Shadow Prowler

22. CONVERSATIONS IN THE FIRE

There are many who think there is no life in the darkness.

That is a great error. Perhaps, in the pitch-black emptiness of Nothing, life is not so obvious as in our own colorful world, but there can be no doubt that it exists. On this side and on that, doors opened for a brief fraction of a second with a despairing creak-columns of light in the boundless darkness, leading into goodness only knew where. I was suspended in emptiness and I saw many dreams, both beautiful and terrible at the same time. Dreams in which I was merely an observer; dreams in which I lived a thousand lives; dreams that were the truth and dreams that were simply dreams.

How long did this go on for? I don’t think that it was longer than eternity; anyway even eternity has to end sometime. And like dreams, eternity has the disagreeable habit of coming to an end at the most inappropriate time.

After several ages that seemed like mere minutes to me, the first crimson sparks were born in the darkness, the children of a gigantic bonfire that I could not yet see.

The number of sparks increased, they started flying faster, and now they were flying horizontally as well as upward, as if they were driven by some mischievous wind. Sometimes, when there was too much of the fiery snow, the snowflakes swirled together into an orange whirlwind. And at those moments, pictures of the past appeared before my eyes.

Another eternity passed and at one spot the darkness swelled up and turned yellow-the way paper turns yellow if you bring it near the flame of a candle-and then burst. Tongues of crimson flame appeared. Then more and more of them, and a moment later the flames consumed the darkness and filled the entire space of my infinite dream.

I can remember that those eyes looking at me are the slanting, golden amber eyes of an elfess whose name, I think, is Miralissa.

“Dance with us, Dancer!” The sound of jolly laughter made me look round.

There were three shadows whirling in a furious dance on the tongues of flame. They were not frightened at all by the presence of light; they remained as black and impervious to it as if there was no fire there at all.

“Come on, Dancer, do not be afraid!” One of them laughed, and made a circle round me.

“I don’t dance, ladies,” I said. My throat was dry, either from the cold fire or from my dreams.

“Look, he doesn’t want to dance.” Another shadow laughed merrily, flying right up to me.

For an instant I glimpsed the outline of a woman’s face.

“Why do you refuse to dance, Dancer? Why do you not wish to grant us the gift of at least one dance?”

“I have to go.” The flame behind my back was howling ceaselessly, and I thought it was beginning to grow warmer.

“Go?” The third shadow was there beside the first two. “But in order to go, you have to make us a gift of a dance. Come on, Dancer! Choose! Which of us is most to your liking?”

“I do not know how to dance,” I said, shaking my head and turning away.

The amber eyes had still not disappeared, but they were slowly moving away, disappearing behind the wall of flame. I dashed toward them, but instantly I was scorched by the searing cold. I covered my face with my hands in fear.

“You see, Dancer,” the second shadow said with a nod. “You can only dance your way through the fire. Dance, or you will remain here forever!”

I could already distinguish each of them by their voices. They were so similar and at the same time so different.

“Which of us do you choose?” the third one asked again. The heat behind my back was becoming unbearable.

“All three,” I said sullenly.

One piece of foolishness more or less. What difference did it really make?

A momentary bewilderment.

“You are truly a Dancer,” the first shadow said in surprise. “You take everything from life.”

“Well then, we shall lead you through the barrier. Hold on!”

The shadows embraced me, shielding me with their dark bodies against the fire advancing from all sides. And they led me. An eddying swirl, a darting, sliding lightness, a black flash of lightning piercing the wall of flame and pushing me toward the amber eyes.

I am falling…

“We will dance the djanga with you yet!” I heard a voice say behind me.

A final, angry spurt of crimson flame enraged at its own impotence. Night…

“What’s wrong with him?”

The voice pierced through the dense cobweb of unconsciousness, severing its threads like the blade of a dagger. It snatched me from the bottom of my sleep, slowly lifting me up to the surface so that I could take a gulp of the fresh air of life.

“He’s coming round! Egrassa, give me the flowers! Quickly!” Miralissa’s voice was tense and…

Perplexed? Frightened?

“What, may the Darkness devour me, is going on here?” asked the first voice.

I thought I knew it, too… Alistan Markauz.

“Calm down, count, explanations later! Egrassa, why are you taking so long?”

“Here.” The elf sounded calm.

I smelled the sour scent of some herb and winced involuntarily.

“All right, Harold, time to stop this comedy! Open your eyes!” The imperturbable Ell’s voice was sharp and tense.

I tried. I really did try. But my eyelids were terrible heavy; they were filled with lead and refused to obey me.

“Come, Dancer, open your eyes! I know you can hear me!”

Miralissa calls me that, too-Dancer! It’s all Kli-Kli’s fault. The goblin was the first one to claim that I’m supposedly in some prophecy or other. I ought to strangle him, but I feel sorry for the little green creature.

One more effort. This time everything was much easier. The elfess had a will of iron. The first thing I saw was her face. Miralissa was leaning down over me and, despite her swarthy complexion, she was exceptionally pale. “Thank the gods,” she said when I looked up at her and smiled. Standing a little farther away were the two elves, as tense as two taut bowstrings or the strings of some musical instrument. Markauz was standing beside them. He looked gloomy. But then, that was his constant mood; we had all grown used to that long ago.

“How are you feeling?” asked Miralissa, putting her hand on my forehead again.

How am I feeling? My arms and legs are all there. I don’t think I have a tail. Everything’s all right. Just what are they all in such a flurry about?

“I feel fine. Why?”

I attempted to get up off the bed, but Miralissa gently pushed me back down.

“Lie down for a while.”

“Will someone explain to me what is going on?” asked Milord Alistan, unable to restrain himself any longer.

“I wish someone would explain to me,” Miralissa snapped irritably, and shivered, as if there was a chilly draft in the room. Quickly, she recovered her composure and was all business again. “Everything was going as usual. The standard procedure for attuning the key-it can be carried out by any third-year apprentice who knows almost nothing about shamanism. Everything was normal, and then the key suddenly flared up with a purple light and I lost contact with Harold. His consciousness was transported to such distant realms that we had great difficulty in bringing him back here. Or rather, somehow he made his own way back-all our attempts were unsuccessful. I don’t understand a thing!”

The artifact flared up with a purple light? That happened in one of the dreams. Some man… Sunik? Suonik? I can’t remember. He did something to that key. Something not exactly good. Another of the Master’s minions, that was who he was.

“Harold, can you remember anything?”

“Well, something,” I said slowly.

“Stop muttering! What do you remember, thief?” Alistan was still furious.

“Dreams. Thousands of dreams.”

“What dreams?”

“It’s all your key’s fault, you should have made it yourself, instead of sending a prince to the dwarves!” I said in a reproachful voice.

“How do you know that a prince commissioned the key?” Miralissa’s eyes widened in surprise.

“From a dream, I suppose…,” I said after a moment’s thought. “I even remember the elf’s name-Elodssa.”

“Elodssa the Destroyer of Laws,” Ell said, nodding to confirm that I wasn’t lying. “There was a head of the House of the Black Flame with that name. Long ago, more than a thousand years. But I did not know that he commissioned the key.”

“He didn’t commission it,” I said, defying Miralissa’s prohibition and sitting up on the bed. “His father did. Not even his father, all the elves. Dark and the light. And Elodssa went to the dwarves. That was how it all happened.”

“What happened?”

“Pay no attention. It was only one of many dreams.”

“Dreams have the quality of showing the past. Or the future. It is quite possible that without even knowing it, you saw a page from that book.”

So I had to explain.

“If we can rely on my dream,” I concluded, “then something bad was done to the key and now it doesn’t work the way it should.”

“But before it worked just fine!” Alistan objected.

“We didn’t know anything about the Master before,” Ell retorted. “Something in the key could have awoken, and it almost drew Harold in.”

“Enough!” said Miralissa, clicking her fingers in annoyance. “We shall carry on with what we have been doing. In any case, the artifact has remembered Harold.”

“And I think I’ll be going. If none of you have any objections, that is.” I got up off the bed and walked toward the door.

“Don’t forget the key,” Alistan said.

“No, let it stay with me for a while,” said Miralissa, unexpectedly supporting me. “I shall check it again. We have to be sure that it is absolutely safe.”

Marvelous! I left the thoughtful elves and the disgruntled Count Rat.

On the way to my room Tomcat called me. He looked somber.

“Have you seen Alistan?” he asked without stopping.

“He’s with Miralissa.”

Tomcat nodded and set off toward the elfess’s room.

“Where have you been gadding about?” That was how the jester greeted me when I appeared in the doorway.

Lamplighter wasn’t there yet, and Kli-Kli was making up a bed for himself on the floor, between the two beds with cracked wooden frames.

“Are you fond of sleeping on a hard surface?” I asked, ignoring the goblin’s question.

“I’d advise you to do the same, it’s good for the health,” said Kli-Kli, plumping up his cushion.

“Thank you, I think I’ll pass on that.” I took a plug of cotton wool out of my pocket-one of several that I had taken care to request from the innkeeper’s helpful wife-and put it in my ear.

“What’s that for?” my green friend asked, screwing up his eyes suspiciously.

“I can’t get to sleep without them,” I said with a crooked grin, and the goblin let it go at that.

After several nights spent under the open stars, the bed seemed like a gift from the gods, and I slept like a baby…

As was only to be expected, the next morning Kli-Kli was morose and taciturn. He was out of sorts with the entire world, especially with Lamplighter, and also, for some reason or other, with me.

Neither Miralissa nor Alistan said a word about the key that morning. They merely hurried us along, eager to set out as soon as possible. We left early, before the dawn arrived. While Milord Rat was pushing the entire group along, I finished sleeping on Little Bee’s back, since the horse was not dashing along at a gallop. Marmot, riding beside me, merely sniffed, understanding the state I was in, and began keeping an unobtrusive eye on Little Bee to make sure that I didn’t tumble out of the saddle.

An hour later the horses moved up into a fast trot and there I was, wide awake, sitting upright in my saddle in dashing style. That’s what regular practice can do for you. And only then did I notice that certain changes had taken place in our small expeditionary force.

“Where are Tomcat and Egrassa?” I asked Kli-Kli as he rode past me on Featherlight.

“They’ve been given an important assignment,” said the goblin, opening his mouth to speak for the first time that morning. “That’s it, Harold. All the fun and games are behind us now. Now difficult and perhaps even dangerous days lie ahead. Something has to happen, I can smell it!”

And Kli-Kli sniffed loudly to support his own words.

“What’s happened, Marmot?” I persisted.

The Wild Heart merely shrugged, but he looked concerned. “The Nameless One only knows. Tomcat was out of sorts all day yesterday. He kept muttering something to himself, and by evening he’d begun glancing round over his shoulder. And this morning he took the elf with him and disappeared. You heard what Kli-Kli said, didn’t you? Something’s going on. I hate being surrounded by riddles.”

“Who doesn’t?” Loudmouth asked with a yawn. “Just look at the way Alistan’s driving us along. At this pace we’ll be in the Sultanate before evening comes.”

We turned off the highway onto an old, deserted road that continued to lead us to the southeast, although Honeycomb said that later it would turn back toward the south and merge with the highway before Ranneng. This route was a lot shorter, but less busy. This was not a populous area and there were no villages, so once again we would have to spend the night under the open sky.

The morning passed, the hot afternoon arrived and dissolved into the approaching evening, but Alistan kept driving us on, sparing neither horses nor riders. The worm of alarm began stirring somewhere in my soul. Something must have happened, otherwise why all this hurry?

Neither the elfess, nor the count, nor Uncle replied to the jester’s questions; they merely drove the horses on even harder. There were brief halts, simply in order to allow the exhausted horses some rest, and then the dusty road was flitting past again below our feet, as the disk of the coppery red sun slipped down behind the horizon on our right hand.

Our group did not stop for the night until the sky was a fiery crimson that was gradually turning dark purple, and there was nothing of the sun left above the horizon apart from a narrow rim. We didn’t go far from the road and were so exposed to view that we might as well have been sitting on Sagot’s palm. There were unplowed fields stretching out to the right and the left of the road and the light of a campfire would be seen a league away.

The pale, horned crescent that had replaced the full moon while we were traveling appeared in the sky and began conversing with the first stars. But there was no time for admiring the beauty of nature-we still had to collect firewood.

Within the group duties were precisely distributed. Two men gathered wood and kept the fire going, one cooked, a fourth watched the horses, and the rest prepared the site for the night’s rest. Everybody had a job to do; no one was allowed to shirk. Even Markauz, our very own count, checked the horses every evening to make sure that-Sagot forbid!-none of them had gone lame.

Nobody asked me to do anything, but I didn’t want to seem like a useless idler (after all, I would have to share my final crust of bread with these people), so I also did whatever I could. Mostly I helped Marmot gather firewood or feed Invincible. The ling had turned out to be a most amusing animal and pretty damned smart, too. We got on perfectly well together: I allowed him to climb onto my shoulder and he allowed me to stroke him. Marmot found this idyllic love affair very surprising. He told me that Invincible wasn’t usually very keen on anyone touching him. Apart, of course, from his beloved master.

That night Alistan posted sentries for the first time. The first to go on watch were Arnkh and Eel. In three hours’ time, they were due to be relieved by Uncle and Honeycomb, and during the early morning the next four would take their shifts.

____________________

I couldn’t sleep. Sleep had abandoned me and I simply lay there with my hands under my head, looking up at the starry sky that was like a bottomless lake. The warm night breeze ran its soft hand across the tall wild grass and the sleeping flowers, gently bowing the plants down toward Mother Earth. The grass pretended to be angry and rustled, but as soon as the wind was distracted, it playfully raised its head again, calling the wind back.

The skinny old crescent moon floated above the world and its light fell into the grass like silvery dust, making it look like precious jewelry that had escaped the control of some talented master craftsman’s hand. There was the smell of damp earth, wildflowers, summer freshness, and boundless space. After the constant stony stench of the overheated city, the scents of nature were intoxicating.

Somewhere far off in the fields there was the melancholy call of a solitary bird. I was not the only one who did not feel like sleeping that night.

For an instant a black silhouette blotted out the stars as it flitted over my head and silently dissolved into the night, only to return an instant later. The shadow turned in a circle above the camp and, realizing that it would not find any interesting prey beside the campfire, lazily flapped its wings and moved away, with its body almost touching the grass, disappearing into the silvery moonlit fields.

An eagle owl out hunting. Watch out, all you mice. Just as long as it doesn’t take our Invincible. Although it’s not so very simple to eat a ling. Just try grabbing a creature with teeth like that, and you’ll soon find yourself with no beak or feathers! I could still hear the little beast rustling in the cooking pot, finishing off the remains of supper.

The campfire was dying down and the coals it had created were quietly twinkling back at their distant sisters, the stars, to see who could glow brightest. I felt I ought to throw on a few sticks of firewood, but I was too lazy to get up-the soldiers were sleeping lightly and I was certain to wake someone up. Loudmouth was lying beside me, stretched out on his back with his mouth open. If Kli-Kli had not been asleep at the time, he would have been sure to exploit the soldier’s incautious pose and slip a dandelion or some small bug into his open mouth as a jolly joke-you could expect any kind of rotten trick from the green goblin at absolutely any moment.

I still hadn’t managed to understand the goblin’s character: Either he was simply playing the part of the royal buffoon, acting crazily all over the place, or this really was the normal condition of his little green soul. Before I met Kli-Kli, I hadn’t really had any serious contact with his race-there were so few of them-and so my general impression of goblins had only begun to take shape quite recently.

But this time Loudmouth was in no danger-the jester was too tired and he was snuffling softly with one hand under his cheek, as sound asleep as everyone else. Close by, Lamplighter was sleeping with his arms round his beloved bidenhander. Deler was over closer to the fire. Hallas was stretched with his precious sack on the boundary of light and darkness.

The others were lying on the other side of the fading fire. They merged into the darkness, transformed into mere dark silhouettes, and it was impossible to make out who was sleeping where. Eel walked by several times, keeping watch. But then, convinced that all was quiet, he sat down not far away.

Eel was probably the only one of my human companions about whom I had not yet formed a definite opinion. Always taciturn and as erect as a pikestaff, the dark-complexioned Garrakan rarely got involved in conversation. Sometimes he threw in a few sparse words, but only in cases when he thought it was worth sharing his opinion with the others.

He was well respected in the unit, that was clear straightaway, but I couldn’t see that Eel had any friends among the Wild Hearts. To him we were all campaign comrades, the companions who would fight beside him, if necessary, against the common enemy, but not at all the kind of friends with whom he could enjoy drinking a glass of beer on some fine spring day. He kept his distance; he didn’t poke his nose into the others’ business and didn’t let them into his confidence. None of the soldiers took offense and they accepted the Garrakan’s character at face value. Once I asked Lamplighter how a man like that had come to be with them.

“I don’t know, he’s not much inclined to talk about his past life,” Mumr said with a shrug. “And we don’t try to force him. The past is every man’s personal business. Take Ash, now-he’s the commander of the Thorns at the Giant-he used to be a petty thief. He wound up in the Wild Hearts when he was still a boy. And now we’d follow him to the Needles of Ice and beyond if need be. And I couldn’t give a damn what he used to do before-thieving, killing, or kidnapping old women. It’s the same thing with Eel. He doesn’t want to talk about anything before he joined up-and that’s his right. I’ve known him for almost ten years, and none of our lads have ever had any reason to doubt his courage. I heard a rumor once that he came from some noble family in Garrak. And I don’t think myself that he’s any kind of simple lad. Just look at the way he handles those swords, like he was born with them. In a word, a nobleman.”

The night bird called again. The brief sound lingered and rippled across the fields, making Eel turn his head sharply in that direction. But the very creature that had made those howls seemed to have taken fright at its own voice.

Sleep still would not come. I was too worried by the fact that Tomcat and Egrassa had been away for so long. The goblin was right when he said something nasty was on the way. What could detain two warriors on a seemingly safe and peaceful road?

Hmm…

Was it really that safe? Really that peaceful? It might be only just over a week to Avendoom on horseback, but that didn’t mean everything was peaceful and quiet on the highway. Anything at all could happen. What had Tomcat been so dour and upset about? A whole day before I was introduced to the key, he was already quite obviously concerned, frequently glancing round behind him without any need, staring down the empty road, stroking his cat’s whiskers far too nervously, and muttering strangely to himself under his breath.

What had he seen? What had he sensed? All the others, including Miralissa and Egrassa, who were skilled shamans, had been quite unperturbed.

But then, who could understand a tracker? In their profession, those lads were obliged to see what others failed to notice.

The stars gradually blurred and the world sank into a deep sleep.

I opened my eyes without knowing what had woken me. The crescent moon had sauntered quite a distance across the sky while I was asleep and now it was clutched in the embraces of the Arrow of the Sun, an immense constellation spread out at the very line of the horizon.

Eel was dozing beside Loudmouth, whose mouth was still wide open. More than three hours had passed since I fell asleep and now Uncle and Honeycomb were on watch, having taken over from the Garrakan and Arnkh, who had gone to their beds.

Someone had taken care to prolong the life of the campfire and its small scarlet flower was slowly consuming the sticks of firewood. Miralissa was sitting beside the fire, occasionally dipping a stick into the flames. The fire hissed in annoyance and shot out sparks that went streaking up into the night sky.

I stood up and went toward the elfess, trying not to wake anyone, but I almost stepped on Deler on the way. I sat down cautiously beside her and started watching the fire lick the bark off the stick.

“You cannot sleep either?” she asked after a long silence.

“No.”

I looked at her imperturbable face, at her hair gleaming with scarlet highlights in the light of the campfire.

“It is a good night.” She sighed.

“Bearing in mind that I haven’t spent the night in the fields very often in my life, yes it is. A good night.”

“You have no idea what a lucky man you are,” the elfess said suddenly, her fangs glinting.

I still hadn’t managed to get used to those protruding teeth the elves had. No doubt men are subconsciously afraid of anything different from themselves, especially if the unknown has fangs like that in its mouth.

“Yes, if finding yourself in a situation that leaves you no option but to take a trip to Hrad Spein is good luck,” I replied rather gloomily.

“I won’t try to console you there. You chose a rather risky profession and you knew what you were doing. It’s dangerous to be a thief. But that wasn’t what I meant. How often have you been outside the walls of Avendoom?”

“Three times,” I said after a moment’s thought. “And not farther than five leagues.”

“There, you see. A lucky man. Always close to home.”

“It doesn’t feel all that much like home.”

I had no sentimental yearnings at all for the walls of Avendoom.

“But it still is your home. Do you know what my most cherished wish is?” she suddenly asked.

I looked into the yellow eyes and shook my head very slightly.

“I want finally to go home. To see my native forest, my family, my palace, my daughter. Why do you smile? Do you think this is too much like a woman?”

“No, milady. I don’t think that. Everybody wants to go home at some time. Especially if their child is there.”

“I have not been in Zagraba for two years. I have traveled all over Siala with my unit. The last time we went as far as S’u-dar. Ell, Egrassa, and I were the only ones who returned. The rest remained behind in the snow.”

“My condolences-”

“Don’t,” she interrupted me gently. “We have a different attitude to death. We are not people, after all. Elves regard it more lightly and accept it more easily. All depart this life at some time. Sooner or later it happens. Running away from it is foolish-and closing your eyes to it is even more so.”

Silence fell again, with only an occasional hiss from something between the coals and the wind fluttering the hairs that had come loose from the elfess’s braid.

“I’ve been wanting to ask,” I began. “Why did you get involved in this adventure? After all, this is our misfortune. This is a human problem.”

“The dark elves concluded an alliance with Valiostr.”

I said nothing. Alliances are made and they are broken. That is a matter of high politics, and an alliance, even if it has held for several hundred years, is no reason for sticking your head into a hungry ogre’s mouth.

Miralissa understood my unspoken thought.

“Harold, are you always in such a gloomy mood?”

“It all depends on the circumstances.”

“You must understand that if we do not help you now, then we shall pay for it later. The orcs have nominally acknowledged the authority of the Nameless One, even though he is a man. But they have only acknowledged him because it is in their interest to do so. Since the Spring War they have not managed to make any progress across the continent, not even once. They were finally driven back into Zagraba.”

“I understand.”

“If the Nameless One crushes Valiostr, then the Border Kingdom, the ancient land of the orcs, will be left without protection. The Bordermen will not be able to hold out against the full forces of the Firstborn. If the Nameless One is satisfied with vengeance and his armies halt in Valiostr, that will not be the end. The orcs will gather strength and take Isilia and in time they will undermine Miranueh, and then they will think of some reason to turn against the Nameless One. They are proud and inclined to think that they can defeat a man with their yataghans, even if he has the power of a thousand magicians. Or perhaps they will leave Valiostr in peace; there are plenty of other lands to the south.”

“The south is strong. It is Garrakh, the Empires, the Lowlands, Filand, and the light elves if it comes to that.”

“When a landslide gathers speed, the lower it gets, the more dangerous it becomes. They will be hard to stop. In their obsession with the greatness of their race, they will exterminate all. The orcs are the gods’ Firstborn, after all. Siala was granted to them, the ogres retreated into the shadows, and all the other worms-other races-appeared here through some misunderstanding. Only the orcs are worthy to live, the others should be dispatched into the darkness. Sooner or later the elves’ turn will come. And without the support of men, the war will be hopeless. We will drown in blood, Harold. That is why the elves are helping Valiostr. We want you to hold fast in the present, or we shall perish in the future. We shall fall. We shall lose everything. The Nameless One is only the beginning. Merely the snowball that will set in motion the avalanche of a new division of the world. We will all have to work as a team… you and I must work together.”

I nodded, flattered. The orcs really had been building up their forces for a long time, and the only reason they weren’t already testing the sharpness of their yataghans was that the combined forces of Valiostr, the Border Kingdom, and the dark elves were still just about able to restrain them. But if just one of those three were to disappear, the Firstborn would have a lot more breathing space. There would be a little gap in the dam, and a little trickle would flow through it. And everyone knows that water wears away stone. After a while the dam would burst.

“I shall lead the group tomorrow,” Miralissa suddenly announced. “Milord Alistan and Eel will go back. We have to know what has happened to Tomcat and Egrassa.”

“Won’t they disappear, too?”

Markauz and Eel were excellent warriors, and in case of need their assistance would be far from superfluous.

“Let us hope that my cousin and Tomcat have forestalled any unforeseen circumstances.”

“What happened, anyway? Why did they leave the party so suddenly?”

“Tomcat saw something.”

“Tomcat saw something?” I echoed in amazement. “But you don’t send men off somewhere or other just because someone has seen something. Anyone could imagine that he saw something.”

“Tomcat sees things that others do not,” Miralissa said in a quiet voice, and put her charred stick down on the ground. “Do you know that before he joined the Wild Hearts he was an apprentice with the Order?”

“I don’t believe it.” Somehow I couldn’t imagine this short fat man with a mustache as a magician’s apprentice.

“But nonetheless, it is true. I don’t know why he left the magicians, but he still has his knowledge. Tomcat notices interesting things, although sometimes he himself cannot explain his instinctive feelings. Wake up any of the Wild Hearts and ask them what they would trust most, what they would choose in a moment of danger-reason and facts, or Tomcat’s shadowy feelings? I am quite sure, Harold, that they would all choose the latter. This ordinary-looking man has proved right and guided their unit away from danger too often.”

I made the effort to put a few more branches in the flames.

“That evening when you saw the key, Tomcat came to me. He said that he sensed danger. Not even danger, but its phantom. Something was being prepared behind our backs, and something else was following right behind us, about a hundred yards away. He could sense someone watching us, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find anything.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Why not? What sense would it make for him to lie? Since we judged it impossible to turn the expedition back and go dashing off with no particular destination in mind, Alistan and I decided to carry on, but to turn off the busy highway onto this road. We are not so easy to spot here, and if anything happens, others will not suffer. Tomcat and Egrassa, the junior prince of the house and a knowledgeable shaman, were to go back and see what was happening.”

“And stop it…”

“If possible, but that was not the main goal. Tomcat said that it was not far, only three leagues away at the most. By any calculations, they should already have caught up with us.”

“There’s a hostile shaman somewhere nearby?” I guessed.

“Yes, you’re right. But even I didn’t sense anything.” She reached up and gently picked a small leaf from my shoulder. “If not for Tomcat’s caution, we would already have been attacked from behind.”

“And how long are we going to run like this?”

“Certainly as far as Ranneng. You must agree that joining battle with someone unknown is too dangerous; we might lose the advantage that we have at present. And there are magicians of the Order in the city, so our enemies will not venture into it.”

“Pardon me, milady. But I do not agree with you there,” I said, and shook my head. “If they could get into the king’s palace, they will certainly get into Ranneng.”

“Do you suggest that we should not enter Ranneng at all?”

“It could be that they are trying to lure us there.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at me curiously.

“Let’s just call it a premonition.”

“Like Tomcat’s?”

“No-unlike Tomcat, I am sometimes wrong.”

Miralissa’s black lips smiled sadly.

“Perhaps you are right. But we cannot do without the city. There is no way we can avoid it. Otherwise, once past the Iselina, it will be too hard without fresh horses and supplies. In any case, attacking us there is not the same as attacking us here when there is not a soul around. We shall be in Ranneng in three days. There are still two hours left until dawn, go and sleep.”

“I won’t fall asleep now.”

“I have to compile a few spells. Just in case. I sense there may be trouble ahead.”

“Then I will not disturb you. Good night.”

A slight bow of the head and she had already picked up her stick from the ground and was drawing signs in the ashes.

I went back to my place and straightened out my crumpled blanket. As morning approached it had turned cooler and the first, topaz-like drops of dew had appeared on the stalks of the grass.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Uncle asked me peevishly as he made his round of the camp. “Even the horses are sleeping like logs, and here you are making a racket. Ah, you’re as green as they come. In your place I’d be glad of every free minute I could get.”

He walked away, muttering quietly.

Well, what the Wild Heart had said made sense. I lay down on my improvised bed, and immediately leapt back up, trying not to shout out. Some swine had put a briar in my blanket! I cast an angry glance at the jester, but he was sleeping calmly. Or at least pretending with consummate skill.

No point expecting a leopard to change his spots. I stopped worrying, threw the briar as far away as possible, and lay down. And at that very moment I almost choked on my own laughter. Someone had come off even worse than me, only he didn’t realize it yet. Loudmouth was still sleeping with his mouth wide open, and there was a dandelion stalk sticking out of it.

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep again was Miralissa, a solitary figure sitting beside the fire, drawing incomprehensible signs on the ground. I wanted to go to her, but knew I could never follow this road where it might lead… even if she let me. She is what she is-an elfess and a royal one, no less, and a magic user. Harold is what he is-wolf-single, thank you, and planning to stay in that happy state. We were comrades, no more. That was fine with me.