"I think I'll go for a walk," she went on. "Sitting in this room is bothering me too much."

She paused, looking into the mirror. He watched her closely. Funny, he never remembered her doing that when they had been in Landra and first come to Asmara. All her attention had always been focused on him. But now, he noticed, she could not pass a mirror without pausing, staring at her reflected image, sometimes drawing close to it as if she was gazing at an interesting stranger. She noticed him looking at her and turned, the smile in place.

"Why are you watching me like that?" she whispered almost accusingly.

"Because I love you."

She smiled and drew closer, but in his heart he sensed that it was an action that was being forced. She kissed him lightly on the forehead.

"I'd like to go out for a walk," she said.

"You remember Leti's orders, we're to stay here, and I know she means that even more for you."

"I can take care of myself," Vena snapped.

"Maybe back along the border," Imada said, drawing closer and tentatively putting his hands on her hips, "but this town seems dangerous."

She pulled away from him and started to the door.

"Vena, you know the rest of the men will stop you from going out."

"And what's wrong with you?" she snapped. "Aren't you man enough to tell them different?"

Stunned, he looked at her, unable to speak.

She seemed to hesitate and then turned back to him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and he felt as if somehow his old lover was now back. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Imada, it's just that I don't like this place. I wanted to be alone just with you for a while, and then they made you come with them. I guess I'm just angry."

"It's all right," he sighed, coming up and hugging her. "You haven't played your harp since we left," he continued, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. "Why don't you sing me a song?"

"The harp? I don't feel like it." He felt as if her response was just a little too sharp.

He looked over at the battered case, resting by her side of the bed.

Suddenly her lips brushed against his ear.

"Let's do something else," she whispered, and though at the mere suggestion he felt his passion taking hold, still he could sense a strange distance within her, as if her body and mind were two separate beings.

"So that's the arrangement," Deidre said, motioning for a servant to pour another round of drinks.

Mark took the goblet appreciatively. The wine seemed to have been made from a fermented honey, yet it was light, even slightly dry instead of cloyingly sweet, with a curious flowery aftertaste.

"I'd still prefer to fly it," Walker said.

"Go ahead and try," Deidre replied. "Above that forest canopy you could crisscross the old man's realm until you were damn near as old as he is and not see anything. Fly under the canopy and you'll be lost inside the first hour."

"Riding is the easiest way. Each of us who has permission has our own private trail and markers. So you go my way or not at all." She smiled sweetly at Walker, who shook his head and said nothing.

"One thing," Leti said evenly.

"Go on."

"No one else wanted to take us in, they said the old man would be angry with them. So why are you doing it?"

"I'm his granddaughter," Deidre replied. "If he doesn't like me bringing you in, I'll just get yelled at.

Whether he kills you or gives you a feast will be your problem, not mine."

"But I'm the daughter of a goddess," Leti replied, "with some of the best sorcerers in all of Haven with me."

"If you're telling me that as a threat," Deidre replied, "rest assured, Grandfather can take care of himself even against you. Your father rules an ocean away, not here. These are free city-states, under no god or goddess, so your name and lineage count for little."

"I still don't understand why you're bothering with us," Mark interjected. "No one else would give us the right time of day."

Deidre laughed. "Because I'm good-natured."

Walker looked at her suspiciously.

"And besides, I'm a merchant. Your price is a good one, believe me. Finally--let's just say I'm a bit bored."

"Bored?" Walker asked.

"I'm curious as to what the old man will do when and if he finally agrees to see you."

"I don't like this one bit," Walker snapped.

"If we want to see him," Leti replied, shaking her head, "this is the only way."

She paused and looked at Ikawa. "That is, if you really want to do this." Mark could sense the hopefulness in her voice. He knew if Storm were here the two of them would not do anything to get in the way of this venture, yet at the same time both would hope that in the end nothing would come of it and that there was no way to ever return to Earth. He found he was half hoping for the same result. The thought of having to make a choice was becoming a nightmare.

"I'm sorry," Ikawa replied. "We have to find out."

Leti forced a smile and looked at Deidre. "When do we leave?"

"This afternoon. There's no time like the present to get started."

At the sight of the coastline, Patrice felt as if energy had coursed into her. The land was as beautiful as she had remembered it, the vast trees cloaking the mountainside, the sparkling snow-capped mountains, the deep crystalline blue of the ocean. It was so different from the rolling hills and pastoral splendor of her own land.

She looked over her shoulder, scanning the world. It was as if the sky were hers alone, and she the only person soaring above the world.

Her guards and battle team were far behind her now, resting on one of the floating islands, concealed under the garb of guild sorcerers going east to work for a prince half a world away. They would continue on slowly, awaiting her word for the right time to strike.

They must be in Portus, she realized. The trick would be to sneak in without being detected. If the party was still there, getting Vena and the stolen crystals out might be difficult, since no matter what her guise Leti would recognize her on sight. She would need an ally in this; and she smiled at the memory of an encounter she'd had when had been younger.

"There are times I think we're just riding in circles," Ikawa said, looking to Leti as if for confirmation.

She smiled, shaking her head.

"I'm every bit as confused as you are. I've never been in a realm like this before."

If he had not felt there was an ever-increasing danger to what they were doing, he would have been enjoying this trip like no other he had ever been on before.

In the four days since leaving Portus, he had sat astride his Tal, dumbfounded by the wonders of the forest. Deidre had explained to them that the great woods they were traveling through were not made up of individual trees as all had at first assumed but a single vast living entity--each "tree," as it were, a single stem of an organism which she believed had an intelligence as well. The forest, which covered tens of thousands of square miles, had six separate trees growing in district groves. The border regions between them were areas of tangled conflict as roots and stems struggled for dominance and to push their neighbor back.

The second day out from Portus, they had crossed such a region, dividing the forest of the ocean, the Portus Woods, from that of the Druid Woods. Ikawa had been filled with a dark foreboding at the sight of it.

It seemed as if the trees were locked in a slow-motion combat. Roots reared up out of the ground, drilling straight into the hearts of rival trunks; branches snaked upward, struggling to block the light of their rivals, winding in to strangle and choke. The forest was a vast litter of dead limbs and broken trunks piled up like jackstraws. As they took a break from their march, Ikawa had nicked a trunk around which a root from a rival was trying to curl, and in their one hour stay he was amazed to see the root had grown several inches.

There was even a strategy to this slow motion struggle: Roots came up around an attacked trunk, reaching out to coil around the offending limbs and strangling them in turn. It was a region he was glad to flee.

Though all the trees were of the same species, there were many trunks that were different, as if they were manifestations of different organs. Some had silvery bark, the bottom sides of their leaves nearly mirrorlike, projecting bursts of light downward into sections of the forest where new saplings were arising to replace trunks that had died.

Sections of the forest were covered with spindly vines which Deidre carefully guided the party around, warning them to stand far clear of any of the vines' golden orchidlike blooms, which contained a pollen that could induce a paralytic state. The vines were parasitic, moving through the forest like some strange disease, their needle-sharp tendrils driving into the trunks of their host, draining out the life-giving nutrients, and then quickly moving on through the branches when the tree reacted and attempted to strangle the invader.

Ikawa looked back up again, trying to somehow judge the direction of their travel, but with little success.

Mark, urging his mount forward, came up to ride beside his two friends.

"If I knew the old coot was going to be friendly, I think I'd actually enjoy this place," Mark said, looking over his shoulder at a vast pulsating array of mothlike insects which had started to gather behind the party nearly an hour back.

"Say Deidre, what are those things?" Mark asked, pointing back to the moths.

"Just what they look like," she said with a smile, and then turned her attention forward.

"A fountain of information," Leti whispered.

"You notice there's been a hell of a lot more of them following us?" Mark said. "They've been coming in from every direction."

"Other things, too." Saito came up to join the conversation, pointing to a large flock of grey birds that kept circling and filtering through the trees, winging in low over the party, moving as silently as bats in the night.

"Something's building up," Leti said, keeping her voice pitched low.

Ikawa nodded in reply. He kept looking about, yet was so confused by this strange world that he could make no sense of what he was looking for. All he could tell was that somehow the forest had become watchful.

Deidre put up her hand to motion for the party to stop.

On the ground before him Ikawa saw a shard of white sticking out, covered by a latticework of roots that had a curiously disquieting appearance to them.

"I'd suggest we stay straight on the trail here," Deidre said softly, "and pass the word back to the rest of the party to keep quiet--and for heaven's sake, don't drop anything."

Ikawa sensed a ripple of conversation going through the Tals, and several of them whined softly like puppies that were suddenly afraid.

"Say, Captain," Walker hissed, pointing to the ground, "tell me I'm wrong, but those roots look like they're shaped like skeletons."

"You know, he's right," Ikawa whispered, looking at Leti.

The floor of the forest for several hundred yards ahead was torn and convoluted by roots that seemed to come together to form skulls, limbs, and entire bodies, both human and Tal. Scattered here and there and covered with a sprinkling of leaves, white fragments of bone were evident.

"What happened here?" Leti asked, her voice low but insistent.

Deidre, without looking back, pointed up. "See those white sacks in the branches?"

Ikawa followed where she pointed and saw dozens of great white globes, like inverted parachutes, hanging several hundred feet above him.

"Doiga--large stinging insects," Deidre whispered. "If something upsets them they come out by the millions and swarm over their victims. The roots of Uldrasill take what is left. Somebody from the last party through here most likely upset them.'"

"Upset them?" Walker whispered.

"Laughed too loud, or jumped on the ground and they felt the vibrations. Sometimes they'll attack because they simply feel like it."

Walker for once said nothing, looking straight up as they passed through the danger zone. The scene of the struggle was finally behind them, and Ikawa felt he could breathe easier again when the white nests were no longer in sight.

"I'm going to swing out to the back of the party just to keep an eye on things," Ikawa whispered.

"Imada, come along with me."

Imada started to protest, looking over at Vena, who rode quietly by his side, but the look in his commander's eyes told him that it was an order.

Leti and Mark nodded as the two pulled over to let the others pass.

"Imada, you're fairly good with things of nature," Ikawa asked softly. "Tell me what you're feeling."

"We're being watched, Captain. Those grey birds, for one thing; and have you noticed the pleasant chatter of the forest has died away?"

Ikawa paused, realizing that Imada was right. The wonderful singsong cries and woodland sounds had dropped away into an oppressive silence.

"Even those clouds of moths," Imada continued. "It feels like they're part of something as well."

The party continued past, and as each rider drew abreast, Ikawa whispered a warning.

"I think we'll walk for a stretch," Ikawa announced, swinging down from his Tal, who looked at him curiously.

"Legs hurt," Ikawa said, looking into the creature's eyes, knowing that the Tal would undoubtedly announce what was being done to his comrades, and to Deidre as well.

Kochanski, the last in line, drew abreast of the two and swung down off his mount to join them.

"I hope you don't mind, Kochanski," Ikawa said quietly, "if Imada and I speak in our old tongue."

Kochanski, understanding immediately, said nothing.

"That's better, I feel we can talk freely now," Ikawa said in Japanese. "I don't trust the Tals, or anything else around us at the moment."