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Fox had been out hunting wild geese for their diner.
He came back after sunset with three of them, golden. Glynis was sweeping the autumn leaves from the new terrace under the light of fireflies, an endless task. Fox handed her the golden geese.

“They look so beautiful, and so peaceful,” she said, “look at those golden feathers.”
“They are dead,” said Fox with a hint of bitterness. “I’m not plucking them”, he added with a frown.
“I know”, said Glynis. She looked at him with a puzzled look. “Come closer into the light,” she asked him. The fireflies also came closer as if they obeyed her. He came, trying to keep his head down. She touched the bruises on his forehead and tsked. He shivered with pain. “You’ve been fighting again.”

He said nothing. Instead he looked at the patio. The little rainbows were playing around Gorrash’s statue. Despite the sun being set, it was rock still. It had been broken during an attack by Leroway’s men. The shaman had tried to glue the pieces together and Fox had believed she could revive him. But it had remained still for months.

“I miss him too,” said Glynis. “But I’m sure he’s still there inside, or the little rainbows would not stay.”
“You know, a few months ago I would have believed you,” he started, “but it’s been months and nothing has changed.” Fox felt suddenly angry, at nothing and at everything. Anger was better than sadness or pain. But he didn’t want to hurt her so he grunted and walked into the house with the geese and without another word.

“Bugger,” said Maeve. “I’m out of butter. What shall we do, Fabio?”
Fabio rushed excitedly to the front door.
“Go and see if Lucinda has some butter? Good idea, but you have to do the talking. Okay?”
Clearly, I am in need of human companionship.
An old rhyme from her childhood came to mind. She would say it over and over, fast as she could without tripping over her tongue.
Biddy Botter bought bum butter. Blah said she the butters bitter but if i buy some better butter, better than the bitter butter that will make the bitter butter better.
Lucinda’s door has the number 57 on the front and a skull door knocker. Maeve’s door was numbered 22 so it made no sense at all. Lucinda opened the door a crack and peered out at Maeve.
“Oh Maeve,” she said, “Um, hi.”
“Hi. Is this a bad time? I just wanted to borrow a bit of butter if you have any spare.”
Lucinda hesitated before opening the door and gesturing Maeve in.
“Sure,” she said. “Excuse the mess.”
Maeve spotted the doll right away.
“What are you doing with Ima Indigo!”
Ima was sitting on the shelf near the the window, sandwiched between a cracked concrete buddha head and a dying fern. Maeve picked the doll up.
“May I?” she said, without waiting for a reply.
She turned the doll over and felt the back seam with her fingers. The stitching was rough and the thread didn’t match the tiny stitches on the rest of the doll’s body. She gently squashed Ima. No key.
“Where did you get this? Did you take a key out of her body?”
Lucinda patted Fabio and shook her head, annoyed at Maeve and at the same time feeling guilty.
“I found her at the market.”
“Oh my god,” said Maeve.

“You could train it to play dead,” said Finnley giving Godfrey an enigmatic smile which he found rather disturbing. “Or to sit and wait till you give the command for it to take a mouthful of your blood.”
Finnley took a moment to snigger at the thought, noting that Liz and Godfrey seemed less appreciative of her inventive suggestion.
“Anyway,” she continued, “back to Bronkel. Something I neglected to tell you … because I have been SO busy cleaning … he called the other day. He is coming to collect the manuscript in person. Next week.”
“Is this your idea of a sick joke, Finnley?” Liz suspected it was, especially coming after the ridiculous flea suggestion.
“Nope,” said Finnley. “Sorry, notifications had been turned off in my brain. Better get writing, Liz.”

The old woman picked up the box of giraffe shaped cookies from the supermarket shelf. She looked at the box wonderingly, bemused at why she’d chosen it. She almost put it back on the shelf, but a couple of tears had rolled off her nose and onto the package. She put it in her basket, sighing. She couldn’t very well put it back on the shelf now, not with her snot all over the box. What did it matter anyway, she thought, sniffing. Now that the Ministry of Transport building had burned down, what did it matter.

“Is everything ok, love?” The old woman looked at the kind expression on the woman’s face, and started to sob. “Oh dear, whatever is the matter?” Maeve asked, noticing the giraffe shaped cookies illustrated on the damp packet.

“It’s the terrible news!” the old woman replied. “The Ministry of Transport! That beautiful old building! Such a testament to man’s ingenuity! Gone, all gone!”

“But it’s not the only one though is it?” replied Maeve, wondering if the old dear was a pew short of a cathedral. “I mean, there are others.”

The old woman pulled her arm sharply away from Maeve’s gentle hand on her shoulder and glared at her.

“How dare you say that! There’s nothing like it, anywhere!” and she strode off up the aisle, angry steps making a rat tat tat on the polished floor. Her outrage was such that she forgot to pay for the giraffe shaped cookies, and marched right out of the store.

Jerk, who was watching from a security spying monitor, sighed, and heaved himself out of his seat. The one thing he hated the most about his job was apprehending decrepit old shoplifters. I bet she smells of cat wee and rancid cooking fat, he mumbled under his breath.

“Oh hello, Jerk!” Maeve intercepted him on his route to the main doors in pursuit of the aged thief, noticing his disgruntled expression. “What’s up, you’re not upset about the Ministry of Transport building too, are you?”

Nonplussed, Jerk stopped for a moment to consider the unexpected question, giving the elderly shoplifter time to hop on a bus (that symbol of man’s ingenuity) and make her escape.

“What you all don’t realize,” Liz said, “Is that all of this so called fun is in fact highly significant. You think we’re all playing around scribbling nonsense and gadding about on the lawn acting the fool for no reason just for something to do. But this is a vital and rare artifact in the future! My dears, you have no idea!”

“I think it might be vascular dementia,” Finnley whispered to Roberto, “I read about it in a magazine this morning.”

“Mint tea from the Basque country?” replied Roberto, holding his glass up to the light for a closer look.

Finnley rolled her eyes and inched closer to Godfrey, hoping for a better response when she told him her theory.

“Imagine her in a denim basque, you say? I’d rather not! HA!” Godfrey spit out a few bits of peanut with the final HA!, which was forceful enough to send a few of them flying across the room.

“You’ve got bits of nut in my Basque mint tea now!” Roberto exclaimed ~ somewhat rudely; he forgot for a moment he was just the gardener.

“I think they’ve all lost their marbles,” remarked Liz, just for the written record for the historians in the future who would find this story; and for the benefit of the AI they had unwittingly been programming all along. Although what the AI was actually being programmed with perhaps didn’t bear thinking about. A further though nagged at Liz despite her efforts to ignore it. What if it did matter? What were they creating?

Elizabeth was even more impressed when the Obviously Intelligent Daily Comment Generator mentioned something very similar to Alice’s cookies .
She was delighted to see that Sanso was one of the early arrivals to the garden party, and that he’d brought with him a rag tag assortment of strapping young Arduino time hackers.

And who was that following then? Hypatia ~ and someone else. Could it be Galatea? Liz clapped her hands delightedly. What a party this was going to be!

Finnley bustled past with her arms full of colourful bed linen, muttering under her breath.

“Would you like me to write that the French maids arrive next Finnely, perhaps they’d give you a hand with that….I’ve forgotten their names though ~ Mirabelle?”

Liz scratched her head, perplexed. Suddenly it came to her along with the sounds of a carriage approaching with a deafening clatter of hooves. “Adeline and Fanella, of course!” she exclaimed.

The horses snorted as they were reined in to a halt an the front entrance. A young woman in what appeared to be a fancy dress costume descended from the carriage.

“I ‘ave come to ‘elp Finnley wiz ze bedding!”

Liz glanced up from her communication device with a satisfied smile. She’d just invited some more characters to the garden party, characters from Elsewhere, and a few from Elsewhen. Come any time, she’d said. A riot of colours beyond the French windows caught her eye. Roberto was working wonders out there preparing for the party, it looked most enticing.

“I say, Roberto, nicely done!” Liz squinted in the bright sun as she emerged from her study into the garden.

“Oh it wasn’t me, Liz, I think it was someone called Petunia.”

“Well, that was fast! I only just invited her!”

“She has lined the pathway with colorful ROTE flowers. They’re like Alice’s bite me cookies, she says, Choose wisely.”

“Oh, so it’s a Rotes Garden is it,” Liz snorted.

“Petunia’s big into decorating with color”, Roberto said, “Looks like a tulip farm. Rainbows of ROTEs…”

“Well, that’s one less thing for you to have to take care or, which is most excellent! As I said to Finnley, just make a start and the characters will help…”

“Oh, er, by the way, Liz,” Roberto said. “I think the idea is that they are rare jewels of condensed information. Consume slowly, savor, and enjoy. The nectar is a tonic for the soul.
Like, don’t pick them all at once and shove them in a vase, kind of thing.”

Liz gave the gardener a withering look, and then changed it to a smile, thinking that withering looks in a freshly blooming garden perhaps wasn’t the thing.

“Splendid, Roberto, everything is coming along fabulously.”

Roberto continued: “To digest them is to know. and the knowing is both deep and fresh. Something new she says, that you already knew.”

Elizabeth was impressed.

A strong and loud guttural roar echoed through the mountains, ferocious and hungry.
Fox’s hairs stood on his arms and neck as a wave of panic rolled through his body. He looked at the others his eyes wide open.
Olliver teleported closer to Rukshan whose face seemed pale despite the warmth of the fire, and Lhamom’s jaw dropped open. Their eyes met and they swallowed in unison.
“Is that…” asked Fox. His voice had been so low that he wasn’t sure someone had heard him.
Rukshan nodded.

“It seems you are leaving the mountains sooner than you expected,” said Kumihimo with a jolly smile as she dismounted Ronaldo. 
She plucked her icy lyre from which loud and rich harmonics bounced. The wind carried them along and they echoed back in defiance to the Shadow.

You must remember, seemed to whisper an echo from the cave they had used for shelter for weeks. Fox dismissed it as induced by the imminent danger.


The Shadow hissed and shrieked, clearly pissed off. The dogs howled and Kumihimo engaged in a wild and powerful rhythm on her instrument.

You must remember, said the echo again.

Everobody stood and ran in chaos, except for Fox. He was getting confused, as if under a bad spell.

Someone tried to cover the fire with a blanket of wool. 
“Don’t bother, we’re leaving,” said Rukshan before rushing toward the multicolour sand mandala he had made earlier that day. Accompanied by the witche’s mad arpeggios, he began chanting. The sand glowed faintly.

Lhamom told them to jump on the hellishcopter whose carpet was slowly turning in a clockwise direction. 
“But I want to help,” said Olliver.
“You’ll help best by being ready to leave as soon as the portal opens,” said Lhamom. She didn’t wait to see if the boy followed her order and went to help Rukshan with her old magic spoon.
“Something’s wrong. I’ve already lived that part,” said Fox when the screen protecting the mandala flapped away, missing the fae’s head by a hair.
“What?” asked Olliver.
“It already happened once,” said Fox, “although I have a feeling it was a bit different. But I can’t figure out how or why.”

At that moment a crow popped out of the cave’s mouth in a loud bang. The cave seemed to rebound in and out of itself for a moment, and the dark bird cawed, very pleased. It reminded Fox at once of what had happened the previous time, the pain of discovering all his friends dead and the forest burnt to the ground by the shadow. The blindness, and the despair.
The crow cawed and Fox felt the intense powers at work and the delicate balance they were all in.

The Shadow had grown bigger and threatened to engulf the night. Fox had no idea what to do, but instead he let his instinct guide him.

“Come!” he shouted, pulling Olliver by the arm. He jumped on the hellishcopter and helped the boy climb after him.

“COME NOW!” he shouted louder.
 Rukshan and Lhamom looked at the hellishcopter and at the devouring shadow that had engulfed the night into chaos and madness.
They ran. Jumped on the carpet. Kumihimo threw an ice flute to them and Fox caught it, but this time he didn’t nod. He knew now what he had to do.


“You’ll have one note!” the shaman shouted. “One note to destroy the Shadow when you arrive!”
Kumihimo hit the hellishcopter as if it were a horse, and it bounced forward.
But Fox, aware of what would have come next, kept a tight rein on the hellishcarpet and turned to Olliver.
“Go get her! We need her on the other side.”
Despite the horror of the moment, the boy seemed pleased to be part of the action and he quickly disappeared. 
The shaman looked surprised when the boy popped in on her left and seized her arm only to bring her back on the carpet in the blink of an eye.

“By the God Frey,” she said looking at a red mark on her limb, “the boy almost carved his hand on my skin.”
“Sorry if we’re being rude,” said Fox, “but we need you on the other side. It didn’t work the first time. If you don’t believe me, ask the crow.”
The bird landed on the shaman’s shoulder and cawed. “Oh,” said Kumihimo who liked some change in the scenario. “In that case you’d better hold tight.”

They all clung to each other and she whistled loudly.
The hellishcopter bounced ahead through the portal like a wild horse, promptly followed by Ronaldo and the Shadow.

The wind stopped.
The dogs closed in on the portal and jumped to go through, but they only hit the wall of the powerful sound wave of Kumihimo’s ice lyra.
They howled in pain as the portal closed, denying them their hunt.

“Enough of all that nonsense!” exclaimed Liz, who was brimming with enthusiasm, a bit like a frothing glass of cava. “Now then, Finnley, pay attention please! I’m calling a meeting to be held this evening for ALL of our story characters. I’d like you to make sure they are all made welcome and have suitable refreshments. Yes, I know it’s short notice, but I’ll give you the key to the special pantry in the Elsespace Arrangement. Some of the characters will help you, you just need to make a start and it will all fall into place.”

Liz beamed at Finnley, who was looking aghast, and then fixed a piercing gaze on Godfrey.

“Godfrey, my good man. You know what I’m like with technical details. Your job will be to write my questions, with the relevant technical minutia. Don’t interrupt my flow with questions! Use your powers of intuition and telepathy!”

Roberto attempted to slip out of the French windows, but his yellow vest got caught on the latch.

“Not so fast, young man!” Liz had plans for the gardener. “There won’t be room inside for all the characters, so it will be a garden party. I’ll leave it to you to ensure there is plenty of outdoor furniture for people to make themselves comfortable. I’ll give you the key to the special garden shed in the Elsespace Arrangement.”

“May I ask”, Godfrey ventured, “What the meeting is to be about?”

“Indeed you may! I want input, lots of input. And ideas. The topic is Alternate Intelligence. That is a slightly better way of saying it than Artificial Intelligence, but not quite the perfect term. But we can change that later.”

“You have NO idea!” announced Elizabeth, dramatically throwing the front door open, “No idea what I’ve been through!”

“We do have an idea,” replied Godfrey, a welcoming smile playing about his lips.

“You have NO IDEA!” Liz glared at him. “You think it was all about family, but no! Oh no!” Liz tried unsuccessfully to remove her long purple scarf with a flourish, but it caught on the hook of the hatstand and tightened around her throat. Finnley came to her rescue ~ rather slowly, if truth be told ~ by which time Elizabeth’s face matched the puce of her scarf. Liz coughed, and then took a few deep breaths.

“Roberto, take care of my suitcase will you? It’s heavy. It’s full of gargoyles. Finnley, put the kettle on!”

Fox popped back into existence, blind, after what felt like a very long black out. He heard a thud on the ground as he let go of the ice flute. A strong smell of decay and cold ash rendered him dizzy. He fell on his knees, threw up and cursed when the pain caused by a little stone reached his brain. It hurt.
He rolled on the side and banged his head on a tree trunk. He cursed, grabbing his head in an attempt to contain the pain that threatened to make him faint.
Where is the hellishcopter? he thought, confused as his hands touched the sandy ground. He tried to control a wave of panic.
“Rukshan? Lhamom?”

Maybe I fell off the carpet during the transfer, Fox thought. But why am I blind?
“Olli?..” he tried. His voice broke off. _Where is everyone?”

He remained prostrated. He would have been glad to hear any noise other than his heartbeat and his quick breath.
After some time his sight came back. He would have preferred it did not. Everything was grey. The forest had burnt, and so had the cottage.
He looked around what remained of the kitchen. His heart sank when he saw what looked like a burnt body trying to escape. He went back out and found Gorrash, broken into pieces scattered near the pergola. The stones were covered in a thin layer of grey ash. Fox cried and sobbed. He couldn’t believe what had happened.
Where was everyone? Wasn’t he supposed to have the power of miracles? His heart ached.

A black silhouette slid between the burnt trees.
“Glynis! You’re aliv…” Fox’s voice trailed off. He could now see the dead trees through the burka. It was only a ghost.

She came and met him with a sad smile.
“You were not there,” she said more as a constatation than an accusation. Still Fox felt the guilt weigh on his shoulders. He wasn’t there for his friends. The people he had grown to love. The people he called family in his heart.

“What happened?”
“You were not there. The monster came right after the others came through the portal. I wasn’t prepared. They counted on you and the flute. But it was too quick. It escaped and went to the village where it merged with Leroway. Eleri tried to cast her stone spell but it bounced back and she met the same end as Gorrash.”
Fox looked at the scattered stones on the ground.
“Once it controlled Leroway, it went into a frenzy and burnt everything. Everything. Only ashes remain.”
Fox remained silent, unable to speak. It was his fault.

“You have to go back,” said Glynis’s shadow. “They count on you.”
“What?”
The breeze blew. The ghost flickered, a surprised expression on her face.
“Under the ashes in the kitchen, the last potion,” she said quickly. “It can turn back time. Bring the sh…” A cold breeze blew her off before she could finish.

“That is unfortunate,” said Rukshan when Fox told him about the dogs’ answer. They were all gathered around the fire on rough rugs for a last meal before activating the portal. For a moment shadow and light struggled on Rukshan’s face as the flames of the fire licked the woods, making it crack and break. A few sparkles flew upward into the dark starry night.

Lhamom used the magic metal spoon to serve steaming soup in carved wooden bowls, and Olliver was doing the service.
When he took his, Fox felt a chilly breeze find its way past his blanket. He shivered, put the bowl on the carpet in front of him and attempted to readjust the yakult wool blanket in a vain attempt to make it windproof. He took back the bowl and took a sip. The dogs barked in the distance. They were impatient to start the hunt. Fox shivered again.

“I could still serve as bait,” Fox said because he felt it was his fault if the plan failed. “You know, surprise the dogs while they are focused on the Shadow and make it follow me to trap it into the portal after we crossed it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Rukshan. “It’s too dangerous. If you try to do that, we could have not one but two problems to solve. And you might get stuck too.”

Fox tried not to think about the implications of being stuck here, or in between the portals. He looked at Olliver who was looking at his soup as if it was the most important thing in the world.

Rukshan shook his head. “No. It was a foolish of me to hope those dogs would help us.”

“What can we do then?” asked Lhamom. They all drank their soup, the silence only broken by the fire cracking and the dogs barking.

“I can be in several places at once,” said Olliver quickly. Fox held his breath.
Lhamom and Rukshan looked at the boy.

“I know,” said Lhamom. “You were so helpful today with the cooking and all.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rukshan. “Olliver was with me helping me with the sand all day.” He stopped. His face showed sudden understanding. “Oh! Of course,” he said. “The book we burnt. The shard’s power was not only teleportation, but also ubiquity.” Rukshan turned to look at Fox. “You don’t seem surprised.”

Fox shrugged, making his blanket slip off of his shoulders slightly. Before he answered he adjusted it back quickly before the warmth he had accumulated could vanish into the night. “Well I saw him… I mean them. How do you think I came out of the negotiation alive? I can not teleport! I don’t even know what my powers are, or if I have any now that the shards have gone.”

“Grace and miracles,” said Rukshan with a grin.
A strange cristalline noise rang to Fox’s hears.
“What? Oh! Yes. Well, that explains it then,” he said, feeling a mix of grumpiness and contentment. He finished his soup and was about to leave the comfort of his blanket to take some stew when Lhamom took the bowl from his hands. She gave him a good serving and gave him back his bowl.

“What is it about shards and powers?” she asked.
Fox, Rukshan and Olliver looked at each other.
“It’s…” started Fox.
“It’s a long story,” cut Rukshan.

“Don’t make as if I said nothing important,” said Olliver.
The red of the flames enhances his angry look, thought Fox.
“I can be at two places, even more, at once. I can still be the bait and go back home with you at the same time.”

A dog barked impatiently.

“Yes,” said Fox.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” said Rukshan, concern on his face.
“Why? I’m not a boy anymore, if that’s what it’s all about. I can do it. I already did it this afternoon.”
“Well this afternoon was nice and cosy, wasn’t it? You had plenty of light, and yes you helped Fox escape from the dogs, so you can certainly do it. But what about the Shadow spirit. We have no idea what it is, or what it can do to you. And what will happen if one of you get killed?”

Once again, they fell silent. There was a dog bark and that strange cristalline noise again. It sounded closer.
“What’s that noise?” asked Olliver. Fox suddenly realised the strange noise had nothing to do with the sound of miracles, but it was a real noise in the real world.
“What noise?” asked Lhamom. “And what are you all talking about, shards and powers and ubiquity?”
“I can hear it too,” said Fox. “I’ve heard it before, but thought it was just me.”

The noise happened again, this time sounding a lot like metallic ropes snapping on ice.
Fox wriggled his nose. There was the smell of an animal and of a human.
“I think someone is coming,” he said, sniffing the cold air. “A donkey and a human.”

It was not too long before they saw an odd woman riding a donkey. She was playing a lyre made of ice, the strings of which had a faint glow. The woman was smiling like she was having the best adventure of her life.
“Hi guys. I came to help you. You didn’t think I would remain forgotten in my cave, did you?”

“Kumihimo! Ronaldo!” said Lhamom, standing up.

Liz was lying on the living room couch in a very roman pose and admiring the shiny glaze of her canines in the pocket mirror she now carried with her at all time. The couch was layered with fabrics and cushions that made it look like a giant rose in which Liz, still wearing her pink satin night gown, was like a fresh baby girl who just saw her first dawn…

ehm, thought Finnley, eyeing Liz’s face, Maybe not her first. But to the famous author of so many unpublished books’s defence, since the unfortunate ageing spell it was hard to tell Liz’s true age.

Finnley looked suspiciously at the fluffy cushions surrounding Liz. Where do they come from. I don’t recall seeing them before. I don’t even recall the couch had that rosy pink cover on it. She snorted. It sure looks like bad taste, she thought. She looked around and details that she hadn’t seen before seemed to pop in to her attention. A small doll with only one button eye. Reupholstered chairs with green pattern fabrics, a tablecloth with white and black stripes, and a table runner in jute linen… Something was off. Not even Godfrey would dare do such an affront to aesthetic, even to make her cringe.

Finnley went into the kitchen, where she rarely set foot in normal circumstance, and found a fowl pattern fabric stapled on one wall, a new set of… No, she thought, I can not in the name of good taste call those tea towels. They look more like… rubbish towels.

“Oh, my!” she almost signed herself when she saw an ugly wine cover. Her mind was unable to find a reference for it.

“Do you like it?” asked Roberto.
Finnley started. She hadn’t heard him come. She looked at him, and back at the wine cover. She found herself at a loss for words, which in itself made her at loss for words.
“It’s a little duckling wine cover,” said Roberto. “I made it myself with my new sewing machine. I found the model on Pintearest.” saying so, he stuck his chest out as if he was the proud duck father of that little ugly ducklin. Finnley suddenly recovered her ability to talk.
“You certainly nailed it,” she said. In an attempt to hold back the cackle that threatens to degenerate in an incontrollable laugh, it came out like a quack. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her head: “You can not hold energy inside forever, my little ducky, it has to be expressed.”

Uncomfortably self conscious, Finnley looked up at Roberto with round eyes.
“I…”
“Oh you cheeky chick,” said the gardener with a broad smile. He pinched her cheek between his warm fingers and for a moment she felt even more like a child. “I didn’t know you are so playful.”

Somewhere in the part of her mind that could still work a voice thought it had to give him points for having rendered her speechless twice.

“You can’t stay here forever,” said Margoritt. The words came out of the blue and it took a few moments for Glynnis to make sense of them. The two women had been working together in silence as they collected the plentiful purple fruit of the Droog tree in preparation for bottling.

“Oh, well, no of course not,” said Glynnis without conviction.

“You are attractive enough now we can see you without those scales,” continued Margoritt sternly. “There is no need to hide away here in the forest. You need to think about what you want to do next.”

Margoritt’s words stung and Glynnis lifted her hand reflexively to her head. Two small bumps were all that remained of the Sorcerer’s curse. Eleri had cut a fringe for her and the bumps were barely visible. In a funny sort of way, she liked the reminder of the bumps. When she touched them she felt strong.

Suddenly Margoritt’s shoulders seemed to slump in on her body and Glynnis thought how tiny she had become.

“There has been no word from the others for several moons now and I think we all need to face facts,” Margoritt said quietly. She put down her basket and leaned against a tree trunk for support. “We’ve tried but we don’t have the resources to fight Leroway any longer and truth is this body is old and tired. I have a sister in the North who I can stay with for a while. Just while I gather my strength.”

Glynnis was silent. She wished she could find words to reassure Margoritt but knew anything she said would sound trite. They were both aware of the dangers which faced the travellers. And though she had tried, she had not found a spell to contact them.

“The mountain will not give up its treasure easily but I know they would hasten to return if they were able. And they have much strength between them. We must not give up hope,” she said softly at last and Margoritt nodded.

Glynis shivered. The Droog trees were casting long shadows over the garden like twisted old men. “It’s getting cold … maybe we should go in. Tomorrow is soon enough to make plans.”