"Then Andine was right. She and Leitha almost have to go with us to Wekti."

"Absolutely out of the question," Bheid declared. "It's too dangerous."

"We can protect them, Bheid," Althalus told him. "My point was that we need to have Leitha in Keiwon. I have to know who Ghend's people are there."

"If we're so worried about taking girl people with us, why not just dress them in boy-people clothes?" Gher suggested.

"Gher," Andine said gently. "Girl people don't look exactly like boy people. We have slightly different shapes." She drew in a deep breath to make her point. "You see what I mean?" she suggested, making a vague gesture at the front of her dress.

Gher blushed bright red. "Oh," he said. "Well, wouldn't looser clothes sort of . . ." He floundered, blushing even more brightly.

Andine giggled wickedly.

"That's not nice, dear," Leitha scolded. Then she looked at Eliar. "Chief Albron has servants, hasn't he?" she asked.

"I wouldn't exactly call them servants," Eliar replied. "He's got stable boys who take care of his horses, and there are people in his kitchen who carry food to him and like that. He takes care of most of the things he wants done by himself."

"The people in Wekti wouldn't know about that, though, would they?"

"Probably not, no."

"Then they wouldn't know that Albron doesn't have servants in the usual sense, would they?"

"I doubt it."

Leitha looked Andine up and down. "Would you please stand up for a moment, dear?" she asked.

Andine rose. "What are we doing here, Leitha?"

"You're very small, aren't you?" Leitha pursed her lips.

"That isn't my fault."

"Would you go stand beside her, Gher?" Leitha requested.

"Yes ma'am, if you want me to." Gher rose and went around the table to Andine.

"I sort of thought they might be about the same size," Leitha said. "If we dressed them in identical clothes and hid Andine's hair under some kind of cap-"

"You mean dress up like page boys?" Andine asked. "Could we get away with that, Althalus?"

"It might work," he replied, "particularly if Albron took a few other liveried retainers with him to Wekti. I'll speak with Yeudon about suitable quarters. Those retainers wouldn't be soldiers, so they wouldn't be going up to the trenches with their Chief. We'll be able to conceal Leitha in that group, and she should be able to locate any turncoats."

"Are you going to be a page boy, too, Leitha?" Andine asked her friend.

"I'm taller than you and Gher, dear," Leitha replied. "I'd have a little trouble passing as a ten-year-old." She stroked her face speculatively. "How do you think I'd look if I wore a false beard?" she asked them.

Bheid howled with laughter, and Leitha turned on him, her eyes flashing angrily. "Stop that!" she snapped at him.

"There's something else we'll need to attend to before you all leave for Keiwon," Dweia said thoughtfully.

"Aren't you going with us, Em?" Althalus asked.

"I think it might be better if I stayed here. I can keep an eye on our enemies from the window and let you know if they're planning any surprises."

"That window's a long way from Wekti, Em."

"It was a long way from Deika that night Kweso's dogs were chasing you, pet, and I didn't have any trouble seeing what was happening. The window's where I want it to be, Althalus. Come and see for yourself." She rose and led him to the window.

The mountains of Kagwher weren't there anymore, and Althalus found himself looking down at rolling grassland. "Is that Wekti?" he asked.

"Northern Wekti, yes-up near the Ansu frontier. This is probably in the general vicinity of where we'll be fighting the battle. Now then, Sergeant Khalor will be commanding our forces during the battle, and I think we'll want him here instead of down there on the ground. He'll be able to see better, for one thing, but there's a far more important reason."

"Oh?"

"Ghend's henchman, Koman, shares Leitha's gift, and if Khalor's anywhere on the battlefield, Koman will pick up any order he gives before it even leaves his mouth. Koman can't hear anything that happens here, though."

"Won't it be a little hard for Khalor to give orders from here in the House, though? He can shout fairly loudly, but that's a long way down, Em."

"That's why we're going to need another door." She reached out and patted the stone wall beside the window. "Right here, I think. It won't be quite like the other doors in the House, so you'd better make it look a bit different so that Eliar knows that it's sort of special."

"Where's it supposed to go, Em?"

"Where we want it to go-usually to the spot Khalor can see from the window. Eliar's going to carry his Sergeant's orders to our forces down there on the ground."

"I don't see much advantage to that, Em. Koman can hear Eliar as well as he can hear Khalor, can't he?"

"Only if he knows where Eliar is, and if Eliar's using our door, he'll be popping in and out so fast that Koman won't be able to home in on him. We'll experiment a bit, but let's get the door in place. Make it an arch, Althalus, and give it brass hinges and an ornate handle so that Eliar knows that it's no ordinary door. Use 'peri.' It's a bit more formal, and we'll use the word 'portal' when we speak of it, instead of the word 'door.' It's important for Eliar to think of it differently. Make the door, Althalus."

"Whatever you say, Em." He thought back and remembered an arched doorway he'd seen in Dweia's temple in Maghu. He concentrated on that image and said, "Peri."

"Very nice, Althalus," she complimented him when the door appeared. "I think that's exactly what we want." Then she turned and looked across the room to where Eliar and Gher were sitting. Gher was talking excitedly, and Eliar looked a bit confused.

"Eliar," Dweia said, "come over here to the window. I want to show you something."

"Right away, Emmy," Eliar replied, coming to his feet.

"The rest of you should probably look as well," she told the others in the room.

They all trooped on over to the window.

"A new door?" Andine observed. "Where does this one go?"

"Down there," Leitha replied, gesturing toward the window.

"That's not Kagwher, is it?" Bheid asked, peering out the window.

"No," Dweia told him. "It's northern Wekti, and it's probably where we'll be fighting the Ansus. This new portal's not like the other doors in the House. They're attached to a specific place, but this one opens any place we'll want it to. When the battles begin, we're going to station Sergeant Khalor at this window, and Eliar's going to carry his orders down to the battlefield." She looked at Leitha. "How long does it usually take you to home in on one specific person's thought, dear?"

"That depends on where he is and how many other people are around him, Dweia-and how noisy things are in the vicinity," Leitha replied. "I think it'd be very difficult in the middle of a battle."

"I thought so myself. If Eliar uses this door to carry Sergeant Khalor's orders to the men on the ground, he'll be there and back before Koman can even begin to locate him."

"Excuse me," Gher said. "Did I understand what you were saying, Emmy?" he asked. "I mean is that door beside, the window really the door to any place at all?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"And to Everywhen, too? I mean, could Eliar go to that big church in Keiwon thirty years ago through that one door?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"What a neat door!" Gher exclaimed. "Why don't you try that thing we were just talking about with this special door, Eliar?"

"We could try it, I suppose," Eliar said dubiously. He frowned. "I'm not sure what that place would look like."

"I don't think it'd look like anything at all, Eliar. That's sort of what it means. Try it, and let's see what happen."

"All right, Gher." Eliar's eyes went distant, and he reached for the ornate brass handle.

The door suddenly changed. The brass. hinges and solid planks disappeared, and the archway became a formless hole filled with absolute darkness.

"NO!" Dweia's voice was almost a scream.

"I was only trying-" Eliar started to explain.

"Stop. Push that thought away! And don't ever do that again!" The very walls seemed to shake with the intensity of her voice.

Eliar flinched back, and the portal returned to its former state.

"What did you do, Eliar?" Andine demanded.

"It wasn't my idea," Eliar defended himself. "Gher wanted to see what the door to Nowhere and Nowhen looked like."

"Stay completely away from that idea, Eliar!" Dweia commanded. "Don't ever even think about it again."

"It can't be all that dangerous, can it?" Gher sounded a bit frightened.

"Think, Gher. Think about what you just asked Eliar to do. What would lie beyond that door he almost opened?"

"Nothing all that dangerous. Wouldn't it just be empty? I wanted to see what nothing looked like. I'd been thinking about Everywhere and Everywhen, and I turned the idea over to look at the other side of it. That's when I got the notion of Nowhere and Nowhen. Wouldn't that just be the door to Empty?"

"Exactly. Emptiness is hungry, Gher, so it swallows whatever comes near it-people, houses, moons, suns, and stars. Stop experimenting, Gher. From now on, don't even mention these wild ideas to Eliar until you've talked them over with me first. The door you just told him about is the one door we never open."

"I wish I had a donkey," Eliar said, grunting under the weight of the keg he was carrying along the streets of the cow town of Kherdon in northwestern Plakand.

"We've got one," Khalor told him with a grin. "His name's Eliar."

"How did you meet this man we've come to see?" Althalus asked the Sergeant.

"We were on the same side in a war a few years back," Khalor replied. "We worked out some coordinated tactics to use against the army of Kapro up in Equero. My infantry would hold the Kapros in one place, and Kreuter's cavalry would hit them from behind."

"That's his name?"

"Kreuter, yes. He's a Tribal Chief over in eastern Plakand. He's primarily a cattleman, but he picks up money on the side by hiring his horsemen out to fight wars in the civilized lands. After the Plakands heard about how the clans of Arum were getting rich as mercenaries, they decided to give it a try themselves. Kreuter and I get along well together. I know I can trust him, so he's the one I thought of when I came up with the idea of hitting the Ansus from the rear with cavalry. If Kreuter tells me he's going to be someplace at a certain time, I know he'll be there when I need him."

"You've made a lot of contacts over the years, haven't you, Sergeant?"

"I've been in a lot of wars in a lot of places, Althalus, so I've got friends in most of the low countries."

"Are you sure this Kreuter's going to be here?"

"He comes here every summer to sell cows to the cattle buyers from the civilized lands. If he isn't here yet, he's on his way-or he's just left. I'll check around town and find out. If he hasn't arrived-or he's on his way home-we'll be able to chase him down. Those doors were made for this sort of thing." Khalor stopped in front of a log building with a crudely painted sign representing a bunch of grapes hanging over the front door. "This is Kreuter's favorite tavern," he said. "Let's try here first."

Inside, the tavern was a dingy place with a strong smell about it. Although it was still early morning, there were a fair number of noisy patrons.

"We're in luck," Khalor said. "That's Kreuter over there in the corner." He squinted at the big man seated on a rough bench. "Better yet, he seems to be fairly sober. Let's go talk with him."

They pushed their way through the crowd to where the burly Chief sat. Kreuter had muddy blond hair and a beard that appeared to have been squared-off at the bottom with a sharp knife. He had oxlike shoulders and huge hands.

"Well, bless me if it isn't my old friend Khalor!" the burly man said. "What are you doing here in Plakand, Khalor?"

"Looking for you, as a matter of fact. How've you been lately?"

"Can't complain. What's afoot?"

"Have you sold your cows yet?"

"Just yesterday. I thought I'd take a few days off to celebrate before I rounded up my men for the trip home."

"I caught you before you got too far along, then. Have you got any serious plans for the next month or so?"

"Not really. Is something in the wind?"

"I've got a little war in the works. I think I'm going to need some cavalry, and I thought of you right off. Are you interested?"

"We can talk about it. Where is this war of yours, Khalor? My men and I just finished a long cattle drive, so if your war's over in Perquaine, the money'd have to be very good."

"The money's good, Kreuter, and the war's almost on your doorstep."

"Oh? I haven't heard any noises of that kind lately. Where is it?"

"North Wekti."

"There's nothing in Wekti worth fighting about."

"Except for its location. The southern Ansus seem to have gotten bored with life, so they decided to sweep down through Wekti to make a strike into Medyo and Equero for fun and profit. The people I'm working for would rather the Ansus didn't, and they certainly don't want the war crashing around inside their cities. I've set up a defense line across northern Wekti to hold back the invasion. If we leave it that way, I'm looking at a long, tedious summer."