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with your friends alone,” he said.
    â€œThank you,” Bremen replied, touched at the other’s consideration. “But we would have you be one of us, Caerid. We leave at sunrise. Will you come?”
    Caerid smiled faintly. “I thought that might be your plan. Risca and Tay are eager enough to depart Paranor—that’s no secret.” He shook his head slowly. “But as for me, Bremen, my duty lies here. Especially if what you believe is true. Someone must protect the Druids of Paranor, even from themselves. I am best suited. The Guard is mine, all handpicked, all trained under my command. It would not do for me to abandon them now.”
    Bremen nodded. “I suppose not. Still, it would be good to have you with us.”
    Caerid almost smiled. “It would be good to come. But the choice is made.”
    â€œThen keep careful watch within these walls, Caerid Lock.” Bremen fixed him with his gaze. “Be certain of the men you lead. Are there Trolls among them? Are there any who might betray you?”
    The Captain of the Druid Guard shook his head firmly. “None. All will stand with me to the death. Even the Trolls. I would bet my life on it, Bremen.”
    Bremen smiled gently. “And so you do.” He glanced about momentarily as if seeking someone. “He will come, Caerid—the Warlock Lord with his winged minions and mortal followers and perhaps creatures summoned out of some dark pit. He will descend on Paranor and attempt to crush you. You must watch your back, my friend.”
    The seasoned veteran nodded. “He’ll find us ready.” He held the other’s gaze. “It’s time to take you back down to the gates. Would you like to take some food with you?”
    Bremen nodded. “I would.” Then he hesitated. “I almost forgot. Would it be possible for me to have one final word with Kahle Rese? I am afraid we left each other under rather strained circumstances, and I would like to correct that before I go away. Could you give me just a few minutes more, Caerid? I will come right back.”
    The Elf considered the request silently for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. But hurry, please. I have already stretched Athabasca’s instructions to their limit.”
    Bremen smiled disarmingly and went back up the stairs once more. He hated lying to Caerid Lock, but there was no reasonable alternative open to him. The Captain of the Druid Guard would never have been able to sanction what he was about to do under any circumstances, friend or no. Bremen ascended two levels, passed through a doorway into a secondary passage, quickly followed it to its end, then went through yet another door to a second set of stairs, this one more narrow and steep than the first. He went quietly and with great care. He could not afford to be discovered now. What he was about to do was forbidden. If he was observed, Athabasca might well cast him into the deepest dungeon and leave him there for all time.
    At the head of the narrow stairs he stopped before a massive wooden door secured by locks made fast with chains as thick as his aged wrists. He touched the locks carefully, one after the other, and with small snicks they fell open. He released the chains from their securing rings, pushed at the door, and watched with a mix of relief and trepidation as it swung slowly away.
    He stepped through then and found himself on a platform high up within the Druid’s Keep. Below, the walls fell away into a black pit that was said to core all the way to the center of the earth. No one had ever descended to its bottom and returned. No one had ever been able to cast a light deep enough to see what was down there. The Druid Well, it was called. It was a place into which the discards of time and fate had been cast—of magic and science, of the living and the dead, of mortal and immortal. It had been there since the time of faerie. Like the Hadeshorn in the Valley