"You were meant to have that gold, Gosti, and now it's going out of its way to come back to you."

"I like your way of thinking, Althalus."

"It never hurts to look on the bright side."

Althalus and Gher remained in Gosti's hall for several days after the robbery. Their fat host grew more and more unhappy as the messengers from Galbak failed to bring good news.

"I think it's just about time for us to move on," Althalus told Gher on the morning of the third day. "We'll cross Gosti's bridge and meet Eliar over on the other side of the river. Then we can go back to the House."

"I thought we'd be going to Hule to wait for Ghend."

"I want to talk with Emmy about that. We've tampered with reality quite a bit here lately, and I think we might want things to go back to the way they were last time before we wander off too much more. As far as I can tell, we've only opened up one new possibility. If we keep fooling around with it, a dozen or so more might crop up. I can handle two, but twelve or fourteen might stretch me a little thin."

"It'd be a lot funner, though," Gher said, his eyes brightening.

"Never mind," Althalus told him firmly.

They gathered up their belongings and went to Gosti's great hall. "We'd really like to stay, Gosti," Althalus apologized, "but I'm supposed to meet a fellow in Maghu this spring, and he'll be very put out with me if I leave him cooling his heels down there until summer. We've got some business to attend to, and he's a grouchy sort of man who hates delays."

"I understand, Althalus," Gosti replied.

"We'd like to cross your bridge, but I'm a little short of money right now. Do you suppose..." Althalus left it hanging.

"I'll send word to the men at the bridge," Gosti replied. "I think I owe you that much. Your stories brightened a long, dreary winter, and you did report the robbery. If you hadn't seen Ghend sneaking out of the fort, it might have been a week before we'd have known that he'd robbed us."

"I was hoping you'd see it that way. We'll stop by the next time we come through Arum. Then you can tell me the story of how Galbak caught Ghend and nailed him to a tree so that the wolves could eat him."

"I don't think Galbak would do that, Althalus."

"You might suggest it to him the next time you send a messenger in his direction."

Gosti's answering grin was evil. "It would make a pretty good story, wouldn't it?" he said.

"It would indeed, and if it got around, it'd probably be a long, long time before the notion of robbing you even occurred to anybody else."

Then Althalus and Gher went to the stable, saddled their horses, and rode out of Gosti's fort. The toll taker at the bridge waved them through, and they crossed the river in the bright spring sunshine.

"It went off pretty good, didn't it, Althalus?" Gher said proudly.

"Close to perfect, Gher," Althalus agreed. "I just wish we hadn't been forced to bamboozle Galbak in the process."

"Why should that bother you?"

Althalus shrugged. "I like him, and cheating him the way we did left a sour taste in my mouth."

"Eliar's just up ahead," Gher said, pointing. "If we sort of hurry right along maybe Emmy can fix us something to eat. I sure missed her cooking last winter."

"So did I, Gher."

Eliar beckoned them, and they followed him back into the woods. "Emmy's very impressed, Althalus," the young man said. "I didn't think she really approved of what you were doing, but she was laughing all the time while you two were leading Ghend around by the nose."

"She has an artistic temperament, Eliar," Althalus explained, "and the swindle Gher and I just put over on Ghend was a work of art. Give me just a little more time, and I'll make her one of the best thieves in the world."

They led their horses through the door that opened in the south wing of the House, and they were soon climbing the stairs to Dweia's tower.

"All hail the conquering hero," Leitha said.

"Why do you have to do that?" he asked her.

"It's a form of affection, Daddy." She gave him a radiant smile.

"Could I have a look at the imitation Book you made, Em?" he asked.

"It's over there on that marble bench, pet," she replied, pointing.

Althalus went to the bench and picked up the black Book. "The cover matches the real Book perfectly," he observed.

"Naturally."

He opened the lid of the box and took out the first sheet of parchment. He looked at the sheet closely. "It seems different, for some reason," he noted.

"That's probably because you can read it now," Dweia suggested.

"Maybe that's it. Back when Ghend showed me the real Book, none of it made any sense to me. I see that some of the words are still written in red." He frowned. "I thought I could read just about anything anybody'd written down, but I can't seem to get the meaning of those red words on this sheet."

"You don't really want to. Put it back in the box."

"Could we see how Ghend's doing, Emmy?" Gher asked hopefully. "I'll bet he's awful miserable by now"

"Moderately miserable, yes," Andine said with a wicked little giggle.

"Weren't you just a bit direct with Khnom, Gher?" Bheid asked. "The Knife told you to 'deceive,' not to 'bang him on the head.' "

"I had to work on that," Gher admitted as they crossed the room to the south window. "I didn't want to disappoint the Knife, but I had to get Khnom out of the way for long enough for me to grab Ghend's Book. Then it sort of came to me that 'deceive' might mean 'do something Khnom wouldn't expect me to do,' and getting thumped on the head was just about the last thing he expected."

"There's a weird sort of logic to that, I suppose," Bheid conceded.

"Things are definitely going to pot for poor Ghend," Leitha reported from the window. "Galbak's running him ragged down there."

"What a shame," Althalus said absently.

"What's troubling you, Althalus?" Dweia asked him. "I thought you'd be pleased at the way this turned out."

"I am-up to a point," he replied. "I just wish I'd been able to do it a little differently, that's all."

"It bothers Althalus that he had to trick Galbak while we were tricking Ghend," Gher explained. "Althalus and Galbak got along real good, and Althalus doesn't like to trick friends."

"Morality, Althalus?" Dweia asked in mock amazement.

"Ethics, Em," he corrected her. "There's a difference between ethics and morality. You did realize that, didn't you?"

"My perspective's a bit different, love," she replied. "Maybe when this is all over, we can discuss that issue for a few centuries."

"Doesn't Khnom do the same stuff Eliar does?" Gher asked suddenly. "I mean, isn't he Ghend's door opener?"

"Sort of," Dweia replied.

"What's giving them so much trouble down there, then? If we were the ones trying to run away, all we'd have to do is yell for Eliar and he'd pop open a door for us, we'd zip on through, and then we'd pop out someplace a hundred or maybe even a thousand miles away."

"It's not entirely their fault, Gher. Daeva keeps his agents on a very tight leash. He doesn't care for creativity, and he's extremely sensitive about the doors in Nahgharash. He doesn't want his people using them without his permission, and there are some rather extreme punishments for anybody who uses a door in Nahgharash without that permission."

"That's just silly, Emmy," Gher objected.

"That more or less describes my brother, yes," she agreed. "Both of them, actually."

"Dweia!" Bheid protested.

"They're silly in different ways, Bheid," she said, "but silly is silly, no matter how much we try to pretty it up. Both Deiwos and Daeva tinker with things-and people-most of the time. I'm just a bit more relaxed than they are. I've found that as long as my people love me, things are probably going to turn out the way I want them to." Then she looked at Althalus. "Were you planning to go to Hule sometime in the near future, love?" she asked pleasantly.

"I think we should talk about that, Em," he replied seriously. "Haven't we tampered just about enough?"

"I don't quite follow you."

"It was early autumn when Ghend came to Nabjor's camp last time. How much can change if he arrives in early summer? If he hires me to steal the Book then, won't I come to the House about three months early? And if I do, how many other things will change?"

She frowned slightly. "You may have a point, Althalus. There are a number of things that should stay more or less just the way they are."

"It shouldn't really be too hard to do it, Emmy," Gher said. "All we have to do is fix it so that Ghend and Khnom don't get away from Galbak quite so easy. We can watch him from your window, and every time he brushes out his horse tracks so that Galbak can't find his trail, Eliar can come along behind him and put down new tracks for Galbak to find. That way, Ghend ought to have a real nervous summer, and he won't get to Nabjor's camp until pretty close to the right time."

"It's worth a try, Em," Althalus agreed. "And if we do it that way, there's no particular urgency about getting to Nabjor's camp. That'll give me enough time to take a bath and put on some clean clothes at least."

"I think I'll faint."

"Quit trying to be funny, Em. After a few centuries, bathing gets to be a habit."

"You are planning to get rid of that ridiculous tunic, aren't you?"

"Not on your life. I just spent an entire winter arranging things so that I could keep my tunic instead of throwing it away."

"I thought the whole point of this past winter was to trick Ghend so that you could steal his Book."

"Well, there's that, too, but keeping this tunic was the main thing."

She sighed. "We've got further to go than I thought," she said.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX.

"It's good to be home again," Gher said as he and Althalus rode north through deep-forested Hule in early autumn. "I sort of missed the trees." Then he frowned. "But they aren't really the same trees, are they?"

"Some of the smaller ones might be," Althalus replied.

"Do trees really live for that long?"

"Some of them do."

"And they just keep getting bigger and bigger, don't they?"

"Oh, I'd, imagine there's some kind of limit."

"Just exactly where's this place where we're going?"

"You'll probably recognize it, Gher. It's the place where you joined us-right after Eliar and I caught you trying to steal our horses. It's one of those 'significant places' we come across from time to time."

"That's spooky," Gher said.

"You'll have to talk with Emmy about that." Althalus looked up at the massive trees around them. "We've changed a lot of things as we've gone along, but the trees are still the same, and I'm sure Nabjor's camp hasn't changed all that much either." Then he grinned. "I do feel better this time, though. I was in a foul humor last time. I'd just gone through a year of incredibly bad luck." Then he cocked his head to listen to a sound they'd been hearing since they'd first ridden through the door that had led them to Hule. "That's also a definite difference. Last time it was the wailing noise we used to hear every time we turned around. This time it's Eliar's Knife."

"That means that we're going to win, doesn't it?"

"It's a little hard to say for sure, but I'd say that we're ahead this time." Althalus peered on up the trail. "Nabjor's camp's just ahead. I'll introduce you to him. You'd probably better keep on talking sloppy. Ghend'll be along soon, and you talked that way back at Gosti's place. A good thief should be consistent. Part of what you're doing when you're trying to trick somebody is to make up a different person."

"Tenlike I'm him instead of me, you mean?"

"Exactly. There are a lot of tenlike people in every thief's saddlebags. You get to know them after a while, and you can pull out whichever one's going to work best." Then Althalus scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "I think I'd better use the happy tenlike Althalus this time. Last time I didn't have anything to talk about but my bad luck, but this time I'm up to my ears in good luck."

"That sort of means that you're in charge, doesn't it?"

"I think that was the whole idea, Gher. Last time, Ghend was running things; this time it's me. Go along with the story I'm going to spin for Nabjor. There won't be much truth to it, but that's not too important."

"I sort of think you're wrong, Althalus," Gher said. "We're changing things, so any story you tell anybody is true this time, isn't it? You're not really tenliking, are you?"

Althalus blinked.

"If I was you, the first thing I'd do is get rid of them dogs in that rich man's house in Deika. If he don't have dogs, things'll turn out a lot different, won't they? The neat part of this is that you can change anything that happened back then that you didn't like. This is your dream thing, so you can make it come out any way you want it to. No matter what kind of story you tell, it'll turn out to be the truth."

"You're starting to give me a headache again, Gher."

"It's not really that hard, Althalus. It'll be easy if you just remember that anything you say is the truth. You can't lie-even if you want to."

"You're making it worse." Althalus reined in his horse. "I'd better let Nabjor know that we're coming. He doesn't like to have people just ride into his camp without any kind of warning." He raised his voice then. "Ho, Nabjor," he called. "It's me-Althalus. Don't get excited. I'm coming in."

"Ho! Althalus!" Nabjor bellowed. "Welcome! I was starting to think that maybe the Equeros or the Treboreans had caught you and hung you up on a tree down there."