They all ate more than was really good for them, and sat afterwards, sighing with that most pleasant of discomforts.

Berit came around the table and leaned over Sparhawk’s shoulder. ‘She’s doing it again, Sparhawk,’ the young knight murmured.

‘Doing what?’

‘The fires have been burning ever since we got here, and they still don’t need any more wood, and the candles aren’t even melting down.’

‘It’s her house, I suppose,’ Sparhawk shrugged.

‘I know, but –’ Berit looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s unnatural,’ he said finally.

‘Berit,’ Sparhawk pointed out with a gentle smile, ‘we just rode through an impossible landscape to reach a house that isn’t really here to eat a banquet that nobody prepared, and you’re going to worry about a few little things like perpetually burning candles and fireplaces that don’t need wood?’

Berit laughed and went back to his chair.

The Child-Goddess took her duties as hostess very seriously. She even seemed anxious as she escorted them to their rooms and carefully explained a number of things that did not really need to be explained.

‘She’s such a dear little thing, isn’t she?’ Ehlana said to Sparhawk when they were alone. ‘She seems so desperately concerned about the comfort and well-being of her guests.’

‘Styrics are a bit more casual about these things,’ Sparhawk explained. ‘Flute’s not really used to Elenes, and we make her nervous.’ He smiled. ‘She’s trying very, very hard to make a good impression.’

‘But she’s a Goddess.’

‘She still gets nervous.’

‘Is it my imagination, or is she a great deal like our own Danae?’

‘All little girls are similar, I suppose,’ he replied carefully, ‘just like all little boys.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ehlana conceded, ‘but she even seems to smell like Danae, and they both seem to be very fond of kisses.’ She paused, and then her face brightened. ‘We really should introduce them to each other, Sparhawk. They’d love each other, and they’d be wonderful playmates.’

Sparhawk nearly choked on that idea.

The rhythm of the hoof-beats was familiar, and it was that more than anything which awakened Sparhawk early the next morning. He muttered an oath and swung his legs out of the bed.

‘What is it, dear?’ Ehlana asked in a sleepy voice.

‘Faran got loose,’ he said in an irritated tone. ‘He managed to pull his picket-line free somehow.’

‘He won’t run away, will he?’

‘And miss all the entertainment staying just out of my reach all morning will give him? Of course not.’ Sparhawk pulled on a robe and went to the window. It was only then that he heard the sound of Flute’s pipes.

The sky over this mysterious valley was overcast, as it had been all winter. Dirty-looking clouds, chill and unpromising, stretched from horizon to horizon, hurried along by a blustery wind.

There was a broad meadow not far from the house, and Faran was cantering easily in a wide circular course around the meadow. He wore no saddle nor bridle, and there was something almost joyful in his stride. Flute lay face up on his back with her pipes to her lips. Her head was nestled comfortably on his surging front shoulders, her knees were crossed, and she was beating time on the big roan’s rump with one little foot. The scene was so familiar that all Sparhawk could do was stare.

‘Ehlana,’ he said finally, ‘I think you might want to see this.’

She came to the window. ‘What on earth is she doing?’ she exclaimed. ‘Go and stop her, Sparhawk. She’ll fall off and get hurt.’

‘No, actually she won’t. She and Faran have played together like this before. He won’t let her fall off – even if she could.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘I have no idea,’ he admitted, although that was not entirely true. ‘I think it’s significant, though,’ he added. He leaned out of the window and looked first to the left and then to the right. The others were all at the windows, their faces filled with surprise as they watched their little hostess.

The blustery wind faltered, then died as Flute continued her song, and the winter-brown grass in the dooryard ceased its dead rattling.

The trilling song of the Child-Goddess rose into the sky as Faran continued to tirelessly circle the meadow, and as she played, the dirty-looking murk overhead opened and rolled back almost as a bolster is turned back on a bed, and a deep blue sky dotted with fluffy, sunrise-touched clouds appeared.

Sparhawk and the others stared up in wonder at that suddenly-revealed sky, and, as children sometimes will, they saw pink dragons and rosy griffins caught somehow in the wonder of the clouds that streamed and coalesced, piling higher and higher only to come apart again as all the spirits of air and earth and sky joined to welcome that spring which the world had feared might never come.

The Child-Goddess Aphrael rose to her feet and stood on the big roan’s surging back. Her glossy black hair streamed out behind her, and the sound of her pipes soared up to meet the sunrise. Then, even as she played, she began to dance, whirling and swaying, her grass-stained little feet flickering as she danced and joyously lifted her song.

Earth and sky and Faran’s broad back were all one to Aphrael as she danced, and she whirled as easily on insubstantial air as upon the now-verdant turf or that surging roan back.

Awe-struck, they watched from the house that wasn’t really there, and their sombre melancholy dropped away. Their hearts grew full as the Child-Goddess played for them that joyous, forever new song of redemption and renewal, for now at last the dread winter had passed, and spring had once again returned.