The children were gathered in a loose circle about the slim figure of a girl. Most of them were laughing, but the girl in the center was not. She gestured suddenly, and a boy came forward from the ring with a strip of cloth and, with a gravity that matched her own, began to bind it over her eyes. That done, he rejoined the ring. At his nod the children linked hands and began to revolve, in a silence eerie after the laughter, around the motionless figure blindfolded in the center. They moved gravely and with dignity. A few other people had stopped to watch.

Then, without warning, the blindfolded girl raised an arm and pointed it towards the moving ring. Her high clear voice rang out over the green:

When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?

And on the last word the circling stopped.

The girl’s finger was leveled directly at a stocky boy, who, without any hesitation, released the hands on either side of him and walked into the ring. The circle closed itself and began moving again, still in silence.

“I never tire of watching this,” a cool voice said from just behind Jennifer.

She turned quickly. To confront a pair of icy green eyes and the long red hair of the High Priestess, Jaelle. Behind the Priestess she could see a group of her grey-clad attendants, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Diarmuid’s man edging nervously closer to them.

Jennifer nodded a greeting, then turned back to watch the children. Jaelle stepped forward to stand beside her, her white robe brushing the cobblestones of the street.

“The ta’kiena is as old as any ritual we have,” she murmured in Jennifer’s ear. “Look at the people watching.”

And indeed, although the faces of the children seemed almost unnaturally serene, the adults who had gathered at the edge of the square or in shop archways wore expressions of wonder and apprehension. And there were more people gathering. Again the girl in the ring raised her arm.

When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
Will you leave your home?

And again the circling stopped on the last word. This time the extended finger pointed to another of the boys, older and lankier than the first. With only a brief, almost ironic pause, he, too, released the hands he was holding and walked forward to stand by the other chosen one. A murmur rose from the watchers, but the children, seemingly oblivious, were circling again.

Unsettled, Jennifer turned to the impassive profile of the Priestess. “What is it?” she asked. “What are they doing?”

Jaelle smiled thinly. “It is a dance of prophecy. Their fate lies in when they are called.”

“But what—”

“Watch!”

The blindfolded girl, standing straight and tall, was chanting again:

When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
Will you leave your home?
Will you leave your life ?