Alouzon planted herself before him. "How? With thirty people, you want heroics again?" She wondered whether it was the hopelessness of the cause or her fear of the Guardianship that made her argue. If both the Tree and the Circle remained, even though Gryylth were enslaved, her services would not be needed in the future.

The thought was an obscenity, and she thrust it from her.

"Heroics be d.a.m.ned," said Dythragor. "I'm done with them. I don't want Mernyl killed."

Light suddenly flared at the Circle, and they turned to see the Tree once again approaching the rings of stones. Tireas was moving the wagon up, keeping well away from the deadly focal axis of the monument. A group of soldiers dragged a small sledge into position, and Tireas floated the Tree to it.

Alouzon noticed that he showed no signs of the damage she had inflicted on him. His hair was white and flowing, as was his beard, and he moved as though his body had never felt a trace of a wound. The wine in her .

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belly roiled again when she compared him with Mernyl, a thin, wretched figure who used his staff as a prop to keep from falling over.

Tireas waved the soldiers back and picked up the rope that looped through the front of the sledge.

Dythragor worked on his knuckle. "What the h.e.l.l. . . ? Does he think he's going to budge that thing?''

The sorcerer pulled. The sledge moved.

"d.a.m.n."

Without visible effort, Tireas dragged the heavily burdened sledge toward one of the gaps in the peristyle. The force field that barred it flared brighter as he drew near, but he calmly raised his hand and allowed power from the Tree to flow into and through him.

The field gave a little. Alouzon understood. Mernyl had been without food since morning, without rest for some days, and he was weak and demoralized. By necessity, his control over the powers of the Circle was slipping, waning, becoming more uncertain with each pa.s.sing hour.

His hand a blue-white torch, Tireas moved a little farther into the gap, drawing the Tree after him. Mernyl was fighting, and had the Tree been at a distance, he might have succeeded in barring the way. But Tireas had brought the heavy artillery to his very doorstep, and at best, Memyl could only delay his entrance.

Dythragor's voice made everyone jump. "Where's that f.u.c.king Dragon? Silbakor!"

It did not reply. When the phalanxes had overrun the Circle, it had disappeared.

"Silbakor!"

Alouzon grabbed his arm."Shh! You want to have the whole d.a.m.ned army down on us?''

"What do you want me to do? Call collect?"

"Quiet." She shut her eyes, framed the thought. Silbakor! I call you!

I come. Alouzon heard the reply in her head. It held, she thought, a shade of reluctance, but the Dragon appeared, gliding silently and almost invisibly over the hills.

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When it settled into the hollow, Dythragor stood before it. "Silbakor, you've got to stop that Tree."

"I cannot."

"Memyl is going to get killed."

"I am powerless. I have told you: I cannot fight the Tree or the Circle. By doing so, I would be attacking the very existence of Gryylth, and that I am sworn against by the same oath by which you have called me."

Tireas was halfway through the gap by now. Mernyl was battling all the way, but the Tree's progress was inexorable.

Dythragor crouched down by the Dragon's head. "Silbakor, what's going to happen? Please."

"I do not prophesy."

Alouzon was afraid that Dythragor was going to weep. "And this is what I've brought Gryylth to," he said. His voice was shaken, bitter. "Everything I wanted, everything I dreamed of.'' He stood up and looked out toward the Circle. Tireas was through the gap, moving easily with the sledge, disappearing among the tall, standing stones. "I threw it all away. Even ... even the Grail."

There was a higher hill to the north. Leaving the Dragon, the survivors climbed to its summit so as to see within the Circle.

At its center stood Mernyl, bent and worn, his feet resting on an oblong slab of white stone. About him was a tightly knit hemisphere of force that shone like a small star. Tireas made his way slowly toward him, and, working his way carefully around the stones, positioned himself directly behind Mernyi.

His strategy was obvious: not only could the Tree now act without risking the focal path of the Circle, it could use that same path to attack.

Wearily, the sorcerer of Gryylth faced about and raised his staff.

The first exchange blurred the entire central region into a haze of light. Outlines became indistinct and details were lost as power was flung and parried, caught and redirected. Ringed by the might of the Circle, though, the pyrotechnics were oddly quiet: only a faint rumble reached the Gryylthans.

Dythragor was muttering. "He's doing it ... he's d.a.m.ned well doing it."

The battle went back and forth, the energies thickening the atmosphere within the peristyle into a pale, luminous soup. Standing waves of opacity and radiance formed nodes and peaks of brilliance. Silent blasts ricocheted off monoliths like billiard b.a.l.l.s, but Mernyl did not budge. He was feeding at the center of the world now, and Circle and Tree were evenly matched.

An hour crawled by, two hours, but there seemed to be little change in the situation. When, at last, the exchanges dwindled in intensity, slowed, and finally stopped, the haze cleared to show the two men still facing one another, unharmed, power crackling about them.

"Right on, Mernyl." Alouzon found that she was gripping someone's hand tightly and discovered that it was Dythragor's. He met her eyes and looked away as quickly as she.

After some minutes, Tireas raised his hands, and Mernyl readied himself for a renewed a.s.sault. But, instead of a starburst of energy, there came a sudden, audible grinding of stone, that, though centered in the Circle, seemed to reach out to the distant horizon. The ground trembled and bucked, the monoliths shuddered, and Mernyl was almost knocked off his feet.

Now, instead of a surface battle of coruscating energies, the sorcerers were virtually struggling over the ground on which they stood. Mernyl was no longer fighting for his life: he was fighting for the Circle, for his source of power. The trilithons about him rocked, and the bluestones vibrated with the intensity of the energies that Tireas unleashed.

The Circle could not last. Alouzon saw the monoliths loosening. Tireas had merely to continue his efforts, and it would eventually fall.

Dythragor shook himself into action. "We've got to move. We've got to get that Tree. If the Circle goes, I'm 364.

willing to bet that every bit of constancy in Gryylth goes with it." She was still holding his hand. "Something else goes, too."

"Don't remind me."

"And you're a.s.suming something that . . . maybe you shouldn't."

He dropped her hand, shook a finger in her face. "I know d.a.m.ned well what I'm a.s.suming, girl. And maybe you'd better start a.s.suming it too."

"And how the h.e.l.l do you think you're going to get the Tree, anyway?" she countered. "Mernyl can't do it, and he's got the Circle backing him. Weapons won't work. You might do something if you threw a monolith at it-" She started, looked down at the right upright of the trilithon directly behind Tireas, "Jesus . . . that thing's buried less than a yard in the ground."

"The trilithon?"

"The upright. Do you know about it, Dythragor?"

He thought for a moment, shrugged. "I seem to recall something about one of the trilithons being weaker than the others. Stonehenge wasn't my field any more than yours."

"But we've all read the literature on the subject. There's Petrie's book, and Lockyer's, and Hawley's. Did you read Niel?"

"Of course I did. Supermarket stuff, though."

"Supermarket? It's the best condensation you can get!"

"Sure . . . whatever ..." The ground shook again, and Dythragor grabbed Alouzon to keep from being knocked off his feet.

But she thought she saw the upright shift with the vibrations. "That one's called 57 in the standard texts. For some reason the people that made Stonehenge didn't sink it as deep as the others. It was one of the first to fall, and it brought the trilithon down." Inches from hers, Dythragor's face was suddenly hopeful. "If you read the usual stuff," she continued, "there's a good chance that you've incorporated it into the Circle. And the fighting has loosened it: I saw it move. If we can get some people .

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inside with some rope, we might be able to pull it down. It'll fall-"

"Right on the Tree." Dythragor stared his own death in the face, but he smiled. "Marrget," he called, "we have work ahead of us."

They made their plans quickly. One group would create a diversion out along the Avenue so as to draw men and material weapons away from the vicinity of the Circle. A second party would attempt to enter through the peristyle. Alouzon contributed what she knew about the construction and idiosyncrasies of Stonehenge while trying not to think of the decision she would have to make if the plan succeeded.

Selecting the proper trilithon and upright was critical, and Alouzon went with those who would actually enter the monument. Marrget was with her, and Relys and Wykla. Santhe and the men left from the Second War-troop rounded out the party. The rest accompanied Dythragor and Vorya and Cvinthil so as to ensure that the diversion was adequate.

Alouzon was not even certain that it was possible to get inside the Circle, since the monument was walled off by forces that had even given difficulty to Tireas and the Tree. But amid rumbles and the screams of tortured rock, her group crept through the darkness and made its way through the low hills. Moving carefully, they took up a position in the shadows just beyond the ditch.

/ don't want it. I don't want Gryylth. Isn't my life screwed over enough?

She peered over the embankment, her eyes dazzled by light that blazed with actinic ferocity. True, she did not want responsibility for the lives of others. But did she want responsibility for their deaths? Their negation? And then, behind everything, was the Grail. Did she want that?

She turned around, her back against the gra.s.sy bank, slid down, and put her face in her hands. "Oh, G.o.d . . . I want it.''

The screams and shouts in the distance were barely 366.

audible over the rumbles and grindings from below. Dy-thragor and the rest were attacking, and the Corrinians moved off to meet the threat. Marrget touched Alouzon's shoulder, and Santhe straightened up and drew his sword, his eyes turning from hollow mirth to calculation.

When they topped the embankment, they found but one guard left, and he was dispatched silently with a single thrust from Marrget. In a moment, the women and men had dashed quickly across the open area and dropped to the ground at the base of the peristyle.

Alouzon and Santhe examined the force field. It seemed impenetrable. With some hesitation, the Drag-onmaster tried to put her hand through it, but could only compress it a few inches before it turned adamantine. Santhe shook his head. "If we use force, we will only bleed Mernyl."

She peered through the swirling light into the interior. Dimly, she saw the sorcerer of Gryylth standing on his slab, his staff upright and inclined toward Tireas. His eyes were open, and he was facing in her direction.

"He might see us. I can't tell."

Two Corrinians suddenly appeared, and Wykla threw herself at them, backed up by Relys. Before the men could call for help, they were dead.

But Mernyl had seen Alouzon, or perhaps the flash of swords had attracted his attention. The humming that emanated from the Circle altered in pitch a trifle, and the field between the uprights of the peristyle seemed to soften under the Dragonmaster's hand. At the same time, though, the underground rumblings became louder.

"We bleed him nonetheless," said Santhe. He gestured to the others, and boldly led the way.

Marrget followed, and the captains hurried the men and women in, then motioned for Alouzon. The field yielded reluctantly to her, as though she were pressing forward through thick cotton batting, but Marrget and Santhe took her arms and dragged her through.

The interior was a h.e.l.l of sound and tumult, with gusts of air blasting from all sides and a reek of ozone that 3*7.

struck like a fist. Coughing and gagging, they _ through the inner ring of bluestones and approached ' horseshoe of great, freestanding trilithons. On the side of the stones, the two sorcerers battled from blue hemispheres of force.

And, turned as he was to face Mernyl, Tireas had not noticed the entrance of the Gryylthans.

Alouzon stopped at the base of the target trilithon, indicated the shallowly buried upright. "This one."

Marrget examined the structure. It glowed with energy, flickering in response to the conjurations that sought to bring it down. "I am loathe to have my warriors touch this."

Alouzon shrugged helplessly. "We're going to have to."

Marrget nodded, gestured. Relys hurled a small ball of twine over the lintel so that it fell on the outer side of the trilithon. Santhe tied the thick rope they had brought to it, and Relys hauled it over.

An end of the rope now dangled on either side of the trilithon, and Relys was on the inside, working directly behind Tireas. If the Corrinian became aware of her presence, she would doubtless die instantly. But her movements were quick, deft, silent, and Mernyl allowed not a trace of emotion to cross his face that would indicate that he saw anything save the inhuman gaze of Tireas.

Steeling herself visibly, Relys reached an arm through the trilithon, and Santhe pa.s.sed the outer end of the rope to her. Relys knotted the ends together. At a nod from Santhe and Marrget, the Gryylthans pa.s.sed to the interior, seized the double rope, and pulled.

Upright 57 weighed in the vicinity of twenty tons, and its lintel added another twelve-an immense amount of inertia to overcome. Under other circ.u.mstances, the task would have been a fool's errand, but this particular trilithon was top-heavy, and the concussions that had been rocking the Circle since the battle had been joined earlier that day had already succeeded in loosening it.

As they pulled, the conflict of magics went on. Tireas's earthquakes and tremors were actually helping them, eas- 368.

ing the upright back and forth in its shallow socket. They were indeed bringing down the Circle, but not in the way the Corrinian had in mind.

The upright shifted slightly, then jammed. Alouzon's hands were raw. The others were panting, sweating, bleeding. Marrget was breathing in short, harsh gasps, staring fixedly at the trilithon as though she would topple it by sheer force of will.

But, having yielded a little, the upright refused any further entreaties. Their feet dug furrows into the gra.s.s as they fought for a better purchase, but even though they strained until tendons cracked and muscles turned to lumps of fire, the stone would not move. Retching from the ozone, Alouzon shook her head and gestured for the others to stop for a moment.

She realized then that the shaking had ceased. Startled, she looked back, right into the hot, seething eyes of the Corrinian sorcerer.

"He's seen us! Pull!"

Expecting at any moment to feel a killing blast at her back, she shut her eyes and heaved on the rope. Grim, frightened minutes went by. Now that discovery was no longer a concern, Santhe called out a cadence, his voice ringing through the odd silence and echoing off the stones. The upright remained obstinate.

But no blast came.

Alouzon risked another backward look. Mernyl had locked Tireas into inaction by refusing to allow him to disengage from the magical combat. He was diverting Tireas's energies, taking their full brunt on himself, gambling that Alouzon and her party would be successful before his strength gave out. Held fast, the Corrinian could deal neither with the Gryylthans nor with the potential impact of thirty-two tons of rock.

Minutes dragged by, minutes measured in raw hands, rope burns, and straining muscles. The upright shifted a little more, but not quite enough to overbalance and fall. The air was growing thicker, the efforts of the Gryylthans weaker, and Alouzon had all but decided that they were going to fail.

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Then she looked up at the sky framed by the trilithon -There, sailing across a sea of stars in the light of a newly risen moon, was Silbakor the Great Dragon, carrying Dythragor on a steadily rising course.