chapter 14

“RIDE!” ALESSAN CRIED, POINTING TOWARDS A GAP IN THE hills. "Theres a village beyond!”

Devin swore, lowered his head over his horses neck, and dug his heels into the animals flanks, following Erlein di Senzio west towards the gap and the low red disk of the sun.

Behind him, thundering out of the brown twilight hills, were at least eight, possibly a dozen brigands of the highlands. Devin hadnt looked back, after their first startled glimpse of the outlaws and the shouted command to halt.

He didnt think they had a chance, however close this village might be. They had been riding at a bone-jarring pace for hours and the horses Alienor had given them were tired. If this was to be a flat-out race against fresh-mounted outlaws they were probably dead. He gritted his teeth and rode, ignoring the ache in his leg and the sting of reopened cuts from his leap in the mountains earlier that day.

The wind whistled past him as they rode. He saw Alessan turn in his saddle, an arrow notched to his fully drawn bow. The Prince fired backwards once and then again into the twilight, his muscles ridged and corded with the effort. An improbable, desperate attempt at such speed in the wind.

Two men screamed. Devin quickly looked back and saw one of them fall. A handful of erratic arrows dropped well short of the three of them.

"Theyve slowed!" Erlein rasped, glancing back as well. "How far to this village!”

"Through the gap and twenty minutes beyond! Ride!" Alessan did not shoot again, bending low to urge more speed from his own grey. They fled into the wind along the track of the sun, between the shadowy bulk of two heathery hills and into the gap between.

They didnt get out.

Just where the path bent to follow the curve of the encroaching ridges eight riders were waiting in a line across the gap, bows calmly leveled at the three of them.

They pulled their horses to rearing halts. Devin flung a glance back over his shoulder and saw the pursuing outlaws entering the pass behind them. There was one riderless horse, and another man clutched at his shoulder where an arrow was still embedded.

He looked at Alessan, saw the desperate, defiant look in the Princes eye.

"Dont be a fool!" Erlein snapped. "You cant run through and you cant kill this many men.”

"I can try," Alessan said, his eyes darting across the defile and up the steep hills on either side, wild to find a way out. He had stopped his horse though, and did not raise the bow.

"Straight into a trap. What a splendid ending to two decades of dreaming!" His voice was corrosively bitter, raw with self-laceration.

It was true though, Devin realized, rather too late. This pass between the hills was a natural place for an ambush, and the Triad knew there were enough outlaws hi the wilds of southern Certando, where even the Barbadian mercenaries seldom went, and honest men were never abroad this close to the fall of night.

On the other hand, they hadnt had much choice, given how far they had to go, and how fast.

It didnt seem as if they were going to get there. Or anywhere. There was still enough light to make out the outlaws, and their appearance did not reassure. Their clothing might be random and carelessly worn, but the horses were far from the beaten-down creatures most brigands rode. The men in front of them looked disciplined, and the weaponry leveled at the three of them was formidable. This had also been, very clearly, a carefully laid trap.

One man rode a few paces forward from the silent line. "Release your bows," he said with easy

authority. "I dont like talking with armed men.”

"Neither do I," Alessan replied grimly, staring at the man. But a moment later he let his bow fall to the ground. Beside Devin, Erlein did the same.

"And the boy," the outlaw leader said, still softly. He was a big man of middle years, with a large face and a full beard that showed deep red in the waning light. He wore a dark wide-brimmed hat that hid his eyes.

"I dont carry a bow," Devin said shortly, letting fall his sword. There was mocking laughter at that from the men in front of them.

"Magian, why were your men in arrow range?" The bearded man said, more loudly now. He himself had not laughed. "You knew my instructions. You know how we do this.”

"I didnt think we were," came an angry voice behind them, amid a clattering of hooves. Their pursuers had come up. The trap was closed, before and behind. "He fired a long way in half-light and wind. He was lucky, Ducas.”

"He wouldnt have had a chance to be lucky if you had done your job properly. Wheres Abhar?”

"Took an arrow in the thigh and fell. Torres gone back to bring him.”

"Waste," the red-bearded man scowled. "I dont like waste." He was a dark, bulky presence, silhouetted against the low sun. Behind him the other seven riders kept their bows leveled.

Alessan said, "If waste offends you, you wont like this evenings work at all. We have nothing to give you beyond our weapons. Or our lives, if you are the sort who kill for pleasure.”

"Sometimes," the man named Ducas said, not raising his voice. He sounded unsettlingly calm, Devin thought, and very much in control of his band. "Will my two men die? Do you use poisoned arrows?”

Alessans expression was contemptuous. "Not even against the Barbadians. Why? Do you?”

"Sometimes," the outlaw leader said again. "Especially against the Barbadians. These are the highlands, after all." He smiled for the first time, a cold, wolfish grin. Devin had a sudden sense that he wouldnt want to have this mans memories, or his dreams.

Alessan said nothing. It was growing darker in the pass. Devin saw him glance over at Erlein, a sharp query in his face. The wizard shook his head, a minute, almost invisible gesture. "Too many," he whispered. "And besides—”

"The grey-haired one is a wizard!" came an emphatic voice from the line beyond Ducas.

A chunky, round-faced man moved his horse forward beside the leaders. "Dont even think of it," he continued, looking straight at Erlein. "I could block anything you tried." Startled, Devin glanced at the mans hands, but at this distance it was too dark for him to see if two fingers were missing. They would have to be though.

They had come upon another wizard; much good it would do them.

"And precisely how long do you think it would take a Tracker to find you then?" Erlein was saying, his voice silken. "With the back-spill of magic from the both of us leading to this place?”

"There are a sufficiency of arrows trained on your heart and throat," the leader interjected, "to ensure that such an event would not happen. But I confess this grows more interesting every moment. An archer and a wizard riding abroad on an Ember Day. Arent you afraid of the dead? What does the boy do?”

"Im a singer," Devin said grimly. "Devin dAsoli, lately from the company of Menico di Ferraut, if that means anything to you." The thing, obviously, was to keep the talk going somehow. And he had heard stories—wishful thinking on the road, perhaps—of outlaw bands sparing musicians in exchange for a night of song. Something occurred to him: "You thought we were Barbadians, didnt you? From a distance. Thats why you laid the trap.”

"A singer. A clever singer," Ducas murmured. "If not clever enough to stay indoors on an Ember

Day. Of course we thought you were Barbadians. Who in the eastern peninsula but Barbadians and outlaws would be abroad today? And all of the outlaws for twenty miles around are part of my band.”

"There are outlaws and outlaws," Alessan said softly. "But if you were hunting Barbadian mercenaries you are men with the same hearts as ours. I can tell you—and I do not lie, Ducas—that if you hinder us here, or kill us, you will be giving such comfort to Barbadior —and to Ygrath—as they could not have ever dreamt of asking of you." There was, not surprisingly, a silence. The cold wind knifed into the pass, stirring the young grasses in the growing dark.

"You have a rather large opinion of yourself, it appears," Ducas said at length, thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should know why. I think it is time for you to tell me exactly who you are, and where you are riding at dusk on an Ember Day, and I will draw my own conclusions.”

"My name is Alessan. I am riding west. My mother is dying and has summoned me to her side.”

"How devoted of you," Ducas said. "But one name tells me nothing, and west is a big place, my friend with the bow. Who are you and where are you riding?" The voice was an uncoiled whip this time.

Devin jumped. Behind Ducas seven bowstrings were drawn back.

Devin, his heart pounding, saw Alessan hesitate. The sun was almost gone now, a red disk cut in half by the horizon beyond the pass. The wind seemed to be blowing harder, promising a chilly night to come after this first day of spring.

There was a chill in Devin as well. He glanced at Erlein, and discovered that the wizard was staring at him, as if waiting. Alessan had not yet spoken. Ducas shifted meaningfully in his saddle.

Devin swallowed and, knowing that however hard this was for him, it had to be easier than it would be for Alessan, he said: "Tigana. He is from Tigana, and so am I.”

He was careful to look straight at the outlaw wizard as he spoke, not at Ducas or the other riders. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Alessan was doing the same thing, so as not to have to see the blank look of incomprehension they both knew would follow. The wizard would be different. Wizards could hear the name.

A murmur rose from the gathered men, before them and behind. And then one man spoke aloud amid the shadows of falling dusk in that lonely place. A voice from the line behind them.

"By the blood of the god!" that voice cried from the heart. Devin wheeled around. A man had dismounted and was striding quickly forward to stand in front of them. Devin saw that the man was small, not much bigger than himself, perhaps thirty years old or a little more, and that he was moving awkwardly and clearly in pain, with Alessans arrow in his arm.

Ducas was looking at his wizard. "Sertino, what is this?" he said, with an edge in his voice. "I do not—”

"Sorcery," the wizard said bluntly.

"What? His?" Ducas nodded towards Erlein.

"No, not his." It was the wounded man who spoke, his eyes never leaving Alessans face. "Not this poor wizards. It is real sorcery, this. It is the power of Brandin of Ygrath that keeps you from hearing the name.”

With an angry motion Ducas swept his hat off, revealing a balding dome with a fringe of bright red hair. "And you, Naddo? How do you hear it, then?”

The man on the ground swayed unsteadily on his feet before replying. "Because I was born there too, and so Im immune to the spell, or another victim of it, whichever you prefer." Devin heard the tautness in his voice, as of someone holding hard to his self-control. He heard the man called Naddo say, looking up at Alessan. "You have been asked for your name, and you only gave him a part. Will you tell us the rest?

Will you tell me?" It was hard to see his eyes now, but his voice told an old story.

Alessan was sitting on his horse with an easiness, even after a day in the saddle, that seemed to deny

even the possibility of weariness, or the tension of where they were. But then his right hand came up and pushed once, unconsciously, through his already tangled hair, and Devin, seeing the familiar gesture, knew that whatever he himself was feeling now, it was doubled and redoubled in the man he followed.

And then in the stillness of that pass, with the only other sounds the whistle of wind between the hills and the stirring of the horses on the young grass, he heard: "My name is Alessan di Tigana bar Valen-tin.

If you are as old as you appear to be, Naddo di Tigana, you will know who I am.”

With a prickling of hairs on his neck and a shiver he could not control, Devin saw Naddo drop to his knees on the cold ground even before the last words were spoken.

"Oh, my Prince!" the wounded man cried in a raw voice. And covering his face with his one good hand, he wept.

"Prince?" said Ducas, very softly. There was a restive movement among the outlaws. "Sertino, you will explain this to me!”

Sertino the wizard looked from Alessan to Erlein, and then down at the weeping man. A curious, almost a frightened, expression crossed his pale, round face.

He said, "They are from Lower Corte. It had a different name before Brandin of Ygrath came. He has used his sorcery to take that name away. Only people born there, and wizards because of our own magic, can hear the true name. That is what is happening here.”

"And Prince? Naddo called him that.”

Sertino was silent. He looked over at Erlein, and there was still that odd, uneasy look on his face. He said, "Is it true?”

And Erlein di Senzio, with an ironic half-smile, replied, "Just dont let him cut your hair, brother.

Unless you like being bound into slavery.”

Sertinos mouth fell open. Ducas slapped his knee with his hat. "Now that," he snapped, "I do not understand at all. There is too much of this I do not understand. I want explanations, from all of you!" His voice was harsh, much louder than before. He did not look at Alessan though.

"I understand it well enough, Ducas," came a voice from behind them. It was Magian, the captain of the group that had driven them into the gap. He moved his horse forward as they turned to look at him. "I understand that we have made our fortunes tonight. If this is the Prince of a province Brandin hates then all we need do is take him west to Fort Forese across the border and turn him over to the Ygrathens there.

With a wizard to boot. And who knows, one of them probably likes boys in his bed, too. Singing boys.”

His smile was a wide loose thing in the shadows.

He said, "There will be rewards. Land. Perhaps even . . .”

He said nothing more than that. Ever. In rigid disbelief Devin saw Magians mouth fall open and his eyes grow briefly wide, then the man slid slowly sideways off his horse to fall with a clatter of sword and bow on the ground beside Erlein.

There was a long-handled dagger in his back.

One of the outlaws from the line behind him, not hurrying at all, dismounted and pulled the dagger free. He wiped it carefully clean on the dead mans surcoat before sheathing it again at his belt.

"Not a good idea, Magians," he said quietly, straightening to look at Ducas. "Not a good idea at all.

We arent informers here, and we dont serve the Tyrants.”

Ducas slapped his hat back on his head, visibly fighting for control. He took a deep breath. "As it happens, I agree. But as it also happens, Arkin, we have a rule here about weapons drawn against each other.”

Arkin was very tall, almost gaunt, and his long face was white, Devin saw, even among the shadows of dusk. He said, "I know that, Ducas. It is wasteful. I know. You will have to forgive me.”

Ducas said nothing for a long time. Neither did anyone else. Devin, looking past the dead man, saw the two wizards gazing fixedly at each other in the shadows.

Arkin was still looking at Ducas.

Who finally broke the silence. "You are fortunate that I agree with you," he said.

Arkin shook his head. "We would not have stayed together this long otherwise.”

Alessan neatly dismounted from his horse. He walked over towards Ducas, ignoring the arrows still trained on him. "If you are hunting Barbadians," he said quietly, "I have some idea as to why. I am doing the same thing, in my own way." He hesitated. "You can do as your dead man suggested: turn me in to Ygrath, and yes, I suspect there would be a reward. Or you can kill us here, and have done with us. You can also let us go our own way from this place. But there is one other, quite different thing you can do.”

"Which is?" Ducas seemed to have regained his self-control. His voice was calm again, as it had been at the beginning.

"Join me. In what I seek to do.”

"Which is?”

"To drive both Tyrants from the Palm before this summer is out.”

Naddo looked up suddenly, a brightness in his face. "Really, my lord? We can do this? Even now?”

"There is a chance," Alessan said. "Especially now. For the first time there is a chance." He looked back at Ducas. "Where were you born?”

"In Tregea," the other man said after a pause. "In the mountains.”

Devin had a moment to think about how completely things had shifted here, that Alessan should be asking the questions now. He felt a stirring within him, of hope renewed and of pride.

The Prince was nodding his head. "I thought it might be so. I have heard the stories of a red-headed Captain Ducas who was one of the leaders at Borifort in Tregea during the Barbadian siege there. They never found him after the fort fell." He hesitated. "I could not help but notice the color of your hair.”

For a moment the two men were motionless as in a tableau, one on the ground the other on his horse.

Then, quite suddenly, Ducas di Tregea smiled.

"What is left of my hair," he murmured wryly, sweeping off his hat again with a wide gesture.

Releasing his reins he swung down off his horse and, striding forward, held out an open palm to Alessan. Who met both—the smile and offered hand—with his own.

Devin found himself gasping with the rush of relief that swept over him, and then cheering wildly at the top of his voice with twenty outlaws in that dark Certandan pass.

What he noticed though, even as the cheering reached a crescendo, was that neither wizard was shouting. Erlein and Sertino sat very still, almost rigid on their horses, as if concentrating on something.

They gazed at each other, expressions identically grim.

And because he noticed, because he seemed to be becoming the sort of man who saw things like this, Devin was the first to fall silent, and he had even instinctively raised a hand to quiet the others. Ales-san and Ducas lowered their linked palms and gradually, as silence returned to the pass, everyone looked at the wizards.

"What is it?" Ducas said.

Sertino turned to him. "Tracker. Northeast of us, quite close. I just felt the probe. Hell not find me though, Ive done no magic for a long time.”

"I have," said Erlein di Senzio. "Earlier today, in the Braccio Pass. Only a light spell, a screen for someone. Evidently it was enough. There must have been a Tracker in one of the southern forts.”

"There almost always is," Sertino said flatly.

"What," Ducas said, "were you doing in the Braccio Pass?”

"Gathering flowers," Alessan said. "Ill tell you later. Right now we have Barbadians to deal with.

How many will be with the Tracker?”

"Not less than twenty. Probably more. We have a camp in the hills south of here. Shall we run for it?”

"Theyll follow," Erlein said. "Hes got me traced. The spill of my magic will mark me for another day at least.”

"I dont much feel like hiding in any case," Alessan said softly.

Devin turned quickly to look at him. So did Ducas. Awkwardly, Naddo rose to his feet.

"How good, exactly, are your men here?" Alessan said, a challenge in his tone and in the grey eyes.

And in the shadows of what was now almost full-dark Devin saw the Tregean outlaw leaders teeth suddenly flash. "They are good enough, and to spare, to deal with a score of Barbadians. This will be more than weve ever tackled, but weve never fought beside a Prince before. I think," he added, in a meditative voice, "that I too am grown tired of hiding, suddenly.”

Devin looked over at the wizards. It was hard to make out their features in the dark, but Erlein said, in a hard-edged voice: "Alessan, the Tracker will have to be killed immediately, or hell send an image of this place back to Alberico.”

"He will be," said Alessan quietly. And in his voice, too, there was a new note. The presence of something Devin had never heard. A second later he realized that it was death.

Alessans cloak flapped in a gust of wind. Very deliberately he drew his hood over his face.

The hard thing for Devin was that Albericos Tracker turned out to be twelve years old.

They sent Erlein riding west out of the pass, as the lure. He was the one being followed. He had Sertino di Certando, the other wizard, and two other men with them, one of whom was the wounded Naddo, who insisted on being of use even though he could not fight. They had taken the arrow from his arm and bandaged it as best they could. It was clear that he was in difficulty, but even more clear that in the presence of Alessan he was not about to give way to that.

A short while later, under the stars and the low eastward crescent of Vidomni, the Barbadians entered the pass. There were twenty-five of them, and the Tracker. Six carried torches, which made things easier.

Though not for them.

Alessans arrow and Ducass met in the Trackers breast, fired from slopes on opposite sides of the defile. Eleven of the mercenaries fell under that first rain of arrows before Devin found himself galloping furiously down with Alessan and half a dozen other men out of their concealment in hollows in the pass.

They angled to close the western exit, even as Ducas and nine men sealed off the eastern end the Barbadians had entered from.

And so on that Ember Night, in the company of outlaws in the highlands of Certando far from his lost home, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana, fought the first true battle of his long war of return. After the drawn-out years of maneuvering, a subtle gathering of intelligence and the delicate guiding of events, he drew blade against the forces of a Tyrant in that moonlit pass.

No subterfuge, no hidden manipulation anymore from the wings of the stage. This was battle, for the time had come.

Marius of Quileia had made a promise to him that day, against wisdom and experience and beyond hope. And with Mariuss promise everything had changed. The waiting was over. He could loosen the rigid bonds that had held his heart so tightly leashed all these years. Tonight in this pass he could kill: in memory of his father and his brothers and all the dead of the River Deisa and after, in that year when he himself had not been permitted to die.

They had spirited him away and hidden him in Quileia south of the mountains, with Marius, then a captain of the High Priestesss guard. A man with his own reasons for fostering and concealing a young

Prince from the northlands. That had been almost nineteen years ago, when the hiding had begun.

He was tired of hiding. The time of running was over now; the season of war had begun. True, it was Barbadior, not Ygrath, whose soldiers drew blade against them now, but in the end it was all the same.

Both Tyrants were the same. He had been saying that for all the years since hed come back north to the peninsula with Baerd. It was a truth hammered into shape like metal on the hard forge of his heart. They had to take them both, or be no nearer freedom than before.

And in the Braccio Pass this morning the taking had begun. The keystone had been set in the arch of his design. And so tonight in this dark defile he could unbind his pent-up passion, his own long memories of loss, and set his sword arm free.

Devin, laboring to keep up with the Prince, rode into his first combat with raw panic and exhilaration vying for mastery in his breast. He did not shout as most of the outlaws did; he was concentrating as much as anything else on ignoring the ache in his wounded leg. He gripped the dark sword Baerd had bought for him, holding it with the blade curving upwards as he had been taught in wintry morning lessons that seemed unimaginably remote from this nights happenings.

He saw Alessan drive straight into the circled ranks of the mercenaries, unswerving as one of his arrows, as if to put behind him in this one act of direct response all the years when such a thing was not allowed.

Frantically, gritting his teeth, Devin followed in Alessans wake. He was alone though, and half a dozen lengths behind, when a yellow-bearded Barbadian loomed up beside him, enormous on his horse.

Devin cried out in shock. Only some blind survival instinct and the reflexes he had been born with saved his life. He pulled his horse hard to the left, veering for a space he saw, and then leaning back to his right, as low to the ground as he could manage, he cut upwards with all his strength. He felt a searing pain in his wounded leg and almost fell. The windrush of the Barbadians blade sliced empty air where Devins head had been. A heartbeat later Devin felt his own wickedly curved sword cleave through leathery armor and into flesh.

The Barbadian screamed, a liquid, bubbling sound. He swayed wildly on his mount as his sword fell from his grasp. He brought one hand to his mouth in a curiously childlike gesture. Then, like the slow toppling of a mountain tree, he slid sideways in his saddle and crashed to the ground.

Devin had already pulled his sword free. Wheeling his horse in a tight circle, he looked for adversaries. No one was coming though. Alessan and the others were ahead of him, pounding against the mercenaries, driving to meet Ducas and Arkins group pressing forward from the east.

It was almost over, Devin realized. There was nothing, really, for him to do. With a complex mixture of emotions that he didnt even try to understand just then, he watched the Princes blade rise and fall three times and he saw three Barbadians die. One by one the six torches dropped to the ground and were extinguished. And then— only moments after they had ridden into the pass, it seemed to Devin —the last of the Barbadians had been cut down and slain.

It was then that he saw what was left of the Tracker and realized how young he had been. The body had been hideously trampled in the melee. It lay twisted and splayed unnaturally. Somehow the face had been spared, though for Devin, looking down, that was actually the worst thing. The two arrows were still embedded in the childs body, though the upper shaft of one of them had been broken off.

Devin turned away. He stroked the horse Alienor had given him, and whispered to it. Then he forced himself to ride back towards the man hed killed. This was not the same as the sleeping soldier in the Nievolene barn. It was not, he told himself. This had been open warfare and the Barbadian had been armed and armored, and he had swung his massive blade seeking Devins life. Had the Barbadians and the Tracker come upon him and Alessan and Erlein alone in the wilderness Devin had no illusions, none at all, as to what their fate would have been.

It was not the same as in the barn. He said it within himself once again, as he gradually became aware

of the eerie, disorienting calm that seemed to have descended upon the pass. The wind still blew, as cold as before. He glanced up, and realized belatedly that Alessan had quietly ridden to his side and was also looking down at the man Devin had slain. Both horses stamped and snorted, made restless by the frenzy just past and the smell of blood.

"Devin, believe me, I am sorry," Alessan murmured softly, so that no one else would hear. "It is hardest the first time, and I gave you no chance to prepare.”

Devin shook his head. He felt drained, almost numb. "You didnt have much choice. Maybe it was better this way." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Alessan, you have larger things to worry about. I chose freely in the Sandren Woods last fall. You arent responsible for me.”

"In a way I am.”

"Not in a way that matters. I made my own choice." "Doesnt friendship matter?”

Devin was silent, rendered suddenly diffident. Alessan had a way of doing that to you. After a moment the Prince added, almost as an afterthought, "I was your age when I came back from Quileia.”

For a moment he seemed about to add something, but in the end he did not. Devin had an idea of what he meant though, and something kindled quietly within him like a candle.

For a moment longer they looked down at the dead man. Only a crescent, Vidomnis pale light was still bright enough to show the staring pain in his face.

Devin said, "I chose freely, and I understand the need, but I dont think Im ever going to get used to this.”

"I know I never have," said Alessan. He hesitated. "Either one of my brothers would have been so much better at what I was kept alive to do.”

Devin turned then, trying to read the expression on the Princes face in the shadows. After a moment he said, "I never knew them, but will you allow me to say that I doubt it? Truly I doubt it, Alessan." After a moment the Prince touched his shoulder. "Thank you. There are those who would disagree, Im afraid.

But thank you, nonetheless.”

And with those words he seemed to remember something, or be recalled to something. His voice changed. "We had better ride. I must speak with Ducas, and then well have to catch up with Erlein and go on. Weve a lot of ground to cover yet." He looked at Devin apprais-ingly. "You must be exhausted. I should have asked before: how is your leg? Can you ride?”

"Im fine," Devin protested quickly. "Of course I can ride." Someone behind them laughed sardonically. They both turned. To discover that Erlein and the others had, in fact, returned to the pass.

"Tell me," the wizard said to Alessan, sharp mockery in his voice, "what did you expect him to say?

Of course hell tell you he can ride. Hed ride all night, half-dead, for you. So would this one"—he gestured towards Naddo behind him—"on barely an hours acquaintance. I wonder, Prince Alessan, how does it feel to have such a power over the hearts of men?”

Ducas had ridden over while Erlein was speaking. He said nothing though, and it was too dark now with the torches extinguished, to make out anyones features clearly. One had to judge by the words, and the inflections given them.

Alessan said quietly, "I think you know my answer to that. In any case, Im unlikely to think too highly of myself with you around to point these things out to me." He paused, then added, "Triad for-fend you would ever volunteer to ride all night in any cause but your own.”

"I," said Erlein flatly, "have no choice in the matter anymore. Or have you forgotten?”

"I have not. But Ive no mind to repeat that quarrel now, Erlein. Ducas and his men have just put their lives at risk to save your own. If you—”

"To save my own! I would never have been at risk if you hadnt compelled me to—”

"Erlein, enough! We have a great many things to do and I am not of a mind to debate.”

In the darkness Devin saw Erlein sketch a mocking bow on horseback. "I most humbly cry your pardon," he said in an exaggerated tone. "You really must let me know when you are of a mind to debate.

Youll concede it is an issue of some importance to me.”

Alessan was silent for what seemed a long time. Then, mildly, he said, "I think I can guess what is behind this now. I understand. It is meeting another wizard, isnt it? With Sertino here you feel what has happened to you the more.”

"Dont pretend you understand me, Alessan!" said Erlein furiously.

Still calmly, Alessan said, "Very well then, I wont. In some ways I may never understand you and how you have lived you life—I told you that the evening we met. But for now this issue is a closed one. I will be prepared to discuss it the day the Tyrants are gone from the Palm. Not before.”

"You will be dead before that. We will both be dead.”

"Dont touch him!" Alessan said sharply. Belatedly Devin saw the Naddo had raised his good hand to strike the wizard. More quietly the Prince added, "If we are both dead, then our spirits can wrangle in Morians Halls, Erlein. Until then, no more. We will have a great deal to do together in the weeks to come.”

Ducas coughed. "As to that," he said, "we two also had better speak. There is a fair bit Id like to know before I go further than this nights work, much as it has pleased me.”

"I know," said Alessan, turning to him in the dark. He hesitated. "Will you ride with us for a little.

Only as far as the village. You and Naddo, because of his arm.”

"Why there, and why because of the arm? I dont understand," Ducas said. "You should know that we are not much welcome in the village. For obvious reasons.”

"I can guess. It wont matter. Not on an Ember Night. You will understand when we get there. Come.

I want my good friend Erlein di Senzio to see something. And I suppose Sertino had better join us too.”

"I wouldnt miss this for all the blue wine in Astibar," said the pudgy Certandan wizard. It was interesting, at another time it might even have been amusing, to note what a healthy distance he continued to keep between himself and the Prince. The words he spoke were facetious, but his tone was deadly serious.

"Come on then," said Alessan brusquely. He turned his horse past Erleins, almost brushing against the other man, and started west out of the pass. The ones he had named began to follow. Ducas spoke a few terse commands to Arkin, too low for Devin to hear. Arkin hesitated for a moment, clearly torn, wanting to come with his leader. But then, without speaking, he turned his horse the other way. When Devin glanced back a moment later, he saw that the outlaws were rifling the Barbadians bodies for weapons.

He turned to look over his shoulder again a few moments later but they were in open country by then, with the hills in shadow to the south and east and a grassy plain rolling north of them. The entrance to the pass could no longer even be seen. Arkin and the others would be gone from within it soon, Devin knew, leaving only the dead. Only the dead for the scavengers; one of them killed by his own sword, and another one a child.

The old man lay on his bed in the darkness of an Ember Night and the always darkness of his own affliction. Far from sleep, he listened to the wind outside and to the woman in the other room clicking her prayer beads and intoning the same litany over and over.

"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls. Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls. Eanna love us . . .”

His hearing was very good. It was a compensation most of the time, but sometimes—as tonight, with the woman praying like a demented thing—it was a curse of a particularly insidious kind. She was using

her old beads; he could tell the thin, quick sound even through the wall separating their chambers. He had made her a new ring of beads of rare, polished tanchwood three years ago for her naming day. Most of the time she used that ring, but not on the Ember Days. Then she went back to her old beads and she prayed aloud for most of three days and nights.

In the earliest years here he had slept those three nights in the barn with the two boys who had brought him here, so much did her unceasing litany disturb him. But he was old now, his bones creaked and ached on windy nights such as this, so he kept to his own bed under piled blankets and endured her voice as best he could.

"Eanna love us always, Adaon preserve us from all perils, Morian guard our souls and shelter us.

Eanna love us . . .”

The Ember Days were a time of contrition and atonement, but they were also a time when one was to count and give thanks for ones gifts. He was a cynical man, for sufficient and varied reasons, but he would not have called himself unreligious, and he would not, in fact, have said hed lived a life unblessed, despite the blindness of almost two decades. He had lived much of his life in wealth and near to power.

The length of his days was a blessing, and so too was the lifelong grace of his hands with wood. Only a form of play at first, a diversion, it had become something more than that in the years since they had come here.

There was also his other gift of skill, though few people knew of that. Had it been otherwise he would never have been able to shape a quiet life in this highland village, and a quiet life was essential because he was hiding. Still.

The very fact of his survival on the long, sightless journey all those years ago was a blessing of a special kind. He was under no illusions: he would never have survived without the loyalty of his two young servants. The only ones they had allowed to stay with him. The only ones who had wanted to stay.

They werent young nor were they servants any longer. They were farmers on land they owned with him. No longer sleeping on the front-room floor in their first small farmhouse nor out in the barn as they had in the earliest years, but in their own homes with wives beside them and children near by. Lying in darkness he offered thanks for that, as gratefully as for anything he had ever been given himself.

Either of them would have let him sleep in their home these three nights, to escape the unending drone of the woman in the other room, but he would not presume to ask so much. Not on the Ember Nights, not on any night. He had his own sense of what was appropriate, and besides, he liked his own bed more and more with the passing years.

"Eanna love us as her children, Adaon preserve us as his children . . .”

He wasnt, clearly, going to be able to fall asleep. He thought about getting up to polish a staff or a bow, but he knew Menna would hear him, and he knew she would make him pay for profaning an Ember Night with labor. Watery porridge, sour wine, his slippers cruelly moved from where he laid them down.

"They were in my way," she would say when he complained. Then, when fires were allowed again: burnt meat, undrinkable khav, bitter bread. For a week, at least. Menna had her own ways of letting him know what mattered to her. After all the years they had their tacit understandings much as any old couple did, though of course he had never married her.

He knew who he was, and what was appropriate, even in this fallen state, far from home, from the memory of wealth or power. Here on this small farm-holding bought with gold fearfully hidden on his person during that long, blind journey seventeen years ago, sure that a murderous pursuit was riding close behind.

He had survived, though, and the boys. Coming to this village on a day in autumn long ago: strangers arriving in a dark time. A time when so many people had died and so many others were brutally uprooted all across the Palm in the wake of the Tyrants coming. But the three of them had somehow endured, had even managed to make the land put forth a living for them in good years. In Certandos bad years latterly

he had had to deplete his dwindled reserve of gold, but what else was it for, at this point?

Really, what else would it be for? Menna and the two boys—they were no longer boys, of course— were his heirs. They were all he could claim as family now. They were all he had, if one didnt count the dreams that still came in his nights.

He was a cynical man, having seen a great deal in the days before his darkness came, and after, in a different way of seeing, but he was not so burdened by irony as to defeat wisdom. He knew that exiles always dreamt of home and that the sorely wronged never really forgot. He had no illusions about being unique in this.

"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us from—Triad save us!”

Menna fell silent, very abruptly. And for the same reason the old man sat suddenly upright in bed, wincing at a sharp protest from his spine. They had both heard it: a sound outside in the night. In the Ember Night, when no one should be abroad.

Listening carefully he caught it again: the sound, delicate and faint, of pipes playing in the darkness outside, passing by their walls. Concentrating, the old man could make out footsteps. He counted them.

Then, his heart beating dangerously fast, he swung out of bed as quickly as he could and began to dress.

"It is the dead!" Menna wailed in the far room. "Adaon preserve us from vengeful ghosts, from all harm. Eanna love us! The dead have come for us. Morian of Portals guard our souls!”

Despite his agitation the old man paused to note that Menna, even in her fear, still included him in prayers. For a moment he was genuinely moved. In the next moment he ruefully acknowledged the inescapable fact that the succeeding two weeks of his life—at least— were likely to be sheerest domestic torment.

He was going outside, of course. He knew exactly who this was. He finished dressing and reached for his favorite stick by the door. He moved as quietly as he could, but the walls were thin and Mennas hearing almost as good as his own: there was no point in trying to slip out unheard. She would know what he was doing. And would make him pay the price.

Because this had happened before. On Ember Nights and other nights for almost ten years now. Sure of foot inside the house he went to the front door and used his stick to roll back the chink-blocker on the floor. Then he opened the door and went out. Menna was praying again already: "Eanna love me, Adaon preserve me, Morian guard my soul." The old man smiled a wintry smile. Two weeks, at least. Watery porridge in the morning. Burnt, tasteless khav. Bitter mahgoti tea. He stood still for a moment, still smiling faintly, breathing the crisp, cool air. Mercifully, the wind had died down a little, his bones felt fine. Lifting his face to the night breeze he could almost taste the spring to come.

He closed the door carefully behind him and began tapping his way with the stick along the path towards the barn. He had carved this stick when he still had his sight. Many times he had carried it in the palace, an affectation at a dissolute court. He had never expected to need it in this way. Its head was the head of an eagle with the eyes lovingly detailed, wide and fiercely defiant.

Perhaps because he had killed for the second time in his life that night, Devin was remembering that other much larger barn from the winter just past, in Astibar.

This one was far more modest. Only two milk cows and a pair of plow horses stabled. It was well- made though, and warm, with the smell of the animals and clean straw. The walls had no chinks to admit the knife of wind, the straw was freshly piled, the floor swept clean, the tools along the walls neatly laid and stacked.

In fact, if he wasnt careful, the smell and the feel of this barn would take him much further back than last winter: back to their own farm in Asoli, which he tried never to think about. He was tired though, bone tired, after two sleepless nights, and so he supposed he was vulnerable to such memories. His right knee ached fiercely, where he had twisted it on the mountain. It was swollen to twice its normal size and sharply sensitive to touch. Hed had to walk slowly, making a real effort not to limp.

No one spoke. No one had spoken since they had reached the outskirts of this village of some twenty homes. The only sound for the last few moments after they tethered the horses and began to walk had been Alessans pipes softly playing. Playing—and Devin wondered if he alone knew this, or if Naddo recognized it too—a certain nursery melody from Avalle.

Here in the barn Alessan was still playing, as gently as before. The tune was one more thing that seemed to be trying to carry Devin back to his family. He resisted: if he went that way in the condition he was in right now he would probably end up crying.

Devin tried to imagine how the haunting, elusive melody would sound to anyone huddled inside the walls of their lightless homes on this Ember Night. A company of ghosts passing by, that was what they would seem to be. The dead abroad, following a small, forgotten tune. He remembered Catriana singing in the Sandreni Woods: But wherever I wander, by night or by day, Where water runs swiftly or high trees sway, My heart will carry me back and away To a dream of the towers of Avalle.

He wondered where she was tonight. And Sandre. Baerd. He wondered if he would ever see any of them again. Earlier this evening, pursued into the pass, he had thought he was about to die. And now, two hours later, they had killed twenty-five Barbadians with those same outlaws who had pursued them, and three of the outlaws were here with them in this unknown barn listening to Alessan play a cradle song.

He didnt think he would understand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.

There was a sound outside and the door swung open. Devin stiffened involuntarily. So did Ducas di Tregea, a hand reaching for his sword. Alessan looked at the door, but his fingers never faltered on the pipes and the music continued.

An old man, slightly stooped, but with a leonine combed-back mane of white hair, stood for a moment, backlit by the sudden moonlight, before he stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him with a stick he carried. After that it was dark again in the barn and hard to see for a few moments.

No one spoke. Alessan did not even look up again. Tenderly, with feeling, he finished the tune. Devin looked at him as he played and wondered if he was the only man here who understood what music meant to the Prince. He thought about what Alessan had been through in this past day alone, about what it was he was riding towards, and something complicated and awkward stirred in his heart as he listened to the wistful ending of the song. He saw the Prince set his pipes aside with a motion of regret. Laying down his release, taking up the burdens again. All the burdens that seemed to be his legacy, the price of his blood.

"Thank you for coming, old friend," he said now, quietly, to the man in the doorway.

"You owe me, Alessan," the old man said in a clear strong voice. "You have condemned me to sour milk and spoiled meat for a month.”

"I was afraid of that," Alessan said in the darkness. Devin could hear affection and an unexpected amusement in his voice. "Menna has not changed, then?”

The other man snorted. "Menna and change do not coexist," he said. "You are with new people, and a friend is missing. What has happened? Is he all right?”

"He is fine. A half-days ride east. There is much to tell. I came with some reason, Rinaldo.”

"So much is clear to me. One man with a leg that is torn inside. Another with an arrow wound. The two wizards are not happy but I can do nothing about their missing fingers and neither is ill. The sixth man is now afraid of me, but he need not be.”

Devin gasped with astonishment. Beside him Ducas swore aloud.

"Explain this!" he growled furiously. "Explain everything!”

Alessan was laughing. So, more softly, was the man he had called Rinaldo. "You are a spoiled and petty old man," the Prince said, still chuckling, "and you enjoy shocking people simply for the sake of doing it. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

"There are so few pleasures left to me in my age," the other retorted. "Would you deny me this one too? There is much to tell, you say? Tell me.”

Alessans voice grew sober. "I had a meeting in the mountains this morning.”

"Ah, I was wondering about that! And what follows?”

"Everything, Rinaldo. Everything follows. This summer. He said yes. We will have the letters. One to Alberico, one to Brandin, and one to the Governor of Senzio.”

"Ah," said Rinaldo again. "The Governor of Senzio." He said it softly, but could not quite disguise the excitement in his voice. He took a step forward into the room. "I never dreamt I would live to see this day. Alessan, we are going to act?”

"We have already begun. Ducas and his men joined with us tonight in battle. We killed a number of Barbadians and a Tracker pursuing a wizard with us.”

"Ducas? That is who this is?" The old man gave a low whistle, a curiously incongruous sound. "Now I know why he is afraid. You have your share of enemies in this village, my friend.”

"I am aware of that," said Ducas drily.

"Rinaldo," Alessan said, "do you remember the siege of Borifort when Alberico first came? The stories about a red-bearded captain, one of the leaders of the Tregeans there? The one who was never found?”

"Ducas di Tregea? This is he?" Again the whistle. "Well met then, Captain, though not, as a matter of fact, for the first time. If I remember rightly, you were in the company of the Duke of Tregea when I paid a formal visit there some twenty years ago.”

"A visit from where?" Ducas asked, visibly struggling to get his bearings. Devin sympathized: he was doing the same thing, and he knew rather more than the red-bearded man did. "From . . . from Alessans province?" Ducas hazarded.

"Tigana? But of course," Erlein di Senzio interjected harshly. "Of course he is. This is just another petty injured lordling from the west. Is that why you brought me here, Alessan? To show how brave an old man can be? You will forgive me if I choose to pass on this lesson.”

"I didnt hear the beginning of that." It was Rinaldo, speaking softly to the wizard. "What did you say?”

Erlein fell silent, turning from Alessan to the man by the door. Even in darkness Devin could see his sudden confusion.

"He named my province," Alessan said. "They both think you are from my home.”

"An outrageous slander," Rinaldo said calmly. He swung his large, handsome head towards Ducas and Erlein. "I am vain enough to have thought you might know me by now. My name is Rinaldo di Senzio.”

"What! Senzio?" Erlein exclaimed, shocked out of his own composure. "You cant be!”

There was a silence.

"Who, exactly, is this presumptuous man?" Rinaldo asked, of no one in particular.

"My wizard, Im afraid," Alessan replied. "I have bound him to me with Adaons gift to the line of our Princes. I spoke to you of that once, I think. His name is Erlein. Erlein di Senzio.”

"Ah!" said Rinaldo letting his breath out slowly. "I see. A bound wizard and a Senzian. That explains his anger." He moved another few steps forward, sweeping his stick over the ground in front of him.

It was in that moment that Devin realized that Rinaldo was blind. Ducas registered it in the same moment: "You have no eyes," he said.

"No," Rinaldo said equably. "I used to, of course, but they were judged inappropriate for me by my nephew, at the suggestion of both Tyrants seventeen years ago this spring. I had the temerity to oppose

Casalias decision to lay down his Ducal status and become a Governor instead.”

Alessan was staring fixedly at Erlein as Rinaldo spoke. Devin followed his glance. The wizard looked more confused than Devin had ever seen him.

"I do know who you are, then," he said, almost stammering.

"Of course you do. Just as I know you, and knew your father, Erlein bar Alein. I was brother to the last real Duke of Senzio and am uncle to the craven disgrace who styles himself Casalia, Governor of Senzio now. And I was as proud to be the one as I am shamed to call myself the other.”

Visibly fighting for control, Erlein said, "But then you knew what Alessan was planning. You knew about those letters. He told you. You know what he intends to do with them! You know what it will mean for our province! And you are still with him? You are helping him?" His voice rose erratically at the end.

"You stupid, petty little man," Rinaldo said slowly, spacing the words for weight, his own voice hard as stone. "Of course I am helping him. How else are we to deal with the Tyrants? What other battleground is possible in the Palm today but our poor Senzio where Barbadior and Ygrath circle each other like wolves and my crapulous nephew drowns himself in drink and spills his seed in the backsides of whores!

Do you want freedom to be easy, Erlein bar Alein? Do you think it drops like acorns from trees in the fall?”

"He thinks he is free," Alessan said bluntly. "Or would be, if it wasnt for me. He thinks he was free until he met me by a river in Ferraut last week.”

"Then I have nothing more to say to him," said Rinaldo di Senzio, with contempt.

"How did you . . . how did you find this man?" It was Sertino, speaking to Alessan. The Certandan wizard still kept to the far side of the room from the Prince, Devin noted.

"Finding such men has been my labor for twelve years and more now," Alessan said. "Men and women from my home or yours, from Astibar, Tregea ... all over the peninsula. People I thought could be trusted and who might have reason to hate the Tyrants as much as I. And a desire to be free that matched my own. Truly free," he said, looking at Erlein again. "Masters of our own peninsula.”

With a faint smile he turned to Ducas. "As it happened, you hid yourself well, friend. I thought you might be alive, but had no idea where. We lived in Tregea on and off for more than a year but no one we spoke to knew, or would say anything about your fate. I had to be terribly clever tonight to lure you into finding me instead.”

Ducas laughed at that, a deep sound in his chest. Then, sobering, he said, "I wish it had happened earlier.”

"So do I. You have no idea how much. I have a friend I think will take to you as much as you will to him.”

"Shall I meet him?”

"In Senzio, later this spring, if events fall right. If we can make them fall right.”

"If that is so, you had best start by telling us how you need them to fall," Rinaldo said prosaically.

"Let me tend to your two wounded while you tell what we should know.”

He moved forward, tapping the ground ahead of him as he came up to Devin. "I am a Healer," he explained gravely, the sharpness gone from his voice. "Your leg is bad and needs dealing with. Will you let me try?”

"So that is how you knew us," Ducas said, wonder in his voice again. "I have never known a true Healer before.”

"There are not many of us and we tend not to announce ourselves," Rinaldo said, the empty sockets of his eyes fixed on nothingness. "That was so even before the Tyrants came: it is a gift with limits and a price. Now we keep ourselves hidden for the same reason the wizards do, or almost the same: the Tyrants are happy to seize us, and force us serve them until they wear us out.”

"Can they do that?" Devin asked. His voice was hoarse. He realized that he hadnt spoken for a long time. He cringed at the thought of what he would sound like if he tried to sing tonight. He couldnt remember the last time he had been so exhausted.

"Of course they can," said Rinaldo simply. "Unless we choose to die on their death-wheels instead.

Which has been known to happen.”

"I will be happy to learn of any difference between that coercion and what this man has done to me,”

Erlein said coldly.

"And I will be happy to tell you," Rinaldo shot back, "as soon as I finish my work." To Devin he said, "There should be straw behind you. Will you lie down and let me see what I can do?”

In a few moments Devin found himself prone on a bed of straw. With an old mans gingerly caution Rinaldo knelt beside him. The Healer began rubbing his palms slowly against each other.

Over his shoulder Rinaldo said, "Alessan, Im serious. Talk while I work. Begin with Baerd. I would like to know why he isnt with you.”

"Baerd!" a voice interrupted. "Is that your friend? Baerd bar Saevar?" It was Naddo, the wounded man. He stumbled forward to the edge of the straw.

"Saevar was his father, yes," Alessan said. "You knew him?”

Naddo was so distraught he could scarcely speak. "Knew him? Of course I knew him. I was ... I ...”

He swallowed hard. "I was his fathers last apprentice. I loved Baerd as ... as an older brother. I ... we ...

parted badly. I went away in the year after the fall.”

"So did he," Alessan said gently, laying a hand on Naddos trembling shoulder. "Not long after you did. I know who you are now, Naddo. He has often spoken to me of that parting. I can tell you that he grieved for the manner of it. That he still does. I expect he will tell you himself when you meet.”

"This is the friend you mentioned?" Ducas asked softly.

"It is.”

"He has spoken to you of me?" Naddos voice skirled high with wonder.

"He has.”

Alessan was smiling again. Devin, weary as he was, found himself doing the same. The man before them sounded remarkably like a young boy just then.

"Do you . . . does he know what happened to his sister? To Dianora?" Naddo asked.

Alessans smile faded. "We do not. We have searched for a dozen years, and asked in a great many places, wherever we find survivors of the fall. There are so many women of that name. She went away herself, some time after he left in search of me. No one knows why, or where she went, and the mother died not long after. They are . . . their loss is the deepest hurt I know in Baerd.”

Naddo was silent; a moment later they realized that he was fighting back tears. "I can understand that," he said finally, his voice husky. "She was the bravest girl I ever knew. The bravest woman.

And if she wasnt really beautiful she was still so very . . ." He stopped for a moment, struggling for composure, and then said quietly: "I think I loved her. I know I did. I was thirteen years old that year.”

"If the goddesses love us, and the god," Alessan said softly, "we will find her yet.”

Devin hadnt known any of this. There seemed to be so many things he hadnt known. He had questions to ask, maybe even more than Ducas had. But just then Rinaldo, on his knees beside him, stopped rubbing his palms together and leaned forward.

"You need rest quite badly," he murmured, so softly none of the others could hear. "You need sleep as much as your leg needs care." As he spoke he laid one hand gently on Devins forehead and Devin, for all his questions and all his perturbation, felt himself suddenly beginning to drift, as on a wide calm sea towards the shores of sleep, far from where men were speaking, from their voices and their grief and their

need. And he heard nothing more at all of what was said in the barn that night.