silver hair and so he thought…
“Loren?” he tried, but scarcely any sound escaped his cracked lips. He tried to wet them, but he had no moisture, he was dry. Then the figure came nearer, to stand in the starlight below where he was bound, and Paul saw that he had been wrong. The eyes that met his own were not those of the mage, and, looking into them, he did know fear then, for it should not end so, truly it should not. But the man below stood as if cloaked in power, even in that place, even in the glade of the Summer Tree, and in the dark eyes Paul saw his death.
Then the figure spoke. “I cannot allow it,” he said, with finality. “You have courage, and something else, I think. Almost you are one of us, and it might have been that we could have shared something, you and I. Not now, though. This I cannot allow. You are calling a force too strong for the knowing, and it must not be wakened. Not when I am so near. Will you believe,” the voice said, low and assured, “that I am sorry to have to kill you?”
Paul moved his lips. “Who?” he asked, the sound a scrape in his throat.
The other smiled at that. “Names matter to you? They should. It is Galadan who has come, and I fear it is the end.”
Bound and utterly helpless, Paul saw the elegant figure draw a knife from his belt. “It will be clean, I promise you,” he said. “Did you not come here for release? I will give it to you.” Their eyes locked once more. It was a dream, it was so like a dream, so dark, blurred, shadowed. He closed his eyes; one closed one’s eyes to dream. She was there, of course, but it was ending, so all right then, fine, let it end on her.
A moment passed. No blade, no severing. Then Galadan spoke again, but not to him, and in a different voice.
“You?” he said. “Here? Now I understand.”
For reply there came only a deep, rumbling growl. His heart leaping, Paul opened his eyes. In the clearing facing Galadan was the grey dog he had seen on the palace wall.
Gazing at the dog, Galadan spoke again. “It was written in wind and fire long ago that we should meet,” he said. “And here is as fit a place as any in all the worlds. Would you guard the sacrifice? Then your blood is the gateway to my desire. Come, and I shall drink it now!”
He placed a hand over his heart and made a twisting gesture, and after a brief blurring of space, there stood a moment later, where he had been, a wolf so large it dwarfed the grey figure of the dog. And the wolf had a splash of silver between its ears.
One endless moment the animals faced each other, and Paul realized that the Godwood had gone deathly still. Then Galadan howled so as to chill the heart, and leaped to attack.
There took place then a battle foretold in the first depths of time by the twin goddesses of war, who are named in all the worlds as Macha and Nemain. A portent it was to be, a presaging of the greatest war of all, this coming together in darkness of the wolf, who was a man whose spirit was annihilation, and the grey dog, who had been called by many names but was always the Companion.
The battle the two goddesses foreknew—for war was their demesne—but not the resolution. A portent then, a presaging, a beginning.
And so it came to pass that wolf and dog met at last in Fionavar, first of all the worlds, and below the Summer Tree they ripped and tore at one another with such fury that soon dark blood soaked the glade under the stars.
Again and again they hurled themselves upon each other, black on grey, and Paul, straining to see, felt his heart go out to the dog with all the force of his being. He remembered the loss he had seen in its eyes, and he saw now, even in the shadows, as the animals rolled over and over, biting and grappling, engaging and recoiling in desperate frenzy, that the wolf was too large.
They were both black now, for the light grey fur of the dog was matted and dark with its own blood. Still it fought, eluding and atacking, summoning a courage, embodying