the earth.
“Half a day, a little more,” the Splinterscat advised.
“A lifetime if you are wrong, Scat,” Gavilan intoned darkly.
“Then we will have to hurry,” Wren declared, and called
Faun back to her shoulder. She brought the Ruhk Staff before
her, a reminder. “We have no choice. Let’s be off. Stay close to
each other. Keep watch.”
They struck out across the flats, winding down into the maze
of depressions, through the tangle of tree husks, cautious eyes
scanning the blasted land about them. Stresa took them along
as quickly as he could, but travel was slow, the terrain broken
and uneven, filled with twists and turns that prevented either
rapid or straight passage. The Harrow swallowed them after
only moments, gathering about them almost magically until there
was nothing else to be seen in any direction. Mist swirled and
Spun in the wind currents, steam rose out of cracks in the earth
that burrowed all the way to Killeshan’s core, and vog drifted
down from where it spewed out of the volcano. Nothing moved
in the land; it was still and empty all about. Shadows played,
black lines cast earthward by the skeletal trees, iron bars against
the light. All the while the earth beneath rumbled omi-
nously, and there was a sense of something dangerous awakening.
The voices began in the first hour. They lifted out of noth-
ingness, whispers on the air that might have come from any-
where. They called compellingly, and for each of the company
the words were different. Each would look at the others, think-
ing that all must have heard, that the voices were unmistakable.
They asked, anxious, intense: Did you hear that? Did you hear? But
none had, of course-only the speaker, called specifically, pur-
posefully, drawn on by some mirror of self, by a reflection of
sense and feeling.
The images came next, faces out of the air, figures that
quickly formed and just as quickly faded in the shifting haze,
visions of things peculiar to whomever they addressed-
personifications of longings, needs, and hopes. For Wren, they
took the form of her parents. For Triss and Eowen, it was the
queen. For the others, something else. The images worked
the fringes of their consciousness, struggling to break through
the barriers they had erected to keep them at bay, working to
turn them from their chosen path and lead them away.
It went on relentlessly. The voices were never loud, the
images never clear, and the whole of the experience not unpleas-
ant, not threatening, not even real-a false memory of what had
never been. Stresa, familiar with the danger, started them talking
to each other to ward off the attack-for there was no mistaking
what it was. The Drakuls stalked them even in sleep, some part
of what they were rising up to follow after, seeking to delay or
detain, to turn aside or lead astray, to keep them within the
Harrow until nightfall.
Time slowed, as cautious and measured as the haze through
which they walked, as bleak as the landscape that stretched
ahead. The depressions deepened, and in places the lifeless trees
formed a barrier that could not be crossed, but had to be got
around. Wren called to the others as they trudged ahead, push-
ing past the voices, casting through the faces, working to keep
them all together, to keep them moving. Noon approached,
and the day darkened. Clouds massed overhead, heavy with
rain. It began to drizzle, then to pour. The wind quickened, and
the rain blew into them in sheets. It would sweep across in a
curtain, fade away to scattered drops, and start the cycle over
again. It lasted for a time and was gone. The earth’s heat re-
turned, and the mist began to thicken. It closed about them, and
soon nothing was visible beyond a dozen feet. They stayed close
then, so close they were tripping over each other, bumping
together as if made sightless, feeling their way through the
gloom.
“Stresa! How much farther?” Wren shouted through the ca-
cophony of voices that whirled about her ears.
“Spptptt! Close, now,” the reply came. “Just ahead.”
They passed down into a particularly deep ravine, a jagged