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Arget said from the lake, the reflection said. “I am at one with you now, as I ought to be. Fly.”
    The goddess grew still. The tale was done.
    â€œDid he fly away?” Frain asked after a silence.
    â€œWho knows? The tale is your own, Frain, and you will show us the end to it.”
    â€œBut how so?” Frain creased his brow in puzzlement. “Do I have a brother of whom I know nothing?”
    â€œThe dark twin, the one within. You have seen him.”
    Frain shuddered and seemed to shrink back. “What does all this have to do with Shamarra?” he asked.
    â€œLittle enough.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œShamarra wants nothing but vengeance,” the goddess warned. “And your love of her means nothing, not even protection, for you will not be able to face her until you have touched the opposing threads of your own life.”
    Trevyn translated that with some difficulty. “Threads?” Frain murmured in bewilderment when he was done.
    â€œAs on the loom,” the goddess said impatiently. “Must I explain everything? No good will come to you until dog meets wolf. You are but a puppy now, in puppy love—is it truly Shamarra you seek?”
    The question caused Frain some unease. He stood breathing heavily. “If Shamarra is death, yes,” he said at last.
    â€œShamarra is danger, but your death will not be so easy to come by. You are an immortal, by your own folly, and your destiny is woven into the pattern. Shamarra is an aspect of Vieyra the hag who is a form of my being which is a mask worn by the nameless One who is infinite—and you are the merest thread in the cloak of the infinite, Frain. You are a fleck, a cloud wisp, a leaf floating on the turning tide, no more.”
    He stood silent.
    â€œNo, Frain, it is your own deliverance you seek,” Alys said in tones of boredom, the moonlike circle of light said, faintly pulsing.
    â€œShamarra—” Frain began. He must have been bewitched to cleave so to thoughts of Shamarra.
    â€œShe does not care about you,” the goddess snapped. “And she will squash you like a fly if you come between her and her prey. Now listen, if you are to be of any use.”
    â€œUse to whom?” Frain asked warily.
    â€œSuch temerity.” The goddess did not sound amused. “Listen, I say. When fire weds with flood, redemption will come to you, no sooner. When you have known the power of the fern flower, it will come to you. That is your quest. Go now.”
    â€œBut where?”
    â€œEast.” The moonform of the goddess dimmed into dusk, then darkness. “Maeve and Dair will help you,” added a voice in the night. A breeze blew, and then all was silent.
    â€œBut where is Shamarra?” Frain cried out. There was no answer, and he turned away from the tree that stood unseen somewhere in the night, his one good hand clenched into a fist, trying to contain his fury.
    â€œThe one question I have come all this way to ask her,” he panted, and then his anger choked him and he could not go on.
    â€œFrom what the goddess said, you would do well to stay far from Shamarra,” Trevyn remarked.
    â€œI will not believe she is my enemy,” said Frain. “Can not, will not.” Anger had left his tone to be replaced by a dead and settled desperation that I for one found far more fearsome. What ailed him, that he would not heed the word of the goddess? Trevyn put an arm around him, as if to warm the cold enchantment that was on him.
    â€œYou will not be able to sleep until you have vented your rage,” he said. “Shout, weep, pound on me, something.”
    â€œI am seldom able to sleep in any event.” Frain shrugged off the embrace, gently but sulkily. “Can we be gone from here?” he asked.
    â€œIn the pitch dark? Well, why not?” Trevyn liked challenges. “Dair, what is needed to roam the night?”
    A good nose .
    â€œYou lead,