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So the chaos-master didn’t want his secret roads noticed. I smiled briefly and flicked the reins. “Let’s go.”

Before riding on, I noted where the road ran for future reference. The road wasn’t evil—just its uses.

We spent another night in the Little Easthorns, up another narrow canyon with a stream that did not merit the name, and even less grass. Gairloch had almost finished off the last of the grain cakes, and I began to worry whether I would have the coins necessary for food once we reached the more inhabited sections of Kyphros.

I washed out one set of underclothes and laid them on the rocks, wringing them dry, wondering as I looked at the overhead clouds of gray whether I should have done so.

After sunset, the thunder rumbled like coach wheels down a canyon road, like Antonin riding forth and sowing destruction across the Vale of Krecia. I thought that was the name of the place where I had met the white wizard, and if it weren’t…well…one name was as good as another. The flashes of the lightning hid behind the clouds in the northern half of the sky, back-lighting those dark sky-mountains.

For all the thunder in the heavens, the air remained warm enough that the light breeze was welcome. I ended up tossing off the cloak and lying on the bedroll barefoot, sleeping in just shirt and trousers.

The rain promised by the thunder did not arrive, and, in time, the clouds overhead vanished and the stars shone like tiny lamps in the sky, clearer than I had seen them since I had landed in Freetown, and nearly as clear as on a midwinter night in Recluce.

Dawn crashed down on me like a tide of light, or so it seemed, with the red ball of sun bursting from a dark sky within instants.

With no reason to tarry, Gairloch and I headed onward and downward. Being on the southern side of the Little Easthorns made a difference in one respect. Kyphros was warmer, a lot warmer, and drier. Even with just a shirt and no tunic, I was sweating—and it was well into fall.

What the place would be like in the summer, I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

Each step Gairloch took on the hilly road toward Kyphrien raised a reddish dust. Orchards seemed to prevail on the hillsides—orchards and grapes. The trees were of two kinds—gnarled olive trees with small pale green leaves, and some sort of fruit with which I was unfamiliar. There might have been several related types or different varieties of the same type. Whatever they were, the greenish fruits all grew on low spreading trees with dark-green leaves that might have been shiny except for the autumn dust. Some of the green fruits seemed to have an orange color mixed with the green, but since none of the trees were that close to the road, I really couldn’t tell.

Unlike the stone and red-oak houses of the more northern principalities, the houses of Kyphros were white; but it wasn’t the white of chaos, just a soft off-white painted over timber and stone and plaster. The roofs were mostly of red tile.

Wheeee…eeee…

“It’s hot, and you’re thirsty. So am I.”

We kept riding, but only until the next crossroad, which consisted of half-a-dozen houses and a small building with a shaded porch. By then it was near midday.

I wiped my forehead as I dismounted in front of the building.

“Could you tell me where I might get some water for my horse?” I asked a tanned youngster with shaggy black hair, a boy who might have reached to my waist.

“We have some. You will have to lead your…horse…around the back.” He pointed around the left side of the building. “Barrabra! A traveler!” Then he was gone.

I scratched my head, itchy from the sweat and heat and dust, before taking the reins and trudging toward the corner.

I stopped suddenly. Around the white-plastered corner of the building were several men armed with swords, waiting, and the fear they would have denied boiled from them. I didn’t want to fight, and I didn’t want to run. So I stood there, reins in hand, wondering what I would do next.

Finally,