"Get up, something's happening," David hissed.

I opened my eyes. April was moving beside me. Rolling away from me. I felt lingering warmth Ð and numbness Ð where her elbow had crossed my left arm.

"What is it?" I asked. Was this another dream? No. No. I'd woken up, finally. I had been conscious, over there.

And now I was here again. Conscious.

The room was dark. Still night. And I sensed it was not very late, that I had not been asleep for very long.

I heard a raucous, feminine voice, from outside. Far off, but loud enough to be heard. I got up. Christopher was just wiping the sleep from his eyes and complaining.

April said, "What's going on?"

"Don't know," David said. "Listen."

We strained to hear. Looking at each other or at nothing and listening.

The raucous voice cried out, "Who shall it be, oh, who shall it be, that serves the needs of the Terror Queen?"

And then the voice laughed, wonderfully amused by her own little ditty.

"Open the shutters," I said. I went to them and pushed them open, cautiously. I peeked through the crack. The moon was up. A faint, unclean glow illuminated the rock face of the mountain. The cave was a pit of black. Something moving in front of it. Coming out of it, or passing in front of it, impossible to tell. Impossible to tell much except that it was too large to be human.

"What now?" Christopher said, exasperated.

"She's coming this way," April said. "Going to cross the bridge."

"You sure it's a 'she?'" I asked. "All the eunuchs around here—"

"It's a 'she,'" April said positively. "Anyway, she called herself the Terror Queen."

"Could be a big, mean transvestite," Christopher said. "Of course here she'd have to be a big, mean transvestite Loch Ness monster to really stand out in a crowd around here."

Again the big voice chortled. "Ah, they welcome me. Do you want me so badly then, that you play coy? Three is it? And the useless fourth?"

I had the odd feeling she was talking to us. Couldn't be. She couldn't see us from so far away, through a dark window.

The Queen, or whatever she was, went temporarily out of sight beneath the line of the walls.

From the streets outside there came noises. Men's voices. Scared.

"She's coming this way!"

"You fool, don't cry out!"

Scuffling sounds. Fighting. Cries of anger, fear.

The door burst in. It was the red-faced man who'd called himself a warrior of the Fianna. With him was the old woman who'd served our food.

"You damned fools!" The man rushed for the window and slammed it shut. "Why not just call out to Her, you silly twits? You've drawn her to this house."

"What is this?" David demanded.

"My house to be all torn apart," the crone cried, wringing her arthritic fingers.

"Hide yourselves, if you can," the Fiannan said. He shot a look at April. "And for all love keep the girl from her. She's a beauty, and hell will brook no competition."

He slammed from the room, yelling, "Run, everyone out, the bloody fools have drawn her here!" The crone went with him, still moaning about her house.

"I didn't think pagans believed in hell," April said. "But anything they call hell has got to be bad enough. Let's get out of here."

"Got that right," Christopher said.

We piled out of the room. David ran, buckling on his sword as he went. We clattered down the stairs. Rushed through the dining room.

Into the street. No one in sight but a brief glimpse of two men disappearing around the corner. "Follow them," David said, and off we went.

It was dark in the narrow streets. The moonlight didn't reach down this far. The cobblestones were uneven. We tripped. Reached a corner and could not even tell how many streets led away from it, or in what directions.

"Ow. Watch it. Here, there's a low wall or something."

"Okay, this way. There's a street."

We started moving again, but slowly. Keeping in touch by staying huddled together.

"It's lighter up ahead," I said.

"Yeah. Let's go that way."

We trotted, hand in hand, hand on belt. David had been carrying his sword at the ready but he sheathed it, now. Too much danger of an accident.

Ahead, silvery moonlight turned buildings gray like an old black and white photograph. We emerged from the narrow street into a more open place, a sort of trapezoidal public square. There was even a fountain in the middle. It dribbled water from the mouths of stylized lions.

And then, a noise, behind us. From the very street we'd just left, I spun around and saw her.

She glowed in the moonlight. But also from some deeper, inner light. She was huge, of course, maybe twice the height of a man, but beautiful beyond any beauty I'd ever imagined.

I saw her only in profile. A lustrous green eye. Cascading black hair. Skin so pale and translucent she might have been formed of the early morning sunlight. She was perfectly-formed in every aspect. A long leg, bared by the slit in her flimsy, breeze-tossed, barely-seen dress. A firm, inviting breast. Taut, smooth flesh. Perfect, down to the shape of her ear, the fingers of her hand.

I could not look away. I knew in some rational part of my mind that no one woman could ever be perfect, that it was absurd to talk of perfect beauty when there are a million different beauties. I knew my reaction was distorted. That some spell . . .

And yet, I found myself walking toward her, unable to do otherwise. So beautiful.

"Ah, there you are," she said. "Do you find me beautiful? Do you lust for me? I will test your ardor."