"I have nothing to return to," said Mave quietly.

"And I have no wish to die alone," said Raieve.

Mauritane frowned. "Fine. It's decided. We ride in five minutes. Be ready."

Silverdun rode far ahead of the rest, carrying a bag of river stones in one hand. He moved slowly, at a walk, whistling out to the left, then to the right, then in front of him. Every so often he would take a stone from the bag and toss it sidearm in the direction of his last whistle. He'd carefully monitor the stone's spinning progress until it landed and fell still, then move on.

After an hour, their campsite was still in plain view behind them. Mauritane sensed that the anticipation of danger was beginning to wear thin, and he continually reminded them to remain alert. Every so often a stiff hot wind would burst forth from some unseen source, or a rain of ice crystals. Some of the shifting places produced eerie sounds, howls and keening wails, some sounding almost Fae or human. Overhead, the sun passed back and forth behind the swiftly moving clouds and the land grew dark and light in strange intervals.

Finally, Silverdun brought his mare to a halt. He threw one stone over his right shoulder, then another.

"This is it," he called back to Mauritane.

Mauritane rode up and stood beside him. He watched Silverdun throw a third stone. It left his hand at a leisurely pace, glinted silver for an instant, then seemed to explode toward the ground at an unbelievable speed. It hopped once, with the same unusual rapidity, then fell to the earth.

"May l?" said Mauritane.

"Be my guest." Silverdun dropped a handful of the water-smoothed stones into Mauritane's palm.

Mauritane threw one, watched the effect repeat, and then tossed the entire handful at once. The stones reached the boundary of the shifting place at minute intervals, and a series of bright silver flashes delineated the periphery of the oblong shifting place.

"It seems to be elongated toward the west," said Silverdun. "Just what we're looking for."

"Good," said Mauritane. "Let's get everyone inside. I'll go first, to show them how it's done and you guide the rest of them."

Silverdun nodded. "Watch closely," he said to the others, whom he waved toward him. "I've got Mauritane aimed precisely perpendicular to where the shifting place will be in a few moments. They don't call them shifting places for nothing, so you must be precise. On my signal, you start moving and I start counting. If you're not in contact with the boundary when I get to three, you're dead." Silverdun threw another stone, so Mauritane could see his target. Mauritane noted the location of the silver flash. He looked forward, seeing nothing, finding it difficult to believe that he was about to risk his life.

"Now," said Silverdun.

Mauritane kicked Streak into motion.

"One," said Silverdun.

He increased his speed, trying to gauge the distance just right.

"Two."

Mauritane realized that he was moving too quickly; he was about to overshoot the mark.

Mauritane heard the beginning of Silverdun's count, but as the word was spoken something hit him in the chest and Silverdun's voice stretched out and fell, lower, lower, lower. Streak reared and nearly turned back; it was all Mauritane could do to force the animal to continue moving.

Then, suddenly, he was safely inside the shifting place. Despite the dull ache in his chest and a sharp pain behind his eyes, he was unharmed. He wheeled Streak around to view the others. Gray Mave was moving forward, his motions protracted, almost comically slow. Silverdun's count seemed to last an eternity. From within the shifting place, he could hear everything outside only as a muted basso roar. Silverdun's voice sounded like the glamoured voices given to dragon puppets in children's theater. Mave moved toward Mauritane at a snail's pace, as though he and his mount were swimming rather than walking.

The forelegs of Mave's gelding entered the shifting place first and for an instant it appeared as though the beast were stretched out along its spine, its forelegs many paces ahead of its hind legs. Gray Mave suddenly winced as though he'd been struck, then he flew into the space alongside Mauritane, traveling finally at a normal speed.

"Are you all right?" asked Mauritane, when Gray Mave's wince did not fade.

"I will be," said Mave. "The buggane's cut did not take the trip well." He held his hand out from his chest and there was fresh blood on his fingertips.

"Have Silverdun look at it when he comes through," said Mauritane. He tried to push out of his mind the thought that the buggane's blade might have been poisoned. "He may know some healing magic for it."

Mave nodded, guiding his horse out of the way for the next traveler.

Raieve was next. Mauritane watched her move, and the slowness of her motions only added to her grace. It was all he could do just to keep his eyes on her. He wanted to ride toward her, pull her up in front of him on Streak's back, and run. Far, far away. But it was not possible. There was a boundary between them that could not be crossed.

She made the crossing without incident, riding a few paces away from Mauritane to watch Satterly and Silverdun come through. The motions of those outside had a hypnotic effect on those within.

Satterly almost made it but at the last moment pulled back on his reins. Just barely, but it was enough. His horse turned and Satterly hit the boundary at an angle, pitching forward from the beast's back. The horse stumbled in the strange glinting edge and fell onto its side. Satterly was propelled from the saddle, flying through the boundary and landing hard on the ground.

The horse did not make it. It became stuck in the periphery of the shifting place, and they all watched helplessly as the creature's limbs stretched until they broke, the bones shattering, internal organs bursting and spraying their fluids into the maelstrom of the shifting place's edge. The horse shrieked, a high piercing sound that lowered to a toneless rumble one moment, then lifted to the buzzing of an insect the next as the unknown forces that separated the shifting place from the solid world stretched the animal into an impossible shape, then dropped it to the ground, a shuddering sack of meat. Satterly's folded tent rolled out of the mess, completely unscathed, and stopped at Mauritane's feet.

"Oh, God!" shouted Satterly. He tried to stand, then lurched backward and righted himself, finally falling to his knees. He lowered his head and vomited his breakfast onto the soil.

Silverdun rode easily into the shifting place and stood over Satterly, his hideous face red with anger. "Damn you, human!" he hissed. "You could have gotten yourself killed! Why did you rein him back?"

Satterly shuddered. "I got scared!" he shouted. "I got scared and pulled back on accident. It was an accident!"

Silverdun shouted a curse in Elvish that Mauritane had never heard. "Now all of your supplies are gone, and you'll have to double up with someone the rest of the way. That is, unless we happen to stumble onto a horse ranch somewhere out here! I trust you are pleased with yourself?"

"Enough, Silverdun," said Mauritane, dismounting. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"He can ride with me," said Raieve. "I'm no burden on this mount."

Mauritane helped Satterly to his feet. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

Satterly dusted himself off. "Just bruised," he said. "I'll survive."

"Fine, then. You'll double with Raieve for now. Let's move while the shifting place is with us."

"Idiot!" shouted Silverdun, then he fell quiet.

They rode in silence for what seemed like many hours, though it was difficult to tell the duration with any precision. As they rode, the scenery beyond the shifting place moved with a bizarre rapidity, as though they were traveling much faster than Mauritane's other senses told him. The sun, however, barely moved in the sky overhead. The time that passed for them, whether ten hours or twelve, could not have been more than an hour or two in the outside world, for the sun was barely at its zenith when Mauritane's internal clock told him it should be night.

They stopped for a brief dinner. Only necessary words were spoken. It was obvious to Mauritane that the others were still thinking about the sight of Satterly's horse and how easily it could have been one of them. The meal was a grim one.

They mounted and rode again for another seemingly endless stretch. From beyond the shifting place, the sounds of the world were slow and eerie, muffled as though the entire world were buried beneath a pile of blankets.

They stopped again. As the hours wore on and became first one full day, then another, then perhaps a third, the silence among them became overwhelming, as though it were mandated. Each of them seemed lost in thought, pondering the world outside the shifting place as it caromed by in a hazy blur. When they stopped, they watched leaves fall from the trees in slow motion, examined with rapt expressions the fascinating properties of a stream whose waters intersected the shifting place, how it created a bizarre waterfall, the current flowing over some invisible obstacle which, Satterly pointed out in muttered tones, appeared to be the stream's own water.

Mauritane looked into the sky and at some point the sun had moved past its apex and was now nearing the horizon. He felt as though he could not stand another moment in that timeless space. Just ahead in the real world, for so Mauritane had begun to think of it, was a flat, grassy clearing between two dense stands of pine, suitable for a campsite.

"That's enough," he said. "Silverdun, get us out of here."

The relief was evident on every face. "Come along," said Silverdun quietly. "Getting out should be much easier than getting in. Just ride at a quick, steady pace." He pointed to the left. "That way."

Mauritane led Streak out of the shifting place and the world sped up again, taking on its usual sights and sounds. The others followed him out and the shift in their overall mood was palpable. Satterly breathed an audible sigh of release.

"Congratulations," said Mauritane, consulting his charts. "We covered four days' worth of ground in a single day."

"I, for one, felt all four of those days," said Silverdun wearily.

"We'll be in Sylvan ahead of schedule," said Mauritane, attempting to leaven the overall mood.

Only Gray Mave managed a smile. "Well, that's good, isn't it?"

Silverdun slung his tent from behind his saddle and stumbled around it. "It might sound that way after about ten hours of sleep. If anyone asks me to take the first watch, I'll cut his throat."

"I'll take first watch," said Raieve. "Then I plan to sleep for a very, very long time."

"Let's all get some rest," said Mauritane. "Once we've all rested, I want to speak to you. I believe a Hegest is long overdue."

Silverdun nodded soberly. "Yes, Mauritane. You're right. A Hegest would do us all some good."

"What's a Hegest?" said Satterly, his voice slow and tired.

"Wait until tomorrow," said Raieve. "You'll find out."

Mauritane watched her crawl into her tent. She looked back at him for a moment, pursed her lips, then turned and went inside.

hegest.

Raieve knelt by the ice-covered poplar and dug her hands into the snow at its base. The previous night's freezing rain had left a clear sheen over everything: the tents, the trees, even the snowy ground. The ice bit into her skin, its jagged edges scoring her already-red hands with white lines. The ground had an empty, wintry smell.

Her hands began to sting. She dug around the base of the poplar's trunk, creating a narrow trench. Just as the needles of cold reached beneath her skin more than she could stand, she found what she was looking for.

The mushrooms were tiny, lavender in color, with wide, flat heads and narrow stems. Icthula. She collected them in her aching palm and brushed them into a jar. The icthula was the final ingredient, joining the spittle, bitter herbs, and radish seed already inside. She scooped a handful of snow into the jar and covered it with a lid, placing it gently on a tiny brazier she'd secreted away from camp.

Above her, at the top of the slope, she could hear Silverdun complaining about his food. She tried to ignore him.

She watched the jar intently until it boiled, holding her hands over the brazier to warm them. As the fire worked the frost from her fingers, they began to sting in a different way, like sharp pinpricks all over her flesh.

She stirred the jar's contents with a stick, watching it bubble, until the mixture turned a purplish color. She lifted the jar using the hem of her cloak and poured it out into another jar with a strip of cloth over the top as a strainer. She let the solid ingredients fall away.

The filtered icthula mixture stank horribly. With a grimace, she lifted it to her lips and drank the whole thing, wincing as the hot liquid scalded her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Almost immediately the drug began to take hold of her, drawing her out of herself until her awareness perched just outside her body, ready to leap out and explore its surroundings.

She stood up, her stomach turning at the dizzying perspective. She climbed the slope awkwardly, cursing herself for her own stupidity. It would have been a lot easier if she had returned to camp first.

The climb seemed to last hours but could not have, because when she returned to camp no one appeared to notice that she'd left.

"It's time," said Mauritane, as she appeared at the crest of the slope. "Have a seat."

Raieve took her place around a new fire, built upon the ashes of the fire from the night before. The flames wriggled and twisted like braids of light.

Mauritane let his eyes rest on her for a moment. The icthula drew her toward him and she held back, forcing herself to remain still for now. She gave him a silent nod and he turned away. The icthula had been her idea; the Hegest his. She'd seen the tiny mushrooms a few nights before and had told Mauritane about them during their ride through the shifting place. It was her mother's recipe she was using.

"Let's begin," said Mauritane.

"Before we start, can someone please tell me what we're doing?" said Satterly, his voice petulant.

Mauritane sighed. "The Hegest is a sharing of stories, but it is not simply words that we share. We speak of our history, our past, our vision for the future. These things bind us, each to the other. They remind us who we are and why we press forward, why we think and act as we do. The Hegest is a Self in words."

Raieve became lost in Mauritane's speech, remembering how he'd whispered into her ear as they made love, remembering the touch of his hand on her thighs and around her waist. The icthula painted the memories as bright as day, depositing her within the circle of his arms by a stream somewhere in the past. She had to shake her head to make the vision vanish.

"So, what do we, uh, do?" said Satterly.

"Watch," said Silverdun. "You'll get the idea."

Mauritane began. He took a handful of some cheap incense Silverdun had bought in Estacana and threw it into the fire.

"I am Mauritane, son of Ticumaura, son of Bael-La, son of Bael, son of Rumorgan, a child of the ancient Thule. On the day of my birth, an egret landed on my father's rooftop. I enlisted in Her Majesty's Royal Guard at the age of twelve. I saw the sun rise over the Plum Mountains on the longest day of the year. I killed an ogre with my bare hands when I was nineteen. I was made an officer in the Guard at the age of thirty, after leading my company to victory against the Unseelie at Midalel. I loved a woman, the Lady Anne, was married in the City Emerald. I was promoted to Captain of the Royal Guard after the death of Secon'anas."

Mauritane took a deep breath. "Now I am again in the Queen's service. That is an achievement I thought impossible only weeks ago. I am honored."

Raieve forced herself to remain calm, while all around her, Mauritane's words tried to draw her back to the stream's edge. She closed her eyes against them.

Silverdun's turn was next. Relying on the icthula to conceal her presence, she moved her awareness forward and into him.

"I am Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun," he said, and the words were doubled in her mind as she heard them both from her own ears and within Silverdun's head. As he rattled off a list of ancestors that led backward through time toward the very first Lord Silverdun, she let herself ease into the stream of his mind and opened wide her awareness.

Silverdun's eyes were closed; she could see only blackness and splotches of red, tiny tracers of blue. It served as a soft screen against which Silverdun projected the images of his mind's theater, a cast of old, dusty portraits in a hallway, a single face in all of them, perhaps Silverdun's father. In the background of his mind played a repeating string motif that rose and fell in volume, repeating the same few measures over and over. Sometimes the violin was emphasized; sometimes there was a viola next to it, a cello. She recognized the tune as one he'd been whistling all morning.

As he spoke, she concentrated on the pictures displayed on his internal projection screen, like the silhouettes of puppets she'd seen in the markets of her youth. They were changing. Here was a woman holding Silverdun's hand, a mother.

"My mother converted to Arcadianism after I was born," she heard him say. "I was very young, and I remember only the singing."

The violin was silenced and a chorus of singers appeared, chanting a complex aria of love and faith.

"She attempted to raise me in her belief, but my father would have none of it. He feared that Mother's religious predilection would interfere with his popularity at court, and it did. His influence began to wane as stories spread of her evangelism at our country estates."

A hazy vision appeared, Silverdun's mother dressed in court finery, on her knees in a country town square, washing the feet of beggars. Then, Silverdun in his cell at Crete Sulace on his own knees, praying.

"During my last year at the Academy, my father was thrown by his horse and killed. I was the only son, and I was forced to return home to attend to my father's estate and appoint an overseer, for I was still too young to manage everything."

Another sensation, this one of touch, cool hands on Silverdun's shoulders and hair, the sweet, light touch of a mother's love.

"My mother came to me after the funeral and asked me to give all of our family's possessions to the church. I was overwhelmed by my father's death. I thought perhaps I heard Aba's voice in my head telling me it was the correct thing."

Raieve felt Silverdun's anger flow in his veins. "I was now Lord Silverdun and it was my choice to make. Unfortunately, however, my father had two brothers, neither of whom saw me as anything more than an obstacle between themselves and the Lordship. When they heard of my mother's plan, they ran to their friends at court. Some constables and court officials were bribed; a member of the polity gave a judge some friendly advice. I don't know exactly how they did it, but they had me convicted of treason, for what I'm not exactly sure. Only my title saved my life. With me out of the way, they could run the lands as they wished."

The flow of mental images came to a stop. Silverdun breathed deeply. "For years I pretended that I did not care. Lately, though, as I peer at my reflection in my tiny looking glass, I realize that I have allowed my uncles' hatred to make me ugly. Perhaps my mother was simple for believing what she believed. Or perhaps I really did hear the voice of Aba that day. Either way, if I make it out of here alive I'm going to see to it that the Arcadians have my family lands, if for no other reason than to chill the hearts of those thieving bastards." He smiled ruefully. "That is not the story I meant to tell, but I am glad I told it. I am honored."