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Then the stone walls fell away on either side, and she was out of the maze The jackals howled and hooted behind her The creatures swarreat flat stretch--tar black, oil smooth, without reflection: the Mere So this was the place where the Lady Syllva’s caravan had found itself trapped so o, this the spot where the boy prince Irrylath had been lured by his nurse to the water’s edge and given to the Witch

Aeriel shuddered, picking her way through the bones that littered the bank Far in the distance, she sahite spire rising froh she had always pictured the whole keep as lying concealed beneath the surface of the lake She shook her head, wondering how she was to reach it She dared not touch the poisoned water

All at once the lake in front of her began to seethe and boil Aeriel fell back, alar beneath the surface was rising to the air A h It was pale lavender, almost translucent Aeriel could not have wrapped her arms about it if she had tried The creature looked at her with great, bulbous eyes Its livid tongue, a little ragged flag, threaded along the wrinkled edges of its mouth The still, black waters obscured all but the creature’s head from view

"So," it said Its voice boomed like a kettle, like a hunt horn, like a drum "Another traveler comes to die uponthe identity of the creature: years older now and far more massive, but the same that had once lured the prince’s nurse to the Witch’s cause and helped her to betray hi back revulsion, Aeriel called out,

"A traveler, mudlick, but not one who has come to die I would see your mistress and so elid eye

"How is it you can seethe Mere?" it boomed Aeriel touched the pearl upon her brow Thelower in the black water, retracting its pale eyes froht "You must be the sorceress who has lately caused my lady so very much trouble"

Aeriel nodded "Will you take me to her?"

The mudlick belched "My mistress, the White Lady, sees no one"

Aeriel stood disconcerted She had not expected so quick and final a rebuff Resolutely, she folded her arh I have traveled a long road My o unsaid Yourme away"

She spun on her heel and started back toward the jackal cliffs The scrabbling creatures scattered before her She had gotten three steps when the mudlick called, "Wait"

Aeriel turned but did not approach She saw the s in the water now They seeers

"You are a sorceress," it mused "Why do you not use your sorcery to cross?"

Because I have no sorcery! Aeriel wanted to cry, but she held her tongue

"Take me across, or not, exactly as you please," she said at last She had no hed and lapped at the black, poisonous waters "Myher bane"

"As you please," Aeriel snapped, turning on her heel once more "I leave you to your lady’s wrath when she discovers you repelled her er" She counted the paces One Two

"Oh, very well!" the creature cried after her "Have it your oay I will take you across to ht be true--though whether she will let you in, I cannot say Wade out," it told her, rising higher under the Mere’s shadowy surface

Aeriel recoiled "I won’t touch the water"

Thesound like hot, hammered metal It heaved itself fro itself up onto the bank The dark moisture seemed less to run off its skin than to boil away in a thin vapor Sing her revulsion, Aeriel approached and clireat toad’s head, uncertain how much of its body would sink back beneath the Mere Its pebbled skin, covered with great slippery warts, was cold and had an oily feel

"It’s been a dracg’s age since I last ate," thethe little creatures before it on the bank

With a aped, and its long tongue swept out, catching up a dozen of the frantically scattering verreat quantity of the bank The hed and sed, bloated sides heaving Sickened, Aeriel held on desperately as her porter hauled itself around and slid back into the Mere