Alan glanced around the room. At the rear, Ba and Jack were listening intently. Nearby on his right, Sylvia wore her Go-ahead-and-this-had-better-be-good expression. Father Ryan hovered behind the sofa with a faraway look in his eyes; Alan got the impression that he'd already heard what Glaeken had to say. On the far side of the sofa, Carol's expression mirrored the priest's, while Hank's was frankly dubious.

Then Glaeken began to speak. He told of two warring forces existing beyond the veil of our reality—ageless, deathless, implacable, nebulous, huge beyond comprehension. One inimical to humanity, feeding on fear and depravity; the other an ally—not a friend, not a protector or guardian, an ally simply by circumstance, simply because it opposed the other force. He told of the endless war between these two forces, raging across the galaxies, across the dimensions, across all time itself; of the human named Rasalom who in ancient times aligned himself with the malign force, and of the other man, equally ancient, who'd had thrust upon him the burden of bearing the standard of the opposing force. And now the ages-long battle was coming to a close with only one army on the field. The outcome depended on this small group of people collected in this room. Unless they acted to muster an opposing force, all was lost.

"This is it?" the man named Jack said from where he stood by Ba. "This is it!" He shook his head as his eyes roamed the room. "I sure hope you're crazy. Because if you're not, we're in big trouble."

Emotionally, Alan believed Glaeken. Deep within he felt the truth of what Glaeken was saying. Perhaps that too was the result of his entanglement with the Dat-tay-vao. But intellectually he rebelled.

"Why are we so important to these…forces?" he blurted.

"So far as I know, we're not," Glaeken said. "It's almost impossible to divine the motives of such entities, but long experience has led me to conclude that we have not the slightest strategic value to either side."

"Then why—?"

"I think we amuse the side I've come to call, for obvious reasons, the Enemy. It is inimical to everything that gives our lives meaning, that makes life worth living. It thrives on what's worst in us, feeds on the misery and pain we cause each other. Perhaps it gathers enormous strength from our negative emotions. Or maybe we're only a potential snack."

Alan heard Jack mutter at the rear of the room.

"Swell! We're a cosmic McDonald's!"

"Whatever its reasons, it wants to be here."

"And this other power," Sylvia said, leaning forward. "It wants to protect us?"

"I doubt it. I very much doubt that the ally power cares a whit for our welfare. It has intervened only because the Enemy is interested in us or has some use for us."

"Where was it last night?" Alan said.

"It's gone," Glaeken said.

"Dead?"

"No. Just…gone. Off to other battlefields, I imagine. My guess is that back in 1941 it thought it had won the little skirmish that our backwater world represented and so it turned its attention elsewhere."

"That's it?" Alan said. "This ally or whatever battles for eons, thinks it's won, then goes 'elsewhere'? Didn't it want to hang around and show off the prize, or maybe just gloat a little?"

Glaeken fixed him with his blue eyes and Alan felt the power behind them. He spoke softly.

"In chess, do you really want the other player's pieces for their intrinsic value? Do you have any plans for those pieces? After you've taken an opponent's pawn in a chess game, do you give it another thought?"

The room was dead quiet for a long, breathless moment.

From the back of the room, Jack said, "What you're telling us, I take it, is that in the old days we had some heavy back-up, but now we're on our own."

"Precisely. He glanced at Mrs. Treece. "Back in 1968 the ally made a subtle attempt to foil what it probably considered a half-hearted feint by the Enemy, then it deserted this sphere for good. We now know that Rasalom's transmigration was not a feint, but the ally power does not."

"So this is the Little Big Horn and we're not the Indians."

"You could put it that way. But we might have a chance of calling in the cavalry, so to speak."

"The necklaces," Jack said.

Glaeken nodded. "The necklaces, the right smithies, and…" He gestured toward Jeffy. "This little boy."

"Would you mind being just a little more specific?" Sylvia said. She was speaking through her teeth. "Just what the hell are you talking about?"

Glaeken was unfazed by Sylvia's outburst. He smiled her way.

"To put it in a nutshell, Mrs. Nash: We need to let the ally force know that the battle isn't over yet, that the Enemy is still active here and about to take complete control of this sphere. We need to send the ally force a signal."

"And just how do we do that?" Sylvia said.

"We need to reconstruct an ancient artifact."

"A weapon?"

"In a way, but what I'm talking about is not so much a weapon as an antenna, a focal point."

"Where is it?" Jack asked.

"It was deactivated more than a half century ago when it supposedly destroyed the Enemy's agent in a Rumanian mountain pass outside a place called the keep."

Alan's mind continued to rebel against Glaeken's words, more intensely now than ever, but his heart, his emotions insisted that he believe.

"All right," Alan said. "Suppose we accept all this at face value." That earned him a sharp look from Sylvia. "How do we go about reactivating the focus deactivated in Rumania?"

"We don't," Glaeken said. "All the essences that made it a focus were drained off by the act of destroying Rasalom—or what appeared to be Rasalom's destruction. Only through a set of unfortunate circumstances—unfortunate for the rest of us—did he manage to survive. And the remnant of that instrument was reduced to dust when Rasalom started on the path toward rebirth back in 1968."

"If it's gone and we can't get it back," Jack said, annoyance creeping into his voice, "why are we jawing about it?"

"Because there were two. The other was stolen in ancient times and dismantled—melted down into other things."

"Oh, jeez." It was Jack again. "The necklaces."

Glaeken smiled. "Correct."

"What are you two talking about?" Sylvia said. Alan sensed her anger edging closer to the surface.

"The other instrument—the other focus—was stolen and melted down. The melting process dislodged a powerful elemental force within the focus, releasing it to wander free. But a residue of that force remained in the molten metal. The metal was fashioned into a pair of necklaces which have been used for ages by the high priests and priestesses of an ancient cult to keep them well and to prolong their lives."

"And the elemental force?" Sylvia said, leaning forward, her face pale, her expression tight, tense.

The answer flashed into Alan's mind. He suspected Sylvia had guessed it as well.

"It wandered the globe for ages," Glaeken said. "It's been called many things in its time, but eventually it became known as the Dat-tay-vao"

Alan thought he heard a faint groan escape Sylvia as she closed her eyes and slipped an arm around Jeffy.

Just then a voice broke through from somewhere in the apartment.

"Glen? Glen!" It rose in pitch, edging toward panic. "Glen, I'm all alone in here! Where are you?"

As Glaeken glanced toward the rear rooms, Alan saw genuine concern and dismay mix in his eyes. It was the first time he had shown a hint of uncertainty. He took a hesitant step in the direction of the cries.

"Let me go," Father Ryan said, moving from his spot behind the sofa and slipping behind Glaeken. "She knows me by now. Maybe I can reassure her."

"Thank you, Bill," Glaeken said, then turned to his audience. "My wife is ill."

"Anything I can do?" Alan said.