If ever any mage, any worker in the skylore, could be said to have a place so near Dun Maura. The tall mage shook his head and threw another log on the fire. He was cold, and not just from the winter. How had it come to be that there were only two mages left in Brennin? There could never be more than seven; so Amairgen had decreed when first he formed the Council. But two, only two, and at such a time? It was passing from them, it seemed, in more ways than one.

Two mages only in Brennin to go to war against Maugrim; but there were three mages in Fionavar, and the third had put himself in league with the Dark. He was on Cader Sedat, that enchanted island, long since made unholy. He was there, and he had the Cauldron of Khath Meigol and so could bring the newly dead back to life.

Whatever else might pass from them, that one was his. His and Matt’s. We will have our battle in the end, he had said to the Dwarf.

If the winter ever ended. Metran.

Night came, and with it another storm worse than any yet. Wind howled and whistled down the Plain into the High Kingdom, carrying a wall of snow. It buried farms and farmhouses. It blanketed the woods. It hid the moon, and in the inhuman darkness figures of dread seemed to be moving within the storm and the howling of wind was the sound of their laughter.

Darien lay in bed listening to it. He’d thought at first it was another nightmare but then knew he was awake. Frightened, though. He pulled the covers up over his head to try and muffle the voices he heard in the wind.

They were calling. Calling him to come and play outside in the wild dark dancing of the storm. To join them in this battering of wind and snow. But he was only a little boy, and afraid, and he would die if he went outside. Even though the storm wasn’t so bad where they were.

Finn had explained about that. How even though Darien’s real mother couldn’t be there with them she was protecting him all the time, and she made the winter easier around his bed because she loved him. They all loved him; Vae his mother and even Shahar his father, who had been home from war only once before they had come to the lake. He had lifted Darien up in the air and made him laugh. Then he had said Dari would soon be bigger than Finn and laughed, himself, though not the funny laugh.

Finn was his brother and he loved Dari most of all and he was the most wonderful person in the world and knew everything besides.