The Door Into Shadow

— my range has been steadily diminishing for the past day. Something's settling down over this whole area. Power."

No one had to ask Whose power. Sunspark looked sideways at Herewiss. (I'll find her,) it said. There was unease in its thought over Herewiss's sudden anxiety. Herewiss laid a hand on its burning shoulder, where the fiery mane hung down. "Go, loved. But burn low. Don't ad-vertise us." It tossed its head and was gone in an oven-breath of wind, leaving only wisps of smoke to mark where it had stood. Segnbora dismounted from Steelsheen in silence, thinking that the tai-Enraesi house luck was certainly working as usual. Of all the places she had never wanted to be in a battle, this led the list! Since Earn and Healhra had first set the bindings here a thousand years before, this land had slept uneasily. It was steeped in Power — not beneficent power like the Mor-rowfane's, but a dangerous potency that could be manipu-lated easily by whatever lesser force moved there. Sorcerers and those with the Fire stayed away from Bluepeak, afraid to trigger unwelcome influences. Yet here they were, merrily riding into this unstable land with the clear intention of arous-ing those influences in order to bind them. Segnbora would sooner have kicked a sleeping lion awake, then tried to tie it up. "How far from N6mion would you say we are?" Herewiss asked his loved.

"Eight miles, maybe." Freelorn was chewing his mustache absently, an old nervous mannerism. "We'll be there by to-night if we push the horses a little."

They stood together, Herewiss playing with Khavrinen's hilt, Freelorn looking out over the darkening land toward a remote ridge that stood away from the foothills in front of N6mion. That ridge was Britfell, the White Height, which partially hid the mouth of Bluepeak valley. There was nothing white about the fell this time of year. Its barren curved ridge was a brown wave rising over the green land below it. Here and there it was dotted with blackthorn that had managed to take root in its sheer stones. On the hidden southern side of that wave, within Bluepeak