He had the Vhelny set them down on a pretty little hill on the island, where they had a good view of the surrounds, then set the demon to guard them from anyone approaching. They picnicked on salty ham, pears, and a sweet red wine. Zemle was nervous at first, but when no one bothered them, she eventually relaxed and even drowsed.

He noticed the Vhelny drifting near.

"I smell the throne," it said.

"Yes," Stephen said. "So do I. It"s not here, but it will be soon, down there in the shadow city. That must be where Virgenya put her shortcut."

"You"re speaking nonsense, wormling."

He shook his head. "No. She left the power, but she left a key to it in the blood of her line and a place for that key to unlock. She made a faneway, a brief one containing only two fanes-but separated by a hundred leagues. But once one of her heirs visited the one, it was inevitable that they should visit the other and inherit much of her power. That"s what happened to Anne. But Anne isn"t Virgenya. She won"t use the power and then give it up."

"That"s why you seek the throne? To save the world?" the Vhelny sounded dubious.

"To make it what it should be."

"Then why not go now to the city of shadows and wait?"

Stephen plucked a straw of gra.s.s and placed it between his teeth. "Because I can"t make out even the faintest shadow of Anne anymore. Even after I walked the faneway, I couldn"t see anything about her, but I knew where she was. Now it"s as if she"s gone completely. She might be a thousand leagues from here or right there, waiting for me. I can still see Hespero, and I should probably challenge him first, garner his strength before attempting Anne."

"Coward."

"Ah, you want me to rush into this and lose. You"d like to be free again. You won"t be, I promise."

"Man-worm, you know so little." Stephen felt the p.r.i.c.k of a thousand ghostly needles against his flesh. He rolled his eyes and dismissed the attack with a wave of his hand.

"Hush. I"m going to try to find her again. Maybe being closer will help."

The Vhelny said nothing, but he felt it coil in upon itself, sulking.

He sent his senses drifting, expanding away from him like ripples in a pond. There was the throbbing sickness that was the emerging throne; there was the contained puissance of the man whom he once had known as Praifec Hespero but who lately had risen in the world. He would be difficult. Should he make an alliance with him against Anne? That might be the safest course; he could strike the Fratrex Prismo once they had won.

But then, Hespero would nurse the same plan.

He was almost ready to give up when something caught his attention, a sort of glimmer in the corner of his eye. It was a few leagues from the city, and like Eslen-of-Shadows, it reeked of Cer.

At first he didn"t understand, but after a moment he smiled in delight and clapped his hands together.

"I should have guessed," he said. "This is really wonderful. And no one else knows."

"What do you babble about?" the Vhelny asked.

"We"ll just go and see," Stephen said, rubbing his hands together. "At worst it will help pa.s.s the time. But I don"t think it will be worst. The first thing is to find a safe place for Zemle."

The last time Aspar had seen the Sa Ceth ag Sa"Nem, the "Shoulders of Heaven," he had been in the bloom of early and unexpected love. They-and everything else he saw-had appeared beautiful beyond imagining.

He supposed they still were, those mammoth peaks whose summits were so high that they faded into the sky like the moon at midday. But he wasn"t giddy with love this time, far from it. No, he was thinking mostly about killing.

The geos wouldn"t let him, not yet, not until he actually had gotten Winna to the Vhenkherdh or, presumably, when she got there with Leshya. Until then, he couldn"t slit Fend crotch to breastbone because then Fend"s monsters would kill him, and the geos didn"t want that.

That was how things were. When they reached the valley, they would change.

He no longer held much hope that anything useful could be done there. He didn"t doubt that Fend would cut open Winna and offer whatever was growing in her in some grizzly and pointless sacrifice dreamt up by the diseased mind of the Sarnwood witch. But heal the forest, bring it back? It didn"t seem possible. It also didn"t seem very likely that he and Winna were going to get out of the valley alive once they got there. It might be that the best he could do was give her an easy death, then slaughter Fend and as many of the others as he could before they took him down. The thought of dying didn"t bother him much; without the forest and without Winna, there wasn"t anything keeping him in the lands of fate.

He was still in that bleak mood a few bells later, when the unexpected walked up and slapped it right out of him.

They were switchbacking up to the top of a long ridge of hills when a stream crossed their path. And there, just where the water ran off the hill, grew a little green fern. Not a black spider tree or dragon-tongue thing but a simple honest bracken.

Farther along the trail they found more, and by day"s end they were in almost natural woodland again. For the first time since entering the King"s Forest his chest relaxed a bit, and the stench of putrefaction was almost gone.

So the heart of it is still alive, he thought. Leshya was right about that, at least. Maybe she was right about more.

Leshya had taken Winna, which suggested the Sefry also thought that the child she carried might be the solution to the problem. But had she thought that all along, or had she heard his conversation with Fend?

And Leshya and Winna weren"t alone. There was a third set of tracks: Ehawk"s. Leshya was taking them to the valley the same way Aspar had the last time, a long way around that required climbing down a deep gorge of briar trees.

They"d left their trail a day before; Fend was going by a more direct route that would allow horses in. That was how the knight was going, too. With any luck at all, they would actually beat Leshya, Winna, and Ehawk. When Winna entered the valley, the geos ought to lift, and then Aspar could do as he pleased.

By nightfall, with the sound of whippoorwills around him, he no longer was so certain what that would be.

Because he had hope again, as frail and as obstinate as a bracken.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE P PROOF OF THE V VINTAGE.

CAZIO FOUGHT in a b.l.o.o.d.y blur, all sense of time lost. His arm was so tired that he"d had no choice but to switch to his left, and when that failed him, he went back to the right, but the rest hadn"t helped it much. His lungs flamed in his chest, and his legs wobbled beneath him. As he clumsily drew Acredo from his latest opponent, he saw another coming. He spun to face the foe and kept spinning, toppling to the b.l.o.o.d.y earth. The Sefry slashed at him with a curved sword, but Cazio kept rolling, then reversed direction and thrust Acredo out hopefully. The Sefry, probably nearly as tired as he was, obligingly ran onto the point. He slid down the blade and onto Cazio, gasping strange curses before setting off west. in a b.l.o.o.d.y blur, all sense of time lost. His arm was so tired that he"d had no choice but to switch to his left, and when that failed him, he went back to the right, but the rest hadn"t helped it much. His lungs flamed in his chest, and his legs wobbled beneath him. As he clumsily drew Acredo from his latest opponent, he saw another coming. He spun to face the foe and kept spinning, toppling to the b.l.o.o.d.y earth. The Sefry slashed at him with a curved sword, but Cazio kept rolling, then reversed direction and thrust Acredo out hopefully. The Sefry, probably nearly as tired as he was, obligingly ran onto the point. He slid down the blade and onto Cazio, gasping strange curses before setting off west.

Grunting, Cazio tried to push the dead weight off, but his body didn"t want to cooperate. He summoned the image of Austra, helpless in the carriage, and finally managed to roll the man off and stagger back to his feet, leaning on Acredo just in time to meet five more of the Sefry, who were spreading to surround him.

He heard someone behind him.

"It"s me," z"Acatto"s voice said.

Cazio couldn"t help a tired grin as the old man"s back came against his.

"We"ll hold each other up," the mestro said.

From that simple touch, Cazio felt a rush of strength he had no notion still lived in him. Acredo came up, fluid, almost with a life of its own. Steel rang behind him, and Cazio shouted hoa.r.s.ely, parrying an attack and drilling his rapier through a yellow-eyed warrior.

"Glad I came?" z"Acatto grunted.

"I had the upper hand anyway," Cazio said. "But I don"t mind the company."

"That"s not the impression I had."

Cazio thrust, parried a counter to his arm, and sent his enemy dancing back from his point.

"I sometimes speak too quickly," Cazio admitted.

The two Sefry he faced came at him together. He bound the blade of the first to strike and ran through the other, then let go of the blade and punched the first man in the face. He reeled back, during which time Cazio withdrew Acredo and set it back to guard.

He heard z"Acatto grunt, and something stung Cazio"s back. He dispatched the staggering Sefry, then turned in time to parry a blow aimed at z"Acatto. The old man thrust into the foe"s belly, and suddenly they were alone. Around them the battle was nearly over, with z"Acatto"s men surrounding a small knot of the remaining Sefry.

Z"Acatto sat down hard, holding his side. Cazio saw blood spurting through his fingers, very dark, nearly black.

"I think," z"Acatto grunted, "it"s time we drank that wine."

"Let"s bind you up first," Cazio said.

"No need for that."

Cazio got a knife, cut a broad strip from a Sefry shirt, and started wrapping it tightly around z"Acatto"s torso. The wound was a puncture, very deep.

"Just get the d.a.m.ned wine," the mestro said.

"Where is it?" Cazio asked, feeling the apple in his throat.

"In my saddle pack," z"Acatto wheezed.

It took Cazio a while to find the horse, which wisely had moved away from the fighting.

He dug one of the bottles of Zo Buso Brato out and then raced back to where his swordmaster still sat waiting. His head was down, and for a moment Cazio thought he was too late, but then the old man lifted his arm, proffering a corkscrew.

"It might be vinegar," Cazio cautioned, flopping down next to his mentor.

"Might be," z"Acatto agreed. "I was saving it for when we got back to Vitellio, back to your house."

"We can still wait."

"We"ll have the other bottle there."

"Fair enough," Cazio agreed.

The cork came out in one piece, which was astonishing, considering its age. Cazio handed it to z"Acatto. The older man took it weakly and smelled it.

"Needs to breathe," he said. "Ah, well." He tilted it back and took a sip, eyes closed, and smiled.

"That"s not too bad," he murmured. "Try it."

Cazio took the bottle and then hesitantly took a drink.

In an instant the battlefield was gone, and he felt the warm sun of Vitellio, smelled hay and rosemary, wild fennel, black cherry-but underneath that something enigmatic, as indescribable as an ideal sunset. Tears sprang in his eyes, unbidden.

"It"s perfect," he said. "Perfect. Now I understand why you"ve been trying to find it for so long."

Z"Acatto"s only answer was the faint smile that remained on his face.

"I"ll tell them I did it," Mery said. "I"ll tell them you weren"t even here."

Leoff shook his head and squeezed her shoulder. "No, Mery," he said. "Don"t do that. It wouldn"t work, anyway."

"I don"t want them to hurt you again," she explained.

"They"re not going to hurt him," Areana promised in a hushed and strained voice.

Yes they are, he thought. And they"ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance And they"ll hurt you, too. But if we can keep them from examining Mery, from noticing the wrongness about her, she might have a chance.

"Listen," he began, but then the door opened.

It wasn"t a sacritor standing there or even Sir Ilzereik.

It was Neil MeqVren, Queen Muriele"s bodyguard.

It was like waking up in a strange room and not knowing how you got there. Leoff just stared, rubbing the bent fingers of his right hand on his opposite arm.

"You"re all right?" Neil asked.

Leoff plucked his voice from somewhere. "Sir Neil," he said cautiously. "There are Hansan knights and warriors about. All over."

"I know." The young knight walked over to Areana and cut her bonds, then Leoff"s, and helped him up.

He only glanced at the dead men on the floor, then at Areana"s swollen face.

"Did anyone still living do that, lady?" he softly asked her.

"No," Areana said.

"And your head, Cavaor?" he asked Leoff.

Leoff gestured at the dead. "It was one of them," he said.

The knight nodded and seemed satisfied.

"What are you doing here?" Areana asked.

The answer came from an apparition near the door. Her hair was as white as milk, and she was so pale and handsome that at first Leoff thought she might be Saint Wyndoseibh herself, come drifting down from the moon on cobwebs to see them.

"We"ve come to meet Mery," the White Lady said.