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I shook my head. Someone, something, had thought farther ahead than I cared to speculate. Even with my back against the warm rock, I shivered.

I still wasn’t thinking fast enough.

So I sat on the outcropping and tried to think out what I had to do next. I had to learn what was in the book and to apply it. I had to make a living of sorts with enough space and time to read. And I had to avoid getting much notice. That was especially important, particularly if my disappearance from an apparently locked room in Carsonn were relayed to Antonin or whichever chaos-wizard was after me.

I didn’t understand why, though. I wasn’t as dangerous as Justen, and Tamra was certainly as much a threat as I was. I shook my head, wondering where she was and what she was doing.

Avoiding further notice meant avoiding Passera. If it took a whole troop to cross the Easthorns, a single rider would be seen as magician, or bandit, or common thief, and even given my recent outlays, the amount of coins I carried would give full suspicion to one of those assumptions.

All this led to the need to reach Fenard, a town large enough for me to seek a woodcrafter who needed an extra hand without raising too many questions.

I sighed. Every time I thought, the problems got more complex and involved more than just me.

“Come on…we’ve got another piece to travel, and a few more nights on the road.”

Click…click… Gairloch’s shoes clicked on the smoothed stones of the highway as it descended down the long slope to Passera, and, eventually, toward Fenard.

XXXVIII

THE BLOND WOMAN juggles the knife as she rides, glancing ahead, then back at the rotund trader perched on the gray mare that walks heavily beside the lead pack mule. “No trouble yet.”

The trader eyes the black-haired woman—shapely, even in the faded blue tunic and trousers—on the scarred battle-pony, who scans the road ahead.

The older woman, the black-eyed and black-haired one, turns to catch the trader’s appraising stare. She touches the blade at her belt, and a faint smile crosses her lips.

The trader sees the smile and the hand on the hilt of the blade and shivers. “See…anything?” he stammers.

“Could be…there’s a line of dust headed our way. Only a single rider, though. No trouble there.”

“You fixing to join up with the autarch?” asks the trader, each word tumbling out almost before the last is finished.

“Why?” asks the blonde.

“The word is that Kyphros needs blades; the autarch doesn’t care whether they’re men or women, just so long as they’re good.”

“I don’t know…” The blonde’s voice is flat.

“We’ll see after we deliver you…and collect our pay…” laughs the older woman.

Her laugh is not a laugh, and the trader shivers again.

The blond woman rides further ahead, and the dark-haired woman’s free hand strays toward the hilt of her blade.

XXXIX

SKIRTING PASSERA WAS easy enough, except for the river bridge that held towers and a guard force. While the towers would hold against brigands, I doubted they would stop even a few score of well-trained and armed men.

They didn’t have to. The gate just had to stop us. So Gairloch and I waited nearly till dusk, until I sensed the gate about to open and slipped through going the other direction. They even left the gate open while three of them checked under the bridge from the mountain side.

I didn’t wait for them to finish, taking Gairloch step by slow step across the stones, hoping that the gentle click of his hooves would be muffled by the rush of the narrow river below the bridge.

All the practice had given me a fairly good sense of place without seeing, but I still worried that someone could see through the reflective shield. In a way, it was faith, sheer faith, to walk beside an armed guard with a sword ready to use, separated from that violence by the thinnest of light-curtains…and I couldn’t even sigh.

Beyond the gate, Passera was open enough, though Gairloch and I quickly left it well behind as we continued into the forested hills beyond the town. I dropped