At length he stepped out of the stall, closed the door behind him. The rain had stopped so he could hear the murmur of the stream, and the plop of rain falling from leaf to ground.

Were there still faeries in the woods? he wondered. Playing and plotting and watching the foibles of man? He was too tired in his mind to search for them. Too tired in his heart to take the lonely walk to where he knew his family must be buried.

He went back to the house, retrieved his case and walked up all the winding steps to the topmost tower.

There was a heavy door barring his way, one that was deeply scribed with symbols and words of magic. Hoyt ran his fingers over the carving, felt the hum and the heat. Whoever had done this had some power. Well, he wouldn't be shut out of his own workroom. He set to work to break the locking spell, and used his own sense of insult and anger to heat it.

This was his home. And never in his life had a door here been locked to him.

"Open locks," he commanded. "It is my right to enter this place. It is my will that breaks this spell."

The door flew open on a blast of wind.

Hoyt took himself and his resentment inside, letting the door slam shut behind him.

The room was empty but for dust and spiderwebs. Cold, too, he thought. Cold and stale and unused. Once it had carried the scent of his herbs and candlewax, the burn of his own power.

He would have this back at least, as it had been it would be again. There was work to do, and this was where he intended to do it.

So he cleaned the hearth and lit the fire.

He dragged up from below whatever suited him-a chair, tables. There was no electricity here, and that pleased him. He'd make his own light.

He set out candles, touched their wicks to set them to burn. By their light he arranged his tools and supplies. Settled in his heart, in his mind, for the first time in days, he stretched out on the floor in front of the fire, rolled up his cloak to pillow his head and slept.

And dreamed.

He stood with Morrigan on a high hill.

The ground sheered down in steep drops, slicing rolls with shadowy chasms all haunted by the distant blur of dark mountains. The gra.s.s was coa.r.s.e and pocked with rock. Some rose up like spears, others jutted out in gray layers, flat as giant tables. The ground dipped up and down, up again to the mountains where the mists fell into pockets.

He could hear hisses in the mists, the panting breath of something older than time.

There was an anger to this place. A wild violence waiting to happen.

But now, nothing stirred on the land as far as his eye could see.

"This is your battleground," she told him.

"Your last stand. There will be others before you come here. But this is where you will draw her, and face her with all the worlds in the balance on that day."

"What is this place?"

"This is the Valley of Silence, in the Mountains of Mist, in the World of Geall. Blood will spill here, demon and human. What grows after will be determined by what you, and those with you do. But you must not stand upon this land until the battle."

"How will I come here again?"

"You will be shown."

"We are only four."

"More are coming. Sleep now, for when you wake, you must act."

While he slept the mists parted. He saw there was a maiden standing on that same high ground. She was slim and young with brown hair in a tumble down her back, loose as suited a maiden. She wore a gown of deep mourning, and her eyes showed the ravages of weeping.

But they were dry now, and fixed upon that desolate land, as his had been. The G.o.ddess spoke to her, but the words were not for him.

Her name was Moira, and her land was Geall. Her land and her heart and her duty. That land had been at peace since the G.o.ds had made it, and those of her blood had guarded that peace. Now, she knew, peace would be broken, just as her heart was broken.

She had buried her mother that morning. "They slaughtered her like a spring lamb."

"I know your grief, child."

Her bruised eyes stared hard through the rain. "Do the G.o.ds grieve, my lady?"

"I know your anger."

"She harmed no one in her life. What manner of death is that for one who was so good, so kind?" Moira's hands bunched at her sides. "You cannot know my grief or my anger."

"Others will die even a worse death. Will you stand and do nothing?"

"What can I do? How do we defend against such creatures? Will you give me more power?" Moira held out her hands, hands that had never felt so small and empty. "More wisdom and cunning? What I have isn't enough."

"You've been given all you need. Use it, hone it. There are others, and they wait for you.

You must leave now, today."

"Leave?" Stunned, Moira turned to face the G.o.ddess. "My people have lost their queen.

How can I leave them, and how could you ask it of me? The test must be taken; the G.o.ds themselves deemed this so. If I'm not to be the one to stand in my mother's stead, take sword and crown, I still must bide here, to help the one who does." "You help by going, and this the G.o.ds deem so. This is your charge, Moira of Geall. To travel from this world so you might save it."

"You would have me leave my home, my people, and on such a day? The flowers have not yet faded on my mother's grave."

"Would your mother wish you to stand and weep for her and watch your people die?"

"No."

"You must go, you and the one you trust most. Travel to the Dance of the G.o.ds. There I will give you a key, and it will take you where you need to go. Find the others, form your army.

And when you come here, to this land, on Samhain, you'll fight."

Fight, she thought. She had never been called to fight, had only known peace. "My lady, am I not needed here?"

"You will be. I tell you to go now where you're needed now. If you stay, you're lost. And your land is lost, as the worlds are. This was destined for you since before your birth. It is why you are.

"Go immediately. Make haste. They only wait for sunset."

Her mother's grave was here, Moira thought in despair. Her life was here, and all she knew. "I'm in mourning. A few days more, Mother, I beg you."

"Stay even one day longer, and this is what befalls your people, your land."

Morrigan waved an arm, parting the mists.

Beyond them it was black night with only the silver ripple of light from the cold moon.

Screams ripped through the air. Then there was smoke, and the shimmering orange glow of fires.

Moira saw the village overlooked by her own home. The shops and cottages were burning, and those screams were the screams of her friends, her neighbors. Men and women ripped to pieces, children being fed on by those horrible things that had taken her mother.

She watched her own uncle fight, slashing with his sword while blood stained his face and hands. But they leaped on him from above, from below, those creatures with fangs and eyes of feral red. They fell on him with howls that froze her bones. And while the blood washed the ground, a woman of great beauty glided over it.

She wore red, a silk gown tightly laced at the bodice and bedecked with jewels. Her hair was uncovered and spilled gold as sunlight over her white shoulders.

In her arms was a babe still swaddled. While the slaughter raged around her, the thing of great beauty bared fangs, and sank them into the babe's throat.

"No!"

"Hold your grief and your anger here, and this will come." The cold anger in Morrigan's voice pierced through Moira's terror. "All you know destroyed, ravaged, devoured."

"What are these demons? What h.e.l.l loosed them on us?"

"Learn. Take what you have, what you are, and seek your destiny. The battle will come.

Arm yourself."

She woke beside her mother's grave, shaking from the horrors she'd seen. Her heart was as heavy as the stones used to make her mother's cairn.

"I couldn't save you. How can I save anyone? How can I stop this thing from coming here?"

To leave all she'd ever known, all she'd ever loved. Easy for G.o.ds to speak of destiny, she thought as she forced herself to her feet. She looked over the graves to the quiet green hills, the blue ribbon of the river. The sun was high and bright, sparkling over her world. She heard the song of a lark, and the distant lowing of cattle. The G.o.ds had smiled on this land for hundreds of years. Now there was a price to be paid, of war and death and blood. And her duty to pay it.

"I'll miss you, every day," she said aloud, then looked over to her father's grave. "But now you're together. I'll do what needs to be done, to protect Geall. Because I'm all that's left of you.

I swear it here, on this holy ground before those who made me. I'll go to strangers in a strange world, and give my life if my life is asked. It's all I can give you now."

She picked up the flowers she'd brought with her, and laid some on each grave. "Help me do this thing," she pleaded, then walked away.

He was waiting for her on the stone wall.

He had his own grief, she knew, but had given her the time she'd needed alone. He was the one she trusted most. The son of her mother's brother-the uncle she'd seen cut down in the vision.

He jumped lightly to his feet when she approached, and simply held open his arms.

Going into them, she rested her head on his chest. "Larkin."

"We'll hunt them. We'll find them and kill them. Whatever they are."

"I know what they are, and we will find them, kill them. But not here. Not now." She drew back. "Morrigan came to me, and told me what must be done."

"Morrigan?"

At the suspicion on his face she was able to smile a little. "I'll never understand how someone with your skills doubts the G.o.ds." She lifted a hand to his cheek. "But will you trust me?"

He framed her face, kissed her forehead.

"You know I will."

As she told him what she'd been told, his face changed again. He sat on the ground, shoving a hand through his mane of tawny hair.

She'd envied his hair as long as she'd lived, mourning the fact that she'd been given ordinary brown. His eyes were tawny as well, gilded she'd always thought, while hers were gray as rain.

He'd been gifted with more height, as well as other things she envied.

When she was finished, she drew a long breath. "Will you go with me?"

"I'd hardly let you go alone." His hand closed over hers, firm and steady. "Moira, how can you be sure this vision wasn't simply your heartbreak?"

"I know. I can only tell you that I know what I saw was real. But if it's nothing more than grief, we'll only have wasted the time it takes to go to the Dance. Larkin, I need to try."

"Then we'll try."

"We tell no one."

"Moira-"

"Listen to me." Urgently, she gripped his wrists. "Your father would do his best to stop us.

Or to come with us if he believed me. This isn't the way, it isn't my charge. One, the G.o.ddess told me. I was to take only one, the one I trusted most. It can only be you. We'll write it down for him. While we're gone, he'll rule Geall, and protect it."

"You'll take the sword-" Larkin began.

"No. The sword isn't to leave here. That was a sacred oath, and I won't be the one to break it. The sword remains until I return. I don't take my place until I lift it, I don't lift it until I've earned my place. There are other swords. Arm yourself, she said, so see that you do. Meet me in an hour. Tell no one."

She squeezed his hands now. "Swear to me on the blood we share. On the loss we share."

How could he deny her when tears were still on her cheeks? "I swear it to you. I'll tell no one." He gave her arms a quick rub in comfort.

"We'll be back by supper, I wager, in any case." She hurried home, across the field and up the hill to the castle where her blood had reigned over the land since it was created. Those she pa.s.sed bowed their heads to her to show their sympathy, and she saw tears glimmer.

And she knew when they dried, many would look to her for guidance, for answers.

Many would wonder how she would rule.

So did she.

She crossed the great hall. There was no laughter here now, no music. Gathering the burdensome skirts of her gown, she climbed the steps to her chamber.