City1

There is no Spring on Skazki. After the decades-long tyranny of Winter, Summer follows swiftly. As the Glass Mountains retreat from the land, new life springs up in their wake. The land breathes again, the great weight that has borne down upon it for centuries lifted at last.

Summer comes more quickly to the southern lowlands, and already frozen tundra has given way to low-lying marsh, green fields and pasture - at least in those areas far from the floodplains of the great rivers, swollen as they are by meltwater from the north. The Great Mother River spills over its banks; foaming, ale-coloured, silt-laden waters flowing over the entire valley floor of its later course. In time, it will subside, but for now, the torrent rages in its turbulent path to the sea.

The city of Kitezh stands at the mouth of this river, untouched by the floodwaters. With the furious rapids held at bay by the enchantments of its rulers, it sits proudly upon the headland, and sprawls down the sides of the valley to the estuary. Channelled and tamed, the waters keep to their proper course, and life carries on as normal. Most never even think of the defences that protect their city, their business and their lives from the death of Winter. To the north of Kitezh, the floodwaters of the delta are diverted to flow harmlessly to the east of the city.

There is a beast that crouches at the heart of the city: the kremlin. This ancient fortress, its obsidian towers with their web-like walkways, rising up above the tallest buildings below, rears above the outer city like some giant insect poised to strike. The thrumming of its great engines is ever present, even though it will never rise again from its resting place. The beast prefers to squat at the centre of the city that has grown up around it, allowing the vast network of cybrid ganglia and entrails to wander underneath the city, gathering information and sustenance, excreting its by-products far below the streets, into tunnels and conduits long forgotten by those who live above.

Most people forget the nature of the real power that governs them. They see only the human face of it: the man whose choices have far more impact on their day to day lives than the eldritch intelligence of Kitezh itself: Yuri Mikhailovich, Prince of Kitezh.

Behind an ancient desk made of rowan-wood, he sits: a broad faced man of average height, dark hair now greying at the temples, a figure once powerful and lean on a large frame now running to corpulence with middle age. An old scar mars the set of his chin, twisting his lower lip slightly. Across the desk from his lord stands one of the two men the prince trusts absolutely - Nikolai Uulamets, the Commander of his palace guard.

'Contradictory reports, Nikolai - I am at a loss as to which to believe.' His hand sweeps across the surface of the desk, scattering the papers that litter it. Nikolai is impassive.

A slightly built man, in his forties. Fair hair with more silver than blond in it these days is worn shoulder length, and braided to either side of bearded cheeks. His face is calm, handsome, and carries a look of slightly bewildered amusement that belies his abilities. Nikolai Uulamets gained his position by a careful program of assassination and propaganda, removing all who stood in his path.

'I depend upon you for such information, Kolya,' Yuri continues. He stabs a finger towards his Commander. 'We are upon the cusp of Summer for the first time in living memory, and I must know the truth of these events. Which of them do I trust - the Queen of Winter, or the Lord of Summer?'

'If I may, your highness?' Nikolai picks up the scattered papers and returns them to the desk in a tidy pile. 'Send an emissary to both. Ascertain the truth of Alianora Marevna's assertions.'

Yuri's sigh is from the heart, and he leans back heavily in his chair. 'Great changes are needed with the coming of Summer, Kolya. The last thing we need is an imbalance between the Powers. Kastchei assures me that Alianora is deposed, having attempted his life, She tells me that he has gone mad and must be brought down like a stag at bay, before he turns upon us all.'

'Kastchei and you were friends, long ago,' Nikolai says. 'You trust him?'

'I did. But reports come in daily along the trade routes that the Hunt has not been seen since the floods began. That no-one has been seen leaving or entering the Summer Palace in weeks, that the Queen was injured and seen fleeing for her life. Neither of them responds to our communications. What am I supposed to think?' His hand again sweeps the desk clear, and this time Nikolai makes no attempt to clear the mess.

'Send emissaries, Highness. I myself will attend upon the Queen…'

'No.' Yuri interrupts. 'You I will send north, to Kastchei. I will need your guile to see treachery from that quarter, if it exists. No, I will send Alexei to Alianora. It is time my son took upon himself some responsibility.'

Nikolai bows, but his expression is concerned. 'As you command, your Highness. But I do recommend caution in dealing with the Queen…'

Yuri cuts him short with a wave of his hand. 'Enough, Commander. You have your task, and the journey is not a short one. I suggest you begin it.'

'Your Highness.' Nikolai bows deeply, accepting the rebuke, and leaves the room. As the door shuts behind him with a calculated slam, Yuri slumps in his seat, a worried man.

You should perhaps consider more direct action.

Yuri doesn't look up, but places his head in his hands. 'I tell you we cannot, until we know the truth. Your concerns may well be needless.'

I sense the course of the future more keenly than your human senses, my Prince, says the voice of the city, which Yuri hears from all around him, with no discernible point of origin. My senses extend more deeply into this land than you appreciate. My warning stands. We are threatened from without.

Yuri takes his head out of his hands and stares in the direction of the heart of the kremlin, although he knows the city has no real focal point for its intelligence. 'Yet you cannot tell me from which of them this threat will come.'

Silence.

'Then let me deal with this in my own way. This is a matter for men, not machines.'

The city is silent, except for the deep, constant throbbing of its vast engines, which seem to have taken on a more sombre, warning note.

Chapter 1

Kastchei's Summer Palace – Southern Plains

Thirty feet long, about twenty wide and tall, the dromond squatted in the centre of the flagstoned yard like a grotesque gargoyle. Its skin was a pale green-grey, and covered a structure that bulged with asymmetrical contours on all sides. Some were sensory nodes, others contained the propulsion and life support systems. Currently, a small hatch in the belly of the beast was open, and a short, slim woman with long chestnut hair was sat on the ramp, trying to clean off a greenish substance that covered her skin from fingertips to elbows. She was surrounded by trailing coils of cable, conduit piping and organic tubes and fibres.

'Any luck yet?'

She looked up as the speaker ducked under the wing of the dromond. The sunlight made his red-gold hair gleam like fire around his face, the fine strands falling like flames over the collar of his black coat. Holding onto the wing with one hand, he tilted his head on one side and smiled, his neatly trimmed goatee failing to hide his infectious grin. Freckled and dimpled, he looked almost boyish, until you looked into his pale green eyes, which held an ageless and somewhat troubled intelligence.

Vivienne pulled a face at him. 'I've managed to get the new system installed, but it will take time to come on line. It's not like putting new batteries in - the sheer volume of organic components means this is more of a job for a vet than for a mechanic.' She slid down the ramp on her bottom and stood up, shaking off some of the detritus. She grimaced. 'I look like a butcher.' She ducked out from under the body of the craft and stretched, shaking her hair out of its confining plait. 'And I don't think I'll ever get my hands clean again.'

'You've got some lubricant on your nose,' Taliesin told her. He rubbed at the offending smear with the sleeve of his coat. 'There.'

'Thanks.' Vivienne plunged her hands into a nearby bucket of water and washed her hands. 'I thought you were going to try looking through the storage rooms with Kastya for something that might help?'

'I would have done, if I could have found him. Where is he?'

Vivienne grabbed a towel and rubbed her arms dry. 'Search me, I thought he was with his new pack?' She saw Taliesin's pale green eyes take on a harder look and stopped, putting the towel down on the wing. 'You still don't approve?'

'Not really, no. I understand his reason, but I don't have to like it.'

Four months ago, when they'd returned from trying to prevent Alianora, Kastchei's wife, from trying to kill Merlin's dragon, Kastchei had killed with his own hands most of his pack of cybrid hounds that formed his Wild Hunt. Whilst admitting that Kastchei had a point, in that Alia had been able to use the cybrids to track down and capture the dragon, the vicious, casual efficiency with which the sorcerer had carried out the task had left a sour taste in Taliesin's mouth. After the argument they'd had, the icy silence between the two men had lasted for three days. Vivienne, who'd understood a little better what the act had cost Kastchei, was a little more understanding about it, but it was still a sore subject.

Imprinting and training the newly decanted hounds kept Kastchei busy, but it also kept him from facing the one thing that must have loomed larger in his mind than any other, Alia or no. And if he didn't want to discuss it, neither Taliesin nor Vivienne felt like pushing the matter. The sorcerer's temper could be… "touchy" as Vivienne had put it after one explosion, in what Taliesin had witheringly described afterwards as an understatement of universal proportions.

'He wasn't in the kennels,' Taliesin said. He jumped up onto the wing, and sat with his legs dangling over the edge. 'And there's someone to see him. I told the seneschal to put him in the guest rooms for now.' He sighed. 'After weeks of moping around the place like a thundercloud looking for somewhere to drop its load, he picks now to go wandering? I thought Elphin's timing was bad.'

Vivienne grinned up at him. 'You really love being able to shout at royalty, admit it!' She slapped his leg. 'Off. You'll unbalance the ship while the new stabilisers kick in.' Taliesin jumped down beside her.

'Sorry. Look, I'm going to try and find our host. Clean up a bit and try to keep the ambassador occupied until I get back with Kastchei?'

'Ambassador? You didn't mention an amb - ' she was talking to his retreating back. 'Fine. Leave me to sort it all out as usual, why don't you!' She threw the towel after him, although he was long gone. 'Honestly.' Behind her, there was an ominous gurgling noise from the bowels of the dromond, and the hatch began haemorrhaging lubricating fluid from the recently repaired propulsion systems. Vivienne had to duck back under the fuselage, grabbing for a clamp as she did, yelling for the Vat-master.

Taliesin let the black stallion have his head once they were clear of the palace. The rolling hills were finally free of ice and snow, the footing firm underfoot. Summer was finally coming, and the day was warm and clear. A fine day for a ride, even if he hadn't needed to come out, he thought, bringing the black back to hand. He slowed Voronushka to a working trot, and patted the cybrorse's sleek neck, once they reached the top of the next hill.

'So, little Raven - do you think you can find your stablemate?' The stallion pawed the ground and snorted. Taliesin laughed. 'Of course you can. Shall we find Sivushka?' He dropped the reins, and Voronushka, after scenting the air, turned neatly on his forehand and set off north at a steady canter. He made no effort to steer the stallion, but sat easily in the saddle and enjoyed the ride.

He found Kastchei with his pack, unmaking a large hart, outside the small wood that bordered the Summer Palace's estate. Kastchei, his shirt-sleeves turned back to keep them out of the blood, was separating muscle from bone with practised ease, the carcass laid carefully on its hide, carefully propped up from stakes to catch the blood. A forked stick nearby held choice organs and titbits from the beast. The hounds kept their distance, white faces and coats streaked with blood. For all the butchery he was engaged in, as ever there was scarcely a drop on the sorcerer's clothes.

He looked up as Taliesin dismounted and draped Voronushka's reins over the saddle-horn. 'I wasn't expecting company.'

Taliesin found a convenient tree stump to sit on, after removing Kastchei's coat and dropping it casually to the ground. 'No, I suppose you weren't.' He ignored Kastchei's pointed look at the discarded garment. 'But you have it. Back at the palace. I do hope you don't intend to keep him waiting? Because he has the look of a man who thinks there's something fishy going on, and I'd hate to confirm his suspicions.'

Kastchei moved to work further down the flanks of the hart, changing blades with a graceful flourish. A leather roll was unfurled at his feet, containing a bewildering array of knives and other implements that would have done credit to a surgeon. 'You wouldn't have ridden out here without taking precautions. It can wait, I'm sure.'

'You think I care enough to make the effort?' The bard asked him. Kastchei began hacking at the hindquarters and didn't look up. 'Goddess alone knows, you don't. You think you can bury your head in the snow and your hands in blood until it all blows away? You're the Lord of Summer, and Summer is now here, Kastchei. It was only a matter of time before people wondered what the hell you were doing, and where you were. You think Alianora will have been idle in the last few months?' He'd stood up as he delivered this impassioned speech, and now stood, with his hair flying in the wind, staring at the man whose continued good favour could be his only way off this planet.

Seconds later, staring into Kastchei's grey eyes, he remembered that it really wasn't a good idea trying to be physically imposing with the man, who although he wasn't much taller, if at all, was considerably more powerfully built. Moreover, Kastchei wasn't shy of using his physical presence to intimidate.

Not that it worked as such on Taliesin. It's hard to intimidate a man who can make the Ard Rí of the Thirteen Worlds jump when he shouts.

It was, to Taliesin, the principle of the thing. He hated backing down. But where it was either looking an idiot or a complete idiot… As nonchalantly as he could, he sat back down. Which of course left Kastchei with no room to manoeuvre.

Except, Taliesin thought, it was probably a mistake to bait the man when he had a small arsenal of bladed weapons with him, and obviously knew how to use them.

Kastchei however, just laughed and walked back to the butchered hart. 'Since you're here, make yourself useful. You can give me a hand getting this little lot packed.' He looked back over his shoulder. 'That is, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty?'

'I'm not that squeamish about where my dinner comes from, if that's what you mean,' he said, helping Kastchei hang dressed parcels of meat, bone and offal on the two horses. The intestines and some other cuts were left on the suspended hide, mixed with the blood. Kastchei whistled the hounds over, and they crowded around him, not making a move on the feast until he gave the order. The head, shorn of its antlers, Kastchei took over to his lymer, kept apart from the rest of the pack. Whilst the hound tore at the titbit, Kastchei finally answered Taliesin's accusation.

'It all comes down to the hounds,' he said softly. The lymer looked up from its quarry and whined. Kastchei patted the great beast, and reassured, it settled back down to eat. 'Without them, and the power of the Wild Hunt, I'm vulnerable. Until the pack is run in, I prefer to keep a low profile. What the rest do not see, they cannot prove. Let Alia spin her tales to those she can - Most of the lords she could go to will not act against me without proof of weakness. They know all too well the price of failure.'

'Perhaps you should not have killed the pack,' Taliesin ventured. Kastchei rounded on him, violet eyes almost blazing.

'You expected me to leave a pack tainted by Alia alive, to be used against me again? I'd given you credit for more intelligence than that, Taliesin.'

'The Wild Hunt is nothing but a symbol, a barbaric throwback to…'

Kastchei raised his hand abruptly. 'Stop there, Talya. You have no idea of what you speak. Whatever the imitation hunts on your worlds are, they are not the true hunt. Vivienne tells me that most of the histories and legends of the Thirteen Worlds were destroyed by Morgaine, but I'm surprised that you don't have the eyes to see to the heart of what the Hunt is.'

Taliesin faced him down. 'Then tell me.'

'If they were come into their full strength, I could show you,' Kastchei said. The hounds having finished, he began re-coupling them. 'Put simply, however, the cybrid technology that each is grown with has certain properties. When enough of them are gathered together, and with the help of an additional fully sentient focus, they can be used to generate a path into the void that binds - a means of travelling not only between world, but on a very limited level, between times. The full cry of the Wild Hunt can also be used to rip a person from the weft of time itself.'

Taliesin looked down at the huge hounds that gathered around their master: the lymer - the pathfinder, the one who finds the way. The alaunts; massive beasts capable of pulling down a large bison. The brachets, the running hounds, for speed in the chase. All parts of a greater whole, even in a normal pack. He wasn't blind to the symbolism.

'A powerful weapon, in the wrong hands,' he said eventually. Kastchei smiled coldly.

'Perhaps now you will trust my judgement a little more?' A standing vault put him on Sivushka's back. Taliesin, less athletic, settled for a foot in the stirrup and a quick hop to land astride Voronushka's broad back.

'Perhaps.'

Kastchei called the hounds and they swarmed at Sivushka's feet, not yet wary of the stallion's quick temper. Sivushka stamped a hoof impatiently, and was calmed by his master's hand upon his neck. 'At least you're honest,' he said eventually. 'However you might want to curb that habit in some company. The other lords of this world are less tolerant than I of such forthrightness.'

Taliesin reined Voronushka in alongside the prancing Sivushka. 'It's part of my function to tell you what you don't want to hear,' he said pointedly. 'I'm a bard, not a courtier.'

'I'm amazed you lived this long,' was the sardonic reply.

'If I didn't know you'd been invulnerable for eight hundred years, I'd say the same about you,' Taliesin retorted. Kastchei pulled his mount up abruptly, and regarded him coldly. His hounds milled around the hooves of the stallion.

'My tolerance for your flippancy is not without limits, Taliesin. Be warned.'

'Neither is mine for arrogance, my lord. What do you plan to do with me if I overstep your bounds - give me horns to wear and set your hounds upon my trail?'

Kastchei raised his hand. 'Venite ad me, quonium ego precipio verbis de eternum…' his hand inscribed a glowing sigil in the air as he chanted.

Taliesin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Desist and hold,' he said simply, without raising his voice. The sorcerer was held there, arm outstretched, mouth open. Taliesin waited until Sivushka, unnerved by the lack of movement from Kastchei, snorted and began fretting. Then he moved in and took the reins, calming the great cybrorse. Kastchei's eyes blazed with impotent fury, but Taliesin's command held him fast.

'I have no intention,' Taliesin said softly, 'of releasing you if you're going to try that again. You are not a fool, Kastchei. Stop acting like one. You may move.'

Kastchei shook himself as if to free himself from Tal's compulsion. There was still a dangerous glint in his grey eyes, barely contained under his habitually reserved demeanour, but he dismissed the summoning he'd begun.

'I underestimated you, it seems, Talya.'

'It happens,' Taliesin said quietly. He gave Kastchei Sivushka's reins. 'Home?'

Kastchei took them without another word and rode away at a smart pace. Taliesin waited a few heartbeats before asking Voronushka to follow, and shook his head. 'Proud, stubborn, arrogant and bad tempered,' he muttered under his breath. 'I don't know why you put up with him.' Only after he'd finished speaking did he realise he wasn't talking to the horse.

In the absence of the Queen of Winter, it had somehow fallen to Vivienne to act as sometime chatelaine to the Lord of Summer. Ironic, really, she thought, putting down her hairbrush and running her fingers through the long heavy fall of her hair. It fell almost to her waist these days, when not tied back, and she contemplated cutting it - perhaps back to her usual shoulder length style. She let the chestnut strands fall back, and stared at her face in the vanity mirror.

Not bad, for her age, she thought. She ran her fingers over the soft skin of her face. No lines, no crows feet, no grey hairs, and yet by all reckoning she had to be at least a dozen years older than she had been when she first come to Gwynedd with Taliesin.

She didn't, to the best of her knowledge, look a day older. How long? She wondered. How long will either of us have? She stood up and smoothed down the long divided skirts of her green and gold gown. Perhaps it was Kastchei's recent brush with mortality that made her question her own and Taliesin's for the first time. She'd seen with her own eyes the sorcerer's legendary invulnerability. Less than a day later she'd seen it ripped away from him, his body finally freed from whatever enchantment placed upon it by the dragon that had brought him to this realm - Merlin's dragon - and had seen, where Taliesin did not, the toll this was taking upon him.

He would not talk, but that was not his way. Another one who liked to keep everything bottled up inside. Vivienne sighed. I should be used to it. I should just let them both get on with it, the one made mortal flesh, the other still running from a past that wasn't even his, truly.

She'd never, in either of her lifetimes, been one to let matters lie. But for the life of her, she couldn't see a solution to this quandary.

And then, of course, there was the other problem.

The apartments Kastchei had given to them looked out onto a small walled garden - a simple affair, from the vantage point of the balcony the grassy footpaths clearly marked out a lemniscate in the shape of an hourglass, swirling patterns separated by carefully tended flowerbeds, the whole forming a circle within the walls. A tall figure in white breeches and a blue shirt walked its ways now, backwards and forwards, following the twisting curves that should not meet, yet somehow brought the walker back to a beginning, over and over again. Long dark hair and a casual sway of the hips might have led an observer to think the figure was a young woman, although one with a perhaps too boyish figure. A closer examination however might lead the observer to think that he actually looked at a surprisingly pretty young man. The truth, as always, was somewhere in the middle, or out to the fringes, depending on your point of view.

Phoenix, lately of the northern tribes, Chosen of Merlin's dragon, and now, perhaps, something more. Since the night The Queen of Winter had tried to kill the dragon, thereby destroying Kastchei, Phoenix had shown no further signs that anything was… different. But they had all seen something that suggested that Kastchei's attempt to alter the nature of the unravelling (as Tal had called it later) had succeeded. Somehow the dragon had merged with Phoenix - who would say nothing of that night, and avoided all attempts to question her about it.

Yet the hermaphrodite wandered the halls of the Summer Palace and its grounds, sometimes startling the staff by seeming to talk to herself at odd times.

Strangely, it was Kastchei who'd cautioned the other two not to press Phoenix further.

Or perhaps not, Vivienne mused. After all, he too had undergone changes that night. It didn't take a genius to work out that the two were closely linked.

Vivienne leaned on the balcony, and looked down at the garden. Phoenix still walked the grassy labyrinth, but was no longer alone. Walking alongside Phoenix and talking to him quite animatedly was the ambassador from the southern city-state of Kitezh. Swearing under her breath, Vivienne practically flew across the room and out into the corridor, almost knocking over one of the maids in her hurry to get to the garden.

Vivienne had her breath back before she swept elegantly into the walled garden. She chose a path that took her through a ray of sunlight, allowing the light to catch the vivid emerald hue of her gown and the copper highlights in her dark chestnut hair. Never a physically imposing woman, she did know how to make an entrance, despite her lack of height. The ambassador greeted her with a deep bow as she approached, and his gaze as he looked her up and down was suitably admiring.

She had his measure, then, she thought, noting the appreciative smile that he gave her as he took her hand.

'Commander - my apologies for not greeting you sooner. As you might have gathered, your arrival caught the household somewhat unawares.'

He bowed over her hand. 'Apologies are not needed, my lady. Your other guest here was entertaining me while I walked.'

Vivienne withdrew her hand and gave Phoenix a surreptitious hard stare. 'I'm sure. Phoenix - isn't there something else you should be doing, elsewhere?'

Phoenix shrugged. 'No.'

Vivienne smiled at Uulamets. 'Excuse me.' She took Phoenix over to ostensibly look at a flowerbed. 'Let me put it another way - find somewhere else to be and stay there.'

Phoenix gave her a rebellious look. 'I wouldn't have told him anything, Vivienne.'

'Perhaps, but until we know why he's here, I'd prefer it if you didn't speak to him. We've got no way of knowing what he wants - or just how able he is.'

Phoenix's head dipped in acknowledgement. When those blue eyes were upturned to meet Vivienne's again, she sensed a difference in the clear gaze.

'We would not speak out of turn, but your prudence is commendable, Vivienne.' With that Phoenix turned and walked away, leaving Vivienne with her mouth open.

'Problems?' Uulamets' amused voice behind her brought her back to the matter at hand. She turned with her smile firmly in place.

'Not at all,' she said smoothly. 'Phoenix has been ill of late. My name is Vivienne, Commander Uulamets. I'm afraid like yourself I'm only a guest here, but as a friend of Lord Kastchei's, I've been acting on his behalf in the absence of Queen Alianora.'

'Ah yes.' He took her arm and steered her along the green path. 'Call me Nikolai, Vivienne, it will make things simpler.'

Vivienne stepped from the grassy path onto the gravel trail that ran between the sigil's green lines, not wanting to walk the labyrinth. Uulamets was forced to follow her lead, to maintain his contact.

'I'm afraid we're just as confused about some of the events of the past few months as you are, Commander. The Queen's departure was rather sudden. Perhaps you would be better waiting until Lord Kastchei returns from the hunt?'

He took hold of her arm just above the shoulder and pulled her to a halt.

'Lady Vivienne, you dissimulate beautifully, but please, do not attempt to do so again. I am not, as Kastchei would inform you were he here, a man noted for his tolerance of deception.'

'How true, Kolya!' Kastchei hopped over the dividing lines of the grass labyrinth and came to a halt beside them. His dark red hair settled heavily on his shoulders, brushing the forest green of his shirt. The impression was one of boundless energy and enthusiasm, in stark contrast to his withdrawn manner of the past few months. Vivienne shot him what she hoped was a "what-the-hell-are-you-playing-at" glance, which was studiously ignored. She disentangled herself from the Commander's arm just in time to see Taliesin - by comparison to Kastchei, looking subdued in sombre black, enter the walled garden.

Don't ask… was the mental response, before she'd even opened her mouth. Kastchei meanwhile had taken the Commander's arm firmly and grasped it.

'Kolya, what a surprise - Yuri doesn't usually send you so far from home.'

'There were reasons to suspect my particular skills would be of more benefit here, under the circumstances.' He pulled his arm out of the sorcerer's grip. 'Lord Kastchei - with all due respect, I really do need to speak with you privately. Is it wise to involve off-worlders in our affairs?'

Kastchei regarded him carefully for several seconds, before responding. 'I trust Vivienne and Taliesin, in any matters that concern my realm. Taliesin of Gwynedd is a bard, of the old school - I think you'll find his insights as fascinating as I do…'

Taliesin, who had reached Vivienne's side by then, bowed.

'Commander Uulamets, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.' He straightened and let Kastchei have it. 'Lord Kastchei is perhaps too modest to point out that his own opinions occasion most of my more impressive outpourings on many subjects.'

'I have heard of bards,' Uulamets said, looking outwardly thoughtful. He caught Vivienne's eye however, and she wasn't blind to the amusement in his gaze. She revised her estimate of him again: he didn't miss a single nuance, this man. 'Is it true that a true bard will always take the side of justice and truth over loyalty to a monarch or lord?'

'My loyalties to Elphin of Gwynedd are strengthened by friendship, Commander, but if he were not the man he is, I would be bound to point that out to him, in no uncertain terms.'

Uulamets laughed. 'The stories tell the truth when they say it is difficult to get a yes or no answer out of a bard, at least!'

Taliesin smiled. 'The difficulty lies in presenting him with a question he cannot answer otherwise.' He dipped his head slightly. 'Lord Kastchei, the Commander is right, it is perhaps better for Skazki's business to be conducted between her citizens. With your leave, we shall retire.'

Uulamets nodded his assent, but Vivienne didn't miss the sharp look Kastchei gave Taliesin as she was ushered out of the garden. Once inside, she rounded on Taliesin.

'That was callous, leaving him to deal with that alone.' She wagged her finger at him. 'For shame, Tal, he's not up to dealing with the chief of Kitezh's intelligence service, surely?'

'If not now,' Taliesin said evenly, then when?' He leaned back against the tapestry that decorated the wall, realised that he was pulling it from its hanging, and shifted to allow the fabric to hang behind him without strain. 'It is not my task to cover for him indefinitely. He's dragon-born, he can take care of himself.'

'No,' Vivienne replied rather more tartly than she'd planned, 'but it is our job to make sure that the balance of power here remains in our favour.' She peered at the tapestry behind Taliesin, and blushed as she realised its subject matter was of a hunt of a kind other than that of the forest. She wasn't even sure one of the positions was possible without dislocating something.

'You're assuming that Kastchei is our best hope for returning Breceliande to the Alliance - I'm not convinced of it. For a start, this will be his first Summer as Lord, and his previous record in this world's history is not conducive to making me trust his judgement.' He brushed a stray lock of red hair out of his eyes. 'Stay objective, Vivienne. Don't let your feelings for him cloud the issue. If we have a better opportunity to stop the Calaitin and deal with the broader issues of Breceliande's status within the New Alliance, than I say we have to take it.'

'Unworthy, Tal,' Vivienne chided him. He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. 'You've trusted my instincts before, why not now? Are you letting your own feelings cloud your judgement?'

'Point,' he said quietly. 'Part of me actually likes him, but I can't shake a feeling that he's not to be trusted. Just don't ask me why.' He took a deep breath. 'Wait. No, I do know why: he's arrogant, manipulative, amoral, quick-tempered, over-confident…'

'Intelligent, devastatingly attractive and too bloody good by far at anything he turns his hand to,' Vivienne finished. 'Remind you of anyone?' she quipped.

Taliesin look hurt. 'I'm not amoral…' he said plaintively. She caught the return of his devilish glint in his light green eyes. 'Devastatingly attractive?' he asked. She laughed as he put his arm around her waist and brought her close. She twined her arms about his neck.

'Manipulative…' she teased. He kissed her.

'But I still can't believe,' he said with a mock pained note in his voice, whispering next to her ear 'that you actually let him seduce you…'

'Shouldn't you be concentrating on finding out where they're going to have their chat so that you can eavesdrop?' Vivienne asked, changing the subject abruptly, and be damned to subtlety… He placed his hand on the wall with a heavy theatrical sigh.

'Kastchei's study, unless I miss my guess. Trust me, love - I have the acoustics in this palace down to a "T". There's nowhere they can go that I can't overhear.' He removed his hand. 'Although it would be better if we could get a little closer. Shall we?'

She shook her head. 'That's your field, I'd only be a distraction.' She kissed him lightly on the cheek. 'Besides, whilst the ambassador is with Kastya, I get to do what I do best.'

'Which is, this time?'

'Go through his luggage. Do let me know when they've finished, won't you?' She almost skipped away, girlishly, for the benefit of the passing servants, before dropping back into her normal stride. Taliesin, watching her, shook his head.

'So much for a quiet life,' he muttered under his breath. Inwardly, he couldn't resist a smile. In truth, he would have been bored living out his life as a simple minstrel, but there were times, these past few months… With a sigh, he tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, and set off in search of an empty room closer to where Kastchei and the commander were talking.

Three months as Kastchei's guest had been more than long enough for him to gain a feel for the acoustics of the Summer Palace. He settled down in an armchair in the parlour next to the study, and closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds of the palace.

There was a knack to opening oneself to the sounds of the world: too open, and a bard could quite literally go insane, unable to filter out the volume of sound that surrounded them. Even their own breathing or heartbeat would overwhelm them. Too closed, and one might as well simply stand against the wall with a glass to one's ear. At least, that was his usual, more caustic introduction to new members of the order.

He listened.

First, to filter out the heartbeat, the breathing. Slowed, but not dangerously so. White noise, to be ignored. Wind, brushing past the building, over it, through it, a thousand scrapes, scratches, brushes, whistles and moans. A building as old as the Summer Palace, in a climate as fierce as Skazki's could howl like a virgin bride on her wedding night.

He brushed the image away with a mental grimace. Some of Marius' more colourful imagery had obviously rubbed off on him. He pushed the wind aside, and searched for the sounds he needed.

Footsteps, in the halls, the sounds of laughter in the kitchens, the clank of pans, the bubbling of water in the pots over the fires. From the stables, the clink of horseshoe on stone, as Sivushka stamped a hoof in his stall. The low growl of one of the alaunts as it snarled at its packmates over a choice titbit...

He pulled back. Too far. Closer. Much closer. One voice, deep, resonant, but with a sharpness in the higher registers that was distinctive.

'Yuri worries needlessly, Nikolai. My ambitions have never touched upon Kitezh's safety. Nor will they.'

'Perhaps. You will of course permit me my doubts?'

'Commander, I never expected anything less of you. But what lies between myself and the Queen of Winter is for us to resolve. It has no impact upon other affairs...'

'With all due respect, Lord Kastchei, I disagree. Summer comes, Winter passes, and your reputation precedes you. How do we know we can trust you, if tales come to us that you have lost your power? You have -'

'A reputation for brutality and a lust for power that approached legendary proportions even before I took the mantle of the Lord of Summer and Master of the Hunt. Yet knowing all of this, still you persist in trying my patience and goodwill, Kolya. Your confidence in my abilities will only be proved by my ripping your head from your shoulders and giving it to my lymers as a tidbit, and yet my goodwill will only be proved by refraining from dealing with your impudent accusations, thus showing myself to be weak. Which is it to be, Commander?'

A lengthy pause.

'You have a way of avoiding answers that approaches the skill of that offworld bard, My lord.'

'Be thankful I take that as a compliment, Commander.' Another pause. 'You find his presence disturbing?'

'I find it too coincidental that these offworlders arrive at the same time that these rumours begin flying the length of the realm, yes. Rumour was ever the chief weapon of the Cynfeirdd, or so I have read.'

'This did not begin with the bard.'

In the next room, Taliesin bit his lower lip, remembering a crystal cave on Gwynedd, and the death of a dragon.

'So you say, my Lord. But Alianora spreads a tale that you are no longer what you were, and hints that you have perhaps lost the path of reason.'

'So you tell a madman to his face that he is mad. Is this wise, Commander? I think you know better.' Taliesin could almost see the smile curving on Kastchei's face - cold-yet-not. Humour masquerading as a dangerously playful trap for the unwary - or vice versa. Even for a bard, it was hard to tell the difference, with this man.

'You're eavesdropping again.'

The accusation brought him out of his reverie sharply, and he opened his eyes to stare into the vivid blue irises of Phoenix's eyes. Phoenix, who stood not five paces in front of him, hands on slender hips, black hair rippling over azure satin. A far cry from the fur-clad waif of the Northern plains, he thought ruefully.

'That's my business, Phoenix,' he told him, pushing himself to his feet. His hair, grown perhaps too long over the last few months, fell into his eyes and he brushed it back absently. 'And thanks to you, I may just have lost an opportunity to keep a track on our host.'

'Oh, Vivienne says he's not so bad as you think,' Phoenix said archly, looking at him from under lowered lids. 'He's teaching me to ride.'

Awkwardness, and fear, under the light tone. And it didn't take a bard's ear to hear it. 'You're troubled.'

Phoenix shuffled. 'I hear voices, sometimes. Well, one voice, but she talks a lot.'

'You know why,' he said softly. Knowing, all too well, there was nothing he could do. Too many memories, poured into a vessel too soon...

Verdani's voice echoed in the depths of his own memory. His memory, not the Other. Not the voice that sometimes threatened to overwhelm him, the memories and experience of a man dead for centuries. So how much worse for Phoenix, given not just the life, but the essence of a creature so alien? 'It's outside of my experience, Phoenix, if I knew how to help, I would.'

'I know.' Misery, and the walls coming up again even as he watched. 'You should trust him more.' Phoenix had swept out of the room before he realised that the last voice had not been Phoenix's, but that of the dragon. There was no time to call Phoenix back, because he was in the doorway.

'Lord Kastchei.' He acknowledged his host with a short bow.

'Taliesin.' Equally formal. 'Next time you want to sit in on my conversations, ask first. I might surprise you.' The sorcerer swept out of the room with even more grace than Phoenix had, brushing past Vivienne as he did so. She just looked at Taliesin quizzically.

'Just what was all that about?'

'Do you ever,' he said with a sigh, putting his arm around her, 'feel that life would be so much simpler if people would just speak their minds instead of talking in riddles, half truths and evasions?'

Vivienne raised an eyebrow, a sparkle of mischief in her hazel eyes. 'You're asking that of me?'

The Winter Palace, Novgoren City State.

Far to the south, Alianora Marevna closed the window of her room, and turned from the shutters towards the warmth of the fire that raged in the hearth. Once again, she'd been unable to penetrate the shields woven around the Summer Palace. Kastchei had not lost any of his power, despite reports she'd received of his "illness". She ran her fingers over the scar tissue that marked and twisted her left arm below the elbow, and ran over onto the back of her hand. It would heal, in time, but for now it was a constant reminder of the night four months ago when she'd gambled so heavily - and lost so much.

Kastchei, Vivienne, and the bard called Taliesin would pay dearly for that. She flexed the fingers of the injured hand, and winced as the exercises pulled at the damaged muscle. The pain, however, was but a small part of the losses she'd endured, yet it was the most visible, and therefore annoyed her so easily. She stared into the flames, as if searching for enlightenment in the flickering tongues. Summer came, and with it, her power faded, day by day. She needed something to replace the Winter Magicks, and soon, if she was to best Kastchei in the battle to come.

For he would come: she knew this. How could she not? As Queen of Winter, he'd been her Master of the Hunt for close to a hundred and fifty years; she knew him, knew his mind, his temper, his strengths - and his weaknesses. Betrayal did not sit lightly with him, he would want revenge for that, if nothing else. As for the rest… She stretched out her damaged hand to the flames, letting them play over the skin, without harm. If the rumours were true, and he had indeed lost the invulnerability that made him so feared, then she could deal with Kastchei as she would any other annoyance, eventually. If the rumours were true, and that, she hardly dared to hope.

'Your Majesty?'

The young woman's' soft voice interrupted her reverie. 'What is it, Marya?' she snapped. The chatelaine of Novgoren bowed low.

'Forgive the intrusion, but the emissary from Prince Yuri of Kitezh is here. Shall I send him in?'

Alianora smoothed down the folds of her white gown, making especially sure that the long sleeves covered her scarred arm. A quick check in the mirror placed above the mantelpiece of the hearth assured her that her hair was arranged to perfection, in a simple braid running from her crown to her waist. 'Send him in, 'Marya, and hold yourself in readiness should I require your services.'

Marya bowed. 'As you command, my queen.' She turned smartly and walked briskly to the door, holding it open for the young man standing behind it to enter. 'Prince Alexander Yuriev of Kitezh.' With another lesser bow to the guest, she left the room, closing the door behind her once he had passed through the portal.

Alianora smiled winningly at the boy who stood nervously in front of her. 'Prince Alexander, your father honours me by sending his heir. Accept my welcome, and please, do not stand on ceremony - sit.' She gestured to a high-backed chair to the left of the hearth, and offered him a goblet as he sat down, grateful for the reprieve from formality. She watched him carefully over the rim of her own goblet, not sipping the wine within. He gulped the strong red she'd offered and seemed to draw some sense of purpose from the act.

One of the servants entered then, with a tray of sweetmeats, and Alia waited until the girl had shuffled silently from the room before speaking.

'Your Highness, what is it that Prince Yuri wishes me to tell you? I assume that he is somewhat concerned about events in the north, yes?' Alia sat down and artfully rearranged her skirts, noting the boy's fascination with her body as she did so. This would be easy.

Alexei swallowed hard. 'Your majesty, my father merely wished me to hear from your own lips of the events he has heard. Our knowledge is second hand, at best. And rumour…'

'Rumour is always to be distrusted. How wise.' She leaned forward slightly. 'What more can I add, however? Lord Kastchei attacked me without provocation and left me sorely injured. It is, of course, well known that in times long past his reputation for brutality was the stuff of legend. Alas,' she smiled sadly, 'my heart led me to believe him when he claimed that he loved me, and had put aside all personal gain to serve at my side.' She debated whether or not to allow a tear to fall, but decided against it, feeling that even a boy this young would see through that artifice. She let a husky note creep into her voice. 'He has become quite mad, I feel. Certainly not to be trusted.' She lifted her injured arm and let the white wool fall back to her elbow, revealing the unsightly scarring that marred her pale skin. His sharp intake of breath gave her all the information she needed. Baited… now to place the hook. 'The least of my injuries, although the last to heal.'

Alexei's expression was all concern, and not a little desire. 'Legend does indeed hold him to be a monster, my queen. Perhaps my father does indeed have cause to worry about the coming summer.'

Alia stood, slowly, and allowed the solicitous youth to take her arm. 'You can have no idea of the horrors I have endured these past few months, fearing that he would find me.' A slight shiver of her skin under his fingers… 'But for now, allow me to at the very least discharge my duties as hostess. You must be hungry after your journey, your highness?' She let her hip brush against his as they walked, and was rewarded by his sharp inhalation. Almost too easy, she thought. Kastchei had been far harder to seduce, when she had first sought him out. Always so suspicious, until her long reign had lulled him into complacency. And damn that Vivienne for waking him to the danger. If not for her… The skin on her arm itched, as if her body remembered the injury caused by the pulse rifle that had left the scar. Vivienne, she had decided, would be the second to suffer, once she had finished with Kastchei. She didn't realise she was smiling in anticipation until she saw Alexei looking at her strangely. She quickly turned the smile into a more sorrowful expression, and noted the boy's nod of "understanding". Inwardly, she preened.

Beware, my huntsman: your days are numbered…

Chapter 2

He stood in the centre of what had once been a castle, tumbledown walls encircling the top of a windswept hill. Rubble was scattered for several yards round the crown of the hill upon which it stood, lashed by rain and winds, shrouded in darkness. He had to pick his way carefully across the broken ground, and twice tripped over a mossy boulder half-buried in the earth. He turned to look behind him, and where the hilltop ruins had stood, there was now a single tower rearing above his head, reaching for the darkened heavens; remote and forbidding, even though it too had an air of decaying disrepair. There was one door at the foot of this keep, and it opened to his touch.

The tower was open to the elements, the floors above the single roomed ground floor long since collapsed, as the splintered timbers on the floor testified. The walls were frost cracked and creepered, ivy and other clinging plants crawling over them, and slimed with lichen where damp had seeped deep into the stones. Unlike the castle, the air here was one of slow decay rather than sudden destruction.

A shaft of light through the doorway glinted off something silvery on the far side of the room, and he walked slowly towards it, fastidiously picking his way across the littered floor.

The mirror was six feet high and about three across. The peeling gilt frame was fixed to the wall not with bolts or screws, but with living vines that trailed around and through the frame and the wall behind it, holding it in place. Dusky pink roses in full bloom wilted on the vine, receptacles withered and unfertilised. He stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection. With no real surprise, his own face wasn't what stared back at him. At least, the face looking out at him hadn't been his for over a thousand years.

The dark haired man in the grey suit smiled at him, a humourless thin-lipped smile half obscured by a neatly trimmed black beard streaked with grey. 'How long do you mean to be content?' he asked.

He awoke in the armchair he'd fallen asleep in. The only sounds were the popping of the logs on the fire, and the deafening pounding of his hearts. Kastchei took a shuddering breath, and only then realised that he wasn't alone in the room.

Valery hovered in the doorway, and cleared his throat.

'Yes?' Kastchei snapped.

'Dinner will be served shortly, my lord. You might wish to dress first?'

Kastchei nodded his thanks, and waited for Valery to leave.

'Well?' he asked when the man remained in the doorway. Valery cleared his throat again. 'You seemed – disturbed.'

'You should take something for that throat,' Kastchei replied coldly. Taking the hint, Valery departed, shutting the door behind him, and leaving his master to his thoughts.

Dinner was a subdued affair, that night. Kastchei's servants (those who had not either left with their queen or been dismissed as potential spies by their lord) served them quickly and silently, before retiring to allow the Master of the Hunt and his guests to eat in privacy. Phoenix, still sulking from Vivienne's rebuke, just toyed with the dish on the table in front of him, refusing to talk even to Taliesin, who simply shrugged after a while and let her get on with it. Uulamets ate in silence, keeping his own counsel perhaps after his meeting with Kastchei. Vivienne watched the sorcerer, who sat to her left, with a wary eye. Although he was as unfailingly polite as ever, there was something in his manner that made her nervous. Some decision made that had placed him upon a course of action. She wished she'd been able to quiz Taliesin about it before dinner, but he'd barely had a chance to grunt a "later" at her while he threw on a clean shirt for dinner, after returning to their quarters only just in time to change for dinner.

After the dessert was cleared away, Kastchei pushed his chair back from the table and stood. 'Kolya, perhaps you would follow us to the parlour? I believe if you ask Taliesin nicely, we may be able to persuade Gwynedd's premier cynfeirdd to honour us with a song?' He bowed to Taliesin with a return of his familiar flourish, missing for so many months. 'Taliesin?'

Taliesin returned the bow. 'It would indeed be a pleasure, Lord Kastchei. If you will excuse me, I'll fetch my harp.'

He rejoined them a few minutes later, after they were settled in the large tapestry-hung parlour that Kastchei used for entertaining in less formal surroundings than the Great Hall. The Lord of Summer stood by the hearth, a gold-inlaid silver goblet in hand, two of his hounds at his feet, stretched out upon the rug in front of the fire, their white coats a startling contrast to the deep reds, golds and browns of the carpet, which depicted one of the scenes from the history of Breceliande: Merlin's entrapment by the disguised Morgaine. The rug, although ancient, had not been here the day before, Vivienne noted. The change was not missed by Taliesin either, but although she saw his lips compress in his familiar moue of annoyance, he said nothing. He took his seat in the high-backed, armless chair provided in the centre of the room, and placed Leannan on his lap. Uulamets, native born to Skazki, looked at the instrument with interest.

'It reminds me somewhat of a guzli,' he said eventually, naming the small guitar-like instrument Vivienne had heard played several times since her arrival here.

'Similar,' Taliesin said, finishing tuning the lap harp. 'But far more versatile in her range.' The commander returned to his wine, seemingly unaware of the bard's double meaning. Versatile indeed, was Leannan, born from a bough of the world tree itself, and imbued, some said, with the gift of prophecy. Vivienne knew the full truth: that Leannan granted Taliesin glimpses of past, present and future. Just without subtitles… She accepted the goblet handed to her by Kastchei, and settled back to watch, and listen.

Taliesin's voice was deep, and soft; the song he chose first was the Lament - Arthur's response to Gwalchmai after finding him with Gwenhyfra. Vivienne hid her nose in the goblet to hide her wince. Taliesin's voice carried not the heartfelt sorrow of a man betrayed, in A minor, as the song was usually performed, but had a harder edge in a major key. The point, she noticed, was not lost on Kastchei. Thankfully, he had the sense not to push the issue. He called Vivienne over to his side as soon as the last strains of the lament were finished, and she added her own husky contralto to his soft tenor in the duet he'd written for them to sing for Elphin's coronation. Halfway through the song, Kastchei stood up abruptly, and left the room without a word. The duet over, she touched Taliesin's arm and nodded to the door. She caught a brief flicker of concern in his green eyes, but he nodded, then engaged Uulamets in conversation. When the commander was occupied, she slipped silently from the room.

It wasn't hard to find their host - Kastchei's preference when brooding was to walk the elaborate paths of his walled garden, and it was here that she found him, sitting on the pedestal of the marble statue of Arawn, first lord of the hunt, with his two oldest hounds at his feet, stroking the massive scarred head of the alaunt whose head rested on his lap, and staring at the stars. He didn't turn as she approached, but she knew from his bearing that he heard her. Without a word, he shifted slightly to make room for her to sit beside him, and she perched on the cold marble, her shoulder brushing his, and waited for him to speak.

'Love is the single most destructive of the emotions, don't you think?' Caught off guard by the question, she hesitated, and he continued. 'Hatred will only carry a man so far, but love - the worst personal excesses in any history have been committed in the name of love. Not for nothing were the arrows of Eros said to bring both death and desire.'

'Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage' Vivienne quoted softly.

'Lao Tzu?' Kastchei laughed. 'Like most poets and philosophers, he concentrated only on the strengths, and not on the weaknesses. Love destroys from within more surely and completely than hatred ever can.'

Vivienne clasped her hands in her lap and stared at the moon-silvered branches of the trees that surrounded the statue.

'What about the lack of love?'

'A blessing,' he said abruptly. He stood up, disturbing the two hounds, which whined and looked up at their master. 'Talya comes, Vivienne, I'll leave the two of you in peace.' He began to walk away, but she caught his arm as he walked past her, her fingers entangled in the soft fabric of his sleeve.

'Kastya-'

He shook her hand off, but then as she let out a long breath and lowered her hand, he caught it in his own.

'Only I can lay my ghosts to rest, Vivienne. But not tonight. Not tonight.' With that, he leaned down and kissed her cheek lightly, his beard brushing her skin as he pulled away again. Then he slipped into the shadows, and was gone, the hounds padding at his side the only visible wake of his passing.

Footsteps on the gravel alerted her to Taliesin's arrival, and she waited quietly for him to reach her side. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she covered it with her own, entwining her fingers in his.

'What was that all about?' he asked softly, his voice concerned - whether for her, Kastchei, or for seeing them together, she couldn't tell. More troubled than she could account for, she shook her head.

'If I had to guess, Alia.' She allowed him to help her stand, her legs numbed by sitting on the cold marble. Rubbing the backs of her legs to get some feeling back into them, she looked up at the face of the first Master of the Hunt, highlighted by the pale light from Skazki's two moons. Not for the first time she pondered the tangled webs of fate and history that had brought them to this point. Names and destinies; coincidences and confluences. She traced the seal engraved on the base of the statue. Names. Titles...

A fragment of a remembered conversation, months ago: ...a princess to weep such bitter tears...

Names... She stared past Taliesin along the pathway Kastchei had taken moments earlier, chewing her bottom lip, remembering an orange sky, a rocky desert, and a plea for compassion ignored, so very long ago.

'Vivienne?' Taliesin's voice held only concern.

'Nothing.' She shook her head, not wanting to believe, but left knowing that she was right. She placed her arm around Taliesin's waist and felt him hold her in return, a place of safety she badly needed all of a sudden. 'It's nothing, just a shadow passing over my grave.' She felt the unspoken question, but mercifully, he didn't ask. Side by side they made their way back to the palace.

Some time later, she lay with his head pillowed comfortably on her shoulder, and ran her fingers through his long red hair, trying to untangle a large knot. Outside, a crash of thunder loud enough to rattle the shutters signalled the start of a large storm. He turned over and murmured sleepily:

'Did you hear that?'

'Couldn't miss it. We're in for a loud one tonight, if that's anything to go by.' She nestled closer to him. 'Go to sleep, we'll both need to work on the dromond tomorrow.'

'I'll pass. I want to talk to Kastchei. Alianora seems recovered enough from her injuries to make waves and that suggests the Calaitin will not be far behind in making a move. I think it's high time he and I discussed a few matters.' The thunder crashed again.

Taliesin lifted himself up onto one arm and stared past Vivienne, towards the window, which although closed, was free of curtains, so that the night sky, deep purple with the reddish moons setting low, was clearly visible. 'No lightning - did you see lightning?'

Vivienne yawned. 'No. But then I wasn't looking.'

Taliesin tapped her arm and gestured at the sky. 'No cloud either - so where's the storm? Hmm?'

Vivienne sat bolt upright at that. 'Kastchei,' they said in unison. Taliesin was out of the bed and hopping into his breeches before she could move. Tangled up in the sheet, she had to unwrap herself first, and so he was already dressed before she was even fully out of bed.

'Why would he take the Hunt out tonight?' she asked, trying to find her boots and a clean shirt in the closet. Taliesin shrugged his long black duster on and shook his head.

'I have no idea, but I intend to find out. I'll meet you down at the stables.' With that, he was out of the door.

Cursing her tendency to just throw her clothes into a heap any which way, Vivienne hunted for a reasonably clean pair of breeches.

The kennels were deserted when Taliesin arrived at a run, skidding on the flagstones as he came to a stop. All twelve of Kastchei's hounds were gone, and Sivushka's stable door was wide open, the albino cybrorse gone. Only Voronushka's head, almost invisible in the night, hung over the door of the next stable. Of hounds, horse or master, there was no sign.

And yet… Taliesin looked at Voronushka. The thunderclap had been mere minutes ago, and the black had already shown that he was capable of following his stablemate. He almost ran to Voronushka's stable and unbolted the door. 'Think you can find them, my little raven?' The stallion pawed the ground, and the bard thought quickly. The hunt was still not able to translate far, according to Kastchei, so it was likely he'd take them in stages, if hunting a distant quarry. If he was merely out for a ride, there was no problem at all. Either way, he should be able to catch up. Pausing only to put a bridle on the black, he scrambled onto Voronushka's back and nudged the stallion into a fast trot, which once out of the palace grounds became a gallop. 'Find them,' he whispered to the cybrid, and the great black quickened his pace, almost flying into the night.

The stableyard was completely deserted when Vivienne arrived a few minutes later, clutching her cloak close to her to protect against the early morning chill. Of Kastchei and Taliesin, there was no sign, but she quickly noticed the empty kennels, and the two open stables, and drew the correct conclusion.

'Of all the bloody stupid…' she began, slamming her fist into the wooden frame of Sivushka's empty stall.

'Is there a problem?'

She turned to see Uulamets behind her, powersword in hand, although deactivated. He too had the look of someone who'd only just got out of bed, and dressed in a hurry, she noticed: his leather boots were wrinkled, pulled only part way over his breeches, and he'd not tucked his shirt in. It gave him a somewhat roguish air.

'Don't consider lying to me, Lady Vivienne,' he said, taking her arm. His fingers held her arm in a vice like-grip, and she had no real option but to follow him back into the palace. Valery, Kastchei's valet, hovered in the vaulted hall, greying hair uncombed, his usually impeccable dress looking as though it had been thrown on in the dark. He was also still wearing a battered pair of fur slippers that looked hopelessly out of place.

'Commander - my lady -' he fussed and fidgeted as Uulamets pulled Vivienne past him, ignoring him until he reached the door of the parlour.

'You - ' Uulamets released Vivienne, who rubbed her arm ostentatiously with a mulish expression. He pointed at Valery, who obviously distressed at being roused at so unearthly an hour, was looking more and more nervous by the second. 'Prepare the fire and have some mulled wine brought to us. After that, I suggest you try to ascertain your master's whereabouts. I am not appreciative of finding my host vanished in the middle of the night.' When Valery simply stood in the corridor, unsure whether to obey or argue with this uppity guest, Uulamets placed his free hand on the broad hilt of the quiescent powersword. 'Move!'

With a duck of his head, Valery scuttled away down the corridor, almost slipping on one polished section in his slippers.

Sipping from the gold-chased goblet a little later, curled up in the largest chair, Vivienne regarded the Commander warily as he poked the fire into blazing life, studiously ignoring her, until the moment he chose.

'Commander Uulamets, you push the guest right too far. You have no right to pry into these matters…'

He interrupted her abruptly. 'As a guest of Lord Kastchei yourself, and I presume a friend, I can appreciate your position, my lady, but you must understand mine - my duty is to my prince, and my city. If the rumours and tales we have heard about Kastchei's behaviour are true, then I must know. Is he a threat to us?'

Vivienne put her goblet on her knee and traced a finger around the rim. 'Truly - I would say no, but since I'm not aware of the exact nature of the allegation laid by Queen Alianora…' She raised her head then and met his eyes. 'I am assuming that she has raised certain - concerns - about Lord Kastchei?'

Uulamets nodded. 'You have the right of it. Yuri has no great love for the Queen of Winter, which is why he is wary of her overtures, but again - he knows Kastchei of old, and even allowing for the exaggeration of minstrels and the mists of legend, he was once the most feared sorcerer on this world, his excesses legendary even for that breed of magician we endured in those times. I must know the truth.'

Vivienne stared at him thoughtfully, weighing up her impressions of this man. Kitezh's Chief of Intelligence and the commander of her armed forces would not be incapable of dissimulating, but she believed him. And perhaps, with the Queen still at large, with whatever strength Calaitin could muster, and their goal still unknown, they could use another ally in this land. It couldn't possibly, she thought, do more harm than Kastchei's recent activities. She took a deep breath.

'From our point of view, this began about six months ago, on our homeworld of Gwynedd…'

Chapter 3

The Void, and the Southern Mountains

Despite the thaw, the nights were still long and cold on Skazki. Grateful for the warmth of the cybrorse's body under him, Taliesin held on tightly as the massive beast covered the ground in huge strides. As he had earlier that day, he let the black have his head, trusting to the vat-born bond between Sivushka and Voronushka to guide his mount to Kastchei. And sure enough, after what felt like hours, Voronushka slowed to a gentle canter, and then to a walk, as the approached the large hill behind which their dromond had rested before being dragged to the palace courtyard. Kastchei, all in white upon albino Sivushka, held his mount on the top of the hill, the hounds at the stallion's feet. In the dark, their red eyes glowed with an unholy light.

'Kastchei!' he hailed the sorcerer from the foot of the hill, hoping to stay him in his journey, but as Voronushka plunged up the steep hillside, the sorcerer turned the stallion to face away from him, and ignored him. Cursing under his breath, Taliesin urged the black on, only to feel, as he neared the summit, the crackling, hair-raising power of the Wild Hunt rising around him, as Kastchei prepared to set the Hunt in motion. Against the slowly lightening sky, he saw Kastchei raise the horn to his lips and blow the Gone Away. Without thinking, he kicked Voronushka into a gallop, and as the hounds and their deathly pale master vanished into the void, he drove his own steed after them, holding on for dear life and praying that Vivienne's description of the black's abilities were well founded. The void folded itself around him, and there was nothing to do but hold tight, and follow the baying note of the Hunt's voice.

Kastchei, on the rare occasions Taliesin had been able to persuade him to talk about it, called it the Void. If this was meant to imply emptiness, it failed spectacularly, for the Void between was anything but empty - in fact, Taliesin would go so far as to say the problem with this outside was that it overloaded all of the senses to the point where the mind simply could not process any more information: This was the realm the dragons called their own, the realm of the Absolute, where time and space were at once both utterly meaningless and infinitely meaningful. And, he'd thought on more than one occasion, if anyone could explain that, he'd eat his coat. Buttons and all.

After a time however the sensory overload did start to make some kind of sense, although the sensation was similar to the effects of certain kinds of intoxicants. Colour emerged from the black and whirled around the traveller, but it howled like a banshee, with all the force of a hurricane trying to drag the unwary off course. Attuned to the Absolute via his tenuous link to Yggdrasil, and possibly, although this was the explanation he dreaded, the memories he'd inherited from the one known as "Merlin", he could feel the presence, just out of the mind's reach, of the great forces that inhabited this realm: Here be dragons, indeed. Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my…! How Kastchei withstood the siren lure of these shores he could not guess; it was taking every ounce of discipline to hold his own mind to the task of following where the Wild Hunt led: The Wild Hunt, which travelled upon the winds of time itself.

With a sensation that was less of a sound than a colour and taste that crawled over his skin, they were free of the void, and back in the biting cold of the real world. Taliesin almost buried his nose in Voronushka's mane as the black cybrorse came to a dead stop, throwing his head back. Keeping his seat with difficulty, and spitting out a mouthful of black mane, Taliesin sat up and scanned his surroundings looking for Kastchei and the Hunt. In the early light of dawn they were hard to spot, white on the white of the snows that still lay on the land, but eventually he caught sight of Sivushka, fast vanishing over the crest of a ridge not half a mile distant. Clicking his tongue, he urged Voronushka forwards again, giving chase. As he did so, he heard the unmistakable sound of the Hunter's Horn, signalling the full Cry of the Hunt, and he shivered. Kastchei had set the Wild Hunt upon prey in earnest, and he had a feeling he knew all too well who the hunted was. Which meant that he had to try to stop the sorcerer - until he knew for certain what the Calaitin and Alia had planned, he could not afford to let Kastchei take his revenge upon his former Queen.

And besides, he thought to Kastchei, as he crouched low over Voronwy's arched neck, I'm not about to let you take that path, you damned fool. In vengeance lies madness, and I'm not sure you'd come out of the other side of it this time, my friend…

A sudden eddy in the Void-born winds caught him completely by surprise, and he was thrown clear as Voronushka reared and pirouetted, trying to escape the sudden flurry that caught them. Winded, he landed in a tussock of deep snowgrass, and lay still for several minutes trying to find the will to move. Once he sat up and realised that he hadn't broken anything, although he would feel the bruise on his left thigh for several days, unless he missed his guess. He stood up gingerly. Of Voronushka, and the hunt, there was no sign.

In fact, he realised, as he looked around, he'd been thrown completely clear not of the horse, but of his recent location. Instead of the lowlands with their glacier carved valleys, the sight that met his eyes now was very different: He was standing on the side of a mountain, wreathed in snow and mist. To his left, and he'd missed falling by inches, was a deep crevasse that plunged down into an icy darkness. Taking a deep shuddering breath he backed away from the edge, and started to look for a way down, cursing the impulse that had led him to follow the Hunt. It was only then that he saw Kastchei, lying about twenty yards further down the mountainside, half buried in a snowdrift.

Trying not to lose his footing, Taliesin climbed down as fast as he could.

Novgoren

Alianora had long ago come to the conclusion that she disliked Calaitin intensely. The gestalt-mind of the druid was unsettling to converse with, for one thing, and for another, she simply found them to be narrow-minded and not, despite their strangeness, particularly interesting to talk to. They also had a tendency to finish each other's sentences that she found profoundly irritating. With a slight pang in her breast as she regarded her allies, it occurred to her belatedly that she actually missed Kastchei. If nothing else, he was never boring.

The three Calaitin who stood opposite her now were the eldest of the seven that she currently believed to be on Skazki: they all wore their identical grey robes, marked with the rose and hydra symbol of Morgaine's Legion of the Rose. The eldest - "First" - was the one who limped forward to address her.

'Are you nearer to discovering the information we need?' he asked. Alia smiled sweetly.

'His Highness has been most forthcoming about the legends surrounding his city. Kitezh settled upon the node you seek: it should not be a difficult task to locate the portal, once we are within the city walls.'

'You are so sure that he will grant you admittance to the caer itself?' First asked.

'The boy is flattered by my attentions, and believes he "comforts" me in my hour of grief.' Alia's smile became more predatory. 'He will see that I am granted an audience with Prince Yuri at the very least, have no fear on that score. As to the rest… Once inside I can disable the sensors within the Caer. Kitezh will be powerless to stop us, and the power from the engines should be more than sufficient to open the gateway between the worlds.' She cocked her head on one side coquettishly. 'You never did explain exactly what you seek on the other side of the gateway…'

Second regarded her warily. 'Nor shall we. The Thorn is our business. You will be well enough rewarded when our task is complete.'

'See that that reward does not involve me resting upon the bottom of the great Mother River,' Alia told Calaitin sharply. 'My resources may be reduced, but I can still combat treachery - from whatever quarter it may come.'

First bowed, and she could not detect mockery in the gesture. 'We keep our bargains, Your Majesty.'

'See that you do,' Alianora told them. She swept imperiously from the room, leaving Calaitin staring after her with collective amusement.

Perhaps we should have approached the Lord of Summer after all, my brethren said Third to the others, using the peculiar mental channel that linked the clone-brothers. The woman is more than a little unreliable.

All of our projections and prolepsis indicated that he would not be so easily manipulated Second said scornfully.

His history indicated too much uncertainty - and that he posed an even greater threat allied to us than allied against us. The Master of the Hunt is not to be trusted. First turned to face his brothers. Our decision to aid the Queen in removing him was based upon this calculation. His links to the Prince of Kitezh, whilst useful, were not deemed sufficient to warrant the risk of leaving him alive. I took the decision to remove this threat whilst you were in transit, and I take full responsibility for it.

Our reports suggest that although much weakened, he could still prove a threat, not least because of his alliance with the bard who thwarted our plans on Gwynedd, Second said. Did your prolepsis foresee that contingency, my brother?

The Bard is a random factor: where his thread is woven, none can tell, said Third. The other two nodded in assent, feeling the others of their number concur. Yet we still require one goal before we breach the defences of Kitezh. The others concurred.

Our numbers must be replenished, said the Concordance. First smiled at his brethren.

Actually, I was thinking that the time technology of the Wild Hunt might well prove useful.

The Southern Mountains.

Kastchei was slowly coming to when Taliesin reached him. With the bard's help, he sat upright, although he looked as though he regretted the movement. 'I should have known you'd be involved somehow,' he said eventually.

'If you slink away in the middle of the night, do you really expect no-one to try to find out what you're up to?' Taliesin asked. 'Just what were you doing, anyway?'

Kastchei's grey eyes glared at the bard, who simply sat opposite the sorcerer with his legs comfortably crossed in the snow, and flicked his coat skirts out of the way. 'You have a reasonable idea, else you would not have given chase.'

'I wish I hadn't. Your untried pack, with your control over it imperfect at best, has left us stranded in the middle of nowhere.'

Kastchei's gaze was withering, but Taliesin just smiled enigmatically. 'No-one asked you to stick your nose into my business, Taliesin. Myself least of all.'

'I'll take that as a "yes" then, shall I?' Taliesin drawled. Kastchei's gaze by now could have melted granite.

'We're in the foothills of the westernmost peak of the mountain range that divides the northern highlands from the southern plains, ' Kastchei said eventually. Taliesin could have sworn he heard teeth grinding. 'Hardly the middle of nowhere.' He stood up and brushed himself down, grimacing at the dirt that marred his normally pristine white coat. A muttered incantation banished the grime, leaving the fabric as white as the snow-capped peak they stood upon. 'We're not too high up, I suggest we make our way further down. It's possible I should be able to call Sivushka once we are upon more level footing.' He began walking away, leaving Taliesin to trail behind him. The bard followed silently, cautious of his footing, but making sure to have his hands in his pockets whenever Kastchei turned to see if he was still being followed. From the set of the sorcerer's shoulders, there not a great deal more he could have done to irritate the man. Perversely, considering that Kastchei was his only hope of getting back to the palace anytime soon, he found it rather satisfying. Something about Kastchei's manner always managed to rub him up the wrong way.

Which was perhaps one reason why he didn't offer a helping hand to the struggling man ahead of him, as they trudged through the deep drifts. Kastchei stumbled more than once, but his stiff-backed manner and Taliesin's own perversity kept them a strict five feet or so apart. Which, the bard reflected a scant few minutes later, clinging on to a fragile granite shelf for dear life, dangling above the chasm that had opened up at his feet, just went to show…

His fingertips clawed for purchase on the slippery ledge, and he scrambled for footing a carefully as he could. There was a small indentation for him to place the toe of one boot, but no more, and he feared to place much strain upon that small foothold in case the icy surface betrayed him.

'Having problems?' Kastchei's head peered over the edge about three feet above Taliesin's head. Caught by the wind, his dark red hair blew freely across his face, and he brushed it away casually.

'No, thank you, I was just enjoying the view,' Taliesin said. The sorcerer shrugged.

'Well, if you say so…' His head vanished. Taliesin counted to ten, waiting for Kastchei to reappear.

The sorcerer did not. Swearing under his breath, Taliesin tried to haul himself cautiously onto the ledge, and slipped back, the movement sending a small scrabble of gravel and ice clattering down the sheer sides of the chasm to an unknown depth in the darkness below.

'Kastchei!'

A bearded face reappeared above him. 'Had enough of the scenery?' he quipped. He lay down and extended his arm to Taliesin. 'Take my hand.'

His tone was perfectly disingenuous, but Taliesin still hesitated.

'If I was going to let you fall, I'd simply walk away,' Kastchei said bluntly. 'Stop being a fool. I won't drop you.'

Taliesin managed to get a surer grip with his left hand and reached up carefully to take Kastchei's offered hand. The sorcerer's strong grip almost crushed his wrist, and his he was pulled free he felt his shoulder give way with an audible pop as the joint dislocated. Kastchei hauled him out roughly, and the two men lay side by side for some time on the edge of the crevasse, Kastchei breathless, Taliesin trying desperately not to move his right shoulder or any muscle connected to it.

'You could have ordered me to help you out,' Kastchei said eventually. His grey eyes regarded Taliesin with a far more appraising stare than he had at any time before. Taliesin sat up, and at once regretted the manoeuvre. His right arm hung limply at his side, even the slightest movement of the shoulder provoking a sense of nausea.

'I know,' he said, when he could speak again. You could have cut the silence that followed with a knife, he thought after a few seconds.

'Hmm,' was the only reply Kastchei gave. He pointed to Taliesin's shoulder. 'Are you going to be equally stubborn about that shoulder, or are you prepared to let me put it back in for you?'

'Think you can get it in without it hurting?' Taliesin asked with a wry grin.

Kastchei's answer was equally dry. 'Not a chance in hell.'

The Summer Palace.

Vivienne's mulled wine was cold by the time she'd finished speaking, although she drained the goblet giddily anyway, to gain time while she waited for Uulamets's reaction. He sat in the chair opposite hers, and stared past her for several seconds, before finally turning his blue eyes to meet hers.

'Mortal, after all these years?'

Vivienne nodded. 'Whatever bound him to the dragon was severed. Although I have a feeling that the bond was not intentional in the first place. His invulnerability was happenstance, an accident. For whatever reason, she brought him to this realm, as the legends say, but was injured somehow. My guess is that by protecting her charge, she somehow wasn't able to break the link when she left him.' Vivienne had her suspicions about that whole affair, but kept them to herself: the explanation would take too long, and would be meaningless to Uulamets besides.

'A heavy burden,' Uulamets murmured. 'It would explain a great deal. No wonder he chose to stay out of sight these past few months. There are those who would find information like that invaluable, and would not be slow to take advantage.'

'But not you or your Prince?'

Uulamets's eyes held a sly twinkle. 'Oh, we of all people would seek any advantage, if we needed to, my lady.' He toyed with his own goblet. 'Prince Yuri however regards Kastchei as a friend.' He drained the goblet to the dregs and peered moodily into the depths of the cup, as if seeking inspiration. 'It is not perhaps for those of us who serve such lords to question their allegiances.' He looked up, and she met his gaze. 'Even if it is our job to do so.'

'Commander, believe me, I do not believe that Kastchei is that unstable…' A knock at the door interrupted her. 'Yes?'

Valery entered, hair now combed and tied back, his white and gold livery impeccable. 'Lady Vivienne - the kennel master reports that as yet, there is no sign of either Lord Taliesin or of the master. If you wish, we can send a party out at first light…'

'Do it.' Vivienne ordered. She realised she was tugging her hair nervously, and dropped the thick chestnut braid.

'As you wish.' Valery nodded his thanks to her and backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Vivienne found herself staring at the ornate carving on the hardwood panels for several minutes, wishing she had some skill at least to see beyond her line of sight. Some skill, some talent to contact Tal, or at least know for sure that he lived, or was safe.

'Do you still care to tell me that the Master of the Hunt is to be trusted?' Uulamets asked her quietly. 'Even I could not help but notice the strain between your lover and your host, my lady. Perhaps…'

'Perhaps nothing,' Vivienne snapped. She stood up, disentangling the skirt of her coat from her knees. 'There are other dangers in this world without looking for trou-'

A blast rocked the palace without warning; plaster and mortar cracked and fell around then, covering them both in fine dust and gravel. Vivienne fell to her knees as another, closer strike exploded. Smoke and dust filled the air when she looked up, and she could only see vague shapes. One of them was moving, and she made her way, on hands and knees, over to it. Uulamets looked up at her and grinned. 'It seems we have company, my Lady!' he shouted, over the noise. Another strike rocked the palace.

'They must have breached the outer wards,' Vivienne shouted back, her hands over her ears. 'With Kastya gone, the palace is defenceless against attack if the wards fail.' Uulamets helped her to her feet, only to have to support her as another blast shook the palace; this time it sounded as though it had hit the west wing.

'We need weapons, supplies and warm clothing. Get the seneschal, if he still lives, meet me in the courtyard,' Uulamets yelled. When she hesitated, he added 'Go!'

Needing no extra prodding, she ran.

She found Valery in the main hall, trying desperately to organise the staff, most of who just milled around in confusion. A few were injured, and Valery himself was cradling his arm at an awkward angle.

'Hellfire cannon, my lady,' he shouted over the din when she asked if he knew what was happening. 'A dromond appeared out of nowhere, and started firing. We've lost most of the two wings already.'

'But not the main body of the building?' Vivienne almost lost her footing as another blast found its target nearby. 'They're being very precise, then. What could they want? If it was Alia, she'd level the entire building.'

'The only structure housed under the main hall is the vat-chamber,' Valery told her.

'Calaitin,' Vivienne breathed. She swore under her breath.

'My lady?'

'Never mind.' She took a deep breath, regretting it as she coughed out a lung full of smoke and dust. 'Take the staff, or as many as know one end of a hellfire pistol from another, and meet Commander Uulamets in the courtyard. Hold them off for as long as you can. Send the rest to round up supplies - food, clothing, anything you'll need if we have to make a run for it into the wilderness.' He nodded once, and began shouting orders. The barrage seemed to have stopped, for now, but the blasts had damaged so much of the palace that the rumbling of falling masonry was still deafening. Vivienne ran for the stairs, hoping that her room was still relatively untouched.

She bumped into Phoenix on the landing, looking wide-eyed and as nervous as a cat.

'What is it? I thought it was just a storm at first, but then the building shook.' She startled as the sound of hellfire pistols and blast rifles split the air. The bombardment seemed to have ceased, which only made Vivienne more nervous. The Calaitin and their allies must be launching their ground assault by now.

'The palace is under attack. Get what you can carry from your rooms, meet me in the courtyard. Try to keep your head down - the fighting will get brutal out there.' She stared at Phoenix, who looked scared and wilted. Just a child, really, and totally out of her depth in this world, far from the ice plains of her - his homeland.

Phoenix was not the only one who was out of their depth. Vivienne pulled herself together and tried her best to look confident. She placed her hand on Phoenix's arm. 'Go, I need to fetch some things from our rooms, and I'll be right behind you, I promise.' Phoenix left, but didn't look much happier. With a heavy sigh, Vivienne picked her way over fallen plaster and rubble to her chambers.

Thankfully, Leannan was unharmed, although her case was dusty. Vivienne lifted the harp carefully, swearing at the additional weight she'd have to carry, but leaving the harp behind wasn't an option. A bag packed full with as much of their gear as she could find went over her other shoulder, and she strapped on her blast rifle over Leannan's carry-strap. With a last, regretful look at her warm, comfortable bed, she made her way back to the ground floor.

She found Uulamets and Valery pinned down behind the dromond. Ducking to avoid the crack and sizzle of hellfire shot, and the occasional fireball or lightning bolt, she scurried over to their hiding place. 'Can we get out?' she asked. Uulamets took aim and she saw a splash of red blossom on the chest of one of the fighters attacking them. Dark skinned, and so not one of the Calaitin. Blood soaked the dark surcoat before she could make out any device on the chest.

'Perhaps,' Uulamets reloaded whilst he talked. 'Does your dromond work?'

'It should go atmospheric, but we haven't tested it yet,' she replied a little doubtfully. 'Surely we can't just abandon the palace?'

'Better the palace than our lives. I can always bring some troops and win it back for him.'

'We'd never get past the wards,' Valery said. 'These "Calaitin" have taken the vat-chambers and Kastchei's laboratory. From there they can control the wards that protect this place.'

Vivienne unstrapped her pack and Leannan, and shouldered her rifle. 'In that case, we'd better knock out the wards then. Valery - the dromond will take ten people. Find Phoenix, and anyone who can't make it on foot, get them inside. Wait for me.' She pointed to her packs - 'you'd better make sure these get put on board or Tal will kill me!' she clapped Uulamets on the back. 'You and I have work to do, hotshot.'

'You have a plan?' he asked, looking amused.

'You could call it that, I suppose,' Vivienne muttered. 'Come on.'

The southern Mountains

Night was falling fast, and the temperature with it. Halfway up the slopes of a mountain, Taliesin shivered deeper into his coat, and thought longingly of his warm bed. Not for the first time that night, he ruefully regretted chasing out after the sorcerer. His shoulder, the arm bound up out of the way in a makeshift sling, throbbed in agreement. At his side, Kastchei vented yet another expletive in the guttural tongue of Skazki, as his footing slipped on the icy rocks underfoot for the third time in as many minutes. Taliesin only just caught him with his useable arm, and steadied him.

'Can I second that?' he asked allowing a lighter note to enter his voice. Enough at least for Kastchei to notice. His companion laughed.

'Do they not teach bards to swear?' he slipped several feet down one icy incline, and held out his hand to help Taliesin down the slippery stretch.

'Only in rhyme,' Taliesin said with a breathless laugh. They were finally on level ground, but still several hundred feet above the plain. 'We cannot possibly make it down there tonight, even if we were both able-bodied.'

'I might, with luck, but even so…' Kastchei stared over towards the fast-fading sun. 'It looks as though we make our camp here for tonight, such as it is.' He cast around, searching. 'Although I would prefer a roof over my head.' He knelt down, muttered something indistinct under his breath, eyes closed for several minutes, his hands resting lightly on the rock. When he opened his eyes again, he stood up and pointed southwest. 'There. A cave, of some size. Hopefully unoccupied.'

'And if it does have a prior owner?' Taliesin asked wearily.

Kastchei shrugged, and slapped him on his still-tender shoulder. Taliesin flinched, and glared, but the sorcerer was already on the move. 'Then either we test my martial skills or your persuasive ones, Talya. How are you at composing ballads for bears?' He struck a mocking dramatic pose and declaimed:

The bard stood halfway up a mountain

Wondering if he must

Gush fine sentiments like a fountain,

Instead his tongue spills dust…'

'I'd back my composition against your wit,' Taliesin muttered at the man's back, adding an anatomical act that would have made even Geraint, armsman to Elphin, blush had he overheard it.

'The bleeding heart least understands

The sentiments that still it.

The hunter needs must take the hand

That offers help, not kill it…' he sang softly.

Kastchei turned, and found himself facing Taliesin's most enigmatic smile (the one Vivienne labelled "Most Guaranteed to drive already irate nobility to violence") 'Are you really so eager to test my temper?'

Taliesin shrugged, and quickly regretted the effort, as it pained his injured shoulder. 'I've already tested it and found it wanting.' He walked past Kastchei hoping the man wasn't too close to taking a swing at him just yet. 'This way, wasn't it?' He could just see the caves Kastchei had scryed - large enough, perhaps, to afford some shelter for the night. He crossed his fingers and trudged on through the snow, feeling the sorcerer's icy stare still fixed on the spot between his shoulder blades, and trying desperately hard to stop it from twitching.

As Kastchei had promised, the cave was large enough and deep enough to shelter them from the worst of the weather. The remains of some large beast's nest provided them with kindling and a small fire, thanks to Kastchei's magic. It wouldn't last the night, however, and so Kastchei had concentrated his efforts on using a slightly different method. Soon the walls of the cave glowed a dull red, radiating enough warmth to bring a little colour back to both men's faces. Their coats were draped over a large outcrop, steaming gently as the heat from the enchanted stone dried the heavy fabric.

The silence lay between the two men like a glacier, but to Taliesin's surprise it was the taciturn sorcerer who broke it first. He lay casually sprawled on the rough floor, leaning on his arm as though reclining on a brocaded couch, regarding Taliesin through narrowed grey eyes, that in the radiance of the cave, seemed to regain a shadow of their former glitter.

'No songs, no happy tune to lighten the mood?' his drawl could have been sarcastic, but for once Taliesin sensed no cutting edge in Kastchei's voice.

'My teeth are chattering so much that I doubt you'd hear me above the percussion section,' he replied. He stretched his hands not towards the meagre flame of the fire, but to the rock nearest to him, and tried to rub some life back into his still numbed fingers. 'So much for spring,' he muttered. Kastchei laughed.

'This? This is only the start of the thaw. Although when Summer comes you may wish for Winter's return. Skazki is not a planet of soft options, only of extremes.'

'Much like its rulers, perhaps?'

Kastchei snorted. 'What do you expect on such a world? The Winter lasts over one hundred and fifty years, the Summer almost as long, and they are two very different worlds to live in. They demand a certain mindset from those who would rule. Yet they are not so different in one respect - Death is never out of season.'

'And comes for all in his time.' Taliesin said softly.

'Master of the wildest hunt of them all, or so they used to say,' Kastchei said. He raised his head and looked at the bard. 'I used to find that amusing.'

'Is it so hard,' Taliesin asked, sensing an opening at last, 'to face mortality again? After all, you have the cauldrons under the palace, there's nothing to stop you from growing a replacement body -'

'Been there, done that. After a fashion.' He smiled grimly, then sighed. 'I've lived so many lives, had so many faces that sometimes I can't remember them all. Once I'd reached the limits of my own body's ability to regenerate, I hopped from one body to the next, parasitical, desperate, and more than a little insane, until one final error of judgement left me bound inside a "dragon". This… ' He paused briefly and smiled a little sadly, as if at some private memory, 'is the first time I've ever been able to simply live, and reflect. I've had to live with the consequences of my choices for over eight hundred years.'

'You've been immortal and invulnerable,' Taliesin pointed out. 'It's easy to be magnanimous when your life is no longer in danger.'

'You see such immortality as a blessing?' Kastchei laughed harshly. 'I was not immune to pain, Talya. To heal, to live through hunger, madness, crippling injury, and yet not to die… that can be torture enough, and I have not always been fortunate in my adventures, even before these last few hundred years. There were days I longed to die, but I could never look Death in the face. And when death was no longer an option... can you imagine that? What it is to face the full enormity of your actions and live with the consequences…' he jabbed a finger at Taliesin. 'I don't think even you can encompass that.' His hand swept up a handful of sand from the floor, and he let it trickle through his fingers. 'The years can flow past faster than this,' and he cupped his hand so that only a grain or two was let fall, 'or be held in a grip so tight they seem never to pass at all. Time is the greatest thief of all, and yet it could no longer touch me. I'd once desired such immortality, whatever the cost, yet I never dreamed what that cost would be. A man has two choices when he realises that. He can accept it and embrace his power, or he can decide that perhaps there is more to life than the domination of others.'

'Coming from a man who accepted Alia's offer to co-rule this planet and depose the existing order, I just have to question which of those choices you see yourself as having taken,' Taliesin said mildly, his gaze never leaving the sorcerer's face.

'A better one than many I have made in the past, Talya. I hope you never come to know more than a fraction of my history.'

'We are all haunted by the past,' Taliesin said quietly, staring down at the meagre flames. 'Whether it be our own or another's.'

'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, I believe the saying used to be,' said Kastchei. 'The past is another country, why not leave it alone?' His tone was remarkably even tempered for once. 'Vivienne's right. You worry too much about what might have been and what may come to pass. If you cannot control it, let it be.'

'Coming from you, Kastchei Bes-mertny, that is amusing indeed.'

The voice came from the mouth of the cave, beyond the light cast by the walls and the meagre fire. Only when the speaker padded softly into view, claws clicking on the rock, did Kastchei relax and take his hand off the hilt of his power-sword. Taliesin, who'd recognised the voice, simply smiled, as the Grey Wolf walked into the circle of light cast by the flames.

'Greetings, my friend. You are far from home,' he said quietly. The wolf sat down facing him, tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth, spittle flecking the pale stones at his paws.

'I roam where I wish, Shining Brow. And there was I, minding the business of a plump srela-buck, when the wind carries the scent of two fools walking down a mountain, and I wonder who would be stupid enough to be out on such a night. So I follow the scent and what should I find but the dragon-born sorcerer and the offworld harper, bickering like cubs in a den.' The wolf looked from one man to the other. 'Is it needed that I cuff you about the ears, or are you done trying to prove which one of you is cleverest and best?'

'The years have not mellowed your tongue, Old One, 'Kastchei growled.

'Nor mended your manners,' the wolf retorted. Taliesin couldn't help himself: he laughed out loud, and both turned to look at him.

'I'm so sorry,' he said eventually, once he'd got his giggles under control at the sight of the stiff-necked Kastchei arguing with a wolf. 'Do go on…?' Wolf and sorcerer fell into an injured silence. Taliesin prodded the fire to bring it back to a more roseate glow, and let them stew in their damaged pride for a few minutes. Eventually, he cleared his throat to get their attention.

'Grey Wolf, you did not, I t