empty court. But he could see her, and she wondered confusedly why.
Across the court, from the cracks and hinges of those tuneless doors, a thin, directionless wind had begun to blow, stirring and whispering over the silver-washed circles of the pavement, tugging at Gil's coarse black hair. It carried on it the dank, cold scent of evil, of acid and stone and things that should never see light, of blood and darkness. But the wizard sheathed the gleaming blade he held and came cautiously down the steps toward her, as if he feared to frighten her.
But that, Gil thought, would not be possible-and anyway she was only dreaming. He looked like a gentle old man, she thought. His eyes, blue and bright and very fierce, held in them neither pride nor cruelty, and if he were afraid of the shifting, sightless thing welling in darkness behind the doors, he did not show it. He advanced to within a few feet of where she stood shivering in the green shadows of the monstrous statue, those blue eyes puzzled and wary, as if trying to understand what he saw. Then he held out his hand and made as if to speak.
Abruptly, Gil woke up-but not in her bed.
For a moment she didn't know where she was. She threw out her hand awkwardly, startled and disoriented, as those suddenly wakened are, and the cold fluted marble of the pedestal's edge bit savagely into her palm. The night's damp cold knifed her bare legs, froze her naked feet on the pavement. The cries of fear from the night-gripped city came to her suddenly clearer on the wind, and with them the elusive scent of water. For an instant, the shrieking horror of what lay behind the doors was like a gripping hand at her throat, and then it sank, whirled away like leaves in the face of shock and confusion and even greater horror.
She had waked up.
She was no longer dreaming.
She was still there.
All the eyes were on her now; startled, uncertain, even afraid. The warriors, still gathered at the top of the broad polished steps, stared in surprise at this thin young woman, dark-haired and scantily clad in the green polka-dot cowboy shirt that she habitually wore to bed, who had so suddenly appeared in their midst. Gil stared back, clutching for support the sharp edge of the marble behind her, weak with shock and frantic with bewilderment and dread, her legs shaking and her breath strangling in her throat
But the wizard was still there, and she realized that it was impossible to be truly afraid when she was with him.
Quietly, he asked her, "Who are you?"
To her own surprise she found the voice to answer. "Gil," she said. "Gil Patterson."
"How did you come here?"
Around them the black wind blew stronger from the doors, rank and cold and vibrant with brooding sub-human lusts. The Guards murmured among themselves, tension spreading along the line, visible as the humming quiver of a tautened wire-they, too, were afraid. But the wizard didn't stir, and the mellow, scratchy warmth of his voice was unshaken.
"I- I was dreaming," Gil stammered. "But-this-I-it isn't a dream anymore, is it?"
"No," the old man said kindly. "But don't be afraid." He raised his scarred fingers and made some movement in the air with them that she could not clearly see. "Go back to your dreams."
The night's cold faded as the cloying haziness of sleep blurred sound and smell and fear. Gil saw the Guards peer with startled eyes at the blue, flickering shadows that she knew were all they could now see. Then the wizard spoke to them, and they followed him as he strode across the deserted pavement of the court, facing into the black winds and the nameless menace of the doors. He raised his sword, a long two-handed blade, and it sparked in the darkness like summer lightning. Then, as if an explosion had rocked the vaults below the building, the doors burst open, and blackness poured forth over them like smoke.
Gil saw what was in the darkness, and her own screams of terror woke her.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely switch on the bedside lamp. The clock on the table beside her bed said two-thirty. Drenched in sweat and colder than death, Gil fell back against the pillow, whispering frantically to herself that it was only a dream-only a dream. I am twenty-four years old and a graduate student in medieval history and I will have