"In the morning we can make a cairn. There's no earth up here for burying."

Gavril nodded. He was still staring at the sleeping Kiukiu. He had not forgotten the heady rush of emotion that had overwhelmed him on seeing her. He had called it gladness, joy, relief at knowing she was alive. But deep inside him, a small, insidious voice whispered that he was deceiving himself. There had also been the stirrings of some stronger, darker feeling.

He hastily turned his head away. He had promised his heart to Astasia Orlova. But now Astasia seemed no more than a distant, impossible dream. When he tried to remember her face, her voice, he saw only a shadow girl, insubstantial and unreal.

He ventured a glance at Jaromir, who sat hunched, staring into the fire, his burned arm and hand hanging uselessly. Jaromir Arkhel had suffered enough at the hands of his father's clan. If Kiukiu could lay Volkh's ghost, the blood curse would be lifted from both their heads-without another drop of blood being shed.

Hope glimmered, a tiny crocus flame of clear light, in the darkness.

And then he remembered the power and fury of the revenant, the way it had flung him across the tower room in Kastel Drakhaon. If it could attack him with such violence, what would it do to Kiukiu?

No, he had no right to ask her to risk her life, her sanity-her very soul itself-on such a dangerous mission.

He would have to find some other way.

"I've never seen anyone heal so fast," Jaromir said in puzzled tones as he examined Gavril's shoulder. "Is it your Drakhaon blood?"

Gavril was testing how far he could move his right arm before the first telltale warning twinge told him to stop. "Only a few days," he said, flexing his fingers, "and look!" He was astonished at the speed at which the damaged bone and sinews were knitting back together. Perhaps there was some advantage to his blood inheritance after all.

Kiukiu sat suddenly bolt upright, the blankets dropping from around her.

"Harim!" she said. She looked as if she was still half-asleep, her hair all mussed, her eyes unfocused. Then she saw Gavril. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Who is Harim?" asked Gavril.

"My grandmother's pony. I left him in a gully before I started the climb up here." Clutching a blanket around her, she wandered over to the shutter and opened it. "Look. It's been snowing all night."

"If he's out of the wind, he'll weather the storm. Those moorland ponies are very tough," Jaromir said.

"But I promised her I'd take good care of him-"

"You'll have to wait till the snow stops. Have some porridge. You must be hungry."

Jaromir handed her a bowl of porridge sweetened with a spoonful of heather honey; she bolted it down enthusiastically.

There was something different about her, Gavril thought, watching her . . . an almost indefinable quality of . . . strength. strength. Yes, there was strength but also a new vulnerability. And her face had changed; the softness of early youth had gone. He wished he had a pen and paper to capture what he saw. Yes, there was strength but also a new vulnerability. And her face had changed; the softness of early youth had gone. He wished he had a pen and paper to capture what he saw.

"Still no word," Jaromir said edgily.

"It's been snowing all night," said Gavril.

"You must call your druzhina. druzhina. Summon them. I can't bear to stay here and not know how she is." Summon them. I can't bear to stay here and not know how she is."

"And I told you, I don't know how."

Kiukiu had been glancing from one to the other, evidently puzzled by the exchange.

"What's happened while I've been away?" she asked.

"Lilias," said Gavril. "Michailo helped her escape-and shot Kostya."

Kiukiu's gray-blue eyes widened. "The Bogatyr's dead?"

"We don't know for sure," Gavril said uneasily.

Jaromir rose to his feet in one sudden restless movement, knocking over his stool. "If they won't come to me, then I'll have to go to them."

"And they'll kill you," Gavril said. "At least up here you have the advantage. When they come for me, you can bargain more effectively."

"But right now we have no dialogue, no bargaining, nothing!" Jaromir struck his sound fist on the table, making the porridge bowls rattle.

"Then I'll try," Gavril said grudgingly. He tried to empty his mind, listening intently for the distant murmur of voices he had first heard the night of the blood oath.

"We will always know where you are."

But all he could hear was silence, a rushing, empty silence, like the wind-stirred darkness at night.

"It's no good," he said, shaking his head. "I haven't been trained how to do it. Or if Kostya is dead, the link is broken."

"Can I help, my lord?" Kiukiu hefted up the gusly onto her lap. She plucked a low note or two and he saw her wince as her scarred fingertips brushed the cruel metal strings. Before he knew what he was doing, he had reached across and gently covered her injured fingers with his own. He saw her glance up at him, startled.

"You're hurt," he said. "You must let your fingers heal first. Lord Jaromir has a medicinal salve that the monks make. It might help."

Jaromir nodded and brought over the earthenware pot. As he opened it, the soothing aromatic scented the air, sharp as witch hazel, sweet as mallow.

"It smells like the moorlands in spring," she said, taking in a deep breath.

"It smells sweet," Jaromir said, "but it stings like hell."

Cautiously, she dipped her fingertips into the green salve and grimaced as it began to bite. She shook her fingers furiously as if to shake the pain away.

"Try again," Jaromir said to Gavril in a low voice.

Gavril went to the door of the hut and opened the top half, gazing far out across the cloud-shrouded valley.

"Kostya," he called silently to the bleak mountains. he called silently to the bleak mountains. "Jushko! Can you hear me? It's me, Gavril. I'm trapped, injured-and I need your help." "Jushko! Can you hear me? It's me, Gavril. I'm trapped, injured-and I need your help."

This time he thought he sensed a faint answer, faint and ominous as the distant flicker of winter lightning. Had he made contact at last? He waited, but there was nothing else.

He turned his back on the winter wastes and closed the door.

"Well?" demanded Jaromir.

"There was something there, this time . . . but so far off, I couldn't tell if it worked."

A sudden violent gust of wind made the whole hut shudder. The door blew inward, banging on its hinges. Gavril whirled around. The sky had gone leaden dark, and the temperature plummeted. He hurried to the doorway, gazing out.

The wind came shrieking back up the valley, wild as a tornado, tearing at the roof of the hut as if it meant to wrench it apart.

Overhead turbulent stormclouds churned, gray, shot through with sudden flickers of violent white lightning. Claps of thunder made the ground shake beneath his feet.

"Where did this storm come from?" cried Jaromir above the din.

"This is no ordinary storm!" Gavril shouted back, gripping the doorframe to keep upright.

Jagged hailstones came pelting down, slivers of ice as sharp as broken glass. The wind spun around the hut again, a high, menacing whine.

He had called-and something something had answered him, some dark, savage force of winter. . . . had answered him, some dark, savage force of winter. . . .

"Get back inside!" He pushed Jaromir back into the hut.

"What the hell's going on?" Jaromir twisted around, eyes blazing.

Kiukiu stood, white-faced in the hut, clutching her gusly to her. Lady Iceflower perched on her shoulder.

"It's Lord Volkh," she said.

Thunder crashed again overhead. Dazed, ears ringing, Gavril heard a sudden rending sound. Looking up, he saw that a gaping hole had appeared in the roof.

"We must get out!" he cried.

Lightning almost blinded him. Silver fire crackled in the wooden roof as the turfs caught alight. The hut was ablaze.

"Run!" he cried.

The snow outside glittered with hailstones. They ran, sliding and slipping over the carpet of crushed ice, as lightning bolts sizzled around them and the turbulent wind roared on, tearing at their clothes and their hair. Behind them the hut flamed like a pitch torch.

Lady Iceflower fluttered above them, battered by the violence of the wind, blown helplessly hither and thither. Torn feathers fluttered down, white amid the lacerating blast of the hail.

Jaromir suddenly stopped, flinging his arms wide, gazing up at the cloud-wracked sky. "Here I am, Volkh! Why don't you strike me dead? Finish what you started!"

Gavril turned. The rain of hail shards grazed his skin, cold as frozen steel. The mountainside trembled with lightning and glistening hailstones.

And then he glimpsed in the lightning's shadow a tall figure, dark as a thundercloud, towering above Jaromir.

"Father!" Gavril yelled with all the force of his lungs. He started back toward Jaromir. "If you kill him, you must kill me too!"

"Leave me!" Jaromir cried. "Let it end here!"

A spiral of cloudshadows spun up about them. His father's wraith, eyes cold as lightning-silver, loomed above them.

"Then you both will die." A voice of thunder made the rocks tremble. A voice of thunder made the rocks tremble.

Gavril steeled himself, eyes squeezed tight shut, waiting for the final blinding bolt of power.

And then another sound ripped through the roll and rumble of thunder, sharp as the shattering of glass, a tumbling cascade of plucked notes.

"Volkh!" A girl's voice rang out, clear and challenging. "You made me bring you through into this world. Now I have come to send you back."

Another cascade of notes followed, ending in one long, low pitch so deep it was darker than a moonless sky.

"No!" The spirit-wraith's cry echoed around the mountains like a thunderclap. The spirit-wraith's cry echoed around the mountains like a thunderclap.

Gavril dared to look up.

Kiukiu sat on a rock, amid the turbulence of the swirling snow, eyes closed in calm concentration, hands slowly moving across the strings of the gusly.

White lightning crackled about her head-a lethally dazzling corona-but it did not burn her.

And from her still figure, a low, deep humming sound emanated, serene as the summer drone of wild bees.

Slowly the savage fury of the storm began to die down. Thunder rumbled fitfully in the distance. And from the gray sky, snowflakes fell softly instead of vicious hail.

The flames in the hut were smothered in billowing smoke, gradually fizzling out, extinguished by the wetness of softly falling snow. Now all that could be heard was Kiukiu's voice, spinning out each dark thread of sound into the snow-chilled air until the ancient stones of the mountain resonated with her singing.

Gavril crouched in the snow beside Jaromir.

"What's happening?" he murmured under his breath.

"She's making a Sending Song for your father."

"He'll fight her."

"She's strong. She can do it. Can't you feel it in the air?"

Gavril glanced up at the sky. Jaromir was right. There was a subtle change, as if the harsh, bitter-cold of the past weeks was slowly melting away. The snow had stopped. Even the clouds seemed higher, whiter. And as Kiukiu's measured chanting continued, the fogs began to lift from the valley below, evaporating as they watched. A faint, pale brightness lit the clouds overhead.

"The sun?" Gavril said in disbelief.

Kiukiu's voice was becoming quieter, more drowsy, trailing off into long silences. Eventually there was nothing but silence.

"Kiukiu?" Gavril said.

Still she sat there, motionless, eyes closed, head drooping, her hands on the strings, just as they had found her the night before.

"Kiukiu."

He hurried over to her and gently touched her shoulder. Slowly she slumped forward-and if he had not caught her, she would have toppled onto the snow.

"Help me!" he cried. Between them they held her, he and Jaromir. Her head lolled forward. Overhead the clouds thinned, parted, and a thin wash of blue sky appeared.

"What's the matter with her?" Gavril said in anguish as the sunlight glimmered gold in her hair. "Why doesn't she answer?"

"Malusha once told me," Jaromir said, grim-faced, "that it is always dangerous for a Guslyar to venture into the Ways Beyond. Sometimes it is too difficult to find the way back."

Gavril looked down at Kiukiu's golden head lying against his shoulder. He saw the little spots of scarlet staining the white snow, and the blood staining the strings. "No, Kiukiu," he whispered into her soft hair, "you must come back. Come back to me. Please come back."