The hag looked for an opening, but as Dindrane caught what breath she could in the growing smoke, she found that she had managed to work her way around to the other side of her opponent. Kyria was only a foot or so behind her.

But the sorceress had not moved. She seemed suspended in a strange state between life and death, a precarious balance in which the slightest jolt could tip her in either direction.

The hag was suddenly upon her, reaching, clawing. Dindrane struck with her staff, struck again, thrust the glowing wood between the gnashing teeth. She found herself screaming curses, found also that she was no longer trying to push the hag away physically, but was actually shoving her spirit toward oblivion. The healer's staff lent her potency and strength, and the hag's efforts grew more feeble as death overwhelmed her.

A lurch, a shudder, and the clawed hands fell limply to the glass and plaster that covered the ground. The gray head dropped between the arms. Behind Dindrane, Kyria stirred.

At the sound, the hag opened her eyes. "Gotcha," she said. "I told you: kill me. You . . . did." She shuddered, and her eyes glazed. "Thanks."

The Dragon turned its blunt nose eastward and gained altitude. The sky shifted toward dark blue, then black, then into the nothingness that characterized the spaces between worlds.

Alouzon was already planning her next moves. At the speeds and dimensions that the Dragon commanded, she could reach Gryylth within minutes, warn Cvinthil not to attack Vaylle, and just as quickly return to Broceliande and lead her friends to safety. And then . . .

And then she had to deal with the Specter.

She stared out over the Dragon's head, wondering what she could do against an opponent that was, after all, only a part of herself. Kill it? But by doing so she would only kill herself, and then Gryylth and Vaylle would be no more. But to allow the Specter its freedom condemned everything she held precious to slow attrition and death.

There was one hope. As the Grail could bring such integration to her as would end the conflicts within her psyche and the lands that represented it, so it would in all probability lay the Specter to rest. But that meant that she had to find it... and the Cup seemed farther away now than when she had first come to Gryylth.

Hanging her head, she sighed. She had been over these same thoughts before, and they had grown stale.

"I'll take care of my friends first," she said. "That's the important thing."

When she looked up, the sky was still black. The Dragon was still forging through void. Odd: she would have thought that Silbakor would have reached Gryylth by now.

"Hey, Silbakor, what's going on?"

No answer.

"Silbakor?" She pounded on its head. "Answer me, dammit."

The reply came slowly, reluctantly. "You are Gryylth."

"Yeah, it's come to my attention."

"If you die, the world is unmade."

She fought down an urge to swear. "You're not telling me anything I don't know."

Again a pause. Then: "I am returning you to Los Angeles. Your work is done here."

"Done?" she cried. "It's hardly started. I've got-"

The Dragon was intransigent. "The Specter flies loose, and you are in danger. I am sworn to ensure the safety of the land. Therefore, I am taking you home."

Home? Home was Gryylth. Home was Vaylle. She no more belonged in Los Angeles than did Wykla or Manda. Frustrated, she beat on the back of Silbakor's head, but succeeded only in bruising her hands. "Dammit, I can't leave my people like this."

The Dragon flew on. Alouzon felt a cold anger.

"I'm gonna give you one more chance to turn around, lizard."

Silence.

Alouzon drew her sword. "By your oath, Silbakor, I command you to take me to Gryylth.''

"I am fulfilling my oath."

She had no idea whether even the Dragons word's preternatural steel could harm the impossible beast upon which she rode, but she was desperate. Tensing her thighs about the Dragon's neck, she lifted the sword above her head and prepared to strike. "One last time, Silbakor. You gonna turn around?"

Silbakor had no chance to respond, for there was a sudden flurry of white wings about Alouzon, and she looked up into blue-black eyes and gleaming teeth. Without thinking, she turned her stroke on the Worm, but it dodged away and clubbed her on the side of the head with a huge talon.

Alouzon spun to the side, nearly losing her grip on Silbakor. "Asshole," she screamed. "I'm not safe anywhere. No one's safe."

But though Silbakor banked and dodged, the Worm closed on Alouzon. Shrieking in a voice that the Dragonmaster heard more in her mind than with her ears, it plunged down on her, claws extended. On its back was the empty-eyed visage of Solomon Braithwaite.

She swung, but she had no leverage, and Silbakor's sudden evasive maneuver pitched her off into the void.

Alouzon felt herself falling, the sounds of draconic combat fading into unimaginable distances. Slowly, singly, in twos and threes, lights materialized below her: diamond points that glowed with the color and beauty of jewels. She thought for a moment that they were stars, but though her long fall through void drove her to the edge of panic, a part of her that remained inexplicably calm-a fragment that glowed golden at the edge of thought-knew that they were not stars.

Lights. Stretching off into the distance. Gleaming in a thousand different colors. Approaching with ever-increasing rapidity.

She struck the ground hard, and her breath went out of her like a ball of hot fire. But just as she lost consciousness, she heard the incongruous chirp of crickets.

Dindrane awoke to a sunlit temple. After her time in the dark wreckage of the unknown house, the light dazzled her, and it was some seconds before she realized that Kyria's black eyes were open, clear, almost luminous.

"Kyria?" Dindrane was almost afraid that the hag would come back. But she remembered that the hag herself had chosen death. Nobility and violence both? Unwillingly, she had begun to understand the combination.

The sorceress blinked, stared at the temple and the tumbled blocks of stone about her as though seeing them for the first tune. Her face was pale but fair, and if it showed any pain, it was only for an instant.

She sighed. "Yes," she said. Though a trace of sadness lurked in the depths of her eyes, she smiled at the woman who healed her, touched her cheek. "Thank you," she said. "You are very brave."

"I am a healer." Dindrane felt the lie in her words. Moments before, without remorse, she had killed an old woman.

Kyria's smile held understanding. "She wanted it that way," she said. "There are all kinds of healing. That was one of them." But she noticed Santhe, who was still bleeding and in pain from the shrapnel wound, and her smile vanished. "Oh, dear." She looked up at the others. "Help me get his armor off."

Marrget and Karthin came to help. "Keep watch, please," the captain said to Wykla and Manda. "There may still be Grayfaces about." Her face was set, but when she noticed Karthin's anxious look, her expression softened.

The gunfire had ceased. Its place had been taken by utter silence. Wykla crawled carefully to the doorway and peered out. ' 'Marrha-I mean-my captain . . .

Marrget was unlacing Santhe's armor. "Lieutenant?"

"My captain, there are no Grayfaces. In fact ..." Wykla stood up in an archway that was now blazing with golden light. "There is no jungle anymore."

Manda was beside her in an instant. "It is true, Marrha,'' she called back. ''I can see the mountains.''

"And Alouzon?"

Manda shook her head.

Marrget looked worried, but gently, with the careful hand of a woman, she eased Santhe's armor away from his back as her husband supported the councilor. Santhe stifled a cry as Kyria's pale fingers probed into the glistening wound just above his right kidney. The sorceress's brow furrowed for a moment, and she pulled out a six-inch sliver of steel. "You are lucky, Santhe," she said. "This did not hit anything critical."

Santhe's face showed pain, but he laughed. "That surprises me little: small wounds hurt the most."

Drained, incapable of further healing, Dindrane handed Kyria her staff, but the sorceress shook her head. "I do not think I am going to be using a staff anymore, Dindrane." Her voice was calm, gentle, without regret. She touched the priestess on the shoulder: the gesture of a friend. "I have understood a few things, too."

Her soft hands worked at Santhe's flesh for a moment, and then the wound was gone. ' 'Be cleansed,'' she said softly. "Be changed. Be healed."

Karthin reached out a big hand, and Santhe allowed himself to be helped to his feet. "Be cleansed?"

Kyria shrugged. "Healing is a cleansing. But I was thinking of your heart.''

His eyes turned sad. "You know me better than most, Kyria."

She smiled. "I cannot take any credit for that. You told me more than you told most."

He was examining her face as though afraid of something. "I . . .I found healing in your arms."

She drew him to her, laid her head against his chest wearily. "There is more to be had there, if you want it."

"But ..."

Kyria shook her head slowly. "She is gone, Santhe. I am but Kyria now." Her eyes were hopeful and tragic both. "Now this world is the only home I have." Santhe folded his arms about her, but Kyria seemed to be looking beyond the temple. Perhaps she was seeing a ruined house in a strange land. Perhaps she examined a ruined life. "But it is a good land," she said. "And it is ours." Her eyes flicked to Dindrane. The priestess understood: Kyria knew. About everything. "And Alouzon is ours, too."

Dindrane hung her head, shamed once again by the strength of those she had once branded as murderers. She felt empty, drained, the casually accepted realities of her existence shown to be the tattered backdrop of another's dream. But Kyria called her by name, and when Dindrane looked up, the sorceress was smiling at her fondly, a friend, a co-conspirator in the secret of the world.

"It is a good land," she said again, and Dindrane nodded slowly. She had changed; everything had changed. But it was a good land, and Alouzon was a good woman. There was hope.

For a time, they waited in the temple for Alouzon to return, wearied disciples of a Goddess who had ascended into the heavens on the wings of a Dragon. But hours passed, and the Dragonmaster did not return.

Santhe's face was grave. "Marrha? Have you advice?"

The captain shrugged. "Like Dythragor, Alouzon has her ways. She is doubtless confident that we have ours."

"Do you think that ..." Santhe was unwilling to continue, but even Dindrane guessed his meaning.

Kyria spoke suddenly. "No. That is not possible. We would know without doubt if she were dead.'' Hers was no hope-filled wish: she spoke with the air of one who knew with certainty.

And so, Dindrane supposed, she did. More than any other member of the party. More, even, than the once-arrogant Dindrane of Lachrae who had been humbled, not by being informed that she had overstepped the bounds of her womanhood, but rather by being shown that those bounds were far larger than she had ever dreamed.

Her hand was on Baares's dagger. He had known, in his last moments, what she knew now. She would not forget. For his sake, for the sake of the Goddess she knew and the God about whom she was afraid to ask, she would not forget.

Santhe was examining the bare, flat laud that now surrounded the temple, conferring as he did so with Marrget and Karthin. "Let us wait no longer, then," he said. "The jungle is gone, the mountains are in sight. Let us return to Vaylle. Without some further indication as to Alouzon's wishes, we have no further business here, and I am loath to spend another night in this land."

They set out, striking directly for the mountains. There was no jungle, no mist or tower. The land was, in fact, almost featureless now, as though the real topography of Broceliande was but a blank canvas which required a thick coating of illusion in order to come to life.

But there were no illusions now, and the mountains were very close. By sunset, they were climbing the slopes that rose only a few hundred feet above the plateau, and they pushed on well into the darkness. They were tired, hungry and sore, worn in both body and mind, but even the jagged passes of the Cordillera were preferable to the hospitality of Broceliande.

It was Dindrane who first noticed the strangeness in the weather. The east wind that whistled through the mountain peaks did not seem particularly cold to her. In fact, it was quite warm, unseasonably warm, and scented with the odor of vegetation.

Not until dawn did she understand. Though her sleep had been fitful, broken often by nightmares and memories, she awoke at first light. The warmth was still in the air, and as the sun rose above the rim of the world, she looked out across a greening land.

The warmth was not unseasonable. Not at all. But the season itself ...

" 'Tis impossible," she cried.

Her companions, awakened by her voice, got to their feet and examined the country, murmuring softly to one another. Dindrane understood their confusion, for she shared it, but she could not comprehend the fear and alarm that she sensed in their reactions.

"We must make haste," said Santhe at last.

"Agreed," said Marrget. "Cvinthil may well have set sail already."

Dindrane blinked. "Your king is coming to Vaylle?"

Marrget dropped her eyes. "Our king," she said. "And an army."

Thunder rumbled from far away, shuddering through the air, seemingly rolling through the very substance of the world. For an instant, the Cordillera wavered as though made of jelly.

Puzzling over Marrget's words, wondering at the thunder, Dindrane looked beyond Vaylle. The sea stretched out and away, and on the horizon lay a faint haze of green that she knew to be Gryylth. But as she watched, the thunder rumbled again, urgent and immanent, and a scud of darkness suddenly veiled the distant land, roiling up out of nowhere, solidifying into an impenetrable curtain of shadow.

end.