'Yes,' he said. 'I am.'
'He is Brune,' said Tarantio, with a wide smile.
'Yes . . .' he said. 'I am Brune. Pleased to meet you.'
'And I am Tarantio,' said the swordsman, taking her outstretched hand and raising it to his lips. With another dazzling smile she eased past them and made her slow, ungainly way down the corridor.
'This way,' said Ceofrin, leading them into a wide room with two well-crafted beds of pine. The ceiling was white and low, supported by long oak beams, and there was a stone-built fireplace set against the northern wall. The wide windows were leaded and Tarantio moved over to them, glancing out and down on the cobbled square. 'It is cold now, but I'll get a maid up to light the fire. Then it'll be cosy, you mark my words.'
'It is fine,' said Tarantio, reaching into his pouch and producing his last gold coin. He flipped it to Ceofrin and the tavern-keeper hefted the coin. 'This will leave you with nineteen silvers,' he said. 'I will have a servant bring the remainder to you.'
'Is there a bath here?' asked Tarantio.
'Aye. I'll get the water heated - it will take around half
an hour. It's on the ground floor - the door behind where the harpist is practising.'
As Ceofrin left the room Brune walked to the first of the beds and sat down. 'Oh,' he said, 'wasn't she beautiful?'
Tarantio dropped his saddlebags by the far wall. 'A vision,' he agreed. 'Shame about the leg.'
'Did I seem very stupid to her, do you think?'
'A man who suddenly can't remember his own name is very rarely considered a genius,' said Tarantio.
'But I think she was pleased by your reaction to her beauty.'
'You really think so?'
Tarantio did not reply. Shucking off his coat and tugging off his boots, he lay down on the second bed.
Brune lay back, picturing Shira's smile. Life was suddenly full of sunlight.
One hundred and twelve miles north-east, above the flanks of the highest mountain of the Great Northern Desert, a black vulture banked on the thermals, gliding towards the south, its keen eyes scanning the desert for signs of movement. It banked again, this time towards the west. The vulture did not hear the low, rumbling sounds from the peak of the mountain, but it saw boulders shiver and tremble. One huge stone rolled clear, bouncing down the red slope, dislodging hundreds of smaller stones and sending up a cloud of crimson dust. The vulture dipped its wings and flew closer.
A fissure opened, and the bird saw a small, dark object exposed to the light.
It was the last sight the vulture would ever experience. . .
A fierce wave of freezing air erupted from the mountain-top, striking the bird and ripping away its feathers. Dead in an instant, the vulture fell from the sky.
On the mountain-top a black pearl shimmered in the sunlight. The spell holding it wavered and shrank, then fell away like a broken chain.
In the warmth of the sun the black pearl swelled to the size of a large boulder. Blue flames crackled around it, hugging to the surface, flaring into lightning bolts that blazed in every direction.
Sixty miles away a young shepherd boy, named Goran, watched the display from the green hills south of the desert. He had seen dry storms before, but never one such as this. The sky was not dark but brilliantly blue and clear, and the lightning seemed to be radiating from a mountain-top like a spiked crown of blue-white light. He climbed to a high vantage point and sat down. As far as the eye could see, the dead stone of the desert filled his vision.
The lightning continued for some time, without thunder or rain. The boy became bored with the lights, and was about to descend to his flock of sheep when a dark cloud rose up from the distant mountain. From here the cloud looked no larger than a man's head but, considering the distance, Goran guessed it to be colossal.
He wished his father were here to see it, and perhaps explain the phenomenon. As the cloud continued to rise, swelling and growing, filling the sky, Goran realized that it could not possibly be a cloud. It was perfectly round, the perimeter sharp and clearly defined. Like the moon. Like a black moon - only twenty times the size.
No-one back at the village was going to believe this, and Goran could feel his irritation rising. If he told them they would laugh at him. Yet, if he said nothing, he might never learn the reason for the phenomenon.
He was only thirteen. Perhaps colossal black moons had been seen before in the desert. How could he find out without risking derision?
These thoughts vanished as the black moon suddenly fell from the sky, striking the point of the seemingly tiny mountain peak like a boulder crushing an anthill. But the black moon did not crush the mountain.
Instead it burst upon the stone.
Goran scrambled to his feet, fear causing his heart to pound. No longer solid, the moon had become a gigantic tidal wave, hundreds of feet high, roaring across the desert, sweeping towards the hillside on which he stood. Too frightened to run, Goran stood petrified as the black wall advanced, engulfing the red rocks of the desert. On the hillside the flock of sheep panicked, and ran. Goran just stood there.
As the tidal wave devoured the miles between them Goran saw that it was shrinking, and from his high vantage point he found he could see beyond the advancing black wall. Behind the wave, the land was no longer dead rock and shimmering heat hazes; there was the pale green of pastures and meadows, the deeper hues of forests and woods. And more incredible yet, as the shrinking black wave grew closer he saw a strange city appear behind it, a city of dark domes like thousands of black moons wedged together.
The tidal wave shrank and slowed as it neared him, until at last it gently lapped at the foot of the hills, seamlessly joining to the grass where his sheep fed.
Goran sat silently, jaw agape. There was no desert now, no hint of the gloomy, depressing stone. Verdant hills and valleys greeted his gaze, and away to the right a glistening stream rippled down over white rocks, joining to a river that vanished into deep woods.
Leaving his sheep to feed on the new grass he ran back down the hills and up along the deer trail, his heart thumping. Cresting the last rise before the village, he ran down to the main street and found his father, the farmer Barin, taking lunch with the blacksmith, Yordis, outside the forge.
Swiftly the boy told the men what he had seen. At first his father laughed and, leaning forward, smelt his son's breath. 'Well, it is not wine you've been drinking,' he said, ruffling Goran's hair.
'Perhaps he fell asleep, Barin,' offered the blacksmith, 'and dreamt the whole affair.'
'No, sir,' insisted the boy. 'But even if I had, I would have had to be awake to run back and tell you about it.
I swear the desert is gone, and there is a city no more than five miles from our hills.'
'It is a dull day,' said Barin, 'and a ride will make it more interesting. But be warned, Goran, if there is no city I shall take off my belt and flay your buttocks till they bleed!' Swinging to the blacksmith, he said,
'You wish to see this city, my friend?'
'I wouldn't miss it for the world,' said Yordis. The two men saddled their mounts and, the boy riding behind his father, set out for the hills.
Once there, the good humour vanished, and the two men sat their horses and gazed silently at the distant city.
'What in Hell's name is going on?' asked the smith.
'I don't know,' Barin replied. 'Ride back and fetch the others. The boy and I will wait.'
The smith rode off as father and son dismounted. 'It is a magical city,' said the boy. 'Perhaps the Eldarin have come back.'