Outside the thick walls of the great house at Armida, the white blizzard raged, howling and whining around the heights as if animated by a personal fury against the stone walls which kept it at bay.  Even inside, in the great hall, the windows were grayed with its blur and the wind reached them as a dulled roar.  Restless and distraught, Ellemir paced the length of the hall.  With a nervous glance at the raging storm outside, she said, "We cannot even search for her in this weather!  And with every hour that passes, it may be that she is farther and farther away."  She turned on Damon like a fury, and demanded, "How can you sit there so calmly, toasting your toes, when Callista is somewhere in this storm?"

Damon raised his head and said quietly, "Come and sit down, Ellemir.  We may be reasonably sure that wherever Callista may be, she is not out in the snowstorm.  Whoever went to so much trouble to steal her from here did not do it to let her die of exposure in the hills.  As for searching for her, were the weather never so good, we could not go out and quarter the Kilghard Hills on horseback, shouting her name in the forests."  He had spoken with wry humor, but Ellemir whirled on him angrily.

"Are you saying we can do nothing, that we are helpless, that we must abandon her to whatever fate has seized her?"

"I am saying nothing of the sort," Damon told her.  "You heard what I said.  We could not search for her at random in these hills, even if the weather would allow it.  If she were in any ordinary hiding place, you could touch her mind.  Let us use these days of the storm to begin the search in some reasonable way, and the best way to do that is to sit down, and think about it.  Do come and sit down, Ellemir," he pleaded.  "Pacing the floor, a tearing your nerves to shreds, will not help Callista.  It will only make you less fit to help her when the time omes.  You have not eaten; you look as if you have not slept.  Come kinswoman.  Sit here by the fire.  Let me give you some wine."  He rose and led the girl to a seat.  She looked up with her lips tembling and said, "Don't be kind to me, Damon, or I'll break down and melt."

"It might do you some good if you could," he said, pouring her a glass of wine.  She sipped it slowly,  and he stood by he fireplace, looking down at her.  He said "I have been thinking.  You told me Callista complained of evil dreams - withering  gardens, cat-hags?"

"That is so."

Damon nodded.  He said, "I rode from Serrais with a party of Guards, and Reidel - a Guardsman of my company - spoke of misfortune that had fallen on his kinsman.  He was said to have raved - listen to this - of the darkening lands, and of great fires and winds that brought death, and girls who clawed at his soul like cat-hags.  From many men, I would have dismissed this as mere babble, imagination.  But I have known Reidel all my life.  He does not babble, and as far as I have ever been able to determine, he has no more imagination than one of his own saddle-bags.  Had, I should say; the poor fellow is dead.  But he was speaking of what he had seen and heard, and I think it more than coincidence.  And I told you of the ambush, when we were struck by invisible attackers with invisible swords and weapons.  This alone would tell me that something very strange is going on in the heights they have begun to call the darkening lands.  Since it is rather less than unlikely that there would be two complete sets of bizarre happenings in one part of the country, it makes sense to begin with the assumption that what happened to my Guardsmen is somehow associated with what happened to Callista."

"That seems likely," she said.  "This tells me something else.  It was no human being who tore out old Bethiah's eyes as she fought to save her fosterling."  She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her shoulders as if she were icy cold.  "Damon! It is possible, can it be, that Callista is in the hands of the cat-people?"

"It seems not impossible," Damon said.