My horse shied before the vale of Avalo. I had been warned to expect it, and it was a simple matter to calm the animal. But when I tried to spur it forward again, it balked and looked back longingly at the grassy hills around us. I followed its gaze, but farther, imagining that I could see the gates of the Golden City Ilnar. Had it only been an hour ago that I left? Or a hundred years?

When going to a sorceress, one can never tell.

She said it would start with a chill. It was the first time she lied to me.

It started with a hunger, deep and hot like the burn of a branding iron. I felt it when I smelled the heavy stench of the slaughterhouse, when I watched my raven-haired Vivian slipping across the black ice pond, when I heard wolves baying late in the night. It came to me when I drank snow from her cold cupped hands, when I followed her down the lonely game trails deep in the foothills.

If it was someone's idea of a practical joke, Antimony decided, then it wasn't very funny. By rights, she ought to have the creature quarantined immediately. Appearances of lizards (of any sort) needed clamping down pretty severely ever since the Projectors in Room 309 had got hold of that Escher print. One gecko out of place and the whole of Lagado's Old Quarter could be patterned over by suppertime. The public health risk didn't bear thinking about. But for some reason, she felt strangely sympathetic towards it. Maybe it was the signboard. Maybe it was the prospect of finally getting rid of all those ducks.

I recall the day everything changed. It was winter, the happiest time of year for children who lived on houses that floated about a lake. We spent our days outside with finally some room to play.

That morning the women had been in a hurry. They were possessed by something and began slaughtering many of the animals and smoking their meats. Their fur and feathers covered the slaughter-house floor and blood scented the air.

September 18, 2053

Dr. Wenton said I was bound to be the department's good luck charm. I just think I'm the luckiest girl in the world, arriving at just the right time. What a day--and it's not even over!

I haven't admitted it to anyone here, but the only reason I applied for an assistantship at the LTTU lab was because they were new and I figured they'd need some extra help and I needed an assistantship. I read up a little about the broadcasts, but it wasn't anything that interested me too much--who could find them interesting; everyone says it'll take years to translate even part of one, right? Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. I haven't even been here two weeks and the computers had some kind of breakthrough. It's still going on. I'm on a quick meal break, sitting here with a sandwich in one hand and scribbling on the screen with the other hand. I didn't really intend to keep a journal, but this is so exciting I don't want to forget anything important.