Chapter 7 - Part Seven

Chapter nineteen

She was still considering this new perspective when suddenly the reem stumbled hard, its fore shoulder dropping suddenly to crash downwards, as if its knee had buckled, or its foot had slipped into an unexpectedly deep hole. 

The jolt shocked Susan, throwing her off balance, hurling her forwards until she almost collided with the reem's neck. She threw her good hand out to clutch frantically at its mane, but the reem did not fall. Instead she tossed her head back, steadying herself, and staggered to her feet, seeming almost to scoop her rider upwards on her broad back even as Susan was bracing herself for the impact. 

The creature shuddered to a halt and was still, her head lowered and her sides heaving. Ahead of them, Evander's mount thudded to a hasty stop, and Evander jumped from its back and ran towards Susan. 

"Are you all right?" he asked. "That was dreadful. I've never known a reem fall before. They're usually really sure footed. They can go anywhere. Is she hurt? Let me look." 

Susan slid off beside him as he ran his hands down the trembling mare's foreleg. She made a small whickering noise, and pressed her soft nose apologetically into Susan's hand. Susan stroked the gleaming neck. 

"Look," Evander said, after a minute. 

He showed Susan a small mark on the mare's foreleg. It was a swelling no bigger than a walnut, and a spot of blood oozed from it. 

"Something's hurt her," he said, running his hands over it "I wonder if there was a stone - maybe got flung up from one of their hooves. She's all right, but I suppose it shocked her. I've never known a reem fall. They just don't." 

Susan touched the mark with gentle fingers. 

"Could somebody - maybe somebody could have thrown it," she ventured. 

 Evander frowned. 

"There's nobody here," he said, "and nobody would ever throw stones even if they were. Some boys threw stones at your cat once, it was there in his memory, nothing I could have done would have made him go near boys, but this isn't your world." 

I warned you, whispered a voice close to Susan's ear. 

Susan jumped. She turned to look over her shoulder, but of course there was nothing to be seen but the acres of green grass, dotted here and there with patches of wild flowers, rippling in the breeze. 

She looked down at Evander, who had cupped the sore between his two hands, and was whispering encouragingly to the reem, which was nudging his shoulder. 

Go no further. There is a bloody knife in your future, Susan Hamilton. 

Pictures suddenly filled Susan's thoughts, of fires, and wild, uncontrollable people leaping and dancing. Enormous people, half-naked and smeared in blood, around a great grey stone, an altar stone, stained black. She caught her breath and closed her eyes. 

They are taking you to their false god, the voice breathed. I can save you. Call on me, call me now before it is too late. 

Susan was about to reply, but then Evander straightened up. To Susan's horror, as he turned to her she saw that his face had changed. What had once been a pleasant, open face suddenly seemed like a mask, rigid and sinister, as if concealing a dark tide of menace. He bared his teeth, and his eyes became narrow slits. Susan gasped and took a step backwards. 

"We need to go on," he said, and there was an icy edge to the command. "Get on." 

He towered over her, huge and threatening, and as his shadow fell on her she shivered in the sudden chill. He reached towards her as if to lift her bodily and force her on to the creature's back. A sudden spasm of pain shot along her arm, and she almost cried out. 

She stepped away again, fighting nausea, her hand outstretched towards him as if trying to ward him off. 

"Stop it," she said. "I - I want to go home. Leave me alone." 

"It was just a fall," said Evander, and his voice seemed to have an icy, commanding ring to it. "You have to get back on. There isn't anything to be afraid of." 

Not yet, breathed the voice. True fear waits for you in the valley, and it laughed.  

It was the laugh that terrified Susan more than anything. Suddenly overwhelmed with panic, she spun around and fled, to run with all her strength along the grassy ridge. 

Down the hill, the voice urged her. Go to the river. You will cross easily. Your servant is waiting for you on the other side. Only run fast enough and you can go home together. He has the rings.Go back to the pools. Escape this place together. He will look after you. 

Susan turned to head down the slope, dimly aware of Evander's shouts in the distance. She had no idea if he had given chase, merely ran, blindly, through the long grass, cradling her injured wrist close to her body, panting as if her lungs might burst. 

It seemed to her that the headlong flight across the wide open grassland took for ever. She saw a small copse of trees in the distance and thought, dimly, that they might provide cover, that she might be able to hide, and turned her steps towards them. 

She had almost reached them when she became aware of a pounding noise at her back. Turning to glance over her shoulder, she lost her balance, slipped and fell, landing heavily on her broken wrist. 

She had no breath left to scream, but the pain was excruciating. Gasping and sobbing, she rolled over, clutching her arm against her chest in a vain attempt to shield it from the uneven ground. 

She could not even scramble to her feet. Helpless, her head swimming as she fought not to slip into unconsciousness, she curled herself tightly and began to cry. 

In the distance she heard somebody calling her name, but it seemed a long way off. Then something touched her shoulder and she felt warm breath on her neck, and a gentle, whiskery nose pressed sympathetically against her cheek. 

She lay still. The creature's breath smelled sweet, of fresh grass and springtime. With a trembling hand she reached up to touch it. 

As she laid her hand on the reem's hot face, she suddenly felt as if she had been trapped in a stifling, stuffy room, and a window had been thrown open to admit a swirl of cool, clean air. Images flowed into her mind, pictures of Evander, laughing and cheerful, holding something in his hand which she knew would be delicious. Evander running his hands over her shoulders, Evander, kind and open and generous. Evander was their friend, to be trusted, to be believed. 

She did not open her eyes, but she felt her body relax a little, and a few moments later, when Evander himself bent to gather her up, holding her tightly against his chest and making soft, reassuring noises, she did not resist. She leaned against him and wept. 

"I saw it," he said. "I know what frightened you, and I don't suppose it will make any difference to say it, but you really don't need to be frightened. Vanir won't hurt you. The reem was showing you who I am really, or at any rate, who she thinks I am. The kvalara is doing this. You mustn't listen to it. Let me see your wrist. I'm no Alwen, but I can help a bit. He showed me how. Here - " 

He set her down on the grass and knelt beside her, taking her wrist between his large hands. Then he closed his eyes, frowning with intense concentration. Slowly, the pain began to ebb a little, to be replaced by a gentle warmth. 

It had not gone, but it was a little easier. Evander sat back. 

"That isn't at all easy," he remarked. "I don't know how Alwen does it so well. He gave you something help the pain, didn't he? Breathe a little of that. Here - " 

He slipped his fingers underneath Susan's waistband and fumbled for the little bottle, which he uncorked and held to her face. The sharp scent drifted upwards, and she inhaled it, in shallow gasps at first, then her breath starting to slow and become deeper and more regular as the fierce throbbing eased, and the burning began to fade. 

She could not bring herself to look at him. 

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. 

Evander put an encouraging hand on her shoulder. 

"You mustn't listen to it," he said. "You have to fight. It's doing this to give itself time, I should think. It wants Lefay to get to the mountains before Vanir sends anybody after him. It'll go away if you tell it to. You just have to remember. Come on. We have to go. Are you fit to ride?" 

He helped Susan to her feet. The reem nudged her arm anxiously, and Susan leaned against her huge shoulder. 

"I'm all right," she said, through gritted teeth. "It's my own fault. I shouldn't have paid attention to - to nonsense. I won't do it again. I'm ready." 

They remounted, and continued in silence. Susan felt uncomfortably aware of the reem's increased efforts to maintain a smooth pace, and was grateful. 

It was about an hour later when Evander turned his head and called over his shoulder: 

"We're here. The entrance to the valley's just over the ridge. Your wrist won't hurt once we're over the edge. Vanir sees to all of that. Hold tight, this bit's steep." 

Indeed it was. They had reached a slope so sheer it was almost a cliff edge. Susan's mount paused for a moment, and she stared down into the deep valley below them. 

She was looking down into a great circular hollow, ridged on all sides by towering red-gold cliffs with narrow pathways, smudged here and there with patches of bright emerald vegetation, winding down their sides. 

In the centre of the valley lay a wide pool, perhaps big enough to be called a lake, Susan thought, surrounded by a mist of green that she guessed were trees. Two long, low buildings stretched beside it, flanking a patch of sage-green that looked for all the world like a large bowling lawn. A cooler air, lightly scented with a tingling, elusive perfume that she could not quite recognise, flowed upwards to greet them. 

She would have questioned Evander, but his reem had already set off, swaying as it picked its way at an alarming speed along the narrow path. Susan entwined her fingers anxiously in her reem's mane and tightened her grip with her knees. She felt the creature's impatience, but it slowed its pace considerately, and she breathed a sigh of relief. 

Evander was right about the pain in her wrist. As soon as they began to make the descent, Susan felt the last aches begin to melt away like ice on a spring morning. Her hand felt warm again, and she flexed it gratefully, and then hastily twined her fingers into the reem's mane as it swayed along the steep, narrow path. 

She was trying so hard to trust the reem that for a little while she barely noticed their surroundings, and it was a little while before she could look up and take some deeper breaths of the clean air. It had grown noticeably cooler, not unpleasantly so, rather like the first hint of evening after a warm July day, and the light was growing less bright as they descended. The valley did not seem to be in shadow, but the sharp intensity of the sunshine was a little less, and she realised that her body had begun to unstiffen. She had not known that she had been frowning, but as the light faded her muscles began to loosen, and she knew that her forehead had smoothed. 

She began to look about herself eagerly now, relaxing into the reem's steady pace almost without thinking about it, her body swaying with the soothing rhythm. The slope they were descending was long and steep, but smooth, without the usual little stones that one might find rattling underfoot if one was clambering along cliffs in our world. Indeed, there seemed to be a remarkable number of plants flourishing in the cracks between the red-gold stones, and large, blue and scarlet insects, reminding Susan of dragonflies, hummed between them. 

Eventually the track began to widen considerably, until it would have been, Susan thought, easily wide enough for a bus from our own world to pass along. Ahead of them she saw several rounded openings in the rock, and realised that they were caves, or perhaps even tunnels. She would have liked to ask Evander about them, but he was too far ahead to hear her, and so contented herself with trying to see inside them as they passed. 

To her surprise, as she peered into the third cave they were passing, she realised the ground inside was covered by a brightly patterned rug, on which two children were playing. The children looked up and waved as they passed, and Evander waved back, so Susan did as well. After that she tried not to look, not wishing to seem intrusive, although her curiosity had been awakened, and began to notice the care that had been taken of the caves. Several of them had particularly bright patches of flowers at their entrances, and one or two had overhanging greenery neatly tied back against the sides of the cave mouth, exactly as if it had been a curtain. The bright dragonflies buzzed between them, once or twice pursued by laughing children, who stretched out their hands for the creatures to land for a moment before fluttering away into the sunlight. 

As they reached the lower levels of the valley the slope became shallower and easier to navigate, and Susan tried not to feel relieved. Evander waited for her to catch up, and they rode side by side. 

"Isn't it beautiful?" he said, proudly. "It's exactly halfway along the island. The pool in the middle is filled by the river. There are caves underneath and you could swim right out to it if you could hold your breath for long enough, which I can't. And there are veorldura everywhere. Can you see them?" 

Susan caught her breath, and wondered how she had not noticed. Everywhere the valley was filled with the faint, just-out-of-vision flickering light that she had seen in the woods the previous day. 

She felt the corners of her mouth lift in greeting, and an unaccountable happiness washed through her. 

"Of course," she said. "Of course, they were there all the time, and I wasn't looking. I don't know how I managed not to see them." 

"It's like looking into the water for fish," Evander said. "You can't see them if you are just looking at the waves on the top. You have to look differently. " 

He beamed. Susan found herself laughing in response, and felt the reem's surprise. She patted its neck happily. 

"Thank you," she said to it. "I'm sorry I've been such a - a wet blanket. I've been too busy thinking about being frightened to enjoy your company. You've been so kind. Thank you for bringing us all this way." 

"You don't need to speak it," Evander observed. "She knows it perfectly well already. She's been feeling you changing all the way down, and she's happy for you. She knows what you're thinking." 

They didn't talk much more after that, but it was a merry journey. Susan felt herself filled with a contentment so great she almost hoped the ride would never end, but of course it did, and half an hour later they had reached the side of the lake. 

Evander slid off his reem and held his arms up to help Susan dismount, which she did, her legs shaky from their unaccustomed exercise. The reem nudged her arm affectionately before ambling away with her companion in search of grass. 

Susan gazed about her. 

The valley was filled with a blue-pink light which seemed almost to be radiating outwards from the lake. Paler and more intense than sunlight, the light seemed to have an oddly evanescent quality that made everything seem sharp and clear, as if it were constantly refreshing itself. Susan swayed a little, and put her hand on Evander's arm. 

"It's so - so different," she said. 

"It's Vanir's place," Evander explained. "It's filled with echoes of him. We're to see him and the elders this afternoon. Shall we go and wash?" 

Susan stepped back a little. 

"I haven't ever - I don't know how I should meet a veorldur," she said, feeling a small pang of anxiety. "Do you think he is angry with me? About the rings, and - and all of it? What will he want to know?" 

Evander looked at her in surprise. 

"Probably he'll ask you himself," he said. "Don't worry. Come on. I'm hungry, and I'd like to wash. The elders will be arriving soon, and I'd like to eat before everybody gets here." 

He smiled encouragingly and set off towards one of the long houses. There was nothing to do but to follow him. 

 Chapter Twenty 

The food was as plain and satisfying as everything else Susan had eaten in this realm, although she had little appetite. There was a hot, savoury bread, served with tiny, sharp-tasting yellow fruits that looked, although tasted nothing like, golden coloured tomatoes, which burst refreshingly on the tongue. There were slices of some kind of mildly aromatic fish, and more of the hot, sweet, milky drink, although this time Susan thought she could detect an extra tang to it that might have been something alcoholic. 

Evander had eaten quickly, and was leaning against the door frame, gazing out at the valley before she had finished. 

"My father must be here," he said, cheerfully. "I've just seen the reem heading off up the cliffside practically at a gallop." He turned back to Susan. 

"Let go of your fear," he said. "Nobody's going to hurt you. Everybody's going to want to see you and listen to you. Wouldn't you, if one of us came to your realm?'

Susan tried to smile. 

"I know," she said. "I think I've just got out of the habit of being brave." 

"You are being brave," Evander remarked. "You can't be brave unless you're frightened. Just try not to be frightened. Let's go and sit down." 

The wide lawn beside the lake had been filled with dozens of broad wooden benches, high-backed and strewn with cushions, and several had squat footstools tucked underneath them. Evander looked at these approvingly. 

"That's good," he said "If it's going to be a long afternoon it will be better to be comfortable. We have to sit at the edge, up at the front where everyone can see you. You'd probably have to stand on a bench to see if we sat further back anyway." 

Susan needed the help of the footstool to clamber on to the bench, and sat awkwardly, her legs swinging. Evander piled some of the cushions behind her so that she could lean back, and after a little while she tucked her feet underneath her and curled quite contentedly, watching people arriving and finding seats. 

There were a great many of them, so tall and imposing that Susan would have felt quite timid had it not been for Evander's reassuring presence at her side. They were not exactly richly dressed. All were barefoot, and most of them were wearing the same, comfortable shirts and breeches that she herself was wearing, but they had an assurance about them, a dignity in their bearing, that gave them a regal air, and it was impossible not to feel that she was in distinguished company.

She was surprised to realise that she recognised Evander's father as the man she had seen in the reem's thoughts, and then to realise that the reem's vision must be subtly different to her own. The man she had seen in the creature's thoughts had been smaller. This man was taller even than Evander. His silver beard cascaded halfway down his chest, and his skin glowed golden brown, as dark as Evander was fair. 

The man saw them across the sea of figures. His face lit with a wide smile, and he bowed, but did not try to come across to them, and took a seat further back, greeting his neighbours with evident familiarity and pleasure. 

The oddest thing about it, Susan thought, was the quiet. In our world such a gathering would not be possible without at the very least a murmur of voices, and probably a very great deal of noise, but this was almost silent. She glanced at Evander, who smiled. 

"You're not listening," he said. 

Susan frowned, looking around her and trying to make out sounds. Then suddenly something seemed to release, and she understood what he meant. 

She gazed at a very pretty young woman a little way away from her, and as she looked, she saw that although the woman's eyes were peaceful, her thoughts were moving and restless, scanning the assembly as though she was searching for someone. Then the searching suddenly ceased, to be replaced by the slow blooming of a gentle contentment, as a smiling young man approached her and bowed. They sat silently beside one another, their hands touching lightly, gazing out across the water, their thoughts now visible only to one another.

Another young man seemed to be unable to sit still. As Susan watched, she saw him struggling to contain his pride at his inclusion in such an august gathering. He was perhaps a youngest son, she thought, only just old enough to accompany his father and brothers, and she smiled at him encouragingly. He smiled in return, a smile so wide and brilliant that it took her by surprise, and she found herself laughing back at him. He laughed as well, and she was just wondering if she should ask Evander who he was when her attention was caught, and she lifted her head. 

There had been no sound, no signal, but every gaze shifted, every person was stilled, as surely if a horn had been blown, and every head turned towards the lake. The valley had been quiet before, but a profound silence settled over it now, the sort of hush that we know in our world before a solar eclipse, when even the birds stop singing. 

It was not, Susan realised, the tremulous silence that might precede the arrival of a king, or of a mighty lord. More, she thought, it was the waiting quiet that settles on a lecture hall when a much-admired professor is about to speak, curious and alive and alert. 

In the centre of the lake, something was moving. A faint shimmer of light, like those which signified the presence of the veorldur, had begun to flicker upon the surface of the water, rising and becoming brighter with every moment. Susan stared at it. It was hard to see what was happening. The light was both there, and not there. She would have been perfectly able to look past it without seeing it at all; and it was moving. It was an endless, shifting movement, rather like the water of a stream, which can both pool and flow, plunging and hurtling and circling whilst all the while presenting an unchanging image to the eye that can easily be pictured in the stillness of a painting. 

The light was growing in strength now, and Susan suddenly felt as though the valley had been in darkness before, the way it feels when you switch a light on just after the sun has set. She thought perhaps she should avert her eyes, and yet she could not look away, fascinated by the beauty of the gleaming, shifting light. 

A faint sound was now beginning to stir from the heart of the light, a little like the sound of the rings, Susan thought, chiming and tremulous and gentle, and yet it was deeper. It resonated in her chest rather than her ears, and felt somehow noble, like the sound of a bugle at a graveside, or the summons of the church bell at compline. She bit her lip, and half wondered if she should kneel, although everybody else remained still in their seats, and she knew she should not. 

Then the deep, piercing vibration began to shape itself into words, hardly more than a whisper, and yet Susan knew that there was nobody in that place who was not hearing. 

"My people," Vanir's voice said. "You are welcome." 

There was a soft murmuring of hushed voices in reply, although it was more sound than Susan had yet heard in that place, and she looked around at the assembly. 

Evander's father had risen to his feet. 

"Lord Vanir," he said, bowing his head. "We are glad of your presence." 

"Lord Castor," Vanir replied, and Susan thought the light dipped in return, dimming almost imperceptibly, before brightening again. Then the voice lifted, addressing the whole assembly. "I have called us together because a trouble has come upon us, and I must decide what I am to do. You are my adopted people, and the responsibility for the safety of our realm lies upon all who dwell both above and below the waters.

"You remember that some time ago I called this meeting together and told you that the Great One had put it into my mind that the sacred ashes of the One Tree had once again begun to move in the realm of the First People," he said. "They had lain hidden and forgotten for some years, but when I sent my thought towards them, I could see that they had begun to move. This troubled me, because the sacred ash can bridge the chasm between the worlds and open the gateway into our realm, the way your own people travelled so many years ago. When we last met we chose Evander, son of Castor, to travel to the realm of your ancestors, to watch and to learn what he could. 

"Yesterday he returned, and by the grace of the Great One he is unharmed. He told me that some of the lost ashes truly have been found, and have been forged into rings to enable a wearer to travel between the realms with ease. These rings have been stolen from the person into whose care they had fallen, by one who knows of their powers. That thief has now used the rings and has come to this realm." 

Susan glanced around, half expecting to hear murmurs of anxiety, but there was silence. Every face was grave, and turned towards the veorldur. 

"Today I have asked Castor's son to speak to us all of the things he has learned," the veorldur continued. "There is much that we had not known. Speak to us, Evander, son of Castor. Tell us of your journey." 

Evander, beside Susan, rose to his feet and bowed his head to the shimmering veorldur. Then he looked out at the company. 

"I told Vanir all about this yesterday," he began, "and he said you all needed to hear it. It's quite a long story, so be patient. I'll try not to miss anything out. There's more as well. I think things are worse even than we knew then, but I'll begin at the beginning." 

He paused for a minute, and smiled, briefly, at Susan. 

"I don't know whether you all know that I can bury my thought into the mind of another. That was why Vanir chose me to go, because of course we don't have rings, and without them nobody can leave this realm. We talked about it, and we thought perhaps if it was in the wish of the Great One, I might be able to send my thought and slip across the worlds in a way that usually we can't." 

He looked around the assembly and spread his hands in an almost apologetic gesture. 

"I said I would do it, and Vanir said that it was in his mind that I should go to the Foot of Yggdrasil, and find my way across from there, so I promised I would do everything I could, and set off. 

"The pool that leads to the land of the First People is easy enough to find, it's the first you come to. Well, I knelt down and tried to find my way through, but I couldn't. I tried everything, I can tell you. I dipped my head in the water. I jumped in it. I sat next to it and tried to send my thought through it, but nothing happened. I tried for hours, until I was absolutely at the end of my wits. I couldn't bear to go back to Vanir and tell him I was sorry, but I couldn't get there after all, and he would have to find somebody wiser, so I just kept trying. 

"Eventually I got tired. I suppose it must have been night, but there isn't any night up there, it's just an endless twilight. I'd tried everything I could think of, and I'd got soaked. I was absolutely despairing. I'd been so proud of myself, so pleased to be the one given the job. Everybody had trusted me, Vanir had trusted me, and I'd failed before I'd even started. I'd let him down, and everybody down, and I'd been fighting off sleep for ages. The place does that to you. I kept forgetting what I'd come for, and I knew that if I went to sleep I wouldn't ever wake up again, but I'd got so tired, and I knew I'd failed. Eventually I just thought, well, I suppose this is the end, then, and I lay down and closed my eyes. 

"It's hard to explain what happened then. I had a dream. Everything was quiet and dark, and so comfortable. I knew I was going to die, but I just didn't care by then. Anyway, I was drifting into sleep, it was just beginning to wash over me, like a warm wave, and I dreamed that those creatures that live there, the furry ones, had all come to gather round me and see what I was. 

"They started nudging me with their noses, trying to make me turn over so they could get a proper look at me, and I started to feel really cross, because they were stopping me from floating away. I started fighting them off, pushing them away. I kept telling them to go away and let me sleep, and they wouldn't. Then - and remember this was a dream - the most peculiar thing happened. I started to sit up, and suddenly they all vanished, and coming through the woods towards me was the most enormous fenris. You know, the wolf-creatures. The wild dogs. They've all died out now, I think" 

Susan suddenly felt sick. She put her hand to her mouth. Evander glanced across at her. 

"It was all right," he said. "I was dreaming him. I remember waking up afterwards, and wondering - but there were no paw prints in the grass, or anything, and he was huge, he'd have been heavy. Anyway, he came over to where I was lying and stood beside me, looking down at me. Then, this is a bit difficult to explain, but he - he - breathed on me. Just softly, I don't mean with a growl or anything, just quiet, gentle breathing. Well, I'd been feeling thick-headed and stupid and cross with myself. Cross with everybody. With Vanir for giving me such an impossible thing to do. With my father for not explaining how I ought to do it. With everything and everybody, and it all just seemed to melt away. It was as if I'd found my courage again, and I felt a bit ashamed of myself for being so unkind, and for giving up so easily. I stood up. It felt as though he was as tall as I was, certainly I wasn't looking down at him. I told him I was sorry, and he just looked at me, and I could see that he knew anyway. 

"Then - and I know this sounds odd - he spoke. Not with words. In my thought. I can't describe how it felt. A bit like hearing a reem, only more, a lot more. He told me that I had to put my head into the pool, right under the water, and breathe, as deeply as I could, with one, long, deep breath, and not to stop, even if I wanted to. I had to breathe in the water until my lungs were full, and then I would succeed where so far I had only failed. 

"I didn't like the sound of that at all, and I said so. I thought I'd choke, and maybe even drown, and it seemed like a pretty grim way to die. I told him I didn't want to do it, and perhaps there was another way. He waited and listened while I was telling him. Then he said: There is no other way.

 "That was a pretty awful moment. I was scared then. I mean, it's a horrible thing to have to do. I thought about it, and after a while I knew I'd just have to try it. I tried to make myself brave enough, but all the same I was still pretty frightened, so I asked him if he'd stay next to me while I did it. I don't suppose it would have made any difference. I mean, if you're drowning it doesn't much help to have somebody watching you, but I knew I could bear it better if he was there. 

 "He just looked at me and I knew that it was a foolish thing to say, because of course he'd been there all along, really, I just hadn't noticed him. 

"I looked down at the pool, and at the fenris, and I thought how it would feel to go back and say I'd failed, and I knew then that I had to do it, and that even if I died, it would be better dying next to the fenris than living knowing I'd been too cowardly to have a go, so I kneeled down ready to do it, and - well - that was when I woke up, and I was still lying on the grass. 

"I sat up and looked all around me, and there was no fenris, obviously, and no sign that there had ever been one. Then I wondered about the dream. I knew it had been a dream, except that - well - I was awake, and I should have just carried on sleeping until it killed me - and I felt better. Refreshed. 

"I looked down at the water and wondered if I had dreamed something true, or if I had always known that was how I should do it but just forgotten it somehow, and so the dream was just reminding me. Or perhaps I was just making the whole thing up, and I was about to go headfirst into the pool and drown myself. Then I thought that I hadn't got anything else left to try, and the only other thing would be to go back to Vanir and tell him I'd been useless, so I thought, well, I'd give it a shot. 

"I kneeled down and put my head into the water. It was cold, bitterly cold, as if it had somehow got colder whilst I'd been asleep, because I'd jumped into it before and it hadn't been like that, but it was terrible. My face hurt with it, and I wanted to stop, but I didn't. I plunged my head and shoulders under the water until my whole body started to slide forward, and it felt as though my arms and legs wouldn't work any more for me to pull myself back, as if they'd been fastened to my sides and I was just slipping downwards into this horrible, freezing, black water. 

"I opened my mouth then. I don't know really if I was trying to do what the Fenris said or if really I was just about to scream, but it didn't matter, because when I opened my mouth the water rushed in and before I knew it I'd sucked it into my lungs and I was fighting and fighting for breath. 

"It didn't feel magical. It felt like drowning. I wanted to shout for help, and I couldn't. I was just being dragged further and further down, as if the pool had caught me and wanted to swallow me up. There wouldn't be anything left of me, and nobody would ever know what had happened. 

"I think I just gave up. I closed my eyes and tried to make myself ready to meet the Great One. I thought, well, if he wants me now, then I'm coming, and I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of it all, and then none of it seemed to matter any more. I stopped fighting the water and I just let it pull me downwards. 

"And then everything changed. It seemed to be getting lighter, and I noticed that I'd stopped feeling cold. I could move my arms again, and I realised that I'd forgotten to try and breathe, it didn't seem important any more. 

"Then suddenly everything was bright, real, proper daylight, and I was racing along as if I was being pulled by the wind. Like flying, except it was a bit like falling as well, as if I was rolling over and over. There were veorldura all round me. I could feel them and hear them, and it felt as if they'd caught me and were pulling me down gently. I've never known so many veorldura all in one place. It was as if they were singing, although there weren't any words, just their voices, and I knew they were glad. 

"I wondered if I was really dead then, because when I looked I couldn't see my body any more. I was just a thought, racing on the wind, and then the wind dropped. It sounded like a long sigh, and then everything went still, and I couldn't hear the veorldura any more. I don't know if I'd had my eyes shut, but perhaps I had, because I opened them, and in front of me there was a cat, looking at me. I don't know what I said, but I must have said something to it, because it blinked at me a couple of times, and then I just slipped inside it, and I was in its mind, looking out. 

"It was dreadfully hungry, and very frightened. It had been living in a mossy little hollow underneath a fallen tree, full of woodlice and worms, and it was frightened of everything. Foxes, mostly, although it didn't call them foxes. It didn't have names for anything. It just thought of things as a smell, and foxes were bitter and acid and musky and smelled of death. 

Chapter Twenty One 

"I knew I wasn't dead then, and I thought I'd better get on with doing what Vanir had sent me to do, so I made the cat come out of its hollow and go and look round. It pretty much did as I wanted it to, it wasn't difficult, although it didn't want to, because it was so scared. I had to really force it at first. It didn't stop being frightened until Susan started feeding it, and then it didn't mind quite so much. 

"I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing, so I thought I'd just trust and hope that the Great One was watching and would give me some hints, and sure enough, it wasn't very long before I saw this little house and I knew there were veorldura all around it." 

He paused, and looked across at Vanir. 

"I can hardly describe it, the land of our ancestors," he said, slowly. "There are veorldura everywhere, except they aren't all like our veorldura here. They're huge, and scary, and grim. Some of them - well, I can't describe it, you'd know if you saw them - they must be the kvalara, you can see it in them. You couldn't doubt that they belong to the Kvalar. They're like ghosts. They make you feel cold and afraid when you see them. I was quite sure they couldn't do anything to hurt me, but they made me shudder all the same. Even the veorldura aren't like our veorldura here. They're like soldiers on guard, and they don't ever drop their vigilance, not for a single minute. Always they're watching, trying to keep the kvalara from the people, but if a person wants to be with the kvalara, there isn't anything any veorldur can do about it. If a person chooses that - well - the veorldura just have to wait and try and encourage them to see. It's all pretty hard, I can tell you." 

"This is not the time for that story, Evander," Vanir said, and Susan could hear a deep sadness in his voice, so profound it almost made her want to weep. "Even as we sit here the Great One has that realm at the heart of his thought. The time will come when all will be well again. Our time now is short. Tell your story." 

Evander bowed his head respectfully. 

"It's hard to tell any story about that place unless you know about that," he explained. "They're everywhere. Anyway, I crossed a field, and jumped up on a wall, and I could see the house. There were veorldura all around it, I could see that, the warlike sort, silent and still and waiting. Then this carriage drove up - they don't use horses or reem there, it went by itself - and Susan, the lady here - got out with a man, and I could tell he had the ash in his bag. I could feel it. I can't explain that either, but I knew for certain it was there, and of course it was, only it had been made into rings by then. 

"They took the bag into the house, and I stayed where I was and just watched. Then another man came running up the lane, and - I can't explain this easily either, but he had felt the rings as well. I could see that in his thought. I don't know how he knew, but he did. 

"He stood and watched the house for a while as well, and I went a bit closer to get a look at him. I hoped he might be a friend, somebody else sent to make sure everything was all right, but then he turned round and I knew he wasn't. 

"When I looked at him I could see things were really badly wrong. There was - I'll try to explain it - there was someone else in his thought. Someone - something - was riding him the way I was riding in the cat, and it wasn't a nice something. The bit that was him was frightened of it. It was hurting him. I mean, I was using the cat, and I was making it be braver than it wanted to be, but I wouldn't ever have done anything that harmed it, but this - this thing riding in him - it just didn't care. I think" - Evander hesitated - "I think it had been there for a long time. It had hold of him." 

He paused for a moment whilst everybody digested this. 

"I watched him for a minute or two, and he just stood staring at the house, and then he started mumbling to himself," he went on. "He looked at it and - oh, I don't know, it was like the - the thing inside him was trying to see inside it, although of course it couldn't, because of the veorldura. It wouldn't have had a chance of getting through them. Then he turned and began to walk away, and that was when he saw me. 

"I say he saw me, but of course he didn't. It saw me, and it knew straight away what I was. It knew that I wasn't just a cat. It knew I was there, and it was furious. Its hand shot out to grab me off the wall, and I could see it meant to kill me - the cat - straight away, but I jumped off the wall and ran as fast as I could. I didn't go back to the woods. I went to the cottage, where the veorldura were. I knew it wouldn't take any chances with them. I jumped on to the gatepost and I knew I was safe. 

"He came shambling up the road to me then. It had a funny way of walking. As though the thing inside wanted to but the man didn't. It came right up to me and hissed in my face. No words, just this dreadful hissing, and I knew if I made the smallest mistake it would have hold of me in a second, and that would be it. 

"He never really went away after that. Obviously he did, because he had to do other things as well, but it didn't feel like it. It just seemed that he was there all the time, hiding in the lane and watching, just waiting for a chance to get into the house. All night, sometimes. He couldn't have gone inside unless he was invited, the veorldura wouldn't have let him, but of course if Susan had asked him to come in they couldn't have stopped him. It wouldn't have been her house if she hadn't been able to choose. 

"We hung about there for ages, both of us, and somehow, I don't quite know how it did it, he sent Susan's husband - Daniel, I think - away. I saw them talking, and then it - the thing inside him - seemed to draw the man's attention - his belief - into itself. Daniel stared and stared at him, and after a minute he bowed. I knew that it - the thing - really liked that, and it played with him for a few minutes, making him bow again and again before it let him go. After that Daniel went into the house, and a little while later he jumped into his carriage and left, leaving Susan by herself. He came back a couple of times over the next few weeks, but not often. He didn't want to be there. He didn't remember the bowing, but I could see in his thought that he was uncomfortable and miserable. Humiliated. 

"Susan was by herself then, and of course in the end the thing got inside. She stood up really well, I thought. It could never have made her bow, although it thought about trying. I watched through the windows, which was how I knew where the rings were, I could hear them even from outside, and fortunately, in the end, Susan had left one of the windows open, and I managed to get in - I could because she'd invited me so many times - and I was there when it finally managed to grab the rings." 

He looked a little shamefaced. 

"There's was a bit of - of a fight. We were all on top of one another, and it got hold of the rings somehow, or it might have been Susan - and one of us touched the yellow one. Well, it worked straight away. All three of us were taken to the Foot of Yggdrasil, and I was back in my own body again. 

"There wasn't any point in it hitting me, because of course you don't feel pain there, but it did anyway, and then it ran off. It still has the rings. It's gone to the Syon mountains, I think." 

There was a silence. 

Lord Castor spoke 

"The sacred ashes - the rings - will take him into, or away from, the Foot of Yggdrasil," he said. "They will take him from our realm to any of the Nine Realms. One sort will be forever drawn to return here, to the roots of the Living Tree, the other wishes only to soar and to fly heavenwards, to leave the realm from which everything is sprung. If he has these rings, he can travel as he wishes." 

"Stand up, Susan Hamilton," said Vanir. 

Susan turned her head towards the dancing lights above the lake. She flushed scarlet and began to tremble. Evander reached for her hand and squeezed it encouragingly. 

"Stand on the bench, here, where everyone can see you," he said, kindly. "Don't worry." 

Susan was shaking so violently that her legs refused to obey her, and it was only with Evander's help that she managed to rise to her feet. She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. 

"Look at me." 

Vanir's voice was hardly louder than a murmur, but Susan felt it penetrating through her whole body, vibrating as if it was more than simply a sound. She turned towards him, but could hardly bear to lift her eyes, and her head dropped. 

"Why are you afraid?" the voice asked. 

Susan tried to reply, but her voice seemed to have dried in her throat, and in the end Evander spoke for her. 

"She has been tormented by kvalara, sir," he explained, patting Susan's hand with his enormous one. "Their people are afraid of them all the time. They have told her you mean to harm her, and she's been very frightened. She came anyway, but she's afraid. She's brave." 

"Look at me," said Vanir's voice again. It was gentler this time, and Susan managed to raise her head. 

She looked at the shimmering light above the lake, which might or might not have been a shape if only she could keep her eyes steady. She drew in her breath and raised her chin and looked at it as steadily as she could. 

To her surprise, as she looked, the gleaming, shivering air began to change. It had seemed no more steady than the sunlight reflected on a rippling lake, but now it seemed to be moving. She blinked, trying to focus her gaze, and realised that it had begun to form itself into a gigantic, almost man-like, shape. 

Tall and brilliant, the shape towered above the water, and yet it seemed still to be of the water, as if the very lake itself had risen and taken on the body of a man. 

She could never have described the man-shape afterwards. Its hair was the rippling of foam-topped waves, its body as smooth and slippery and muscular as a great silver dolphin. 

Its face, many feet above her, bore no expression that Susan had ever seen before. It was grim and merry and wise and joyful all at once, and the great black eyes fixed upon her with an expression of infinite curiosity and sadness, seeming to see past her eyes and into her soul, where nothing could be hidden, and where it knew her utterly. 

Susan remembered how she had run from Evander on their way, how she had imagined him cruel and spiteful. She had fled from him, even though she knew Vanir, this Vanir, had summoned her to his presence, and that Evander was simply doing as he was bidden by leading her there. She had disobeyed. She had listened to the voice in the darkness and given way to fears, fears that - she could see it now - she had always known were nonsense. 

She could not hold that gaze. She wanted to weep. She dropped her head, and would have fallen to her knees had Evander not slipped his arm about her shoulder. 

"It's all right," he said, gently. 

Susan stared miserably at her feet, uncomfortably aware of the gaze of the assembly upon her. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and she was, longing to have chosen differently, that she had acted with more courage, more determination, so that she might have faced this great veorldur without shame. 

When Vanir's voice came, it was deep, and filled with warmth. 

"Susan of the First People, you are troubled," he said. "Yet I do not call you to account for your mistakes, for we are all servants of the Great One together, and each of us does his best according to his wisdom. None of us can claim a life free from error. I am not your judge." 

Susan bit her lip. Then, summoning her courage, she lifted her head. 

"Thank - thank you, sir," she whispered. "I am afraid I have not - have not done very good things." 

Vanir's stern face seemed to soften a little 

"We will not think of them," he said. "Tell me of the Kvalar, and of this misery his servant has inflicted upon you." 

For a terrible moment Susan hesitated. It seemed that the memory was sliding between her fingers, fading from her thoughts, suddenly blurred and indistinguishable with so many others. She looked into the eternal depth of Vanir's black eyes and gathered her courage. She took a deep breath. 

"I think the - the kvalara - came with me from our own realm, sir," she began. "I did not know it there, but I think it has always been with me. I think I have been listening to him for a long time. Only - only I didn't know what it was. I didn't know it was him." 

Speaking quickly, determined not to forget anything, she told Vanir of her night-time visitor, of his threats and of her own fear. When she told of the pain in her wrist, Vanir stopped her, and made her recount the original injury, and the circumstances which had led to it. Slowly, groping for memories that constantly threatened to evade her, she explained her ownership of the cottage and Daniel's absence briefly as she could, and then described Mr. Lefay and his determination to find the rings. 

When she had finished speaking there was a silence. Then Evander put his arm about her shoulders and handed her another, crumpled, handkerchief. 

Susan blew her nose. 

Vanir did not speak, and yet as Susan mopped her eyes she felt his kindness touch her. It contained no hint of pity, but was a warm, soothing feeling, encouraging her to strength. She lifted her head and gazed at him. 

"You will have no more pain, Susan of the First People," he said. "In a very few hours your arm will be strong again. I can give you very little, but I can do this. And we will ask the Great One to lend you courage to remain steadfast against the cruelties of the kvalara. Apart from that we may offer only our welcome, and the protection of this valley." 

He paused for a moment, and it seemed to Susan that his gaze turned away from her and travelled slowly over the assembly.

"Much of what we have heard today was known to me already," he began. "I knew of the intruders in our realm, and I had guessed that they travelled here by the agency of the sacred ashes, which we now know have been formed into rings. They have been borne here by this Lefay, and my a have stayed close to him as he fled. They tell me that he has travelled fast and slept little, as if in the grip of some desperate necessity, and he is hastening towards the Syon Mountains as hard as he can. They have said that he is so weary his feet are leaking blood, and he is in pain so great he has wept with the struggle, and yet still he has carried on. 

"We saw that his road kept him very close to the banks of the river, and we believed that it was because he was hoping for his companion - the lady Susan - to escape from our people and to join him. We did not know then that she feared him. Indeed, we imagined that she also sought to escape and fly to the mountains, and we sent word to Master Alwyn to place her under a close guard, in chains if necessary, until we had seen her here and learned more." 

The veorldur turned his gaze towards Lord Castor. 

"Your son refused my request," he said. "He gave me his sworn word that she wished no part in her companion's purposes, and that it would be a cruelty to cause her further distress. Your son," he added, with what Susan thought might almost have been a smile, "is stout of heart, and it seems his judgement was true." 

 Lord Castor inclined his head respectfully, but even Susan could feel his pride, bright and warm across the great assembly. 

"Lefay has now crossed the river and is travelling over the Great Plain. He will reach the mountains in five days."

A small murmur passed through the company. Susan listened attentively. 

"Evander has told us, and indeed it is clear, that this man's thoughts are utterly inhabited by the kvalara, the corrupted veorldura of their own realm. Their grip upon him is so complete that I do not know if any of his own will yet remains to him, and it is driving him on a journey so relentless and exhausting I cannot be sure that it will not kill him. We know also that there is a single kvalara - driven from the Lady Susan by her own command and by the protection of Alwen - roaming free at the borders of my valley. My own veorldura are hunting for it even now, before it turns its vile gaze towards your people. You must all be on your guard, and warn your households." 

Susan hung her head. 

Evander squeezed her hand. 

"You couldn't have done anything about it," he said. Then he raised his voice. 

"In their realm they know very little of the kvalara, sir," he said. "They call them Demons. Most people don't really believe in them, and they imagine creatures which are half-animal, half man. They laugh at them. They don't understand what they can do." 

"Yet kvalara they are," said Vanir, "and they are loose in our realm. The ones Lefay carries present no immediate danger. They seek only to reach the mountains and there to find, and to release, their imprisoned kindred. Should they succeed then we may have great trouble, for their prison walls will not prevent their leaving if they are hosted inside the body of a living man." 

"Surely they couldn't all do that," said Evander. "How many could attach themselves to a person? It couldn't be possible." 

"A single man might carry a legion," Lord Castor said. "All he needs do is to give free and willing consent. He needs to be stopped." 

Chapter Twenty Two 

"What can be done?" asked Susan, surprising herself with her own daring. "Can your veorldura stop him? You wouldn't - you wouldn't hurt him, would you?" 

Vanir turned his gaze towards her. She could not read his expression. 

"I will not," he said, and his voice was gentle. "It is a terrible thing to a harm a creature not of my realm. He is not mine to command nor to reprove." 

"I don't think he truly means to do anything wicked," Susan persisted, anxiously. "I mean, I've listened to them. I've heard them. The kvalara. They're very clever. When they're talking you believe them, even if you know they're talking nonsense. You can't help yourself. That is - " her voice trailed off " - I suppose you can help yourself. Only it's hard. They convince you. You convince yourself. I don't think he knows what they're doing." 

"That may be so," Vanir agreed, "and yet his ignorance will do great harm. Should he succeed in reaching the mountains then he cannot be permitted to leave. Terrible danger would leave with him, for your realm and for mine." 

"Do you mean - would you - must he stay there for ever?" Susan asked, suddenly alarmed. "Alone?" 

Vanir looked at her. 

"I cannot allow him to wander further in my realm?" he said, gently. "I could not have the kvalara among my people. You have seen what they can do." 

"What will you do, sir?" Evander asked. 

"If he reached the Syon mountains then he must never leave," Vanir said. "Should he succeed in his quest then we will raise the river into a torrent that may not be crossed again. I will have my veorldura stir it until it is white with peril. There he shall remain for the rest of his days. Nothing shall leave those shores again." 

Susan hesitated. 

"But he has the rings," she said, slowly. "Without them I can't get back. I'm trapped here." 

Nobody spoke. 

Susan swallowed hard. 

"Couldn't we - couldn't we go after him? Could we stop him before he gets to the mountains?" she pleaded, in a voice which was beginning to tremble. "I - I have to go home. Surely somebody could go after him and get the rings and somehow warn him before he gets there? While he's still crossing the plain? - tell him that he must - I don't know - send the kvalara away. At least give him a chance to realise, to be sorry. He isn't at the mountains yet. Is it too late?"

"We do not cross the river," Vanir said. "The land beyond it, the plain before the mountains, is narn to us, not only to my people, but even to me, Already your kinsman is beyond our reach."

"He isn't my kinsman," Susan started to say, and then checked herself. Perhaps he was. Certainly he was closer kin to her than anyone else here. She swallowed hard. 

"He may not be my kin, but he's of my people, Lord Vanir," she heard herself say, startled at her own courage. "I have to go home. And Mr. Lefay should as well. It's too horrible. To be left alone with those - those voices. It's cruel. It's more than anybody could bear." 

Her voice trailed off. The assembly was silent. 

"Gentle lady," said Vanir, softly. "I tell you that neither I, nor any in this assembly can help your kinsman, although I give you my word that if it was in my power, I would do so, for his end will be hard. Yet we cannot. He must endure his torment alone." 

Susan gripped Evander's hand. 

"Lord Vanir," she said. "I'm not of your people. The Great One hasn't prohibited me from crossing the river. If it's narn to me, I've never heard of it. There are still five days before he gets to the mountains. If I could get there in time could I try and reach him before - Before it's too late." 

The assembly was utterly, completely silent, yet Susan imagined that she felt a great in-drawing of breath, as though every man and woman had gasped in unison. She felt her knees begin to tremble. She drew herself as upright as she could, and raised her eyes to meet Vanir's penetrating gaze. 

He was quiet for a long, long moment. 

"He is far into his journey," he said, eventually. "He has crossed the river, and although he is weary, soon he must reach his goal. To say it is a dangerous place does not say enough. Do not choose this road, for it leads to perils that even I cannot imagine." 

"What are you telling us?" Evander asked. "What are you afraid of, sir?" 

Vanir seemed to consider this before he spoke. Then he turned his gaze upon Susan. 

"If you should fail in this task then you may find yourself a prisoner of this man," he said. "He may take you with him, willing or no, to the mountains, perhaps as an offering to the kvalara whose favour he seeks. These were once my brethren, yet I cannot say what they might do to a prisoner, and I do not wish to think of it." 

There was a moment's silence. 

Evander broke it. 

"Well, that's it," he said, decisively. "She can't possibly go. I don't see what you hope to do there anyway," he added, turning to Susan. "Surely you don't think you can just explain to him that he's in danger and then he'll immediately give up the whole thing and come home with you? From what I saw of him there isn't very much man left in there anyway, and what little there is has long given up on his freedom. He's completely in the grip of the kvalara. If you asked him, he'd say that the only freedom he wanted was the freedom to go on doing what they were making him do. He doesn't want to resist. He wouldn't try to even if his life depended on it, which it does. He wants to do what they say. They're riding him to his death, like - like a man who can't give up drinking. He can't think about anything else. You haven't got a hope of persuading him otherwise. I think Vanir's right. Leave him there with the rings he wanted so badly. They're gone for ever then." 

"Without the rings I can't get home," Susan reminded him. "You went through the pool without them, but your body didn't go. Just your thought. If he keeps the rings then I'm trapped here. Even if I can't persuade him to change his mind I might be able to get the rings back somehow." 

Nobody spoke. 

Eventually Lord Castor sighed heavily. 

"I understand you, my lady," he said, "If you must go, and you seem to be thinking you must, then I'll give what help I can." 

Susan felt sick. 

Vanir studied her white face thoughtfully for a moment. 

"You would have little hope of catching him on foot, or even on the fastest of reem, yet it might be possible if you travel further west by water instead of following his trail across the lands," he said. "The Great One is not giving it to my thought that I must prevent this. To you alone the land beyond the river is not forbidden." 

"If you think I could get there in time," Susan said, speaking slowly, and with a terrible sick feeling beginning to churn in her stomach. "If you think I could perhaps reach him before he gets to the mountains and can't ever come back, then I will go. I don't know what I could say to him, but I have to try." 

Vanir paused again for a long, long moment. His gaze turned downward and he seemed abstracted. 

"We can also remember that perhaps the Great One had seen this moment even when he first made the prohibition," he said. "We will think on this. The Lady Susan shall remain with me and we will look and see if it is truly a path the Great One has laid at her feet. If it is so, then we will offer her what aid we can. If it is not, then tonight we will close off the Stychs river so that this man can never return to our land. Food and drink has been prepared in the southern house. We will meet again later." 

The assembly rose to its feet, shuffling and fidgeting, with many a backward glance towards Susan. Evander grimaced sympathetically at her and reached to lift her down from the bench. 

"Don't look so terrified," he said, encouragingly. "We'll think of something. Vanir might have some ideas." 

"It's talking to Vanir that scares me," Susan admitted, looking across to where the tall, almost transparent figure glittered and gleamed like polished steel in the afternoon sunlight. "I feel as though he can see right into my soul and doesn't think much of what he finds there." 

"That's about right," Evander said, cheerfully. "We all feel like that, I think. It's part of being a person beside a veorldur. Look, my father's staying as well. I'll be glad to hear what he has to say. He has a way of seeing right into the centre of a thing. Come on." 

They approached the lake where the veorldur waited. Susan had the strangest sensation that he was changing in shape and size as they approached. Without seeming to move at all, so she had no idea if she had simply been mistaken in her first idea of him, the figure simply seemed to have become smaller. She felt that he had lost nothing in stature, looming great and imposing above their heads, and yet now he seemed merely a little taller than Lord Castor, who was the tallest of the three present.

Evander bowed his head to Vanir, and to his father, in turn. Unsure what to do, Susan copied him, glancing a little fearfully towards Vanir, whose glow was becoming golden in the evening light. 

They stood together in silence until the grassy arena had emptied. Susan stared at her feet, her thoughts tumbling over one another in their eagerness for prominence. This was Mr. Lefay they were talking of. Sly, uncomfortable, cruel Mr. Lefay, the man who had hurt her and who would have killed Evander had he had the chance. Yet he had the rings, and he couldn't just be left to die. Susan thought of him, alone, at the mercy of the oily, whispering voices, with no hope of escape, no hope ever. 

She shivered, although the evening was warm. 

Vanir looked at her. 

"You are right to fear," he said. "He has gone to a place from which laughter and merriment are forgotten. It is built to hold those who fought to crush such things, who would have made slaves of the joyful, and exulted in their bleeding. There they shall remain until the Great One himself comes. Still, before you consider following his footsteps there are many things you must know. You cannot decide until you have heard all." 

Susan tried to meet his gaze steadily. 

"What should I know?" she asked. 

Vanir paused before he replied. 

"I have not been to the Mountains since the realm was young, before the servants of the Dark One were imprisoned there. In those days they were beautiful lands, raised to the most vibrant of life by the songs of the Great One, and the water flowed freely from the highest peaks to fill the slopes with trees and to brighten the lowlands with grass and bright flowers. 

"In the first days my people had not yet retreated beneath the river waters. We dwelt on land, and the Syon Mountains were as bright and filled with life as any other place where the Great One has walked, with birds and insects, and countless small creatures dwelling among them. My kind, we veorldura, were not then as we are now, but wore bodies, given to us by the Great One, and we slipped between the realms of men and the Far Heavens as we wished. 

"Then came the Great War, which divided the most mighty servants of the Great One. It was bitterly fought, with terrible losses, until the very heavens were rent asunder, and the lands not only of my realm, but of many realms, burned. 

"At the end of the war, those of us who had remained true to the service of the Great One had won a victory. I do not call it a great victory, because no victory can be called great that is won at the price of sacrifice and pain, but a victory it was, and the rebels driven back. That was when our bodies became lost to us, and we took the forms in which you see us now. 

"They retreated to many places, spread across the whole of the Nine Realms. In this realm they fell back to the Syon Mountains, and there they were caught. They were imprisoned there, their fury for ever trapped behind prison walls. For many years their voices rose to the heavens, cursing and raging against the bitterness of their fate. Then at last they fell silent, and no more has been heard of them. There they remain to this day, and there they shall remain until the day when the Great One calls them to account. Even now that place holds many of the darkest and most feared of all kvalara, and it is forbidden to all my people to venture therein. 

"When at last it was certain that the days of war were done, I turned my eyes back to the healing of my realm, where the very air had been turned to poisoned ashes by the fury of the Kvalar. I saw that there could be no refuge there for my people, and in my grief, I called upon the river waters to rise, to wash away the filth that had spewed across my once-lovely gardens. The Great One heard my voice, and in his mercy, he increased the mountain streams to a great torrent. Then the river waters swelled to a mighty flood, until they had filled every valley. From that time on my people lived beneath its surface, sheltered from the poison and foulness that swirled above us until the Great One had called the mighty Winds of Heaven to rinse it clean and for life once again to sing its joyful song, everywhere but the mountains, where the foulness remained.

"And this is the thing that troubles my heart, gentle Lady Susan of the First People. These kvalara are of my own kind, they are veorldura, although they have chosen a different path. Yet I know them still, for they are my kindred. They are greatly perilous for your kind, and for any breathing creature." 

Evander looked pale. 

"Couldn't you just forget about the rings and stay with us?" he asked, although his voice had a hopeless tone, and Susan knew he did not expect an answer. She took his hand, huge in her two small ones, and squeezed it. 

"I would like to," she said, suddenly feeling that it was important to be honest. "If I could stay then I would love to. I'd like nothing better. But I can't. I ought to try and get home if I can. There's Daniel. I - I promised Daniel to be his wife, and I can't be that if I'm here. It hasn't been - it isn't - but I promised him." 

"It wasn't a sacred promise," said Evander, suddenly fierce. "It wasn't a holy promise. I can see in your thought that it wasn't. And you don't care for him. You know you don't. Leave it. Leave him. Don't do this. Stay here. Stay with -"

"Son," Lord Castor interrupted gently. "This doesn't become you, boy. Hush. Let the Lady Susan choose her own path." 

Susan felt a rush of pain and bit her lip. She gripped his hand tightly. 

"Don't say it," she begged. "Don't even think it. I have to go. We all know I must. Please." 

Evander was silent for a moment. Then, rather to Susan's surprise, he put his great arm about her shoulders. 

"I will go with you to the end," he said. "Even if we die in the mountains I won't leave you." 

"Evander," his father said gently, "for us it's narn. You know that, lad. No joy comes from paths that begin in disobedience. You can't go with her." 

Evander did not reply. For a few moments nobody spoke. Then Susan looked upwards at his flushed face and realised he was crying. 

Chapter Twenty Three

Susan put her arm around his neck and pulled his face down to hers. His cheek rested against her own, warm and prickly with the day's stubble. Neither of them spoke. 

After a little while Evander released her. He set her down gently on the bench beside him and wiped the back of his hand, savagely, across his eyes. Susan reached into her waistband and tugged out Alwen's handkerchief. She reached up and dried his eyes, and then slid her hand into his. 

"I have to go," she said. "I belong in my own realm. And you belong here. That's where - where the Great One has put us." 

"Exactly so," Lord Castor said, approvingly, "and we won't forget that he doesn't do things by accident. We won't believe that he was mistaken." 

"I just - I don't want to think of you going anywhere," Evander said. "Not to the Syon mountains, and not back to your own realm either. You can't imagine it, Father. It isn't like here. People don't care for one another, they don't see one another. It's like living in a - a sort of unbreakable silence. It swallows even a scream. They don't understand one another's thoughts or feelings, and the Kvalar seems to have taught them not to care. She's so alone." 

"None of us are alone," Vanir said, gently. "If Susan goes to the Syon Mountains she will not be alone even in their terrible shadow. The Great One will not abandon her." 

"I could go with her," Evander persisted. "I could protect her. Could we - I don't know - ask?" 

"Ask to do the thing that is narn?" Vanir said. 

Evander looked at him. Then he sighed. 

"No. No, I suppose not. Only it's hard. She's so little. It's such a dreadful thing to ask, do you really think, sir - " turning to Vanir "- that we are understanding it well enough? Is there no other way? Must she?"

Vanir turned his steady gaze upon Evander, and then to Susan.

"She does not have to," he said, slowly. "It is, as you say, a fearsome thing to ask of a person, and none has asked her to do it. Yet if she does not go, then she is trapped here, and she has made promises to her husband in her own realm, who would mourn her loss. I think that all these things are known to the Great One, and He does not move to stop her. Therefore if she wishes to go then we will bow before His wish." 

"I do want to go," Susan said. "That is, I don't want to, but I know I must. I'm sorry, Evander, but I must. I don't know how I could even hope to get there, but I'm going to try. I don't like Mr. Lefay, but even if he didn't have the rings I couldn't just leave him to - to that." 

"Then there is no other way," said Lord Castor, and Susan felt Evander's hand tighten on hers. 

"So what can we do?" he asked. "How can we help? How can we make her strong enough?" 

"She is already strong enough," Vanir replied. "The Great One does not ask things of us that are beyond our strength and courage. She will need our help, but courage and strength she has already." 

"We're agreed that to reach the Syon Mountains will be fastest and easiest by boat," said Lord Castor. "She won't need to sail upriver for more than a day and a half, maybe two at the most, which I think would would bring her very close to Lefay. He's travelled through our realm on foot, and made a difficult crossing at the narrowest point. No matter how they're driving him, he'll not be making great speed, for he must be weary by now." He paused. "I think - if you will wait." 

He stoped speaking and stared into the distance for a moment, before turning to look behind him. The others followed his gaze across the great valley, but could see nothing, save for the trees a little way off, and a half-dozen reem grazing peacefully beneath them. 

He turned back. 

"Your reem, lady," he began. "D'you know, has she spoken to you?" 

Susan was puzzled. 

"I didn't know - do they speak?" 

"He means in your thought," Evander explained. "Have you heard your reem in your thoughts since you began to think about this - this idea?

Susan shook her head. Then she hesitated.

 "I don't know. I think perhaps I might have, although I didn't really take much notice. There was something. A gentle something. I can't explain it. But it was like the way the reem thinks. She showed me her - her feelings when I first saw her. She wasn't very pleased." 

Lord Castor did not look surprised to hear this. He nodded, and looked a little anxiously at Vanir. 

"I sent a reem mare to bring the Lady Susan here," he said. "A young one, and strong. She was none too sure about carrying a stranger, I can tell you, but she went, to please me, and she carried her well and safely, did a good job. Well, now it seems she's seeing Lady Susan's worries about this journey, and she's wishing me to know that she's willing to bear her as far as the mountains if it would help." 

"I wouldn't want her to do that," Susan said, immediately. "She couldn't possibly understand how dangerous it is. And isn't it narn for your people?" 

"She will understand the danger better than you know," Vanir said, "perhaps better than you can understand it yourself. I also see her thought. She is telling me that some foul creature tried to fell her on the journey here, and that it would have had you flee from all those who might aid you, flee into the hands of your enemy. She wishes to go." 

"She's young," said Lord Castor. "Such ideas seem wise in young heads. It's forbidden. She can't go even if she wants to." 

"It is not forbidden to the beasts," said Vanir. "I do not know if living beasts still remain in the mountains. It maybe that some do, and if so, I think it likely that the kvalara have twisted them to their own purposes. But I have never heard that the Great One has extended his prohibition to them. Most would not venture so far anyway. Few, save the birds, could attempt to cross the Stychs river."

"I don't like it," Lord Castor said. "She's wanting to aid the Lady Susan. Reem aren't solitary creatures, quite the opposite, and she doesn't like the idea of the lady being left to travel by herself. There's more than that going on, of course, more than she wants me to know, although I can see it. She's only a youngster, and behind her good wishes she's wanting excitement. She's headstrong and impatient, and daydreaming about adventures. I suppose my fields aren't much in the way of thrills for a young one, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. I don't know, my lord. It's a permission only you can give." 

"It is a permission the Lady Susan must give," Vanir said, and his voice throbbed with warmth and, Susan thought, a note of something gentle. "Lady Susan, will you allow such a companion?" 

Susan was silent, suddenly unsure. Her heart had leaped when Vanir had said that the reem might indeed, go with her. To have a companion - and such a companion, sure-footed, large and safe - seemed to be the best of all things that might happen. And yet if Vanir was right, and there was such terrible danger, perhaps she was being selfish in accepting such a foolish offer. No creature who understood that they might even be putting their own life in danger could possibly wish to make such a journey, it must be that the reem did not understand. 

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. 

Then to her surprise, her thoughts seemed to explode as if somebody had spun a kaleidoscope in her mind. Images flashed before her. Herself, picking her way gingerly downwards along a narrow track, barely a track at all, strewn with rocks and pebbles. The image was grey, and faint, and tinged with a sensation that might either have been pity or, Susan thought, more probably contempt. A moment later the picture changed, the track still dark and forbidding, but this time Susan was swaying comfortably on the back of the reem, which stepped lightly and with confidence, the cloven hooves placed surely and accurately among the stones. The picture changed to a blue sky, and a wide plain, red and sandy, dotted here and there with spiny bushes, and Susan and the reem galloping fast and easily between them. This picture was bright with a warm affection, almost making Susan smile. She felt the cool wind rushing in her hair - or perhaps it was her mane, she was not sure, and the heady joy of speed as the ground flew by beneath their hooves. 

She looked up at Vanir. 

"If she really wants to come, then of course she can," she said. "It isn't something I would have asked of her, but I would be glad of her company, and her speed." 

Vanir nodded. 

"It is well done," he said, "and if I had been asked to find a companion for you then I could have chosen none better." 

"If the reem's coming as well, we'll have to take a barge," Evander said, and the others looked at him. He coloured a little. 

"I might not be able to go to the mountains," he said, "but I can ferry her upriver in a barge and wait for her to come back. I don't have to land it. I could anchor it just offshore and wait there." 

Lord Castor frowned. 

"I am not sure this is your task, Evander," he said,"It might be better to send an experienced bargeman, and it could be..." 

He stopped, looking thoughtfully at his son for a moment before continuing. 

"Well, you are a grown man, and I will not interfere," he said kindly. "I trust your judgement." 

"I know," Evander replied, "and I will be faithful, I promise you. I won't set a foot on the forbidden lands. I give you my sworn word. I won't betray your faith." He turned to Vanir. "But it has to be me. I don't want anybody else to take her." 

Susan, watching Vanir, thought she glimpsed a flicker of expression almost resembling a smile, although it was difficult to tell in that austere, remote countenance. 

Evander returned his gaze steadily. 

"So be it, then," Vanir said at last. "This shall be your task if you wish it. Will you go, then, and prepare a barge, Lord Castor. Have it filled with sufficient provisions for twelve nights, for I think that if they have not returned in that time, then they never will. Tell your reem that her wish is granted, and take her with you in order that she sees the boat and understands how she will travel. They are anxious creatures, and she will be less afraid if she understands." 

Lord Castor bowed.

 "She has been listening to our thoughts, and I do not think she will need much explanation," he said, indicating the sunny patch where the reem had been grazing. At the edge of the glade, a little apart from the others, a single reem stood alert and watching them, her ears pricked forward and her eyes bright. As if at some unspoken word, she shook her mane and bounded towards him. 

Lord Castor met her halfway across the wide lawn, and they set off together toward the low buildings, the reem trotting happily behind him, occasionally nudging his shoulders in what seemed to be an outpouring of exuberance. 

Vanir turned his gaze back to Evander. 

"You may sail upstream from here as soon as your father has made his barge ready," he said. "My veorldura will provide a fair wind. The Syon lands are edged with cliffs. Do not try and land at their closest point, but stay out in deep water, for there are rocks close to the surface, and even if a boat were to draw in, it would be impossible for the lady to scale their heights. Follow the land round to the south, and do not head towards the shore until it begins to slope more gently. Do not land even then, but carry on until the land curves into a wide bay. At its far side you will see the shoreline begin to climb once more. Steer in to the shore at that point, for the water is deep, and you can anchor almost within an arm's length of the shore. From there the Lady Susan and her reem must go alone. You shall not set foot upon that land." 

"I understand that, sir," Evander said, gravely. 

Susan looked anxious. 

"Is that the way Mr. Lefay has gone?" she asked. "Will I be able to find him?"

 "I do not know his path," Vanir said. "He has passed beyond my sight, as will you once you tread upon that soil. But you will not be alone. The guardians of that land will be waiting for you. It is ringed about with the servants of the Great One, and their vigilance never ceases." 

Susan nodded. 

"I'll remember" she said. 

"Now go," Vanir said. "My veorldura will assure your swiftest passage across the waters. It may indeed be possible that you will find Lefay before it is too late. We will hope that he might hear the voice of the Great One in his heart before he has gone too far to be saved. May your every act be blessed, and I will remember you always to the Great One until your safe return." 

He inclined his head towards them, and the brilliant light began to fade. Evander stared after it for a moment and then sat down on the bench beside Susan. 

"Are you really sure about this? I mean, really? It might not be all right. I mean, the Great One knows, but that doesn't mean its going to turn out the way we think it should. Sometimes the things he wants seem pretty awful to us." 

Susan did not reply. Evander took her hand in both of his. It was tiny in his grasp. He was silent for a moment, as if searching for the words. 

"Look," he said, after a moment. "I don't want to tell you about it whilst my father is here, but I've got an idea. I can see a way we might be able to make it work, and I could probably manage to stop him from seeing my thoughts about it, but you won't be able to, so I can't tell you yet. Wait until we've sailed." 

Susan turned to him in some alarm. 

"What do you mean?" she said. "It isn't something wrong, is it? You can't land there, you know that." 

"I know," Evander agreed, smiling at her, "and I won't. I gave my word, and I wouldn't ever break it. But I thought of something and I want to talk to you about it. Once we sail." 

Susan stared at him. 

"Can't you tell me?" she asked. "Why don't you want your father to know? What is it?" 

"He'd worry," Evander said. "I don't want him to be anxious. I just wanted you to know that things aren't as desperate as they seem. Don't worry. Let's go and find something to eat."