The heavy clouds seemed to drop even lower over their heads, the wind building to a bone-chilling moan, and still Dael held his piercing gaze to the east, his body rigid with concentration.

“It’s begun,” he finally whispered.

Turning, he found his companions all staring at him.  Worry, doubt, confidence, love – all played across their faces.  His own was hard, his gray eyes the texture of tempered steel.

“When I open the portal, over there,” he pointed down the slope to the south, “the teulas . . . the fiana warbands from each clan, will go through first as we discussed last night.  Then you will each lead your clans through, starting with Merfyn and Gwynedd on around in the order as you are assembled.

“I’ve spoken with every clan.  Even though you’ve heard me tell of what you can expect once you cross over, the reality of it cannot truly be conveyed by words.  So guard the children and give each other your strength.  You will all feel your legs turn to water before our journey is over.  Hold fast to your courage and each other and we’ll all meet on the other side, the other side of Time.

“Now,” Dael faced south, to where he would open the gateway, “see to your people and await my signal.”

When the nine chieftains were gone, he cast one last look at Myrddin and smiled.  “Watch yourself, old man.  We’ll return.  You’ve my oath on it.”

Turning to Fia, Arawn, and Morrigan, who held their daughter tightly bundled in a wolf’s pelt, he nodded tensely, trying to say with his eyes what words could not express.  “Wait until the portal stops opening, then give the signal,” he simply said.

He closed his eyes, and facing south again began the final incantation.  The forces that surged through him, barely held in check these past hours as the clans assembled for the last time, finally found release.  His companions were pushed back, reluctantly retreating as a sphere of crackling energy seemingly emanated from Dael himself like some opaque bubble that left the air charged with impending thunder and nose stinging traces of ozone.  Suddenly the sphere shimmered, waves of color pulsed dizzyingly across its surface before, with a gut wrenching drop in air pressure, where the sphere had engulfed Dael there now stood nothing – a ball of emptiness, a pitch dark space where all light was merely gone.  Not a black of all colors joined, but one of the void, of the total absence of light, of the chaos between the realms of Time.

“Look,” Fia whispered, pointing to the rise’s base along the southern slope.

Arawn and Morrigan gasped while Myrddin stood still, his eyes riveted upon a growing rent that was forming where Fia pointed.  Like a great and terrible wound, the air itself was torn asunder, the tear’s edges bleeding molten fire and throwing off snapping spears of lightning.  Beyond the opening was . . . nothing.  Only the same null darkness that engulfed Dael.  Just to gaze into it sent visceral shivers of dread through all four onlookers.  Slowly the rent spread until it hung above the loose scree below them to the height of three men and twice again as wide.

“It’s a tunnel,” Arawn said. “See?”

“Aye,” Morrigan shivered as she spoke, “but though I can see the other side, or at least a light of some kind, Dagda only knows for how long it goes to get there.  Truly, it’s a horrible sight.”

“Well,” Myrddin’s deep voice cut in, “horrible or not, through there you must go.  Steady yourselves and consider how best to bring all of those below to approach it, and then, to enter.  Here come Alpin and the first of the fiana now.  I’ll give the signal for the clans when I see the last teula enter.  Why don’t you two go down there and speak to each before they depart.”  He looked at Fia and Arawn.

“Morrigan.”  He turned to find her pale, but her eyes held steady, her mouth firm as she stood as closely as was possible to the impossibly dark place in which her husband had vanished.  “Morrigan, just stand there if you will.  When the people pass by and look this way, ‘twill be a comfort to see Dael’s wife and child awaiting his return.  The Dagda knows, this darkness is a sight to behold for any who didn’t witness its birth.”

Morrigan laughed at that.  Mayhap a bit sharply, a bit brittle, but sincere nonetheless.  “For any who didn’t witness its birth, Myrddin?  Dear gods, man, it was a sight to behold as we witnessed it.

“Call the clans, Druid.  Let Dael’s choice become ours as well.  We’ve a world to save, Dagda willing.”

Caireen turned against the winter’s gusting winds, felt the dark scree shift beneath her grass-filled boots.  Little wonder only hoar crusted stone, fractured and strewn about like broken pottery, claimed this hillock’s crown.  This felt like a place to die, not live.  She shivered despite the furs and thick wool.  Safe from the windborne chill of ice and snow she may be, but what could keep her safe from fear?  She knew, somewhere back in there where thoughts still managed coherent whispers, that her mother and uncle were below, guiding their clans through the seething violence of Dael’s sorcery.  Long lines of women, men, and their families were steadily disappearing into the black hole that boiled in the snow flecked air like some horrible and unnatural cataract.  Last night as they had sat around their fire’s warmth, speaking in voices weary with the exhaustion of survival, Dael had called it the Veil of Time.  Like walking through a tear in the fabric of time, he’d explained.  Just a kind of portal, a doorway.

“Huh!”  her grunt made a harsh bark, quickly snatched away by the wind.  A portal.  She shook her head in wonder.  Looks more akin to that hades place the Christers speak of.  But it’ll do, if it takes us there.

They were going to take this fight to the Krîll homeworld.  That’s what Dael said their enemies called themselves.  Krîll.  The Krîll of Krîl-lôc.  The words were like angry hornets on the tongue, an ugly gathering of consonants and vowels.  Ugly things need an ugly word.  An ugly purpose makes an ugly sound.

When the last man had stepped into the darkness, and the valley’s floor stood deserted, windblown and frozen under low gray clouds, the black sphere that engulfed Dael receded, diminishing until he stood visible once again.

Visible, but far from himself, or at least the man that Morrigan knew and loved, he turned his face to where she stood, she and their first born daughter, Fia.  His skin looked to be of cast bronze, burnished and glowing as with a tremendous inner fire.  His eyes were in truth molten silver, their gray turned bright as the sun’s reflection over water.  Over all, flames danced and flickered across his body.  His voice, when he spoke, sounded like a distant bell, faint yet clear, filling the air with deep peals and rolling vowels.

“From the look on your face I must be a sight to behold.”  A tired smile broke like  quicksilver across his face.

“Aye, my love, that you are.  But your voice is sane if the rest of you is a wee bit wild looking.”  There was relief in Morrigan’s eyes, a relaxing of long held tensions that left her voice sounding weak to her ears.  “Are we ready to follow them now?”

“Aye, that we are.  Come,” he gathered her and Fia under his arm and began walking down the rise’s slope, “I see Fia and Arawn are waiting.  And here comes Caireen.”

Morrigan resisted the urge to flinch at his touch, the lambent flames swirling along his arm rose higher but held only to him, and she found his touch was as it had always been, despite his present appearance.  She leaned into him and relaxed her hold on young Fia.

Arawn and Fia awaited them at the edge of the black void.  Both stood relaxed, holding their bows loosely, but their expressions were a mix of emotions leaving their eyes as big as platters.

“You two look as if we approached naked and crazed,” Dael said, his grin looking as if he’d cracked a copper bowl.

“Well,” Fia frowned, “Morrigan and Fia are pleasing sights as always, but I believe I’d rather see you naked than all aglow and aflame looking like Gofannon’s Forge.”

Dael shook his head, swinging his eyes over the darkening clouds overhead.  “How long has it been since the first fiana crossed over?”

Nigh the whole of the day,” Arawn answered.  “Twill be firstdark soon.”

“Then best we be through too,” Dael continued to hold onto Morrigan as he stepped into the roiling darkness.  “Arawn, watch your sister close lest she get lost.”

“Indeed,” Arawn laughed and had to jump to keep up with Fia and his niece as they plunged in behind Dael and Morrigan.