"You're sure?"

Amber eyes flickered in Grace's direction. "Yes, I'm quite certain of it."

Snatching up her skirts, Grace turned and stumbled back the way she had come. Once in the tower, she found her place and lay down. She started to close her eyes, then stopped. Two golden sparks watched her; the kitten still rested against Tira's arm, eyes open and gazing in her direction.

423.

432.

"She saw me, didn't she?" Grace whispered. "Just like you do now."

The kitten licked a paw. With a shiver, Grace turned on her blanket and curled up. And all that night she dreamed of amber moons watching her from an onyx sky.

On their third day of traveling from the Gray Tower, the tumbled line of the Dawning Fells made a sharp bend to the north, and the riders turned to follow it.

Travis sighed as he gazed from his vantage atop Patch's swaying back.

The land they traveled through was beautiful and utterly empty.Before, Travis had seen the occasional daub-and-wattle hovel, or the ruins of an old wall. But now there were no such signs of civilization, abandoned or not.

"It has been many more than a thousand years since people dwelled in this place," Falken said over the clop of hooves when Travis nudged Patch close to the bard's mount and asked about the history of this land. "We have passed beyond the marches of Toloria, and we are near the Dawn Sea and the southern reaches of what is now called the Wild Coast.

But the folk who once walked this place called it DunDordurun, which in their tongue was the In- Between-Land. To them, it was a place of magic."

Travis looked at the mist-shrouded mountains and at the rugged plains below. A single hawk wheeled against the endless blue sky as a wind sprang up, carrying on it, faint but sharp, the scent of salt and the ocean.

"Who were they, Falken? The ones who lived here?"

The bard gazed at the low, distant line of a ridge 424 mark anthony 433.

that was too straight and too long to be entirely natural. Lirith and Beltan had guided their horses closer to listen to the bard's story. The wind blew Falken's silver-shot hair from his brow. "Those who remember them call them Maugrim, which means the Wild Ones. But in their tongue they were the Gul-Hin-Gul, which as far as I know meant the True People.

I'm afraid little is known of the Maugrim."

Beltan laughed. "But I'd be willing to bet my sword that every bit that is known is locked up inside your skull, Falken."

"You'd likely win that bet," Melia said, drifting closer on her pale mare. Aryn rode just behind, as did Grace and Tira. Only Durge, who scouted the land ahead, was not in earshot of the bard.

"What happened to them?" Travis said. "The Maugrim."

Falken grinned at their expectant faces. "I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but I'm afraid I don't know. By the time the folk of Tarras ventured into the north of Falengarth, the Maugrim were already just a fading memory. Some believe they vanished into the Twilight Realm along with the Little People. But I fear it's more likely they simply dwindled and died out, as many peoples have throughout history."

Travis frowned. "That's it?"

"Not every tale makes a good telling." The bard gazed again at the straight line of the ridge. "Of course, there were always stories whispered in ancient days, about shadows glimpsed in forests or on high hills at twilight. Goblins, the Tarrasians called them. But I've met some who thought these shadows and spirits were a remnant of the Maugrim, lingering still in the deepest woods, and atop forlorn hills that were said to be vast and hollow inside, with secret entrances only the Wild Ones could find and open."

425Above, the hawk let out a lonely cry, and the treeless hill slipped away behind them.

It was just after midday when Travis saw the giant. His stomach was 434 growling, and he was beginning to think that complaining to Melia and Falken was almost worth the stark glares he knew such action would win him, when the riders crested a rise, and found themselves gazing into a shallow valley. The land angled down to the thin line of a stream, then rose again on the far side. It was on the green, facing them, that the giant rested. Travis's jaw dropped open, and he heard gasps to either side.

The giant stretched the entire height of the opposite ridge, his outlines traced in white stone that shone brightly against the jade background. The lines that formed the figure were crude, but powerful and wildly expressive, and the whole made Travis think of drawings he had seen of Paleolithic cave paintings.

Although the giant was manlike in form, his crooked legs and clawed feet reminded Travis of a bird's. His face was featureless save for the sharp line of a mouth and a single huge eye. Lower down the slope, his barbed phallus jutted above a pair of boldly drawn circles.

Despite the enormous organ, there was something about the drawing that kept Travis from thinking it was some ancient symbol of fertility. Maybe it was the two triangles that stuck out from the smiling line of the giant's mouth like teeth. Or maybe it was the shapes protruding from one of the giant's clenched hands. Shapes which, if Travis squinted, looked almost like the small, broken forms of people.

Travis glanced to his left at a hissing sound. Melia sat stiffly aback her horse. She clutched the black kitten, fur standing up on the back of its neck, to her chest. Which of them had made the sound, Travis couldn't say.

426 mark anthony "I had not thought I would ever see your likeness again," the lady said, not to Travis. "We destroyed all such images. Or so I thought."

Falken moved his horse beside Melia's and laid a hand on her arm. "Calm yourself, Melia. It's just a drawing. Lines in the dirt, that's all."

435.

Her eyes flashed. "And do not lines have power, Falken? Is that not what you always tell me when you speak of your precious runes?"

The bard pressed his lips shut but said nothing.

"Who is it, Falken?" Travis said without really meaning to.

Falken spoke in a hard voice. "It's Mohg, the Lord of Nightfall. One of the Old Gods."

"Like Olrig, you mean?"

The bard shot him a look so sharp that Travis bit his tongue."No. Not like Olrig. Even in the beginning Mohg was different from the other Eldhari, and in the end he was their foe."

"Not just theirs," Melia said, her amber eyes narrowing to slits. "All of ours."

Grace nudged her palfrey forward. "I've heard you talk about the Old Gods, Falken. And the Rune- speakers did as well. But no one else I've met has spoken of them. Did people ever worship them?"

"The Eldhari had little to do with people. Not like the Nindari, the New Gods who ventured into Falengarth from Al-amun and Tarras to the south, and whose fates were ever caught up with those who followed them. The Old Gods were creatures of stone, and forest, and sky. They had little understanding of the ways of people. Although some few did seek them out, and were befriended by them, and gained great gifts. Gifts like the runes. And for a numberless age the Maugrim knew of the Old Gods, and of their children, the Eldhrim--the Little People."

427.

the figure outlined in white stones. There was something about it that seemed almost . . . familiar. Something about the single eye that stared from the center of its face. Then he saw something he had not noticed before: a shape perched on the old god's left shoulder, a shape with folded wings and a curved beak. Almost like . . .

436.

Like a raven, Travis.

But that couldn't be. The ravens were all gone-- they had been b'lrned away. Wasn't that what Sister Mirrim had seen with her blind, bloody eyes?

"Who made this drawing, Falken?" Durge said in his rumbling voice. "Was it the Maugrim?"

The bard shook his head. "No, the Maugrim made no drawings. Nor did they make music or adornments for their bodies, save such pigments as they could gain from soil or plants. My guess is that this was forged later by some of the first people who journeyed into Falengarth from the south, and who encountered the Old Gods here."

Beltan snorted, gesturing toward the struggling stick figures caught in the giant's hand. "Call it a hunch, but something tells me it was an encounter they didn't much care for."

Lirith studied the drawing with dark, intent eyes. "It's fascinating."

"No, it's hideous," Melia said with quiet vehemence. She turned her amber gaze on Falken. "And you profess to wonder why people forgot the Old Gods."

The bard only grunted.

"But what did happen to them?" Aryn said. "Where did they go?"

Falken sighed. "Their time passed. When the New Gods came with men out of the south and marched across Falengarth, the Old Gods and the Little People knew their age had ended, and so they faded away"It was hardly that simple," Melia said. The bard studied the drawing on the hillside. "No. No/I suppose it wasn't at that."

Grace brushed strands of ash-blond hair from her eyes. "There's something I don't understand. Last winter, the Little People of 437.

Gloaming Wood were roaming the halls of Calavere. You were the first one to say they had come back, Falken. So if the Little People can come back from this Twilight Realm, does that mean the Old Gods can as well?"

Before Falken could reply Melia made a sharp gesture with her hand. "Let us leave this place. There is nothing for us here." She urged her white mare down the slope.

Travis frowned at Falken. "What was that about?" However, the bard did not meet his gaze. "Come on," Falken said, and together the riders followed after Melia.

59,.

The next day they rode between a pair of stone watchtowers set atop twin mottes--mounds of soil raised by the builders--and passed into the Dominion of Perridon. Evidently the fabled mists of the place had been lurking just across the border, for as soon as the travelers reached the towers a thick fog rose from low hollows in the ground, swirling around the legs of the horses and up to the knees of the riders.

Durge looked up at the silent watchtowers as they slipped past. The narrow windows high in each tower were dim. "Should not these forts be manned, Falken?"

"Given that this is Perridon, you'd think so." The bard's wolfish mien was grim.

D^U-,,, _^-4---1 in -1;-1_/^- ^l-;.-l- . . 111.

429.

into Perridon without someone demanding its name and a tax of three whiskers. The Perridoners have garrisons at pretty much every road, river, and footpath that leads into the Dominion. Every time I've come here, I've had to stop and tell them who I am, why I'm here, and what I had for breakfast two Melinsdays ago."

438.

Travis guided Patch past Lirith and Aryn, toward Grace's horse.

"Cheerful place, isn't it?" he said to her under his breath.

Grace smiled. "Actually, I've always sort of enoyed foggy days."

"You're not kidding, are you?"

She shrugged. "I like the way fog hides everything. It's sort of nice to be able to move through the world and have it seem like you're the onlyone on the planet. It feels . . . safe."

Travis shuddered. Grace's words didn't sound nice at all, but instead horribly lonely--dwelling in a world of gray, unable to see or touch the people all around you. He opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment Tira looked up and gazed at him with her one perfect, one drooping eye.

She held her half-burnt doll out toward him.

"She wants you to hold it," Grace said. "It's an honor, really--she doesn't offer it to just anyone."

Travis stared at the girl, certain that he did not want to hold the charred doll, to feel the dry, scorched wood under his fingers. But she lowered neither doll nor disarming gaze, and he started to reach for it.

"Go back!"

The riders brought their horses to a halt at the sound of the rasping voice. Even as Travis watched, a figure stepped from a bank of mist. The man's hair was plastered to his skull, and his cheeks were shadowed by dark stubble. His cloak was as gray as Travis's own. 430 mark anthony croak. "You are fools to enter here. Go back from where you came."

Falken guided his horse forward. "We mean no harm to you." He reached his ungloved hand down toward the man.

439.

"No! Don't touch him!"

A figure surged past Travis. It was Grace, spurring her palfrey toward Falken. The bard jerked his hand back and stared at her, as did the man in the gray cloak.

It was then that Travis saw the man's eyes: They were black, without whites, without irises. A sickness flooded his gut. Next to'him, Aryn clasped a hand to her mouth, and Lirith let out a soft sigh.

"Yes," the man said, gazing up at Grace with his impossible eyes. "I see you understand."

"How far?" Grace said. Travis had never heard her voice so cold before. "How far has it spread in Perridon? The Burning Plague."

The man passed a hand before his face and staggered to one side. Travis wondered if he would collapse. Then he spoke, his voice quieter now.

"I don't know. Some villages here, some there. There is no reason, no pattern to it. They come, they strike, then they are gone again."

There was no need for Grace to ask whom he spoke of. They all knew: the Burnt Ones.

Beltan nudged his roan charger forward--but not too close. "How long ago were they here?"The man crossed his arms over his sunken chest. "I cannot say. When I came to this place they were already ashes." He made a vague gesture toward the two towers.

"Do you know what they want?" the blond knight said.

The man laughed now, a crazed sound that chilled Travis's blood. "To burn us all, I suppose. But there still could speak, near as he was to the end. The key, he said. He wanted the key to fire. Yet what does that mean?" He held shaking, 440 skeletal hands before him. "But then, perhaps I will know before long."

"It's not too late," Grace said, her voice without emotion. "To end it."

He smiled now, his lips pulling back in a rictus from rotten teeth. "I know, my lady. I came here to watch, and to warn others as long as I could. But that time is nearly over. I will make one more trip up the steps of the western guard tower. And when I descend again, it will not be by the stairs, but rather by the very swiftest of routes." His black gaze flickered toward Falken. "Now, will you turn away from this place, for fear of plague?"

"It is for fear of plague that we must ride here."

The man considered the bard's words, then nod ded. "So it was that I guessed. I've heard it said that trouble precedes you, Falken Blackhand. It seems the stories of the Grim Bard are true. But may the other tales be right as well." He pressed blistered lips to gether.

"Find an end to this, Blackhand. Find an end for all of us."

Falken opened his mouth, but the man had already slipped back into a swirl of mist and was gone.

"Do you want me to find him?" Beltan said, grip ping the reins of his charger.

Falken held up his gloved hand. "You won't find him. Didn't you see what he wore?"

"A mistcloak," Durge said. "He is a Spider, then?"

The bard nodded. "One of the king of Perridon's personal spies. It's said that a Spider can walk through a city at midday and not be seen by a single pair of eyes."