Gom raised the pouch’s flap, thrust his fingers inside and drew out a small crystal on a stout silver chain.

“. . . as all of us cίtos are promised to that folk.”

“The winds of change are blowing,” Gom repeated bleakly. Cold winds, stripping away the last shreds of his old familiar world.

 “. . . should an enemy break those seals and breach the crystal stair, then the gate will self-destruct—and shatter all Ulm with it!”

"Do not be so anxious, Gom. . . . Go back to Harga. . . . She’ll find you a mentor. Take him, study well, and remember that your world, my world, nay all the Seven Realms may one day depend on the part that we each play.”

“ 'If all goes well, and the child succeeds in bringing me my rune, then I shall teach that child all I know . . .' And here you are. My little tool to save the world: tested, tempered, proven by the water and the fire.”

“Tell me,” she said. “I want to know about your brothers and sisters. . . .

Gom pictured her returning to this lonely place. . . She must have felt such a loss to have done that. . . .

The sun was just up when Gom awoke, his dream strong upon him. “Mother,” he said drowsily. “At last I know.”

“The whip snicked past his ear, but he never felt it, for in same moment the horsemen, the wide dawn sky and the waving plains vanished like smoke, and he with the cίto were engulfed in a whirl of sound and light.”