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rings and nobody would go
anywhere this night.
    Lowen, he
suspected, had her suspicions. She would not question them now, not
at this pivotal moment.
    A slight,
papery crackle.
    His head
jerked to it.
    Around Lowen’s
hand, there was a disturbance in the air. A darker area, an oval,
man-sized.
    A threshold
into another realm.
    “Come,” Lowen
whispered.
    He drew
breath, stepped closer. Belief worked.
    “Take my hand
to go through,” she instructed as he came alongside.
    Merciful
Mother of all good things protect us now , he prayed, and
gripped her fist, swinging through.
    Krikian heaved
a great sigh as both vanished from this reality.
    He hoped they
would be fine.
    He hoped he
would not succumb to the wait.

Chapter
Seven
     
    “ Light
drives out the dark; sun after night, candle in gloom, fire at
gathering, star against velvet Aaru. Even the shadows play their
part, for they are proof that light shines somewhere. What a gift,
light.”
    Queen Abdiah,
Dragonne
     
     
    It was not
darkness, not the absence of light he expected.
    His cry of
dismay lifted into the air.
    The still,
desert air.
    “You wouldn’t
look, Torrullin.”
    “But this,
Lowen? You could’ve warned me about this!”
    A tear slid
over her cheek. “No.”
    The cage. His
nightmare. He was on the inside, she was on the outside, and his
hand curled around her fist joined them. The portal was gone; this
tableau replaced it.
    For it was a
tableau. Waiting to animate.
    The faceless
creatures of year after year’s dreaming were frozen in various
poses, one of which stood with his spear point within the bars of
the cage, in the act of thrusting.
    “This is not a
real place. I imagined it.”
    “Torrullin,
don’t let go of my hand. Listen first …” She gazed at the images
around them. They were as familiar to her as they were to him.
“They are real because they are part of you. This is a real place
because you created it for yourself. I painted it because I saw
your places of dread. It was in my art; you just had to look to
see.”
    “As Walker I
could never find this. This is not a place of the dead, this is a
place of dead emotions - mine.”
    “Basically.”
    “The rings are
merely a focal point - to me.”
    “Yes. In
knowing they had no power, you trusted your own abilities. You
brought us here.”
    “Lowen,
why?”
    “You have to
divest yourself. You have to put it away one step at a time. That
is what I saw, but the true why only you can answer.” She reached
through the bars with her free hand and cupped his face. “I’m here.
I won’t abandon you, I swear. We can do this together.” She took
her hand away. “When you let go, it begins.”
    “This is
madness.”
    “An answer
lies in this madness.” Deliberately she tugged her fist from his
tight clasp.
    “ No !”
he cried, and then hurled across the cage as the spear came
whistling at him. Noise erupted, loud raucous laughter, ugly
taunts, shouted curses. “Lowen!”
    “I’m here.”
She stood calmly in the frantic melee, untouched, unseen by his
tormentors, her eyes bright with tears. “I shall not leave you, I
swear it.”
    He drew a
ragged breath, threw his head this way and that, eyes rolling madly
to see everything, to dissect, to know his predicament. The spear
came at him again, accompanied by roaring laughter, and then, on
the back of that, his red-hot fury.
    With a snarl,
an animal trapped, he launched forward to meet the point and
gripped it with both hands to pull hard. With a cry of rage, he
jerked it to him and stood bent in the low cage.
    “You want a
piece of me?” he thundered, holding the spear threateningly.
“ Then come !”
    A deep
silence.
    And …
nothing.
    No cage. No
faceless taunting. No noise. Just him, the spear, the desert and
Lowen.
    “What?” he
croaked.
    “You have
overcome the faceless fear. You are more ready than I thought.”
    He heaved and
poured the recent meal onto the dry, lifeless earth. Tossing the
spear aside, he heaved again