Iome started. From here in the bailey, she could not see over the castle walls. A watchman on the gate tower cried, "Your Highness, it's coming from the south--a great shadow above the clouds."

Even as he spoke, thunder cracked over the Dunnwood. Lightning strobed. Nearby, Iome's horse jumped, pulling at its tethers.

Sir Donnor grabbed the reins to Iome's mare, and mounted his horse, as did Iome's Days. "Your Highness," Sir Donnor shouted, "we must away!"

"Hide!" she ordered him, astonished that he wanted to flee--for the Earth King had told them to hide.

"But we've fast mounts," Sir Donnor urged, "faster than anything that flies."

Perhaps Sir Donnor is right, she thought. A swift force horse might outrun such a creature--Ah, who am I fooling? I would never risk it.

"Hide!" Gaborn's warning struck her again.

Iome ran and leapt on her mare. Sir Donnor turned his mount and sped out the city gates, over the drawbridge and away from Castle Sylvarresta, never looking back. He'd been certain that she would follow. Iome's Days raced hot on his heel, but after years of keeping her eyes on royalty, the matronly woman spared a glance backward by habit, realized that Iome was not following.

The Days' face was stricken, pale with fear.

But Iome could not leave the clubfooted boy.

She wheeled her mare and raced up Market Street, the beast's hooves clattering over the cobblestones, its breath coming hot from its mouth. Her Days followed a hundred yards behind As Iome's charger hit the Black Corner, turned and sped under the portcullis of the King's Gate, she glanced back down over the valley. She could see the fields before Castle Sylvarresta from up here: the river Wye twisted like a silver thread among the green fields on the east of the castle, the autumn golds and reds of the Dunnwood rose above the fire-blackened fields to the south.

And there on the blackened fields, Sir Donnor spun his mount, galloping back toward the castle, having realized that Iome was not following.

To Iome's dismay, Myrrima was racing down from the hills, too. She pa.s.sed Sir Donnor.

Even as Iome watched, a great sphere hurtled from the clouds. Blackness suddenly filled the sky above, darker than any night. A tornado swirled above the sphere, a tornado of light and heat and fire all whirling down into the heart of blackness.

The Darkling Glory drew the light and heat from the sky like some consummate flameweaver, channeling the power to himself. Within the heart of the sphere, swirling air and veils of night concealed the Darkling Glory.

Yet it plunged toward those who raced for the castle, swept toward Sir Donnor like a hawk for a dove.

Myrrima galloped across the downs, gouging her heels into the flanks of her charger, hoping for greater speed. She clutched the bag of herbs Binnesman had given her. Myrrima had never owned a horse, had learned to ride only because the boys in Bannisferre had sometimes insisted that she ride with them.

Yet now she galloped for the castle, drove mercilessly as the Darkling Glory came on, the wind screaming at her back. Sir Donnor had been racing toward her, fleeing the castle. Now he wheeled his mount and shouted wordlessly, trying to pace her.

With the Darkling Glory came a night darker than any winter's eve.

Myrrima's horse plunged through thickening gloom. She glanced up at the city, saw a flash of movement. Iome's horse was racing across the barren green at the crown of the hill, toward the King's Keep. Iome's traveling cloak flapped like a banner in the wind.

It seemed to Myrrima that the Darkling Glory slowed abruptly, that it hovered just at her heel, silently.

She hoped that she'd be able to outpace the beast, for with each second, the castle drew nearer, with its tall battlements and stone towers and the promise of safety.

Her charger rounded a bend. Myrrima clung tight, tried to keep from falling. She glanced back. Sir Donnor galloped behind, struggling to catch up. The knight half-turned to the side, drew his great horseman's axe. He looked as if he would wheel and do battle.

A ball of wind hurtled from the darkness. Myrrima saw it skim across the blackened field, picking up ash from last week's fire, blurring like a hand to cut the legs from beneath Sir Donnor's charger.

Sir Donnor shrieked as his mount went down, and he pitched forward to meet the ground.

Myrrima screamed for her horse to run. She grabbed her bow and quiver from off her pack.

Sir Donnor shouted, but his cry was drowned out in the rising roar of the wind that whipped all about. Myrrima glanced back. Sir Donnor was lost to the darkness.

Myrrima peered forward. She had almost reached the drawbridge. She saw it through the darkening gloom. "Jump!" she shouted to her charger, vainly hoping that somehow the beast would leap faster than it ran.

She heard a lightning bolt snap, felt her horse jerk and quiver. Its impetus suddenly redoubled as a lightning bolt hurled it forward. The horse flipped in the air head over hooves, and then she too was tumbling.

Iome never spotted the clubfooted boy. She timed her leap for the moment that her mount slowed, and ran into the keep.

"Boy?" Iome shouted. "Are you herein'

"Milord?" he called from the top of the stairs.

Outside, thunder pealed and rattled the windows. Wind screamed over the stones of the keep like something in pin.

"Down here!" she shouted. "The Darkling Glory!"

He came running at once, tripped and rolled down the carpeted stairs above. In seconds he stood before her, looking ridiculous in the King's finest brocaded jacket, a gorgeous thing made of cloth-of-gold with cardinal stripes. The boy had not been able to resist trying it on.

Thunder pealed, and all light seemed to flee as night descended on the castle. Wind howled through the King's Keep and hail battered the windows. Iome wheeled toward the door of the keep, just as lightning split the sky outside. Her horse screamed in pain and she heard a wet thud as its carca.s.s dropped. The wind lifted the beast, rotated it slowly in the air about ten feet off the ground, like a cat holding a mouse in fascination.

The clubfooted boy screamed in terror. Iome glanced about in dismay. Her Days had not followed her into the keep, and Iome wondered where the woman might have gone. Never before had a Days deserted her, no matter how great the danger.

She raced for the door outside, but the wind grabbed the huge oaken door, slammed it closed in her face.

"Hide!" Gaborn's Voice rang through her. "For the sake of our love, hide."

"This way!" Iome called to the boy, grabbed his hand. A suffocating darkness enveloped the castle. It was not the darkness one sees on a star-filled night, or even on a night of storms when clouds blanket heaven. It was a complete absence of light, the darkness of the deepest cavern.

Yet Iome knew the keep, knew all its twists and turns. She felt her way along the hall, heading for the b.u.t.tery, thinking to hide in a deep corner of some vegetable bin.

But she recalled Binnesman's chamber in the cellars. She recalled the sense of power she'd felt in that room. Down in the depths of the castle, surrounded by earth.

She turned abruptly, raced for the lower pa.s.sage that had seldom been used, threw open the door. The flagstones leading down were rough and uneven. The fourth one from the landing twisted loosely underfoot. She'd have to be careful on her way down. The cellar had never been meant for habitation. She led the boy as swiftly as she could.

She saw light ahead.

Iome reached the door at the top of the stairs, closed it behind her, bolted it. Outside, wind screamed. Thunder pealed and hail battered the stone walls.

Upstairs, the windows of the keep all shattered as if from a great blow. Iome winced. The stained gla.s.s of the oriels in the King's Chamber had been in place for a thousand years. The gla.s.s was a treasure that could not be replaced.

With the door sealed, Iome could see the faintest glow from a fire down below. The air smelled sickly sweet from lemon verbena that simmered on Binnesman's hearth. Iome had not seen the wizard in half an hour. The last she'd been aware, he'd taken off toward the inns in town, gone to help the sick, but he might have come back here. He might have taken one of the side roads back up to the keep.

Binnesman had planned to fight this monster. She dared hope to find him in his room.

She raced down to the cellar, found the pot of verbena still brewing, a few coals glowing in the hearth. The boy raced over to the fire.

Iome threw the door closed, looked for a way to bolt it. Binnesman's door did not even have a latch.

She searched Binnesman's room for something to hold the door closed. There were. various large stones among the Seer's Stones, too large for her to roll by herself.

"Hide!" Gaborn shouted in her mind. "It comes for you!"

Binnesman did not even have a bed to hide under--only the pile of dirt in the corner.

Myrrima woke, floating facedown in the moat. She tasted water, cold water mixed with algae.

Pain throbbed in every muscle. Vaguely she remembered falling from her horse, and she believed that she must have shattered bones on impact, then rolled into the water. Darkness hovered over her.

Her horse was screaming and thrashing in the moat nearby. The waves of its struggle made her bob on the surface like a piece of cork bark.

I'm dying, she thought muzzily.

She floated in deep water as cold as winter ice, and just as numbing. She felt so weak.

She could not move. She struggled vainly, tried to lift a hand and swim to the sh.o.r.e, to the castle wall, anywhere. But she could not see a thing in such total darkness.

Above her, she felt a wind, the wash of giant wings as something hovered overhead.

It did not matter where she went, so long as she swam.

But she struggled, and as she struggled, she found herself sinking.

It does not matter, she thought. It does not matter if I die today, if I join the ghosts of the Dunnwood.

By dying, Myrrima would lose her endowments. Her sisters would be glad to get back their glamour. Her mother would regain her wit. They would work and sc.r.a.pe in their little house outside Bannisferre, and they might be happy. It did not matter if Myrrima died.

She struggled, and found herself falling from regions of darkness, into the perfect obscurity of the moat.

A great sturgeon swam beside her, skimmed her hand and whipped away through the water. She felt the wash of its wake as it departed, but it returned again a moment later. The big fish swam around her lazily, creating an intricate pattern, like a dance.

"h.e.l.lo," Myrrima mouthed. "I'm dying."

Myrrima closed her eyes and lay for along time, letting the water numb her. The frigid water soothed her muscles, drew the pain even from her bones.

It's lovely here, she thought. Ah, if I could only stay for tea.

She found herself dozing for a moment, and woke with a start.

Some light had returned, enough to see by. She lay in the muck at the bottom of the moat.

A sturgeon floated through the water, drew near, and then held steady, one huge eye the color of beaten silver staring at her. The great sturgeon, longer than she, merely patted its bony lips, its feelers drooping like a moustache, opening and closing its mouth minutely with each opening and closing of its gills.

She felt amazed to find herself alive. Her mind was clearing, and now her lungs ached for air. Two more great sturgeons whipped past her in a frenzy, swirling in dance.

She remembered the runes they'd drawn.

Protection, healing. Over and over for days. Protection, healing. The water wizards were powerful.

With the recognition that she would live, Myrrima suddenly felt concern for others. She looked up from the bottom of the moat. The surface was thirty feet up. Darkness still covered half the sky.

She pushed her toes into the muck, feeling freshwater mussels beneath her feet, and swam upward, bursting from the surface.

She began to cough, clearing water from her lungs.

Lying weightless in the water had seemed easy. Now she found that swimming in her clothes was hard. She churned through icy water, slogged toward sh.o.r.e so that she could climb up through the cattails along the moat's bank.

The water weighted down her riding clothes so that she felt as if she were swimming in chain mail. She saw her bow and quiver floating nearby. Half of her arrows had spilled from the quiver.

Grabbing the weapons, she swam to the cattails and climbed up, sank wearily to the gra.s.s. The frigid water left her numb, trembling from cold. Hail began to pelt her.

There on the green gra.s.s, she looked up into the gloom. Darkness reigned all around, but mostly it centered uphill over the King's Keep.

Myrrima crawled to her knees. Her horse was sloshing up out of the moat. She felt astonished to see it alive, for she was sure that a lightning bolt had pierced it. Yet she'd known a man in Bannisferre who had been struck by lightning on three different occasions and only had a couple of burn scars and a numb face to show for it. Either the horse had been lucky or the water wizard's spells had healed it.

Farther afield, Sir Donnor and his mount lay dead. Myrrima did not need to check them to know. Sir Donnor was hewn in more than one piece, and his mount lay so twisted and broken that it might never have been a horse.

Myrrima struggled to stand, strung her bow and nocked an arrow.

Her mount neighed in fear, managed to churn a path up the bank, then it raced away from the castle, heading back across the valley toward the hills where Jureem hid. In the gloom, Myrrima turned and ran over the drawbridge, uphill, into Castle Sylvarresta.

The clubfooted boy gazed at the wizard's room, at the bundles of herbs tied in the rafters, at the baskets made of coiled rope that held dry herbs above the mantel. Iome recalled how Binnesman had gone in search of herbs this morning, glanced about desperately for something the wizard might have used to fight with. She hoped that Binnesman might have left his staff, but it was nowhere to be seen.

She saw a bag sitting on a low stool, ran to it. It was the bag Binnesman had been hauling herbs in this morning. She turned it inside out. Dozens of goldenbay leaves, bits of root and bark, and flower pets fell out--the odds-and-ends of his craft.

Iome scooped them up, held them protectively. She cringed, listening. Her heart thudded in her ears. The clubfooted boy moaned in terror, gasping for breath. Wind whirled about the castle, making the fire sputter in the hearth.

Upstairs in my room are opals, Iome thought, recalling the light that had blazed from them under Binnesman's hand. They were of low quality compared to the ones that she'd given the wizard, but at the moment, Iome wanted anything to protect her.

Above her she heard footsteps, a heavy foot landing on the floorboards. Her heart hammered.

Binnesman? she wondered. Could Binnesman be in the keep? Or is it the Darkling Glory?

Whoever it was, he was on the first floor.

It couldn't be the Glory, Iome told herself. Such a creature would fly up to the roof. It would land there like a graak and sit shifting its wings. It wouldn't land by the front door, enter like a common cleaning wench.

"It comes for you," Gaborn's warning echoed in her mind.

The beast stalked across the floor. She heard claws scratching the wooden planks as it reached the door above. She heard it sniff, testing for a scent.

Then the sound of splintering wood filled the air as the door at the top of the stairs exploded inward.

Iron hinges and bolts clanked as they rolled down the rough flagstone steps. Wooden planks clattered.

The Darkling Glory drew near, kicking the remains of the door aside, sniffing as it came.

Outside, the wind had been shrieking, storming.