Corban knew the place well now, this part of the Otherworld that seemed to call to him when he slept. The green valley, a lake such a deep blue that it was almost the purple of the sky as it darkens, just before full night. The red-leaved maple that he hid beneath, and of course the beat of Meical’s wings, high above, like a heartbeat, sweeping him to the cliff face that he always landed upon, and the cave that he always entered.

And again as always, he remembered Meical’s words to him, about Asroth hunting him, about the Kadoshim flying abroad in the Otherworld. Promise me if you find yourself there again, that you will hide, do not move. Asroth’s Kadoshim fly high and they will see you before you see them. And they are not the only dangers in the Otherworld. There are creatures, rogue spirits that would do you harm if they found you.

Always he had obeyed. And yet, this time, he did not want to. Without knowing or even understanding why, just feeling that he must, he left the shade of the maple tree and began to climb the cliff. It was remarkably easy, the rocks not cutting into his palms, no sweating or straining of muscles, no dangerous up-draughts. Just a steady, constant motion, taking him up.

And then he was there, standing on a rock shelf, the entrance to a cave before him. It was a high, perfect arch, much higher and wider than it appeared from the ground, runes of the old tongue carved around it. Carven steps led into it, the flicker of torchlight within luring him on. He walked along a damp, curving corridor, down, curling in a deep looping spiral until the corridor opened into a great underground theatre, huge torches bathing the room in a flickering orange glow, a semi-circle of stone-tiered benches on the far wall full to overflowing with the white-winged Ben-Elim. And, standing before them, a small, fragile figure in the depths of the theatre; Meical.

‘When?’ a voice boomed from the massed Ben-Elim.

‘I do not know,’ Meical said. ‘Soon.’

‘It is always soon,’ the voice replied.

Meical shrugged, a distinctly human gesture in this chamber, this world, so full of the other.

‘We have waited aeons, brother, how much longer?’ other voices called.

‘How much longer?’ a thousand voices reverberated around the chamber.

‘We have waited aeons,’ Meical echoed the speakers. ‘A little longer will not hurt.’

‘How much longer?’ the voices demanded.

‘Soon,’ Meical repeated.

Corban woke with a start, looked about, a sharp pain in his neck and his hip. He was sitting in an alcove in the great hall, fires burning low. He shifted his weight, adjusting his sword hilt from where it was digging into him.

What am I doing here?

Then he remembered.