He-who-was-not-Maclan advanced a step forward and laughed again.

"You remember, do you, Lebrek?" he shouted jeeringly. "Yes, I see you have not forgotten!"

Climber roared and twisted, fought for freedom. Zolan was manifestly struggling hard to keep his hold.

"Loose him, youngling, if you wish!"

Zolan had now embraced the beast that was still on hind legs.

"Like to like!" Maclan nodded encouragingly, beckoning once more.

Climber grew still; however, Zolan did not loose his hold.

"You test my patience." The Dark One's grin disappeared, and his right hand came up. Save for a forefinger, it was curled into a fist.

We were one, united in what we would do. Tam swung up in turn her own left hand, the light of the gem glowing between her fingers.

Maclan pointed directly at the two below him, and from the tip of his forefinger speared greenish flame. It met the beam Tam had loosed-met it, and sprayed back to engulf the fisted hand.

"Yaaah!" he screamed, the throat-tearing sound no part of any spell but an animal scream of pure torment. His arm dropped back to his side, and even from this distance we could plainly see blackened flesh.

He took a stride to the very edge of the top step. Now whatever was clothed in the Breaksword's body turned to us.

Drucilla

The face of our enemy twisted, and he flung both arms above his head as if to seize a storm and pull it down upon us. And indeed he might have done so, for suddenly the sunlight was gone, darkness descended, and thunder rolled. Then a flash like lightning struck. Again, as she had forestalled the green ray, Tam swept high into the air the gem to deflect that lance of light. This time, however, no beam answered from her weapon, but a curling strand of golden fog that spread about our company.

I saw Zolan's hands moving in slow gestures, graceful as a Shrine dancer's at the time of the Turn of the Wheel, summoning the New Year's birth.

Lightning flashed again, struck the slow movement of the fog, and was hurled back once more. From the two companies of the Earth Ones rose shooting stars of blue, vivid as the skies of high summer. The Wild Ones had raised their own shelter!

Then, in a single moment, the battle was done, and we stood before the palace as we had before. Zolan turned his head, looking not at us but to Duty and Arthter. I felt the touch of a Send, but its message was not one I could translate.

Without a word, our companion ascended the steps, Climber at his side. None of us tried to stop him. Maclan's arms dropped to his sides, and I saw the fingers on his unharmed hand crook possessively, as might the claws of a raptor settling upon its prey.

Then a tremendous outpouring of Power was loosed, its waves flooding over us like the surge of a river in full spring spate. Tam still held fast to the gem, but its light had died. In that instant, I realized what was happening as clearly as if Zolan had shouted it aloud to us all-he was giving the Dark One what he most wanted: a body!

How our companion had been overcome I could not guess, but I knew that we had to make our own attack, raise all the Light we could to thwart this new soul-theft. The three of us broke linkage. Tam nursed the gem, and Mother stepped into Bina's path. I, however, slid to the other side so that no one stood ahead of me any longer.

I did not step, rather half threw myself forward. Both my hands closed about Climber's tail; then I was up on the lowest of the stairs that led to the door. My act, futile as it might be, served to attract Maclan's notice. As he glanced in my direction, Zolan reached the topmost step.

Maclan brought his hand down toward me, and I crumpled as though he had struck a physical blow. Then Zolan made his final move. He did not use fists but closed his hands on the Dark Lord's shoulders and pulled him forward into the same restraining embrace he had used on Climber.

Maclan's broken teeth showed in a wolf's grin. In turn, he wrapped his own arms around Zolan, and the two grappled weirdly together, motionless and in utter silence. About the frozen figures hung an uncanny radiance, a light forged of Darkness-I could find no other words to describe it.

Into me flowed a new wave of Power so great it doubled me over, set me gasping. All sense of ident.i.ty was swept away from me as its intensity mounted-I was merely a conduit for its swift-rising force.

Terrifying though the feeling was, however, I knew that not only was it born of Talent but wielded by one in the service of the Light. But it was also unfamiliar and, because I could not flow easily with its pattern of Power, painful. Indeed, with its second surge, I felt as though a blazing liquid fire had been poured into me. And I could not escape-even the right of refusal to submit was raped away, leaving me only a weapon for another's use. A weapon, or-a mirror like Mother's, but for alien eyes?

I could still see what lay about me-I was yet held captive where I had gone to crouch. Zolan and Maclan stood locked fast, no movement even of breathing visible in their statuelike pose.

Up built the force. Now I was half-blinded by light-a rainbow radiance of many colors. Some shafts of this luminance stabbed toward the figures on the steps from behind me, others from either side. My breath came in great gasps-this light also had weight, and I was being crushed!

Now the two by the palace door began to sway; then out of that black-mouthed portal arced a vast limb of scaled skin. What appeared to be the body of a giant serpent reached for Zolan, then twisted viciously in the air.

A streak of red, Climber flashed forward, setting jaws on that roll of scale-sheathed flesh. But, though he brought the first monster down, it was only the advance guard of the Dark's forces. Things that had no place in any world we knew began to pour from the opening.

Again an agonizing pain, which I now sensed was anger in my possessor, ripped through me, aimed at the silent combatants above. At the same moment, the Wild Ones took up the battle against the nightmare creatures, an Evil they knew. Struck by the ma.s.sed Power of the Green Magic, the horrors began to glow; then, one by one, they burst. However, the men, who seemed locked indissolubly together, remained as they stood.

The ent.i.ty that had taken me over now set its will even more firmly upon me. I received no orders; I was simply used. Now, though I did not stand, I was urged to drag myself upward, step after step.

Climber, having no more monsters to harry, was circling the two; but, strive as he might to find an opening for another attack, Maclan and Zolan seemed Warded, untouchable.

Haltingly I lifted my hand, the same one with which I had struck my own opening blow in this war. My fingers, worked by another's will, clawed the air; there, clutching at a substance unseen, they worked it into an object visible. I now held a dagger of light. And suddenly, with the making of that knife, I knew the one who had made her weapon of me me-indeed, I had once dream-met her. Pharsali!

Drawing all my last strength, the Jug Woman used my hand to hurl her gift-but not at the Dark Lord-at Zolan! The force-blade struck him full in the back, pierced through clothing and flesh, and disappeared from view.

What had I done?

Light, gold as the glow from Tam's gem, flared, enclosed the men and the beast beside them in a cylinder of brilliance. I crumpled onto the step, though I sensed I had not yet been released.

Out of that column of radiance fell a body; at least, the object had a human outline. Then the light-cylinder melted downward and puddled on the stone, where it was swallowed. Zolan swayed, eyes closed. But-was he still the companion we had known, or had the Evil One accomplished his will? For there was something about the man from the Dismals- My suspicion was dashed away by the wave of joy that now filled me, but, while I felt it, it was not my emotion. She of the cave of jars was rejoicing, calling on deities who were not mine, while my eyes wept, torn by her fierce pride and joy. The truth was plain: Zolan, too, wore a body not his by birth-he was Pharsali's son.

Tamara

In all our years of life, in any experience of knowledge gained, Talent shared, or testing endured, never had we encountered such a trial for body and soul as this. Cradling the gem in my two hands, Bina moving shoulder to shoulder with me, I hastened toward the stairs.

The last of the Dark things was being dispersed by the Wild Ones, and now those conquerors, too, were winking out of sight. The Green Folk could have been only images wrought by our own need and fear. Mother, Duty, and the Northern adept still stood together, but they seemed unharmed and we were not concerned for them. Cilla lay facedown, unmoving, on the palace steps, Climber limp beside her. Zolan knelt by Maclan, who appeared pale and drawn as if he had pa.s.sed through some deadly illness.

Without rising to his feet, the man from the Dismals turned and mind-spoke. His Send was plain, but it held no heat of victory.

"Tharn-is-gone." The words were s.p.a.ced well apart, spoken through nearly overwhelming fatigue.

We reached Cilla at the same time he slipped down to the step where she lay. Bina, her healer's instincts taking over, had already lifted our sister's head. No recognition showed in her open eyes.

I was shoved aside; Mother had come, as had Duty.

Together they eased Cilla over onto her back. With a frown, Mother shook her head at Zolan, warning him to remain in place, but neither she nor the Wisewife paid him any further heed.

Instead, Mother appeared to speak, and anger flared in her voice as she spoke.

"Break-break link, I order you! You have achieved what you would do, Woman of the Jars-now release my daughter!"

She drew Cilla's head against her breast, and I saw tears begin to gather in my sister's open eyes, then trickle down. Bina's hand fell upon my shoulder-arose-the gem was cool against my forehead. My whole body was taken by a shudder so powerful it shook Mother as well.

"It is finished," I said slowly in a whisper to be heard because a vast silence enclosed us.

And so it was.

An Ending-?

Tamara

The combined forces led by the Lord Warden and the highest-ranking chiefs of the a.s.sembled clans arrived together, having fought a skirmish with the remnants of the rebellion. The king was under surveillance, for Fergal's story had had an effect not only on his own clan leader but several others, all of high standing. Nor was it forgotten that Arvor had welcomed and supported Chosen Forfind in the beginning.

Our own party had made its way from the now-loathsome square into the palace and sought an inner room. We did not carefully note its location, nor do I remember much of that search for shelter, for we were all drooping and eager only to discover places on a carpeted floor. There sleep that was close to a swoon overtook us.

Sabina

No dreams came to trouble me. When I became aware of low voices again, though not words, I stretched out a little to ease an aching leg. I sensed warmth and a weight there, then I felt a damp tongue rasp over my arm, further arousing me. Opening my eyes, I saw lamplight-and looked upon Climber resting against me, his eyes regarding me strangely.

Emptiness was what I felt the most. Uneasiness arose as I put name to the feeling. What had pa.s.sed away-or, worse, had been wrung out of me in time just past?

As I had done in the past when I awakened from some disturbing dream, I turned to the oldest and surest companionship I knew.

"Tam? Cilla?" At least there was no difficulty in my Send.

"Bina!" A unison cry; I had reached them both. The root of my fear was stricken, then died completely. The Talent remained to us! Once more our world shrank, tightened to hold only us three. We moved to cling together. So a.s.sured, we at last attended to what lay about us.

The room we had come into was a large chamber in which great lamps hung at intervals along the wall. At the far end of its expanse stood a dais and, on it, the Throne of the North.

Below that raised platform an argument was in progress. To one side we saw Zolan, and across from him Arvor. A little apart stood a number of the clan lords-among them Starkadder and others whose badges stated that their families had been involved in the past in the making of kings.

Drucilla

I watched Zolan closely. The strangeness I had earlier sensed in him was stronger. He was-what? Not of humankind; perhaps not as far removed as the great spiders of the Dismals were from those lesser spinners who wove their traps in our world, yet no true kin to us. Now he glanced toward the clan lords. Fergal started forward, but Zolan shook his head.

"You know the truth, but once more I shall tell you: I am not of your kind. This sh.e.l.l"-he drew his hands down his body-"is merely what I wear that I might serve those who are left of our people. Years agone, a young male child whom some of your folk would have forced to their own service was banished to the Dismals to shift the balance of power in favor of one clan. He had been used so hardly-think well on this, my lords- that he no longer thought-he only feared. He sickened-"

Climber trotted forward, then stood up on his hind legs and nudged Zolan with his muzzle. The man who was from, and of, the Dismals stroked his head. Then he continued. "This very one, this hero of great courage, has chosen to live in a beast's skin that he might serve his lady. He found the boy, brought him to Pharsali. She knew the child was dying. In her sorrow and her love, she was moved to violate an ancient taboo, and into his body-the form of the youth you knew as Gerrit-she sent the spirit of her own son.

"I am not of your blood. The lady sent me to deal with the one who would have made of your land a place of Always Dark, who slew and slew, and dyed your ways in blood. With the aid of those of an Old Learning, I have done as she has sworn me to do-Tharn is dead. The task is yours to cleanse the stains he has left.

"I say to you that I go now to my own place."

Tamara

He delivered that message with conviction, and he spoke with the force of truth.

Now a stir began among the Gurlys, and one of the clansmen raised a voice, but not in denial. Arthter had silently gone forward. Now he faced the company.

"Starkadder, Raghnell, Merven, Drafford, Wallingsor, Quain." The adept addressed the chiefs who stood before him, though from his lips the roll call of names had the sound, and force, of an incantation. "You know me and the truth I am sworn to speak, so hear me now and cast any doubt from your minds. This Evil was not of our world, and it has been dispatched to the judgment of its G.o.ds. Which of you can now stand forth and say that Zolan shall not return to those of his kin? Raise your voice, if you will-"

Utter silence.

"It is well!" His voice was that of a Speaker of Laws pa.s.sing a decree.

Not only did Arthter smooth the way back to the Dismals for Zolan by this intercession, he also chose to ride with him. And our companion welcomed him, speaking (we suspected) not only for himself but also by the favor of the Lady of the Jars.

When Zolan was preparing to ride out later, I went to him with the gem out of the ruins and offered it to him, saying: "This is of your heritage, not mine. Let it return to its own land and people."

But not only did he refuse to take the stone, he gave me-no, us three- another gift of perhaps greater value.

"Lady Tamara, this jewel was freely given to you by our Old Ones. Keep it always, and may it serve you well again." He closed my hand around the talisman, which glowed warmly in response to the double touch. Gazing at my fingers, seemingly lit with the hidden fire they held, he then said: "This gem seems a fitting emblem of the Power you wield-you, and the two who share your mighty birth-bond. Indeed, so greatly have the three of you wrought in this war that the hero-singers will remember you three long after the flesh now alive, and"-his tone grew momentarily quieter-"the clay of the jars that holds my people has returned to the dust.

"However"-now Zolan's voice rose until it rang like a war-trumpet through the hall of the kings-"I doubt not that, in the meanwhile, the battle-cry of Three Hands for Scorpio Three Hands for Scorpio! will summon many to the banner of the Light."

Then he was gone, back to his own place as we must return to ours; and whether he spoke in the spirit of true prophecy in that hour of parting was left ours to determine.

Thus we saw an end to this dark venture. When we had arrived back in Grosper, we found a message from Her Gracious Majesty summoning us to court that she might learn from us the whole of what happened. Now we put an end to our tale.

Tamara of Verset Sabina of Verset Drucilla of Verset

[Small sheet of parchment found in the records of Alsonia]

I, Drucilla of Verset, need to make certain the following information survives. Her Majesty, it seems, would have us back in Alsonia for another reason. She wishes to ensure that the Talent will, for centuries ahead, make safe her kingdom and has, to further its perpetuation, selected certain husbands for us. She had already sent Ison to join our forces for this reason, as though he were the soup course that heralds a full feast! But no one can choose a mate for another, and, if we are too straitly constrained, we know a land to the north that has long provided a haven for renegades and adventurers and may welcome us-that place of wonders, the Dismals.