"Oh, indeed." Enite was tired, and her temper was short. She, like her townspeople, appeared to face each new problem with a fortitude that was, day by day, growing increasingly brittle.

Santhe smiled thinly, rose, and bowed to her. Since he had been told of Birk's death, he had cloaked his emotions in formality. "If we have given offense, priestess," he said politely, "pray, accept our apologies. It was a hard afternoon, and a worse ride."

Enite eyed him up and down. "A fair face and a tongue to match," she said. A smile spread over her matronly face. "We will have beds for you, child, in spite of your armor and blades."

"I would see to the man I lost," he replied. "He died well. I will not sleep until I have attended to him."

Enite looked puzzled. " Tis the first I have heard of a good death," she said simply.

"He died saving me and my unborn child," said Marrget. Her voice was as brittle as a dry twig. "Surely that means something even to the people of Vaylle."

Confounded, the priestess shook her head. "Certain I am that my sister from Lachrae will explain this to me." The import of Marrget's words suddenly struck her, and she peered at the captain. "Honor to you, mother."

"Do not call me that, priestess." Marrget turned away suddenly and strode for the door.

If Enite felt horror at the combination of pregnancy and weapons, she concealed it well. "What would you have me call you, then?"

Marrget stood at the door, alone, for Karthin had gone to see to the horses with Manda. "I would ..." Stripped of her armor, clad only in a linen tunic, she seemed frail and vulnerable, a child bearing a child.

Marrget. Marrha. Mother. Captain. Alouzon saw her weighing the titles as though she had been given a choice of axes for her beheading.

Steps crunched on the straw and cobblestones outside die house. Karthin entered with Manda. "Marrha?" he said when he noticed her expression.

"I . . ." She turned to Manda. "What would you call me, lady?" she whispered. "What name or title would you give me? Marrha? Marrget? Friend? Enemy?"

Manda was tired and in pain-Enite's healings were not as complete as Kyria's-but her sudden pallor did not stem from any physical cause. "I ... I do not know what to call you."

Karthin touched Manda's shoulder. "Countrywoman-"

She whirled on him. "You do not understand," she said through clenched teeth, and she turned and pushed out through the open door.

Marrget was nodding slowly. "I do," she said. She turned to Enite. "Call me what you wish, priestess. Forgive my discourtesy." Leaning heavily against Karthin, she closed her eyes. "I am weary, O my husband," she said. "Put me to bed."

Dindrane's spirit moved between the Worlds.

The landscape through which she traveled was the image of the spirit of Vaylle, the ghostly projection of material substance upon the half-substantial, half-dreamed swirlings of the spaces between existences.

Rolling plains stretched off into the distance in undulations of blue and gray and lavender. The sky was black, the stars crystal. The Cordillera was a study in angular blocks of jet. And there was something beyond . . .

For as long as she could remember, the realms beyond the Cordillera had been closed to matter and spirit both. Those who had dared the passes that lay above the town of Kent had never returned, and the rash healer who attempted to enter Broceliande in spirit could be sure that she would not awaken with her sanity intact.

Yet tonight the spiritual avenues looked open, and Dindrane had been stung enough by the Gryylthans' valor that she decided to make her own attempt. Surely there were ways to solve the mystery of Broceliande that did not involve bloodshed.

A moment, a flicker of her will, and she had crossed the mountains. She found herself in a region of plains and roads, of poisonously dense jungle and jagged towers, of shadowy movement that writhed at the edges of sight, and of cold stasis. Behind all was a brooding menace compounded seemingly of hate and sorrow both.

She quailed for an instant, but a memory of the Gryylthans rallying about her, defending her as though she were one of their own, steeled her, and, determined, she set foot on a dusty road. As she walked, the landscape changed, blurred, and resolved into green grass and glass buildings. Men who looked like the Grayfaces marched there, the sun glinting on their weapons.

The scene blurred again. Burning villages of thatched huts. Women fleeing, their garments-disturbingly similar to the Vayllen tunic and loose skirts-in flames.

And again. Decayed bodies in a ditch, the odor of rot sweet and ripe with tropical heat.

Dindrane turned away and ran, clutching at her staff, casting about frantically for something that would blunt the stench and decay and death that had suddenly surrounded her with the trappings of madness.

That last day in Lachrae, she had performed the Great Rite with Baares, offering the sacred chalice as he lowered the point of the knife into its gleaming bowl. She was priestess, and she was the land, and now she gathered that image to herself, wrapping it about her as though it were the skirts of the Goddess, willing it to become real, to bring something of wholeness and health to this hellish place.

Knife and Cup. God and Goddess. Man and Woman. Joined. Whole.

But she wondered suddenly: did not that emblem of wholeness and perfection apply to each and all, whether male or female? If Manda and Wykla approached the Goddess and the God, would they be denied their smile and blessing? But who would hold the cup? Who the knife?

Reeling from her thoughts, she saw a wide lawn and a tall white tower that glittered in the sunlight.

Dazzled, she blinked her eyes and felt the utter stillness and peace of this place. Here, in a land of death, was something as holy as the temple of Lachrae, as filled with Presence as the cup and knife, something that, in its own way, modeled the universe, perhaps even contained it.

Afraid, yet emboldened by her fear, she approached the gleaming tower. The marble was flawless, clean-lined, unmarked. Only the door of dark wood showed carving of any kind: runes and figures that she did not understand. At eye level was a single word: Listinoise.

She did not recognize the word, but she pushed through the door and found herself hi an empty room. Stairs spiraled up around the interior of the tower, white steps on white walls. A golden haze hung in the air.

Forgetting for a moment that, here in the subtler worlds, she could have willed herself to the landing at the top of the flight in an instant, she climbed. The steps terminated at another door, open as though in invitation, and the room beyond might have been suspended between heaven and earth, for the deep blue ceiling was painted with silver stars and the floor was carpeted in the variegated hues of land and sea, tree and field.

Her eyes, though, were drawn to an altar at the center of the room. At first she thought that what she saw upon it was the chalice of the Great Rite, but as she approached, she realized that it was infinitely more, and she dropped to her knees.

Its color that of a hand held up to the sun, its bowl as broad as a child's outstretched arms, the image of a Cup floated above the altar. It shimmered as though with an endless flow of water, and it shone with a visible radiance that was the counterpart of that which she had sensed when, in the ecstasy of the Great Rite, she felt the nearness of the Divine.

Nearness? That was a distant and feeble thing compared with the immediacy of what she instinctively named the Grail. Here, in a form at once terrible and comely, mundane and transcendent, approachable and yet aloof, wa Divinity. Here was power. Here was nurture. Here in solitary union was life, joy, victory ...

Harrowed by the flow of quickening water that invisibly spilled over the sides of the living, beating Mystery, Dindrane's soul knelt before the unalloyed immanence of everything that had been, was, could be. Lost in the rush of divine energy, of spiritual certainty, she could hardly conceive of the slightest question as to reason or origin.

But Broceliande was a land of death. How did the Grail triumph here? And how did this shining magnificence, reified in the receptive form of a Cup, manifest the undiminished energies of both Goddess and God in union?

Shielding her streaming eyes, she gazed into the radiance. "Whom . . . whom do you serve?" she whispered.

Tower, Grail, temple: all vanished in a heartbeat. She found herself kneeling in the dust of a sandy desert, her heart laboring under a weight of sorrow and loss.

Putting her hands to her face, she wept for her fool- ishness. The Grail could not be questioned. The Grail simply was. Those who approached its mystery could not ask. They had to know.

The Specter was almost upon her before she realized it.

Only at the last moment did she hear the crunch of footsteps that echoed hollowly throughout the planes of being. Only when she had but seconds in which to flee did she look up and see a face whose eyes held nothing but the blackness of void. Only by scrambling frantically across the sand did she evade the lean hand that seemed to cover the colorless sky from horizon to horizon.

The withered fingers raked the ground where she had been kneeling, then came at her again. Her pain blunted by danger, conscious only of the revulsion she felt at the proximity of this colossus, she clawed her way out of reach.

The eyes of void and darkness fixed themselves upon her, and a low rumble, as of quiet laughter, shuddered through the worlds. The hand reached, grasping.

"Leave her." The voice of a woman. Though quiet, it was filled with menace and power.

The Specter stayed its hand. The black eyes turned on the speaker. Kyria.

The sorceress stood a short distance away, her face regal. "You shall not harm her," she said to the Specter.

You can't stop me, girl.

"It is not my time to stop you," said Kyria. "It may perhaps not be my place, either. But for now I can command. Or do you wish to see me uncloaked?"

Kyria's face shifted, and Dindrane had a quick glimpse of an old woman, her hair gray, her eyes filled with unspeakable hate. Hands as gnarled and skeletal as the Specter's were suddenly reaching . . .

The Specter pulled back. We'll meet again, bitch . . . and then- Kyria's voice was cold. "When we meet again, we shall see. For now, comfort yourself with your Worm, and with your armies, and with your hounds. Your time-Alouzon's time-is coming."

The worlds shuddered again, and though the colorless sky weighed down like lead, the Specter withdrew. Kyria turned to Dindrane and extended a hand. "Come, child. Time to go home."

"What . . ." Dindrane slipped helplessly in the sand. "What was that? 'Tis frightened I am."

"And I also, child. Come, though. Your husband and your friends are waiting."

Friends. Did the Gryylthans then consider her a friend? They had saved her life, had fought for her and her people, had stood over her unconscious body and defended her with torn and bleeding limbs. And yet she had seen fit to call them murderers. No wonder it was that the Grail had fled from her! The desert blurred as she wept, and she was still sobbing as Kyria took her hand.

She opened her eyes. She was in a bed in Mullaen. Outside, it was late morning, and birds were singing. Baares was sitting in a chair beside her, holding her hand, fast asleep.

The night passed without incident, and Alouzon awoke to a cold but clear day. The Vayllens believed in fresh air, and the open window showed her the budding branches of an elm tree that swayed gently to and fro in the breeze that came from the east, a promise of spring.

Through half-closed eyes, she watched the sunshine and the elm tree, wanting nothing so much as to believe that she was back in Kent, that the shootings and the blood and the Dragons and the swords were all the evanescent images of a night's bad dreams, that she would rise in a few minutes and cross the campus to the house on Summit Street and find Sandy making breakfast: coffee pot burbling, bagels toasting, apples sliced and ready . . .

It had, in a way, been the morning of an age, and each day had brought new belief, new confidence, new hope. Anything had been possible, and Suzanne Helling had been only one among thousands who had looked out of countless college windows and suburban doorways and had seen that the world lay open-waiting for change, waiting for spring.

Gone. Gone. All was gone. The innocence, the confidence, the hope had tottered and collapsed, and in their place had grown up a despair and a sullen anger that had found its rank fulfillment not only in the puerile and self-destructive machinations of the Weather Underground, but also in the hollow acquisitiveness and empty cynicism that had sunk deep tap roots into the ideological soil of an entire civilization.

Don't trust anybody over thirty, went the saying. But that was only half the story. You could not trust anyone under, either.

And Silbakor? Could she even trust Silbakor?

In a handful of words, the Dragon had destroyed any confidence that had remained to her. Vayllens could die, Gryylth might be laid waste, children could scream their lives away in a torrent of flaming napalm, but Silbakor was concerned only with the preservation of the bare physical substance of land and ocean. Forget the Grail, it had said.

Yeah, she thought, and to hell with you, lizard. These people are mine. If they go, I go.

Sighing inwardly at her resolution, she swung her feet off the couch and rubbed her eyes. Across the room, the Vayllen woman who had provided her with a bed was stirring a pot over the fire. "Did you sleep well?" she said, her voice subdued.

Alouzon could not remember her name. "Yeah. Thanks. Thanks very much."

"The Goddess bless you." She was a small, sturdy woman, her blond hair plaited carefully down her back. Alouzon vaguely remembered that her husband had braided it the night before, and the memory pulled her thoughts to Marrget.

But though the captain had slept with Karthin on a nearby couch, she was not there now. The big man was just then awakening, and he reached for her sleepily, then came fully awake when he realized that she was gone. "Marrha?"

"The mother-bless her!-went off at first light," said the Vayllen wife. She paused in her stirring with the air of a woman who was afraid that, at any time, she would hear screams ... or shots. "She told me that she needed to think."

Karthin passed a hand over his face. "She wept in her sleep, Dragonmaster," he whispered. "I fear ..." He shook his head helplessly. ' 'I do not know what I fear. She says things to me mat I do not understand. I am a man . . . she is a woman . . ."He shrugged. "I do not know what to do."

Alouzon shivered in her tunic, but not just from the cold. "I don't know either, Karthin."

"Would you . . . would you talk to her?"

"I don't know how much good it'll do, but I'll try."

The Vayllen woman folded her arms. "And how many will I not be feeding this morning?" she said tartly, but with humor.

"We'll be back," said Alouzon. "Sorry about the delay."

The wife mustered a smile. "You saved our chief priestess last night and brought her to us through great danger. You need not apologize." She took a warm robe from a chest, handed it to Alouzon, and went back to stirring the porridge. "Breakfast will be hot when you come for it."

Alouzon pulled on the robe and started to reach for her sword, but she decided to leave it where it was. There was no sense in troubling the morning, or the people, any further. Giving Karthin a pat on the shoulder, she went out into the sun-warmed plaza.

Mullaen was not a small town, since it was a trading center for the whole region about Lake Innael, but though Marrget could have been anywhere, Alouzon sensed that she had not gone far. With a shrug, she crossed the square, picked a street at random, and started off, trusting to whatever Higher Powers might pay attention to the problems of a lowly, confused, incipient Goddess.

The Cordillera reared up as though it were a tidal wave about to fall upon the town, and Mullaen-like Lachrae, like all of Vaylle-showed evidence of its afflictions. The burned ruins of a house stood hard by a shattered wall near the very center of town, and the people in the streets, men, women, and children alike, went about their daily tasks and pleasures with faces that seemed prematurely aged and worn.

Alouzon wandered among them, smiled at the children, patted the dogs affectionately, and even lent a hand to a wine merchant who had gotten his wagon stuck in a low place in the cobbles. Regardless of their daily horror, regardless of the Dragon's sympathies, she would not desert them. If there were belief and innocence left to be scraped up in the world, she would bring them to Vaylle.

As she greeted the people, she asked constantly about Marrget, but she had no news of her until she questioned a woman who, kneeling in her garden, was stoically tending the first spring shoots, pulling weeds and thinning the ranks of early sprouts.

"Did you see a blond lady come this way?" said Alouzon. The woman lifted an eyebrow at her. Nine out of ten Vayllens were blond. "A stranger," she added.

"I saw her," said the woman. "She went off to the temple. She was weeping."

"Yeah ... I know ..." Alouzon thanked her and ran.

Mullaen's circle of stones was not so grand as that of Lachrae, but it bespoke holiness and tranquillity nonetheless. As with all the temples of Vaylle, it was open to anyone who might come there for peace and communion with the Gods, and Alouzon found Marrget sitting on the grass at the center of the monument, hood up, face in her hands.

Silently, Alouzon sat down beside her. Marrget lifted her head and pushed back her hood. Her blond hair, unconfined, fell about her shoulders, and she wiped her eyes. "I am ashamed to be seen acting the part of the silly girl.''

Alouzon shrugged. "We're all silly sometimes. The guys are no different."

"Nay, Alouzon, they are very different."

"Yeah. That too."

Marrget did not speak for some time. The morning waxed, children played, the dogs barked, traders cried their wares. Life surged like a gray sea about the tranquil island of stones and grass. Marrget, Alouzon knew, was listening to it all-to the children in particular.

"Until yesterday," said Marrget at last, her voice soft, "I thought myself reconciled to my little one. The months would pass, my belly would grow, and come next Summer's End, I would be a mother. But then Birk gave his life for me." Beneath the folds of her robe, her hand went to her belly. "For both of us. And then I promised that the child, if a boy, would be named after him." Her gray eyes teared again. "And it became real. And I . . ." She gasped. "I ... do not know what to do."

Alouzon listened silently, then, when Marrget bent and covered her face, she held her.

Six years before, Alouzon too had been pregnant, but she had chosen to take another path. She could not help but wonder again what her child would have been like. Boy? Girl? Suzanne's straight brown hair? The blond curls of the father?

She lifted her eyes to the stones and the patterns of light and shadow that the sun drew on the grass. One soul she had sent back into the arms of whatever Divinity watched over the planet of her birth. And now, seemingly, it had returned to her: doubled, trebled, multiplied countless times to constitute the population of a world.

And she would not give them up. Not this time.

She did not know what to say. She herself had no one to whom she could turn. Save perhaps the Grail.

OK. You're so big on helping. Here's someone to help. You make such a deal out of nurturing. Nurture this one. You want me to be a God? Gimme some slack, dammit.