"I like storms, as a rule," said Karan.

"Well, you'll be a happy woman by breakfast time, if the roof stays on. This is the season of storms."

They hurried up the steps. The door banged behind them and was bolted swiftly: top, middle and bottom. "We had three in a month last year. The third nearly washed us away, though we are constructed so strong and so high."

The storm built up slowly over the evening and the night. They seemed very far from the center of the world and, as waves of wind and driven rain beat at the shutters, very alone. The night grew cool, for all that it was summer. The landlord promised hot soup and spiced ale.

"I do hope Shand is all right," she said as they took a table by the empty fireplace.

"I wouldn't want to be out in any kind of boat in this," said Llian, "much less those cockleshell craft that came in yesterday."

The ale came first, seething from a hot poker, and in Llian's bowl the little muslin bag of spices had burst. He fished it out with a fork. Small pieces of rind and spice husks floated on the surface of the ale. A wave burst over the promenade with a roar that flung spray against the shutters.

Karan skimmed the husks off with her knife. Llian sipped the ale, his eyes meeting hers across the top of the bowl. She saw the old Llian there, her best friend in the world, for the first time in ages.

"Let's go home," she whispered, and suddenly felt terrified that he would reject her.

"Yes, let's," he said. "On the very next boat!"

"I've got to go to the Foshorn on the way, to look at the Rainbow Bridge that once was, and say farewell to Selial. We'll go home after that. Where do you want to go?"

"Not Thurkad!" Llian said vehemently.

She shuddered. "No, Yggur will be there by now. We are between Shazmak and Thurkad," she said, meaning Gothryme. "Surely that is where it will happen. I must go home, to Gothryme. Will you come with me? You once promised that you would." She looked anxious.

"How long ago that seems," said Llian, thinking of that winter night when they'd camped in the hills near Name, before the world fell to pieces. "I was another person entirely. I told you a tale."

"The tale of Jenulka and Hengist. How I loved that story-and I loved you for the way you told it." She took his strong hand, enclosing it in her fingers. "You were so gentle, so tender. That was the night I first knew."

The soup came. It was thin, spicy and liberal with chunks of fish, octopus and mussels, flavored by a pungent yellow herb.

"Of course I'll come to Gothryme," said Llian. "I'm looking forward to it very much."

"It won't be what you expect," she said, suddenly fretting. "It is a poor place and maybe the war has ... There will be hard work and little else."

"Do you think I'm a rich man?" said Llian, laughing. He tipped the contents of his wallet on the table in between the plates of soup. "This is all I own in the world." He counted the silver coins with his finger. "Twenty-seven tars and a few coppers. Scarcely enough to get us to Gothryme, I'm afraid. How it has gone."

Karan was sobered. "I've nothing; not a grint. What I owe Shand already I can scarcely bear to think about. I will arrive home a bankrupt."

"There are some things I can sell," Llian admitted. "A few bits I picked up in Katazza."

"I wish I'd done the same. The only weight in my pockets is debt."

When the soup was gone they mopped the bowls with yellow bread, lingered over their ale bowls then went upstairs. The wind was still rising and the rain teemed down.

Outside her room she paused, gave him a sudden brief hug, said, "I have to pack," and banged her door in his face.

Llian scratched his head. Karan was moody, doubtless fretting about Shand out in the storm. What was the point in packing until they had a ship? But he was used to her humors by now and went slowly down the hall to his own room. He packed his bag, the work of a minute only, since he simply stuffed in everything lying on the floor, threw off his clothes, blew the lamp out and slipped into bed. The wind was singing in the eaves. The inn was silent save for the wind and the rain.

Used to going to bed after midnight, Llian could not sleep. He lay in the dark, listening to the storm sounds. The roof creaked under the wind. The rain was furious; beyond his experience. It came pouring down the chimney, pooled in the empty fireplace and flooded a filthy slurry of ash and soot out onto the floorboards.

The wind grew to a shattering scream. Something crashed against the shutters outside his window. A louder crash followed it. Llian carried his lantern across. One pane was cracked where something-a wind-hurled branch, he supposed-had broken through the shutter. He went back to bed.

His thoughts kept coming back to Rulke and Karan. Why did Rulke want her? Then he drifted into a kind of waking dream, one where he was back in the Nightland and Rulke was speaking to him, controlling him and he was bowing and smiling and saying, "Yes, perfect master."

This dream-somehow blissful, somehow menacing-was shattered by a violent noise and a thump in the chest. He woke in a daze to find himself lying on the floor in a puddle of water. The wind was louder yet, and his first thought was that the roof had blown off, then the lamp glowed beside the bed and he saw Karan's bare form outlined against the lamp. The lamp flared bright.

"What happened?" he asked with a shaky smile. His head was aching.

"You were dreaming!" she shouted, "and I didn't much like your dream."

He had no idea what she was talking about, even wondered if she had gone mad in the middle of the night. His mind did not seem to be working properly. Why was she staring at him in that way: furiously intense, suspicious, trembling? She had caught the last part of his dream, but Llian had forgotten it already and could not understand the cold horror that she felt. He did not know that his words were the very ones that the Ghashad had used after Rulke had wakened them through Karan's link. Was Rulke trying to reach them through Llian? But there was no answer, certainly not in his bewildered eyes.

"Stay here, stay awake," she said abruptly. Throwing a blanket about her shoulders, she ran out. Llian crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up, staring vacantly at the ceiling. It was not cold, but he felt cold and his head throbbed.

Soon Karan came back with her pack over one shoulder and her boots in the other hand. She put them down inside the door, securing it carefully. Llian was now shivering and sweating.

"I need a drink," he said hoarsely. Pouring water into a cracked mug she held it to his lips. He gulped down half the glass and fell back with a groan. Karan dipped the corner of the blanket in the water and wiped his brow.

"That's better," he said, staring at her bare shoulder. It was pale and soft and beautifully rounded. "Thank you for coming," he said softly, reaching up and touching her throat "Please stay."

His touch sent a delicious shiver down her back. Karan shook the blanket from her other shoulder. "Of course I'll stay," she replied. "I should have known better than to take my eyes off you. Move over."

As she slid between the sheets the whole world went wild. A wind like a solid wall shook the inn to its foundations. The broken pane fell inwards, followed by a pressurized squirt of rain through the shutters.

Karan swore. "I don't like the sound-"

"I thought you liked storms!" he snapped, rolling off the bed and frantically gathering up his soaked papers. Water was dripping off the ceiling. The timbers screamed above their heads. Again water fountained through the window.

"Llian!" she shouted.

He continued his work. Knowing how precious the documents were, she ran to help him. The wailing in the roof grew louder.

"Llian!" she roared in his ear. "I think the roof's going to go. Quick, under the bed."

It was a huge, solid affair, well off the floor. They scrambled underneath. Karan reached back up, dragged the quilt off and wrapped it around them, for neither had anything on. She fastened her pack to the leg of the bed. Llian packed his journal and papers away in his capacious wallet, folded the top over and tied the strings tight, then looped it round his waist.

It was as well that he had, for a wild gust burst the window in, spraying glass and splinters across the room and saturating everything that it did not blow away. A shard of glass stabbed Llian in the foot. The lantern flickered wildly, chasing deformed shadows around the room.

He pulled out the splinter, then took Karan into his arms. They clung to each other as the wind roared higher and louder, then with an ear-piercing shriek part of the roof tore off. The lath and plaster ceiling exploded and disappeared upwards. They both screamed. The bedcovers and mattress were sucked off the bed to disappear through the hole in the ceiling, followed by every other light thing in the room. Llian could feel his hair being drawn up, and the quilt too. Suddenly he and Karan lifted together, cracking their heads on the slats of the bed. The bed moved, then the lamp was blown over, smashed and went out.

They huddled under the bare bed while a deluge poured down on them, rain such as neither had experienced in their lives. It was miserably uncomfortable sitting in the water, for the rain was coming down faster than it could escape under the door. Every so often a few roof slates would slide in to smash on the bed frame.

Later, when the wind had died down, Llian forced the door open and wedged it, allowing a flood out along the hall and down the staircase. He went back to his perch under the bed, where Karan and he clung to each other for the remainder of the night.

By the morning the worst of the typhoon was over though it was still raining heavily. Llian's clothes had been sucked out of his pack, but Karan's had survived. Her ceiling was intact, though sagging badly.

Wearing a pair of her baggy trousers he went downstairs. The innkeeper was already cleaning up, moving food and furniture into the section of the inn that still had a roof.

"Well, we've survived another one," he said cheerfully, putting down a chair and beginning to crack eggs two at a time with his three-fingered hand. "What can we get you for breakfast?"

Llian was amazed at his good cheer. "The place is in ruins," he said.

"Oh, this happens! Nothing we can do about it. We'll have a new roof on in a week. The stove is going, there's ham and eggs and onions-and plenty of bread left over from yesterday. Sing out your order."

As he ate his breakfast, Llian sweated over the events of the night. Was he being controlled, witting or not, doing Rulke's bidding? Judging by the looks she was giving him from across the table, Karan was worried about the same things.

A few days after the storm a boat limped into port, a tramp that traded up and down the coast of Faranda. Its captain was glad of a hire to the Foshorn and beyond, so much damage had the typhoon done her. By this time Selial was just a collection of bones surmounted by a cadaverous head and white hair like straw, and so frail that she could barely walk.

As soon as the necessary repairs were done they took ship. They had good weather and reached Tikkadel in a few days. There the Aachim bade the captain wait for a week, with half-payment and offers of gold too good to refuse, then headed out into the sandhills not far from the place where they and Llian had crossed on their way to Katazza last winter.

It was a stinking day, hot and humid, and Selial in her litter had to be covered with a wetted canopy, though she was still uncomfortable and the sandflies were a continual torment.

They headed directly around the coast, walking well into the night under a waxing moon, and in a few days more stood before the astonishing chasm of the Hornrace, the black cliffs falling sheer for five hundred spans, surely the greatest gulf in all the worlds. Two stepped black pillars, almost as tall as the Great Tower of Katazza, were all that remained of the Rainbow Bridge that once spanned the strait, linking Faranda with the continent of Lauralin. They stood like sentinels in the mist belching up from the flood. Far below, the waters of two seas raced down this mighty flume, an unimaginable torrent, to cascade over the Trihorn, a waterfall split by three peaks. Down, down and down the deluge poured, cutting through rock like cheese, another thousand spans and more before flooding into the vast salt lake below.

The Trihorn Falls were the greatest on Santhenar, or on the Three Worlds for that matter, but the Dry Sea was master. The lake was a mighty lake, yet just a pond compared to the Dry Sea. Its thirst could never be quenched.

They set Selial's litter down next to the left-hand pillar. She reached up a claw to Malien, who lifted her to unsteady feet. Selial traced the salt-fretted carvings on the stone with her fingertips. Her eyes were closed. She stood in serene attention, as if the pillar sang the Tale of the Rainbow Bridge to her. The ranks of the Aachim, and Karan and Llian, waited silently behind her.

Finally her communion was done. "There is another Great Tale for you here, chronicler, if only you could make the stones speak. I promised to tell it to you but I cannot stay to bring it forth. Alas, it will be lost forever."

Selial lurched her way to the very edge of the gulf and swayed there. Malien gripped her elbow tightly.

"Never fear," Selial chuckled, a rusty sound. "I will not jump. This place is sacred to me." Tears ran down her cheeks. "Karan child," she said over her shoulder, "come! You too, chronicler."

They edged up to the brink, hand in hand. "Give me your hands," Selial wheezed. "I will show you a sight as has not been seen for two thousand years."

Karan took one of Selial's hands, Llian the other. "Look out over the chasm," Selial whispered, raising their hands high for a moment.

They looked, and a great whirling cloud of spray burst out of the Hornrace, obscuring everything but the two silent pillars. Then slowly out of the spray grew a glorious arch, a bridge suspended in the air like gossamer. An Aachim structure, magnificently irregular like a cobweb, and beautiful as dew on a cobweb too.

The sun came out and its golden illumination glided along the bridge from one end to the other, touching it with the colors of the rainbow like sun on a cobweb. Then the spray fell back into the chasm, making a rainbow there that arched from one end of the ghost bridge to the other, a symbol of hope out of darkness. It was the most beautiful sight that Llian had ever seen.

"Put that in your tale, chronicler," said Selial. She looked ageless, seer-like, the lines and droop of her face quite erased. "It will never be seen again on Santhenar."

They watched, gripping Selial's hands. The Rainbow Bridge lingered for a few minutes more then slowly began to fade. Suddenly another great burst of spray roared up from the Hornrace, and as it fell back it washed the bridge away like water running down a blackboard. Soon it was all gone, just the black pillars standing up out of the mist.

The hand that he held was cold. Llian looked down at Selial and saw her eyes staring sightlessly into the chasm. She was still standing, but Selial was dead. Llian wiped tears from his eyes.

The Aachim cut out living rock between the two pillars, laid Selial inside and formed the rock back into an arch over her. All night they kept vigil. Then, at the first blush of dawn, each of the Aachim spoke a threnody for her, speeding her off on her long journey into the unknown. Even Tensor, held up on either side, gave her his blessing. Malien spoke last of all. As the sun rose they departed and never came there again.

PART TWO.

NEMESIS.

Weeks went by while Maigraith studied the art of command under the best tutors the empire could provide. It was the hardest work that she had ever done, because it went against all her upbringing and training. Submission to Faelamor's will had been the last lesson every time. But Maigraith was not afraid of hard work; she threw herself into it body and soul. It was good to have a goal even if her progress toward it was imperceptible. And later, when she was forced to command for the first time, she found that, after all, it was a skill that she could learn, if not master. One that might transform her life if she spent long enough at it.

Spring passed into summer. She learned to work with Vanhe, though there was always tension between them. He was afraid that she would become uncontrollable, and she, that he just pulled her strings. But so far neither had challenged the other. The Ghashad, mortified by their earlier failure, had made several attempts to abduct her, though each was foiled by Vanhe's ever-watchful guard.

Slowly, after fierce fighting on the perimeters of Thurkad and other places, Vanhe's armies gained the upper hand. The rebellious regiments were overcome; four of the five armies once more did their duty. Maigraith took no part in this, except as a figurehead. It was soldier's work. Yet, strangely, the morale of the troops was as high as it had ever been. Though mostly men, they took to her as they never had to Yggur. They knew she cared.

One day she was studying Yggur's journals, trying to learn something of his strategies and his plans for dealing with the Ghashad, when a courier appeared in the doorway. Maigraith looked up. She had come to dread the day's couriers and the night's spies.

One part of the realm was out of control-Bannador! Rather, the Ghashad's control had been broken everywhere else, but for some reason they made a stand over this poor and insignificant country. Why was it so important to them? Was it because it was closest to their lair, Shazmak? That question she had not been able to answer. The Ghashad were seldom captured, and when they were, nothing useful could be extracted from them. Whatever the reason, Yggur's Second Army in Bannador had been totally subverted. She had to act; better sooner than later.

Maigraith felt more guilty about the suffering of Bannador than about anything she had ever held responsibility for. Of all the countries Yggur had occupied it was the least culpable-it held to its own business and never troubled its neighbors. Its misery came directly from her stealing of the Mirror. And yet if she made war there, thousands would die and the country would be ruined, even if she won. The burden of leadership lay heavily on her.

She beckoned the courier forward. He was a tall, handsome man with yellow hair and a week's growth of yellow stubble, soot-stained like his uniform. A capable young man, she had been told, who knew Bannador well. He had a smiling mouth but he did not smile in her presence. Rumor of her was dour and he wanted only to answer her questions and escape from under her gaze as quickly as possible.

"I am Dilman, lar," he said, using the honorific rather than her name. "I carry dispatches from Captain Trounse in Bannador." Saluting her, he held out the bundle of dispatches.

Maigraith did not open it. "What news from Bannador, Dilman?"

He threw back his shoulders, put on a rigid voice. "It is bad, lar! The Second Army fell on our brigade three days ago. We took heavy casualties. They now hold most of the lowlands of Bannador and threaten us in the east and the south."

"So, it is come to open conflict?"

"Yes! They wage bloody war on us and take no prisoners."

"And what is the condition of Bannador?"

"My country suffers cruelly, lar."

"How so?"

"The lowlands have been razed from Tuldis to Varp." He indicated the area on a map. "Most of the productive land of Bannador has been destroyed. They burned every crop, every home and shed, every haystack and hedge. Every beast was slaughtered or driven off. The country is a wasteland. Fifty thousand people walk the roads; children are starving."

Maigraith was shocked. Having suffered so much when she was young, she could not bear to see children mistreated. "And the highlands?"

"Not so bad-that country is very rugged."

"Why would they do this?"

"I don't know, lar," he added plaintively, for the first time showing the man inside the soldier. "My country does not even have an army."

"Where are they stationed now?"