forest setting more appropriate to a page of medieval romantic illustration, was too much.

Lynn opened her mouth to cry out.

    'Be quiet, fool woman!' The little man rapped her fingers with his stick, which caused her a violent start. 'Wake him up, and you'll spoil Sandy's wish!'

    Muddled, unable to re-orient herself, Lynn whispered, 'Wake who up?'

    Apparently the little man and the mongrel dog had made their peace, for in course of a wild search, she located him, seated in his spit-dampened waistcoat, astride Grail's thick ruff. The brass-tipped stick now pointed toward something a ways off in the undergrowth.

    Lynn peered through twining runners of ivy, and saw what looked like bits of basket woven out of sticks. Closer scrutiny revealed a young man, black-haired and high-browed, and barely past his boyhood. He appeared to be asleep. A cheek as innocent and clear-complexioned as a peach rested on uncallused knuckles. His limbs were well made, though delicately muscled, and over his simple tunic he wore what looked to be shoulder pads and breast

plate all woven out of willow fronds and twigs.'My God,' breathed Lynn.

      The little man bristled. 'Not God!' He went on to snap in an

undertone, 'Just the magic you've demanded of me, and no more.' Lynn could not quite stifle awe. 'Who is he?'

    'Your Sandy will know.' The little man clapped his palms together in a silent explosion of fey power.

    Lynn's hair bristled. A jolt hammered through her that rocked her awareness to its root. She blinked, shaken by its passage, and then stopped, slammed cold still, by the sight of Sandy standing barefoot in his hospital gown. He stepped forward and paused, eye to eye with the creature on Grail's back.

    The tubes, the needles, the paraphernalia of medical science that inadequately sought to prolong his life had all gone. Bruises remained, under his eyes and on his arms and in the hollow of his shoulder; the stitchery left by weeks upon weeks of IV needles. He still looked sick and thin, all knobby white limbs and a neck that rose frail as a stem. His eyes shone sunken and huge, haunted yet by the shadows of his suffering.

'Sandy!' gasped Lynn.

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