The Witch wailed. She had killed him with her interruption. While they yetfought, before death claimed its prize, she wove her greatest spell ever, binding them in timelessness. Someday she would bring back the man she loved, when she found the way.

She finished. In pain, as she collapsed, she cried, "AZEL!" The summons rolledthrough the citadel but there was no answer. Nakar had sent his right hand faraway, to work his will in another land. There would be no help.

It was too late. For now.

The avalanche of rain faded as fast as it had come. The clouds blew away fromQushmarrah like the souls of men newly dead. Throughout the city men began tolay down their arms. Nakar was gone.

In the Shu the stillness yielded to the cry of a newborn. And a moment laterits cries were joined by those of another entrant into the lists of life.

The war ended. The wheel turned. A new story began.

The boys came up Char Street in a mouthy pack. The hazy turquoise of the baybacked them. There were twenty of them, ranging from three to eight years old.

The pretend they were playing reflected their parents' private rejection ofhistory. They were soldiers returning victorious from Dak-es-Souetta.

Their rowdiness caught the old woman's ear. She looked up from her mending. Ascowl deepened the wrinkles webbing her dark leather face. She thought theirparents ought to whip some sense into them.

One of the boys kicked something the size of a melon. Another raced forward, snatched it up out of the dust, shook it overhead, and shouted.

The old woman's frown deepened. Wrinkles became gullies of shadow. Where hadthey gotten a skull?

The boy dropped the headbone and booted it. It ricocheted off a man's leg.

Another man kicked it past the old woman. It vanished in a canebreak of legs.