"You saw it!" screamed Faelamor in a panic. "The small book in that strange script!"

"Perhaps you lost it in the river."

Faelamor squeezed her head between her hands. "No! I must have dropped it in the library when Mendark appeared. This is a disaster!"

"We can go back for it if it's so important."

Not far upriver the gate hung between the trees, swaying ever so slightly when there was any breeze, leering at her, a reminder. Faelamor knew she could not use it again. That it had worked at all was surprising, so imbued were her atoms with the prohibition against devices.

"I can't go through the gate again," she said, shuddering at the thought of that sin, and at the memories of Havissard too. "I've too much to pay for already. You'll have to go."

"Me?" cried Maigraith, even more afraid of the gate now. "I can't!"

"Of course you can. You did most of it the other day. Why won't you have confidence in yourself?"

"Because you made me so," Maigraith said softly.

"I must have the book. You'll go in the morning!"

That was that. She had to go-her liege had ordered it.

I suppose I can make the gate work again, Maigraith thought. I did seem to understand it, instinctively. "I'll try," she said.

Faelamor examined her. "I must have the book, but no one must know I have it. And be careful-Mendark could still be there."

Maigraith lay awake that night, mentally preparing herself. After their precipitous return from Havissard things would never be the same between her and Faelamor. She had gained some little thing that she could not articulate; a sense of belonging.

But what did the future hold for her? If she freed herself from Faelamor, what would she do with her life? If she did have a purpose, what was it? Maybe she would find the answers in Havissard. The first visit had been a revelation.

Maigraith fell asleep, to dream about Havissard. Reliving the making of the gate, she found that it came easily to her. So easily that she found herself drifting out of Elludore in her dreams. That frightened her awake, then she put it out of her mind and slept.

PART THREE.

PRIDE AND.

PREJUDICE.

Shand came wearily up the stairs of the inn and opened the door of the room that was his when he was at home. He put his candle on the dresser, stretched weary muscles, turned toward the bed and stopped.

They looked like two lost children. Llian's head was cradled against Karan's bosom and both were sleeping peacefully. He'd missed them on his lonely journey. He watched them for a while then took up his candle in one weather-beaten hand and went back up the corridor to the open doorway. The light revealed fragments of chamber pot all over the floor. Shand picked up the most dangerous shards and fell into bed. He had done a double march to get here today and was so weary that he did not even wonder what had happened, just went straight to sleep.

Karan stirred. The burden of the night had been lifted slightly-she did not feel quite so alone. It was mid-morning. Downstairs, breakfast must be long over.

Easing herself out of bed, Karan pulled the blankets up to Llian's chin. She dressed quickly in her woolens-green baggy trousers, gray stained shirt, green socks of fine wool, brown boots, jerkin and coat. She was utterly sick of her traveling clothes. Her tattered felt hat she stuffed in a pocket. There was no mirror in the room but that did not bother her, since she seldom saw her own face. Anyway, she'd had enough of mirrors. She brushed her thick hair until it shone, though as soon as she finished it sprang out as untameable as ever.

Passing the next door Karan heard a familiar gurgling snore. Her heart leapt and she peeped in the open doorway. Shand was back! She could have leapt straight onto the bed and kissed him.

Dear Shand, she thought, looking down at her old friend. His hair was grayer and thinner than she remembered, and there were a few more age lines on his face, but his beard was long and luxuriant. It had been summer when he left them in Flude.

"How I missed you," she murmured, and sat down on the chair beside the bed, watching him sleep as he had watched over her in Thurkad. He drifted slowly into wakefulness, turned over and opened one eye. His eyes were green, but a lesser green than hers and deep sunken, which made them look smaller.

"A fine thing to come home to, you two in my bed," he said with a smile.

"Where have you been all this time, and why did you go without saying goodbye?"

"Have you breakfasted yet?"

"No."

"Then run down and rouse out the kitchen, and let me dress in peace. I know you are shameless but an old man has his modesty. We'll break our fast together in the sun, if there is any."

"So little to be modest about," said Karan with sparkling eye. "Vanity, more likely." She danced out of the way of Shand's casual hand and out the door.

Shand dressed quickly and ducked into the other room. The huge welt on the side of Llian's head was bruised black. Karan's handiwork, but why? Already he had an inkling. He could sense the trouble.

The inn had a veranda on the northern side, closed at either end by a wall, and even in winter it was a pleasant place to sit when the sun was shining. Thick old vines climbed the posts, leafless now. He found Karan sitting on a plank bench. On a trestle before her was a pot of chard, two bowls, a larger bowl with fruit and a platter on which sat a loaf of dark bread. She was cutting slices off the loaf as he arrived. She poured chard the way he liked it, not too strong, squeezed in a few drops of lime and passed it across.

"Llian is not breakfasting today?"

"Llian ... He's sleeping still. Oh, Shand, I hit him over the head with your chamber pot. It was awful."

"Not my chamber pot," he said mildly. "But that's not what I saw when I arrived."

"I'm soft-headed in the early hours."

"And cranky before breakfast," he said, remembering. He pushed the fruit basket toward her. "We'll talk about it later."

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it at all," she muttered. She selected a small gellon, cut the skin away, shaved off a sliver of orange flesh and put it in her mouth. She made a face.

"That's the worst gellon I've tasted in years!" It looked magnificent: large, round and plump, the thin skin bright orange with a red star of seven rays at the base. It should have had a rich, musky odor but this one had no smell at all. "Surely it's not even ripe? Though it's soft enough."

"This was a blighted year," said Shand sadly.

"Still," said Karan, "even blighted gellon is better than none." She took another slice and a sip of sweet chard with it. "So where did you go? Did you come back here to find us?"

Shand unfocused his gaze, deliberately it seemed, but said nothing for a long time. From where they sat they could see the roofs of the other houses in the village, and the track winding down in the direction of Hetchet. The path was empty. Chimney smoke rose straight up into still air like signal banners. Karan ate the rest of the gellon and was nibbling on a dark crust before he spoke.

"Not particularly. After Flude I sailed down the Sea of Thurkad, then east up the River Alm, and eventually back to Thurkad."

"Can I ask why?"

"My own business. A pilgrimage of sorts. Nothing to do with ancient relics, if that's what you're thinking. Why did I come back here? Because I live here, of course. But also because I was looking for you two. You seem to have taken rather a long time to come such a little way."

"We took Selial to the Hornrace. She died there and the Aachim buried her at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge."

"That was kindly done."

"She was good to me and I cared for her. And then Llian wanted to go to Chanthed, so we returned that way."

"Hmn," said Shand so coolly that Karan hurried on.

"Did you go anywhere near Gothryme?" Her voice trembled, thinking of her neglected home.

Shand shot her a glance from under bristling brows. "I did!" he said sternly.

"Is there ... anything left?"

Again that glance. "I wonder that you dare ask, Karan, having abandoned them for so long."

"It was you took me across the sea when all I wanted was to go home."

"Nine months ago! You could have sailed from Flude to Thurkad in a few weeks. You could have been home months ago."

Karan was silent. Every delay had a good reason but she felt that defending herself would be like making excuses.

"Rachis is old, Karan. Faithful, diligent, but very old. All he wants now is to sit in his chair in the sun and dream away his few remaining years. I think he deserves that, don't you? But he's been working from dawn to midnight, trying to recover from the war before the winter strikes, hoping that you will come home and take the job off his shoulders. He does not criticize you yet he wonders why he serves so faithfully."

Karan was in tears. She had neglected Gothryme shamefully. "How is my land? How are my people?" she asked.

"They have not fared so badly, as it happens," he said, brushing the tears away with callused fingers. "Lower Bannador suffered grievously, but the Hills were spared the worst of it. Too far to go for too little, I suppose. That's not to say that Gothryme hasn't suffered. The Ghashad came through more than once on their errands from Shazmak. There is ruin enough and many have died. Much you can put right, but some can never be."

"And there my duty lies," she said. "I wonder that it has taken so long for me to see it." She rose abruptly to her feet.

"Sit down! This is no time for impetuousness, no matter how well-meaning. The whole of Iagador is in turmoil. And know that Yggur holds most of it, including Bannador, and he is not inclined to give it up no matter what temporary alliances may have been forged in Katazza."

Karan knew that, too. She was no stranger to the realities of power.

"Besides, there is Llian. He won't be able to travel today; perhaps not even tomorrow."

She screwed up her face. "Let us not talk of that now."

"It must be faced-as Gothryme must be."

"I know, and I do not shirk this responsibility either. But later; I'm too confused. Let's talk about other things, please."

"All right, whatever you want."

"I'd like to know where you've been." She spoke very humbly.

"There was a place I had to visit. A very ancient place."

"So you were questing after Aachan gold!"

"No I was not! More like an homage to the past. My past. Perhaps an indulgence in these times but I had to go."

"Tell me about it."

"I'd rather not. Like you. I am reluctant to face up to my failings."

"Well, what else have you been doing?"

"I visited Thurkad on the way here, secretly of course. Yggur has been back for months. The tales say that he returned like a fury, crushing the rebellious with a fist of iron, casting out the Ghashad and quelling Thurkad in an instant. But that's his tellers, rewriting history as usual. The true story is much more interesting, and centers on your friend Maigraith."

"Oh?" It was more than a year since she and Maigraith had been together on the road to Fiz Gorgo. "Tell me about her."

"The story is very strange. She and Yggur were lovers ..."

"I knew that," said Karan. "I've heard tales about her too, though all different."

He told Maigraith's story, concluding: "She led an army into Bannador against the Ghashad and the rebels, claiming that Karan of Bannador was her special friend and she would not abandon her people. You might have been a nobody once, but you are quite famous now in your little country, and even beyond its borders. I heard tales about you everywhere."

"I don't want to be famous," said Karan mournfully. "I just want to go home."

"Well, I suppose it'll all die down over time. Anyway, she liberated Bannador and drove the Ghashad yelping back to Shazmak. So, indirectly, you've done your folk good after all."

"Her special friend!" said Karan in amazement. "Well, perhaps I am, since I never knew her to have a friend. What a strange person she is. And she has suffered so. Did you see her?"

Shand shrugged. "I've never met her. Just before Yggur came back she disappeared. And that's all I have to tell."

"Well, I've news for you." She told him what they had learned in the library at Chanthed. "Faelamor was there months ago."

"Grim tidings," said Shand. "And for Mendark too, since it may bear on what he went east to find. Yggur must be told at once. I'd hoped for a nice long rest in Tullin. And that's not all, is it? Out with it."

Karan poured herself another bowl of chard. Her eyes met Shand's. "If we must."

"Let's go for a stroll. Some things are easier to talk about, walking."

She offered Shand her arm. They went around the back of the inn, crossed below the woodheap and struck out across a herbland covered in snow. Soon they came to the Hetchet road, as it was called, though it was no more than a slushy track. The steep slope directly below the inn had once been graveled with fist-sized pieces of rock that jutted up through the mud and made walking difficult. Further down, the track was covered in unmarked snow.

Karan took comfort from the pressure of Shand's broad fingers on her arm. She was afraid to talk about Llian. It hurt.

"I trusted him. I loved him," she said.