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that.”
    “So be it,” said Ridmark.
    A dark thought flitted across his mind. If he
attacked them, he might well overpower them. Their comrades would
pursue him. Perhaps they would kill him.
    And he could rest at last…
    Ridmark shook off the notion and waited.
    A short time later two men approached and spoke in
low voices to the first man-at-arms.
    “You will accompany us,” he said.
    Ridmark nodded and walked through the gates of Dun
Licinia, the men-at-arms escorting him.

    ###
    Calliande opened her eyes.
    She saw nothing but utter blackness, felt nothing but
the cold stone beneath her back, its chill soaking through her
robes. She took a deep breath, her throat and tongue dry and rough.
Something soft and clinging covered her face and throat, and she
tried to pull it off. But her shaking hands would not obey, and
only after five tries did she reach her face, her fingers brushing
her cheek and jaw.
    She could not see anything in the blackness, but she
recognized the feeling of the delicate threads she plucked from her
face.
    Cobwebs. She was pulling cobwebs from her jaw.
    A wave of terrible exhaustion went through her, and a
deeper darkness swallowed Calliande.

    ###

    Dreams danced across her mind like foam driven across
a raging sea.
    She saw herself arguing with men in white robes,
their voices raised in anger, their faces blurring into mist
whenever she tried to look at them.
    A great battle, tens of thousands of armored men
striving against a massive horde of blue-skinned orcs, great
half-human, half-spider devils on their flanks, packs of beastmen
savaging the knights in their armor. Tall, gaunt figures in pale
armor led the horde, their eyes burning with blue flame, glittering
swords in their hands.
    The sight of them filled her with terror, with
certainty that they would devour the world.
    “It is the only way,” she heard herself tell the men
in white robes, their faces dissolving into mist as she tried to
remember their names. “This is the only way. I have to do this.
Otherwise it will be forgotten, and it will all happen again. And
we might not be able to stop him next time.”
    She heard the distant sound of dry, mocking
laughter.
    A thunderous noise filled her ears, the sound of a
slab of stone slamming over the entrance to a tomb.
    “It is the only way,” Calliande told the men in white
robes.
    “Is it?”
    A shadow stood in their midst, long and dark and
cold, utterly cold.
    “You,” whispered Calliande.
    “Little girl,” whispered the shadow. “Little child,
presuming to wield power you cannot understand. I am older than
you. I am older than this world. I made the high elves dance long
before your pathetic kindred ever crawled across the hills.” The
shadow drew closer, devouring the men in the white robes. “You
don’t know who I truly am. For if you did…you would run. You would
run screaming. Or you would fall on your knees and worship me.”
    “No,” said Calliande. “I stopped you once
before.”
    “You did,” said the shadow. “But I have been stopped
many times. Never defeated. I always return. And in your pride and
folly, you have ensured that I shall be victorious.”
    The shadow filled everything, and Calliande sank into
darkness.

    ###

    Her eyes shot open with a gasp, the cobwebs dancing
around her lips, her heart hammering against her ribs. Again a
violent spasm went through her limbs, her muscles trembling, her
head pulsing with pain.
    Bit by bit Calliande realized that she was ravenous,
that her throat was parched with thirst.
    And she was no longer in the darkness.
    A faint blue glow touched her eyes. She saw a vaulted
stone ceiling overhead, pale and eerie in the blue light. The air
smelled musty and stale, as if it had not been breathed in a very
long time.
    She pressed her hands flat at her sides, felt cold,
smooth stone beneath them.
    On the third try she sat up, her head spinning, her
hair falling against her shoulders.
    She lay upon an altar of stone, or