She didn't understand, but a time later there was someone else in the room, and for a hallucinatory instant she thought it was Matt Soren.

"When I leave this room," said Rakoth, "you are Blod's, for he brought me a thing I coveted." The Dwarf, who was not Matt after all, smiled. There was a hunger in his expression. She was naked, she knew. Open.

"You will give him everything he asks," the Unraveller said. "He need take nothing, you will give and give again until you die." He turned to the Dwarf. "She pleases you?"

Blod could only nod; his eyes were terrifying.

Rakoth laughed again, it was the laughter on the wind. "She will do anything you ask. At morning's end you are to kill her, though. Any way you like, but she must die. There is a reason." And moving forward as he spoke, Sathain, the Hooded One, touched her once, with his one hand, between the eyes.

And oh, it was not over after all. For the spar was gone, the clinging place for what she was, for Jennifer.

He left the room. He left her with the Dwarf. What was left of her.

Blod wet his lips. "Get up," he said, and she rose. She could not do otherwise. There was no spar, there was no light.

"Beg me," he said, and oh, what sin had it been? Even as the pleading spilled helplessly from her, as his filthy abuse rained down, and then real pain, which excited him-even through it all she found something. Not a spar of light, for there was no light anymore, it was drowned; but here, at the last, the very last thing was pride. She would not scream, she would not go mad, unless he said for her to do so, and if he did that, it was still being taken, after all, she was not giving it.

But at length he tired and, mindful of his instructions, turned his mind to killing her. He was inventive, and it appeared after a time that pain did impose impossibilities. Pride can only carry one so far, and golden girls can die, so when the Dwarf began to truly hurt her, she started to scream after all. No spar, no light, no name, nothing left but the Dark.

When the embassy from Cathal entered the Great Hall of Paras Derval in the morning, it was with a degree of stupefaction quite spectacular that they discovered their Princess waiting to greet them.

Kim Ford was fighting a shameful case of the giggles. Sharra's description of the probable reactions on the part of the embassy dovetailed so wonderfully with the reality that she knew with certainty that if she but glanced at the Princess, she would disgrace herself. She kept her eyes carefully lowered.

Until Diarmuid strolled up. The business with the water pitchers the night before had generated the sort of hilarity between the two women that cements a developing friendship. They had laughed for a long time.

It was only afterwards that Kim had remembered that he was a wounded man, and perhaps in more ways than one. He had also acted in the afternoon to save both Sharra's life and her pride, and he had told them to crown his brother. She should have remembered all of that, she supposed, but then she couldn't, she simply could not be serious and sensitive all the time.

In any case, the Prince showed no traces of affliction at the moment. Using the drone of Gorlaes's voice as cover-Aileron had, a little surprisingly, re-appointed the Chancellor-he approached the two of them. His eyes were clear, very blue, and his manner gave no hint of extreme intoxication a few hours before, unless it lay in the slightly edged quality of his gaze.

"I hope," he murmured to Sharra, "that yesterday discharged all your impulses to throw things at me."

"I wouldn't count on it," Sharra said defiantly.

He was very good at this, Kim realized. He paused to flick her with a brief, sardonic glance, as to an erring child, before turning back to the Princess. "That," he said simply, "would be a pity. Adults do have better things to do." And he moved off, elegant and assured, to stand beside his brother, as the heir to the throne should.

Kim felt obscurely chastened; the water had been awfully childish. On the other hand, she abruptly recalled, he had been climbing into their rooms! He deserved whatever he got, and more.

Which, though manifestly true, didn't seem to count for much. She still felt like a kid at the moment. God, he's cool, she thought, and felt a stirring of sympathy for her newest friend. Sympathy and, because she was honest with herself, the slightest flicker of envy.

In the meantime, she was beginning to understand why Gorlaes was still Chancellor. No one else would have put such a flourish into the necessary rituals that accompanied procedures of this sort. Or even remembered them, for that matter. He was still going, and Aileron was waiting with surprising patience, when a second man, in his own way as handsome as the first, came up to her.

"What," asked Levon, without preamble or greeting, direct as wind, "is the ring you have?"

This was different. It was the Seer of Brennin who looked up at him appraisingly. "The Baelrath," she answered quietly. "The Warstone, it is called. It is of the wild magic."

He reacted to that. "Forgive me, but why are you wearing it?"

"Because the last Seer gave it to me. She dreamt it on my hand."

He nodded, his eyes widening. "Gereint told me of such things. Do you know what it is?"

"Not entirely. Do you?"

Levon shook his head. "No. How should I? It is far from my world, Lady. I know the eltor and the Plain. But I have one thought. May we talk after?"

He really was extraordinarily attractive, a restless stallion in the confines of the hall. "Sure," she said.

As it happened, they never got the chance.

Kevin, standing with Paul beside one of the pillars opposite the women, was quietly pleased at how clearheaded he felt. They'd done a lot of ale the night before. Paying close attention, he saw Gorlaes and then Galienth, the Cathalian emissary, conclude their formal speeches.

Aileron rose. "I thank you," he said levelly, "for coming here, and for your gracious words about my father. We are grateful to Shalhassan that he saw fit to send his daughter and heir to take counsel with us. It is a trust we honor, and it is an emblem of the trust we all must share in the days to come."

The emissary, who, Kevin knew, was utterly clueless as to how Sharra had got there, nodded sage agreement. The King, still standing, spoke again.

"In this counsel-taking, all shall be granted speech, for it cannot be otherwise. It comes to me, though, that first right of address here belongs not to myself, but rather to the eldest of us and the one whose people best know the fury of Rakoth. Na-Brendel of Daniloth, will you speak for the lios alfar?" For a moment after he had ended, Aileron's glance met that of Paul Schafer in an enigmatic exchange.

Then all eyes were on the lios. Still limping from his wounds, Brendel advanced, and with him for support came the one who had seldom left his side in three days. Tegid took Brendel carefully forward, and then withdrew, unwontedly diffident, and the lios alfar stood alone in the midst of them all, his eyes the color of the sea under rain.

"I thank you, High King," he said. "You do me and my people honor in this hall." He paused. "The lios have never been known for brevity of discourse, since time runs more slowly for us than for you, but there is urgency upon us now, and I will not be over-long. Two thoughts I have." He looked around.

"There were five guardian peoples named, one thousand years ago before the Mountain. Four are here today: Brennin and Cathal, the Dalrei and the lios alfar. None of our wardstones turned red, yet Rakoth is free. We had no warning at all. The circle was broken, my friends, and so-," he hesitated, then spoke aloud the thought they all shared, "-and so we must beware of Eridu."

Eridu, Kim thought, remembering it from Eilathen's whirling vision. Wild, beautiful land where lived a race of dark, fierce, violent men.

And the Dwarves. She turned, to see Matt Soren gazing at Brendel with an impassive face.

"That is my first counsel," the lios continued. "The other is more to the point. If Rakoth is but newly free, then even with his power, black Starkadh cannot be raised again for some time. He has announced himself too soon. We must attack before that fortress anchors his might in the Ice again. I say to all of you that we should go forth from this Council and carry war to the Unraveller ourselves. We bound him once, and we will do so again!"

He was a flame; he fired them all with the burning in him. Even Jaelle, Kevin saw, had a blaze of color in her face.

"No one," said Aileron, rising again, "could have spoken more clearly my own thought. What say the Dalrei?"

In the now charged ambience, Levon walked forward, uncomfortable but not abashed, and Dave felt a surge of pride to hear his new brother say, "Never in our long history have the Riders failed the High Kingdom in time of need. I can say to you all that the sons of Revor will follow the sons of Conary and Colan into the Riik Barrens and beyond against Maugrim. Aileron, High King, I pledge my life to you, and my sword; do with them what you will. The Dalrei shall not fail you."

Quietly Tore stepped forward. "And I," he said. "My life, my sword."

Stern and erect, Aileron nodded to them, accepting it. He looked a king, Kevin thought. In that moment he came into it.

"And Cathal?" Aileron asked, turning to Galienth. But it was another voice that answered him.

"A thousand years ago," said Sharra, daughter of Shalhassan, heir of Shalhassan, "the men of the Garden Country fought and died in the Bael Rangat. They fought at Celidon and among the tall trees of Gwynir. They were at Sennett Strand when the last battle began and at Starkadh when it ended. They will do as much again." Her bearing was proud before them all, her beauty dazzling. "They will fight and die. But before I accede to this counsel of attack, there is another voice I would hear. Throughout Cathal the wisdom of the lios alfar is a byword, but so, too, and often it has been said with a woven curse, is the knowledge of the followers of Amairgen. What say the mages of Brennin? I would hear the words of Loren Silvercloak."

And with a jolt of dismay, Kevin realized that she was right. The mage hadn't said a thing. He had barely made his presence known. And only Sharra had noticed.

Aileron, he saw, seemed to have followed the same line of thought. He wore a sudden expression of concern.

And even now, Loren was hesitating. Paul gripped Kevin's arm. "He doesn't want to speak," Schafer whispered. "I think I'm going to-"

But whatever intervention he had planned was forestalled, for there came then a loud hammering on the great doors at the end of the hall, and as they turned, startled, the doors were opened, and a figure walked with two of the palace guard between the high pillars towards them all. He walked with the flat, halting steps of absolute exhaustion, and as he drew nearer, Kevin saw that it was a Dwarf.

In the loud silence, it was Matt Soren who stepped forward. "Brock?" he whispered.

The other Dwarf did not speak. He just kept walking and walking, as if by willpower alone, until he had come the length of the Great Hall to where Matt stood. And there he dropped to his knees at last, and in a voice of rawest grief, cried aloud, "Oh, my king!"

In that moment the one eye of Matt Soren truly became a window to his soul. And in it they all saw a hunger unassuageable, the deepest, bitterest, most forsaken longing of the heart.

"Why, Matt?" Kim remembered asking after her tranced vision of Calor Diman on that first walk to Ysanne's lake. "Why did you leave?"

And now, it seemed they were to learn. A chair had been set for Brock before the throne, and he had collapsed into it. It was Matt who spoke, though, as they gathered around the two Dwarves.

"Brock has a tale to tell," Matt Soren said in his deep tones, "but I fear it will mean little to you unless I first tell you mine. It seems the time for privacy is past. Listen, then.

"In the time of the passing of March, King of the Dwarves, in his one-hundred-and-forty-seventh year, only one man could be found who would assay the test of full moon night by Calor Diman, the Crystal Lake, which is how we choose our King, or have the powers choose him for us.

"Know you that he who would rule under the twin mountains must first lie at full moon night beside the lake. If he lives to see the dawn and is not mad, he is crowned under Banir Lok. It is a dark ordeal, though, and many of our greatest warriors and artisans have been broken shards when the sun rose on their vigil."

Kim began to feel the first pulsings of a migraine behind her eyes. Blocking it as best she could, she focused hard on what Matt was saying.

"When March, to whom I was sister-son, died, I gathered what courage I had-a youthful courage it was, I confess-and according to the ritual, I shaped a crystal of my own devising and dropped it as a token of intention in Crystal Lake on new moon night.

"Two weeks later the door from Banir Tal, which is the one entrance to the meadow by Calor Diman, was opened for me and then bolted behind my back."

Matt's voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "I saw the full moon rise above that lake," he said. "I saw many things besides. I... did not go mad. In the end I offered and was bound to the waters. They crowned me King two days after."

It was building up to a grandfather of a headache, Kim realized. She sat down on the steps before the throne and put her head in her hands, listening, straining to concentrate.

"I did not fail by the lake," Matt said, and they could all hear the bitterness, "but in every other way I did fail, for the Dwarves were not what once we had been."

"Not your fault," Brock murmured, looking up. "Oh, my lord, truly not your fault."

Matt was silent a moment, then shook his head in rejection. "I was King," he said shortly. Just like that, Kevin thought. He looked at Aileron.

But Matt was continuing. "Two things the Dwarves have always had," he said. "A knowledge of secret things in the earth, and a lust to know more.

"In the last days of King March, a faction formed within our halls around two brothers, foremost of our artisans. Their desire, which became a passion and then, in the first weeks of my reign, a crusade, was to find and unlock the secrets of a dark thing: the Cauldron of Khath Meigol."

A murmur rose in the hall at that. Kim had her eyes closed; there was a lot of pain, and the light was hurting now, lancing against her eyeballs. She bent all her will to Matt. What he was saying was too important to lose because of a headache.

"I ordered them to stop," the Dwarf said. "They did, or so I thought. But then I found Kaen, the older, combing the oldest books again, and his brother had gone away without my leave. I grew wrathful then, and in my folly and pride I called a gathering of all Dwarves in the Moot Hall and demanded they choose between Kaen's desires and my own, which were to let the black thing lie where it was lost, while we moved from spells and powers of the old ways and sought the Light I had been shown by the lake.

"Kaen spoke after me. He said many things. I do not care to repeat them before-"

"He lied!" Brock exclaimed fiercely. "He lied and he lied again!"

Matt shrugged. "He did it well, though. In the end the Dwarfmoot chose that he be allowed to go on with his search, and they voted as well that all our energies should be bent to his aid. I threw down my scepter," Matt Soren said. "I left the Moot Hall, and the twin mountains, and I vowed I would not come back. They might search for the key to this dark thing, but not while I was King under Banir Lok."

God, it was hurting. Her skin felt too tight. Her mouth was dry. She pressed her hands to her eyes and held her head as motionless as she could.

"Wandering in the mountains and the wooded slopes that summer," Matt continued, "I met Loren, who was not yet Silvercloak, nor yet a mage, though his training was done. What passed between us is still matter for we two alone, but in the end I told the one lie of my life to him, because it involved a pain I had resolved to bear alone.

"I told Loren that I was free to become his source, that I wanted nothing more. And indeed, there was already something woven into our coming together. A night by Calor Diman had taught me to see that. But it had given me something else-something I lied about. Loren could not have known it. Indeed, until I met Kimberly, I thought no one who was not a Dwarf could know this thing."

Kim lifted her head, feeling the movement like a knife. They would be looking at her, though, so she opened her eyes for a moment, trying to mask the nausea flooding over her. When she thought no one was watching, she closed her eyes again. It was very bad, and getting worse.

"When the King is bound to Crystal Lake," Matt was explaining softly, "he is forever bound. There is no breaking it. He may leave but he is not free. The lake is in him like another heartbeat and it never stops calling. I lie down at night fighting this and rise up in the morning fighting it, and it is with me through the day and the evening and will be until I die. This is my burden, and it is mine alone, and I would have you know, else I would not have spoken before you, that it was freely chosen and is not regretted."

The Great Hall was silent as Matt Soren fixed each of them in challenge with his one dark eye. All but Kim, who couldn't even look up now. She was seriously wondering if she was going to pass out.

"Brock," said Matt at length, "you have tidings for us. Are you able to tell them now?"

The other Dwarf looked at him, and, noting the regained composure in his eyes, Kevin realized that there had been a second reason why Matt had spoken first and at length. Within himself, he still felt the deep hurting of Soren's tale, and it was as an echo of his own thought that he heard Brock murmur, "My King, will you not come back to us? It has been forty years."

But Matt was ready for it this time; once only would he expose his soul. "I am," he said, "source to Loren Silvercloak, First Mage to the High King of Brennin. Kaen is King of the Dwarves. Tell us your news, Brock."

Brock looked at him. Then said, "I would not add to your burdens, but I must tell you that what you say is untrue. Kaen reigns in Banir Lok, but he is not King."

Matt raised a hand. "Do you tell me he has not slept by Calor Diman?"

"I do. We have a ruler, but not a King, unless it be you, my lord."

"Oh, by Seithr's memory!" Matt Soren cried. "How far have we fallen from what we were?"

"Very far," Brock said in a harsh whisper. "They found the Cauldron at the last. They found it and restored it."

There was something in his voice; something terrible.

"Yes?" Matt said.

"There was a price," Brock whispered. "Kaen needed help in the end."

"Yes?" Matt said again.

"A man came. Metran was his name, a mage from Brennin, and together he and Kaen unlocked the power of the Cauldron. Kaen's soul, I think, had been twisted utterly by then. There was a price and he paid it."

"What price?" asked Matt Soren.

Kim knew. Pain was splintering her mind.

"He broke the wardstone of Eridu," said Brock, "and delivered the Cauldron to Rakoth Maugrim. We did it, my King. The Dwarves have freed the Unraveller!" And casting his cloak over his face, Brock wept as if his heart would break.

In the uproar that followed, the terror and the fury, Matt Soren turned slowly, very slowly, as if the world were a calm, still place, and looked at Loren Silvercloak, who was looking back at him.

We will have our battle, Loren had said the night before. Never fear. And now, most terribly, it was clear what that battle would be.

Her head was being torn apart. There were white detonations within her brain. She was going to scream.

"What is it?" a voice whispered urgently at her side.