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suddenly he had the feeling that it was not the stone walls and towers that were weightless, but the dagger that was heavy. Like a real knife stuck through a painting, it was the one true thing in this night of dreams. It was the dagger’s weight alone that kept the rising wind from whirling him up like a leaf, or blowing him apart like a man of mist.
    Mark leapt through a small door in the outer walls; a blast of wind roared out with him, wild and damp as a spring storm.
    Fierce exultation gripped him, a delight almost like rage. He yelled—
    —until a horrible thought cut his triumph short.
    What if the Queen’s buggered off?
    He almost cried with relief when he saw her crouched among the rushes. “You haven’t left!”
    “There’s some words weightier than thine,” she said haughtily. “I told tha: I am Queen.”
    Mark gripped her by her astonished shoulders and bussed her on both cheeks. “And pretty as a milkmaid,” he cried. “Now, into the boat! We’re almost free!”
    The Queen stood her ground. She squinted in the grey morning light. “Caught a gash you have, boy.” She moved his shirt gently to one side just below his right collarbone.
    “It’s nowt but a scratch. Look, this whole Keep is coming down around our ears, so get—”
    “Where earnest tha by thy talisman?” Queen Lerelil whispered, staring fascinated at Husk’s charm. She ran her fingers over the crude carving as if not trusting her eyes in the dawnlight.
    Mark shrugged impatiently. “Its nowt but a trinket some awd madwoman gave me.”
    “Some old madwoman…” Lerelil murmured, still as a statue. “Tha saved my life, boy. I have not forgotten it. There is a gawd I would joy to give you.” And so speaking she reached under the collar of her elaborate gown and pulled out a golden chain from which hung a silver medallion. On it, a golden serpent with ruby eyes was biting its own tail.
    Mark touched the wooden charm hanging around his neck, staring at the Queen’s gift. By God it’s a bastard child of Lerelil’s amulet ! His eyes met hers, standing by the rushes of the eastern marge of the Red Keep, and for a moment they shared a mystery.
    A great ghostly murmuring rose from behind the walls, a babble of faint voices, barking dogs, clattering horse-hooves, shouts and orders, screams and whispers. Overhead, the Scarlet Tower began to melt and run like a great red candle consumed by a terrible heat.
    “You waste our time!” Lerelil cried. Dropping her medallion over Mark’s head she turned to clamber into the boat. He jumped in behind her, and pushed off with one tremendous shove. Rushes swayed and creaked around them, and then they were gliding across the moat. Dawn-light turned the water grey as dead men’s flesh; cherry blossoms clotted their prow. When they were almost becalmed he risked one hard, chopping oarstroke, forcing himself not to look down even when he felt his oar snag and then tear free of something like seaweed, or tangled hair.
    Mark shipped his oars when they reached the far shore. Lerelil stepped from the prow, and began to fade. “No!” Mark shouted, but understanding came too late, and he could only watch as with one stride she stepped from the one eternal night of the Red Keep and into the future.
    And then she was gone, a year from him, or twenty, or a hundred, and he had so much left to ask her.
    Shaken, Mark held the dagger well before him when he stepped from the boat. The very air tightened against him. For one sickening moment it was like walking against a hurricane; he feared he would slip back and fall into the moat.
    Then the dreamy world split like meat around the iron dagger and Mark pitched sprawling onto the bank.
    A great wind sprang up. For the space of three heartbeats the air was a storm of blossoms, a thousand years of cherry petals bursting from the bud, flowering, dropping in an instant.
    When they settled to the ground, the moat was only a grassy ditch. Here and there the sun’s