"They mean to slay us both, lord!" Taeauna shouted from beside the bed. "We must hie to Falconfar!"

Rod gaped at her. His taxes were due, and on Monday his editor was sure to call, and…

"I can't!" he started to shout, as there came a splintering crash from the far end of the house, and Taeauna bounded up from the floor, shattered armor clanging. A forest of black blades reached vainly for her amid snarls of anger, and gauntleted fists beat at the windowsill.

"Lord, we must, or we'll die!" She clutched his upper arms fiercely, her fingers like claws, and those emerald eyes blazed into his. "Falconfar needs you!"

Booted feet were thundering, far down the hall. Rod looked helplessly at the doorway, and then at a Dark Helm trying to climb through his missing window, armored shoulders splintering and gouging a way through the frame, and shouted, "How?"

Taeauna's smile was like a flame. "Open a dream-gate, as we did to get me here! Think of one place in Falconfar just as hard as you can. See it, dwell on what you see and feel and smell, and keep on doing that, no matter what the Dark Helms do!"

And she whirled away from him to snatch a bookshelf too heavy for him to budge away from the wall, and flung it to the floor. It crashed down, books spilling in a thunderous wave, just as the first Dark Helm raced through the doorway. Tripping on the flood of toppled books, the black knight staggered and stumbled, and Taeauna was on him like a pouncing cat, driving her dagger through the slit in his visor and wrenching his sword out of one massive gauntlet almost in one motion.

Rod's bed cracked under the hard-booted landing of the first Dark Helm through the window. Taeauna whirled around, her gaze like green flames, and shouted, "Close your eyes, lord! Watch not me, but see Falconfar!"

There was a second black knight in the hall, and a third, but Rod shut his eyes and thought of his favorite castle, thrusting up into the morning sky atop its grassy hill. The one with the great gnarled trees shading the winding lane that led up to it, to where tall, silver-armored knights with long war-horns in their hands stood guard in the sunlight, gazing out over a peaceful valley…