'Well met, brothers!" he cried. "Thank the Lord and Lady that you have rescued me from these prating clerics!"

He took two steps forward before giving the hounds a second command. "Stay."

He kept walking.

The six men stopped, four of them bunched and the other two- with the bows-hanging to either side as flankers.

'I pray you will let me join your brotherhood," Alain continued as he approached them, staff still held above his head, his pace measured and his voice clear. "I have longed to escape my life of servitude to the church."

'Come no closer!"

He could not tell which spoke, although at this distance their ragged garb and pinched faces were easily visible. One-no more than a lad by the look of his skinny legs and narrow hips-ran back to the village while the others kept weapons raised.

'Come no closer," repeated the leader among them, a dark-haired man wearing a torn tunic, filthy leggings, and bearing the scars of shackles on his wrists. He had warts on his nose. "Wait there, or we'll shoot you."

'Truly, you're right to trust no man. It's a hard world, as I've seen myself. It seems that those who have, hoard to themselves, and the rest of us are left to fight over the bones."

Some of the men nodded in agreement; the leader kicked the one nearest him. "Stop that, you dolt. We'll see what Father Benignus has to say. He is the master of life and death."

Said so flatly, in the tone of a man weary beyond measure who has seen such things that he no longer doubts the power of evil, the statement made Alain shiver. There was about these men a choking miasma that could not be seen or heard or smelled but only felt, and not only because they had blood on their hands from their most recent killing.

'Is he so?" Alain knew he had to stay calm in order to convince them that he was a fugitive eager to join their company. "I'm always happy to make the acquaintance of a man with power."

'Here he comes," said the leader. He scratched at his nose, and then his fingers found other work tugging at his straggly beard and twining the wispy hair between his fingers. Father Benignus rode a fine mare fitted out with well-made bridle and saddle but his clothing vvas no richer than that worn by his band of cutthroats except for the handsome leather gloves that concealed his hands and a gray cloak tied around his shoulders. His cleric's robe, cut away for riding, was stained with blood and other, unidentifiable substances, the long sleeves were frayed, and the hem was ragged. The boots on his feet had the scuffs and discoloration of ill use or, perhaps, leather buried and disinterred after too many days beneath the dirt. He wore a broad-brimmed hat that shaded his face although it wasn't sunny enough to warrant such a covering. A gauzy veil, like that worn by beekeepers, had been sewn to the curve of the brim, and its filmy drape made it impossible for Alain see his face.

He pulled up but did not dismount as the leader spoke to him in a voice too low for Alain to hear. This mysterious creature might have him struck down with a single word, yet Alain faced him without any sense of fear although certainly a sickly air clung to Father Benignus rather like a halo reversed that emanates with the stink of evil rather than goodness. He tossed the staff to the ground. Behind him, the hounds did not move, awaiting his command.

'Your face is familiar to me," said Father Benignus finally, addressing Alain. His voice was a soft, slurred tenor. "What is your name? Where are you from?"

'I am called Alain. I come from Osna village, a free town under the protection of the counts of Lavas."

'The hounds," said Benignus. The twitch of his shoulders suggested surprised recognition. As he raised his head to examine Rage and Sorrow, Alain caught a glimpse of a pale, mottled face, but as quickly the veil slipped back into place. "I have seen those hounds before in the company of a lad who was a prisoner of Biscop Antonia. He was a companion to the heretic frater who was called Brother Agius. Are you that boy?"

'I am that one."

Although two men had arrows trained on him, his hands were steady. If he died, he would cross to the Other Side where Adica was waiting for him there where the meadow flowers bloom. But his mantle of calm was beginning to burn away under the itch of curiosity.

'What are you, Father Benignus? How is it that our paths have crossed before?"

'You will not recognize me. I was cursed, used ill by those powerful enough to discard me when I was of no more use to them. Their indifference and greed scarred me. But I have not forgotten what they taught me. Thus you find me here." He gestured toward the dead village, the silent woodland, the fresh trench, and the men who, done with their scavenging, made ready to ride with their newfound gains. "I journey now in better and more honest company than I found myself with before among the most noble courtiers and holy church-folk, back when I believed that the Lord and Lady would protect me from evil. Bartholomew says you were a prisoner of these clerics. Is that true?"

Alain smiled. "If it were not true, would I say so now? You have me at your mercy."

The noise the other man made was difficult to interpret, especially since Alain could not see his expression.

'Bring him," said Father Benignus to Bartholomew. "But kill him, and the hounds, if he tries to escape."

THE wound ought to have killed him, but he still breathed. His chest rose and fell in a shallow, erratic rhythm. In that first awful moment she had actually been able to see shattered ribs and the dark fist of his heart pulsing, but already the jagged tear filmed over as the body knit itself together. The wound was so raw and so deep that she feared touching it would only break it open, but she cut strips from his tunic in any case to make a pad and lightly cover the gash. She washed around the wound with river water, but the cold shock did not revive him.

Finally, she risked stepping away to gather sticks and rushes from the brush that grew alongside the river. She hadn't got far when she heard the heavy tread of one of the griffins, and she dashed back to Sanglant just in time to find the female griffin stalking close, lifting a claw to rend his helpless body in two. She leaped between them, raising her sword.

'Mine!" she cried. "He is mine! Don't touch him!"

The griffin huffed in surprise and retreated. Two feathers shook loose from its wings as it backed away, and these she grabbed and tucked into her quiver. The fire she had first called hadn't entirely died away. Bits of burned grass spun in the air. A fine ash settled on her clothing and hair before the last of it was dissipated by the wind.

At last her hands stopped shaking enough that she could bind rushes and grass and twigs into little torches. After she laid a sixth torch beside her, she seated herself next to Sanglant. The griffins prowled at the edge of her vision.

When she concentrated, emptying her mind of all that distracted it-and that was quite a bit-she could believe that she saw the glamour of the spell woven into his flesh and blood and bones. His mother had bound a great working into his body to protect him from harm and to grant him unnatural powers of healing. Now, as in the past, he would suffer agony because of it, but he would also, probably, survive as he had survived a half dozen times before from fatal wounds taken in battle. In the realm of Jedu she had lived through death a dozen times, dealt at his hands. She had seen him struck down.

Yet this was not the reunion she had expected.

The sun set. The sky turned red-orange and darkened to a hazy purple before the first stars appeared with the waxing quarter moon already near the zenith. A few clouds concealed patches of the sky, but she could see most of the span of the heavens, the most beautiful sight in all of creation. Had it only been seven or eight days since she had left Verna, torn away by her kinfolk? Yet what she had seen of the landscape surrounding her tallied in no way with any place she had ever visited-and she had traveled more widely than most: Aosta, Kartiako, Aquila, Salia, Varre, and Wendar. According to her father's lore, broad grasslands lay east beyond the border counties, many months' ride into the wilderness. Sanglant could not possibly have traveled so far in seven or eight days.

She settled back with a hand resting lightly on his throat to track the beating of his heart and so that she might, now and again, brush her fingers over his beloved lips.

The brilliance of the night sky staggered her. The River of Souls streamed across the western quadrant of the sky, dense with light.

How could she have forgotten this stunning beauty? The sight of it never failed to quiet her soul.

Bright Somorhas hung low on the western horizon but sank quickly after the sun, leaving fiery Seirios as the first star that stayed visible as dusk deepened to night. She searched the heavens for clues. It was spring, certainly, with the Dragon rearing up in the east and the Child lying down to sleep in the west. Aturna stood in the Lion, close to zenith, the only other wandering star visible to her, but there were many of the heavens' most brilliant stars fixed up in the sky: the yellowish glare of the Guivre's Eye; the bright head of the elder Sister; the bluish Eye of the Dragon; Rijil, the Hunter's brightly-shod foot, and Vulneris, the red wound on his shoulder.

She brushed her hand over Sanglant's shoulder and brought her fingers to her lips, tasting the blood. He lay frighteningly silent, not even murmuring as he was wont to do in sleep. Blood oozed but not with that same horrible gush she had seen when she first reached him.

Her helplessness wore at her as a constant ache, but she possessed no healing magic. She carried no cache of herbs for a poultice. She was not strong enough to carry him and had no horse. In the morning, when she could see, she would attempt to build a sledge to drag him.

Where could she take him?

The stars continued on their appointed rounds as the night spun onward. Where was she? When was she?

The Sapphire and the Diamond skated low along the northern horizon, and in the south, although the Bow and Arrow were visible, the Huntress who wielded them was not. She was about as far north as she had been in Wendar and likely a little farther south than Heart's Rest. North and south were easy to calculate because of the altitude of the individual stars.

She sat with her mortally wounded husband in the midst of a vast wilderness, guarded by griffins, as the night wind played in her hair and whispered through the grass. The moon sank westward, followed by Aturna, the Red Mage. New constellations rose and with them the planets Jedu and Mok. The Angel of War gleamed balefully in the Serpent while the Empress of Bounty journeyed with the Unicorn.

Where had Mok stood, when last Liath walked on Earth? It hadn't been so long ago, after all, only seven or eight days, that she had last stared up at the glorious sky.

She searched into her city of memory, up through the seven gates that corresponded to the seven spheres, until she reached the crown of the hill where lay the observatory. Here, in nooks and crannies, she stored all her observations, marked with figures and images so she could recall each detail.

Mok's path was easy to find and to recall, a golden alcove in which a robust woman presided from a throne, surrounded by cornucopia, sheaves of wheat, fatted calves and, on the domed ceiling of the alcove, sigils representing each of the Houses of the Night. Seven or eight or ten days ago, in Verna, she had marked the constellation of the Dragon with a tiny shining sheaf of wheat to indicate Mok's progress.

Because Mok took about one year to travel through each House, that meant that the planet had in the intervening time journeyed through the Scales, the Serpent, and the Archer before reaching the Unicorn, spending about one year in each.

Four years.

Could she have been gone so long?

The heavens could not lie because, as the blessed Daisan had written, they had no liberty to govern themselves. Subject to the Lord and Lady's immutable laws, they did what they were ordered to do and nothing else.

Four years, give or take six months. Would her daughter recognize her? Did Blessing even remember that she had a mother?

A worse thought intruded, as rot insinuates itself beneath the clean surface of a house, weakening the foundations and posts: Had San-giant thought her dead, and remarried?

,' have been gone too long.

In a year and a half at most, Mok would travel through the Unicorn and the Healer and touch the far boundary of the Healer.

When Erekes walks backward. When Bright Somorhas, walking backward, reenters the Serpent. When Jedu and Aturna enter the House of the Dragon. When Mok, retracing her steps, poises on the cusp between the Healer and the Penitent. On this same day, when the Crown of Stars crowns the heavens.

On that day, in less than eighteen months, when the Crown of Stars crowned the heavens, the way would be open for Anne to weave a great spell to cast the Aoi land back out into the aether, to create a second cataclysm. Unless Liath intervened.

Stopping Anne came before any other consideration. Even her husband's life. Even her own happiness.

'I will not leave you again," she whispered, but Sanglant could not hear her.

At dawn, Sanglant stirred without opening his eyes or seeming aware of his surroundings. He was hot to the touch but not gray with impending death. As the promise of the sun brightened the eastern sky, limning the crags with its pale glow, the griffins sank down on the sunning stone. She knew they were awake because of the way their lively tails flicked up and down.

She rose to stretch out her limbs, but at the movement the larger griffin startled up, staring eastward past the river. The second followed her lead. Liath, too, turned.

She had only seen centaurs in her dreams, majestic creatures more wild than civilized but immensely powerful and full of magic. There were not many of them-not more than a dozen-but as they approached, she stared in amazement and only belatedly thought to free an arrow from the quiver and draw her bow.

After marking her position, they turned downriver and disappeared from view. A little later she heard the rumble of hooves and saw them clearly in the light of the new sun spreading gold across the grass. The griffins padded restlessly back and forth on the sunning stone as though eager to retreat but unwilling to desert her. How had she won their loyalty? She could not guess. Respectful of the drawn bow she held, the herd came to a halt out of range of arrow shot. They were all female; they wore no garments, only paint to decorate their torsos, and the shapely curve of their woman-bodies was impossible to miss. Two of the centaurs hauled a wagon between them, bar and tongue fashioned so that they might draw it without using their hands.

A silver-gray centaur trotted forward alone, bearing no weapon except a quiver of arrows slung across her back. It was a brave thing to do, considering the proximity of the griffins. She held no strung bow in her hands as she halted at the edge of the burned area. She had no way to defend herself if they sprang.

Now that she was closer, Liath realized that she was not gray as much as ancient, her coat faded because of her immense age as a crone's black hair turns to silver. Green-and-gold stripes half covered the horn-colored skin of her woman's body. Her eyes bore an inhuman luminosity. There was, too, something oddly familiar about her, a tugging sense of connection, as though they had met before. One of the griffins gave a shrill cry as an owl skimmed in over the river. The centaur lifted an arm to receive the bird on a forearm sheathed in leather.

Liath lowered her bow.

'Well met," she called in Wendish, not sure if the other one could understand her language, "if you are friend to us. I am called Lia-thano in the speech of humankind. I pray you, we are in grave need of your help if you are willing to give it."

The centaur approached with stately dignity across the burned out area. Ash puffed where she placed her hooves. Once she had to sidestep to avoid a hot spot, not yet burned out.

'You are Liathano," she said. "Known as Bright One."

'How do you know me?"

'I walk within the paths marked out by the burning stone, which is the gateway between the worlds. I cannot ascend into the spheres because I cannot leave Earth, but I have seen the traces of your passage. I have glimpsed you. I know your name, because it is the same as my own."

'I have an Arethousan name," protested Liath. "How can our names be the same?"

A spark flared in the city of memory, recalling to her mind memories she had seen in the heart of the burning stone when, for an instant, she could see time, past, present, and future as a single vast landscape stretching out on all sides.

A centaur woman parts the reeds at the shore of a shallow lake. Her coat has the dense shimmer of the night sky, and her black woman's hair falls past her waist. A coarse, pale mane, the only contrast to her black coat, runs down her spine, braided with beads and the bones of mice.

"Look! she cries. "See what we wrought!"

She looses an arrow.

'Li'at'dano!" Words stuck as though caught by thorns.

Years ago, a humble frater by name of Bernard had named his daughter after an ancient centaur shaman written of in the chronicles of the Arethousans, who had witnessed and survived the Bwr attack on the Dariyan Empire. Some called her undying. All called her powerful beyond human ken.

'Liathano,'" she repeated stupidly, in the softened consonants of the western tongue. It was too difficult to believe and yet it stood smack in front of her. "How can you still be alive?"

The centaur lifted her arm to release the owl, which flew away to find a resting place in the shrubs along the river's bank.

'I am not human, nor even half human, as you are. We are an other kind entirely, born out of the world before humankind walked here. That is why your people fear us, and hunt us, and war against us, all except the Kerayit tribe, whom we nurture as our daughters I am not like you, Bright One."

'No. You are not."

She was legend made flesh. It was impossible that any creature might live so long, generations upon generations, yet she knew in the core of her, the heart of fire that had once belonged to her mother that it was true.

'You made the cataclysm," Liath said.

'I do not possess the power of working and binding."

'You taught the seven who wove it."

'It is true that I encouraged those who devised and wove the great spell. None of us understood what we would unleash. I regret what I did."

'Do you regret it enough that you would be willing to stand aside and see your old enemies return to the world below? The land where the Ashioi dwell was torn from Earth. That you know. I have set foot in the exiled land. It is returning to the place it came from. And it should. It must. I came back to stop the Seven Sleepers. They wish to weave a second spell atop the first and cast the Ashioi back into the aether. If you intend to aid them, or hinder me, then we are enemies."

The old shaman indicated Sanglant, whose eyes had not opened. He showed no sign of consciousness; he wasn't aware the centaurs had arrived or that this conversation was taking place. "Is it not rash to provoke me when I have the means to save this man? You may be throwing away his life."

Because he lay so still, it was easy to admire the handsome lines of his face and the clean lines of his limbs. He had not lost any of his strength or beauty. He did not look as though four years had passed although perhaps there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the product of worry and strain. Those hands had stroked her once; those lips had kissed her in a most satisfactory manner, and would again, she prayed.

He was only one man. Lives would be lost no matter what happened, but a second cataclysm would affect unimaginable numbers, would wipe out entire villages and towns and, as she had seen, perhaps whole civilizations. In the heart of the burning stone she had witnessed the cataclysm as it had ripped the heart out of uncannily beautiful cities built by creatures not of humankind yet somehow like them in their clever industriousness: the goblins and the merfolk. They existed as legends, stories told about beasts not as dumb as cattle yet animals still. But maybe the stories weren't true; maybe humankind had forgotten the truth or hidden it so as to hide the shame of what it had done all unwittingly.

'I love him, but his is only one life. I would sacrifice my own life to save his, but I will not sacrifice the world. I will save as much as I can and see justice done. On this, I am determined."

A sliver of a smile cracked that aged face. It was not an expression of amusement, yet neither did it mock. "You are an arrow loosed, Bright One. I wonder if you can be turned aside." She ducked her head as a sign of respect, although not of submission. At last she closed the gap between them, and Liath had consciously to stop herself from taking a step back because of the weird aura of her presence, her very appearance, and because like any horse she loomed larger than one expected. She was big, and could crush a human skull with one good kick.

But she stretched out her hand and offered Liath an arrow from the quiver slung over her own back.

'We are not enemies, Bright One. This arrow I will give you, in addition to my aid in bringing this human to safety. There is a child held for safekeeping in my camp whom he has sired."

'My daughter?" The bow slipped from slack hands to fall to the ground, the arrow click clacking down on top of it. "Blessing? How came she to you?" All the questions she had kept fettered ever since she had first seen Sanglant broke free. "What was Sanglant doing here, hunting griffins? How did he get here? Is he alone? Exiled? How far are we from Wendar? How fares my daughter? Was she with her father all along? How came she into your care? What grievance had that man who attacked Sanglant? How can we return to the west?"

Li'at'dano chuckled. "You are still young, I see. You spill over like the floodwaters." She bent, picked up bow and both arrows, and gave them to Liath. "Let us return to the encampment. Once there I shall answer your questions."

THE odd thing was that the healer who attended him was dressed as a woman but resembled-and smelled like-a man. He was giddy with pain, and therefore, he supposed, unable to make sense of the world properly. The sky had gone a peculiar shade of dirty white that did not resemble clouds, and it had an unfortunate tendency to sag down and billow up. The effect made bile rise into his throat, and the nasty taste of it only intensified the way pain splintered into a thousand pieces and drove deeper into flesh and bone.

Sometimes the mercy of death was preferable to living.

Yet.

Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.