The ale boy watched the frothy spill of the falls that had delivered them here. Behind that rushing curtain, there was a deep and echoing darkness-a wider river pouring out into this pool. Those waters were warmer and cleaner than the current that flowed from above ground. And he was certain that if they could move upstream, they'd pass the place where Jordam had found him at the bottom of the abyss.

One of the Bel Amicans had even caught a fish that almost looked fit to eat; he was pulling off a few scales to see if the meat might be good.

More than fifty Bel Amicans, clad in rags and skins as frail as autumn leaves in midwinter, welcomed the Abascar survivors into their midst as if they were old friends. Though the beastmen had kept them separate, their sufferings united them.

Some embraced the boy who had visited them with food and water in days past, and their leader, Mad Batey, tousled his hair. Batey, a muscular builder who had been captured with Partayn several years earlier, also opened his arms to embrace Jordam, but the beastman turned and moved to the edge of the crowd, settling by the swirling pool with the fussing newborn.

Mad Batey rubbed at his chin. "Shouldn't he kill that thing?"

Kar-balter agreed. "It'll be bloodthirsty. Or miserable. Both, probably. That is, if it doesn't die by morning."

Batey's mind was an engine of perpetual plotting, seemingly powered by the fitful flexing of his grey-stubbled jaw. Chewing problems apart, he had planned his way out of circumstances that would have made anyone else despair. When he got an idea, his eyes went wild and white, all the brighter for the blue stripes tattooed beneath them, and the scar lines from his left eyebrow to behind his left ear deepened. "We could send it on ahead to test for traps and predators."

"Jordam knows what he's doing," said the ale boy, eying the Bel Amican rafts with rekindled hope. The Bel Amicans had pillaged the abandoned loot in the Cent Regus's unguarded treasure caves. He saw crudely fashioned spears, quivers of arrows, and old shields emblazoned with symbols from both Bel Amica and Abascar.

"These are some of the best Cent Regus spoils." Batey poked through a pile. He explained how back in Bel Amica he had made a name for himself as a metalworker, buying scrap and crafting it into something useful. "In the Core," he said, "I've learned more about building things than anywhere."

He stopped with an exclamation of delight and, pawing through the salvage, pocketed a few coins, his mustache twitching. "Very rare," he muttered. "Fetch a fortune back home. They'll buy me and my lady Raechyl a nice place with a view of the sea." He glanced over his shoulder and exchanged a smile with a tall, elegant woman.

Batey went on to describe with pleasure the weapons they'd collected-stone-flingers for heavy stones, primitive arrowcasters, wrist-daggers for close combat, and decoy daggers with hilts that would bristle with razorpins when seized.

"It's hard to believe you found us in time," he said, sitting down to scratch his chin's grey grizzle and comb his thick mustache. "We were almost on our way. We might not have dared it without you, Rescue." He opened his broad, hardened hands in gratitude. "You walked through fire to help us." He nodded to Jordam. "Beastmen bow to you. The queen of Abascar asked you for counsel. And they say you called down power from the sky that ruined most of the Strongbreed army. We were all too afraid, too beaten down for hope. But you ..." He paused and cleared his throat. "You brought us enchanted waters. You gave us dreams of what might yet be possible. So tell me, what do we do now?"

The question astonished the boy. He looked around at the talkative crowd and began to notice that all of them were glancing in his direction as if sure he was about to make some kind of speech. Even Jordam turned to watch him.

Mist swirled around the falls at the dark mouth of the warmer river.

I have nothing to say, he thought. I'm not a leader. I don't know how. All I knew was to find the people in trouble and help them out. What more can I do?

"This," he heard himself say. "This deeper river-it's warmer."

"Yes," said Batey. "Yes, it is."

"And slower. Shallower."

"Seems that way."

"So ... we can probably row against it."

"In shifts," said Batey, "yes. But why not go downstream? It must reach the sea eventually, and then we can travel up the coast."

"Well." The boy felt himself straining for words. "This water is warmer. And cleaner. It comes ... from somewhere else. A better place. Probably closer to Bel Amica."

Batey nodded. "Harder work, but it could take us home faster."

The boy considered the debris-strewn bank. "There's green on these branches. And there." A dark cavebird hopped onto a rock and ogled him with bulging eyes. "What do cavebirds eat?"

"Berries. Green leaves. They must have ways to get out." Batey grinned, his eyes flaring. "Oh, to bring my Raechyl back up to the sun-touched skin of the world."

"So," the boy continued, "that bird probably came from above ground, somewhere north of here." He pointed to the flow that came from beneath the falls.

"If we go far," said Batey, "we might find water clear enough to drink."

"Or bathe in," said Nella Bye. "Trust me, if we're going to spend much time crowding these rafts, we'll all need to wash up soon."

The cheer in their voices encouraged the ale boy, and they began to push the rafts out into the water. But then he caught sight of Jordam. The beastman was muttering to himself at the water's edge, the newborn in one hand, the other hand pressed to his forehead where the browbone scar remained. The boy went down to sit beside him.

Jordam lifted the perfect skeleton of a strange eel.

"The baby. It ate that?"

"rrFast."

The boy was amazed. "He looks like a normal baby. Except for the webbed toes. And the grey stripes." He frowned. "And the face. Kinda like a frog's, I guess. A frog with a striped, fuzzy mask on. Those teeth look sharp. But otherwise ..."

"rrFast," said Jordam again. "Go fast, O-raya's boy. rrKeep torches fired. Watch for feelers."

"Of course. But you'll help us with that."

Jordam looked away at nothing but shadows. "rrMust find Abascar's king. Must ... must ... say things."

"You're ... not coming with us?"

"rrMust find the Abascar king." He pulled his hand from his forehead and touched his chest. "It burns. Here."

"You come with us." The boy spoke it like a command. "You can find Cal-raven later."

Jordam looked at the striped face peering up at him. "Bel might have water. Water from O-raya's well. rrMust try to help ... help this."

The boy looked at Jordam's face as though seeing it for the very first time.

This was the beastman who had hunted him on Baldridge Hill. But that creature had worn a fearsome and furious mask of appetite and anger, rough with scars and framed in bristling black hair. That face seemed to fade before his eyes. In its place he saw the broad, rugged visage of a powerful man, his flesh a map of islands red and brown on a grey sea. Those eyes, once blazing coals, had cooled. Bulging tusks had crumbled and fallen away. The hands that held the mewling infant were not the clawed and hairy hands of a forest ape; the barbs and bristles had disappeared, revealing large, soft, red flesh that held the newborn with tenderness.

A flicker caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up. High on a jutting ledge, shimmering figures gazed down at them. Northchildren.

On an impulse, he spoke a strange name aloud: "Deuneroi."

The figures faded at once, as if alarmed they'd been visible.

"rrWhat's that?"

"Nothing," said the boy, but now he was anxious. And angry. He could sense a change coming, and he did not like what he felt.

A shout drew his attention. Kar-balter, having climbed up on the pillage, brandished a bottle in the air like a prize. "I don't believe it!" he crowed. "Abascar ale!" The scattered prisoners began to crowd around him.

The ale boy put his arms around Jordam. "Don't go," he whispered.

He felt the familiar brush of the beastman's hand upon his head. "rrNo sadness," said Jordam. "You know the way now. You've ... grown."

"Jordam, I haven't told you. Auralia. The Northchildren told me that she's come back. When I get above ground again, I'm going to find her."

"O-raya?" Jordam's eyes grew wide. "The caves. rrBy the lake."

"Yes," said the boy. "Will you look for her? If you find her, will you keep her safe?"

"rrFind O-raya. I keep her safe. Never leave her."

"I'll look for you there. When I've fulfilled my promise to them." The ale boy, eyes closed, felt a tremor run through him. In his memory the Keeper loomed in a whirlwind beneath House Abascar. It was taking Auralia up in its hands, lifting her while the Northchildren watched. He grasped the edge of Jordam's wrist so tightly that the beastman grunted. "I've gotta tell you something. In case ... in case I don't see you again."

"rrNo bad talk."

"Listen."

Clutching the bundle to his chest, Jordam leaned low to the ale boy's ear.

"Not even 'Ralia knows my real name," said the boy. Then he pressed his forehead against the rough bristles above Jordam's ear and whispered.

The beastman grunted. "But ... why?"

As the boy began to whisper again, Nella Bye arrived at his side and took his hand. "Come along, Rescue. You were an ale boy once. If anybody knows what to do with this bottle that Kar-balter's found, it's you."

Pulled toward the crowd where Kar-balter still held the bottle high like a trophy, the ale boy took one look back to wave farewell to the beastman.

But Jordam was already gone, beginning his long, last climb through the dark of the Cent Regus Core.

8.

FRAUGHTENWOOD.

ou lookin' to die?" came a boy's voice from the base of the tree. "Everybody's in except you."

Losing his balance on a high bough, Krawg caught the branch above his head and held on, wheezing. His shoulder bag full of knuckle-nut shells clattered as it swung against his side.

"The whistle's blown." It was that bothersome merchant boy Wynn, standing with his hands on his hips. His younger sister, Cortie, one of the few who had narrowly escaped slaughter in the calamitous escape from Cent Regus slavery, was strapped to his back. "Everyone's waiting."

"I heard, you intolerable skeeter-bite."

"You're ungrateful," Wynn growled. "I single-handedly saved House Bel Amica from a swarm of beastmen. Or have you forgotten?"

"Forgotten? It's the only story you know how to tell. Bigger every time too. A swarm? Single-handedly?"

Since his heroic burst of courage in Bel Amica that had put rampaging beastmen to sleep in an instant, the boy had become increasingly unruly. Praise had inflated his pride. He objected when he was denied a place in secret conferences, when he was not given assignments with soldiers, when he was named among "the children." Tabor Jan had assigned him to protect the Abascar people who remained in Bel Amica while this small company set out to find Cal-raven's foundation for New Abascar; but Wynn had sensed the charade. Insulted, he'd taken Cortie and stolen an Abascar colt from Bel Amican stables to make a reckless escape and catch up with Tabor Jan in the wild.

Most of the travelers had scrounged up sympathy. Wynn and Cortie had been orphaned in a beastman attack, after all. But Wynn's experience as a merchant's child made him see all encounters as competition, all people as threats, all exchanges as challenges to gain the upper hand. Poor fool, thought Krawg. So unlike Auralia. Did no one teach him how to play?

"What're you pickin' knuckle-nuts for, old man?" Wynn barked. "There's nothin' worth eatin' in these krammin' woods."

"These krammin' woods," repeated Cortie, always amused by the rough speech of her elders. She rode in her brother's pack because her legs were still healing from her ordeal in the Cent Regus Core.

"They're not for eatin'," said Krawg. He split another nut between his teeth-crrak!-and spat it into his hand. The nut inside was rotten like the rest.

"Is the storyteller stuck?" asked Cortie.

"Of course not," the old man lied, edging his way along the bough toward the trunk. All the tree's branches were dry, dead, likely to snap. Rather than climb down to fetch the picker-staff he had dropped, he took to snatching clusters with his bare hands. He'd always found it a thrill to climb up to a view and a panic to climb back down.

He dropped the shell halves into his shoulder bag, then leaned to embrace the tree trunk and eased himself down a branch. Something squirmed underfoot. Flame engulfed his leg as a squealing puffdragon sprang from the branch.

Krawg seemed to take flight. His cloak billowed out around him, and he landed hard. The pop from his knees was as loud as nutshells cracking.

"Ow," he said.

"Ask him, Wynn!" Cortie whispered.

"Cortie's scared of Fraughtenwood," said Wynn. "She wants one of your stories."

It wasn't Cortie who looked scared. "Leave me alone, boy," Krawg muttered, "and I'll think one up for her."

It was unexpected to find his attempts at storytelling welcome, to learn that they were meaningful to some beyond himself. If this journey came to nothing else, and his name was known by few and soon forgotten, he would be grateful for having provided something that was, for a time, wanted.

"Tonight, Warney, I'll finally finish telling my very best tale," he murmured. "And you won't be here to learn it. That's a shame."

He'd been gnawing on the narrative since the tale of six tricksters had first appeared, unfurling like a scroll within his imagination, during a storytelling contest in the Mawrnash revelhouse. The story had surpassed his expectations, burning his voice to a rasp as his characters led him breathlessly along. But he hadn't reached the end. That Seer called Panner Xa, strangely enraged, had seized him by the throat as if he were revealing secrets.

At times he'd grumbled over missed opportunities, ways he might have told the story better, giving characters more time to emerge in detail. There was no going back. Either the story would live on for those hearers, or it wouldn't.

But here was an audience who had not yet heard the story. Tonight he could tell it again and tell it better. There were no Seers here at the southern edge of Fraughtenwood to forbid him to reveal the story's conclusion.

Wynn led Krawg through a patch of trees that soldiers were tapping for flammable pitch-men and women of the Bel Amican escort sent by Queen Thesera to protect the company. "Evenin', storyteller." One of those archers-a high-spirited woman named Deanne-nodded to him as if he were someone of importance.

"Told you they were waiting for you," grumbled Wynn.

The travelers gathering around the fire looked in Krawg's direction with some admiration. Bowlder, his chin set on the heavy firewood pile he was carrying into the camp, grinned at him like an excited child. Krawg's frustration with Wynn dissolved. He gripped the picker-staff as if to wring courage from it.

As they settled in around the smokeless fire, he noticed that almost everyone held an unlit branch or torch. Fear of Deathweed followed them like a cloud of skeeter-flies. The deadly tendrils had remained unseen since they left Bel Amica behind, but the memory of sudden attacks and lost companions was still blood-red in their minds. Gashes like scars from a lash marked the ground in places, assuring them that they were within reach of the scourge. They would be ready with fire should it come.

"Not yet, Krawg," said Tabor Jan, a shadow at the edge of the firelight. "We're still missing one."

He wondered if Milora was the straggler again, but no. From the captain's distress, Krawg sensed it was Brevolo. Many had rumored that the captain would marry that formidable woman back in Bel Amica. She'd been quiet and disgruntled on this journey, and Krawg had heard her complain about leaving.

But there had been other rumors too-rumors that Tabor Jan was looking back toward Bel Amica too often.

Brevolo had only spoken to Krawg once, at the conclusion of his last fireside story, a dramatic tale of a girl whose kindness helped merchants survive a hard winter. The character's tricks and tactics in foiling monsters and thieves had delighted Brevolo. But Krawg had concluded it without resolving all of its questions, including the fate of its hero. This bothered Brevolo. But Frits, the master glassmaker, had patted Krawg on the back, perhaps a little too firmly. "Not bad," he had said. "And don't give in to those who want explaining. Questions are the life of the story. They keep us humble."