"I will come with you and bid you farewell," said Karan with tears in her eyes.

There was little to tell about the journey, save heat, salt dust, thirst and exhaustion. Mirages promised water every day, though they came to nothing but baked salt. One good thing had happened though-since Karan's altercation with Tensor, Basitor had ceased persecuting Llian.

On the seventh evening the water ran out. "How far now?" asked Yggur as they squeezed the last bottles dry.

"At least a day," said Osseion.

They struggled on through the night, and at the end of it were suffering badly from dehydration. "It can't be far," Mendark panted as the first light crept over the eastern horizon. "Surely not much further."

The sun sprang up behind them, revealing flat salt in every direction. "Well," Mendark said, "this is the moment of decision. Stay here and die, or keep on until we die. Either way, it won't take long."

"We can go a little way yet," said Shand, picking dry shreds of skin off his lips.

Karan stopped abruptly, staring about her. The others continued, even Llian, until she was standing all alone.

"What's that?" she said, sniffing the air. Maybe it was her sensitive talent, or perhaps the months on the salt last spring had heightened her ability to smell water.

No one answered; they just kept plodding along. There had been too many false alarms already.

"We're going the wrong way," Karan shouted hoarsely. "I can sense water." She turned around and around. "Yes, it's that way, further south."

No one argued, or even spoke. It was too much effort. But they followed her.

Karan continued for several hours. Every step had become a labor. Her muscles felt as if they had been glued together; her skin itched all over. She recognized the symptoms-advancing dehydration that would lead to her death before the day was over.

As the sun rose higher, mirages shivered on the salt, the most inviting that they had ever seen.

"Which way?" rasped Mendark.

"I-I can't tell," said Karan. Her talent had deserted her again.

"Lift me up, someone," said Llian.

Basitor and Osseion were the biggest. Basitor gave Llian a meaningful stare, but stood patiently beside Osseion while Llian was lifted onto their shoulders. He stood up gingerly and looked in every direction.

"What do you see?" they cried.

"Nothing! I'm not high enough."

Osseion and Basitor each seized an ankle and lifted him above their heads. Basitor's hand was like a manacle.

"I see water," Llian croaked through cracked lips. He pointed further south of their track. "It's the lakes!"

"Another mirage!" gasped Yggur.

"This one has trees," Llian said, and before much longer they could all see them, a little patch of dark-leaved mangroves in the middle of the salt and a long vegetated mud bank running into the distance.

"It is water!" Karan shouted, as if she hadn't quite believed it herself. "Race you to it."

She and Tallia set off toward the lake at a stumbling run. Llian followed slowly; it was too hot for such foolishness. When Karan was almost at the water's edge she sprang off a mound to clear a patch of mud. Landing, her feet went straight through a salt crust and she plunged hip-deep into the salty mud. She burst out laughing. "Whee! It's hot!"

She tried to push herself up but wherever she put her weight on the crust it broke off again.

"Help!" she said, still laughing. Then she slid further down into the mud and suddenly realized that it was serious. "Tallia! It's pulling me down."

Tallia had stopped at her initial cry, but water began to puddle around her feet and without warning the crust under her gave way as well.

"Llian," she shouted. "Run back! Get help!"

Llian kept coming. He was afraid to go for help in case they were sucked right under.

"Go on!" Tallia screeched. "We'll be all right."

"Speak for yourself," said Karan, still floundering in the mud, as Llian ran off. Suddenly she slipped down again until the mud was breast-deep. She panicked and thrashed about wildly.

"Don't move," said Tallia, who had managed to extricate one foot, only to sink so deep on the other that she overbalanced and fell sideways into the mud. She spat out muck and said, "Keep absolutely still. Spread your arms out."

Karan did so and the downward movement stopped momentarily. Llian came staggering back with Shand, Osseion and several of the Aachim, dragging their water sleds.

"Help!" cried Karan. Her shoulders were almost covered now.

Shand burst out laughing. "Keep still! You won't go any deeper."

"It's sucking me under," Karan wept.

"Nonsense! Mud's heavier than water and you can float. How can it suck you under?"

"Get me out!" she screamed. "When I want a school lesson I'll ask for one."

Shand turned one of the sleds over so that its smooth metal surface lay on the crust, then pushed it ahead of him out to Karan's mud hole. Llian followed with the second sled and after much heaving, swearing and disgusting squelching noises they had Karan out again. By this time Tallia had rescued herself, for her long legs had found hard mud underneath the sucking stuff.

Once they were back on solid ground the rest of the company took much amusement from the sight of them. Karan looked like a mud sprite-muck oozing off every surface. And it stank too, with a ripe rotten-egg stench.

"You smell like a hundred-year-old fart," guffawed Llian.

"Don't be disgusting," said Karan, almost in tears.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Tallia said to her.

"Very probably." Eyeing their tormentors, Karan ran a cupped hand up her thigh, wadded mud into a ball and flung it at the sniggering Llian. It splattered most satisfyingly right in the middle of his chest.

"Hey!" he said and fell over backwards.

At the same instant Tallia's ball smacked Shand right in the ear.

"Right!" he roared. "That's how you show your gratitude, is it?" He scooped mud off the sled and hurled it at Karan.

Then it was on, missiles flying back and forth, everyone laughing and shrieking. Even Basitor joined in, hitting Llian over the head with a mud ball the size of a melon and laughing fit to burst. Llian did too, after he'd got over the shock, and that surprised Basitor almost as much as it did him.

Mendark came running up to see what was the matter and copped one right in the eye, an event that gave Karan a fierce thrill of pleasure, especially as she knew that Tallia had thrown it. Mendark was not amused and the fight petered out soon afterwards. It was too hot for such strenuous activity, and they were too worn out, so they looked for a safe path down to the water to bathe. Karan and Tallia went together, still chuckling.

There were no fish here, for the lake was too shallow and hot, but the salty water was a sovereign feed for the Aachim's sun stills. The first cup of warm, tasteless water was offered to Selial with all the reverence of a noble vintage, and the lifeless Selial perked up and smacked her lips with equal appreciation. Once the trazpars were going they had a party, all the water that they could drink.

At the other end of the lake there were fish in superabundance, so concentrated in the shrinking pools that a single cast of a net would feed them all. They found a vast congregation of birds as well, ducks and divers spiraling in the air then plunging down to gorge themselves before their long pilgrimage north for the winter. Waders stilted across the quickmud that made most of the approaches to the lake treacherous. The place stank of bird manure.

Osseion made a net by unraveling some pieces of cloth and knotting the threads back together, his thick fingers dancing over the knots.

"I was better at this when I had ten fingers," he said to Llian, rubbing the space where the tenth had been. By the time the sun set he had a coarsely woven net of half a dozen spans length. "Here, hold this end."

"It doesn't look very strong," said Llian, eyeing it doubtfully.

"Well, it doesn't have to be; we'll only use it once or twice."

It was a bright night, a full moon showing just a crescent of yellow. They carried the net down to a place where the crust of salt looked firm enough to walk on, though Llian had no idea where to put his feet and twice Osseion had to haul him out of places that suddenly liquefied under his weight.

"No, put your hands here, and here. Don't you know anything about fishing, Llian?" Osseion rumbled.

Llian smiled. "I've never even wetted a line; nor wanted to before today. But after a month eating skagg I will become the master chronicler of fishing. I have in mind to write a book: The Compleat Angler, I will call it."

Osseion roared with laughter, clapping Llian on the shoulder so hard that he fell to his knees and promptly began to sink into the quickmud. "It's been written already, so I've been told," Osseion said, pulling him out again. "But I'm glad to see that you've mastered the first lesson-never let go of the net. Now, hold it down, otherwise they'll just swim under it."

Llian did as he was told while Osseion waded out into the water until it was up to his waist. His path curved around in a circle, he stamped his feet and turned back to shore. Shortly, after much heaving, they had a catch of half a hundred fat fish, a handful of the crayfish that Karan called clatchers and a red and gold water snake that reared up on top of the pile, its eyes glittering red in the moonlight. Osseion borrowed Mendark's staff to flick it back into the water.

They feasted on the fish, the clatchers and some unfortunate ducks; on lake weed and the pith of reeds that grew along the levee banks high above the salt. Three days they stayed there, drying fish fillets in the sun, then pressed on, much rejuvenated, and in another few days crossed off the salt plain onto the slope leading up to the high plateau. Above the first cliff they found a series of rockpools filled with gorgeously cool fresh water, and in the larger of these they bathed and washed the filthy rags that were their clothes. They stayed two days at that place too, feasting, for fish and fruit were plentiful.

Llian spent most of that time sitting alone in the shade. He was now starting to build the Tale of the Mirror in his mind and any kind of company was a distraction. Karan did not worry; she had made a friend in Tallia and they were often to be seen treading water down in the shady end of a pool and talking quietly together-the one tall, black-haired and chocolate-skinned, the other small, flame-haired and pale as milk, with not even a freckle to show for the months of walking under her tent-like robes.

"Come and join us, Shand," Karan called one morning as he went by the pool. He had his head down and did not seem to hear. "Shand!" she yelled.

He looked up vacantly, raised a hand then kept on.

"What's the matter with him?" Karan wondered.

"I don't know," said Tallia. "He's gone all quiet lately. Race you down to the bottom!" She upended, her long legs rising out of the water, then plunged down.

Karan followed more slowly. She knew from experience that no one could match Tallia at diving.

"What will you do after all this?" Karan asked on the last afternoon.

"I don't know," sighed Tallia. "I feel that my life has come to a crossroads."

"You and Mendark are not ... ?" Karan enquired delicately.

Tallia laughed. "That was brief and ended years ago. I still care for him and for the objectives he strives for. He's done a lot of good for Santhenar, whatever you think of him. But my indenture is over now, and I think I'll go my separate way when this business is finished. What about you?"

"I don't know-I'm all confused. I just want to go home to Gothryme. I can't imagine how I ended up here now. It all seems like a nightmare."

Karan looked up and there was Shand, sitting on top of a lonely rock, staring out over the sea. She followed his gaze. The salt had an eerie beauty from this far away-it looked cool and inviting.

"The Dry Sea is a great tempter," said Tallia.

Next day they went back into the blast of the sun to continue the long climb. They found the high plateau arid, the spring grass long withered, all but the largest rivers broken up into waterholes separated by long expanses of sand and gravel. Yet still there was game in plenty, fruit and nuts ripening on the banks, and they were never more than a day's march from water. Compared to the Dry Sea it was a holiday.

At the first west-flowing river they came to, the Aachim, master boatmakers that they were, stripped huge sheets of bark from trees growing by the water, hardened them over a fire and formed the sheets into bark canoes. After that they padded gently along all day and drifted down with the current for half the night as well. The days were mild and the nights wonderfully cool. Once, as they neared the western side of the plateau, it rained, the first Karan had felt for half a year. It would have been a pleasant journey, save for the ever-present shadow of Yggur at the back of the last canoe.

After another week, more or less, of winding their way down through the eastern mountains, they reached the south road. As soon as they did, Yggur came sidling up to Men-dark.

"What do you want?" Mendark asked sourly. He and Yggur had scarcely exchanged a civil word in the past month.

"I'm worried what Rulke is up to," Yggur said.

"Pity you didn't think about that when we had the chance to shut him in!"

"That's done with," said Yggur sharply. "But it's still not too late."

"We must have a weapon first," said Mendark. "The flute, if you remember."

"You can follow that path. He is only one man-I have armies back in Thurkad."

"He is Charon! And he has a legion of Ghashad."

"I have a hundred thousand troops, blooded in battle. I'll give him plenty to worry about."

"Then you don't need me," Mendark said with a thin smile.

Yggur pursed his lips as though what he was about to ask was repugnant to him. "I ... I have no money, Mendark. I beg you, lend me gold for my journey back to Thurkad and I will repay it tenfold."

Mendark snorted. "So that you can restore your fortunes and your empire at my expense, and pay me back with my own coin?"

"I cannot deny that I hate you and will do everything in my power to bring you down," Yggur said coldly. "But back in Katazza we declared truce, if you recall, and I hold to that. I know you care, as I do, for the well-being of Santhenar ahead of your own fortunes."

"What is your plan?"

"To get back to Thurkad by the fastest way possible."

"By yourself-a blind man?" Mendark said dismissively.

"I have a little sight. Enough! Will you give me the money?"

Mendark reached inside Osseion's pack, bringing out a small pouch, not much bigger than an egg. "Very well. Take this bag of gold, one hundred tells. See that you repay me a thousand in Thurkad. And after our enemy is defeated, the truce is ended."

Yggur took the gold. "Agreed!" They clasped hands, though only for an instant.

Once on the road it was not long before they reached a sizeable town, where Yggur hired mounts and aides. The half-blind look he gave Llian before he departed was ominous. "Take care of yourself, chronicler," he said. "I won't forget you."

Llian did not answer.

"Send word to me in Thurkad," Yggur shouted, and set off for Flude at a furious pace, there to find a boat to take him home.