Still, they held their positions, each of the Three.

Where are you, Tanaros wondered, which are you? To no avail he sought to pick a raven, his raven, .from the dark, swirling tide that enveloped the tower walls, looking to find a mischievous eye, an errant tuft of pin-feathers, from among them. Darkness upon darkness; as well pick out a droplet of water in a rushing torrent.

“The Ravensmirror is made,” Ushahin announced in a flat tone.

In the churning air, a scent like blood, sweet and fecund.

Satoris the Shaper spread his hands, drawing on ancient magic—the veins of the marrow-fire, running deep within the earth; the throbbing heart of Godslayer, that Shard of the Souma that burned and was not consumed.

“Show!”

The command hung in the air with its own shimmering darkness. Slowly, slowly, images coalesced, moving. Sight made visible. Only fragments, at first—the tilting sky, a swatch of earth, an upturned face, a scrabbling movement in the leaf-mold. A mouse’s beady eye, twitching whiskers. A drawn bow, arrow-shot and an explosion of feathers, a chiding squawk.

Such were the concerns of ravens.

Then; a face, upturned in a glade. A thread for Lord Satoris to tease, drawing it out What glade, where? Ravens knew, ravens kept their distance from the greensward. One flew high overhead, circling; their perspective diminished with lurching swiftness to an aerial view. There. Where? A greensward, ringed about with oak, a river forking to the north. And in it was a company of Ellylon.

There was no mistaking them for aught else, Haomane’s Children. Tall and fair, cloaked in grace. It was in their Shaping, wrought into their bones, in their clear brows where Haomane’s blessing shone like a kiss. It was in the shining fall of their hair, in the touch of their feet upon the earth. If their speech had been audible, it would have been in the tenor of their voices.

“What is this place?” Ushahin’s words were strained, a taut expression on his ravaged face. Always it was so. More than the children of Men who had shunned him, he despised the Ellylon who had abandoned him.

“It is called Lindanen Dale,” said the Shaper, who had walked the earth before it was Sundered. “Southward, it lies.”

“I know it, my Lord,” Tanaros said. “It lies below the fork of the Aven River. Betimes the Rivenlost of Meronil would meet with the sons of Altorus, when they ruled in the west. Or so my father claimed.”

“But what are they doing?” Vorax mused.

In the shifting visions, Ellyl craftsmen walked the greensward, measuring, gauging the coming spring. Banners were planted, marking the four corners of the Dale; pennants of white silk, lifted on the breeze, showing the device of Elterrion the Bold, a gold crown above the ruby gem of the Souma, as it had been when it was whole. The Ravensmirror churned and circled, showing what had transpired.