way through the larger rocks. The wind blew into him remorse-
lessly, biting at his face and hands,’buffeting him so that it threat-
ened to knock him backward. The mountainside remained
unchanging, and it was impossible to tell at any given point how
far he had come. He quit trying to hear or see anything beyond
what lay immediately in front of him and limited his concentra-
tion to putting one foot in front of the other, drawing into him-
self as far as he could to block away the cold.
He found himself thinking of the Black Elfstone, of how it
would look and feel, of what form its magic might take. He
played with the vision in the silence of his mind, shutting out
the world he traveled through and the discomfort he was feeling.
He held the image before him like a beacon and used it to
brighten the way.
It was noon when he entered a canyon, a broad split between
the massive peaks with their canopy of clouds that opened into
a valley and beyond the valley into a narrow, twisting passage-
way that disappeared into the rock. Walker traversed the canyon
floor to the defile and started in. The wind died away to a whis-
per, an echo that breathed softly in the suddenly enfolding still-
ness. Moisture trapped by the peaks collected in pools. Walker
felt the chill lose its bite. He came out of himself again, newly
alert, tense as he searched the dark rifts and comers of the cor-
ridor he followed.
Then the walls fell away and his journey was finished.
The entrance to the Hall of Kings stood before him, carved
into the wall of the mountain, a towering black maw, bracketed
by huge stone sentries fashioned in the shape of armor-clad war-
riors, the blades of their swords jammed downward into the
earth. The sentries faced out from the cavern mouth, faces
scarred by wind and time, eyes fastened on Walker as if they
might somehow really see.
Walker slowed, then stopped. The way forward was wrapped
in darkness and silence. The wind, its echo still ringing in his
ears, had faded away completely. The mist was gone. Even the
cold had mutated into a sort of numbing, empty chill.
What Walker felt at that moment was unmistakable. The feel-
ing wrapped about him like a second skin, permeated his body,
and reached down into his bones. It was the feeling of death.
He listened to the silence. He searched the blackness. He
waited. He let his mind reach out into the world. He could
discover nothing.
The minutes faded away.
Finally Walker Boh straightened purposefully, hitched up the
rucksack, and started forward once again.
It was midafternoon in the Westland where the Tirfing
stretched from the sun-baked banks of the Mermidon south along
the broad, empty stretches of the Shroudslip. The summer had
been a dry one, and the grasses were withered from the heat,
even where there had been a measure of shade to protect them.
Where there had been no shade at all, the land was burned
bare.
Wren Ohmsford sat with her back against the trunk of a
spreading oak, close to where the horses nosed into a muddy
pool of water, and watched the sun’s fire turn red against the
west sky, edging toward the horizon and the day’s close. The
glare blinded her to anything approaching from that direction,
and she shaded her eyes watchfully. It was one thing to be caught
napping by Garth; it was something else again to let her guard
down against whoever it was that was tracking them.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. It had been more than two
days now since they had first discovered they were being fol-
lowed-sensed it, really, since their shadow had remained care-
fully hidden from them. He or she or it-they still didn’t know.
Garth had backtracked that morning to find out, stripping off his
brightly colored clothing and donning mud-streaked plains garb,
shading his face, hands, and hair, disappearing into the heat like
a wraith.
Whoever was tracking them was in for an unpleasant surprise.
Still, it was nearing day’s end and the giant Rover hadn’t