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magnificent shape well known to both of them. A great lithard, the veriest dragon, flew in the skies of Elysia! Oth-Neth, first representative of his race — intelligent dinosaur of doomed Thak'r-Yon, a world long since burned up in the heart of its exploding sun — alighted in a flash of bright scales, a sighing furling of membrane wings, on the battlements close by.
    'Oth-Neth!' cried Tiania, and she ran to the great beast and threw her arms about his neck.
    'Tiania,' the creature returned, soft-voiced, lowering its great head to facilitate her fondling.
    Crow might witness this same scene a thousand times and still be awed. Here was a monster out of Earth's oldest mythologies a draw out of Asian hinterlands, and all of a natural green and gold iridescence — and Tiania caressing the beast as if it were a favourite horse. No, he automatically corrected himself, greeting it — greeting him —like an old friend, which he was. Oth-neth, green and golden dragon from the Tung-gat tapestries, a creature such as might sport in the Gardens of Rak. And here on a mission.
    Oth-Neth wore green, the emerald saddle and reins of Tiania's household. He had been sent to collect her.
    `What about me?' Crow strode forward, rested a hand on the creature's flank.
    'You?' Oth-Neth bent his head to look at him. 'You, too, Tituth.' (The lithard's command of human languages was imperfect: he lisped, as did all his race.) 'But you go quick, direct to Kthanid! Flying cloak ith better for you.'
    Crow looked him straight in his saucer eyes. 'Do you know what's happening?'
    'No,' an almost imperceptible shake of the great head. `But ... I think trouble. Big trouble! Look!' He turned his head to the skies. High above Elysia, beyond the flying-zones of lithards and cloaks and winged creatures alike, time-clocks in all their varieties were blinking into existence in unprecedented numbers. And all of them wending east toward the slowly rising, strangely dulled sun, to the Blue Mountains and the subterranean, miles-long corridor of clocks. Elysia's children were returning from a thousand voyagings and quests, answering the summons of the masters of this weird, wonderful place.
    Crow stared for a moment longer, his high brow furrowed, then hurried back into the castle. He returned with a scarlet flying cloak and quickly slipped into its harness. Tiania had already climbed into the ornate emerald saddle at the base of the lithard's neck, but she paused to lean down and kiss Crow where he now stood poised on the battlements.
    `Titus,' she began, 'I — ' but words wouldn't come.
    He looked at her beautiful face and form, only half-concealed by an open jacket and knee-length trousers of soft grey, and felt her fear like a physical thing; not fear for herself or Elysia, nor even Titus Crow himself who in any case had often shown himself to be near-indestructible but for them, for they had become as one person and could not be apart. And: 'I know,' he said quietly., And then, brightening: 'But we don't know what it is yet. It may be ... very little.'
    They both knew he deliberately made light of it, but she nodded anyway. Then Oth-Neth launched himself from the castle's wall and soared north; and Crow's fingers found the control studs of his cloak, which at once belled out and bore him aloft; and in the next moment girl, dragon and man were flying north to join the streams of other fliers where they made for Kthanid's glacial palace ...
    Crow sped on ahead. He guessed that Oth-Neth deliberately held back, letting him gain a lead and a little extra time. For what? So that he could talk to Kthanid in private? That seemed unlikely, with all these others heading for that same rendezvous. But - Crow accelerated and shot ahead anyway.
    And as he flew his cloak, so it was suddenly important to Crow that he look at Elysia again, let the place impress itself upon his mind. It had dawned on him that if ever he had known a real home — a place to be, where he wanted to