"You also will go to Kingsbury, and to Vaylle. Cvinthil will need advice in matters of magic. I will expect a full report from you upon your return."

"As you will, my lord." Helwych seemed caught between pride and fright. Wykla sensed that had he been sent to Vaylle under the protection of a large army, he would have been more enthusiastic.

She turned to Manda, though, and found that the blond maid's brow was furrowed, though not with fear. Wykla had noticed that Manda seemed prone to periodic bouts of depression: a deep shade would cross her face when, say, she examined the insignia on Wykla's armor, or when she watched the girls of the town carrying the week's washing down to the river. She would grow silent for some minutes, her forehead would crease, and her sight would seem to be elsewhere.

Such was the case now, but Manda made an effort, and the shadow passed. "I obey with pleasure, my king," she said. "I could not go to Kingsbury in war, but at least I will travel there in peace."

But something about her tone made Wykla wonder which of the two she actually expected to find in Gryylth.

Wykla, Manda, and Helwych, traveling together, made worse time than had Wykla alone. The garrisons and villages of Gryylth, while keeping mounts ready and waiting for the use of the king's messengers, did not have enough for three, even if two members of the party had not once been enemies of the country.

But Wykla doubted that they could have bettered their speed even with a constant supply of fresh horses, for Helwych, used to sedentary study, found the going difficult. He did not complain, but his temper sharpened as the leagues passed, and when dusk caught the group near the fallen stones of the Circle, it was plain to his companions that he was through for the day.

Manda looked at the tumbled remains of the great monoliths, then at the dark clouds that were massing along the western horizon. "Do you wish to camp here?"

"I do not," said Wykla. "I would rather sleep among barrows." But as they watched, the sky to the west became noticeably darker, and the sunset turned the color of old blood. The clouds bothered Wykla, for they raised painful memories of magic and transformation.

"We may have no choice," said the Corrinian maid. "The ground here is rolling and open. The stones will be the best shelter we can find for some distance." Helwych muttered under his breath, and she smiled. "I do not think that our sorcerer is of a mind to continue."

"This place is safe enough," said Helwych. "The magic was spent months ago: there is not enough resident potency here to fill up a field mouse."

A wind from the west started up, turned cold.

"Are you sure, Helwych?"

"Of course I am sure," he said peevishly. "I am a sorcerer."

In the fading light, Wykla saw Manda cast her eyes upward. But the wind freshened, and it carried the scent of frost. "It seems," said Wykla, quoting a Cor- rinian proverb, "that we must eat the meal before us whether we like the meat or not."

Manda grinned at her, and she grinned back. They had grown together in Benardis, and to Wykla there now seemed little that she could not face with Manda at her side.

They camped among a tumble of stones that lay at a little distance from what had been the center of the monument. Out of the wind, and with a fire and something to eat, Helwych's spirits improved greatly, and he even began to joke about spells and other subjects that the warriors found incomprehensible. But the day's journey had been fatiguing, and he soon nodded and dropped off to sleep in mid-sentence.

' 'Clever of him,'' said Manda, ' 'to thus avoid taking a watch."

"We could wake him."

"Would you really trust his judgment, friend Wykla?"

When they had first met, Manda had offered friendship, and although Wykla had said neither yes nor no, Manda had always addressed her as though the offer had been accepted. And Wykla realized that it had. Shyly, she held out her hand and grasped Manda's. "Actually, my friend, I do not. Let us divide the night between us."

' 'First watch!'' Manda claimed it with a laugh. ' 'Go to bed, king's daughter."

Wykla rolled herself in her blankets and watched her tall friend for a minute. "Was Darham serious, Manda? When he offered . . . ?"

"He was indeed."

"Why?"

Manda folded her arms and stood amid the fallen stones as though daring any intruder to approach. "He is that kind of man," she said. "And he knows you for what you are: a brave woman who is worthy of honor.''

Wykla felt warm at the words, and she started to reply, but she opened her eyes and found that the sky was overcast, and that Manda was waking her for the second watch. "Not a soul stirring," said the Corrinian. "The weather is cold, but there is no sign of snow."

"It is late in the season for snow."

"Aye, and late in the night for sleep." Manda yawned and reached for her blankets. "Gods bless."

The wind had died down, and in the quiet darkness Wykla heard Manda's breathing deepen. The light of the low fire played softly with the sleeping woman's face and hair, and she lay with her eyes closed and her hands drawn up to her chin, looking much as she had in her house in Benardis when Wykla, awakening one morning with the dawn, had spent the first few minutes of light watching Manda . . . and wondering about herself.

Had Wykla been a man still, Manda was the kind of woman she would have desired for a mate. That choice, however, being forever fled from her, she recognized Manda as the kind of woman that she wanted to be. There was pain in Manda's past, to be sure, but there was pain in her own, too, and that shared history of sorrow did nothing but strengthen Wykla's admiration for her new-found friend. Whatever her past, Manda of Dubris had, seemingly, transcended it. Wykla of Burnwood could do the same.

Gently, she knelt over Manda's still form and laid a soft hand on the rounding of her hip. If she had still been a man . . .

She sighed and rose.

Clouds had blotted out the stars, but the air was transparent with a cold clarity that made the faint lights of the distant towns dance like sparks. And as Wykla stood with folded arms, keeping the late watch, her eye was caught by something that glittered out among the tumbled stones that surrounded the center of the ruined Circle.

Drawing her sword, she approached carefully. Her boots made hard, brittle sounds on the tongue of fused sand that stretched off along the Avenue, but the glitter stayed where it was, twinkling like a star and, she fancied, beckoning.

She shivered. Out where the light burned, Mernyl and Tireas had died, their bodies incinerated in a blaze of power. And Dythragor too ...

Cautiously, she eased closer, peered over the heaped and shattered monoliths. Before her, thrusting up out of the earth, was a pale staff that gleamed as though bewound with moonlight. She recognized it: Mernyl's staff.

Almost unwillingly, she went forward and bent over it. Two thirds of its length was hidden in the earth, and the sorcerer's initial flared with diamond brilliance inches above the ground. Wykla hesitated; but then, on an impulse that she did not understand, her hand went around the bright wood, and she pulled.

The staff resisted, but voices seemed to sing in her ears, encouraging her, and she closed her eyes, set her feet and shoulders, and brought the muscles of her back and legs into the work.

The wood seemed to conform to her grip, and when an icy cold arose and began traveling up her bones, she opened her eyes to find that the staff was no longer a staff. An arm now protruded from the earth at her feet, its hand as white and cold as the finest marble. But it was animate, and its fingers held her firmly in their clasp.

Panic added to her strength, but the hand had locked her in a silent battle in the darkness: human against other-than-human, flesh and blood against the spectral existence of the undead. Wykla could not speak, she could not even scream, and the only sound was that of her gasping breaths, hoarse and hollow in the frosty air.

Dropping her sword, she clasped her free hand about her captive wrist, closed her eyes again, strained until her joints cracked and her muscles turned white hot with pain. Head thrown back, mouth set in a grimace, she pulled.

The white hand gave a trifle.

She looked down again, and was almost unsurprised to find the face of Mernyl gleaming up at her from the weeds and grass. His wide, staring eyes appeared to see everything and yet nothing, their blankness both omniscient and blind.

"Mernyl," she whispered, finding her voice at last. "It is I: Wykla of Burnwood. Pray, do not hurt me."

The eyes in the pallid face did not change, but the lips struggled as if to speak.

"Mernyl . . . please. I am changed, but you know that. You must recognize me . . . you must ..."

The face brightened for an instant, she saw the lips form her name, and the hand gave a barely perceptible squeeze as of encouragement. The voice of the dead sorcerer came to her ears suddenly: "Pull, Wykla! Pull!"

The cold racked her lungs, and her body ached such that she was sure she would cry out, but she heaved mightily against the grip of the dead sorcerer. The hand yielded again. Then more.

Release was a flash of white fire. She had a brief impression that she held, once again, a staff of wood, and then she fell into darkness.

* CHAPTER 5 *

The clouds that had gathered over the mountains to the west of Kingsbury formed a solid mass that blocked out the late afternoon sunlight, and, as night fell, they encroached upon the rest of the sky, eclipsing the stars, bringing a cold that reached into the town with hands of ice.

It was with a sense of unease that Marrget regarded them, for they reminded her too strongly of the darkness that once had gathered about the Tree and launched itself at the wartroops of Gryylth in a bolt of slaughter and transformation. Here there was no Tree, but the darkness was the same, and something . . . something had killed Bandon.

Night found her keeping watch at the door of her house as though she might thereby guard the slumbering town. Her sword was at hand, but swords, she knew, would be useless if Kingsbury had been targeted for the same kind of devastation that had overtaken Bandon. Her watch this night, therefore, was not so much for Kingsbury as for herself, a defiant shake of the fist at all the unknown powers that could level a town in an evening, destroy an army, or change a man into a woman.

These days, though, she was having increasing difficulty remembering that she had indeed been a man. She could recall old images, past thoughts, previous actions, but they all seemed to her to belong to another person: a Marrget of Crownhark who knew only war and soldiering, who was content with the rough camaraderie of arms and men, who thought of little beyond honesty and orders.

More clear and immediate was her knowledge of the woman who had taken his place, who had fought for survival on a summer night, who had triumphed only to find that the days of easy decisions and shallow contentments were over. That she was a warrior in what was still a man's land was a sufficient complication to her existence, but her choice of life over death had been concomitant with a deepening of emotion that had turned each day into a puzzle to be solved.

And as she watched, sleepless, at the door of her house, she turned the most recent piece of the puzzle over in her mind. Since she had danced with Karthin at the New Year Feast, and since he had wrapped his large arms about her amid the ruins of Bandon, she had found herself wondering how she might arrange matters so that she could touch him again. Such ruminations were terrifying, but, unlike warriors, they would not obey her orders to disperse. Nor did she particularly wish them to. She tolerated their insubordination because they brought into her cold existence a sense of warmth and belonging that she had thought unattainable.

Were her thoughts and responses, she wondered, those of a woman? Had she changed that much? Or perhaps she had not changed, and the differences were a result of her constant immersion in a new milieu, seeing herself and being seen as female, living in a body that possessed drives and desires that, moment by moment, day by day, were awakening and growing.

Thunder cracked abruptly across the miles, and a driving wind started up. Marrget reached for her sword, but she could see nothing that might have responded to the threat of steel. Within minutes, though, the wind had turned into a gale, and Kingsbury was lost in the darkness and the storm. Marrget withdrew into her house and shut the door. More thunder. More wind.

She hung her sword on the wall and threw wood onto the fire. Old memories and new concerns banished sleep, but tears-silent, hidden, lonely-had been with her for a long time. As they were now.

That Karthin admired her, she knew well. He had treated her with courtesy since the first day they had met, apparently taking joy from the simple fact that she had consented to be his friend. But courtesy and friendship were not what she had come to want from him. They were a beginning, no more, and therefore she sat on a stool before the growing flames of the fire, put her face in her hands, and yielded to her confusion and her tears.

But there came a pounding on her door loud enough to be heard even over the wind and the thunder. "Marrget!"

Karthin. She started, not knowing whether to be glad or frightened. "I am here," she replied, but she knew that her voice would not carry over the storm. Rising, she unbarred the door, brought him inside, and shut out the battling elements.

He had obviously run all the way from the town, for he was breathing heavily, and cold sweat glistened on his forehead. He caught his breath for a moment and pushed his hair out of his face. "I saw firelight through your shutters."

"I could not sleep."

He looked much as he had when, after the battle at the Circle, he had stood before her, shy and uncertain, flowers in hand. "I know. I ... I felt it."

"You did? Have I become so transparent now that you can read me a half league away?'' He stood inches away from her. An excuse to touch him should have been easy to find, but she could think of none.

"Not transparent, Marrget. Just . . ." He did not seem to know what to do with his hands for a moment and finally hooked his thumbs in his belt. ' 'You have been crying."

She dashed a sleeve across her eyes. "A passing thought, Karthin.'' Gazing at him so as to fathom both his appearance and his strange comments, she saw that his own eyes were red and swollen. "But so have you."

"I will not say it was the wind." He laughed sheepishly.

Facing one another, they fidgeted, groped for words. "You . . . you miss your people, perhaps?" Marrget shoved the question out to fill the aching silence. He was so close. But what, exactly, did she want of him? What did she want of herself? Her thoughts flashed ahead to the consequences of her desires, and her mouth went dry.

"I miss them sometimes."

"It must be hard to ... live alone ..." Her words trailed off, and she caught herself gazing at him as he was at her. With a gasp, she straightened. "I have become a poor host," she said, taking his arm and guiding him toward a seat by the fire. "Pray, forgive my discourtesy. I have not had much company in recent months."

Her hand was on his bare skin. Beneath her slender fingers, his farmer muscles were solid and strong. She felt dizzy.

"I would have gladly filled the lack," he said softly, covering her hand with his own, "had you asked."

He did not sit down. She did not let him. Her hand on his arm, she watched the fire as she had watched the gathering clouds: wondering what the night would bring. "What brings you to my door, friend?"

"Concern for you. I could see you from the town wall. You stood all afternoon, and when I tried to sleep, I knew you were still at your door. Cvinthil once called you Kingsbury's guardian, and perhaps he is right; but I worried when I saw that you did not rest ... or even eat. And then when the wind and thunder came . . ." He smiled like a shy boy. "It must be hard to live alone."

"How else should I live?"

He swallowed uncomfortably. "I sometimes think ...that .. ."

Marrget lifted her eyes to his face. His arm burned beneath her fingers. Please speak, Karthin, else I shall surely bolt.

He seemed to hear her thoughts. He seemed to hear everything. "... that my being alone is a ... passing thing."

"Surely you will return home someday."

"Someday ..."

"But not soon," she said quickly.

"Nay. Not soon." His hand had tightened over hers. ' 'I would hope that I might find an end to my condition before I return to Corrin."

Marrget could not think. She doubted that Karthin could either. They groped for one another's meanings like children in a game of blind-man's-buff. "I wish you well," she managed.

"And I you."

Silence again. The wind battered, the thunder roared. But the shutters and doors held. Karthin and Marrget were alone together, undisturbed.

"Why ..." Her jaw was trembling, adding a weakness to her voice that chagrined her. "Why do you think it will end?"

He would not meet her eyes. "There is a woman I know."

"Oh."

She let go of his arm and started to turn away, but he detained her with a hand on her shoulder, and then he was standing behind her, folding her in his arms, burying his face in her hair. "Let me tell you of her,'' he said, stumbling through the words as though afraid that he would be struck dead for uttering them. "She is as brave and bright as the noblest warrior of the land, and she wears her loneliness like a badge of honor: as indeed it is, for it was hard won. Sharp and deadly as a sword, she is nonetheless lovely, and ..."

Marrget was rooted. Is this how it happens ? Oh you Gods of Gryylth, I have changed.

"...and I believe-or at least I hope-that she feels for me as I do for her."

The wind blew so that the house shook, and the brilliance of the lightning found its way in through the smallest cracks as Marrget grappled with thoughts that slid away from her tike fish in a pond.

She could deny her feelings no longer, for to pretend to other emotions was a falsehood that she would not allow to stain her honor. Turning within his embrace, she filled her arms with him, clung to him as though by doing so she could slake a deadly thirst. Teeth clenched, eyes shut tight, she laid her face against his broad chest. "A fortunate woman indeed," she whispered hoarsely.

His lips were inches from her ear. "But I do not know if she will have me."

Lifting her head, she looked up at him. Her hands clutched at his arms, slid up to his throat, his face. I do not know what to do. What is it that a woman does now? "I ..."

Had Karthin been a Gryylthan man, she would, she knew, have been bedded by now, dragged between the sheets regardless of her feelings. But Karthin was of Corrin, and his customs were* different. In dance, in life, in love, women of his country made their own choices.