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Sunspark appeared—a brief bright coalescence like a meteor changing its mind in midexplosion, steadying down to the horse-shape again. It came pacing over to Herewiss and Freelorn and Segnbora, exuding a feeling of great pleasure, its mane and tail burning merrily as holiday bonfires. (You called for me?) it said to Herewiss, who was gasping with deferred terror.
    He gulped for breath. “I believe I did,” Herewiss said.
    Sunspark looked at Freelorn with an expression of good-natured wickedness and said nothing.
    “ Thank you,” Freelorn said, courteous enough; but there was a touch of grudge in his voice.
    Sunspark snorted. (Gratitude! Next time I’ll choose my moment with more care. A little later, say.)
    “ Choose the moment—!”
    (So that you’ll appreciate me more.)
    “ You mean you watched those things attack us and you didn’t—!”
    “ Lorn, enough,” Herewiss said. “It doesn’t think the way you do. Luckily for us. Loved,” he said to the elemental, “did you notice any other wildlife in these parts while you were having breakfast?”
    (Singers,) it said, looking to the northwest. (The ones with fur.)
    “ Wolves? Perfect.” Herewiss glanced down at Khávrinen, which blazed just long enough to burn the blood off itself. “We won’t be climbing the Fane until sunset, since a Summoning there works best at twilight. But damned if I’m going to put up with any more Fyrd in the meantime. I’ll go have a word with the wolves and see if I can work something out. Now, how do I manage this—”
    He frowned, closed his eyes. Fire swirled outward from Khávrinen, hiding both sword and wielder. The pillar of brilliance shrank as it swirled, and sank close to the ground. When the blue Flame died away it left behind a handsome cream-white wolf with orange-brown points and downturned blue eyes.
    (Not bad,) Sunspark said, (for a beginner.)
    Herewiss grinned a wolf-grin. (Stay close till I get back, loved, just in case the Fyrd try again. I won’t be long.)
    The wolf bounded away through the long grass. Watching him go, Segnbora dug down in her belt-pouch for a square of clean soft cloth, with which she began cleaning off Charriselm’s blade. When she’d finished, she looked thoughtfully at the Fane. It seemed to gaze back, calm and blind and patient, waiting for something. Fyrd so close to this place—that’s unheard of. All the rules are changing.
    But after this, nothing is going to be the way it was. Not even me.
    “ You going to stand there all day?” someone shouted at her. Freelorn and the others were in the saddle, getting ready to ride down to the Fane. Segnbora swung up into Steelsheen’s saddle and went after them.
     
    ***
     
    Somewhat later she sat with her back against the trunk of an old rowan tree near the lakeshore, watching the long shadows of men, horses and trees drown in slow dusk. The Fane, half a mile away across Rilthor’s water, shone golden as a legend where its heights still caught the sunset. The mirroring water lay still in the breathless evening, the mountain’s burning image broken only by the wakes of gray songswans gliding by. It’s really more a hill than a mountain, Segnbora thought, stretching. The Fane was no more than half a mile wide at the base, broad at the bottom and flat at the top, stippled roughly with brush and scrub pine. Nothing so spectacular…except for what you can’t see.
    And it was the unseen which all day had kept their camp so abnormally quiet. Freelorn had spent most of the afternoon pacing and frowning until Herewiss returned from his parley with the wolves, reporting success and a throat sore from much howling. Now he sat under a nearby alder, meditating, with Khávrinen flaming in his lap. For a long while Herewiss hadn’t moved, gazing across at the Fane with an expression half wonder and half fear, while Freelorn took to pacing again. Harald and Moris had been keeping so close to one another that one might have thought they had been