he responded with what was almost a growl, then included the others in with his glare. "You're all missing the point of this-which is the recovery of the balance stone. What's one life balanced against millions?"

"What's six or seven lives balanced against millions?"

I countered as I stood, not about to let him get away with nonsense like that. "After all, Graythor also said it was imperative that we don't separate. And as the only real representative of the people in question, I have to tell you that they won't tike me idea of someone throwing his life away in their name. If one of us happens to die trying to

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save them, that's a different story; they'll honor that per- son as one of true courage, someone who tried to help them and died for it. But someone who simply gave up his life? How do you repay a debt like that? How do you tell that person how arrogant a sacrifice that is, and how demeaning it is to the people involved? It would put them in your debt forever, and free men and women don't want to be in someone's debt forever."

"You can't speak for them any more than you can speak for me," he answered, his entire manner stiff and of- fended. "A man has the right to decide what to do with his life, especially if he isn't looking for anyone's thanks. And 1 still happen to be leader of this group, so the rest of you can make all the decisions you like. Whether or not they're carried out is my choice, and I say things will go on just the way they were. Now, get to your feet and back to your horses. Lunch time is over."

Zail and Kadrim had risen to their feet, but when they didn't even try to argue with him I knew he'd used Persua- sion on them to end the discussion. He left their group and walked over to me, and the way he looked down at me should have melted me where 1 stood.

"Is mat the reason you think you're along on this quest?" he asked with that continuing growl. "To make trouble any time the enemy doesn't? The next time you're feeling bored, let me know about it first. We can pa.s.s the time by taking care of that paddling I still owe you. Now see if you can mind your own business long enough to get on your horse."

With that he stomped away from me toward his own horse, and it was all I could do to keep from creating something invisible in his path for him to trip over. He was absolutely hateful, and I was glad he didn't really love me.

"Looks to me like he's trying to make us not care about him," Su said from behind my right shoulder, and I turned to see her standing there with the others. "There's some- thing about him that makes us do what he says, but up till now he never nibbed our noses in it. What are we going to do?"

"We shall do as we earlier decided," Kadrim told her,

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he, like the others, staring at Rik's retreating back. "We have no recourse save to obey his commands when he speaks to us in such a manner, yet must we continue to seek a safe path about the pitfall till one is discovered."

"Laciel doesn't have to obey him," another voice put in, and we all looked down to see that InThig had joined us. "If he continues acting so foolishly, she'll have to be the one to keep him safe. He's more essential to this quest man he realizes, and we can't afford to lose him."

"Let me know when we can afford to lose him," I said, a comment the others chuckled at as they began to move toward the horses. "After what he said to me, I'm looking forward to the time,"

"I hope that's not the only time you're looking forward to," Zail said very softly as he pa.s.sed me, his hand on Dranna's arm. When I looked at him he winked, then continued on without saying anything else. 1 waited to feel the thrill I had the other times he had spoken to me privately, but for some reason it didn't come, and men I realized something 1 hadn't expected: I no longer felt about Zail the way 1 had, and wanted nothing to do with his "exchanging of gifts." I didn't know what had happened to make things so different, bur'there was something more important I didn't know: how was! going to keep Zail at arm's length without letting Rik see me doing it? That spell wasn't likely to keep Rik annoyed with me for long, and I didn't want the quest disrupted by a fight between him and Zail.

"That frown seems weightier than it should," InThig observed, the only one who hadn't already walked away.

"Is there anything disturbing you that / might help with?"

"InThig!" I exclaimed low, suddenly seeing the way out I needed. "There certainly is something you can help me with, and it will only take a moment to explain."

I spoke to the demon quickly, outlining the sort of help I needed, then hurried to my horse when the others began moving impatiently in their saddles and Rik had started over to yell at me again. I told them all that InThig and 1 had had to confer on something to do with magic, and although they all accepted the statement without question,

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there was a black demon who didn't stop grinning very widely for quite some time.

We continued our ride across the dull, yellow world, and nothing happened to change that dullness. Mile after mile pa.s.sed beneath our horses' hooves, and then Su began to slow down. I'd already Seen the glowing slit not very far ahead, but as we rode up to it, I saw something else as well. A colorless bubble floated beside the gate, perfectly round and about the size of a head, all the colors of the rainbow reflecting from it despite the lack of very bright light. Someone had left a message sphere for us, and for a moment I had the ridiculous idea that that someone was the enemy, but then the sphere detected my presence and a face formed in it.

"Thank the EverNameless that you've made it this far,"

Graythor's giant-voice said, his white-bearded face smiling with relief. "I can't communicate with you directly, but when you triggered this message sphere, a signal was sent to me. I won't be able to speak with you, but I'll know that you're there."

We had all approached the sphere and stopped, but it wasn't able to detect anyone other than me. For that reason Graythor's eyes were on me alone, and his words also addressed the same.

*'I don't know the details of what you've gone through until now, but this is the point you must brace your- selves," he said, his expression now somber and his eyes filled with upset. "Laciel, you, especially, must be very alert now, and you must also give the others some idea of what to expect. You'll have to leave the horses there, beside the gate, or you'll surely lose them, if not immedi- ately then eventually. I'll use the link of this message sphere to maintain whatever you create to sustain them until your return. Stay together and trust no one other than your quest companions, for everyone and everything else will be your enemy. I'm sure you've been behaving your- self, Laciel child, and bearing in mind the fact that Rikkan Addis is leader of the expedition. Please continue to do so.

Go carefully and safely, each and every one of you, knowing that my hopes and blessings go with you."

His white-bearded face smiled with true warmth just

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before it disappeared, and then the bubble silently burst, leaving only the link-shadow of itself. That was what communication spheres usually did once they'd delivered their messages and I was expecting it, but the quiet explo- sion startled some of the others. It did not, however, startle the one who could have used startling the most.

"Behaving yourself and bearing in mind that Rikkan Addis is leader of the expedition," a calmly satisfied voice quoted from my left. "You're not doing very well with the first part of that, but I'll see to it that you're welt reminded of the second- What's the danger ahead that we have to be on the lookout for?"

It was Rik who was sitting beside me, of course, look- ing as though every one of his opinions had been vindi- cated. The others were looking as frustrated as I felt, but Rikkan Addis wasn't going to get away with killing him- self if/ had anything to say about it!

"It's not simply danger," I said, answering only his question as 1 began to dismount- "So far we've been moving through worlds that allow magic but are predomi- nantly run and populated by the untalented. Once we go through that gate, though, we'll be moving through and toward worlds that are dominated by and based on magic.

If you thought we had it bad on a world where I was magically blind, wait until we get to the ones where almost everyone can See."

"You sound as though you're familiar with those worlds,"

he mused, automatically following my example by dis- mounting. "Why can't we take me horses through them?"

"Because some of those worlds don't have anything like horses, or anything horses can eat," I said, leaving my gray where he stood and moving farther to the left of the gate. "I can create pasturage for them on a world like this, where everything isn't under a spell or already created by a spell, but there will be places I simply won't be able to do it. And no, I'm not familiar with those worlds. I've just heard stories."

I'd been looking more at me landscape than I had at him, and when I finished answering his question I spoke the spell that created the horses' pasture. Good green gra.s.s, fresh water, a self-renewing oat bin, shelter-and its

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own cycle of day and night. I'd been right in thinking we'd come through to a margin world, and it was so far out there was no knowing what its period of rotation was. I turned away from the newly-made pasture to get my gray, and nearly ran into Rik, who was standing right behind me.

"Why don't you share a few of those stories with us?"

he suggested in a way that wasn't exactly a suggestion, those bronze eyes looking down at me. "It might help us to know what to expect."

"Believe me, hearing those stories would not be a help," I told him, trying very hard to keep from shuddering.

"Magic users have it hard enough, but most of those stories deal with the unSighted who had to go through those worlds. And now that you mention it, it might be a good idea if I went on alone from here. I can make the camp self-sustaining the way 1 did with the pasture, and you and the others could ..."

"Now that / mention it," he interrupted with a small sound of ridicule, the expression in his eyes immediately matching. "We stay here with our feet up, while you go on alone. Why don't we ask for volunteers to see who's willing to do that? Everyone who wants to stay here safe and snug raise a hand."

Rather than raising a hand he folded his arms, and didn't even bother turning around to look at the others;

They'd all dismounted and were standing by their horses, and only Dranna appeared as though she wished she had a reason to volunteer. The others were wearing the same expression Rik was, the same expression they'd been look- ing at him with earlier, and that let me know 1 was wasting my time.

"Don't say later I didn't warn you," I told them with a shrug, walking around Rik to get to my gray. The com- ment was designed to give them uneasy second thoughts, but some people just aren't capable of interpreting mean- ingful hints.

"As a matter of fact you aren't warning us," Rik commented back, faint annoyance in the voice that fol- lowed me to my horse. "All you've come up with so far is

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a vague mention of 'stories'. What specifically happened to those untalented people?"

"That's something we don't quite know," I said, look- ing down at the leather reins in my hands rather than at the group of people staring at me. "Most of the ones who were brought back were hopelessly insane, people who couldn't stop laughing, or crying, or screaming, or maybe all three.

Some were absolutely silent, lost somewhere within their own minds, and even the ones who spoke weren't rational- They babbled about beautiful illusions and terrifying reali- ties, about dreaming while awake and touching the true world in sleep, about being stalked and having had to do stalking of their own, none of it detailed and little of it repeated in any depth. Most of them had been taken by different routes through the sector, but it was pretty much the same sector they all traveled through. It's the sector called the Far Side of Forever."