"I have a better way." The empress's blue eyes gleamed, and all at once she looked very young. She ran to the leather mattress that was the room's only furnishing and flipped it aside. Ingrid retreated to the door, listening. She heard no running feet, no cries or even conversation. Surely that must mean they were still undiscovered.

She glanced back. The empress held up something for Avanasy's inspection. At first, it seemed to be nothing more than a flat mat of hair, but as she stared, she saw it was a wreath of flowers, woven, obviously, from Medeoan's own shorn locks. Avanasy, as he gazed at it, seemed nothing short of stunned.

He took the thing from the empress's fingers and laid it flat on his palm. "Is it complete?" he asked in an awed whisper.

"No," the empress answered. "But it should serve, and it means we will not have to trust one of theirs."

As she spoke, a single knock sounded against the door, followed fast by the faint sound of boots against a wooden floor.

"Whatever it is," breathed Ingrid, "you'd best do it quickly. Our time is up."

"Let them see the mettle of the empress of Isavalta," said Avanasy. "Call for the place of Lien to receive us."

The young woman's shoulders straightened. She turned to the window. Ingrid caught just a glimpse of her expression, at once proud, mischievous and vengeful.

"The sky is held in place by twelve apple trees," she intoned. "The trees are held up by three pillars. Beneath each pillar is a green snake. The first is named Shkurapeia. The second is named Polikha. The third is Liukha. I beg you Liukha, Polikha, Shkurapeia, loan me the strength of your pillars to hold up the moonlight under my feet. I beg you Liukha, Polikha, Shkurapeia, let me and mine walk safely to the place of Lien under your ever-watchful gaze. I beg you in the name of divine Vyshemir, vengeful Vyshko and in the name of their daughter Medeoan Edemskoidoch Nacheradovosh!"

Medeoan tossed the woven wreath of hair out into the darkness. For a moment, Ingrid saw it, dark against the waning moonlight. Then, impossibly, the wreath began to unravel. The golden strands glowed, catching up the silver light in themselves, stretching out as if spun by fantastic spiders into arching, shining webwork that spanned from the windowsill to the dark distance.

Gasps of wonder from below. More shouts. Hammering at the door. All urged Ingrid to motion, but all she could do was stand and stare. With all she had seen so far, nothing equaled this bright miracle.

"Hurry, Majesty," said Avanasy. "Ingrid, come quickly."

There was no way she could brace the door against the hammering, so Ingrid ran to Avanasy's side. He cupped his hands and held them to help boost the empress onto the windowsill. The young woman bit her lip and murmured something, perhaps a prayer, perhaps another spell. She stepped onto the bridge of gossamer and moonlight. For a moment, Ingrid's lungs refused to draw air.

But it held. The shining span of fairy tales and impossibilities held as strong as mortared brick under the empress's bare feet. Eyes ahead, and lips still moving, Medeoan strode up the gentle arch, her shadow standing out stark and black on its glowing surface.

"Ingrid."

Behind her, the door splintered. She jumped hard at the sudden shock of noise, and scrambled up onto the sill. She could see the ground plainly through the thin veil of maiden's hair and moonlight, dozens of yards below. The door crashed open, wood cracking and iron bands slamming against stone.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Ingrid hiked up her skirts, fixed her gaze on the empress's back, and ran.

The moonlight bridge did not yield the least bit under her hurrying feet, nor did it make any sound. She ran in eerie silence, hearing only her own breathing and the diminishing shouts of the soldiers who had broken into the cell. The motion of her black shadow caught her eye, but she forced herself not to look. If she looked down now, she would be lost, and she knew it.

Something whistled past her ear, and Ingrid screamed and involuntarily jerked sideways. A familiar, welcome hand clapped onto her shoulder, righting her balance, and she saw an arrow arch past, falling to earth on the right of the glowing span.

Avanasy looked down at her, and his face was hard with strain. She said nothing, but took his hand, and together they ran. In a few strides they reached the empress, Avanasy catching her with his other hand. Another arrow whistled through the night. Ingrid ducked, but Avanasy didn't even flinch. He just strode on, holding them solidly anchored on either side of him.

Then she heard another voice call out. This was no soldier shouting orders or profanities. This was a voice like thunder, like storm wind. She could make out nothing of what it said, but around her the air shivered with sympathetic vibration.

The night exploded into a cloud of shrieks and battering, clawing things. Ingrid screamed and threw up her hands, to beat the hundreds of tiny shadows off, to keep them from her eyes. They screamed back at her in a million tiny voices. Birds, she realized, as her hands flailed out. Birds, with beaks pecking and claws catching her flesh, scrapes and pinpoints of pain setting her blood flowing. Wings and feet snarled themselves in her hair, pulling on it from the roots. They battered at her clothing, tugging at it as if they sought to tear it from her body. She couldn't see, and she couldn't move for fear of putting a foot wrong and plunging to the ground. She crouched down, striking out feebly, only to have her fingers bitten over and again.

"Disperse!" roared Avanasy over the din and pain. "By blood and moon's fire, I order you be gone!"

The birds screamed again in one last wrenching chorus. Something wet touched Ingrid's cheek, but the birds were gone. She risked a look up. Avanasy stood tall in the moonlit darkness. Dark blood ran down his hand, and his chest heaved from trying to draw enough air. Ingrid realized it was blood spatter that had touched her. She pulled herself to her feet. She wanted to get away from here, she wanted to be on the ground again. She had enough of miracles, and she wanted this over. For that there was only one course. She caught Avanasy's sleeve again, and they ran once more, all three of them, across the gossamer road into darkness.

But the world below was not done with them yet. Another arrow, this one shining like the bridge beneath their feet, shot straight up, several yards ahead of them, arching high over their head. At first, Ingrid thought it trailed a rope that would ensnare them, but then she saw how the "rope" shimmered and gleamed. Then, she felt the heat of it.

Fire. A bow of fire arched across the moonlight bridge. A few seconds later, another arrow shot up, this one through the weaving of the bridge itself, and then down again. Medeoan balked, and Avanasy drew back, and a second bow of fire joined the first at a ninety degree angle.

"What are they doing?" demanded Medeoan. "I can feel heat ..."

"Breaking the bridge?" Avanasy knuckled his eyes. "There's something but I cannot tell what."

"You can't see it?" cried Ingrid. Two more arrows whistled through the night, one more from below, trailing another rope of fire to arch across the bridge, the other from straight behind, making Medeoan leap sideways, coming down perilously close to the edge of the bridge.

"What is it, Ingrid?"

Before she could answer, something tugged at her skirt. Looking down automatically, Ingrid saw an arrow sticking from the billowing silk, and even as Avanasy yanked it free, another shining arrow shot up, adding another strand to the net of fire in front of them.

And she saw what they were doing. The arrows from behind and the net before. If they stayed where they were, they'd be picked off like birds on a branch. If they ran forward blindly, they'd be burned to death. If they jumped ... they would be shattered on the ground.

"It's a net," said Ingrid, her words choking her. "Mary Mother of God, it's fire."

"I can't see it!" shouted Medeoan. Frustration and fear tore at her words.

"Nor can I," replied Avanasy calmly, and Ingrid could feel how much that calm was costing him. Another arrow whistled overhead, but barely. "But I feel the heat. Ingrid you'll have to lead us."

Ingrid bit the inside of her cheek and tasted blood. She snatched up her hems in one hand and Avanasy's hand in the other. Another arrow arched overhead, trailing its rope of fire behind it, adding another strand to the web. Moonlight and firelight blended starkly together, dazzling her eyes and making her skin shine red and white.

"Step exactly as I do."

Swallowing so much fear she felt heart and belly would split open from the pressure, Ingrid strode forward. Another arrow, another strand of fire, shot up straight in front of her, and she had to jump back. She could hear the sizzle of the magical flames now, and their heat licked at her skin, breaking sweat out on her brow. She dodged the fiery strand, and the next, and the next. Cloth ripped near her, and she knew another arrow had come too close. Behind her, Avanasy cursed, and Medeoan cursed. She did not look back. She dodged under the last arch and looked out and saw nothing but the unbroken bridge ahead. The impossible span of moonlight suddenly seemed the safest thing she had ever known and she ran, forgetting Avanasy's hand, forgetting the young woman they had come so far to save, forgetting everything but the need to get away from the arrows and the fire; she bolted into the darkness, her only guide the shining road at her feet.

Slowly, slowly, she realized the moonlight arch had begun to slope down. Her bedazzled eyes could make out some landmarks ahead of her; trees lifting from the darkness, and another light. A lantern held high by a man waiting at the foot of their bridge.

Lien. The man was Lien and the trees were in Lien's garden. They had made it.

The glow of moonlight gave way to the springy darkness of grass. Gasping with relief, Ingrid missed her step and tumbled to the ground. The cool dampness of night's dew bathed the hundred small wounds she had taken. She lay there panting for just a moment, not caring for the dampness soaking rapidly through her fine silken clothing, before Avanasy's arms scooped her up and pulled her close, pressing his body tightly against hers for a long moment.

Eventually, Ingrid and Avanasy were able to loosen their hold on each other, and turn toward the others. The first thing Ingrid saw was the utter shock on Medeoan's face. Suddenly ashamed she took another step back. She could not read the look on Avanasy's face, and did not at this time care to try. Instead, she looked up in the direction from which they had come.

The bridge of moonlight was already gone. No trace of it lingered to shine against the night sky.

"Was it a dream?"

Avanasy shook his head. "No dream, but a working of great skill." Pride filled his voice. "Imperial Majesty, may I make known to you our host, Lien Jinn, and his niece Cai Yun Shen."

Lien and Cai Yun bowed deeply. The empress blinked dazedly in the lantern light. She seemed reluctant to take her gaze from Avanasy's face. Her bewilderment tightened Ingrid's throat. But at last, she gestured to Lien and Cai Yun to stand.

Something was wrong with Lien, but it took Ingrid a moment to realize what it was. Instead of his silken robe, the old sorcerer wore only a short coat of unbleached cotton with dark cuffs and short trousers to match. A dark cap covered his hair and he wore sandals on his feet instead of his soft shoes.

"I thank you for your hospitality to my advisor ... advisors," the empress was saying. "And now to myself. I am in your debt."

"Your Imperial Majesty honors my home with your presence." Lien bowed. "But I fear we may not stay. The Nine Elders have many ways to track such sorceries, and may already be on their way here. We must be gone as soon as possible."

Ingrid swayed on her feet. As bad as she felt, Medeoan looked close to collapse. Avanasy hurried to the empress's side and held out his arm so she could steady herself against him.

"Of course," said Medeoan. "Is conveyance ready?"

"This way, please."

He set off into the depths of the garden at a pace Ingrid felt she could not possibly match. She was damp, cold and filthy, she had been dragged through dark tunnels by soldiers, shot at by sorcerers, and now her husband was back together with the woman he ... she could barely bring herself to think of it at this moment. She wanted to stamp her foot, to screech her disapproval, to refuse to move until she could get some sleep in a bed. Any bed.

She did none of these things. She gathered up the hems of her ridiculous silken robe and set off after Lien as best she could. Avanasy shot her a worried glance, but did not reach for her; both his hands were occupied in supporting the fainting empress and keeping her moving forward.

The garden passed them in a blur of shadows with flashes of lantern light on pale leaves and silver pools. They reached the back wall, and Lien paused at the arched gate. He laid his hand on the latch and spoke three words Ingrid could not understand. The latch snicked open, and Lien led them out into a tiny back lane. Moonlight and lantern light showed Ingrid a black canal and a sharp-prowed boat moored to an iron post.

Lien blew out the lantern, leaving them only moonlight to see by. It took Ingrid a moment to realize the old man standing at the long steering oar was Jiu, and Shien hunched by the high gunwale.

"Go below, please. Shien will show you where."

As Avanasy and Shien helped the unsteady empress aboard, Lien turned to Cai Yun and grasped both her hands, saying something soft and urgent that Ingrid could not make out. She had just time enough to see the young woman nod before Avanasy motioned to her, and she had to clamber over the rail and onto the deck. There was no time to survey the little craft. Shien was already leading them to the stern ladder and down belowdecks.

Only one covered lantern lit the hold. Ingrid could make out nothing but bundles and stacks of shadow. Shien stepped nimbly between them and beckoned that they should follow.

They obeyed, with considerably less grace. Ingrid barked her shins several times against unidentifiable objects, bit her tongue to keep from exclaiming, and wished for her usual thick skirts and petticoats.

"In here, please, master, mistresses," whispered Shien.

She gestured down. It took Ingrid a moment, but she realized the old woman was gesturing toward a hole in the lower deck. It was a smuggler's hold.

Ingrid saw at once what she was to do, and she balked. They had done enough, and all her nerve had left her. She felt hollow and her limbs began to shake. The idea of being shut up in the tiny, black hold, even with Avanasy's presence for support and comfort, filled her with revulsion.

But there was Avanasy, helping Shien to lower the empress, whose skin glowed white as a ghost in the faint light. Ingrid heard her bumping and shuffling below. Avanasy stretched his hand out to Ingrid.

What was there to do? She took his hand, and felt how warm it was, even though her own was so cold, and let herself be lowered into the smuggler's hold.

It was pitch black inside. She put up her hand and found the upper deck barely three feet above the lower. She had to lie flat on her back in the straw that had been strewn on the hull boards in order to fit. She heard the empress's echoing breath off to the right, so she shifted herself to the left to make room for Avanasy to climb down and stretch himself out. Shien laid the planking back into place. Ingrid had just time enough to see the planks had padded backs, both to muffle any sound from below and so they would not sound unusually hollow if thumped, before Shien settled them down, cutting off all light.

Ingrid lay where she was. Overhead, she heard Shien's soft footsteps and the sound of something heavy being dragged and thumped into place. They were sealed in now. She swallowed against the panic that tried to rise in her throat. More soft footsteps crossed the upper deck. Then that sound was gone. The straw was rough against her back, and the cold and damp began to sink in, raising goose bumps across every inch of her. The hold smelled of old seawater and mildew. The breathing of all three of them sounded far too loud in the confined space.

"Well." Ingrid drew a deep but shaky breath to prove to herself that there was plenty of air, and to help pull her tattered nerves back together. "They do say there's nothing like traveling first class."

"And this is nothing like," answered Avanasy gravely. "Majesty? Are you well?"

"As well as I can be," the empress whispered in reply. "Although I am beginning to have second thoughts about Hung Tse's reputation for hospitality." The lightness of her tone quickly faded. "Avanasy, do you know where they will take us?"

As if her words were a signal, the boat rocked sharply under them, and began to slide through the water, in the direction of Ingrid's feet. She tried to remember which way that was, and failed. Little waves slapped the hull underneath them. The cold seemed to deepen, but perhaps that was only her imagination.

"We'll go down to the river docks, I think," murmured Avanasy. Their confinement seemed to forbid speaking in normal tones. "Lien has access to ... grander ships there. It is my hope he will be able to sail us directly back to Isavalta."

"Vyshemir grant your hope is correct."

There was no more to be said. They lay still in the darkness, packed like sardines in a strange, cold tin. The boat rocked steadily, the waves and the slow creaking of the boards making a gentle counterpoint to the steady splash of the steering oar. Were it not for the fact that she was now soaked to the skin from bilge water, Ingrid believed she might have fallen asleep. As it was, she just fell into a kind of waking doze, her mind trying to sense something of the boat's speed, and trying in vain to measure time to guess how far they had come, and how far they might have to go.

Avanasy's hand brushed hers, ice-cold now, but Ingrid grasped it gratefully anyway. A small traitorous part of herself wondered if he held onto the empress with his other hand, and then she wondered why it should matter, which brought back the strange sadness she had felt in the tower room.

Time must have passed, but how much of it, she could not tell. Her skin went numb. She could barely feel Avanasy's hand now. She tried to wriggle her toes to get some blood flowing, but it was no good.

Then came the sounds of footsteps, and Ingrid almost cried out in relief, but fast on the heels of the footsteps came the tramp of boots. Ingrid choked herself off. She had enough sensation left to her to feel Avanasy tense beside her. Her bloodless fingers gripped his hand.

Scraps of sound filtered through the padded boards. A woman's voice, high and querulous. That must have been Shien. A man's baritone that might have been Lien, or Jiu, or a stranger, answered. The boots clumped up and down the decks, shoving heavy burdens this way and that. Something that might have been a spear butt thumped against the deck above Ingrid's right shoulder.

They were going to hear her heartbeat. They were going to hear her breathing. She tried to hold her breath, tried to quiet her heart, to be wood and stone here in the cold.

Something heavy was shoved aside directly overhead. Ingrid bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. The boots clomped, the spear butt thumped. Shien spoke again, and a stranger's bass rumbled answered. The baritone that might have been Lien or Jiu spoke, and the bass barked out a sharp reply, and the spear butt came down right over Ingrid's face, making her whole body jolt. She squeezed her eyes shut like a child desperate not to be seen.

The baritone said something else, and the words were followed by a faint, new noise. After a moment, Ingrid recognized it - the chink of metal, possibly of coins. Was Lien paying a tax, or perhaps a bribe? Would it work? Her throat closed. All was silent for a moment. Then, the baritone rapped out some order, and more burdens were dragged across the deck. Tears leaked out of Ingrid's eyes and she began to shake again.

But then, miraculously, the boots all trooped away toward her head where the stern ladder was. Footsteps padded after them, and blessed, blessed silence fell around them again.

Tears of gratitude ran down Ingrid's cheeks to mix with the bilgewater, and she did not care. She wept in silence as the boat started to move again, and the steering oar splashed once more into the water.

It was too much. The sudden release from terror robbed Ingrid of consciousness. Whether she fainted or simply fell at last into sleep, she could not have said. For a time, however, the world went away.

Light struck Ingrid's eyes. She would have cringed but she could not move. Shadows moved overhead. They reached down long arms, grabbed Avanasy and hoisted him out of the smuggler's hold.

"Careful, you wastrels!" shrilled Shien's voice.

Then the arms reached out for Ingrid. Powerless to resist, or even to question, Ingrid was lifted like a sack of grain and set upright on the deck. She could not even feel her knees, let alone stiffen them to stand, but fortunately Shien seemed to guess her condition and the old woman was there beside her, wrapping an arm around Ingrid's shoulder to support her weight as she slumped down.

"Carefully!" Shien barked again.

Ingrid could see at least a little now. Two men in loose shirts and short trousers bent down and raised the empress up from the hold. Avanasy sat on a bench nearby. As she was lifted, he struggled to rise, and failed.

"Bring them with me," snapped Shien. "And gently, you louts, that lady is of quality."

One of the two men began to snigger, but his companion stopped him with a glower. Shien moved toward the ladder, and Ingrid had no choice but to stumble along with her.

Climbing onto the upper deck was a nightmare. Sensation came back to Ingrid as pins and needles stabbing her skin from the inside. Shien, stronger than she looked, hauled Ingrid bodily up the ladder to stand blinking stupidly in the first gray light of dawn.

They were back at the docks. There was no mistaking the noise or the smell of the place. Shadowy sailing ships rose up on either side of the small boat. Shien steered Ingrid toward the starboard rail, where Jiu was helping Avanasy to a rope ladder lowered from the side of one of the larger vessels. His hands shook badly, but he managed to hang on while sailors at the top hauled the ropes up, pulling Avanasy with them.

To her shame, Ingrid whispered, "I don't think I can."

"You will," said Shien with gentle practicality. "Because you must."

The sailors let the ladder slither back down over the side. Shien guided Ingrid up to it and folded her hands around the rungs. Ingrid made her left foot step up and rest on the rope, then her right. She dangled there for a moment, and her hands clamped down reflexively. The sailors began to pull, and she gasped, but did not scream.

In less time than she would have thought, she was on the deck of the ship, being helped over the rail, and stood next to Avanasy so the ladder could be let down once more for the empress.

Somewhat more composed, and at least able to stand on her own, although the pins and needles still plagued her, and the ruined, sodden silk clung to her back like a wet rag, Ingrid was able to look about her. The ship was a big one for its kind; a four-master, and elaborately rigged. The quarterdeck rose up proudly from the stern, and even in the dim light she could see the long arm of the tiller. Shouted orders filled the air. Men and boys swarmed up the rigging, loosening furled canvas, which came down like a snowfall. Others lashed it into place on the yardarms, plainly getting ready to sail as soon as the captain gave the order.

The sailors lifted the empress over the side, and set her swaying on the deck. Avanasy moved toward her, but Shien came over the rail under her own steam a moment later and caught the young woman before she could fall. She looked dazed. However bad the recent trip had been for Ingrid, for the empress it had obviously been worse, and Ingrid felt a stab of pity for her.

A man ran down from the quarterdeck, and as he approached, Ingrid recognized him as Lien, still in his short coat and sandals. The sorcerer bowed hastily.