“Now it be time to stop thinking of dragons and the like,” Grallezar said. “Let me hear you recite the true names of the spirit lords of each sphere.”

With a sigh, Branna began the lesson. Thinking about the silver wyrm held a great deal more interest than all the memorization that dweomer entails, but she knew that the one was the key to the other.

Dallandra, however, cut that particular lesson short. Branna heard her calling Grallezar’s name in a voice brimming with excitement. With a sigh Grallezar got up and stuck her head out.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Dallandra was saying, “but—”

“Do come in,” Grallezar said. “Being as you’ve interrupted already.”

When Dallandra ducked under the tent flap and came in, she was smiling, her eyes gleaming with delight.

“And what be all this?” Grallezar said.

“I’ve just had a talk with Laz,” Dallandra said. “He’s told me about the true nature of Haen Marn, so my apologies—”

“The interruption, it be as naught.” Grallezar pointed at a cushion. “Sit you down and tell.”

“I shall do exactly that.” Dallandra flung her arms into the air and danced a few steps. “It bears on the dragon book, too. Neither of them really exists.”

“Hah!” Grallezar said. “So we did wonder.” She glanced at Branna and laughed. “You do look dumbfounded utterly.”

“I am,” Branna said. “Or do you mean, they don’t exist on the physical plane like ordinary matter?”

“Just that.” Dallandra sat down on a cushion. “You learn fast.”

After he spent some futile days searching for Berwynna’s lost mule and the book it carried, Rori took a roundabout route back to the royal alar. On his previous scouting trips, he’d seen parties of Horsekin raiders on the move. Somewhere they had to have a central force, most likely one that was traveling toward the new fort he’d seen a-building. The logical starting point for this central army lay near Taenbalapan and Braemel. Braemel, Bravelmelim as it was known in the old days, lay more west than north. He passed over fields and pastures tucked into the mountain valleys and terraces—green with crops—that climbed the lower hills like steps. Now and then he saw flocks of sheep as well as cows grazing in the mountain meadows. That first night he picked off a cow, in fact, for his dinner and found her fat and tasty.

In the morning he reached Braemel, a prosperous-looking place lying in a broad valley, a semicircle of houses set along straight streets, with the river along one edge of the town and good stone walls surrounding it on the other three sides. A straggle of huts stood outside the west gate, but when he flew low enough, he could see that they were guard stations and barracks. His shadow, vast in the morning sun, swept across the road like an omen. Shouting, soldiers ran out to watch him as he spiraled higher, well out of arrow range, and flew on.