Raj Ahten dismissed Gaborn’s offer without a reply and said to Binnesman, “You are right. I will not join you, Earth Warden—not because I seek honor, but because you serve the snakes and field mice as much as you do mankind. I do not trust you. Our affairs matter nothing to you.” When he spoke of snakes and field mice, Raj Ahten glanced contemptuously toward young Prince Orden.

“Ah, but the affairs of men matter very much to me,” Binnesman said. “In my estimation, men may be no greater than field mice, but certainly men are no less.”

Raj Ahten said in a seductive voice, “Then serve me.”

Binnesman leapt up on a fallen obalin with all the energy of a young man. He stared down among the tiny white flowers that shone in the starlight, there among the circle of stones, and with a motion bade Prince Orden and the others to step back.

He said to Raj Ahten. “You seek to use me as a weapon, but it is given to me only to protect. You lack faith in the power that I serve. Here then. Let me show you a weapon. . . .”

Jureem thought that the wizard would uncover some staff of power that lay hidden in the grass, or perhaps some ancient unbreakable sword.

Binnesman’s manner suddenly became somber, and he swung his staff above his head in three slow arcs, then reached down and, with its tip, pointed a few feet ahead.

Suddenly a long swath of grass tore its roots away from the ground.

There, on the dark earth, Jureem could discern what looked like bones, as if something had died here in ages past, and had lain rotting under the ground.

But as he peered closer, Jureem saw that these were not bones—merely stones and sticks and roots that had been hidden. They appeared to be laid out in the form of a man. Jureem saw it first as Binnesman drew near a stone shaped like a head. Yellowed boars’ tusks were arranged around the stone skull, like enormous teeth. There were dark holes in the stone, as if for eyes.

As Jureem studied, he saw that other stones made up the bones of hands; the horns of oxen splayed out from them like claws.

But if these stones and pieces of tree limb formed the skeleton of a man, then it was a strange man. Tendrils of roots lay among the stones and spars, forming odd networks, like veins running through the huge skeleton.

Binnesman raised his staff. The oaks along the hills suddenly seemed to hiss. Wind stirred the high branches, so that leaves seemed to give voice. Yet here in the glade, the air was perfectly still.

Terror filled Jureem, for he could feel earth power rising, as if at some unspoken request, from the stone beneath the ground, filling this little field.

Binnesman again waved his staff high in slow circles as he chanted,