' 'Well..." Alouzon released her, shoved her hands into her pockets, shrugged. "I'm here. I guess that counts for something."

"Indeed."

"You . . . uh . . . happy with Santhe?"

Kyria smiled broadly. "Very," she said. "As happy as Wykla is with Manda, or Marrha with Karthin, though I confess I did not think that possible."

"I was up at your house. Did you know we're both dead?"

Kyria's dark eyes flickered. "I suspected that. I cannot say that I mind. Gryylth, Vaylle . . . this entire world is my home now. And it is a goodly place."

"What about Los Angeles? Can you handle going back?"

"I can," said the sorceress. "And the magic will be no great matter, though it would be best if I had help." She took Dindrane's hand. "What say you, sister?"

"I . . ." Dindrane regarded Alouzon with a sense of worship. " 'Tis a healer I am," she said. "Or rather, that I was. I know not what I am now. But I can help. And I will."

"I am very grateful," said Kyria.

"Surely. But . . ." Dindrane's eyes turned sad. "There is another matter." Gently, she went down on one knee before Alouzon. "Great Lady," she said formally, "would it please you to forgive me the harsh judgments and unkind words that I made and uttered in the past?"

Alouzon stared, and her stomach wrenched.

Someone was kneeling to her. No . . . not that . . . "Please, Dindrane ..."

"G.o.ddess?" Dindrane's tone was not that of fanaticism or idealistic devotion. She knew Alouzon. She knew her faults and her virtues both, and yet she worshipped.

Mortified, Alouzon pulled the priestess to her feet. "I ... I don't know how things are supposed to be done," she said. "But I know how I want them done. Yeah, the Grail's real close, but I want you and everyone else to know that when I find it I'm not going to be this big time Jehovah figure off in the distance. I've always just wanted to be friends with everyone. That's all. And that's not gonna change. Just call me Alouzon. Your friend."

Dindrane's eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g. "I could not ask for a better G.o.ddess, Alouzon. My people and I are indeed privileged."

"It's just something I've got to get through," said Alouzon. "I . . ." Dismayed, she felt the distance between herself and those she loved widening. Even Kyria seemed farther away. It was only a matter of time.

She hugged Dindrane, relishing the feel of mortality. But it could not last. "I guess it had better happen soon," she said. "It's not really good to have G.o.ds wandering around in the flesh. It just gets too messy that way."

Gelyya found Kallye late that night. In the light of her lamp, the heap of bones and glistening flesh was no more than an abstraction of ochers, yellows, and dull reds, and she was mildly surprised that she felt so little in response. But there was only so much grief that could be spent in a lifetime, and Gelyya had overdrawn the account.

The night was dark, and a distant baying blended with the dull roar of far-off battles. Death in the towns; death in the country. It no longer mattered. Midwifery no longer mattered. Healing no longer mattered.

And, like Alouzon, she wanted to do something. Anything.

Silently, she doffed the ap.r.o.n she wore and covered up the stripped skull that was all that was left of Kallye's face. And then she turned around and left.

The hovels that cluttered the streets were silent, some with sleep, others with death. Gelyya made her way among them. Once, she had played in the streets of Bandon, dreaming of freedom and independence. But she and her companions had grown older, marriages had been arranged, and life had closed in on them. And though Alouzon's coming had briefly rekindled her hopes, the fantasies had finally guttered into darkness amid the bombs and napalm of an aerial attack.

But it was not dreams that lured Gelyya through the streets and toward the wall that surrounded the town. Her dreams were gone, burned clean in the white-hot fire of experience, and what was left was necessity. Gelyya could do no more for the women and children of Kingsbury. Perhaps she could do something for Gryylth. Or, that failing, perhaps for Gelyya of Bandon.

As a girl she had practiced moving silently-like a warrior stalking an enemy-and now, tying up her skirts and belting her scrip close to her waist, she recalled those childish exercises and made them her own once again. Her soft woman's shoes noiseless among the clutter of the street, she slipped from shadow to shadow, drawing ever closer to the wall.

Others had died attempting escape. But theirs had been a desperate and frantic climb over the walls and a heedless run down the road. Not so Gelyya of Bandon. Where others had broken through the gate, she picked her place and climbed carefully, inching through the shadows, waiting-heart pounding, holding her breath, her cheek pressed against the rough wood-for a guard or a Grayface to pa.s.s by. Where others had sprinted along open ground, she slid to the ground outside the walls, crept along the ditches, and took cover beneath bushes and hedges, using the darkness of night and moon-shadow for concealment.

By midnight, she had pa.s.sed the earthworks and was halfway down Kingsbury hill. Far off, lights flickered, and dull thunders testified to the continuing bombardment of the land. There was little hope for her out there, but there was none at all within the walls of the town, and so she continued-silently, steadily-down the slope.

But where the hill gave way to the flat fields, the way seemed blocked. Floodlights lit the ground brilliantly. Barbed wire lay in spiral tangles. Trenches and walls of sandbags lay in zigzagged rows.

She crept to the edge of the concealing darkness. There was a way out. There had to be a way out.

She had to do something.

In another hour she had worked her way around the base of the hill and had found the place where the wire and the trenches were thinnest. Here to the south, neither Helwych nor the Grayfaces expected much of a land attack, but a profusion of rocket launchers and machine guns indicated that they were taking no chances.

Gelyya eyed the guns. Gleaming metallically in the moonlight and the spill of the floods, they stood on their posts within sandbagged emplacements, the bullets in their cartridge belts gleaming like so many copper-jacketed teeth. She had seen them in operation many times, and maybe she could . . .

Movement. Behind her. She started to turn, but her arms were suddenly pinned, and a hand covered her mouth. Struggling, striking futility, she was dragged back into the bushes.

"Be quiet, girl."

The words were spoken in a whisper, as though her a.s.sailant had no more wish to be discovered than she. But Gelyya struggled.

The whisper turned fierce. "d.a.m.n you, Gelyya, shut up!"

The voice was familiar, and when she paused, puzzling over it, her mouth was uncovered and she was abruptly spun around to be confronted by a face hardly older than her own.

Lytham.

"What are you doing here?" he said. The ensign of the King's Guard sparkled in the moonlight. "Nay, I can guess."

She glared at him, wanting nothing so much as to spit in his face. "I found Kallye. I found the sc.r.a.ps the hounds left."

He looked away. "I had nothing to do with that."

"Helwych did."

"How do you know?"

She wanted to scream at him: Alouzon told me, you fool! Your master is a lie, and the Dragonmaster will return and put him to death like the vile worm he is! But she bit back the words, looked for others. "I know."

"Kallye, too, refused to answer my questions."

"And she is dead now. So kill me, Captain of the Guard. Kill me and have done with it, or I shall surely try to kill you.''

"I do not want to kill you."

"Then let me go."

"I said that I do not want to kill you. If I let you go, you will die. Whether the Grayfaces kill you here or the hounds kill you within a league, it will be all the same."

"I am leaving, Lytham. I might survive. I am willing to accept the chance that I might die."

He hung his head. "I did not want Kallye to be killed."

Gellya was defiant. "Little enough good that did."

"Aye . . ." He looked up. "If you escape, what will you do?"

She shrugged. "I will try to reach Quay. I have hopes that there are men and women there who have been spared this destruction.''

"And if there are not?"

"Do not play with me, Lytham. You are no longer a child. You showed that when you raped Relys."

The words stung him. "How did-?" He stopped, stared guiltily, then, as though he had no wish to know how she had found out about Relys, spoke carefully. "I will help you."

She hardly believed him. ' 'Why?''

Lytham's words were a whispered torrent of denial. "Because I no longer believe in Helwych. I no longer believe in anything. What difference does it make whether the refugees die within Kingsbury or without? Men and women should be able at least to choose whatever kind of death suits them. Therefore, if this is what you want, I will help you."

Gelyya was stunned. ' 'What. . . what are you going to do?"

"Wait here," he said abruptly. "There is a section of wire directly ahead of you that can be opened. When the shooting starts on the far side of the hill, run to it, open it, and escape. I will do my best to make sure that you are not seen."

"But-"

Lytham stopped her question with a look. "The Grayfaces have powerful weapons," he said. "But though they kill without conscience, their nerves are as frayed as ours. They will shoot at anything, real or imaginary.''

And with that he turned and disappeared into the shadows.

The sudden rush of fear and the equally sudden relief was making Gelyya shake almost uncontrollably. She wondered whether Lytham had noticed, and whether as a result her threats had seemed absurd and childish to him. But she put aside those thoughts. Alouzon would not worry about such things: she would wait for a chance to act. And so would Gelyya of Ban-don.

Crouching in the cover of a hedge, she listened, watched. Ahead was the thin point in the wire, and, straining her eyes, she picked out the fastenings of a gate.

A faint whistling in the air grew suddenly into a sound as of the ripping of canvas, then into a roar. A sh.e.l.l burst on the far side of the hill and sent a rush of hot wind across the fields. Shrapnel hissed through the air, and then a detonation from one of the gun emplacements at the foot of the hill and the whine of spun-off retaining bands sent her hands to her ears.

This was no diversion. This was an attack.

More sh.e.l.ls. The pop and crack of small arms. The thump of departing mortar rounds. She had heard them all before, knew all of their names and something of their use. All were common sights and sounds in Kingsbury these days, and the Grayfaces had not hesitated to direct them at refugees and enemies alike.

She ran for the wire. Tracers reached out of the darkness and licked the base of the gate as she fumbled for the fastenings, and a spray of gravel peppered her arms and legs as she swung it open.

She sprinted across the flood-lit ground, leaped the trenches one by one, and threw herself beyond the reach of the lights. But where she expected darkness and open ground, she found instead a troop of attacking Grayfaces running towards her out of the shadows.

Unable to stop, she plowed straight into the man at the head of the troop. He went down, his weapon flying from his hands, and Gelyya, rolling to the side, fighting to escape the clutching hands and the aim of the rifle barrels, came up against something long and hard and metallic. Her hands recognized the shape of the dropped rifle.

She seized it, and her untrained fingers were already settling on the trigger as she brought it up. Before the rest of the Grayfaces could react, she had sprayed them with high velocity bullets. Gas masks, uniforms, equipment, flesh-all disintegrated before her, and in a moment, she was alone in the company of corpses.

Staring, she almost dropped the rifle. The deaths she had seen in Kingsbury were at least comprehensible in terms of cause, and in any case she herself had never killed. But now she had taken life, and she had taken it grandly: not singly and precisely with well-placed sword strokes, but broadly and indiscriminately by means of a weapon she did not at all understand.

On the other side of the hill, the attack went on; and now the detonations of mortar rounds were walking slowly and steadily around the perimeter of the slope, making straight for her position. Swallowing the sudden nausea that welled up at the sight of so much blood and so many torn bodies, clutching the rifle, Gelyya filled her scrip with ammunition clips and ran for the deeper darkness that lay beyond the battle.

* CHAPTER 18 *

As the sun rose, shining fitfully through the blackness of the distant curtain wall, the wartroops and phalanxes a.s.sembled in the square before the King's House, their military efficiency and discipline quaintly complimented by the gracious disorder of the small band of Vayllen harpers and healers that gathered off to the side.

The horses that Kyria had, months ago, sent away from Kent had found their way back to Lachrae, and so Alouzon was astride Jia again this morning, grateful that, even in the face of imminent G.o.dhood, the beast had recognized her and cheerfully taken her on his back.

Now Jia turned his head and looked at her out of brown eyes. Alouzon leaned forward, scratched him between the ears. "Did you miss me, guy?"

"I a.s.sume that he did," said Marrha, who had cantered up beside her. Her braid gleamed in the morning light. "We all missed you."

Alouzon nodded. "It wasn't my idea."

"We suspected that," said the captain. "But our joy was great when Kyria announced that she and Dindrane had spoken with you."

"Uh . . . yeah." Alouzon wondered how much Dindrane and Kyria had said about their methods. But Marrha's manner was as straightforward as ever, and if there was a trace of awe in her eyes, it was the awe of a woman who had seen a dear Mend return from far distances and great danger.

A friend. But would that friendship hold when. . . ? "Listen, Marrha," said Alouzon. "You'll... uh ... take care of Jia if anything happens to me, won't you?"

Marrha frowned. "I will see to it, Dragonmaster. But I have always felt it unwise to speak in such a fashion before a battle."

"I'm not talking about dying," Alouzon blurted, trying both to hint at and to skirt the issue. "I'm just . . . well . . . you know ..."

Marrha's eyes were shrewd. "In truth, my friend, I do not. But do not fear."

"Yeah . . . good ..." Confused, unsure of what she had been trying to say, Alouzon trotted to the head of the columns. There, Kyria nodded to her, and Cvinthil and Darham took her hand briefly. Alouzon scanned along the columns of mounted warriors-the pikemen and infantry had been sent ahead-and the square fell silent, waiting for her command.

"Pellam's not coming?" she said suddenly.

Kyria answered. "He is a priest, Alouzon. He knows nothing of war. His people will need him here."

At the head of the harpers and healers, Dindrane's cropped hair was a blond gleam. Alouzon could not make out her face. "But Dindrane ..."

The sorceress shook her head softly. "Dindrane knows too much of war now," she said softly.

"Yeah . . . that's true."

The streets were full of people, come to see the departure. But though there were still smiles among the citizens of Lachrae, they were wistful smiles, and the sadness behind them had deepened. They also knew too much of war now.

And Alouzon, desperately hoping that she could make that knowledge obsolete, had nonetheless to confront the reality of what she faced. Helwych was a problem, true, but the real problem was the Specter.

And she still had no idea how to deal with that reification of her own unconscious fears and hates.

If she attacked it, she attacked herself. If she killed it-or if it killed her-she killed herself and her world. But regardless of her quandary, somewhere at the end of this march that would lead along the west road of Vaylle, the streets of Los Angeles, the corridors of UCLA, and the paths of Gryylth, it was waiting for her: powerful, lethal, undying save by her own death.

Some G.o.d.

She lifted her hand to give the signal to start, wondering as she did how much of Gryylth, of the whole world, would be left after she confronted the Specter.

They traveled throughout the day, and by sunset they were halfway to Lake Innael. Given the time differential between Los Angeles and Gryylth, the trip from MacArthur Park to UCLA would take over a week by the Gryylthan calendar, and conditions in the refugee cities were such that even that obligatory delay might prove fatal. Reluctantly, therefore, Alouzon ordered a stop for the night, and the men and women made camp, the efforts of the day evident in their manner and speech.