Then it landed, and Jennifer realized that the true horror had only begun, for the swan had unnatural razored teeth, and claws, and about it, for all the stunning beauty, there clung an odor of putrescent corruption.

Then the swan spoke, in a voice like slithering darkness in a pit. “I have come,” she said. “Give her to me.”

Far away yet, terribly far away, Loren Silvercloak was driving his horse back south, cursing his own folly in all the tongues he knew.

“She is yours, Avaia,” said Galadan, unsmiling. “Is she not, Metran?”

“Of course,” said the mage. He had moved upwind of the swan. “I will naturally be anxious to know what she has to say. It is vital for me in my place of watch.”

“No longer,” the black swan said, ruffling her feathers. “I have tidings for you. The Cauldron is ours, I am to say. You go now to the place of spiraling, for the time is upon us.”

Across the face of Metran there spread then a smile of such cruel triumph that Jennifer turned away from it. “It has come then,” the mage exulted. “The day of my revenge. Oh, Garmisch, my dead King, I shall break the usurper into pieces on his throne, and make drinking cups of the bones of the House of Ailell!”

The swan showed her unnatural teeth. “I will take pleasure in the sight,” she hissed.

“No doubt,” said Galadan wryly. “Is there word for me?”

“North,” the swan replied. “You are asked to go north with your friends. Make haste. There is little time.”

“It is well,” said Galadan. “I have one task left here, then I follow.”

“Make haste,” Avaia said again. “And now I go.”

“No!” Jennifer screamed, as cold svart hands grabbed for her. Her cries cut the air of the clearing and fell into nothingness. She was bound across the back of the giant swan and the dense, putrefying smell of it overwhelmed her. She could not breathe; when she opened her mouth, the thick black feathers choked her, and as they left the earth for the blazing sky, Jennifer fainted for the first time in her life, and so could not have known the glorious curving arc she and the swan made, cutting across the sky.

The figures in the clearing watched Avaia bear the girl away until they were lost in the shimmering of the white sky.

Metran turned to the others, exultation still in his eyes. “You heard? The Cauldron is mine!”

“So it seems,” Galadan agreed. “You are away across the water, then?”

“Immediately. It will not be long before you see what I do with it.”

Galadan nodded, then a thought seemed to strike him. “I wonder, does Denbarra understand what all this means?” He turned to the source. “Tell me, my friend, do you know what this Cauldron is all about?”