"Of course it doesn't. Everybody who reads any writing gets a different meaning from it. When you look at the writing on the blade, you'll see a certain word. Other people will see a different word. Most people won't see words at all-only decorations. The people we want will see a word, and they'll say that word out loud."

"How will we know that they've read it right?"

"We'll know, pet. Believe me, we'll know."

The tag end of winter dragged on for the next month or so, and then one night a warm wind blew in from the southwest, cutting the snow away almost overnight. Althalus stood at the south window watching the muddy brown streams overflowing their banks as they ripped their way down the mountainsides of Kagwher. "Did you do that, Em?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Call up that wind that's melting all the snow."

"I don't tamper with the weather, Althalus. Deiwos doesn't like it when we do that."

"If we don't tell him, maybe he won't notice. We're already cheating, Em. What's one more little cheat? Maybe we should work on that a bit. You teach me how to use the Book, and I'll teach you how to lie, cheat, and steal." He grinned at her.

"That isn't funny, Althalus!" she flared.

"I sort of liked it. How about a little wager on which of us can corrupt the other first?"

"Never mind."

"Corruption's a lot of fun, Em. Are you sure you wouldn't like to try it?"

"You stop that!"

"Think it over, Em, and let me know if you change your mind."

They were both edgy for the next week while they waited for the spring runoff to subside. Then, after the mountain streams had returned to their banks, Althalus gathered up his weapons and they made ready to leave.

He pulled his cloak over his shoulders and looked around. "I guess that's everything," he said. "I'm going to miss this place. It's the first time I've ever had a permanent home. Do you think we'll be able to come back some day?"

"I think so, yes. Shall we leave?"

He picked her up, reached back, and spread the hood of this cloak. "Why don't you ride back there, Em?" he suggested. "Once we get outside, I might need to have both hands free in a hurry."

'All right,' her voice murmured in his head. She crawled up over his shoulder and down into the baglike hood. 'This should work out just fine.'

"Will other people be able to see you when we get outside?"

'If we want them to. If we don't, they won't.'

He looked at the curved wall and saw that she'd put the door back.

'No questions or comments?' Her silent voice sounded disappointed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Em. How's this?" He threw himself back in an exaggerated posture of amazement. "Astonishing!" he exclaimed. "There seems to be a hole in that wall! And somebody even covered that hole with a door! Would you fancy that?"

She hissed in his ear.

He laughed, opened the door, and started down the stairs.

He remembered something as they were crossing the drawbridge. "This might not mean anything, Em," he said, "but I'll tell you anyway, since you always seem to tie your tail in a knot when I mention something that doesn't seem very important. There was some kind of animal following me when I first came here. I never saw it, but I could definitely hear the silly thing."

'What did it sound like?'

"It was a sort of wailing sound, but not quite like the howl of a wolf. I heard it off and on all the way here."

'A kind of despairing scream? The kind of cry a man might make if he'd just fallen off a cliff?'

"That comes close. It wasn't a man, though."

'No, it probably wasn't.'

"Should I have hidden so that I could get a look at it?"

'You wouldn't have really wanted to see that creature. It's something that Ghend sent to follow you, to make sure you were doing what he wanted you to do.'

"Ghend and I are going to have a little talk about that one of these days. Will that thing still be waiting out there on the other side of the bridge?"

'It might be. There's not much we can do if it is.'

"I could chase it down and kill it."

'You can't kill it. It's a spirit. Is killing always your first answer to every problem?'

"Not every problem, Em, but I can kill things-or people-when the situation calls for it, and I don't get all weepy about it. It's part of the business I'm in. If I do my job right, I don't have to kill anybody, but if something goes wrong . . . ah, well."

'You're a terrible person, Althalus.'

"Yes, I know. Isn't that why you hired me?"

'Hired?'

"You want something done, and you want me to do it for you. One of these days before long we'll have to discuss my wages."

'Wages?'

"I don't work for nothing, Em. That's unprofessional." He continued on across the bridge, his spear at the ready.

'You want gold, I suppose?' she asked in an accusatory tone.

"Oh, gold's all right, I suppose, but I'd really rather get paid in love. Love can't be counted, so it's probably even more valuable than gold."

'You're confusing me, Althalus.'

"I was trying hard enough."

'You're teasing me, aren't you?'

"Would I do that? Me? Little old lovable me?"

They reached the other side of the bridge, and Althalus stopped, listening intently for the wailing sound of Ghend's sentinel, but the forest and mountains remained silent. "It must have gotten bored," he said.

'Maybe,' her voice murmured dubiously.

He turned to take one last look at the House, but it wasn't there anymore. "Did you do that?" he demanded.

'No, it takes care of that itself. You were able to see it when you came here because you were supposed to. Nobody else needs to see it, so they can't. Let's go to Arum, pet,' she said. Then she stirred around inside the baglike hood of his cloak until she was comfortable and went to sleep.

They covered about fifteen miles that day, traveling along the brink of the precipice Althalus still thought of as the Edge of the World, despite the frozen glaciers that now loomed off to the north. As evening approached, they took shelter in a clump of stunted trees, and Althalus built a fire. Then Emmy provided him with the words that produced bread and a roasted chicken.

'Not too bad,' she observed, nibbling at a piece of chicken, 'but isn't it a little overdone?'

"I don't criticize your cooking, Em."

'Just a suggestion, pet. I wasn't criticizing.'

He leaned back against a tree, stretching his feet out to the fire. "I think there's something you need to know, Em," he said after some reflection. "Before Ghend hired me to go steal the Book, I was having a run of bad luck. It might have worn off by now, but nothing was working for me the way it was supposed to."

'Yes, I know. I thought the paper money in Druigor's strongbox was a nice touch, didn't you?'

He stared at her. "It was you? You were behind all that bad luck?"

'Of course. If your luck hadn't turned sour, you wouldn't even have considered Ghend's proposition, would you?'

"And before that, you were the one responsible for all the good luck I was so famous for?"

'Well, of course it was me, pet. If you hadn't had such a streak of good luck, you wouldn't even have recognized bad luck when it came along, would you?'

"You're the Goddess of Fortune, aren't you, Em?"

'It's a sideline, pet. We all play with the luck of certain people. It's a way to get them to cooperate.'

"I've been worshiping you for years, Emmy."

'I know, and it's been just lovely.'

"Wait a minute," he objected. "I thought you said that you didn't know that it was Ghend who hired me to steal the Book. If you were perched right on my shoulder to play games with my luck, how could you have missed it?"

'I wasn't quite that close, Althalus. I knew that somebody was going to do it, but I didn't know it'd be Ghend himself. I thought he'd have some underling take care of it-Argan, maybe, or Khnom. I'm sure it wouldn't have been Pekhal.'

"Who are they?"

'Ghend's underlings. I'm sure you'll meet them before this is all over.'

"You almost got me killed in Equero, you know. Some of those arrows came awfully close when I was running across Kweso's garden."

'But they didn't hit you, did they? I wasn't going to let anything happen to you, pet.'

"That notion of paper money was your idea, wasn't it? Nobody could actually believe that paper's worth anything."

'The idea's been around for a while. People who are in the business of buying and selling things write little notes to each other. They're a sort of promise to pay, and they're not as cumbersome as gold. The people of Maghu have sort of formalized the idea.'

"Were you the one who arranged for Gosti Big Belly to lie to me about what was in his strong room?"

'No. That might have been Ghend. He had as much reason as I did to want you to be unlucky right then.'

"I wondered why everything was turning so sour. I had people pouring trash on my luck from both sides of the fence."

'Isn't it nice to have everybody so concerned about you?'

"Then my luck has changed back now?"

'Of course it has, Althalus. I'm your luck, and I'll love you all to pieces-as long as you do just exactly as I tell you. She patted his cheek then with one soft paw.'

A few days later they reached the place where the dead tree stood. "It's still here?" Althalus was a bit startled.

'It's a landmark, pet. We sort of like to keep it here as a reference point.'

They turned south there and traveled down through Kagwher for a week or so. Then late one afternoon they crested a hill and saw a rude village huddled in the next valley. "What do you think, Em?" Althalus said back over his shoulder. "Should we go on in and talk with a few people? I've been out of touch for quite a while, so it might not be a bad idea to find out what's happening in the world."

'Let's not leave memories of our passing lingering behind us, pet. Ghend has eyes and ears everywhere.'

"Good point," he agreed. "Let's sleep here, then. We can slip past that village before daybreak tomorrow."

'I'm not really sleepy, Althalus.'

"Of course not. You've been sleeping all day. I'm the one who had to do the walking, and I'm tired."

'All right, we'll rest your poor little legs here, then.'

Althalus wasn't really all that tired, however. There was something about the rude village below that had immediately caught his eye when he'd crested the hill. There was a corral on the southern edge of the village, and there were horses in that corral and a number of rude saddles laid over the top rail. It was still a long way to Arum, and riding would probably be faster-and easier-than walking.

He decided not to burden Emmy with his plan. He was a master thief, after all, so he was perfectly capable of stealing a horse and saddle without any helper commentary.

He fixed supper, and after they'd eaten, they curled up under his cloak and went to sleep.

'What are you doing? Emmy asked with a sleepy thought as he was preparing to leave not long after midnight.'

"I thought we should get an early start and slip past that village before the people woke up. Traveling at night's the best way I know of to avoid being seen."

'You don't mind if I sleep a bit longer, do you?'

"Not at all, Em," he said. "Just curl up in your little pouch and go back to sleep."