THE WISE WOMAN.

Yggur did not have a good trip back from Faranda. After leaving the company he rode south as fast as his meager sight would let him. He felt overwhelming relief at being rid of Mendark's oppressive presence, and a longing for Maigraith that grew stronger every day. At Flude he hired two attendants and took ship immediately, but the vessel turned out to be a slow, rotten, rat-infested hulk that rolled in the slightest sea. Normally a good sailor, he was seasick for most of the voyage.

Somewhere near Siftah they were chased by pirates, only the weather saving them. Then, as they sailed south down the Sea of Thurkad, dysentery spread through the ship, cramping their bellies and turning their bowels to water. The boat drifted for days, no sailors being well enough to man the masts. The drinking water went a stinking green and one of the casks of salt pork, when they opened it, was a heaving mess of maggots.

The crew knew who to blame for their ill-fortune. The tall, scowling stranger, the half-crippled blind man they had taken on board at Flude. Rumor said that he was a sorcerer. The luck of this voyage proved it.

One morning Yggur was woken by a disabling blow to the kidneys. It was bad luck to kill a sorcerer, but his hands were bound and he was cast into a dinghy with his hapless attendants. The dinghy, without oars or food, or even water, was pushed off and the boat sailed away.

The attendants untied each other but left him bound. He could not find within him any power to defend himself or even loosen his bonds. They drifted for a day and a night, then next morning Yggur was woken by the sound of breaking waves. They were drifting along a barren, rocky shore. The attendants robbed him of his gold and slipped over the side.

Yggur furiously rubbed his bonds against the thwarts, but the thick rope was still intact an hour later as the dinghy was driven sideways onto the rocks. It overturned. He was flung at the barnacle-covered outcrops, pulled out to sea by the surge then driven back onto the rocks again.

By sheerest luck the succeeding waves were small ones, allowing him to crawl above the breakers. After sawing through his ropes on the broken edge of an oyster shell he staggered across the rocks until he came to a village.

Yggur lurched up to what appeared to be the hut of the village headwoman. She was no more than an outline through his sunburned, salt-crusted eyelids.

"Will you help me?" he gasped. His limbs and body were bloody from a hundred barnacle wounds.

"How may we serve you?" she said in a rather young voice for a wise woman, for such he deduced her to be.

"I need passage to Thurkad," he said.

"You won't find it here."

"Then take me where I can. Please."

"That would cost all of five silver tars," she said, as if she were asking for half the wealth of the world.

He couldn't bear to beg. "I haven't a grint with me, but in Thurkad ... I am Yggur!" he cried.

After a pause the woman said, "I understand that you are a man of your word. You may send back the coin or ... there may be other ways to repay me."

Shortly he had been stripped of his tattered clothes, fed a bowl of sea-urchin chowder and his wounds treated with a purple, stinging tincture. He slept in the headwoman's own hut, the greatest honor they could give him, though he lacked the strength to do her the honor she plainly wished for in return. While he slept she had what she wanted from him anyway.

In the morning his garments were returned, repaired and smelling of smoke, for they had been dried over the fire. The wise woman, her prestige now immeasurably enhanced, hand-fed him pickled fish organs. They tasted even worse than they looked. When he was done she bowed, the smiling villagers helped him into a canoe and he was paddled out to sea. A day later he landed at Ganport and immediately boarded a vessel heading for Thurkad. Such kindness, he thought, and they are not even my subjects. They will be well rewarded.

Only when he was landed in Thurkad did Yggur allow himself to think about Maigraith. He'd heard about her humiliation of Thyllan a dozen times already. He would raise Vanhe to general, even commander-in-chief.

On the wharf a ragged street urchin came hobbling up to him, elbowing half a dozen competitors out of the way. His dirty feet were battered, scabbed and covered in running sores. "May I guide you, sir? Please, sir."

"Take me to the military headquarters, boy," he said. "And be quick about it." He was desperate for Maigraith now. He would not shrink from her bed tonight.

As Yggur followed the limping boy, he reminded himself of all the good things about Maigraith-her compassion for his pain; the clumsy way she'd approached him, had drawn him out of himself. It must have been very hard for her.

If only she'd kept her glasses on. If only he'd not looked into her eyes and seen Rulke there. That had undermined him. Mortified, he realized that he'd shrunk from her like a schoolboy from the headmaster's cane. But the barbs Rulke had left in his psyche were gone now and Yggur understood his folly. He had wallowed in terror like a princess bathing in milk; had even taken a kind of masochistic pleasure from it. No more! How different things were going to be between them now.

Yggur suddenly felt immensely strong. Back in his own realm with his armies around him, he could no longer imagine why he'd been so afraid of Mendark, or of Rulke. Even his eyesight seemed a little clearer. The first person he met as he limped up the steps of the citadel was the messenger girl, Dolodha, though it wasn't until she spoke that he recognized her.

"Master!" she gasped. Then she shouted out. "The master has come back! Lord Yggur has returned." She fell to her knees before him.

Yggur lifted her to her feet. "Dolodha!" he said. "Faithful servant. I am almost blind. Pay this boy then bring me your indenture. From this moment you are free!"

"Free," she whispered. "But how will I live?"

"You will serve me as adjutant, for one silver tar a week," he said with the utmost good cheer.

"One silver tar!" she exclaimed, as if he had offered a bucket of gold.

"You want more? Then you shall have it. Two silver tars! Now run for your indenture. Scribe," he roared. "Write Dolodha's commission as adjutant. Where's Zareth?"

Zareth the Hlune was found and dispatched back to the village with a bag of silver. Dolodha reappeared. Her indenture was canceled with a row of official stamps and seals, her commission duly drawn up.

"Now, where's Maigraith?" Yggur cried to his adjutant. "Take me to her at once."

Dolodha looked uneasy. "She is in Bannador, master."

"Bannador!"

"She led the First Army to Casyme to fight the Ghashad."

"What?" he roared. "When?"

"Five days ago."

As she explained, Yggur felt his heart clutched in a vice, and it squeezed harder every second. To take an army into the wilds of Bannador, against an army just as strong, already dug in, and under the control of the Ghashad, was sheer idiocy. Suicide! Maigraith was doomed.

"Who allowed this stupidity?" he raged. "I'll break them. I'll sell them into slavery."

"It was Marshal Vanhe," quavered the adjutant. "Your generals are dead-"

"Vanhe! I'll crucify him! Get my horse ready. We leave for Bannador within the hour."

Such was his fury that the escort was ready to leave before that. They raced south-west down the Feddil Road toward Tuldis.

The army's path was easily followed. At every stop Dolodha leapt off her horse and ran, still in her ill-fitting robes and flapping sandals, to find out how long since the troops had passed that way.

They did not stop day or night, though they changed horses in the afternoon and again in the middle of the night. That was at the city of Muncyte, a steamy, mosquito-ridden place on the floodplain of the Plendur River. All the buildings were up on stilts but still the city flooded every year. On they raced, by gloomy Faidon Forest that ran down to the northern border of Bannador. Reaching dusty Radomin town the following afternoon, they took fresh horses and hurtled on. Yggur's mood became fouler and fouler. He could almost smell the blood.

The sun rose. Dolodha was nearly falling out of the saddle with weariness. She looked like an abandoned waif. He moved his horse closer, holding her upright, surprised that he cared enough to do so. Maigraith had changed him.

The dawn sky was blood-red. There was smoke everywhere, charred ruins and burned animals. The horses were reduced to a plod. "How far to go?" he yelled to the guide as they turned off the main road onto a rutted track that seemed to wind around every hill in Bannador.

"At least eight leagues. Another day, unless we can find fresh horses."

They continued, now in the wilds of Bannador, but found not a single nag all the way. The country had been stripped clean. Yggur was terrified that the army had been destroyed; that Maigraith was already dead.

Maigraith struggled against the dizziness. The fate of the army hung over a precipice and only she could save it. The Ghashad did not move. She sensed that they could not and still maintain the square-their control. She stared into the eyes of the woman in the center of the square, pressing with her will, feeling the woman's will and the wills of the other eight opposing her. Maigraith's head was shrieking now.

Don't give up! You can do it. You must! She had overcome them before and surely could again. She allowed the fury to grow in her until it burst out in an explosion of rage that turned the eyes of the woman in the center in on herself. The Ghashad gasped, weakened momentarily, then Maigraith leapt in amongst them, kicking out with both feet.

The table toppled, knocking down the two people on the far side. Counters flew everywhere. The woman who had moved them put her hands to her temples and screamed. Another Ghashad staggered to his feet, to fall across the overturned table. He tried to claw his way up again but Maigraith knocked him down, seized the board and, swinging it in front of her, cleared the way to the door. Outside she broke the hinges and sent the two halves of the board spinning into an open latrine.

Another roar came from just out of sight. Too late! she thought. The army is beaten; I am too. The Ghashad from the tent were just behind her. She could feel the pulse of their will beating against her, sapping her own, now badly weakened by the exploding aftersickness. She tripped over a body and then they were on her, their rubbery fingers sending thrills of disgust up her spine.

"At last!" cried a wrinkled Ghashad woman, as if her life's dream had just been fulfilled. Lying with her face pressed into the dust, Maigraith suddenly realized what the summer's campaign had really been about. Her! All this misery and destruction had been to draw her away from her guards, to take her back for Rulke. She had fallen into the trap so easily.

From the corner of her eye she saw someone descending into the latrine. In a few minutes the board would be restored, the square controlling the battle once more. She had created a disaster of her own, far worse than if she had done nothing.

Five Ghashad made a wall in front of Maigraith, while two others seized her head and feet and began to carry her away. Maigraith groaned helplessly, too weak to help herself. What a fool she'd been, pretending to go to war in the name of good. She was as culpable as any other warmonger, but more foolish.

They hurried her around a tent, then suddenly dropped her on her back and stood there-frozen-faced. Maigraith turned her head. At least a hundred of her troops surrounded them and more were running up.

"Put down your weapons," shouted one of her officers.

One of the Ghashad screamed, a cry of shame and frustration, then threw herself at the soldiers. She fell instantly. Someone wailed. Above Maigraith a knife flashed in the early-morning sun. She watched it helplessly. Another cried "No!" and as the knife stabbed at her breast he flung himself under it. It plunged right through him front to back, pricking into Maigraith's breastbone.

The fellow with the knife rocked back on his heels.

"We swore," said the second to the first, coughed up blood and died.

"I don't understand," said her officer, as the desperate Ghashad were led away.

Maigraith rolled over and with an effort climbed to hands and knees. Her clothes were saturated. "They swore to Rulke that they would protect me with their lives," she said, and fell down again.

Her soldiers heaved her up with a triumphant roar. The battle was won; Bannador would soon be liberated, though the cost was too high for Maigraith to take any pleasure from her miraculous achievement.

More soldiers appeared. "Maigraith," gasped an ecstatic Vanhe, holding her hand. "I had not thought it possible. You are a truly great commander! Yggur himself could have done no better today."

Maigraith said nothing. The truth hurt almost as much as the aftersickness. Yggur would never have attempted such a folly, she thought. He would have starved the army and all of Bannador first. Then she fell into the dark.

Vanhe appeared at her tent that afternoon, where Maigraith lay sick and sore in the slanting sun. Her illness was worse, and becoming worse yet.

"I've brought the punishment charter for your approval."

Punishment charter? She could hardly think.

"The Second Army rebelled and warred on their own comrades," he explained. "The guilty must be punished and an example set."

"Read it!" She waved a limp hand.

"The Second Army is to be disbanded and its standard broken; all badges of office and honor stripped and be-spoiled; its charter burned."

"Yes," she said. "An example must be set."

"Every officer is to be slain in front of the assembled army, and every eighth soldier too."

"No!" said Maigraith, sitting up despite the pain.

He continued: stolid, inexorable. "All their titles and the goods of their families, up to the second cousin, are forfeit and the families sold into slavery. Every remaining soldier is to be sold into slavery and their families prohibited from title or public office for a generation."

"That's barbaric! I will not sign such a charter." She felt sick at the thought.

"Such is the punishment set out for rebellion," said Vanhe. "The Articles of War are read to the army at all parades; each soldier can recite them by heart. For turning on their own, they are lucky that every one of them is not stoned to death."

"Yggur wrote these Articles?" Maigraith asked, forced to confront unpleasant realities that she had long skirted around.

"He did, and has enforced them more than once. That is the way of war."

"But they were subverted by the Ghashad," Maigraith pleaded. "They had no free will."

"My army did not rebel," said Vanhe grimly. "It must be done."

She felt nauseated to think that she had given herself to such a monster as Yggur, a man who cared nothing for the lives of ordinary people. "I can't-" cried Maigraith. Her head felt ready to burst open.

"No matter," said Vanhe. "Sleep on it. I will come back in the morning." He bowed and withdrew.

That was one of her worst nights, and by the time Maigraith finally found sleep she had convinced herself to abandon her army. She would not be responsible for such a crime, far worse than the war. If this was the price of maintaining Yggur's empire it was too high. She would have no part of it, nor of him either!

But if she did, what was she to do with herself? If she gave all this away, there would be nothing left of her life.

At midnight the whole world turned upside down again.

Maigraith slept, her long chestnut hair spread across the cream fabric of the pillow. She lay on her good side, for her shoulder had been hurt again in the battle.

Faelamor stepped softly into the tent and stood watching her. Maigraith stirred, thinking that Vanhe wished to press her further, though it was not his custom to come this late. He was punctilious about the proper courtesies. Her guards would not have let anyone else through, but they could not stop this visitor. Slowly the sleep cleared.

"Faelamor!" The familiar anxiety rose in her. "Where have you been all this time?"

"The gate took me to Katazza, in the middle of the Dry Sea. That is where Tensor went to try his mad tricks."

"How did you get back?"

"Through the gate, though it did not go where I expected. Perhaps that was Rulke's doing."

"Has Yggur come back too?" Maigraith asked apprehensively.

Faelamor mistook her expression for anxiety about him. "When I last saw him he was writhing under Rulke's hand. I imagine he is dead."

"Oh, surely not!" said Maigraith. For all his faults, for all her earlier resolutions, she wished Yggur no harm.

"That fool Tensor broke open the Nightland and let Rulke out. He overcame Yggur in an instant." Faelamor showed no pity, no sympathy, but Maigraith would not have expected that of her.

"Rulke!" Maigraith felt a surge of excitement. "He has been here already. He was terrible in his strength. Poor Yggur; he feared him so."