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say.”
    â€œSpecial sort of courage, say I. But I have been a king for too long, and I always wonder, and suspect.…”
    â€œShe could be killed for it if folk knew. Stoned at the stake. Abomination …”
    He made no reply except to shrug.
    â€œIt’s as well she would not lie with you,” I said, trying to jest but not truly jesting. “You might have found yourself—altered. In the mid of night.”
    He grimaced by way of answer. We rode on for a while, edging up the flanks of the mountains, making our way toward the Blackstone Path and the Blue Bear Pass.
    â€œWhy did you speak of it?”
    â€œI wish I knew.” Kor sounded wry.
    â€œYou have more courage than I.”
    â€œLess. I think I wanted—to stop loving her.”
    Sakeema, his honesty. Understanding pierced me.
    â€œIt makes no difference,” I said softly after a moment. “Loving goes on.”
    â€œI know. To my dismay.”

Chapter Three
    Daily we wound our way higher on the long shoulders of the mountains. Yellow pine gave way to dense spearpine and aspen amid spines of rock. The going was hard, but we saved many miles by slanting our way north and westward toward the Blackstone Path, which would take us over the mountains. The name of it came not from the mountain stones, which were granite gray, but from the knife blades made of obsidian, the black stone, which my tribefellows would chip and carry to the Seal and Otter peoples to trade for fish oil—along the coast even flint was scarce, and folk made their knives of shell and bone. The Blackstone Path snaked steeply up to a high nagsback, scarcely to be called a pass, between the Chital and Shaman peaks. It would be a hard way for the horses, and for us, but we had decided to attempt it this time rather than brave the gentler Shappa Pass, where so much misfortune had befallen us.
    Autumn comes early to the high slopes. Aspens were turning yellow by the time we neared the trail.
    Kor made the best of traveling companions: steadfast, seldom complaining, dryly amusing at times, at other times content to be silent for half a day or more, giving the mind a chance to rest itself in dreams. What endeared him even more to me, every day’s journey gave him fresh cause for wonder. My mountains amazed him at every turn anew, and his eyes sparkled as he looked about him. He gazed days on end at the yellowing of the aspens amid evergreens, and at the alp, the high meadow far above, already touched by frost or an autumn moon, glowing the color of embers beneath gray-blue crags.
    Blue sky, white snowpeaks, green pines, and the smaller trees so yellow they seemed to shine as we came within sight of the Blackstone Path. A slate-blue hulk squatted amidst the boulders that marked the way upward to the pass. Kor frowned at the sight of the Cragsman.
    â€œI hope there is no toll to pay this time,” he muttered.
    But what could the Blue Bear require of us? Pajlat’s steppes lay far away—no Fanged Horse raiders could be waiting in ambush. We knew better than to consort with the deer folk. And the Cragsmen had done no more than laugh at us before. Though Cragsmen were stony-hearted, capricious.…
    And hard as the crags. Folk said they took form from the bones of the mountains themselves. And they could send great shards of mountain down on us, I knew. But an odd sense, something more sure than daring, was growing in me. It was as Kor had said the night we had clasped hands in blood brotherhood: we two together could do anything. Our handbond gave us strength and our swords gave us might. Ventures of any kind held few fears for me.
    The Cragsman rose, clambering over the boulders with thick legs the color of granite in shadow, thudding down to bar our way as we rode up to him. As we sat our horses, his head was on a level with ours. I noticed the greenish, lichenlike growth of his hair. I saw his bare, massive chest, gray-blue and mossed