"All right, I hate these damn good-byes," Tulana growled, casting his eyes over the group.

"Shigeru, anytime you want to come out for a good hunt, you're my honored guest."

"With pleasure, my lord," Shigeru slurred happily as Tulana slapped him on the back. Ignoring propriety, Shigeru slapped the prince in return, so that Tulana staggered and broke out into a delighted grin.

"You're all welcome back, and maybe we'll kill that bastard for sure!" Tulana roared. "Why, by my hairy jewels, it was the best hunt in years!"

"So long, you beautiful wench." Reaching out, he grabbed Leti's backside and squeezed. Playfully, she slapped him across the face and finally he let go. Ikawa, still uncomfortable with the attention Tulana had been showering on his lover, tried unsuccessfully to force a smile.

"He actually took the crystal back all by himself?" Tulana asked, looking at Ikawa.

Leti put her arm around Ikawa and smiled at her lover with an admiring gaze.

"Then maybe I'll be your nephew, too," Tulana shouted with a grin, and gave Ikawa a bear hug.

"Now get the hell out of here. I think I'm going to throw up again and I don't like my guests to see it."

"There's some other good-byes to attend to first," Mark said.

Tulana smiled indulgently. "Yeah, they do grow on you. If ever you need their help, just let me know."

Turning, Tulana staggered away, bellowing an obscene chanty which was quickly picked up by the crew.

Mark leaped over the side of the ship and his companions followed. The cool water felt good and he found it cleared his head somewhat. He let his shielding down so the water soaked through his garments to rinse out the after effects of the feast, then switched the shield back up again.

"Sul, Sul."

A ladulta darted past him, homing in on Shigeru who, bumbling out a string of endearments, embraced his companion.

"Still drunk like me," Sul's thoughts whispered through Mark's mind.

Turning about, Mark saw his friend hovering in the water before him.

"I came to say good-bye," Mark whispered.

The ladulta drew closer and nuzzled him like an overgrown puppy.

"We good battle team, good friends. You come again we swim together, I show you my world. You need me, I come, anywhere ocean flow."

Mark reached out and gave him an affectionate embrace.

"You need me, I always come to help," Mark replied.

Sul hiccuped and rolled his eyes.

"Try Cresus meat with me. We make room for you beside body."

"Some other time," Mark groaned. He found it strange to hear laughter echoing through his mind.

Sul spun around him in a tight arc, his tail gently brushing across Mark's chest, then the ladulta darted away.

Mark rose from the water and saw his companions forming up, looking at each other sheepishly.

"Well damn it, they're like underwater Tals, like damn puppies," Goldberg sniffled.

"All right, let's get going," Mark growled, trying to hide his emotions.

Cursing and groaning, the group lifted into the air and winged over the Cresus, which was surrounded by ladulta still gorging themselves, while others floated lazily alongside, their bellies distended.

"Lord, what a stink!" Walker said, wrinkling his nose.

"My ladulta said they really love it when it's aged for a couple of weeks," Goldberg rejoined.

Walker, leaning over, lost what little breakfast he had vainly struggled to hold, to the delighted hoots of the ladulta circling below.

"Do you really expect me to believe this?" Patrice yelled. The messenger cowered. "Your ladyship, I am only reporting the information sent back from Asmara. It's already been crosschecked with another source. She is traveling with the group, and by now she's halfway across the ocean, with little or no hope of breaking free."

"Get out of here," Patrice snapped.

The messenger, bowing low, scurried out of the room without looking back.

"Damn them," Patrice snarled, slamming her fist on the table before her.

I've got to get control,she kept trying to tell herself. She could feel the spasmodic trembling of her hands, knowing that the terrible stress was finally taking its toll.

How am I going to break this to Gorgon?The thought made her stomach turn into knots. Already he was roaring about the damage done to his realms, the ever increasing pressure of Jartan, and the fact that so far he had borne all the burden of the struggle.

That had always been her intent on this campaign: to let him take all the risks while she reaped the greater share of rewards. There had been the slightest of hints from him that if there was treachery involved, that if she was in fact secretly allied to Jartan, he would have his vengence. Would he assume that now, even though she was innocent in this delay?

"What am I going to do?" She reached over to a side table and refilled her goblet yet again, watching as the trembling of her hands eased ever so slightly.

If the girl was trapped in close proximity to Leti, the strain of keeping up her false identity must be crushing. And the slightest mistake or dropping of her guard would be fatal to all these long years of planning.

Would Vena have the strength and resourcefulness to somehow slip away? Even if she did, Patrice thought dejectedly, there was no possibility of her ever being able to outrace Leti.

"I'll have to get her out," Patrice muttered.

Sitting back, she extended her hands, and the tile-covered surface shimmered with a pale light, the small crystals at the four corners glowing brightly. A milky filament appeared, and the surface of the table became wrapped in a fine mist that quickly formed into a map of the ocean.

Patrice stood up, hands still extended, and the map moved, the projection and scale changing to revea!

the northern chain of floating islands ruled by Tulana. She shifted the perspective around, scanning the distance between each. The measure of flying time appeared between each island, the figures adding up and appearing in one corner.

Suddenly the images moved yet again, growing smaller. A map of the entire ocean again filled the table as she studied the chains of floating islands farther south, marking off distances and tracing out routes, calculating move and counter move.

She guided the image back to Tulana's chain, this time focusing the map in so that a relief of each island filled the entire table. Yet more figures appeared beside each of the images, showing the strength of the islands' fortifications and garrison, information updated regularly by her so-called merchants.

Gradually the plan started to form.

With a wave of her hands, the image on the mapping table disappeared. She touched her communications crystal.

"Inform my guards and first battle team to prepare for an immediate departure," she commanded sharply. "They are to report to me in one turning."

Without waiting for a reply, she snapped the crystal off.

First, though, she'd have to tell Gorgon about the delay. As she contemplated the promises and lies necessary, she had another long drink, but the trembling would not go away.

Chapter 11.

Mark looked around suspiciously, feeling a tingle of discomfort running down the back of his neck. Back in Landra, he had become accustomed to the open friendliness of the people; after all, the "offworlders,"

as they were still called, were acknowledged heroes of the realm. He realized now he had become spoiled by the treatment.

While serving with the occupation force in Sarnak's old realm, he had also known a wariness and sullenness that was to be expected from a conquered people, and had gone out of his way to show the common people there a certain understanding. Perhaps it was being an American, he thought. Even when they'd beat a people, they'd wanted to be liked by them. But it was different here.

It seemed as if these folks, at best, simply didn't give a damn who they were. They just wanted to fleece them of their money and make life as difficult as possible.

The only positive thing about this was that the city of Portus, an independent city-state bordering the druid's forest realm, was unsurpassed in beauty.

They had flown in the evening before and the first sight of land from over a hundred miles away had been the high snow-capped mountains catching the golden-red hues of the early evening sun. The city flanked both sides of a narrow fjord, and the mountains beyond the town were covered with a forest which had left him awestruck.

The trees would have dwarfed the towering redwoods he had once seen north of San Francisco. Some rose over half a thousand feet into the air, their trunks nearly fifty feet across. The town itself was actually part of the forest, living trees supporting a spindly latticework of buildings that arched from trunk to trunk.

The tavern they had stayed in had actually been carved into a trunk with rooms suspended around the outside like barnacles on a rock.

"I hope this one pays off," Ikawa growled, his bad temper starting to show.

"We've got to be patient with these people," Leti replied, trying to smile.

Mark looked over at Ikawa, who was still bristling from their last rejection, the fifth of the day. The last merchant they had talked to in hope of obtaining equipment and a guide into the druid's realm had laughed them out of his office, calling Leti a spoiled brat of Jartan's who had no business in the area to start with. It had taken all of Ikawa's self-control, along with a restraining hand from Saito, to keep him from decking the man.

Leti paused for a moment, looking around as if lost. There were no streets in the traditional sense in this town, since the town was actually part of the forest, each trunk a building unto itself.

A burly man walked by, a heavy pack on his shoulders, and Leti hopefully stepped up to him.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for the traveling merchant Deidre."

"How come?" the man replied, as if annoyed at the interruption.

"We have business with her."

"What kind of business?"

"Private," Leti said quietly.

"Then she should have made better arrangements for you to find her," the man said, stepping past Leti.

"We'll pay you to take us there," Mark said, stepping in front of the man and holding out a silver coin.

He paused and looked up at Mark. "You're the folks interested in going inland, aren't you?"

Mark nodded.

The man laughed. "The only ones who go in there and come back are the ones the old man of the forest invites. Do yourselves a favor and go home."

"How do we get invited?"

"Listen, sonny," the man said evenly, "we make our living by trading with the old man. We're the only ones allowed in and back. No one's going to give away our secrets, and you can be damn certain no one's interested in getting the old man angry at them. And when it comes to Deidre, your best bet is to skip it. So just buy what you want here, and go home."

Without even asking, the burly man took the coin out of Mark's hand.

"Payment for some excellent advice," he said almost cheerfully and made as if to continue on.

"Damn it, I've had it with this shit," Walker snapped, coming up to block the man's path.

"Walker, don't," Mark commanded.

"Ah, so the mighty sorcerers are going to gang up and threaten me, is that it?" the burly man said, raising his voice. "An excellent display of Jartan's so-called sense of fair play."

"All we want to do is find Deidre," Walker snapped.

"Find her yourself." The man shouldered his way past, not bothering to look back.

"If you're looking for Deidre, I'm over here," a high, clear, and very amused voice called.

Mark looked up and saw a thin, almost childlike woman leaning over a balcony that arched between two trees. Her waist-length brown hair floated in the cool forest breeze, and her freckled face and green eyes were alight with laughter at the scene beneath her.

"I've been waiting for you," she said, and beckoned to the group.

"Is there something wrong?" Imada asked nervously, reaching out to touch Vena.

She flinched, drawing away as if his hands were poisonous. His heart breaking, he pulled away from her.

She had been like this since they had left on what he had thought would be an exciting trip, one which for a girl who had grown up on a border outpost would be filled with wonder.

"Why won't you talk to me?" Imada sighed.

"There's nothing to say," Vena whispered, and she smiled, though somehow it looked brittle and cold, as if she was hiding something.