His phone trilled. A wryly sardonic reply from the gods, it seemed.

"Richard, it's Sam. Any news?"

"Yes, and it's good. I've got Michael back and he's unharmed."

"Thank God for that. How?"

"It's a bit complicated. I'll explain when I see you, but I've sorted everything out. Michael's safe now with me. No one's going to hurt him ever again."

"How is he?"

"Same condition." If not worse. "I'll take care of him tonight, then we can see about that specialist tomorrow. Did you call Bourland?"

"Yes, and it was hell trying to fill him in when I didn't know anything."

"It's all right; he's used to me doing that to people. Would you call him again for me? If I phone he'll want details, and I'm too exhausted. Tell him what I just said and that he'll get a complete debrief tomorrow. A coherent one."

"What about Luis? Where is he?"

"Not in the picture," he said shortly.

Silence on the other end as Sam digested this. "Okay. You'll tell me everything?"

"I promise." Which, of course, was a lie. Richard had no intention of telling Sam the truth about Luis and his horrific betrayal. The man dealt with evil enough on a daily basis, no need to add another nightmare to his collection.

Nor would Bourland hear any of it. He'd been fond of Luis for Stephanie's sake. He did not need to wonder if he couldn't have done more, sensed something or anticipated the unimaginable, and have somehow prevented the butchery-all the things that were eating at Richard's soul.

This is my burden, my good friends. You're better off without it.

He would come up with a story to cover Luis's disappearance. Alejandro would get the blame. That would be the end of it.

But what of Michael, who knew the truth? ***

He carried the still-sleeping boy gently, thumbed the elevator button, and waited for it to deliver him to a few hours of peace before the morning storm. As before, he laid Michael in the big bed, then padded about seeing to his own needs. Once clean, his skin flushed red from the heat of a scalding shower, he carried the crossbow tripod out to the front room.

No need to wonder now how Trujillo's hit man had gotten into the flat. Luis himself could have been the one to set up the trap.

At least it wasn't a bomb.

As soon as he thought of it, Richard made a quick, thorough search of the place, sniffing for Semtex in every cupboard, peering under every stick of furniture. Then he went down to his safe room and did the same. He felt ridiculous, but knew no rest would come to him until he satisfied his flare of paranoia.

That done, he stretched out heavily on the bedroom sofa, and listened to Michael's soft breathing, waiting for sleep to take him, too.

He was on the point of drifting into it when the sound of the elevator snapped him wide awake. Who on earth...?

Then he suddenly knew and hurried forth, his heart hammering.

The doors parted, and he swept Sabra up into his arms.

"You knew to come," he said, quite some moments later. For a time it was enough to simply hold her. His fatigue vanished.

"How could I not? Your pain and need called me like a thunderclap. I'm only sorry I could not get here sooner."

He put her down, and looked at her. Outwardly, she was the same as ever, beautiful, delicate of frame and face, but there were changes in her that only he could discern. There was a new power within her now, carefully veiled to most, quite visible to him. She possessed a strange strength that went beyond the apparent limits of her small body, as though the woman before him was merely a projection of her real self, an ephemeral vessel to interact with the temporal world. He had the feeling that should the projection ever became a full reality, mountains would crumble.

The Grail had done that for her.

"You've suffered much," she said, having gazed at him in turn.

"You're here. I can bear anything now."

She smiled. "Take care what you say, my Richard."

"I know." He was long familiar with the universe's antic sense of humor. "But it's still true."

She dragged a sizable backpack in from the elevator, leaving it on the floor. Dressed in an old, oversized sweater, faded jeans, and jogging shoes, her long hair tied back with a bandanna, she could have vanished into any college campus, but for her eyes.

She could stop rivers with those eyes.

"Show me the child," she said, straightening.

He ushered her to the bedroom. She glanced down once at the surprisingly large bloodstain on the threshold carpet and looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. He shrugged sheepishly, then motioned toward the bed. The only light came from the open bathroom door, more than sufficient for them both.

She bent over Michael, touching a loving hand to his forehead. She was not his declared godmother-that honor had gone to Bourland's daughter-but was certainly his spiritual one for her link to Richard. She caressed the silken blond hair, then went still, her eyes closed. She remained so for a long time, then took a shuddering breath and pulled away, shivering.

He went to her. "What is it?"

"The child is dying."

His heart plummeted. No. Not again. We've been through too much.

Michael could not die. He was all that was left, all that remained of the beauty that had once been Stephanie, that had once held Richard so close, so wrapped in an unconditional, an undemanding love. "Is his fate sealed beyond all change?"

Sabra's smile was sad, yet it warmed his very soul. In that smile he knew that no matter what, all would be well.

"Not quite."

He sagged with relief. There was a chance then, and if it were even remotely within his power, he would make it a certainty. "What must I do?"

She reached her hand up and gently touched his pale, unshaven face. "Ah, Richard, ever the knight, ever the protector. Indeed there is much, and it is such that only you can do. A man betrayed the boy, and a man must save him. Only another who has been so terribly wounded can heal his wound."

"I do not understand."

"Think back to another son despised by an unloving father, another so cast away, another wounded nigh unto death."

The inner vision was so strong, Richard saw it as though it were happening again: his father's face full of hate, the bite of the blade, and the tearing pain. Pain that went far deeper and continued longer than that of any physical wound; pain that had been his enemy and then his strange, awful friend; pain that had faded yet never quite disappeared. His most bitter companion. How unloved is a son unloved by his father, how desperate and unending his loneliness and despair. Such a great, unfillable void to bestow as a paternal legacy.

"Whatever Michael needs, that will I do."

"I knew as much. You must go and find his spirit. He is much hurt and needs your healing. Complete the circle before his soul drifts so far away that it can never return."

"Yes, of course I'll go; but where?"

Her dark eyes glittered in the cool dimness of the room. "Beyond."

When she explained what was to be done, Richard took her hand, leading her out.

"I've the perfect place," he said. "Bring all that you need."

Puzzled, but trusting his judgment, she went to her backpack and drew forth a bundle that made discrete clinking sounds. From it rose the dusky scent of herbs and incense. The second bundle was smaller, padded well, and wrapped in pure white linen that he recognized as handwoven. He knew Sabra would have raised, harvested, and worked the flax herself, weaving in magic with each pass of the thread shuttle. He had no need to ask what was inside, he could feel its serene force. She gave him the larger bundle, hugging the smaller one to her breast.

He motioned Sabra toward the center of the room where what appeared to be a square, free-standing closet had been built as a space divider. One of its four outer walls held an entertainment center, two had shelving or displayed artwork. He opened the door set in the fourth, entering a cubicle with a spiral staircase. It went up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, which he pushed open.

As she followed, emerging into the chamber above, he could not repress a grin. How good it was to know that even after fifteen hundred years he could himself surprise and enchant her.

They stood in the very apex of the great glass pyramid.

The slanting panels of glass met twenty feet overhead, the floor being an exact forty by forty feet. It was huge, but not oppressive with its space as in some structures. Fresh air circulated from hidden floor vents, which kept the heat from building up too much during the day, exposed as it was to the full sun.

He eased the trapdoor down, seamlessly enclosing them.

The floor was wood parquet, a light background with a dark red pattern stained into it. Within the largest framing square was a circle, within the circle a smaller square, its angles aligned to the compass points. The square-within-circle pattern continued until the final square. Unlike the rest of New Karnak, the measurements here were balanced and true. Richard had seen to that, drawing out the lines and painstakingly applying the stain himself.

But the focus was the construct in the middle. It was a step pyramid within the smooth-sided one and composed entirely of interlocking slats of thick, clear plastic. Free-standing, it rose to a platform ten feet up, the top in the exact center of the chamber.

"What do you think?" he asked, but was already delighting at the look on her face.

She finally found speech again, looking at him with bright, loving eyes. "You... absolutely amaze me."

"This is why I had to have the place." They climbed slowly to the top, his bare feet brushing the warm plastic, the sun energy flowing up into him in a form that did not injure. Standing there made it seem as though they were suspended, floating not only in the room but above the night-dark city.

Beyond the glass, the city itself was a distant fairyland, all lights and shadows. To the north were vast unlit fields and woods, yet untouched.

"It's my own world," he said. "I come here to meditate and remember how small we truly are in the universe and yet how boundlessly important."

She took his hand. Her love seemed to course from her fingers and into him like a rushing fall of water. "It is perfect. Let us begin."

Midnight, not of the clock, but the true mid of night when the moon was at her Zenith and the sun blotted out by the whole of the planet's bulk.

They sat cross-legged on the high center platform, facing each other. Sabra looked west, Richard east. Between them was a brass brazier on a tripod in which charcoal smoldered.

Sabra unwrapped the smaller, more precious treasure and reverently held it high. A small cup it was, very ancient, yet untouched by time. Richard fell in love with its simple beauty and all that it represented all over again. It was object and idea at once, promise and fulfillment, desire and satiation.

A frisson of its power went through him as Sabra placed it in his open upturned hands.

"Hold it gently," she said. "It will be there when you are in need."

He nodded, full well knowing the truth of that.

Sabra produced dried herbs from a leather pouch, casting them onto the redly glowing coals. The smoke swirled about them, a heady mixture of sage, sweet grass, and others he could not tell. They kindled, flames shooting up high and hot, but short-lived, guttering to extinction, releasing white smoke.

Magic was suddenly in the air. He could feel it all around, far more powerful than he, than even Sabra. Yet what was here was but one minute tendril drawn down from the whole of the core.

She cast a handful of incense into the brass vessel. The smoke doubled, trebled, pouring out to permeate every corner of the great chamber.

Absurdly, it occurred to him the alarm in the rooms below could well go off bringing heavy-booted firemen, all axes and purpose, crashing in on them. He almost said something, but Sabra, catching his thought as she often did, merely smiled and shook her head. The Goddess would take care of such problems. He needed to focus on the task before him, to clear his mind of distractions. Michael's life depended on it.

The child still slept in the bedroom below, body intact, soul elsewhere.

Sabra began to chant, repeating over and over an ancient rhyme in a tongue he'd never heard before. She was calling out to someone, he discerned that much, and it was working. Softer than the touch of a shadow, other voices joined hers, one by one in the same key, female, strong, insistent.

The smoke thickened, whirling in a slow spiral around them.

The full moon was directly overhead, at first brilliant silver, so bright as to hurt his sensitive eyes. Then the silver darkened, the mottled markings on her distant face turned blood red, spreading across the whole of the disk. Its lurid light filled the room, melding with the smoke until he and Sabra seemed to float on a sea of blood.

Her chanting-and the chanting of her unseen sisters-grew louder; the sea closed in on them. It rose high until it filled all of Richard's sight. He concentrated on keeping his mind clear and calm. Fear would dispel everything.

Red darkness surrounded him, red moonlight bathed him from above, brightening again to hurt his eyes. It physically pulled at him. He felt himself lifted toward the crimson light, drawn inexorably forth into its vortex. The chanting rang in his ears, rushing through his temples, roaring like a torrent in springtime. He stretched his arms high. Strong, invisible hands carried him swiftly upward; he passed through the barrier of glass as one might run through a curtain of strung beads.

His eyes were shut tight now; he strained for air, his breath coming in heaving gasps. He wanted to move but could not; something held him close in an iron grip along the whole length of his body. Panic-stricken, he tried to speak, to open his eyes. He was paralyzed again by the poison, only this time he would never wake from its spell. He tried to scream, but all he could hear was the chanting, the voices buffeting him like fists as he spun helpless and blind...

And then silence.

Suddenly released, he sat up as though from a nightmare, sweat cold on his brow, eyes staring. He could scarce take in what they showed him: a bright sunlit meadow, green under the midsummer sun, quite beautiful.

But slow, painful death if he did not find shade.

He saw a line of trees nearby. He stumbled toward their shelter, not understanding why he could not persuade his unsteady legs to more speed. They dragged like leaden weights over the thick overgrown grass. It took him ages to cover the ground, and when he fell beneath the shade of a friendly oak, he gasped like a dying fish. His side had caught a stitch and hurt like blazes. What was wrong? Was the poison still at work on him? He felt so weak and tired from the exertion. No matter, he would soon recover. Sabra said he had very little time left to find Michael, so while catching his second wind he took stock of himself, his surroundings.

He was no longer in his old blue bathrobe, but fully dressed in a soft woolen tunic and leggings the color of twine.

Leather boots were on his feet, leather belt riding low on his hip, all handmade. He'd not worn such clothes for a thousand years. They felt strange to him, bringing back tactile memories long forgot. He wasn't just in another world but in very much another time.

The Grail was gone from his hands, but that did not trouble him. In this magical place intent was as strong as actuality. If and when he needed the Grail, it would be there as she'd promised.

What he'd first taken to be a meadow was actually a large clearing in the midst of a great wood. He recognized nothing about this place with no landmarks immediately visible. There was no sign of gaudy New Karnak. He certainly wasn't in Texas any more. Not with these massive trees. Some of the oaks here were a full ten feet or more in girth, ancient even by his standards, with shadows black as death gathered beneath them. Many raised their gnarled branches high to the sun, others were bent and twisted, taking perverse glory in their corruption, and some were divided, with new growth above, but their trunks split asunder to show rotting cores.

The day was warm, not burning hot, the sun shining gently from a pale blue sky. All around were the sounds of life. Birds sang incessantly, one taking over from the other unbidden, their calls filling the honey-sweet air with undeniable joy. Insects hummed along their busy way, drawn by the heady smell of wildflowers that drenched him, soothing as thoughts of love.

He leaned back against the trunk of the oak. Such a blissfully exquisite day he had not known for... how long? He couldn't remember. Had he ever? No matter. He did now.

He smiled, idly pushing his fingers deep into the grass until they reached the damp earth below, then raised them to his face to take in the wondrous scent of earth and green growth. It stirred his soul, that rich smell, he wanted to rest here and just breathe for a week. He knew that wasn't possible, but it couldn't hurt to steal just a moment. His eyelids flickered. He did not want to sleep, he would miss the beauty around him, but the heavy, lush air lulled him. The endless drone of insect and birdsong grew louder, shutting away all else, and his eyelids drifted shut.

"Richard!"