He said heavily, after a few moments: “I think you must go in, yes. But first, I must teach you something more. You must make the fire for yourself this time. Not like that—” smiling, as I reached for a branch to stir the embers. “Put that down. You asked me before you went away to show you something real. This is all I have left to show you. I hadn’t realised . . . Well, let that go. It’s time. No, sit still, you have no more need of books, child. Watch now.”

*   *   *

Of the next thing, I shall not write. It was all the art he taught me, apart from certain tricks of healing. But as I have said, it was the first magic to come to me, and will be the last to go. I found it easy, even to make the ice-cold fire and the wild fire, and the fire that goes like a whip through the dark; which was just as well, because I was young to be taught such things, and it is an art which, if you are unfit or unprepared, can strike you blind.

*   *   *

It was dark outside when we had done. He got to his feet.

“I shall come back in an hour and wake you.”

He twitched his cloak down from where it hung shrouding the mirror, put it round him, and went out.

The flames sounded like a horse galloping. One long, bright tongue cracked like a whip. A log fell down with a hiss like a woman’s sigh, and then a thousand twigs crackled like people talking, whispering, chattering of news . . .

It faded all into a great brilliant blaze of silence. The mirror flashed. I picked up my cloak, now comfortably dry, and climbed with it into the crystal cave. I folded it and lay down on it, with my eyes fixed on the wall of crystal arching over me. The flames came after me, rank on bright rank, filling the air, till I lay in a globe of light like the inside of a star, growing brighter and ever brighter till suddenly it broke and there was darkness . . .

*   *   *

The galloping hoofs sparked on the gravel of the Roman road. The rider’s whip cracked and cracked again, but the horse was already going full tilt, its nostrils wide and scarlet, its breath like steam in the cold air. The rider was Camlach. Far behind him, almost half a mile behind now, were the rest of the young men of his party, and still farther behind them, leading his lamed and dripping horse, came the messenger who had taken the news to the King’s son.