Things aren't like they were, Seyonne. You don't know what we've been through. With so few of us, we've had to change." He was nervous. Uncertain. "What do you mean?"

"For one thing ... we don't go searching anymore." I was dumbfounded. It was as if he'd just informed me that they had decided to make the sun shine at night and the moon in the day. "You don't go searching? Then how do you find the victims?" Even more, how could the Aife make a portal if there was no Comforter to make physical contact with the victim?

"We don't fight the same way. We can't afford to send out Searchers. They'd end up ... like you. And we have so few Wardens, what would we do with all the victims we found? How would we choose?"

"So what do you do? Just sit here and let them rot? Do you let a woman go mad and slay her children? Do you let a man crucify his slaves to feed the creature who has taken up residence in his soul? What do you tell old men who weep with the nightmares in their heads? Verdonne's child, Rhys, what do you do instead?"

"We do what we can." He burst out with such vehemence I thought the floor might shake. "We've struck a bargain." "A bargain. A demon bargain?" I was appalled. It was not uncommon to bargain with demons when victory was close in a battle. The idea was to force them out of their vessel, not to destroy them. Demons were a part of nature, no more evil in themselves than a cyclone or a volcano. It was never our aim to exterminate them, lest we upset some unknown balance in the universe. We only prevented them finding their feeding place in a human soul. So if we could force them into submission, we would offer them continued existence in return for their vessel. They would abandon the soul and retreat back into the frozen wastes of the northland to regenerate. Only if they refused did we fight to the death. But to bargain outside of that circ.u.mstance . .. "What did you exchange? And with whom?

You've sworn to oppose them in physical combat. How do you uphold your oath?"

"You're right about one demon speaking for all of them now. And you're right about the Khelid being the danger. Our pairing in the northeastern Empire-Kevyra and Do-rach-kept turning up demon-possessed Khelid, and I was about to go crazy with them. It's too long to explain, but I figured out what was happening, and came up with this idea. We fight one combat every cycle of the moon. Keyra and Dorach make the connection with the victim. If we limit ourselves this way, the demons will take no new souls unwilling and will not hunt or challenge our people. We battle for one soul each meeting. It's ferocious combat... only to be expected when they know we're coming. I've killed some of the demons, banished the others, lost a gallon of blood along the way, came near losing my arm in one. But it gives me time to help train new Wardens. So you see, we can't protect this Derzhi...

he's as good as one of them already."

"And Ysanne agrees with this? One soul every moon's turning."

"Of course, she agrees. None of us like it. We have no choice." He must have felt my shock and dismay. "It's only for a while until we're stronger. Until there are more Wardens than just me. It was the best we could do. It took us two years to make our way here-every day in hiding, split up, no possibility of the work. Everything was chaos. You were taken. Morryn and Havach dead, and all the Wardens from the western groves. We had to rush our training.

When we tried to start up again, we lost Dane and Cymneng in the matter of a week. There was no one but me. We had to find some other way. Someday-"

"Some other way .. ." It was impossible. No wonder Galadon had been so determined that I should pursue his futile scheme. Perhaps a powerless Warden was better than what they had. "You let them stay . . . but as you get stronger, they get stronger, too. Do you think that in this 'someday,' you'll ever be able to get them out?"

"I had to warn you, Seyonne. There's nothing to hold you here. This Derzhi villain can't do anything to you right now, so leave him. Be free. I'll cut these off you myself." He lifted my wrists and shook them, anger showing through his insistence like stark canvas behind an artist's paints. It made no sense.

I yanked my hands away. "It's not my slave rings I'd lose were I to ran away, Rhys. You would have me abandon the only thing in the world I still possess. I swore an oath, as did you-"

"I've got to go. Think on what I've said. I'll give you a horse, provisions, clothes, whatever you need. Perhaps I could make a spell to cover the marks."

I couldn't think what to say to him. How could he not see what he'd done? "Be careful, Rhys. Be sure. A demon never yields what it's not already lost. And only when it thinks it's found another way to get what it wants."

"He's a dead man, Seyonne. Get away from him." He gripped my shoulder briefly, then left.

I poked at the fire once, then again, then threw the branch onto the coals in exasperation. Sparks whirled and danced their way up the chimney. One lost its way and settled on my blanket, flaring up in bright orange bravery before dying its quick death.

"He betrayed you." I came near shedding my skin when the hoa.r.s.e whisper came from the darkness across the room. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a candle from the shelf over the hearth and lit it from the coals.

"You shouldn't talk," I said, setting the candle on the table by Aleksander's bed. His eyes were closed, damp red curls matted to his brow and cheek. I took a small clean towel and blotted the sweat from his face. "You've lost enough blood to sate a Derzhi Heged for a month."

"Did you not hear it? He said it himself. Gave it away."

I lifted the Prince's head and gave him a sip of water, and his eyes drifted open. His skin was warm and damp. "There was nothing to give away," I said.

"He knew you lived. He chose not to help you."

"Maybe a Derzhi would do such a thing, but not Rhys. I was surrounded. I was wounded by a Derzhi sword. I fell." Though it was only to my knees as they chained my hands and tied a leather strap around my throat so tightly I could scarcely breathe....

I cut off the thought. I was not ready for those memories. "He would have died for nothing."

"When he was talking about the others, he said it. 'Everything was chaos. You were taken.' Taken, not dead. Very clear. The guilt was leaking out of him."

"You should rest," I said.

"You should watch your back."

Chapter 25.

The break in Aleksander's fever was only temporary. Though I had little doubt that his vigorous health would prevail, the dirty wound was deep in his belly.

The healer cared for him throughout the morning after Rhys's midnight visit, so I had little to do but watch and stew and wonder what in Verdonne's name to do about anything. I longed to speak to Galadon again, but I dared not approach him now that others knew I was there.

After endless hours of nothing, I was so restless and agitated, I thought I might start ripping shelves off the walls or throwing things. Though he could not have heard me, I sat on the Prince's bedside and told him I was going out fora while, that I needed to clear my head. "The Ezzarian healer is here with you, my lord. I'll be back before she leaves at sundown. I'll not desert you."

I started out walking, pa.s.sing several people who did not see me. Even the children had been warned. Not one of them slipped, even when two of them came near trampling me when they came barreling out of the schoolhouse door. I might have been made of sunlight. After four or five such meetings, my hand flew to my face just to make sure it was still there. How often since I'd been a slave had I wished fa invisibility? Experiencing it was altogether different from my imagining.

I tried to sort out my thoughts, but somehow since my conversation with Rhys I had been incapable of putting any two of them together in any logical order.

Every time I tried to consider Rhys and Ysanne and the meaning of their bar- gain with the demons, my thoughts would skitter away into something trivial.

What did they talk about? Rhys delighted in parties and laughter. Ysanne preferred intimacy and quiet pleasures. What wine had he shared with Ysanne at their wedding? Ysanne loved sweet, dark wines, and Rhys disdained such "putrid child's drinks." He would only drink thin, sour white vintages. Idiocy. Why did I care?

Aggravated at my inability to think, I started trotting, and by the time I entered the trees, I was running, faster and faster, first along the main path and then angling off on the game trail that Aleksander and I had followed the night he was injured. The harder I ran, the better my mind settled into coherence.

It was astounding enough to know that the demons were working together and had been doing so for so many years, that one demon could bargain for all of them. But beyond that change in the working of the world, what in the name of sense had possessed Rhys to strike a bargain with them? He had always been rash. It had continually set back his training, and Galadon had despaired of getting him to think before striking. But surely time had taught him prudence, and paired with Ysanne, a strong, decisive, experienced partner, he could not have entered into such an arrangement without consideration. As my feet pounded on the hard-packed dirt, I began to conjure visions. With nothing of magic, of course, only memory long forbidden. Rhys ...

/ envied Rhys his height. At ten he was taller than me by a head and his shoulders twice as broad as my scrawny frame. If we were both to be Wardens, then any advantage of height or strength would place him ahead of me. It wasn 't fair to be bested through no fault of my own. But on the day we decided to explore the caverns carved out from under Caenelon by the springs of Valdis, height and bulk were no advantage. We 'd heard of a series of crystal-lined rooms beyond the "gargoyle cavern " that everyone could reach.

But to get to them, one had to crawl half a league through a low tunnel, then flatten oneself against a wall and squeeze through a short, narrow crevice. I slipped through the crack easily and raised a light, calling to Rhys to hurry, as I'd never seen such a wonder as the sparkling cave.

"Seyonne, wait!"

"Come on," I said. "There's more beyond. It's like diamonds in here."

"I can't fit. Come back."

I didn 't want to go back. I was halfway through the slot into the next cave, gaping at amethyst walls, ceiling, nicks, and crevices.

"Seyonne, help me!" The rising panic in my friend's call dragged me back. He was in the dark, so terrified at the prospect of being stuck forever underground, that he'd forgotten the words to make a light-the first enchantment any Ezzarian child was taught. He had stooped over to squeeze his head through, then wedged himself tight, caught with one hand ahead of him, one hand behind, and something snagged on the overhanging rocks behind him. He was panting hard and said the rocks were so tight about his chest he couldn't breathe properly. After ten minutes of close examination, including poking my head back through the crevice underneath him, I concluded that it was his leather ruck-sack-carrying such necessities as chetese and bread and apples, nuts and ropes and sweets-that had caught him.

"Going to have to cut off your b.a.l.l.s to make you fit," I said solemnly, unsheathing my knife.

Rhys's eyes, already bulging in fear, dwarfed the cavern. "Merciful Valdis!" he whimpered.

I slashed the straps on his shoulder, and when the ruck-sack released, his pent-up fear shot him through the crevice like a stone from a slingshot. He bowled me over, sending my knife flying and scattering our treasured supplies, leaving two apples rolling slowly across the stone floor. "Your b.a.l.l.s," I said, and we exploded in laughter. For an hour we lay choking on wild hilarity in the diamond cave, flickering our magical lights on the crystals and marveling at the glories of life. He swore on that day that when we grew up to fight demons, he would never fail me-even if he had to cut off my b.a.l.l.s to save me.

I ran faster, propelled by worry, confusion, and sickness of heart. By sixteen years of confinement... of pain and loneliness... of forbidding myself to remember. Even when my side felt like Daffyd's spear had pierced it, my legs knotted in cramps, and my breath came in burning gasps, I could not stop.

What was I to do about Aleksander? Ysanne saw him as too damaged to save.

So did Galadon. But were their judgments clouded by the Prince's ident.i.ty, as Aleksander a.s.sumed? Would they say the same if he were not Derzhi? If so much had changed among my people in sixteen years, was I a fool to believe that their impartial generosity still thrived?

Without realizing it I began to control my breathing and the ferocious beating of my heart, slowing them, commanding my muscles to loosen and stretch, to work smoothly. Always my thoughts came back to Rhys. What had he done?

My eyes flicked open to clouds. Or fog. Or some other indefinable grayness.

Moisture condensed on my overheated skin and dribbled down my bare back.

. . and chest... my bare everything. Where were my clothes? Confused, disoriented, beginning to be nauseated, for I couldn 't tell whether I was right side up or upside down. My feet felt nothing underneath, and I began flailing my arms in panic.

Where was I? Where had I been last time I knew where I was?

Training, of course. When did I do anything else?

"Aife?" I dared not speak Ysanne's name. Galadon would set me back a week for such a slip of discipline. A week... It was not training, but testing. I'd been taking the last test after five grueling days. I had taken the last step. Through a curtain of fire... Sweet Verdonne, was I dead?

"Aife! Master!" I flailed and twisted, and felt soft clutching at my arms.

Demons? Spirits of the afterlife? I yanked my arms away and still they clutched at me... and laughed. Quietly at first, as if at a long distance, then closer and mere boisterously. "Holy Verdonne," I said defiantly. "Take me to the light if I'm to live with you."

"Take him to the light!"

"He wants light!"

"All right. Just remember it was your idea."

"Serves him right!"

Just in front of me a blinding spark set a torch blazing, and a hand took shape in the mist-a very solid, thick-fingered hand holding a pewter goblet br.i.m.m.i.n.g with golden wine. It was quickly followed by a pair of exuberantly wiry eyebrows topping two bright eyes something like those of a fish. "You may want this," said the owner of the eyes, pushing the goblet into my hand.

"Verdonne sent it and said 'maybe later.' For now you're condemned to stay with us."

And, of course, the mist of merry enchantment dissolved, and I found myself clad in nothing but wood smoke, standing beside a cheerful bonfire being laughed at by Rhys, Hoffyd, my sister Elen, Garen... and Ysanne, who sat quietly on a rock, frowning in concentration as she examined me. She took a long pull at her own pewter goblet as I stood paralyzed with embarra.s.sment.

"I'd always imagined a Warden would be more impressive naked, but Galadon swears he pa.s.sed his testing, so I suppose we'll have to make do with him."

As I tried without success to shrink into nothing, Rhys, Garen, and Elen collapsed into raucous hilarity, and Rhys tossed me a Warden's cloak of dark blue. "We tried to get it on you while keeping you modestly hidden in the mist, but I was afraid you were going to crack our skulls." He lifted his goblet.

"Congratulations, my friend. You are the youngest ever to pa.s.s the Warden's testing. May you know nothing but victory, and return from every battle unscathed."

"Here, here," cried the others, raising their cups. Ysanne's rare smile unfolded like a b.u.t.terfly from its chrysalis. For so many years she had been suffocated by the ten courtiers Queen Tarya set to watch over and protect her every hour of every day. She had never attended a village school or gone adventuring with those her own age, so she had only just started to be comfortable around my friends. They had been astonished to discover her wicked sense of humor. I would have laid wagers that this "unveiling " was her idea.

After embarra.s.sment and confusion had yielded to elation and shared joy, Ysanne returned to her studies and the others went off in search of food. Only Rhys and I were left by our midnight fire. We sat in companionable silence for a while, letting the echoes of our friends fade into the sounds of a peaceful night. Then Rhys broke the quiet. "You've left me behind, Seyonne. I can't share your path or your battles now. But I will. As soon as I can, I'II follow you. Leave me a few demons to fight." We joined hands and swore our Warden's oath to each other, and believed we had glimpsed the truest meaning of the universe.

I lengthened my stride and increased my speed. The trees alongside the path blurred.

"What did you say to her? I thought she might bring the cliff down on your head." Rhys flopped onto the gra.s.s beside the log seat Ysanne had so recently vacated. I was still smarting from her angry words.

"I just told her I needed to go back to Col'Dyath for a few days to clear my head. That's all."

"How can you bear being in that place all by yourself? Rocks, wind, not a twig or a blade of gra.s.s. Gives me the twitters, it does."

"These last few encounters have been vile," I said. "It takes me awhile to get my equilibrium back after battles like that, and I don't like to burden anyone with it."

"Butyou've got the most beautiful, intelligent, marvelous woman in Eizaria melting at the sight of you. She's been cooped up so long with Tarya and Galadon, she's going to burst... and you're going to be the lucky man to catch it. j You 're insane to leave her for a second."

Why didn't anyone understand? "Sometimes I just need to be alone. I've fought sixty battles in six months. Sometimes I think I can't get a full breath unless I'm out of the trees and away from... everything. A few days is all I need. Then I'll be ready to go again."

Rhys rolled toward me and propped his head on his hand, while chewing on a long blade of gra.s.s. "And you just told this immensely desirable woman that you have to be away from her for a week so you can get a full breath? That you spend too much time with her? And it's only been three weeks since the last time you did this? You are absolutely mad."

"It's not like that."

"But that's what you said, and that's what she heard. // Galadon ever decides that some of us more ordinary talents can possibly be worthy of being named a Warden, you'll have me making a portal into your soul to find the demon.

And if not that, then what?"

"There's more than that. There's something strange happening with me. A change. Powerful. .. as if I'm about to open a door into another place within myself. It's so close, but I can't quite grasp it, and when I'm with Ysanne... I can't think of anything but her. I drown in her, Rhys. And while I'm doing it, I am a madman. But whatever this is, I'm going to go crazy if I can't figure it out. So I have to be alone."

"And did you tell her about it?" "I can't. She 'II worry." And it wasn 't just that she would I worry . . . she would ask and probe and try to help, and make me tell her that I had a gnawing, growing, lunatic conviction that I could jump off a cliff and not die from it. I hadn 't told anyone about it... or about the burning pain that had cropped up in my shoulders and had me ready to scream whenever I lifted a sword. They would think I was mad or injured, and they would stop me fighting. I couldn't have that. "It's something I have to work out alone."

"Seems like you 'd want to bring your partner in on something like that."

"Of course I do. I want to be with her every minute of every day. I want to touch her.. . body and mind. I want to be her eyes and her ears, because the whole world is more perfect when I share it with her. But when I step through the portal, I have to leave her behind. What if I take too much of her with me and reveal it to the demon? What if I get distracted thinking of her or worrying about her? I have to work alone, so sometimes I just have to be alone. I just don't know how to tell her that without making her angry. I can't seem to get out the right words." It had taken so long to get her to open up her heart. I was terrified of losing her, or of losing my admission to her inner self, which was just the same.

Rhys sat up and shook my knee as if to wake me up. '"What if I were to talk to her? I've got to go south for a few days to see Gram. I'll get Ysanne to go with me while you 're off in your eyrie. I'll tell her Casydda is showing talent for searching and needs Ysanne to test her."

I wanted to say yes. Rhys was so much better with words than 1. But that was the coward's way out. "No. I need to tell her myself. And besides, she still doesn 't like you."

Rhys popped to his feet, ignoring my weak protest. "Don't worry. Go get your head mended. I'll take care of her for you. I'll tell her you're an independent b.a.s.t.a.r.d who never lets anyone help him do anything, so she might as well get used to it. And I'll be very gracious. She'll learn to like me."

When the path angled upward I did not slow, and I leaped smoothly across the streams and fallen trees that tried to block my pa.s.sage. Clarity. Memory.

The pain I had banished, so much deeper and more agonizing than chains or lashes. The entirety of my being was encompa.s.sed in my running, and my long maintained barriers crumbled in the tide of understanding.

My arms were on fire. Inside and out. Inside with the burning of muscles too long strained, too tired, functioning only from will and necessity. Outside from fifty lacerations of sword and knife and spear, some deep, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y rivulets dribbling to my wrists. An arrow point was buried in one thigh, threatening to collapse my right leg under me. Everywhere was the stink of death, where men had released their bowels in pain and fear, where warriors had vomited when seeing the mutilated remains of friends and lovers, brothers and fathers.

If Rhys didn't come in seconds, I would be carrion along with the rest. How long had it been since he 'd gone for help? I whirled and kicked the knife from the hand of a startled flat-faced Derzhi, and he summoned two Thrid who had just hacked off the hands of two of my dead friends. I slashed with my sword at a snarling Manganar and feinted my knife at another, while aiming it for the heart of a second Derzhi who thought I didn 't see him. My pivot leg was the one with the arrow in it, and I made the mistake of brushing the broken shaft with my swing leg. I commanded the leg not to buckle, roaring as the steel tip ground against bone. No use to hold back the cry when it might surprise one of the growing crowd of hostile faces around me. Pride had no place when you were desperate for any advantage. Watch their eyes.

The eyes of the flat-faced Derzhi shifted, telling me that another had come up behind me. I whipped about and swung again, this time making sure to leave room for the arrow shaft when I set my foot again.

The Manganar is worried. Nice, but why? Not because of an overtired Warden fighting with the dregs of his skill and stamina. I whirled again, sweeping the circle, keeping them back long enough to see. There... at the top of the rise, silhouettes against the orange smear of the sunset. Even as my eyes flicked back to the curved saber threatening my rib cage, I continued to solidify the image in my mind. Broad square shoulders. And beside them, a cloud of dark hair, touched with gold. Rhys and Ysanne come to rescue me. Five or six others with them. Enough.

With a last surge of hope I took the Derzhi on my left and ducked a neck- severing swing from the saber.