The Twilight herald

'Of course,' he said, wondering how much he should say. 'There's no word of Lord Isak. I heard one of the mages tell General Lahk that some of the Knights of the Temples were on the move. There's talk they're going to ambush Lord Isak, but the general says he was expecting them to move.'

'General Lahk is correct,' Tila said firmly. 'The Devoted will not harm Lord Isak – they will head straight for Six Temples and protect it against the mobs, nothing more.'

The soldier nodded and Tila thought she saw a fleeting glimpse of surprise on his face, though it was obvious enough to anyone who knew anything of the Devoted.

Behind her the narrow guardroom window was open to the city. Bars made it secure against intruders but they did nothing against the ebb and flow of sounds from outside, voices, the clatter of hooves, and behind them, further away, noises she couldn't identify. The newly returned wind rustled through, bringing no relief from the sticky heat within.

The soldier bobbed his head, trying to catch Tila's attention as she stared pensively at nothing. Are you sure there's nothing I can get you?' he repeated doggedly.

Tila nodded. 'I'm sure. I left my books in Tirah and that's all I want right now.'

'Your books?'

'Oh, everything: history and diplomacy, journals, treatises on prophecy – in times such as these, who knows what scrap of informa¬tion – a past allegiance, a war long-past – might prove crucial to us now. I feel so useless sitting here; surrounded by people moving with a purpose, while I have none. If I had my books, I could at least pretend to be something more than a liability.' She sighed again.

The soldier shifted his weight, deeply uncomfortable. He was there

to bring the lady a pot of tea, not to tell a noblewoman how to make herself useful. He knew men who'd been flogged for expressing opin-ions on the subject, so he kept his mouth firmly shut. As expected, she didn't seem to be looking for a contribution from his corner anyway.

'If you change your mind,' he ventured after what he thought was an appropriate pause, 'if you do need anything, just call. I'll be down the corridor.'

Tila looked up, bleary-eyed. 'I'm sorry; I didn't mean to keep you. Thank you for the tea; please tell me when Lord Isak returns.'

The soldier bobbed his head and ducked out of the room, leaving the door ajar.

Tila listened to the half-dozen heavy footsteps that took him to his station at the entrance to the guard tower, then returned to her thoughts, and a creeping fatigue. She tried to count the hours since she'd slept properly and gave up. The heat had reduced a full night's sleep to restless hours punctuated by snatched moments of rest.

She looked around the guardroom. She'd come in here because there was a pair of massive armchairs in the centre of the room, pre-sumably liberated from some officers' mess, and each one was easily large enough to contain her small, exhausted frame. Between them was a battered leather-bound chest held shut by mouldering buckles that she was using as a footstool. She curled up again and let her

thoughts blur and drift. The clatter outside began to slowly recede into the background.

Tila's eyelids sank inexorably down as her head filled with the stuffy air of the guardroom that smelled of dust, dried mud and old wood shavings. There was an empty grate beside her, where shadows danced over the cold ashes. She tried to focus on the blackened hearthstone, attempting to pick out the worn, sooty lines of the image cut into. She expected to see Grepel of the Hearths, Tsatach's most domesti-cated Aspect, with her burning tongue hanging out like a dog's, but Tila's brow contracted into a frown as she realised the undulating lines bore no relation to Grepel. Her mind tried to frame the shapes around oilier Aspects of Tsatach, but the effort proved too much as her ilioughts floundered like a deer in a tar-pit. A sense of weight built relentlessly, dragging on limbs already weakened by fatigue. Her breath grew shallower. All the while the flame of the oil lamp gut¬tered, flickered and grew ever dimmer.

Unable to resist, Tila submitted and felt herself drift down into the shadowy embrace of sleep. Sliding up the walls of the guardroom, the darkness rose until the feeble light from the oil lamp was nothing more than a distant glimmer, subsumed by creeping fingers of darkness that flowed over her skin, soothing and lulling away the weariness. Enveloped in that comforting touch, Tila skirted the boundaries of sleep for a time, her awareness dulled as she listened only to the sound of her own breath, in and out, in and out… until that too was lost to the quiet of the night.

Then there was only the darkness.

A sudden breath surged through her body, forcing her eyelids open a crack and rushing with a tingle from her lungs out to her fingers and toes. Tila stared ahead in surprise at the unfamiliar room smelling of dust and mould, and the oil lamp in front of her faded almost to nothing, down to vapours. The guardroom, the Autumn's Arch gate. Images and faces returned: the door left ajar, the small cylindrical cup in her hands coming back into focus.

A chair where she sat so snug and warm, another opposite her, fac¬ing away from the lamp. The shadows looked longer now, lying thick within the other chair, so it looked almost like a man sat there, the worn, scratched leather supporting a shoulder there, and an arm…

What am I doing here? she thought bitterly. Why did I make sure they brought me, when all I could do was to slow them down?

'Because they are men without families,' the shadow answered her. 'You bring order to their lives, and a balance, that reminds them of who they are.'

Is balance what they really need? she found herself thinking, as if the shadow had actually spoken to her. A good soldier is one who can cast off who he is, put aside everything of him except instinct and training.

'And you remind them of their fears,' the darkness in the empty chair continued. 'By your vulnerability you demonstrate what price they might have to pay, you wear the faces of those they might lose. What use are you now to your lord?'

I am his advisor, she told herself. J have taught him about history and prophecy-

The shadowy figure laughed. 'And yet you ca

How was 1 to know? 1 couldn't have known-

'You failed him when his life was in the greatest of dangers and now once more your inadequacies prove a burden.'

A burden? Tila asked herself. What now? What have I done so wrong? She felt tears welling in her eyes as dread stole over her.

'This task you appointed to yourself, yet ca

She could not control her deep, juddering sobs now. What have I missed?

' "Twilight heralded by theatre and flame, the scion and sire kill in the place of death-'"

''Treasure and loss from the darkness, from holy hands to a lady of ashes. A shadow rising from the faithful," she continued with mounting hor-ror, uhis twilight reign to begin amid the slain." Oh merciful Nartis – his father! His father is missing!

'And he meets his allies at the Temple of Death,' the voice in her head finished triumphantly. 'And thus once more you fail him.'

Swathed in a cloak of night, Aracnan watched the Farlan soldiers below, raising their barricades ever higher as they prepared for assault. Three legions were camped outside the city gate, lines of tents and cooking fires huddled close to the wall. A rampart of earth studded with sharpened stakes had been thrown up in a crescent around them. Pickets lined the rampart and most of the soldiers had been formed into regiments, ready for the general's command – but still dozens of men were preparing food, irrespective of what violence might be occurring soon.