Chapter Twenty-one

Crysania's hair blew around her cheeks. Her hands where they lay clasped on her knee shone white as marble. Fear rose up in her, a dark dread like none she had ever felt outside of nightmare. It came from within, from her own heart. The velvet pouch fell from her hands. Crying out, Crysania fell forward onto her face. Wind snatched up Lagan's rune-writ pouch, stealing it away. The silver embroidery glittered wildly in sudden strange light.

Heatless light, it offered no warmth, no cheer. Glaring and swelling up from the ground, down from the sky, it fell cold upon her, with a touch like death.

Someone wailed, the cry a terrible shriek, empty of all but blackest despair.

Dear gods, dear gods… the wailing was hers!

Tandar growled. The sounds of his fear vanished in the rising wind. The wind howled, it laughed, shrieking in abandon. Crysania lifted her head and saw Tandar crouching—cowering!—beside her. She pulled herself to her knees by sheer strength of will, by inches moving until she knelt again at the lip of the dark bowl.

The wild wind whirled around her, tearing at her robes, her hair, stinging her cheeks raw.

"Paladine!" she cried, the sound of the god's name falling dead upon the ground.

Dark, mocking laughter roared out from the wind. "Not he, Crysania! Not he!"

Crysania flung herself back from the bowl, from the wind. She stumbled against Tandar, and he cowered no more. He pressed against her, his heart galloping. The tiger was the only warm thing remaining in the world.

She knew that voice! The blood in her veins turned to ice. She knew that laughter. It had been the anthem of her torment so many years ago, the voice of the Abyss.

Takhisis!

The wild wind took shape; the madly whirling darkness became a terrible beauty. A woman's form rose up from it, barely visible against the black, empty sky. She wore stars in her long black hair as though they were diamonds. All the world stood reflected in her black eyes, a world of hate and harm, of pain and fighting and dying. In this world, evil ruled.

Crysania pressed her hands to her eyes, begged Tandar to take his sight away. She felt it leave, yet still she saw. Blind she was, but all folk, blind or sighted, must see a god when a god stands before them.

Tandar reeked of fear, a thick musky odor. Even so, he put himself between the Dark Queen and Crysania. The gesture amused the Dark Lady, but it affected her not at all. Takhisis stood where she willed, and she willed to be where the Revered Daughter of Paladine could see her in all her dark glory. She laughed, not the hideous, shrieking laughter Crysania had once heard. This laughter was throaty, quiet and intimate.

Do not be afraid, daughter.

The words whispered in Crysania's mind, like the footsteps of death stealing near. The counterfeit gentleness stung, like bile rising in her throat.

"I have answered your call," the Dark Queen said.

"What is it you wish of me?"

Beware the gifts of mages!

The old warning rang thinly in Crysania's memory. Even now, huddled on her knees before the Dark Queen herself, Crysania still wanted to believe—she must believe!—that the gift of the Dragon Stones, no matter how strange, no matter how terrible, came to her from Paladine himself.

She had seen him, in her dreams she had seen him, his hands cupped as though holding something, reaching out to her, as though offering something.

Crysania's heart thundered in her ears, a terrible sound, like something about to burst. She got to her knees, staggering, and then she made herself stand straight and proud. She was the Revered Daughter of Paladine, even if that counted for nothing before this dark goddess.

Beside her, Tandar kept as still as the surrounding stones. She felt his terror, the fear running like fire in him. She put her hand on him, and he became still.

"Dark Lady," she said, her voice catching in her throat. "I have come with a question."

"Only that?" Her eyes flared, dark fire. "Not with gifts?" She looked down, her eyes on the tiger. "Not with some small sacrifice of blood and death to amuse me?"

Crysania's hand shook. Her voice became dry in her throat. She swallowed, willing herself to speak.

"No, lady. Not with any kind of sacrifice. I have come with the Dragon Stones to call upon a god so I may ask a question. The stones you see before you. Will you hear my question?"

Darkness gathered round Takhisis. It was as though she pulled all the lightless sky down to be her gown. "Speak."

"The gods—we have heard—we have heard that what wars are fought here in the world are also being fought among the gods. Some have said that the gods will soon go away. Lady, is it so?"

The Dark Queen smiled, a bright feral baring of her teeth. "Don't be afraid, my child. And you are my child, though perhaps you don't like to think so. Still, it is true. All of creation belongs to the gods. Know this: The gods have gone nowhere, for the gods are immovable. It is your heart that has changed."

Crysania drew a breath and boldly said, "Then if the gods have gone nowhere, let me see Paladine." Her heart warmed only to hear his name. "Let me speak with him."

Cold as winter midnight came the laughter of the Dark Queen. Crysania's heart quaked as Takhisis rose up before her, as immense as the sky, seeming to fill up all the world around with her terrible glory.

"Who are you," Takhisis cried, "to question the ways of the gods? You stand at the bottom of the well of your ignorance staring at the patch of sky above and think to question me?"

"I am—" Crysania shuddered from the cold, as though the hand of death lay upon her "—I am the Revered Daughter of Paladine, and you are the Mother of Lies. I reject you! I reject your evil! I know the truth, and it is this: Where light is, dark may not enter in! In the name of that truth, I say, let me see Paladine."

All the world became still. In Godshome, no one breathed, no one dared move. Even the Dragon Stones fell still, their gleaming power song unraveled into silence.

The darkness changed. It was as though the edges of Takhisis's midnight gown were folding in upon themselves. Beyond those edges, light grew. It seemed, in the first moments, to be a silver satin border on the darkness, gleaming as satin does. Then the edge became brighter, as light encroached upon dark. Like inevitable dawn, that light progressed, with slow, stately certainty that nothing could stand before it.

Tandar's breath came rough and swift. Crysania felt the fear lift from her heart, as foul fogs lift when the sun comes to warm the earth. She wept, her tears pouring down, for hope returning.

Tandar groaned, a deep animal sound, and the sound of it fell away gently as a voice came out of the light.

"Do not weep, daughter."

Crysania turned her face up to the sky, tears streaming even as she lifted her heart in laughter, absurd, delightful, incongruous laughter that rang around the stony enclosure like peals of joy.

"Father, you have come! Oh, I have been so afraid!"

"For yourself?"

She admitted it. How could she not? He who saw into her very heart must know the truth of her fears.

"And," he said, very gently. "You have been afraid for me." He held out a hand to her, light shining all around.

Beware the gifts of mages! She smiled, and in that moment, as though her joy had given him shape, the god Paladine stood before her, turning her smile to sudden laughter.

For here was no shining dragon. No eternal warrior stood before her, girded in armor and wielding divine weapons.

Here, eyes slightly puzzled, hands fumbling in the pockets of his robes, stood an old avatar indeed.

"Fizban," she breathed, her heart light as a child's.

The old one looked up, as though suddenly startled. Fizban, indeed, absentminded, good-hearted, and slightly testy. So had Tanis Half-Elven seen the god, in this very place, more than thirty years before.

"The very same," he said, frowning at her as at an impertinent child. "And why not? I have been here before. Like this. I think. Girl," he said, suddenly startled, "there's a tiger behind you!"

She laughed again. "Yes. He's my friend."

The old wizard cocked his head, squinting as he fumbled in his pockets again. "You're certain? I can change him into a mouse… or something."

"I'm certain! Yes, I'm sure. He's a friend."

He grunted, as old men do, and then he fell silent. Above, the clouds flowed wildly, and it seemed that they ran into each other from all the quarters of the sky.

"Father," Crysania said, "I have come here with a question."

He grunted again, but now it seemed that something had changed. He yet stood before her as Fizban, his absurd pointed hat falling over his eyes, his hands quivering like an old man's. His eyes, though, gleamed brightly.

"Ask."

Tandar pressed against her, warm and assuring.

"Father, I have heard from dragons that you have fought a battle with Chaos. I see you here now—Father, are you well? Did you win?"

He looked at her long, then turned his face to the tumbling sky, the clouds all running madly above them.

"Yes, daughter, we've won. Chaos is defeated. He has fled this world."

The words were the right ones, the ones she wanted to hear, yet they seemed to sigh tinder a weary burden of sadness.

Her breath caught in her throat. She reached for Tandar and found him, as ever, beside her. She felt his ribs rising and falling with each breath.

"My child," said the old wizard, "the Father of All and of Nothing was defeated, but the price he demands for leaving this world in peace is a high one. His children must go with him."

Crysania's breath left her in a sudden sob. "No!"

In the sky, the clouds boiled, roiling and tumbling madly. On the ground, no shadows mirrored their wild dance.

"That is why I have come to you," Fizban said. "To say good-bye. I must leave this world."

All the hope draining out of her heart, Crysania cried, "No! Oh, Father, no!"

He looked up at the sky, frowning as an old, befuddled man. He lifted his hand as though to cast a stilling spell, then let it fall again.

"Child, I must do what I have agreed to do. We do not find it easy, we gods, to leave this world and the children we have created. We have fought for you and over you. Above all else, we have loved you. But we will not hand you over to the wrath of Chaos, and so we must leave the world. It is the sacrifice we make to save you."

Crysania felt a touch upon her cheek, tender and sad. "The others have already gone, and I must follow."

"What will we do? How will we survive?" Crysania cringed, thinking of the long days without Paladine's loving presence. She could not comprehend the rest of her life stretching out before her in silence and darkness. Without Paladine's bright and loving warmth.

"You will survive, my daughter. You must survive. The world will have need of your compassion and wisdom." He looked at the white tiger beside her, and it seemed to her that the smile lighting his eyes was one of sudden, amused satisfaction. "You will find new ways, new magic. My blessing goes with you always."

She felt him start to go. It was not like anything she'd ever experienced. This going was the sun dwindling, withdrawing. This was true darkness, a cruel blindness without even the distant flickering gold of his presence.

"No!" she moaned. She could not bear it. She could not. This could not be. It was a dream. A nightmare. She would awaken and go to her window and kneel down in the warmth of the morning sun and pray, and he would touch her with warmth.

But he never would. He'd said it. He would never come here again. He must leave the world.

She fell to her knees, grieving. Clinging to Tandar, she sobbed, her heart wrenching in her breast as all the light of her world receded. She knelt that way for what seemed like an age before she heard Tandar's voice in her mind, low and warning.

Crysania!

The gods were gone, Takhisis and Paladine, and so she expected to look up into blindness again. It was not so. The sky had settled. No clouds raced there now in mad, windless dances. Instead, she saw lights shimmering. She blinked, trying to look away. She could not. The lights hovered above the dark glassy bowl, taking on all the colors of the world, the sky's blue, the forest's green, the gold of desert sands, all those and more, mixing and mingling into a rainbow that cast no reflection in the mirror surface.

"Valin," she breathed.

He pressed close to her, his heart beating hard.

The lights coalesced into one bright ball of flame, then parted, flowing out to become three distinct rivers of color: white, red, black. The rivers ran, and they took shape against the sky, two male figures and one female, each dressed in one of the robes of the Orders of Magic. They were human in appearance, tall and strong. She knew, though, with certainty, that if she were an elf, she would have seen them as elves. Were she a dwarf, those gods would have shown themselves to her in dwarven shape. They wore shapes for the comfort of those to whom they appeared.

Red Lunitari stepped forward from among her kin. "We have come for the Dragon Stars, Lady Crysania. We thank you and your companion for gathering them for us."

"Dragon Stars?"

Nuitari laughed, a dark sound, like storms.

"Dragon Stars," Lunitari said again. "For they are soon to be more than stones, child."

Solinari stepped forward now, and the three divine children made the barest motion with their hands, a gesture in perfect concert. The line of five stones began to rise, turning and dancing in the air.

"They are not of this world," Lunitari said. Her voice was like blood singing in the veins, like silk sliding on soft skin.

The stones began to circle, rising higher, until they hung above Crysania's head. She stepped back. Tandar moved with her, his eyes on the stones. The stones formed a perfect circle in the air, no beginning, no ending, whirling faster and faster until she couldn't distinguish one from the other, their colors blending as the lights of the gods had blended, into one golden disk.

"Valin," she breathed.

My dearest lady, he said, deep in her mind. The words danced in her heart as the lights of magic and gods had danced before her eyes.

Streaming yellow light flowed out from the golden disk, streams of power feathering out from it.

In her mind, Tandar cried out, stricken in pain. They are going! The gods are going from the world! Magic! It is going—

A scream rent the god-wrought silence.

Crysania jerked and turned. Tandar wheeled, growling.

Just then the mage Kela slipped between the warding sentinel stones, running toward them.

Tandar leapt sideways, putting his body between the mage and Crysania, bracing for the attack. Kela didn't even glance at him. Wailing her woe, she ran wildly past him, her fists opening, reaching desperately for the golden disk, the gods, and the magic.

And behind her—oh, all you merciful gods!—behind her ran another, a big man who followed with staggering steps.

"Jeril!"

Crysania cried his name, but Jeril never stopped. She saw him with a vision that dimmed as the three gods of magic receded from Godshome. He ran limping, stumbling from old wounds and one new one, a sword slash across the ribs. From that wound, his life poured, scarlet blood soaking the stony ground. He knew what Kela was about to do. Crysania saw the bitter, terrible knowledge in his eyes.

Crysania understood in the same heart-wrenching instant.

"Valin," she cried.

Her sight failing, dimming, she saw the tiger leap for Kela, and she saw the mage dart swiftly around him, laughing and weeping all at the same time.

Jeril screamed, "Stop! Kela! Stop!"

Tandar turned, blocking the staggering man, holding him back. Bleeding, Jeril had no more strength, none to resist. He fell to his knees, bent low, his hands pressing against the sword cut as though he could hold back the flood of his life's blood.

Kela leapt as her feet touched the edge of the glassy surface, arms outstretched, grabbing at the flowing yellow disk. She screamed as she touched it, agony and ecstacy wedded into one terrible sound as power erupted out around her. The golden light streaming out from the magical disk split apart into separate colors. Red and green and white and blue and black. The streamers of color snarled, coiled high into the sky, became flame, became scaled leather.

A voice, deep and sensuous and horrible, whispered, "Yes. Come to me."

Tandar roared.

Crysania screamed in fear.

The lovely mage was swallowed up in a burst of power as the five colors of Takhisis coalesced.

Wind whipped Crysania's robes around her legs, roaring in her ears. She closed her eyes, and when she allowed herself to look again, the disk was so far up in the sky it seemed like nothing so much as a pale yellow moon set amidst the stars.

Stars!

She gasped, reaching out as though she could touch them. These were new stars, not like the old. The gods were gone. Magic was gone. The world lay all around her, empty of their presence, and as she realized that, darkness closed in around her, the old curse, the old gift, blindness returned in the absence of gods.

Someone moaned, a sobbing of pain. Jeril.

Crysania groped in the darkness, reaching for Tandar, for Valin. He put himself under her hand, allowed her to use him as she climbed to her feet.

"Take me to him," she said. "Take me to your brother."

Even as she said it, her heart faltered. What would she do when she got there? She would kneel beside him, she would offer him comfort. She had no more, for all the healing magic had left the world with the gods.

She stumbled along beside the tiger, weak and weary. She reached out and touched blood, hot and running.

"Jeril," she whispered.

"Lady," he groaned.

"We thought you were dead."

He made a sound like coughing, and only when he spoke did she realize it was a bitter kind of laughter. "We? You and your faithful tiger?"

She found his cheek, and in blindness she touched it, rough and dirty and bearded. "Yes, me and my faithful tiger."

Shuddering, he drew a shallow breath. "Lady—lady, she is dead, isn't she?"

Tandar lay down close beside him, as he used to lie beside her. Jeril's shivering eased as the great beast's body warmth enveloped him.

"Yes, Kela is dead."

He swallowed, and she heard the clicking sound in his throat like a death knell. "Then so is our child."

"Oh," Crysania moaned. "Oh, no. Not that…"

Jeril moved, twisting under her hand, twisting away in pain. "I… loved her. I loved her… and I didn't know what dark passion drove her… until… too late."

She had tried to kill him, Jeril said, one night after the attack of the daemon warrior. She had told him of her need for the Dragon Stones, of her fears, of her plans. His brave heart would have nothing of those dark plans, and so she'd tried to kill him, and almost she had succeeded. But her stroke had been clumsy and fast, her dagger unsure in the dark. He had lived, he had managed to escape, and he had followed her, his wife of only weeks. The mother of his child.

"To save her, lady. To save our baby."

And so it had been Jeril following behind in the Misted Vales, a lover questing to rescue his beloved from herself. Crysania touched him gently, only for comfort. She had no healing to give.

"She would not be saved," he sighed. He shuddered, then moaned as the tiger pressed closer still, a gentle weight against him.

Brother! Tandar cried, but only Crysania could hear. Brother!

"Oh, Paladine," Crysania whispered. "Oh, Father, you left us too soon!"

And now this good man would die.

She rocked back on her heels, turning her face up to a sky in which new stars sparkled. She was glad she couldn't see them.

Something touched her face, something cold and wet. As she reached up to wipe it away, another drop splashed across her cheek, breaking into tinier drops and bouncing up into her lashes. And then another. She held up her hands as more drops fell.

"Is it—is it rain, lady?" Jeril sighed.

She cupped her hands, as the image of a god had done in her dream. She let the cup fill, then she said, "Yes," offering the gift of sweet, clean water to the dying man. "It is rain, my friend. Drink, with my blessing."

Perhaps he heard her, but she didn't think so. Soft into her blindness, into the familiar darkness, came a tiger's mourning groan.

They could not bury Jeril, neither could they make a decent cairn. Tigers cannot lift stone nor dig in the earth. A blind woman cannot. And so they left him in Godshome. They found his sword outside the ring of stones, washed clean of his blood by the sweetly falling rain. They brought it back to him, and they placed it upon his breast, his hands clasped round the grip. Desert Light would keep him company in this place where no gods would come again.

"It is a fitting place for him," Crysania said.

The tiger said nothing.

"Come," she said, her hand on him, stroking his soft fur. "Take me out of here, Valin."

He did, in silence, his grief heavy. He led her between the sentinel stones and back down the trail to Misted Vales. There they found shelter from the rain in a small cave, and there they lay down together to sleep.

They dreamed the same dreams, the tiger and the woman, their hopes and memories all woven together. They dreamed of rain, they dreamed of gods. They dreamed of clouds that ran at each other from all the quarters of the sky. She dreamed of sight. He dreamed of blindness. And sometimes they dreamed of the dead, of Jeril and Lagan Innis and Kela the mage, who could not be rescued.

In this way they passed the night, Crysania asleep on the stony floor of the cave, the tiger stretched out beside her, a warm, familiar weight. And when they woke, each had the same image in mind, that of a befuddled old wizard staring at them, shaking his head, wondering what in the world was going on around him now.

"He looked at you so strangely," Crysania said, her cheek on the tiger's broad head. "Do you remember? As though he knew something about you. Something amusing."

I don't know what he might have known about me to amuse him. My life has been less than that, lady.

"Perhaps," she said, whispering, "he smiled at something that has not happened yet."

Outside, it still rained, pouring down as though all the dry and terrible summer must be amended. Crysania shivered, for this morning sat much cooler on the world than mornings had for a long time. She wished for a fire, and she curled up closer to the tiger.

I wish for one, too, he said.

"Well, our luck is bad, then. I can make no fire, and neither can you. We must sit here and wait for the rain to stop and keep ourselves warm as best we can."

He said nothing and she knew that he shuttered his thoughts from her. In silence, she lay down beside him again, and after some time had passed, she said, "Will you tell me, Valin, what happened to change you into a tiger?"

He growled a little, she felt the sound like a vibration against her.

I made a bargain, lady. With Dalamar the Dark.

"Tell me. I want to know."

He told her, with images bright and sharp, all she wanted to know. He told her of his journey to the Tower of High Sorcery. He told her what Dalamar had offered—a way to accompany Crysania on her journey to Neraka—a chance to win her love.

A way, dearest lady, to be with you always. To guard you, to run beside you, to hear your voice. He sighed, a deep animal sound. A way to lie beside you at night…

Rain fell, hissing and sighing, smelling like life and hope and all good things.

Crysania sat up and touched his head, stroked his cheek. She thought her heart would break, so deeply, so terribly did it ache. This much he'd wanted, and she had refused him. This he had asked for, one day in the garden of the Temple of Paladine, and she had turned him away, saying, "No, you can't have that." Into Dalamar's hands she had sent him, because he wanted what she would not give.

"Valin" she said, her voice breaking around her sorrow. "Is there a way you can become free again?"

The sound he made fell like a weight into her darkness. There is a way, lady. There is always a way.

She reached to touch him, then withdrew her hand.

"What way?"

He stirred, sitting up. He allowed no hope to color his thoughts.

"What way?" she asked again. "Tell me."

Words must be spoken, certain simple words, and I will be Valin again.

"Words! Spoken by whom? By Dalamar?"

The sound of his breathing changed, grew quicker, then, as he mastered himself, slow again. Not by Dalamar. By you.

"What words? Tell me!"

I cannot. If you speak them, I am free. If you never do, I remain as you see me.

"Do you know the words?"

Yes, he said. I do, but the geas of the spell forbids me from telling you what they are.

Tears spilled, rolling freely down her cheeks. Words and words and words—the world was filled with them! Which words, in which language, in what combination, would free Valin from his mage-built prison? Her breath caught in sobs; she moaned in pain, in sorrow, in guilty grief.

The task was impossible. It could never be accomplished.

She put her arms around his neck, her cheek upon his head. There she wept, bestormed by grief, while outside rain fell gently, patiently, nourishing the parched earth as her own tears nourished her waking heart.

"I'm sorry," she said against his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Valin. I will search for the words, I will hunt the world over. I swear it. Perhaps Dalamar didn't survive the wars. Perhaps his tower is fallen to the ground. No matter! If it is fallen, I will find the spellbook he used to make this terrible magic. I will search the rubble. I will take the ruin stone from stone and find what we—"

She sat up, wiping her face with the dirty hem of her robe. Was it laughter she felt, Valin's laughter glittering in her mind?

"What? Why do you laugh?"

Crysania, why would you do that? Tear a ruin stone from stone?

She shivered, chilled by the dampness of the morning, by her sorrow. "I will do it, dear Valin, because you have done so much for me. You have guarded and defended me. You have risked your life for me and for our friends. You have lent me sight. You have—" She stopped to catch her breath, to catch her courage. "I will do it because I love you."

He sighed under her hands, his whole body rising with it, falling with it. In the air, a tingling came, a vibration running along her nerves.

"Valin—"

He drew in a tight breath and held it.

Under her hands, his body moved. No—shifted. Broke. The shape of him was changing, and the sensation of tingling became burning, deeper.

He cried out in pain—a tiger's voice, a man's—and it was her name he cried as the changing came upon him, her name as his bones reshaped and realigned and all his senses dimmed, settling back into the range of humans.

Crysania!

The name rang in her ears, bounding off the little cave's walls in echo. And it roared in her mind, booming, then softening, too, into echo. And then he was gone from her mind, the connection between them fallen to empty silence. She was alone.

"Valin," she sighed.

He whispered, "Here, lady," and his was the deep familiar voice of the desert mage. He came closer. She heard his bare feet on the dirt floor. She heard him shivering, and she thought, Oh! The poor man's naked! She snatched up her sleeping blanket and handed it to him, tempted by the slide of the fabric on his skin as he wrapped himself in it.

"You're not alone, Crysania," he said, sitting beside her. Warmth from his body enveloped her arm and shoulder. She smelled the blanket and the familiar scent of his hair. "We're far from home, the two of us, and maybe it is that we don't even have Palanthas to return to, but I love you, Crysania, and as long as I live, you will never be alone."

Rain fell harder outside. A chill, damp wind swept through the cave's entrance. Crysania shivered, and Valin put his arm around her, never hesitating. She moved closer so she could put her head on his shoulder. Only once did he kiss her, a soft touch upon the lips. But this kiss lingered, for she did not pull away as once she had. And so they sat, he listening to the rain and she to the beat of his heart. At some point, she looked up and realized she'd been sitting thus comfortably for a long time, as though they had long been lovers, his arms used to filling up with her, her heart well versed in the rhythms of his.

"What will we find out there, Valin? Who has survived the wars? Who has fallen?"

He held her closer, his hands stroking her arms in slow, gentle rhythm. "I don't know, Crysania. I don't know what the world has become. I only know this: We will go out and we will go down to Palanthas, you and I, and maybe we'll find the world a wild and changed place, god-reft, magic-reft. But however it is, we will face it together."

She touched his face, traced the shape of it, and kissed him tenderly. With him she had gone into battle, she had braved the daemons of Chaos. With Valin beside her, she had stood before the Dark Queen herself and come back alive. How, then, should she be daunted by the wars and strivings of mortals as long as he was near?

She said, "I'm cold, Valin. Will you share your blanket?"

He smiled. She felt it against her mouth as he kissed her, his lips curving against hers. "I know another way to get warm," he said.

She touched him, running her hands along his arms until she caught his big hands in hers. He shivered, not from cold.

"Show me," she said, as the rain poured down and the wind prowled lonely outside the little cave.

Gently he took her into his arms.