trees would be choked out, root and branch, and the cottage torn asunder stone from stone.

    In such things, the balance that ruled the borderlands was unforgiving. Gifts of life and sustenance were never to be taken for granted.

    'I will have to place trust in the Tree's dream,' she finally said. 'Let me be the one to go.'

    The Wizard bent in his saddle and offered three flakes of slate smoothed by the waves on the lake shore. 'These talismans carry a dreamspell that can be tuned by your healer's gift. Set one in the hand of each mortal as he sleeps, and let the beliefs in his heart shape his fate. Once you've crossed, ! cannot help. The Eld Tree must show your way back. My white owl will attend as your guide.'

    The appointed bird banked in a whispered curve and called, mournfully dusky and wild. Beyond that, the wood's hostile stillness remained unbroken. Not the ratchet of crickets nor wind in the leaves wished her well as the Wizard raised uncanny spells to bridge the veil, that twisting, intricate web of energies that divided earthly lands from the otherworldly realm of the mysteries.

Alan lay wakeful in the chill of a blustery winter night. It wasn't that his sleeping bag was too thin; he'd bought a good one, suited for subzero temperatures, when he'd thought he'd be hiking in the Rockies. As much as the cold was apt to bother him, his palms were sweating hot.

    Raw nerves kept him jumpy and wakeful. Not good at lying, especially to himself, he could not deny that his years in the service had wrecked his appreciation for the wilderness. Not a truth he liked to admit; still less to the two others with him: Bill, all macho bluster, and Rafe, who acted the suave city sophisticate, but who'd die before letting anybody see he couldn't beat a jock at his own game.

    Why was it, Alan thought bitterly, that male pride too often held nonconformity as a weakness?

    He reached out for the hundredth time in an hour and checked the rifle gripped in his hand. Deer season - what a laugh. He found no joy in hunting animals, hunting anything, in sad fact, not since his time in the service. Then, killing had meant plain survival, until the mind grew sick on its own fear, and a man

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