"The rise of the Dark Helms," she whispered, sounding suddenly scared again. As if she expected him to hit her. "Ever more monsters, and the drifting spells that twist hares and stags and cattle into things of claws and fangs that come for us. 'Tis said you've gone mad, mad with power, or that the wizards have struck at your mind with their spells. Even the stones sprout fangs, so men dare not climb seeking mushrooms in the caves anymore."

The Mouths of Stone. More Holdoncorp mischief, like the Dark Helms. Almost all the monsters would be their work, too. In his books, a monster was met, fought, and killed. Only in the computer games did beasts sprout in endless numbers, springing up to menace no matter how fervently players slew them.

Rod looked toward the door and said something rude, spitting out the words slowly and deliberately. The room that held his computer-and the Holdoncorp games-was down a hallway beyond the door.

He'd hated what Holdoncorp had done to Falconfar, hated it enough to reverse and lessen some of their misdeeds in his later books, but their relentless rush to turn his quaint, cozy little world of forests and castles into a few enclaves of desperate knights trying to hold off Hitlerian hosts of marching Dark Helms had soured him on the whole world. Besides his dreams and the odd entry in his notebook, these days he seldom thought or wrote about Falconfar. He'd gone back to the grim-jawed thrillers of spies and missiles and gunfire in the night that sold so head-shakingly well, and…

"Lord?" that soft, purring voice came again, hesitantly. "I came seeking you because we need you. Falconfar needs you. If you turn me away now, the darkness will soon drown us all."

Rod stared almost helplessly at the woman kneeling before him in her slashed and bloody armor. "I… Taeauna, I'm having a hard time believing any of this. I mean…"