Chapter 26There was whirling darkness and chaos, shot through with the cold silver of moonlight and the blood-red of nightmare battlefield sunsets. Tormenting winds blew great storm clouds through it, bringing to him familiar faces that he could not recognize. As they came, so he reached out to them and so they faded.
Somewhere someone laughed at him. The sound wove into that of the storm, rising and falling, taunting him.
He was helpless; the merest autumn leaf, the frailest snowflake. He would be blown where the wind chose.
And in the tumult a dark presence moved. A presence that was both here and... beyond...
And he must go beyond to still its awful power. It was important that he did it now, before it was too late.
He reached out.
A babble of inquisitive voices surrounded him, sh
