If I Pay Thee Not In Gold

• Chapter 15

The wagons made slow progress through the tall grass, but it was progress, and Xylina saw no reason to abandon them yet. Nothing interfered with them during the day except omnipresent clouds of stinging insects. But Xylina thought she saw shiny glints of something, like gleams of metal, on the horizon now and again. That could have been nothing more than the sun shining on a bit of water-or it could have been a reflection off armor or weapons. There was no way of telling, really. Ware had a distance-viewer, but it was useless here, for something in the air kept distant things hazy and indistinct. Whatever it was that made those glints of sunlight kept its distance-or else they passed it by.

Faro said once that the creatures that were circling over them like curious vultures were like no birds he had ever seen. Sunlight glinted from them, too, as if they wore some bright bits of metal about them, or were even metallic constructs themselves. Still, there was nothing to be made of any of that; Ware had told them that the people here would be hostile, and it made sense that they would keep a watch for intruders. Creatures of the air would make good spies for such a purpose. Xylina hoped that her party appeared too small for a threat but too large to trifle with.

Night came slowly, here; the sun descended through a golden haze, and the enormous clouds on the horizon turned red, yellow-orange, and gilded as it sank behind them. There was no particular place that seemed better than any other for a camp, so Xylina arbitrarily chose a hill and decreed that they would stop for the night. They trampled the grass flat for a camping-place, and Xylina conjured a huge, flat stone to put the cook-fire on, a stone covering an area as large as her tent. Horn, who had been on many a campaign before, cautioned her about setting fire to the grass accidentally. He swore that such a wildfire was as dangerous as any enemy, and Xylina was prepared to take his word about it. The stone was his suggestion, and it seemed a good one to her.

She conjured the tent-materials, and while the men assembled the camp, she debated setting up a stone palisade as she had done before. Her magic power had returned during the respite of the tentacle plants and now seemed stronger than ever, but she remained cautious. The lessons of the spiders had shown her that such a "defense" was not necessarily the best idea. While it was true that such a palisade would protect them from some things, the spider-creatures had already shown that such a defensive ring was not proof against creatures that could climb or fly over it. Only luck, and her forethought in creating the fire-ring inside the palisade, had kept them from being trapped in there, and had enabled them to trap some of the spiders in turn and keep the others at bay. And if they were confined within a high stone ring, they would not be able to see what was coming up upon them from the grasslands in the night. They could, in fact, wake to find themselves surrounded.

Ware cautioned against such a defense; when Faro came to see what they were discussing, he argued for it. Finally, she decided to compromise.

She set up a ring of stones with gaps in them, gaps at which she stationed a guard for the watch. If an entire army came marching up to confront them, she would have time to conjure stones to fill those gaps. And if something that was able to pass over or through the stones attacked them, they would at least not be trapped inside their own protections. This would be no harder to guard than any other perimeter, and it had the added advantage of requiring only four guards on any one watch.

The air felt overly warm, heavy, and thick. Every little exertion made her sweat uncomfortably. Her temples began to throb, but she saw no point in complaining. She conjured wood for the fire, torches, and oil for the lamps as usual, but by the time full dark fell, she was suffering from an inexplicable headache, and one which no amount of headache-powder would cure. Although since they had first hosted the Pacha she had made a point of taking meals with the men and sharing their camaraderie, tonight she excused herself, ate sparingly, and took to her bed. When Faro came to see how she was, the pain was sufficient to ask him to substitute someone for her on night-watch.

This was unusual enough to prompt Faro to return several times to find out how she was doing, and for Horn to appear with a special sweet posset and a solicitous inquiry on behalf of the men. Finally Ware arrived, as she endured a throbbing in the front of her face that nauseated her, and asked if he could help.

"Only if you can magic away this pain," she said crossly, the dull ache making her short of temper. "I am afraid to take any more drugs for it-if something attacks us, I dare not have my senses blunted, and pain-drugs often interfere with conjuration. But if I do not, I am not certain I could hold my concentration long enough to be effective. I can't imagine what has caused this. I do not feel feverish or ill, and I have not eaten anything that the rest have not also eaten."

"I cannot magic it away," he replied, keeping his voice soft and soothing, for which she was grateful, "but perhaps I can entrance you so that you may sleep. I can make certain that the trance is a light one, and any disturbance in the camp will awaken you. I can if you will trust me, that is. I should not blame you if you did not. I know the Mazonites claim that an incubus can do whatever he wills with an entranced victim, and I would not be offended if, in the present circumstances, you would rather not take the chance that I might exceed the bounds I promised."

It was the sad resignation in his voice that decided her in his favor as much as anything else. That, and the fact that she knew now that he was far more honorable than many of the Mazonites who told those tales about dishonorable demons. "Of course I trust you," she replied, the pain making her voice sharper than she had intended. "You are honorable, Ware; you made me certain promises, and you will not violate them. If I know nothing else about you, I know that, for a certainty, as certain as the sun will rise."

"Well, at least the sun is beyond the vagaries of wild magic," he replied, some of the humor coming back into his voice. "And I do not think anything is likely to change that at any time soon. Well then, if you will permit me-you must look deeply into my eyes, and try to relax."

She nodded, and fixed her eyes on his. The flame of the lamp he had brought with him reflected a metallic scarlet in the center of his pupils; the many colors of the irises seemed to swirl, and swirling, pull her whirlpool-like into those orbs-further, deeper, away from her body, until the pain was nothing, a thing remote and far from her and no longer a part of her. She relaxed further; now that the ache in her head was no longer the center of her thoughts and she emptied her mind as the soft voice told her, and in a moment, there were no thoughts at all to distract her.

She woke all at once in a spasm of pure terror, her heart pounding and her ears echoing. She was so very overcome with fear that there was no room for anything rational, only animal fear and paralysis in the darkness.

A heartbeat later she knew what had awakened her-as a lightning-bolt lashed down somewhere near the camp and thunder flattened her to her bed. The first one must have hit right on top of the camp-

One moment, the air was still; the next, a blast of cold wind slammed into the wall of the tent, bringing with it the storm. A torrential rain lashed at the tent-walls, and lightning flashed so constantly that there was no true darkness.

Thunder, wind, and rain pounded the tent and the ground made it impossible to hear anything clearly.

The fabric of the tent billowed and writhed in the intermittent light, and the poles threatened to pull out of the ground at any moment. Wind caught the tent-flap and ripped it open, sending in a torrent of rain. Quickly, she seized some of the non-conjured pieces of her wardrobe, pulled them on, and ran outside.

She dashed into the worst storm she had experienced; the worst she had ever heard of. Rain drenched her to the skin the moment she left the tent-and then the tent-poles did pull loose, and tent and contents went flying out into the darkness. The tent itself caught on one of the stones, and wrapped around it; she couldn't see what happened to the rest. Hail struck her painfully, and she shielded her head with her hands, as stones fell all about her, seeming to jump up from the grass in the uncertain light. Lightning lashed down nearby again, striking one of the conjured stone walls. Thunder stuck her with a physical shock, just as something hit her from behind, sending her down face-first into the soaked grass.

There was a man clinging to her knees; he crawled up beside her to shout at her. "Stay down!" Hazard bellowed into her ear. "Lightning hits whatever is above the ground! Two have already been killed!" Lighting and thunder punctuated his words; she saw no reason to argue with him.

"What's happening? Where's Faro?" she shouted back, over the howling of the wind. "Where is Ware? How long has this been going on?"

"It just started! It caught us all off-guard, and everything is completely confused! Ware is trancing the animals-the ones he caught before they spooked and ran," Hazard yelled. "Faro is trying to find all the men still alive and bring them to one place so you can conjure a shelter over us!"

That was the best idea she had heard yet. As hailstones continued to pelt them both painfully, she followed Hazard in a crawl across the grass that led them to the huge stone that had held the cook-fire. The fire was out; the very logs gone, washed or blown away. Now it held a huddle of miserable humans, their eyes wide, their hair and clothing plastered to their skins. She could not count them; the lightning made counting uncertain. There were not as many as there should be; that was all she knew.

"This only started a few moments ago," Hazard shouted, as she took her place among them. "One moment everything was fine, then this storm blew in out of nowhere! The tents went flying, lightning hit Lisle and Stef and killed them where they stood, the livestock panicked-Ware went after the mules and his horse, and Faro has been collecting us here-half of us were already asleep, and the first thing we knew was that we were being half-drowned and bombarded with hailstones."

Well, that explained why no one had tried to awaken her; they hadn't had time. Their experience matched hers.

Right now what they all needed most was a shelter that would stand against the wind and rain. And the lightning. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathered her concentration, and began to conjure.

She was afraid to construct anything too tall; it would be a target for lightning. What they needed was fairly basic, a shelter that wouldn't blow away-

Wait a moment; she remembered something. Lightning went to metal; that was why they made fighters take off their armor in a lightning-storm. If she could create a tall metal pole out there -maybe she could get the lightning to hit something besides people.

Quickly she switched her focus, concentrating on the tallest stone in the ring, and creating a thick, heavy rod of metal projecting up from the top of it. She had to work quickly, for she was not certain what the effect on her would be if lightning stuck her creation while she was still conjuring it. So what she made was quite crude, but it did not need to be anything but functional. And it needed to be able to withstand multiple lightning-strikes, for she had the feeling that after this storm was over she would discover it more than half melted away by the power of those bolts.

It was one of the fastest bits of conjuration she had ever performed. And she finished just in time, for no sooner had she pulled her concentration away from her creation, than it became the target for every lightning-bolt for furlongs around. Now they truly did have their very own source of light, as lightning lashed the top of the stone and thunder became a continuous roar. So many bolts struck the stone-slab that it crackled with energy. Their hair stood on end despite being plastered down by the rain, and little blue lightning-snakes and sulfur-yellow balls ran down the stone and into the ground. The air was sharp with the scent of ozone. The men stared in fascination as she turned her attention to getting them some shelter.

Something basic, she told herself. Four-no, eight supports. Heavy stone would be best, something the wind could not pull up or push over. She built eight square, squat pillars of stone, wider at the bottom than the top, and just a little taller than the tallest of the men. Then the roof-a slab of heavy wood, as thick as her waist. Nothing to attract an errant bolt of lightning that was not obeying the laws of nature.

She built a wall only on the side the wind was coming from-another heavy slab of wood. She was afraid to try to put up any more walls; it would be too easy for the wind to topple them. She had no way of bracing them, other than by their own weight.

Shortly after she completed that wall, Faro came dashing in at a bent-over run and cursing under his breath, followed by Horn who was cursing quite audibly; from the other side of the compound Ware ran in under the shelter as well, with the lead-ropes of his stallion and three of the mules in his hands. The animals rolled their eyes in terror every time a bolt struck nearby, and they were pathetically eager to get in out of the rain. Xylina noticed one thing with a sinking heart. None of the three were the two riding-beasts; she and Faro would either have to ride in the wagons or walk unless the two riding-mules turned up. The heavy odor of wet equine filled her nose, but the mules and the horse were warm, and unlike a fire, they were not going to blow out. The wet humans and animals crowded together into the minimal shelter, and Xylina reached for Ware's arm, to bring him near enough for her to ask him for advice-

This storm could not be natural. Was this why she had the headache? Was that a harbinger of the storm? She remembered how her mother used to get headaches before storms. She had a dozen questions to ask Ware, but she never touched him, for at that moment, one of the men screamed, a sound so shrill with terror that it carried even over the pounding of the thunder.

All eyes went to him, blanched and wild-eyed, then followed where he pointed.

What they saw was more terrifying than any of the monsters they had thus far encountered. As if the storm, not content with blasting them with lightning, had decided to grow tentacles to seize them, a dozen groping, black funnels eeled their way across the grassland towards them, moving impossibly against the wind. They towered into the lightning-lit sky, hundreds of cubits tall, larger than anything, living or not, that Xylina could remember. As they drew closer, Xylina made out the shapes of entire trees flying weightlessly around the funnels, trees that had been torn out by the roots and sucked up into the sky.

Even as Xylina gasped, frozen in her place with fear and uncertainty, one of the funnels moved straight towards them, as if it had eyes and could see them cowering there.

Utter panic ensued. The horse and the mules broke away from Ware's hold and dashed madly out into the storm. Several of the men cried out in inarticulate horror and ran out as mindlessly as the animals. Xylina could only stand and stare as the funnel moved closer.

Faro and Ware simultaneously threw her to the ground and threw themselves down beside her. She had just enough wit to curl into a ball and try to protect her head and neck with her hands. Then there was no more time-for the whirlwind was upon them, roaring like a waterfall, shrieking like a legion of the damned, howling like a hundred thousand mindless monsters- -and the world came apart.

It seemed to take forever, and it was over in moments. When the thing had passed on its inexorable way, there was nothing left standing of any of Xylina's conjurations. The stones of the palisade were flattened-those that were still there. As for the rest, the whirlwind had picked them up and danced them about, then carried them off, somewhere. The shelter she had conjured so hastily was completely gone, and only the flat hearth-stone remained of the encampment.

Xylina, Ware, and Faro prized themselves off the rock, and stared about in the flickering lightning-and even Ware seemed completely dumbfounded. Horn and Hazard remained clinging to the rock, unable to move or even open their eyes. Xylina sat up slowly, the rain plastering her hair to her head and back, and tried to put together a single coherent thought. Faro simply sat and shook like a bush in a high wind. Ware tried several times to say something, then shrugged, and gave up. Finally, he managed a single word: "Light." She knew what he meant, of course, and after several tries she succeeded in conjuring a glowstone large enough to guide any other survivors toward them. Of the men, less than half returned, soaked and shaken to the core, plodding back through the soaked and flattened grass to what little was left of the encampment, shreds and shards and the occasional recognizable object.

Somehow she, Faro, Ware, Horn, and Hazard had managed to cling to the stone while the whirlwind sucked up rock and wood and reduced them to splinters. As if the storm were satisfied, the whirlwinds moved off into the distance, the wind and lightning died, and even the rain faded away to little more than a drizzle. When she stopped shaking, Xylina's first thought was to give her men some kind of comfort, so she created another shelter and made a bonfire beneath it for Ware to light. The five of them sat huddled about it in thick swaths of conjured fabric, joined by others, staggering in one at a time. One of them, Xylina was relieved to see, was Pattée, sadly bedraggled but whole. Xylina put her arm around the woman and conjured warm material to surround them both. Theoretically one was a member of the ruling elite and the other a foreign whore who couldn't conjure; those had become meaningless distinctions.

Gradually, all those men that could, returned. When the roll was taken, they were down to a total of eleven, including Ware, Xylina, and Faro. Horn and Hazard survived; the other five were all fighters-Tron, Steel, and Jerig of the experienced men, and Pol and Ren of the men that had not had any previous campaigning. Even those three experienced campaigners were shaken to the bone by what they had just lived through. Tron had actually seen one of the others sucked up off his feet into the maw of the whirlwind, and hurled into the sky, screaming helplessly. He could only speak about what he had seen in broken fragments, augmented by gestures. "Never seen nothin' like it," he mumbled, over and over. "Not never..."

"First that terrible headache, then this," Pattée murmured.

So she had felt it too, while the men had not. That suggested that something strange had happened, but Xylina wasn't sure what to make of it.

They sat about the fire, glumly, and no flame or blanket could warm the chill in their hearts. Xylina was too numbed even for tears, and Faro still shook with tremors that came and went and had nothing to do with the cold. Finally, after long silence, Ware spoke.

"That was no natural storm."

He knew this place; somehow he must have recognized something about the whirlwinds that none of the others could have guessed. Xylina and the men looked at him expectantly, and waited for him to continue.

Ware stared off into the darkness, and his face was frozen into a cold mask that made Xylina shiver. "That was a mage-storm," he said at last. "It was created by a weather-wizard. There is only one tribe here that practices such magic. The Julamites know we are here; they somehow thought we were challenging them, and this was their answer."

He paused for a moment, and then turned to Xylina, his face now full of sorrow. "I did not know there was a weather-wizard this powerful in existence," he said to her, with mournful desperation. "If I had known, I would have warned you. I thought the worst the Julamites could produce would be lightning-I thought we would have plenty of warning of their storms. I never thought they would deign to bother with an expedition as small as ours."

The men stared at him, expressions of accusation beginning to form on their faces. But Ware was more than apologetic; he took the responsibility for what had happened on himself. The sorrow in his voice, and the despair in his eyes, were as moving as anything she had ever heard, and she felt impelled to answer them.

"How could you have known? And even if you had known, what could we have done about it?" she asked, softly, trying to keep her own fear and borderline hysteria out of her own voice. "No one could run away from something like that! And nothing I built could have withstood it! If these Julamites were determined to slay us with their storm, I fear that there was nothing we could have done to prevent what happened. I know of no conjurer who could match that kind of power, not even Queen Adria."

Accusations died unspoken, and slowly the men nodded a grudging agreement. Ware shook his head slightly, but said nothing-only his own bleak face told her that he did not consider himself to be any less at fault. She felt a strange pity for him; he was so alone among them, and he was so accustomed to being the authority, that this failure to anticipate disaster must come doubly hard to him.

He turned his gaze from the darkness to the flickering fire. "If the Julamites are this strong, I must assume that the other tribes of this land have become just as strong," he said, finally. "The only good news I can offer is that I do not think we will be troubled by another mage-storm. It takes particular conditions to enable a weather-wizard to turn an ordinary storm into a mage-storm, and it is very draining on the wizard himself. And I know the Julamites cannot have more than one weather-wizard of such strength; they are an ambitious people, and a powerful wizard would not permit any rivals."

Like the Queen, Xylina thought, but did not say aloud.

"Then what can we expect?" Faro asked after a moment. He cast a glance past Ware's shoulder at the east. "You said yourself these people are all likely to be hostile. It's almost dawn; surely we're in for some other surprises." Faro seemed to be recovering his strength and his wits, and Xylina was grateful. She had hated to see him sitting there, trembling.

"I wish I could tell you," Ware replied helplessly, shrugging. "I am sorry, but since I was last here a few months ago, many things have changed that I did not expect to change. For that matter, I did not expect to find this realm here; it was much farther to the east when last I traveled. There are a score of tribes in this realm, and all of them have different wild magics. I know I saw the ur-birds of the Lgondians above us yesterday, but I do not know whether they will attack us, or whether their masters will. If the Julamites are so strong-have the other tribes become weaker, or stronger? I simply do not know!"

"Well, give us a starting point at least!" Faro snapped. "Give us a plan! We can change the plan, if need be, but at least we will have one. You are the only one who knows anything about this place."

Ware opened his mouth as if to retort angrily-then closed it. He nodded slowly. "I apologize," he said. "You are right. We must do something other than sit here on a rock. We will have to try to travel stealthily-and Xylina will have to conjure everything we need, from this moment on, save for food and drink. We must try to be unobtrusive, unchallenging, and if the fates are with us, the tribes may think us too weak to bother with. That is the only way that we will succeed in passing through here, now that our company is so decimated."

"Eh, well," Horn replied at last, with a glance around him, "At least we won't be carrying heavy packs."

That elicited a laugh-a strained one, but it was at least genuine. Xylina felt a little of the tension leave her. Things were bad-but they were not yet dead.

When there was enough light so that it was possible to see effectively, Faro sent the men out to try and find whatever might have been left of their supplies and weapons. That was when they discovered some of the fantastic things the whirlwinds had done. A straw was found driven into the wood of a ruined wagon-frame like a nail. A single wild-bird egg scarcely larger than Xylina’s thumbnail was found balanced on top of one of the toppled palisade-stones. One of the swords was discovered twisted into a bizarre knot-like shape.

Xylina scoured the grass, looking for anything that seemed out of place, for often only a corner of something protruded out from under the mat of rain-flattened grasses. She found scraps of fabric, bits of wood, and a few metal arrowheads and spear points, but that was all. After a few hours, her eyes ached from peering into the grasses, and squinting against too-bright sunlight. She returned to the rest with a pocket full of metal and a few ragged bits of cloth that was not of her conjuration.

When they all gathered again at mid-morning, there was not much good news. Some few of the food supplies had been found: a bag of grain, some journey-bread, and some dried peas; also enough of the weaponry that each of them could be armed after a fashion. The wagons were wrecked and there wasn't a piece larger than a hand anywhere; the livestock were gone beyond even Ware's ability to hunt. Only one of the mules and two of the missing men were ever found dead; as for the rest-Xylina did not care even to hazard a guess.

Horn butchered the poor mule as well as he could with nothing more than his belt-knife, and strung as many ragged strips of meat as he could over conjured fires to smoke-dry. They conferred together over a strange and haphazard meal of soaked journey-bread and roast mule about what, exactly, Xylina could conjure that would be effective as weaponry. She could not produce a sword, of course-but she could manage a pointed rod of metal enough like a spear to make no difference. Finished bows and arrows were impossible, but she discovered through trial and error that she could produce a tapered and flexible stave that Faro could notch, something strong enough to serve as bowstring, and thin dowels that worked well as arrow-shafts. That, together with the arrowheads she had gleaned, gave them each two real arrows-and when Faro sharpened the dowels they, too, served as cruder arrows. Slings, of course, were easy; a length of leather-like substance and a couple of thongs, and every man was armed. There were few stones suitable, but she could conjure with no problems the kind of leaden shot that made a good slinger so effective-all she had to do was concentrate on making small bits of "lead" and the conjured metal appeared in rounded globules. She could still create their shelters and defenses each night, albeit more slowly than before, and the fuel for the fires to warm them and cook their food. Water could be a problem; they only had three waterskins among them, and unless they found water each night, they might run short fairly quickly. Food itself would quickly grow to be a problem unless they could find good hunting on the way; the food they had found and scavenged would not last that long, divided among so many.

But there was no hope of turning back. Not only would that be an admission of defeat, but it might not even be possible at this point. None of the men said anything about giving up-and Xylina had the feeling that they knew as well as she did that the road behind them was as hazardous as that ahead. She did not think they would be able to survive the country of the tentacle-beasts as poorly armed as they were now. Assuming that when they turned back, they actually found that country there! It was entirely possible that the border itself would now reveal an entirely new and deadly realm, for Ware had not expected to find this realm here, and that meant that the boundaries were changing more frequently than he had thought. More than that, Ware knew the country here, and that should help them.

At roughly noon, they set off again, this time afoot. Ware scouted ahead, seemingly indefatigable, covering the ground with a tireless stride that Xylina could not help but envy. She had gotten used to riding; she had thought she was inured to the hardships of this trek, but to her chagrin, she found herself coping with aching legs, and cramps in unexpected places, by the time they made their first halt.

Fortunately for her aching legs, their progress was slowed by the need to hunt. Of the three experienced campaigners, Tron and Jerig were the best with slings, and so they ranged to either side of the rest, hoping to bag something scared up by the passage of the larger group.

By the third halt-at a tiny stream, which gave them all a chance to slake their thirst-the hunters still had come up empty-handed. "You know," Horn said to her at one halt, "if we have to, we can always eat them hoppers. Bugs ain't bad toasted, and there sure are a lot of 'em."

Xylina gave him a sideways look, uncertain if he was trying to make a joke. His expression convinced her he was serious. He was an experienced cook, and he did know the secrets of surviving on campaign, where supplies might be captured or destroyed by the enemy. But that was one trick she had never heard of.

The "hoppers" were thumb-sized insects, shaped like the tiny leaf-hoppers of Mazonia, but much larger. They had been scaring these creatures up all along the trek, dozens of them with every step, and until this moment Xylina had not considered them as a food-source. She probably would not have considered Horn's proposition seriously, except that she knew from personal experience that there were a great many things that one would eat if one became hungry enough. There had been several times when she had made cakes of flour full of weevils, and told herself that if the weevils were eating her flour, she might as well eat them. She had certainly come to no harm from the experience.

The hoppers were convenient, and they seemed easy to catch, but they were very small. It would take a lot of them to make up a meal-and while they seemed easy to catch now, if the group hoped to make a supper of them, it might prove a lot more difficult than it looked to scoop up enough of them. And while they were catching bugs, they would not be making any progress. All things considered, unless they were starting to starve, it would probably take far more time to catch a meal of hoppers than it was worth devoting to catching them.

She wondered briefly if there were any other resources in this grassland that she had overlooked. She was, after all, a child of the city, and unused to scavenging her own food. There did not appear to be any edible grasses here; no seed-heads, at any rate, and she was relatively certain that if Ware knew some of the plants could be eaten, he would say something. Perhaps they should do some experimenting with boiling the roots of the grasses, or trying the stems of larger plants. On the other hand, she had no idea what was poisonous and what was safe.

Besides, the time to gather such things would be when they halted for the night.

Still-Horn's observation proved to her that this was not a hopeless trek into nowhere. The men were thinking- and more importantly, were standing by her. If they were going to desert her, this would have been the time, because they were no longer amidst the dangerous spiders and tentacles. There was always the possibility that one of these foreign tribes would take them in, and they would be free. But they were still here, still standing by the quest.

And none of them had made any move to be rid of her- or to suggest that she was not acting as she should. That had always been a fear of hers; she was the one female with authority among the many males, and conjuration alone was not enough against such overwhelming odds. Not when she slept, or when her guard was down. Faro was hers, of course, and Ware, but there could have been dissidents. There might even have been some agents for the Queen among them; it no longer mattered. They were a unit, and they believed in her.

She nodded at Horn, feeling her spirits rise for the first time since the storm, and turned to the others. "What do you think?" she asked. "Should we stop now and hunt bugs, or go on, and hope we get something larger?"

"Well," Tron said slowly, with a hint of a smile beginning on his otherwise stern face, "reckon if a man be hungry enough, he can eat 'bout anything." The smile broadened. "Recall eatin' m’shoes once. Reckon toasted hoppers be better nor that. But I'd rather we waited till a bit Tore sunset afore we tried hoppers or shoes."

The rest burst out into relieved laughter, and Xylina joined them. She was right: they were going to stand by her. The quest was still possible to complete. It was going to work. By all the ancestors, it was going to work!

The fates were with them, and the hunters eventually brought down enough for all. At about sunset, they found another small stream, and there they made a camp. Since before the storm, she had still been the one who conjured materials for tents and fires, things did not look appreciably different, and that in itself made the men feel better.

They still had Pattée, and that certainly made them feel better. This time, though, she made the tents low, and grass-colored; when the camp was set up, the tents blended somewhat into the landscape. She also made the material thick, so that lights from glowstones would not shine through them. And to compensate for the hardships they were enduring, she took particular pains with their bedding.

The end result was that the men who were not on watch-duty went to their beds in a reasonably cheerful frame of mind, and that in turn cheered Xylina. When Ware rejoined them, she wished that she could give him some of her own lighter spirits, for although he had found nothing to cause alarm, he was still obviously depressed over his imagined "failure" of last night. He sat with her and Faro in her tent after a dinner of some kind of game-bird-she was secretly relieved they had not needed to resort to hoppers, at least not yet-supposedly to report on what he had found, but in actuality, to sit in unhappy silence.

Despite what the men thought, he did not actually have to eat human-style food, although he did usually make a polite gesture with conjured food. But tonight he was not even making that much effort.

Finally Faro, tired of the continued silence, left them to take his own turn on guard-duty. Ware remained sunk in depression, and her heart ached for him; never had he seemed so human as now. As she watched him, waiting for him to speak, he suddenly turned his head so that she was looking straight into his eyes, and she recalled with a shock how warm and firm his body had felt last night, huddled next to her, how gentle and graceful his hands were as they had touched her brow. And at that moment, she became aware that not only was he now a friend, not only was he no longer an alien monster to her, but the stirrings in her body told her that he was the most desirable male she had ever known.

And that thought did not bring with it the feeling of appalled repulsion that she had expected. In fact, it only made her body ache more in a way that had nothing to do with pity. It occurred to her that he might have entranced her into this very thought-and she dismissed the notion immediately. It was not his way. He was as honorable and honor-bound as she, and his desire for her had been hedged around with some very specific promises. He wanted her of her own free will-and being entranced would mean that her will was not free.

So what had suddenly made her realize how attractive he was? She knew the answer to that as well. It was simple enough. For the first time since she had met him, he was vulnerable. And he was strong enough and confident enough to show her that vulnerability, and to hope that as a friend she would try to give him the comfort of her friendship. It was his momentary weakness that made her aware of his constant strength.

It took a brave person to admit to being afraid; it took a strong person to admit weakness. It took both to show these things to someone else.

Yet, though he might for the moment be vulnerable, he was still in every way her equal: intelligent, clever, erudite. A gentle being, and as bound by honor as she. Every bit a warrior in his way as she was in hers. That, she sensed now, was the reason why she had felt no attraction to any Mazonite man, not even her friend and confidant Faro, nor the handsome and youthful Hazard. She could not respect a man who could only be her inferior and not her equal partner-and every male raised in Mazonia would be, somewhere in the back of his mind, conditioned as a slave. There was no help for it; they were as controlled by their upbringing as she was. Even Faro, for all that he hated other Mazonites, was conditioned to obey them. His protectiveness of her was an outgrowth of that very obedience-"Mistress is unhappy, and I must make her happy." He was probably not even aware of the fact, but now that Xylina had a chance to get to know a male who was not so conditioned, it was obvious to her.

Her friendship was not cheaply bought-her love was not to be bought at all. Her friendship came only when it was reciprocated, but friendship did not make the demands that love did. Now she knew that she could only love a male whom she could also respect. She could only love a male who would respect her-because of herself, and not from training. And she had come, all unknowing, to love Ware. The knowledge came as a shock, as sudden and as earthshaking as seeing the ground open up beneath her.

He looked away again, and the expression on his face did not change. So she had not betrayed her sudden insight by a shift in her own expression. Things could go on just as they were-if she chose. He would never know how she felt. She could fulfill the quest, claim the Queen's reward, and be free of him and his desires. She would have her honor, keep her vow intact.

For what? a little voice deep within asked her, sarcastically. This mission might never succeed. Even if it did, what would she have earned? A bare existence, for the best that would have happened was that she would have repaid her debt. She would have all the struggle to do over again. Even if she did well, what would she have? A lifetime of continuing to placate the Queen, of trying to soothe her suspicions-and every time she succeeded in something, the Queen would be certain that she was trying to challenge her. But worst of all, it would be a lifetime spent alone. Any children she had would be conceived in lovelessness, and only for the sake of having a child. She could never bear to marry...

But if she followed her heart and gave herself to Ware? This would make her unclean, ineligible for leadership. Surely the Queen had spies among the men, perhaps even all of them were spies; such a liaison could not be kept secret forever. She could never challenge the Queen for the position of Mazonite leader. Yet it was a leadership she had never coveted, and still did not want. She had not even enjoyed "leading" these few slaves-and losing so many! Making decisions for every Mazonite would be sheer misery. Better a lifetime with the male she cared for-and who cared as much for her. The male who valued honor-

Honor. How could she keep her honor and yet pay Ware in the coin he desired most-a payment she now desired ardently to give him?

The voice returned, but this time without the sarcasm.Wait a moment. What was it he said about the way that demons think? How a vow can be read in many ways, and still be valid? Surely I can use that-

She turned her head a little to stare into the fire, lest her eyes betray her, and her heavy braid fell over her shoulder to gleam golden in the firelight.

Golden hair... hair, the symbol among her people of the essence of a person. Hence the superstitions about cursing through a lock of hair-and the custom among some of the women of leaving their hair at the altars of the goddesses, symbolically offering themselves as well. In the marriage ceremony, a lock of hair from the Mazonite and her chosen consort were braided together, and to divorce him, she had simply to unbraid the marriage-lock and cast his hair in the hearth-fire. Xylina's hair was the same color as-

She paused, taken by an awesome realization.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and asked herself if this was, truly, what she desired. She searched not only her heart, but her soul and her mind for the answer-her body was already informing her in no uncertain terms what it wanted, and she was grateful that females did not show their desires as openly as males. For at this moment, Ware was very far from thinking of the reason that had brought him on this quest. If she let the moment pass, there might never be another.

She would not let it pass.

Carefully, she gathered her hair in her hands, loosing it from the braid, and draping it across her palms; a heavy golden skein that represented all she was, as golden as the gold she had pledged him. Ware continued to stare into the fire, oblivious to her or anything else around him.

"Ware-" she said, startling him; the first time she had ever been able to do that! He jumped a little, and turned his gaze upon her, blankly. She held out her double-handful of hair to him.

"I pay thee in gold," she said softly.

His eyes widened as he realized what she was offering: her hair, herself. Just as he had wanted, planned for, schemed to achieve.

His reaction, however, was not what she had expected.

"Oh, Xylina-" he said, and made an abortive move toward her. But then, unaccountably, he held himself back. "Xylina-I cannot accept this," he said, myriad emotions warring on his face. "I cannot-"

Conflicting emotions beset her as well. Dismay, annoyance, even a touch of anger. What, was she no longer good enough for him? What was wrong with her-or with him? "Why?" she demanded. "What has changed? What has happened that I am no longer what you desire?"

"Circumstances-oh, Xylina, I desire you, love you still, never, ever doubt that! But-" he laughed weakly, and raised a graceful hand to rub his temple "-this is not precisely the best time-"

She started to protest; he held up a hand. "Wait, please, let me explain. You have heard that there are two of demon-kind, the incubus which is the male, and the succubus which is the female, correct?"

She nodded, wondering impatiently what that could have to do with anything.

He coughed, and his face twisted a little. "There is no delicate way to put this. What if I were to tell you that there is only one of demon-kind, that each demon is both incubus and succubus?"

What? How could that be? It ran right across all the laws of nature! But did the laws of nature apply to a demon, a creature who himself had told her he was born in this realm of wild magic? "I would say that you are insane, except that I know you are not," she said flatly, beginning to think that she was not going to like what he was about to tell her.

"That is the nature of demon-kind," he said gently. "That we are male and female, incubus and succubus. But never at the same time. And that which triggers-forces-the change from one to the other, is-the act of love."

Her eyes widened as she took that in, and realized what he meant. "You mean that if you were to share love with me, you would become a female?" she exclaimed incredulously. This was too strange for horror; she could only gape at him.

He nodded, sadly. "I would not be able to prevent it. That is what revealed my nature, so long ago. I joined with my lover-and awoke a woman. It was something of a shock to me-and my lover was not exactly pleased, either."

She shook her head. There were too many things that she had witnessed already for her to think this was impossible-or even particularly terrible. Except in what it meant for her.

If he joined with her-but how did he become male again?-oh. Of course.

"I can imagine that she was not happy," Xylina said, with wry and sad irony. "But if you were to love a man in your female form-you would go back to being male?"

"Until I shared love with you again, yes," Ware said. "But-Xylina, it is not that simple."

She sighed. "Somehow, I had the feeling that it would not be. I think I can guess the rest. You must have a mate that you love as a female, even as you have one that you love as a male." Her mind accepted that as logical although her heart rebelled. "There is a certain unpleasant symmetry to that."

He nodded, as unhappy as she. "You understand it exactly, Xylina. My commitment to a male must be as my commitment to you: lifelong. There is no one in this party with whom I would be willing to make that commitment. Not even Faro, who is an admirable fellow, but is not to my taste, I fear. Simple, casual liaisons, which are so common among your kind, are impossible for me. Unless I sought out..." He shook his head. "No, it will not do. We must wait, Xylina. We must wait until we are back in lands that are not so uncanny, and you and I must find a slave who suits our natures, who can fit this pattern that we must have."

She was beginning to put all of the pieces together, and she was beginning to reassess the entire situation. Bad enough that she would have to share him once-but it was obvious from what he had been saying that she would have to share him all her life with a man. She would have to send him to that man's bed every time she shared love with him. Every single time...

Ware was continuing, even as she was beginning to see the whole of the pattern. "I cannot accept what you have offered here and now, don't you see? It would be very difficult to explain the sudden appearance of a woman and the sudden disappearance of Ware. Even if I dematerialized and traveled with you in that state, it still would not explain the absence of Ware." He leaned forward, and took both her hands in his. "This is a great secret, Xylina. Not even the Queen is aware of our double nature. I am trusting you with it, and I am about to trust you with more. Another secret which only the demons know-each demon and two others."

Two others. Of course. That long-ago lover he spoke of, and the male lover he did not mention.

"The man whom I choose must be utterly faithful-as you must, Xylina. There is a terrible price to be paid if either of you is not, and the one who pays it is myself." He stared deeply into her eyes, and his had gone as dark as the black night outside. "If either of you is unfaithful to me, I will perish. It is that simple. I am immortal-unless and until I am betrayed in love. That is one reason why you made me fall in love with you, Xylina. Your honor is a part of you. It is you; I think that you would rather die than break it. I can trust you with my life-and if we share this bond, I will be doing just that."

She nodded, slowly. This was the most dangerous secret that anyone had ever trusted to her.

"The Queen does not know this about our nature either," he added. "If she did-"

"It would be a terrible weapon to hold over you, and one I won't give her," Xylina told him fiercely. "No matter what happens between us, she will never know this."

His eyes warmed, just the slightest bit. "I know, for I know you. There is only one other recently...." His eyes grew thoughtful for a moment, then he shook his head. "Never mind. It does not matter. Xylina, I honor your offer as I honor you, and I will ask you for no commitment. You must make your decision in full knowledge of all that it will mean, because a casual fling will destroy far more than just our relationship."

She swallowed with difficulty. "I can see that," she said awkwardly.

A heavy silence lay between them. "I had intended to tell you this long before you came to this point," he said at last, with a shy and painful smile. "I had honestly thought I would be able to tell when you were attracted to me. Evidently I am not as good at reading you as I had thought I was."

She hid her confusion by rebraiding her hair, concentrating all her attention on that homely task. "I take it that this is the same quandary you came to when you first discovered your-true nature."

She heard him sigh, but kept her attention centered on the thick strands of hair in her hands.

"In a word, yes," he said finally. "And I was fortunate, in the end, because my lover had a friend that she loved as dearly as a brother-and only as a brother-who was attracted as deeply to me in my female form as she was in my male form. And the fates were kind to all of us. If Faro were-perhaps as he must have been before he was sent to the arena-" He sighed again. "Or perhaps not. I call myself 'Wara' in my female shape, and the person that Wara loves must be as unique and special as the person Ware loves-and Faro is simply too filled with hate and bitterness toward women for him to love any woman, and Wara must beloved , Xylina."

She nodded; her mind understood. Perhaps at some point, her heart might, too.

"And there is an added complication." He coughed with that inflection that she now knew was embarrassment, and Xylina looked up from her task. "Again, there is no delicate way to put this. A demon is, in and of itself, sterile. But-" He reddened; and she felt her eyes widen in surprise, for never had she seen him flush with embarrassment before. This must be something very hard for him to say. "But-once we found-this man-you would be likely to bear children. For what he-gave to me-I would in turn be giving to you. And that is another reason why Faro is-not suitable. I do not think that you would care to bear his children."

It took her a moment to put that together as well, but when she did, she flushed even redder than he, and looked away from him in confusion. He rose.

"I think perhaps it is time for me to go," he said, hurriedly. "Good night, Xylina. I-please think on all these things, and take your time. This decision is one that should not be made until you are very, very certain of how you feel."

He did not even leave by the door; he dematerialized and wafted through the wall, as if to emphasize how very inhuman he was. Human considerations simply would not apply to him.

She sat staring into her little fire, braiding and unbraiding her hair. Her mind was in turmoil; her emotions so confused that she could not even begin to untangle them. She did not think that there was any way that she would get any sleep this night.

It was just as well that this days journey had left her so physically exhausted-for in the end, her body decided for her. She did not even remember falling asleep-until she woke the next morning, her half-braided hair still in her hands.

Her gold, which she had proffered-and which had not been accepted. Not quite.