Without even thinking about it, Aeron barked a word that triggered the staff's magical powers. Blue light flashed and a wave of arctic cold raised patterns of white hoarfrost all over the room. The hairy soldier stood frozen to the spot, covered in a cloudy rime of ice a handspan thick. Shouts of dismay and rage echoed around him. Aeron wrenched his staff away from the frozen soldier, ignoring the sick crack and crunch of icy fingers snapping away with the dark wood. "Stop this!" he roared.

Across the room, the spark-burned soldiers stood over Fineghal, their swords red. They looked up in surprise, just as Aeron spoke another word that hammered them like the strike of a sledge, blasting their broken forms against the opposite wall and splintering the wooden floor. He whirled to search for Eriale, and found her struggling on top of one of the tables as the lout who had been chasing her tore her shirt open.

Aeron shouted in rage and charged him, striking the soldier across the shoulders with a staff empowered by a smiting-spell. The mercenary's mail shirt literally disintegrated with the blow, and he collapsed in a nerveless heap. As Aeron reached down to help Eriale to her feet, something heavy struck the back of his head, knocking him to his knees. Cold wetness ran down the back of his shirt. Blinking in astonishment, he focused on a large wooden mug rolling on the floor.

"He's a wizard too!"

"He killed Jonos!"

"Get him before he casts any more spells!"

Eriale hauled him to his feet. Everywhere he looked, the tavern's denizens were charging forward, armed with knives, clubs, or just their bare hands. "Aeron, do something!" Eriale cried.

Aeron thought for a split second, and mumbled the words to a spell he'd crafted only a few months ago. He exerted his will to seize the tangled threads of the Weave that burned just out of reach, building a cage or barrier. As he spoke the last word, the room suddenly became smoky and dim, as if viewed through thick, dark glass, and the sounds faded to mere whispers.

"Aeron? What did you do?" Eriale's voice was clear and close to him; she was within the barrier. She flinched away as a heavy stool hurled through the air at them, but it seemed to strike something in midair a few feet from her face and clattered to the ground. Around them weapons rose and fell, but nothing could seem to reach them.

"It's a magical barrier," Aeron explained. "Unless someone in here is a wizard with the right spells at hand, nothing can harm us. We'd better get Fineghal and leave while it lasts." With Eriale clinging to his side, Aeron walked ahead slowly, the furious blows of sword and club no more tangible than the flutter of a moth's wings. He moved over to where Fineghal had fallen, and knelt by the elf, gently turning him over.

Fineghal's white tunic was scarlet with his blood. He'd been stabbed several times. His face was white as ice, and his skin was cold. "A skillful barrier, Aeron," he gasped. "Yet.. . it is a little . . . too late for me, I fear."

Aeron's heart seemed to shudder and stop. "We'll have you out of here in a moment, Fineghal," he said. He reached down to pick up the elven wizard, uncertain of what he could do to help, but determined not to leave him lying in the wreckage of the tavern. He'd never imagined that Fineghal could be hurt, let alone wounded to the point of death.

The elf lord grasped his hand, stopping him. "It won't matter, Aeron." He gazed into Aeron's face. "I had hoped ... that I could aid you . . . against your enemies, but this quest will be yours alone. You must succeed, Aeron. My death-and Kestrel's-will be but two ... of a countless number ... if you cannot break the stone's spell."

Aeron leaned over the fallen elf, openly weeping. "Fineghal, I don't know what to do."

"Nor do I, Aeron. This sorcery is . . . beyond my comprehension. But you have learned both . . . the elven and the human ways of magic. I think that you have it within you to understand . . . and destroy this evil." Fineghal coughed raggedly, drawing a deep gasp that bubbled in the back of his throat. "Telemachon would have known ... what to do," he whispered. "He was a great diviner. I believe ... he saw this day coming."

"Telemachon is dead," Aeron said.

"His work may not be," Fineghal said. "Go now ... before your barrier fails. You cannot fall. . . ."

"I won't leave you!"

"My spirit ... is passing, Aeron. If you perish . . . my death will have been for nothing. Please . .. flee while you can."

"You're not going to die," Aeron stated, determination in his voice. He bent down and tenderly cradled Fineghal in his arms, struggling to his feet. "You've taught me something of the old healing songs. All I need is a little time to ready them-"

"After a thousand springs ... it seems ironic . . . that I cannot spare you that," Fineghal said with a faint smile. "Farewell, Aeron." The light faded from the elven lord's eyes and his fingers slipped from Aeron's grasp.

Aeron dropped to his knees in shock. Outside his gray wall, the angry peasants and laborers waited in silence, watching for some break in his impervious defenses.

Beside him, Eriale knelt and reached down to disentangle his arms. "Come on, Aeron. We've got to get out of here."

Dully, he nodded. He reached down and took Fineghal's pouch of spell-tokens, and then stood again. "Oriseus is going to pay for this," he said. Then he led her out into the night.

Seventeen

For the rest of that night and most of the next day, Aeron and Eriale pressed on, stopping only when exhaustion forced them to. Aeron's spirit was empty, and his heart ached as if it had been filled with cold ashes. Kestrel's death still seemed unreal to him, an awful mistake of some kind. Now Fineghal was gone as well, a noble spirit whose death seemed senseless. One by one, every person he'd ever learned from had been taken from him, with the sole exception of Oriseus, and Aeron didn't like to think of what the High Conjuror might intend for him. He could only keep his horse's feet on the road leading north, and lose himself in the dull rhythm of the ride.

Eriale matched Aeron's own silence. Grief set her face in a forlorn stare, and the endless mist and rain beat her hair into a dark, wet hood, so that she looked like a lost child. Aeron knew that he should send her back to Saden before evil befell her too, but he didn't have the strength. Lost in her own sorrow as she was, it still comforted him to know that she rode beside him. If he needed any reason to continue on, any incentive to confront the failures of his past, Eriale provided it. For her sake he had to carry on.

Late in the afternoon after their flight, they came to the road that sliced northwest from the ruins of Luthcheq to Soorenar and the great city of Cimbar beyond. They turned west, riding more carefully-they were traveling into the heartlands of Chessenta, the broad belt of townlands and terraced hills that ran from Akanax to Cimbar, and the relative safety of the desolate hinterlands was gone.

Near sunset, they left the road and camped in a dense copse a few hundred yards to one side, building a small fire and drying out their traveling clothes as best they could. "How much farther is it to Cimbar?" Eriale asked over a cold and cheerless meal of trail rations.

"I'm not sure. I traveled by sea when I was here before," Aeron replied. It raised his spirits a little to break the silence. "I think we'll reach Soorenar by late in the afternoon. After that, it's another two days to Cimbar."

Eriale nodded. "Have you thought about what you'll do when we get there?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No. I haven't even thought about it, with-"

"I know. I haven't been myself lately, either. I didn't know Fineghal as well as you, but he was one of the noblest souls I've ever met." She smiled softly. "The world's a sadder place without him."