A hand caught her, and hauled her roughly back. “Stay here, Lady! I will deal with this!” Hellorin’s eyes flashed dangerously—then he vanished, to reappear on the riverbank, confronting the monster. But this time, he had cast off his puny human form. Tall he towered, far higher than the creature, cloaked in cloud and shadow with stars glinting like jewels in the branches of his great stag’s crown. Eilin gasped in awe. This was the first time she had seen the Forest Lord revealed in all his might and majesty. Lightning flashed from his angry eyes, and his great voice thundered across the valley. “Moldan—do you dare?”
The monster recoiled. Great fangs flashed white as it bellowed its defiance. Though it was using mental tones, its thoughts were so powerful that Eilin could hear them clearly. “Stay out of my business, Forest Lord. Let the Phaerie seek their prey elsewhere! This Wizard is mine!”
“I think not,” Hellorin said quietly. Eilin took an involuntary step backward, her heart chilled by the depth of menace in those few soft words. “Would you pit your power against the might of the Phaerie?” the Forest Lord went on. “Give me the Wizard, Moldan, and slink back into your mountain—ere I blast you beyond the bounds of oblivion!”
“This prey is mine! Eilin heard a sudden note of doubt in the creature’s voice.
Hellorin smiled. “Put it down, then, Moldan, and fight me for it.”
“NEVER!” The word ended in a snarl.
The monster snatched the tiny figure toward its mouth, opening those dreadful jaws . . . And from Hellorin’s hand sprang a great bolt of blue-white fire that struck the Moldan, sizzling, right between the eyes. With a shriek, the monster dropped its prey. Eilin cried out in horror, but the Forest Lord’s great hand reached out and caught the falling figure, laying it gently aside on the grass, out of harm’s way.
The monster, meanwhile, seemed to be shrinking in on itself. Smoke and bluish flame leaked from its eyes, and the jaws stretched wide in an endless scream as its great tail thrashed in agony. Vivid lightning crawled, a lethal network, across its body, searing where it touched. With one last shriek, the Moldan toppled, falling into the swiftly racing river. The chill green waters snatched it greedily, and hurled it over the edge of the falls.
As if released from a spell, Eilin dashed forward and flung herself down on her knees beside the prone form of the Mage. For a moment, hope burned bright within her . . . But the figure was not Aurian. The Earth-Mage frowned in puzzlement, taking in the dark-blond hair, the blue eyes that flew open in that moment, their gaze wide and stark with terror. “I don’t know you,” she ac-
Anvar was aching, bruised, and chilled to the bone from his immersion in the river. His battered body would not stop shaking, and his thoughts were awhirl with shock. His mind simply refused to encompass the reality of what had happened. That vast shadowy figure, the giant hand that had caught him and borne him to safety . . . Surely it had been a dream—some kind of hallucination brought on by an extremity of terror. The words of this strange woman seemed so incongruous, so—so ordinary after his last bizarre and terrifying ordeal, that Anvar burst out into hysterical laughter. Her angry scowl and her exclamations of impatience only served to make him worse. Hugging the Staff, which he had clung to desperately even in the monster’s grasp, Anvar laughed until the tears ran down his face; until his ribs ached; until he ran out of breath and began to wheeze.
A shadow fell across his tear-blurred vision: another figure had joined the woman. Wiping a sleeve across his eyes, Anvar looked up—and recognized the gigantic figure, diminished now to almost human proportions, that had defeated the Moldan. The Mage’s laughter cut off abruptly. “It was real ...” he gasped. Above the stranger’s head, like an illusory shadow, hovered the image of a branching antlered crown. Then the Mage’s eyes fastened on that hand, the same size as his own now. The hand that had been vast enough to encompass his body . . . Slowly, he looked up from the hand to those fathomless, inhuman eyes. “Who are you?” he whispered.
The man did not answer him, but looked across at the woman instead. “My sorrow, Lady,” he said. “I had so hoped for you . . . But as this is not Aurian, then who—”
“Aurian?” Anvar’s fear was forgotten. “What do you know of Aurian?” he demanded.
The woman’s hand shot out to grasp his arm, her fingers digging like claws into his skin. “What do you know of her?” she rasped. Her eyes were blazing with a savage intensity. “Hellorin said you were a Mage, but I know all of the Magefolk. You aren’t one of them! What do you have to do with my daughter?”
“You’re Eilin?” Anvar gasped. “Aurian’s mother? Then where the blazes am I?”
“In my realm,” the deep voice of the man announced. He looked across at Eilin. “I think we had better take him home.”
With that, he laid a hand on Anvar’s forehead, and the Mage knew no more.
When Anvar awakened, he was curled in a deep, soft chair before a blazing fire. A blanket of some peculiar fabric, light but warm, was draped around him, and he was dressed in a shirt and britches made from similar stuff, their hue a shimmering, changeful grayish-green, with a leather jerkin on top. For a panic-stricken instant, he looked wildly for the Staff of Earth, but to his relief it was propped against the chair beside him. Only then did he notice the low table of food and drink set out before the fire, and the figures of his two rescuers seated opposite. Looking beyond them, Anvar’s eyes widened in amazement. “Why, it’s just like the Great Hall at the Academy,” he gasped.
The man chuckled from his seat across the hearth. “D’Arvan’s words exactly! Do you still doubt, Lady, that he is a Mage?”
“D’Arvan?” Anvar interrupted in perplexity. “D’Arvan is here?” It was becoming more obvious by the minute that this must be a dream!
“You know my son?”
“What about Aurian?” The two strangers spoke together.
Anvar looked from face to eager face. “I don’t think I know anything, anymore,” he sighed.
An expression akin to pity softened the stern, sculpted face of Anvar’s rescuer. “Here ...” He handed the Mage a brimming crystal goblet of wine. “Drink, eat, refresh yourself. You are still not quite recovered from the shock of the Moldan’s attack. I will tell you what you want to know, and then . . .”—his expression grew hard again—“you will answer our questions, Mage. I am especially anxious to learn how you came by one of the Artifacts of Power.”
“And where my daughter is,” Eilin added urgently.
The explanations took some time. Anvar, desperately anxious now to return to Aurian, was forced to take comfort from the Forest Lord’s assurance that time held no sway here in this Elsewhere that was the Phaerie realm—and in truth, he wanted to learn what the Archmage had been up to in Nexis, in the absence of himself and Aurian.
If the Mage was staggered by the tale of Davorshan’s death, and what had happened subsequently to D’Arvan and Maya, he was more shocked by Eilin’s news that Eliseth was still alive. “Are you certain?” he asked the Earth-Mage.
“Aurian and I were positive that we’d killed her.”
Eilin nodded. “I have seen her, in Hellorin’s window that looks out upon the world. I imagine that you must have felt the death of Bragar—I saw the Archmage conduct his burning.” She leaned forward anxiously. “But how did you come to believe you had slain Eliseth? Tell me of yourself now—and of Aurian.”
The Earth-Mage cried out softly in astonishment as Anvar told her that he was Miathan’s son, a half-blood Mage, who had started off as Aurian’s servant, until he recovered his powers after he and his Lady had fled to the Southern Lands. Anvar wished, however, he had remembered that Eilin would not know about Aurian’s pregnancy, and Miathan’s curse on the child. He never thought to prepare her, but simply blurted out the news. Witnessing the shock and distress that he had caused, he cursed himself for a clumsy fool.