PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

She appeared without warning, balanced exquisitely on a carpet of sunlight, crowned in stars. When she smiled at him, all the sweetness and serenity that ever were shone from her face. Beautiful, of course—though he could not have defined the color of her eyes, or her hair, or her skin. She was all he had ever dreamed, many things he had never dared imagine, and she was here, with him, smiling. He reached out a reverent hand, hoping he would be allowed to touch her.

"No," she murmured, her voice softly throaty, "not yet, my dear. All things in time."

Her starry crown brightened, pulsing in rhythm with his quick heartbeats, dazzling his eyes. He drew back slightly, frightened of power for the first time in his life. But he could not look away, for from that arc of brilliant light shot clear, fiery sparks, each expanding to a crystalline sphere. She juggled them easily, almost whimsically, all twelve in turn caught and then tossed high by elegant fingers.

Within each was a castle. Stronghold, Radzyn, Tiglath, Skybowl, Remagev, Swalekeep, Castle Crag, Balarat, Tuath, Goddess Keep—he knew those well, but two were strange to his eyes. He tried to follow their movements, tried to discern the patterns of wall and tower and court.

"Too fast?" she asked. Suddenly the spheres were suspended in midair, the two unfamiliar castles resting delicately on her fingertips. She held one iridescent globe out to him.

"The Feruche that was, before it was taken by Fire."

Yes, he recognized it now, from drawings. Not half so beautiful as the Feruche Sorin had created, and very much older.

She extended her right hand, and he saw a strong, soaring tower, surrounded by a trim village of wooden houses glowing with stained-glass windows, unprotected by walls.

"This was mine, before the building of the place you now 'hold."

And when he saw the crystal dome that was oratory and calendar and mathematical triumph, he knew that he looked upon the ancient Sunrunner keep on Dorval.

More. He looked upon the Goddess.

She was toying with the castle-spheres again. They rose and fell at the flick of her fingers. All at once she gestured, and they hovered in a straight line before her.

Stronghold fell and shattered.

And Tuath.

Feruche.

Remagev.

The castle on Dorval that no one living had ever seen.

"Wait!" he cried. "Not Radzyn! Please!"

"No. You have already paid for your home. But one other will fall."

Which one? Swalekeep—where Ostvel was, making Alasen a widow? Tiglath—to further break Sionell's heart? Castle Crag? Skybowl? Balarat?

Goddess Keep?

"I can't choose!"

"Have 1 asked you to?" Her laughter was sunlight on diamonds. She began to juggle the remaining castles once more, swifter than his eyes could follow.

"Then why—?"

"Because they are still in danger."

"You said I paid for Radzyn. How?" He thought of Brenlis.

The lovely features drew into an expression of shock. "Not with pain. I am not so cruel as all that. You paid with belief. "

Of course. What other coin would Deity accept?

"Is it possible to do the same for—-"

"Which one?"

As unable as he had been to choose a castle to destroy, neither could he choose one to save.

She was smiling again. Her eyes were green and then blue, black and then hazel and then gray. Her hair was spun sunlight—no, fiery red—no, soft brown—black—-pure silver. She was his mother and Sioned and Andrade and Hollis and Brenlis and even Alasen.

"You see how difficult power can be. One more will fall. But which?"

She flung all the spheres up into the air. He watched helplessly holding his breath, heart stopped in his chest. Higher, Higher, seven glowing globes, shrinking to pinpoints of light that circled into a crown of stars....

••Andry? My Lord, wake up." The voice was urgent, familiar. "Andry!"

He opened his eyes. Evarin; only him. "Where is she?" he muttered thickly.

The Master Physician sagged with relief. "About time you came out of it. Don't worry about Princess Alasen. She's on her way to Feruche. She should get there tomorrow sometime. I had a look earlier, while you were sleeping. Then this fever came over you like a summer squall, and it was all I could do to get a cure down your throat. How do you feel now?"

"Cold." Drenched in sweat, Andry huddled into a sopping blanket.

Evarin produced a dry one that reeked of horse. Andry found the smell comforting. He stripped off wet clothes and wrapped himself in the wool. Then he drank whatever Evarin gave him and lay back weakly.

A little Fire glimmered nearby, warming the darkness of a small stone shelter. "Where are we?"

"One of Lord Garic's way stations. Before you ask, we got here on horseback. Undignified, but there weren't any artists around to note the pose for a commemorative portrait, so—"

"Stop babbling and tell me what happened." Then, looking more closely at Evarin's face, he said gently, "You've got a fever, yourself. How's the leg?"

The young man shrugged. "It'll do."

"Where'd the horse come from?"

"Your horse, actually. He wandered back. You don't remember?"

"No."

"Well, you got a pretty nasty crack on the head today.

Your memory may play tricks for a while. Anyway, we heard hoofbeats, and you tried some whistle or other, and your stallion came trotting up—well, limping, actually. You took the stone from his hoof, and—you really don't remember?"

"None of it. But I'm glad you didn't have to do all the work yourself. I presume we got on the horse and started riding?"

"I doubt you'd call it that." He grinned tiredly. "Your father'd be appalled—or laugh himself senseless, one of the two, seeing us. And I'm babbling again, so I think I'll let you take the watch for a while."

''Yes, get some rest. Is there anything to eat?"

"Water and what was in your saddlebags." Evarin reached out and dragged the leather satchels over. "Dry clothes, too."

"Good. You lie down and sleep. I'll tend the Fire."

One moment Evarin's little blaze faded, and the next Andry called Fire to the same spot. The exchange was made smoothly; at least the injury to his head hadn't played foul with his gifts. The physician curled himself into another blanket and was asleep between one breath and the next.

Andry changed clothes, keeping the blanket like a shawl over his shoulders. It was bitterly cold, but his need for warmth had more to do with his guts than his skin.

"One will fall...."

But which? Oh, Goddess, which one?

He took hard bread and cheese from his saddlebags and went to the shelter doorway. He had no sense of time; it might have been anywhere from just after dusk to just before dawn. There must have been a clear sky earlier, or Evarin wouldn't have been able to go looking for Alasen, but now only faint, milky luminescence showed where the moons lurked behind the clouds. The unusable light mocked him.

Which would fall?

Not Radzyn. She said he had bought it with his belief. He remembered his dreams of death and destruction. She had shown him what might happen, and he had believed.

Tiglath, then? Evarin, on their long ride before the disaster of today, had told him all he knew of events. The Vellant'im had sailed to Tiglath, attacked, been repulsed, and departed. Tallain had died defending his castle, but the castle still stood. They had tried to take it once. They had failed. There was no reason to think they might attempt it again.

Not so with Goddess Keep. Seven ships were in Brochwell Bay even now. But Torien and the other devr'im Knew how to protect themselves. Prince Elsen of Grib was nding south with troops in answer to Torien's call for aid. The prince's sister Norian was on her way from Dragon's Rest with her husband, Edrel of River Ussh. They would provide more traditional defense than the spells used by the devr'im. With sudden wryness, he reminded himself that Jayachin was there, too—and nothing would prevent her from doing everything she could to uphold her own safety and her new position as unofficial athri of the refugees out-Mde the walls.

No, it would not be Goddess Keep.

Castle Crag was too remote for the Vellant'im to bother

*ith. But not, he realized with a start, for Chiana. It had always been her goal to rule there. Onee she realized that no Vellanti or sorcerous help would be coming to her at Rezeld Manor, she might decide to fulfill her lifelong ambition. Ostvel was at Swalekeep; Alasen was at Feruche; all their troops and the levies from the surrounding Veresch were with one or the other. There was no one left to defend Castle Crag. Would it be the one to fall?

Perhaps Swalekeep. No, the Vellant'im had tried once there, too, and failed. There was no military profit in the place, anyway.

That brought him to think of Balarat, up in Firon and equally irrelevant in terms of securing the continent—which

* as obviously not the invaders' intention to begin with. Politically, however, the place presented dangers. Yarin of Snowcoves occupied the castle and held in custody the rightful prince's young heir. Regaining Balarat would present a pretty problem. But if it fell to Prince Lark, would that not be returning it to its rightful owner? This hardly constituted the kind of "fall" he felt sure the Goddess had meant.

Lastly, there was Skybowl. Something inside him quickened. A Desert castle. The Vellant'im had concentrated on

*uch; it was the next logical place to seize on the way to Feruche, where Pol was; it was a place of dragons.

If the choice was his, then it would be Skybowl. The sixth dnd last to fall. It could not be bought back from the Goddess' claim, not even with faith. A battle would be fought there. Men and women would die there. Skybowl would go the way of Stronghold.

Andry knew all the castles of the Desert. He had visited them in childhood, before going first to High Kirat and his abbreviated service as Prince Davvi's squire and then to Goddess Keep, where he had always wanted to be. Stronghold was destroyed, as was Tuath; Radzyn still stood, though in enemy hands. Skybowl and Tiglath were held fast. And Feruche—

Of them all, next to Radzyn, Feruche was dearest to him. It was his dead twin brother's work, his legacy of beauty and strength. Sorin's very spirit lived within its walls and towers.

Stronghold and Tuath were gone. He had bought Radzyn's safety. Remagev was useless to the enemy, as was Tiglath now that the Merida were shattered. If it came to a choice between Skybowl and Feruche, there was no choice. Skybowl would be the sacrifice. The sixth and last offering to the Goddess.

No, that wasn't quite right. She was not so cruel, she had said so. Then why must another castle fall?

His head ached with it, his heart in turmoil. He gave it up, but for one clear decision: Feruche would not be the one to fall.

Faint sounds intruded on his thoughts—familiar sounds that should have blended into his consciousness unheeded. What had this barren land done to him, that noises heard from childhood caught his attention as the strange noises of the Desert did not? The ring of steel on stone, the call of the master masons, the grunts of the slaves—all the sounds of the quarry that was his family's wealth. Good, solid granite with beautiful black graining, cut into smooth blocks to build homes and temples as far away as Kersau, the Island of the Blind....

But those sounds did not belong here. Wind, the occasional clatter of sandstone pebbles, the whisper of sand underfoot—the Desert had its own music, and he had reluctantly learned to appreciate it. The cutting of stone, however, was as alien here as he.

Coming out of his tent, he fixed a cold gaze on the Flametower, all that could be seen of Stronghold from his camp. A single lifted finger brought a guard running, a horse

[rotting along behind. He mounted, galloped up the slope to the canyon, and bent his head as he went through the tunnel.

They were using picks on the cobbles of the outer court->ard. They were hacking away at the walls. They were gouging mortar from the foundation stones.

They stopped when they saw him, and knelt before him in their hundreds, proud of what they had accomplished.

He spoke very softly into the hush. "The priest?"

"In the gardens, O Most High," someone said to the broken cobbles.

"Bring him."

Someone else scrambled to his feet and, after bowing to him where he sat the stallion, raced for the inner gardens. A few of the others risked a glance upward. He ignored them.

The priest did not hurry. His strides were long with confidence, but he did not hurry. Nor did he bow. His voice was rich and smug.

"Since the Fire was chased away by your righteousness, lord, I have been thinking how best to drive the lingering evil from this place. After much prayer, the solution was vouchsafed me: bring the castle down around itself."

They had sent him another priest from Radzyn to replace the one who had met his demise at Skybowl. A very young priest. Only someone just out of Sanctuary would use a word like "vouchsafe."

Repressing a sigh, he let his gaze travel slowly from the gatehouse to the walls to the vast looming bulk of Stronghold. "That may take some time."

"It must be done, lord," the priest said firmly. "This is a >ource of the Azhrei's power. It must fall."

It has been burned to a crisp—what more do you want? he thought. What he said was, "And had you considered the demons that might still lurk within?"

The young face glowed with sunburn and fervor. "The Father of Storms will protect us."

"Had you noticed," he continued as if the priest had not spoken, "how the Dragon Sign is everywhere here?"

"We are being careful to eradicate all of them."

"I'm sure you are." He paused, knowing this must be phrased exactly right. They were all listening, even though they pretended not to; it was not the first time he had faced off with a priest, and this pompous little half-beard was beginning to annoy him.

"I'm puzzled," said the High Warlord, crossing his wrists casually on the pommel of his saddle. "If Stronghold is razed, will the Azhrei's power die?"

"No, he carries the taint and the sin with him. But—"

"If all Dragon Sign is defaced, will the Azhrei's power die?"

"No, he will only call forth other dragons of his cursed Fire. But—"

"My lord priest," he said with respectful curiosity, "how will we rid this land and the Father's Sacred Dragons of the Azhrei's power?"

"By killing the Azhrei himself, of course," came the impatient reply. "That is why we came to this horrible dead place where nothing grows because of the sins of—"

It may be why you came, he thought. "Then why?" He swept an arm wide. "What does it gain but sore backs and crushed sword-hands?"

Someone coughed, and in the sound was amusement.

Plump cheeks turned redder above the scraggly beard. "It is necessary."

"I don't see why. It seems to me that killing the Azhrei's castle accomplishes very little, when killing the Azhrei himself would not only rid the dragons of his evil, but all the land and all its castles as well."

The priest's forehead congested with blood. "It is necessary," he repeated stubbornly.

You damned idiot! he wanted to shout. You're using up their strength that should be saved for battle, and for a stupid superstition—for nothing!

"As you say," he remarked instead. "Tell me, for you have studied things I have not, what would be the source of power in this place?"

"The Dragon Signs." Suddenly he looked halfway intelligent—and as if he wanted to cut out his own tongue for having fallen into the trap. It was tempting to offer him a knife to do it with.

The High Warlord continued, "Then perhaps if those were taken care of. this long and dangerous task of bringing the keep down around itself would not be necessary?"

The priest glanced around him. It was a terrible mistake. Not one face was to be seen, only bowed heads. But everyone knew he had searched for support; everyone knew his

weakness as he realized that he was not the one who truly commanded here.

At least the fool knew when he was overmatched. "I hadn't thought of it that way. In my zeal—"

"—which is commendable," the High Warlord interrupted gently before the youngling could make an even bigger spectacle of himself. Authority had been established; humiliation was to be avoided. "You rejoice in the purity of your calling and the advantage of scholarship. I am only a warrior—ignorant of the deeper mysteries, too concerned with worldly things." He leaned down a little, as if wanting to speak confidentially. He could practically feel the hundreds sharpen their hearing on mental whetstones. "You know, I can't help thinking of their wives. Palms roughened by calluses of sword and shield are marks of honor, but very different from those left by working stone. These would not be pleasing to a woman's pride as a wife—or to her skin. And there are times when even the Father of Winds cannot howl as loudly as an angry woman."

No one dared even clear his throat this time.

The priest shifted his legs—between which there was lacking certain equipment essential to conjugal relations— and shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes we priests forget the more practical and, as you say, worldly considerations."

"You are fortunate to be able to do so," he replied with good humor. "The Dragon Signs, then—and we shall see how it affects the power of this Azhrei who is steeped in sin."

The priest drew himself up proudly. "And when shall he steep in his own blood?" he challenged.

He supposed he was owed that, after the rebuke. "The vision was a true one. It shall be done when the ritual is completed."

"You are making plans to that end?"

He wished he knew where the deadfalls were at Stronghold; he would take significant pleasure in pushing the priest into one.

"I am." He raised his head to the Flametower. "You might start up there. Dragons sleep atop every one of those pointed windows."

Turning his horse, he rode from Stronghold. Out in the Desert once more, he gave in to impulse and urged the stallion to a gallop across the sand, far from the idiots he must suffer for his greater purpose.

He knew the priests were restless. It was their customary condition, and did not trouble him overmuch. But this matter of the Desert castles was irksome. The priests wanted so much to obliterate at least one.

It hadn't been necessary to forbid the destruction of Radzyn and Whitecliff; the priests had seized on their luxuries gladly. Remagev survived because the old Azhrei had fled it—and the traps inside were too numerous to risk. The priests had grumbled at that, but all he'd had to do was comment that anyone willing to brave the spells left behind was welcome to do so for the glory of his clan. Faolain Riverport mattered nothing to him. It was too new to be of importance. The Merida had demolished and burned Tuath Castle, forgetting all the subtlety of their origins in their passionate vengeance. As assassins, the only token of their existence was the broken glass knife left in a victim's heart. But as conquerors, they became as children smashing a coveted toy for spite.

Feruche mattered little, except that it now sheltered the Azhrei. And her. he reminded himself, reining in to gaze out at the empty vastness of her Desert. She was why he wanted Stronghold to remain standing. If the Storm Father was good to him, he would be able to see her, perhaps even touch her, before the ending. If circumstances were different, he would have named her as the prize, not the new Azhrei's wife. But things were as they were, and in fact he was glad that she would not be in the charge of the priests.

Although, he told himself with an inner grin, it would have been a wonder and an education to see.

Turning, he saw the sun balance atop the Flametower. Soon it would glow through the topmost chamber, almost as if the old Azhrei's fire still burned.

It did not. The young one's Fire would never be lit. Eventually he would leave Feruche and they would face each other in battle at last. And then, after the victory, the true prize would be taken.

Skybowl.

Andry let Evarin sleep himself out. When the young man finally woke on his own at midmorning, hot taze and toasted bread and cheese were waiting for him. The physician ate,

tended to his own and Andry's wounds, and pronounced them fit for travel.

"Elktrap?" he asked as Andry hoisted him into the saddle.

"I'd rather go straight on to Feruche if you can make it." Taking the reins, he started walking. Though Radzyn horses were strong, this one still favored his near foreleg a bit.

Just past noon they reached a shortcut Andry remembered from a map. No need to trust his memory, though; the trail was trampled down, clearly visible. Alasen had come through only yesterday. No subsequent rain or snowfall obscured the tracks.

A sluggish breeze began to stir halfway through a gray afternoon. Measure after measure, Andry put one foot in front of the other, ignoring the throbbing in his head, refusing to consider what was and what might be. Eventually he was unable to think past the next step. His body was beyond weariness, numb with cold; his mind found comfort in sodden exhaustion.

But what was permissible and even desirable for him was not allowed his horse. They might have continued by dark, a fingerflame lighting their way, but the stallion was exhausted and limping badly. So when the pale, stubborn glow of the sun was a fingerspan above the western crags, Andry called a halt.

Evarin stirred blearily in the saddle. "We there yet?"

"No. I have to build a shelter while there's light enough to work. You're tonight's cook. Surely all those years of brewing potions qualifies you."

Evarin rallied a little as he was helped off the horse. "Febrifuges and eye ointments aren't stuffed venison with moss-berry sauce. I can boil water."

"That's more than Sioned can do." He settled his friend on a flat rock cleared of snow. "I know, I know, a princess isn't expected to cook. But she can't even brew a drinkable cup of taze. Speaking of which, here's a pot, and there's the snow. I'll be back soon."

Andry left the saddlebags where Evarin could reach them, tethered the horse, and started off into the trees. Snow would be thin on the ground beneath the gigantic pines, and he had every expectation of finding branches suitable for his purpose. He had collected nearly a dozen—needles still green, limbs still supple enough to bend—when he came upon a rabbit burrow. He'd never been much good at hunting large

game, but he'd caught plenty of sand-nesting creatures in his childhood. Rabbits couldn't be much more difficult.

He was wrong.

Sighing, he cast aside the stick he'd been using in a doomed attempt to coax the bleating animal from its den. So much for rabbit stew tonight. But on his way back, lugging heavy branches, he had the good fortune to find a brave, bedraggled clump of wolfpaw growing around a tiny frozen pond. Everything about the plants, from golden-brown flowers to pulpy root, was edible, nourishing, and delicious when soaked in wine. Hoping Evarin hadn't drunk all of what he'd liberated from Pol's cellars, he crouched down to harvest dinner.

The pond was no more than a puddle, barely an armspan across, and the trees formed nothing resembling a circle. But all at once Andry sat back on his heels, breathing hard. The stones rimming the pool had been set there deliberately.

He'd heard of two tree-circles in his life: one near Goddess Keep, the other close to the ruins of Lady Merisel's castle on Dorval. He'd never even considered that there might be others.

Or that they might be used by the diarmadh'im. Stoneburners.

Was the Goddess here? Was this her place? Had it once belonged to her and been corrupted?

Only one way to find out.

He stripped off his gloves and pocketed them, and let his cloak fall from his shoulders. There was no question of removing the rest of his clothes; he wasn't suicidal and doubted that the Goddess wanted the Lord of her Keep to freeze to death. After closing his eyes for a few moments to steady his mind and his breathing, he gazed at the stone directly opposite him. It was larger than the others, upright in the frozen mud like an arm reaching for the sky. He would call Fire to it, let it cascade down to melt the ice, and then pluck a hair from his head to float on the freed water....

But at the first glimmer of Fire, the stone itself turned to flame. Angry crimson burst head-high, then bled in a swift circle to ignite all the rocks. Andry flinched back and bade the Fire be gone.

It burned brighter than ever.

Within the circle, the sheet of ice reflected living Fire. Across the mirrorlike surface swirled furious shadows

painted in red and yellow and orange. His hands shook as he tugged a single hair from his nape—startled to find it was a gray one—and let it fall onto the solid, unmelting ice.

Fire, Water, the Earth of which he was made. One more thing would finish the gathering of Elements—and somehow he knew that if he did not breathe Air across the pond, the flames would burn forever. This was a ritual that demanded completion. But for Andry, it was like being trapped in a dream, struggling to wake, desperately aware that until it was over there would be no escape.

It was not his breath but the Storm God's that blew across the ice and flames, scattering shadows. The pond was truly a mirror now—a diarmadhi mirror, not reflecting what was before it but revealing what was inside it.

And unlike the mirror he'd found in the Veresch, this one did not show the living. Every face he saw was the face of someone dead.

He knew them, had seen them since childhood or at Riall'im or in Fire conjurings that showed others how to recognize them. Halian of Meadowlord, the Parchment Prince; black-eyed Miyon of Cunaxa; hawk-nosed Kostas of Syr. Volog and Latham of Kierst, father and son, alike in features but not in the marks of age and rule. The brothers Edirne and Camanto of Fessenden, utterly unalike. And the youngest, and the most regrettable death: Rihani of Ossetia.

One after another the faces of dead princes appeared and were consumed in flames, just as the castles had been dropped and shattered.

The price of this war? The sacrifices? What might have bought their lives?

Kostas, assassinated by a Merida. Rihani, dead of wounds. Halian and Latham murdered. Volog alone had succumbed to natural causes. Edirne had been killed in an accident. Miyon's death had been an execution as far as Andry was concerned. He didn't know how Camanto had died—hadn't even been aware of his death, in fact, until now.

But if this was the tally of princes sacrificed to this war, where was Rohan?

Andry sat back on his heels, tearing his gaze from the empty ice-mirror to stare at the trees. Though they formed only an arc, not a circle, around him, they were easily identified. The one directly to his left was the Child; next to it, Youth. A flowering bush, naked now in winter, intervened

between that tree and the one that must represent the Man. Beside it was the Father. And just to Andry's right was a massive pine that could only be the Graybeard.

Would there be any answer, in this place that seized Fire and gave it independent life to mirror the faces of the dead?

Long ago he had consulted other trees at the proper time. At Goddess Keep the pines formed an elegant circle around a larger forest pool with its rock cairn. He had asked his questions of all the trees—except the Graybeard. Not many had the courage to look into their old age until it was actually upon them. And by then questions generally lost their importance anyway, if one was lucky enough to be granted a placid finish to life.

Andry had the depressing feeling that his own old age would be as turbulent as his youth.

He shifted slightly, biting his lip. Then he plunged his bare hands through the Fire and into the ice, and faced the mighty tree.

The ice shards cut like crystal. Needles of pain drove into his knuckles, bringing a muffled cry to his lips. The Fire atop the standing stone flared once more, and in it he saw the face of a man.

No. The face of the God.

He was like unto the Goddess in that his terrible beauty had no specific feature. He was Rohan and Meath and old Prince Lleyn; he was Torien, Pol, and Walvis. He was Andry's father and grandfather and brothers and sons. Ostvel's gray eyes became Roelstra's leaf-green, Tallain's deep brown, and then a clear sapphire blue.

He was ... Andry.

A voice smooth and hard as polished stone reverberated in his mind. No one calls Fire here now. No one comes to see the faces of the dead,

Andry caught his breath in an instinctive protest, then realized his foolishness. Everyone died. No bargain could be struck here—his faith for a life as it had purchased Radzyn.

You, the voice accused, you are not of the Old Blood. You are afraid. Go. Return when you understand.

The Fire died. The face that was all faces and none faded into the broken ice. The stones were only stones. Wind whispered in the pines, finding lonely echo in Andry's soul. He slid his hands from the water and stared at them as if unsure

they were his. The skin was stung scarlet with cold, the nails blue.

It was a long time before his fingers warmed enough to use. He fumbled with his gloves, drew his sodden cloak back .up around him, and pushed himself stiffly to his feet.

Evarin was nodding over steaming taze. He glanced up when Andry trudged from the wood with his branches and his pockets full of wolfpaw.

"I was beginning to worry, my Lord. It's getting dark."

"Yes," Andry agreed. "Very."

"... hundreds and thousands of them, more tha...