Текст книги "Exile's Gate "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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"Liyo,do not turn your back on them."

She laid her hand on his brow. "Thee is fevered," she said.

"Liyo,in the name of Heaven—"

"We will rest here," she said. The daylight began to come back, but it was still brass and full of illusion, with her as a darkness in the center of it.

"We have no time—"

"Vanye, lie down."

He did as she asked, reckoning if they must stop an hour for his sake, he had as well not waste the time it cost them in argument. He let himself back on the grass and rested his head on his arm, and shut his eyes against the giddiness of the sky. The ground seemed to pitch and spin under him. He had not felt that dizzy when he was riding, and now that he let go it was hard not to lose all his senses. His stomach tried to heave and he refused to let it, refused the panic that lay at the bottom of his thoughts.

A little time, he told himself. They had been pushing too long to keep moving; and a battle and a ride with enemies-turned-comrades did not count for rest. An hour on his back, and he would be good for another ten.

Only, O God, he was weak. And his head spun.

And Morgaine was alone with these men.

She came back to him, knelt down by him, dampened a cloth in the cold stream and laid it on his brow.

"You are watching them," he murmured in his own tongue.

"I am watching them."

"Liyo,kill them."

"Hush, rest."

"Kill them!" He sat up on his elbow and caught the cloth in his hand, the pulse at once hammering in his ears and his gut hurting and his ribs a blinding pain. " 'Man and man,' you said. Then trust me to know. I am telling you these men are after the weapons; they are only waiting to see what more they can find out, whether we have anything else they want—Kill them. And do not give them any warning."

Her hand rested on his chest, pressing him to lie back. He would not yield.

"Listen to me," he said.

"Hush," she said. "Hush. I have an eye to them."

"This is a man who gave Chei to the wolves. This is the guide who lied to us, whose brother I killed. If it is sane inside it is a wonder."

"Lie back. Lie down. Do not make me trouble. Please. Please,Vanye."

He let go his breath and let himself back. She wet the cloth again and wrung it out and laid it on his brow. It set him shivering.

"I will ride," he said, "in an hour."

"Only lie here. I will make some tea."

"We cannot be risking a fire—"

She touched his lips with her fingers. "Still, I say. Hush. A little one. Do not fret about it. Be still."

"Willow tea," he murmured, "if you are going to do it anyway. My head aches."

He rested then with his eyes half-open, slitted on Chei and his two men, who sat apart on the stream-bank. He watched Morgaine gather up twigs and grass, and his gut tensed as he saw Chei rise and walk toward her and have words with her.

What they said he could not hear. But Morgaine settled down thereafter and made a fire with that means she could, and Chei and the others began to unsaddle the horses.

He sat up then, and began to get to his feet in dismay, but Morgaine looked at him and lifted her hand in that signal that meant no.

He fell back again, and lay in misery while the pulse beat like a hammer in his temples and the sun glared red behind closed lids.

She brought him tea to drink, infused very strongly with something bitter; and little pellets wrapped in leaves, that were from Shathan, and very precious. He took them and drank the sour-bitter tea, as large mouthfuls as he could bear, simply to get it down, and rested back again.

"I will be all right," he murmured then.

"Thee is not riding in an hour. Or two."

"Dark." he said. "Give me till dark. We can cut closer to the plain at night. Gain back the time."

But he was no better. If anything, he hurt the worse. It is because of lying still, he thought.

Then, clearly and honestly: I am getting worse.

And we are too near the gate.

He rested. It was not sleep that passed the hours into twilight, only a dimness in which Morgaine came and went, and gave him cold water to drink. "I will try," he said, then, "try to ride. Have them put me on my horse. I will stay there."

There was fear in her eyes. It verged on panic. She smoothed the hair back from his face. "We will hold this place," she said.

"With what?With them?With—" Anger brought a pain to his skull. His eyes watered, blurring the sight of her. "It is foolishness. Foolishness, liyo.No more time. Too many of them. When will you sleep? You cannot—cannot depend on me to stay awake. Cannot depend on me."

"I will manage."

"Do not lose for me!Do not think of it! Ride out of here!"

"Hush." She touched his face, bent and kissed him, weary, so very weary, her voice. Her hand shook against his cheek. "Forgive me. Trust me. Will you trust me?"

"Aye," he said, or thought he said. She unlaced his collar and took the stone from under his armor; and took it from him.

"Not to him—" he protested.

"No. I will keep it. I will keep it safe."

It was too difficult to hold on. The dark grew too deep, a place unto itself, tangled and mazed. He wanted to come back. He wanted to stay awake to listen to her.

He dreamed of dark, like that between the Gates.

He dreamed of dark, in which she walked away, and he could not so much as tell where she had gone.

Chei rested his head in his hands, weary with his own aches, with the foolishness that would not let the woman see reason.

Will not leave him,the inner voice said, and it echoed a night in Arunden's camp, a doorway—embarrassed youth, rebuffed and dismayed and made lonely all at once, in a child's way; Pyverrn, seeking exile—riding into Morund on a wretched, shaggy horse– Ho, hello, old friend– Court grew deadly dull without you. . . .

Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, grimaced with the confusion of images.

"My lord," Rhanin said.

He looked up to see the lady walking toward them—with further delay, he reckoned. She looked distraught, her eyes shadowed and her face showing exhaustion.

She had to sleep. There would come a time she had to sleep. Then there was a reckoning, with the weapons in his hands, and the lady brought to see reason once for all.

He was not prepared to see her hand lift, and the black weapon in it, aimed straight at him. His heart froze in him: death,he thought. Our death, only so a crazed woman dares sleep—

"My lord Gault," she said quietly, "Qhiverin. Chei. I have a proposition for you."

"My lady?" he asked, carefully.

"I am going to rest. You will tend him, you will do everything you can for him, you will make him fit to ride, my lord; and if he is not better by morning, I will kill you all. If he cries out– once—I will shoot one of you at random. Do you have any doubt of that, my lord?"

"He will not befit to ride—the man is fevered—he is out of his head—"

"Do you doubt my word, my lord?Do you want an earnest of my intentions?"

"She is mad," Hesiyyn exclaimed.

Chei gathered himself hastily to his feet. "Up," he said, dragging at Hesiyyn, at Rhanin. And cast an anxious glance at Morgaine, whose weapon stayed centered on him, whose eyes were, as Hesiyyn said—mad and beyond all reason.

Chapter Sixteen

"Vanye. Vanye,"Morgaine's voice called him gently.

"Aye, liyo."He opened his eyes, trying to bring her face out of the dusk. He could not, quite.

"Vanye, will you trust me?"

"Aye, liyo."

"I am going to go over there and rest, the night. Listen to me. I have not the strength to take care of thee—" Her fingers brushed his cheek. Her voice shook. "Chei will help thee, he will do everything he can for thee—he has agreed, at peril of his life. Does thee understand, Vanye? I do not want thee waking and not knowing where I am. And if he hurts thee I will shoot him. And if thee does not mend I will shoot him. And he knows it."

He blinked at her. When she took that tone it was her intention beyond a doubt, even if it made no sense at all.

"Thee understands?"

"Aye," he said.

The dark swallowed him up a time, and there was movement about him—firelit faces between him and the night sky.

One was Chei's.

He forgot, then, where he was.

"Ah," he cried, and tried desperately to fight them.

"Be still," Chei said, and put his hand over his mouth. "Be still, man. Vanye. Vanye—listen to me."

He recalled then, some insanity that Morgaine was with him. Or would come. He could not remember which.

"Look." Chei lifted his head, carefully, gently, and showed him a strange sight: showed him Siptah, and at Siptah's feet a stump, or some object, and Morgaine sitting with her hands between her knees. He was afraid, until he saw Changelingacross her lap

"You are safe," Chei said. "You are quite safe with us."

"She has promised to shoot one of us." Hesiyyn gently unfastened a buckle at his side as Chei let his head back. "I have no doubt which one of us. My lord Chei is necessary, Rhanin wins everyone, and I am told I make enemies. I pray you know I shall be careful."

He blinked dazedly. He recalled some such thing, mad as it was, and lay still, until they needed to work the mail shirt off. But that they did gently, easing his arms as they worked it free.

It was all one with the dark, the fever, the nightmare that began to become ease of pain. They put warm compresses on his hurts, renewing them constantly; they put hot cloths over him, soaked in herbals; they made him drink something complex and musky, and breathe something that gave his throat ease. He became comfortable, finally.

And slept till Chei roused him and made him drink something else.

"No more," he said.

"Drink this," Chei said fiercely. "Damn you, drink; we will not die for your convenience."

He heard the harshness of panic in that voice. He recalled a nightmare, wherein Morgaine had asked him bear with everything.

He struggled onto his arm, dislodging compresses, to see was she safe and his memory true.

She was there. Changelingwas still with her. Siptah stood close by her. Her head had fallen forward, her pale hair touched with fire-glow and starlight.

"Drink," Rhanin said.

He trusted them then, and drank, with a clearer head than he had had. He shivered, and the bruises hurt less. They renewed the compresses out of a pan of hot water, and smothered him in blankets.

Only his chest hurt sharply, where ribs might be cracked. But that, he thought, was bearable, if he were not so drained and weak. The burns hurt far less; the other injuries that had near taken his mind with pain, were so much relieved he seemed to drift in enervated numbness.

The qhal whispered among themselves, urgently, debating something they might give him. Or how much they might give him, to put him on his feet. One said no, there was risk. Another objected he had to ride, and could not else: he would never last in the saddle. And that was Chei and Hesiyyn.

He lay and thought about that. He tested his breathing, how much it hurt; he moved his right leg, to test whether it hurt as it had, and looked at the two who argued.

"Is there something," he asked faintly, in a lull, "will let me ride today?"

He shocked them, perhaps. There was a moment's utter hush.

"Yes," Chei said. "There is something that will. But the end of it is worse than the first. Best you do without it. You will ride. That is what she asked. That is what she will have. We have kept our end of the bargain."

"Do you drink it," he asked, the faintest of whispers, "or swallow it?"

"Not, I say."

"Chei—tell me what it will do."

"It will kill you, that is what it will do. And no."

"It would keep a dead man on his feet," Hesiyyn said. "It would not improve his judgment. And my lord says the truth: it would take a heavy toll."

"Give it to me. To carry. Chei, give it to me and we are quit of a great deal."

Chei gnawed at his lip—young Chei's face, a mature qhal's calculation as he rested with his arm on his knee and his eyes, by firelight, flickering with changes.

"You would take only a taste of it on your tongue," he said. "I will tell you the truth, man, if you use it in extremity—you will not survive it."

He thought about that. He drew breaths against the ache in his ribs, and knew what his sword-arm or his archery was worth at the moment. He thought how far they had yet to go.

"You are not the man I would choose," he said. "But there is a great deal you could learn from my liege. There are more worlds than you know. If you knew more than you did, I think you might understand her more. You would know why she is right. More than I do. Give me this thing and do not tell her. The important thing is that we get there."

Chei looked at him in profound disturbance. His fist clenched and unclenched, of the arm which supported his chin, and his brow was ridged and glistening with sweat. "And you do what—lay this in her lap? Tell her then we tried to kill you?"

"We will have no quarrel, Chei. What do you want? That she stop somewhere further on—for my sake? That is what she isdoing. Give it to me."

Chei delved into his belongings, and gathered out a packet. "One pellet. One. No more than that. Three and your heart would burst. I am putting it with your belongings. That is all I will do." He busied himself and mixed something with water, and boiled it.

"What is this?" he asked, when Hesiyyn intended he drink it.

"I thought we were allies," Hesiyyn said. "Drink. This is for the fever."

"Also," Hesiyyn said when he had drunk it, "it will make you sleep."

The sun came up, and Morgaine still drowsed, he saw as he lifted his head, with Siptah's tether passed across her shoulder, with the sword in her lap, her back against a rock, and the small black weapon between her knees, in both her hands.

It was Chei whose eyes had shadows. It was Chei who offered him an overcooked porridge, with a hand that shook with exhaustion.

He took it. He forced it down. It came at too much cost to refuse.

Across the little distance, Siptah jerked his head up and snorted challenge to Rhanin's approach. Morgaine lifted her head abruptly, the weapon in her hand.

But it was a bowl Rhanin brought, offering it to her. Rhanin came no closer, and Morgaine got quickly to her feet, Changelingin one hand, the black weapon in the other, and stopped, staring not at Rhanin, but toward him.

He stared back at her, weak as he was, and got up on his arm, feeling the shock of cold air as the blanket fell.

For a long moment she said nothing. Then: "How does thee fare this morning?"

"Much better," he said. "Much better, liyo."

"I had not meant to fall so far asleep—"

He drew a breath, such as yesterday would have cost him pain. It amazed him it did not, overmuch. Only it would be very easy, just now, to weep, and he moved, suddenly, and shoved himself up with a sudden straightening of his arm so that a twinge took his mind off it. He was dizzythen. The whole world swung round.

She came to him and swept Changeling,sheathed and crosswise, in curt dismissal of the others, who drew back a few paces. Then she knelt and spared a glance for him.

"I think the porridge is safe," he murmured, "but I would not eat it."

"Has thee?"

"Aye," he said. "It is truly wretched."

She slid the black weapon into place at her belt, touched him with that hand, brushed the hair off his unshaven cheek. She looked tired, tired and mortally worried. "We will ride at night," she said.

"Liyo,we cannot wait!"

"Now how are we arguing? I take your advice and you will none of it. We are safe here for the moment. The horses are resting. We can make up the time."

"We cannot make up two days. I can ride." He sat upright and tucked his leg up; and she put her hand onto his knee.

"Thee will lie down, thee will rest, that is what. Thee will not undo everything." She touched his ribs, where Hesiyyn had wound a tight bandage. "Broken, does thee think?"

"No. Sore." He drew a breath, testing it as he had tested it again and again: if he kept his back straight it was much better. "I will manage."

"Vanye." Her hand sought his wrist and closed on it, hard. "Do not give up. Hear me? I will tell thee a thing may comfort thee—"

She hesitated, then. That reticence did not seem to herald anything that should comfort him; and ice settled into his stomach. "What?" he asked. "What would you tell me, liyo?"

"Thee knows—how substance goes into a gate—It . . . disarranges itself . . and some similar arrangement comes together at the other side—"

"You have told me." He did not like to talk of such things. He did not like to think of them oftener than he must—especially now, facing a gate which was not behaving as it should. He wished she would go straight to the point.

"Thee will find—thy hurts—will not trouble thee the other side. Thee will not carry the scars of this beyond it. Thee will mend."

She could lie with such simplicity. Or with webs of truth. Except that it was something kept from him, that he would not like. In such things she would not meet his eyes. It was that simple.

"What are you saying?" he asked.

"I chose a time," she said. "I made a pattern, for thee as for me ... a rested pattern, a whole pattern, a pattern without flaw. Within its limits—and it has them—it will always restore it. Every gate, on every world—will recognize thee, and always restore it—restore thee,as thee was, so far as it has substance to work with. There will be no scars. Nothing to remind thee."

It made no sense for a moment. He put his hand to his ribs, wondering could it mend more than the surface.

Or what other things they had done to him.

"There will always be the weakness in the knee," she said. "That happened before the pattern was made. Would I had done it before that. But there was never the leisure it needed."

"Shathan," he said. "Azeroth-gate."

"Aye. There. The gates will abhor any deviation from that moment. They will restore that moment, so far as they can, always. The thoughts go on. The memories. But the body—will not change."

"Will not change?Ever?" A sense of panic took him. He thought that he should be grateful. He thought that it was a kind of gift.

But it was Gate-given. And every Gate-magic was flawed—

"I shall grow older—"

"Never. Not in body."

"O my God," he murmured. For a moment the dizziness was back. Mortality was, reminding him with a sharp pain in his side and a twinge in the hip.

He had always had an image of himself, older, grown to his mature strength—had begun to see it, in breadth of shoulder, strength of arm. A man looked forward to such a thing.

It would never happen. His life was stopped. He thought of the dragon, frozen in snow, in mid-reach.

"My God, my God." He crossed himself, gone cold, inside and out.

"Injuries will never take their toll of thee. Age—will have no power over thee. Thee will grow wiser. But thee will always mend in a gate-passage, always shed the days and years."

"Why such as Chei, then? Why Gault? Why Thiye, in Heaven's name?"He wanted to weep. He found himself lost again, lost at this end of his journey as at the beginning. "If it can be done like this, why did they choose to kill—?"

"Because," she said, "they are qhal. And I know things they do not. Call it my father's legacy. And if they should know, Vanye, thatsecret, they would find others, that I will give no one, that are not written on the sword—that I will not permitanyone to know and live—" Again her hand brushed his cheek. "Forgive me. I had meant to tell thee—some better time. But best thee know, now—Forgive me. I need thee too much. And the road would grow too lonely."

He took her hand, numb in shock. He pressed it. It was all he could think to do for answer.

"Rest," she said. And rose and walked away from him, stopping for a moment to look at Chei and the rest—at Rhanin, who still had the bowl in his hands, beside the others. "I will make my own breakfast," she said; but to Chei she said nothing. She only looked at him, and then walked on. Changelingstill in her left hand.

Vanye sat numb and incapable, for the moment, of moving. He trembled, and did not know whether it was outrage or grief, or why, except he had always thought she would betray him in one way, and she had found one he had never anticipated.

You might have ordered me,he raged at her in his mind. If you were going to do such a thing,liyo, God in Heaven, could you not have bidden me, could you not have laid it on my honor, given me at least the chance to go into it of my own will?

But he could not say these things. He could not quarrel with her, in front of strangers. Or now, that he was fighting for his composure.

It was his protection she had intended. It was for every good reason. It promised—O Heaven!—

He could not imagine what it promised.

It was, in any case, only the thought of a thought of himself she had stolen. And if she had thought him too foolish to choose for himself, that was so, sometimes. She was often right.

He reached beside him, in the folds of his mail shirt, and felt after a small, paper packet. He found it, and unfolded it, and saw the very tiny beads that lay on the red paper—eight of them.

He folded it up again, dragged his belt over and tucked the packet into the slit-pocket where he kept small flat things, where, lately, had been a small razor-edged blade. But Chei's men had taken that. He did not, given the circumstances of his losing it, look to have it back again.

He lay back to rest, then, since he had no more likelihood of persuading Morgaine than Chei did. There was justification for the delay: beyond this point, he thought, rested horses and rested men might make the difference, and Chei and his men had gotten little enough sleep last night. If the horses were rested—they might dare the fringe of the plain, and know that they had enough strength to run or to fight.

It was a risk that made his flesh crawl.

"She is staying here," Chei came to him to say, standing over him, a fair-haired shadow against the dawn. Chei was indignant. And came to him for alliance.

He found some small irony in that. "Man," he said quietly, reasonably, "she will be thinking. Go to her. Be patient with her. As thoroughly, as exactly as you can, tell her everything you know about the way ahead: make her maps. Answer her questions. Then go away and let her think. Whatever you have held back—to bargain for your lives—this is the time to throw everything you have into her hands. She will not betray you. You say you will follow her. Prove it."

It was not precisely the truth. But it was as good, he thought, as might save all their lives. Chei clearly doubted it.

But Chei went away then, and presented himself where Morgaine was busy with her gear; and knelt down with his hands on his knees and talked to her and drew on the ground, answering her questions for some little time.

Himself, he scanned the rough hills, the rocks and the scrub which rose like walls about them, watched the flight of a hawk, or something hawklike.

Morgaine was not utterly without calculation, he thought, in choosing this camp. The valley was wide and either end of it was in view. Nowhere were they in easy bowshot of the sides or cover a man could reach without crossing open ground.

Until now Chei and his company, riding ahead of them through the hills, had run the risk of a gate-force ambush, two stones bridging their power from side to side of a narrow pass. Chei had surely known that. And doubtless Morgaine would put him and his company to the fore again when they rode out of this place. Chei would not like that.

But there was small comfort having them allriding point, and surely neither of them would do it.

There was better food at noon: Morgaine cooked it. Vanye stirred himself to sit up in the shade, and to put his breeches on and walk about, and to take a little exercise, a little sword-drill to work the legs, and the abused shoulder, which had a great dark bruise working its way out from the arrow-strike.

It would go through several color-changes, he thought, and then thought that it might not, for one reason or the other; and put all of that to the back of his mind with a swing and flourish and extension that worked the ribs as far as he thought safe for the moment. Vanity, he chided himself, taking pleasure in Hesiyyn's respectful look, and was careful to stand very still for a moment after, before he called it enough and walked back to the shade and sat down.

He went through the arrows Rhanin had collected then, and took his harness-knife—the loss of the little razor vexed him—and sighted down the shafts and saw to the fletchings, in both quivers finding only three shafts to fault and mark with a cautioning stain on their gray feathers, and one fletching that wanted repair.

Then he gathered himself up again and went and saw to the horses, running his hands over their legs, looking for strain, looking over their feet, seeing whether there was any shoe needing resetting. The bending and lifting was hard. And Morgaine was watching him: he felt her stare on his back, and gentled the gray stud with particular care, lulling him with all his skill to keep him from his rougher tricks—"So, so, lad, you have no wish to make me a liar, do you?"

The fine head turned, dark-eyed and thinking; the white-tipped tail lashed and switched with considerable force and he stamped once, thunderously. But: "Hai, hai, hai," Vanye chided him, and he surrendered the ticklish hind foot, with which, he thanked Heaven, there was no problem, nor with the others.

He did all these things. He wanted, looking to certain eventualities, to do them particularly well, and the way he always did.

"Sleep," he bade Morgaine, pausing to wash on his way back to the shade. "Sleep a while."

She looked at him with a worry she did not trouble to hide. He could bear very little of that.

"We have not that far to go," she said, "—Chei swears."

"Perhaps he has even learned to reckon distances."

Her eyes flickered, a grim amusement that went even to a grin and a fond look. "Aye. Perhaps. I do not think I will sleep. Go take what rest you can." She drew the chain of the pyx from over her head. "Here. Best you keep it now."

He closed his fist about it. It was not something he wanted to wear openly.

She sketched rapidly in the dirt at her feet. "This is where we are. Chei says. This is Mante. This is where we will ride. This hill, then skirting the plain and up again. There is a pass. A gatehouse, but not a Gate."

"We are that close."

"Under Skarrin's very eye, if there were a mistake with stone or sword. We will start at sundown. A single night to the pass, if we go direct." She let go her breath. "We will askat his gate."

"Ask!"

"We will not come like enemies. It will be Chei's affair. He says he can pass us through. We will have the greatest difficulty beyond that. So Chei says." She sketched a pocket behind the line that represented the cliffs. "Neisyrrn Neith.Death's Gate. A well of stone, very wide. There are gate-stones within it—here, and here, and here."

He sank down on his heels and onto his knees. His breath grew short.

"Chei swears," Morgaine said, "there is—no other way in. In all their wars, in all their internal wars—no enemy can come at them, except by the highlands. And that, they rule utterly. Thoselords are loyal."

"God save us." He drew breath after breath. "Liyo,—turn back. Turn back, give this more time. We can find a way—"

"Thoselords are loyal, Vanye. And the south cannot stand against them. I have thought of it. I have thought of pulling back to Morund and trying to take the south—but it could not hold. This whole southern region is a sink, Mante's midden-heap—it is where they send their exiles. It is where they breed their human replacements." She went on drawing. "Herot, Sethys, Stiyesse, Itheithe, Nenais—I forget the other names. Here, here, here—this is a vast land. And I do not doubt this Skarrin set the World-gate purposely on Morund. Perpetually on Morund, in the case any intruder, any rebel, any rival—should attempt him. Here, below these cliffs, this rift in the world—lie Men; and his exiles. Here above, across all this continent—lie the qhalur lands. There is irony in this. We knew our young guide was abysmally incapable of reckoning a day's ride—"

"Or lied to us."

"—had never traveled much in all his life, except the hills, except forest trails and winding roads. Straight distances bewildered him. He lived his life in so small a place. And he did not know anything beyond it. The distance between Morund and Herot, is less than he thought. Sethys and Stiyesse abut against marsh he did not know existed. These are little places. These are holds humans once had. Qhal have moved in, those exiled, those out of favor—like Qhiverin, who became Gault. The south has no resource against the north, not if the north realized its danger. And by now, since Tejhos—Skarrin does, though Chei does swear—for what it is worth—that he did not tell Skarrin our purpose here. That is the only grace we may have, if we can believe it."

He leaned his hands on his knees and bowed his head a moment. "We shouldhave gone to Morund, the way you wanted to. We would have learned this. We could have dealt with whatever we found there—what everwe found there. This is my fault, liyo,it is allmy—"

"It was my decision. It was myjudgment. Do not be so cursed free with blame. It is still my decision, and all of this may be wrong. Chei has the notion we can come close before they will take alarm."

"With ourhorses—"

"Or his. That roan of his is no unremarkable beast, in itself. No, they will surely know us: they will have gotten the description from their watchers afield. It is a question of keeping them uncertain what we intend." She looked at the ground in front of her and seemed lost for a moment. "Chei says if they have thrown no great number of men into the field since yesterday, they are taking a cautious path. He talked at some length of his own difficulties with his Overlord—he was high-born, was a member of a martial order that lost its influence at court: disastrously for him, though more so for others. Connections saved his life and sent him to Morund, to redeem himself, if ever he could—The arrangement by which human lords were permitted to rule in the south was collapsing, on evidence of human Gault's complicity with the rebels in Mante– thatwas how they lured the original Gault into their trap: and sentenced him and Qhiverin to one conjoined existence—on that point Qhiverin's friends intervened virtually to kidnap Gault from his jailers and coerce the gate-wardens to join them, to forestall enemies who would have preferred not to have Qhiverin at Morund."