“As Aargh would tell us,” said Dafydd grimly, “a cold trail. There will be no way to follow Gruffydd’s going-or trace that tainted quarrel-piece back from where it came.”

The answer was a form of half-truth. The full reason was that the object or person to be found had to be visualized by the magician. Well enough with someone you had met and got to know to some extent. But Jim, who had been preoccupied with the matter of saving the young king, had only a general impression of a man, shorter than most in this land, with long hair and wearing brown clothing.

The tall leader in green, who had been the first to object to a welcome for Jim and those with him, came forward and dropped on one knee before the youngster.

“Sire,” he said, “the life of our King is a sacred life, not even to be threatened. Of your grace grant me pardon for speaking against these strangers, one of whom has now saved you for us. I own my error of judgment and I entreat your forgiveness for that I doubted your Regent.”

“There is nothing to forgive, Llewelyn,” said the boy, now on his feet. “I know you spoke so from care for me. Rise!”

The man rose and stepped to Dafydd. Dafydd’s right hand caught him by the elbow and held him up as he started to descend again.

“Leaders do not kneel to Leaders, Llewelyn,” he said. “And the Regency is a temporary title. You spoke like an honest man and a fair one. I have forgotten what words you used, other than that.”

“I will speak for the Greens, then,” the man said. “We will trust these you have brought here as you do; and we will follow you as you may lead from now on, without further question. Let others say what they may.”

But there arose a chorus of voices, as men in one color or another pushed themselves to the front of the crowd to endorse what Llewelyn had said, for their own Colors.

“Then,” said Dafydd, looking at the boy, “if our King agrees, there is no reason we should not continue our talk out here with all listening-unless there are still some who doubt the honesty of our visitors?”

No one spoke.

“Damndest chatter-chatter I ever heard!” muttered Brian in Jim’s ear, once more obviously irked by the fact he could not understand the tongue of the Drowned Land. “All jostling together to do service-and one of them just magicked their king. Who’s to say there’s not another like him still among them? What’s to keep one of them from lying about his feelings and running off to tell their enemies every word we say here?”

“Shh,” said Jim, embarrassed. Brian’s grumble in English was too low-pitched for anyone else to make out the words-even the King and Dafydd, who could have understood them. But the fact he had said something in Jim’s ear was obvious to everybody. “Dafydd told you they do things differently here.”

“Cut their own throats differently-“ Brian closed his mouth. Happily, no one in the mass of faces Jim was looking at seemed to have suspected offense.

“How are your wishes in this, then, Sir Brian, Sir James, QB?”

The QB graciously fielded the fact of finding himself among those to be consulted.

“It may well all be for the best,” he said.

“As long as we three aren’t expected to make any firm commitments,” said Jim, “I think that’s probably the next order of business. We don’t want to be bound, though, in case something unexpected arises.”

“Sire, you will allow us then?”

“Oh, certainly. Certainly, Dafydd. As our forefathers would have done it.”

“Then let the table in the tent be brought out here, so that our King and visitors may sit in your midst.”

The first half-dozen men to reach the entrance to the tent disappeared within. The rest stood back. In moments, the King, Dafydd, and the visitors were seated all on one side of the table under the bright sun, with an audience of the men of Colors seated cross-legged on the ground in a semicircle before it. Those at the table spoke in English, their words translated by Dafydd for the men who did not understand.

“Sir James,” Dafydd said now, “you, a Magickian as well as a knight, have just seen what came upon us here. Magick is something of which our land has always been free; nor do we wish it now. What can such as we do against such as just struck down our King?”

Jim looked at the earnestly gazing faces of the men on the ground.

“To tell the truth,” he said, “I don’t know what you can do. It seems plain enough that, however the Dark Powers plan to gain control of Lyonesse, their plan seems to involve the Drowned Land, too. But I can’t think why they want to take you over-it doesn’t make sense. Lyonesse is different. The Dark Powers are magic forces; and of course, Lyonesse is full of magic-so like might draw to like. There might be a connection there. No offense to you, QB-“

He glanced at the QB, beside him at the table, sitting on the ground with his snake-head well above its top.

“I do not take offense easily, Sir James,” the QB answered, his tongue flicking out for a moment, startlingly thin and black in the bright, yellow sunlight. “But are you sure you cannot think of a reason these Powers and their invaders would have to concern themselves with this land as well as my own?”

“Well, there’s one-only one-“ said Jim. “There’s no Chance or History in Lyonesse. Its mold is set; and time, except for its minute-to-minute aspect, doesn’t seem to exist. In other words, History is not moving forward there. But the Drowned Land has both History and Chance. Its own version of it, of course, compared to that in the land above-but History and Chance, nonetheless; and the Dark Powers exist for the destruction of either one of those two elements, wherever they can do that.”

“But how-“ began the young King.

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “It’s a far-fetched bit of reasoning, but the best I can do right now. It could be the Powers are just using the Drowned Land because it’s conveniently here for what they want to do. Didn’t you and the QB tell me, Dafydd, that the Borderland could hold their invasion force?”

“Perhaps, James,” said Brian unexpectedly, “you might explain why Chance and History are so important to the Dark Powers. I swear England is full of gentlemen and ladies-not to mention those who swink and sweat all their lives for their living-who have never given a thought to either one. Must say it took me a little time to get my wits around it, myself!”

Jim looked across the table and around at the waiting, hopeful faces. How to explain the Dark Powers?

“I can’t, really,” he said. “I don’t understand them myself.”

“The best I can do,” he said, “is tell you what my Master-in-Magick”-he did his best this time to pronounce the word as those here said it-“told me of the Dark Powers. My Master’s name is Carolinus, and he’s one of the three most powerful magicians in the land above. Would you want to hear that?”

“Speak of it anyway in your own words, Sir James,” said the King in English; and a few heads nodded in the half circle before them-obviously belonging to those who knew enough English to follow the talk so far-even as Dafydd translated for the others.

Jim looked at the half circle of faces, watching and waiting to hear what he would say. For a moment, in their stillness and unvarying attention, they reminded him of children-no, not children. Perhaps actors playing the parts of obedient children.

Perhaps they were indeed playing a part, he told himself. A part in a life-play of some kind. For a moment Jim found himself caught up in a dizzying sensation of unreality. Colors, Leaders, a sunlit land hundreds or thousands of feet under the ocean surface-another land of legend and magic, but like the first, one where people lived and could die. Talking trees, Old Magic, Dark Powers, Witch Queens...

His mind spun. Reality and unreality were all mixed up. For the first time since he and Angie had come to this world, Jim felt a piercing homesickness for the century of their birth. A time when there was no magic or strange powers, no archaic loyalties, obligations, and ways. He felt as if caught up in a whirlwind with nothing stable around him.

He longed for Angie. Once back with her, even this world would have a firm point-all else would fall into order. Safe within himself, protected by his ward, he had the magic to return to her in a moment. He could be back with her at Malencontri in no time at all.

But these were real people he would be leaving to their fate; and two-no, three, counting the QB now, were his friends. Still, the temptation to do so was almost a physical force taking over his body.

“What Carolinus told me was that the Dark Powers seek to either hold History back until it is motionless-in which case, all things stop; and what stops, eventually, dies-or to keep enlarging Chance until there is no more certainty in the world-when Chaos would rule: bits of earth, water, buildings, everything, mixed up and flying mindlessly through the air together, evermore-in which case there would be nothing left to live for; and therefore all people would have reached their end.”

He could not bring himself to do it. A sense of duty as ancient as the land that surrounded him now-duties of friendship to Brian and Dafydd, even obligation to the QB, and the cantankerous, willful old man who was Carolinus-all these stopped him.

He paused. They were listening now-they were actually listening closely as Dafydd translated.

“So,” he finished, “the Dark Powers must be opposed in all they do, if we wish to survive and progress. That is a duty on all men and women-and, indeed, it’s the duty that brings Sir Brian, the QB, and me to you now. It does not matter who the Dark Powers attack, or where. Their attack has to be stopped each time.”

He finished speaking, and Dafydd’s translation, which had almost been keeping pace with his words, ended also. Jim waited for someone to say something. But no one did. After some long seconds it dawned on him that somehow he had reached them. He had touched them. In some way, across the double barrier that was the difference in their lives from his, their language from his, they had come to feel the reality and dangerousness of the Dark Powers.

“Is there no defeating these Dark Powers for good, then, Sir James? Killing them, mayhap?” said the King, at last.

“No, Sire,” said Jim, “because in a way they’re”-he caught himself just about to say “a product of the environment”-“offspring of the natural battle between History and Chance. We humans are always trying to mark our History on time. A wise man once said, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Chaos is the reaction to History.”

“But how do we find such men and women?”

“They have to be here, somewhere, in the Drowned Land and in Lyonesse, since both lands are under the shadow of the Powers. They must be found, that’s all.”

“But, again, how?”

“This is what Sir Brian, the QB, and I came here to try and find a way to do. The first step’s to find out who the Powers are working through. One might be Morgan le Fay, a Witch Queen in Lyonesse. But who are they working through here-if they’re actually working here as well?”

“That broken quarrel piece was magick,” said the King. “What more proof do we need?”

“And as for one working for them here,” said Dafydd, “when I became Regent, I was told by our people that Morgan le Fay paid our land a visit but five weeks past.”

“She did?” said the QB-it was the first time Jim had heard him sounding startled. Even their sudden, surprised appearance here in the Drowned Land had not brought that note to his sibilant voice.

“I will speak them. I am as much a king as any king among them.”

“Perhaps, Sire, that might be good,” said Dafydd. “But I would wish to look for other ways first. Sir James, Sir Brian, my Lord QB, have you any suggestions?”

Neither Brian nor the QB spoke.

“I think we can all make guesses,” said Jim. “But it’s not smart making decisions on guesses. Someone else besides Morgan le Fay could be an unwitting tool of the Dark Powers-it could be another person or persons completely. We need to find out all we can about the situation before heading in any particular direction. What was it, said just now, about the Borderlands; and about monsters and strangers there? Sir Brian and I-and the Lord QB if he will-had better go take a look at it.”

Dafydd, who had continued to translate the English of this conversation for the benefit of those beyond the table, broke back into English.

“If you go there, I must needs go with you,” he said-“with my King’s permission, of course.”

“You have it, Dafydd,” said the King; and himself repeated Dafydd’s request and his agreement to it to the audience in their own tongue.

“Thank you, my Lord King,” said Dafydd in English.

The seated men rose and began to form in line-a line that was still stretching out even as the first of them came to one knee, as close before the King as the width of the table would allow. Dafydd spoke to them directly, almost harshly, in their own language.

“What was that now?” growled Brian into Jim’s left ear. “What did he say?” For the line was now formed and the King was rising to lean forward across the table to a man in green, the first man to kneel before him.

“He said, “You will keep and protect him as if I was here to tell you to!” Jim answered, suddenly realizing he had forgotten Brian was not understanding anything not said in English.

“That would be well,” Brian said.

“-But he had to get the King’s permission. The King gave it; but that meant he’d be doing without his Regent. Dafydd was just telling the others to watch out for the boy as if he was still there.”

“Ah. What are they up to now, then?” The youthful King was stretching to reach across the not-narrow width of the table, to place his hand on the shoulder of the kneeling man-who then gave up his place to the man behind him. Much as Jim and Brian had seen in a similar situation during their earlier trip through the Drownded Land, the King was laying his hand for an instant not merely on the shoulder, but the head of each one.

“Some ceremony?”

“I think they’re all pledging their loyalty personally-and possibly that of all those who wear the same Color-to him while Dafydd is gone.”

“Very well. Properly done, then.”

“You did hear the King say that Darydd could go with us to the Borderland?”

“Of course!” There was a note of relief in Brian’s tone now. “And I approve. A wise decision. Dafydd will be much more useful with us than nursemaiding that boy.” Brian broke off on a sudden note of worry. “James, you don’t suppose his Majesty could change his mind now?”

“No,” not after this ceremony.”

“Well, that’s a relief. The King is a good lad, but still young; and these foreigners, you know-“

“Sir James, Sir Brian, QB,” said the King to them, “Dafydd”-he reeled off the Drowned Land’s unpronounceable-for Englishmen-rest of Dafydd’s full name and title down here, Prince of the Sea-Washed Mountains-“will go with you to the Borderland, or where else you four may need to go. Keep good care of yourself for my sake, Dafydd.”

“I will, my King,” said Dafydd, kneeling to be touched on his head, in turn.

He stood up once more; suddenly again the tall woodsman and Master Bowman they had known in all their time before. “I will need to guide you. Let us go.”

They mounted their horses and followed Dafydd-who was on foot-away from the tent and all those there, up the slope of a green hill in the near distance. They had ridden off at a walk. But as they reached the top of the hill, a thunder of hooves sounded behind them; and there was the tall man with the graying beard, riding up to them with a led horse, the reins of which he gave to Dafydd.

“Thank you, Llewelyn,” said Dafydd, mounting. The other lifted his hand briefly in something between a wave and a twentieth-century-style salute, turned his own mount, and thundered away at full gallop back down the slope.

“They must break a lot of necks here, men and horses both,” said Brian, but without any real rancor in his voice, as they reined in for a moment to wait for Dafydd. “By God, they can ride, though!”

“Our first horses were stolen from the Romans,” said Dafydd, reaching them in time to pick up the words. They all moved on. “But we bred them lighter and faster; and we made our own way of riding.”

“Is it far to the Borderland from where we were?” asked the QB.

They had all but forgotten him. But there he was beside them, loping along as if he could keep up the pace all day.

“Just beyond the next hill,” said Darydd.

“It was in my mind to move us all there swiftly by means of the magick I own- but I remember now that, not being in Lyonesse, I do not have it here. Why do you not use Drowned Land magick to move us there quickly?”

“No,” said Dafydd. “There is no magick in the Drowned Land-or was not until today with Gruffydd and our King. Even the word is not one in good repute among us. Nor was I ever, or wished to be, a magickian. No, the King and I set our meeting place back there close to the edge of the Borderland for reason.”

“Hah!” said Brian with satisfaction-he, as Jim knew, being the kind of person who wanted all things done for a definite reason, if they were to be done at all.

“Yes it was in our minds if everything else failed to make agreement among the leaders-he and I might decide to enter the Borderland to see what was now to be found there. Those with us of the Colors could never have let us go alone, for shame. Then might we all have seen. It was a happy chance indeed, James, that you suggested we three-crave pardon, QB-we four should go alone; since that was our aim in any case.”

While they were talking, they had gone down into what was only a fold in the hills, and were halfway up the slope beyond. Within minutes they had reached the top of what Dafydd had called the “next” hill; and they looked down on an open hillside giving way to a forest as inviting as any Jim had seen in the Drowned Land, where the landscape as a whole was inviting.

But as they halted their horses at the top of the hill to let them breathe-and without making a particular point of it, let the QB himself catch his breath, in case he also needed it-it was only then that Jim, gazing at the trees-which here were elms, rather than oaks-and the greensward visible before and between them, got a feeling, a very definite feeling, of uneasiness.

“Ware!” said the QB. “I feel it also-“ And almost in the same instant Hob cried out.

“Ware, m’Lord! Ware! The trees are calling ‘Ware’ to us!”

“Back!” said Brian, wheeling Blanchard. Jim turned Gorp sharply about; and they all galloped back down the slope they had just come up. The moment they were completely below the brow of the hill, the feeling disappeared.

Brian reined in. They all stopped.

“The edge between my land and Lyonesse moves back and forth sometimes in the Borderland,” said Dafydd. “But I have never known it to be this far into ground that is ours. For this must be magick, unless-“

“I wish I could hear them,” said Jim. “I learned to hear the Gnarlies and the horses. I ought to be able-“

“It may never be that easy for you,” said the QB. “The Gnarlies are Naturals, which are closer to you than trees. I am not learned in magick, nor am I gifted like Merlin, or even the Witch Queens. I only hear the trees and the animals because the Old Magic or the Legends made it so.”

“Well, we cannot sit here all day through, talking about it,” said Brian. “James, do we go forward, or not?”

“Forward,” said Jim. He found his jaws were clenched tight. “If there’s magic ahead, let me deal with it.”

He made his jaw unclench as they went back up the slope and then down its farther side, toward the first few trees. These stood more or less in a row across the edge of the clear ground; and there was some distance between them and the next trees, which were the more obvious beginnings of the forest. The feeling of uneasiness grew as they went, until they reached level ground, now only twenty-five or thirty yards from the nearest trees. Then it held steady.

Jim led the way straight ahead, between the two largest trunks in the front row. The sun was at his back, and so the grass beyond those first trees was darker and more indistinct. No one said anything, no breeze stirred the leaves overhead. They rode in silence, and Gorp suddenly tossed his head, as if he found the bridle bit in his mouth uncomfortable.

It was only when the next step of Blanchard, who was leading, would have carried them on between these first sentinel trees that Dafydd stepped out from behind the thick trunk of the tall elm on their right.

The horses stopped immediately, without reins being touched. If Dafydd had not been beside him at that moment, Jim would have found it almost impossible to believe that the figure just before him was not the Prince-bowman he knew.

The new Dafydd said nothing. He only turned and swept out an arm, as if unveiling the space behind the. trees-and as they all looked where he indicated, the ground there sagged, broke, and opened into a chasm across their way, its ends cutting a deep rift in the earth that ran away between the trees on either hand, out of sight.

The edge of this rift that they could see fell steeply below view, showing earth with broken stone protruding-stone that as you looked deeper into the cleft became blacker and more black, and bulged and creased into shapes. Shapes like the upper halves of human bodies, their lower parts buried in the stone itself, shapes like gargoyles and part-human figures, spitted on sharp outthrusts of the stone.

But the rift itself went down and down into darkness.

“Even if that was not there,” said the second Dafydd, “I would not let you pass. You must kill me to go by here, and you cannot do that.”

His voice was eerily like Dafydd’s in timbre and rhythm, but his speech was without living warmth, almost mechanical.

“Indeed?” said Brian, and picked up his reins.

Dafydd-their Dafydd-thrust out a hand to stop the knight, but checked himself before he actually touched Brian’s armored upper arm.

“No, Brian,” he said, “it must be me.”

“Wait a minute,” said Jim. “Let’s none of us rush into this without thinking. This is nothing natural for the Drowned Land is it Dafydd?”

“No,” said Dafydd. “That is why it must be I who meets him. He is a blemish, a false thing and a false place, desecrating our land!”

“Hold on, Dafydd, Brian,” said Jim. “As you said, Dafydd, this is a false thing. It doesn’t belong in this land of yours, where there’s no magic-but plainly it is magic. Let’s take a second or two and think about it.”

The other two were patiently still. So was the QB. So was Hob on Jim’s shoulders-even the other Dafydd was silent, waiting. Jim studied him-or, rather, it. The fake Dafydd stood, utterly unmoving, perfectly mirroring the real man, with no change of expression, evidently content to wait as long as they did. The perfect duplication, Jim told himself, was not a matter of importance, as long as magic was obviously at work. Once again, as with the false river, he was face to face with what seemed to be a massive work of magic.

Jim’s mind searched for some other difference, some possible giveaway mistake in what had appeared before them. He did not know what he was looking for, but he had a strong feeling that if he kept searching, he would discover something. But over the shoulder of the second Dafydd, he could see the bottomless rift as plainly as ever.

All that came to mind was the fact that the river had turned out not to be a massive magical construct after all; but largely an artifact, to be turned on and off like a water faucet. The same could be true here-because if what he was looking at was real, the amount of magical energy required to make it was all out of proportion to the need to bar the way further.

“Come with me,” he said to the rest of them, turning Gorp. They rode back the way they had come, and after some hundred yards he reined in and looked back over his shoulder. His companions stopped and looked with him. The second Dafydd stood as he had, the empty, tortured darkness still deep behind him, and still barring their path.

“Mayhap we may ride around that hole in the ground,” said Brian. “Though it would sit very ill with me to let that imposter go unpunished.”

“We may not have to,” said Jim. “Come along.” He turned Gorp to his left and led off along the front of the trees. A glance over his shoulder showed the second Dafydd still there, behind them, smaller with distance but still seemingly on guard; and when he looked between the trees they were now passing, he saw the dark mouth of the rift extending parallel with their progress, still.

“Wait for me a moment.”

He turned and rode directly for the nearest trees. As he got closer, he could look down into the rift and see the stone of its far side, with its bulges and indentations. They none of them clearly showed tormented human shapes, but they pulled at his feelings nonetheless, making him imagine more, the more he looked.

“I feel I should be of more use here, James,” said Dafydd. “After all, it is my land now being disturbed.”

“Don’t think of it that way, Dafydd,” said Jim. “This is something I’m the only one equipped to do something about. In a word, for the rest of you, it could kill you, but you couldn’t kill it. Now, let’s get back to where we first saw that thing that looks like you.”

They rode back along the front of the trees. Once more, they left the false Dafydd standing behind them; and once more he was there when they got to their original position.

“And you, James?” said Brian, breaking the silence of that ride and crossing himself as they halted at last to face the Dafydd image again. “Can he not kill you?”

“Not unless I let him,” said Jim.

The answer was designed to reassure the others, and to obscure the fact that he did not yet have a clear understanding of what they faced. But a bottomless crack in the earth, stretching as far as they might try to ride in either direction, was ridiculous, in terms of the magical expense it would represent. If it was the real thing.

The first thing he needed was a close look at the rift from a safe distance. He changed to his dragon-sight.

“Damned ugly windows.”

Jim ignored the comment. From his present distance he was closely watching the false Dafydd. The advantage of high-flying birds like the falcons, the eagles, and others was not so much that they saw things on the ground larger than a human would see them; it was that they were very much better in picking up movements-even very small movements-from very great heights. That was one reason many small animals tended to freeze when such a predator appeared overhead.

Now he kept his eyes on the false Dafydd, looking for any kind of movement, even the slightest. There was none. The guarding figure stood like a carved statue.

“Ah!” he said in satisfaction, returning to his normal human vision. But this time he spoke carefully to himself. He was tempted to tell the others what he had in mind; but experience with the people of this time and world told him that once the word magic was uttered, their eyes glazed over and you might as well have sung a lullaby to them as tried to explain yourself-what he was saying was plainly something too mysterious for them to understand. So they didn’t.

Besides, they would-or at least Brian and Dafydd would-disturb his concentration with their concern-spoken or unspoken-that whatever he had in mind wouldn’t work. They were too used to being the ones to take care of him in more ordinary troubles and tight places; but this was something too massive and too much beyond their experience for them to understand.

Jim swung down out of his saddle.

“Stand!” he said to Gorp-unnecessarily. Gorp had finally learned to stand if his rider ever left him with his reins dropped to the ground.

“James!” said Brian sharply. “What are you intending?”

“Sir James!” said Dafydd-and the more formal address emphasized the sense of responsibility in him. “I said this was my land, my duty.”

Jim waved them back as they both rode toward him.

“There’s nothing to it,” he said. “This is just something I’ve been equipped to do; and neither of you have. Hob, hop back onto Gorp’s saddle, and wait for me there. That’s an order!”

“I’m not afraid, my Lord.”

“That’s not the point. Sir Brian and Master Bowman Dafydd ap Hywel aren’t afraid, either, but they, too, have to let me do this alone. Hop!”

Jim had already stepped a couple of paces from Gorp. Hob hesitated a second, then made one of his remarkable leaps across a good six feet of space from Jim to the saddle.

“Be right back,” said Jim, waving his hand to them all again, as he turned his back and started off toward the false Dafydd and the dark rift beyond.

He did not walk straight at the Dafydd figure, but on a path to pass close by it. Nonetheless, the figure did not move as he came closer.

He came on steadily, but as his vision became filled by what was before him and his friends were left invisible behind, tension began to mount in him. He reminded himself that he was surrounded by his ward, and that ward could not be penetrated by anything unless he allowed it-that he was a living being; while he had a strong doubt that the Dafydd figure before him also was.

So if the figure and the rift were, as he had guessed, merely another ward, untenanted, set up and left-like Carolinus’s ward that could protect his frail cottage, pond, and flowers from unlimited armies, even though Carolinus himself was not there- then within the armor of his own ward he must be safe against what was here.

But a conclusion was not a certainty. Particularly not a certainty in his guts. He could be wrong. If he was wrong... he felt his body start to stiffen and became aware that his right hand had crossed his waist to close upon the hilt of his sword. So much of the fourteenth century had now, after all, become a part of him.

If he was wrong, the sword would be no more use to him than his empty hand; but it was warming to the chill that was growing inside him, in spite of his magical knowledge and experience. The false Daffyd was three steps away from him-he was two steps away-he was one...

Jim turned his head to make himself look straight into the calm face of the figure as he passed by it, and saw it suddenly distort and collapse, as if it were made of water pouring under gravity-but a gravity beside it instead of beneath its feet- pouring into him; or rather into the ward around him.

And in that ward it was lost, swallowed up, disintegrated. He felt it happen-as he had bet on it happening.

His hand dropped from his sword. He had been right. He went forward toward the rift. That was the bigger gamble, the greater unknown.

The closer he came to it, the more he saw into it; and the more it sickened him to look at it. Close up, the bulges and hollows in the stone sides that had merely appeared humanlike in shape, seemed more and more clearly so; like the shapes of actual people caught and overwhelmed by a flow of molten stone. The growing chill he had felt, approaching the false Dafydd, came back on him, but far more strongly; for to finish what he had set out to do, he would need to walk forward as if the rift was not there-eventually even stepping out into the emptiness of the air between its sides. To fall-where?

His mind told him that since the figure had proved to be false, there was no doubt the rift was, too; but his body sweated anyway, and his right fist was once more gripping his useless sword. There was still much he had to learn about this sort of magic.

But he was a-man of the later centuries, he reminded himself; a man of reasoning mind and willpower. And with his mind he drove himself forward, on to the very lip of the rift with his left foot; and, with a powerful effort, out over nothing with his right one.

His right foot touched nothing solid.

There was no sound; but the universe seemed to scream voicelessly around him, as the walls of the rift began to flow up and up on either side of him. He was falling.

No! He was not! It was rising!

Up into his ward-up into .the small unbreakable space surrounding him, was now pouring all the massive structure of the rift, being eaten up-engulfed-destroyed by the suit of magic armor that was the ward KinetetE had given him- what he had guessed was a more skilled version of the double ward in which he had smuggled his magic back into the Gnarly Kingdom. Bless KinetetE’s magic. He should have had faith it would be stronger than anything a magic-maker of these lands could put against it. Or bless the Laws of Magic that had made what was happening possible.

“I’m standing still. The rift is moving-“ he told himself. You lie! You lie! screamed his eyes and all the evidences of his physical responses. You’re falling! Falling-deeper and deeper. You’re lost!

He fought it. The sensitivities magic had begun to build in him, these last few Years, told him he must fight it. If he gave in, if he let that inner voice triumph, the balance could shift and the ward of the rift would win back everything it had lost, and him as well. But his strength was going.

There was a pressure, a flow of energy so massive and continuous against him that he was being made bound and helpless by it. In that helplessness he felt himself unbalancing, as if he had been standing on one foot. He fell over on one side, stiffly, as a one-legged toy falls; and still the other ward poured into his. It was like being buried by a rising volcano. He had to hold on.

He reached for something to cling to-and his mind went to Angie. Angie was the one part here of the world they had both come from. She was real. She was part of a reality that had nothing to do with magic. Everything like that here was a dream or illusion. As long as he could see Angie in his mind, he told himself, the rift could not take him.

“Easy!” he ordered his body under his breath, making it a magic command. “Stop sweating. Stop stinking!”

The body obeyed. He turned and walked slowly back toward the others. He thought they all, even the horses, looked at him strangely.