Ned shivered. He couldn’t help it.

This is my aunt, he thought.

The yellow-haired figure with the antlers of a stag stared at her for a long time. “If you speak of the wolflord or the god so carelessly, one or both might make you pay a price.”

“True enough. If I did so carelessly.”

The figure in front of them hesitated. “You are very sure of yourself, woman. Who are you? Why have you come into this? It is nothing to you, nothing for you.”

Kim shook her head. “I haven’t come into anything, except to guard my sister-son. He has no power, only the beginnings of sight, and is no danger to you. He is to be left alone.”

“Ah! She makes a demand. And if I do not accede?”

Ned heard his mother’s older sister say, quietly, “Then depend on it: I will summon powers that will blast you out of time to an ending. And you will never do what you have come to do.”

Silence in front of them. Nothing from the wolves behind. Ned wondered if the others could hear the thudding of his heart.

“It is a wise man who knows his true enemies,” Kim added, softly.

“You do not even know what this is about. What I am come to do.” But there was doubt in the deep voice now. Ned could hear it.

“Of course I don’t,” Aunt Kim said crisply. “Nor do I care. Do what you must. I have told you my only purpose. Accept it, and we are gone. Do not, and you have only yourself to blame if all you dream of goes awry.”

“The boy fought this afternoon beside a man I must kill.”

“Then kill that man if it is your destiny to do so. But the boy is mine and will remain untouched. He has no wish to interfere.”

“Is it so? Can he speak for himself, or does a woman do all for him, as for a suckling babe?”

Aunt Kim opened her mouth to reply, but Ned, angered, said, “I can speak just fine. I have no idea what that was this afternoon, but someone I’d had a drink with was attacked. Would you have stood by?”

Another silence. “The cub has a tooth,” the man said, laughing suddenly, a deep-throated, genuine amusement. The rich sound rolled over them. “Of course I would not have stood by. Shame to my family and tribe, to do so. That does not mean you might not have died.”

“He said you were playing games.”

Another explosion of laughter, the antlered head thrown back in delight. It was thrilling, as much as it was frightening.

“Truthfully? Did he say that?” The fair-haired figure looked at Ned. “Ah, you give me pleasure! By all the gods, I am his master. He knows it with every narrow breath he draws. And as for you: children have died in games-playing.”

“Games like that, I can imagine.” Ned was still furious. “So tell me, give me pleasure now, did I kill your four-legged friend today? With the chair?”

He felt Kim’s hand on his arm, cautioning him. He didn’t feel like being cautioned.

The antlered figure said, “He was in a form he’d taken for the moment. No more than that. He is behind you now in another shape. Tell me, foolish child, what do you think this is about?”

“We told you,” Kim snapped. “We don’t know what this is. And will not claim any role. Unless you compel it.” She paused, then added, her voice going colder again, “Will you compel me? Shall I summon Liadon from his sacrifice?”

Amazed, Ned saw the tall figure take a quick step backwards in shocked surprise, the head lifting again, the antlers caught by moonlight.

“You know a name you ought not to know,” he said after a long moment. His voice had gone quiet. “It is guarded and holy.”

“And I am one with access to it,” Kim said. “And I have seen the one you mock with your horns.”

“I do not mock,” the man protested, but he sounded defensive now.

“Playing a game dressed in his antlers? No? Really? Are you the child, to be forgiven by your elders? Not yet come of age?”

The man before them said, “Have done, woman! I have been among these groves and pools, coming and going, returned and gone, for past two thousand years!”

Ned swallowed hard. He heard the man say, “Is that a child, to you?”

Ned was intimidated now, really afraid, wondering at his own recklessness a moment before, but Aunt Kim said only, “It can be. Of course it can! Depending on what you have done, coming and going. Show me otherwise: go from us, and not in his shape. I wish to return to my own home. This is your place, not mine. Swear to leave the boy in peace and I am gone from your games. And your battles.”

The tall, glorious figure stared down at her, as if trying to penetrate through moonlight to some deeper truth. “What is your name?”

Kim shook her head. “I will not give you that tonight.”

He smiled then, another unexpected flash of teeth, and laughed again. “A sorrow to my heart. I would give you the gift of mine, and freely, bright one, if I had a name here.”

Kim didn’t smile back. She said, “You are waiting for one?”

“She will name me. She always does.”

“Both of you?” Kim said.

Ned had been chasing the same thought.

A hesitation, again. “Both of us.” He looked down at her. “And then it begins, and I may kill him again, and taste the joy of it.”

He looked at Kim another moment, ignoring Ned entirely now; then he lifted his great head and rasped words in yet another tongue Ned didn’t know. They heard a growling sound in reply; twigs snapped on the ground behind them as the animals left.

“You will not enter into it?” the antlered man said again to Kim.

“Not unless you force me,” she repeated. “You will have to live with that as sufficient surety.”

His teeth showed again. “I have lived with less.”

He turned, ducking through the opening into the round, tall tower, twisting his head so the horns could pass through.

They stood a moment, waiting. There was a quick, sharp sound and they looked up and Ned saw an owl fly through the open tower top and away, to the north.

They watched it go.

Kim sighed. “I told him to change his shape. He does like to play, I guess.”

Ned looked at his aunt. He cleared his throat.

“That was extremely close,” she murmured. She leaned against his good shoulder. “I haven’t tried anything like that in a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

Kim stepped back and looked at him.

“Oh, dear. Ned, did you think I could do any of what I said?”

He nodded. “Um, yeah, I kind of did.”

She sighed. “Fooled you, then,” she said.

He stared at her. He felt cold. “You were bluffing? Could…could they guess that?”

Her mouth twitched in an expression he actually knew well, from his mother. “I guess they didn’t. But damn it all sideways and backwards, I so wish your uncle were here.”

CHAPTER VII

Afterwards, Ned Marriner was to think of April 29 of that year, mostly spent in Arles among Roman and medieval ruins, as the last day of his childhood.

It was an oversimplification; such thoughts always are. But we make stories, narratives of our lives, when we look back, finding patterns or creating them.

We tend to change in increments, by degrees, not shockingly or dramatically, but this isn’t so for everyone, and Ned had already learned in the two previous, difficult days how he seemed to be different. Most of us, for example, don’t see our aunts as a green-gold light within ourselves.

On a sunny, windswept morning among the monuments of Arles, he wasn’t actually dwelling on this. He was—although being of a certain age, he’d have hated to admit it—having a good time, nerdy as that might be.

The Roman arena was seriously, no-messing-around impressive.

114

He’d never been to Rome. He understood the Colosseum there was way bigger than this, but the one here would do fine for Ned. Twenty thousand people, two thousand years ago, watching men fight each other, or wild beasts, in a place this massive. And it was still standing.