Some say time is a river, driving the world on its powerful current. It is not. It is a stream, moving slowly so one can see where one is and how one has gotten there. Each person has chances to float on the passage of a minute or an hour, contemplating mistakes made and victories won. The stream offers glimpses of the future--tantalizing and baffling. Sunlight and shadow dapple its waters in a puzzling pattern that is clear only in retrospect.

One can become caught in an eddy, an eternal whirlpool where there is no forward or backward. Only an unending spinning where all is seen and nothing understood. There, salvation can only be found within the singing of true dreams.

--From The Dreamsong Chronicles of Durgan Ketassian

Chapter One

Dariana heard music that was not truly music. It swirled around her, as powerful as her father's hugs and as joyous as her squeals of laughter when he used to pick her up and throw her into the air, always catching her. Every time he returned home, her father would toss her and twirl her about, and she would know that everything was all right. He had never let on how dangerous his latest journey had been or how many had died trying to win back Gayome from the invading Elasians. Nor had he let her see his grief at the loss of even one life.

Now, as she let the music of his dreamsong enfold her, she saw her father and mother. The passing seasons had not lessened the strength of Durgan Ketassian's arm or his determination to see Gayome free once more. Nor had time dimmed the glorious silver of her mother Nerienne's hair or her vow to serve Gayome well as its ruler, the Tiria.

In the dreamsong being sung by her father, with the help of his lap lyre, it was as if Dariana stood with her parents. She saw her father's red hair and her mother's bright blue eyes, eyes that she had inherited.

"How do you fare on the first day of your sojourn to the Hollow River?" asked her father. His voice always sounded familiar and yet, somehow, different when he sang for her, his music reaching across leagues.

"Our journey has gone well," she said, her own voice seeming to lilt on the music that could not be explained, only experienced. She had pestered him with endless questions about dreamsinging when she was a child, for she longed to sing as he did. She had come to accept that only a dreamsinger could truly understand the music that made pictures and scenes out of dreams. "We should reach the Hollow River within a nineday."

She smiled at her friends who stood beside her in the dreamsong, although, in reality, she knew they were sleeping beside her in the forest, a day's journey from the chamber where the dreamsong had brought them. She had traveled often with Lajila Tocho and Trey Wyborn, who had been born within a few seasons of her. First, they had been playmates, then had shared the same teachers. Now they were allied in hopes of keeping Gayome safe from further invasions.

"Good," her father said. "Have you seen any sign of--"

The dreamsong ended abruptly in mid-note. Silence, then a whisper--First Daughter.

Dariana sat up, awakened from the dreamsong. She scanned the trees edging the clearing. They were almost lost in the darkness, for the fire had burned to embers.

What had happened to her father's dreamsong? She had been about to report to him that she, Lajila, and Trey had seen no sign of any intruders. When they reached the Hollow River, she intended to make her parents proud of her by negotiating a new trade agreement. She wanted to be a worthy first-born daughter of Gayome's rightful leaders.

First Daughter.

Who was calling her? She had never heard that soft voice, either awake or asleep.

A moan came from across the fire, and she looked toward her companions. Their forms were flickering like a lamp's flame in a high wind. Black lines cut through them, as if the dark night were consuming pieces of them.

"Trey! Lajila!" she cried. "Trey, are you caught in a swallowing space?" Like his father, Trey could bring forth the portals that led from one place to another distant one. But she had never seen a swallowing space like this.

Intent on reaching her friends, Dariana tried to move but could not. Her mind commanded her legs, but they were unable to obey.

"Help us!" she shouted. Her plea disintegrated into the night as if she were calling into a bottomless well.

The strips of darkness widened along Trey and Lajila's bodies. Trey's eyes opened, and she saw horror within them. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Did he know what was happening to him?

First Daughter.

That unfamiliar voice again! Chills raced up and down her, and she shuddered. As she did, she discovered she was able to move.

Crawling with difficulty across the damp ground, she put her hand on Trey's shoulder. He was quivering. She pushed back his dark hair to touch his forehead, wondering if he was ill. But no sickness she knew of made a person's body vanish.

By the Eldest Ones! What was happening?

"Trey, hold on!" Keeping her hand on his arm, she looked at Lajila, whose disintegration was even more advanced, her form disappearing in ever-widening patches. Even though her friend was deaf and could not hear her, Dariana urged, "Hold on, Lajila!" She wondered if Lajila was shifting her shape, a skill she had inherited from her parents, Hyndla Shenvirl and Runolf Tocho. But that would not account for Trey's condition....

Placing her free hand on Lajila's shoulder to get her attention, she shrieked in agony as ice and fire exploded through her. Her hand jerked back, and Lajila was gone. Not changed, but gone.

"No!" Dariana tightened her hold on Trey, but there was nothing to hold. He had disappeared, too.

She shouted her friends' names but got no answer. She jumped to her feet, then immediately sank back to the ground as her knees folded beneath her. Whatever had prevented her from moving had been as powerful as a forest cat, and it had weakened her.

Stumbling to her feet, she put her hand on the nearest tree to keep from falling. "Trey! Lajila!" she called again. "Where are you?"

Only silence. She was alone in the clearing. Even stranger, as her panicked gaze searched the area around the glowing coals of the camp fire, she saw no sign of her friends' blankets or packs. Nor were there any footprints but hers in the loose soil. It was as if she had been traveling alone.

By the First Dream, what happened?

She ran her hand along the tree's bark. Its commonplace scratch across her palm told her that she was not dead. Unless the place beyond death was so like the living world that she could not tell the difference.

Father! she called as she searched her mind, seeking his shattered dreamsong. But no remnants of the music, which was not truly a dream or a song, remained.

Never had his dreamsong ended so suddenly. It obviously had been cut short. Had he stopped singing to confront some danger? Her father had been gifted with the rare skill to sing dreams that both connected him to others and offered him a peek at the future. She was certain that if he could have, he would have begun his dreamsong anew by now. She wished she could reach out to him in the same way and knew he had hoped she would have inherited his gift, even though no First Daughter ever had been a dreamsinger. She had hated disappointing him--never more so than at that moment.

Dariana stared at the place her friends had been lying on their blankets. People did not simply evaporate. Had they been taken someplace else? Or were they ... she cringed at the possibility ... dead?

Whatever force had caused them to disappear might be a new threat against Gayome. The Elasians, who had invaded Gayome before she was born, had remained within their own borders for the past decade. Were they again trying to claim what belonged to her mother, the Tiria, as it had belonged to every Tiria back to the Beginnings? Or had a new enemy stepped in to take their place?

As her mother's successor, it was her duty to protect the Tiria, but how could she when she had no idea what had occurred?

No one, not even her mother, understood how uncomfortable Dariana was to have been named the First Daughter. It was an honor she gladly would have given to any of her three sisters, all of whom were more deserving than she. They often saw what needed to be done more clearly than she did, and she wished they were here now.

But they were not here. And she was not going to find answers staring at the bare ground. She must return to the hide-house, where her parents and their allies lived. Something had happened, something terrible, and she needed to let her mother and father know. They would know what to do. They always did.

She looked at the sky, just visible through the canopy of leaves overhead. Dawn would be breaking soon.

As she repacked her supplies, hastily stuffing her blanket into her pack, Dariana tried not to think about what she might find at the hide-house. When she had doused the fire and was ready to go, she lifted the pack, settling it on her shoulder. She checked that it was not resting on the silver-strand that held the lifestones, which she had worn since being named First Daughter.

They were gone.

Horrified, she looked quickly about her. Had someone skulked close to the fire and taken them while she was in the dreamsong? No, that was impossible. Anyone who touched the lifestones would be dead before taking a single step, for only the First Daughter could handle them and live.

She tore open her pack and yanked out the blanket. Shaking it, she saw nothing but dirt and bits of leaves fall from it. On her knees, she searched the ground where she had been sleeping but to no avail.

The lifestones were gone.

Sinking onto her heels, she hid her face in her hands. How could she have been so careless? The lifestones had been entrusted to her to keep until she could pass them to her own First Daughter.

First Daughter.

She looked up.

First Daughter.

Anguish rushed through her. Devastating, hopeless anguish.

"Who is it?" she called. "Who are you? Do you know what happened?"

As before, she got no answer.

She was wasting time. Something horrible was going on. Her father's dreamsong had ended in mid-sentence, Trey and Lajila had vanished, and her mother's lifestones were gone. She had to find out why.

Coming to her feet, Dariana grabbed her blanket and shoved it into her pack again, then hooked her swordbelt around her waist and started walking. The gray of dawn colored the sky above the mountains ringing Gayome, granting her some light. She watched the ground, hoping she would chance upon the lifestones while retracing her steps to the hide-house.

The sun rose, but still she did not see the sparkle of the lifestones' silver-strand as she had hoped she might. Several times she was fooled by dew glistening on grass. Each time, she reached down, then straightened with nothing more than a wet hand.

Dariana held herself back from running when she saw the walls of the hide-house among the trees surrounding it. The house was cleverly disguised to look like a part of the forest. A traveler who did not know it was there could pass without seeing it. She had been born there, making it easy for her to find it, yet as she approached, she felt a strange need for caution.

Still, despite her growing anxiety, her steps quickened when she emerged from the trees into the shadow of the wall. She had been eager to travel to the Hollow River, but she was even more pleased to be home. She wanted to assure herself that the one fear she had not been able to voice--that something abominable had happened to her family--was groundless.

"Halt!" called a man standing by the gate. "Who goes there?"

Dariana frowned. She was known to everyone in the hide-house and should not be challenged. Slowing, she stared at two men flanking the narrow gate. She had never seen them before. They were wearing bright red tunics with a sash of dark green around their waists. Their knee-high boots were topped by hedge-hider fur dyed to the same eye-searing red. No one in the hide-house wore such clothing.

"Good day. I must--" The prick of a sword against her back brought her to a halt. She stiffened, then remained motionless.

First Daughter.

She ignored the voice that now seemed to be taunting, although its tone had not changed. Neither the man who had called to her and who was walking toward her nor the one holding the sword to her back gave any sign of having heard the voice.

She tried to find something familiar about the man coming to a halt in front of her but could not. His nose, which appeared to have been on the losing end of too many fistfights, was separated from his full lips by a dark mustache. Eyes, narrowed as he appraised her, were set deep beneath brows nearly as heavy as his beard. Few men wore facial hair in the hot season.

"Your name, woman!" the man demanded.

"I am Dariana--"

First Daughter.

She bit back the words echoing in her head. Until she knew why these strangers were at the hide-house's gate, she would be wise to say no more.

He did not appear to recognize her name. "Why are you here?"

"I have come to see the Tiria and--"

She was interrupted by the man's roar of laughter. "The Tiria (May she live forever!)? Here? Near the Ring Mountains?" The man repeated her words to the man standing on the other side of the gate, and they both laughed, as did the one holding the sword at her back.

"What have you been drinking, woman?" the first man asked. "The Tiria (May she live forever!) never leaves her compound on the plains."