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“Don’t look at them. Just look straight ahead. Recognition leads to fear, and fear increases their power.”

“Whose power?”

“The howlers’ power.”

I clutched the staff, ready to pull it free, if necessary.

“Don’t!”

I tried to relax my grip on the dark wood, forcing myself to look straight ahead.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee…

From the corner of my left eye, I could see a shape flicker, trying to grab my attention.

I glanced down at Gairloch’s mane, and the whitish shape disappeared.

“With each generation, they are weaker. And with each person who passes successfully their powers are diminished.” Justen’s voice was faint, but clear.

The road began to slope upward as we continued southward.

“OOOOOOOOEEEEEEEE!”

I started, looked straight ahead at the suddenness of the sound.

On the trail, standing on a liquid-white paving stone, was a twisted and turned figure, white and streaked with red, but shining.

I blinked, trying to look down, but the figure seemed different…more human…almost as if wearing a red-and-white robe…and the twisted white was more like a reverse shadow cast behind him.

“Mine!”

The robed figure seemed to spring from the pavement, which spread to resemble a wide avenue, along which tall oaks rustled in the wind.

Mine!

As the second voice echoed in my thoughts, I found the staff in my hand, up before my face.

The figure hit the staff as if to rip it from my hands, which were bare against the wood. The impact rocked me in the stirrups, jolted me back in the saddle…and it was gone.

“Accuuuuughhh…” I was half-coughing, half-retching, surrounded by the foulest odor I had ever smelled, a cross between rotten fish, wet ashes, and brimstone. The mist burned my eyes, and I could see nothing except a tan blur that was Gairloch’s mane.

Managing somehow to empty my stomach without losing the staff or my balance, I teetered in the saddle, finally straightening up.

Justen had said nothing. But I could tell both ponies were moving forward, still on the old trail. By the time I could see and breathe, I could also see why Justen had said nothing. He lay spread over Rosefoot’s neck, somehow in the saddle, but very still.

At the same time, the feeling of the white oppression, more sullen than darkness itself, was gone, although the gray clouds seemed lower than before, and darker. The darkness was that of an approaching storm.

Swishing the reins, I tried to get Gairloch to move closer to Rosefoot. Grudgingly, the pony obliged.

As I drew abreast of the other pony, I could see that Justen was breathing. His arms were thrust into sheaths on each side of Rosefoot’s neck.

Mind-throwing? Had the wizard sent his thoughts elsewhere? The sheaths indicated that he was prepared for his body to be carried without his consciousness. And he was still breathing.

Still, I rode next to him, hands still on the staff, feeling the warm wood against my hands.

Something about that bothered me, but I wasn’t about to sort that out until we were out of the valley, well out.

The Council of Magicians, Fairhaven—something in my studies, something that Magister Kerwin had said, had to do with this place.

OOooooeeee…

The sound hadn’t been a real sound at all, only a sound in my mind. The howler hadn’t been able to make a real sound until I recognized him.

I let my thoughts seethe, took another look at Justen—who was still breathing—and wondered what I should do.

Rosefoot kept stepping forward, and so did Gairloch. So I waited, wondering where the magician’s thoughts had gone.

Ooeee…

The cry had more of the feel of a mental whimper, as if whatever cried were about to die forever.

How something that was dead could die was beyond me, but that was the way it sounded.

Both ponies kept picking their way up the long gradual trail, still heading straight south, until we passed through another set of melted stone gates. The south set contained dark streaks embedded in that dead white, as though they had burned and then melted.

The odor