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around her and hugged her knees, staring into the flames, hypnotized into mind blankness until she shrugged herself out of the haze. “Harskari,” she whispered.
    Amber eyes opened, blinked, then the thin, clever face smiled out of the darkness in her mind. “Aleytys.”
    â€œI’ve been remembering.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhy did you all stop talking to me?”
    The wind was strengthening, whispering across the coals and blowing alternate gusts of warm and cold air past her face. Small pieces of grit pattered against the blanket.
    Harskari shook her head, her white mane shifting like silk. “We didn’t. You were so hurt by the nayid male’s death that you couldn’t handle it. You transferred the guilt you felt to us and took the only revenge you could by totally denying our existence. You forgot us and sealed us off from contact at the same time. I don’t think you know your strength, Aleytys.”
    Aleytys dropped her head on her arms, burying her face in the folds of the blanket, grieving because she was not grieving. But too much time had passed. Once there had been first affection, then a deep love shared. Now there was only a faded memory as if all that had happened to someone else. Was this all love came to? She tried to find a trace of that tumultuous warmth in herself, but there was nothing. Too much time. She sighed, brushed a hand over her face, and stared back into the glowing coals. “So when I was close to dying, you could get through again.”
    â€œYes. You needed us.”
    â€œI’ve just about got straight in my head what happened since I left Jaydugar. What about you?”
    â€œTo see your world, we look through your eyes. But there are other worlds and other ways of looking.”
    â€œOh.” Aleytys glanced briefly at Gwynnor’s sleeping form, then lifted her eyes to the brilliantly lit sky. A huge pale moon thrust up over the eastern horizon, filling half the sky with its milky glow. The air was cold, thin and sharp and invigorating, biting the fog out of her mind. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”
    Harskari chuckled. “Yes, young Aleytys, we know what you’ve been doing.”
    Abruptly, Aleytys felt very good, her body ticking like a fine watch. She laughed and patted her mouth as the laugh turned into a yawn. “Harskari?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œOn Jaydugar, we made a mess of the nomad clan. On Lamarchos, I got involved with Loahn and the Horde, Kale and his complicated plots, until the whole damn world was crushed under dead bodies. On Irsud, I stuck my nose into the hiiri’s fight with the nayids, though the nayids asked for it. The outcome was that I destroyed a large part of the nayid population. So here we are on Maeve, in the company of a cerdd who is helping wage an undeclared war. Makes you think.”
    â€œIt does, indeed,” Harskari chuckled, a gentle affectionate sound, “considering past performance.”
    â€œDamn.” Aleytys yawned again. “I’ll probably have nightmares.”

Chapter IV
    â€œHow the hell are we supposed to get down that?” Aleytys muttered. Stomach pressed against the rock, she lay with her head over the cliff edge, looking down, down, dizzyingly down to a mossy green carpet marking the tops of trees far below. Warm updrafts sweeping up the face of the slope brought scent loads slipping past her face, a complex melange of smells that tickled her nose and intrigued her mind, surprising her with its strength here, so far above the forest below.
    The face of the stone slanted outward. Rough and craggy with plenty of hand and foot holds, it didn’t look especially hard to climb, but it went so far down. Aleytys closed her eyes. “Swardheld, you weren’t just bragging, I hope. You better be able to manage that.”
    Swardheld’s face laughed out of the darkness at her. “That? Freyka, that