CHAPTER 20
The mind is a dark place, my child.
It is filled with many voids and hidden chasms
just waiting to entrap the
Unprepared soul.
-FROM THE BOOK OF ST. ALBANS-
She sat across from me, a warm fire burning gently in its place between us, with the cave lit with many burning torches and the smell of a large meal being prepared by Gawain and Gawaith. A break in the driving snow storms had allowed Cedric and I to return to the caves and little Ursala. The child was to stay in these caves for the winter. She, the twin imps of the Vik, and at least one of the Zhintii brothers, along with the stubborn old Niscian monk, would be her protectors.
It would be a terribly difficult and lonely existence living in these caves. I felt her loneliness and frustrations every time I returned to v
