Beyond, fifty, a hundred miles, they reached land where life still flourished. It seemed to leap up and tickle Ethrian’s soul with joyful chlorophyl fingers. A surge of happiness swept through him. The desert was not all the world.

Sahmanan murmured, “This, too, was part of Nawami.” She sent a vision. For an instant he saw the bustling cities, the endless miles of farms and fields and country carefully tamed. Now wilderness ruled. The descendants of Nawami were savages using stone tools, hunting and eating one another.

Their speed increased. They whipped over a thousand miles of Dread Empire before Ethrian recognized it, and another thousand before he could make Sahmanan understand that this was the land of his enemies.

They passed over another thousand miles, and another, and yet another, before reaching the Pillars of Heaven and Pillars of Ivory, the great twin barrier ranges marking Shinsan’s traditional western frontier. “Do you begin to see?” Ethrian called.

The woman’s response darkened her face. Nawami could not have matched a tenth of this.

They fluttered across the vastnesses of the Roë Basin, rapidly outpacing the sun. They crossed the mighty Mountains of M’Hand, drifted down on the little green kingdom of Kavelin. Down to its capital, Vorgreberg, which had seemed such a huge city to a younger Ethrian. He observed that it had not changed.

“Be quiet. Don’t distract me. I have to reach back and find the right moment.” Sahmanan’s face became intent.

Down they dropped, gently, till they were among the towers of Castle Krief. Reality began to flicker. Ethrian thought of the quick flashing of distant lightning.

“Now,” Sahmanan told him. She squinted with her eyes closed. “Follow me.” She drifted toward a wall.

And into that wall and out of sight. “Eh?” Ethrian murmured. Then, “Why not? I don’t have a body to stop me.” He willed himself to follow.

Two men were fighting on the far side of the wall. One was a big man. The other was short and fat. They tumbled across a bed. The big man was unarmed. The smaller had a knife. The bigger had a wound across his back.

“Father!” Ethrian shrieked at the fat man. And at the big, “Uncle Bragi!”

They did not hear him. Sahmanan reached out, gently drew Ethrian into a corner.

Ragnarson smashed his opponent’s knife hand against a bedpost. The blade skittered under a wardrobe.

Mocker, the boy’s father, bit and gouged. So did Ragnarson. Ragnarson was doing a lot of yelling, but Ethrian could not hear what he said. The only voice in this dead zone was that of Sahmanan.

Ragnarson seemed to be weakening. His wound was bleeding freely. He stopped blocking the smaller man’s blows, tried for an unbreakable hold. He got behind Mocker and slipped an arm around his throat. He forced his hand up behind his own head. He arched his back and pulled.

It was a terrible hold. It could break a man’s neck, Ethrian knew. His father had taught it to him when he was five.