I’ve never heard of eldin doing such—”

“It’s my magic,” Dain said hurriedly. “Something I taught myself to do.” As she fell silent, the darsteed jumped without warning and nearly unseated both of them.

“Alexeika!” Dain said in exasperation. “You must control it. I can’t concentrate on both things at once.”

“All right,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Just get on with it.” “You won’t feel anything. Don’t trust your eyes,” he warned her. “Trust me, and stay within the illusion.”

She nodded, and he closed his eyes. After a moment he was able to clear the darsteed from his mind. He felt it shy again, fighting Alexeika and the reins.  Somehow she held it, and Dain concentrated on the spell he was weaving. As once he’d made men look like trees in the Nold forest to save their lives, so now did he weave this illusion, turning Alexeika and himself into one Believer in red mail.

At last he opened his eyes, feeling fresh sweat pop out on his forehead as he struggled to hold the spell in balance. “Now,” he whispered.  She eased the darsteed forward, threading it down a dark, narrow street between silent mud houses. In a few minutes they emerged into the open. The city walls rose up before them, and torchlight flared brightly at the gates. Their pursuers milled around there, shouting orders at the sentries, who replied with equal vehemence.

Alexeika checked the darsteed suddenly. “Oh, no!”

Dain felt the spell slip; he nearly lost it entirely. “Join them. Stay at the rear.”

She drew in a sharp breath, but then steadied herself. She rode up to the rear of the party, her darsteed snapping in ill temper at another. She was the only knight in red mail astride a darsteed. All the others of her rank were on horseback, but no one seemed to notice the discrepancy.  The commander of the pursuit party went on arguing with the sentries, then at last issued a series of orders. From their gestures, Dain inferred that they somehow believed he and his friends had already escaped the city. A few minutes later, the gates swung open.

Alexeika rode out behind them, and as the Believers fanned out into the darkness, Dain gradually dropped the illusion, then resumed control of the darsteed. He sent it a firm command—Quiet/quiet/quiet/quiet—and the animal for once obeyed him perfectly.

Without even a rumble, it dropped back from the others and picked its way quietly down into the ditch bordering the road.

Cloaked in darkness, keeping well to shadow, they kept going cautiously until the ditch petered out in a dry canyon and the darsteed began to flounder in deep sand.

Giving it a kick, Alexeika sent the beast climbing out of the shallow canyon, then they went galloping into the moonlit desert. Not until they reached the low hill where they’d first seen Sindeul did Alexeika draw rein. Dain looked back at the city, which lay like a long dark smudge at the base of the black mountains.  The tallest peak, sacred to Ashnod, was spewing fire at its top, and the smoke it emitted spread into the night sky, obscuring the stars and veiling the bright, round moon.

Dain allowed himself to draw a long, deep breath. It was hard to believe they’d actually escaped, yet at the same time he felt scant relief. He knew the hardest part still lay ahead of them.

As he took the bowl off Alexeika’s head and slipped it back inside his surcoat, she laughed aloud. “We did it!” she crowed. “We’re free! Free of Gant and all its evil.”

“Hush!” he whispered, swiftly gripping her shoulder in warning. “Sound carries far in the desert. Besides, they won’t let us go this easily.” “I see no one in pursuit,” she said. “We’ve lost them.” “Have we?” he asked sharply. “Where are the ones we followed out? Why do they not come after us?”

“What does it matter, as long as we’re free?”

“While we remain in Gant, we are not free,” he said grimly. “I think they may be waiting ahead of us, near the gateway to the second world.” “In ambush?”

“Aye.”

As he spoke, the ground rumbled and quaked, causing the darsteed to shy. Dain saw the mountain erupting with fire. Molten lava spilled down its sides. The air, even at this distance, was suddenly filled with ash and smoke.  Alexeika kicked the darsteed forward. “Then we must avoid that trail and choose another. The desert is vast. Surely we can elude them.” Before them stretched a vast sea of sand and bare rock, perhaps empty of life except for themselves. Dain had no idea of how far it was to the Charva, which bordered this land, how many leagues they needed to ride, how many days they had to travel. Was there any water to be found in such a vast wilderness? Was there anything to hunt for food? And if so, would it be edible?  All these questions swam in his mind, but he touched Alexeika’s shoulder and said, “Let the darsteed run.”

She obeyed, and as the darsteed raced into the desert nightscape, Ashnod shook the ground and rimmed the edges of Sindeul with living fire. Whatever lay ahead did not matter, Dain told himself, because for them there was no going back.  The following morning, as the sun came up and grew bright and hot, they took shelter of sorts beneath a rocky outcropping that cast scant shade. Keeping a sort of mental leash on the darsteed, Dain stripped off its bridle and let it roam to hunt.

He and Alexeika had nothing to eat except the pocketful of grain she’d stolen from mangers in the stables. Dain put the few precious kernels in the god-steel bowl in hopes of cleaning them of whatever taint they held, then he and Alexeika chewed them raw. Despite his efforts, the taste was foul, and the grain proved to be almost too hard to chew. Afterwards, his stomach hurt, ungrateful for what he’d put into it.

Thum lay where they placed him, gray-faced and hot with fever. His arrow wound had stopped bleeding on its own, although it looked deep and ugly. The hurlhound bite on his leg was swollen with infection. Dain salted the wound carefully, then Alexeika cauterized it with Severgard. Thum screamed in pain, sitting up for a wild moment while Dain tried to hold him still, then he fainted again and could not be roused. They bound up his wounds and let him be.  Throughout the day the heat grew more intense, until they were panting from it.  Dain could think of nothing except water. He stripped bare to the waist, leaving himself clad only in leggings and boots, and used his clothing for a bed.  Sweating and miserable, he fell into an exhausted sleep while Alexeika kept watch.

When the sun began to drop low in the sky, Dain awoke, wiped his perspiring face and licked the sweat off his palms for moisture, then recalled the darsteed. To his relief, the creature came back, but it was bad-tempered and hungry. With difficulty they loaded Thum across its withers. Dain and Alexeika got on, and they turned their faces toward the huge, blazing orb sinking beyond the horizon.  Dain rode all night, with Alexeika dozing against his back.  The next dawn the darsteed found a small oasis with a muddy, brackish puddle beneath a sickly, yellow-green tree. Its dying, thorny foliage lay scattered on the ground and floated on top of the water. Tracks of wild creatures, all small, could be seen in the dried mud.

Dismounting, Dain let the darsteed drink first while he sniffed and prowled hopefully, but he sensed no game nearby. For a moment his head felt light and his knees wobbled under him. He clung, half-swooning from hunger, to the darsteed’s side, then pulled himself together and filled the bowl with water.  When it cleared, he gave it first to Alexeika, then drank deeply himself. He refilled the bowl and managed to dribble some water past Thum’s dry, crusted lips. Moaning, Thum stirred and seemed about to awaken, but he did not.  Worried about his friend, Dain supposed it was just as well that Thum stayed unconscious. His misery was lessened that way.

In the end, Dain and Alexeika broke off twigs from the odd tree. He peeled back the tough bark with his thumbnail and gnawed the twigs like something demented.  “Sire!”

He looked up, alerted by the strange tone in Alexeika’s voice. She’d climbed partway into the tree and was frozen there, staring at something she’d found among the branches.

“What?” he asked, squinting.

At their backs, the sun was coming up, streaking the sky with coral and gold.  With it came the heat that was their enemy. Dain frowned at Alexeika, who was making odd little noises in her throat.

“What?” he asked again.

“Eggs,” she said reverently. “A nest of eggs.”

Nearly overwhelmed by this stroke of good luck, he closed his eyes. “Merciful Thod,” he whispered. “Can you reach them?”

“Aye. Here.”

With infinite care, she handed the fist-sized eggs down to him one at a time. He fought off the darsteed, which lunged at their bounty, and managed to keep the beast from stealing any. Grumbling, the darsteed lurched off, then stopped, glaring back at them with red, resentful eyes.

Ignoring it, Dain and Alexeika busied themselves making camp a short distance away from the water hole. Alexeika built a fire, while Dain held up the eggs one by one. They were hard-shelled and an ugly greenish-black color. Four of them felt heavy; two did not.

He and Alexeika baked the four heavy eggs in the ashes of the small fire, their mouths watering at the aroma. The darsteed stayed nearby, bugling its desire for food. Finally Dain tossed it the lightweight eggs he’d rejected.  Two snaps of the darsteed’s jaws, and the eggs were gone.

Go, Dain commanded, and finally the darsteed ambled off to hunt.

When the eggs were cooked, Alexeika rolled them out of the ashes with a stick.  They cracked one carefully on a stone, not sure what they would find inside. But there was a yolk, bright orange and steaming, in the midst of flaky white.  Sniffing it cautiously, Dain smelled nothing foul. At his nod, Alexeika divided the egg between them, and they could barely wait for it to cool. Dain found the flavor too strong to have been appealing under different circumstances, but he ate all of his share and counted himself blessed. Half of an egg, though, was hardly enough. He stared at the rest of the eggs, tempted sorely to eat them all, before his gaze lifted to meet Alexeika’s blue-gray eyes. He saw his own desperate hunger reflected in them. He realized that if his willpower weakened, hers would too. Thus far, she’d proven to be resilient, brave, and stalwart. It was a relief to have a companion equal to the task at hand. She was no helpless lady, to be pampered and worried over. She could take care of herself.  With a frown, he pulled his attention back to the situation at hand. “Better save the rest of the eggs, just in case,” he said regretfully.  She licked her mouth and dropped her eyes to hide their disappointment. After a moment, she nodded, and he was grateful she did not whine or protest.  “I’m going to make some lures,” she said, “and see if I can trap whatever comes to the water today.”

“A good idea,” Dain told her with a smile. “I’ll help you.” Companionably they set to work, cutting supple branches from the tree and matching them by length. Alexeika unraveled threads from the edge of her cloak and braided them together to make a thin but strong cord. With it, she bent the lures into position while Dain carefully brushed out their tracks. Glancing over at her, he realized they had not argued since their escape. It was pleasant working together on a specific task, such as making these lures.  “Let’s shift our camp upwind of the water,” he suggested. “And out of earshot.

Nothing will come close if it smells or hears us today.” Alexeika’s assessing look held a new measure of respect. “It would seem your majesty is a skilled hunter as well as a warrior.”

He grinned at her, for he’d learned her compliments were rare. Kicking away a brown, furry spider as large as his hand, Dain settled himself in the scant shade created by spreading his cloak across two branches to form a crude lean-to.

She hesitated a moment, standing there with her gaze on the horizon and her hands resting casually on the hilts of her daggers. “Sire?” “Hmm?”

“May I ask you about the man who died?”

Dain glanced up. “What man?”

“The one who was a guardian. The one who disappeared in thin air, then died.” She was frowning, looking troubled. Her eyes, so clear and intelligent beneath dark brows, met Dain’s hesitantly. “Was he your servant?” Thinking of Sulein’s crazed final moments only reminded Dain of the Ring and all that had been lost with it. He scowled and drew up his knees beneath his chin.  “He was the physician of Thirst Hold.”

“And . . . I think . .. also a sorcerel?”

“Nay!” Dain said sharply. “He wanted to be one, wanted others to think him one, but he lacked those powers. His spells were minor ones.” “But he could enter the second world at will,” she said. “As Quar took us.

Surely that was possession of great ability.”

Dain frowned, still angry at the physician for having been such a greedy fool.  Jabbing the red dirt with his thumb, Dain gouged a hole as he said, “That was no special power of his. Sulein possessed the Ring of Solder.” Alexeika turned pale. Staring at him, she opened her mouth but no sound came out. She dropped cross-legged on the ground before him. “The Ring!” she finally whispered in awe. “I have heard its legend. But how came he by it?” Dain shrugged. “He said he bought it from a peddler. How this could be, I know not. When I learned what it was and that it was part of my birthright, I tried to claim it, but Sulein would not release it into my keeping.” He paused, his mouth twisting with bitter regrets. “We could be traveling to Nether at this moment, in the blink of an eye.” He snapped his fingers, and Alexeika flinched.