"Okay, slow down, we're coming to the top of the sea-cliff."

"It is thirty-six meters away, Rod." Nonetheless, Fess did begin to slow. He went up the last few yards to the brink of the cliff at a trot and stopped.

Rod stared down in horror. Horns, whelks, talons, saber-teeth, tentacles—horribly distorted creatures filled the meadow, parodies of animal forms, some combining two or three beasts, some part animal and part human. More poured out of the mist, rushing up the slope of the beach toward the grass at its crest. Thankfully, the rising sun was already beginning to burn away the fog.

That thought brought Rod out of his paralysis. Scanning the plain, he saw his son standing on the grass at the top of the beach with Alea beside him. Anger and fear shot through him. "Elves! Isn't there an elf around?"

"Here, Lord Warlock."

Rod looked down, staring in amazement at fifty elves who appeared from the grass, one standing head and shoulders above the rest. "Puck! I might have known you'd be onto this. Quick! Knock them over"

"We cannot." The elf's face was taut with strain, sweat trickling from his brow as he glared at the monsters. "Fierce magic protects them; all our power is brushed aside."

"Then feed your power into Magnus! Added to his and Alea's, it might be enough to make the difference."

"We have tried, Lord Warlock."

Startled, Rod whipped his gaze to the other side of his horse and saw Brom O'Berin. "Save your grandson, Brom! He doesn't have the good sense to leave this alone and wait for the army!"

"Only magic can prevail against this horde," Brom said, tight-lipped, "and that which gives power to them is too alien from ours."

"Maybe Magnus …"

"We cannot send our power into him," Brom said, never taking his eyes from the man who was his grandson. "He has been too long from the soil of Gramarye. We cannot feed him."

"I can!" Rod cried. "I'm his father! He has my genes in him no matter where he goes, and they're not made of the substance of Gramarye! Funnel power into me, and I'll channel it to him!"

Brom stared at him a moment, then gave a taut nod. "Come down."

Rod dismounted and knelt in the grass. Brom seized his right hand, Puck his left, and the psi power of hundreds of elves coursed through him, almost making him faint—but he held on to consciousness, waited until his system adjusted to the flow of energy, then stared at his son, reaching out mind to mind, and channeled the flow of psi power into Magnus, adding all of his own, bringing it up from the very depths of his being.

MAGNUS REELED WITH the sudden influx of power thrilling through him; he could only think, So this is how a high-voltage line feels! Alea looked up in alarm, thrust her shoulder under his arm as he staggered and held him up. Magnus steadied and straightened, still feeling so full of psi energy that he must burst. Steady on his feet, he glared at the manticore that charged up at him and thrust Alea behind him. They had fought back-to-back many times before; her staff came up even as she pressed her shoulders against his, still feeding her psi power into him, but ready to defend.

She hadn't anticipated a living mace, a monster the size of a truck but bristling with spikes, with a curved and gleaming horn thrusting from its nose. The nightmare charged her, lowering its head to aim the glittering point at Alea's heart.

THE PEASANTS CAVORTED around Geoffrey, quaffing long drafts of ale and singing ballads praising the Crown. Geoffrey raised his mug with them, forcing laughter as he went from group to group to raise his mug in a toast. Finally he stumbled out of the crowd—and found Quicksilver waiting for him, hands on hips, with a huge warhorse behind her. "There is small time! Can you not move more quickly?"

"Let us hope I can!" Geoffrey went around the equine barrier that would block him from the sight of the party.

"We, you mean!" Quicksilver was right behind him and threw her arm around his waist.

"I fear you may be injured." But Geoffrey wrapped an arm around her shoulders a second before he teleported with a bang.

The warhorse stamped nervously and whinnied his disapproval.

The blast of their arrival echoed in their ears; they found themselves on the bank near the river-mist they had entered once before—and saw a beast that looked rather like a rhinoceros, only bristling with spikes all about and with a very sharp horn, trotting wide around Magnus to get at Alea.

"Upon it!" Quicksilver cried, and dashed to help her new friend.

Two swords stabbed the beast's flanks.

WITH A FEELING she was doomed, Alea set the butt of her staff in the earth, aiming the tip toward the horned monster who hurtled toward her—but at the last second, it screamed and swerved, whirling about. She stared, disbelieving her own eyes—then saw the streaks of dark blood on its flanks just before she heard a muffled explosion, and the beast stumbled and fell to show her Geoffrey and Quicksilver, swords bare and bloodied. Alea gave a glad cry. Grinning, Quicksilver leaped to stand by her side, sword ready for whatever might come.

Geoffrey stepped up back-to-back with her, beside his brother, just as the manticore's head disappeared in a cloud of mist. Geoffrey turned his glare on the giant snake with knife-like fangs, coiled to spring at them. It exploded. "No time for finesse," he snapped, then turned to see a scaly tail whipping toward him with a spike on the end. He ducked; as it flashed by overhead, he swung his sword up high to chop it off. Its owner shrieked like a steam whistle, but the tumbling tail slashed Magnus's shoulder on its way to the ground.

There were more scaly ropes coming toward them; a snake-headed woman with four spider-legs whipped a tentacle at Geoffrey as he straightened.

"He is mine!" Quicksilver snapped, and chopped with her own sword. The tentacle went flying as its owner screamed, but another slapped around Quicksilver's ankles. Still screaming, the monster jerked, sending Quicksilver tumbling to the ground, where a spider-leg reached with a dripping talon.

Geoffrey chopped it off, then swung his sword in a figure-eight; the monster didn't stay to find out where it would strike but backed off quickly. She had distracted Geoffrey long enough, though; a feathered monster struck from above, laying open Geoffrey's forehead, then reaching for his eyes. Quicksilver sprang to her feet and skewered the bird, then swung her sword snapping out in a line; the carcass flew off to strike the next attacker in the face.

They were all around now, a solid wall of fangs, tentacles, and talons. Alea struck again and again with her staff even as she channeled her psi power into Magnus; claws laid open her arm, and her grip weakened, but she didn't even look, only swung her staff all the harder, straight between the monster's eyes. It exploded, and she knew Magnus was still fighting with his mind.

High above, on a sea-cliff, Allouette, Gregory, and Cordelia held hands, merging their power as they glared down at the beach. Halfway across it, a line of fire leaped up, and most of the monsters shied away in terror. A few jumped through, though, and charged blazing and shrieking into the melee around Magnus and Alea—and there were certainly enough horrendous shapes crowding in about them.