Safar wished his friend would awaken. He felt lonely and a tremendous sense of loss had wormed a hole in his gut. There was also dread crouched there. Dread for the future, although he couldn't make out what he ought to fear. He tried to imagine himself ten years from now, a mature potter crouched at the wheel, hands forming wet clay into a perfect vessel. But each time a vague image formed he couldn't hold on to it and it would vanish. Safar struggled to imagine any sort of future at all. Not for himself, but the world. What would it be like if he lived a full span? But his mind seemed to become clouded with a yellow, biting mist.

Miserable, he gave up. He was cold and pulled his blankets close and stretched out on his leafy bower. As he waited for sleep to come he saw the first rays of the rising sun spilling over the ridges. They were the color of blood and so powerful that a distant promontory pushed out from that portion of the range as if it were alive.

Safar closed his eyes, whispering prayers for the souls of all the people who had died in his visionthe handsome people who'd once danced under fruited trees on an island at world's end.

And then he slept a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

When Safar opened his eyes again the sun was higher, casting a peaceful glow on the morning scene. Iraj was bustling about, poking the fire into life and getting things out for breakfast. But when he saw Safar's face he spotted the misery there and asked what was wrong. Still shaken by the vision, Safar blurted out the whole tale.

Iraj made no sign of surprise the whole time Safar spoke and when the story was done he said, Don't trouble yourself, Safar. It was only a bad dream. Some of those almonds we ate were probably green."

"It was no dream, Safar protested. But a vision of something that actually happened. It was the cause of the fiery shower we saw last night."

Iraj gave his friend an odd look. Why do you think that? Have you had visions before?"

"Yes, Safar said in a low voice. Sometimes about things that are going to happen. Sometimes about things that are happening."

"Do they always come true?"

Safar shrugged, miserable. Mostly."

Iraj squatted down beside Safar. I've thought since we met you were keeping something from me, he said. Is that all of it?"

Safar shook his head. No."

"Do you want to tell me the rest?"

"Not yet."

Iraj nodded. We have time."

Safar sat numbly as Iraj did all the necessary work, packing their things, gathering up the animals, and loading the llama. When it was time to go Safar's mood had improved. Everything seemed so normal in the light of day. Visions and sorcery had no place amid such brightness. The morning air was cool and soul cleansing. The birds were out, pecking among the dewdrops for breakfast. Butterflies perched on broad leaves, drying their wings in the warming sun. Fat sleepy bumblebees peeped from the blossoms.

Iraj whistled a merry tune as they set out and he kept it up for most of the morning, although Safar saw him glance in his direction every now and then, eyes hooded, as if measuring. After a time Safar pushed the vision away and made it into the mere nightmare that Iraj had suggested. He began to feel foolish for even mentioning it. He remembered his father's caution that the mountains could create a melancholy, distrustful mood, and finally he decided that what he'd seen was no vision, but the result of a fevered imagination brought on by melancholy's chill.

In a short time his own youthful spirits rose naturally to the fore and he joined in Iraj's tune. As they whistled their eyes met and their lips twisted into grins that turned the notes into airy bleats and they both exploded with laughter. The laughter was followed by much giggling over silly boys jokes. They staged mock fights and wrestled, behaving like the striplings they were.

The day was half gone by the time the two friends reached their goal. The ground was covered with hard-packed snow, marked here and there by green shoots struggling out to greet the spring sun. The day was warm and windless and as the trail steepened they began to perspire from the effort of their climb, forcing them to shed their coats. The narrow path curved and swooped over the snowy rocks, carrying them to the summit. Progress was impossible to mark. In many places broad overhangs and outcroppings blocked their view of everything but the rocks around them and the path under their feet. The goats and llama scrambled ahead, disappearing around a sharp bend.

Even though Safar knew what to expect when he rounded that bend, the view leaped on him as suddenly and delightfully as the first time he'd come this way.

They emerged into bright light, finding themselves on a broad ledge looking out across the northern side of the mountain range. Just below was a small, grassy hollow where mountain berries abounded. A spring burst from the rock beneath their feet, plummeting down to gather in a crystal pool in the center of the hollow. The goats were gamboling among the berries, bleating with joy. The llama ignored his less-than dignified cousins of the wool, his snout already buried deep in one of the berry bushes.

Falling away from the green hollow was a wonderland of white-capped crags that tumbled down to the great desert wastelands of the north. Fat columns of towering clouds drifted across the blue skies, islands of layered browns and grays and cottony whites. The desert sands caught the sunlight, casting it back at the skies and the whole appeared to be formed of glittering, multi-colored gems.

Beyond the desert there was nothing to stop the eye. Safar's vision sailed swiftly for the horizon's rim, a dark blue line where the vault of the sky mated with the earth. He heard Iraj gasp and knew that even heborn to the vast southern plainshad never looked such a great distance. The view was overwhelming but everything also seemed enlarged in the thin air so the horizon somehow appeared closealthough Safar knew from the caravan masters that it would take much time to travel so far.

He glanced at his friend, who had a foolish grin on his face. Iraj reached outhesitantlyas if trying to touch the horizon. Safar laughed for he'd done the same thing the first time he found the place.

"Follow me, he said. There's more."

Safar shed his light pack and clambered down the rocks running along the rushing spring. About half way the water sheeted over a cave mouth. Safar pointed it out to Iraj, then showed him how to edge his way between the falling water and the rock face and duck into the cave.

He'd left materials for torches there on his last visit and he quickly assembled several, then struck sparks with his flint tool to fire one. Instantly the cave was flooded with an eerie light. The walls and floors and ceiling were carved from smooth, green stone that captured all light and flung back a ghostly glow.

When Iraj had recovered from his initial amazement he fired a torch of his own and peered about, noting the place where Safar sometimes made a fire when the weather was cold. Then he saw a mass of pentagrams and magical symbols and star signssome old, some newerinscribed on one wall and the floor.

"A wizard's den, he said.

Safar nodded, not mentioning that the clumsier and newer symbols were his attempts to copy and learn from ancient masters. He'd yet to make magic with them, hampered as he was by youthful doubts. But in the back of his mind he knew it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to the temptation to cast a real wizard's spell.

Safar pointed to a series of faded red symbols etched on the floor. They led deeper into the cave, as if indicating a path. Iraj gaped as he recognized the symbolsthe demon moon and comet of The Conqueror.