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where dark clouds massed, and on her face was a pelt of rain which came in slanting waves to fold about her. Dull pain still held in her head and when she turned that a fraction it stabbed more sharply.
    Kort’s head loomed into her range of sight. He stooped to set his teeth in her jerkin, taking so tight a grip that she felt the score of his fangs on her skin. A claw hand joined, and then another, to catch at her shoulders. Together the hound and Malkin dragged her over rough ground, jolting so painfully she cried out.
    Now there was an overhang of stone above her. The rain no longer soaked her body. Thora drew a deep breath and raised a hand feebly, striving to urge Kort to loose her. But he had already done so. Sitting back on his haunches he looked down into her face. Malkin moved to her other side. Thora realized that the sleeve of her jerkin was torn and that her left arm now lay across the furred one’s knee, Malkin was spreading on a bloodywound there some of Thora’s own healing salves.
    So clear had been her vision of that other-where, that Thora, when she could brace herself up on one elbow and look out of the shallow cave her companions had found, searched for the statue, the crossroads. However, what lay beyond was wild country with no suggestion that anyone had ever passed this way before.
    Malkin, having finished tending Thora’s wound, leaned forward. Her eyes did not blaze now, but still they compelled in a way which made Thora meet that gaze squarely. She felt giddy, as if for a breath or two she had been whisked across a gulf at the bottom of which lay nothingness. Then once more she was at the crossroads, though seemingly held at a point in the air above it. She saw a dim form in the place where she herself had once stood—a form which rippled and wavered. Once again the rats emerged from the weeds, crouched to spring.
    The flash of light followed and along it sped the sparks. But these were clearer now—smaller than Malkin, yet their brilliance was wrought into the forms of the furred ones.
    From this height Thora perceived the source of that beam. A sword planted point down in the earth, its pommel a crystal. It pulsated with light, sending the beam. From behind the weapon moved a human form, distorted somewhatas if she viewed it through eyes which were not really hers.
    She saw the high-held head—no haze to conceal it now. Human—a man—young and yet not young—ageless. There was a cap of short dark hair above a wide brow, and in that hair was entwined a crooked circlet of the Lady’s own silver—as if a briary branch had been wreathed and then hardened into metal. Along it showing the soft sheen of moon gems. His flesh was moon-white also—heavy brows and long lashes so overhung his eyes that those might have been mask-hidden. There were sharp lines about nose and mouth, giving him a resolute and commanding countenance.
    Along the beam he went and—
    The vision broke for the second time. She was looking at Malkin. The furred one moved her mouth convulsively, her tongue twisted in and out, while her eyes blazed with such fire that Thora almost expected real flames to issue from them.
    “Who—?” Thora must have an answer. It was very true that the Mother spoke to her Chosen in visions, though almost always those were deliberately sought after ceremonies and fasting. That she had just been given one, when she was no full priestess, nearly violated everything she had been taught. “Who—” she began again, “is he who walks in the sword light?”
    Malkin’s hands pressed tightly against hersmall, down-covered breasts. Her tongue curled, straightened again as might a lashed whip. Still her eyes blazed.
    “Maaakilll—” The effort had been great but she had said the word at last.
    “Makil?” Thora tried to repeat it carefully.
    Malkin nodded violently. Her hands fluttered and she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. To Thora’s astonishment she saw slow drops of