The competitors have been up to their tasks. No one is quickly defeated here. Twilight is fast approaching night--a time of shadows when I am most myself and at my strongest. Yet so, I perceive, is Scathach. I deem that if I could subdue her in her own dark element, she would be all the more completely mine.

My hood and cloak around me once more, I approach Scathach under the shadow of the great tree, moving slowly, peering into her eyes. As she turns, the first star of the night blinks into the sky and sends its feeble ray to reveal for an instant the reddish highlights in her flowing hair. "And what will you do, Saxon, to gain your prize?" She lazily picks an apple from the ground.

Before I can answer, the apple is in the air, hurtling toward my head. In one sweeping movement, I unsheathe my trusty battle-sax and cause apple slices to fly off in an arc behind me. "No, thanks, lady, it is not for the sweetness of that fruit that I hunger." She leaps through the air and lands almost on my shield, so that I am left for a moment with only my sword arm to defend her skillfull bladestrokes. She alights on the ground and I begin my counterattack when she is gone!

Instinctively, I look behind and around me, but see nothing. Peering forward, I see in the starlight one fragile leaf trembling on a far tree. She went that way, and I am meant to follow...to where, I wonder? To the other, I too have disappeared, gliding from shadow to shadow through the woods, coming in the pale night to I know not what.

And yet when I find it, I know it at once, and my heart quails in me at the sight of it. A dark pool surrounded by black trunks, taking what nourishment they can from its murky waters. The air is almost brown with vapor above the mere, and the water seethes with thrashing nameless things. I am horrified that Scathach has taken me someplace my soul has been far too often, but here is a physical manifestation! Never have I shared this place with another. And yet I know that I must master it.

I close my eyes and begin to draw in breath. When I feel my lungs can hold no more, I breath in all the faster and stronger. My chest is almost bursting, and still I take in air. The rushing-air sound changes suddenly to a terrifying, deep, unearthly rumble, which lasts for more than a minute. The others, drawn by the sound, begin to find their ways to the shore. I stop and look at them all with confidence. I have survived my overbreathing, and I will survive now my under-going...