On the floor of Ansalem's chamber lay shattered fragments of an ammonite fossil and a corpse wasted to skin over dry bones. The corpse was headless.

“Clear this rubbish!” Lord Attaper snapped to his detachment. His face froze. He looked at Garric and added, “Unless, Your Majesty... ?”

Garric shook his head. “Clear this rubbish,” he said, deliberately echoing Attaper. “I'd say give it to the dogs to eat, but there aren't any dogs in Klestis.”

“I like dogs,” Liane said, eyeing the corpse with cold distaste. Two soldiers grabbed the body. Purlio's right arm came off in the hand of the man holding it. He swore, but his partner didn't notice he was carrying the rest of the body by himself. The desiccated corpse weighed almost nothing.

Ilna spread her kerchief and brushed the bits of marcasite from the floor with it. She folded the fabric over the shell and handed it to a soldier. “Dispose of the cloth also,” she said. “I don't want it back.”

Garric exchanged glances with Tenoctris. He turned to his guard commander and said, “We're ready to proceed, Lord Attaper. If you'll hold your men on the roof garden, they'll be able to intervene if required.”

“We can't possibly need soldiers,” Tenoctris said to Garric in surprise.

“Humor me,” Garric said with a smile. While I humor Attaper. If I told him he was useless, he'd argue with me. If I tell him to hold himself in readiness but out of the way, he'll obey without question.

King Carus chuckled, lounging in a garden of his youth where beech trees were espaliered against a brick wall. “Half of kingship is considering what the other fellow is going to hear, rather than what you're going to say. You're better at it than I ever was, lad.”

The troop of guards filed out through the shattered screen. After the troops and Cashel had gotten done with it, you could drive a mammoth through what had started out as delicate filigree.

The atmosphere changed when the soldiers had left. It wasn't so much that the troops had crowded the chamber as the fact that they were more or less strangers to Garric and his friends.

Garric looked around the remaining group, smiling. There were still strangers present: the bird Dalar, whom Sharina said was a warrior and who certainly moved like one; the young Lady Merota, who met Garric's eyes with an aristocratic calm that extended quite a way—but not all the way— below the surface of her face; and Chalcus.

Chalcus grinned back at Garric. The sailor wore a broad leather belt dyed to match his equally new high-laced sandals. Those accessories and Chalcus' pair of embroidered tunics must have come from the personal effects of some of the wealthier Blood Eagles.

King Carus chuckled knowingly. “Oh, yes, we can find a place for that one,” he murmured to Garric. “But an independent command—somewhere that he won't be meeting camp marshals or the City Watch either one.”

Tenoctris shook her head slightly. She took the packet Cashel carried for her and opened it.

The wizard had rolled Sharina's snakeskin in layers of fabric—a discarded tunic—to protect it. The skin was sepia with occasional golden highlights. The amphisbaena had been proportionately thicker than an ordinary snake; though less than six feet in length, it was well over a foot in diameter.

“I'm afraid to do this,” Tenoctris said, trying to smile. “But it's not going to get easier if I wait.”

“Is there danger?” Garric said. His hand twitched toward his sword hilt, though his conscious mind knew that a blade was unlikely to remedy any danger here.

The old woman shrugged. “Only of failure,” she said. “My failure. In which case the continuing disruption will destroy the kingdom, I'm afraid.”

Cashel frowned. “You won't fail, Tenoctris,” he said. His tone would've seemed threatening to anyone who didn't know Cashel.

Ilna looked at Garric, then toward Tenoctris. “It isn't my pattern,” she said, “but I doubt the craftsman at the loom would choose to weave disaster here.”

“You're sure there's a pattern?” Tenoctris said sharply.

Ilna held her palms up, then laced her fingers together. “As sure as I am of these hands,” she said. “As sure as I am of anything in life.”

“You're sure Good will defeat Evil?” Tenoctris demanded.

“I don't know about Good and Evil,” Ilna said calmly. “I know about patterns; and craft.”

Tenoctris gave a crisp nod. She walked to the empty bier and spread the snakeskin over the travertine surface. The translucent scales blurred the stone's pattern of brown blotches in yellowish matrix. Lips pursed in concentration, Tenoctris adjusted the lie of the skin.

The mottled surfaces, skin and stone, merged into a single pattern.

“It's words,” Liane whispered. “It forms words in the Old Script!”

Cashel beamed with calm satisfaction. He handed Tenoctris the sliver of bamboo he had ready.

“Tenoctris, can we help?” Sharina asked softly. “To speak the words, I mean?”

“One voice is enough, I think,” Tenoctris said. “And... while you, while several of you can read the Old Script as well as I can, I think this spell requires a wizard to speak it. Though I hope a wizard of my slight power will be sufficient.”

Tenoctris took a deep breath. She had to stand to read the symbols on top of the bier. Garric stepped toward her but Ilna was already there, putting her arm around the old woman for support if the effort of the enchantment overcame her frail physique.

Since Tenoctris didn't need him, Garric turned his back. He knew his mind would try to pronounce the words of power if he let himself watch. Past experience had taught him that a spell formed for a wizard to speak would dry his throat and glue his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

“Horses for courses, lad,” Carus said with a false laugh. “The lady isn't much of a swordsman that I've noticed. “

Garric lacked a wizard's powers, but Carus had hated and even feared wizards during life. Carus' sword alone hadn't been enough to save the Isles; but it was true as well that no one, not even a wizard far more powerful than Tenoctris, could defeat the rising threat of chaos with only wizardry.

Garric flexed his sword hand and laughed. Horses for courses, indeed.

“Phouris chphouris on,” Tenoctris said. “Thala matro armatroa...”

Garric looked at the ruin of the alabaster screen. It saddened Garric to see such a work of art smashed, but there'd been no time to find another way to reach Purlio. Men had died that afternoon because only their sacrifice stood between the Isles and chaos. It would be perverse to mourn the mere product of a stonemason's craft and forget the lives.

Liane put her hand on Garric's shoulder. He took his right hand off his sword hilt and flexed it, working out the stiffness from his fierce grip. He put his arm around Liane and managed to chuckle.

“Alan ah aa,” Tenoctris was saying. “Marta max soumarta...”

Dalar gave a croak of wonder. Garric turned instinctively. The bird was staring at the bier; so was Chalcus, his in-curved sword bare in his hand. So long as Ilna stood beside Tenoctris, Chalcus didn't have Garric's option of turning his back on the proceedings. Wizardry obviously frightened him, though.

A shimmer like that of a golden waterfall quivered above and through the stone bier. For an instant Garric saw a snake's head, its tongue darting to taste the air. That image vanished, but at the other end of the flowing light—

“Zochraie satra!” Tenoctris said, striking her slender wand in the center of the snakeskin. She stepped back and would have fallen if Ilna hadn't been there to catch her.

Ansalem the Wise lay on the bier, cushioned by a velvet pad. He turned his head toward his visitors and blinked in surprise.

“Who... ?” he said, trying to lift himself. Cashel put an arm behind the wizard and helped him straighten into a sitting position.

“Lord Ansalem?” Garric said. The kingdom's safety was his responsibility, not that of his friends. “We've awakened you so that you can remove the bridge that threatens our world.”

“I remember you,” Ansalem said. His expression had been slightly vague; now it sharpened into focus. “From my dream. Where are my acolytes?”

“Dead,” Garric said bluntly. “Before they could do more damage. Though they did enough.”

Ansalem sighed. “Yes, I was afraid of that,” he said. Placing his sandaled feet carefully on the floor beside the bier, he stood up. “I don't understand why they shut me away like that. I only wanted what was best for them and all my people.”

“They weren't as strong as you,” Tenoctris said. She seemed to have recovered herself, though Ilna was ready to catch her if necessary. “What to you were toys warped them in ways that... made them less than human.”

“I know you too, don't I?” Ansalem said. His gaze was disconcertingly sharp. “But from before I took my city out of the coming collapse. You're a wizard of sorts yourself.”

“Yes,” said Tenoctris. “I visited Klestis, but I didn't belong here so I left before it was too late.”

“You would have been welcome,” Ansalem said in puzzlement. “You didn't have to leave just because you didn't have the strength Purlio and the others did.”

“Your power was enough to doom all the citizens who trusted you, Lord Ansalem,” Garric said. He didn't know if the words came from his own horror at what had happened or if King Carus spoke with Garric's lips. Either way, Garric was certain that the wizard had to know the truth in all its brutal clarity. “Without your art, the plants and animals here couldn't produce a tenth of what the people needed to live. They ate all there was, and then they must have eaten each other. And at last they died.”

Ansalem's mouth dropped open. “But I didn't mean—” he said.

He stopped and swallowed. His cherubic face was suddenly gray. “I'm sorry, Carus,” Ansalem said. “I was wrong. I was terribly wrong.”

Garric clasped the wizard's arm, hand to elbow. “Everybody was wrong then,” he said without trying to explain that he was Garric, not Garric's ancestor. “What's important is what happens now. Can you remove the bridge you formed to my world?”

Without comment, Ansalem walked to the window looking out over the city. He apparently expected people to get out of his way automatically— as they did, Sharina in one direction and Chalcus with Merota in the other.

Chalcus chose to sheathe his sword now; with a grin, but also with enough of a flourish to make the gesture a comment. In this gathering, Ansalem didn't have a monopoly on arrogance.

“I did that while I was dreaming?” Ansalem said, turning to face the others again.

“You formed one nexus,” Tenoctris said. “I think your acolytes may have multiplied it in the fashion you see; but yes, it was your work.”

“While I was dreaming!” the wizard repeated in a tone of delight. “Why, I don't think anyone else could possibly have done that. Not from a spell of encystment!”

“But can you undo it?” Tenoctris said. She spoke quietly and firmly, as though she were dealing with a child. “It's a great danger to other planes so long as it remains. A danger to all other planes.”

“Yes, yes, it would be,” Ansalem said, contrite again. “I'm so sorry, I never meant...”

His eyes suddenly focused on Dalar. “Why, my goodness,” he said, losing the thread of his previous thought. “You're of the Rokonar, are you not? I didn't realize any of your folk had survived the catastrophe of the Third Age.”

Garric saw Sharina wince. The bird merely nodded and said, “I am a warrior of the Rokonar, yes. I am far from my land and people, and I fear that I will never see my home again.”

“Oh, sending you home isn't any trouble,” Ansalem said. His surprise verged on irritation at the thought that he couldn't accomplish a task that seemed simple to him. “Is that what you want? I'll do that before I dissolve the nexuses.”

The sudden sharp focus returned to the wizard's face. He looked at Tenoctris. “That is... will it be all right if I do that? I've made such terrible mistakes, I know.”

Tenoctris glanced at Sharina. Sharina hugged Dalar and stepped away.

“The Dragon told me that my friends and I would gain by my service to him,” she said. “I would gain greatly if you helped Dalar, who kept me alive on a long journey.”

“I could have had no better master than you, Sharina,” the bird said, bowing low and rising. “But yes, I would like to return home.”

“We'd all be indebted to you for that, Lord Ansalem,” Tenoctris said formally. “And for removing the weight of this nexus from our world.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Ansalem said with a flash of peevishness. His face fell instantly. “Oh, I'm sorry,” he went on. “I know it's all my fault. I'll take care of it as soon as you leave.”

He frowned. “You do want to leave, don't you? Though if any of you would care to stay... ?”

“No,” said Garric, breathing out a great sigh of relief. “We really want to return to our own world.”

More than I could possibly have guessed, he thought, before spending the better part of a day in this Paradise become Hell.

“Lord Attaper,” he called through the shattered screen. “Alert the troops for an immediate return to Valles!”

 

*   *   *

 

“It's dawn in Valles,” Liane said as they approached the end of the bridge. “I've never been so glad to see clean light.”

“Nor me,” Garric said, feeling his heart lift at the sight. “Though I'm not going to cheer until I actually set foot on—”

Others were less inhibited. Chalcus, walking with Ilna and the child behind the leading section of javelin men, pointed his sword to the eastern horizon. “The sun!” he shouted.

Before the words were more than out of his mouth, a dozen throats echoed them. Instants later all the soldiers were shouting, the Blood Eagles no less than the skirmishers.

Attaper looked furious. Garric caught his eye, smiled, and cried, “The sun!” Attaper managed a lopsided grin.

Garric knew that Waldron would have drawn up the Royal Army along the streets facing the bridge, but the citizens packing roofs and balconies overlooking the troops were a surprise. When they heard the troops shouting, they too began to cheer hesitantly.

“They think we're cheering because we've won,” Garric said, glancing from Liane on his left side to Sharina on his right. “They don't know we're just glad to have survived.”

“We have won, Garric,” said Cashel, beside Sharina and carrying Tenoctris in the crook of his right arm. Attaper had started to detail a pair of soldiers to build the wizard a litter from spearshafts and a cloak, but Cashel wouldn't hear of it. “Isn't that right, Tenoctris?”

“Yes, I think we did,” she said, looking wan from her ordeal but satisfied nonetheless. Garric had to watch Tenoctris' lips to pick out the words over the cheering, though her smile would have been information enough. “We accomplished what we set out to do; or at any rate when Ansalem carries through, we will have.”

Garric's hobnails clashed on the stone apron of the Old Kingdom bridge; the bridge of wood and masonry, not wizard-light. He drew his sword and waved it overhead. “The Isles!” he shouted. “To the kingdom and all her citizens!”

The cheers were as joyous as birdsong to ears returned from Klestis. Garric hugged Liane. If he didn't already have a bare blade in his hand, he'd have thrown her in the air like the climactic turn of the Harvest Dance.

Lord Waldron was at the head of the apron, in the midst of his staff and a dozen other noblemen. His face was as grim as a perched falcon's, showing neither fear nor hope. It was the face of the man who'd stood beside King Valence at the Stone Wall, certain the day was lost but untouched by the knowledge.

King Valence—the king's army—had ultimately won at the Stone Wall, just as Garric and his friends had succeeded in Klestis; but there were worse folk to have on your side than pessimists who'd die before they quit. Garric and the king inside his mind felt a sudden rush of affection for the old warrior.

Attaper hadn't let Garric be the last out of Klestis as he'd wanted to be. A final squad of Blood Eagles jogged off the bridge, bellowing and drumming their spears against their shield bosses. The crowd, even the ordered ranks of the army, gasped in a mixture of hope and terror.

Garric turned. The bridge sparkled like an outline of falling snow. Blue light that moments ago had been more solid than the limestone apron collapsed in on itself. Garric could see each bit rotating away in a direction that had nothing to do with ordinary distance.

The River Beltis, dark with silt and swollen from rainfall in the highlands, rolled toward the Inner Sea. The current roughened over the remains of the pier which once supported the Old Kingdom bridge.

Other than the ripples, the water and the air above it were empty. Garric slammed his sword home in its sheath.

“I suspect what's left of Klestis stands on the coast of Cordin again,” Tenoctris said. “But I wonder what Ansalem himself will do....”

After a dignified hesitation, Waldron and the other members of the council strode toward Garric. Lord Tadai remained where he'd been waiting, in discussion with Ilna. Garric was briefly surprised to see Chalcus several steps away, entertaining Merota by making a gold piece vanish and reappear from first the girl's ear, then her nose.

“Your friend doesn't need help to make her point,” Carus noted with a grin. “And when she's in the mood she is now, a wise man keeps his distance.”

Cashel set Tenoctris down but stood with his staff crossways to prevent well-wishers from trampling her and Sharina. Garric laughed and stepped with Liane behind the same protection. People shouted questions and congratulations—and Chancellor Royhas was saying something about the Earl of Sandrakkan.

That would wait. Sandrakkan was a threat, and there would be other threats worse than Sandrakkan before the kingdom was safe; but for today, they could all wait.

“The Kingdom of the Isles!” Garric shouted to the people, to his people. “May she stand forever in peace!”

“And may her rulers always be willing to stand against the enemies of that peace,” King Carus shouted down the ages. “As her ruler stands today!”