The Tower of Bones by Frank P. Ryan Page B

water. It was true that her menstrual cycle had begun. She was growing very rapidly – inches it seemed in little more than a week. The changes in her body disturbed her, all the more so since she seemed to have no control over them. It was happening so quickly, much faster than she had been led to expect back on Earth. It was as if this world had changed her – was still changing her – as it was changing all four friends. She saw it, felt it, feared it, happening from day to day, even from moment to moment. She had noticed the same in Alan, who was only a few inches off being as tall as his beanpole grandfather, Padraig. He was shaving regularly, with a permanent shadow over his cheeks and chin. Was it possible that time passed more quickly on Tír than on Earth, so much so that a year here might be equivalent to two or even more years on Earth? The thought intrigued her, for it suggested that Alan was now well past sixteen years old and her adoptive brother, Mark, had he been here in the flesh, would have been approaching seventeen. Becoming a man.
    She wiped the welling tears away with the back of her right hand. ‘I – I muh-miss my brother, Mark. I wish he was here with me.’
    Her fear had brought back a trace of the old stutter, the burden that had been lifted from her shoulders by another of those three wishes granted by Granny Dew. It made her think of the powerful old woman who had helped her so much – was helping her still, like a protective shadow.
    Mo reached up to pat the protective hand of the dwarf mage, where it rested lightly on her shoulder. ‘You are my friend, Qwenqwo.’
    ‘It comforts my gnarled old heart to hear you say so.’
    ‘You may go ahead and ask your question.’
    ‘I do indeed have a particular question. How is it that, although you alone were denied a crystal of power, yet it appears to matter little, for already you appear to possess power enough within you?’
    Mo smiled wanly, but she didn’t answer his question. How astonished Qwenqwo would be to discover her secret. That her name was not Maureen Grimstone, but Mira. Mira was her secret name, her real name – the name given to her by her birth mother. But there was something dangerous in the evocation of her real name and she was only allowed to speak it when the occasion demanded. She had spoken her true name only once, when Alan’s life had been in danger during the battle with the Legun incarnate at Ossierel. Alan had never mentioned it since. Maybe he had forgotten about it in all the confusion and horror? Whatever his reason, it was a good thing he had kept quiet about it, for the only time she had spoken it, it seemed to have changed her in some mysterious andterrifying way. Alan had saved her. He had somehow appealed to the Temple Ship. That much she had already been told by Milish – but what Qwenqwo had just added, that she could not be saved by Alan’s oraculum, that between them he and the Temple Ship had … It seemed altogether too disturbing to think about.
    ‘Tell me, Qwenqwo, is it true that the Temple Ship is able to think – to feel?’
    ‘The Mage Lord says so. And I believe him.’
    She forced her reluctant mind to consider it again. When her spirit had been ravaged by the Legun, Alan had called on the help of the Temple Ship to save her. And now, the very thought that the Temple Ship could think and feel! It didn’t surprise her as much as it should, perhaps, because she had sensed a presence in the Ship from the time at the frozen lake when they had needed to escape from the Storm Wolves.
    Qwenqwo squeezed her shoulder. ‘Is it the Ship that has called you here? Was it the Ship that directed you here to the water’s edge?’
    She nodded, a thrill of awe running through her. ‘Qwenqwo – I need to know. You told us a tale, on the river journey, that the Temple Ship might once have been the Ark of the Arinn. Is this true?
    ‘I cannot say it is true. Merely that the legends have it so.’
    ‘I