demons. Garrison, familiar by now with spans, warblades and lancethrows as a system of measurement, learned a new term: thumbnail. The thumbnail was used analogously to the inch, although (judging by eye) a little less than three quarters of an inch in length. Each of the Tree Demons measured twenty-three thumbnails in height and thirteen thumbnails around the slightly potbellied midsections. For the sake of his own sanity, Alan Garrison tried to think of the disgusting looking little things as approximately sixteen and one-half inches tall, as opposed to twenty-three thumbnails.

The dimensions determined, a by-now-familiar vortex appeared out of thin air and, spilling forth from within the vortex, as uniform in appearance as if rolling off an assembly line, were little coffin-shaped foot-and-one-half-long boxes, open on one side. They reminded Garrison of unnaturally dark green peanut shells, but split in half. Garrison touched one. It was neither hot nor cool, and felt unlike anything he had ever put his hands on. The material was similar to plastic—almost weightless, too—but somehow seemed organic. The darker green edges, where presumably the shells would contact the wall surface to which the Tree Demons were somehow affixed, were soft, pliable, conformed to Garrison’s fingertip as he touched them. When he took his finger away, the edges returned to their original shape.

“I’d take off my hat to you, if I were wearing a hat,” Garrison told Swan. “You are a genius, lovely lady. These edges are so that the little shells will exactly conform to the rough stone and give a perfect seal. Right? Marvelous!”

“Thank you, Al’An.”

“How do we get them over the little Tree Demon guys and how do we make them stick?”

Swan smiled. “Do you recall, Al’An, what I did with your cigarette when you asked me concerning the formation of the twin moons?”

“Yes,” Garrison told her, remembering quite clearly how she had transmuted his cigarette—curling smoke and all—into stone, levitated it, then encased it in more stone, then levitated it still higher. “You’re going to levitate these into position.”

“Yes. But I cannot form stone around the shells, as you call them, even at the edges, since such magic generates a modest amount of heat, and heat would defeat the purpose of our enterprise. So, I will hold them in position with magical energy while we pass, then release the shells, levitate them to the other side of the chamber and back into the vortex within which they were formed.”

“You’re good, Swan, really good,” Garrison informed her, as if she didn’t already know that. And, he was proud of her, like a father would thrill to the accomplishments of a child, or a husband would to the success of—Alan Garrison wanted Swan for his wife, very badly, he realized. If that meant never returning to his own world, so be it.

“How can we aid you, Enchantress?” Bre’Gaa inquired, interrupting Garrison’s thoughts.

“Merely be ready to cross the chamber when the last of the shells is in position, and be vigilant lest my magic should somehow fail and we would be forced to fight these terrible creatures, Captain. I have never attempted an endeavor quite like this with my magic.”

“So it shall be, Enchantress,” Bre’Gaa declared.

There were fifty-six of the horrific enchanted beasts. Gar’Ath had warned Garrison only moments before Swan had made the shells materialize from the air, “Should the Tree Demons come alive, they will attack instantly, swarming. Fighting them with a sword is no good, nor with any blade, unless they are being held at bay. Once they are upon you, you must tear them from your flesh, throttling the life from their bodies with your hands, stomping them to death with your feet, ripping them limb from limb. Even if a sword could be employed without risk of the blade sundering your flesh from your bones, in quarters such as these through which we must pass, there would be too great a risk of your blade rending the flesh of one of your companions.”

With Gar’Ath s vivid admonition still in mind, Alan Garrison hoped that Swan’s plan would work and that her magic would not fail as she undertook what Garrison judged to be a “test flight” with one of the shells. The object moved slowly, easily upward, downward, side to side, then hovering. Garrison watched the concentration in Swan’s eyes, etched across her face.

Gar’Ath and Mitan nocked arrows to their longbows. Bre’Gaa did the same. Garrison took the hint, drawing one of the SIG-Sauer .45s.

Garrison felt Erg’Ran’s hand clasp to his shoulder. “It is wise to plan for any contingency,” the older man whispered. “The Enchantress will be attempting a complexity of magical use unlike any which I have ever witnessed. You must, even as you plan for the possibility that she might not succeed, have faith that she will.”

“I do,” Garrison replied honestly.

“I am ready to begin,” Swan announced.

Garrison looked at Swan and made his best encouraging smile. Swan smiled back, then all expression left her face and Garrison readied himself. The first of the shells took flight.

Garrison tracked the first shell over the sights of his pistol. As he did so, he discovered something in Swan’s character of which he had not been aware, but it endeared her to him even more. Rather than setting the first shell over the nearest of the stone Tree Demons, Swan tackled the farthest one first, so that each successive placement would be easier—even slightly—than the last.

The dark green shell glided onward, along the length of the chamber, the chamber walls farther and farther apart because of the wedge shape. At last, the shell stopped, hovered, then advanced on the stone Tree Demon, its leading edge angling upward until, mere “thumbnails” from the icon, the shell had completely reoriented from horizontal to vertical. Very slowly now, the shell moved forward, raising slightly, lowering slightly, then closing over the stone Tree Demon.

Garrison let out his breath.

“One down, fifty-five to go,” Garrison rasped to Erg’Ran beside him. The next shell took flight in the same instant...

“Fifty-five down, one to go,” the Champion called out softly. Erg’Ran held his breath. All had gone perfectly, and that was why he felt nervous.

The last of the coverings sailed from where it hovered near the Enchantress and toward the closest of the ghastly figures. It upended, then settled over the statue. “Now, Champion, we shall discover whether or not your supposition was the correct one.”

“Thanks for reminding me, Erg’Ran.” The Champion shifted the firespitter which had been in his right hand to his left hand, with his right hand drawing his sword. “We ready?”

“I will be last,” Bre’Gaa announced.

“And I with him,” Erg’Ran added.

Gar’Ath and Mitan stepped from the passageway and into the chamber, nearly—but not quite— standing in front of the first of the stone Tree Demons. Mitan started to move, and Gar’Ath placed a hand on her arm. “Lest the Tree Demons should come to life, stay behind me.”

“Yes, Gar’Ath,” Mitan answered softly.

Gar’Ath took one step, then another, ignoring his own advice, his sword at the ready.

The young swordsman stood before the first icon, stared at the shell covering. Nothing happened. He flashed his left hand back and forth in front of it. Nothing happened.

Mitan walked up to Gar’Ath and kissed him. They started forward once again, walking quickly.

“Champion! You will escort the Enchantress?” Erg’Ran suggested.

“I’m on it,” the Champion responded, going to stand beside the Enchantress. Very slowly, her countenance still expressionless, the Enchantress began to walk out of the passageway and into the chamber.

Erg’Ran lifted his axe from the ring at his belt. “Ready, Captain Bre’Gaa?”

“Indeed, my learned ally.”

Side by side, Erg’Ran and Bre’Gaa left the passageway and entered the wedge-shaped chamber, Bre’Gaa’s arrow quivered, his bow in his left hand, his great sword in his right. To a Gle’Ur’Gya, such a sword was not a great sword, Erg’Ran reflected, smiling at the thought, but merely a conventionally sized broadsword.

Into the chamber, they passed the first of the icons, then the next and the next. The concentration necessary in order to keep in place the fifty-six shells, as the Champion referred to them, was beyond anything Erg’Ran would have considered magically possible for anyone—except his niece.

The magical ability grew within Swan, deepened and broadened to a level surpassing anything which Erg’Ran had considered even conceivable without that special power of which he was certain Eran periodically availed herself. Could Eran still rely on it, however? Erg’Ran wondered.

The Enchantress, her Champion and lover beside her, was at the midway point within the chamber. The Champion’s firespitter was still in one hand, sword in the other. Erg’Ran caught a glimpse of the Enchantress’s face. As before, her countenance bore no expression, but there was a barely discernible twitch near her right eye. “Hasten, Bre’Gaa!” Erg’Ran urged. In as loud a whisper as he dared, he called out to Gar’Ath and Mitan, “Be quick, young warriors! Be quick! Then be ready!”

There was a story known throughout Creath, apocryphal almost certainly, of a young K’Ur’Mir lass who held back a torrent of water with but a finger. She lived in a humble coastal village, so the tale was told. A wall was erected generations before her time in order to hold back the high tides which periodically arose when the twin moons crossed. Unbeknownst to the people of her village, the wall had developed a crack. The young lass spied the antique wall’s imperfection even as water began spilling through it. Unchecked, the water would widen the fissure and demolish the wall and let the tide wash across the village beyond. The lass stuck one finger into the breach, the lad with whom she had been playing going for help. Had she removed her finger from the chink in the wall, all beyond would have been destroyed.

The concentration evident in Swan’s dear face could not help but remind Erg’Ran of the young maid in the old story. Only Swan’s mind held back destruction.

Gar’Ath and Mitan reached the far side of the chamber, by the tall arched opening. Mitan would be second-sighting beyond it, looking for any evidence of more dangers. Gar’Ath had already sheathed his sword and readied his longbow.

Erg’Ran licked his lips.

“I don’t like this, learned ally,” Captain Bre’Gaa hissed through clenched teeth. “If your Enchantress’s concentration slips—”

“It won’t.” Erg’Ran cut him off. “We will pass them, so that once we are clear of this place, the Enchantress will have none to concern her save for herself and the Champion.”

“Aye, Erg’Ran.”

In the next few strides, Erg’Ran and Bre’Gaa overtook and passed the Enchantress and her Champion, neared the archway on the chamber’s far side. Erg’Ran’s eyes alternated their gaze between the Enchantress’s face and the green shells which covered the stone Tree Demons. The twitch near Swan’s eye evidenced itself once more and Erg’Ran’s eyes flickered toward the chamber wall. Two of the shells moved almost imperceptibly.

Erg’Ran quickened his pace, nearly running, Bre’Gaa striding beside him.

They reached the tall archway. “Now, this is a proper height through which a Gle’Ur’Gya can pass without hunching his shoulders!”

“I’m happy for you, Captain Bre’Gaa,” Erg’Ran replied dismissively, his eyes on the Enchantress.

“Do you think the Enchantress’ll make it, old friend?” Gar’Ath whispered hoarsely.

“Aye, lad. But be vigilant nonetheless.”

The Enchantress and her Champion were nearly to the archway. Just a few more paces remained. If one shell fell away, her spell would collapse and all of the shells would drop off. The vile little carnivores would swarm over anyone in their path. The six of their little band would be powerless against fifty-six of the Tree Demons, nor would there be time for any magic to be used against the creatures.

The Enchantress took another step, swayed slightly. The Champion tucked the firespitter from his left hand into his belt, his left hand moving to support the Enchantress at her waist.

Erg’Ran was about to speak as Mitan whispered in his ear, “There is someone coming, Erg’Ran.”

“G’urg,” Erg’Ran muttered under his breath, turning away from the interior of the chamber and looking into the passageway beyond. There were two Ra’U’Ba just entered into the passageway. He second-sighted quickly on the figures, neither helmeted—which meant that they could be killed—and neither carried the characteristically enormous shield. Both wore skirts that were an incongruous blend of sickly green, faded red and washed out grey, combining to compose an entirely alien color which was disgusting looking in the extreme. Both had full weaponry. Ra’U’Ba always looked odd, but these two moved more oddly than Erg’Ran considered normal even for Ra’U’Ba.

“They are drunk, I think!” Mitan exclaimed in a soft whisper beside Erg’Ran’s ear.

“I think you are right, pretty one.” As if to confirm the analysis of their behavior, one of the two promptly fell down, his enormous tail slapping into the wall. The other laughed. “Hide,” Erg’Ran ordered.

There was no reason to suppose that an inebriated Ra’U’Ba would be less capable of communicating his thoughts over great distances to his fellows than a sober one. The Ra’U’Ba had to be killed before they noticed that they were not alone and could reveal the information to other Ra’U’Ba within the keep. It was, at least, clear that the two Ra’U’Ba were not alert to the fact that they were being watched, because Erg’Ran still second-sighted them and the Ra’U’Ba had the peculiar proclivity for blocking the second-sight. Erg’Ran had never quite understood how this could be possible, but it was fact, nonetheless.

“We can’t stay here forever, old friend,” Gar’Ath whispered, stating the obvious.

“Aye, lad, I’m thinking.” Erg’Ran glanced over his shoulder. The Enchantress and her Champion were nearly through the chamber. In only a few eyeblinks, the Enchantress would be able to release the spell which so visibly exhausted her, but could not as long as it was necessary to hide on the chamber side of the archway from detection by the Ra’U’Ba. “Ra’U’Ba disgust me, and always have,” Bre’Gaa announced.

“We are in perfect agreement, Captain Bre’Gaa. At the moment, however, the issue is to contrive a manner in which the two Ra’U’Ba in question can be killed extraordinarily quickly, before they would be able to communicate our presence here to their fellows.”

“The exposed portion of the brain, where it looks like a third eye,” Bre’Gaa suggested. “That nauseating-looking yellow protuberance is an excellent target. An arrow might—”

“It will have to be an arrow,” Gar’Ath interrupted. “The distance is too great to hurl a dagger with certainty.”

“I don’t like it, but we have no alternative but to try,” Erg’Ran acquiesced.

“What’s goin’ on?” It was the voice of the Champion.

“Ra’U’Ba. I believe you encountered other specimens in company with Gar’Ath behind the Falls of Mir, Champion. These seem to have partaken a bit too much of intoxicants.”

“What are we going to do, Erg’Ran? Swan can’t hold the spell much longer without passing out, and then it breaks anyway, right?”

“You’re correct in your assumptions, Champion. We are going to endeavor to kill these Ra’U’Ba very shortly. Do your best with the Enchantress.”

“I will,” the Champion told him.

Mitan, Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa had their longbows ready, arrows nocked. “Give the word, old friend,” Gar’Ath said.

Erg’Ran was about to speak, but as he looked at the Ra’U’Ba, the one who had fallen down a moment earlier howled with laughter and flung something from his six-fingered right hand.

“Fire!” Erg’Ran commanded, hoping that it was not too late. In their drunken condition, perhaps they had not already communicated their discovery.

Mitan’s and Gar’Ath’s bows were already drawn, their arrows flying to target in the eyeblink after Erg’Ran spoke, but Bre’Gaa’s bow string had not been taut. Bre’Gaa drew, but in the eyeblink that he released, a Ra’U’Ba star dagger struck the Gle’Ur’Gya Captain’s bow. Bre’Gaa’s arrow loosed, but upward, striking the archway, ricocheting off the rounded surface of the stone and flying wildly back into the chamber.

Bre’Gaa cursed, nocked a fresh arrow.

Erg’Ran’s eyes flickered toward the two drunken Ra’U’Ba. Arrows were buried half to the fletching in their yellow brain protuberances, their bodies falling dead to the stone floor of the passageway.

Behind Erg’Ran, there was the shriek of a Tree Demon.

Erg’Ran wheeled toward the sound, nearly falling on his peg leg.

An arrow—from Bre’Gaa’s bow—whizzed past Erg’Ran’s face and impaled the body of the Tree Demon, killing it in an eyeblink. One arrow would not be enough. The shielding green shells were falling away from the remaining fifty-five Tree Demons, the Enchantress was on the chamber floor with the strayed arrow piercing her left hand and the Champion was reaching down to her.

Too many things happened all at once for Erg’Ran to calculate the next logical move. The Champion swept the Enchantress up into his arms. The Tree Demons—one after another—streaked from their positions on the wall and toward human flesh. Gar’Ath lunged past Erg’Ran, snatching the axe from Erg’Ran’s belt as he went.

A Tree Demon jumped for Swan’s throat and the Champion skewered it on his sword. Gar’Ath swung the expropriated axe, killing two Tree Demons in midair.

Another arrow took flight from Bre’Gaa’s bow, another Tree Demon down.

Mitan, who had never developed her innate magical abilities, shrieked what Erg’Ran recognized as a shielding spell. “Good idea!” Erg’Ran called out to her, taking up the incantation in the next eyeblink. As the Champion, with Erg’Ran’s niece in his arms, vaulted from the chamber, the air between the archway and the rest of the chamber began to shimmer.

“Out of there, young swordsman!” Bre’Gaa shouted to Gar’Ath as Gar’Ath accounted for three more of the Tree Demons with the axe, then turned to run. Three Tree Demons fell upon him, one at his neck, two at his stockinged legs. Gar’Ath stumbled, fell, a dozen more of the Tree Demons swarming over him.

Erg’Ran heard the Champion shouting, “Take her, Bre’Gaa, and guard her with your life!” As Erg’Ran turned to look, the Champion rested his Golden Shield of IBF against the archway and raced past him, staggering as he passed through the still and too slowly forming shield of magical energy. A Tree Demon jumped for the Champion’s right cheek, the Champion’s left hand grasping the creature, flinging it with terrible force against the wall from which it had sprung.

The Champion skidded to his knees beside Gar’Ath, whose hands tearing at the Tree Demons as they tried to devour him alive. A Tree Demon attached itself to the Champion’s neck. The Champion either didn’t feel it or ignored it. A very tiny firespitter, its gleaming steel polished like that of a swordblade, emerged from his right pocket. The Champion put the firespitter flush against a Tree Demon which had begun to gnaw on Gar’Ath’s right thigh. There was a terrible noise, and the Tree Demon disintegrated, its blood and gore sprayed across Gar’Ath’s lower body.

“Get the Enchantress out of here, Bre’Gaa! Hurry!” Erg’Ran commanded. The shielding spell was not building fast enough, his magic and even that of Mitan, a female K’Ur’Mir, too meager in power. The far stronger, extraordinarily complex magic which had enchanted and still sustained the Tree Demons could only have been directly combated by magic which was its equal, such as the Enchantress possessed. And she could not aid them. The Champion’s tiny firespitter spoke again, another of the Tree Demons exploding.

That firespitter was so much smaller than the other firespitters. “Of course!” Erg’Ran shouted. “Smaller was better in this situation,” Erg’Ran announced to anyone listening. “And, sometimes simpler is better, too.” Erg’Ran called to Mitan, urging her, “Forsake the shielding spell! You can levitate; I’ve seen you do it. My cloak! Levitate my cloak!” Erg’Ran snatched the cloak from his shoulders and hurtled it into the chamber, then employed one of the most basic of all spells to make fire. The cloak was ablaze as Mitan began the levitation. “Now, propel my burning cloak toward the Tree Demons and burn them to death!”

Gar’Ath was to his knees, tearing Tree Demons from his body, his face and legs and hands covered in bleeding bites. The Champion, his exposed skin having suffered much the same abuse, flung a Tree Demon from his face, then killed it with another blast from the tiny firespitter. There was one of the Champion’s odd knives in his other hand, and he hacked through the air with it, missing one Tree Demon and slicing the arm off another. Five Tree Demons, slavering jaws snapping, attacked the Champion’s head. The Champion cried out in pain, but did not surrender.

Drawing his father’s sword from its scabbard, Erg’Ran hobbled into the chamber, to aid the Champion and Gar’Ath. The burning cloak sailed about the chamber, trapping Tree Demons within its folds, setting them afire. The vile things, skin in flames, ran wildly about, hurtling themselves into the air, smashing against the chamber walls, rolling about on the chamber floor. The Tree Demons’ howls of pain echoed off the stone, pulsed within Erg’Ran’s ears.

If the burning cloak could combat and kill the rest of the Tree Demons, there were still more than half a score of Tree Demons attacking the Champion and Gar’Ath. These could not be dealt with by means of magic. Erg’Ran’s father’s sword was unlike any which he had ever seen in all of Creath. And, its single edge could be to be sharpened more finely than any steel even Gar’Ath could fashion.

Erg’Ran grabbed with his left hand at a Tree Demon which gnawed at the nape of the Champion’s neck, tore it free and flung it into the air. Erg’Ran’s father’s sword was already in motion as his left hand closed behind his right on its hilt. The Tree Demon was still in the air as steel met foul flesh and cleaved that flesh in twain.

Gar’Ath was to his feet, axe in hand. Wrestling a Tree Demon from his left cheek, Gar’Ath hurtled it into the burning cloak, the tiny beast’s skin ablaze in an eyeblink. As the Champion tore a Tree Demon from his neck, Gar’Ath’s borrowed axe cleaved through it, burying its edge into the stone wall.

A Tree Demon jumped for Erg’Ran’s face, and in his terror in the instant that the creature’s teeth clamped to his cheek, Erg’Ran nearly hacked at it with the sword. Had he done so, he would surely have sliced off half his face. Another Tree Demon bit into Erg’Ran’s left hand. Erg’Ran smashed his left hand toward the wall, crushing the Tree Demon’s skull, leaving his bleeding left hand free to claw at the Tree Demon on his face.

The thing was coming for his eye. Erg’Ran could see its yellow-brown eyes, feel its exhalations against his skin. Bile rose from Erg’Ran’s stomach and into his throat. In the instant that the Tree Demon’s humanlike hands grasped for his nose and left ear and its teeth let loose from his cheek to clamp into his eye, Erg’Ran jerked at the creature, tearing away his own flesh as he freed its claws. The creature fell to the floor. Erg’Ran staggered with pain, and in that eyeblink, his peg leg lost traction in a puddle of blood and slipped from beneath him.

As Erg’Ran fell, the Tree Demon lunged toward him again. There was the earsplitting crack that was the thunder made by the Champions tiny firespitter. The Tree Demon burst into a puddle of blood and gore.

Erg’Ran tried to stand up.

Gar’Ath, a Tree Demon on his neck, wrenched free his axe, pulled the Tree Demon free and flung it against the wall. With the flat of the axe, Gar’Ath smashed at the vile creature, crushing it.

The Champion, his face all but obscured by bleeding wounds, tore a Tree Demon from his left hand, threw it to the floor and stomped it beneath his boot,

Gar’Ath had the last of them in both hands, its arms outstretched, legs gyrating wildly. “Die, you little piece of g’urg!” With that utterance, Gar’Ath snapped his own arms outward and tore the Tree Demon’s arms from their sockets. The beast fell to the floor, writhing in pain not unlike that which it inflicted upon its victims. Blood spurted from the arm sockets, slicking the floor. And the Tree Demon died.

Erg’Ran said two things. “One of you help me up. We’ll have Sword of Koth swarming over us next.”

“Aye, old friend!” Gar’Ath held out a blood covered hand and so did the Champion.

Erg’Ran took both offered hands, then said, “One of you, my father’s sword, please. There, on the floor.”

There was no more use for the burning cloak with the Tree Demons all accounted for. Mitan ran from the archway, then drew Gar’Ath into her arms, his blood smearing her skin...

Swan, her magic all but depleted, told Bre’Gaa, “Break the arrow, Captain, so that you may pull it from my hand.”

“I will never forgive myself, Enchantress.”

“It was not your fault. Break the arrow. We must hurry, I fear.”

Bre’Gaa snapped the arrow’s shaft, and Swan winced but did not cry out. She nodded her head and Bre’Gaa placed one enormous hand over her wrist, so that she could not move her hand. He told her, “You are brave, Enchantress. There is a little of the Gle’Ur’Gya in you.” He smiled, then wrenched the shaft from her flesh.

Swan sucked in her breath, so quickly, so strongly that it sounded like a scream, but she assured Bre’Gaa, “That was not a scream, Captain. It only sounded like one.”

“I never assumed otherwise, Enchantress. You are bleeding, of course.”

“That will stop—now.” Swan willed the bleeding to cease and for the wound to begin to heal. Her hand still pained her, but that would pass shortly. “We must aid the others.” Already, there was a warm, itching sensation in her hand and the broken skin was starting to scab over and close. Swan began to get to her feet, Bre’Gaa assisting her.

Swan was going to tell him that he should run back and that she would follow, but as she looked along the passageway, she saw Mitan, an arrow nocked to her bow, and, behind Mitan, Al’An, Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath. The three males moved as though gravely injured. Mitan was covered in blood. Quickly second-sighting her, Swan detected no evidence of wounds, but second-sighting the others revealed just the opposite.

“Help me, Captain. I am weak, still, but I must see to their healing.”

“Your will is my command, Enchantress,” Bre’Gaa whispered...

There had been the sounds of pistol shots within the keep. Swan and her other realm man were within the keep. And Eran knew why.

That first night when she took Pe’Ter Goo’D’Man into her, Eran realized that the tablet which she was directed to by the monolith had spoken truly to her. All of the power in the universe would, one day, be hers alone.

Eran stared from the windswept parapet, beyond the stone walls and across Barad’Il’Koth. Second- sighting, she could see Woroc’Il’Lod, white caps rising at the command of the currents of frigid air. She threw back her cloak. With a toss of her head, its hood fell away and the cold embraced her naked body and the wind from the icy sea toyed with her hair.

She felt beyond wonderful.

It was clear to Eran, as she considered the current state of affairs, that the naval maneuvers along her coast were something with which she could easily deal when she felt that the time was right. They required no urgent action. After she had dealt with her daughter, the other realm man, and her brother, she could afford to waste magical power and summon, once more, the Mist of Oblivion. Watching it devour the ships and the arrogant fools aboard them would be a delight.

It was also clear to Eran that a trip to the other realm would soon be required. Pe’Ter was becoming more and more difficult and she tired of the memories she had to recreate for him. When Swan was gone and Pe’Ter was gone, it would be the end of a chapter in her life and she could move on.

And little time remained until Swan’s end.

Moc’Dar whined, and Eran gazed down at him. He cowered beneath his too-small cloak, his twisted body within its repulsively splotchy skin curled into a ball near her feet. He wanted to lick her boots, which made him feel secure. Because of that, she rarely relented to his simpering urgings. The time was, Eran mused, when Moc’Dar’s mind would have been engaged in more interesting pursuits. He’d been very handsome and clearly wanted her. Naked save for her open cloak and riding boots, gazing at her would have set his blood racing; hers, too. Instead, Moc’Dar, the once magnificent and courageous Captain of the Sword of Koth, was something totally different than anything else alive, a freak of her own design.

Eran had changed many males—sexual partners with whom she had become dissatisfied—into beasts, broken them with the whip to the saddle and the bit. She had ridden them over the hills and plains of Creath until they no longer pleased her, personally gelded them and left them with their still human minds to sink deeper and deeper into total madness. Eventually, they would die.

But, somehow, as she looked at Moc’Dar, Eran regretted what she had done. She could use Moc’Dar as he had once been.

“You pitiful thing. Get to your knees. Now!” Moc’Dar, his disgusting body trembling, groveled before her. “I gave you a command!”

Shaking as would a leaf in the wind which caressed her skin, Moc’Dar rose clumsily to his knees.

“Raise your eyes so that I may look into them.”

Hesitantly, obviously terrified, Moc’Dar obeyed.

“My power is without limit, Moc’Dar. Soon, my power will be all of the power in the universe. The punishment I made for you has sufficiently terrified my other officers. Perhaps, I can further instill fear and wonderment by demonstrating that I do not only punish with the greatest severity, but likewise show the greatest munificence.” With those words passed from her lips, Eran took a step closer to him, drew her cloak forward in her fingertips and swathed its folds around Moc’Dar.

As she did so, her flesh touched his.

“I return to you your former shape and strength and visage, the power of speech and rational thought, the courage with which you were once imbued. I return to you all that you once were, Moc’Dar.”

Eran opened her cloak, flinging it back. Naked before her knelt Moc’Dar the man. “Speak, Moc’Dar, but choose your words wisely.”

“Queen Sorceress, Mistress General, I am yours to command.”

Eran smiled. Moc’Dar had always had a way with words. “You will uniform yourself at once; I will facilitate that.” With a thought and a wave of her right hand, Moc’Dar was dressed as a Captain, his black leather mask totally obscuring his face except for his eyes and mouth and the holes for his nostrils. With her left hand, she made fine weapons—firesword, dagger, crossbow and quiver of bolts—appear.

“You will lead the Sword of Koth to the chamber where I keep Pe’Ter. You will find my daughter and perhaps several others there, or they will have just departed. If they have departed, you will pursue them. You will find them. You will kill all who may be accompanying my daughter except for the old fool Erg’Ran and another whom you will recognize because he is not of Creath. You will bring Erg’Ran, the other realm male and my daughter to me, if at all possible. I wish to deal with them personally. However, should you find my daughter in the embrace of the other realm male, you are to kill them both by whatever means necessary and as quickly as possible. Do not indulge yourself and risk my wrath.

“If my daughter attempts to use magic against you and no other viable alternative presents itself in order that you may serve my will, even if she is not with the other realm male, you must somehow kill her. I cannot overemphasize the importance of your understanding this quite clearly, Moc’Dar. As much as I wish the pleasure of my daughter’s destruction for myself, at any cost Swan must be prevented from accomplishing her purposes.

“Six of my most gifted Handmaidens will accompany you and your men. The entire Sword of Koth and, indeed, the Horde in all its numbers will be at your disposal for the sake of this mission’s successful resolution. If you fail, your only recourse will be to take your own life. What I did to you the last time would be merciful by comparison to the punishment I should mete out if you fail me again.”

Moc’Dar said nothing, merely lowered his eyes.

Eran made her spell bag appear from the air around her, and from within it drew the pistol which Pe’Ter had carried before she had brought him to Creath. Moc’Dar visibly recoiled just seeing it.

Eran spoke in the Old Tongue, a summoning to alter the universal bonds within the natural elements which burned and caused the projectile to spew forth toward its target. She looked at Moc’Dar and told him, “That which was consumed in flame behind the projectiles within this firespitter and all others in Creath will burn no longer. No firespitter in Creath will function. If a firespitter is pointed at you, Moc’Dar?”

“Yes, Mistress General?”

“Laugh.”

Eran saw a gleam in Moc’Dar’s eyes...

Garrison’s face and hands itched, as did his neck, The dozens of bites he’d received and the gouges where chunks of flesh were torn from his body were healing so rapidly that the process was almost beyond his powers of belief.

Swan walked beside him through the upsloping passageway, seeming not only depleted in magical energy but so exhausted that she could barely move. Likely, Swan still possessed adequate magic to heal wounds, or for something as silly as lighting his cigarette were there time to smoke one, but the more spectacular magic which might be required to get them out of a tight spot would not be available for some time. Somehow, the only word that Alan Garrison knew in the language spoken by Swan’s people was perfectly appropriate: g’urg.

Nagging at the back of his mind was the unpleasant thought that, if they survived, getting out of Barad’Il’Koth would be a lot tougher than getting in. And he was worried that his pistol shots with the Seecamp had not attracted any response. The keep was a very large structure indeed, but hardly so enormous that the reports from the .32 hadn’t been heard by somebody. The two drunken Ra’U’Ba whom Mitan and Gar’Ath had killed quite possibly had the time to communicate telepathically with other Ra’U’Ba.

One way or the other, Garrison was certain that their presence in the keep was known, and that a trap would be awaiting them.

As they neared the end of the passageway and were about to reconnoiter the area beyond, he heard the sound of running feet behind them. Mitan spun around, drawing back her bow. “I can’t see anyone yet!”

Bre’Gaa, brandishing his sword, declared, “I’ll look ahead,” then ran toward the end of the passageway.

Garrison drew both SIG .45s.

In the next instant, Garrison spied two black-uniformed soldiers, then two more, then more and more, coming into view round the nearest bend in the passageway, less than a hundred yards behind them.

“Ordinary Horde of Koth,” Erg’Ran labeled them. “They’ll kill us just as dead as their elite brethren in the Sword of Koth. Come on!”

Somehow, the immediate danger seemed to reinvigorate Swan. When she broke into a dead run toward the end of the passage, it was as if the exhaustion which she had evidenced only moments earlier had completely fled. Garrison hung back in order to support Mitan as she loosed an arrow, dropping one of the Horde of Koth troopers with a solid hit to the chest. Mitan was already nocking another arrow, a third arrow clenched in her teeth.

Garrison stabbed both pistols toward the still charging enemy and fired—or, tried to. The hammers rose and fell, but neither pistol discharged a round. “Aw, shit!” Accepted procedures for hangfires not withstanding, Garrison thrust one pistol into his belt, freeing his left hand to rack the slide of the pistol in his right. A fresh round chambered, Garrison touched the trigger. “Shit!”

Mitan loosed another arrow. A third soldier went down.

Garrison told himself that maybe the only ammunition which had been magically rendered useless was the ammunition Swan had produced for him magically in the first place. Garrison pulled the .32 from its Pocket Natural holster. Pointing the little pistol in the direction of the enemy, he pulled the trigger. There was no sound except for a loud click.

“Shit! Shit! All right! Run for it, Mitan!” Garrison grabbed Mitan’s shoulder the instant an arrow flew from her bow. “Come on!”

Mitan took his advice, sprinting toward the end of the passageway, Garrison at her heels, holstering his now useless ordnance as he ran.

Bre’Gaa was shouting, “A high-ceilinged chamber and a staircase beyond. A small force of Horde of Koth is coming down the staircase.”

Swan had stopped beside Bre’Gaa and Gar’Ath at the end of the passageway. Erg’Ran told her, “I’ll stay behind and hold off the Horde behind us. I’m too slow afoot with this cursed peg leg.”

“Yeah, and you’d die, too,” Garrison told him. “We all go or we all stay, right?”

Everyone nodded or grunted agreement. Swan said, “I would never leave you to die. You were always my dearest friend, and you are my uncle. Without your wise counsel, if we were to succeed, we would still fail.”

Was long-windedness in times of emergency a family trait? Garrison wondered. Swan was beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, forthright, courageous and loving. “So, who’s perfect?” Alan Garrison almost said aloud. Instead, he urged, “Can we get going here?”

“To the staircase!” Swan commanded.

Mitan hung back with Erg’Ran, Garrison handing off his Golden Shield of IBF to the older man. “Carry this for me, please, for a while? I never learned how to fight using a shield and it might come in handy for you.”

Erg’Ran started to reply, but Garrison had no time to listen. Swan charged toward the staircase, sword in hand, a cry on her lips. “Death to the Horde!”

Garrison was right beside her, his sword drawn, Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa outdistancing them, reaching the base of the staircase, then running up.

Garrison paused for an eyeblink. Swords flashed, steel clanged. This was just like something out of a movie. If he’d squeezed his eyes tightly, Garrison could have almost convinced himself that Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone were battling to the death, with cold steel in the brisket as the price of defeat.

Without realizing it, Garrison was in motion, running up the stairs, Swan beside him, sword arcing over his head as he shouted, “Death to the Horde!”

In the next eyeblink, Garrison was locked in mortal combat with two black-uniformed ugly guys with mean faces and big swords. The one to Garrison’s left—tall, broad in the chest—brought his blade around in a sweeping arc on level with Garrison’s throat. Garrison ducked, backstepped and nearly fell down the stairs. But the blade missed him.

The Horde of Koth soldier to Garrison’s right—shorter and wiry seeming—lunged with his sword.

Despite the fact that Garrison had little experience with a blade actually in his hand, he had a considerable reading knowledge of swords, sufficient for him to realize that the Horde of Koth issue sword was not designed for cut and thrust, but for cutting alone. The curve of the blade made accurate thrusting difficult for all but the most gifted of swordsmen, and only as a setup where the opponent was enticed into an open position. Garrison’s sword, on the other hand, was made for both cutting and thrusting.

Alan Garrison thrust with his sword as he dodged the thrust aimed against him. The tip of Garrison’s blade glanced off a link of mail.

“Try again,” Garrison encouraged himself. Sidestepping along the stair tread, Garrison thrust for his opponent’s hip, where there was no armor. Garrison missed the hip, but stabbed through the left cheek of his opponent’s rear end.

There was a terrible cry of pain. The shorter Horde of Koth trooper fell forward and slid down the stairs, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

The other of the two, the tall one who had first attacked him, came at Garrison again. With his sword in both hands, the enemy soldier ran down the stairs at a diagonal, blade smashing downward as he charged.

Garrison remembered something that Gar’Ath had taught him. Hilt clenched in both hands, Garrison brought his sword back over his left shoulder, stepping rearward with his right foot and flexing his outstretched left leg at the precise moment that his opponent’s blade crashed downward. Parrying the edge of the tall soldier’s blade with the flat of his own, Garrison took another step forward, letting his opponent overextend his balance as their blades slipped apart. It wasn’t the right procedure, Garrison knew, but as he moved he pulled his blade across his opponent’s right thigh in a deep drawcut.

The tall soldier staggered. Garrison flicked his blade up, cleaving counterclockwise with it toward the man’s neck, drawing back on the blade as it struck flesh. Garrison opened the Horde of Koth trooper’s throat from earlobe to adam’s apple. Blood sprayed everywhere.

Bre’Gaa was hurriedly scrounging arrows and crossbow bolts from the dead on the stairs. Mitan was firing her longbow, Erg’Ran his crossbow. Their arrows and bolts only ephemerally stemmed the tide of Horde of Koth troops surging in the passageway. But Alan Garrison allowed himself one instant.

He looked at his sword.

Garrison took no pride in the blood which stained its blade, but rather in its strength and that he had used it to fight for his convictions against that which he perceived as evil. What Garrison felt was that link between a man or woman and a weapon, so often misconstrued by the misinformed as bloodlust, which was, in reality, a part of the very essence of being human, inextricably interwoven with honor, pride and the will to persevere.

Swan, her sword bloodied as well, leaned against the staircase wall. “We’ll need to hold them back while Erg’Ran and one or two others with a bow reach the height of the staircase.”

“I know,” Garrison agreed.

“We have to get the Enchantress out of reach of the Horde if she’s to have any hope of finding out whether her father lives or not,” Gar’Ath announced, his breathing still coming hard.

Garrison suggested, “Why don’t you and Erg’Ran take the stairs along with Swan, Gar’Ath. We can alternate fire and maneuver elements.” He’d originally heard the terms in a war movie, then looked them up. “You guys go up and cover us as we move to your position. We leapfrog it.”

Swan asked, “What about frogs?”

“It means when one group moves, the other stays put, and so on. That way, we’ve always got some protection with your bows, Erg’Ran won’t have to run for it any faster than he can manage, and Bre’Gaa and Mitan can cover you with their bows while you guys move up. If you bump into troops as you progress along the stairs, Gar’Ath, then you and Swan can brace them with your swords while Erg’Ran can still provide some cover for us. Sounds like a plan, huh?”

“Aye, Champion. It does, indeed.”

“These arrows are shorter than my own,” Mitan said, having just reached the stairs and taking well over a dozen arrows from Bre’Gaa’s hands. “They’ll be a little less powerful on target.”

“Like .38s out of a .357 Mag,” Garrison observed. When Bre’Gaa, Swan, and Mitan all looked at him oddly, Garrison just said, “Never mind, guys. I’ll explain it to you later.”

“Good fletching,” Mitan said to no one in particular.

Garrison asked, “Good what-ing?”

“Never mind,” Mitan smiled wickedly. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Bre’Gaa launched an arrow, then another and still another toward the mouth of the passageway. “We should be on our way,” he announced.

“Bre’Gaa. Mitan. You guys are with me,” Garrison informed them. “We hold back the bad guys.”

“Come, Erg’Ran,” Swan urged. Gar’Ath was already taking the stairs three at a time in a run. “Be careful, Al’An—all of you!” Swan called after her.

Bre’Gaa handed out more arrows to Mitan, both of them nocking arrows to their bows and waiting for the next Horde of Koth target to show itself coming out of the passageway. Garrison picked up one of the swords lying on the stairs. The Horde of Koth swords were heavy, almost the heft of a Civil War cavalry saber. “Do these guys fight a lot from horseback, Mitan?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Their tactics, hanging back like that, waiting to charge in a group. And the heavy swords they carry. It all smacks of cavalry.”

Garrison looked up the stairs, actually taking note of them for the first time. The staircase extended straight upward to an almost dizzying height, matching the elevation of the chamber. There was, presumably, a landing or some corridor or another, leading to more stairs. Swan, Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath were almost in position to provide covering fire for Garrison, Mitan and Bre’Gaa.

“Mitan?”

“Yes, Champion?”

“Why don’t you run up about halfway along the height of the staircase and you can help to keep us covered. As soon as you’re in position, give us a shout and Bre’Gaa and I’ll start up.”

“I will, Champion, but first a short volley, I think.”

“Good idea.” Garrison, a sword in each hand, waited while Bre’Gaa and Mitan each fired two arrows, just as reminders to the Horde troopers in the passageway that if they stuck out a head, they’d wind up dead.

As the second arrow left Mitan’s bow, she turned and raced up the stairs. “A pretty one, that,” Bre’Gaa offered.

“She is indeed,” Garrison answered. “Nice girl, too.”

“Your Enchantress. She is exquisite. You must meet my wife, sometime, Al’An. There is nothing like a Gle’Ur’Gya female. Her fur is soft. When we are in each other’s arms, and her mane falls over my face, the feeling is indescribable.”

“You sound like a happy man,” Garrison said honestly, his eyes on the mouth of the passageway.

“I’d be the happier if I saw her the more, truth to tell. A mariner’s life is wearisome at times. When these Horde of Koth emerge,” Bre’Gaa said, changing the subject without missing a beat, “I say let them come. We kill a few here on the stairs, then run while Mitan covers us and the others cover us from the top of the stairs. If we can get the enemy into the open, our arrows and bolts should slay many of them.”

Garrison couldn’t truthfully say, “I like it,” but he could say, “That’s a sound idea, Bre’Gaa.”

As of yet, there’d been no evidence that the Horde troopers who would be charging toward them at any moment had longbows or crossbows available to them. Had there been enemy archers in any number, the situation would have been radically altered for the worse.

“By the way, Al’An?” Bre’Gaa unstrung his bow, slipped it under a pair of slots built into his quiver, and he drew his sword.

“Yes, Bre’Gaa?”

“In the event that I should die—”

“Hey, man! Don’t talk like that!” Garrison interrupted.

“In the event that I die in combat against our foemen, or some other fatal event should befall me, I would crave two boons from you.”

“Boons? Oh! Boons. Yeah. What?”

“I would ask that, as is the custom of the Gle’Ur’Gya, I should be buried with a sword, and a good one. After all, a dead Gle doesn’t really need that much of a sword, so certainly no noble gesture such as placing your sword or Gar’Ath’s with me. An enemy sword, even one of these disappointing things the Horde uses, will suffice. But see to it that it’s sharp and of decent steel. Among the Gle’Ur’Gya, a warrior is only buried with his personal sword should he have no warrior son or warrior daughter to whom the blade can be passed. I have both, and my son and my daughter can fight over who gets the blade.

“Which leads me to the second boon I would seek.”

“Which is?”

‘Well, someone needs to return the sword to my family. I think that it should be you. And at the same time, you can relate in exacting detail how I perished so valiantly.”

“Don’t die, okay?” Garrison requested.

“I will endeavor to honor your wish to the best of my ability, Al’An—trust to that!” And Bre’Gaa laughed.

Garrison’s eyes narrowed. The Horde of Koth unit which had been bottled up in the passage was, hesitantly, venturing into the chamber. In the next eyeblink, the inevitable happened.

The Horde of Koth, swords raised, bloody curses on their lips, charged. Garrison’s stomach suddenly felt like he’d eaten spoiled chili and his palms sweated and he was exhaling more than he inhaled, or so it seemed to him.

“There’s a trick, Al’An. Make the enemy think that you are insane for combat and desire their blood on your sword with every fiber of your being! The more you make them fear you, the less time you’ll have to fear them.”

“Thanks for the advice, pal.”

“Take it for what it’s worth,” Bre’Gaa told him.

The Horde unit came in a dead run. Garrison counted thirty soldiers before he stopped counting and started shouting, “Come on, you chickenshits! Let’s see how tough you really are! Your mothers sew dirty socks! Your sisters wear men’s underwear and have to shave their upper lips! Come on, you wimps!” Garrison looked at Bre’Gaa. “That’s the kind of thing I should be saying?”

“The very words I would have used, Al’An. Yes! Such epithets will strike terror into their hearts and fine hone the steel of your resolve.”

Garrison didn’t waste his energy waving his sword. There’d be plenty of opportunity for exercise in another moment or so...

Swan wished that she had studied archery, but she had not. She wished that her magical energy would return more quickly, but it would not. Midway along the staircase, Mitan readied her bow. Flanking Swan, Erg’Ran’s crossbow was cocked, a bolt readied to fly from the slot. Gar’Ath’s longbow was drawn, an arrow nocked, two more arrows clenched in his teeth.

“You should not fire until Al’An and Captain Bre’Gaa run up the stairs. There would be danger to them if you fire prematurely. They are drawing the Horde out, toward them, so that there will be nothing behind which the Horde can hide and thus evade your missiles. Be patient.”

“It was Mir who said that one should not loose one’s bolt prior to confirming that the whites of the enemies’ eyes were readily visible,” Erg’Ran reminded them.

“The wisdom and courage of Mir will inspire us,” Gar’Ath agreed.

Swan’s eyes gazed at her heroic Al’An. His courage—standing there, fearlessly, a sword in each hand, hurling curses at vastly superior numbers of the enemy—filled her soul with love and pride beyond any measure, flushed her cheeks with desire. “My Champion,” Swan sighed, and she sniffed back a tear of happiness.

An eyeblink later, she sucked in her breath from fear. The Horde was upon Al’An and Captain Bre’Gaa. Al’An hacked and stabbed with his sword, parrying enemy swords with the flat of his own, making a fine account of himself. Under the pressure from Al’An and Bre’Gaa, the first rank of the Horde fell back. From beside her, Swan heard Gar’Ath remark, “He learned well, your Champion, for true he did, Enchantress!”

She glanced at Gar’Ath, smiled her thanks, then looked back down the length of the staircase. Al’An and Bre’Gaa feigned another onslaught against the Horde’s front rank. Al’An flung the enemy sword from his left hand, impaling one of the Horde through the throat. Then Al’An and Captain Bre’Gaa turned and vaulted up the stairs, taking the treads three at a time.

“Now! Open fire!” Swan commanded.

Gar’Ath and Erg’Ran let fly. Mitan launched her first arrow, then a second and a third; arrows from both positions filled the air over the staircase.

As Al’An and Captain Bre’Gaa reached Mitan’s position, Bre’Gaa handed his sword to Al’An, shouted something Swan could not hear. In the next eyeblink, Bre’Gaa had his bow strung and an arrow nocked. He fired.

Bodies of dead Horde of Koth littered the stairs. Those few who managed to escape the rain of arrows and crossbow bolts charged Mitan, Al’An and Bre’Gaa. Al’An stepped down a few treads, met the first foeman and ran him through. One of the Horde soldiers cleaved downward with his wickedly curving blade, Al’An intercepting his foeman’s steel by crossing the flats of his sword and that of Captain Bre’Gaa.

Bre’Gaa shouted something and Al’An sidestepped, drawing his foeman off balance. Captain Bre’Gaa fired an arrow, impaling Al’An’s foeman through the left eye.

Those few men of the Horde who had ventured past the hail of arrows and bolts now fell back, escaping down the staircase. In the same eyeblink, Al’An, Captain Bre’Gaa and Mitan began to run up the staircase as rapidly as they could.

“Hold fire!” Swan ordered.

Swan looked away from the stairwell and second-sighted along the wide hallway and to the staircase beyond. She needed to see beyond the confines of line of sight, and she could not employ a guarding spell because Barad’Il’Koth might already be under a guarding spell of her mother’s making. She could not see through walls, but there was the spell which she had used to enhance the second-sight, and thus see around corners. It was the means by which she had enabled herself to search the passages and halls of the magnificent place in Atlanta for the evildoer whom Al’An had sought to foil.

As Swan considered it now, she experienced a remarkable epiphany. In the other realm, her magical abilities had returned to her much more quickly than she’d had any right to think that they would. And borderline magic, which was neither natural nor unnatural, but an unnatural utilization of the natural, had been quite simple in the other realm, vastly moreso than it was in Creath.

There was a sudden queasiness in her stomach, and she looked back, along the staircase. Al’An was coming. “No!” Swan hissed through her teeth. Was it the other realm which held the real magical power, and had her mother somehow captured this power and returned with it to Creath? Was this the secret behind her mother’s unparalleled magical abilities?

And, Swan asked herself, was the very nearness of Al’An the cause for her own continually heightening magical power? Throughout nearly all of the wind summoning, Al’An had been touching her. Al’An had kissed her—quite a lot, and she felt her cheeks redden at the thought—before she had summoned the storm with which they’d combated the ice dragons.

Al’An reached the head of the staircase. “Al’An?”

“Yes, Swan,” he responded, out of breath.

“Hold my hand?”

Al’An smiled, took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. Then, he took her right hand in his left and merely looked into her eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“I need to try something.” Swan hoped that she would fail, knew that she would not. She second- sighted, without the use of any spell, and she was able to see to the end of the hall, up the much narrower staircase which wound ever upward toward the tower, along a passageway there past many great doors and to a doorway at that passageways very end. “My father is behind that door, I think.”

“What door, Swan?”

“The door which I second-sighted.” Swan took her hand free of Al’An’s hand and the second-sight drew in on itself, almost imperceptibly. In a few eyeblinks, she could no longer see beyond the hall. Swan looked at Erg’Ran. “He is the magic for me, and one like him for my mother?”

Erg’Ran said nothing, merely nodded gravely.

“You are certain, Erg’Ran?”

“I am almost certain, Enchantress. There is only one way to know about the source of your mother’s power; that lies before us. And there is only one way to know the answer to that other question which so vexes you. That answer lies within you, Enchantress, and your Champion.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Al’An asked.

Swan did not answer, only swayed slightly in her mannish boots, nodded her head very slowly, all hope of lasting happiness gone...

They moved rapidly—as rapidly as they could considering Erg’Ran’s peg leg—across the high-ceilinged hall. They kept watch that the force of the Horde of Koth might be in pursuit. Swan clung to Garrison’s hand, sometimes holding his hand in both of her hands. As they climbed the corkscrew shaped winding staircase toward the tower, Swan asked him, “Would you put your arm around me, Al’An? And don’t let go?”

“Alright.” At the back of his mind, Alan Garrison felt that something had changed, but he didn’t know what or why.

The staircase wound upwards within what, for lack of a better term, Garrison mentally labeled a chimney, the various levels through which they passed accessible by passages veering off from the staircase. The effect was much like that of riding an elevator, passing one floor after another while ascending to the penthouse.

About halfway up the staircase, Swan remarked, “I am second-sighting the doorway leading into my father’s chamber. There is one Sword of Koth guard visible, but there are so many other doorways along that passage that I fear more Sword of Koth will lie in ambush for us.”

“What are their fireswords like?” Garrison asked her, tangentially redirecting the subject.

“The swords are enchanted, Al’An. When they are drawn in combat, they glow red hot, even white hot. Such steel as they are made from and enhanced by the spells placed upon them, they will cleave through any sword which is not, itself, magical. Your sword belonged to a K’Ur’Mir of great skill and valor, and was made by Gar’Ath’s father. Gar’Ath’s father was not K’Ur’Mir, but he had magical abilities as concerned the weaving of metals into fine steel. A Sword of Koth firesword will be neither more nor less deadly against your sword than any other. But be careful.”

“I always try to be careful. But, of what?”

“The Gle’Ur’Gya use no magic, so Captain Bre’Gaa’s sword could be broken by a firesword wielded properly. He knows this, of course. I offered magical protection for his sword, but Captain Bre’Gaa refused. And the swords of the ordinary Horde of Koth are also vulnerable. Likewise, they too would be broken by a firesword. Your mechanical daggers—”

“Benchmade automatic folders,” Garrison corrected her. “You made them magical, I know.”

“Exactly, Al’An,” Swan said.

At last, they reached the height of the staircase, Erg’Ran bringing up the rear, Mitan with him, the sounds of Erg’Ran’s labored breathing mingled with what could only have been a sigh of relief. Another few yards and there was a right angle bend in the passageway. Beyond that lay violent trouble.

Her voice little over a whisper, Swan asked Garrison, “Will you kiss me, Al’An? Will you kiss me harder and longer than you have ever kissed me? Will you do that now? For me?”

Garrison looked into her eyes. He wanted to ask Swan, “Why?” But he didn’t. Instead, Garrison curled his left arm around Swan’s waist, drawing her close against him. Her head cocked back, mouth offered to him, eyes wide. Garrison lowered his lips to hers; and when their lips touched, his body tensed with the need for her, desire he had never known existed. Her hands caressed his face, his throat, her body molding against his own. He let go of her, turned away for an instant, to get himself under control. “Are we gonna make it, Swan?”

“You mean—”

“I mean you and me. We’ll make it out of here, or die trying. I mean after that, you and me?”

“There is more to ‘you and me’ than might be readily apparent, Al’An.”

Garrison told her honestly, “I don’t care. I love you.”

“And I love you, Al’An. Shall we go to meet our fate, then?”

Garrison turned back to look at her. “There’s an apropos line about that in one of the songs in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. I’ll tell you about it, sometime. Remind me.” It was better, Garrison thought, not to mention that the line alluded to considerable trepidation concerning just exactly what that “fate” might be.

His sword was already drawn.

Garrison started walking.

This was a Hogan’s Alley, Garrison told himself, but with swords instead of guns, and the targets fought back.

“I second-sight one Sword of Koth. He waits nervously near the end of the passageway,” Swan whispered. Mitan and Gar’Ath nodded. Bre’Gaa and Erg’Ran seemed emotionless.

They rounded the right angle bend in the passageway, weapons ready.

When the Sword of Koth guard looked their way, he drew his sword, turned toward them, brandishing the weapon. It had already begun to glow red hot. That he sounded no alarm, issued no verbal challenge was clear evidence that they were walking into a trap, Garrison deduced. The logical question, he knew, was why were they doing this? The bitter answer was that they had no choice.

“Lay down your weapon!” Garrison advised the solitary Sword of Koth. “Put it down and you won’t be hurt.”

As Garrison had known that he would, the Sword of Koth ignored the warning.

Garrison inhaled, then exhaled very slowly. “I just hope you can get us out of that chamber once we’re inside,” Garrison told Swan. “Any chance of that?”

“My magical energy is replenishing itself extremely rapidly.”

“I knew that,” Garrison told her. For a second, their eyes met. Over his shoulder, Alan Garrison asked, “Who wants to nail that Sword of Koth guy with an arrow, huh?”

“Would a dagger do, Champion?” Gar’Ath volunteered, shifting his sword to his left hand, drawing his dagger, flipping it in the air and catching it safely blade first. The dagger flew from his hand, made one and one-half revolutions and buried itself in the throat of the hapless guard. The man fell over, dead before his blood spurted all over the stone floor of the passage.

Garrison walked on, Swan holding his left hand with her right, her sword in her left hand. She would be relying on magic more than that sword, Garrison realized. Somehow, touching him had something to do with her magic, as had their kiss.

“Any moment, now,” Erg’Ran observed.

“Aye,” Gar’Ath seconded.

Bre’Gaa complained, “Why don’t they strike?”

“They will,” Mitan told him. “In their good time, they will strike.”

“There will be a magical barrier at the door to the chamber,” Swan told them. “I must break it.”

“I have confidence in you,” Alan Garrison said truthfully, but realizing after the words left his mouth that he sounded unintentionally sarcastic. “I really do,” he added.

Swan’s hand squeezed his harder. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.

“When they hit,” Garrison advised his companions, “it’s important for Swan, Erg’Ran and—I guess— me to get through that doorway.”

“Aye, Champion. That is understood,” Gar’Ath responded.

They kept walking.

The doorway at the end of the passage was fewer than fifty paces away. Other doorways flanked them, ahead and behind. If the Sword of Koth had any plan other than nailing them with sheer force of numbers, Garrison surmised, it had to be to get them trapped by the magical barrier leading into the chamber. If Swan couldn’t break the barrier which her mother would have so thoughtfully placed there, the passage would be transformed into a blind alley.

For some reason, Garrison recalled a frequently recurring episode from his boyhood. He was sitting in front of a television set with a glass of milk and some chocolate chip cookies, watching a masked Clayton Moore and his faithful American Indian sidekick Jay Silverheels as they fought fearlessly for justice on the frontier and, coincidentally, made a social statement about brotherhood and loyalty which Garrison had never forgotten.

In the next instant, Garrison was overcome with a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He realized why he’d recalled those happy memories at this particular moment in his life. It had to do with a group of Texas Rangers who died in a box canyon. “What is that sound you are making with your lips, Al’An?”

“It’s called whistling,” Garrison told her, not even realizing he’d been doing it until she remarked about it. “Where I come from, people whistle if they’re happy; or, sometimes, they whistle when they’re afraid. The tune’s from ‘The William Tell Overture.’ But, I wasn’t thinking about William Tell. I was thinking about some Texas Rangers.”

“Who was William Tell? Was he a Texas Ranger?” Swan asked.

Garrison smiled, “Tell you later, darling.”

They kept walking. They were about twenty feet from the doorway leading into the chamber which they were so intent upon entering. Most of the other doorways lay behind them.

There was a shouted command. Those doors opened, and spilling from them were more than three dozen Sword of Koth, fireswords drawn. With them, more menacing appearing somehow than the soldiers in their black leather face masks and black coats of mail, were six women.

“Witches! Evil personified!” Bre’Gaa snarled.

Everyone in the passage stood still, waiting.

“I am Moc’Dar. When last we met, I was Captain Leader of the Third Company Sword of Koth, Elite Guard to the Mistress General of the Horde. Then, much evil befell me because of all of you—evil unspeakable.”

Garrison shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Sorry about that, man.”

Moc’Dar continued. “I have been charged with bringing you before my Mistress General, the Queen Sorceress, either living or dead.”

“If you’re gonna give a speech like this, Moc’Dar, you oughta get the terminology straight. The expression is ‘dead or alive,’ not living or dead. Sounds very tacky that way. Trust me.”

“You, of the other realm, and you, Virgin Enchantress, and you, old one—”

“Seasoned and true is more flattering a description,” Erg’Ran suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing.

Unrattled, Moc’Dar said, “You three my Mistress General has interest in seeing alive.” Moc’Dar looked at Mitan, Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa. “You three, she wishes to see only dead.”

“You forgot the part about how I should know the name of the man who kills me,” Gar’Ath reminded Moc’Dar. “Just like last time. Remember?”

Six Handmaidens of Koth extended their fingertips from within their long, flowing sleeves. They were veiled from the crowns of their heads to the hems of their ankle-length black robes in translucent black cloth which cast the planes and angles of their faces in eerie shadow. They formed a circle, hands clasping as they began to chant.

Garrison cracked, “I think the one second from the left is the ugliest, Bre’Gaa. What do you think?”

“It is hard to choose, Al’An, but you may be right. However, that one on the far right, I do believe, is even more unattractive.”

Garrison looked at Swan, loosed her hand and raised her chin with the tips of his fingers. He kissed her hard on the mouth, then whispered, “I hope it helps; we’re gonna need your special talents, darling.”

Swan smiled up at him. “Tell me when, my love.” Inexplicably, Alan Garrison felt considerably better. He looked at the six witches, at Moc’Dar, at the other Sword of Koth warriors, their eyes glowing slits of hatred beneath their black leather battle masks. “That can’t be good for your complexions, guys,” Garrison began, walking slowly toward three Sword of Koth who blocked him. “I bet you guys get blackheads like crazy wearing those masks. Back where I come from, we have television. Well, I’ve seen these commercials for these strip things you put on your nose? Snags the blackheads out like that!” Alan Garrison flicked up the point of his sword and ran the first six inches of its steel into the nearest of the three Sword of Koth.

As Garrison stabbed the man he shouted, “Now’s the time, Swan! When!” As the words left his lips, in the same eyeblink Alan Garrison shoved the dying Sword of Koth warrior off his blade and toward the circle of six witches, using the soldier’s body like a battering ram. The circle of hands was broken.

Garrison sidestepped, a firesword, burning red hot, just missing his right shoulder. There was a second flash of steel, past Garrison’s face. Mitan’s blade thrust forward and into the throat of Garrison’s attacker. Garrison arced his own sword right and up, catching another Sword of Koth behind the thighs, draw cutting, then stabbed his blade forward, into the Sword of Koth’s face mask.

There was a shout from Gar’Ath. Garrison wheeled toward the sound. Four Sword of Koth formed a semicircle around him, Gar’Ath beating them back, but not that easily. Garrison leaped toward the melee, spinning his sword like Errol Flynn had done when he’d starred as Robin Hood. Garrison caught one Sword of Koth’s blade, deflected it, then hacked downward, gouging steel into flesh where the man’s neck and right shoulder met. Garrison averted his eyes from the arterial blood spray, ducking as another sword whistled through the air where his face had been a split second earlier Garrison thrust, his blade hesitating for an eye-blink, then punching on, puncturing the Sword of Koth’s coat of mail, skating past ribs and up into the right lung.

Garrison was suddenly aware of a whistling sound. As he deflected another foeman’s blade, he glanced to his right. There was a vortex formed near the chamber door, hailstones flying from within it at stupendous speeds, Swans hands gestured toward this target and that, and the marble-sized balls of ice struck at witches and Sword of Koth, driving them back along the passage, into the doorways from which they’d emerged.

Erg’Ran’s father’s sword sang through the air, severing the head of the last of the combatants against whom Gar’Ath fought.

“This way!” Swan called out, gesturing with a nod of her head. Garrison, Erg’Ran and Gar’Ath ran behind the vortex, Garrison and Gar’Ath half-carrying Erg’Ran as they propelled him forward.

Swan ordered Mitan, “Take over the vortex. All you need now is to maintain it.”

“I’ll try, Enchantress!” Hesitantly, Mitan began to move her hands, her eyes focused on the vortex. “I should look in the direction in which I wish the hail to flow, shouldn’t I, Enchantress?”

“You’re getting it,” Swan reassured her.

There was something like a stutter, the vortex’s shape contracting, then expanding again to its original size, the flow of hailstones, interrupted for an eye-blink, renewing itself.

“Gar’Ath and Captain Bre’Gaa—please stay with Mitan,” Swan ordered as if she were making a request.

“Yes, Enchantress,” Bre’Gaa responded, snatching up a partially ice-encrusted firesword from the passage floor. As his hand closed around it, the blade began to glow, the ice turning to steam. Swan faced the doorway, extending her hands toward the door itself.

The door seemed to vibrate, its shape shifting almost imperceptibly. Swan sagged back, almost fainting and Garrison caught her in his arms. “My mother’s magic is very strong.”

Garrison stared into Swan’s eyes. “Tell me what to do.”

“Fold your arms about me and stand very close.”

“Yes,” Garrison nodded, doing as she’d requested.

Again Swan tried to break the spell which sealed the doorway, only this time Garrison felt a tingling sensation throughout his entire body, felt his own strength draining from him. His knees beginning to buckle, he held on to her, more tightly.

The vibration of the door increased. Over the constant whistling sounds of the ice pellets spraying from the vortex, Garrison detected a very faint, almost mechanical sounding hum.

There was a flash of energy, visible as yellow light, like the popping of an old camera bulb but the wrong color. Swan sagged against Garrison and Garrison himself nearly fell.

The draining of his own energy had stopped. Erg’Ran reached for the door’s round handle, lifted it and twisted it. The door swung inward.

Garrison glanced behind him. Ice pellets had formed a ridge almost a foot high in some places and coated most of the passage floor. Gar’Ath and Bre’Gaa flanked Mitan as she continued to orchestrate the hailstorm which Swan had begun.

Barely able to hold himself up, Garrison assisted Swan forward, through the doorway and into the chamber beyond.

The chamber was surprisingly well lit, tapers burning in sconces spaced evenly along three of the walls, a large window dominating the fourth. Lying face down on the bed was the figure of a man. He wore a monkish robe of heavy grey cloth, cowl turned down. He didn’t move and for an eyeblink, Garrison thought that the man might be dead.

Swan, sounding very much like a little girl, began to sing softly, “L’Ull B’Yan G’lte...”

The words sounded strange to Garrison, and with Swan’s language spell they shouldn’t have. But, somehow, Alan Garrison knew that he should know their meaning, recognize them as something heard long ago.

As Garrison was about to ask Swan why she sang them, the figure on the bed moved, sat up.

In the next eyeblink, in a voice choking in emotion, the man on the bed sang back, “Lullaby and good night, with roses—” This time, the opening words to Brahms’ “Lullaby” were unmistakable. The man was singing in English, American English.

“Father!” Swan gasped.

“Swan?” The man stood up from the bed. “Swan? Swan!” Whatever energy Swan had remaining to her went into the few steps that she took before falling into her father’s waiting arms.

He kissed her forehead. She kissed his cheek, her arms encircling him. His arms closed around her like a shield and rocked her gently back and forth, as if, somehow, the notes of the lullaby still echoed within them both.

Alan Garrison cleared his throat and sniffed. “Sir?”

The man who held Swan in his arms looked up. “Did you just speak to me in English?”

“Yes, sir. I’m Alan Garrison. I’m from back home, sir.”

Swan’s father closed his eyes and turned his head. When he looked back across the chamber, tears streamed from his eyes. “I recognize that jacket you’re wearing. A-2 bomber jacket. You a flyboy, fella?”

“I took some flying lessons; but, no, sir. I’m a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Swan’s father shook his head wearily, sighing, “This has gotta be one of Eran’s tricks.” He cleared his throat. “I knew you G-Men had a long arm! But, it can’t be this long, from one world into the next! You—all of you—even you,” and he looked into his daughter’s eyes. “You’re only in my imagination, and Eran put you there!”

“No, father. I’m real,” Swan sobbed, clinging to him as he started to push her away.

“What are you afraid of the Feds for?” Garrison prodded. “You running from something?”

“Look, you! See, I know how it seems, wartime and everything. But I didn’t desert, G-Man! I was brought here, against my will by Eran, and Eran darn well knows it! I’d swear to that before any court martial board the Army could convene.”

Alan Garrison just stared.

“Okay. I’ll play your nasty little game. Have we beaten ’em yet?”

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Eran knows my name. I’m First Lieutenant Peter Goodman, United States Fifth Army, Second Battalion, C Company.”

Garrison still stared.

“So, answer me, huh? Did we win the war, fella, or what? If you’re who you say you are, maybe you’ll convince me this isn’t another little fantasy Eran’s created so she can—Aw, man!” Goodman turned his face away from his daughter. “Eran’s got me believing it! I stopped what I was saying because I wouldn’t say that word in front of my daughter!” He grabbed Swan by the shoulders and shook her. “You have no right to rip a man’s soul out!”

Garrison was about to intervene, but Goodman let go, his own shoulders slumped. “Eran’s good, real good.”

“What war, sir?”

“What war! The war!”

“Somehow I don’t think you mean Desert Storm?”

“Desert what? General Rommel just bought the farm, they told us. Word was Rommel and some of the other Nazi High Command bigshots were maybe plotting to bump off Schickelgruber himself. You hear scuttlebutt like that, ya know?”

“Holy shit,” Garrison rasped.

“Watch your mouth in front of my—”

“You’re talking about Erwin Rommel, right? The Desert Fox? And the war you’re talking about was against the Axis? Germany and Japan and everybody, right?”

“What the heck war you think I’m talking about, fella? The Spanish Civil War is old news.”

“What’s the last date that you remember, Lieutenant, before you were brought here?”

“It was the first week in November, 1944. That’s gotta be twenty, maybe twenty-three years ago. You know that. Eran knows that. So, did we get our hands on Hitler and the rest of his goosesteppers? Make up a good one, fella. That’s what Eran’d want you to do.”

“Hitler whacked himself in his bunker in Berlin as the Allies were closing in. Eva Braun was with him. He married her just before they died. Poison and a pistol shot to the head, if I remember it right. A lot of the Nazis got away, but a lot of them were caught after the war.”

“I can’t see Hitler having the guts to kill himself.”

“Nevertheless, Lieutenant Goodman, that’s supposedly exactly what Hitler did. According to the history books, anyway. How old were you, sir, in 1944?”

Swan’s father seemed to think for a minute. “I was born Thanksgiving Day, 1919. I got outta college about six months before Pearl Harbor. I enlisted nine December 1941. I’d just turned twenty-two. I was going to turn twenty-five in a couple of weeks.”

“You look like you’ve had a tough time of it since you came here, Lieutenant. And, by your reckoning, then, it’s 1964, maybe 1967. Hmm?”

Goodman seemed a little defensive, and a little wary, but in a different way, as he said, “You telling me something different?”

“When I left home, sir,” Garrison informed him, “my calendar read September 1998. That’s a hair under fifty-four years, not twenty-three years ago. That’d put you looking at your seventy-ninth birthday this November.”

“I’m not seventy-nine! You one of them hopheads you read about or something?”

Alan Garrison answered by taking out his wallet. He handed Swan’s father his driver’s license. “Georgia driver’s license. My picture. Not very flattering. License expires in the year 2002. In the middle there on the left? That’s my birthday, October 19, 1968. Do I look like I haven’t been born yet?”

Goodman’s face, which hadn’t been rosy cheeked to begin with, turned ashen.

“We’ve got Eran’s people outside, trying to get in. We don’t have much time, sir. We’ve gotta get you out of here, and Swan’s magic is about spent out,” Garrison informed him.

“I am Eran’s brother, Erg’Ran. May I call you Pe’Ter? Or, do you prefer Goo’D’Man?”

“Can’t anybody in this darn place say my name right?” And Peter Goodman fell to his knees and wept. Swan knelt beside him and cradled his head against her breast.

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Framed