“Something the matter?”

“My horse is gone.”

“Could it have wandered off?”

“Must have. I’d have thought Star’d have better sense, though.”

I went to the cavemouth but could see nothing. I was half-drenched in the instant I was there. I returned to my position beside the left wall.

“It seems like an ordinary enough storm to me,” I said. “They sometimes get pretty bad in the mountains.”

“Perhaps you know this country better than I do?”

“No, I am just traveling through — a thing I had better be continuing soon, too.”

I touched the Jewel. I readied into it, then through it, out and up, with my mind. I felt the storm about me and ordered it away, with red pulses of energy corresponding to my heartbeats. Then I leaned back, found another match and relit my pipe. It would still take a while for the forces I had manipulated to do their work, against a stormfront of this size.

“It will not last too long,” I said.

“How can you tell?”

“Privileged information.”

He chuckled.

“According to some versions, this is the way that the world ends — beginning with a strange storm from out of the north.”

“That’s right,” I said, “and this is it. Nothing to worry about, though. It will be all over, one way or the other, before too long.”

“That stone you are wearing… It is giving off light.”

“Yes.”

“You were joking about this being the end, though — were you not?”

“No.”

“You make me think of that line from the Holy Book — The Archangel Corwin shall pass before the storm, lightning upon his breast… You would not be named Corwin, would you?”