That one was having problems. Tore’s slip had registered, and Dave felt a need to walk the implications out. He rose. “I’m going to check on him,” he said. “Right back.”

He didn’t do much thinking, though. This wasn’t the sort of situation Dave Martyniuk could handle, so he ducked it. He carried the axe, careful not to make a noise with it; he tried to move as quietly as Tore did in the wood. It’s not even a situation, he told himself abruptly. I’m leaving tomorrow.

He had spoken aloud. A night bird whirred suddenly from a branch overhead, startling him.

He came to the place where Tabor was hidden—and well hidden, too. It had taken Tore almost an hour to find him. Even looking straight at the spot, Dave could barely make out the shape of the boy in the hollow he’d chosen. Tabor would be asleep, Tore had explained earlier. The shaman had made a drink that would ensure this, and open the mind to receive what might come to wake him.

Good kid, Dave thought. He’d never had a younger brother, wondered how he would have behaved toward one. A lot better than Vince did, the bitter thought came. A hell of a lot better than Vincent.

A moment longer he watched Tabor’s hollow, then, assured there was no danger to be seen, he turned away. Not quite ready to rejoin the other two, Dave took an angled route back through the grove.

He hadn’t seen the glade before. He almost stumbled into it, checked himself barely in time. Then he crouched down, as silently as he could.

There was a small pool, glittering silver in the moonlight. The grass, too, was tinted silver, it seemed dewy and fragrant, new somehow. And there was a stag, a full-grown buck, drinking from the pool.

Dave found he was holding his breath, keeping his body utterly still. The moonlit scene was so beautiful, so serene, it seemed to be a gift, a bestowing. He was leaving tomorrow, riding south to Paras Derval, the first stage of the road home. He would never be here again, see anything like this.

Should I not weep? he thought, aware that even such a question was a world away from the normal workings of his mind. But he was, he was a world away.

And then, as the hairs rose up on the back of his neck, Dave became aware that there was someone else beside the glade.

He knew before he even looked, which is what caused the awe: her presence had been made manifest in ways he scarcely comprehended. The very air, the moonlight, now reflected it.