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THREE

The pumpkin-shaped carriage looked even more ridiculous now, in the greenish glow of Helda’s still-burning house, at the end of a street littered with dead hell-creatures and half a dozen dead horses. As we neared, a little door in its side slowly swung open and delicate steps glittering like spun crystal folded out. A small oil lamp hung from the ceiling inside, and by its pale illumination, I looked upon white velvet seats and cushions, a small ivory-inlaid table, and a passenger—the woman I had glimpsed earlier.
Without hesitation I unbuckled my swordbelt and slid into the seat across from her, balancing my weapon across my knees. My fellow passenger was strikingly beautiful, I found, with long dark hair and a wide, almost familiar face. Thin nose, full lips, strong chin—
Dworkin, I realized. She looks more than a little like him. Could she be his daughter?
She was dressed in a gold-and-red silk dress, with a round red hat perched atop her head. Heavy gold rings set with large diamonds and larger rubies, if I was any judge, covered her slender fingers. If she had witnessed the battle outside, she showed no sign of concern. She might have been out for a picnic in the country as far as I could tell.
“Hello,” I said.
“Not now, Oberon,” she said.
Ignoring me, she picked up what looked like a deck of Tarot cards and nimbly shuffled them, then began turning them over one by one on the table between us. Leaning forward, she studied intently the pattern made by the first nine.
“Anything?” Dworkin asked from outside the carriage door. I glanced over at him expectantly.
Freda said, “We had best hurry. Time is running out here.”
“Time already ran out,” he told her. Then he shut the door, and from the way the carriage shook and swayed, I knew he was climbing onto its roof. Probably to steer, I thought, thinking of the bench up there, though the carriage hadn’t needed any such guidance before.
“I guess it’s just to be the two of us,” I said. I gave her a smile, but she didn’t look up.
With a slight lurch, the carriage began to move forward. It took me a moment to realize the wheels weren’t clattering over the cobblestones. From the smoothness of the ride, we might have been gliding a foot above them. It had been a night of sufficient wonders that I didn’t even question it.
Instead, my attention focused on the woman opposite me—Freda, as Dworkin had called her—who seemed intent on ignoring my presence. With deft hands she gathered her cards, shuffled them again, and began methodically turning them over once more, this time forming a circle on the table. She didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in me, Kingstown, or the hell-creatures we had just slain.
“I’m Obere,” I told her, “not Oberon.” Maybe we simply needed an introduction to get off on the right foot.
“Oberon is your proper name,” she said, still without looking up. “Things must be done properly. I am Freda.”
“I know,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes, you are, dear boy.”
“You see that in the cards?”
“No, in you, brother Oberon.” She smiled enigmatically, eyes glistening behind long black lashes.
I could play that coy game, too.
Almost teasing, I said, “What man wouldn’t be?”
“Indeed,” she said solemnly.
“Why are you here?”
“Father does not like to travel alone, and I thought I might be able to help, in my own small way.”
“I don’t think he needs help from anyone.”
“He does from me.”
Chuckling to myself, I leaned back. Clearly she thought a little too highly of herself. Dworkin’s daughter? Of that there could be no doubt. Apparently hubris was a family trait. I found it more annoying than endearing, however.
I glanced out the little window to my left. To my surprise, what appeared to be daylight glimmered through the lace curtain. Had dawn already broken? How long had we been riding in the carriage? It should have been at least three or four more hours till first light, by my reckoning.
I swept back the curtain and sure enough, the sun greeted me. Low in the sky, it cast a reddish-gold glow across acres of neatly plowed fields. It shouldn’t have been there yet, my every sense told me. Had I fallen asleep and not realized it?
No, I thought, shaking my head, that didn’t seem possible. I had been awake the whole time. We had just set off from Kingstown a few moments ago . . . hadn’t we?
I rubbed my eyes and, when I took my hand away, suddenly it was night again. I couldn’t see anything outside the carriage for the blackness. Even the stars and moon were absent, hidden behind clouds.
I let the curtains drop. Just my mind playing tricks on me, I realized. I had been awake too long. Of course it wasn’t daytime yet. We couldn’t be more than a mile or two from Kingstown.
Leaning back, I noticed a faint light outside through the curtain. Dawn? Again? Impossible!
Pushing back the lace curtains a second time, I stuck my head close to the window’s glass,
No, not dawn . . . the clouds had parted, and the moon shone down, full and bright, set against a glittering diamond field of stars. By their glow, we sped down a coastal highway, rolling faster than the fastest horse could gallop.
Faintly, I could see gentle dunes spotted with clumps of marsh grass. Beyond the dunes lay a pale ribbon of beach where small waves lapped.
Only . . . we should not have been here. The carriage had taken the south road out of Kingstown, which led to twenty miles of verdant farmlands and then fifty miles of ancient, overgrown forests. This horseless carriage moved quickly, but the nearest beach lay at least four days’ hard ride from Kingstown. Over the years, I had surveyed the entire length of Ilerium’s coast—and in all that time, I had never seen this beach before. I felt certain of it. So where were we? How had we gotten here?
Magic, I thought uneasily. It seemed the only explanation.
I unlatched the window and pushed it open, breathing deeply of the smells of salt and brine. Far off, an owl screeched. The waves shushed against the sand.
It was real, not some dream or vision. We really were on the coast now . . . a strange coast not anywhere I knew in Ilerium.
The sky began to grow lighter. The highway turned inland, now cutting through dense sun-bleached grasses whose pale heads rose higher than our carriage. Luminous clouds roiled in the sky, and lightning began to strike all around us. I saw flames shooting through the grass and realized they were dry enough to quickly catch fire. Unless the clouds let loose torrents of rain, and fast, those fires would soon be burning out of control. I knew how fast fires could spread, but somehow, riding in this carriage, I felt perfectly safe. Dworkin’s magic would speed us away.
Still the carriage rolled on, faster and faster, leaving the fires behind. The daylight slowly increased, grayish and diffuse now, revealing a drab countryside. Scrub trees replaced the tall grass, dwarf oaks and oddly twisted pines. The carriage turned, climbing sudden hills, then entered a forest of pines, which in turn gave way to more farmlands.
Lightning continued to flash above. The clouds continued to boil and seethe, and the air grew hot and sticky, but no rain fell. I spotted a few small stone houses with thatched roofs among the fields, but no sign of people or animals anywhere . . . they had probably taken cover to avoid the coming storm.
Peering ahead, I spotted a town of perhaps twenty or thirty low stone buildings just now coming into view. As we rolled through, slowing slightly, men and women dressed in black from head to toe came rushing out from every doorway. All carried swords or knives or axes. Their faces were drawn and pale, and their mouths opened wide to show needlelike teeth and forked tongues.
A thrown axe whizzed by my head, hit the side of the carriage, and bounced off—much too close for comfort. Gulping, I ducked back inside, peering at them from behind the curtain and the relative safety of the coach’s interior. Although they weren’t hell-creatures, from their reception, they might as well have been. Whether they wanted to eat us or sacrifice us to some dark god, I couldn’t begin to guess. I wouldn’t want to pass through here alone and unarmed, I decided with a shiver. And what of Dworkin? If they hit him with an axe—
They gave chase for a few minutes, but Dworkin’s carriage outpaced them, and they, too, fell behind in the distance.
The trees around us had begun to grow taller, darker, and more foreboding by the minute. I found myself leaning closer and closer to the window to see. Streamers of a sickly yellow moss and tangled masses of prickly vines draped every branch. Immense bats hung from every available perch by the thousands, and as we passed, they began to open little red eyes and flex leathery wings.
I liked this place less and less the farther we went. Where could Dworkin possibly be taking us? I hadn’t minded the coast road, but though I considered myself a brave man, the town and now this forest both sent shivers through me.
Suddenly the bats began to make screechy, chittering noises that sounded altogether too much like kill- kill- kill. They all seemed to be staring hungrily at us now, though none made any move to attack.
I wasn’t going to take any chances, though. This time I closed the window and snapped the latch securely. No sense giving them any path inside—though if they decided to attack Dworkin where he rode on top, I didn’t know how I’d be able to help him.
Slowly, I fingered the hilt of the knife in my belt, wondering if I should draw it and trying at the same time not to alarm Freda. No sense in worrying her unnecessarily, I thought.
I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile. She just stared through me, apparently bored and uninterested.
My gaze kept drifting back to the window, though, and to the dark ruby-eyed shapes perched out there. If anything, they bothered me more than the townspeople. I could defend myself against human—or almost human—attackers. But against swarms of wild animals . . . 
“Father doesn’t like to be followed,” Freda said suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence between us. “He has always been good at laying traps.”
“Traps?” I managed to pull my gaze from the window to regard her questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“Anyone who tries to follow us will be attacked, of course. That is his plan.”
“By the bats,” I said, realizing what she meant. “And the people in that town. And the burning grasslands—”
“Yes.” She smiled a bit and smoothed her dress around her, as though we had gone for a pleasant afternoon’s ride or a picnic in the country. “Father is awfully clever that way. I never could have thought up those bats.”
“But . . . how—” I frowned, puzzled. Thought them up? She made it sound like he had created them, somehow.
“He is a true master at manipulating Shadows,” she said with a little shrug. “Far better than me. I like to pick a place and stay there.”
“As long as it’s safe.”
“Of course.”
More riddles, I grumbled to myself. Shadows? What was she talking about? She was Dworkin’s daughter, all right, and I was sick of their games. Every time one of them said anything to me, it only made my confusion worse.
My attention drifted to the table between us. Apparently she had finished with her Tarot cards; the whole deck sat neatly stacked before her now. I wondered what she had seen in our future. Briefly I considered asking her, but then I thought better of it. Somehow, I didn’t think the answers would make much sense to me. And I had never put much faith in fortune-telling.
I turned my attention back to the window. Without warning, the carriage burst into a clearing, and dazzling noontime sun caught me full in the face. I had to shield my eyes and squint to see, and even so, bright spots drifted before my eyes.
A desert . . . we were riding through a desert of red sand and red rocks now. Heat shimmered in waves, and though I could feel a scorching heat on my face, I felt a chill inside.
Magic again. The carriage was ensorcelled, taking us on a nightmare journey where neither day nor night nor landscape held any true form or meaning. Even so, knowing it couldn’t possibly be real, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light I found I could not look away.
We turned, crossed a bridge of stone, and entered another forest, this one filled with redwoods of immense proportion, their trunks so big around that it would have taken a dozen men with arms stretched fingertip to fingertip to surround one. High up among the leaves, I glimpsed creatures the size and shape of men leaping from branch to branch. Male and female alike wore skirts of woven grass and carried short wooden clubs hooked to small belts. When they spotted us, they began to shriek and point.
The sky darkened without warning; hailstones the size of peas began to fall, followed by gusts of wind strong enough to shake the carriage. Behind us, I heard a huge grinding, tearing sound like nothing I had ever heard before, and a jolt of fear went through me.
Opening the window, I stuck my head out and looked back to see what was happening. A cold, gale-strong wind whipped my hair, and I had to squint to see, but the sight filled me with a terrible awe.
Half a dozen tornadoes writhed and danced through the redwood forest behind us. Trees by the hundreds were falling before the winds, huge knots of root tearing loose from the ground, immense trunks slamming down in an impenetrable maze of wood. I saw hundreds of the manlike creatures sucked up into the black swirling funnels where, still screaming, they vanished.
The road would be impossible to follow on horseback. It had to be another trap for our pursuers, if they made it around the fires, through the townspeople, and past the bats. But how had Dworkin known to come here? How had he known the trees would fall? They must have been standing for centuries to have grown so huge. For us to pass just as tornadoes blew them over seemed unlikely, to say the least.
No, I thought, Dworkin hadn’t known the trees would fall, I realized with a growing sense of helplessness. He had made them fall. It was the only possible explanation. With such powers as he now commanded, he could have ruled Ilerium. How, in all our years together, had I never even suspected them?
I felt sorry for the tree creatures in that forest who had died because of us, unwittingly giving their lives and homes to protect our passage.
The winds began to drop when we descended into a small valley. Fog came up suddenly, and a dense, dismal gray cloaked the windows for a time. Though I knew cliffs stood to either side, somewhere just out of sight, I thought once or twice I heard the sound of gently lapping waves.
I pulled my head in and glanced at Freda, who looked as serene as a cat with a bird in its mouth. I couldn’t understand her calm. This journey—and it wasn’t over yet!—already had me feeling battle-worn and weary . . . yet too ill at ease to relax.
“How much longer?” I asked her.
“It depends on Father. He is not taking the fastest or most direct route to Juniper, after all.”
Juniper? Was that our destination?
I’d never heard of it . . . and from the name it could have been anything, from castle keep to sprawling kingdom. She expected me to know the name, I thought, from the way she said it, so I simply smiled like I knew what she meant. Perhaps she’d tell me more if she thought I already knew about this Juniper.
Instead of talking to me, though, she settled farther back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap, volunteering nothing.
I did notice that dawn had just broken outside again, burning off the fog with supernatural speed.
After that, everything kept changing, but subtly, never quite while you were looking at it. The sky turned greenish, then yellow-green, then back to blue. Clouds came and vanished. Forests rose and fell to grassland, which gave way to farmland and then back to forests again. Dawn broke half a dozen times.
I had never even heard of magic like this before, which bent time and place to a driver’s will, and my estimation of Dworkin—or the people he worked for—grew steadily greater, if that was possible. Whatever wizards had created his crystal-weapon and this carriage clearly had the power to save Ilerium from hell-creatures.
My job would be winning them over to King Elnar’s cause.
It seemed our only hope.
Finally, after what felt like hours of travel, we entered a land of rolling green hills. The highway we traveled—at times paved with yellow bricks but for the moment deep ruts with grass in between—curved gently ahead. Brightly plumed birds flitted among the scattered bushes and trees, their cheerful songs strangely normal after all we had been through. Overhead, high white clouds streaked the deep, perfect blue of the sky,
“We are close to Juniper now,” I heard Freda say.
I glanced at her. “You recognize the scenery?”
“Yes. A few more hours and we should be there.” Then a dozen horsemen dressed in silvered armor fell in around the carriage.

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THREE

The pumpkin-shaped carriage looked even more ridiculous now, in the greenish glow of Helda’s still-burning house, at the end of a street littered with dead hell-creatures and half a dozen dead horses. As we neared, a little door in its side slowly swung open and delicate steps glittering like spun crystal folded out. A small oil lamp hung from the ceiling inside, and by its pale illumination, I looked upon white velvet seats and cushions, a small ivory-inlaid table, and a passenger—the woman I had glimpsed earlier.
Without hesitation I unbuckled my swordbelt and slid into the seat across from her, balancing my weapon across my knees. My fellow passenger was strikingly beautiful, I found, with long dark hair and a wide, almost familiar face. Thin nose, full lips, strong chin—
Dworkin, I realized. She looks more than a little like him. Could she be his daughter?
She was dressed in a gold-and-red silk dress, with a round red hat perched atop her head. Heavy gold rings set with large diamonds and larger rubies, if I was any judge, covered her slender fingers. If she had witnessed the battle outside, she showed no sign of concern. She might have been out for a picnic in the country as far as I could tell.
“Hello,” I said.
“Not now, Oberon,” she said.
Ignoring me, she picked up what looked like a deck of Tarot cards and nimbly shuffled them, then began turning them over one by one on the table between us. Leaning forward, she studied intently the pattern made by the first nine.
“Anything?” Dworkin asked from outside the carriage door. I glanced over at him expectantly.
Freda said, “We had best hurry. Time is running out here.”
“Time already ran out,” he told her. Then he shut the door, and from the way the carriage shook and swayed, I knew he was climbing onto its roof. Probably to steer, I thought, thinking of the bench up there, though the carriage hadn’t needed any such guidance before.
“I guess it’s just to be the two of us,” I said. I gave her a smile, but she didn’t look up.
With a slight lurch, the carriage began to move forward. It took me a moment to realize the wheels weren’t clattering over the cobblestones. From the smoothness of the ride, we might have been gliding a foot above them. It had been a night of sufficient wonders that I didn’t even question it.
Instead, my attention focused on the woman opposite me—Freda, as Dworkin had called her—who seemed intent on ignoring my presence. With deft hands she gathered her cards, shuffled them again, and began methodically turning them over once more, this time forming a circle on the table. She didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in me, Kingstown, or the hell-creatures we had just slain.
“I’m Obere,” I told her, “not Oberon.” Maybe we simply needed an introduction to get off on the right foot.
“Oberon is your proper name,” she said, still without looking up. “Things must be done properly. I am Freda.”
“I know,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes, you are, dear boy.”
“You see that in the cards?”
“No, in you, brother Oberon.” She smiled enigmatically, eyes glistening behind long black lashes.
I could play that coy game, too.
Almost teasing, I said, “What man wouldn’t be?”
“Indeed,” she said solemnly.
“Why are you here?”
“Father does not like to travel alone, and I thought I might be able to help, in my own small way.”
“I don’t think he needs help from anyone.”
“He does from me.”
Chuckling to myself, I leaned back. Clearly she thought a little too highly of herself. Dworkin’s daughter? Of that there could be no doubt. Apparently hubris was a family trait. I found it more annoying than endearing, however.
I glanced out the little window to my left. To my surprise, what appeared to be daylight glimmered through the lace curtain. Had dawn already broken? How long had we been riding in the carriage? It should have been at least three or four more hours till first light, by my reckoning.
I swept back the curtain and sure enough, the sun greeted me. Low in the sky, it cast a reddish-gold glow across acres of neatly plowed fields. It shouldn’t have been there yet, my every sense told me. Had I fallen asleep and not realized it?
No, I thought, shaking my head, that didn’t seem possible. I had been awake the whole time. We had just set off from Kingstown a few moments ago . . . hadn’t we?
I rubbed my eyes and, when I took my hand away, suddenly it was night again. I couldn’t see anything outside the carriage for the blackness. Even the stars and moon were absent, hidden behind clouds.
I let the curtains drop. Just my mind playing tricks on me, I realized. I had been awake too long. Of course it wasn’t daytime yet. We couldn’t be more than a mile or two from Kingstown.
Leaning back, I noticed a faint light outside through the curtain. Dawn? Again? Impossible!
Pushing back the lace curtains a second time, I stuck my head close to the window’s glass,
No, not dawn . . . the clouds had parted, and the moon shone down, full and bright, set against a glittering diamond field of stars. By their glow, we sped down a coastal highway, rolling faster than the fastest horse could gallop.
Faintly, I could see gentle dunes spotted with clumps of marsh grass. Beyond the dunes lay a pale ribbon of beach where small waves lapped.
Only . . . we should not have been here. The carriage had taken the south road out of Kingstown, which led to twenty miles of verdant farmlands and then fifty miles of ancient, overgrown forests. This horseless carriage moved quickly, but the nearest beach lay at least four days’ hard ride from Kingstown. Over the years, I had surveyed the entire length of Ilerium’s coast—and in all that time, I had never seen this beach before. I felt certain of it. So where were we? How had we gotten here?
Magic, I thought uneasily. It seemed the only explanation.
I unlatched the window and pushed it open, breathing deeply of the smells of salt and brine. Far off, an owl screeched. The waves shushed against the sand.
It was real, not some dream or vision. We really were on the coast now . . . a strange coast not anywhere I knew in Ilerium.
The sky began to grow lighter. The highway turned inland, now cutting through dense sun-bleached grasses whose pale heads rose higher than our carriage. Luminous clouds roiled in the sky, and lightning began to strike all around us. I saw flames shooting through the grass and realized they were dry enough to quickly catch fire. Unless the clouds let loose torrents of rain, and fast, those fires would soon be burning out of control. I knew how fast fires could spread, but somehow, riding in this carriage, I felt perfectly safe. Dworkin’s magic would speed us away.
Still the carriage rolled on, faster and faster, leaving the fires behind. The daylight slowly increased, grayish and diffuse now, revealing a drab countryside. Scrub trees replaced the tall grass, dwarf oaks and oddly twisted pines. The carriage turned, climbing sudden hills, then entered a forest of pines, which in turn gave way to more farmlands.
Lightning continued to flash above. The clouds continued to boil and seethe, and the air grew hot and sticky, but no rain fell. I spotted a few small stone houses with thatched roofs among the fields, but no sign of people or animals anywhere . . . they had probably taken cover to avoid the coming storm.
Peering ahead, I spotted a town of perhaps twenty or thirty low stone buildings just now coming into view. As we rolled through, slowing slightly, men and women dressed in black from head to toe came rushing out from every doorway. All carried swords or knives or axes. Their faces were drawn and pale, and their mouths opened wide to show needlelike teeth and forked tongues.
A thrown axe whizzed by my head, hit the side of the carriage, and bounced off—much too close for comfort. Gulping, I ducked back inside, peering at them from behind the curtain and the relative safety of the coach’s interior. Although they weren’t hell-creatures, from their reception, they might as well have been. Whether they wanted to eat us or sacrifice us to some dark god, I couldn’t begin to guess. I wouldn’t want to pass through here alone and unarmed, I decided with a shiver. And what of Dworkin? If they hit him with an axe—
They gave chase for a few minutes, but Dworkin’s carriage outpaced them, and they, too, fell behind in the distance.
The trees around us had begun to grow taller, darker, and more foreboding by the minute. I found myself leaning closer and closer to the window to see. Streamers of a sickly yellow moss and tangled masses of prickly vines draped every branch. Immense bats hung from every available perch by the thousands, and as we passed, they began to open little red eyes and flex leathery wings.
I liked this place less and less the farther we went. Where could Dworkin possibly be taking us? I hadn’t minded the coast road, but though I considered myself a brave man, the town and now this forest both sent shivers through me.
Suddenly the bats began to make screechy, chittering noises that sounded altogether too much like kill- kill- kill. They all seemed to be staring hungrily at us now, though none made any move to attack.
I wasn’t going to take any chances, though. This time I closed the window and snapped the latch securely. No sense giving them any path inside—though if they decided to attack Dworkin where he rode on top, I didn’t know how I’d be able to help him.
Slowly, I fingered the hilt of the knife in my belt, wondering if I should draw it and trying at the same time not to alarm Freda. No sense in worrying her unnecessarily, I thought.
I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile. She just stared through me, apparently bored and uninterested.
My gaze kept drifting back to the window, though, and to the dark ruby-eyed shapes perched out there. If anything, they bothered me more than the townspeople. I could defend myself against human—or almost human—attackers. But against swarms of wild animals . . . 
“Father doesn’t like to be followed,” Freda said suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence between us. “He has always been good at laying traps.”
“Traps?” I managed to pull my gaze from the window to regard her questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“Anyone who tries to follow us will be attacked, of course. That is his plan.”
“By the bats,” I said, realizing what she meant. “And the people in that town. And the burning grasslands—”
“Yes.” She smiled a bit and smoothed her dress around her, as though we had gone for a pleasant afternoon’s ride or a picnic in the country. “Father is awfully clever that way. I never could have thought up those bats.”
“But . . . how—” I frowned, puzzled. Thought them up? She made it sound like he had created them, somehow.
“He is a true master at manipulating Shadows,” she said with a little shrug. “Far better than me. I like to pick a place and stay there.”
“As long as it’s safe.”
“Of course.”
More riddles, I grumbled to myself. Shadows? What was she talking about? She was Dworkin’s daughter, all right, and I was sick of their games. Every time one of them said anything to me, it only made my confusion worse.
My attention drifted to the table between us. Apparently she had finished with her Tarot cards; the whole deck sat neatly stacked before her now. I wondered what she had seen in our future. Briefly I considered asking her, but then I thought better of it. Somehow, I didn’t think the answers would make much sense to me. And I had never put much faith in fortune-telling.
I turned my attention back to the window. Without warning, the carriage burst into a clearing, and dazzling noontime sun caught me full in the face. I had to shield my eyes and squint to see, and even so, bright spots drifted before my eyes.
A desert . . . we were riding through a desert of red sand and red rocks now. Heat shimmered in waves, and though I could feel a scorching heat on my face, I felt a chill inside.
Magic again. The carriage was ensorcelled, taking us on a nightmare journey where neither day nor night nor landscape held any true form or meaning. Even so, knowing it couldn’t possibly be real, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light I found I could not look away.
We turned, crossed a bridge of stone, and entered another forest, this one filled with redwoods of immense proportion, their trunks so big around that it would have taken a dozen men with arms stretched fingertip to fingertip to surround one. High up among the leaves, I glimpsed creatures the size and shape of men leaping from branch to branch. Male and female alike wore skirts of woven grass and carried short wooden clubs hooked to small belts. When they spotted us, they began to shriek and point.
The sky darkened without warning; hailstones the size of peas began to fall, followed by gusts of wind strong enough to shake the carriage. Behind us, I heard a huge grinding, tearing sound like nothing I had ever heard before, and a jolt of fear went through me.
Opening the window, I stuck my head out and looked back to see what was happening. A cold, gale-strong wind whipped my hair, and I had to squint to see, but the sight filled me with a terrible awe.
Half a dozen tornadoes writhed and danced through the redwood forest behind us. Trees by the hundreds were falling before the winds, huge knots of root tearing loose from the ground, immense trunks slamming down in an impenetrable maze of wood. I saw hundreds of the manlike creatures sucked up into the black swirling funnels where, still screaming, they vanished.
The road would be impossible to follow on horseback. It had to be another trap for our pursuers, if they made it around the fires, through the townspeople, and past the bats. But how had Dworkin known to come here? How had he known the trees would fall? They must have been standing for centuries to have grown so huge. For us to pass just as tornadoes blew them over seemed unlikely, to say the least.
No, I thought, Dworkin hadn’t known the trees would fall, I realized with a growing sense of helplessness. He had made them fall. It was the only possible explanation. With such powers as he now commanded, he could have ruled Ilerium. How, in all our years together, had I never even suspected them?
I felt sorry for the tree creatures in that forest who had died because of us, unwittingly giving their lives and homes to protect our passage.
The winds began to drop when we descended into a small valley. Fog came up suddenly, and a dense, dismal gray cloaked the windows for a time. Though I knew cliffs stood to either side, somewhere just out of sight, I thought once or twice I heard the sound of gently lapping waves.
I pulled my head in and glanced at Freda, who looked as serene as a cat with a bird in its mouth. I couldn’t understand her calm. This journey—and it wasn’t over yet!—already had me feeling battle-worn and weary . . . yet too ill at ease to relax.
“How much longer?” I asked her.
“It depends on Father. He is not taking the fastest or most direct route to Juniper, after all.”
Juniper? Was that our destination?
I’d never heard of it . . . and from the name it could have been anything, from castle keep to sprawling kingdom. She expected me to know the name, I thought, from the way she said it, so I simply smiled like I knew what she meant. Perhaps she’d tell me more if she thought I already knew about this Juniper.
Instead of talking to me, though, she settled farther back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap, volunteering nothing.
I did notice that dawn had just broken outside again, burning off the fog with supernatural speed.
After that, everything kept changing, but subtly, never quite while you were looking at it. The sky turned greenish, then yellow-green, then back to blue. Clouds came and vanished. Forests rose and fell to grassland, which gave way to farmland and then back to forests again. Dawn broke half a dozen times.
I had never even heard of magic like this before, which bent time and place to a driver’s will, and my estimation of Dworkin—or the people he worked for—grew steadily greater, if that was possible. Whatever wizards had created his crystal-weapon and this carriage clearly had the power to save Ilerium from hell-creatures.
My job would be winning them over to King Elnar’s cause.
It seemed our only hope.
Finally, after what felt like hours of travel, we entered a land of rolling green hills. The highway we traveled—at times paved with yellow bricks but for the moment deep ruts with grass in between—curved gently ahead. Brightly plumed birds flitted among the scattered bushes and trees, their cheerful songs strangely normal after all we had been through. Overhead, high white clouds streaked the deep, perfect blue of the sky,
“We are close to Juniper now,” I heard Freda say.
I glanced at her. “You recognize the scenery?”
“Yes. A few more hours and we should be there.” Then a dozen horsemen dressed in silvered armor fell in around the carriage.

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