"Twenty years?" the druidess asked apprehensively. Twenty years seemed like days, even hours, after her vigil • of three millennia. "How? Why?"

Lord Paladine waved his hand. "The Dark Lady's spies are everywhere. So my devices move slowly and quietly these days." He pointed to an overhanging vallenwood. "Like the growth of a large tree."

"I see," the druidess replied. "Rushed and suspicious eyes will not notice."

Lord Paladine nodded. "You be patient as well. Remember how I love you."

"How much shall I tell when the helper comes?"

L'Indasha asked. "Surely not everything."

"Oh, goodness, no!" the old fellow exclaimed. "It'd take forever, and my borscht recipe would get out!"

L'Indasha chuckled. "As if anyone would want it."

"Well, perhaps not," he mused, "but someone wants the Secret. More than at any time since I first hid the symbols on the faceless rune from her-from all the world- and entrusted them and that Keeper's pendant to you."

L'Indasha glanced down at the blue-purple stone about her neck. The warding stone that kept the Keeper.

Then all merriment vanished in Paladine's bright eyes. "Double your vigilance. Plant against famine and fire and the next winter. The barren season will last a very long time indeed. Unless…"

"Unless?"

Paladine crouched beside the druidess. "Unless the ages are accomplished," he whispered. "Soon the faceless rune will have two faces. They will be opposites, and they will be the same. If they balance each other, work together in their opposition, your job will be done. They can receive the Secret from you and defeat darkness forever. For they are Huma's kin."

"Children," the druidess breathed. "From the line of Huma … it will be full circle then. So these are the last of my quiet days."