At the end of the meeting, Marrget stood. "I believe that all our preparations will have been made by nightfall. If Alouzon wishes, we can depart tomorrow morning."

Alouzon nodded, swimming up from her thoughts as though from the bottom of a shimmering sea. "Yeah. Sounds good."

"There is one question, though." Marrget examined her plain tunic. It was streaked where the slime had eaten through the fabric. "The beast that Alouzon battled last night seemed to be other than natural. My experiences in the Blasted Heath lead me to believe that, in many cases, mundane weapons do not affect magical beasts. Does the lady Kyria have-" She broke off. Helwych was staring at her, his dark eyes suddenly alive with resentment. Gracefully, she corrected herself. "Do our magicians have anything to say about this?"

Helwych launched immediately into an involved explanation of magical and mundane weapons. He seemed to know what he was talking about, but his meanings were obscured by the technical language he employed. His conclusions, however, were clear: mundane weapons would not serve magical ends, and magical weapons took time and energy to make.

"What of the beast itself, Helwych?" said Karthin offhandedly. "Do you know anything of it?"

"Nothing."

Karthin's voice did not change. "Are you certain?"

In an instant, Helwych was on his feet, shouting. "Damn your eyes, nothing! Do you have to keep pressing me? In the name of the Gods, you are my fellow countryman!''

In the silence left behind his outburst, Manda's voice was tight, careful, low. "Sit down, please, Helwych, else you will disgrace our country even more than you have already.''

4 4T ? ?.

Kyria rose, staff in hand. "She said: sit down."

Helwych glanced between Kyria and Manda. With a mutter, he took his seat again.

Parl and Birk settled back onto their stools. Alouzon realized that, smoothly, without anyone noticing, they had half risen and drawn knives at Helwych's outburst. Now they replaced them and resumed their silent, un-moving watch.

"Lady Kyria?" Marrget nodded to her respectfully.

The sorceress took her seat and shrugged. "If we need something done with the weapons, I can do it. It'll take a few minutes."

Helwych stared, eyes wide. "But-"

Kyria fixed him with a pointed finger. "I play by different rules, sonny boy. You want me to ask you what you were doing in my dreams last night?"

He opened his mouth, considered, and shut it.

"Next time, you'll get burned real damn good. Stay out of my way." She looked around at the assembly. "Actually, that goes for the rest of you, too. Alouzon and I can handle this whole trip by ourselves. Anything else is just stupid heroics, and will probably just get everyone hurt. This doesn't concern you, anyway. ''

Alouzon saw the insult register on the assembly. "Is that your personal opinion, Kyria? Or professional?"

The sorceress lost patience. ' 'What do you want to do, Suzy? Swagger around like a man and swing your sword and be macho? Come on, you're playing games. What's worse-you're playing Sol's games." She turned to the others. "You're all playing Sol's games. How long are you going to let this little fairy tale go-"

Alouzon moved. Kicking back her stool, she leaped for the sorceress, clapped a hand over her mouth, and dragged her toward the door. "Excuse us, please," she said through clenched teeth. "Kyria and I have to have a little talk."

She had moved too fast for the sorceress to react, but by the time she had dragged her out into the courtyard, the staff was a coruscating shaft of fire. "Hear me out, Kyria," she said. "You going to hear me out?"

"I'm going to fucking kill you, bitch!" Kyria's words were muffled by Alouzon's strong hand, but her tone made her meaning clear enough.

"Lemme put it to you this way: you can blast me, and probably do yourself in, too; or you can listen for a second."

Glaring at the Dragonmaster, Kyria stopped struggling. The staff quieted, and Alouzon cautiously released her. "OK," said Kyria, settling her robe grimly. "Talk. This better be good."

"Look," said Alouzon, "I know you hate Sol. I know you want to kill him. But these people don't know about him."

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Kyria's eyes turned wide. "They don't know about this place?"

"Nope."

For a moment, Kyria stared as though she had been clubbed. Then: "O Christ . . . that's horrible." She grounded the staff as though daring the solidity of the world to justify itself. "Sol Braithwaite: little tin god."

She peered at the ground, at the wooden palisade that enclosed the courtyard, at the cold sky. "They really don't know?"

Alouzon shook her head.

Kyria sighed. "All right. I'm a bitch. But I'm not so much of a bitch that I'm going to take it out on the others. They're macho, and they're ridiculous, but you've got some nice kids in that bunch." She stood, shaking her head. "God. What a thing to do. He ought to have been shot."

The morning was cold, and the thin layer of clouds that had moved in during the night was now dropping sleet and rain. About the hill that held Kingsbury, the land was cloaked in gray and silver mist.

Alouzon mounted Jia, leaned forward, and laid her head against the horse's neck. "You ready to go through the ringer again, fella? Boy, you don't learn any faster than I do."

Jia whinnied as if to confirm her statement. Alouzon looked at the guard who stood at the gate to the road. "I thought you said the weather was going to get better."

"Next week, Dragonmaster. Mark me."

She laughed, but she heard her tension even if no one else did. "I will."

Behind her, the members of her company were checking supplies and equipment. Manda was already on her sturdy Corrinian mount, and Helwych had wrapped himself in sullen thought, his dark eyes examining the day from within the shadows of his hood.

Kyria eyed her horse warily. The beast seemed resigned to a cold ride and a colder rider; but with a curiously tender hand, Kyria stroked her muzzle, then whispered to her for a moment. The horse perked up, and Kyria swung into the saddle with a swish of black robes.

Cvinthil strode toward them. His bright blue cloak was embroidered with the crest of the kings of Gryylth, but the colors were muted on this gray day. "Every- thing is ready," he said. "By the terms of their charter, the councilmen of Quay will give you what you need."

Alouzon looked at him and smiled sadly. "I've heard that one before."

Cvinthil reached up and clasped her hand. ' 'I have no doubts." He put his ring on her finger. "And this will remove theirs."

"OK." Alouzon examined the heavy circle of gold. "I'll buy it,"

The king turned serious. ' 'I meant what I said at our first council. If you do not return within two months, I will contact Darham and raise an army. We have few who can bear arms compared to the days before the Circle, but Vaylle will feel our vengeance nonetheless."

"I don't think that'll be necessary, Cvinthil."

"I pray not." He held to Alouzon's hand, his eyes watering. Alouzon leaned down and embraced him. "I heartily wish that I were going with you," he said into her ear. "I will beseech the Gods for your safety."

"Thanks, friend."

"Be careful, Alouzon." His voice was a fervent whisper.

She kissed his forehead. She would have to be careful, for if she were killed, Gryylth, Corrin, Vaylle . . . the whole world-good and bad, nightmare and fantasy-would dissolve. And yet if she did not endanger herself, the Grail would never be hers, and the world would slowly tear itself to shreds.

This is probably the last thing Silbakor wants me to do. But . . . She smiled inwardly, wryly. When had she last been given any real choice?

Marrget appeared, armed and in armor. The leatherworkers of Kingsbury were skilled, even at novel tasks, and her cuirass fitted her woman's form trimly. Her escutcheons glinted in the dull light.

With a nod to Karthin, she rode up to join Alouzon and the king. "I believe we are ready."

Alouzon sighed as she straightened up in her saddle. "Everyone's ready except me."

"Alouzon?"

"I feel like sh-" She caught herself. She was Alouzon Dragonmaster. Despair was something she could not afford. "I feel like I'd like to go to bed and sleep for a week."

Marrget laughed softly. "A soldier's dream."

"Yeah. Let's go." She took Cvinthil's hand once again. "Give Seena my love."

"She would have come," he said, "but Vill is being fierce this morning."

She shrugged, smiled wanly. "It happens."

And with that, she led her company down the hill and out across the countryside.

The weather was an impediment. The sleet chilled them despite thick cloaks and deep hoods, and the rain turned the surface of the roads into slippery mud. "I sure pick the good days, don't I?" Alouzon remarked to Marrget.

"Some matters do not wait for fair weather," the captain replied. She grinned at Alouzon. But for her form, she might have been the same sturdy commander with whom Alouzon had traveled toward the Blasted Heath. Her eyes, though, betrayed a new life, for there was a softness and depth within them that had not been present a year and a half before.

Alouzon was infinitely grateful for her presence. This journey made the exploration of the Heath seem tame, and was complicated by half-hidden motivations and half-expressed hostilities within the company.

At least, she thought, Karthin and Marrget had no problems, nor did Wykla and Manda. The Corrinian maiden was prone to bouts of depression, true, but she seemed a sturdy and able warrior. In all, she was a blessed counterbalance to the strange young sorcerer that she had brought with her.

As they rode, the weather lifted. A cold sun shone down, drying the roads and adding a bit of cheer to what had been a bleak day. The company stopped for rest and food, and Manda started a fire so that they could dry their cloaks and warm themselves.

Helwych stayed within his shell. Kyria came out of hers. The sorceress's instinct to protect those she thought of as children had temporarily overridden her resentments, and she went so far as to smile at some of her companions and thank them when the scant meal was passed around. "Tell me, honey," she said to Wykla as the girl handed her a cup of hot broth. "What did you mean the other day when you said that you weren't always a woman? I never figured that out."

Wykla stiffened. "My lady Kyria, I did not know that you had not heard of the fate of the First War-troop."

Kyria sipped at her broth. "So tell me."

Wykla did not seem quite sure how to begin, and she looked to Marrget, who had overheard the exchange.

The captain's eyes were frank, proud, unashamed. "Lady, some time ago, we were men," she said. "But in the war that set Corrin against Gryylth, tempers ran high, and a sorcerer struck us with a great working of magic. Now we are women."

Kyria dropped her cup. The broth smoked on the cold ground.

"Thank you, my captain," said Wykla.

"Carry on, lieutenant."

Nearby, Manda whistled and shook her head. "First, a king's daughter," she said, though Wykla blushed and moved to shush her, "and now a lieutenant. I have fallen in with a very fortunate friend. I hope-"

Her sentence might have been cut off with an axe. Even Parl and Birk looked up at the sudden, brutal termination.

She was staring at Marrget, her eyes-wide but focused, startled but seething with a passion that might have riven mountains-transfixed by the insignia of the First Wartroop . . . and of Marrget of Crownhark.

* CHAPTER 9 *

"What's with Manda?"

At Kyria's question, Alouzon looked up from her thoughts. "I've been wondering."

Manda was riding by herself, hanging back from the rest of the party in self-imposed isolation. Since she had broken off in mid-sentence, she had not uttered another word, and now, after hours and miles, the oppression that hung about her had become impenetrable. If moods had colors, Manda's was certainly the deepest shade of black imaginable.

"She just clammed up," said Kyria. "Right after Marrget dropped that . . . that bombshell ..." She fell silent, her mouth pursed up in a little frown that reminded Alouzon strongly of the disdain she had once seen on the faces of proper establishment ladies confronted with the hippie riff-raff.

Alouzon sighed. She was bungling this journey from the start. Even the time of year was wrong. Fifth-century culture waited for warm, clement weather in which to fight wars and battles. And here was Alouzon Dragonmaster going off into the tail end of winter with half her company at one another's throats.

Marrget cantered up. "Night is falling, Alouzon. Perhaps we had best consider where we shall camp for the night."

Kyria shied away from the captain and pulled her hood close about her face. Marrget noticed and frowned briefly.

Alouzon noticed, too. "How far are we from Ban-don?" she asked Marrget. "I'm not recognizing landmarks."

"Two, perhaps three leagues."

"Shit." They had made worse time than she had thought. There was not even a town nearby. "OK, let's go on a little more, and then we'll call it quits for the day."

"It is well. I believe there is shelter ahead." With another look at Kyria, Marrget nodded to Alouzon and dropped back beside Karthin and Santhe.

Kyria sat with her head bowed, letting her horse find her own way. ' 'I suppose that I could ask you the same question," said Alouzon.

"What question?" Kyria's voice was tight.

"What's with yew?"

With the sun hidden behind the Camrann Mountains, the meager colors of the land had faded. They were gray riders on a gray road, traveling through a gray country. Even the sky was colorless, featureless. But Kyria's eyes were gleaming points, as though they drew their light from inner sources. "I take it that Marrget wasn't speaking figuratively."

"No. She wasn't."

"They were ... I mean . . . the whole wartroop?"

"Yeah."

Kyria turned around and looked pointedly at Marrget, then at Wykla, as though trying to find, beneath their womanhood, some vestige of maleness. But Marrget was riding beside Karthin, her features soft and lovely but nonetheless prideful; and Wykla still looked for all the world like a college coed.

Kyria turned back quickly. "They're . . . they're freaks ..."

Alouzon drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I'll remind you that they're my friends."

"But you just can't go around changing your sex like that!"