"He'll be in, won't he?"

Chris nodded. "Still doing it up."

"Then why's it so quiet-Jesus!"

They stopped simultaneously in front of the shed. Chris stared, bewildered. "What-a-mess!"

"What hit it, a bomb? Fletch! Hey, Fletcher, you there?" Holly peered forward. The double door had been smashed off its hinges and lay discarded in the mud. The garage-sized interior had contained a workbench and a camp-bed; they lay shattered under the broken window. There was no sign of the boy.

"You reckon someone did the place over while he was out?"

"No chance, kid. He had no reason to go out, he was too busy. 'Sides, looks like a fight to me."

Holly picked her way in, carefully avoiding the splintered gla.s.s. "If he was here, where is he now? Jesus, what a stink!"

"Hmm, see what you mean: like rotting seaweed. Hey-up."

"What?"

She pointed. A triangular piece of denim was hanging from a nail in the door-frame. "He was here, OK."

They looked at each other, then back at the shambles.

"Chris, d'you think...?"

"I don't know. But, Christ, I'm afraid so."

"Same ones as got you."

"The ones out of the sea. Don't ask me how, but that's it. As for why n.o.body noticed, well, n.o.body noticed Orione either. That settles it. We go to the Hills. Now."

He needs help, there isn't anyplace else he'll get it. Holly nodded reluctantly. "The cops-"

"Would lock us up as loonies. Now let's move it, before somebody happens along and catches us here."

"Right!"

Holly was so engrossed in thinking what she would say to Elathan that the journey to the Hills pa.s.sed in a dream. The marshes exuding white mist, bone-chillingly cold; the scarlet and sulphur clouds hiding the sun; the raven-guard that met them, and Silver guiding them over the mud: she barely noticed it. If the morkani had got Fletcher...

There's nothing we can do, she thought miserably.

Once in Brancaer, the elukoi girl led them through dim gra.s.sy ways to Elathan's tower. Up the outer flight of steps-she rapped lightly on the window as she pa.s.sed it; then stood aside to let them pa.s.s through the door first.

Holly, turning her head to look at the yellow candle-lit windows of Brancaer, cannoned into Chris who'd stopped dead.

"What the-?" She saw past Chris into the room. There were two people sitting by the fire. One was Elathan, his face unreadable. The other; bruised, sulky and subdued- "Fletcher?"14 The Hills in Darkness Holly realised it at once: there had been no attack by the sea-people. But Fletcher was obviously not in the Hills by his own choice.

That only leaves one person, Holly thought, and that's Elathan. Suppose he's going to keep us here? Suppose he's decided he doesn't want anybody knowing about the Hills -ever?

She distrusted the darkness outside the tower window; the candle shadows in the room; the inhuman man and his changeling son. A cold wind lifted the hair on her neck. The Hills had been frightening enough when she'd thought the elukoi were friendly...

"I am sorry to bring you here by a trick, but needs must; and there was no other way. Holly, Christine; will you hear me?"

Chris was leaning up against the window-frame, elaborately unconcerned. "So talk," she said.

Elathan stood and began pacing restlessly. "Midwinter comes on us apace. We must fight or go down to the morkani.

One great advantage we have-iron. We may forge, work metal; while the sea-folk make do with flint. We overmatch them there."

He paused, then said, "Magic will turn the battle. I will not be falsely modest, I am Master Sorcerer; but I am one alone.

The last master of the fifty-seven branches of magic in the Hollow Hills. The morkani have three masters that I know of: Fiorin, Dalziel, and Tanaquil Seahawk, the Hand of Domnu. It may be there are more. Albeit solely those three, matters will not go well with us."

"That's tough," Chris said, as he seemed to want a response. "All the same, what's it got to do with us?"

He faced them.

"You are human: destroy magic wherever you be. So: be with us at midwinter! Then there is no magic; neither Hills nor Sea; and so we may meet sword to sword and prove who is the better. What say you?"

Fletcher interrupted before they could speak. "It is not your quarrel. Also, it is not necessary. The Harper speaks against it.

The Lady Eilunieth will turn no hand to war. Let the Seahawk's people lay siege to the Hills, and starve at our gate."

"We have not the power to keep that gate against them." Elathan dismissed it. "Now: Christine?"

"I'm thinking-I can't tell you straight off. Us? Are we the last chance?"

"Yes."

She shrugged. "I guess that's us in, then. OK, Holly?"

"No."

"You what?"

It took a moment for it to sink in, she was so used to Holly following her lead.

"No it isn't OK. I'm having nothing to do with this at all. Not because I'm afraid-I am, but that's not why."

Holly, seeing Chris's face, thought, I'm letting her down badly, we always do things together; and I don't even know if I can explain.

She said to Elathan, "You talk about fighting as if it didn't matter, as if it was just fist-fights like me and her get into at school. It isn't. People are going to get killed-you know, dead, forever. And maybe it wasn't their idea to get mixed up in it in the first place. Go someplace else, start again. Nothing's worth dying for. I've seen it-I know."

Chris grabbed her arm, spiteful, hurting. "Listen, you idiot, we've got to do this to make up-"

"I'm not going to!" She saw Elathan was not very con-cerned. So. One of us is enough.

"I will have Hawkhunter take you from the Hills, and you wait."

Fletcher pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'll take her myself."

"You will not leave."

The boy shepherded her towards the door, talking all the way. "I agree with Holly-there has to be another way out.

Until you find it, I'm going back where I belong."

Elathan swallowed, forcing back anger. "You are my son but you be young as yet. I know the best for you; in time you'll see it also."

"You used me-I said at midsummer I'd have nothing to do with this, and I say so now. I know my own mind."

"Son-"

"I'm not your son!"

In the silence Holly heard the branches rasping together outside the window. Nothing else. He's done what I do, she thought, said too much, said what he really means.

"I have brought you up and been as a father to you and this is what you say to me?"

Fletcher hustled her outside and down the stairs. It was raw cold. Dark buildings were fringed with stars, trees loomed.

All the constellations were askew.

Holly realised she had lost Brancaer. But Fletcher... she thought; and heard in her mind Elathan's final words, half-obliterated by the slamming door "...The Hills' blessing on you, boy."

"Hey-where're you going?"

"Shortest way." Fletcher led her away from the gate, while her head cleared from the dizziness of pa.s.sing through it, and on over the cold white marsh. She dared not lift her eyes from the treacherous ground. When they reached dry land it proved to be the little-used coast road between Sur-combe and Combe Marish.

She thought, That's a better way out of-and into-the Hills, wonder why we didn't use it before. Oh...The road lay between two spa.r.s.ely-hedged banks. Over the farthest she saw the gra.s.s give way to shingle, and beyond that a black glimmer of sea. The moon had risen three-quarters full; its light made a greenish patch on the waters. Sea and horizon and sky were one blackness, the world seemed smaller than in the light of day.

"We got nothing to worry about; if we're nothing to do with the elukoi then the same goes for the morkani-so there's nothing to prevent us taking the short way home."

Holly nodded uncertainly. "Yeah. It's only half-nine. We might get a bus if we're lucky. Let's walk and see if we can find a bus-stop."

"Good idea."

They set off towards the town. Two cars went past, leaving a vacuum of silence that the sea filled. Holly wasn't quite sure where they were on the marsh road so she didn't know how far it was to the next bus-stop. Hallows Hill and the slopes beyond it jutted into the night like the backs of fabulous begemmed beasts. A line of fire was reflected in the sea-the neon glare of the pier.

A touch on her shoulder. She saw Fletcher gesture silence, then stop. Listening brought her nothing but sea-sounds and rustles in the hedges.

"What-?"

"Something-or somebody. I can smell sorcery. Surely Elathan wouldn't put a sending on us, not with you here..."

The sea-swept marsh was lonely, the road forsaken, and the town lights a million miles away. Holly shivered. A voice spoke out of the darkness ahead, and with fear she realised mat it was speaking in the liquid tongue of the elukoi, but it was not a voice she knew.

Fletcher peered into the darkness. He could see only a vague silhouette of something on the bank, something man-like.

"Where are your hounds now, wizard's boy, to set on the people of the sea?"

His first thought was a regret that he no longer had his bow, his second was amazement that the sea-people should be so strong in magic as to come out of the water already.

"Who are you?"

"Fiorin of the House of the Hawk."

"What d'you want?" One of the masters of sorcery, Fletcher thought. Is he armed? How long can he stay out of the water?

"Not so hasty. I had not thought to meet with you here, though I hoped greatly. You can be of use to me, wizard's boy."

"I'm no wizard's brat, or anything to do with the Hills! Leave us be, Master Fiorin. We're human, and we don't mix in your business. There's nothing we could do for you."

He was conscious of the girl beside him shaking his arm.

"Who is it? What does he want?"

He realised Holly would not have understood a word of their conversation. He tried to make his voice rea.s.suring. "It's one of the morkani. Just stay still for the moment, I'll handle it."

The cold voice spoke again. "Who is that with you, boy? It looks human."

"Nothing to do with you," the boy snapped. "Say what you came to say and let us go on."

"I am not stopping you. So you have left the Hills, and a human is with you-one of the ones I have been watching, if I do not mistake her. Where is the other?"

"No business of yours."

"I think she went into the Hills. I do not know why, I admit. Is your Elathan enlisting human aid against us? No. He knows well enough what happens to mortals in that kind of war. Boy, you do not go from here until you tell me why the elukoi have taken up with humans."

"Run for it," Fletcher said in English, then charged forward. His shoulder hit stone-cold skin; there was a crash. The road fled under their feet. There were syllables shouted into the wind behind them, but they had no effect. When they could run no further they stopped, looking back nervously.

No one followed them.

Fletcher chuckled quietly. "There's one trouble with magic, Holly-girl. You get to depend on it. You forget there are other ways of doing things. If he'd had a blade it might've been very nasty. He wasn't expecting us. He thought magic would be enough. It would've been if you hadn't been there."

"Who was he-what was he?"

"Fiorin of the morkani. One of the masters of sorcery. We're gonna be all right. We don't need the elukoi. You'll see."

"Tell me what he was saying." She shivered. "I'm glad I couldn't see him too clearly."

"I'm glad he didn't bring anyone else with him-and that gulls don't see too well in the dark."

Holly was just getting into bed when the phone rang. When her mother called her she grabbed her dressing-gown and clattered downstairs. She wanted it to be Chris; most of all she wanted it to be Chris saying she'd changed her mind.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"You b.l.o.o.d.y idiot, what d'you think you were doing tonight?"