"There's something I must tell you," he said. "Something I must show you. I should have long ago."

He put his hand into the pouch at his belt, took out the talisman and held it out to her.

She drew her breath in sharply, put out a hand toward it and then threw back the hand.

"Wulfert" s?" she asked.

He nodded.

"How did you get it? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I was afraid," said Duncan. "Afraid that you might claim it. I had need of it, you see."

"Need of it?"

"Against the Horde," he said. "That was the purpose for which Wulfert made it."

"But Cuthbert said…"

"Cuthbert was wrong. It has protected us against the Horde from the day I found it. They have sent their minions against us, but with a few exceptions, no members of the Horde have come against us. They have kept well away from us."

She put out both her hands and took it from him, turning it slowly, the embedded jewels blazing as the sunlight caught them.

"So beautiful," she said. "Where did you find it?"

"In Wulfert's tomb," he told her. "Conrad hid me in the tomb after I was knocked out in the garden fight. Where we first met, remember?"

"What a strange thing to do," she said. "To hide you in a tomb."

"Conrad sometimes does strange things. They usually are effective."

"And you found it there by accident?"

"When I came to I was lying on it and it was uncomfortable. I thought it was a rock someone had chucked into the tomb. At first I had meant to give it to you, if we found you again. But then, when it became apparent…"

"I understand," she said. "And now you think you can use it against the Horde. Perhaps destroy them?"

"I'm gambling on it," Duncan said. "I think so. It is apparent something has been protecting us. It must be the talisman. I think we have a weapon feared by the Horde. Why else would they swarm against us?"

"So Wulfert was right all along," she said. "The others all were wrong. They threw him out when he was right."

"Even wizards can be wrong," he said.

"One thing," she said. "Tell me why you're here. What brought you here? What is going on? Why is it so important that you get to Oxenford? You never told me that. Or Cuthbert. Cuthbert would have been interested. He had many friends in Oxenford. He wrote to them and they wrote to him. Over the years he had corresponded with them."

"Well," he said, "there is this manuscript. The story is a long one, but I'll try to tell it quickly."

He told her quickly, condensing it, using as few words as he could.

"This doctor in Oxenford," she said. "The one man in all the world who can authenticate the manuscript. Have you got his name?"

"His name is Wise. Bishop Wise. An old man and not too well. That's why we are in such a hurry. He is old and ill; he may not have too long. His Grace said his sands were running out."

"Duncan," she said in a small voice. "Duncan…"

"Yes? You know the name?"

She nodded. "He was Cuthbert's old friend, his good friend."

"Why, that is fine," he said.

"No, Duncan, it is not. Bishop Wise is dead."

"Dead!"

"Some weeks ago Cuthbert got the word," she told him. "Word his old friend had died. More than likely before you set out from Standish House."

"Oh, my God!" he said, going down on his knees beside her.

A pointless trip, he thought. All of this for nothing. The man who could have authenticated the manuscript dead before they even had set out. Now the manuscript would not be authenticated. Not now. Perhaps never. A hundred years from now there might be another man, or there might never be another man such as Bishop Wise. His Grace would have to wait, Holy Church would have to wait, the Christian world would have to wait for that other man, if there should ever be one.

"Diane," he said, choking. "Diane!"

She reached out and pulled his head into her lap, held him there, as a mother might a child.

"Go ahead and weep," she said. "I'm the only one to see. Tears will do you good."

He did not weep. He could not weep. Rather, bitterness swept in and gripped him, twisting him, rankling his soul. Until now, until this very moment, he realized, he had not known or had not let himself know how much the manuscript had meant to him—not as an abstract thing holding potential good for all the world, but to him personally. To him, Duncan Standish, as a Christian soul, as one who believed, however marginally, that a man named Jesus once had walked the Earth, had said the words He was reported to have said, had performed His miracles, had laughed at wedding feasts, had drunk wine with His brothers, and finally had died upon a Roman cross.

"Duncan," Diane said softly. "Duncan, I mourn as well as you."

He lifted his head and looked at her.

"The talisman," he said.

"We will use the talisman as Wulfert meant it should be used."

"It's all that's left," he said. "At least some good may come out of this journey."

"You have no doubts of the talisman?"

"Yes, there may be doubts. But what more is there to do?"

"Nothing more," she said.

"We may die," he said. "The talisman may not be enough."

"I'll be there," she said. "I'll be there beside you."

"To die with me?"

"If that is how it happens. I don't think it will. Wulfert…"

"You have faith in him?"

"As much faith as you have in your manuscript."

"And after it is over?"

"What do you mean? Once it is over?"

"I'll go back to Standish House. And you?"

"I'll find a place. There are other wizard castles. I'll be welcome."

"Come home with me."

"As your ward? As your mistress?"

"As my wife."

"Duncan, dearest, I have wizard blood."

"And in my veins runs the blood of unscrupulous adventurers, martial monsters, reavers, pirates, the ravishers of cities. Go far enough back and God knows what you'd find."

"But your father. Your father is a lord."

For a moment Duncan envisioned his father, standing tall-tree straight, whiffling out his mustache, his eyes gray as granite and yet with a warmth within them.

"A lord," he said, "and yet a gentleman. He'll love you as a daughter. He never had a daughter. He has no one but me. My mother died years ago. Standish House has waited long for a woman's hand."

"I'll need to think," she said. "One thing I can tell you. I love you very much."

31

The swarm rested on top of a small ridge, back from the edge of the fen. It was a terrifying sight—black and yet not entirely black, for through it ran strange flickerings, like the distant flaring of heat lightning such as one would see far off, coloring the horizon, on a summer night. At times the swarm seemed to be substantial, a solid ball of black; at other times it appeared curiously flimsy, like a loose ball of yarn, like a soap bubble very close to bursting. It seemed, even when it appeared to be most solid, to be in continual motion, as if the creatures or the things or whatever it might be that made it up, were continually striving to place themselves in more advantageous positions, rearranging themselves, shuffling about to attain a more ideal configuration. Watching it, one at times could see, or imagine he saw, a shape, an individual member of the swarm, although never for long enough to be entirely sure what it might be. And that, thought Duncan, was perhaps as well, for the glimpses that he got were of shapes and structures so horrifying, so far beyond anyone's most outrageous imaginings, that they made the blood run cold.

He spoke to those who clustered about him. "All of you know what we are to do," he said. "I will carry the talisman, holding it high, presenting it. I will walk in front, going slowly. Thus," he said, holding it high so that all could see. In the last rays of the setting sun, the jewels in the talisman caught fire, blazing like a mystic flame with all the colors of a rainbow, but brighter, far brighter than a rainbow.