“That’s a possibility. Which means the longer it takes for us to confront her, the stronger she becomes.” He looked around, then walked to the center of the barren ground and sat down there. Taking out a familiar linen handkerchief, he held it and closed his eyes and sat motionless for some time. After a few minutes he put it away and lay down on his back with his arms outstretched.

Alec sat on a block of stone, watching over him and listening to the ravens. At last the wizard rose, dusted himself off, and motioned for Alec to join him.

“Anything?” asked Alec.

Thero turned so the soldiers couldn’t see his face and said softly, “No, and that’s interesting.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not surprised that I couldn’t feel any sign of Klia. But when I lay on the ground and tried to absorb impressions of what had been there in the past, there was nothing.”

“The tower’s gone.”

“No, I mean there was no trace of anything ever been here. It’s like someone tore the tower out of time like a rotten tooth and nothing has been here since.”

“But the town is on the other side, too. How can it be both places?”

“I don’t know, Alec. On the other plane the tower and town are both intact, perhaps just as they were the day they were sealed away. Only the tower really moved, if that’s an accurate description of what happened. There is food and water there, according to Mika. Only there, not in the town, as far as you saw?”

“That’s right. Like I said, I didn’t so much as smell a cooking fire.”

“Very strange. It’s like a memory, or a ghost, of the town exists over there, together with the ghosts of its inhabitants.”

“Where did they die, then? Here or there?”

“If that many people perished at once, there would be at least some traces of their bones among the rubble. I did a seeking for those, as well. They’re not here. Only a few animal bones, and not as many of those as you’d expect.”

“Even so, other things must have happened here since that you could feel?”

“Apparently not. The land here is just—dead. Which is significant. Something is still at work here, after all these centuries.”

“If Klia did break the seal on her side, do you think the tower would come back?”

“Perhaps, and if so, then nobody better get in the way of it.”

Alec looked around the desolate town, thinking. “Thero, if that other place is in another time, rather than another plane, then why doesn’t your magic work there and the dyrmagnos’s does?”