"Why do they not just kill her?" whispered Timbrin. "They have bombs."

"They wish to take her alive," Relys said tone-lessly.

"But why?"

Relys's mangled hand throbbed. "For reasons that I

know well."

Timbrin flared, a spark of her hot temper taking sudden fire. "Those dogs! We cannot let them-"

Relys held up her good hand. The Gray faces were moving. Having obviously decided that a single, unarmed girl could be captured without caution, they stepped out of the trees and closed in on Mernyl's old cottage. If Gelyya stayed where she was, she would be caught. If she ran, she would be caught.

But Gelyya suddenly opened up with a burst of machine gun fire that scythed them down as though they were ripe wheat. In a moment, the two men who had circled to the rear were the only members of the troop left.

"Timbrin," said Relys, "quickly."

Timbrin followed her around to the back of the house. Silently, they circled wide and approached the remaining Gray faces from behind. Relys heard the men conferring, peered through a screen of ferns and saw them reaching to their belts for grenades.

Relys deliberated quickly. Shouting to Gelyya would merely turn the grenades and bullets on her and Timbrin, and Gelyya would be killed eventually in any case; but doing nothing was not an acceptable alternative.

Relys mouthed a silent question. Can you help? Timbrin shrugged, shook her head helplessly: her shackles had loosened a little, but they still bound her. Relys nodded. It was up to her alone.

She drew her sword and slipped towards the Gray-faces as they prepared to throw their explosives. A single grenade would do, but they were taking no chances. "You put yours on the right," one was saying in the distant, pa.s.sionless voice that characterized them. "I'll take care of the left."

"You got it."

The bloodlessness of their tone made Relys shudder. The Grayfaces moved like men asleep, like dream walkers who were playing out a role of which they knew nothing, their movements as unconscious as those of infants.

The pins came out of the grenades. Relys's sword swept in. Her left arm was weak, but its strength was sufficient to sever the arm of the first soldier, and it cut deeply into the wrist of the second. Primed, lethal, seconds away from detonation, the grenades fell at the feet of the wounded men.

"Timbrin!" Relys cried. "Down!" She pivoted and ran, expecting at any moment to feel a hot blast of wind on her back, the jagged peppering of steel slivers.

Behind her, the Grayfaces were crying out and fumbling for the grenades. Ahead was a dip in the ground, and Relys rolled into it just as the two grenades went off and knocked the wind out of her even where she lay. Shrapnel sang through the air like a flock of deadly birds, and then silence returned.

Relys opened her eyes. On the dry brush a few feet away was hanging a sc.r.a.p of what could only have been a face. She gagged. She had seen worse in her days of battle, but it was the thought of the weapon that had produced such a thing that made her retch, not the thing itself.

She struggled to her feet, her maimed hand throbbing. "Timbrin!" she called. "Are you well?"

"Aye."

"Gelyya?"

"Who is that?" The girl's voice sounded thin and weak.

"Relys of Ba-" No. Not that name. Another. Hahle had made a generous offer, and now Relys accepted it. She took a deep breath. "Relys and Timbrin," she said. "Of Quay."

Gelyya's head appeared at the sagging door of the cottage. Her malnourished face was dirty, and her red hair was matted with leaves and dust. "Relys? Timbrin?"

"Aye, we are here." Relys detoured around what was left of the Gray faces and stepped into the cottage's overgrown garden. Dropping her rifle, Gelyya ran to her.

"I thought that surely I would die in there," said the girl, embracing her. "I knew they had bombs, but there was nothing I could do against them."

"It is well, Gelyya," said Relys. "You did what you could with the weapon you had. In you Gryylth can claim a resourceful warrior."

"I? A warrior?"

Relys allowed herself a thin smile, gave Gelyya's shoulders a squeeze. "I would call you that."

Gelyya's eyes were bright. "My thanks, Relys."

"It is no more than you deserve." Relys looked up. Timbrin was not in sight. Where was she? "But . . . what are you doing out here?"

Gelyya's face turned bleak. "Kallye-" she started, but her words suddenly froze on her tongue and she stared away to the left. Relys followed her eyes and saw a man standing at the edge of the trees. He was dressed in the armor of the King's Guard. His face was one that she would never forget.

Lytham.

Relys swallowed her sudden nausea and bettered her grip on her sword. "It would be unwise for you to approach, man," she said.

But Lytham's swaggers and arrogance had deserted him. Sword in hand, he stood at the edge of the Mernyl's overgrown and withered garden, his face as gray as the piece of flesh that had confronted Relys from the bushes a minute before. "I am not here for you, Relys," he said. "I am here to take Gelyya back to Kingsbury.''

"By whose authority?"

"Helwych's."

Relys spat. ' 'If I had been more clever, I would have spitted him on my sword months ago."

Lytham was guarded. "But you were not, and now he has sent me for Gelyya. I have tracked her the length of Gryylth, and now she must come with me."

Gelyya moved suddenly, sprinting for the cottage in a flurry of skirts and flying hair. In a moment, she had reached the M16 and aimed it at Lytham. Her finger found the trigger, squeezed . . .

But nothing happened. The gun had jammed, or perhaps the clip was empty.

Lytham approached cautiously. "I will leave you alone, Relys, if you allow me to take the girl."

"You settled any question of leaving me alone some weeks ago, Lytham. If you approach, I will smite you."

"With your left hand?"

"With my teeth if need be."

Lytham paused, licked his lips. "Come now. This does neither of us any good."

"Stay where you are," said Relys. "You are but one man, and I am armed."

"I am but one man, indeed," said Lytham. "But I have others. More than enough to deal with you."

Relys stood her ground. "Then they will have to deal with me. And this time I will not be chained and helpless. Let them come."

His face pale, Lytham turned back to the trees. "Haryn. All of you. Come help me."

Several seconds went by. No reply. No movement.

Lytham licked his lips. "Haryn! Come forward. Bring the others."

The bushes rustled, but what appeared was not a group of armed warriors, but rather the small and slight form of a dark-haired woman. Timbrin. A b.l.o.o.d.y knife was in her hands, and a hot fire burned in her eyes. Her shackles had at last given way: the quick-tempered warrior was back. "Your men are dead, Lytham," she said. "They are all dead."

Relys was already in motion. "As you soon shall be, dog."

Stunned, Lytham turned, struggled to raise his sword. But the heart, seemingly, had gone out of him, and with only the strength of her left arm, Relys knocked the weapon from his hand.

For a moment, Lytham seemed to be struggling with words, his beardless cheeks shuddering with emotion. But boyish and impotent though he was, he had played the part of a man once on a dark evening in Kingsbury; and Relys cut back with her blade, striking not just at this single individual who had so violated her, but at all the memories of rape and torment that tortured her by day, haunted her dreams by night, and now lent strength to the blow that severed Lytham's head and sent it rolling across the weedy ground, its boyish features still contorted with an odd mixture of sorrow and fear.

* CHAPTER 20 *

Beyond Saint Andrew's Place and Gramercy Drive, Sixth Street turned wider, more residential. Apartment buildings and lawns replaced the office buildings, and the constricted concrete canyons of urban life were supplanted-at least for the time-by open s.p.a.ces and broad sidewalks.

But though Alouzon saw the change as an improvement, she knew that such subtleties were lost on the majority of her people. For them, Los Angeles had in the first few minutes gone well beyond any qualities that could be adequately expressed by terms like foreign or alien, and the milieu it offered was uncompromising and relentless. Automobiles swept along the street with a roar and a blare of radios, the tall buildings were lit with the unflickering glow of mercury vapor and fluorescent lamps, and the pale night sky was filled with lights of its own: the steady, blinking progress of jetliners, the strobing and noisy abruptness of police and news helicopters.

Near Windsor, where the street was lined with fine, old mansions and carefully tended landscaping, the steady, dull roar of the living city was broken by a siren. Shrill and sudden, it exploded into life somewhere ahead and drew closer. Flashing lights came into view.

"I cannot block him," cried Kyria. "He is too single-minded."

Alouzon wheeled. "Everyone out of the way, quick!'' She glanced to her left. The house on the corner, a blend of the characteristic Spanish and 1940s architecture of the city, was dark and set away from the street. Like its fellows in this neighborhood, it had a broad lawn. "Up on the gra.s.s!"

As the police cruiser, still shrieking, rushed towards them, the men and women in the vanguard scrambled out of the street. Pressing up against the house, beside rose bushes, behind hedges, they cl.u.s.tered thickly on the front lawn of the house; but farther behind, the foot soldiers milled uncertainly.

"Santhe!" came Marrha's cry. "Clear the byway!"

Santhe took charge of the middle of the line with quick commands, and the men of the Second Wartroop wheeled as one and herded the infantry off the cross street. At the rear, Wykla and Manda shouted to those about them, and with a clatter of boots and weapons, the pikemen stumbled out of the way in a tightly packed ma.s.s. The few wagons that had strayed into the street creaked and rumbled to the curb.

"Get those wagons out of there!" Alouzon yelled. "He's in the near lane!"

The Corrinian soldiers threw down their pikes and ran to the wagons. With the headlights on the approaching police cruiser gleaming on the bronze bosses of their armor, they put their shoulders to the recalcitrant carts and heaved them up onto the gra.s.s.

The cruiser's headlights cast long shadows along the street, and its flashing lights lit the trees in staccato bursts. Alouzon made one last check to see that the way was clear . . . and swore aloud when she noticed that a lone soldier-a pikeman-was standing in the middle of Sixth Street, watching, transfixed, as the whirl of lights and noise swept towards him.

She was in full gallop in a moment. Swinging down while still in motion, she hauled the pikeman to the side just as the police car roared by, siren shrieking.

The soldier was sobbing in her arms. "I do not un- derstand," he choked, his pike hanging limply in his hand. "This is a terrible place." Wiping his streaming eyes, he saw that Darham was hurrying up on foot. "My king," he said, "I am sorry."

Darham stood over the pikeman, his arms folded. "There is no place for cowards here, sir," he said slowly.

"Just a d.a.m.ned minute-" started Alouzon.

Darham shook his head. "But I cannot blame you. I brought you to Vaylle to fight a battle, and you came willingly enough for that. But we both find strange weeds in our fields."

The soldier swallowed his tears. "Thank you, lord." He looked up, realizing who had dragged him out of the street. "Dragonmaster! I-" Shame clouded his features again.

Alouzon shook her head. "It's okay, guy. Hang in there. There were a few times at rush hour that I felt the same way.''

Darham offered a big hand to his soldier and pulled him to his feet. "Form up," Alouzon called. "Let's go." She noticed that lights were flicking on in the house. "Kyria?"

"Done," said the sorceress with a lifted hand; and though bleary-eyed faces were suddenly pressed against the windows, it was obvious that they saw only horse droppings, foot prints, and wagon ruts-and nothing whatsoever of the animals, men, women, and carts that had put them there.

Alouzon got everyone started off, and when she was sure that Kyria's magic circle was once again firmly in place, she cantered to Darham's side. "Thanks," she said warmly.

"For what?" said the Corrinian. "For showing compa.s.sion?" He shook his head. "I but attempt to correct a deficiency, Dragonmaster. Had there been more compa.s.sion in the lands of Gryylth and Corrin, I believe that none of this would have occurred in the first place."

Alouzon was staring off into the heat-shimmered night. And had there been more compa.s.sion among the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam, none of that would have happened. And had there been more compa.s.sion at Kent State ...

Darham was right. But where, save in the depths of the Grail, was there sufficient compa.s.sion to sweep away the last vestiges of the past-without regret, without sorrow-and so end forever the existence of the Specter?

She caught her breath. The last she had seen of it, the Specter had been in Beverly Hills. Given the slippery time factors involved, that was only about two Los Angeles hours ago. The Specter, then, was doubtless still looking for her, and the closer the army came to UCLA, the closer it would come to the Specter's widening search.

And so, inevitably, the Specter would not only find her, but also the ma.s.sed armies of Gryylth and Corrin. Suddenly, her concerns about the damaged door at the archaeology office and even the potential stranding of the troops in Los Angeles seemed paltry things indeed.

O G.o.ds . . .

She realized that she could only be addressing herself, but she shook herself out of the thought. "Come on," she called to the troops. "Hurry. The sun rises at about seven, and it gets light before that."

She nodded to Darham once again, and then she was off, riding towards the head of the columns that, step by step, were nearing their goal. And the Specter.

Why? '

Seena tended her inert children, going through the motions of living within the confines of a glorified prison. But though Hall Kingsbury was large enough to contain her and her griefs, it had become insufficient to pen her suspicions and her certainties.

Why?

She knew why. Helwych was why. Far from being the heroic defender of her children and her people, the sorcerer was instead the cause of their afflictions. Seena no longer doubted that the story he had told of the Vayllens' treachery was a lie designed to send Cvinthil and the men of Gryylth overseas-so that he could take control of the country. And Ayya and Vill were but further stones in the path that the Corrinian sorcerer was building, stones designed to bear down upon her back so that she would be too occupied and stricken to object to his a.s.suming full command of the country.

The days pa.s.sed. Seena tended to Ayya and Vill, but her mind was racing, battling through her immediate concerns, and winning its way through to broader issues that, far from eclipsing the plight of her children, only added weight and urgency to it.

Helwych. Her children. The whole country.

She began asking questions of the soldiers-slowly, so as not to attract attention-and realized that matters were being kept from her. She knew nothing of what was happening outside the palisade, and no one would tell her. Her guards, true, were still nominally loyal to her husband and herself, but it quickly became obvious that their fears were centered about Helwych. Regardless of their loyalties, simple self-preservation dictated that they remain silent.

But the preservation of her children dictated that Seena find out more; and one night, m.u.f.fling herself in a rough cloak, she slipped along the corridors of Hall Kingsbury and made her way to a small gate at the rear of the palisade. Here there were no Grayfaces. Here was only a single soldier of the Guard.

"Who comes?" he challenged.