I turned my head and nodded to Su, who gave me a brief smile before taking up the lead again. The creature followed dejectedly after her, complaining that she was walking too fast, and we moved out after him.

"They were really afraid of you, Laciei," Dranna ex-

claimed in a low voice from my left, hurrying to keep up while looking nervously all around. "They seemed even more afraid than those soldiers you chased away from the gate we wanted to use, and I don't understand why."

"They were more afraid because they have a fairly thorough understanding of magic," I toid her, keeping one eye on the creature ahead of us, "When it's only the unknown you're afraid of, there's a limit to how much fear you can feel before your mind says. 'What the h.e.l.l are you running from?' On me other hand, when you know in detail just what there is to be afraid of, you become very anxious not to get involved. They all know what I can do to mem, and don't want any part of it."

"I hadn't consciously noticed it before, but when you're using magic you're a good deal more mature," Zail put in from Dranna's left, his handsome face thoughtful. "You're also much more self-possessed, and ruthless when you have to be ruthless."

"Creatures like these don't respond to pretty-pleases or bluffing," I explained with a faint smile. "You have to prove to them that you're capable of squashing them flat and also willing to do it, or they'll walk all over you. It isn't much different from leading a street pack."

"Now do I begin to see me reason behind your claim that magic users are most often expedition leaders," Kadrim said from his place behind Dranna and Zail. "Your mas- tery of the situation was true mastery, and clearly kept us from grievous harm. I salute your ability, Laciel my friend."

His smile, like his words, was open and warm, causing Dranna and Zail to echo the sentiments, and then Dranna made a sound of surprise.

"Now what do you suppose is wrong with him?" she asked, and I turned my head back to see Rik striding away from us through the ground boulders in an effort to catch up to Su and the creature, who were about ten feet ahead.

He hadn't said a word, and I didn't understand what was wrong any more than Dranna did.

"Looks to me like Rik's crown of leadership is begin- ning to pinch a little," Zail said with a chuckle that wasn't the friendliest sound I'd ever heard. "Our fearless leader

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didn't get very far bailing us out of that mess back there, but Laciel handled it without any trouble. I think he's afraid that if it happens again, he'll be out of a job even with the wizard behind him. The wizard's a long distance off, but Laciel's right here."

"But I didn't do that on purpose to make him look bad," I protested, suddenly realizing that that had to be what it had looked like to him. "These are the worlds of magic, and I'm supposed to protect the group."

"And a very fine job you're doing, too," Zail a.s.sured me, smiling at me mostly with those gray eyes. "We'll have to find a very special reward for such fine work. I'll

talk to you about it later."

I'm sure there was something significant in his gaze at that, but I was really too upset to notice. Rik was walking ahead with Su and the creature, his back stiff with silent anger, and I knew I'd have to try to make him see the truth. For some reason I didn't much care about the leader- ship any more, except for having wanted to tease Rik about it. It was probably that I had decided to respect Graythor's wishes, but had just been a little annoyed at the way Rik had stressed the point. 1 hadn't been trying to replace him as leader, and letting him know that was only

fair.

Su followed the trail that led between the cliffs, and at three separate points the creature stopped her an4 walked forward a couple of steps to wave his arm in a signal of sorts. At the first point he seemed rather nervous, but apparently his people wanted to get him back more than they wanted to see us stopped. None of them showed themselves again and nothing unexpected happened, and another half-hour's walking brought us to the next gate. 1 restored the creature to his original size. but none of us stood around watching him hurry back the way we'd come. We formed our chain and pa.s.sed through the gate, and most of us were glad we'd left the horses behind. If the distance between gates continued to be so short, the horses would have quickly become more burden than aid.

The next world was green and murky and seemed to be made up of swamp mud, and the insects weren't the only things that seemed to be interested in eating us. Rather

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man take any chances I created three shielded discs with handrails, and we floated over the mud and through the green murk with things reaching for us but not connecting.

I'd intended sharing a disc with Rik so that I could talk to him, but he'd immediately climbed onto Su's disc, and that was that. Kadrim shared my disc with Zaii and Dranna sharing the third, and InThig changed itself to black vapor to keep the slimy mud off its feet.

By the time we reached the next gate, I had to admit that I needed a rest. Day and night were no longer matching up very well, and we'd been on me move for quite some time. If we*d still had the horses, I might have been willing to try putting one or two more worlds behind us, but walking on top of the energy I'd been expending was just a little too much. I couldn't afford to use up everything when our lives depended on how strong 1 was, so when we stepped off the discs onto the rise of solid ground the gate stood on, I made my way over to Rik.

"Once we're through the gate I'd like to set up camp,"

I told him, very aware of the way he kept looking around at the green murkiness rather than at me. "I'm really getting tired, so I think we'd better stop for a while."

"Why tell me?" he asked ift a very uninterested voice, his gaze still touching everything else. "You've been trying from the start to make yourself expedition leader, and now it looks like you're just about there. Why hesitate when the prize is nearly yours?"

"I'm not hesitating!" I protested, more upset than I'd expected to be. "I'm not trying to be expedition leader, I'm just trying to do what I'm supposed to do! Graythor say) you're leader, and I'd never . . ."

"Never try showing me up in spite of that?" he inter- rupted with a bitter laugh. "Don't you think you're a little late with those n.o.ble sentiments? I've never worried about facing anyone head on in a dispute, but back-stabbing puts me out of my league. You really know how to go after a man when he's least expecting it, don't you? I don't like fighting under a set of rules like that, so it's all yours. You wanted it badly enough to try for it without caring what you had to do to get it, so why drag your feet now? Go ahead and take it."

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With that he simply walked away from me, not once having bothered even to glance at me. The others were gathered around the gate, waiting for our conversation to be over, none of them apparently having heard a word of the exchange. I joined them woodenly, too numb to think about what had happened, and we all went through the gate.

We entered the next world in the middle of a blinding snowstorm, nothing around us but furiously blowing white and agonizing cold. I lost no time in creating our camp, made sure Su's longer exposure to the storm would cause her no harm, then slogged through the drifts to my pavil- ion. I'd warded our camp to make sure nothing was able to gel to us, but 1 hadn't pushed the snowstorm away; even in a small camp like that, people would find it easier staying inside than wandering around visiting.

By the time I got to the warmth, I was already chilled to the bone. 1 thought briefly about drying my clothes with magic, but 1 really was too dred and it was totally unnec- essary. There was a nice, warm, thick robe waiting for me to get out of ice-tinged sogginess, and once I had it on I sat down on the gray settle with my feet beside me under me robe. The nice thing about a magic pavilion is that it doesn't let any of the cold in, not even when a demon pushes through the entrance silk.

"I must say snow is much preferable to slime." InThig announced, obviously pleased to be back in its cat shape.

"The only problem was, that storm nearly blew me apart before I could solidify again. Why in the world didn't you block it out of camp?"

"I thought I'd save you the job of keeping visitors away from my door," 1 said with a shrug, vaguely wondering why InThig's fur wasn't wet even a little. "I'm going to have something to eat, and then I'm going straight to bed."

"In mat case, perhaps I can make use of your time of rest," it said, red eyes looking thoughtful. "If you're sure you won't be needing me, I'll scout around beyond the camp, just to see what might be waiting for us. I won't be gone more than a few hours."

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"That's a good idea," I said, really meaning it. "It's sure to save us time and trouble in the morning. Or whenever we decide it's morning."

"If this storm keeps up, we won't know the differ- ence," it agreed, turning again toward the entrance silk. hi another moment it was gone, and then there was nothing to take my attention but what had been said to me before we entered me gate-

Back-stabbing is out of my league, he'd said, meaning that that's what he thought I'd done to him. Back-stabbing, sneaking up from behind, taking advantage of him when he wasn't expecting it. I reached up to close the robe more tightly at my throat, not understanding why he hadn't believed me when I'd said I hadn't been trying to take the leadership from him. Was that the way he saw me, as a liar, and a sneak, and something that disgusted him more than the creature who had tried to apologize for insulting him when it no longer had the upper hand? I'd known he didn't like me, but apparently his dislike had grown so strong that it was even overcoming the spell he was under.

It looked like he didn't just dislike me, he hated me-

1 lay down on the settle with my hands still holding the robe closed, happier than ever that I hadn't been silly enough to fall in love with him." It doesn't pay to love people who hate you, all it does is get you kicked out into the street where they don't have to look at you anymore.

His gentleness and kindness had been because of the spell, not because he really liked me; when his disgust had let him overcome the spelt, he'd shown how he really felt. If I'd been silly enough to fall in love with him, what he'd said would have hurt quite a lot, but I didn't love him. I felt sorry for him because of the spell he was under, but I didn't love him.

I lay unmoving on the settle for quite some time, my mind too tired to chase the thoughts around any longer, and then it came to me that I was still cold on the inside. I wasn't very hungry but I felt the need for some warm soup, me one dish that had best kept me going during the years I'd been growing up. It's amazing how many things you can make soup from, and if you get really desperate you can even do without the vegetable peelings and dog-

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chewed meat bone. Wanned water with a pinch of coa.r.s.e salt is more than simply water, and I needed a little of it to chase the cold away. After that, I might be able to sleep.

There was no soup among the dishes my camp-spell had created, so I used a little strength and made some, then sat down at my table to eat it. The plain, clear, yellow broth was a good deal tastier than what I'd grown up on, and it was exactly what I needed. I ate it without thinking about anything but how good it was, and was almost through when I heard a throat-clearing sound near my pavilion entrance that caused me to look up. Standing there in a tracked-in pool of melting water was Rik, his wetly- glistening hair and clothes showing signs of the storm he'd just pa.s.sed through.