"I did not have a use for it before," he said. "Now I do. Bring it, or die a natural death."

Ifor grunted disagreeably, but he would do it. He didn't want the mess of a head, but neither did he want to die, naturally or otherwise, for he had long ago consigned himself to the depths of hell with his deeds.

Depraved, he was, and he knew it, but life everlasting would trick the devil from his due.

The archer watched Helebore leave and allowed himself a smug smile. The leech thought him a fool, but Helebore was the fool. For immortality, he would have killed a hundred men for the medicus and brought him all one hundred of the heads. Heads wasn't the part he liked-which reminded him. He'd seen a wee bowl of meat on the floor in the room above.

He eased himself around the worktable and cocked an ear toward the stairs. All was quiet. They'd gone.

Helebore was twice a fool for thinking he would stay in the cold, dark dungeon when there were coals smoldering in the hearth upstairs. He could add a fagot or two to get a blaze and eat his found supper in the warmth and luxury of a fine room.

Ifor hauled himself up the stairs, ruminating on the small feast awaiting him there. He had no trouble finding the bowl, for he'd scooted it under a stool with his foot to keep it safe from other spying eyes. He threw a couple of sticks on the coals and sat down on the stool with the bowl in his hand. His crossbow was spanned and loaded, laid at the ready by his feet. The fire warmed his back as he faced the trapdoor. He'd be too quick by half for any moldy sorcerer to elude. The moment Lavrans poked his head above the last stair, old Ifor would have him.

A bit of gravy was pooled in the bottom of the bowl, and he sopped the meat around to soak it up. Themeat was old-he could tell by the smell-and the gravy was sure to help. Old meat was nothing new, and if his supper was a little rancid and bitter, well, 'twas still supper.

He stretched his legs out in front of him and took a good-sized bite. Pretty damn bitter. He chewed thoughtfully despite the taste, eking out his enjoyment where he could. 'Twasn't long before he felt his lips and tongue tingle, then burn. Too much pepper, he thought, taking another big bite. By the time he'd swallowed his second mouthful, his lips were numb, and he couldn't see quite straight. He turned his head this way and that, squinting his eyes and trying to focus on something, anything. Of course, the damned headache that suddenly came upon him didn't help. 'Twas as if someone was trying to chisel his head open with a pike. In the next moment his throat grew tight, then tighter. He dropped the bowl and lurched to his feet, panicked, gasping and wheezing, trying to pull in a breath, but could not. Confusion flooded his mind. He stumbled forward and fell down prone on the hearth.

Scorching heat licked at his face. Sweet God A'mighty, the eternal fires of damnation were upon him. He could see Satan beckoning to him from the heart of the flames.

Christ, Christ, Christ, he prayed and swore, trying with all his heart and mind to move away, to escape the Dark One, to run, but the only movement he managed was involuntary, a twitching that grew and grew until the final death convulsions seized him.

Dain strode up the length of the siege tunnel. Ceri had not been waiting for him, which meant the tower was open. Good. The gold would make their journey easier, and he needed his sword. Damned blade, it made the Damascene look like a butter knife, and he had hoped never to wield again.

The door to the alchemy chamber was ajar, as he would have expected, but all was not right. Too much scent was in the air, of powders and sulfurs and distillations he kept in tightly closed containers. He continued forward toward the dim light, drawing Ayas in one hand and the Damascene in the other. Ceri could have knocked a jar or two over when moving the door, but he feared 'twas not the case. He stopped a few steps away from the opening and listened. All was quiet. Had Rhuddlan sent someone after them who had followed Ceri up the tunnel and kidnapped her?

Without making a sound, he slipped into the shadows of the alchemy chamber. A sense of dread washed through him. The place had been torn apart as if there had been a fight. He quickly searched the room, keeping his dread at bay with cold, calculated fury. Blood would be shed if Ceridwen was hurt.

When he found nothing, he headed for the stairs, holding the knives lightly in his hands, though no sound came from the upper chambers. Even the mice seemed to have deserted the place. At the top of the stairs, he scanned his bedchamber, and his fury turned to something far worse-fear. The Druid Door was open.

"She's gone," a voice said from behind him.

He whirled and stared into the shadows at the far wall. Rhuddlan stepped into the light, and all around the tower, the Liosalfar revealed themselves.

"What do you know of this?" he demanded of the Quicken-tree leader.

"Only that we are too late. We arrived just ahead of you, Dain. I fear the evil one has her." Helebore. Dain needed no more explanation. The open Druid Door was enough. He should have killed the man when he'd first laid eyes upon him.

"And Caradoc?"

"He is with them." Rhuddlan gestured, and the Liosalfar continued their search of the chambers. "She is too important to both of them to be killed," he said to Dain. "The danger to her will not come until they reach Balor."

"There is danger besides death." Danger and degradation and despair. His hand tightened reflexively around the Damascene. He would not have her harmed, so help him God, and his actions had put her at great risk, at the mercy of Caradoc's rage.

"Ride with us, if you would have her back."

"Aye," Dain agreed, willing to put her under Rhuddlan's control if it freed her from Caradoc.

"Rhuddlan," one of the men, Bedwyr, called from over by the hearth.

Dain turned and saw what he had found, a dead body behind the table, and beside the body, a loaded crossbow.

"I don't think you were meant to live through the day," Rhuddlan said, walking over and releasing the bolt from the bow. He passed the arrowhead beneath his nose and raised his eyebrows. "Poison."

"And the man?" Dain asked.

Rhuddlan pushed the archer over with the tip of his boot. "Also poison. It seems he used one of your simples for sop. Monkshood from the smell of it."

Dain eyed the dead man dispassionately. "Then the world has lost another fool."

" 'Tis him," Wei said, kneeling by the dead man. "The one who lagged behind the other horsemen to speak with the hairless monk."

"Helebore wears the habit," Dain said, "But he is no monk."

"Given his time with this poor sod, I would guess he is the one who wants you dead." Rhuddlan offered the opinion in a dry voice.

"With good reason." Dain looked back at the Druid Door. "I would as soon kill him as not. Mayhaps before the day is finished." He walked over to the door and began locking it down. He would not leave the tower open to packrats and the castle folk. They would have him stolen blind within a sennight, the length of time he presumed it would take for someone to screw his courage up. And if, perchance, he did not return, he wanted something left for the next "mage" to come along. As for Helebore, he would never have another chance to breech the Hart, not in this lifetime. When the door was secure, Dain strode quickly to the upper chamber to get his gold. He would bargain with the Devil himself to buy her back, if his sword would not suffice.

Rhuddlan watched Dain disappear up the stairs, and his gaze strayed to the cornice over the door, to the letters chiseled there by Nemeton:Amor... lux... veritas... sic itur ad astra. Rhuddlan smiled. He hopedhis old friend had found such a way.

He turned to Wei and gestured for Shay and Nia. "Take the dead man out into Wroneu. I would not leave him rotting in the Hart. Meet us by the horses."

Wei and the scouts obeyed, taking loops of Quicken-tree cloth from their belts to wrap around the archer's wrists and ankles to better carry him. When they touched the cloth to the dead man's skin, though, wisps of smoke arose, followed by faint sizzling sounds. Shay and Nia both blanched and scrambled back.

Wei quelled their cowardice with a single glance. "Finish the work, if you would be Liosalfar one day."

Rhuddlan watched carefully to see if either of the scouts faltered. Only one vice made Quicken-tree cloth burn. He could tell by Shay's and Nia's faces that they knew what it was, but they finished their work without flinching. Rhuddlan continued looking around the tower room. Dain was far different from Nemeton, filling his chamber with rich tapestries and woodland plants, so many flowers. The Hart had been much starker under the Arch Druid's reign.

"Trig?" he called to his captain.

Trig crossed the chamber from where he and Math had been studying the rushes. "They have not been gone long. Mayhaps they've made it as far as Builth. We still have a chance of catching them."

Rhuddlan nodded and signaled for them all to leave. "Lavrans!" he shouted.

Dain descended the stairs, buckling a heavy belt around his waist. The iron-and-teeth bracelets of the Beltaine ceremony still wrapped his left wrist and forearm. He didn't waste time speaking to Rhuddlan.

He knew the need for haste and strode to the chest chained at the foot of his bed. The lock on the chain was old and rusted and gave way under the force of his swift kick. Inside the trunk was the past he'd hoped to forget, but he did not hesitate in opening the lid and throwing it back to reveal the contents. Yet for all his fortitude, the sight of crimson wool gave him pause. Bloodred it was, desert sun red, the hot red of a branding iron glowing in a brazier of coals; and snaking through the wraps and folds of the crimson surcoat were the snow-white stanchions of a Crusader's cross-taken in pride and piety, revered as the promised path to God, and saved as a remembrance of hell.

"Come, Dain. We must be off."

"Aye." He squeezed his hand into a hard fist to keep it from shaking. Then he reached within the folds of cloth and withdrew that which had made his fame in Palestine. Ivory-gripped, its hilt chased in gold and silver, the sword was named for an ancient king of the Danes, Scyld. Rune staves were engraved upon its pommel and guards, an invocation to Odin flowed down onto the blade, and the steel-the steel had been tempered in the cold waters of Havn and hardened in the blood of the Holy Land.

Chapter 22.

Night was falling as Dain and his companions headed deeper into the mountains. They rode through pouring rain, being two days out from Wydehaw and having seen no sign of Caradoc. Even Quicken-tree could not track in a deluge. The road-to give it an undeserved name-was a quagmire that rivaled the sands of Neath. Visibility was nil.

The rain had found them shortly after they had left Wydehaw, while they were still south of Builth, and it had come from the south and east. The fairer weather ahead had only increased Caradoc's lead, though by the previous evening, Trig and Wei had conjectured that the Balor troops must have been overtaken by the downpour and their pace slowed. They had hoped to catch Caradoc at a first night's halt in Rhayader, but when Dain and Rhuddlan had stopped in the village the next morning, they had found not Caradoc, but Morgan and his band journeying south to Wydehaw. Morgan's men were a welcome addition to the company, all good fighters with knowledge of Balor Keep.

Yet as Dain looked around at his companions, he saw not so much a cadre of warriors as a group of bedraggled travelers beset by mud and rain who would have beenfrozenif not for their cloaks of Quicken-tree cloth, which Rhuddlan and his Liosalfar had generously shared. They were thirteen to the man, and Nia-not enough to storm a castle, but enough to get them all killed.

If they could have caught Caradoc on the road, 'twould have been different. Trig had sighted seventeen riders with the Boar. One was now dead, poisoned in the Hart, and one was Helebore. 'Twould have been a fair enough fight in the open, but not so in Balor. Battling the Boar in his lair was sure death, and thus Dain had decided to go in alone. Fourteen warriors were naught but an invitation to disaster, whereas one man could be invisible, and none knew the way of it better than he.

He drew the Cypriot up beside Owain, Morgan's captain, a shrewd fighting man ungiven to exaggeration either of his own deeds or those of others.

"What do we face in Balor?" he asked.

"Nigh onto a hundred and a half men-at-arms and archers as brutish as their master," Owain answered with a sidelong look. "The keep sits between two baileys. The lower bailey houses the garrison and the gatehouse. There's a barbican with arrowslits aplenty, a portcullis and murder holes. The curtain wall is stone, but inside the wall is mostly timber and earthworks. The upper bailey sits on the cliffs overlooking the sea, and they say it can't be breached."

"They say?"

Owain grinned. "Morgan could get in aright. He scaled the tower atCardiff with twice as many men guarding it as Caradoc's got."

"What of the keep itself?"

"Simple enough aboveground with the hall on the first floor and storage chambers and such underneath.

It's what's below the storage that's cause for worry."

Dain did not press him, but waited for the captain to continue.

"I don't rightly know what it is that lies beneath Balor," Owain said, squinting thoughtfully, "but thepassage that leads to the cellar is guarded by no less than four men night and day. 'Tis said Caradoc keeps wild animals down there in a dark dungeon to drive them mad before he rights them in the pit, and I can say I've heard some strange noises comin' up from below, enough so to curdle yer supper. I've seen the pit too, in the southwest tower. Nasty place."

Dain had heard stories of the pit at Balor. 'Twas said to bring Caradoc more gold than his land or his stock. Two bears and a boar were the favored match, a pairing guaranteed to draw even rich English lords from across Offa's Dyke.

"We'd have all been better off just to have left her at Usk," Owain opined aloud. "A nunnery is the only place for Ceridwen ab Arawn. What with her father dead and her brother more devoted to redeemin' his soul than redeemin' his land, there's no one to stand for her."

"I stand for her," Dain said, his voice grim.

Owain looked over at him, his glance sliding briefly to Scyld sheathed at Dain's side. "Aye, and it's going to be a bloody day at Balor then."

"Aye," Dain said.

Ceridwen looked up through the pouring rain at Balor Keep-her new prison, her last prison. Her hands were bound to her palfrey's saddle. Her ankles were bound one to the other by a braided strip of leather running beneath the horse's girth. Caradoc was taking no chance on escape.

The curtain wall of Balor reached across the horizon, surrounding the spit of land once known as Carn Merioneth. Clouds of mist from theIrish Sea rolled up over the cliff edge, stretching into thin wisps that hung about the battlements and clung to the cold, gray stone.

Shudders born half in fear, half from the near-frozen state of her body, wracked her. She would die in that place, and she knew by whose hand. The leech had not taken his eyes from her since he'd loomed over Caradoc's shoulder in the lower chamber of the Hart. Helebore was his name, and he watched her no less intently than a cat eyeing a crippled mouse.

As for her betrothed, he looked at her not. He spoke not a word, and she was sure he would as soon kill her as do either. She was not virgin. He and the leech had read the truth in her face somehow, and the betrayal had made her of no personal worth to him. Her body, though, her blood, was still of prime importance, and he'd given the keeping of both over to Helebore. For the four days of their journey, the leech had hovered over her and about her-without ever touching her-bringing her choice morsels of food and extra cloaks to hold off the rain.

"Lady." The man holding the reins of her palfrey smiled toothlessly and directed her attention to the gatehouse. Gruffudd was his name. "They're raisin' the portcullis."

Ceridwen looked in the direction he pointed, wondering if he did not know what awaited her inside the walls, or if he was as twisted as his master to think the news would cheer her. Indeed, they were raising the portcullis, and a more chilling sight she'd never seen. 'Twas a gaping maw of iron stakes dripping with rainwater, stained with rust.

She had to get her pack back. Her only hope lay within the rough magic she'd learned in the Hart. Dainwould come, she knew he would, but there was no one else, and if they were to have a chance, she must be ready to save herself.

Helebore had given the keeping of her pack to Gruffudd, or rather the destruction of it. If 'twas possible, the pale medicus had grown even paler upon first sighting her small roll of baggage while they were still in the Hart. As with all things of her, he had not touched it, but ordered Gruffudd to throw it on the smoldering coals in the hearth. Gruffudd had not, but stolen it instead. She'd seen him tuck it under his hauberk in the confusion of their leaving. He had since moved it beneath his gambeson, allowing her only a rare peak of trailing riband. She had run her mind in circles trying to think of a way to get it back. Her one advantage was that she herself had been given over to Gruffudd's keeping in deference to Helebore's aversion to any physical contact. The leech gave the orders, and big, thieving Gruffudd carried them out.

They entered Balor much as she would have expected, under the pall of a leaden sky. 'Twas not yet night, and a rider had been sent ahead to roust the kitchen into a meal for the returning lord. As they passed under the portcullis, she looked up at the roof of the gatehouse. Murder holes had been cut into the oak.

The keep sat at the upper end of the bailey. A timber scaffold with stairs led to a heavy oak door, and it was at the scaffolding that they stopped. Upon orders, the mesnie dispersed, the men going off in different directions, leaving her unguarded, except for Gruffudd. Ceridwen curled her fists around handfuls of the palfrey's mane and waited with eyes downcast for any chance that might come along.

Should Gruffudd drop the reins for an instant, she would try for the gate.

Gruffudd did not relinquish the reins, and every instant that he held them, listening to Caradoc give orders to the garrison commander, pushed her closer to an edge she dared not fall off. She had learned from her dealings with Ragnor that it was better to wait than to waste her strength when there was no chance, but the waiting was hard when the chance was so slim.

Caradoc finished with his commander and turned to Helebore. "Call me when she is ready for your blade." He gave her a brief glance. "I want to watch."

Sweet Christ, she thought, the blood draining from her face. 'Twas all true, the very worst of it. She made to bolt, but Gruffudd reached for her then, just as a stable boy released her ankles, and instead of bolting, she swooned in a dead faint, nearly knocking Gruffudd over. Two men jumped forward to keep them from toppling, and in the melee, she snatched her pack roll from beneath Gruffudd's gambeson and hid it within her cloaks. If he felt the quick slide of cloth down his side, he said naught, being too busy regaining control of the situation and her.

"I got 'er. I got 'er," he said, scowling and shoving the other men-at-arms away.

Ceridwen heard Caradoc swear a vile oath. "I knew she could not withstand the north. I know naught what you can do with such weak blood, leech."

She lay limp in Gruffudd's arms, praying for a miracle.

"Take her above stairs," Caradoc ordered. "We'll revive her before we begin."

Gruffudd grunted his assent and carried her off, his lumbering gait nearly making her ill. She heard a door being opened and fluttered her lashes, hoping to get her bearings. There was not much to see. The hall was dark and cold and unwelcoming. More stairs followed, a shorter flight, then another door. Gruffudd laid her down on a bed of uncommon softness and comfort, but he did not let her go. Rather he leaned in close, and she felt an ominous change in his breathing. What followed was even more ominous: a low, sibilant hiss sounding from somewhere in the chamber. Her instincts told her it was Helebore, and more than she feared Gruffudd, she feared the medicus, even rape being preferable to evisceration.

Gruffudd started and moved away.

"Leave her, you whoreson," the leech said, "and send me a guard who knows better than to risk his life for his master's betrothed."

Gruffudd retreated farther, but not without grumbling. "It's not to wife or to bed he's takin' her, but to hell."

"As is his right. Leave us."

She heard the guardsman retreat and fought to control her panic. A soft swishing warned her of Helebore's advance.

"Hmmm," he murmured as his peculiar stench assaulted her nostrils. "Hmmm."

She could hear him circling the bed, drawing closer. Beneath her fingers she felt the hard, ovoid shape of Brochan's Great Charm, and she wondered if she dared to use it on him.

With this stone, I impose... whether you take it or nay...nay, I impose upon thee a wandering, to a land and fro... through... She went over the spell in her mind, forgetting half of it in her fear, trying to remember Dain's exact inflection.A land of faerie dreams, that small dwarf...

Helebore came closer, and the spell fled from her mind. Her hand tightened around the charm in a fierce grip, and she realized she was far more likely to throw it at him than enchant him with it.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he said for God knew what reason, then with a swish and a soft tread, he left. She heard him lock the door behind him.