I gasped for breath. There was no time to weigh the consequences of resistance. I could not be taken. Absolutely could not. As the first boot landed in my side, knocking the newly regained breath out again, I whispered a spell of breaking for the rope about my neck. A second boot landed in the small of my back. I wiped a handful of sticky muck on the right side of my face to cover the royal mark. By the time the boot intended to roll me onto my back landed in my ribs, the rope snapped apart, stinging my neck. I leaped to my feet, taking the boot with me and upending its owner.

There were three guardsmen still standing, and a grinning, unshaven man, who was not a soldier, looking on. All were heavily armed. Two I could take easily. Three most likely. The fourth would be harder, and if the fifth got up again ... I swung my foot and disarmed the unshaven man, who was crouched low and waving a knife at me. From the sound of it I broke his hand. I was glad, for he was the one who had caught me with the rope.

It was wrong to be thinking. I needed to move, to use my instincts that were so much faster than thought. So I did. While dodging swords and daggers, and inflicting what damage I could with hands and feet, I tried to call up spells.

The only ones that came without thought were the simplest ones I had recited for Catrin, but I managed to set one man to vomiting and had another convinced that a snake was sharing his breeches. If three more soldiers had not come running to aid their fellows or if I'd been able to get my hands on one of the weapons that kept flying inconveniently out of reach, things would have turned out differently. But inevitably I ended up facedown in the muck with chains fastened to my wrist and ankle bands, and the angry feet and fists of twelve guardsmen convincing me that a demon was far more pleasant than a soldier who has just been made to look a fool in front of his comrades.

There was always a jail built next to the city gates. Smugglers, thieves who preyed on travelers, escaping felons, or wealthy foreigners who appeared to be ripe to supply hefty bribes could be locked away until the proper authorities could be summoned. Runaway slaves were so rare that the guardsmen weren't sure of what to do with me, but they knew it wasn't to be anything pleasant. So they hooked chains to my wristbands and hung me from the roof beams of their little stone hut, so that my toes just barely touched the floor, and they spent the rest of the night venting their displeasure at my audacity in fighting them. I tried to retreat into sleep, but the calling of the hours by the gate watch seemed to remind them that I was there. They took great glee in speculating as to which of my feet was to be cut off when the magistrate came in the morning, and they made sure to set the dark-stained wooden block and the broad ax where I could see them-as well as I could see anything through the blood and mud caking my battered face.

Once, early on in the evening when the guards were all out, I curled up my feet and tried to kick a hole in the roof, but the old oak boards were thick and hard. After the soldiers had come back and reminded me of their unhappiness with the broken bones I'd left them, I was incapable of such an effort again. I needed to be gone from there. I could not melt chains, not without expending so much power that 1 would have nothing left with which to fight my way out of the city. Melydda was an extension of the laws of nature, not a replacement for them. I could change the way a fire burned, grow it or quench it, but I could not easily make fire where there was none, especially not for something like iron, which has no nature to burn. And any noticeable sorcery would bring out the Magician's Guild, and then I would be truly done for. Even losing a foot would be better than losing my mind in Balthar's coffin. It was an endless night.

By the end of second watch, thick, soupy grayness came in the jail door with my guards. The magistrate would arrive within the hour. I would have perhaps half a minute from the time they unhooked my hands until they had me pinned to the table, where he would exact the mandatory punishment for slaves who ran. Half a minute was time enough to surprise them. But when the heavy-jowled magistrate, annoyed at being roused so early, p.r.o.nounced my sentence, a ham-handed guardsman with bruises on his face laid such a blow to my gut that I never knew when it was they unhooked my hands and bound me to the table. f "You'll not run again, slave," said the burly guardsman, smiling and sc.r.a.ping the ax blade against the soles of my feet. "Nor use these to insult your betters.

Which one shall it be?"

"Get on with it," said the magistrate. "I've not had my breakfast."

My feeble struggles to get loose got me nothing but another fist. I could not summon the wit to break the ropes, to make an illusion, to create a distraction, to do anything but lie there like a pig at the slaughterhouse. I was only vaguely aware of the ax being raised . . . and vaguely aware of it being lowered . . . but without the terrible consequences some remote center of my mind kept trying to warn me of. People were yelling, but I couldn't move my head to see, or work up the pa.s.sion to care.

"Where is the vermin? No one punishes my slaves but me."

Somewhere in my throbbing head I held tight to the arrogant voice.

"Druya's horns, if you've ruined my property, I'll have your b.a.l.l.s for it. I'll take his foot... both feet... and his tongue for the lies he told that got him this far. But I'll do it at my own pleasure."

What was so rea.s.suring about the cursing fury of the newcomer who burst through the jail doorway like sunlight through a storm cloud?

"Get him up on his feet while he still has them. I want him leashed to my horse within five minutes, or I'll have you all strung out behind him."

"What was your name again, my lord?" asked the magistrate. "I need it for my report."

"Vanye of the House of Mezzrah. And you can write it that I take it most ill when mindless bureaucrats presume to interfere in my affairs."

"Our most sincere apologies, my lord. Most sincere."

Vanye. That wasn't right. As I was yanked off the table, shoved out the door, and a rope stretched from my bound wrists to the saddle of a very large horse ... somewhere in the painful glare of the morning sun, I caught a glimpse of red hair. Wouldn't do to smile where anyone could see. I wasn't sure I could do it anyway. Drool kept rolling out of my mouth.

"Out of my way." Several of the guards stumbled aside, jostled into me by the tall man mounting the horse.

"Where is it you're taking him, Lord ... Vanye, is it?" The magistrate and the unshaven hunter had come up just beside me, and though the blood was pounding very much too loud in my ears, I was able to hear something new in his voice.

"Go, go, go," I mumbled under my breath.

"None of your business. Just get your minions out of my way."

I let out a groan when the magistrate grabbed what he could of my shorn hair and twisted my neck, sc.r.a.ping with a fingernail at the mud and blood crusted on my cheek. "What mark is this on his face, my lord? Your mark? We've had reports of an escaped slave ..."

No, no. This was not going to do at all. We could not afford delays. The magistrate let go of my head, and I worked hard to clear it. A rumbling ahead of me told me that the man on the horse was getting very upset.

"What's going on here, Livan?" A woman's voice broke through my muddled panic. "Why is this man tied to a horse?"

"My lady! You should not be in a wicked place such as this. This is nothing but a runaway slave."

A horse walked up beside us bearing a woman in dark green, riding astride as some bold Derzhi women did. I looked up, and somewhere in the blurry field of my vision swam the face of the Lady Lydia. Her glance was like the bracing freshness of a winter morning after being too long huddled by a smoky fire.

For a moment I could think again.

"We were going to punish him according to the law, but Lord Vanye has come to claim him as his property and says he will exact his own punishment. But now I see this mark on the slave, and we've had reports-"

"Vanye?!" The lady was astounded.

"You remember me, Lady," said Aleksander-of course it was he-bowing from his horse. "We met in Zhagad, I believe."

Lydia stared at Aleksander, and the sun hung suspended in its course until she spoke. "Of course, I remember you, Lord Vanye. I should have known I would find someone like you involved in these despicable activities. I heard that a slave was taken last night, and I thought perhaps to buy him before he was harmed."

"But you own no slaves, Lady."

"Exactly," she said.

"Well, mis one will be of more use to me than to you, then, so I will bid you good day and be on my way."

Lydia nudged her mount past me, until it stood shoulder to shoulder with Aleksander's Musa. With a sudden move that left everyone in the courtyard silent, she raised her hand and slapped Aleksander. "Indeed, my lord. We all have duties of importance to undertake this morning. I must be about mine.

Do not bring your vile practices into Avenkhar again."

"My lady. I look ... forward to our next meeting. Perhaps under happier circ.u.mstances."

Lydia pulled her horse around and came back to the mag- istrate. "I want them out of here immediately," she said. "My father despises Lord Vanye and will not tolerate him in our city."

"Of course, my lady. As you say."

Aleksander touched Musa's side and rode through the gates and down the road. I stumbled after him, wishing he would either go a little slower or speed up so I could just give it up and be dragged along. Pa.s.sing travelers laughed or spit or threw things at me-sometimes very nasty things. A few turned away in shame or disgust. Unfortunately, there were no trees for half a league along the flat road, and no turnings or hills that would take us out of sight of the city walls. When Musa at last came to a halt beside a spring in a grove of willows, I walked into his backside and promptly crumpled into a heap.

"Seyonne, come get up." I was wishing very much that 1 could crawl away from the horse's hooves and its hind end, so it was a considerable relief when I felt the chains and ropes detached from my wrist bands and a strong arm lift me to my feet. "Come on. There's water over here."

He helped me lie down, and I came near draining the little pool. It was sad when I promptly lost half of it again. At least I managed to crawl away so I didn't foul the spring.

"You drank it too fast. You need to take smaller sips." He pulled off the shredded b.l.o.o.d.y remnant of my slave tunic, dipped water from the spring with his hand, and wet it down. A proper Ezzarian way to treat the spring.

Then he dabbed at the blood and filth on my face. "They did as good a job on you as I did."

"Twelve," I murmured drowsily. "Twelve of them."

"Well, that's good. I wouldn't want to be outdone in the matter of random beatings by any mere six or eight." He yanked at my lolling chin. "No. You will not be allowed to go to sleep just yet. We want to make sure your head's still serviceable after all this." He brought my clothes and a cup from his saddle pack, and proceeded to give me sips of water while checking my injuries and getting some clothes on me.

"You were a fool to go," he said, dabbing at my bruised belly so ferociously I almost lost the rest of the water I'd drunk. "I was a fool to let you. When you didn't come back, I knew ... I knew .. . exactly what had happened and what they were going to do to you. G.o.ds, what a wretched world."

He stopped for a moment and turned away, his breathing tight and painful. I could not see how his curse was manifesting itself. After a few minutes, he turned back again, his cold, shaking fingers tugging awkwardly at my breeches, trying to get them on over my feet. "Wouldn't want to scandalize your fine Ezzarian lady or her gentleman friend." The thought of young ladies kept his mind away from me for a minute, for which my bruises were grateful.

"Am I right that you got the message to Lydia? Was that what she was saying to me?"

I nodded. "Did."

"She was magnificent, was she not?"

I nodded again.

"Never thought of her playing intrigue. I think it suits her. Her face was so ...

d.a.m.n, what spirit! You must have made a great impression on her for her to do all this." I grinned at him, which he took to mean I was in pain, so he became uncomfortably solicitous again.

"Thank you, my lord. I'll be all right." I managed to get the words out without slurring them, so maybe he would leave me be. "And what of you?"

"The beast still keeps its share of me," he said, leaning back against a tree and sipping from a wine flask. "I try- with occasional success-but it will have me in the end. My likai never taught me how to fight such a thing."

"We'll take care-"

"No. No more of that. Catrin told me how unlikely it is that you can do anything for me, and that if you allow yourself to get distracted and try some magic working, you might not be ready to face this demon."

"She had no right to say that to you."

"She had every right. And I had every right to hear it."

"My lord-"

"Listen to me, Seyonne, and don't interrupt." He leaned forward and wore such pa.s.sion in his demeanor as would force any man to heed him. "I want your word ... your word as an Ezzarian Warden ... that you will not allow me to destroy the Empire. For everything wretched in it, there is good, too.

You've not been allowed to see it, I know, but there are thousands who live in peace because of what we've built. Thousands more who would starve in one bad season did we not make it safe to trade and travel. It encompa.s.ses honor and traditions that are good and worthy and could be a great deal more. If Dmitri lived, he could tell you, as he tried to tell me for fifteen years. I cannot, will not, destroy it. If I am taken by these demons or if the day comes when I cannot control the beast, I want you to kill me. And when you've fought your battles and run the demons from my realm, I want you to tell my father the story of it."

"My lord-"

"Swear it, Seyonne. Swear that I will die by a warrior's hand and not trapped inside a beast... or become one." Even as he said it, I watched him fight off the savage shen-gar yet again. I could not imagine the strength it took to do such a thing.

"As you wish, my lord."

Perhaps it was a holy spring where we drank. Perhaps it was some blow to my head that jarred the words into place. Perhaps it was that Aleksander and I had each lifted the other from the abyss of pain and despair, and I could see clearly what I had known for a long time. For once I spoke what was in my mind. "If we could but combine your strength and my power, there is no demon could stand against us." I slowly slumped down into the long gra.s.s as my hurts were eased, and the long night weighed on my eyelids and made my tongue thick. "Unfortunately, the only way for you to be there is for Kastavan's demon to take up residence in you instead of him."

A wave of blissful sleep carried me far away from the quiet morning. But at some time as I drifted in dreamless oblivion, Aleksander laid his cloak over me and spoke softly in my ear. "I would be honored to fight at your side, Seyonne." A day later when I woke, four broken steel bands lay beside me in the gra.s.s.

Chapter 32.

"How could you let him go?" I yelled at Catrin and Hoffyd when I came out of the healing stupor. "Do you understand what he's planning to do? The stupid, arrogant fool is going to give himself to the Khelid." I was beside myself with fury and helplessness and grief.

"He was right. You were in no condition to ride," said Catrin, with no hint of the defensiveness I believed she should be displaying. She had put me to sleep for a day, deciding I needed the time for my injuries to heal. "And if we had let you ride after him, you would be in no condition to fight. Your life is more important than his. I won't argue about it."

"Aleksander is worth more than all of us put together," I said. "He will change the world. Am I the only one who can see it?"

Aleksander had met Catrin and Hoffyd at the crossroads where they had waited while he'd gone after me. He returned alone, but told them that I was living, though injured, and where to find me at the spring. Then he'd asked Hoffyd to take the slave rings off of me.

"He said it was long past time," Hoffyd told me, once my initial rage was spent and I stood leaning my head on my horse, trying to settle my mind. "He said it was his d.a.m.nable pride got in the way of it. But he wanted you to know you were free to do what was best, and he didn't want anything to come between you and the oath you swore to him." Hoffyd wrinkled his brow and knitted his hands together uncomfortably. "And one more thing he wanted me to tell you.

He said that Vanye-I think that was the name-used to take his slaves out to a place in the desert, where he and his friends would hunt them for sport."

Hoffyd laid a hand on my shoulder. "He wasn't threatening you was he? He wouldn't do that?"

"No. It wasn't a threat." It was a gift.

Aleksander had such a head start on us that there was no possibility we could catch him. Musa was the finest horse in the Empire. Yet once we were on the road, I could not hold back. I rode like a madman, stopping only long enough to rest the horses. Aleksander's surrender could change everything. And there was the dreadful truth that the Prince did not understand, that once the demon took him, he would not be able to fight alongside me. His soul would be my battleground, and all his strength and determination and obstinate perversity would be wedded to the demon's magic to create my opponent. The demon would know everything I had told Aleksander, including my name.

I cursed my foolish tongue that had picked that one moment of weakness to flap so loosely, telling Aleksander just enough that he believed some grand, heroic gesture was going to make the difference. I was very much afraid he was going to kill us both .. . and the thousands of others who would die when the Khelid and the demons took what they desired.

Parnifour. It was an unlikely place for the fate of the world to be decided. It lay on the fringes of empire, grown up in layers from the ebb and flow of tribes and conquerors over a thousand years. Next to a street of windowless Veshtar mud dwellings would be a street of tall, narrow wooden houses and shops with carved lintels and painted shutters as the Kuvai preferred. Upon stonework ruins left by builders so ancient we didn't know their names, the Derzhi had constructed palaces with open-air courtyards and interconnecting archways designed to funnel the light airs of the desert to cool the stone. The people were just as intermixed. A statuesque, dark-skinned Thrid woman might have the round blue eyes and curly hair of a Manganar, or a fair child of Basran heritage might be wearing the colored beads and striped robes of the Suzaini.

It was a medium-sized city, heavily fortified. Underneath it the land was riddled with springs and caves, making it a lush green spot between the boundless seas of golden gra.s.s to the south and the harsh black granite cliffs of the Khyb Rash-the Mountains of the Teeth-to the north.

I crouched behind the remains of a stone bulwark half buried in the crown of a small hill within sight of Parnifour's outer gates. We were waiting the few hours until sunset, not daring to walk in openly during the day. There could be watchers .'.. waiting for us. Kastavan could know everything by now.

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n you, Aleksander. Why couldn 't you trust me? I would have found a cure for you. I promised it.

It was the twenty-second day.

The afternoon sun baked the hilltop. Catrin and Hoffyd were sleeping in a meager strip of shade. I sat leaning against the stone wall, unable to do the same, though we had ridden all through the previous night feeling the nearness of the city pulling us on. Vultures circled lazily above some deadness in the distance; a kite dived screaming into the gra.s.s soaring upward soon after, carrying an unlucky mouse. A cool wind stirred the long gra.s.s, easing the unshielded blaze of the afternoon.

I wished I could sleep. Instead I stared at my hands and my bare scarred wrists. I was free, my melydda lived, and all of it was ashes in my mouth. Of the four people I cared for most in the world, one lay dead and, if Catrin and I were successful, the other three could be destroyed by these very hands. Long years of pain and rage boiled from my soul in that moment, bursting from my lips in a cry that made the birds on the nearby hills rise in dark nervous clouds. My two companions stirred and asked sleepily if anything was wrong.

"Only a nightmare," I said.

I was soon distracted by a dark shape moving toward me from behind the next hill. A horse. Dark, shapely, fast. A fine horse ... riderless. I rose and moved slowly down the hill. The horse stopped. I clicked my tongue in the way Aleksander did, and the nervous beast edged closer. "Where is your master?" I said softly, reaching for his dragging reins.

Musa shied, but I kept talking and threw a calming enchantment into the air so that when I gathered in the quivering bay, he did not pull away. "Now show me where you've left him." I could not believe Aleksander would abandon his prize voluntarily.

I worked what small spells I knew that were effective with horses, got myself into the saddle, and let the horse take me where he would. Some two leagues west through the waving gra.s.s we came upon the mauled remains of a radah- a huge, vicious wild pig native to the gra.s.slands. So Aleksander had transformed again on his way in. And not too long past. The vultures and the flies were still cleaning the bones, scarcely anything left of a beast that weighed almost as much as a cow. A short distance away, I found wads of gra.s.s torn from the soil and stained with blood and bits of dried flesh.

Aleksander had waked here and tried to clean himself... and Musa would have been nowhere close to a shengar and a rudah. The Prince would have had to walk the rest of the way to Parnifour. Maybe ... just maybe ...

I dug my heels into Musa's side and held on as the horse shot eastward. Catrin and Hoffyd were already awake, draining the last of our water supply. "I've got to go now," I said. "He's not far ahead of us. I'll meet you just inside the north gate at the change to fifth watch. There may be time to save him."

"But where are you going to look?" said Hoffyd.

"I'm going to make inquiries with the junior dennissar of the Derzhi."

"Seyonne! You don't know what-" Catrin called after me, but I ignored her and rode away.