Starchaser
                         Prologue
             2989, Age of Stars, Early Autumn
    "Must you go?"
    Elian turned slowly away from the window to look at 
Telandre. She stood very close to him, her silver eyes 
uplifted to his face and glimmering with tears. One hand 
rested lightly on his, although she did not embrace him. 
That would have been too much. He was supposed to be on a 
mission of hope, and the good wishes of all Starchasers 
were supposed to go with him, the last of the Starseekers. 
There must be no regrets.
    He drew her into an embrace of his own accord, and 
stooped to plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. "I must 
go," he said softly. "But I will return. Virita assures me 
there is no more danger in this than there is in an 
ordinary journey."
    "She may not know." Telandre turned her head so that 
she was deliberately looking away from him. "The last one 
who Departed never returned."
    "He had a different time Elwen doing the Departure," 
said Elian, gently taking her arm and leading her down the 
hall in which they had stood for some ten minutes now. 
Huge, and hugely expensive, triangular glass windows, 
inlaid with silver and tinted glass in patterns of stars 
and whirlwinds, flashed past them as they walked, letting 
in the light of the setting sun. The carpet beneath their 
feet, thick and silver as starlight, muffled their 
footsteps to nothingness. The pale walls glimmered like 
the ghostly insides of-
    A cage.
    Elian could not pretend too much to himself that he 
regretted this. Lately, the Elicalara, with the ever- 
growing despair among the Starchasers, had begun to feel 
like a prison. Elian could make no move without it being 
watched and questioned; his every decision was regarded as  
water from a drying fount of wisdom. It irritated him. 
Simply because he was the only Elwen who had been found in 
the last thousand years to possess the strength of 
Starchaser gifts that would let him become a Starseeker-
    But, of course, it was serious. The land Elwen city of 
Corafur, which sheltered and supported the Elicalara, had 
come to depend on the Starseekers and the unique healing 
only they could do, the questions only they could answer, 
the beautiful illusions and deceptions that only they 
could create. Sometimes, they seemed to believe that the 
essence of Elwenity itself would die if there were no more 
Starseekers left.
    Thus, the Departure.
    Elian's blue eyes brightened from the shade of ice to 
that of lightning as he considered it. He was careful to 
keep his face turned from Telandre, his betrothed, who 
would see his joy and recognize it, but not understand. 
She was firmly convinced that a journey back in time to 
discover why the Starseeker gift had abruptly begun to 
disappear could not be anything but dangerous.
    Well, perhaps it could not be. But there were other 
things that Elian thought of when danger came to mind. 
Excitement. Adventure, Difference.
    A change.
    He was returning to a time in his own Age, carefully 
set before his birth, when he would not be the only 
Starseeker, or even the only one with the abilities of 
both Starseeker and Lordsinger; when he was not an 
irreplaceable resource. He could explore and ask questions 
that genuinely interested him. He could hear songs written 
then for the first time, as they were meant to be, not 
imprisoned in notes on a page. He could do things, in 
other words, that an ordinary Elwen could do.
    He had never been ordinary. He was looking forward to 
the chance.
    "Elian?" Telandre's voice was wary. "What are you 
humming?"
    The taller land Elwen started and glanced at her 
guiltily. He had begun to hum the opening notes to an old 
battle-song in the Primal Tongue that declared the glory 
of fighting for freedom. He could see by the silver flush 
that mantled her cheeks that she knew it.
    But he met her eyes without flinching away. He had 
never been the sort to flinch away. Perhaps that, too, 
would change, his rebellious mind thought, refusing to 
think of the anguished face of the girl in front of him.
    "I'm sorry," he said softly. "But you know that I-"
    "Yes." Telandre looked away, folding her arms across 
her chest as if she were cold. "But couldn't you pretend?"
    Elian shook his head, even though she was no longer 
looking at him, and began walking again. She followed 
slowly, her head bowed so that her long hair, golden as 
the strings of a well-kept harp, trailed down over her 
eyes.
    He knew how to deceive her. He had played as if he 
loved her as much as she did him, as if their betrothal 
were anything more to him than an arranged marriage to 
increase the number of children born with Starseeker 
gifts. Perhaps it would have been kinder to have told her 
the truth, but she had learned it on her own before he 
could find the courage to tell her. And she did not ask 
him to tell; she wanted the deception to go on. He had 
never understood why.
    It startled him a little to realize that the betrothal 
itself had become a cage, and was one of the reasons he 
was glad to be Departing.
    They came more quickly than they might have to the 
room where the Departing shell was held. It resembled 
nothing so much as a conch shell, separated into two great 
gleaming white halves hinged at the back and gaping like a 
mouth. A faint, crackling, swimming aura of magic hung 
over it, forcing Elian's eyes away and to the side, where 
stood the woman who would send him on this mad journey.
    Virita was a tall and stately time Elwen; she had the 
ungainly limbs of all her kind, but she looked like a 
heron rather than a stork. Her green hair, matching the 
color of her skin, was bound back out of her face, not for 
prettiness but for practicality. She spun around as they 
entered and then was still for a long moment, her great, 
unfathomable golden eyes locked on Elian's face.
    Then she nodded very slightly, and began to recite, in 
a singsong chant, the information he already knew. He 
stood as still as possible, and did his best to keep his 
eyes on her face.
    "You, Elian Alian, will be returning to the second 
year of the Age of Stars, in an effort to learn what was 
different among the Starseekers then. You may not try to 
change anything except the events that will, of course, be 
changed by your presence. Time is a sealed loop. Any 
interference that you may cause is already part of 
history, kept in Rareth's tome. You cannot change anything 
else. You may not try."
    Of course, of course. Elian nodded.
    "You may not reveal your Starseeker gift to anyone 
there; keep up the barriers that will hide you.
    "You may not stay in that time.
    "You may not bring someone back from that time, or 
become friends with anyone."
    Elian nodded, and Virita seemed to have finished at 
last. She turned towards the shell and lifted her arms. 
The air itself seemed to hum.
    Telandre turned to cling to him.
    Elian gently kissed her on the brow again, and opened 
his mouth. He meant to say farewell. But it seemed to be a 
day for painful truths; what came out were the words 
really in his heart, not the comforting ones that he 
wished he could speak for her sake.
    "There are worlds beyond our own, and I am going to 
see them someday."
    Telandre stared up at him open-mouthed, then whirled 
and fled the room, weeping.
    Elian stared after her, deeply troubled, one hand 
rising to touch the muscles of his throat. They showed no 
inclination to rebel now, lying quiet no matter how he ran 
his fingers over them. But for a moment- one damning 
moment- they had escaped his control, and as much as told 
a young innocent the truth: that he hoped he would never 
have to return.
    But he had already promised that he would. He must.
    He shook his head and turned to the shell, just in 
time for Virita to look him in the face again, turning her 
head as slowly and deliberately as an owl's. The stunning 
force of her golden eyes struck him like a blow to the 
head.
    They were ancient beyond measure, those eyes. Time 
Elwens, triltnai, were not like any other people in the 
world. They existed in all times and all places, save the 
times and places beyond their own deaths. They could 
remember everything they had ever seen, heard, felt, or 
experienced. Virita was wise even by the standards of her 
people. She had incarnations in every year back to the 
creation of the world, so many millions of years ago that 
they defied numbering. She was right when she told him 
that he could not stay; of course she was right.
    But, just now, she was finding it necessary to warn 
him again.
    "You cannot stay there."
    Elian swallowed back the thickness in his throat. "I 
know," he whispered. He really did not wish to leave his 
time forever. He had a father and a sister here whom he 
loved. He had Telandre. He had all the work of the 
Starchasers, the training that only he could give, as the 
last Starseeker in existence. The only reason he was 
leaving was on a quest for those who loved him. Why should 
he not wish to return?
    Why should he feel as if every tie to this time was a 
chain clasped around his heart, dragging him down?
    "It is time," said Virita suddenly.
    Elian bowed his head and stepped into the shell, 
curling his body as comfortably as he could in the lower 
half. It was not really uncomfortable, but it had been 
built for time Elwens, for someone much longer of limb and 
less thick around the torso.
    The top half of the shell swung down to enclose him. 
He was surrounded by physical darkness and silence, and 
the hum of magic that did not quite ring in his ears. He 
closed his eyes, concentrating on an image of his Age, 
seventh in the world's time, and on the second year of it.
    He felt the transition begin. The hum of magic 
deepened, and then something seized him and threw him 
through time.
    He had been warned that this might happen, and for a 
long moment, he felt such wild exhilaration that it was a 
struggle to hang onto his image. He was riding a river 
leaping over rapids, a long, running fall of notes in his 
mind, a sweet music-
    Something struck him so hard that pain flared 
throughout his body.
    The song turned sour. The river was no longer rapids, 
but a waterfall, tossing him out into space without caring 
whether or not he found a handhold.
    Elian made frantic movements, though he knew it was no 
use, worse than useless. He could not grab onto anything. 
He was suffocating, he was dying, he was-
    A pair of golden eyes gazed into his face, strange 
eyes shaped like half-moons. He thought he heard a 
mournful cry.
    Then he hit stone, and was sent into darkness, his 
last thought that Virita must have died, to have something 
this horribly wrong happen.




                        Chapter 1
                         Tirshoon
               2691, Age of Song, Midsummer
    "The only evil deed in the world is to look back."
    -Attributed to Laetha Sundrell, Elven Assassin.

    "...There is no such thing as destiny, save that which 
an Elwen makes for herself. It is rare, actually, to meet 
one who forges destiny instead of ignoring it. But when 
you meet such power, you will know it."
    Applause.
    Anadrel of Cytheria closed her eyes and tried not to 
listen. The applause crashed over her like a wave, but did 
nothing to cool the hot, dull ache of boredom that pulsed 
in her head like the sun pulsed in the sky. Kaada would 
say that it was the sun making her so hot, of course, and 
that she ought to rest some more.
    Anadrel raked her white hair out of her eyes as she at 
last leaped down from the platform where she had stood to 
give the lecture. Her hand came away from her face so 
slick with sweat that she reached at once to clasp wrists 
with anyone coming up to her. It would disgust them. It 
would make them realize that no normal Elwen should be 
asked to stand in front of others for hours at a time and 
speak on a subject that she was only interested in 
discussing with others of comparable intelligence.
    A few did wear faintly dismayed expressions after 
shaking hands with her, but that was not enough to 
disperse the crowds that swarmed her. Starchasers, all of 
them, and all young. They called excited questions, made 
private requests for a little extra teaching time, told 
her she was beautiful, promised to compose songs in her 
praise-
    Anadrel was listening to the babble with a 
contemptuous smile when one question cut through it like a 
knife through golden armor.
    "My lady, when will you become the Deriad?"
    Anadrel turned so fast that her hair cracked across 
the eager young man's face like a whip. She knew her fury 
was plain in her silver eyes and the grim set of her face, 
but he did not immediately back down. He licked his lips 
and repeated the question, instead.
    Anadrel waited a long moment, until everyone within 
earshot had quieted. Then she spoke in a fragile voice. "I 
will not be taking up the Mantle. Now, or ever." Her hand 
clenched into a fist, and the young man scuttled away. 
Even though Anadrel had been known to use her Starseeker 
magic to punish those who offended her, she gained even 
more impressive results with her fists.
    Impressive. As in, they don't bother me again, Anadrel 
thought, turning her back and marching out of the now 
silent and uncertain crowd. Her back and arms trembled and 
ached with tension; the effort of restraining herself was 
so great she thought she might explode.
    She wished, as she stepped through the door of the 
lecture hall and into the ordinary corridors of the 
Aprendilnao Telon, the School of Thought, that her 
thoughts on destiny had not been quite so well-received.
    After walking- almost stalking- for several hundred 
paces down the hall, she began to recover her temper. The 
Aprendilna was not particularly beautiful; no one was sure 
if it should be decorated as a Temple of Suulta was, or as 
the Elicalara was, or if it should be left as functional 
and simple as the more ordinary School of Palm was. But 
that very simplicity soothed her mind now, allowed her to 
pretend that nothing had happened.
    "Anadrel?"
    She turned at the voice, somewhat surprised to see a 
young woman in the dress of a servant hurrying towards 
her. The servant bowed nervously, and then hesitated 
another minute before finally telling the increasingly 
impatient Starseeker why she had come.
    "My lady-" Then words failed her again, and she 
instead wordlessly held out the dark wooden tube she had 
been carrying. A scollcase.
    There was only one person Anadrel knew who sent 
messages by scroll instead of by the simpler means of 
letters or telepathy. Her scowl as she uncapped the case 
was enough to make the servant tremble, something Anadrel 
noticed but took no joy in. She had eyes only for the 
message, which she read and then gave back to the girl.
    "Tell him no."
    The servant stared at her. New, then, Anadrel thought. 
She did not know that this was an unusually mild reaction 
for the Starseeker woman to have when she received a 
message from Jenexor, the Deriad.
    "But, my lady-"
    "No," Anadrel interrupted. "If you must tell him 
something, tell him not in this damnable heat. I must 
retire to my home and drink something before I faint. If 
he insists on holding a meeting outside, then I will not 
come."
    "He said it was important."
    "Everything is!" The shout made the woman quiver, and 
Anadrel closed her eyes to fight herself back under 
control. It seemed that Jenexor, the leader of the 
Starseekers, always knew when she was planning on sleeping 
or simply sitting and thinking for a while, and would 
interrupt her with a message.
    Not this time.
    "But-" The servant wilted under Anadrel's glare. "Yes, 
my lady," she murmured, and bowed again before taking the 
scrollcase away. 
    Anadrel shook her head as she strode off. Jenexor 
would be angry, but not at the hapless girl. He would 
unleash the full force of his cool temper on Anadrel 
later, in private. It was his opinion that no "lesser" 
land Elwen should see Starseekers arguing.
    Anadrel disagreed with that so strongly that every 
argument between them on the topic turned from a simple 
debate into a shouting match.
    She hurried out of the door at the far end of the 
hall, and into the lush gardens that surrounded the 
Aprendilna, closing it off from the rest of the world. 
They were as affected by the heat as everything else; the 
crowds by the waterfalls and ornamental pools were far 
larger than usual, and the trumpet-roses, dayglories, and 
other flowers had lost almost all their petals, withering 
as deeply as the servant had.
    Anadrel acknowledged a few nods as she strode along 
one of the crushed seashell paths, her white hair flying, 
but no one tried to stop her. They were considerably wiser 
than the servant, and could see what sort of mood she was 
in.
    The sun blazed overhead, and she was eventually forced 
to slow her pace from a run to a rapid walk. She raked her 
hair impatiently back from her face again. The moment she 
returned home, she was going to tie it back, no matter 
what Kaada or Dore or anyone else said. She was already 
regretting the sudden attack of docility that had led her 
to wear it down to the lecture, complying with Starseeker 
etiquette instead of defying it for once.
    "Anadrel?"
    She did not even heed the summons this time, speeding 
her steps until whoever was calling her from the shade of 
a hylea fell far behind. A few steps further on, however, 
she thought she heard her name repeated, and turned to 
plunge aside into one of the few patches of thick forest 
that had been left standing.
    It was a good choice, though she was forced to move 
more slowly through the sheer crowd of trunks and 
undergrowth. The trees here were of a kind called dysedna, 
which had slender trunks and thick branches only on the 
lower trunks, so that sunlight could reach through the 
canopy and encourage flower growth. Anadrel, ducking 
through the numerous patches of shade and sunlight, felt 
her heart drop from an irate run to something like 
normality. Breathing in the thick scent of the dysedna- 
like pine, with a bit of apple-like freshness thrown in- 
helped. So did the silence. Even the birds were too 
affected by the heat to call.
    She reached the outer edge and paused for a moment, 
frowning. Even though the grove ended quite close to the 
edge of the gardens, there were many people gathered 
between her and the delicate silver fence. Three of them 
were Starseekers who had been at the lecture. They would 
almost certainly see and hail her.
    As she pondered whether to take the chance, or to 
backtrack and try emerging from the forest at a slightly 
different place, a shadow flickered at the corner of her 
vision.
    Anadrel spun around, then paused as a lock of her hair 
snagged on a branch. Swearing beneath her breath, she held 
still, scanning the grove of dysedna with eyes, ears, and 
mind.
    For a moment, she thought...
    Then she realized that she was staring intently at her 
own shadow, which had moved when she did, flickering out 
of and then back into a patch of sunlight. She relaxed, 
and actually managed to grin. There was no one else in the 
grove, as a psychic check for the presence of other minds 
had already told her. Only the small thoughts of birds as 
they flew back and forth from the nests for food, and the 
even more unformed thoughts of the fledglings, all hunger.
    Feeling unexpectedly fortified- the thought that there 
had been a real danger strengthening her to face a largely 
imaginary one, perhaps- she freed her hair, then stepped 
through the branches and into sight of the Starseekers 
sitting there.
    One of them, Rian Denfroi, rose at once to his feet 
and bowed. Anadrel favored him with a smile. He came the 
closest to being tolerable of any of her peers. He was a 
young man with a quick, easy smile, his dark opaline eyes 
always showing fascination with one thing or another. 
Besides, his startlingly pale coloration- hair that might 
have been blue, white, silver, or gray, and skin that 
resolutely refused to tan- made him good to look at.
    "My lady!" He looked delighted to see her, which was a 
surprise. Most of the Starseekers seemed to prefer the 
sound of Anadrel's words to the sight of her. "There was 
something that I wanted to ask you about, something in 
your lecture that has raised my attention..."
    It was an invitation, but it was better than she had 
feared, far better. Even more, the two other Starseekers 
in the group, women both, looked as if they would have 
preferred Anadrel to remain in the trees.
    Anadrel gave him a sweet smile and stepped forward to 
join them. "Of course, my lord. What did you find 
confusing?"
    "Did I say I found it confusing?" Rian protested 
mildly, his brows, as pale as his hair, crinkling in an 
expression of mock indignation.
    "I assumed you did, my lord. You almost never ask 
questions otherwise."
    Rian laughed at that, and the other two women looked 
even more resentful.
    Anadrel smiled again and listened to Rian's question, 
then began to answer it, feeling genuinely happy.
    "No, my lord, I believe that Maruss Freewind was much 
more the rule than the exception. He did forge his own 
destiny, despite his 'fate.' I feel that too much 
attention has been paid to the fact that fate tried to 
control him, and not enough to the fact that he did 
succeed in defeating her..."
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Anadrel!"
    Anadrel walked to the other side of the room without 
looking around. "I know," she called over her shoulder. 
"My clothes are ruined, my face has been scratched, and 
I'm smiling. That means something is wrong."
    Staring out the window at the neat sweep of tended 
lawn that surrounded their house, she could almost hear 
Kaada's head fall into her hands.
    Anadrel smiled at the sun, wiped sweat off her 
forehead again, and at last turned.
    Kaada sat in a chair by the door, frowning at her. Her 
hair, as white as Anadrel's, was pulled back, of course, 
with a narrow circlet of silver, the one ornament she 
owned, a gift from Anadrel's father. She wore a loose 
white robe that had been chosen for the comfort of its 
light weight more than for looks. She had, in short, 
nothing to criticize Anadrel for.
    "My talk went very well," said Anadrel, as she turned 
to the table beside the window and picked up a comb made 
of tortoiseshell to begin pulling the twigs and leaves 
that had tangled in her hair free. That would be necessary 
before she tied it up, she reminded herself regretfully; 
otherwise, her hair, already much too thick, would make 
too clumsy and awkward a bundle to tie. "Here are my wages 
for it." She dug into a pouch with her free hand and 
flipped the ten silver coins to her mother. Kaada caught 
them with the ease of long practice, and laid them on the 
table beside her.
    "How many people did you anger?"
    "Not one," said Anadrel, turning to face the window 
and shifting position a little. When used just so, the 
window could be made to resemble a mirror. "Some angered 
me, but they learned better."
    "Not a one?"
    "Well, Kaada, of course I can't be sure."
    "I wish you would call me 'Mother.'"
    "Why? Kaada is your name."
    Anadrel thought she knew why her mother did not like 
her name, though she thought it a ridiculous reason. Kaada 
meant "eagle," and as her mother grew older and older, it 
seemed to fit more appropriately than it ever had as a 
youngster. She was one of the unfortunate few Elwens who 
showed her age; that was, at seven thousand she did look 
differently than she had at three thousand.
    Kaada had the sense to change the subject. "Dore 
wanted to tell you that she found several things in your 
room out of order. She had to pick them up."
    "She didn't have to," Anadrel muttered, somewhat 
indistinctly, around the thong in her mouth. "I would have 
picked them up." She laid down the brush, gripped her hair 
firmly with one hand, and spat the thong into her palm, 
then tied her hair back with a few quick, expert motions. 
"Besides, what did I leave disordered?"
    Kaada now sounded as if she were puzzled, a rare 
occurrence. Anadrel knew exactly where she had gotten her 
own certainty and self-confidence. "It was odd, really. 
Several of your old papers were on the floor."
    "Old papers?"
    "Some songs you wrote some years ago."
    Anadrel snorted. "Kaada, I was looking at them this 
morning, trying to find something that was salvageable. I 
forgot the time and almost didn't make it to the lecture. 
I left them on the floor, most likely."
    "Like that?"
    "Like what?"
    "Dore said it was a snowfall in there."
    Anadrel sighed and looped the cord over her fingers, 
pulling it tight. "I was swinging this damned robe around 
trying to get it on, Kaada. That's all. It hit the papers 
and knocked them to the floor. No one was looking through 
them." Anadrel's mother sometimes seemed to think that the 
enemies who had killed her husband would come after her 
daughter. Anadrel sometimes regretted her decision not to 
tell her mother about the deaths of two of those enemies, 
but they were her secret. If her mother ever learned that 
she had been using Starseeker magic before she had been 
recognized as a Starseeker, she might tell Jenexor. The 
resulting firestorm would make their arguments so far look 
like campfires.
    "It was more than that."
    Anadrel shook her head and gave up on the 
conversation, going into her room, the chamber nearest the 
window, to change her clothes. The Starseeker robe she 
shucked off and deposited in a corner. It was heavy and 
hot and uncomfortable, so weighty that it seemed to hang 
about her even when she was running, and the wool 
scratched her skin. It was with relief that she put on the 
light cotton undertunic, tunic, and leggings that she more 
usually wore.
    She was checking her reflection in the window again 
when she heard the sound of her mother counting the coins 
stop. "And why are some of them missing?" she asked, in a 
dangerously calm voice.
    Anadrel turned to scowl at her. "They're my wages. I'm 
keeping twenty of them. I want to eat with Rian tonight, 
and he favors the more expensive inns of Palm."
    "I worry-"
    "You always do."
    "Dore said she was going to try to find snow's tears 
tonight, so that she could make soup. I know you like 
snow's tears soup."
    "Kaada," Anadrel asked, working very hard to keep her 
temper from fraying, "where is she going to find snow's 
tears in the middle of summer?"
    "She will find them. She can sense their presence when 
they're twenty yards away, she says."
    "I wish her luck." Anadrel turned away to pick up 
another item from the table, her sheathed belt knife. She 
would probably not need it, but better not to take 
chances. Some had failed to recognize her as a Starseeker 
before, and had piled on her in numbers too great for 
fists or magic to defeat.
    "Anadrel, you could at least try to be a little more 
pleasant to other people."
    Anadrel looked at Kaada in surprise as she gave one 
final tug at the thong binding her hair. "I am. When 
there's a reason for it."
    Any protests that her mother might have made were 
dimmed by the sound of the closing door. Anadrel shook her 
head as she hurried down the street towards the small park 
where Rian had promised to meet her, with a friend.
    Her mother simply did not understand her. Of course, 
not many people did, which was going to make vespermeal 
with Rian a refreshing change. But Kaada was worse than 
most. She seemed to think that simply because Anadrel 
resembled her long-dead father, she should behave as he 
had- in terms that Kaada defined as noble.
    Anadrel had never known her father. He had died in a 
private battle with his enemies before she was born. How 
could she possibly know how he would have reacted? From 
the stories her mother had told of him, he had had a 
temper, as well, but it was hard to sort out fact from 
wistful dreams in Kaada's tales, and Anadrel had long ago 
stopped trying.
    She was not so preoccupied with her thoughts that she 
did not notice a shadow move behind her. At once she 
pulled the knife and whirled, dropping into a crouch. She 
could use the Starseeker magic if she had to, but it was 
primarily defensive, and making use of it for offensive 
purposes hurt.
    "Who's there?" Her voice was calm, a deliberate 
affectation that she had perfected over the years as a 
counter to her mother's nervousness.
    No one answered, and in the growing light of the sun 
as it came out from behind a cloud, it was difficult to 
see anyway. Anadrel shook her head impatiently and 
sheathed the knife as she again checked with every 
available sense for the presence of someone following her.
    No one. Kaada was affecting her again. Even being in 
her presence for a short time was enough to give the 
daughter some of the mother's odder mannerisms, it seemed 
sometimes.
    Anadrel turned her back and continued up the street in 
a lazy saunter. There was fun to be had tonight, if only 
because Rian had promised that his friend would be 
interested in discussing things other than Anadrel's 
lecture.
    She refused to worry about anything, especially what 
had likely been only a bit of cloudshadow.
----------------------------------------------------------
    The wineglass slammed down so hard on the table that 
Anadrel had to check to make sure that the stem had not 
shattered. Once she was sure, she went up in another flare 
of the laughter that seemed to have overtaken her ever 
since she had met Rian's friend Gelana.
    "That's it! That's exactly how he looks!" She paused 
to take another swallow of wine, the red kind she liked, 
once she was sure that she would not spit it out. "But how 
would you know if you never met him?"
    Gelana smiled modestly. She was a panther Elwen, 
dark-skinned and sharp-faced and so graceful that Anadrel 
might have felt jealous were it not obvious that the 
visiting Starseeker did not care about beauty, especially 
not about her own. "I met him when he welcomed me to the 
city. I swear to you, that is exactly what he looks like." 
She paused a moment, thoughtfully, and Anadrel bit her lip 
in anticipation. "Or- perhaps more like this?"
    Gelana's mobile face pursed, her lips squeezing as 
tightly as if she had just bitten into a lemon. Her eyes 
rolled back, and a faint, breathy voice that was a perfect 
copy of Jenexor's when he felt himself to be gracious 
said, "We are honored to have you, my lady, most honored. 
Rooms will be found for you as soon as possible."
    Anadrel laughed again, and Rian grinned at her across 
the table. "I agree that it is great fun to show the 
Deriad as he really is, but aren't you going to eat, 
Anadrel? You've barely touched your food!"
    Anadrel nodded and began to eat half-guiltily. Rian 
had insisted on buying the fresh fish for her. It had not 
been very expensive- fish rarely was, in a city that sat 
on the River Acrad- but it was still a gift, and she 
should repay him by showing that she really did enjoy it.
    Gelana turned to survey the room of the inn in which 
they sat with a lazy smile. It was a pleasant place, not 
so much a building as a cloister, open to the air, with 
only pillars supporting a long roof of sonor, a silvery 
metal without silver's tendency to tarnish. Wind drifted 
in, and the scents of growing fruit and blossoming 
flowers, and the songs of specially trained birds. The 
jasmine in particular that someone had trained to grow up 
one of the nearby pillars was very nice, and the star- 
shaped flowers had been magically altered so that they 
grew in the shape of the Arrow, a constellation blazing 
now over the water to the north.
    "Thank you for your suggestion that we come here, my 
lord Rian." Gelana idly signaled one of the servers to 
bring her some more wine. She had already drunk more than 
four glasses, Anadrel thought with admiration, but she had 
suffered no loss of coordination, and her speech- marked 
by only a very faint care to indicate that it was not her 
native tongue- was still clear. "This is much more 
pleasant than sitting in the Elicalara, and wondering what 
I am going to say tomorrow."
    "You are giving a lecture, as well?" Anadrel asked, 
and then had to repeat herself, because she had asked the 
question with her mouth still full of fish. Rian offered 
her some more wine to help her swallow, his dark eyes 
bright with amusement.
    "Yes. His Most Sour Lordship asked me, and much as I 
would like to pretend that I came here only for the good 
food and better company-" she bowed to Anadrel, and 
accepted her wine from the waiting man in the same 
movement "-there are other things that must be attended 
to. I must speak about the machjyss I have just finished 
on the Mad Mage."
    Anadrel nodded appreciatively. Information on the Mad 
Mage was hard to find, and the Starseekers, an 
organization dedicated to the preservation of history as 
well as ideas and freedom of thought, would find almost 
anything she said interesting. "You had access to the 
library at Sager, I presume?"
    Gelana snarled, very slightly, and shot the claws on 
the hand not gripping the wineglass. "Yes. The price I had 
to pay was outrageous!"
    Anadrel looked at her in some surprise. "I have heard 
the lore Elwens will accept a story in lieu of coin."
    Rian looked up innocently. "Stories? Gelana doesn't 
know any stories they don't already." His eyes sparkled 
innocently at the disgusted torkan. "Tell her what you 
paid."
    "Why?" Gelana huffed, pulling her claws back and 
sipping from the glass again. "It cannot possibly be of 
interest to anyone."
    "She danced," Rian announced.
    "I did not!"
    "She did."
    Anadrel closed her eyes and tried to stifle her 
chuckles. But the image on the inside of her eyelids only 
made her chuckle again. Those Elwens who could Shift into 
cats were usually marvelous dancers, but only in open 
spaces; otherwise, their tails would sweep everything 
loose off shelves or tables.
    "In the library," Rian elaborated, confirming 
Anadrel's guess. She put her head down between her hands 
and did her best to curb the laughter fountaining up from 
the back of her throat.
    "You'll pay for that," Gelana told Rian. "You'll pay 
for the whole meal."
    Rian laughed. "Gladly, lady! I haven't enjoyed myself 
so much this Age. I will pay for anything that you 
desire."
    Gelana smiled innocently at him. "Good." Then she 
looked over Anadrel's shoulder, and her expression 
suddenly changed.
    "What?" The land Elwen woman turned. She was sitting 
with her back to the kitchens, and she thought that Gelana 
must have seen the cooks bearing a cake or pie out that 
the panther Elwen was going to make Rian buy. She was 
prepared to laugh-
    "Trouble," Gelana hissed, so softly that it was not 
audible beyond their table. Her claws were out again, 
Anadrel saw as she looked back, and her ears were laid 
flat to her head. Her tail was visible for the first time, 
lashing back and forth with quick, hard sweeps.
    Anadrel turned again to look hard at the three elves 
that Gelana must mean. They did not look like great 
trouble; they were swaggering as they came towards the 
Starseekers' table, and usually only fools did that. But 
they all wore weapons without peace knots, and there was 
something about the one in the lead- a tall man with green 
hair and the green-tinted brown skin that marked him as a 
forestland elf- that made her uneasy.
    She rose to her feet, after a moment more that was 
necessary to make sure they really were coming towards her 
and not someone else. She threw her head back, picking 
apart the thong in her hair with one hand. Her hair 
spilled down her back, looking much more impressive- 
especially to an elf. The elven priestesses who ruled them 
wore their hair that way.
    The other two elves, a woman and a man, hesitated, and 
the woman laid her hand on the arm of the leader as if to 
restrain him. He shook her off and stopped a short 
distance away, doing his best to look Anadrel up and down. 
As he was nearly a foot shorter than she was, this was 
difficult to accomplish.
    "Are you a Starseeker?" he asked at last.
    "I am." Anadrel ignored Rian's startled movement, seen 
from a corner of her eye. Yes, if this was trouble to do 
with Starseekers, it might be best to wait for the Deriad 
to sort out, but they had accosted her. It was personal 
now.
    The elf nodded, and then drew his sword and leaped at 
her. The other two hung behind, showing no intention of 
helping.
    Since he was only one, and since the inn had fallen 
into the silence of death, Anadrel used her Starseeker 
magic. Her voice filled the silence with a fall of sweet 
notes, high and silvery and full of the scornful laughter 
that she did not quite feel like unleashing otherwise at 
the moment.
    The man crashed heavily to the floor as a silver light 
blossomed around his arms and face. Like a gentle mist, it 
moved where he did, and flickered and shifted at the edges 
as if it were dancing flame.
    In a way, it was. Dreamflame, which only one who was 
both a Starseeker and a Singer could summon, was not 
precisely fire, and not precisely dream. It was real in 
its effects upon elves, at least.
    Anadrel watched with a hard smile as his face paled, 
all the while singing, driving the images which the 
dreamflame carried deeper and deeper into his head. Images 
of chaos, war, passion, the images that were the essence 
of the Elwens the Starseekers were dedicated to 
preserving. They hammered into an elven brain, a hold of 
order, peace, serenity.
    It was only when the elf began to have convulsions 
that Anadrel dared stop. At once, the elf's companions 
came forward to drag him away. Anadrel looked at them, but 
they both avoided her eyes. They left the inn as quickly 
as they could while dragging their still-jerking 
companion.
    The silence quickly filled with the sounds of laughter 
and conversation as Anadrel sat down again. Some were 
truly at ease, some only pretending to be so, but the 
important point was that their vespermeal in the inn was 
not going to be ruined.
    Gelana spoke next, faintly. "How did you do that?"
    Anadrel shrugged, but she was quietly pleased with 
herself. The elf was likely the one that had been 
following her, shielded from her by some sort of spell the 
priestesses of the Elfmother had laid over him. It did not 
matter why he was following her; they had seen how she 
could defend herself, and that was the important thing. 
"It's quite easy, really. The dreamflame contains the 
essence of Elwenity, and he's an elf. It's something like 
another soul being placed into one's body- or so I'm told 
by one elven friend who survived the experience. I imagine 
we would find the same thing if we were to attend a 
ceremony in honor of the Seamaiden or the Sunsister."
    Gelana was still gazing at her in wonder. Anadrel 
lowered her eyes in pretended modesty and began to eat 
again. The fish was cool, but that was the least of her 
worries. Her only worry was what Rian might have to say-
    She looked at last. He was gazing at her, his eyes 
shining, and his fingers were resting on the edge of his 
plate without touching anything.
    Anadrel lowered her eyes again, this time in 
satisfaction. Tonight's incident would not be reported to 
the Deriad, or would be put in the proper perspective if 
so- that she had been forced to defend herself, but had 
not killed the man. There would be no questions, no 
reprisals.
    "It seems curious," Gelana said at last, breaking the 
silence. "Elves in a land Elwen city? I thought that they 
considered Elwens the children of the Elfmother's liaison 
with evil?"
    Anadrel shrugged and sipped at her wine again, putting 
it down and shaking her head regretfully when Rian started 
to call for more. She had already drunk more than was good 
for her, one reason she had called upon magic rather than 
her muscles. "They have been coming in greater numbers 
lately. Some sort of war in the southern province, I 
think." Her mind was suddenly growing fuzzy, and she had 
to strain for a moment before she could remember the last 
of what Gelana had said. "And do they say that? I know a 
little about elven religion, but not much. And-"
    She was forced to fall silent as she grew suddenly 
woozy, and shook her head. What was happening to her? Her 
mind was suddenly as soft and bright as the dreamflame, 
and she could not seem to concentrate on anything. She 
dropped her head between her hands and shook it again in 
an effort to clear it, but that only seemed to make it 
worse, stirring the swimming mist to new efforts.
    "Anadrel?" Rian's hand was on her shoulder.
    The Starseeker touched his hand, trying to indicate 
that she was all right. "Too much wine," she murmured, and 
stood. "I would appreciate an escort back home, but that 
is all I need. Not a healer!" she added hastily, seeing 
that Rian was frowning at her. "If I need one that badly, 
I can heal myself. You know that."
    Rian still looked at her doubtfully. "I've seen you 
taken down by too much wine before, Anadrel. It never 
affected you like this. You're pale, and you look more 
frightened than- What in the name of the stars is that 
thing?"
    Anadrel turned to look, though she did not feel the 
fear or awe that was plain in Rian's trembling tone or 
Gelana's gasp. The fog filling her head seemed to protect 
her as she gazed in calm detachment at the thing moving 
along the floor. It was dark, and of no shape or kind of 
beast that she knew. It undulated faintly, not keeping the 
same shape, and she saw that-
    Her shadow.
    It was her shadow.
    The dreaminess faded. Anadrel stared in stunned 
horror, her tongue clinging to the roof of her mouth, the 
room swaying dizzily about her. Rian moved forward and put 
an arm around her waist, trying to draw her backwards, but 
she could not move. The spell held her fast, the sensation 
of magic in the air so thick that she almost gagged as she 
breathed. And yet she could not stop taking frightened, 
hurried breaths, any more than she could move or take her 
eyes from the shadow. She was afraid as she had never 
thought she could be.
    Something stirred at the back of her mind, 
interrupting the fear. Had she not heard or read of 
something like this, somewhere...?
    The shadow wavered, and then it abruptly replicated 
her. There could be no doubt that it was her, although the 
shadow lacked features. It had her profile, and her hair 
tumbled down her back, waving in some wind that she could 
not feel. The rest of the shadow had formed itself into a 
vague image that was growing clearer by the minute, as if 
the shadow realized that she could not understand and was 
struggling to let her do so. She was leaning over 
something, something pointed, something-
    The prow of a ship! She was leaning over the railing 
that encircled the prow of a ship. And those shapes 
dancing all about the ship, just for emphasis, must be 
waves. Not high enough to be the sea, thought part of her 
that was never paralyzed. The River Acrad?
    The vision wheeled as if her realization had been a 
signal. Suddenly the shadow flowed outward from her feet, 
stretching the waves into a river of darkness that other 
customers stepped hastily aside from. It flowed from her 
into vague spiky shapes.
    She knew what was meant, and now her heart was 
pounding for a different reason, fear almost forgotten in 
her wonder and excitement. The Mountains Eternal! They 
were the source of the Acrad, south from Palm. That must 
be what the spikes were. The shadow was telling her where 
to go.
    And it was then that she at last remembered what these 
visions were called. Tirshooni, her masters in esoteric 
matters of magic had named them, shadows of the future. 
They came rarely, and usually only to powerful mages. Like 
all forms of futuresight, they were dangerous; the visions 
they showed were often unclear, or incomplete.
    In this case, even though the tirshoon might not show 
her what would happen next, she thought it was clear. 
Something- her own magic, or the stars, or something even 
stranger- wanted her to go south, to the mountains.
    She recalled her own words earlier that day about 
Elwens forging their own destinies, and how rare they 
were. She had always longed to be one of them, but her 
efforts at controlling her own life had so far been more 
in the nature of rejecting the gifts that other people 
offered than accepting them.
    But this- this was a gift from herself. That was the 
most popular theory about shadows of the future, at least: 
that they originated with the mage who saw them, as a gift 
from something inside the mage, a longing that had grown 
powerful enough to take on a life of its own.
    An ambition that was seeking to make itself happen.
    A gift she could accept.
    "Yes," she whispered.
    At once, the shadow changed yet again. This time it 
showed a cluster of mountains, so close together that they 
looked like the branches on the antlers of a stag or a 
therleem tree. A valley cut between them, wandering down 
to join a broader valley. The details were becoming clear 
to her every moment that the shadow spent forming itself, 
even though there were still no colors. That thin line 
tumbling down the rock there must be a waterfall; it must. 
And then-
    Then the vision ended. Her shadow wavered as if trying 
to show her something more, then snapped back into its 
normal shape. She bent down and gingerly touched it, but 
she could feel nothing save the sonor floor of the inn.
    She took a deep breath, and straightened. Her hair 
hung heavily down her shoulders and swayed with the 
movement, and she stared at it blankly. She had forgotten 
the events of the last few moments before the tirshoon, or 
nearly. Oh, she still remembered them, but they had lost 
the central importance that they might have had otherwise.
    It did not matter that an elf had tried to kill her, 
no matter how strange that was, no matter how much Rian 
and her mother might worry. It only mattered that she was 
going to the Mountains Eternal, to do- whatever the shadow 
had said to do.
    "Anadrel!"
    The hard clamp of Rian's hand on her arm finally 
brought her back to reality, making her realize that he 
had been shouting at her for some time. She blinked at 
him, and pushed a lock of white hair out of the way so she 
could see his face. She would have to bind it up again as 
soon as possible, and make sure that she brought other 
thongs with her on the journey. The one she had used was 
starting to lose its strength.
    So much to do! Her mind reeled with the thought of the 
supplies she would need. Money to buy passage on a ship, 
of course. Warmer clothes; even though the Mountains were 
more southerly than Palm, climbing such heights as the 
peaks and waterfall had seemed to be at would mean cold 
weather. Boots. Perhaps one of her instruments, so that 
she could amuse herself on the ship. Dried food. Flint and 
tinder. Her knife, of course. Her bow and arrows; there 
would be little food to be had if her rations ran out save 
that which she could hunt. Blankets-
    "Anadrel!"
    "What?" she finally replied, snapping back to the 
moment and scowling at him in puzzlement. Surely he could 
see the shine in her eyes, know what the vision had meant 
to her? There was something to be found in the southern 
mountains, something that could ease her boredom and 
provide her with a worthy quest. Some gift that might mean 
something, or at last a task to do.
    "What are you thinking of? I hate it when you stand 
there with that rapt look on your face, as if you are 
going to do what you want and damn the consequences. You 
usually get hurt." Rian's voice was so deeply unhappy that 
the other Starseeker stared at him. Why was he worried?
    For the first time, she saw something in his dark eyes 
that might mean he really cared for her, and perhaps as 
more than just a friend.
    But she did not have time to speak to him about it, 
especially not in a public place. Besides, the innkeeper, 
a slender, deadly man who looked to have curalli blood in 
him, was stalking towards them. He would want some 
explanation of the twin disturbances, and possibly money, 
because she, and only she, had been the cause of the 
latter one.
    "Will you pay, Rian?" she asked. She was panting as if 
she had run a long way. "I have to start organizing at 
once. I promise I'll pay you back!"
    "That's not the issue, and you know it damned well!" 
He gave her another shake when she instinctively tried to 
pry her arm free. "What are you doing? Where are you 
going? Off to the Mountains Eternal because your shadow 
told you to?"
    The scorn in his voice was obvious. Anadrel left off 
trying to get free, and scowled at him. Anger rose in her, 
a comforting buttress, and she answered with the biting 
words that only Rian had never heard from her.
    "Rian, I have the power to take care of myself. And 
any danger that might overmatch me would certainly 
overmatch you." She did not often pull rank on anyone, but 
in this case, it couldn't hurt to remind him that she was 
the most powerful of the Palm Starseekers, one reason that 
the Deriad wanted her to be the next Deriad.
    Even thinking about that got her blood up, and she had 
to concentrate to hear what Rian next said, instead of 
jumping into angry thoughts about Jenexor and his plans.
    "My lady, something is waiting there for you, you 
said?"
    She nodded, quickly, jerkily, still not ready to 
forgive him for mocking the vision.
    "Then do you not think it would be unwise to go 
alone?" When she started to shake her head, he pushed his 
face close to hers, his dark eyes flashing. "Someone just 
tried to kill you. I know you have enemies, people who do 
not want to see you become the Deriad or anything else. 
Your mother will be worried sick about you if you simply 
leave. Stars, Anadrel, don't you ever think?"
    Anadrel gritted her teeth. "I have been thinking, 
Rian, ever since Jenexor first proposed that I become the 
next Deriad three years ago." Her voice shook a little, 
but stayed calm; that momentary faltering was the only 
visible sign of her rage. "I have been looking for a way 
to avoid it."
    "But why?"
    Anadrel stared at him in disbelief. "It all comes down 
to one question, Rian. Ask yourself it, and see if you can 
give anything other than an honest answer. Would I be a 
good leader, for the Starseekers or anything else?"
    Rian started to answer, then hesitated. Slowly, his 
hand fell from her arm. Anadrel backed a step towards the 
door, still staring at him intently.
    "Exactly," she said, and there was sadness in her 
voice despite her attempts to prevent it. "I do not wish 
to become Deriad, Rian, because I could not be a good one. 
I know that much about myself." She gritted her teeth as 
anger flared up again. "But Jenexor will not listen, and 
neither will all the others who want me to take up the 
Mantle. They see only the power in me, and do not realize 
that power is not the only thing that matters."
    Rian was staring at her with wide eyes. "Anadrel..." 
he began, and then stopped and swallowed. "I didn't know," 
he whispered instead.
    Anadrel was aware that the other patrons were staring 
at them. That ordinarily would not have bothered her, but 
she had a point to make now, and she must make it quickly, 
or not at all. The innkeeper was spellbound for now, but 
that would not last.
    "Rian, tirshooni appear to answer the greatest wish of 
a mage's heart, to show the means- or part of the means- 
of attaining that wish. Is that not so?"
    "It's only superstition," he muttered unwillingly, his 
eyes fixed on her.
    "But it has been proven in many cases." Anadrel looked 
wistfully over her shoulder at the blazing night sky, 
snowy with stars, but she could not escape just yet. If 
anything was to be left to salvage of her friendship with 
Rian, she must remain a moment more. "My greatest ambition 
is to find some way out of the trap Jenexor has put me in. 
I can only think that the shadow appeared to help me 
achieve that ambition."
    "I still don't think it's wise to go alone."
    Anadrel shook her head, and her eyes narrowed as her 
good intentions blew away. "Perhaps not. But the vision 
showed no one on the ship beside me. I must go on my own 
if I am to have any success. Do you not agree?"
    Rian looked away.
    Anadrel thought she knew what was wrong- if the shadow 
was correct, then her wish was not to be with him, and he 
must have been hoping that that was part of it. But she 
could do nothing to change what had happened.
    "Farewell, for now," she said softly, and then turned 
and left.
    She could almost feel Gelana coming up to comfort 
Rian, and she nodded in satisfaction. Good. The torkan had 
been Rian's friend for several years, he had said, and she 
would be remaining here.
    While Anadrel would- could- not.
    She hurried home, glancing over her shoulder because 
she had promised she would be cautious, her heart 
thrilling with exhilaration. She had done everything that 
she could think of to put Jenexor off, including praying 
to the stars and telling scandalous stories about the 
Deriad in order to increase his personal dislike of her. 
None of the safeguards had worked, except, to a certain 
extent, the barriers. They kept any other Starseeker from 
realizing how powerful she really was. If they knew, they 
would be clamoring for her to take the Mantle at once, and 
anything she might do would be useless then.
    If she could be free...
    She flitted through the streets like a shadow. She saw 
no one. At this hour- it was nearly midnight, now, or must 
be- everyone was asleep, or in the inns or down at the 
shipyards, where the work did not stop even with sunset. 
As the wind veered, she could smell the water, the fish, 
the pungent scent of some of the woods used to build the 
ships, and the scents of tar and magic. There were the 
sounds of hammering, sawing, and hoarse shouts.
    Her nightsight let her see where she was going 
perfectly well, as well. It let her view the pallid, 
colorless auras that all things cast by the sheer force of 
existence, and the stars were not bright enough, even 
tonight, to disrupt it. The moons would be, though, when 
they rose-
    Light suddenly blinded her, and she stumbled back, 
blinking. Looking up, she saw the curve of Lureth, the 
golden autumn moon, edging over the top of a tower. When 
she was anywhere near full, the Lady was as bright as a 
sun, and even at her half, like now, she was brilliant.
    Then the brilliant half moon blinked, and was joined 
by another.
    Those were not moons, but eyes.
    Anadrel staggered backwards, lifting her hands. Fear 
boiled in her, sluggish and cold, so deep and powerful 
that she could not summon the rage she would have needed 
to use the innate magic of her race. She reached at once 
for her Starseeker magic as the thing- some kind of beast 
as big as she was- crouched and then leapt off the ledge 
on which it had been standing.
    Illusion sprang up all about her, the kind of simple 
but frightening thing that anyone with the Starchaser 
gifts, even one who could never become a Starseeker, could 
craft. A dragon reared in front of her, as silvery as if 
it were made of starlight, clashing its scales and opening 
its mouth to breathe a stream of starfire that would not 
hurt unless the enemy believed the illusion.
    Immediately, the force of her own idiocy struck her. 
The illusion could only work on a foe who was intelligent 
enough to believe the evidence of her own eyes rather than 
of nose or ears or mind, and beasts were not fooled by 
such things-
    The beast falling from above her twisted in midair, a 
flexible bend and snap of the spine that not even a snake 
might have been able to accomplish, and landed a short 
distance away, glaring at her with golden eyes.
    Her heart was thudding so hard that it seemed to be 
shaking her whole body, and she was breathing in great 
gasps again, as she had when her shadow formed itself. She 
was not sure whether fear or relief was stronger. Yes, she 
could use her Starseeker magic against this creature, but 
it was intelligent. Was one better than the other, or the 
other worse?
    The creature opened its mouth, and a great, whistling 
cry came out of it, building quickly to a shriek. Then it 
began to stalk towards her, silent once more, moving as 
carefully on its big paws as a cat.
    Anadrel stepped backward, but anger was beginning to 
replace the fear. How dare it play with her! She lifted a 
hand, and fire burned over the skin without searing into 
it, ready to form a dart, a firestorm, or anything else 
that she wished to hurl at this impudent-
    Wait.
    It had come into the starlight now, or perhaps her 
eyes were finally beginning to adjust to the odd 
combination of night's darkness and the golden radiance of 
its eyes. Either way, she could clearly see what it was 
now. Wonder replaced fear for the second time that night. 
She kept the fire ready, but lowered her hand.
    As if confused, or perhaps merely waiting to see what 
would happen, the beast halted as well, and stood gazing 
at her.
    "I know you," Anadrel whispered, the words tumbling 
into her mind out of a book she had read some time ago. 
"Lureth's Child."
    The beast only stared, though it tilted its head 
quietly as if to say that she might be correct.
    It was vaguely like a great wolf in form, but it stood 
almost as tall as she did at the shoulders, and the brown 
coat that flowed like murky water over rippling muscles 
had touches of gold in it, a true sunrise gold, that no 
wolf could ever match. Its hind paws were taloned like an 
eagle's, and its forepaws had five stubby but recognizable 
fingers. The head was enormous, thrust slightly forward on 
the neck, and the neck itself was so thickly corded, and 
so covered with fur, as to make striking at its throat a 
dangerous proposition.
    Her eyes returned to its golden gaze, then slipped 
carefully away to regard the moons that were just 
beginning to ascend. Blue-green Takon and red-white Salsi 
were also in the sky, but her eyes were for the golden 
disk of Lureth.
    Or, rather, half a disk. She was half full.
    Just as the eyes of this creature were.
    "I know you," Anadrel repeated, and lowered her hand 
even further. Lureth's Children were rare indeed. They 
lived in the mountains, thousands of miles from even the 
dragons. For one to come into a city must involve tangled 
reasons that she could not even guess at.
    "What do you want?" she asked, unsure why it was not 
making at least some move to attack her.
    The Lureth's Child gazed at her intently for some 
moments. Then it bowed its head, jaws working as if it 
were trying to spit something up.
    Anadrel merely watched. She was sure now that this one 
bore her no ill will, or she would already be dead. Her 
studies had told her how horribly swift they were, and the 
twist she had seen this one accomplish suggested that it 
could avoid almost any blow she might make at it.
    Then it looked up at her again, and from its mouth 
came a gagging, whistling croon that slowly transformed 
into words. Anadrel stared in astonishment. The books she 
had read- the few there were on the little-studied subject 
of Lureth's Children- had all agreed that they could not 
speak.
    "You- you are not the one we seek. A mistake." A 
pause, and then the head shook again, wobbling so severely 
Anadrel thought it must tumble off the neck, no matter how 
thick or flexible the neck was. "But you will lead us to 
the one we are seeking."
    Anadrel's heart began to pound again. Excitement, or 
fear? She did not have the time to separate them. The 
emotion that made her voice shake could have been either. 
"Explain. Lead you to whom?"
    "Someone we need. Someone we must kill. Someone we 
must have."
    Before she could react, the Lureth's Child leaped into 
the air, and was gone. She thought she heard a faint 
scrape of talon and claws across metal, and guessed that 
it had gone up the side of a building. With their hands 
and their talons combined, they were said to be wonderful 
climbers.
    But, with so much else the books had said proved 
wrong, who could tell?
    Anadrel was still standing there shaking her head when 
a thought struck her. She paused, and remembered very 
carefully the moments before she had left to give the 
lecture in the Elicalara.
    Then she ran home, not bothering to check for 
followers this time as she flashed in and out of shadow 
and light. There was something she must see.
    Her mother was not in her chair when Anadrel burst in, 
but Dore was. The maid started to her feet, letting the 
robe she had been patching slip to the floor. "What are 
you doing?" she exclaimed, blue eyes flashing. "My lady, 
your mother-"
    Anadrel ignored her as she ducked into her room, shut 
the door, and strode over to sort through the sheaf of her 
songs once again.
    Ah. She should have looked at this earlier. Near the 
top was a poem she had written some years ago- not one she 
had ever looked at again. It should have been near the 
bottom, no matter what order Dore had laid them in when 
she picked them up.
    She scanned it rapidly, both in the original Primal 
and in the translation of it she had made below, looking 
for something that would have made someone want it.

    "Uklame tisarni, Lurethho Kusi.
     Uklame ed olsi karimona, olsio for risi.
     Suenirrlome tusis cilla, to rat alao mirai.
     Suenirrlome tusis tresflon quir rat ahirai.

    "Cry to the moon, Lureth's Children.
     Cry with eyes burning, orange eyes of abhorrence.
     Lament your birth, in the dawn of the worlds.
     Lament your wandering since in the broken places."

    She read it twice, then folded the paper and laid it 
aside. Staring at the ceiling, she frowned. The single 
stanza would have been the first quartet of a poem, but 
she had never succeeded in committing the whole thing to  
paper; it had been awful, and had proved her own worst 
opinions of her songmaking. She had not used even a 
hundredth part of the lore she had learned about the 
Children in order to write those few lines.
    What could whoever have gone through these papers been 
looking for? It would have told them nothing, no matter 
how they rooted. She had long since given her notes to the 
Elicalara, where they were safe from everyone who did not 
have Starseeker magic.
    Anadrel sat straight up suddenly, and her breath broke 
loose in a soft explosion of cursing. The Child who had 
attacked her had said it had been a mistake, that she was 
not the one they must kill.
    They had been looking for confirmation that she knew 
something about the Children. If they had been able to 
prove that she knew anything substantial, they would have 
killed her.
    But why? And what?
    Anadrel lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling well 
into the night, going to sleep only when she reminded 
herself that she had to hire a ship the next day.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Must you go?"
    Anadrel shifted the bundle strapped to her back to 
keep herself from replying. If her hands were clenched on 
the straps, they could not be clenched into fists and 
pummeling Rian into senselessness.
    If she heard the query one more time...
    "Yes," she said. "To refuse this gift would be rankest 
arrogance."
    "That's never concerned you before." Rian's eyes were 
as bleak as the leaves of the dark hylea that grew nearby. 
    "It does this time." She did not know why she wanted 
him to understand quite so badly. She had learned to live 
with everyone else's lack of understanding. But perhaps 
she had hit on a way. "When you first learned you had 
Starchaser gifts, Rian, did you even think about refusing 
them? Or did you see them as a blessing from the stars and 
come to Palm?"
    The other Starseeker's mouth worked for a moment. Then 
he fell back on, "It's not the same thing."
    Anadrel gave up. "Farewell," she said shortly, and 
turned to her mother and Dore.
    Dore, her jade-green hair done up as neatly as usual, 
gave her an anxious, sweet smile. "You will come back, 
won't you?"
    "Of course!"
    Kaada was looking doubtfully at the coracle that 
floated not so far away, and the single land Elwen sailor 
who waited in it, to take her to the ship that was 
anchored further out in the deeper waters of the River. 
"You hired a ship fast, my dear."
    "The captain was willing to work for three pyrites."
    "Three pyrites!"
    Anadrel glared at her mother. "Yes, My money."
    "But- that's enough to feed an Elwen for several 
months!"
    "That's how much this is worth to me."
    Their eyes met, and for a moment Anadrel did see 
understanding there. Then her mother leaned forward to 
kiss her, her black eyes suspiciously bright.
    "Be careful."
    Anadrel nodded, and turned to the coracle and the 
waiting sailor, shifting the bundles again so that the 
harp would not be under the food.
    "I'm ready."




                        Chapter 2
                        The Healer
    "Deception is so necessary a part of life that I find 
it amusing you suggest we can live without it."
    -Supposedly said by the gryphon leader, Dustdancer the 
Traitor, to his brother, Coalcloud the Savior.

    Slowly. Slowly. Opening his eyes. Dazzling light 
flooding into them. He groaned and shut his eyes again; 
the very sight of sunlight made his head pound dizzyingly.
    But why should it? Had he struck the rock that hard? 
Or was it that the sun reminded him of the terrible golden 
eyes that had gazed into his as he fell through time, the 
eyes that were responsible for his being here?
    Wherever and whenever here was.
    Elian forced himself to open his eyes and sit up. He 
knew at once that his right leg was broken. It was twisted 
so sickeningly that he had to force himself to look at it. 
His own mouth twisted in a similar grimace as he studied 
it.
    He knew a little healing, but the last Starseeker- 
other than him- had died before she could teach him all 
she knew of it. It was not enough to mend a broken bone 
altogether, only to speed the recovery. What talent for 
Starseeker healing he had shown lay in such things as 
diseases and maladies of the soul. He had healed several 
broken hearts, but never bones.
    He was rambling. It would have to stop.
    Taking a deep breath, the land Elwen slowly touched 
the leg. It seemed to throb even under his touch, and who 
was going to touch it more gently than he, the only person 
who knew how much it hurt? But he forced himself to grip 
it and feel for the break.
    A simple one, clean. No sign of splintering, and the 
bone was not projecting through the skin. Given the way 
that his leg was twisted, he had been lucky not to wind up 
with much worse than that.
    He closed his eyes and called on his Starseeker magic.
    It was there in a moment, filling him with peace and 
love that was very close to what he felt when he sang to 
the stars. He channeled the force into his leg, and felt a 
tentative bridge begin to spin itself between the two 
halves of bone, like a spider spinning a web from one twig 
to another.
    There! He removed his hands and looked around.
    He lay in a bowl-shaped valley that was barren stone, 
without a single patch of grass to mark it. There were 
some thickets of scratchweed up the slope a short 
distance, but then, scratchweed flourished anywhere, even 
in the middle of deserts or icefields. 
    Above him rose a strange arrangement of three peaks 
grouped close together, like the spikes on a crown, and 
from one of them spilled the thin line of a waterfall. It 
collected in a shallow, rocky pool and then spilled out 
down the valley in which he lay and again over the cliff 
lip, out of sight.
    Elian turned his head- the sun was already becoming 
less of an irritant, as if his eyes were getting better- 
and smiled grimly. If he had rolled just a few feet 
farther, he would have bounced over the drop only a few 
feet away.
    So. not really a valley, then, but a large and dipped 
ledge, part of a natural trail that led up the 
mountainside. He should try to make his way to the water, 
and then into the gap that he could see between the peaks, 
where there would be more shelter from the sun and any 
animals that might come hunting him for the blood he had 
splashed several times before coming to a halt.
    He turned and set his hands on the ground, working his 
elbows back and forth a few times to make sure they were 
all right. Then he dragged himself forward, right leg 
bumping behind him.
    He scraped over a stone, and the delicate comfort of 
the healing vanished. The sudden return of pain sent him 
into blackness for a long moment.
    When he recovered, he rested again before again 
starting towards the pool. He had not the faintest idea 
how long he had been lying here, but he was thirsty, and 
this was the only water in sight.
    He fainted twice more before he got that far, but when 
he at last reached it, it was a great pleasure to plunge 
his head into the cool water and drink- slowly. He was not 
about to make himself sick on top of everything else.
    Lying by the pool, where some of the spray from the 
waterfall could cool his face, he carefully eyed the 
mountains and the stone again. Mixed stones of various 
dull shades, blacks and browns, grays and whites. Geology 
had never been his specialty.
    He closed his eyes at last, as the sun moved and shone 
in them, and decided that he had had a few pieces of good 
fortune. His head wound seemed to have closed itself while 
he slept. Only his right leg was broken. He had fresh 
water for the foreseeable future, and a place to hide, if 
that gap was as defensible as it looked.
    He was also lost in the mountains, with where and when 
mixed up in his mind, and he had nothing to eat. Those 
problems would have to be remedied as soon as possible.
    Something darkened the sun. At first Elian ignored it, 
but when it went on, he opened his eyes to estimate the 
size of this swift-moving cloud. Rain or snow, perhaps? 
Either would be poor news.
    His breath flew out of him, and he stared. Hovering 
over him was a dragon, an enormous dragon, over a thousand 
feet long, its mirror-colored scales flashing as it stared 
at him quizzically. Its head was smooth, lacking horns and 
thus looking more like a snake's than a lizard's. The wind 
from the wings pressed him flat to the ground, and he 
could not have moved if he wanted to, caught in the 
curious stare of dazzling silver eyes rife with power and 
magic.
    Then the dragon rose again, so smoothly and swiftly 
that anyone who saw it would have claimed there was magic 
in the motion, and flew away over the peaks.
    Elian closed his eyes again and got his breath back. 
At least now he knew where he was, if not when. The 
Mountains Eternal. There was no other place in the world 
where eternity dragons made their warrens.
    He decided he had rested long enough, and began to 
pull himself towards the shelter of the gap. Meanwhile, he 
distracted himself from the pain in his leg with- largely 
fruitless- speculations on the nature of the disaster that 
had overtaken him.
    Had Virita died? That certainly would have disrupted 
the spell. But she would have had to die by violence. And 
time Elwens always knew the hours of their own deaths, 
anyway. She would have warned him if she was that close, 
or refused to do the Departing. She took this as seriously 
as any Starseeker, since her people depended on the 
Starseekers to chronicle much of the lore they discovered 
and make it available to more Elwens than the triltnae 
could reach. She would not have risked it, she would never 
have-
    Still, he realized as he settled to rest on the other 
side of the pool, he liked that better than any of the 
other thoughts crowding his mind.
    If some enemy had attacked the Elicalara, then it was 
possible that all the Starseekers were dead. There might 
be no one to bring him back, if that was so.
    "I know I said I wanted to have an adventure," he 
muttered as he began to crawl again, "but this is 
ridiculous! I don't want to stay here forever."
    Of course he didn't. But he would have to stay at 
least five days, the normal time it would take for an 
Elwen bone to mend itself. He might have made it down the 
trails with a horse, but he did not have one, and he had 
no idea if there were Elwens within a hundred miles of 
here. Probably not, he thought as a distant shadow 
flickered along the slopes. It was never a good idea to 
live within the hunting grounds of eternity dragons. They 
usually did not eat Elwens, but they had no scruples about 
taking horses.
    The gap loomed ahead of him, beckoning and cool as the 
Elibarso after a long and hot afternoon of debate. Elian 
licked his lips and pulled himself forward with a last 
tremendous effort, to lie panting in the gap.
    The starbursts cleared from his eyes at last, and he 
was pleased to note that the gap was highly defensible. It 
was surrounded on three sides by stone, and the walls were 
too steep for even goats to climb. More, as he discovered 
by his own rasping breath, the place played peculiar 
tricks with echoes, tricks that should give him warning of 
anything long before it reached him. One Elwen would sound 
like a marching army.
    He pushed himself towards the back and curled up 
there, closing his eyes. He would have to trust in his 
magic and the echoes to defend him, and sleep. Exhaustion 
dragged at him. He would never be able to heal and then 
fight his way out of here if he did not sleep.
    Soon, his snores filled the tiny canyon.
----------------------------------------------------------
    He awoke as the sun blazed into his eyes through the 
gap. Grimacing, he turned his head and body to face the 
back wall, and tried to sleep again.
    But it had not been only the sun that awakened him, 
had it?
    He sat up slowly, blinking his eyes, and tried to 
concentrate. There was no sound, but the wind was blowing 
away from rather than towards him, and not much breeze 
blew in this nook anyway. If something was there, he would 
not be able to smell it.
    A few more moments of breathless silence, and then 
something moved at the entrance to the gap, something that 
crouched there, backlit by the setting sun and turned into 
a fire-edged black silhouette.
    Elian took a deep breath to control his fear and 
raised his hands. He would use Starseeker magic if he had 
to, even though it would cost him pain.
    The creature seemed confused, however. He could hear 
it sniffing; it must have caught his scent. But it made no 
move to come further into the canyon. It crouched, and 
pawed the stone, and after a moment, he heard something 
like a whine.
    Elian grinned wearily. It probably slept here, 
usually, and was confused that some strange thing had 
apparently appropriated its den.
    "Go away!" he shouted as loudly as he could.
    At the sound of his voice, the beast leaped away like 
a stone shot from a sling. Elian yelled one more time to 
be sure, then chuckled, feeling the happiest he had been 
since his abrupt arrival.
    It was no use trying to sleep again, even though the 
fear was past. He looked around for any possible means of 
making a fire, the only way he could keep warm other than 
his own body temperature. Even though the blue sky, if 
nothing else, confirmed that it was summer, it would still 
be cold.
    There were a few patches of moss growing between the 
rocks. He scavenged them as well as scratchweed, although 
the briars did not burn easily. Better not easily then not 
at all, however. Darkness was falling on the heels of the 
sun, descending so swiftly that Elian feared what might 
happen if he did not have a fire soon.
    When the moss and weed had been piled atop one 
another, he closed his eyes and stretched out his hands.
    He had never angered easily. It was a rare trait among 
his people, and a liability, because it meant that he 
could not summon his emotional magic to his defense when 
he most needed it. But there was one way to make himself 
angry that never failed to work.
    His breathing sped as he concentrated on the one image 
that he had kept down all these years, like a flower 
pressed between the pages of a book. His mother lying in 
her bed, yellow liquid streaming from her mouth and nose, 
white spongy material caking her neck and hair, her body 
rocking slightly back and forth, her throat releasing soft 
laughter. She had died of wizard's blight in a day, going 
from coughing in the morning to insanity, strange 
vomiting, and loss of her magic in the evening. Elian had 
stood and watched her die, helpless to do anything. All 
his Starchaser healing, good though he was with sickness, 
had meant nothing. The blight had taken his mother 
remorselessly. No one had been able to do anything.
    No one had been able to do anything.
    Elian's roar broke from his throat as fire broke from 
his hands. He opened his eyes to see the moss and 
scratchweed begin to smoke. It caught a moment later, and 
he stopped himself with an effort, his stomach heaving and 
his breathing ragged as he contemplated the fire.
    It was just as well that he did not anger easily. The 
murderous fury he felt whenever he thought about his 
mother sickened and confused him. There was nothing anyone 
could have done, his father had explained wearily. 
Wizard's blight was a rare disease, but it killed nine out 
of every ten mages it attacked. Elian's mother had not 
been forewarned. No one had given it to her. The gods were 
not at fault. The stars were not at fault. His father was 
not at fault. He was not at fault.
    Then why this rage? Even now, it filled his head with 
a dizzying silver swirl of emotions, images, and memories. 
It whispered that all he would have to do to bring her 
back would be to kill the right person.
    That was all.
    He calmed himself at last, and lay as close to the 
fire as he could without scorching himself. Then he raised 
his body temperature and closed his eyes, trying to get 
comfortable on his unusual bed of stones.
    A mournful cry rang among the peaks.
    Elian jerked his head up, his heart pounding. He had 
been half-asleep, and then the cry had been so sudden 
that-
    No, it was more than that. He knew it was more than 
that.
    That was the same kind of cry that he had heard when 
he fell through the trap, whatever it had been, and was 
whisked away from the time and place that he should have 
gone, to this one.
    He listened, but though it was repeated several times 
it never seemed to come any closer. After a short time, 
gazing into the flames and likening the comfort they 
brought him to the comfort they had brought him when he 
sat before the hearth with his family, he managed to 
convince himself that the cries had nothing to do with his 
fall. One of the beasts that made that sound had likely 
found him, and he had linked it to the turned magic in his 
mind, when in fact it was nothing more than a coincidence.
    He relaxed, gazing into the flames. Then he smiled and 
lifted his hands.
    He had nothing to eat, and he could make no plans 
until he knew what time this was. If he had arrived in the 
middle of a war, then he would have to be very cautious. 
It seemed as good a night as any to indulge himself in a 
pleasure that Telandre and the others had not liked him 
indulging.
    He looked up at the blazing stars above, and hummed a 
quiet note, his invocation for their blessing on what he 
was about to do. It was not really necessary, but it made 
him feel better. 
    He thought he felt them shimmer in approval. He called 
on the Starseeker magic.
    Soft-edged dreamflame danced into being for a moment, 
then formed into pictures. He could see his father racing 
across the field that held their home as clearly as if he 
hovered a few feet above the man's head. Even the man's 
eyes were the right color, a legacy of the gifts that let 
Elian call up such perfect representations of the past.
    Two children followed the man in his race across the 
grass, laughing so hard and running so fast that they fell 
almost more than they kept their feet. Elian and his 
sister, Shelsa. Shelsa in particular seemed to be 
delighted. Shrieking like a mad thing, and despite the 
falls, she outdistanced her older brother and even her 
father, then circled back to meet them like a bird on the 
wing, her face bright with a smile of triumph.
    Elian sat and watched. His younger self, face screwed 
up, was running as hard as he could, not laughing now. 
Their father, busy laughing and playing with Shelsa, 
trying to run circles around her while she did the same 
thing to him, did not notice.
    By the time Felshor Alian turned to look for his son, 
Elian had reached the tree that marked the end of the race 
and was slapping the bark, jumping up and down without 
saying a word. Laughing, the father came over to hug the 
sun.
    "You don't run as fast, Elian, but you never get 
distracted," he said, ruffling his son's dark hair and 
bending to plant a kiss on his cheek.
    The memory ended. Elian summoned another one, this of 
his sister running off with a toy of her brother's. Shelsa 
did not realize that Elian could already call up scenes of 
the past, and knew perfectly well who had taken the toy 
and where she had gone. He strolled along behind her, 
pretending to search, more for her amusement than his own. 
Shelsa followed him, moving in careful quiet, squealing 
only when he whirled around and caught her, promising to 
hold her hostage unless she gave it back to him.
    And then another memory.
    And another...
    Starseekers- or, in these days, Starchasers- were not 
encouraged to call up their own pasts. That had supposedly 
been a custom for more years than the Starseekers had 
existed, before Starchasers were ever encouraged to learn 
the full extent of their gifts and use them in the service 
of other Elwens. It was supposed to be bad for the 
judgment, affecting a Starseeker's ability to react 
neutrally in any case where he might be called upon to 
summon up the past.
    Elian had done what he usually did: paid heed to the 
rule in public, and broken it without hesitation when he 
was alone. He did not see how his gift could be corrupted. 
The images of the past it showed were never lies. It would 
be more accurate, as far as he was concerned, for Virita 
and Telandre to worry that he would become addicted to the 
images of violence and evil that he was forced to summon 
in the cases that he was called on to try.
    Neither had happened.
    Elian moved his hands at last, and the images 
dispersed into a cloud of sparks. Folding his hands behind 
his head, he lay back and stared up into the stars, then 
began to sing. If he was going to be here for a while, and 
awake, then he might as well entertain himself by doing 
those things he did best. He thought the song unlikely to 
attract attention; surely something would have come 
hunting by now, if anything was going to.

    "In a country drowned by the sea,
     Where the seafolk sing all that will be,
     I make musics clear, songs of cheer,
     And wonder why they went away from me.

    "In a country drowned by the desert sand,
     Where the winds sing to the lonely land,
     I make musics of old glories, faded stories,
     And wonder what will bring them to my hand.

    "Beneath the sea, on sandy beach,
     The songs flutter just beyond my reach.
     They sing and play the livelong day,
     And will not learn what I have to teach.

    "In a country raised on high,
     Where mountains chant grim tales to the sky,
     I makes musics of prayers for the frosty airs,
     And wonder if I will see her by and by.

    "In a country drowned by trees,
     Where the leaves sigh like soft green seas,
     I make musics of living for life-giving,
     And wonder what will bring me content, heart's ease.

    "She laughs just beyond my dreams,
     A fragile dancer by my music's streams.
     All love in a day may vanish away,
     And leave not even the tiniest of gleams."

    When the song ended, some peace had been restored to 
him, and his eyes were beginning to droop again. He rolled 
over and let his head sag against a stone. It actually 
wasn't too difficult, as the music running through his 
head chased the hardness aside.
    He opened his eyes again as light fell over him, and 
turned to see the beast standing on the other side of the 
fire, gazing at him.
    The first thing he noticed about it was the size; the 
second, that he had no idea what it was; the third, that 
there was something wrong about it. He held still and 
tried to study the conflicting impressions from those 
thoughts, the feelings of fear and wonder and curiosity 
that had been awakened. The thing made no move to attack 
him, although the golden gaze was so intent that it could 
have drilled holes in his skull in a few moments, he 
thought, had the creature been inclined to do so.
    Eyes like golden half-moons. Heavy head and jaws. A 
coat that looked brown in the firelight, but flared here 
and there with touches of gold. Hands, resting on the 
ground before it. Muscles sleek and strong, ready to 
propel it to the side or up in a leap. Eyes that fixed 
him, and-
    Golden half-moons?
    This was the creature which had gazed at him when he 
went spinning through time, one of those who was 
responsible for his being here.
    He did not question the sure and certain knowledge 
that swept over him, though he would have found it 
suspicious at any other time. He extended his hands, and 
fire leaped from them, dreamflame, washing the wolf in 
silver light and Elwen essence.
    It threw back its head and let out the same cry he had 
heard before, a ringing lament, a cry of desperate sorrow. 
He found no beauty in it now. He rolled away, cursing, 
hands over his ears, and felt the first pains begin in his 
chest. He had used Starseeker magic offensively, not 
wanting to wait for the beast to attack him; he had not 
even sung to call the fire. There would be a price to pay.
    The beast's cry seemed to ring forever, rising near to 
a shriek at the end. Then it ended, and he thought it must 
have been consumed in the dreamflame.
    He rolled over to find it still sitting there and 
watching him.
    But it looked different, now.
    Its shape had altered very slightly, the thick neck 
growing thinner, the head looking less heavy, the rounded 
and stubby forepaws moving closer to hands in ways he 
could not define. The sense of wrongness was lessened. It 
stared at him with the same hungry eyes whose shape and 
color and radiance had not changed, but he thought he saw 
something in them that had not been there before, either.
    Could animals feel triumph?
    He took a deep breath, and snatched up one of the 
burning scratchweed branches. At once the wolf jumped 
backwards and gazed at him from a safer distance. It was 
enough like a normal wolf to have a normal wolf's fear of 
fire, then.
    Its hands did not look able to build a fire, even now. 
Or grip a sword.
    But it still had its teeth, that immense strength and 
weight- it was longer than he was tall- and the claws on 
its hind paws that he now noticed for the first time as it 
shifted its weight. It snarled without making a sound, and 
the triumph in its eyes became rage and eagerness.
    "Go away!" Elian yelled, the same ploy that had 
achieved such success before. He thrust the burning branch 
towards it.
    But the creature had judged his range exactly. It had 
not come within reach; it sat just beyond the furthest 
distance that he could move with his broken leg. It sat 
there with its mouth open, and breathed, and waited.
    Elian retracted the branch. He saw the intelligence in 
the golden eyes now, and wondered that he could ever have 
mistaken them for the eyes of a beast. They were not 
precisely intelligent in the way that he understood, but 
they were not animal.
    If nothing else, the not-quite-definable hunger with 
which it gazed at him could never be that innocent.
    "What do you want?" Elian asked at last, when the 
staring contest had gone on for several minutes.
    He did not expect the thing to answer, but after a 
long minute of hacking as if it were trying to find the 
right tools in its throat to use, it did.
    "You. You are the one."
    "The one who?" Elian's eyes narrowed.