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" "But it is not so easy to escape them," said Gullaighn. "They are fierce and they do not let go. And they are everywhere." She lowered her voice. "Everywhere!" "By the Ransomer, woman," Roelstan growled, "what are you trying to do? You have seen this knight wield a sword. He has naught to fear from them." Simon walked a little straighten Miriamele smiled, but a look at Gullaighn's anxious face made the smile fade. Could she be right? Might there be more Fire Dancers about? Perhaps by tomorrow it would be time to leave the main road again and travel more secretively. As if echoing her thoughts, Roelstan stopped and waved at a track climbing up from the Old Forest Road, winding away into the wooded hillside. "We have made our place up there," he said. "It is no good to be too close to the road, where the smoke of a fire might bring visitors less welcome than you two." They followed Roelstan and Gullaighn up the narrow path. After the first few turnings the road had disappeared behind them, hidden beneath a blanket of treetops. It was a long and steep climb through the close-leaning trees, and the dark cloaks of their guides became harder and harder to follow as twilight came on. Just as Miriamele began to think that they would see the moon before they saw a place to stop, Roelstan halted and pulled back the thick branch of a pine tree that had hung across their path.

"Here it is," he said. Miriamele led her horse through after Simon, and found herself in a wide clearing on the hillside. In the center was a house made of split timbers, plain but surprisingly large. Smoke twined from a hole in the roof. Miriamele was taken aback. She turned to Gullaighn, suddenly full of misgivings. "Who else lives here?" The woman gave no answer. Miriamele saw movement in the doorway of the house. A moment later, a man emerged onto the dark hardpacked earth before the door. He was short and thicknecked, clothed in a white robe. "We meet again," said Maefwaru. "Our visit in the tavern was too short." Miriamele heard Simon curse, then the scrape of his sword leaving the scabbard. He pulled at her bridle to turn her horse around. "Don't," Maefwaru said. He whistled. A half-dozen more white-robed figures stepped from the shadows around the edge of the clearing. In the twilight, they seemed ghosts bom from the secretive trees. Several of them had drawn their bows. "Roelstan, you and your woman move away." The bald man sounded almost pleasant. "You have done what you were sent to do." "Curse you, Maefwaru!" Gullaighn cried. "On the Day of Weighing-Out, you will eat your own guts for sausages!" Maefwaru laughed, a deep nimble. "Is that so? Move, woman, before I have someone put an arrow in you." As her husband dragged her away, Gullaighn turned to Miriamele with eyes full of tears. "Forgive us, my lady. They caught us again. They made us!" Miriamele's heart was cold as a stone. "What do you want with us, you coward?" Simon demanded. Maefwaru laughed again, wheezing a little. "It is not what we want of you, young master. It is what the Storm King wants of you. And we will find out tonight, when we give you to Him." He waved to the other white-robed figures. "Bind them. There is much to do before midnight." As the first of the Fire Dancers seized his arms, Simon turned to Miriamele, his face full of anger and desperation. She knew that he wished to fight, to make them kill him instead of simply surrendering, but was afraid to for her sake.

Miriamele could give him nothing. She had nothing left inside of her but stifling dread. 8 A Confession "Unto her side he came, he came," sang Maegwin, "A youth dressed all in sable black With golden curls about his head And silken cape upon his back. 'And what would you my lady fair?' That golden youth did smile and say. 'What rare gift may I give to you, So you will be my bride this day? The maiden turned her face aside. 'There is no gift so rich, so fine, That I would give you in return That rare thing that is only mine.' The youth he shook his golden head And laughed and said, 'Oh, maiden sweet You may turn me away today, But soon find that you can't say no. My name is Death, and all you have Will come to me anyway ...' " It was no use. Over the sound of her own melody, she could still hear the odd wailing that seemed to portend so much unhappiness. Maegwin's song trailed off and she stared into the flames of the campfire. Her cold-cracked lips made it painful to sing. Her ears stung and her head hurt. Nothing was as it should be—nothing was as she had expected. It had seemed at first that things were going the way they should. She had been a dutiful daughter to the gods: it was no surprise that after her death she should be raised up to live among them—not as an equal, of course, but as a trusted subordinate, a beloved servant.

And in their strange way the gods had proved every bit as wondrous as she had imagined they would, with their inhuman, flashing eyes and their rainbow-hued armor and clothing. Even the land of the gods had been much as she had expected, like her own beloved Hernystir, but better, cleaner, brighter. The sky in the godlands seemed higher and more blue than a sky could be, the snow whiter, the grass so green that its verdancy was almost painful. Even Count Eolair, who had also died and come to this beautiful eternity, seemed more open, more approachable; she had been able to tell him without fear or shyness that she had always loved him. Eolair, relieved like her of the burden of mortality, had listened with kind concern—almost like a god himself! But then things had begun to go wrong. Maegwin had thought mat when she and the other living Hernystiri had faced their enemies, and by doing so brought the gods out into the world, they had somehow tipped a balance. The gods themselves were at war, just as the Hernystiri—but the gods' war had not been won. The worst, it seemed, was yet to come. And so the gods had ridden across the broad white fields of Heaven, searching for Scadach, the hole into outer darkness. And they had found it. Cold and black it was, bounded in stone quarried from eternity's darkest recesses, just as the lore-masters had taught her—and full of the gods' direst enemies. She had never believed that such things could exist, creatures of pure evil, shining vessels of emptiness and despair. But she had seen one stand on the ageless wall of Scadach, heard its lifeless voice prophesy the destruction of gods and mortals alike. All that was wrong lay behind that wall ... and now the gods were trying to bring the wall tumbling down. Maegwin would have guessed that the ways of gods were mysterious. What she would not have guessed was just how mysterious they could be. She raised her voice in song again, still hoping that she could blot out the disturbing noise, but gave it up after a few moments. The gods themselves were singing, and their voices were much stronger than hers. Why don't they stop? she thought desperately. Why don't they leave it alone?