Altimere's lead took them to the right of a sudden branch in the trail. She looked down from her perch, past Rosamunde's shoulder, hearing the step, then seeing the hoof strike.

Well, she thought with relief, it's only that the sound precedes the footfall.

Looking ahead, and listening intently in the dead air, she learned that the same was true for Altimere's mount: first the sound of hoof against gravel, then the placement of the hoof. How odd.

For a time, she simply rode, watching the hoof strike belatedly, unaware of anything else, her head heavy and her limbs languorous.

Just before she slipped into sleep, she did start, for Altimere now led them into the distinct bowl of a valley, surrounded by sere, mounded hills. Surely, they had not come far enough for such a change in the terrain! Unless . . . had she fallen asleep, in truth?

Directly before them, terrible above the humpbacked hills, the flickering balefire filled the sky with an iridescent fog belying the depth of the darkness growing at the edge of the trail.

Her good hand as light as possible on the reins, Becca reached with her weak left hand for Rosamunde's withers at the saddle-edge. Hah! Altimere rode courtly, did he? No blanket here, between saddle and withers, but all dependence placed on the leather panels. True, she was used to country ways, where oft a horse might be expected to sweat.

Motion in front of her . . .

A man's figure limned in darkling light, astride a flickering shadow of a horse, waved at her, his long fingers drifting like snowflakes in the turgid air. Heart in her mouth, Becca caught, looked about her, and gasped. In her inattention, she had nearly allowed Rosamunde to veer onto a thin track to the left, which spiraled away, ghostly, toward the terrible hills with their crown of black light. Carefully, she eased her mount back to the proper trail, and sighed.

The left-ward track beckoned with flickering fingers, teasing her side vision. Surely, Becca thought, that way was shorter? Perhaps she might- But no, she reminded herself sternly; she would not take her own path. She had agreed to this trip, and to the terms. This was a dangerous and tricksy land, as she now knew for herself. She would not allow it to lead her astray. She would follow . . . she would follow . . . Yes. She would follow.

Do not lose sight of them, my brave! she thought to her filly.

She moved the reins, a gentle motion being sufficient, the lightest tap of heel . . .

Rosamunde was willing to close ranks with the lead horse, though it seemed that horse was ignoring her existence. The sounds of hooves on gravel echoed all about them, as if there were a dozen or more horses to be caught, and if Altimere approved or even noticed her new attention he gave no sign.

Even at this distance, following was not easy. Not only was Rosamunde's sudden tendency to bear left and go off the track a concern, but Becca found the lack of color in the world disheartening. Worse, there was an annoyance she couldn't lay her thoughts on around a plague of aches and pains, as if all the wounds and injuries of her life were complaining at once. . . .

Rosamunde shied from a rock, and then another, both large enough to cast them down if misstepped, rocks Becca should have seen as she looked between her mount's ears, over her star, at the slow moving gravel they transited.

Becca could scarcely see the tail of the horse they followed, the colorlessness absorbing light as if they rode in the midst of a hundred rainstorms.

She felt, in truth, as if she were beaten down by those rainstorms, and the minor aches came upon her at once and in full force: her crippled arm screamed from shoulder to pinkie, each muscle declaring itself afire, and she nearly swooned as the memories of bug bites, stubbed toes, and sisterly pinches took . . .

There! Ahead was the darkling stallion! She mustn't lose sight! She would not die here, alone and in pain. She would not be lost!

And yet it seemed that she was lost. Fog enveloped her, rain beat her, and she could scarcely see the ears of the . . . of the . . . horse . . .

There was no light, no color, no sound. She tried to speak, but the fog forced its way down her throat, m.u.f.fling her voice.

There! An image in the fog: A man, his hair golden and his eyes steady; a quiet smile on his pale lips . . .

Altimere!

His name! She grasped, hurled it out into the fog on the wings of her thought. Altimere! Altimere was why she was here! Altimere was the connection she had with this place! Altimere was ahead leading her through this terrible land!

Sound was all around her like a thunder and wind rolled into one, like the sound of a splintering thill combined with her own screams, or the angry buzz of . . .

She must flee! There was no safety, up here so high, so exposed. She wanted to leap down from this absurd perch and rush to safety, to- No! If she fled now all was lost. . . .

Her hand, tucked hard between leather and . . . hair. Horsehair, warm and living. Horse . . . her horse was with her . . . brave horse had a name, must have a name, as she must. Altimere was not her name, the horse was not Altimere . . .

The hand-her hand!-between soft coat and hard edge of the saddle-and the name Rosamunde bloomed in her mind, reflecting back to her Lady Becca I know you, colored with determination-a determination to push through, to arrive at the other side, each with a would-be master behind them, neither with any other place that would accept them, except what might be forward, away from- Hold your seat came into her mind, and she knew not if she thought it or the horse, but she tucked her hand hard, touching saddle and horse, concentrating her thought on a place where there was clean water, flowers, gra.s.s, light, someplace where they could rest, and she might draw on the slim store of balm and herb that rode, suddenly recalled, in her saddlebag, to leach the agony out of her arm, and soothe away the clamorous small pains.

Ahead of them only a small eldritch glow outlined a horse's hooves; a greyer patch in the gloom showed where Altimere moved, bent against rain that did not fall and wind that did not blow. The cold swirled with the heat; she was sodden with sweat, as her hands and feet froze.

It was dark. Even the hateful flickering of unlight ceased.

Becca leaned forward, one hand gripping the reins, the other gripping the edge of the saddle, her eyes straining until she saw blue flashes, and crimson. Until she saw- The star.

Yes.

The star on Rosamunde's forehead, beneath the darker forelock, that star was more visible now. The wretched arm ached with the strain of holding on with the hand she still had tucked 'neath the saddle-when had she managed that?-that throbbing in her good arm where her sister always pinched her was no longer a piercing reminder, and the tears-had she been crying the while?-were slowing.

Sounds. Hooves against earth, the creak of leather. And ahead there was a definite horse and a definite rider and even enough of a track to be called a trail.

Rosamunde puffed and snorted, wishing to run now, not from fear but toward the places promised ahead. There was scent on the air, and it was clean scent, no matter that the plants suddenly visible here mirrored those she had seen at the start-they were plants, growing things, and there, just ahead, a blade of sunlight crossed the track!

Becca dared look behind her, at a sheet of fog rising from the ground into the heavens, st.i.tched with flares and shimmers of hideous light.

There came the sound of hooves on gravel, the unexpected flit of some tiny, urgent bird . . .

Before them, the dark horse slowed. The rider turned, his face filled with honest dread.

The dread gave way to some other expression Becca could not name . . .

He nodded, did Altimere, as Rosamunde drew aside.

"That meadow ahead," he said without preamble, "is entirely outside the reach of the keleigh. We will rest there; water the horses, and partake of a small meal to recruit our strength."

Exhausted, shivering with the remnants of pain and fright, Becca hardly knew what to say to these curt commonplaces.

Rosamunde snorted though, and Becca looked into Altimere's face.

"You sir," she said, striving to sound as matter-of-fact as he, "will wish to dust your coat."

He looked down at himself, his chest, his waist, his legs-all wrapped in the slenderest ropes of their poisonous metal. If he craned to the right or left, he could also view the destruction of his arms, likewise bound in chain and secured to staples set in the cold stone wall.

His flesh was corroded, the wounds seeping, but if they had hoped to undo him with agony, they had miscalculated. The pain had long since exceeded his capacity to feel it.

He did long for death, yes-as an end to confinement, and the continual a.s.sault of their terrible auras. When the one called Michael stepped into the room bearing a poison-metal knife, his first impulse was one of relief.

Fool.

Michael's aura was a strong sky-blue, with lightning flashes of orange. Pa.s.sionate, purposeful and seductive. He held the knife like it was an old friend, and smiled at Meri gently.

"Give us the secret of creating gold from leaves."

"I cannot," Meri said, as he had many times before.

Michael sighed, and moved, the knife flashing at the edge of Meri's eye. It was only when the blood fogged his vision that he realized- "Hack me to bits, and still I cannot tell you," he said tiredly.

Michael nodded sympathetically.

"I told Lord Wing that you'd say the same as you'd done. He said to give you another chance, and this was it, but, hey-you're a regular fella. A hunter, like me. So I'm going to ask once more, nice, see? Tell the man what he wants to know, or worse than you've had done will happen. You don't think that's possible, maybe. Take it on trust that there's worse, and think about it."

The knife flashed again, slashing his cheek. Meri said nothing.

Michael sighed, shaking his head, and walked over to yank open the door.

They had been kinder to Faldana than they had to him. That was what he thought at first. They had taken her Ranger leathers, as they had taken his, and given her a plain white robe. Her wrists were bound with common rope and her flesh was whole. She walked as one in pain, however, and the subtle mauves of her aura showed flarings of a sickly yellowish green.

"Meri!" Her broad face lightened with joy-then horror, as she took in his situation.

"Oh, my love-"

"Silence!" Lord Wing strode through the door, swinging his arm out in casual cruelty, striking her across the face.

The auras filling the room flared into one lightning bolt of crimson, abruptly dissipated as Michael's elbow went into his gut.

"It ain't the worst he can do," the man snarled.

"Correct." Lord Wing stood before Meri, his hands fisted on his hips.

"Michael?"

"He won't talk, your lordship. I didn't figure he would."

Lord Wing nodded. "The time has come for strong measures, then."

"I cannot tell you what you want to know," Meri said, struggling with the mangled notes of the man's tongue. "If you are not as we are, you cannot do what we are able to do."

"Yes, yes. You've said so, over and over. You're a brave man, and your ability to withstand pain is both prodigious and admirable. However, I must have the information, and time has become short. Therefore, I am forced to resort to . . . less savory means. Michael."

Michael stepped forward, grabbed the robe at the shoulders and tore it from Faldana's body. He put her on the stone floor, not ungently, fastened her bound wrists over her head and each leg wide. After making certain that the bonds were secure, he rose and stepped back against the wall.

"Very well." Lord Wing pulled an object out of the pocket of his coat. Meri stared. In form, it was not unlike a male member.

Except that it was cast from poison-metal.

"Remember," he said, holding the thing so close that Meri felt the dire essence burn his cheek, "that you can stop this at any time."

Chapter Nineteen.

Even the kitchen garden at Artifex was kept formal, with not a creeper nor a blossom out of place. Becca had yet to discover the stern policeman-gardener who kept all in order, for she had met no one during her extensive rambles around the grounds.

Possibly, she thought, opening the gate and stepping out onto the flagged path, the Gossamers kept the gardens as part of their duties, or perhaps it was simply fear of Altimere's displeasure that kept his plants so orderly. At least, that was what Elyd would have her believe. On the other hand, Elyd would have her believe trees spoke, sprites danced in the water garden, and dangerous monsters lurked hidden in the wild wood beyond Artifex's perimeter-or, rather, beyond the point where Altimere's kest extended.

Elyd was kindness itself, and Becca was quite fond of him, not the least because of his care for Rosamunde. But she suspected that from time to time he told her bouncers, to amuse himself and relieve the tedium of answering her endless questions.

Not that his answers were always helpful.

When she had asked him how it was that fosenglove, teyepia, and tea rose were all at bloom together, all she had gained was a sideways look and a muttered, "Who will tell them otherwise?" In answer to her inquiry as to why it was that she never saw him in the garden or the kitchen, he had shaken his head and answered very slowly, as if he thought her wits had gone wandering, "Because my place is in the stables, unless the master wishes otherwise."

And when she asked if he had served Altimere long, his only answer was a blank stare, as if he had forgotten how to speak.

It was, she supposed now, as she walked along the pathway away from the water gardens, perfectly possible that Elyd did not know how long he had been in Altimere's service. The days were so pleasant and unruffled that it was difficult to keep them separated, or, indeed, to experience any sense of time's pa.s.sage. As if, thought Becca, events marked time, and, lacking anything save peace, its pa.s.sage was suspended.

Certainly, the inconstancy of the growing season did not help one keep a sense of time. Since she had come here with Altimere-eighteen dinners ago, she told herself scrupulously-she had observed two serath bushes, side by side, in what appeared to her gardener's trained eye to be in identically robust health: one dormant, and the other blooming madly. Closer inspection showed her that this was not unusual. Here, a stand of fosenglove waved its belled stalks in the breeze, while three steps further on, there were only the broad leaves and the shy head of a new stalk barely peeping beyond them.

If the plants themselves could not keep the seasons . . . Becca shook her head, pushed open the second gate and stepped into a small, chaste garden very nearly under the branches of the wild wood. This point, as near as she could tell, was the furthest from the house, and, to hear Elyd tell it, Altimere's influence. To be honest, these factors-and Elyd's insistence upon the monsters inhabiting the wild wood-had made her spurn it as a likely spot for her own garden. Unfortunately, a thorough inspection of the rest of the grounds surrounding Artifex produced no other place so promising, and Becca had returned today to study it once more and be certain that her memory had not played her false.

It had not.

Broad-leaved climbers bearing glossy blue fruits that Elyd had told her were winberige clambered over the stone wall, daring even to shoot tendrils into the shadows cast by the untamed trees beyond. From the right, the path was lined with penijanset, wagging their copper beards in the breeze. To the left an escort of lord's purse tossed their golden heads.

Directly before her was an elitch tree, the gold and copper flowers pooling 'round its st.u.r.dy trunk, and a stone bench beneath.

Becca walked over to the bench and sat down with her back against the firm trunk. There had been an elitch and a bench in her garden at home-perhaps it was that circ.u.mstance that had convinced her that this was the only place for her herb garden?

But no. It was the fact that here, unlike any of the numerous other gardens at Altimere's house, there existed land that was not already being used for plantings. Beyond the brilliant swirl of flowers a silky expanse of meadow gra.s.s rippled like water under the gentle breath of the wind. Despite the nearness of the wood, and the presence of the elitch, there was sun enough for those plants that loved it, and shade a-plenty for those shyer and more delicate. She dared to believe that her few seeds would find this land as nourishing as the other plentiful growth. If she planted thoughtfully, she might make a more restful transition between the flowers in their ordered imitation of carelessness and the untamed trees beyond.

It was settled, then, she thought. This was the spot. She would ask Altimere's permission this evening, and request the services of an under-gardener, or a pair of Gossamers to turn the soil. The way things grew here, she would have a proper medicinal garden started by the time she and Altimere had shared eighteen more dinners.

Meri leaned his elbows on the bal.u.s.trade. The rock was warm and slick against his skin, the salt breeze sharp as a slap on the cheek. Below, the sea a.s.saulted the sh.o.r.e, its black surface picked out in the pale reflections of stars.

He could, he thought carefully, jump.

Of course, there was no guarantee that Sea Hold would allow him to do so, nor that Sian had not seen fit to place a tiny geas upon him, after all-for his own good. He might test either proposition merely by mounting the rail. If he was wrong-about Sea Hold, about Sian-then the agony might stop now.

If he was right, there would be alarms, and guards, and a room deeper inside the hold, without windows.

His stomach clenched, threatening the return of the meal Sian had insisted he eat.

"'What a strange sort of coward you are," he murmured, salt puckering his mouth. The storm he had tasted earlier would make landfall at the turn of the tide, he thought absently, or he was a lubber and the despair of his mother's kin.

Not that he wasn't necessarily so, in any case.

The wind freshened, sc.r.a.ping along the rock face, whining in creva.s.ses, the various pitches conspiring to sound like conversation. Indeed, the Sea Wise said that the dead rode the storm wind and would speak with any brave-or foolish-enough to say their name.

Meri closed his eye, listening to the wind gabble in the night.