The ground shook and the dry sandy soil fractured all around the beast. Thistly plants and spiny fingers toppled into crevices opening wider and wider. Unseen in the depths, the plants burst into flames, adding a homely note of wood ash to the rising smell of sulphur. The dragon retreated, head swinging from side to side, its ceaseless growl now ringing with wrath.

The crevices grew wider still and molten rock bubbled up to spill out over the barren ground. The trickles flowed faster down the slope, running together, merging into one swelling line of glutinous fire. The dragon walked slowly backwards, looking from one implacable stream to another. Each crawling line of burning red was curving slightly, not to follow the lie of the land but to take the most direct path to the black beast. It halted and crouched low, opening its mouth and growling so low that Kheda could barely hear it. The trickles of

molten rock slowed and dulled and the murderous heat all around died away.

Intense cold replaced it as the air above them filled with twisting whiteness.

What are all these feathers?

As Kheda's bruised wits went begging for any explanation, the soft whiteness drifted down. It wasn't a cloud but something carried on the breeze. It wasn't feathers, nor, as he next guessed, ashes. As the flakes of this mysterious stuff landed on his skin, they instantly melted. He shivered violently, gooseflesh rising all over his body. Kheda found he could move freely now. The stuff was falling thicker now, blinding him. He wiped it away from his eyes, finding it turn to water at his touch. Where the stuff was falling into the crevices and onto the motionless trails of solidifying rock, it turned to steam.

Where's that accursed dragon?

The black shape was still visible among the storm of white and wreaths of vapour. It snapped at the swirling mystery, brutal head twisting this way and that. Abruptly it sprang into the air. The furious downdraught from its wings drove the whiteness into Kheda's face where it stung like wind-flung sand. The dragon roared, sending furious eddies spiralling through the clouds of steam. It soared away, its shadowy shape soon lost in the milkiness.

Kheda ached with cold, his teeth chattering. 'Risala?'

'I'm here.' As the wind died and the whiteness began falling precipitately to the ground, Kheda wrapped her in his arms. He could feel her shivering violently through her sodden, freezing clothes.

Velindre appeared as the blue sky cleared overhead. 'Where's Naldeth?'

'Over there.' Kheda couldn't resist a shudder as he looked over Risala's damp head.

The young mage was flesh and blood once again, his

metal leg the same blacksmith's contrivance it had always been.

'Snow?' The wizard turned a ghastly gaze on Velindre. The tiny veins in both his eyes had ruptured, bleeding vivid red to utterly obliterate the whites.

'I didn't dare commit myself to anything more.' She shrugged. 'I just hoped any beast who'd spent its life hereabouts wouldn't have seen it.'

'Snow,' Kheda marvelled. 'I've read about it—'

'These people haven't.' Risala twisted in his embrace to watch the wild men and women staring astonished at the piles of white now melting rapidly as the fierce sun reasserted itself. Several matronly women ran to fetch hollow gourds as they realised this unknown stuff was turning to precious water that was just being wasted.

'How did the dragon take you unawares like that?' she snapped at Naldeth with sudden anger.

'What did it want?' Kheda asked in a more moderate tone. 'Before the snow came—'

'It's a stealthy beast, and I was concentrating on saving that woman—' The wizard stopped, closing his eyes momentarily to veil their bloodshot eeriness. 'It didn't want to kill me,' he continued painfully after a long moment. 'It wanted me to feed it. It would have been quite content to leave me here corralling these people and offering up whomever I chose when it felt hungry.' His face twisted with emotion. 'Now leave me alone. I want some peace and quiet.'

His voice rose perilously and he stumped away across the snow-covered ground. Stopping by the sodden corpse of the first feather-crowned woman, he made an angry gesture and scarlet flames leapt from the body. Flesh and bones were consumed with incredible swiftness, the snow all around shrinking away. The savages watched him disappear into the dead wizard's hut. Most were still

looking stunned, fearful respect blended with awe in their faces.

'He's worked more magic today than he'd have done in a whole circle of the compass back in Hadrumal,' Velindre said slowly. 'He needs to rest, and to eat and drink, before he exhausts himself and collapses.'

Risala pulled herself free of Kheda's arms. 'I'll see if I can persuade him.' She went over to the communal hearth where various women were looking askance at the comprehensively quenched fire. Risala clapped her hands together and pointed authoritatively at the fat fleshy leaves. A woman immediately hooked a couple out of the wet ashes and offered them up. Nodding curt thanks, Risala went on her way.

Looking around, Kheda saw that nearly all the whiteness had vanished. He shivered. The sun was beating down as hot as ever before but some chill seemed to have got into the very marrow of his bones. He stripped off his sodden and clammy tunic. 'Are you recovered enough to drive off that black dragon if it comes back?'

'I very much doubt it,' Velindre said dryly. 'Still, let's have something to eat, before all the food goes.' The wild men and women were all delving in the wet ashes and salvaging whatever they could. The magewoman walked towards the dampened fire pit and an anxious girl hastily proffered a fat spiny leaf, wizened by the fire.

'Will it come back?' Kheda waved away an offer of inadequately cooked fowl flesh and took a stuffed spiny leaf instead.

'Eventually,' the magewoman said thoughtfully. 'We gave it plenty to think about. And it gave Naldeth plenty to think about.'

'What happened to him?' Kheda struggled with the memory of what he had seen.

'I don't know.' Velindre walked over to an empty space

and sat cross-legged on the ground. 'He'll tell us when he's ready.' She drew her belt knife and slit open the spiny leaf. 'Oh.' Her prize proved to be filled with noisome coils of some worm or eel.

'You must have some idea.' Thanks to blind chance, the leaf Kheda opened contained fish, and he used his dagger to skewer a lump. It tasted sweeter than he had expected.

'You have to understand that a wizard must learn to live within the boundaries of his or her elemental affinity.' Velindre gingerly raised a twisted grey coil to her mouth, chewed and swallowed. 'Those wizards who cannot, who become totally enthralled with their element, lose all sense and caution as they go further and further, searching for the limits of their power.' She scowled. 'Only there aren't any limits. Those mages trying to find them either go utterly mad in the process and destroy themselves, or are destroyed by the Council and Archmages of Hadrumal.'

'What has this to do with dragons?' Kheda shook his head, confused.

'A dragon's power is utterly intoxicating.' Velindre closed her eyes, torn between longing and abhorrence. 'It offers a wizard the possibility of going beyond every constraint of elemental affinity that they have learned to live with, without penalty, without fear, to learn secrets undreamt of by countless generations of mages.'

'Do you think Naldeth can resist such temptation?' Kheda asked bluntly.

Velindre opened her eyes and scraped the rank contents from the inside of her leaf with her knife blade. 'Don't you think I could have found a competent mage with two flesh-and-blood feet to bring on this voyage?' She tasted the leaf pulp cautiously.

Kheda ate some more of his fish. 'What do you mean?'