Aslender red fissure appeared in the wall, dividing the stone like a snake cutting through water.

The Windsinger had no breath to give the cry of relief she felt. Instead she gathered her strength again, and let it flow from her. The stony goddesses and bearded warriors in bas relief on the wall stared past her unseeing. The uncertain light of her fluttering lamp touched their high cheekbones and rounded arms, but left their eyes in darkness. Yoleth paid no heed to them. They had stalked the walls of Jojorum long before she was born, and would still be slowly weathering away long after she was gone. The creeping fissure split the smiling lips and smooth brow of a minor deity.

The city was still; Yoleth had lulled the wind to silence, and the crowing of cocks and the stirrings of market stall farmers were still hours away. The soft dust of the city streets lay as fine as talc over the ancient paving stones. In all the predawn city, only Yoleth was awake and striving.

A fine haze of sweat misted her lightly scaled skin. It damped the tall blue cowl that framed her narrow face, sticking it to her brow and the back of her neck. Her eyes, grey streaked with white, narrowed with the intensity of her effort. Her arms were folded before her, slender hands clasping one another's wrists within the voluminous sleeves of the blue gown that proclaimed her a Windsinger of rank. Her body was still but her mind groaned with effort.

She must not waver now. Carefully she blanked her mind again, losing her identity, letting her strength be tapped by the Limbreth on the other side. The seam became a jagged crack. The dark red light that glowed through it was like a fire seen through treetrunks at night. The edges of the opening became regular, forming a tall thin rectangle. Her body steamed beneath her robes; the fine cloth grew heavy with damp. The rectangle stretched wider.