Heritage Of The Xandim

38

BEYOND THE ICE

With a little help from Iriana, Corisand recreated her boat and they set sail again, heading ever northward. For a time they sat in silence, each one wrapped in thoughts of what had happened, and how it might affect the conflict to come. The Wizard felt a little more hopeful, now that Basileus had helped them. ‘Now we only have to sneak up on the Moldan,’ she said aloud.

Their thoughts had been running along such similar lines that Corisand picked up the thread at once. ‘Maybe my shadow-cloak will help.’

‘It may help us get close up to the mountain, but how do we get inside? At that point, all subterfuge must be at an end.’ Iriana frowned. ‘We’ll have a battle on our hands.’

They sailed on in sombre silence, watching the mountains drawing ever closer. As the details became more distinct, they saw the great ice peak of Ghabal’s fastness, glittering like a colossal diamond in the ocean. ‘At least we should be able to sail all the way,’ said Iriana. But she was wrong. For some time they had been seeing a streak of white across the skyline far ahead, and had taken it for a trick of the light. But as they approached it rapidly, solid obstacles began to appear in the water: chunks of ice ranging from small, fist-sized lumps to great, flat floes that were wider than a room. So far, the temperature in the Elsewhere had been ambient and comfortable, but now it was as though they had run into a wall of profound and savage cold.

They had hit the first of Ghabal’s defences. He had ringed his mountain with sea-ice, and had lowered the temperature with shattering effect. Beyond the bergs and broken floes that formed its margins, the ice stretched solid and unbroken to the north, as far as the eye could see. Their little boat could take them no further.

‘Well,’ said Iriana with a sigh, ‘it looks as though we had better get out and walk.’

‘It could work in our favour,’ the Windeye replied. ‘I think the time has come to shield ourselves, but I was worried about the efficiency of my shadow-cloak while we’re moving fast and I’m trying to maintain the structure of the boat at the same time. Aerillia seemed to find us easily enough. I’ll do much better on foot.’

‘Speaking of shielding,’ the Wizard said, ‘we’re going to need something more than a shadow-cloak at this point. We could be attacked at any time, and the closer we get to Ghabal, the greater the risk will grow. You take care of hiding us with your shadow-cloak, and I’ll maintain a shield against a magical strike. How does that sound?’

They clambered out of the boat and onto the dazzling white surface beyond. As soon as their feet touched the ice, the cold smote them, drying and stiffening the skin on their faces and striking at their feet and legs.

‘Now what?’ Corisand said. ‘We won’t stand this for very long.’

‘Let’s shield and conceal ourselves while we’re thinking,’ Iriana suggested. ‘And we’ll be warmer if we keep moving.’

The Windeye dissolved her lovely boat, not without a pang of regret, and looked around for shadows with which to weave her cloak. Though the ice appeared to be a smooth, unbroken surface from a distance, in reality it was patched with areas of rubble ice: jumbled labyrinths of furrows and sharp-edged ridges where the ice had cracked and been forced upward, and had then refrozen. The shadows were blue against the pristine white of the ice, and as Corisand called them to her, she discovered that her cloak was a different hue this time, blending neatly into her surroundings. Building it carefully, she extended it to cover the Wizard - and even as she did so, she felt a surge of magic as Iriana constructed her own shield around them.

‘When we learned our defensive magic at the Academy, I never really believed that one day I would be using it; that it would make the difference between life and death,’ Iriana said. ‘I only wish I could have used it when Esmon and Avithan and I were attacked in the forest that night.’

‘Why couldn’t you?’ Since the Wizard herself had brought the subject up, Corisand had no hesitation in asking.

‘Because the bastard Phaerie assassin was immune to my magic.’ Her face hardened with anger. ‘I wish I could have killed him with my bare hands.’ She strode ahead, sticking to the smoother areas and avoiding the rubble ice, and Corisand had to rush after her, struggling to keep the cloak in place.

And if her own shield was in danger . . .

‘Iriana - concentrate!’ she snapped as she caught up to the Wizard. ‘Focus on your shield, not the accursed Phaerie, or he’ll reach out from his grave and kill you yet.’

The Wizard turned on her, wrath flashing in her eyes, then caught herself. ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ She rubbed her hands over her face and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. Sometimes it all comes flooding back, and I start thinking I should have done this or that. It’s hard to accept that he had me bested. That I couldn’t save my friends.’

Corisand faced her, clasping her shoulders. ‘You did best him, my friend. He’s dead now, and you’re still alive. And you did save Avithan. Without you he would be dead. At least you’ve given him a chance. If that assassin was immune to Wizard magic - and that’s not a trait common to all Phaerie, as you saw when we fought the Forest Lord - then I doubt that your Archwizard himself could have done more.’ She smiled at Iriana. ‘Having seen you deal with Hellorin the first time he attacked us makes you warrior enough for me.’

Looking into Corisand’s sincere brown eyes, hearing her words of comfort and encouragement, Iriana felt the shadows of pain retreat a little, and the claws of grief slackened their harsh grip on her heart. Corisand had steadied her, and it was time to be moving on.

The cold was attacking them savagely now: it sapped their energy and drained their spirits; it numbed their limbs and slowed their movements; it chilled their blood and clouded their thoughts. Their toes and fingers stung and tingled. How long could they sustain themselves under these conditions?

The further they went, the stronger the wind became and the deeper grew the chill. Iriana, shivering uncontrollably, kept her eyes fixed on the goal, willing herself towards the peak of ice and telling herself that every step was bringing her closer.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it vanished. The horizon turned grey and formless. Before they had time to take another breath, the blizzard was upon them. The air was filled with snow driven into their faces by the screaming wind: tiny knife-edged particles of ice that sliced into their skin, clogged their breathing and drove mercilessly into every chink and crevice in their clothing. With a curse, Iriana flung her powers forward, strengthening her shield in the teeth of the gale.

Silence.

Blessed, blessed stillness.

‘You did it, oh, you did it.’ The Windeye hugged her, but Iriana shook her head. ‘Not for long,’ she said grimly. ‘The Moldan’s power is terrifying. It’s taking all my strength to keep the storm at bay, and I’ve made no impression on the cold. He won’t leave his mountain, that much seems clear, but with spells like this, he doesn’t need to. I can’t maintain my shield for much longer, and when it fails we’ll be right back where we started.’

All they could do was make the most of the small respite they had gained, and push on as far as they could while the going was easier. As they trudged and stumbled on stiffening legs across the ice-field, their vision obscured by puffs of their own frozen breath, the strain began to tell on Iriana. It was like trying to hold up a falling tree single-handed. She gritted her teeth and tried to keep going as long as she could, but her mind kept losing focus, drifting to the nature of magic and the manifold forms it could take. She remembered lectures at the Academy, and the more practical information she had gleaned from Esmon, about using magic not just as a shield, but as a weapon too.

It struck her all at once.

As her concentration slackened, the blizzard sprang on them like a ravening beast, but Iriana ignored it. ‘Corisand!’ She pulled her companion to a halt. ‘It’s not real cold at all. The Moldan is fighting us with magic - just a different sort, which must be why it’s so difficult for me to shield. But if the cold is just another sort of spell, then surely it must be possible to form some sort of defence against it.’

Corisand frowned at her, and the Wizard could see that she was trying her hardest to focus. ‘Defence?’ Her voice could barely be heard above the keening of the wind. ‘Tell me how. Shadow-cloaks and mirrors are all I know.’

‘You know bridges and boats too,’ the Wizard shouted at her, ‘and you spun your own clothes out of air when we came here, remember?’

‘I wish I’d made them warmer, then.’

‘Could you?’ Iriana asked hopefully.

The Windeye simply shook her head. ‘I’m a horse, remember? Don’t know anything.’

Iriana, worried now, tried desperately to rouse her friend from this hopeless mood brought on by the cold. It might have taken her that way too, had she not realised in time what Ghabal was about. She pulled the Windeye close to her so that they could huddle together and share body heat. ‘Just because you missed the years of studying and training at the Academy, it doesn’t make you useless. You’re just discovering your powers, and you’ve only scratched the surface of what you can achieve. Between us we can deal with this spell, I know it.’

But if we can’t find an answer soon, we won’t live long enough.

Firmly, she pushed the insidious notion out of her mind and concentrated hard, turning her thoughts back to a particular talk that Esmon had given on shielding. Hearing in her head the kind, strong voice that had been lost from the world for ever, she repeated his words to Corisand.

‘There are three types of shield,’ she shouted. ‘One for concealment - that’s like your shadow-cloak - one for defence, like the shield I’m using now, and one for offence. The latter works like a mirror. It reflects the assailant’s magic back upon himself. A really good offensive shield can even magnify the damage.’ She swore. ‘There’s only one problem. Cyran was against the use of offensive magic, and he wouldn’t let the students at the Academy learn it. The only way to study it was to join the Luen of Warriors.’

‘But it’s like a mirror?’ Corisand’s eyes, dull and vague from the cold, suddenly brightened. ‘I told you about my mirror, didn’t I? The one I used to go mind-travelling? Maybe if we combine my mirror with your shield—’

‘It might work,’ Iriana said excitedly. ‘Maybe if we link minds very closely, then you spin your mirror and I’ll build a shield. If we push them at one another, maybe we can get them to fuse.’

A glimmer of hope dawned in Corisand’s eyes. ‘Let’s do it now - before it’s too late.’

Iriana had practised working spells in concert with other Wizards, but to do it in conjunction with a completely alien magic - that felt very strange. In the three-way link with Basileus, it had been the Moldan’s power that had held the entire construct together, but now they had to manage on their own. The Windeye’s magic felt like a stream of silver running through her mind: cool, bright, shining and somehow much more fluid than her own powers.

Corisand, her eyes glowing with her Othersight, gathered in the howling wind to spin her mirror, and cast it in a reflective dome over the adamantine shield into which Iriana was throwing all her power. The two magics met and fused in a flash of dazzling radiance with a satisfying sound like the click of a key turning in a lock. Windeye and Wizard were linked with a bond that neither of their races had known before, and their conjoined abilities blossomed and grew to something puissant and unique.

And it was working. Their shield held firm against the onslaught, and both of them rocked with the punch of power that exploded through their minds and bodies as their attacker was hit by his own reflected malice, magnified many times over.

Once more, the winds ceased abruptly.

The flying snow dropped with a hissing spatter, all at once, and fell no more.

The light grew bright again as visibility returned, the savage cold lost its bite and warmth began to creep back into their frozen limbs.

The two companions leant against one another, getting their breath back; each taking care to keep her mind focused on her own part of the shield. ‘We’re a lot closer to the mountain,’ Corisand said at last.

Iriana looked out across the gleaming ice. ‘Maybe that was part of Ghabal’s defensive spell, like the cold and the storm,’ she said. ‘The illusion that the peak was much further away than it is in truth. It had me discouraged, I’ll admit.’

The Windeye opened her mouth to answer, but the words were lost. A deafening snap like the cracking of a giant’s whip split the air, and a long fissure appeared in the ice a stone’s throw in front of them. Corisand spat out a curse she had learned from the Wizard. ‘It’s breaking up. Now that we’ve broken the cold spell, the ice is melting.’

‘Move!’ Iriana roared. Grabbing her companion’s hand, she ran forward and leapt the widening gap, with Corisand a breath behind. All around them the ice was breaking up into smaller sheets of different sizes, from a table top to a courtyard, which had one thing in common: every one of them was shrinking, the strips of dark ocean between them growing wider by the minute. The frozen surface split asunder with a fusillade of cracks and booms as Iriana and Corisand dodged and leapt from one disintegrating floe to the next, fighting for balance as the floating ice tilted and rocked beneath them, scrambling and slithering in the deepening slush beneath their feet.

It was a terrifying, exhausting, desperate scramble. Corisand put her foot on a patch of bad ice and was suddenly thigh-deep in icy water. With Iriana’s help she extricated herself, but not before her leg was wrenched, her boots were waterlogged and she was thoroughly soaked. Luckily, her clothing had been spun from shadows and air. It would be easy to make more - but right now, she did not dare stop moving.

Iriana was faring even worse. She had led a much less physical life than Corisand, and consequently, even in the Elsewhere, she found herself tiring far more easily. In addition, the Windeye had spent her life running and jumping. Her balance, strength and coordination were all excellent, even though she was now on two legs instead of four. It was not so for the Wizard. She was exhausting herself in her constant fight for balance and finding it far more difficult, both physically and mentally, to leap the widening gaps where the depths of the dark, cold ocean lay in wait. Yet not once, even for an instant, did she think of giving up. Gritting her teeth she floundered on, taking one ghastly leap, one slithering, splashing landing at a time; no longer thinking of the peak that was her goal, of the Moldan, of the Fialan. Those things could wait. Now her priority was pure and simple: just keep going.

It became a desperate race - though Ghabal’s fastness was drawing closer with every step, the surface underneath their feet was shrinking all the time. The currents felt stronger the closer they came to the ice peak, and the stretches of water between the Windeye, the Wizard and their goal were growing wider. Ghabal might be insane, but he was old and cunning. He had already learned not to attack these interlopers directly while they had their mirror shield in place, but there were other ways . . .

With an ear-splitting crack, the ice fractured between Iriana and her friend, and the Wizard found herself teetering on a small, slushy, rapidly vanishing raft that was being swept quickly out to sea. Already the distance was too far to jump. Iriana looked at the dwindling figure of Corisand and knew no help could come from her.

The Windeye thought differently. ‘Just hang on,’ she yelled. ‘I’m making a bridge—’

‘No - no!’ shrieked Iriana. ‘Corisand, don’t. The shield will fail - it’s what he wants.’ But she knew, just knew in her guts, that her friend would try it anyway. Well, she wouldn’t get the chance. Without hesitation, Iriana leapt into the water.

The cold was a shocking agony that cramped her limbs and stopped her heart. Her involuntary gasp sent water flooding into her lungs, and she was sinking, choking, drowning . . . Then her lungs adapted, her heartbeat kicked and she was breathing once more, though the medium was icy water that burned her lungs. Iriana felt like weeping with relief. It was one thing to be taught that Wizards couldn’t drown, but another entirely to actually trust her life to it. Besides, she was far from out of trouble yet. Her waterlogged clothing was pulling her down and the frigid water was already causing a deadly drain on her energy. She had to get out - and fast.

There was no point wasting time and energy trying to get to the surface. Fuelled by desperation, she struck out towards her goal: the sheer, submerged face of Ghabal’s ice mountain.

Iriana’s powers had never been so stretched, even when the camp was attacked and she was trying to save Avithan’s life. But she had learned a thing or two since then. She was finding that the more she used her magic, the more powerful it became. Despite her predicament, she still managed to spare enough energy to keep the shield intact around Corisand, and her next thought was to use her Fire magic to warm her own blood, so that her body would keep functioning until she reached land. She knew that she was feeding on her own energy. It was like using healing magic on herself - there was the very real danger of consuming too much of her own power and burning out. Even with care she would pay - oh, how she would pay - in exhaustion when she finally got back to land.

There was far more ice beneath the surface than above. The Wizard threaded her way through the maze of bergs in a blue-green world: had circumstances been less desperate, she would have been enthralled by their fantastically sculpted shapes. But she had no time to marvel at their otherworldly beauty. The goal, and only the goal, mattered now. Weariness was dragging at her limbs by the time she reached the peak of ice, but she had made it in the face of all the odds, and was another step closer to the Fialan.

Suddenly, she realised that she might be even closer than she’d thought. As she approached the cliff, what she’d believed, from a distance, to be a shadowy illusion of the ice formation revealed itself to be a cave.

In her excitement she forgot that her reserves of energy were dwindling. The cave lengthened into a tunnel that sloped upwards into the mountain, and she followed it until she found herself crawling out of a pool into a vast cavern. Looking around, she discovered that another tunnel left it on the opposite side. Iriana lay there for a few moments, gasping and spluttering, until her lungs adjusted back to breathing air.

Though the mountain still appeared to have been carved out of ice, the smooth floor of the cavern was a comfortable temperature beneath her. Why, it’s not ice at all, she realised. She let her sense sink a little way beneath the surface as she had been taught, searching the underlying structure, and: ‘By the light!’ she gasped. ‘It’s diamond.’

Ghabal had made himself an impregnable fortress. Not even another Moldan could destroy diamond.

The floor was almost warm, and Iriana felt like weeping with relief. She was so tired of fighting the merciless, inexorable cold. She lay limply for a while, feeling comfortable and drowsy. I’ll move in a minute, she thought. Just need to get a little strength back . . .

Iriana shot up with a guilty start, horrified that she had let herself doze. She felt better for the rest, though she didn’t think she’d slept for long, but she was horrified that she had left herself unguarded in the enemy’s lair. Ghabal, however, appeared to have no inkling of her presence. Probably thinks I’m dead, she thought. Probably concentrating on Corisand now.

Corisand!

What was happening to the Windeye? And what about the shield? While she slept, she had stopped maintaining their defence. Had her friend been captured? Killed? She was afraid to call out in mindspeech lest the Moldan should somehow hear.

The frantic Wizard dived back into the freezing pool and, as soon as her lungs adjusted, swam as hard as she could back down the tunnel to the open sea, surfacing as close to the cliff as she dared. If the Moldan noticed her now she was done. She was surprised at how little remained of the ice field she had crossed, though the fastness itself was undiminished - and now she knew why.

Further along the cliff was a deep bay with a flat beach of sorts, and she swam towards it, anxious to get out of the cold water. So far, there was no sign of Corisand. She swam into the inlet and tried to scramble up onto the level beach, but once again the cold had drained her, and try as she might, she kept losing her grip on the smooth surface and falling back into the sea.

Out of nowhere a hand appeared and seized her wrist in an iron grip. ‘Quick,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Let me get you under my shadow-cloak. Then I’m going to kill you for giving me such a fright.’

With Corisand’s help, the Wizard scrambled out of the water and rolled onto her back, an enormous grin on her face. Now that she was under the shadow-cloak herself she could see the Windeye. She staggered upright and hugged her hard.

‘Oh, but I’m glad to see you.’ Corisand’s voice was unsteady and choked. ‘When your shield failed, I thought—’

She broke off, pulling back from Iriana and rubbing at her face, then staring in astonishment at the moisture on her fingers. ‘What in the world—’

‘They’re tears,’ Iriana explained. ‘We get them at times of extreme emotion - either sorrow or joy. I suppose that as a horse you never wept.’

‘What an extraordinary thing,’ Corisand said - then changed her tone abruptly. ‘But we don’t have time for such nonsense now.’ Impatiently she wiped them away. ‘Where have you been? What happened to you? How did you survive? What are we going to do now?’

‘First, let’s get our shield back up,’ Iriana said. ‘Then I’ll tell you everything.’

‘No. Never. Absolutely, positively, categorically not. Not under any circumstances. ’ Corisand looked down into the water and shivered. ‘There is no way in this world or the other that you’re going to get me to jump in there.’

‘I wasn’t asking you to jump,’ Iriana said calmly. ‘If you jump you’ll gasp automatically from the cold, and your lungs will fill with water. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, I’m the only one who can breathe underwater. You need to lower yourself in gradually, and—’

‘And go diving into caves.’ Corisand glared at her. ‘Have you completely lost your mind?’

‘Can you think of another way to get into the fastness? This was always going to be the difficult part.’

‘But he’s bound to know that tunnel’s there,’ the Windeye argued. ‘What if he’s waiting at the far end of it to pounce on us like a cat on a mouse?’

‘That is the weak point of my plan, I must admit. I thought that maybe you could think of something.’

‘Me? Why me?’

The Wizard shrugged. ‘Because so far nothing has occurred to me. I’m convinced this is our only chance, Corisand. This whole damned peak is solid diamond. He built it from the most impervious substance possible.’

The Windeye turned away from the sea and stared up at the peak. ‘And it’s only a matter of time before he finds out where we are. When your part of the shield disappeared I spun the best shadow-cloak of my life to conceal myself, and that was when he lost me, but I can’t hide both of us so well. The bigger the cloak, the more difficult it is to maintain. Sooner or later my concentration will slip, and the Moldan will be out of this mountain like a—’ She broke off as an extraordinary idea exploded into her brain. ‘Iriana, listen. I think I’ve found a way . . .’

It took a while for them to refine their plan and straighten out the details, but at last they felt they had covered all eventualities - at least, as best they could. Windeye and Wizard looked at one another. Corisand thought that Iriana looked pale but determined, and suspected that her friend was seeing a similar expression on her own face. She swallowed hard. ‘Are you ready?’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for something as dangerous as this, but I’m not going to let that stop me.’ Briefly, Iriana clasped the Windeye’s hand. ‘Go on, Corisand - and make it a good one.’

The Windeye concentrated, letting her Othersight flood through her like a wave of cool, liquid silver. When she was ready, she began to gather the winds. More she took, and more: more than she had ever handled before. She took her time - there would be only one chance to get this right - and never for an instant let her concentration waver. Such a huge mass of air was difficult to contain and control, but the challenge filled her with a heady delight. She might not have had the Academy, but even on her own, newly-fledged into her powers, she was good.

When she had gathered enough, she began to spin.

Not a shadow-cloak this time; not a mirror of seeing. Instead she spun an illusion, throwing all her heart and soul into the pure joy of creation.

Out of the sea he rose: the gargantuan, fearsome form of the Phaerie Lord, his grey eyes flashing, his dark hair flying wild and his face ablaze with savage purpose. He wielded a gigantic, glittering blade. ‘Come out, Ghabal.’ The thunder of his voice was deafening. ‘Come out and fight. Too long have you skulked and festered like a coward in your diamond fastness. You are sickly, weak and puny, beneath contempt, and no fit guardian of the Fialan. It should belong to me, as it did once before. When I have finished you, it will belong to me again. Come out and fight me if you dare, you craven, grovelling fool.’

An enraged bellow tore the air asunder, and Corisand felt the pain of it pierce her head like knives. Then suddenly Ghabal was there: hulking, titanic, misshapen and dark, his giant body contorted like an ancient oak; his brutish features twisted by madness. He wielded a giant, double-headed axe that was vast enough to sever continents. Its blade left a visible trail of dark power behind it, like oily black smoke, as it clove the air.

‘You challenge me? You, take the Fialan? Who is the mad one here, Hellorin?’ The harsh, atonal cackle of his laugh screeched across the Windeye’s nerves. She glanced across at Iriana who stood watching, her face tense with concentration. ‘Now,’ she urged silently. ‘Do it now, Iriana. What are you waiting for?’

The Wizard held up a hand to silence her, still watching Ghabal like a hawk. ‘You dare not touch me.’ Corisand spat out Hellorin’s words with contempt. ‘Ugly, foul and craven - the world will be better off without you.’ She made her illusion lift his sword, knowing full well that to try to use it would expose the ruse. With another roar of rage the Moldan swung his axe back to strike - and froze there, trapped in a gigantic, glittering crystal that caught the light and splintered it into rainbow sparks.

Iriana staggered and fell to her knees, her forehead beaded with sweat. ‘It’s amazing what you can do with magic here,’ she panted. ‘There’s so much power available - I could never have done that at home.’ She grinned weakly. ‘My diamond is much prettier than his, don’t you think?’

‘Come on.’ The Windeye tugged frantically at her arm. ‘We’ve got to hurry. I can see how much it’s taking out of you to sustain that barrier. We have to get in there and out again with the Stone before Ghabal escapes.’

‘Oh, so you want to jump into the water now?’

‘Just get on with it, confound you.’ Corisand lowered herself carefully into the sea, cursing roundly in fractured gasps as the cold struck home. As Iriana entered the water, she took a mighty breath and held it as the Wizard pulled her under. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, to make herself relax and go limp, and let her companion tow her. Though as a horse she had instinctively known how to swim, and the water held no fears for her, she had no idea how to manage it in this form.

Down, down they went into the frigid blue depths. ‘Hurry, hurry,’ Corisand chanted over and over in mindspeech, her body filled with the ghastly tension of a desperate need to breathe. Her heart was thundering in her ears and every fibre of her being was urging her to let go and fill her lungs as Iriana pulled her into the tunnel - and just as her tortured body could hold out no longer, they cleared the surface of the water. She took a great, wheezing gasp of air and a little water, and clung to the side of the pool as she spluttered and coughed.

When they had both caught their breath, it was Corisand who emerged first and pulled Iriana out after her. The immense strain of maintaining Ghabal’s diamond prison was clearly telling on the Wizard: she looked drawn and exhausted, and her face had a greyish tinge. There was no time to rest, the Windeye knew. No time to delay. ‘Come on.’ She put a supporting arm around the Wizard and linked minds, trying with all her might to send strength and energy to her friend. ‘Lean on your staff, and I’ll help you.’

The energy transfer seemed to be working, a little. The horrible grey pallor left Iriana’s face as she tugged her roughly carved staff from her belt and took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go, then.’ She grasped the Windeye’s arm in silent thanks. Hobbling like two old crones, they crossed the cavern and entered the tunnel on the other side - only to be met by a baffling labyrinth of passages, twisting and crossing and running in all directions.

‘Oh, pox!’ Iriana, her strength worn down by the burden she was carrying, sounded close to tears.

Corisand, on the other hand, suddenly felt deeply calm. Her Othersight, much more advanced than that of the Wizard, could sense the Fialan’s energy beating against her like a ray of sunlight. Suddenly everything fell into place. ‘These tunnels don’t mean anything. The Moldan put them here to baffle intruders. Only one goes anywhere.’

‘Yes, but which?’

‘I know.’ The Windeye smiled. ‘I can feel the Fialan calling. It will tell me where to go. Close your eyes, Iriana. Don’t look at the tunnels - they’ll only confuse you. Let me guide you and we’ll find the way.’

In accordance with these instructions, Corisand closed her own eyes and took a firm grip on the Wizard’s arm. The energy trail was clear in her mind’s eye, glittering like a million emeralds, leading right back to its source - the Stone of Fate. Confidently, the Windeye took the first step forward.

‘Not long now,’ the Stone seemed to be singing. ‘Not long.’

They groped their way into the heart of the fastness, with the song of the Fialan growing louder with every step, until Iriana could hear it too. But Corisand was worried about her friend. Though faint light filtered through the crystal walls from outside, and the going was smooth and unobstructed, the strain was telling badly on the Wizard. Her breathing sounded laboured, her steps were dragging and her hand on the Windeye’s arm had begun to tremble. How much longer would she last? How much longer could her barrier hold? They were caught in a deadly race against time now. Only too well did she recall the Moldan’s power from their first encounter. If he should free himself before they took the Stone, they were finished.

‘Iriana - can you try to go a little faster? We’re almost there. We don’t have far to go,’ she coaxed. The Wizard nodded - the barest movement of her head - then clenched her jaw and kept on going.

And all the time, the siren lure of the Fialan was growing. Suddenly it soared into a joyous paean as they emerged into a monstrous cavern: the mountain’s hollow heart.

This was the lair of Ghabal: empty, vast and soulless. Down through the long ages he had dwelt here, tortured and in agony, lost in a nightmare world of pain and torment since Hellorin’s betrayal. Corisand felt a stab of pity, as she had when they first met. Firmly, she forced it down. He was insane, and dangerous, and wielded unthinkable power. Given the fraction of a chance, he would crush her like a fly.

Then she saw the Stone, and all thoughts of the Moldan fell away.

It floated high above them, suspended by some kind of spell: a crystal of brilliant emerald light that shot spars of radiance all around the chamber. It was incredibly small to hold such astonishing power - about the size of a circled finger and thumb - but the magic blazed forth from it, and she could feel it yearning, waiting, wanting to be claimed and freed. Corisand looked at Iriana. The Wizard’s eyes were wide and filled with a dazzling joy, and she realised that the same expression of longing must be on her own face.

But only one of them could wield the Stone.

I should have it. I found it. I came to the Elsewhere first - had it not been for me, Iriana would never have been here at all. It’ll save my people. I need it. I want it.

It should be mine.

But even as these thoughts streamed through her mind, the truth was staring her in the face. She took a deep breath and turned to Iriana, dragging her eyes from the glorious Stone. ‘Take it - it’s yours.’

The Wizard gasped. ‘But Corisand, you need it—’

‘I know I do. I know. But don’t you see it has to be this way? When we go back to our world I‘ll be a horse again. I won’t be able to wield it then.’

‘But you won’t be a horse.’ Iriana took hold of her hands. ‘Corisand, don’t you see? You can use the Fialan to keep your shape when you go back through. Then you’ll be back in our world with your powers intact, and we can find a way to free your people.’

The Windeye swallowed hard. ‘We?’

‘Well, you didn’t think I was just going to abandon you when we got back, and go on my merry way? You’re my friend, you idiot. We’re in this together.’

‘And there never was a truer friend.’ Corisand’s voice was unsteady. ‘I’ll make you a promise, Iriana, here and now, on the Fialan itself. Once my people have been freed, I’ll pass the Stone on to you. It will have done its work for me. You can use it to help your people too.’

‘Done.’ The Wizard’s smile was dazzling. ‘Here.’ She thrust her staff into the Windeye’s unready hands. ‘You’ll need this to focus your magic when you call the Stone. Its power is so vast, you’ll need a conduit to handle all the energy.’

‘But - it’s your staff.’

‘I never liked the accursed thing anyway. Unfortunately it’s attuned to me, but not too strongly, because I so rarely used it. You should be able to manage.’ Iriana gasped and turned pale, as if she had been stabbed. ‘Go on, why don’t you? Hurry. Ghabal has sensed that the Fialan is under threat. I can’t hold him back much longer.’

The Windeye willed herself steady as she grasped the staff in both hands and raised it high to focus on the Fialan. She summoned the Stone: longing, yearning, putting all her power and will and hope into that call. She felt a leap of response in the Fialan, a flare of magic, and—

‘Why in Perdition are you giving it to her?’

The voice cut across her concentration, severing her link. She heard a strangled cry from Iriana and swung around with an oath on her lips - just in time to see the Wizard, her face transfigured with joy, throw herself into the arms of Avithan.

Corisand’s first thought was sheer, stunned disbelief; her second was for the Moldan. ‘Iriana, your shield!’ she cried. ‘Don’t forget your shield—’ But even as the words left her mouth, she felt the earth shake under her feet and knew it was too late.

Whirling, she flung all her energy at the Fialan, willing it to her with every last scrap of her strength. The staff quivered in her hands, then twisted, writhed and changed its form. The rough, uneven shaft became smoothly polished wood, with the sinuous carven shapes of twin serpents twining all around it. The Fialan sprang from its high place and floated down towards the staff, and to Corisand’s utter shock, the snakes reared up their heads and caught the crystal between them, in their jaws.

Power smashed down the Windeye’s arm like a hammer blow, filling her body with what felt like the heart of the sun. Struggling to contain the energy, she felt herself growing; towering over Avithan and Iriana like a colossus with the magic crackling and sparking around her in an aureole.

Avithan cursed. ‘Be careful,’ he yelled. ‘Athina sent me to warn you—’

Before he could finish, the Moldan stepped through the wall and into the vast chamber. ‘No! The Stone is mine. It will be mine FOREVER.’ With a roar of rage he turned on Corisand, raising the gargantuan axe - but some power of the Fialan seemed to hold him back. Instead he turned like a striking snake and snatched up Iriana in one massive hand.

Time stuttered to a standstill in an instant of frozen horror . . . Then the Moldan laughed. ‘Give me back the Stone,’ he said. ‘Give it to me now - or I will crush your little friend to a bloody pulp.’

‘No!’ the cry came from Avithan, far below. He unleashed a mighty blast of magic - but to Ghabal, it must have felt like little more than a bee-sting. Contemptuously, he kicked the Wizard aside. Avithan smashed into the wall of the chamber - and vanished.

A wail of anguish came from Iriana, and Corisand felt the burning force of her rage all the way across the cavern as she unleashed her will. The Moldan’s hand holding the Wizard burst into flame, and with a cry he dropped her to the ground. She lay, unmoving, but her wildfire was still spreading, devouring his arm and shoulder and gnawing at his body.

Bellowing with pain and anger, he staggered towards Corisand, swinging his burning arm at her like a club. She raised her staff and flung a bolt of energy at him from the Stone, but she had not yet learned how to wield it, and it came out unfocused, and too weak to stop him. He staggered back a step or two, then came at her again, raising the deadly axe.

‘Please,’ Corisand begged the Stone. ‘Please help me.’ Another bolt of energy shot forth, but Ghabal was powerful and ancient, and still he kept on coming.

She should go. Escape back to her own world - the Fialan knew the way - but Corisand would not leave Iriana, and the Moldan stood between her and her friend. She dodged aside as the axe came down, missing her by a hair’s breadth, but he was inexorably backing her towards the wall, and she was running out of room to escape him. Though he was engulfed in flame now, and shrieking in agony, he showed no sign of stopping. If he struck again—

‘Curse you all, the Stone is MINE!’ Hellorin, the Forest Lord, stepped through the wall of the fastness as easily as Ghabal had done. He too had grown to a gigantic size, and looked at the Windeye with contempt as he flung a bolt of dark energy at the Moldan that knocked him back against the wall. ‘I owe you my thanks, Xandim.’ His voice was mocking. ‘In taking the Fialan from this fool, you opened the way for me to enter his fastness. You really have done me a great favour. You and your little Wizard friend have weakened him enough to make him easy game. And after I have finished with him, I will deal with you.’

He turned back to the screaming fireball that was the Moldan - but in succumbing to the irresistible urge to taunt the Windeye, he had delayed too long. Ghabal launched himself at the Forest Lord, and as the two of them grappled, the fire spread to Hellorin . . .

Corisand took her chance. Diving past them, she shrank down to her normal size. Darting to where Iriana lay, she grasped the Wizard’s hand firmly in her own and called on the powers of the Fialan. ‘Now. You know the way. Please take us home.’

She was snatched up in a whirlwind of green power, the energy of the Stone, with Iriana at her side. Suddenly Iriana’s hand tightened in hers and her urgent thought filled the Windeye’s mind. ‘Your shape. Hold on to your human shape.’

It was difficult - she could feel her body wanting to morph back into the form of a horse - but Iriana, weak and injured as she was, added power of her own.

The shape held firm.

The spinning vortex set them down.

They were back in their own world, where they had started, on the lakeshore next to Athina’s island. And gripped tightly in the Windeye’s hand, the Stone of Fate, on its serpent staff, coruscated with a fierce and joyous energy, and sang a song of celebration of its own. Long ages ago it had been imprisoned by the Moldan. Now it was free, with a new keeper in a whole new world. The possibilities were endless.