MORGAN peered out the window of the ruined tower and scanned the plain far below. Away and to the southeast he could just discern a lone horseman moving rapidly out of sight: Derry, on his way to the northern armies. Below, at the base of the tower, two dun-colored horses pulled hungrily at the new spring grass, their harness worn and common. Duncan was waiting at the foot of the ruined stairway, slapping a brown leather riding crop against one muddy boot. As Morgan stepped back from the window and began his descent, Duncan looked up.

“See anything?”

“Just Derry.” He sprang lightly across the last few feet of rubble to land in a clatter beside his kinsman. “Are you ready to move on?”

“I want to show you something first,” Duncan said, gesturing with his crop toward the ruins farther back and beginning to lead in that direction. “The last time we were here, you were in no condition to appreciate what I’m about to show you, but I think it will interest you now.”

“You mean, the ruined Portal you found?”

“Correct.”

Walking carefully, Morgan followed Duncan down the broken aisle of the ruined chapel, hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword. Saint Neot’s once had been a flourishing monastic school, renowned in its day as one of the principal seats of Deryni learning, but that had ended with the Restoration. The monastery had been sacked and burned, many of its brothers murdered on the very altar steps they now passed. Now Morgan and Duncan crossed the ruined nave of the school’s crumbling chapel to view the remains of something else lost from that time.

“There’s the Saint Camber altar you told me about,” Duncan said, gesturing with his crop toward what remained of a marble slab jutting from part of the eastern wall. “I reasoned that a Portal wouldn’t have been placed out in the open, even in Interregnum times, so I looked further. In here.”

As Duncan pointed, he ducked low to ease his way through a small opening in the crumbling wall, precariously supported by fallen and half-rotted ceiling beams. Mounds of rubble littered the floor on the other side, but as Morgan followed his kinsman through, he could see that this had probably been a sacristy or vestry.

He dusted his gloved hands together lightly as he straightened in the ruined chamber, noting the cracked marble beneath his boots, the timber beams still supporting much of the ceiling. Against the far wall, he could make out the remains of an ivory vesting altar, its panels blackened by fire, fragments of chests and moldering vestment presses to either side. More substantial rubble made the footing precarious: blocks of stone fallen from the half-tumbled walls, rotting wood, shattered glass. Footprints of small animals tracked over the heavy layer of dust that covered everything.

“Over here,” Duncan said, motioning him to a spot before the ruined altar and squatting down on his haunches. “Look. You can see the outline of the slab that marked the Portal. Put your hands on it and probe it.”

“Probe it?” Morgan dropped to his knees beside his cousin and rested a gloved hand on the square, glancing at Duncan in faint question. “What am I supposed to feel? You said it had been destroyed.”

“Just probe the slab gently,” Duncan urged. “The brethren left a message.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow skeptically, then let his mind go blank, willing his senses to extend gradually to the slab beneath his hand.

Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger!

Startled by the intensity of the contact, Morgan drew back his hand and glanced at Duncan in question, then briskly pulled off his right glove and placed his hand flat on the slab, fingers splayed, again reaching out with his mind.

Beware, Deryni! Here lies danger! Of a full one hundred brothers only I remain, to try, with my failing strength, to destroy this Portal before it can be desecrated. Kinsman, take heed. Protect yourself, Deryni. The humans kill what they do not understand. Holy Saint Camber, defend us from fearful evil!

Drawing a deep, steadying breath, Morgan withdrew from the contact and looked across at Duncan. The priest was solemn, his eyes intensely blue in the shadowed chamber, but a ghost of a smile played about his lips as he stood up.

“I would say that he succeeded,” Duncan said, glancing wistfully around the chamber. “It probably cost him his life, but he destroyed the Transfer Portal. Strange, isn’t it, how we’re sometimes forced to destroy the things we hold most dear? We, as a race, have done that. Look at the knowledge lost, the bright heritage tarnished. We are a shadow of the people we once were.”

Morgan got to his feet and clasped Duncan’s shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. “Enough of that, Cousin. Our Deryni ancestors brought a large amount of their fate upon themselves, and you know it. Come. We’d better ride on.”

They squinted against the brightness as they left the ruined chamber and emerged into the nave once more. The sunlight streaming through the empty clerestory windows set the dust motes dancing in its beams, throwing everything into sharp relief of light and sooty shadow. The two men were just approaching the ruined western doorway, where their horses waited beyond, when the air in the doorway suddenly seemed to shimmer, as if from heat.

“What the—”

The pair pulled up short, gaping as a figure took shape in the doorway, silhouetted against the brightness: the cowled form of a man in gray monk’s robes, with a wooden staff in his right hand and a nimbus of golden light around his head that outshone even the sunlight. It was the figure that both men had come to associate with Saint Camber of Culdi, the ancient patron of Deryni magic.

“Dear God in Heaven,” Duncan whispered, crossing himself, as Morgan put out an arm and both of them backed off a step.

The figure in the doorway did not disappear; on the contrary, it stepped through the opening and took several steps toward them. Morgan retreated yet another step, reluctant to contend with the strange being, whoever he might be, then jerked back with a grunt of dismay as his left shoulder encountered something sleek and unyielding, something that had given off a golden flash when he brushed against it.

His shoulder seemed to tingle for several seconds, and he rubbed it gingerly as he eyed the stranger. Duncan moved closer to his kinsman, both hands lifted in a vaguely warding-off gesture, and did not take his eyes from the newcomer either. As both watched in awe, the stranger raised his left hand to push back the cowl from his head. The eyes, at once piercing and caressing, were of the same blued-gray as the sky beyond. The face was both ancient and ageless, the nimbus flaring about his silver-bright head like captive sunlight.

“Do not go against the wards again, or you may be injured,” the man said. “I prefer that you do not leave just yet.”

The lips moved, but the voice was more inside their heads than actually heard. Morgan glanced uneasily at Duncan to see his cousin staring at the stranger in rapt attention, a look of incredulity on his face. He wondered abruptly if this was the man Duncan had seen on the road to Coroth a few months ago, and knew even as he thought it that it had to be the man. Duncan started to open his mouth to speak, but the man held up a hand for silence and shook his head.

“Please. I have not much time. I have come to warn you, Duncan, and you, Alaric, that your lives are in grave danger.”

Morgan could not control a faint snort of derision. “That is hardly a new threat. As Deryni, we were bound to make enemies.”

“Deryni enemies?”

Duncan only stared at him numbly, but Morgan’s gray eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“What Deryni enemies? You, sir?”

The stranger chuckled with a silver laughter, as though pleased with the reply, and for the first time seemed to relax slightly.

“I am hardly your enemy, Alaric Morgan. If I were, why would I come to warn you?”

“You might have your reasons.”

Duncan nudged his kinsman in the ribs and cocked his head at the stranger. “Then, who are you, sir? Your appearance is that of Saint Camber, but…”

“Come, now. Camber of Culdi died two centuries ago. How could I be he?”

“You answer a question with yet another question,” Morgan persisted. “Are you Camber of Culdi?”

The man shook his head, slightly amused. “No, I am not Camber of Culdi. As I told Duncan on the road to Coroth, I am but one of Camber’s humble servants.”

Morgan raised a skeptical eyebrow. Despite the disclaimer of sainthood, the stranger’s manner did not suggest that he was anyone’s humble servant. On the contrary, he exuded a decided aura of command, an impression that this was a man far more accustomed to giving orders than to receiving them. No, whoever the man was, he was not a servant.

“You say that you are one of Camber’s servants,” Morgan finally repeated, unable to keep a slight edge of disbelief out of his voice. “Would it be impertinent to inquire which one? Or do you not have a name?”

“I have many names,” the man smiled. “But I pray you not to press me on this point. For now, I would rather not lie to you—and the truth could be dangerous to all of us.”

“Then…you’re Deryni,” Morgan guessed. “You would have to be, to do all of this—to come and go the way you do.” He considered further as the man merely gazed at him in faint amusement. “But no one knows that you’re Deryni,” he continued after a slight pause. “You’ve been in hiding, like Duncan was all these years. And you can’t let anyone know.”

“If you wish.”

Perplexed and at a loss, Morgan frowned and glanced at Duncan, suspecting that the man was but toying with him, but the priest shook his head slightly.

“This danger you speak of,” Duncan said, edging slightly closer for a better look at the man. “These Deryni enemies: Who are they?”

“I regret that I cannot tell you that.”

“You can’t tell us?” Morgan began.

“I cannot tell you because I do not know myself,” the stranger interrupted, holding up a hand for silence. “What I can tell you is this: Those whose business it is to know these things have become convinced that you may possess the full spectrum of Deryni powers, some which even they were not aware still exist.”

The two could but gape incredulously as the man moved back into the sunlit doorway once more and pulled his cowl back into place.

“Remember, however, that regardless of your true powers, there are those who would test the theory I have just recounted, and would challenge you to duel arcane to discover your strength.” He turned slightly to regard them one final time. “Think on that, my friends. And take care that they do not find you before you are secure in your powers—whatever those powers may be!”

With that, the man gave a curt nod and walked briskly to where the horses were grazing. The animals did not seem to notice his approach; and as Morgan and Duncan moved into the doorway to stare after him, he raised a hand as though in benediction, walked behind the horses, and disappeared.

Stifling an oath, Morgan raced around the animals and searched anxiously for some trace of the stranger, but he could find nothing. Duncan remained in the doorway for several seconds, his blue eyes focused on some distant memory, then joined Morgan and absently began stroking one of the grazing horses.

“You won’t find him, Alaric,” he said softly. “No more than I could find him after he disappeared on the Coroth road a few months ago.” He glanced at the ground and shook his head. “No footprints, no sign to mark his passing. It’s as though he was never here. Perhaps he wasn’t.”

Morgan turned to glance sharply at his cousin, then went back to inspect the doorsill, the gritty floor beyond. There might have been footprints besides their own, but if they had ever existed, they had been effectively obliterated when Morgan and Duncan went in pursuit. Nor was there any sign of the man’s passing on the damp, grassy earth.

“Deryni enemies,” Morgan breathed, returning to stand quietly by Duncan’s side. “Do you realize what that implies?”

Duncan nodded. “It implies that there are far more Deryni than we ever dreamed; Deryni who know what they are and who know how to use their powers.”

“And we don’t know who any of them are except Kelson and Wencit of Torenth,” Morgan murmured, running both hands distractedly through his windblown yellow hair. “God’s Blood, Duncan! What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Just what the two had gotten themselves into was to become more and more apparent as the day wore on.

SEVERAL hours later, Morgan and Duncan guided their horses into a dense thicket just off the Dhassa road and drew rein to listen. Bearded and mud-bespattered as they were, mounted on common horses of no certain ancestry, they had aroused no suspicion from the travelers they encountered on the well-traveled highway. They had passed farmers and soldiers and merchants with pack trains, and once even a pair of mounted messengers wearing the badge of the Bishop of Dhassa himself.

But they had not been challenged. And now, as they made their final approach to the valley that led to Dhassa, the road was momentarily deserted. Beyond the ridge ahead lay the valley and Saint Torin’s, and both men sobered as they remembered their last journey to this place.

Saint Torin was the patron saint of Dhassa. Custom decreed that those approaching the city from the south, as Morgan and Duncan now did, must first stop and pay homage to the city’s protector before being permitted to cross the lake to the city’s gates. In days gone by—up until three months ago, to be precise—there had been a shrine near the lake: a centuries-old structure built entirely of wood native to the area. There, after entering the shrine alone and unarmed and making a token offering, the pious traveler paid his respects and received the pewter cap badge that identified him as a proper pilgrim. With this he might obtain passage on the small ferry skiffs that plied the lake to the city beyond. Only the badge would serve as fare, and the boatmen could not be bribed.

As a consequence, travelers wishing to enter the city from the south and avoid a two-day ride to the north gate, where the passage was free, gladly paused to pay their respects to Saint Torin. To most, the time saved was well worth a prayer.

But the price for Morgan and Duncan, three months before, had been far higher; and they had never reached Dhassa at all. There had been a trap awaiting Morgan when he entered the shrine: a treacherous needle tipped with the Deryni mind-muddling drug merasha, so placed that Morgan was virtually certain to snag his hand on it.

He had done so, and the drug had done its work. When he awoke, powerless and confused, he had found himself prisoner of the rebel Warin de Grey and one of the archbishops’ retainers. Only Duncan’s timely intervention had saved Morgan from a slow and terror-filled death.

Nor had the rescue been without its price to Duncan. For in the course of the battle which ensued, Duncan had been obliged to reveal his Deryni identity, to use forbidden Deryni magic to make good their escape. In their flight from the death-filled shrine, flames had been kindled by falling torches, turning the ancient wood structure into a raging inferno.

It was this event, coupled with deeds before the burning, which had brought the winds of anathema howling about the heads of the two who now approached. And it was this set of deeds which they hoped to expiate, could they once reach the relative refuge of the Bishop of Dhassa’s presence, to throw themselves on his mercy.

The two men sat silently for a long while in the thicket, listening, sniffing the air, then easing themselves quietly from saddles to the ground. They had seen blue smoke rising in the noon heat beyond the ridge ahead: the smoke of many campfires. Now, as they listened and tested the wind with their extended senses, they could hear the sounds of animals tethered beyond the ridge, the murmur of voices in the valley far below, could catch the pungent scent of woodsmoke on the still spring air.

With a sigh of resignation, Morgan glanced at his kinsman and gave a wry smile, then tethered his horse and began slowly working his way up the slope toward the crest of the ridge, Duncan following. There was ample forest cover as they climbed the ridge, thinning to brush and tall spring grass as they approached the crest. For the last dozen yards, they crawled through the tall grass on hands and knees, gradually sinking to their bellies as they neared the edge.

Blinking like lizards in the brilliant sunlight, they raised their heads cautiously to peer over the edge. The valley below was lightly forested, but the trees concealed little from the two observing from atop the ridge. As far as the eye could see, to the south and to the eastern valley wall, the valley floor was alive with armed men and their encampment; with tents and pavilions, cook-fires and forges, picket lines of tethered horses, pens of animals for provisioning.

Heraldic banners stirred outside the more ornate of the tents, their colorful devices bright and shimmering in the noonday sun. A few were familiar to the two who watched, but many more could not be identified. Only the occasional banners of violet and gold, the rich pennants of purple surmounting the regular battle standards, identified this encampment as an episcopal army. From the condition of the camp, they had been there for some time; by all indications, they expected to be there a good while longer.

As Morgan suppressed a sigh of dismay, Duncan nudged his elbow and gestured to the left with his chin. Far in that direction, almost out of their range of vision, Morgan could just make out the former site of Saint Torin’s. A blackened pit yawned where the shrine once had stood: a charred tangle of beams and collapsed walls were all that was left of the once-famous place of pilgrimage.

But there were soldiers swarming there as well, clearing out the debris and digging in the ruins. Over to the right, more soldiers were cutting new beams and timbers. Apparently the bishops had put at least some of their army to work rebuilding Saint Torin’s while they waited for war.

Shaking his head grimly, Morgan inched backward until he could safely scramble to a crouch, then began to make his way back down the slope, straightening as he went. Duncan followed. When they had reached the comparative safety of their horses, Morgan sighed and leaned one arm across his saddle, glancing at Duncan.

“Well, we certainly can’t slip past the entire episcopal army,” he said in a low voice. “Any ideas on what to try next?”

Duncan toyed with a strap on his horse’s stirrup and frowned. “It’s hard to say. Apparently they aren’t requiring travelers to go through the shrine anymore, because there isn’t any. But I doubt they’re letting just anyone cross the lake to Dhassa, either.”

“Hmm. I wonder.” Morgan scratched a forefinger thoughtfully across his beard and grimaced.

“How about trying to bluff our way through?” Duncan suggested, after a pause. “In these clothes, and bearded as we are, I doubt anyone would recognize us. You saw how little reaction we got on the road this morning. We could even try to steal a boat tonight, if you think the broad daylight idea is too daring.”

Morgan shook his head. “We daren’t risk even that. We must reach the dissident bishops. If we were captured before we could get to them, and had to use our powers to extricate ourselves, we’d never be able to convince the bishops of our sincerity.”

“Then what do you suggest? Take two days to ride to the northern approach to the city? That’s hardly feasible.”

“No, there has to be another way.” Morgan paused. “Ah, you don’t suppose there are any Transfer Portals around here, do you? I wonder how the ancients built them.”

Duncan snorted. “As well wonder why we can’t fly! What we could do, though, while we’re trying to figure out a solution, is to talk to a few local citizens and find out what the situation in the valley really is. If worse comes to worst, we can always appropriate another Torin badge and try the broad daylight approach. I still have mine, you know.”

At Morgan’s look of surprise, Duncan pulled the object in question from his belt pouch and began attaching it to the front of his leather cap. Morgan watched the operation in silent appreciation for his kinsman’s foresight, then nodded slowly as he considered the last suggestion. Within minutes, they were moving back toward the road to choose a suitable informant. It could do no harm to pretend devotion to the local saint.

They did not have long to wait. After letting a caravan of pack animals and their guards pass unchallenged, their vigil was rewarded by the approach on foot of a fat, balding man in the robes of a minor clerk. The man wiped his sweating face with the sleeve of his habit as he came abreast of where the two lurked; and since there was no one else in sight on the road, and they had not much time, Duncan cast a final look at his cousin and stepped into the road to bow with a flourish.

“Good morrow, sir clerk,” he said courteously, sweeping his leather cap from his head and smiling engagingly, making certain the man saw the Torin badge. “I wonder, could you tell me whose army lies camped in the valley below?”

Duncan’s sudden appearance startled the man; and as he drew back in surprise, his eyes going wide, he backed directly into Morgan, whose hand closed over his opening mouth.

“Just relax, my friend,” Morgan murmured, extending his powers as the man began to struggle. “Step backward and don’t resist. You won’t be harmed.”

The man obeyed tremblingly, his eyes going slightly glassy, and Morgan half-dragged him back in the brush until they were safely shielded from the road. When they had reached suitable cover, Duncan touched his fingertips lightly to the man’s temples and murmured the words that would seal the trance, smiling faintly as the man’s eyes fluttered closed and he sagged against Morgan’s support. When they had eased him to the ground and propped him against a tree, Morgan sat back on his haunches with a grin as Duncan made sure of their control.

“That was too easy,” Duncan murmured, glancing up with a gleam in his eye. “I feel almost guilty.”

“Let’s see if he can tell us anything worthwhile, before you gloat,” Morgan said, touching his fingers lightly to the man’s forehead. “What’s your name, my friend? Come on, you’re all right. You can open your eyes.”

The man’s eyes flicked open and he looked up at Morgan in mild surprise. “I be Master Thierry, good sir, a clerk of the household of Lord Martin of Greystoke.” His eyes were wide and guileless, with no trace of fear showing through the Deryni-induced trance.

“Are those Bishop Cardiel’s troops assembled in the valley?” Duncan asked.

“Aye, sir. They be camped there more than two months now, waiting on word from the king. ’Tis said His young Majesty will come soon to Dhassa, to be absolved of the fearful evil he has taken upon himself.”

“Fearful evil?” Morgan questioned. “What kind of fearful evil?”

“The Deryni powers, sir. An’ they say he has given succor to the wicked Duke Alaric of Corwyn an’ his cousin, the heretic priest, when all know that those were excommunicated when the bishops met in April last.”

“Ah—yes, we know about that,” Duncan said uneasily. “Tell me, though, Thierry, how does one get into the city now? Are pilgrims still obliged to pay homage to Saint Torin?”

“Ach, of course Saint Torin must still be honored, sir. Ye wear the badge. Ye should know. His pilgrim tokens are distributed near where stood the paddock of the old chapel. Fearful rogues they were, who burned it down this spring. Duke Al—”

“Who guards the ferries?” Morgan interrupted impatiently. “Can the boatmen be bribed? What kind of guard is kept on the quays?”

“Bribed, sir? The boatmen of Saint—”

“Relax, Thierry,” Duncan said, touching the man’s forehead and exerting control. “Is it possible for two men to cross the lake without being challenged at the quay?”

Thierry had slumped back against the tree at Duncan’s touch, and now resumed his previous matter-of-fact recitation. “No, sir. The guards have orders to search all travelers and to detain those who look suspicious.” He paused wistfully. “I must say that you do look suspicious, sirs.”

“Indeed,” Morgan muttered under his breath.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“I said, is there any way to get to Dhassa besides across the lake? Aside from riding around to the other gate, that is.”

Thierry knew of none. Nor did the next three travelers whom Morgan and Duncan interrogated and left sleeping beneath the trees. Happily, their fifth informant, a grizzled master cobbler, was more useful. His response to the fateful question began in much the same way; but this time, it had a slightly different ending.

“And do you know of any other way to the city besides crossing the lake?” Morgan asked patiently, never dreaming that he would receive an affirmative answer.

“Nae more, sor. There used to be, but that’s been twenty years now.”

“There used to be?” Duncan murmured, sitting up straighter and glancing quickly at his cousin.

“Aye, there was a wee track through the high pass to the north,” the man said pleasantly. “Hardly more than a game trail, it was. But that was washed out by the floods when I was just a lad. ’Tis just as well. Otherwise, impious souls might try to reach the holy city without paying their respects to our patron. That, of course, would be—”

“Oh, unthinkable, of course,” Morgan agreed, edging closer to gaze into the man’s eyes. “Now, just where was this trail, Dawkin? How can we get to it?”

“Och, ye cannae get through. I told ye, it’s washed awa’. If ye would to enter Dhassa, ye must take the ferry—unless, of course, ye wish to ride to the northern gate.”

“No, I think we’ll try to find this old trail,” Morgan said with a small smile. “Now, tell us how to find it.”

“If’n yer sure.” The man shrugged with apparent lack of concern. “Ye go back to tha road and follow it for ’bout half a mile, then take a trail that heads north. After a few hundred yards, the trail enters a defile that splits north an’ west. Ye take the north fork; the west fork leads to the village of Garwode. After that, ye’re headed toward th’ old trail.”

“You’ve been a great help, Dawkin,” Morgan said with a grin, nodding toward Duncan.

“Oh, it won’t do ye a bit of good,” the man chattered on, as Duncan leaned toward him. “The trail’s now’t but a track, an’ it’s washed out. Ye cannae get through…”

His voice trailed off and his head lolled onto his chest as Duncan exerted control, and he lapsed almost at once into comfortable snores. With a smile, Duncan got to his feet and glanced down at the man; then, on second thought, he bent to remove the Torin badge from the man’s shirt. He handed it to Morgan with a wry grin as they made their way back to the horses, and Morgan polished it against his sleeve before affixing it to his cap. The stolen pewter winked warm and silvery in the leaf-filtered sunlight as the two mounted up.

“Remind me to offer a special prayer of thanks for Master Dawkin, Duncan—the next time we visit Saint Torin’s officially.”

“I shall, indeed.” Duncan chuckled. “The next time we visit Saint Torin’s officially.”

An hour later found the two riders high in the mountains walling Lake Jashan and Dhassa from the rolling plains to the west. After taking the fork in the defile that Dawkin had described, they had made their way down a gentle slope to a grassy meadow beyond, where half a dozen scrawny sheep and goats cropped contentedly at the rich mountain grass. They saw no one in the vicinity, and the animals had paid them little attention beyond eyeing the horses warily for a few minutes. It had taken a while to locate the trail that led from the other side of the meadow, but at last it was found and the two proceeded on their way.

The trail, once found, was little more than the track Dawkin had described, and obviously little used. The new green growth of spring grass had hardly been disturbed, and field flowers seemed to spring in riotous profusion from every patch of earth and rock cranny. The trail worsened as they rode, the ascent steepening and the footing becoming less certain. The horses were still able to pick their way without too much trouble, but far ahead they could hear the sound of rushing water. Morgan, in the lead, chewed at his lip thoughtfully as he listened, finally turning back to glance at Duncan.

“Do you hear that?”

“It sounds like a waterfall. What do you want to bet that—”

“Don’t say it!” Morgan replied. “I was thinking the same thing.”

The sound of rushing water grew louder as they rounded the next bend in the trail, and they were not surprised to find their way barred shortly by a rather sizeable stream. A cascade roared down the mountainside to their left and formed a fast-flowing torrent that disappeared into the forest to their right, in the direction of Lake Jashan. There appeared to be no way around it.

“Well, what have we here?” Morgan said, drawing rein to survey the flood.

Duncan reined his horse beside Morgan’s and studied the falls dismally. “In case you require a reply, that is called a waterfall. Any brilliant ideas?”

“No brilliant ones, I’m afraid.” Morgan moved his horse a few yards downstream to study the current patterns. “How deep do you think it is?”

“Deep enough,” Duncan replied. “Well over our heads. Besides, the horses could never get across in that current. We’d be swept away and battered to death—if we didn’t drown outright.”

“You’re probably right,” Morgan said. He reined in his horse once again, then turned in the saddle to peer up at the falls.

“How about going above the falls? We might be able to get across, even if the horses couldn’t.”

“It’s worth a look, I suppose.”

Swinging a leg over his saddle, Duncan jumped to the ground and shrugged his leather cloak back on his shoulders, letting his mount’s reins dangle. As he began scrambling up a fairly easy game track toward the falls, Morgan, too, dismounted and secured his mount, following close behind his kinsman.

They had traversed perhaps two-thirds the distance up the face of the cliff when Duncan froze momentarily, then scrambled onto an outcrop and turned to give Morgan a hand up. The ledge where the two found themselves seemed quite ordinary at first; but then Duncan drew Morgan’s attention to what had first caught his eye: a deep cleft in the rock, rising vertically for more than thirty feet until it was lost in a veil of mist from the thundering falls. They needed several treacherous steps to reach a point from which they could both peer into the cleft.

The opening was narrow, no more than five feet at its entrance, but from where they stood they could not see the back wall, lost in the shadows. The side walls, as far as the eye could see, were covered with a verdant growth of lichen and moss, the velvety perfection broken only by an occasional patch of ruby or topaz. In the floor of the cleft, which lay a few feet below the level at which they stood, a thin trickle of icy water welled out of a crack in the stony floor, the water so cold that the air above it condensed into shimmering mist where a narrow shaft of sunlight struck it.

The two of them gazed at the swirling mist in awe for several seconds, neither quite willing to break the mystical mood the place had cast. Then Duncan sighed, and the spell was broken. Together they peered more closely into the cleft beyond, returning their focus to their original concern.

“What do you think?” Morgan whispered. “Could it go all the way through?”

Duncan shrugged and lowered himself gingerly into the cleft to take a closer look, but after only a cursory incursion into the shadows, he turned and came back, shaking his head as he accepted Morgan’s hand up.

“No joy there, I’m afraid. It doesn’t go much farther than what you can see from here. Let’s see what’s at the top.”

The prospects farther up were no better than below. The water was fast-moving and tumbled over jagged rocks and enormous boulders in the streambed. It looked shallower here, probably little more than waist-deep, but the current was treacherous. One false step could sweep a man’s legs from under him and carry him over the falls to the rocks below. The watercourse farther upstream was even worse, with steep banks sloping sharply upward on either side, with no room for a man to even stand at water level, much less cross it. Some other way would have to be found, perhaps farther downstream, below the falls.

With a quick grimace of frustration, Morgan turned to begin climbing back down the cliff face, Duncan waiting above him to follow. But no sooner had Morgan begun his descent, than Duncan glanced below and froze, reaching to touch Morgan’s shoulder in alarm.

“Alaric, get down!” he whispered, flattening himself against the rock and restraining his cousin with a warning hand. “Get down, and then don’t move. Look behind you, quietly!”