Manda could not fathom what was happening. "I saw ... I saw Grayfaces . . ."

A brightness sprang up as Kyria lifted her staff, and Manda felt a flash of fire that grew into a ball of heat and ran through her body like a splash of molten lead. Gritting her teeth, burying her face in Wykla's arms, she tried not to scream, but self-control was beyond her.

As she drew a breath, she heard a burst of gunfire from the river bank, and Karthin was suddenly shouting frantically: "They have taken Marrha!"

* CHAPTER 21 *

Karthin's story was simple . . . and devastating. He and Marrget had been ambushed by a group of five or six Grayfaces. Karthin, taken by surprise, had been felled by a rifle butt to his head, but in his last moments of consciousness he had seen Marrget struggling with four of the soldiers.

Concussed and bleeding, Karthin had crawled to his feet to discover that Marrget was neither dead nor wounded, that she was, in fact, missing entirely. His desperation had driven him back to his comrades in spite of his disorientation.

Leaving Dindrane sobbing over her husband's body and Kyria struggling to save Manda, Alouzon and Santhe put Wykla in charge of the big man and raced for the river bank. There, the marks of an inflatable boat were plain in the soft sand, and the waffle impressions left by the soles of combat boots were only just beginning to fill with water. Beached nearby were the coracles and wooden boats that belonged to the town. A grenade or two would have destroyed them all, but they had not been touched.

The river lay blank and bare in the moonlight. From far off across it, though, came the plash of oars.

"What do they want with her?" Santhe hissed. "What are they doing?"

Alouzon was staring in the direction of the sounds as though she could will the darkness away. "They want us to follow them."

"By the Gods with names and without, they will get what they want. And they will regret it." Santhe's words carried the weight of a vow, and the moonlight turned his face into a study in silver and black rage.

There was no question in Alouzon's mind about following: she and the others would have swum the river underwater for Marrget. But with Manda badly wounded, Karthin hurt, and Dindrane grieving over Baares, she wondered how she was going to get her company into any kind of condition for traveling.

"C'mon, Santhe," she said, fighting with both her worry for Marrget and her guilt for having sent her and Karthin into a trap, "we've got work to do."

They jogged back to the site of the battle to find Kyria slumped beside Manda. The face of the sorceress was thin, and she looked as though she had been without sleep for days. "I did all I could," she managed. There was a trace of shame in her voice. "She will live. Her arm, though ..." She shook her head.

Struggling against Wykla's protests, Manda sat up. Her wounds had been healed, the phosphor neutralized, but although her right arm was as good as ever, her left terminated just above the elbow. White-faced, she touched the stump and passed a hand over her face.

Dindrane was covered with Baares's blood. It had pooled in her skirts and smeared her white arms almost to her shoulders, but she hardly noticed. Shoulders shaking, she was bent over him, her face pressed against his. "Follow the light, husband. Take the hand of the God, and He will lead you-" But she choked and fell silent.

The street was filled with the reek of phosphor, but aside from the remaining members of the expedition, it was deserted. The people of Kent had become inured to suffering. They were no longer even curious. "Yeah," said Alouzon. "I should have known this would happen." She shook Kyria by the shoulder. "Can you take care of Karthin? He's pretty bad."

The big man was staring blankly as though he would have been unconscious but for his alarm. Kyria hardly looked as though she could take care of herself, but she nodded absently and crawled to his side, her robes smoking with spatters of phosphor and her long hair trailing on the ground.

Manda, gripping Wykla's arm, got to her feet. "Marrha ... is she ... ?"

Alouzon nodded. "They've got her."

Manda looked ragged. The strength that Kyria had given her was merely a surface gloss that did nothing to eradicate the near-bottomless exhaustion left by her wounds. "We must follow."

Alouzon examined her dubiously. "You're in no shape to do anything, Manda."

The maid's face was set. "I am well enough."

"Manda-"

Manda bent and retrieved her sword. "Would you desert your friend, Dragonmaster?"

"No. Never."

Manda nodded. "Well then ..."

Nearby, Kyria was healing Karthin. When she was through, though, she was nearly stupefied. She sat on the cobbles, her staff lying across her lap as though she no longer knew its purpose.

Alouzon turned back to Manda. "It's going to be hard travel."

"I will live."

"You're not even Marrget's friend!"

Manda sheathed her sword. "I will live. And so will she."

Alouzon could not guess her meaning. "OK," she said. "If you can stay on your feet, you and Wykla go find us a couple boats down on the shore and get them ready. We'll have to move fast, before the trail gets cold, so we'll strip the packs down to only what we need. The horses ..." She paused, undecided. The horses would never be able to deal with the steep slopes of the pass, and in any case, the Vayllen mounts would panic at the first sign of battle.

Kyria spoke, her voice a blurred mumble. "I can instruct them," she said. "I can spell them to return to Lachrae."

"What about you?"

A flash of hard black eyes, and the words exploded out of the sorceress. "What the hell do you care, honey? I'm just here to patch everyone up when you get them shellacked." She put her hands to her face and sobbed. "I'm so tired. I want to go home."

Santhe knelt beside her. "My lady, we have duties . . . and friends . . ."

With a wrench that contorted her face, Kyria shoved Helen back into the shadows. "I know, Santhe," she said. "Duties and friends. We will attend to both."

Which left Dindrane. The priestess was cradling what phosphor and fangs had left of her husband, heedless of the fact that her own garments were beginning to smoke and dissolve with the powerful corrosives. Earlier that day, she had said that she had not made a decision whether she would enter Broceliande; now it seemed utterly absurd to suppose that she would follow the expedition into further danger.

And time-Marrget's time-was passing like a swift stream. There was no time for rest, there was no time for grief, there was no time for mourning. There was hardly time for preparation.

"We'll leave Dindrane with the people here," said Alouzon. "She at least knows the magistrate, and-"

But she broke off. Dindrane had lifted her head, and there was a seething emotion in her eyes. "I will come."

"But . . . Baares . . ."

"He ..." Dindrane spoke with an effort. "He is gone. Forever. I will meet him again in the Far Lands, not before."

"But-"

Tenderly, Dindrane laid Baares on the cobbles. A smear of phosphor clung to her cheek. It was smoking, burning into her flesh, but she paid no attention to it. "I do not desire your approval, Dragonmaster," she said, standing up. "I am chief priestess of Vaylle and magistrate of Lachrae: I am informing you of my intentions."

She turned to the blank, silent houses behind her. "Rhoddes! People of Kent! Come forth!"

Slowly, a few shutters creaked open, spilling lamplight into the street. "Dindrane?" came Rhoddes's voice.

"Come down and attend to the body of my husband," said the priestess. " 'Tis buried and spoken for I want him within the hour."

Rhoddes's voice was tremulous. "Will the Goddess accept him? He died with-"

Dindrane cut him off. "A good deal more he did than you, maggot!"

There was a stirring within the houses, a collective gasp like a flutter of graveclothes. "I ... I will see to it, priestess," said Rhoddes, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

Bending, Dindrane took the knife from the harper's belt. "I will keep this," she murmured, "so that it will not be defiled."

Wykla and Manda were returning from the boats. "We have two coracles, Dragonmaster," said Manda. Her hand covered her stump half-protectively, half in unbelief. "They-" She caught sight of Dindrane and fell silent.

"Child," said the priestess, still holding the knife. "Will you go to my bundle and fetch my chalice and the wine skin? I would perform a Great Rite for my husband before I leave."

A flare of torches was spilling into the street. Rhoddes approached. "You will need a priest, Dindrane."

Dindrane wiped at her cheek and winced as the outer layers of skin peeled off. "I will be my priest," she said. "And priestess, too. And the knowledge ..." Her voice was hoarse, her eyes fixed on her dead husband. "The knowledge was dearly bought." * * *

The two coracles moved across the still waters of the River Shenaen like autumn leaves skimming the surface of a pond. Karthin and Santhe propelled them with strong, skilled oar strokes, leaving no more of a ripple then a leaping fish.

Alouzon and Wykla crouched in the rear of the boats, steering, and the rest of the company kept low so as to provide less of a mark for a round from an M-16. Kyria alone kept her head up, watching for tracers or muzzle flashes, her glowing staff lapped in a fold of her cloak but ready for instant use.

Dindrane was plainly still in shock, her sight and thoughts turned inward. Clad now in a tunic and a pair of trews that Wykla had lent her, her staff and torque the only indications that she was of Vaylle, she murmured softly to herself in a quiet, repeating cadence. From the stray words that now and then carried the length of the boat, Alouzon guessed that the priestess was chanting a litany for the dead.

They made the crossing without incident, and the moonlight guided them in to a sandy shore set about with a tumble of black boulders. When they landed, Karthin again found the marks of the Grayfaces' boat, and, some distance from the water, a low, wet stretch of sand showed footprints with a distinctive waffle pattern.

Six men. Two, it seemed, were walking in a line, their footprints deeper, as though they were . . .

"Carrying her," said Alouzon, straightening.

"Aye." Karthin tipped his head back. A few feet away, the rocks rose up sheer-the feet of the Cordillera-and the peaks were lost in the heights. Moonlight glimmered on the cliff face and sparkled on the dense vegetation that appeared far above.

Alouzon followed his eyes. "I'm not even going to wonder whether we should wait for daylight,'' she said.

Karthin said nothing, only nodded; but his manner indicated that even if Alouzon had called a rest for the night, he would have gone ahead by himself.

In her Gryylthan tunic and trews, Dindrane looked boyish and lean. Owl-eyed, she nodded when Alouzon asked her about the passes. "You wish to go on?"

"Do we have a choice, Dindrane?"

She shook her head. "We do not. Come."

Dindrane led them southward around boulders and across sand bars that sucked at their boots like living things. The river was stagnant and still, the air un-moving and filled with the odor of rot.

Karthin and Manda scanned the ground as they went, periodically finding evidence of the passage of the Grayfaces. "How much time do they have on us?" Alouzon asked.

Karthin squinted at the footprints that he had just found. Kyria knelt beside him and called up a light from her staff. The big man nodded his thanks and raked his fingers through the sand. "Perhaps an hour," he said. "Perhaps a little less."

They continued. The sheer wall of rock to their right became a little less vertical, and cracks and fissures appeared in it, widening gradually into ravines and small valleys. Soon, Dindrane was leading them up a canyon, its walls steep and rocky and difficult to climb. Streams trickled down from above, but here, in contrast to the thick vegetation on the slopes above, nothing seemed to grow, not even moss, and the stream bed itself was as featureless as if it had been scribed with a burin.

The trail brought them back to the outer face of the mountains. Far below was the river, and Kent was a deeper patch of darkness in the silver and sable of the moonlit landscape. The slope gentled, and trees and shrubs now appeared and grew thicker and more numerous as, paradoxically, the air turned warm and humid. Soon they found themselves forcing their way through thick jungle growth, and the path beneath their boots was soft, muddy, and dank with decay.

"Does this remind you of anything?" said Kyria as they paused to catch their breath.

Alouzon had to gasp for a moment before she re- plied. Simply moving this hot, moist air in and out of her lungs was an effort. "Yeah. And I don't like it."

"Nor do I."

An hour's lead. Alouzon tried not to think of what condition Marrget might be in. And she tried even harder not to consider what the Grayfaces planned to do to her.

Manda caught up with them. "Come," she said. But she staggered and would have fallen had not Wykla caught her.

"She is not well," said Wykla. "I fear we will have to rest."

Kyria called for the others to stop and, with Wykla helping, lowered Manda to the soft ground. The maid's eyes were glassy with exhaustion and shock.

Karthin came tramping back. "We must continue."

Alouzon pointed ahead. The trail grew steeper, hedged about thickly with elephant grass and thorn and bamboo that shut out the moonlight and dictated that any further traveling would be slow and in single file. "You want to tell me how?"

Karthin, strained and frightened, had little judgment left to him, but he knew it. Alouzon watched conflicting desires battle across his face, their fight made more violent by the harsh shadows cast by the moon.

Kyria was working with Manda. "I am heartily sorry about your arm, child," she murmured. "If I were not so afraid, I-"

From above came a roar of jets, Alouzon's head snapped up. Aqua light was pouring across the jagged peaks, reflecting on the underside of white wings. "Oh, for chrissakes ..."

The sorceress rose. "Whom do they seek?"

"Can't tell. I think choppers would be better if they were coming after us, though."

Three Skyhawks descended in a tight spiral to the east of the mountains, their cockpit canopies flashing in the moonlight and their exhausts burning blue.

Keeping in tight formation, toylike with distance, they lined up on the town.

Dindrane stood, shaking. "Baares." Her voice was faint.

"He is gone, priestess," said Santhe gently.

" Tis well I know that," she said. "All is gone."

The scene below might well have been from a news-reel of the late 1960s. The Skyhawks approached and swept across the town. Their napalm pods tumbled like fat seeds during their short fall to the ground, then bloomed in great billows of red and orange. In moments, Kent was burning, its streets turned to rivers of fire, its houses to crucibles of flame.

But save for the whine of turbines, the bursts of the napalm pods, and the dull mutter of the greedy flames, the town died in silence. No screams, no cries, no frantic attempts to escape. No one even left the houses.

"Do they not care?" said Santhe. Like the others, he was watching with horror and fascination both.

Alouzon shook her head. "They didn't care in 1970 either. No one cared." But here in Vaylle, Kent State seemed far away. The battles and blood, the magic and mystery, the hope and despair-all had gradually thrust her tragic college days farther and farther into the past, providing her with a dubious perspective. She no longer knew who to blame. She hardly knew what the sides had been.

Kyria and Wykla had carried Manda to a patch of dry ground. The maid was sleeping, whimpering as she unconsciously felt for her missing forearm. The sorceress was worn, but she stood up and answered Alouzon. "Some of us cared."

Alouzon watched the town burn. Then, as now, there had been many ways of caring. And Helen Addams had stated her political ideology in definite and uncompromising terms. "How much did you hand over to the Weathermen?" she asked bitterly.

Kyria hung her head. "I made a mistake."