"Why then," Seth asked, "didn't Nefarious attack a year ago?"

"I really don't know. It may be because though he is powerful, he could not destroy the allied forces alone, and the evil ones are unorganized, often fighting among themselves, as most evil creatures do. He had to take the time to make alliances, and to organize and train the armies."

"No enemies in sight!" came a call from Brieght.

"Thank you, friend!" Rame yelled. "Keep up the good work!"

"Seth!" Tirsa exclaimed. "Stop walking. Vidav just moved his hand!"

Seth hadn't seen Vidav, as he was carrying the front of the stretcher. They stopped and put the big man on the ground. Seth became aware of the burden he had been carrying as he got free of it; Tirsa hadn't complained, but she must have been sorely fatigued. Of course their magic boots had been helping, supplying extra lift instead of forward motion, so that they could all carry far more than otherwise. Still, this was no fun excursion!

Vidav was indeed looking better. The purple hue seemed to be fading, and his eyes looked normal. "Can you talk to him through your mind power?"

"No, I've been trying, but his mind is still not functioning," she said. "I hope that this is merely because his body is healing first, and that his brain will recover in its turn. The poison may have stunned it without permanently damaging it."

"We had better keep moving," Rame said. "Tirsa had the last break; I'll switch with you this time, Seth."

"That's fine," Seth agreed. "I'm not that tired, but I'll take the lead." Yet he had been tired enough to have forgotten that they had been switching out, and his shoulders were turning leaden. He knew he needed the rest.

Rame and Tirsa picked up the stretcher again. Now Seth saw how worn Tirsa looked; facing forward, he had not been able to observe her before. She was sweat-soaked and grimy, and her hair hung in straggles, the luster of its zebra striping lost. The weight had to be worse for her than for him, yet she had not let on. She was some woman, and not just because of her appearance (which wasn't much, at the moment) or her intelligence and telepathic ability.

_Please spare me the obvious,_ she thought at him, but there was tired humor in it.

Somewhat guiltily, he faced forward, taking the lead. But he felt compelled to maintain a dialogue, perhaps to put something between them and his embarrassing thoughts of a moment before. "Tirsa, what about war? I mean, is there a lot of fighting in your plane, even with the mental contact?"

"No, our planet is very peaceful," she replied. Now he was aware of the slightly labored quality in her voice, and he felt another bit of guilt for making her talk when it was all she could do to carry the heavy burden of their companion. "There is no physical violence, though there have been known to be a few psychic battles now and then. I'm afraid that this war business will be quite new to me. I would prefer not to have to find out about it."

"If you don't mind my asking," Rame said, "you are obviously too young to die of old age, Tirsa. Without violence, how did you end up here?"

"I am not ready to tell you the whole truth, but I will tell you part of it,"

she said. "I did not die of natural causes, nor did I die at the hands of someone else, I took my own life."

"You killed yourself?" sputtered Seth. "Why, if you loved your family and your world, and had such perfect communication with others, why would you kill yourself?"

"There are aspects to perfect communication that become difficult. At the time, I thought I had sufficient cause. In retrospect I am less certain. I now think that something in my head, at an unconscious level, wanted me to do it.

I felt as if I were needed somewhere else. Apparently I was. I really did not want to die; I knew the pain it would cause my family and my lover, but I also knew that it had to be done. I am glad now to realize that the attempt must have failed on my plane and my family at least has my double, who perhaps lacks the fatal flaw I possess. I miss my family, but if what we are doing here can save their lives, then it must be worthwhile."

Seth was taken aback by more than one aspect of her statement. It had never occurred to him that she could be the suicidal type! But of course she wasn't; it must have been the impulse of the Chosen, reaching across the planes to tag the three of them who had to come here. He had thought his own drowning was coincidental, and now knew that it was not; similarly, her suicide would not have been her own idea, however much it might have seemed like it at the time.

Another aspect was her passing reference to her lover. Seth had somehow thought of her as pristine, untouched by emotion or affairs of the flesh. But of course she was human, with the interests and passions of the human kind.

She had been forthright about this from the outset of their association, advising him that she was interested in romance but not with him. Of course she had a lover! He had allowed his foolish image of her to cloud the reality, though the reality was far more credible and admirable than the image.

Third, she had spoken of a fatal flaw that had made her think that death was the only way out. She had not died, but she seemed to believe that the flaw remained. What could it be? Certainly there was nothing he had ever observed about her that was less than admirable.

_Thank you,_ she thought wryly, and he jumped. He had to stop thinking so freely!

_No, your thoughts are naive but honest, and they become you. I would not have minded resembling either your prior image of me or your present one, though both are false._

Both false? The first, maybe; but the second image had the authority of his recent experience with her. She was a good woman, even if she chose not to believe it herself. But why didn't she believe it?

"How was it with you?" Tirsa inquired aloud. "If your dream was any indication, it had something to do with ice."

Seth had to wrench himself out of his consideration of her and reorient on his own situation. "Yes. The last thing that happened to me on my Earth was a fight. There really wasn't any reason why we were attacked, but now it makes sense. During the fight I ran from my friend who needed my help. I don't know why I ran. I hated myself for running. But I didn't stop. Now maybe I understand why." He went on to describe the way he had drowned in the icy lake.

In a few minutes the rain began again, and the group stopped talking. Seth noticed that the terrain was changing; in the distance were gray snowcapped mountains. The mountains did not appear to be a problem; in fact it seemed that their group had intercepted a path that might take them through the easier slopes. This was not a main path on the map, which was mainly topological with the exception of marked villages and the main Teutonian path.

They decided to follow it, since there was unlikely to be much traffic on it, and it did go the way they needed, and they did want to make good time. There was no telling whether Vidav's condition would continue to improve. It was best to get him to whatever help was available.

"Before my dad died we did a lot of camping," Seth remarked. "I realize that many mountains may look the same to a stranger, but these look incredibly like the Grand Tetons. That's a mountain range in Wyoming."

The others gave him a curious look.

"Uh, Wyoming is a state, er, an area of land in the country, er, region I live in." Who would have thought that such an innocent statement could become so clumsy!

They kept walking. At the crest of the first hill Seth gasped in astonishment.

In the valley below was a beautiful area of grass, trees, and a brilliantly blue lake. The rocky mountain peaks surrounded it. What made this astonishing was that Seth had seen an identical sight while hiking the Tetons with his dad. "This is amazing! The only thing missing are the bears."

There was a horrendous roar from behind a nearby boulder. Seth immediately drew his sword. From behind the boulder walked a grizzly bear, about fourteen feet in height and standing on its hind legs.

"What is it?" Rame yelled in unsuppressed astonishment and terror.

"It's a bear," Seth yelled back. "The grandaddy of all bears! What's it doing on your plane?"

There was no time to answer. The bear charged forward. Seth swung with his sword. The blade sliced through the bear's midsection and Seth stepped back.

The bear, however, wasn't hurt; the sword had done no damage. In fact, there had been no impact. Had he missed?

The bear swung its massive paw. Seth raised his sword, but the clawed digit passed through it and came right at his face. He didn't even have time to scream--before the paw passed through his head. He had been braced for impact and pain, expecting to be smashed to the side, but felt nothing. What had happened?

Then Seth noticed his outstretched sword. Its tassel was white. He was in no physical danger. "How can this be?" he asked, mesmerized by the monstrous bear before him.

"It can't be real," Rame said as the bear let out another very convincing roar. "Its hand passed right through you. It must be an illusion."

As Rame spoke, the bear disappeared.

The faun did a double take. "When I said it couldn't be real, it was gone!"

"And when I thought about a bear," Seth said, "one appeared, only it wasn't solid, it was an illusion."

"I think that's the answer," Rame said. "Much of the surrounding land of Earth Plane 4 has collective individual magic. This region, maybe just this particular mountain, produces illusion invoked by our thoughts. Maybe one of us should think of something, preferably something that won't frighten us in the manner your big bear did."

Could this relate to telepathy? Seth didn't like the notion, because it meant that their secret mode of communication could become known. But maybe this was more general. They communicated in words, while the bear had been more like a picture. People said that one picture was worth a thousand words, but there were occasions when it was the other way around.

"Let's think of our families and friends," Seth suggested. "See if they appear."

The others nodded. Seth thought of his mother and sister and his friend Rian.

They appeared, looking completely lifelike. But that wasn't the limit. Rame's hamadryad Malape appeared, and several others that he didn't recognize. Those were surely Tirsa's conjurations; indeed, one of them did seem to look like an older version of Tirsa herself. Her mother? The figures looked around exactly as if alive, and walked here and there, but then two of them walked right through each other without noticing. They were illusions, sure enough.

The three living folk stood in silence, each one wishing that he or she were home, but knowing that this was not going to happen. There was no joy, at this moment.

"We need to keep moving," Tirsa reminded them. "I think it would be best if we wished them away."

Rame nodded. With that all the people vanished except Seth's, and as he concentrated, those did too.

But even then, one remained, one whom none of them had summoned. He was a large man who resembled Vidav, except that he was slightly transparent. Seth, Rame and Tirsa looked at each other, and then at Vidav's motionless body.

Then the figure spoke. "I am not all right. If we do not reach the elf village in time I may jeopardize the entire mission. The poison in the dart was not lethal; it was intended only to stun. But it contained a bacterial culture, and the bacteria developed into a parasitic creature that is trying to take over my body. Right now it is lodged in my spinal column, preventing my nerve impulses from carrying out messages, which is why I can hardly move. It is also battling me mentally, which is why I couldn't reach you before, or respond to you. The magic in this region, however, enhances the ability to transmit thought, so I am able to reach you, briefly. My body will continue to recover; however, if the creature takes over my mind..."

The others understood what Vidav couldn't say: if his mind was taken over by a creature of Nefarious, he himself would became a creature of Nefarious. The attack of the Sateons had been more devious than they had thought! Only by this coincidental event had they discovered the real danger it posed to them.

The evil sorcerer couldn't lose, Seth realized; had they drowned, he would have been rid of them, and if they survived infected by organisms that served him, they would pose no threat to him. Maybe the Teuton Empire wasn't perfect, but it certainly seemed better than Nefarious!

They walked down to the lake and trees. There were liana vines associated with the trees. They cut several and used them as ropes, binding Vidav's arms and legs securely. These might not hold him for long if he became fully active, but they should restrain him long enough to represent a safety factor.

It was ironic, Seth thought, that the physical improvement they had noted in their friend was no longer cause for joy, but for alarm. A physically perfect enemy was no blessing!

They finished the job and were about to resume their march. Seth looked up at the clouds. The storm was clearing away at last; there would be no more rain.

But something twinged in his stomach. "Where is Brieght?"

The others looked up, startled. Seth drew his sword. The tassel was jet black.

For a moment he froze. When the bear had charged him, the tassel had been white; now that all seemed serene, it was black. He trusted the tassel--but what was the threat they faced now?

No one spoke, or even projected any thoughts, because in this region those thoughts could become all too evident. The others moved Vidav's stretcher into the spreading branches of a sprawling tree, where he was concealed by the foliage. With luck he would be safe from any outside menace. Then they drew their swords and looked warily around. There seemed to be nothing.

They formed a line and walked slowly in the direction they planned to go. If that proved to be safe, they would return to carry Vidav to a new hiding place. As long as the tassel remained black, they could afford to take no chances.

There was a snap behind them. They spun around.

Two women were standing there. They must have stepped in from the side, perhaps from behind a tree, after the three passed them. They were not pretty specimens, though definitely female; their hair was bound into efficient knots to keep it clear of their faces, and they wore single-piece tunics over rather stout bodies. Their faces were set into similar looks of arrogant appraisal.

They seemed to be unarmed.

This was the danger that turned the tassel black? Seth found that hard to believe. But he wasn't going to dismiss the warning without learning more.

Maybe these were monsters who only looked like women, in order to lull their prey until they could get within striking range. Yet if that were the case, why weren't they beautiful? An unpretty siren did not lure many sailors to their doom!

One woman lifted her hand, making a peculiar gesture. There was a shaking of the tree in the direction she seemed to point to. Then Vidav's stretcher floated out of the foliage.

Seth stared. She was using telekinesis--or more likely magic--to lift that heavy body as if it were so much mist. No wonder these women weren't armed!

With power like that, they needed no weapons.

The woman hissed--and the stretcher broke in half. Vidav dropped painfully to the ground.

That did it. The tassel was right. As one, Seth, Rame and Tirsa charged with their swords.

And stopped. They were abruptly unable to move. They did not fall, they merely froze in place, as if caught in invisible hands.

"Dx nxt xttxck xs!" hissed one of the women.

Why couldn't he understand them, since he now could understand all the human folk of this plane? Did that mean that these were not human? Yet he could almost figure it out. It was a matter of filling in the vowels.

_Do not attack us,_ Tirsa supplied.

Now Seth felt a painful throbbing in his gut. He doubled over and fell to the ground. Tirsa and Rame were undergoing similar pain, for they too were falling. His stomach was being twisted internally until the pain intensified to a point where he could no longer breathe. The strange women were punishing them for their attempted attack! In a few seconds he lost consciousness.

* * *

Seth looked up from the table where he and his dad were having dinner. They had just finished a camping trip and were eating at a diner on the way home.

Seth was only eight and his father looked young and healthy. There was no sign of the cancer that would take his life in the years to come. It was late at night and there were only a few others.

A car pulled up outside. Seth turned to look, routinely curious about everything that happened near him. Strapped to the hood of the car was the corpse of a deer.

"Daddy, look what they caught!" Seth whispered, motioning at the two men who had just entered the establishment, and then to the car outside. "Can I go look?"

"If you like," Mr. Warner replied, expressing no emotion.

He glanced at his father, for there was a strange look in his eyes. But Seth was too innocent to think much of it. He ran happily out to the car, to see the animal. He fancied it was like a stuffed toy, a pretend bear or tiger.

Stepping close to the car, he extended his hand. He touched the deer's fur. It was soft, but not warm. He drew back his hand and walked to the deer's face.

That look changed his life. The eyes of that creature burned into Seth's mind.

This was no stuffed toy! The look on the deer's face--its last look--was an expression not of horror, but of innocence.

Seth moved over and saw the wound where the creature had been shot. Now he realized that it had been killed, and he had heard of killing, and seen it in cartoons; this had not quite registered on the visceral level before. The deer itself had not comprehended its fate. Now he understood that innocent gaze.

What could such a creature know of death?

Why had it been killed? There was no justification! No need by the hunters to survive. They had slaughtered this beautiful, living creature for fun.

Seth began to cry as the feeling of grief and anger built up in his heart. He turned from the awful scene, ran inside, and stumbled into his dad, sobbing.

Mr. Warner was quick to comfort him. He was against hunting, but had let Seth look at the deer in order to allow him to form his own opinion. Perhaps he had known how Seth would react, but thought it best for the child to find out in his own way.

Seth continued crying as Mr. Warner tried to calm him down. He was not ordinarily the kind of child who cried, but this vision of the deer had struck at a level other than the physical, and it disturbed him deeply.

"Will you shut that kid up!" a man yelled from across the room.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Warner replied. "Seth, it's okay. Let's get back in the car and we can talk about it."

That was one thing Seth liked about his father he always wanted to talk things out. But Seth continued to cry.

"I said shut him up or I'll shut him up for ya!" The man had been drinking.

Mr. Warner quickly stood up to leave, taking Seth by the hand.

The trucker also stood, apparently hoping for a fight. "Where ya going so quick, wimp?"

It would take more than that to get Mr. Warner to fight. He was strongly against violence, and hoped Seth would turn out the same. Now was the perfect time to show the boy how to walk away from a fight. He walked toward the door.

"It's just like your kind not to fight back, dirty Jew."

Mr. Warner stopped cold. He was wearing a chain with the Star of David on it.

He wore it everywhere, and was proud of his religion. His hands began to clench into fists.

Then he felt Seth's little hand trembling in fear, and calmed down. He did not say anything, but resumed his walk to the door.

The drunk would not leave well enough alone. He picked up a bottle and charged from the side. Now there was no avoiding trouble.

Mr. Warner pushed Seth away so that he would be clear of the action. He spun around and grabbed the drunk's outstretched arm. He shoved his hip into the man's gut, wrenched the arm still clutching the bottle over his shoulder, and flipped the man hard onto his back. The air rushed out of the man, and he lay still. He would be all right, but for now he was out cold.

Mr. Warner took Seth's hand again, and they walked on outside. There was no sound from the men in the diner. The two of them got into the car, and Mr.

Warner began to drive. As the car pulled slowly out of the parking lot, Seth saw into the diner, through the windows, as people were clustered over the unconscious drunk, amazed.

"Seth, let me explain this to you," Mr. Warner said gently. "I know that when you are older you may have your own ideas, but for now I want you to hear mine. First, about the deer: I do not believe in hunting, probably for the same reasons you began to cry when you saw the deer. Man does not have the right to take the life of another living creature, or even to hurt it intentionally. Animals were put on this Earth by God, just as we were. The only one who can determine life is the one who gives it." He paused, and Seth thought of those great innocent eyes of the deer, and nodded. Never again would he accept death casually, even the mock death of a cartoon.

"There are, however, certain times when defending yourself is necessary. When that man attacked me, I had to act, and then I did so to good effect, but not to any greater degree than the situation required. You should try to avoid these situations, as I did, but you should also know when a physical confrontation is necessary, and how to handle it appropriately. You do not want to become a deer, but you also do not want to become a tiger, hunting and killing others. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Seth thought about how his dad had tried to stay out of trouble, even walking away when the man had called him a name. How he had put the man down hard, but not killed him or tried to hurt him further once he was down. His dad might have looked like a deer at first, and like a tiger when he acted, but in the end he had been a man.

Seth nodded his head slowly. He was young, but he did understand, and that understanding was to deepen with time.

* * *

He woke to discover tears in his eyes. He had not before dreamed of his father, since his death. He contemplated the memory, which was now fresh in his mind. That day meant more to him now than it ever had before. He realized that he still did carry his father's values, and that what his dad had told him about knowing when to fight was very important right now. Soon there were likely to be numerous deaths.

The tears stopped, letting Seth's vision return. But like a tremendous weight being pressed upon him, the gravity of their current situation returned to his attention. This time, waking was no relief from dreaming; indeed, the opposite was the case.

He was in a cave, tied at ankles and wrists. Tirsa and Rame were lying at different sides of the room. In the middle was a solid fire with something roasting on it; the smell of the meat suffused the chamber.

There was a commotion from somewhere beyond. Seth craned his neck to look. Two of the women were carrying Vidav. Peering closer, Seth saw that Vidav was actually floating; they were merely guiding him. Once he was in the cave, his body descended, and he was still.

Something nagged Seth's mind. He looked back at the fire, at the thing roasting. It was a large fowl, no, it was Brieght! There was enough plumage remaining to make their friend recognizable.

Horrified, he realized that not only had these people killed and cooked a sapient bird, they intended to eat it--and maybe to feed it to their captives.

_Seth._

_Tirsa! Do you realize what_--?

_Yes. I don't know what these creatures are, but I can read enough of their minds to know that they intend to kill us. Rame is still unconscious, and I don't know how long it will be until he is coherent. I believe we need to take quick action. These creatures appear to be storing food, and we may be part of that food. Four of them intend to go out and capture other creatures as they did us. One intends to maintain guard here. Don't underestimate that one! She can cripple all of us with a glance._

This was a lot worse than a bigoted drunk picking a fight with a stranger!

They were outclassed, and already captive. But he refused to give up. _Rame's knife is in my jacket pocket. If I can get at it I could cut my bonds unnoticed._ The creatures evidently hadn't searched their captives; perhaps it hadn't occurred to them to check for weapons they themselves did not need.

_Wait for the four creatures to leave,_ she responded. _Our only chance is when there is only one of them._

Seth waited and watched in agony as the five creatures tore at the cooked flesh of Brieght. He kept seeing that deer, and more than that, a friend who had been helping them--and forfeited his life in the process. It was terrible, and the hate in his body stirred into rage. He did not know what these creatures were, but he wanted them dead.

_Calm down, Seth! If you do anything now, we will all end up like that._

She was right. He had to keep his head, or suffer this fate worse than death: to be mounted on a spit and cooked and then eaten. Would they bother to kill him first? Would he have to watch while they roasted Tirsa, or would she have to watch him?

_Seth!_

Her second warning jolted him out of it. He managed to calm himself, and to concentrate on the problem of escape. That was a better use for his brain!

The five women completed their meal. Then four of them left, leaving one to watch over the captives. Seth wanted to act, but had no idea how. He struggled surreptitiously to reach his knife, but could not do so without contorting so vigorously that it would certainly attract unwelcome attention.

After some time, the guard turned and looked at Vidav. His body began to rise.

_Seth, she's going to cook him for when the others get back!_ Tirsa's thought was panic-stricken.

That did it. Seth risked the contortion while the woman was concentrating on Vidav, and got his fingers on the knife. He worked it into position and began to cut at the vines holding him.

Vidav's body floated slowly toward the fire. The woman seemed to be paying close attention to it, gesturing frequently with one hand. Evidently this power was not casually exercised; like a powerful tool, it had to be precisely controlled. Seth sawed at his vines, risking further motion, because he knew that time was short.

The body was almost to the fire when Seth cut his last rope. He sprang up, dagger in hand, and charged the woman.

Now she saw him. She spun away from Vidav, whose body dropped abruptly to the floor, and reoriented on Seth.

Some kind of force struck his head, jarring him backwards and knocking him off his feet. It felt like a vise being tightened around his skull. He screamed and flailed with his arms, but this did not help; the pain intensified inexorably. It was no good; he was helpless before her dreadful power.

Then, suddenly, the pressure stopped. Seth heard music. It was Rame, playing his reed whistle. He had recovered consciousness! Could his music nullify the power of these creatures?

The woman turned away from Seth and stared at Rame. The faun dropped his whistle and fell back in pain. Too bad; the magic of his whistle couldn't counter the power of the woman.

But while the woman was distracted, Seth was free. He rolled to his feet, drew back his arm, and sent the knife flying at the creature.

She heard him and turned back to face him. The vise clamped on his head again.

But the knife was already in the air, and in an instant it plunged directly into her chest.

The woman's eyes widened in surprise. She looked down, saw the knife--and collapsed.

Seth went over to her, half afraid that she was going to turn into a monstrous spider or toothy alien monster in her death, but she remained human, physically. Now, without her power, she looked harmless, like the dead deer.

But he knew better! He took the handle of his knife and drew it out of her body, cringing at the blood. Cannibal or not, she was human, and he had killed her, and the notion revolted him in a way that his action against the Sateons had not.

_She looks human, but she's another creature of Nefarious, I think,_ Tirsa thought. _Her mind isn't human!_

That made Seth feel a little better. He knew it had been a choice between this creature or their lives, but he hoped never to have to do anything like this again.

When he looked up, he saw Rame untying Tirsa. "How?" Seth asked. "I had your knife."

"And you gave me yours," the faun responded, holding up the pocket knife.

Oh. Seth was just glad that his friends were back in control.

"We have to move quickly, before the others return," Tirsa said. "Where are our weapons?"

Seth looked at the ceiling and pointed up. Their swords were hanging from vines tied to stalactites above the fire. "Can you get them down with your whistle, Rame?"

Rame played his music, and it lifted toward the weapons. The vines started to twist, to release what they held. But then the fire blazed up, the flames reaching high and engulfing the swords. That was no good!

Rame stopped playing, and the fire subsided. The swords remained above. The flame seemed not to have hurt the weapons; it was more as if it was protecting them. But it was protecting them from their owners!

Rame considered. Then he began a melody, only instead of playing single notes he played chords. Seth was amazed; he had never heard this before, and hadn't known it was possible with such an instrument. But of course it was magic, and the rules were not those he had known at home.

Again the music approached the weapons, and again the fire rose, only this time it was met by a flood of water pouring down from the stalactites. Fire met water, and steam spread out from the point of contact, forming a hissing cloud. The fire could go no higher.

Meanwhile the swords were cutting themselves free of the vines. Then they floated down to their owners, even to Vidav; that one came to lie next to the still body. Seth had never imagined that playing more than one note at a time could have such an effect!

Quickly they grabbed their weapons and sheathed them. Seth took Vidav's legs and Rame took his arms. Following a path in the cave they made their way to the exit.

Tirsa, in the lead, stopped dead in her tracks. In a moment Seth saw why.

The other four women were returning.

Nine

_Hermit_

Tirsa pushed them back inside the cave. "If they see us we're as good as dead," she whispered. "We could barely handle one; four would finish us."

"What other choices do we have but to fight?" Rame asked as they ran back into the cave.

"There was another tunnel leading in a different direction from the main room.

I'd say that's our best chance."

Seth had to agree. Certainly they had no reasonable chance facing the four women.

They ran past the chamber where they had been held, and took the tunnel that went deeper into the cave. They had no guarantee that it wasn't a dead end, but it was a chance they just had to take.

After a few minutes they heard the sound of screeching, and of pursuit. Having to carry Vidav was slowing them down, and their magic boots were more of a hindrance than an asset here, because they could not take any giant steps in here; they would quickly bounce out of control as the boots shied away from the surrounding rock. But there was no point in taking them off; they needed those boots, outside.

In fact, now, too late, Seth realized that they might have made an escape by giant-stepping the moment they saw the women. They might have passed them by so fast that the women wouldn't have noticed. But it was hard to think of the best course when caught by surprise.

The tunnel divided. "Left!" Tirsa said, coordinating their motion, without pausing for thought. Speed was more important than deliberation, right now!

_Maybe they'll split at the fork,_ Tirsa now thought. _That will give us better odds. But regardless, something about this side seemed more inviting._

But it would be better yet if this route led them outside, because their odds against even one woman were not good, and were worse against two.

The cave was not well lit, yet neither was it dark. Seth was able to follow Tirsa's lead without looking straight at her; indeed, there was no choice of direction in this tunnel! He glanced to the side, and saw that there were small plants, or lichen, growing along the walls. They seemed to glow, providing some slight illumination. That made all the difference! Probably in daylight that glow would not show at all, but in the darkness it made the walls and ceiling clear.

They seemed to be going straight under the mountain, deeper into unknown territory. The sounds of their pursuers were growing fainter, and Seth did not find that reassuring; surely the women could have caught up by now, if they had taken this passage. Why hadn't they? Was there a dropoff into an abyss, or something worse? They did seem to be following, but more cautiously, as if afraid of something.

_Up ahead, it looks like an entrance to another chamber!_ Tirsa's thought came.

Seth looked. Sure enough, they did seem to be approaching another room, whose plant-light was brighter. Much brighter! No dropoff, at least!

Tirsa entered the chamber, slowing, shading her eyes from the brilliance. Seth followed, hauling Vidav's legs. Suddenly Vidav's body stopped as if it had run into a wall, jolting Seth's hands loose. Rame, who had been running behind, carrying the man's arms, felt the impact and flipped over Vidav's fallen body.

He scrambled off, entered the chamber, and stood with the others, looking back.

Vidav's body lay in the room from feet to neck, but his head remained in the tunnel. Some force would not let the man enter completely, yet it posed no barrier to the rest of them.

"Maybe only conscious people can enter," Seth said as the others turned to gaze into the bright room. "Tirsa, Rame, help me pull him. Maybe if the three of us try it slowly, we can do it."

They did not answer. Seth turned, his eyes adjusting to the light.

This was a home of some sort. It had a chair, table, a cupboard and a crude bed. Within it stood a little man. He was old and bearded and grizzled, with what in another plane might have been considered comical clothing: a little black vest, green baggy trousers, and a green pointed cap.

"What are you doing in my home?" the little man demanded querulously, and with what to Seth seemed remarkably close to an Irish accent.

"We are all in a lot of trouble," Rame said quickly. "In a minute four women will be coming down that tunnel, and they will kill us, if we don't leave now."

"Not in my house they won't!" the man snorted. "They can't come in here!"

"I don't think you understand, they want to dispatch us and eat us. I'm sure they will do the same to you. Is there a way out of here?"

The man scowled. "It is you who don't understand. I didn't say they won't come into my house, I said they can't. My spell won't let them even get close.

Nothing evil can enter this chamber, or the rest of my humble abode."

Seth, who had been listening closely to the conversation, felt Vidav's body slide into the hallway. Startled, he looked, and was face to face with two of the woman-creatures. They had hold of Vidav's hair and were trying to pull his body into the tunnel. Already he was there up to the waist.

Seth cried out and grabbed Vidav's legs. He hauled back. Apparently it was true: the women couldn't enter this room, and neither could their power; they had to depend on their physical strength. But that was enough to pull Vidav out, after which they would levitate him back to their cooking-fire.

"Help!" Seth yelled as he struggled to haul the body back. Those women were strong!

Rame drew his sword and swung at the women through the spell wall. But they maneuvered Vidav's head as a shield, moving it so that it was between them and the blade. He could not strike without braining or decapitating his friend!

Rame sheathed his sword and grabbed Vidav's feet. With the two of them pulling, they had the edge, and were able to haul Vidav back through the invisible barrier. But again the head balked. It seemed that the protective spell considered Vidav to be evil.

"The bacteria in Vidav's mind!" Tirsa exclaimed. "It is evil! We can't get him in!"

Rame glanced back at the little man, who was now pacing nervously. "Can you turn the shield on and off quickly?"

"I suppose I could, but why would I want to? You three are all right, or you could not have entered, but your companion is evil. You'd be better off without him."

"He's not evil, he's sick!" Seth protested, still pulling against the women.

"We want to get help for him, to cure him!"

"Evil is a sickness that is difficult to cure, as well I know! Who are you?"

"We are the Chosen," Tirsa said grimly.

If she had expected a reaction, she was disappointed, as was Seth. "I don't know what the Chosen is," the little man said grumpily.

"You don't know about the Chosen?" she asked, dismayed.

"I told you I don't!" the man snapped. "Are you hard of hearing?"

Vidav's body moved, as the women gave an extra pull. _If we don't get him past the barrier before the two other women arrive,_ Seth thought, _they'll have too much strength for us to resist, and we'll lose him!_

"I don't have time to explain!" Tirsa said to the man. "I beg you, let our friend in immediately!"

"You can beg all you want!" he replied. "I am not letting an evil person in!"

Tirsa drew her sword. "If you don't, you will suffer a worse fate than he does!"

"You can't threaten me! That would be an evil thing!"

Tirsa stepped toward him, orienting the point of her sword. "It's for a good cause!" But as she moved, something happened. She seemed to come up against another barrier, and could not approach the man.

She struggled a moment, then stepped back. "You're right," she said. "It would be evil, and I can't do it. Couldn't do it even if it weren't for your magic."

She shook her head, as if trying to resettle her thoughts. "But it is evil of you to prevent us from saving our friend. You know what those women are like."

Now the man reconsidered. "Maybe you're right about your friend. After all, the spell did let you in. It allows only those with good conscience to pass.

You couldn't even speak like that to me, if you didn't truly believe it. I'll help you."

"Good!" Rame said, relieved. "When we say to, turn the shield off and then on again as quickly as possible!"

Tirsa stood ready with her sword at the entrance. She had no doubts about attacking the women!

"Are you ready?" Rame asked Seth, and Seth nodded. Again by common consent, they did not use the mind talk.

"Now!" Rame cried, and he and Seth heaved as hard as they could on Vidav's legs.

The little man waved his hand. Hauled by their combined strength, surprising the women, Vidav's body slid in. One of the women tumbled forward, about to enter the chamber. But the man waved his hand again, and the woman's head crashed into the restored wall. She fell to the tunnel floor and rolled in agony. There was no mark on her, but she might have sustained a concussion.

Vidav was inside. But the other woman stood up, drawing a knife. She cocked her arm, and Seth was suddenly sure that the spell would not stop that metal weapon, any more than it had stopped their own swords. It tuned in on conscience, and metal did not relate at all. She was aiming not at them, but at the little man.

Tirsa stepped forward through the wall, swung with deadly accuracy and force, and lopped off the woman's head.

The head toppled and rolled into the room, while the body fell the other way.

Apparently the dead woman was no longer evil, by the spell's definition.

Rame swooped down, grabbed the head by the hair, and threw it into the tunnel where the downed woman was recovering. In a moment she got up, saw her dead companion, made an expression not of horror but of disgust, and staggered back away from the room. In a moment the body and head lifted and floated after her, neither one bleeding any more.

Seth took a shuddery breath. This was the second recent killing, and he did not find that the experience grew more pleasant with repetition. He turned to Tirsa. "For someone who's not used to violence, you really came through," he remarked, with a not-too-successful effort to put the horror behind them.

"I did what was necessary," Tirsa replied, shaken. "Bear with me a moment."

Then she set down her stained sword, stepped into Seth, and put her arms around him.

Astonished, he was frozen for a moment. Then he realized that she needed comfort, a sort of physical shielding from the horror of what she had done.

She had done the same for him when he lost control in the Fur-Gnomes' lake. He hugged her close, not saying anything.

Rame looked at the little man. "She may have threatened you, but she also defended you," he pointed out. "She is trying to do what is right, but it is hard to judge between good and bad when your friend is dying and people are trying to kill you."

"I see that, now," the man said, looking doubtful. "But I think she is overreacting. Women do that, of course."

"Nymphs do," Rame said. "But this one is fully human, and it upsets her to kill another human being."

"Oh, is that the problem! Those women aren't human, though perhaps their ancestors were; they assume that form for convenience, so that others won't recognize them as witches. They are taking their companion back to their cave, where they will use their ointment to seal her head back on her body, and she will be as she was before. You can't kill one of them except by chopping her up and eating all of her, and of course they don't taste very good."

Seth, holding Tirsa, found this most interesting. That meant that he hadn't killed one of them either; he had just put her out of commission until the others could use the magic ointment. That might explain why the women were so eager to eat others: they feared that otherwise their prey would revert to life and return for vengeance.

"My friend will be relieved to know that," Rame said. "Meanwhile, we apologize for intruding on you; we were desperate, and seemed to have no choice."

"I understand, now," the man said. "I'm really not used to company. I'm a hermit, you see."

"If you have a mop or rag, I'll dean up the mess," Rame said.

"I have both." In a moment the faun was mopping the blood from the floor, and using the rag to clean off Tirsa's sword.

"Let's exchange introductions," Rame suggested as he worked. "I am Rame, and these are my companions among the Chosen: Tirsa, Seth and Vidav, who is unconscious."

"I am Wen Dell," said the man. "I left society when I was twenty, and I am now forty-two, if I have kept accurate count. So I may be a bit out of date on recent developments. Just what do you mean by 'Chosen'?"

"I think we are not quite certain ourselves," Rame said. "We are each from a different Earth-plane--do you know what I mean by the planes?"

"Of course!" Wen Dell said, aggrieved. "Everyone knows that!"

"It seems we were assembled by design," Rame continued. "There was a prophecy indicating that four Chosen would come at this time, and when we arrived at the capital of the Teuton Empire, knowing nothing of this, we became the Chosen. We have been charged with eliminating the threat to the planes that Nefarious represents."

"Nefarious!" the hermit exclaimed. "I have heard of him! But I thought the Empire had a sorcerer to match him."

"It did until recently. But now Nefarious is much stronger, and no one can stand against his magic. So it's up to us, we were told. We actually know little about it, and so far have barely survived the attacks by the sorcerer's minions. Our friend, here, was poisoned and infected by one of their darts, and we fear he will die or turn against us if we don't get him to the elf village soon for treatment."

"Oh, dart infection!" Wen Dell exclaimed. "I have magic to abate that! Now I understand why he was deemed evil."

"You can treat it?" Rame asked, suddenly excited.

"Perhaps. It depends on the variety. Let me look at him." They went to squat beside the unconscious man.

Tirsa had been quietly sobbing into Seth's shoulder. Now she had recovered enough to resume activity. She disengaged, picked up her sword, checked it, sheathed it, and turned to the others. "Anything you can do, we shall surely appreciate!" she said to the hermit.

Wen Dell nodded. "I can do something, but not enough." He waved his hand. "Now the infection is stopped, but he is not cured. I have only halted the progress of the bacteria. When you reach the elf village, their sorcerer will cure him.

He is stronger than I am. At least the one who was there when I last saw the village was."

"Yes, elf healing magic is stronger than mine," Rame said. "I played my whistle, but it could not help him."

"Oh, it did help him," the hermit said. "I felt that healing when I worked my magic, and built on it. You saved him from a rapid takeover by the bacteria, but couldn't stop it entirely. I have stopped it, but can't reverse it. We amateurs cannot do much against those who devote their whole lives to the sinister arts." He glanced at the tunnel through which they had come. "How did you folk get involved with those witches?"

"We were carrying our friend toward the elf village," Seth explained. "We found clear traveling along a good trail through a pleasant valley. But we discovered that anything we imagined appeared, and then the women appeared, and used their magic to immobilize us and float us into their cave. They killed and roasted an intelligent bird who was our friend, and were going to do the same to us, but we managed to cut ourselves free."

"Yes, it is their hunting ground," the hermit agreed. "The magic of the region enables them to hide their nature and seem harmless, until they come within levitating range of their prey. They were there when I first came, but they could not penetrate my defensive spell. Since I wanted no contact with the outside world, I decided that such folk would serve as an excellent barrier to intrusion, and so I set up in this deep cave near them. Of course I have nothing to do with them, and once they discovered that they could not reach me, they left me alone. I am able to conjure such food as I require, and to relax with my thoughts."

"But don't you get lonely?" Seth asked.

"Why should I?"

Seth couldn't answer that. Evidently the man could live readily enough without human companionship.

"We must move on," Tirsa said. Evidently she had heard Wen Dell's explanation about the nature of the witches, and recovered her equilibrium, and with it her poise. "But we can't risk the tunnel we came through. Is there another way out?"

"There is. But you must remain for a meal. What I conjure is not fancy, but is adequate. Now that I have come to know you, I would like to learn something of the outer world. You say the Teuton Empire is about to wage war against Nefarious?"

"Not exactly," Rame said. They weren't eager to delay, but they did need to eat, and did owe the hermit more than a token. So they remained to eat with him, while Rame told him of recent events on this plane. The hermit served a respectable meal consisting of blue soup and red bread: as he said, not fancy, but sufficient.

"I don't mean to offend you, but why would you want to leave society?" Rame inquired. "I have been something of a hermit myself, but not from choice; I was exiled from my tribe. I much prefer to be with company, male and female."

"I did not like what I was seeing," Wen Dell replied. "Too much violence, too much evil."

"That's no reason to leave," Seth protested. "You should have tried to change what you thought was wrong." He had always been a believer in the ability of people to change things, if they really tried. He had long ago concluded that it was no solution to ignore evil.

"Perhaps if you succeed in your mission, things will be better, and I will rejoin society. But perhaps not."

"You have talents that are very important in society," Rame insisted. "Your spells are of an excellent caliber. You could be of significant help to others right now, as you have been to us."

"Thank you, but I do not think I am ready for society. Please let us change the subject. Rame, why do you carry Vidav's body in that cumbersome manner?"

"Do you know another way?" the faun asked, surprised. "We lack the ability of the witch-women to make heavy objects float."

"Conjure him into your reed whistle," the hermit said matter-of-factly.

"My whistle is not quite that powerful," Rame protested. "It can move small things around, conjure food, liquid, even weapons sometimes, but not human beings."

"Let me see it." Wen Dell took the whistle and walked over to his cupboard, which now seemed to be a small room. After rummaging inside for a few minutes he emerged with a six-foot reed. "May I borrow your dagger, Seth?"

Seth handed him the new dagger Rame had conjured, and he sliced off two sections of reed. One section was smaller than any of Rame's reeds, and the other section was larger. In a few minutes he had them fastened to the sides of the original reed whistle, extending it in the manner of a panpipe. He handed this back to Rame. "Now try."

Rame put the whistle up to his mouth and played a very compelling melody, using the two new pipes. Vidav's body quivered and disappeared.

"Uh--" Seth began, not at all sure about this.

"Will he be all right?" Tirsa asked, with similar apprehension.

"He is in a frozen state, very much like being in another dimension, a timeless one," Wen Dell explained. "As long as you have the reed whistle, you can conjure him back."

"I don't want to seem unduly ignorant," Seth said. "But could you conjure him back now, Rame? For a moment?"

Rame put the whistle to his mouth and played. In a moment Vidav reappeared. He seemed to be exactly as before. "It doesn't hurt him?" Seth asked. "I mean, he can still breathe?"

"He doesn't need to," Rame said. "For us, perhaps a minute passed, but for him, no time. Had I realized that this was possible, we would not have needed to struggle so hard to cure him, for he will not regress when conjured by the whistle."

"We could have saved some effort carrying him, too," Tirsa remarked, rubbing a hand over her shoulder where the stretcher pole had chafed. "We must thank you, Wen Dell, for this singular favor; this will make it possible for us to get our friend to the elf village with far less labor and danger to ourselves."

The hermit shrugged off the thanks. "I must warn you, however: do not conjure a conscious subject in that manner. The frozen state could do an active human being permanent damage."

Rame played once more, and Vidav disappeared again. "We thank you most appreciatively for your hospitality," Tirsa said to Wen Dell. "But now we do have to move on."

"Yes, and I thank you too," Rame said. "You have greatly enhanced my whistle!"

"I have not talked to other humans in twenty-two years," Wen Dell said. "I had almost forgotten how pleasant it could be, and now I realize how much I missed it. I truly wish you success in your mission. I think it more likely now that I will re-enter society. But wait!"

"We really must go," Seth said, fearing more delay.

But Wen Dell was already walking back to his cupboard. He brought out several metallic items. "Please take these." He handed Rame and Tirsa each a white medallion. "They are complementary to the tassel on Seth's sword. Rame, your medallion will turn black if someone is in danger from a non-physical force, and Tirsa, your medallion will turn black if someone is lying to you or your group."

"But we really shouldn't take your precious amulets!" Tirsa protested.

"I also wish you to take these," the hermit continued, handing them four rings. "I have been keeping myself busy inventing all of these amulets. Now, finally, they will be put to good use. These rings will allow you to see in the dark as if it were day."

"Hey, now!" Seth exclaimed, putting his on. "I can really use this!"

Rame conjured Vidav's ring into the reed whistle, and he and Tirsa put theirs on. "We thank you again, for your wonderful generosity," Rame said. "You have assisted us greatly, and we will not forget. We owe you."

"You do not owe me. I really have had no contact with Nefarious, but I know evil, and if you can set it back I will owe you more than I could ever repay.

Now you must go, I have delayed you too long. This tunnel will take you all the way through the mountain range, and will put you at this point on your map." He indicated a spot for Rame. "About twelve kilometers from the elf village."

That was good news! They could get there by the end of the day, since they were no longer burdened by Vidav's weight.

They said thanks and goodbye once more, and this time they did get away. They started out through the tunnel.

But Seth had been too confident. The way out was not nearly as comfortable as they had hoped. It widened and narrowed erratically, and at times was so small that they needed to drag themselves through on their stomachs. Seth and Rame could do this, but Tirsa retained her fear of being crushed deep in the earth, and was unable to proceed.

Seth understood her situation, because he had shared some of her dream. She had died, or almost died this way, perhaps because of her suicide attempt, and it remained a horror for her. But they had to get through.

"Maybe you can put her in your whistle!" Seth exclaimed. "Then conjure her back once we're through the tight part."

"But she's active," the faun protested. "It would be dangerous."

"Well, maybe if she's unconscious." But how were they to arrange that?

Certainly they weren't going to knock her on the head!

"I must get through myself," Tirsa said grimly.

"Maybe I could hypnotize you," Seth said. "I've had some experience with this, though hypnotism is nothing to fool with. If you were in a trance--"

"No, this is something I must conquer." She approached the narrow part and stopped. "Yet it terrifies me so! I'm afraid I will freeze up, and won't be able to move. You two must go first, so that if I can't do it, at least I won't block the way for you."

Seth exchanged a glance with Rame. No way were they going to let her go last!

But how were they going to get her through?

Then Seth had another idea. "Rame, you go first, and trail your rope. Then we can tie it to Tirsa, and you can haul her through, eyes closed. I'll follow, to make sure she doesn't snag."

"I'm not a bag of feed!" Tirsa protested.

"You can crawl if you want to," Seth pointed out. "The rope will just ensure that you can't freeze and be stuck."

She considered, and decided to try it, though her face was drawn. Rame scrambled through the narrow pass, trailing the rope, and Seth fashioned a kind of harness of rope around her upper section. She was a well-formed woman, and he was embarrassed as he pulled it snug.

"Thank you," she murmured, smiling. But her lips were thin. She really was frightened.

"Ready?" Rame called from what seemed like far away.

Tirsa opened her mouth, but couldn't speak. "Ready," Seth called back.

Rame began to take up the slack. But Tirsa just stood there, paralyzed. She couldn't even start!

Seth had what he hoped was a bright idea. "Now that I have you tied up..." he said. Then he put his arms around her and kissed her on the mouth.

"What?" she sputtered as he broke, her eyes seeming to catch fire.

"If you don't move, I'll do it again," he said threateningly.

"I'll settle with you later!" she said darkly. Then she stepped into the narrow crevice and started working her way through.

So it was working, he thought. Outraged at his temerity, she had forgotten her apprehension about the cave. Anger had conquered fear. He had thought that might be the case, but he wished it were not so. He wished, but what was the point? She had made her attitude quite clear. He was, as she put it, an impetuous youth.

When she was safely past the constriction, Seth followed. He had to drag himself along on his stomach to navigate part of it. Tirsa was smaller than he was, but this would have been no joy for her. At least he had done what he had to do, and enabled her to make it.

Rame and Tirsa were waiting for him as he emerged from the squeeze. Tirsa was evidently still angry; she would not look at him, and made no mental contact.

How well he had succeeded!

They went on. Farther along the cave floor turned to mud, which they waded through up to their knees, then their waists, and finally almost up to their necks. This was a veritable river of mud! At least they had no difficulty seeing their way, because of the magic rings, but there really was nothing they cared to see.

The mud thinned. They were thoroughly plastered. Yet even caked into shapelessness by the mud, Tirsa still looked good to him. He knew he did not look good to her. He wished he could have found some other way to make her angry--angry at something else, instead of at him. What had seemed clever at the time seemed embarrassingly stupid in retrospect. It had worked--but at what cost?

They finally slogged past the last of the obstacles of the tunnel and reached the outside forest. Seth could appreciate why the witch-women did not use this route!

Curious despite his physical and mental discomfort, Seth slipped his ring off.

Sure enough, it was night time, and pitch black outside. They had used up their day just getting out, and certainly needed the rings. Quickly he returned the ring to his finger.

They left the cave, and left the mud on their clothing. There wasn't much they could do about it at the moment, and it might prove to be effective camouflage.

They reoriented with the compass and map, and started again toward the elf village. They took mincing steps, because though they could see well enough at close range, farther out the night closed in, and the boots would have plunged them into dangerously invisible territory. They were close enough now so that normal progress would suffice.

Seth kept a wary eye on his sword tassel. Instead of being pure white, it remained gray. Apparently they were in constant but not immediate physical danger. Seth wasn't sure he liked that, but he was glad they had the magic amulets that warned them and helped them proceed.

They tested Tirsa's medallion by telling stories and seeing if it could decipher the truth from the lies. It turned out to be quite accurate; they could not deceive it.

Rame tested his medallion by having Tirsa make minor attacks on Seth with her mental powers. Seth wasn't sure just how sincere she was; it depended on how angry she remained at the way he had gotten her through the cave squeeze. The medallion also proved effective, turning gray when she tried; apparently it knew that this was not in earnest. Their friend Wen Dell did seem to be good at his magic.

After walking for about an hour they encountered a fog bank. It was nothing major but it hampered their progress slightly, because their night-vision rings weren't proof against this. Soon it got thicker, coalescing around them and becoming so thick that they had to hold hands to keep together without frequently calling. Only by constantly scrutinizing the compass could they be sure that they were traveling in the right direction. Their night vision was now useless.

Seth wished they could find a safe place to lie down and sleep. He was tired, but didn't dare relax. Once they reached the elf village, then they could rest. If only the way there wasn't so hard!

_You are remarking on the obvious again,_ Tirsa thought reprovingly. Well, at least she was communicating with him now.

He could tell by the feel of the ground that they were entering marshy land.

He remembered how on his own plane snakes seemed to go hand in hand with swamps. Of course snakes were beneficial creatures, and he respected them--but in this fog he felt uneasy about encountering them. Did the backwards Synops travel at night?

Then he thought of something else. _Tirsa, Rame_--_we should be careful,_ he thought. _It seems very coincidental to me that this fog bank showed up when night could no longer hamper our progress._

_I agree,_ Tirsa thought. _But what can we do about it? If we stop moving and stay in the bank till it clears we are an easy target for any creature more adapted to other senses than sight._

_We must keep moving,_ Rame thought. _Besides, my medallion is white and so is your tassel, right? We aren't in any danger._

Seth was taken aback. He had neglected to watch his tassel, being absorbed by his effort to see through the fog. _Wrong!_ he thought, alarmed. _Now it's black!_ It must have changed in the last few minutes, and he had been criminally careless in not noting it. Rame's medallion indicated only non-physical danger, so that could mean--

Then he heard Rame scream, and then a thud.

"Seth, Tirsa, stop walking!" the faun called. "I've found the elf village!

It's about two hundred feet below us!"

Seth and Tirsa edged over to what the physical danger was: the brink of a cliff. It was clear below the fog, and Rame had fallen only about ten feet onto a large ledge. In the distance they could see the fire lights of what must be the elf village.

Then a gust of wind passed and the faun threw himself flat on the ledge.

"What's the matter?" Seth called. "Are you injured?"

"He's afraid of the air," Tirsa reminded him quietly.

Now Seth understood. Each member of their party had his nightmare. Tirsa had gotten through her horror of the constriction of the deep earth; now Rame had to handle his air phobia. How was he going to do that? It was evident that they were going to have to go down the cliff, as there seemed to be no other route to the elf village.

"I think I can help him," Seth said. He peered down at the ledge on which his friend lay. "Rame, I know this is difficult for you, but we can handle it. I want you to close your eyes and follow my instructions. As long as you do that, you will not fall. Do you understand?"

Rame shuddered. "Yes," he replied uncertainly.

"Conjure a rope and throw it up to me. You don't need to look; just sit there and throw it at the sound of my voice."

Rame conjured a rope and managed to hurl it up to Seth. "See if you can find a tree, or something to tie the rope to," Seth said quietly to Tirsa. "We're going to need to lower ourselves down; I know how to do it."

Tirsa felt through the fog until she came to a tree that was thick enough to support anything the rope could hold. She looped it and tied a secure knot.

Seth had Rame conjure two more ropes, which Tirsa anchored similarly. Then he made crude harnesses for each of them, fitting them carefully.

"Now that you have me tied again--" Tirsa began.

"Of course not!" he said, flushing. "I only did that to make you angry."

"You did not succeed."

"I had to take your mind off that cave!" he continued defensively. "So you could, what?"

"Now is not the time," she said. "Except, perhaps, for this." She stepped close and kissed him.

Seth stood stunned. Not angry? Then what was in her mind?

But he couldn't afford to dither on this at the moment. They had to get down that cliff.

Seth had Rame conjure six more little ropes, with which they tied loops. As they did so, he instructed Tirsa in what to do. He had rappelled before, and though this was not exactly the same thing, the principle remained. Finally they passed their ropes through the loops on each of their harnesses, and threw the loose ends over the cliff.

"Play your whistle until you are sure each rope reaches the ground," Seth called. The faun did so; in fact he played so long that there was probably extra rope piled up down there.

"Are you ready?" Seth asked Tirsa.

"I defer to your judgment," she said, though she did not look fully confident.

Seth was more than slightly nervous himself, for this was farther than he had ever rappelled before. "Watch me, and do what I do," he said. "I will be below you, and will advise you if you are going wrong."

Cautiously he walked backwards over the edge, holding on to his main rope so that he did not fall, until he was standing perpendicular to the face of the cliff. Tirsa watched him, surprised but understanding. He bounded down lower, then called for Tirsa to come.

He had expected her to hesitate, but she did not. She followed his example exactly, making no errors.

They reached Rame's ledge without complication. Seth gave the faun the harness he had made for him, and threaded the ropes through the loops. "Now keep your eyes closed, and hang on to your rope," Seth told him. "I will be below you, and Tirsa will be above you. We will go down just a little at a time, together. You must stand up, and back off the edge, and walk down it as if it is a level plain--but you are not loose, and you will not be blown away. If you had been tied like this, that storm would never have lifted you. We are all together, and we will talk to you as we go."

Rame did not speak. He only nodded. He remained terrified, but he trusted them, and knew this was the only way to get to safety.

Seth started down again, and waited while Rame followed. "That's it," he called. "Hold on to your rope, keep your footing, let yourself swing out--that's it. Now move your hands down the rope, and take a step backward--yes, that's it. Keep doing that, and stop when you wish to. That's all there is to it."

Tirsa followed. They proceeded down the cliff, picking up speed as the others became more proficient. This cliff was relatively easy to rappel down, because it was not wet or slippery, and there were plenty of grooves and footholds.

Seth took a few large bounds, dropping about twenty feet at a hop, but Rame and Tirsa were satisfied to walk it down. This would take more time, but was better for them.

Seth reached the bottom in about fifteen minutes, with Rame and Tirsa reaching it a few minutes later. They unhooked their belts and left the rope alongside the cliff. Seth saw that Rame's eyes were open; somewhere on the way down he must have risked it, and found that the competence of the rappelling system eased his fear. He had, perhaps, conquered his demon, just as Tirsa had conquered hers.

They looked forward, away from the cliff. Now the fires of the elf village were only a short way off. This was where they hoped Vidav could be cured. By mutual consent, they ran toward it.

Ten

_Fire_

"Halt!" It was an elf guard with drawn bow. The bow was small, as was the elf, but there was no telling what poison or magic was on the arrow. They stopped.

"We are the Chosen," Rame said. "We have come to--"

"Right this way!" The elf hastily slung his bow over his shoulder and led them into the village. At the central and largest fire stood the captain of the elf guard. "The Chosen are here!" the perimeter guard reported.

"Excellent!" the captain exclaimed. "We have competent quarters ready for you!

But why are you so late? We feared something had happened to you."

"Yes," Rame agreed laconically.

"And where is your fourth member?"

"We have him with us. He needs immediate attention by your sorcerer. If you can make him well--"

The captain signaled to another elf. "Rouse the healer!"

In a moment the whiskery healer stumbled up to the fire, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "There is one injured?"

Rame played his reed whistle. Vidav's body appeared.

"Sateon poison!" the healer exclaimed after one look. "But far gone."

"Can you cure him?" Tirsa asked worriedly.

"Yes and no. I can exorcise the bacteria, but he has already suffered damage that will remain. For a complete reversal, it will require stronger magic than I can muster."

"Can you give us a referral?" she asked.

"Yes, of course. But he may refuse to help you."

"Let's do what we can here," Rame said. "Then we will seek the other healer.

Who is he?"

"The wizard Rightwos. But it has been long since he practiced, and he can be surly when disturbed."

"We'll risk it," Seth said. "Meanwhile, if you will abolish the bacteria--"

"I have already done so," the healer said. "At least, I have set the process in motion. It will be several days before the last one is driven out."

"Several days!" Tirsa exclaimed. "We had hoped--" But she did not finish, realizing that it was necessary to take whatever time was required. Their mission would just have to wait until Vidav was better.

"I will watch him until the curse is gone," the healer said. "I see that you other Chosen are tired. Go to the quarters we have provided for you; you are safe here."

Suddenly Seth realized how tired he was. They had not truly rested for a day and a night, for their captivity by the witch-women hardly counted, and then it had been in a home-made lean-to in the forest, in a downpour. He was ready to drop.

"But perhaps we should clean up first," Tirsa said.

"If you wish," the elf said, as if it were a minor matter. The elves had been too polite to mention that the three Chosen were so caked with mud that they resembled so many bags of muck dredged from a polluted lake.

There was a pool formed in a loop of a small stream beside the elf village.

The three stripped their clothing and waded in. They swam and ducked their heads and splashed until the pool was brown. Then they rinsed out their clothes, and the pool became black. They had to go upstream to find water clean enough to rinse away the dirty water they had made. Then, naked, they walked to the thatched shelter the elves had provided.

Inside were four beds fashioned of spongy dry moss. Seth went to the last one and dropped on it. In an instant he was asleep.

* * *

He woke in daylight. Someone had spread a coverlet over him, which was just as well, for he remained naked. He saw Tirsa sitting up, brushing her hair, whose striping had been restored after being lost in the mud.

She saw him, and tossed some material to him. "Tunic," she explained. "We didn't want to continue wearing Empire clothing anyway."

Seth sat up and put the tunic on over his head. He was just about ready to burst. He hoped there was some sort of sanitary facility close by.

"That way," Tirsa said, gesturing toward the back of the tent. Had she read his mind, or had to locate it for herself?

_Both._ She wasn't looking at him, but she smiled.

Evidently she had gotten over her anger with him, or whatever it had been. Had she really kissed him, at the top of the cliff? Why?

_Because my perception of you has changed. Perhaps we shall have time to discuss the matter, while we wait for Vidav._

He certainly hoped so! He got up and walked in the direction she had indicated.

* * *

The elves fed them well, and in the late afternoon Seth and Tirsa took a walk around the region. The territory of the elves was well tended, with efficient little glades cultivated with tubers, grains, fruits, nuts, and herbs. Paths led everywhere, and pretty flowers bordered them throughout. There were no fences, for the elves needed none; each did his task without interfering with the task of any other elf. It was about as nice a region as Seth could remember seeing. There was even a yellow-trunked Sen-Tree standing guard at the border. Seth chatted briefly with it, to Tirsa's amusement.

But they were not really sightseeing. They were talking. "I regret embarrassing you by my description of you, when we first met," Tirsa said. "On my plane, it is no crime to be youthful or to be impetuous. I have had no reason to alter that assessment."

"But you said that your perception had changed!" he said. Actually, she had thought it, but they never referred to their mental contact directly, in speech that any other party might overhear.

"My perception of a suitable object for romance changed," she explained. "Our recent experience has shown me that you have qualities that override those I first noted. You are a natural leader, with excellent judgment, and I think commendable values. You have been instrumental in carrying us through crises, of which the cliff was only the most recent. You are in fact a man."

"But--I thought--" He was unable to continue, flustered.

"I think I should not do this," she said. "But perhaps it is fitting that I indulge my guilt before I explain it." She put her hand on his arm, causing him to pause and turn toward her. Then she embraced him and kissed him again.

This time it was no passing thing; it was charged with emotion that stemmed from her mind.

How sweet it was! "Oh, Tirsa--" Seth began, overwhelmed.

"Now I must tell you why what I have done is wrong," she said, disengaging and resuming the walk. Seth, mystified, had to go along, though his heart was flooded with burgeoning emotion. "It is not that you are younger than I, for age is no barrier to true friendship or love. It is not that you are an unsuitable prospect, for I feel you are. It is not that I am affianced, for I believe that was severed with my separation from my home plane."

"Affianced?" Seth got out. "You mean, engaged to be married?"

"I would have mentioned it before, had I deemed it relevant. It did not become relevant until recently. Now it does relate, but I think not in the way you anticipate. I told you before that I was interested in romance, but not with you. Now I am interested in romance with you. That is why I must tell you what may distress you."

"Oh, Tirsa!" he exclaimed. "If you--I can't think what--"

She smiled. "Your impetuosity has become endearing. But I will tell you what.

First let me explain the seeming mystery of my reaction to your kiss. I had already come to the conclusion that I had judged you imperfectly, and was waiting for the appropriate occasion to apologize for that. But your reaction to my attitude had been so hurt that I felt it was better not to hurt you further, and to leave it as it was. Then you kissed me, and I realized that I had also misjudged myself. Knowing that we were to be stranded on this plane regardless of the success of our assignment, I thought I would have to seek companionship with a male of this plane. I realized abruptly that I had no interest in that; I preferred to seek it with you. It was not anger which motivated me to conquer my paralysis in the cave; it was passion. I knew that I could have no relationship with you if I remained crippled by the trauma of the separation from my home plane. I said I would settle with you later; now I am doing so."

"I never dreamed--"

"You must hear the rest, Seth. Then you will decide. I was affianced, but the relationship was strained. I told you I had tried to commit suicide, but I did not tell you why. Remember, every person in my culture is what you call telepathic; we freely interchange thoughts and emotions. When we marry, we are very certain of our feelings for each other. But I did the unpardonable: I deceived my lover about my commitment. It was not intentional; I deceived myself as well. I thought I loved him completely, but after we were affianced and gave each other to each other completely, there turned out to be a reservation in my feeling. We explored it, and it turned out to be a passion for another man. I had no knowledge who that other might be, but the feeling was there, and I could not be completely fulfilled with the one I had chosen.

Our union could not be perfect until this illicit passion was eliminated. My lover, naturally, was deeply hurt, but in the generosity of his nature he did his best to enable me to expunge this barrier between us. We concluded that it was a phantom passion, rising not from any actual experience with or knowledge of another man, but from the hope that such a man existed. Such things are known in our culture. So I undertook a journey alone, trying to extirpate this phantom passion. The purpose of this journey was to put me in such danger of my life that I would yield the illicit passion in favor of the licit one. Do you understand?"

"I'm trying to," Seth said, his head spinning. He had never known anything like this.

"I believed that if my choice were between death and the extirpation of the illicit passion, I would choose the latter. So I explored the wilderness, with limited supplies, alone, where the thoughts and feelings of others would not interfere. I came at last to a great declivity, from which the only feasible escape was a tortuous passage through the rock: a narrow cave. I commenced that ascent, but my physical stamina was depleted, and I was unable to draw myself through the closest constriction. I realized that I was going to perish deep in the earth--yet in that fading moment the passion that remained with me was not for my husband, but for that unknown other. Death itself would not cleanse my crime of emotion. And so I died, not with pride but with shame. In this manner I found myself on the surface of Earth Plane 4, where a passing peasant of the Teuton Empire found me and guided me to the capital. The rest you know."

Seth was silent. What she had told him was at the same time much more and much less than he might have expected. Her telepathic culture had deeper implications than he had realized, while her supposed crime was no crime at all in his culture. Ambiguity was a fact of human life, as he knew it, and he had long since understood that what counted was not so much what a person thought, but what he did. Thus a man might take delight in a vision of a pretty girl on television, but still be true to his wife. A girl might long for the most fattening pastries, but remain on her diet. A man might have the capacity for devastating physical combat, yet strive for peace, as his father had taught him. Thoughts did count, of course, but not as much as actions, in the end.

"But you see, if you were to unite with me, I would train you in mental contact, and our thoughts and feelings would be completely open to each other." She was answering his thoughts, without making a direct allusion to them. "Such ability, once invoked, cannot be banished. At present you share my thoughts and feelings, and those of the others, only when I create an ambience; when I desist, your thoughts are indeed private to all except to me.

I will say that your private thoughts become you, and this has influenced me significantly. But if mine were always open to you, you would come up against the reality of my guilty passion, and you would know that I could not love you completely any more than I could my affianced. You would find this painful."

"You _still_ have that--that secret love?" he asked, surprised though she had never suggested otherwise.

"I still do. My shame remains, and death will not abate it. I can offer you everything physical and mental, but my love can never be true. This is no bargain, and I regret hurting you in this manner, but in the circumstance I believe it is necessary for you to know. I think your best course is to eschew any further emotional involvement with me, in the interest of sparing yourself greater distress later."

She offered him, by her reckoning, half a loaf, with the best part always in view but never attainable. Yet was that more than any person in his culture offered any other? On his plane half of all marriages ended in divorce, and many that survived did so because of economic or social considerations, rather than true love or loyalty. Still, true love had always been his aspiration, and she could not give him that.

Yet she had given him honesty. That was valuable in itself. She had told him her limit, and it went far to counter what she called her shame.

"How do you feel about it?" he asked.

"It is not appropriate for me to say, apart from the interest I have already expressed. I have described the manner in which my judgment of you has changed, so that I now deem you to be a suitable prospect for a serious relationship. The actual state of my emotion is not relevant to your consideration."

"Yes it is! I think you're beautiful and courageous and compassionate and intelligent--the ideal woman. But it is what you want that counts, or this is none of my business. Do you want my--my love?"

She hesitated. "I see I did say too much, so that you have been unfairly influenced."

"I was influenced the moment I first saw you! I'm young and impetuous, remember? But I need to know your real desire. Do you want my love? Or is this just a passing entertainment for you?"

She gazed at him expressionlessly. Then she nodded. "I want it, Seth."

"I--" He found himself at a loss. He really hadn't expected her direct affirmation. He had thought she would offer him the undoubted delights of dalliance, without deep commitment, being reserved even in romance. He had expected to be put astride the horns of a dilemma, whether to take what she offered or to wait for true love elsewhere. Instead he had found none. She wanted a full relationship--as did he.

She paused, and put her hand on his arm again. "I think you are not ready for this, Seth. Shall we say that at such time as you approach me, you shall not find me unapproachable? There is much that may be said for a gradual relationship, and we have much doubt in our immediate future. Our lives have already been threatened, and we have suffered discomfort."

"But--but what if I wait to--to approach you, and then one of us gets killed?"

"Even so, things must be done in their own time."

He considered that, and realized that it was true. He had no clear idea what she meant by being approachable; it might be that she just would not call him an impetuous youth again, or it might be that if he wanted her in his bed--

"I think in due course you will know what is appropriate, and when you do, so will I," she said. "I am not inexperienced in such matters, as you understand."

Seth felt himself blushing. She was right: mind-reading could be a problem at times!

Perceiving his embarrassment, she alleviated it. She extended her hand. He took it gratefully, and they continued their walk holding hands. It was the right level, for now.

* * *

Rame was busy conjuring new fruits and vegetables into his whistle when they returned. "I did not come here for this, but if I had, it would have been worth it," he said. "The elves have marvelous variants." He looked up. "What were you two doing?"

Whereupon Tirsa smiled and Seth blushed. The faun nodded slowly. "About time,"

he remarked.

"Do not belabor the obvious," Tirsa said, and at that they all laughed.

"How is Vidav?" Seth asked.

"Visibly improving. He should be ready to wake in another day. But then--"

"Do you have the wizard's address on your map?"

"I do, now. With the magic boots we can reach it readily. But the elves have warned me that the wizard's cure will not be easy, even if he agrees to do it."

"We shall simply have to do what we can, and hope for the best," Tirsa said.

They had another good meal with the elves, and retired at dusk. Seth expected to fall instantly to sleep, as he had before, but instead he lay awake, marveling at the day's events, especially his dialogue with Tirsa. How suddenly his hopeless love had become hopeful! Yet a dissatisfaction somehow remained. He could not quite pin it down.

Tirsa got up from her bed. She picked up her moss in a big armful and carried it over to Seth's bed. She dumped it down, straightened it, then lay down beside him, taking his hand. She closed her eyes.

The dissatisfaction was gone. Seth sank into sleep.

* * *

He woke at dawn. Had it been a dream? Then he found Tirsa's hand in his, and knew it was not.

* * *

On the following day the elf healer roused Vidav. They were all present as the man woke. "Where am I?" he asked, sitting up.

_Caution!_ Tirsa thought to him. _There is a spy here._ Aloud, she said: "We are at the elf village, Vidav. "You were poisoned by a Sateon dart, and almost drowned after saving us. We brought you here, but the poison did you harm."

"I remember the lizard attack," Vidav said. "We were in the river, and--" He shook his head. "That seems a long time ago."

"Several days," Seth said.

"We must be on our way!" Vidav exclaimed. "Every hour counts!" He got to his feet--and wobbled.

Seth jumped to help support him. "You have been very ill! You must take it easy."

"Nonsense!" Vidav said. "Our mission is too important." He took a step, and stumbled. But for Seth's support, he would have fallen. "How can this be? I'm weak!" he exclaimed, appalled.

"It is the damage left by the bacteria," the elf healer said. "It was extending itself to take over his mind, but first it captured the nervous system for the body. That system has been freed--but what remains is only a shadow of its original condition. Fortunately he was very strong, so that what would have killed an ordinary man merely reduced him to fractional strength."

"But I cannot exist this way!" Vidav cried. "Strength is my essence! Without it my life is nothing!"

"We shall take you to a wizard who can restore your strength," Rame said.

Vidav, suddenly insecure in his awful weakness, sat down on his bed. "Is it far? I do not know how far I can walk."

"Not far," Rame assured him. "Tomorrow we will take you there."

Vidav lay back on the bed, satisfied.

But in the evening, as Seth lay down to sleep, Tirsa's terse thought came. _I told no one, to preserve the secret. But we must go tonight. The spy is planning to set an ambush for us when we are away from the protection of the elf village._

_But we can't use the boots effectively at night,_ Seth protested.

_Rame!_ she thought. _You have plotted the route?_

_Yes. But if there is an ambush_--

_I read in your mind that there is an herb the elves grow that will cause unconsciousness for an hour. If Seth and I take that, and give it to Vidav, could you play us all into your whistle?_

Now the faun understood what she was getting at. _I could. But we are larger than the elves, and the herb is not attuned to us. It would cause only brief unconsciousness in us_--_perhaps no more than five minutes. Even with the boots, it will take me several hours to reach the wizard's castle._

_But time is frozen within the whistle, is it not? So we would not need more than the instant it takes to put us in, and would wake soon after being taken out._

_That's true!_ Rame thought, surprised.

_The spy does not know that. He thinks we will have to walk together down the route the elves told you, and he has a spell to nullify the boots. You must go alone, and take a different route._

_But that will take much longer!_

_Only till dawn. Then you can use the boots to full effect, and soon be there._

_True,_ Rame agreed. _Is the spy watching now?_

_No. He plans to rouse at midnight to set his trap for us, and deliver us to Nefarious without the elves' knowledge._

_Then I will go pipe Vidav into the whistle, and return for you. Keep me informed if the spy wakes._

_I shall._

Rame got up quietly and left the house. Seth and Tirsa lay where they were, eyes closed, holding hands.

_You are some woman!_ Seth thought appreciatively.

_Do not state the obvious._ But she gave his hand a squeeze.

Soon Rame returned. _Will the spy hear if I play here?_

_Not if it is not loud._

_Here is the herb._ Rame handed each of them some hard little berries.

They took them and chewed them up. Seth wondered how long/

/it would take to--but the air had changed. It was now cool and dank.

Seth found Tirsa's hand in his. She remained asleep; she had taken her dose after him, so would recover later, if it had the same effect on her. It might have more of an effect, because she was smaller than he.

It seemed to be about midmorning, and they were beside a foul river. No--it was a grimy moat, for there was a decrepit castle on the other side. The wizard's castle! He sat up for a better look.

"Ah, they wake," Rame said from behind. He and Vidav were standing, evidently surveying the situation.

"Why didn't you take us on inside the castle?" Seth asked, shaking clear the last wisps of fog left over from his unconsciousness. Now Tirsa was stirring, and he took her hand again and squeezed it.

"The wizard wouldn't let me in," Rame said. "I called, and said I represented the Chosen, and needed help, and he called back 'Go away!' I never even saw him; he was just a voice."

"The elves said he might not choose to help us," Seth said. "They must have had experience with him."

While they talked, Tirsa had recovered. "Perhaps I can get through to him."

Then she concentrated, and they heard her mental call: _Wizard! We must meet with you!_

There was an impression of someone's jaw dropping. _Who calls me?_

_We are the Chosen, sent by the Teuton Emperor to nullify Nefarious. But we have suffered by the attack of Nefarious's minions, and need your help._

_Show yourself!_

_We are standing outside your moat._

_There is only a satyr there, a creature of mischief; I know the kind. Desist with your tricks; I'll have none of them._

_Then I will show myself mentally,_ she responded. She sent a thought of such complexity that Seth was amazed; it incorporated her origin on another Earth plane, and her assignment as one of the Chosen, and her presence here before the old castle. It was as if she had thrown off her cloak and stood naked, only more so, for she valued her mind more than her body.

_Enough, woman!_ the wizard replied. _I believe you! No creature of this plane possesses such power of the mind except Nefarious, and his is not that type!_

A few minutes later the drawbridge was cranked slowly down, and they crossed to the castle. There they were met by a wizened man, old and stooped. "I am Rightwos, once a wizard of repute, deposed long ago by Nefarious and reduced to this state," he said. "His minions still pass by, tormenting me with idle atrocities, apparently just for amusement. I thought the satyr was of that number."

Seth saw Tirsa glance at her medallion. It remained bright. The wizard wasn't lying.

"I am not of that type," Rame said. "But I comprehend your concern. I left my kind because of their attitude, and now consider myself to be a faun. I should have realized that you would have had cause to distrust satyrs."

Quickly they explained their situation, and Vidav's problem.

"My powers are diminished," Rightwos said. "Age and the injury done me by Nefarious have left me with more memories than actual magic. But I can still do some things adequately if not well. I may be able to help your friend--but the way available to me is not one you may wish to use."

"If it restores my strength, I'll use it!" Vidav said.

"It is the firewalk."

Vidav paled. "I don't like fire."

"Neither do I," Rightwos said. "But it retains its elemental power, and this we need. Neither the Sateons nor their poisons can stand up to it. Magic fire is that much more potent against their works. You must walk through the enchanted fire to which I will take you, and conquer it, and in so doing you will abolish all the evil done you by the Sateon poison. It is the only way."

Vidav looked as if he were about to faint. "I can but try," he said tightly.

"The site is not far from the castle," Rightwos said. "I will show you the way." He walked briskly enough, but the others had to mince their steps to prevent the magic boots from carrying them far ahead.

They came to what looked like an ancient volcano crater. The floor of it was level, but smoke vented from crevices, and it looked dangerous. In the center was a continuous jet that reminded Seth of a gigantic upward-pointing blowtorch. The heated air shimmered around the translucent fire.

"That is the curative flame," Rightwos said. "Ordinarily it would burn you, but my spell will enable you to survive it. The legacy of the Sateon poison will not." He gestured, and a cloud formed around Vidav, quickly dissipating.

"You have but to walk into it, and stand until its color returns to normal. At that point your strength will return. But I must warn you that though it will not harm your flesh, it will hurt exactly as if it is destroying you. My magic is no longer strong enough to shield you from the pain, only the actual damage."

Vidav swallowed. He started walking toward the flame. It was strange, seeing the man so nervous, but Seth thought of his own recent fear of water and ice, and knew what his friend was feeling. When a thing kills you, he realized, you do tend to be wary of it.

The others followed, unable to help their friend in this particular thing. No one else could do it for him.

Then Seth noticed that the tassel on his sword was darkening. "Um, I think there is danger--"

There was a burning hissing sound behind them. "Curses!" the wizard exclaimed.

"Firefish!"

"What?" Tirsa asked, turning to look. Seth did also. He saw a streamer of fire extending across the edge of the crater, but it seemed to have no origin.

"Another of Nefarious's nuisances! They can't cross my moat, but now they've trapped me in the open. This is going to be difficult."

"What are firefish?" Seth asked, alarmed. All he saw was the extending line of fire. It had ringed them already, and now was thickening toward them.

"They are demon fish that swim through air and squirt fire from their mouths,"

Rightwos explained. "They feed by burning their prey; they absorb the nutrient smoke and fumes. Fortunately they are readily stopped, for they cannot tolerate water."

"Great!" Seth said. "Where's the nearest water?"

"In the moat."

And the firefish had just cut them off from the moat. The crater, of course, was completely dry.

"Rame!" Tirsa exclaimed. "Can you conjure water?"

"Yes, I did to counter the witch-women's flames," the faun replied. "But I can't bring enough to do much, and it would only fall at our feet."

"A jug of it."

"A jug of it," Rame agreed. He put his whistle to his mouth, and in a moment had a narrow-necked crockery-jug.

Seth took the jug and pulled out its stopper. A fine stream of cool water poured out. He advanced on the ring of fire, but it did not retreat. Maybe the firefish didn't believe the jug really contained water.

He swung the jug, and a thin stream of water emerged. It sailed out to intersect the ring--and fell through it without much more effect than a small hiss of steam.

The ring of fire did not break; it healed over as fast as the water passed.

"You aren't accomplishing anything," the wizard said. "The fish form the ring by squirting fire continuously; when one squirt ends, another squirt begins, from another fish. Your water cut through a fire-squirt, but those are constantly being replenished anyway. You have to score on the fish themselves to be effective, and they are adept at dodging. A body of continuous water, like a lake or a moat, is a perfect barrier, because the water's effect extends above and below for some distance. But a splash just isn't enough."

"Maybe if we made a temporary moat," Tirsa suggested. "A channel of water in a circle, and we could stand inside."

"That would take time, and a lot of water," Seth pointed out. "We'd have to pour it out bottle by bottle, or splash by splash, and it might sink into the hot ground or evaporate before we completed the job. Meanwhile, those fish are closing fast." Indeed, they had to keep walking toward the central column of fire, to avoid the closing circle.

If Vidav had been nervous before, he was highly agitated now. His eyes flicked between one fire and the other. His hands shook. There was sweat shining on his face, though the heat of the fires had not yet affected their party.

"Trapped!" he muttered.

"Come on," Tirsa said. "I'll scoop out a channel, and Rame can conjure more jugs of water. It may hold them off until we can figure out something better.

Perhaps rain will come."

"No good," Rightwos said. "They can't cross even a small moat, but they can fire across it for a meter or more. We would have to make a large circle to get out of their range. We have neither the time nor the water."

"I could excavate a big channel in time," Vidav said. "If I had my strength."

"You can have your strength, if you step into that curative flame," Rightwos pointed out.

Vidav gazed at it. They were now quite close, and its heat prevented a nearer approach. "I can't!"

"I'll do it!" Seth cried. "Enchant me so that my flesh can withstand it, and I'll--"

"No. I exhausted my limited power for that enchantment when I did your friend," the wizard said. "In any event, you are not ill; you have no great strength to recover. The curative fire would not change you."

Seth realized it was true. He had been impetuous again, to no purpose.

"But maybe the woman can help," Rightwos said. "If she links your minds, the foolish courage of the one may transfer to the other."

Immediately they were linked. _Draw from us, Vidav!_ Tirsa thought. _We will face the fire with you._

Seth felt Vidav's agony of spirit. The memory of the flames that had killed him overlaid the current scene. He felt the remembered pain, and knew that the fire was going to kill him. He couldn't face that again!

Seth had a healthy respect for fire, but it hadn't killed him. Ice had. He could face the flame, knowing that an enchantment protected his body from real harm, if not from the sensation of harm. _I will take that walk with you, in your mind,_ he thought.

Tirsa feared the deep earth, though not as much as she had. She too could face the fire. _I will too,_ she thought.

Rame feared the air, the power of storm, but not fire. _I too!_ he thought.

_Don't leave me behind!_ Rightwos thought. _This may not be magic, but your mental contact is a wonderful thing._

_I know that the fire will give you pain and restoration. You may not believe, but I do. I will face that pain with you._

Behind them the firefish closed in, constricting their ring. Now the heat was both front and back; there was no escape.

_If it's a choice between fires, I'll take the clean one!_ Vidav thought, gaining courage from their support. He leaped into the central column.

The fire surrounded him, burning away his clothing in a moment and cutting through the skin. Horrible pain flared all around his body. His skin cracked, his eyes glazed, and an inferno roared into his lungs.

Involuntarily, he tried to jump out. _No!_ Seth thought, though he was hurting the same way, and wanted desperately to escape it. _We must stay and conquer it!_

_Stay!_ Tirsa echoed, though her hair was frizzing and burning.

_Stay!_ Rame agreed, though his hoofs were melting.

_Stay!_ Rightwos thought, his beard turning to ash.

Vidav stayed. The fire passed through his skin and into his underlying tissue, making every muscle knot. It ate into his internal organs, giving him the worst possible sickness. It consumed his brain, causing explosive hallucinations. Finally it ground through his bones, turning them to seeming charcoal.

Then the pain faded. Vidav stood whole and invulnerable within the column of flame, and his strength was back. He was naked but exultant.

_But we are frying!_ Seth thought, for though he stood outside the column, the fire ring was close at his back, burning him. It was the same for the others; they had nowhere to go. It was also too late for any moat; there was no room for it.

Vidav leaped out of the column. He picked up the jug of water. He tossed it into the air, and as it came down, he clapped his two hands into it, on either side.

The jug was smashed inward. The water in it exploded. A spray of it flung up and down and outward, drenching them all and saturating the close ring of firefish.

There was a soundless scream. Suddenly the fish were gone, and the ring of fire flickered out. The explosion of water had caught the fish by surprise, and if it hadn't killed them, it had certainly dismayed them and broken their concentration. There was no chance for them to form a new ring before their prey escaped.

"That was great, Vidav!" Seth exclaimed. "Only your strength could have done it!"

"It was little enough, after you saved me from the Sateon poison," Vidav replied. "I knew you had risked your lives for me, and endured much discomfort, and were suffering the agony of the flame with me, giving me your strength. I had to give you mine, and the debt is far from repaid."

"I wonder how Nefarious knew to send this particular scourge to this place at this time," Rightwos said as they walked back toward the castle. "You had gone to such an extreme to elude his spy in the elf village, yet he knew precisely where to strike to take out not only you, but me. That cannot be coincidence."

"The Emperor said that Nefarious can detect those who use magic," Rame said.

"We four were Chosen because we have no inherent magic; we use magic objects, but that is not the same, and he can't detect that."

"True," Rightwos agreed. "He knows where I am, because of my magic. He would have destroyed me long ago, except that I am now harmless to him, and he prefers to revel in my humiliation. He lets me play with my golems and work my little enchantments as if I were still a great wizard, knowing that I know how far these tokens fall short of my prime. He can't detect what I do in here, but it doesn't matter; he knows its limits. He should not be able to detect the invocations of your objects, unless--" He broke off, looking thoughtful.

"Unless what?" Seth asked, getting an ugly notion of the answer.

"Unless he planted them!" Rame exclaimed. "The spies Tirsa spotted at the capital--they could have put magic tags on those artifacts! Did you check for that, Tirsa?"

"No, I didn't think to," she confessed. "The whole situation was so new, that I just identified them and watched them, without delving further into their memories. How stupid of me!"

"None of us thought of it," Seth said quickly. "We were so busy training, after being wrenched from our home planes, or home forest in Rame's case, that we couldn't explore every possibility."

They arrived at the castle. "I will inspect all your artifacts, and determine whether any have the stigmata of Nefarious," Rightwos said. "This much I can readily do; I am long conversant with the stink of his works."

Inside, they got to work on it, after Rightwos found a tunic for Vidav, to replace the clothing he had lost in the flame. The three others had not actually burned; it had been only sensation. The magic tassel on Seth's sword was clean, as it should be; it was Rame's gift. Rame's whistle was clean. The gifts of Wen Dell the Hermit were clean: Rame's medallion that warned of non-physical danger, Tirsa's medallion that identified lying, and their four rings for seeing in the darkness. That reminded Rame to present Vidav's to him. They could not check the magic tent and stove, for they had been lost in the raging river. That left their boots. Vidav's were gone, but the other three were wearing theirs.

The boots had the stigmata of Nefarious: all three pairs.

"So wherever we went, he knew!" Seth exclaimed in disgust. "We avoided his spies, only to have him send new ones! He knew when you arrived here, Rame; he waited only to see what you were up to, and punish Rightwos for trying to help us!"

"It is his way," Rightwos agreed. "He derives pleasure from watching cornered rats scurry here and there in futile efforts to escape before he destroys them. You may be sure that something nasty will lurk for you the moment you leave the protection of this castle."

"He may have outsmarted himself," Seth said.

"How so? I can protect you here, but only within the castle, which is a bastion against hostile magic. I can give you charms against particular threats, but nothing which Nefarious could not readily overpower. I fear this is a trap for you that will effectively nullify your mission."

"Because he thinks he's got us bottled up--and he doesn't," Seth said. "By the time he realizes his mistake, we'll be far away, and he won't know where."

Tirsa cocked her head. "Do you know something we don't?"

"No, I've just thought it through a step ahead of you," Seth said. "And, with luck, two steps ahead of Nefarious. Look, he can't track us, just our magic boots, right? So if we take those off, we lose him."

"I think you have omitted a detail," Vidav said gruffly. "His minions will be watching this castle."

"And when those boots leave it, they'll follow," Seth agreed. "And when, after toying with the fugitives for a while, they close in for the kill, they'll find those boots being worn by walking golems--while under the cover of that distraction, we will have escaped unnoticed and be on our way."

Tirsa's jaw dropped. "Why, I believe it could work!"

"Can you provide us with boots like these?" Rame asked Rightwos, removing his as if they were unclean.

"Not as good as those, but without the stigmata, yes," the wizard agreed. "The boots I fashion will take you only ten paces for one."

"That will do!" Rame said. "Ten paces undetected is better than thirty that give us away!"

"But if the minions of Nefarious are watching the castle, they should see us depart it anyway," Vidav said. "They would not be so stupid as to stop watching Rightwos just because his guests depart."

"I can help you there!" the wizard said eagerly. "I have a spell to make you undetectable. Invisible, inaudible, unsmellable--for a time. It would not be effective against Nefarious himself, of course, but his minions are lesser creatures, and relatively stupid. It would fool them, if they believed you had already left anyway. By the time it wears off, you will be well away."

"He will know we are coming, but he won't know how or when," Vidav said with gusto. His spirit had returned with his strength, and he was his old self again.

"Aren't we forgetting something?" Tirsa asked.

Seth looked at her. Her striped hair was shining with its original luster, and she was beautiful. "What?"

_Yet again you belabor the obvious!_ She thought in response to his appreciation. But she also responded verbally. "Nefarious will know where we started from--here--and where we are going--there. He should have no trouble checking the most expedient routes between, and his minions will set traps along all of them. Escaping this castle would be but a temporary reprieve; we would surely be snared again, long before we posed a threat to him."

The others nodded gravely. They had allowed their enthusiasm to overwhelm their common sense. Tirsa was right: it was apparent that they could not even get close to Nefarious, let alone do anything to him.

But Seth was youthfully stubborn, and who cared how Tirsa saw him? "There has to be a way!"

_I love it_--_and you care._ "There is surely a way," she said. "We have but to find it."

Vidav looked at them. "I follow your words, but your thoughts are obscure. Did something happen while I was ill?"

_We are considering whether to love each other,_ Tirsa thought, sharing the thought with them all. _He is enthralled by a pretty body, while I am intrigued by youth._

"Oh." Vidav obviously wasn't quite satisfied with that explanation, but let it pass. "Is there any feasible route that Nefarious would not be watching, or have his minions on?"

"One," Rightwos said. "But you would not care for that one."

"If it's a good route, that's safe for us, we're interested!" Seth said. "What is it?"

"Through the ice."

Seth stared at him, feeling a chill reminiscent of that ice. What could the wizard be talking about?

Eleven

_Ice_

"Nefarious's castle is in the northern reaches," Rightwos explained. "It is protected by a glacier so massive it is called the Mountain of Ice. It is considered impassable; storms are almost continuous, and the terrain constantly shifts as the ice moves. The only access is a road from the south, kept clear of ice by the sorcerer's magic. Beside it are many bounteous fields that yield excellent harvests, but it is known that at any moment the whim of Nefarious could bury those fields in snow and ice, and all attending peasants with them. All who approach along that road are verified by magic; no enemy of the sorcerer can pass unless in chains or worse."

"Or worse?" Tirsa asked.

"Some are blinded or stripped of their limbs, or otherwise restrained. Some are put under horror spells that make them long for death. No potentially dangerous enemy is allowed near Nefarious."

Seth gulped. "How is it that Emperor Towk sent us out without telling us this?"

"That is an interesting question. Surely he had some reason."

"Decoy!" Vidav exclaimed. "Here we are talking of using decoys to distract the sorcerer's minions from us; we must be decoys to distract Nefarious from the Emperor's real attack!"

"But who would be fool enough to go along with that?" Seth asked. Then, immediately, he answered his own question. "People from other planes, or the backwoods, who don't know the situation. Innocents who believe what they are told."

"The Emperor gave us no truth-medallion," Tirsa agreed. "Yet I fathomed his mind, and found no such deception there."

"Maybe he didn't know," Seth said. "The best decoys are those who think they're the real thing. So if the Empire strategists tell the Emperor one thing, and plan another, that keeps him honest, and maybe leads the spies astray too. The Emperor has what on my plane is called 'deniability.' If something goes wrong, he knows nothing about it."

"I was never quite sure about the Empire," Vidav growled. "Now I think I know why."

"The Empire is imperfect," Rightwos said. "Yet it is better than what Nefarious plans. It is better to support it."

Seth looked again at Tirsa's medallion, where it hung on her bosom. It remained bright. No lies, here. "So what do we do?" he asked. "Go on and be good decoys, until Nefarious catches us and tortures us to death? Or quit now?"

"I do not like the Empire much," Vidav said. "But I like quitting less."

Seth agreed wholeheartedly with that! "So why don't we go ahead and astound everyone by completing the mission? Maybe the Empire's other thrust will turn out to be the decoy, and we'll be the one that succeeds."

"But to do that, to even make the attempt," Rame said, "we have to come at Nefarious from the one direction he won't anticipate, because it's impassable.

The north."

"But how can _we_ pass it?" Tirsa asked.

"I have no experience with ice," Vidav said. "But after facing the fire, I have no fear of the opposite! I could forge through it at an excellent rate."

"The distance you would have to travel is approximately five thousand kilometers," Rightwos said. "Even with the boots multiplying your speed tenfold, you could make only three hundred or three hundred and fifty a day, because of the violence of the terrain, and storms would slow you further. It would take you at least fifteen days to get there, and Nefarious would know that, and be waiting for your arrival."

"But you said he would not expect that!" Tirsa protested.

"I said he would not be watching that route," Rightwos corrected her. "Because he has no need to. He knows that you will come from the south, which is the most direct and navigable route, and that if you try the north you will either perish in the effort or take longer than two weeks to get there, which means he need have no concern."

"No concern?" she asked, irritated. "Does it matter when we arrive, so long as we surprise him?"

"Two weeks from now he will have made his move to nullify the Teuton Empire, so that there will be no barrier to his assumption of power on the plane,"

Rightwos explained. "Thereafter your effort will be irrelevant. Emperor Towk will be dead and the Empire will answer to new leadership. Even if you killed Nefarious, you would not be able to reverse the damage; you would only hasten the onset of the anarchy and chaos that will destroy all four planes."

Tirsa paled. "But if we cannot make it in time through the ice, and not at all by the southerly route, how can we accomplish our mission?"

"By being good decoys," Rame said. "We'll have to hope that while Nefarious is watching us, the real Chosen are getting through."

"If we can't, how can they?" she demanded.

Rightwos nodded. "An excellent question, to which I have no satisfactory answer."

"We _have to_ do it!" Seth exclaimed. "I don't care if we were supposed to be dupes, the only way we can be sure of saving our frames is by doing it ourselves."

"But if the only way is through the ice, and that's too slow--"

"I know how to make it faster."

She gazed at him. "But your phobia--"

Seth gulped. "Yes. But Vidav walked into the fire, and I can walk into the ice." Yet he wasn't sure he could.

_We will be with you,_ her thought came, echoed by the others. _You helped me, and Rame, and Vidav; we will help you similarly._

Seth hoped that would be enough. He dreaded the notion of heading into five thousand kilometers--that would be about three thousand miles--of arctic wilderness, though before his death he had enjoyed winter sports of all types.

He could ski well, and skate well, and had tried his hand at ice-boating. That was how to make it faster: to use the tools of winter sports to speed up their traveling.

"But we don't know how to do those things," Tirsa said, picking up his thoughts and speaking for the rest of them.

"You can do it--if you link minds with me while I do it," he said. "That way I can teach you instantly."

"Why not teach me," Rame said, "and I will carry the rest of you in my whistle, until I arrive? That way you need have no fear of the ice."

"Because you couldn't make it three thousand miles alone, even with boots,"

Vidav said gruffly. "You will need my strength and endurance. I have not been much in snow, but I know this: it is like mountain climbing, in that you need more than one person, tied together by a rope, so than when one falls, the other saves him."

"True," Seth said. "And several are better than two. I can teach you to ski and skate, but there is expertise I cannot teach because I won't know what is required until I see the situation. I must go too, even if I wish I could avoid it."

"Better than a rope linkage is a mental linkage, so you can act as one throughout," Tirsa pointed out. "There will be times when storms prevent you from seeing or hearing each other, and perfect coordination will be necessary without reference to the physical senses. Therefore I too must go."

They looked at each other and nodded. They were a team; they had to do it as a team, each contributing his ability to the whole.

"Then let's get planning," Seth said. "Even with the best equipment and training, we will be hard put to it to get there in time. We must know exactly what we're doing."

To that they readily agreed.

* * *

Next day they set out. The golems wearing their boots went out first, heading directly toward Nefarious's castle a week's march distant. Then, when Rightwos indicated that the way was clear, Rame went out, wearing his new boots, masked by the spell of undetectability. He hurried north until hidden within a deep forest, at dusk. Then he played his whistle, and Vidav appeared, asleep. Rame said the spell the wizard had given him, and Vidav woke.

Vidav had a huge pack. He lifted Rame onto it, and put a strap around the faun. Then he forged on northward, carrying Rame, who slept. He avoided populated regions, following the route marked on Rame's map. The land was relatively open here, and soon it became tundra, with wide desolate spaces that were ideal for rapid straight-line travel. Vidav pushed his boots to the utmost, and made almost the velocity that one of the others might have made with the original thirty-pace boots. They were gaining on their schedule, and there was no sign that anyone knew where they were.

Vidav hiked all night, for he had the hermit's ring and was well rested.

Indeed, he enjoyed indulging his strength, having so recently recovered it. At dawn he paused, about six hundred kilometers farther north than Rame had whistled him out.

Rame woke, and played his whistle, conjuring food for his friend. Vidav ate as he walked. Then the faun gave him one of Rightwos's potions, and he fell immediately to sleep. Rame played his whistle, and Vidav disappeared. Once more the faun traveled alone, it seemed.

In this manner, in two days and nights they traversed fifteen hundred kilometers, and were at the fringe of the northern barrens, well ahead of a normal schedule. Furthermore, two of their number remained well rested.

But once they came to the snows, it was time for the full party to manifest.

Rame whistled them out, and woke them. At this point Seth became aware that their plan was working; to him and Tirsa the transition had seemed an instant.

They had taken the potion, and then woke at the fringe of the barrens.

"Now we can use the sled," Seth said. Rightwos had used his magic to build items to Seth's specification; the wizard's magic might be reduced, but he had been formidable in his day, and even his minor remaining magic was quite an asset for routine chores. What might have taken several days manually had been done in several hours magically. Rightwos had conjured wood and metal of the appropriate shapes, and the four of them had worked as a team to assemble the units. Tirsa's ability to link their minds had helped greatly; Seth had not had to explain much, he had simply visualized each item and its place in the whole.

Rame played the sled into solidity. It was crude, for Seth had had to work from memory and no particular expertise at construction, but it had clean runners and a solid surface, with handholds along the sides and a mechanism to steer it in front. If they found themselves at the top of a long snowy slope, this would slide them down it handily.

Rame and Vidav got on, lying flat. It was their turn to rest, for Vidav had gotten little in the whistle--he had progressed seemingly instantly from night to night--and Rame had not had the best of it riding on the bobbing pack. Seth and Tirsa took the cord, hooked it to their belts, and started forward, hauling it. The sled moved well, even as they lengthened their stride in tandem and moved ten paces for one. So they were traveling at the predictable speed, but providing two of their number good rest. By shifting off, they could travel much of the day and night, effectively doubling their average pace.

* * *

_I become increasingly impressed with you,_ Tirsa thought as they moved. _I regret I do not have more to offer in return._

_Who cares about your mind?_ he returned jokingly. _Your body is enough._ Not that he had touched her body; her interest was what really counted.

_If only that were so!_ Yet she was pleased.

The terrain became colder and rougher. A chill wind came up, cutting slantwise at them. They were wearing warm suits so that they were not cold, but it still wasn't fun. Then they came to a frozen lake. "Ideal!" Seth exclaimed.

He had to wake Rame briefly, so that the faun could conjure the sail they had fashioned. Seth mounted this on the sled, and angled it to take advantage of the wind. For this purpose a side wind was fine; Seth tacked against it. The sled began to move, driven by the air. Fortunately Rame had returned to sleep immediately; he would not have felt secure about depending on air.

"This is marvelous!" Tirsa exclaimed as they picked up speed. "I was sure you knew what you had in mind, but somehow I could not quite believe it! We are having a free ride!"

"Just so long as this doesn't work into a storm," Seth said, watching the sky warily.

There was no storm, but they did come to the end of the lake and had to resume hauling. Nevertheless, they had gained more time, and Seth's nervousness about the ice had hardly manifested. It wasn't ice that scared him, he realized, it was thin ice, and being in icy water; this was thick ice, and therefore safe.

Maybe he would get through all right!

Then they came to mountainous country, and were unable to haul the sled efficiently. But they had given their companions several hours of deserved rest, while making excellent progress. Rame whistled the sled away; it was time for the boots again.

Now the going became more difficult. There were steep slopes and twisting gullies that Seth didn't trust. They had to use the ropes. They tied themselves in a line, and Seth led the way, poking ahead of him with a metal-pointed stick he had packed for the purpose. Tirsa kept them mentally linked too; they marched in step, so that the boots would not jerk them about if one stepped while another paused. Seth wasn't sure how long this would work; there was bound to be a place where speed was impossible.

Sure enough, he soon found a filled depression; the covering of snow made the surface even, but he could not plumb the bottom of it with the pole. They had to wait while he poked to the side, finding firm footing. Now they were losing time, as he had known they would somewhere along the way. It was their average speed that counted, and anything could destroy that average--if they got careless.

They made it to the top of a ridge, and there ahead was a long curving slope down. Now it was time for the skis.

Rame conjured four sets. "Follow me," Seth said. Tirsa kept them linked as he set off downslope; it was as if all four of them were Seth Warner, all competent skiers, though Rame and Tirsa had never skied before, and Vidav's experience was limited. They were making good time again--until they came to the foot of the slope.

Now they faced another ascent, and the snow was too deep for the boots; they sank in up to their thighs. "Conjure the snowshoes," Seth told Rame. Soon they were trekking up on the snowshoes, taking several paces at a time; the magic boots coordinated well enough, once they got the hang of it.

"Without your expertise, we would be only half as far as we are," Tirsa told Seth.

"Don't belabor the obvious," he retorted, and they laughed. The snow was cold, but his heart felt warm in her presence.

Near nightfall they came to a bleak, level, snowswept plain. It extended as far as the horizon, and the footing under several inches of loose snow seemed secure. Rame conjured the sled, and Vidav hauled the three of them on it, so that they could eat and sleep without stopping their forward progress. They were gaining on their schedule again.

When they lay down, Tirsa wordlessly embraced Seth. Bundled as they were in their winter outfits, it didn't mean much physically, but as a gesture it was wonderful. Yet he remembered what she had said about her secret passion, which had not been for her fiancé of her home plane, and was not for Seth in this one. To love this woman could be asking for heartbreak.

It seemed to be what he was destined for, however.

In this manner, constantly changing off, they proceeded for several days.

Sometimes they skated along a winding frozen river, linked by Tirsa and guided by Seth's experience with skates. Sometimes they used hammers and pitons to climb steep icy cliffs. Mostly they just slogged along through the snow, roped together. If any of them had considered the rope unnecessary, this changed when the snow gave way beneath Tirsa, who was taking her turn leading, and she disappeared into an icy cave. The other three braced and held, and Vidav hauled her back up. Shaken, they proceeded around the cave, saying nothing, but the point had been made.

One night, when they slept on the moving sled, nightmares came. But this time they recognized the source, and resisted them more readily than before.

Nefarious, aware that they had escaped his trap and were on their way, was trying to take them out mentally, and not succeeding. That was a good sign.

Then the storm came up. Rame was terrified, for this was too much like the one that had almost carried him away. Seth felt nervous, but was able to handle it; it was icy water that really got to him.

They had two choices: either build a snow igloo to hide in to ride out the storm, or keep moving. They knew they couldn't afford to stop moving; the storm might last for days, and that would ruin their schedule. But it was dangerous to keep moving; they could be swept over some cliff to their deaths.

"This is where we need your strength, Vidav," Tirsa said. "We must each be strong enough to plow on through the storm the way you can."

Vidav nodded. They had drawn on Seth's expertise with skis and skates, and on Rame's ability with the reed whistle; now they would draw on Vidav's strength.

They put spikes on their boots, and held poles with which to brace themselves.

Then Tirsa tied them in with Vidav's strength, and each had the ability to forge onward at what would otherwise have been superhuman force.

The storm did its utmost. Rame got blown off his feet, because his boots were not as secure as his hoofs would have been. Tirsa, next in line, simply hauled him in hand over hand until he was secure, while Seth and Vidav braced to support her. "I think I am losing my fear of the air," the faun remarked.

Another time the wind started them all sliding down a slope--in the wrong direction. "Hup!" Seth cried, mentally as well as verbally, and as one they jammed their poles down into the snow and stopped the slide. After that they used their poles like pitons, jamming them in as anchors, and kept traveling upslope. It was slow, but it was a lot better than nothing. The storm had been unable to stop them.

They came to a valley where large animals grazed. Tirsa did a doubletake. "How can they graze in snow?"

"They look a bit like caribou," Seth said. "They probably sniff out moss on the rocks beneath the snow, and eat that. They should be harmless if we leave them alone." He remembered his camping excursions on his home plane; he had been aware that the human party was intruding in the domains of the wild creatures, and had been careful not to do any avoidable harm. It had become a habit. Only when the creatures attacked did his attitude change. Here in this fantasy realm of Earth Plane 4 a number of the wild creatures did attack--but a number did not.

They were on skis at the moment, traveling fairly well on fairly level terrain. They headed for the region where the caribou weren't grazing, so as not to disturb them.

"Seth--look at your sword," Tirsa said urgently.

Seth looked--and saw the tassel turning dark. Oops--danger! But where was it?

He saw nothing threatening here.

"Maybe something is coming," he said. "We had better find some cover." But there was nothing.

They moved on--and the tassel turned black. "We seem to be heading right into it," Rame commented nervously.

"The snow is solid here, and not deep," Vidav said, ramming his pole down hard. It struck rocky soil. There were no hidden pitfalls here.

Tirsa brushed something away from her face. "We'd better get on past here quickly."

They tried to keep moving, but something was wrong. Tirsa was becoming agitated, and Seth felt cold down his spine. Vidav was turning his head this way and that. "Cold wind!" he remarked.

"There's no wind," Rame said. But he too looked uncomfortable.

"Well, _something's_ cold!" Tirsa said. Indeed her lips were blue, and a webbing of ice was forming across her furry hood.

"It's as if the wind is cutting right through our clothing," Seth said. But he had to agree with Rame: there was no wind. The day was calm.

"What are spiders doing here?" Tirsa asked, with a flurry of brushing at her face.

Seth began to get a glimmer of something. "Let me look." He peered into her face.

Sure enough, it was framed by what looked like cobwebs. "Must have been a nest of little spiders in the suit," he said, hoping that was all there was to it.

"Now they're running about, leaving their little lines so they won't fall."

"I'm infested with spiders?" she asked, alarmed.

"Something like that." Now he saw one: a tiny white eight-legged creature.

"Let me move it away for you." He removed his glove and put his hand up to intercept the spider, who was descending a bit of line. He didn't want to hurt it.

But as his finger touched the white body, a jolt of cold went up it, numbing it. He jerked back.

Rame came close. "What is it?"

"Is there any type of spider on this plane that can generate cold?" Seth asked, flexing his hand to restore feeling.

"Yes, I've heard of the arctic ice spider," Rame said. "It quick-freezes its prey. Not only does that immobilize the victim, it keeps the food fresh indefinitely. But that spider is rare, and it stays away from warm creatures because it can't stand the heat."

"Suppose there were a lot of them in one place?"

"Then I suppose they could immobilize larger prey, and could collectively go after--" Rame broke off, looking uncomfortable.

"Suppose Nefarious had a spider farm or something," Seth continued relentlessly, "and bred thousands or millions of such spiders, and dumped them into the northern reaches just above his stronghold?"

Vidav overheard that. "No wonder he doesn't fear an approach from the north!"

he exclaimed. "The spiders will freeze any living thing that passes through!"

"That was my thought," Seth said. "And I think we just blundered into it. I know I've got them down my back."

"How can we get rid of them?" Tirsa asked, her teeth chattering.

"Heat," Rame said. "They can't endure heat. So if we make it hotter than they can stand, they'll retreat."

"But our bodies aren't hot enough!" Tirsa said. "Not in this snow, with so many of them. I can feel them numbing my skin all over!"

"Fire!" Seth exclaimed. _"That_ will be hot enough!"

"I can't conjure fire," Rame said. "Or wood to burn; I didn't think to whistle any into storage. Our food won't burn well; it's too moist."

"That pocket knife I gave you will strike fire," Seth reminded him. "But the wood is a problem." Seth looked desperately around. There were no trees here, only snow. "The moss!" he cried. "We can fetch moss! It should be pretty dry, under the snow."

"You mean what the animals eat?" Rame asked. "Where do we find it?"

"Where the caribou are; _they_ know where it is."

They turned and headed for the herd. The animals spooked at their approach and bounded away, but the marks of their prior grazing remained. Seth and the others poked through the snow there, and came up with handfuls of spongy frozen moss.

"Clear a place!" Seth said. "Once we start it burning--"

They swept a place clear of snow, baring the frozen ground below. Rame brought out the knife, with its flint and magnesium rod, and a few scraps of paper, and struck some sparks. Soon a scrap caught, and he used it to heat a piece of moss. The moss was porous, and the flame licked through it and started it burning. This became the base for a larger fire, as they carefully heaped more moss around it.

"But there's not enough for a big fire!" Tirsa protested, shivering so violently she was almost dancing.

"Rame!" Seth said. "Conjure some moss into your whistle--then conjure it out again."

The faun nodded. He played his whistle over a mound of moss, and the moss disappeared. Then he played again, and it reappeared--and as he continued playing, another mound appeared, and another. Soon it was piling up high. Then he conjured that larger pile into the whistle--and brought it out again. Now he could pipe it out by the peck. Their problem of fuel had been solved.

The fire blazed high. They crowded around it, but still they were cold. "The ice spiders are inside our suits!" Tirsa said. "The suits protect them from the fire!"

"We'll have to get them out," Seth said grimly. "Take off your outfit, Tirsa."

Without hesitation she stripped. He skin was blue with cold, but it was now warmer outside her suit than inside it. She stood naked by the fire, slowly turning to warm each side. "Ah, that feels so good!" she said.

They took the items of her clothing and held them close to the fire, turning them inside out. The little spiders danced out and scrambled away. As each piece was clear, she donned it again: panties, bra, socks, shirt, furred trousers, jacket, hood and boots. They worked hardest over the outer pieces, because they had many more nooks for spiders to hide in; nothing could be skimped.

Then Seth stripped similarly, and they toasted his clothing at the fire. Then Rame, whose natural fur was now buttressed by unnatural furs, and finally Vidav, who had been able to hold out longest against the cold. They were all clean, and warm.

"But how are we going to travel?" Tirsa asked, her cheeks now rosy instead of blue. "The moment we leave our fire, they'll be back!"

That problem had occurred to Seth. "We'll just have to take the fire with us,"

he decided. "We can put some dirt on the sled, to protect it, and put the fire on that."

"But this isn't sledding country," Rame pointed out "We're using skis."

"We can still haul the sled behind," he said. "It may slow us, but it's necessary. This may even be an advantage, because Nefarious will never expect us to get through in time."

_"Will we?"_ Tirsa asked pointedly.

"We've got to!"

She didn't argue.

But it wasn't easy. Whoever left the immediate vicinity of the fire got quickly infested and had to return, strip, and get deloused. That meant they had to spend more time stalled than moving. They couldn't do it while traveling; the sled bumped over the rough snow, and it was impossible to run along beside and hold out items of clothing without getting them reinfested as fast as they were cleared. When they came to a downhill slope they all piled on the sled, around the fire, and rode down--but then there was the uphill haul. It was soon evident that they were not going to make it in time, this way.

"Oh for some firefish!" Tirsa said with irony.

"You know, that might work," Seth said. But of course Rame hadn't conjured any firefish into his whistle.

Rame looked at his map. "We are not far from the castle," he said. "In fact, it should be right beyond that mountain range." He pointed to a towering range ahead of them. "If we could just move at top speed, we could pass it in a day and be there in time."

But they couldn't move at top speed, or even at moderate speed, because of the spiders. If they tried, they would all be dead of the cold in short order.

Nefarious's last ploy seemed to be his best; they could not get through in time.

"There's got to be a way!" Seth exclaimed angrily.

Rame pored over the map. "There may be. There's a river that supplies water for the castle, and to irrigate the surrounding farmsteads. It draws from the glaciers of the north, but magic keeps it liquid. It tunnels under the mountain range and comes out right at the castle reservoir."

"We could sail down that river!" Tirsa exclaimed. "Fire and all!"

"No. I said it tunnels. It's an underground river."

Seth felt a chill not of the weather--the same one he had felt when he learned of this arctic route, only worse. Cold, dark water, under the ice....

"Well, we have a water-breathing spell Rightwos gave us," she said. "We could swim--" Then she realized how this was affecting Seth. "Oh."

He tried to say something brave, but could not. The very notion of entering such a river appalled him! It had killed him once; how could he risk it again?

"Seth," she said earnestly. "This is the only way. But you don't have to do it directly; Rame can pipe you into his whistle--"

"No," he said with difficulty. "I've done some scuba diving. This is similar.

I've got to do it. In fact, I should do it while you and Vidav ride in the whistle."

"I think we shall do it ourselves, or not at all," she said. Then, in a private thought _Seth, we know this is dangerous, and that we may not survive it. Perhaps it is time for you and I to_--

_What?_ he thought, alarmed.

_To clarify our understanding,_ she continued. _I so much regret that I cannot commit to you completely, but want you to know that if there were any way for me to be free of that other passion, I would gladly eradicate it. I think you're a fine young man, fully worthy of any woman, and it is my hope that in some manner it will become possible for_--

_Here I am, being cowardly, and you are telling me how wonderful I am!_

_You are not being cowardly, you are facing your legitimate fear. You helped each of the rest of us to get through our fears, lending your strength to us, and now we shall lend ours to you. But what I mean is that in case I don't have opportunity later, I must tell you now that it is my hope to find a way to abolish my fault and commit to you completely. To be able to tell you I love you._

Seth stood as if rocked in a storm. This wasn't at all the way he had imagined romance to be, but of course he had never before had a relationship with a mature telepathic woman. Tirsa said or thought exactly what was on her mind, lucidly, sensibly, honestly. There was no evasion, no softening, just the truth. When she had had no romantic interest in him, she had said so directly; now she said the opposite, and he could believe it. But she had not used the term "love" before, when speaking of herself. Even if this wasn't a complete commitment, it was an impressive one.

_Well,_ he thought, _I don't have to wait to tell you I_--

No, she thought. _You must not, until I can._

But--

_For now, this._ And she sent him a mental kiss of such encompassing passion that it was as if the world imploded, turning him pleasantly inside out.

After a moment he recovered his equilibrium. He was standing in the snow, amazed that it hadn't melted around him. Rame and Vidav were poring over the map; either they had not been aware of his mental dialogue with Tirsa, or they were politely ignoring it.

"I can do it," he said. For now his vision of dark icy water was overlaid by the feeling Tirsa had put there: her wish to love him. He had fear, yes, but he also had love, and his horror of dying under the ice was balanced by his delight in living with what she offered. Perhaps she had done this deliberately, in the manner he had kissed her in the cave, timing it appropriately. It was a nice thing, and nice tuning.

"Here," Rame said, touching the map. "It has to be here, in this basin."

"I agree," Vidav said. "We must go there and dig, and we shall find it."

Seth looked at the map. The spot they marked was only a few miles from where they were now camped. It was certainly feasible.

They trekked to it. For this hop, they tried a new ploy: Vidav hauled the sled, stripped, while the other three rode by its fire and held blazing torches on long poles. These they held near Vidav, passing them up and down his body to drive away the ice spiders. It worked tolerably well, but was not comfortable for him. They knew this, because they were linked to his mind; his sensations of cold guided their torches. But the ride was jerky, and inevitably they came too close and burned him, and there were also places their long-range torches couldn't effectively reach. Only his great strength carried him through.

Tirsa extended her mental awareness, tuning in on the water below the snow.

"It is here," she said. "Rivulets percolating down through the porous earth and rock, forming pools and slow-moving streams below. But I can't fix on it precisely." Rame brought out his whistle. "Maybe I can help." He played, and the melody was pretty but faint: the water was good but not copious. But as they moved, the whistle became louder. Finally it became almost deafening: they had found the main river.

By the time they reached this spot, Vidav was almost dead on his feet. He collapsed in the snow, and they hauled him onto the sled and carefully burned away all the spiders, and then put salve on his burns, and dressed him in decontaminated clothing.

Tirsa watched Vidav, while Seth and Rame started digging. They soon cleared a round region of snow, and were faced with the frozen ground below. How were they going to get through that? Vidav might have the strength to break up the rocklike ground, but he had done his part and had to recover.

"The fire!" Seth said. "We don't need to move it any more. It should melt the ground, or at least soften it enough so that we can dig it."

They moved the fire to the ground, and added more moss, so that it blazed high. Its heat radiated out, melting the snow and turning the ground to mud.

They had to scrape the mud away so it wouldn't drown the fire. Gradually the fire sank, forming a pit. Then, suddenly, it dropped into a wet hole and sizzled out.

"Oh, no!" Seth exclaimed. "We've lost our digging tool!"

Vidav sat up. "That's because you've found the river!" he pointed out.

Seth felt foolish. Of course! The fire had melted through, and fallen into the underground water. They no longer needed it.

Rame played his reed whistle again. The notes were true. This was what they wanted.

Seth gazed into the dark pool, and shivered. Then he thought of Tirsa's love, and felt warm again. It might be death, a second time, but he was going to do it.

Rame whistled, and a package appeared. This was another of Rightwos's gifts: fish pills. They would be good for only one use, for the wizard lacked the power to make replenishable fish magic. But that should be enough. Once they were out of the water, they would be on their own.

What would they do then? Seth had little notion. He did not like the idea of killing a man, but he saw no other way to stop so powerful and unscrupulous a sorcerer. Probably they would simply sneak into Nefarious's home and strike him down any way they could. What about the sorcerer's guards? Well, Rightwos had provided a sleep potion that might help.

The whole thing seemed uncomfortably uncertain, now. But if the river carried them through as it should, they would arrive at night, when the defensive guard should be down, and at least a day before expected--if Nefarious thought they would make it at all. So they had a chance.

"We have a chance," Tirsa agreed.

They took the pills, while Tirsa kept them mentally linked. They hoped that they would be able to retain that linkage throughout, because they had no idea exactly how long or rough their trip down the river would be. How would one know where another landed? Suppose there were dangers; they wanted to be able to warn each other.

Seth found himself breathing rapidly. His neck itched. He felt dizzy. What was the matter?

_We're growing gills!_ Rame thought, more accustomed to the ways of magic than the others were. _Get in the water!_

That made sense! Seth scrambled out of his clothing and jumped in, discovering that his fear of icy water was gone. In fact, the water felt good. He ducked his head under and exhaled, blowing out all the air. Then he took in water through his mouth, and it passed on out through his gills, and he was breathing again. He discovered that he no longer had to breathe in and out; he just had to keep the water flowing into his mouth. That was easier to do if he moved, so he started swimming--and discovered that his hands were webbed.

The others were with him. They looked like themselves, but with gill-slits along the sides of their necks, and the webbing on their hands and feet. They had become fish-men.

_Fish-MEN?_ Tirsa thought.

Seth looked at her. She wasn't a mermaid, for she had legs instead of a tail, but she definitely wasn't male. Even with the fisheye lenses of his new eyes, that was too obvious to be belabored. _Fish-folk,_ he thought, correcting himself.

_We had better move,_ Vidav thought.

They moved. Vidav had recovered from his chill ordeal, thanks to his immense reserves of strength, and now led the way. They swam single file down into the dark stream. Deep down, they found the main current, and it helped carry them along. This channel was lined by ice, but Nefarious's magic kept the water liquid.

Seth privately reveled in his freedom from the fear of icy water; that nightmare would no longer haunt him! Just as Vidav's experience with the healing fire abolished his fear of fire, so that he had hardly reacted even when burned by their torches, this fish spell had ended Seth's fear. From now on, he was sure, he would be able to go through the ice without concern.

Their fishy eyes enabled them to see in the darkness, and they were able to swim well, though not as well as a true fish could. The nether river did not constrict; instead it grew larger, as more water flowed in from icy tributaries. It was an artificial river, intended to fill the reservoir, so it had no twists or confusions. This was almost too easy.

_My thought too,_ Tirsa agreed. _Surely Nefarious has not left this avenue unprotected._

But they really had no choice except to proceed. They swam downstream, making good time. Seth judged that they were already passing beneath the mountains, and would soon emerge beyond. If they made it unobserved--

They did not. Suddenly there were tentacles in the water. Some huge squidlike creature was here, grabbing for fish!

_Retreat!_ Vidav thought, drawing the knife he wore. Knives were the only weapons they had been able to take along, for this final leg of the journey.

Rame had his whistle, but that was inoperative under water.

They tried, but the current bore them on, and the best they could do was remain in place. The tentacles sought them out. They slashed with their knives, but the tentacles were not soft but hard; they seemed to be armored.

There were many of them, reaching in now from all directions.

_It's got me!_ Tirsa thought despairingly.

Seth struggled furiously to reach her, but the tentacles caught him too. In a moment he was being dragged through the water, helpless to hold back. The evil sorcerer _had_ put in a defense, and they had fallen prey to it.

They were captives of the monster. Was this the end?

Twelve

_Nefarious_

Seth found himself hauled out of the water. Immediately the spell faded. He choked as his gills closed up and his lungs tried to resume their function--full of water. He heaved out the water, took in some air, and heaved out more water. The tentacles obligingly suspended him upside down, facilitating this. In a short time, objectively, but long subjectively, he was fully human again.

Then tentacles set him down on a platform beside the water. He was naked and shivering; what had been comfortable for fish was not so for warmblooded folk!

In a moment his companions joined him, in similar condition. The tentacles withdrew.

"I think Nefarious was ready for us," Rame said bleakly.

Indeed, there was a noise, and a door lighted in the wall. It slid open on an elevator. They had either to wait here and shiver, or to try to make a break for it through the icy water, or to step into the elevator; there was nowhere else. Since the other two choices promised cold disaster, they stepped through the door.

The elevator closed, and moved up. The others were startled, but Seth sent a reassuring thought; he was used to this sort of thing. It brought them to a warm room where clothing was waiting: four completely different outfits. One was exactly like the clothing in Seth's home plane: trousers, shirt, jacket, shoes, and associated items such as underwear and socks. Another was simply a pair of shaggy green pants, similar to those Rame had seemed to wear in the forest.

"Why, that's a three-quarter sarong!" Tirsa exclaimed. She picked up the long band of red cloth and wrapped it around herself. Evidently this was her normal mode of dress. Seth now realized that she had seemed slightly diffident about donning what Rightwos had provided; that clothing had been alien to her normal experience.

Seth went ahead and donned the clothes he recognized, and Rame and Vidav did the same. How had the sorcerer known their home-modes?

_There is something strange about this,_ Tirsa thought, answering his thought.

_Nefarious seems to know much more about us than he should._

Soon they stood dressed. Vidav wore what struck Seth as a military outfit, with gray trousers tucked into heavy boots and a belted jacket extending to the knees; it was almost like a Civil War officer's uniform. Rame wore trousers and little else; his hoofs were free. Tirsa--

"My appearance bothers you?" she inquired.

"Uh--" For her three-quarter sarong, as she called it, did cover three quarters of her torso. All but the upper right quarter. He had seen her fully clothed, and he had seen her naked, but somehow this compromise made her more striking than either. Yet it was evidently the standard garb of her culture.

"I, er, like it." That was a somewhat guilty understatement!

_Obviously women cannot read minds on your plane._

Now he was blushing. He kept getting caught by her mind-reading, even though he had pretty much learned how to do it himself. He read her mind--and encountered amusement. She had anticipated his reaction, and felt no shame.

Her culture had no secrets and no hangups about sex.

"Hello."

The four of them jumped. There stood a man behind them, of middle age, handsome, in a bright white cloak.

"Nefarious!" Tirsa exclaimed.

The sorcerer smiled. "So it is true: you can read my mind." His gaze passed coolly across them. "Attack me."

Dumbfounded, Seth was motionless. "You know we came to--"

"It will be easier if you satisfy yourselves at the outset that you have no chance to do me harm," Nefarious said. "Do your worst, Chosen."

_Let's take him at his word,_ Seth thought. _He may be overconfident._

Then, acting as one, they attacked. Vidav leaped at the sorcerer, swinging a fist at his head. Tirsa dived for the knife she spied at his hip. Rame swept up his reed whistle to conjure their weapons. Seth held back, waiting for his opportunity.

Vidav screamed and fell back without touching Nefarious. So did Tirsa.

Meanwhile a sword appeared, conjured from the whistle. Seth grabbed it and hurled it at Nefarious's chest.

His aim was true, but the sword never got there. It bounced. In a moment it was flying back at Seth. Had he not been moving when he threw it, so that his body was no longer where it had been, his own weapon would have skewered him.

_It's no good!_ Tirsa thought. _I can see it in his mind: he is invulnerable to anything we can do. His magic protects him from all physical threats._

_What happened to you and Vidav? Seth_ thought.

_Nightmare horrors! The earth was crushing me much worse; I would have died before I could touch him._

_And the flame consumed me,_ Vidav added. _The closer we get to him, the worse it is._

Nefarious smiled, unruffled. "You are reading my mind, I believe. I cannot read yours, but I trust you are satisfied: you can neither harm me nor conspire successfully to harm me, physically or magically. You may continue trying if you wish, but it will be easier to converse if you desist. You are no threat to me."

Now Seth read the man's mind directly, and found verification. Nefarious had absolute confidence in his security, and it seemed justified. He had the most potent magic on the plane, and it protected him absolutely, awake and asleep and wherever he went. They had never had any chance against him.

Disgruntled, they desisted. "Excellent," Nefarious said. "Now we shall eat, for I am sure you are hungry. Then we shall settle in comfort, and I will explain why I summoned you here in this timely fashion."

"Summoned us!" Vidav exclaimed angrily. "We are the Chosen!"

"Indeed you are," the sorcerer agreed. "Chosen by me. I have been most eagerly awaiting your arrival. Had you not come today, I would have had to fetch you in tomorrow, for the critical time is near. But please, let the business wait an hour, while we get to know each other better."

Tight-lipped, they followed the man to the elevator. They entered, standing close together, not making any further attempt on the man's life. What a reversal!

The elevator brought them to a small dining hall, where places for five were already set. In fact, the banquet was set out too: roasts and puddings and wine and salads and soups. In fact, Seth realized, the cuisine was different for each place, according to the standards of the plane from which each guest derived. How could the sorcerer know them so well, when they did not even know each other's customs?

Rame hesitated, still holding his whistle. "Go ahead, play it!" Nefarious said to the faun. "Or read it in my mind: if I wanted to be rid of you, I have no need to poison you. I could do it more readily by magic. This food is safe."

Rame did play, and Seth did read it in the man's mind: there was no threat here. Still, it was hard to believe: they had come to kill Nefarious, and the sorcerer knew it. Why was he treating them like honored guests? Seth tried to fathom the answer from the man's mind, but could not; Nefarious's conscious thoughts were only of the welfare of the visitors, and it wasn't possible to read unconscious thoughts.

So they ate, ill at ease, but resigned. There was no question that they were in the power of the enemy, so it didn't seem worth agonizing over at the moment. But if any opportunity came to change things, they would act instantly.

Seth had a good meal, but somehow never tuned in on exactly what he was eating. He was too busy watching the others with their strange repasts, and wondering what was going to happen to them. He saw Vidav drink his soup from the bowl, and sip his wine from a spoon. Tirsa mixed bean curds with dark jelly and ate them delicately with S-shaped chopsticks. He saw her glance at his fork as if it were a barnyard tool. They came from different cultures, all right! But it didn't matter; they were a team, and they knew each other in ways that hardly mattered at the dining table.

They finished with dessert. Rame had what looked like a candied slug, while Vidav chewed on something like wooden nails. Seth looked at his chocolate cake, saw Tirsa shudder, and decided he could live without dessert. By mutual consent they did not share their thoughts at this point; it could have made one of them get sick.

After the meal they adjourned to a pleasant open court with a fountain in the center. Chairs were around the fountain, and light came from a crystalline arched ceiling. Exotic plants bordered the pool, their nodes angling to spy on the visiting party.

"I will speak to the point," Nefarious said. "You could read it in my mind, but I think it best if I simply present it my own way, while you verify it.

Let me start by clarifying that you are not decoys; you really are the Chosen.

You may have been told that you were brought here by prophecy to eliminate me as a threat to the Teuton Empire. That is only partly true. There is a prophecy, but it does not specify the side the Chosen are to assist. In his arrogance, Emperor Towk assumed you would help him. My magic is more penetrating than any the Empire can muster, so I saw further into the prophecy."

Seth read his mind, and found no dissembling there. He glanced at Tirsa, who nodded.

"It also does not specify the manner that the Chosen are to participate,"

Nefarious continued. "The Emperor assumed that you were to kill his enemy, but that is only one interpretation of many, and not the most sophisticated one.

It could be that the Chosen's destiny is more positive: to help one side, rather than hinder the other."

Still he seemed to be speaking the truth, but there were levels and levels in the man's mind that Seth could not fathom. Tirsa had a similar doubt. She reached into her pocket--Seth had not known that her spectacular wraparound had one!--and brought out her medallion. She put its chain over her head, so that the medallion hung at her bosom. It glowed white.

Nefarious smiled. "I must advise you that the magic of Rightwos is not as potent as mine. You can not trust that device in my presence. Note: Black is white."

It was an obvious lie, but the medallion remained bright.

"You are beautiful," Nefarious said to Tirsa. Now the medallion turned midnight black.

Rame coughed. The sorcerer had certainly made his point: the medallion had given the lie to an obvious truth.

"You are ugly," Nefarious said. And the medallion turned bright red.

They stared. They had not realized that it was capable of color!

"It isn't," the sorcerer said. "No, I am not reading your minds; I simply know what you must be thinking at this stage. That simple amulet is very limited, but my magic can transform it to whatever I wish." He glanced at it, and abruptly it was a giant white spider.

Tirsa stiffened. But then the spider became a tiny yellow bird, which flew to Nefarious's hand. The chain on which the medallion had hung became a thin green snake, its mouth clamped on its tail. It let go, and slithered into her lap and on to the floor, where it disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Read my mind," Nefarious said. "That is the one talent you have which is not subject to my power; you can trust it."

Impressed, Tirsa nodded. So did Seth. They had underestimated this man phenomenally!

"The prophecy says that the influence of the Chosen will be decisive,"

Nefarious continued. "That is all it says. Since it is apparent that I cannot prevail in my quest for ultimate power without assistance, I assume that the Chosen will decide the issue in my favor. Actually, I have been able to fathom the prophecy to a small additional extent: in the original language, which was poorly translated, it said that _one of_ the Chosen would be decisive. But I do not know which one."

He leaned back, his eyes meeting each of theirs briefly. "And this is why I arranged to bring you here. Oh yes, it is true; verify it in my mind! I lack your ability of mind-reading, but I have managed to develop the ability to send a mental signal. I realized that if one of the Chosen were to help me, I would have to make sure that all of the Chosen were of my own choosing. Since they had to be from the four separate planes, this was difficult, but not impossible. So six years ago, when my research indicated that there was a key nexus spanning the planes, I sent the most powerful signal I could, to touch the potential Chosen and attune only those who would be useful to me. Exactly in what manner that signal had effect I do not know; I only know that it reoriented the situation in whatever slight way was necessary to set apart the four I required. It may be that you are aware of that change."

Suddenly it registered. "That was when my father died!" Seth exclaimed. "It changed my life--"

Black rage clouded Vidav's face. "When I was passed over with prejudice for appointment to the board of planning, destroying the dream of my youth, no reason given, so that I had to go instead into the combat pool--"

"Six years, that was when something first made me realize that I was a faun rather than a satyr," Rame said. "From that point on, I questioned the ways of Clan-Satyr, despite the warnings of the Elders, until finally the rift became open and I had to leave. That early realization was to cost me everything I then held dear, though the mischief was long in the fruition."

"When I felt the first stir of that illicit passion," Tirsa said, "I dismissed it as girlish fancy, being just fourteen at the time, but somehow it persisted long after I thought it gone. That was the root of my failure in life."

Nefarious nodded. "That was my signal, seeking each of you, changing your lives in dramatic or subtle manner, but with similar force. That marked you as Chosen, though you did not know it then. More recently my second signal actually brought you here."

"But it was sheer coincidence!" Seth protested. "I ran afoul of punkers, and fell in a frozen lake, and drowned. That doesn't make me anyone special!"

"So Emperor Towk may have suggested," Nefarious said. "But his information is incomplete. There was no coincidence to the selection of Chosen, no chance; you were Chosen six years before, and recently Called. The circumstances of the Calling may have seemed coincidental, but had you had a wider perspective you would have known it was not. You were destined to come to me, and now you have. The Emperor was foolish enough to think that you came to facilitate his side, but that was not the case. My minions tracked you throughout, seeking to capture you and bring you to me without harm; as it happened, you proved to be elusive. So I tried herding you instead, and this turned out to be more effective."

"Herding!" Vidav exclaimed angrily.

"By allowing you to depart Rightwos's castle in peace, and distracting you with dream-sendings which I trust you found interesting. At last you did arrive. This is the hour of reckoning."

Seth, reading the man's mind, still found that bewildering complexity of thought, but truth as far as it was possible to grasp the pattern. He felt as if he were a grade-schooler tackling the concepts of calculus, knowing they made sense, but unable to fathom _how_ they made sense. Nefarious was dangerous in a far more complex way than they had thought. They were not just magically overmatched, but conceptually too.

"I think we have a score to settle with you," Vidav said grimly.

"Do you?" Nefarious shrugged. "Let's explore this for a moment, as it may facilitate understanding. You say you were passed over for an appointment, which I gather would have been a prestigious thing, so that you had to undertake lesser work. I gather that you were qualified and should have had the appointment, and would have done well for yourself and your culture there.

Now I ask you: had you had that appointment, would you have had any interest in coming to this frame?"

"I had no interest as it was!" Vidav growled. "I was married, with a child--"

"Happily?"

"That is not relevant!"

"I believe it is," Nefarious said. "You were Chosen because you were fit for the office, and part of that fitness was the developing problem of your existence on your plane. The loss of your aspired appointment made it possible for you to give up that life, and the unsatisfactory marriage. It remained only for the second signal to free you for the new life here."

Vidav glared at him, but did not argue.

"Now let us try whether you are the one I require," Nefarious said. "I do not know in what way I need the help of one of you Chosen, but perhaps it is in the form of a virtually indefatigable warrior."

"I am not going to help you!" Vidav exclaimed angrily.

"I am being open with you, so I will explain what I am doing," Nefarious said.

"Though I lack your ability to read minds, I am not as yet clear with which one of you that talent originates--I can send certain emotions, as I have demonstrated, and can block out certain qualities of character. I am now going to block out what you call your conscience, your preconceptions of right and wrong. You will be obliged to fall back on more basic values, and I think you will find it worth your while to join me."

"Never!" Vidav snapped.

Nefarious gazed at him, and made a seemingly negligent gesture with one hand.

Vidav's defiant manner relaxed.

_Vidav!_ Tirsa thought with alarm. _Don't let him enchant you!_

Vidav glanced at her. "You are beautiful, but your judgment is distorted," he said.

Seth read Vidav's mind--and found there a complete change of attitude. The man cared nothing for their welfare, only his own. The enchantment had taken over.

_Seth! We must stop this instantly!_ Tirsa thought _He has the power to corrupt us by force!_

The three of us must act together, Seth thought. _Go for him: one, two, three!_

They leaped as one for the sorcerer--and fell writhing to the floor as the terrible visions overcame them. They were helpless against Nefarious's power.

"Fools," Vidav remarked mildly. He had been aware of their effort, but had not budged.

"What is your salient desire?" the sorcerer inquired.

Vidav considered. "Power," he said, as the remaining three of them crawled back away from the sorcerer, bedraggled.

"If you join me, you shall have it," Nefarious said. "You shall be my chief lieutenant, supervising the conquest of the Empire. Anything you need or wish, whether great or whimsical, you will simply take. My subject Domela, who likes you very well already, will be your concubine, for you and she are now on the same side. Or you may take any other female or females you desire, at any time."

"Excellent," Vidav said.

"However, we have not yet determined whether you are the Chosen One. What have you to recommend you to this trust?"

Vidav was surprised. "I thought it was obvious. I have unparalleled physical strength and endurance and constancy in my chosen pursuit."

"How would physical strength assist me in a magical effort?"

"Why, I assume there would be a need for physical effort too, in the actual storming of the battlements, the transport of supplies--"

"No. My magic will handle that more expeditiously. I do not plan to waste good troops foolishly storming battlements! I will simply demolish those defenses with a spell, and send a poisonous fog to kill all those who seek to resist."

Vidav pondered the matter. "Then I may not be of much use to you."

"I agree. I think you are not the One." He looked away from Vidav, and the man abruptly became tense again.

"How could I have--" Vidav said.

But Nefarious was already focusing on Rame, and the faun's aspect abruptly changed from incredulous to submissive.

_Don't let him do it to you!_ Tirsa thought desperately, but it was already too late; Rame's mind was different.

Seth, well aware of the foolishness of any further physical or mental effort, resumed his seat and watched. They were up against superior power, without question--but there had to be some way to get around it! If only he could find that way, in time!

"What is your salient desire?" the sorcerer inquired, exactly as he had before.

Now Rame pondered. "To have my powers of magic restored, and amplified, so that they are limitless," he replied.

"If you join me, you shall have virtually limitless powers of magic,"

Nefarious said. "Limited only by the limit of mine; I cannot give you more than I myself possess. But you will have access to the ancient texts, so that you may by study and practice increase them to whatever extent you are able.

Your nymph Malape will be at your side; I can free her of her attachment to her tree."

"That's good enough," the faun said.

"What do you have to recommend you to this trust?"

Rame considered. "I understand the ways of the wild magic creatures of this plane, and can enlist their support for you. I also have an excellent reed whistle, which can conjure many useful things."

"I have no need for the support of wild creatures, nor the reed whistle, as my magic is superior," Nefarious said. "All creatures will be my slaves."

"Then I have nothing sufficient to offer you."

"I agree." Nefarious's gaze left him. Rame, like Vidav, looked appalled as his conscience returned.

The sorcerer gazed at Tirsa, who gazed back defiantly. But then she melted.

She could not hold out against his power.

"What is your salient desire?" the sorcerer inquired a third time.

"To be free of my illicit passion," she replied without hesitation. "So that I can love truly."

Nefarious smiled. "If you join me, I will grant you better than that. Your passion will remain, but will no longer be illicit. I am its object."

Tirsa's jaw dropped. "Why so it is! I never realized!" She stood and walked toward him. "All these six years I tried to extinguish it, without understanding its nature. Let me love you, Nefarious!"

Seth watched, appalled. How could she do this with the enemy? Yet she had told him of her passion, and its persistence. What a logical yet awful thing!

The sorcerer lifted a hand, and she halted as if stunned. "Not yet. I must ascertain whether you are the One. If you are, not only will you love me, I will love you."

"Oh, I am the One, I am!" she breathed, reaching for his hand and kissing it.

"I have the origin of the power to read minds, and to enable others to do the same. I can open the minds of your enemies to you, so that you can never be betrayed. The one power you lack will now be yours, through me!"

Now Nefarious considered. "All this, and beauty too," he murmured. "Yet I think I can have it all regardless, by making you my slave and returning your conscience to you. Rather than see your friends suffer, you will do whatever I ask."

"That is true," she agreed. "You can have it all without granting me any status. Only allow me to love you."

"I think not. I really have no need of love, when I have power, and I would not trust a person with your power of the mind with too much freedom. You see, you might discover how to influence _my_ mind, and become the true master."

"That is possible," she agreed sadly, and Seth realized that the sorcerer had neatly avoided a very real trap. "Then do whatever you feel is necessary, only let me be close to you, in any capacity you desire."

"Perhaps, for my temporary pleasure only," he said, and looked away from her.

Tirsa's expression congealed into a mask of rage and horror. Suddenly she was Woman Scorned, and helpless to do anything about it. But she was also completely disgusted with herself. She had learned the origin of her illicit passion, and found it to be worse than she had imagined.

Now Nefarious gazed at Seth. Seth tried to avoid the man's eyes, but could not he simply refused to take the cowardly way out. So he met that gaze/

/And his reality changed. Suddenly the principles that had guided him seemed inapplicable. What had seemed important on his home plane had no relevance here; he was in a different world, with different rules, and if he was to survive, he had to work with the current situation. He did want to survive and prosper; nothing else mattered.

"What is your salient desire?" Nefarious inquired. It was a reasonable question.

"To be home again," Seth answered. Then he had to qualify it, for his prior life really had little meaning for him now. "That is, to be able to go home--to cross the planes at will, and be where I choose to be."

"If you join me, you shall have the power to cross between the planes,"

Nefarious said. "I have not chosen to cross myself, because I have business here, but I was able to send my signals across. It is but a matter of exchanging identities with your alternate persona there. With some preparation, you will also be able to arrange for visits to the remaining two planes, and to return to any at any time."

"That seems sufficient," Seth said, for he realized that this was a very special power. No prison could hold a man who could move between planes, and no information could be denied him, if he managed the transitions aptly.

"What have you to recommend you to this trust?"

Again, the question was reasonable; nothing was given without its price. "An objective perspective," he replied. "I have a logical mind, and can reason things out, and come at the truth without bias, now that I am free of the distortion caused by conscience. There will be many instances when you need to make a correct judgment, and this I can do for you."

"Why, when I shall have complete power? I will define what is correct, which will be whatever is in accordance with my will."

"Not so," Seth said. "When you invoke magic, you must follow its rules precisely, or it will be ineffective or counterproductive. When you appoint subordinates, you must select the best for the particular position, or your interests will not be well served. You cannot do it all yourself; you must have an apparatus that magnifies your impact by adding to it the effort of correct tools. When you come to a difficult decision, such as how much of your resources must be allocated to which tasks for maximum effect, you need a concurring opinion. Just as the distance of an object can be judged because you have two eyes instead of one, providing by their interaction the perception of depth, you need two minds for effective judgment. Without this balance of perspectives, you will inevitably go astray, and your efforts will in the end come to nothing, or perhaps lead to your destruction."

Now Nefarious considered. "A most intriguing concept! I had not thought of this, but I believe it is true. I have made errors in the past, that set back my progress; I wish to make no more. But I am not sure that your mind is the best for this purpose. Can you give me an example where your perspective would have profited me?"

"Your attempt to bring the four Chosen to you was clumsy," Seth said. "You allowed us to meander all over the plane. For example, your Sateons were supposed to capture us, but they almost killed us by driving us into the river where we could have drowned. Where would you have been if that one of us you needed had died on the way? As it was, we survived as much by chance as by skill."

Nefarious nodded. "How would you have arranged to bring in such a group?"

"I would have sent a spy to represent himself as a guide. In fact, he would have believed exactly that, so that his secret mind could not betray his nature. But he would lead the party not to a secret entrance, but to this chamber, where you would be awaiting us. One simple betrayal, eliminating virtually all risk."

The sorcerer pursed his lips. "I like your approach. It is true; I have been muddling along, when I could have proceeded more effectively. I believe you are the One."

"I am the One," Seth agreed. "But I shall not serve you."

For the first time, Nefarious was startled. "What?"

"As I informed you, I have perspective. I can see that it is not to my long-range interest to serve any will but my own. Therefore I shall not serve you."

"I can destroy you!" the sorcerer said angrily.

"And with me, your only hope of long-range success. That would be the second of your serious errors with respect to us. Your first was to tell us of your direct need for the Chosen, for that provided me with the power of information which I am already exploiting. Your judgment may be flawed, but not to the extent of making that second error at this time."

The three others were gazing at him with amazement. He was surprised himself; he had never before been this logical or direct. It had always taken him time to come to fundamental revelations. Evidently his conscience had inhibited or distorted his judgment.

Nefarious looked at him appraisingly. "How is it that you can defy me, when my magic governs your mind?"

"I think you would have difficulty comprehending the answer." Indeed, it had come to Seth himself only as the question was asked. It made such phenomenal sense that he marveled that he had not understood it before encountering the sorcerer.

"Tell me anyway," the sorcerer said grimly.

"It is my heritage, and the image of a dead deer."

"What nonsense is this?"

"I warned you that you would have dif--"

"Tell me!"

"My heritage is that of a minority group that I believe has no parallel in this plane," Seth said. "There are precepts that we learn earlier and understand better than others, because of our awareness of a very long history of pride and error and persecution. Even those of us whose ties with this group are loose, which group some call a religion and some call a race, retain the awareness of its origin and nature. We remember, for example, an episode we call the Holocaust, in which perhaps a third of our number on the plane were destroyed. We remember how the members of other groups chose to pretend that this horror was not happening, or did not concern themselves about it because it did not seem to affect them personally. It did affect them, and in time, to protect their own interests, they had to wage a savage war to destroy the hostile power responsible for the Holocaust. In that war as many of them died as our total dead, and they knew that they should never have tolerated the presence and growth of that evil power. What they had taken to be in their short-range interest had proved to be against their long-range interest.

"They soon enough forgot that lesson, and went on to other misjudgments and other wars, but we who had suffered most did not forget. Each of us, I think, has had to answer for himself the question 'Why did it happen? How can it be prevented next time?' For there is always a next time, no matter how far away the last episode is or how safe we seem to be; the millennia of persecution have taught us that. Others may tune it out, but we dare not; we must always be vigilant, for it is our only hope of survival. And so I too thought it out, and came to my own answer, and it is this answer that now enables me to see the illogic of serving you. In the short range I might benefit, but in the long range I would find such benefit meaningless. As it is written in a book you would not understand, what does it profit a man to gain the world, if he lose his own soul?"

"Soul?" Nefarious asked sharply. "What is that?"

"A concept it would require volumes to explain," Seth said. "But I use it figuratively. It applied to me in this way: I concluded that I could not live my life rightly while ignoring distant wrongs. I realized that eventually those distant wrongs would come to affect my own situation. It did not matter that I did not approve those wrongs, and was not responsible for them; I still had to be aware of them, and to do what I could to guard against them, even if all I could do was to prepare myself intellectually. This was not an ethical conclusion, but a rational one: the toleration of distant wrongs was bad for my long-term survival. This boiled down to the realization that it was my best policy to do what I judged to be right, at all times, because this was appropriate usually to my short-term comfort and always to my long-term survival.

"The image of the dead deer confirmed this judgment, for it gave a direct personal touch to a cold objective concept. The deer had been slain only for sport; there was no fairness about it. In the short range, might had made right; the hunter with a gun had brought down the innocent animal. But in the long range this is a facet of disaster. The hunter was doing at close range what mankind is doing at long range on my plane: destroying the ecological balance. In time there will be no wild life, and no wilderness; there will only be man. Then it will be too late for man, for the planet needs diversity and balance of life. Without it, man will suffocate, having destroyed all that sustained him, as a parasite run amok destroys its host and dies itself. So I knew, even without conscience, that the slaying of the deer was wrong, and it was a thing I had to oppose when I was able to. Now I am able."

Seth looked levelly at Nefarious. "You will not be good for this plane, so I will not serve you, and therefore you will fail. Your power of magic cannot change that."

"So you would have it that I would be best off simply to destroy the four of you now," Nefarious said.

"No. You would be best off to renounce your plan of conquest and turn your energies instead to positive things, so that the four planes can be saved."

Nefarious smiled. "I think not I prefer to do it my way. Tirsa."

Tirsa looked at him, disgusted. "Any feeling I had for you is gone," she said.

"Your invocation of it extirpated it. You will have to force me to do your will."

"And so I shall. "You will do my will because otherwise I will torture your friends to death in front of you." Nefarious lifted a finger, and abruptly several Sateons entered the chamber. They surrounded Rame and Vidav, holding spears to their necks.

"I feel it fair to advise you that you are making a mistake," Seth said. "You have nothing to gain by such a ploy, and perhaps a good deal to lose."

Nefarious's smile had no trace of humor. "When you become my adviser, I hope to make no more such mistakes. Which of the two remaining males is more important to you, Tirsa?"

Tirsa didn't answer. The sorcerer looked at her. Then her aspect changed, and the defiance drained away. "Rame. I have known him longer, because he did not spend time unconscious from poisoning."

Nefarious glanced at the Sateons holding Rame. "Make him hurt, slowly."

One lizard-man held the faun from behind. Another lifted a clawed hand, set the claws at Rame's forehead, and began to draw them down. Four channels of blood appeared as that hand slowly moved.

"I warn you again," Seth said. "You are making an error that may cost you your power."

"And you are surely ready with another lecture on the long-term disadvantage of using force to achieve a short-term objective," the sorcerer said contemptuously.

"It is more specific than that. I strongly suggest that you heed my caution."

"I can wait." The claws were now coming to Rame's eyes. The faun neither flinched nor made a sound; he had the courage of his convictions, now that his conscience was his own.

Tirsa broke. "Don't!" she cried, and it sounded like a whimper.

The claws stopped moving, but did not withdraw.

"Open Seth's mind to mine," Nefarious said. "Give us a direct linkage, of the kind you have given your associates, so that I can do directly what I do indirectly through the eyes. His mind subject to mine, with no inefficiency."

"Oh, Seth, I'm sorry!" Tirsa said, tears coming to her eyes. "I love you, and will lose you, but I can withstand neither his magic nor his cruelty."

"Do what you have to do," Seth said. "He refuses to heed my warning, so brings his destruction on himself."

"I must give you credit for an excellent bluff," the sorcerer remarked, unworried.

Then he felt the presence of Nefarious; their two minds were completely open to each other. _Now you will do my will,_ the sorcerer thought. _You cannot resist, for your mind is part of mine._ Indeed, what the man had done with his magic before, he now did with his mind, absorbing the essence of Seth's mind into his own. The magic had been potent on a temporary basis; this was far more effective, and permanent. Tirsa herself only connected them; she had never actually merged the minds she linked. Nefarious was like a juggernaut, feeding on everything, fitting it into his own framework, establishing connections of his own that would prevent this forced union from ever being dissolved. He was a conqueror who took the best elements of the conquered country and incorporated them into his system, so that they served him truly.

After this, Tirsa's participation would no longer matter; Nefarious and Seth would always have mental contact, and the will of the master would be served implicitly.

_I tried to warn you,_ Seth returned as this process occurred. _I did not feel it was fair to trick you, for an advantage gained by trickery may be similarly lost._

_Your tricks have no relevance. I have crushed your independence...._

_Not exactly._

Nefarious glanced at Tirsa. "Desist; you are done." He glanced at the Sateons holding Rame. "You also. Depart."

Tirsa hid her face, ashamed. The Sateons left the chamber. Rame found a handkerchief and wiped up the blood on his face. Vidav simply glared.

"Now, Seth," Nefarious said pleasantly. "What was it you wished to warn me about?"

"Your drive for power is at an end," Seth said. "You will turn your energies to positive matters, seeking to make this plane the best possible one for all who are part of it."

"And why should I do that?"

"Because when you absorbed my mind, you absorbed my values too. You now have what will pass for a conscience."

"That is absurd!" the sorcerer snapped.

"You forgot that full mental mergence is a two-way street. Before, you used your magic to deprive others of their conscience and will; this time you allowed me to give you more than you intended. You cannot eradicate what is now part of your own mind."

"This is nonsense! I retain full free will!"

Seth shrugged. "Then do something I wouldn't do. Torture Rame."

"Seth!" Tirsa cried, appalled.

Nefarious looked at Rame. He took a step toward him, lifting his hand. Then he paused, startled and dismayed. "Oh, no!" he breathed.

Tirsa stared. "You mean it's true?"

Nefarious fell back. "It _is_ true! I cannot do it!"

Seth nodded. "I think, until you get used to this, you had better accept our guidance. We have lived with conscience all our lives; it is natural to us. In time it will become natural for you. But at present you will have to ponder every act you take, to discover whether it is in accord with your new values.

It will be more efficient if you accept our word without question."

Nefarious's face worked. "Yes--it will."

"Or perhaps simply instruct your top lieutenants to obey us as they would you.

Then you can retire until you are comfortable with your own thoughts."

Dazed, Nefarious lifted a finger. A man appeared, evidently of high rank.

"These folk will take charge of my affairs," he said. "Obey them as you would me."

The man's eyes widened. "Sir?"

Nefarious simply looked at him. Seth knew that he was exercising his magic, making the man's will disappear. "As you direct, master," the man said. He turned to the Chosen.

"Take us to a residential suite," Seth said. "Have a map of the premises prepared for us, and inform subordinates that we are to be treated with respect. Have your military and economic directors report to us in one hour for briefing."

"This way, sir." The man led the way.

* * *

Seth sat up, and saw the sun streaming in. "Ouch! We overslept!" he exclaimed.

He tickled the woman beside him. "Come on, we have business!"

Tirsa stirred. "Well, if you hadn't kept me up so late last night..." she grumped.

"Well, it _was_ our anniversary, you know."

She grabbed him and hauled him down for a kiss. _I know, lover! You thought you were still seventeen!_

"Well, I'm only twenty-two now," he protested. "And you're--"

"Never mind," she said, hitting him with a pillow. _"I love you!"_ she added in both speech and thought.

"Do not state the obvious," he replied--and got whammed with the pillow again, before they went down in another kissing and tickling bout.

Then she focused on her closet, and one of her intriguing dresses floated out and came to her. Seth concentrated on his own clothing, and it floated similarly close. He still rather enjoyed the magic they had learned, even if it really didn't speed things up much.

This was their vacation, and it was good to relax, even if they both loved the work they were doing. Both the empires of Nefarious and Teutonia were fading as prosperity and peace spread across the frame, but it required constant work to keep things on-course. Tomorrow they would get back in harness.

In due course they conjured themselves to the deep forest. Three children charged out of the cave beneath a huge tree. "Mommy! Daddy!" the girl with striped hair cried. "See what Funny can do!"

"That's Fauny," Tirsa corrected her as she hugged her.

"Sure, I know! And I'm Thirsty! Look!"

For the little girl with goatlike feet had a little reed whistle. She played a note, and a mudball appeared and plopped to the ground.

Seth shook his head. His daughter was Thirzi, but enjoyed confusing it.

Rame hurried out. The four lines showed as faint scars on his forehead; he wore them as a badge of honor. "Malape won't let her do that inside the cave,"

he explained, embarrassed, as he shook Seth's hand.

Seth squatted down to talk with the other boy. "Where's your dad, Domey?" he asked.

"That's Dummy!" the boy protested.

Seth smiled. "No, I think I had it right the first time. You were named after your mother."

"I guess." The lad idly squeezed a pebble between two fingers. The pebble crumbled to sand. Even at this age, no one called him "dummy" without smiling.

At that point a man came forging rapidly through the forest, covering ten paces at a step. "Daddy!" Domey exclaimed.

"Domela insisted on a last moment cleaning of the house," Vidav explained as he picked up his son. "So she sent me on ahead, with the boots."

"Let's go climb Lape's Tree!" Thirzi said, tiring of such long-winded explanations.

"No you don't!" Seth said, catching her before she could scramble away. "You have to go to the other plane to visit your Aunt Ferne, remember?"

"Oh, yes!" she agreed, remembering. "Can Funny and Dummy come too?"

"Not this time. Maybe one day we will know how to let anyone cross between planes, but right now it's just me--and you, when I carry you. We still have a lot to learn about magic."

"Well, hurry up and learn it!" she told him. Then, mentally: _I love you, Daddy._

Seth almost dropped her. _When did you learn mind talk?_ he demanded, amazed.

_Mommy wanted to surprise you,_ she thought cheerily. _Did I, Daddy?_

_You sure did!_ Then he hugged her. If only he had known what a wonderful life he was going to, despite a few bad moments along the way, that night he fell through the ice!

Author's Note

I suspect you are wondering how collaborations come about. Well, it varies, but I think this one is unusual even within the genre of collaborative novels.

I assume you have read it before coming to this Note, so you will know that it is a fairly standard adventure fantasy with, I trust, some touches that will make you remember it and perhaps think a little. It is what is known as a juvenile genre novel, featuring a main character in his teens, and it does not dwell unduly on sex or bloodshed.

I am Piers Anthony, and my work may have been known to you before you encountered this novel; I think I need no special introduction. My collaborator, Robert Kornwise, has had no novel published before, so I will tell you something about him, and about the stages of this collaboration. Let me phrase this as a story, as if he is a character in it.

Rob was a handsome youth whose description might be similar to that of the main character of his novel, Seth Warner. He was tall--six feet three or four inches--and muscular. He had brown hair and serious brown eyes whose effect was ruined by his frequent laughter. He smiled often. His nose was long, and really not his favorite feature, though his sister called it "interesting."

His sister also called him "Robby," which bothered him in public but perhaps not privately. He tried various hairstyles, but finally settled on short and clean-cut, so that he could get out of the shower and shake it dry quickly.

Rob started this novel, I believe, at the age of fifteen, encouraged by his English teacher, Judy Hite. Many teenagers (and many who are older, too) have the aspiration to write, to make a story come to life, and to be published. It is a desire I understand; I went through it myself, though I was twenty before I got serious about it, and twenty-eight by the time I made my first sale.

Often the hopeful writer is a misfit: someone who doesn't get along well with the existing system, so retreats to his private fantasy world. This was not the case with Rob. He was popular in school, with many friends of both sexes.

He was a good student, and athletic, and interested in music. In fact, he took classes in the Okinawan form of martial art, Ryu Kyu No Te, literally "hands and feet"; there is a picture of him in his high school yearbook executing a kick. Rob did not speak of this directly to me, but my own experience with Kodokan Judo, a different martial art, helped me to understand his interest. A serious martial artist does not swagger around picking fights on the street; the first things he learns are discipline and respect, and this was Rob's approach. Neither did he just dabble in music; he played three instruments: saxophone, harmonica, and the synthesizer. He was also an amateur composer and songwriter. You can see these interests in his novel; to that extent he was writing about what he knew. He wrote the novel outside of class, for his own enjoyment. He had an interest in mythology, and I think it shows in the setting for the fantasy, with a satyr as a major character, and his magical reed whistle.

Some people turn inward because of a bad family life. There is more division, misunderstanding, and outright abuse in our society than we care to think about, but often it is hidden, buried within the family, a guilty secret. It would be understandable that a teenager would turn to his private world to escape such a situation. This may have been true with me, though I was not abused; fantasy became more sustaining in certain respects than reality, and I cannot be certain that situation ever changed. But this was not the case with Rob. His family life was close and supportive, and he returned the favor. His father had multiple sclerosis, and Rob was always at his side when needed, and did the same for his mother. "If you were able to draw a picture of what you wanted as a son," his father said, "it would have been a picture of Rob." He even got along well with his sister--any teenager with a sibling will appreciate how tough that can be!--and indeed regarded her as his best friend.

He loved to tease Jill, because she always fell for his jokes, though she was two and a half years older than he. Sometimes he would jump out of some dark place and scare her, just to hear her penetrating scream. She couldn't stay angry with him long! When younger, they used to pretend they were "Cheerios,"

rolling along the floor and giggling as they sang out "Cheer-i-oooo!" Or he would pretend he was a fisherman, and she was his pet fish named "Okie" whom he caught and threw back into the water, over and over. Or they might be twins with super-powers. They would read each other bedtime stories, or write songs together, or make forts and haunted houses. They would exchange secrets about their boyfriends, girlfriends, love life and all, to their parents'

frustration. No, his interest in writing did not stem from any alienation within the family.

Sometimes the larger environment is restrictive. When I was cooped up in the city, I dreamed of the country, and I dreamed of the city when I was in the country. A person might write about his dream of a better land, one he might like to visit. But Rob was not restricted; he may have had the best of both, living in Michigan but not in the big city. He didn't like homework (who does?) but would read things on his own, and was politically and socially aware. He loved to camp, hike and canoe, to get away from it all, but I don't think he had any aversion to his regular life. He liked building fires, making tools, and just plain _living._ He revered life, and when he found a spider in the house he would gently take it out and set it free. When he found a hurt animal he would adopt it and nurse it back to health. So I think he was writing about what he knew as much as about what he dreamed of; he extended his experience of the country into a complete fantasy land, but he was not dependent on it psychologically.

The truth is, he did not finish his novel. I think this is the liability of too full a life; there are many calls on one's time, and the long hours with a computer can become tedious, even though the story being developed is not. He read my novels, yes, I was his favorite author, and wanted to do the same. So he started in, but the distractions of a busy life made progress slow. His friends commented on the ongoing text, correcting his spelling (no one worth his salt finds spelling easy: I speak as one who was an original speller almost from the start) and making suggestions. Then disaster: a full chapter was lost through a computer foulup. Computers are like that; they wait until you least expect it, and gobble up your material. It was his longest and perhaps most significant chapter--gone beyond recovery. That sort of thing can make even a veteran writer ponder the meaning of life.

But chapters can be rewritten, galling as it may be to have to do it, even if they can never be restored precisely as they were. I think in time Rob would have gotten down to it, but I can't blame him for waiting. There were, after all, so many other things to do, and he was sensitive to the needs of others.

His sister Jill went away to college, an English Major at the University of Michigan, and he visited her there, and talked to her when she was in the throes of adjusting to their father's illness and her new life away from home.

Activity at school was constant. He organized a band, and he hoped to be a disc jockey on the school radio, and he worked at a nature center, and he set up his own computer sales business with a friend. He had boundless energy, and was constantly getting into new things. He liked creative games and individual sports; he and his friends would play simulated adventure games they created themselves. He enjoyed computer science fantasy games too, and loved to create his own. He was able to "lucid dream" and kept a dream journal. He had, he felt, two "out of body" experiences.

He cared about people, too. He had friends everywhere, but also a quick temper which he was handling better as he got older. There were things that made him angry, such as prejudice and racism, liars, cheats, thieves. He hated poverty, disease, injustice, and things which divided people, religion being guilty of that, too. Drunk drivers, bad drugs, alcohol, smoking, nuclear war. He was a strong advocate of social justice. He wanted to be a politician or a judge, or an FBI agent, or even just a policeman who enforced the law and helped others.

Anything but a comfortable idiot! He wanted to change and make changes. He was impatient with conventional education; he knew it was important to learn, but at times school seemed repressive and more like a prison. But he valued the excellent teachers, and was challenged by good projects.

So it continued, with his busy life, as whiter came. In early December he went on a skiing trip with some friends, for he was into winter sports too.

Thursday night, December 4, 1987, he phoned his sister, as he so often did, staying in touch. "Jill, I love you," he concluded. Friday he started home. He was in the passenger seat, wearing his seat belt, while the vehicle was waiting for a light. Another vehicle struck them from behind, traveling at something like fifty or sixty miles per hour. The collision was such that apparently Rob's vehicle bounced around and was struck again, on the right side. The passenger side. He received a blow on the right side of his head, that didn't look too serious; it was just a laceration of the scalp. But it was far worse than it looked; he had sustained a massive injury to the brain, and he was dead. He was sixteen.

* * *

On January 26 Rob's friends wrote a letter to me, in care of a publisher, asking me to read Rob's unfinished manuscript. I received it the following month, and answered with a quick card, agreeing to look at the novel. The truth is, I was not eager to do this, for my time was exceedingly pressed. I had answered a total of 221 letters in January, and was getting ready to move, and was about a month behind on my writing schedule. I was soon to get a secretary to help with the correspondence, but still, things were jammed.

About the last thing I wanted to do was read amateur fiction, which normally has high hopes and execrable execution; I was all too likely to be stuck with the chore of trying to make some positive comment on awful fiction, so as to avoid hurting feelings. But I remembered something.

When I was sixteen, in 1950, my closest cousin, fifteen, died of cancer. He had been a cheerful boy, bright, popular, with everything to live for, in contrast to me. Suddenly he was gone, while I remained, at Westtown Friends'

School where we both were students. It seemed like a mistake; obviously I should have been the one to go. That shock, and the continuing questions it generated in my mind, changed my life. At first I couldn't accept it; I dreamed that it had been a confusion, that he had only been ill, and had recovered. I papered it over, as it were, and went on with my life; my roommate of the time says I hardly mentioned the matter. After all, I had known Ted in life as a child, his strengths and his weaknesses. I remembered when he had talked me into pulling him on his wagon; I struggled, but hardly made progress. Then I saw that he was holding the brake tight, laughing. I was a poor sport; I quit in a huff. I shouldn't have; it was a joke, and he was a fun person. How could such a _human_ boy die? It didn't make sense. But I visited his family, serving in a manner in lieu of a brother for his younger sister, and I slept in his bedroom and saw all the little artifacts of his life as he had left them. I saw the terrible grief of his family. It was as if a giant hammer had come out of a clear sky and smashed it, leaving only the pieces. Where was the justice in this? I never was able to resolve this question, and remain an agnostic today: I cannot believe in a God who allows this sort of thing, and I don't know what rationale remains, but I hope that in some way it is justified. To an extent, my life and career have been an effort to compensate. To find some meaning in what seems to be the horrible unfairness of the universe. Now there was _déjà vu,_ as another good boy that age was dead. No, I could not turn this request down.

In March the manuscript arrived. It was about 21,000 words long, consisting of Chapters 1 to 8, with #5 missing. I read it--and found that it had potential.

This put me in another quandary.

What the friends of Robert Kornwise wanted, of course, was publication, as this would be a fitting memorial for their friend. I understand this well; my own claim to immortality consists of the body of my published work, where my thoughts and dreams are displayed. Death may be part of the natural order, but it remains a nasty business. There are things worse than death, and one of them is death out of turn: the death of a child. I had a hint how this felt, too, for my wife and I lost our first three babies: two stillborn, the third living for an hour. At least we never knew them; our suffering was relatively minimal. Even so, it haunts me: what might our son and two daughters have been, had they had their fair chances in life? I take enormous joy in our fourth and fifth children, Penny and Cheryl, but I can never quite forget those others, struck down in their complete innocence without having any chance at life. So Rob's friends were right, and they had come to the right person, for I had no doubt of my ability both to complete the novel and to get it into print. I have two overwhelming advantages that beginners lack: over twenty years' experience as a novelist, and name recognition that makes publishers take me seriously. Oh yes, I could do it, and do it well. But I still was not eager to take on such a project.

Why not? There was a complex of reasons, some legal, some technical, some monetary, some ethical, some emotional. Let me take these in order. Legally I could not simply take Rob's manuscript and make it my own. Original fiction is protected by statute deriving from common law; it has an inherent copyright, and belongs to the author, until a certain number of copies are published.

Normally a publisher takes out an official copyright at the time of publication, keeping the literary rights tight. I was not about to pirate Rob's novel.

My technical reasons related to the state of the text: it was incomplete, and would require a good deal of work for completion. It was also amateur, with problems of spelling, syntax, and development. I could correct these, but in the process I would have to change virtually every sentence, in addition to creating new scenes from whole cloth. Thus the original author's words would be lost. In the process of rescuing it, I would be destroying much of its original nature. I remember the ironic joke: the operation was a success, but the patient died. I was loath to do that.

The monetary situation was formidable. I am a highly successful writer who can command six figure advances per novel for my individual work. But not for my collaborative projects, which was what this would have to be: that is, a shared byline. My collaborations range from a quarter to a tenth as much in advances, which is the publisher's guarantee, and a fair guide to how a novel will do commercially. I normally split the money evenly with my collaborator; that seems only fair. That cuts it in half again. No, I do not save half the work; it can take just as much time to do a collaboration as an individual novel, because of the difficulty in agreeing on scenes and meshing styles. In this case, I would have no input from the collaborator. But even if I kept all the money myself, such a project would be at a loss of perhaps 75%, compared to what I could get for a solo Piers Anthony project. I don't want to seem overly mercenary, but that gave me pause for thought.

That leads into the ethical considerations. About the only way I could consider it at all, was to do what I didn't like, and keep all the money. But that is manifestly not fair to the other party. Oh, I know, some amateurs are so eager to get their names into print that they will give up all the money, and indeed, even pay for publication. Vanity publishers thrive on that: for several thousand dollars they will publish a few hundred copies of anyone's book. The writer can then proudly show off his (often abysmal) novel and get his name into one of those paid-listing author's directories, pretending he is an author of note. There are Ph.D. mills that do much the same for those who want phony doctorates. But I won't touch this sort of thing. What, then, was I to do in this case, where Rob's folks had no interest in any money from the project, but only wanted a memorial for their son? Indeed, they had not asked me; this project had been initiated by Rob's friends, to whom I have dedicated it, who wanted to fulfill his dream of publication. Would anyone understand that I was not being greedy, but merely trying to cut my loss so that I could justify taking the time for the project? It wasn't just the money. I have been demurring while publishers have been eager for my material, as the editors at Avon, Berkley and Tor can confirm. Should I delay things yet more?

And the emotional level. I knew that if I did this project, I would have to come to know Robert Kornwise well--knowing that he was dead. I would be confronted again with the desolation I had seen when my cousin died. Death is not some distant specter to me; it is a close companion that I would prefer to see go elsewhere. I have written often of death, and Death is a main character in one of my novels. I did not relish the prospect of another experience like this.

But when push comes to shove, my conscience governs, and I do what I have to do. I agreed to do the novel. I tackled and compromised on the problematical considerations. Sanford Kornwise, the executor of his son's estate, gave me notarized authority to work with the novel. I scheduled a time to work on it, following the novel I was then amidst, _And Eternity,_ and made notes for the completion of the manuscript. I concluded that though I would have to change just about every sentence to some degree, and to write new material that was unlikely to be the same as what Rob would have written, or _had_ written, in the case of Chapter 5, I would save as much as I could of his text. Thus I modified by addition: virtually everything he wrote is here, and his characters and story line are intact. I deleted almost nothing; instead I amplified and clarified, doing what I believe he would have done, had he lived and grown and reviewed his text himself. I tried to keep the spirit of his story. Often the finished text was quite close to the original.

I did keep the money, but not in an ordinary way. I decided to do this as a low-budget project, so that the money would not be a factor for some time. I wrote to the publisher Underwood-Miller, explaining the situation and asking whether they would be interested in an Anthony/Kornwise fantasy novel. Tim Underwood agreed that they would be interested. I did not ask for a contract, only that willingness to look. The fact is, I could readily sell the project to a more commercial publisher, but Underwood-Miller is a small genre publisher dedicated to really nice hardcover volumes, with acid-free paper and quality bindings, and that was the kind I wanted for this. An edition that the family and friends of Robert Kornwise would be glad to have in their homes. We did not discuss money, but I had sold a novel to U-M before, for an advance of $2,000, and it seemed to me that this would be appropriate for this one. I donated $1,000 to the fund set up in Rob's memory, in effect sharing the advance as in a normal collaboration. Probably U-M's hardcover edition will be licensed for five years; after that I will be free to sell the paperback rights to one of my regular publishers for a much larger sum. (Publisher's note: The license was indeed for five years, but Baen and U-M reached a separate agreement shortcutting U-M's period of exclusivity.) So I started by paying out money, but later I expect to get more back. In this manner I have tried to balance the concern I have for doing right by all parties involved, with what success I may never be sure.

There was no compromise on the emotional aspect. I simply went through the novel, fleshing out Rob's text, trying to know his mind--and it was a good mind, compatible. He had a good feel for the dynamics of story-telling, and he had some serious things to say along the way. That dead deer--that strikes right to the heart of it, his deep respect for life. I hurt with him, and for him, for he was as pointlessly killed himself. The pain was not in having to complete unfinished work, but in trying to feel what he felt, while knowing that he was dead. In knowing that I could not complete his story his way, because I am a different person, with different experience; no matter how hard I might try, it would be to some degree untrue. Even as I edited my text, I saw errors I had made; I think now that he intended Tirsa to be younger than I had her, and I had reversed the two medals the hermit gave Tirsa and Rame: he was supposed to have the truth-showing one. I was also constrained by the need to make the novel commercial: that is, one that many people would enjoy reading. Something always had to be happening. I could only hope that if Rob could see what I did, he would approve. I knew it would be worse when I came to the Author's Note, and it was. Letters from his father, his mother, his sister, his teacher, his friends, telling of him, loving him, and suffering. I drew from them all, trying to make him come alive for the audience for his novel, you who are reading this Note, as he came alive for me. Then I had to tell you that he was dead.

I am not able to describe all of what I learned of Rob, because some of it might embarrass others whom he helped, and because he was modest and would have been embarrassed himself to be praised for his successes or for doing things he felt were only common decency. Yet perhaps I can come at it obliquely, by telling not what he did but what I know he would have done. When my daughter Penny was younger there was an episode involving a group of students her age. She wanted to participate, and this group was open to all; we encouraged her to join. But she was hyperactive and dyslexic, and children can be cruel about any such differences. They so arranged it that Penny was denied without proper reason, apparently because she was different. After trying several times to join, she came home on the bus in tears, rejected. I was outraged by this, but we did not make an issue because it seemed pointless to force her acceptance into a group that evidently didn't want her. So she never joined. Today, as an adult, she works for an agency that helps outcast or runaway children; she understands. But if Robert Kornwise had been a member of that group, he would have stood in protest on the spot, and shamed the others for their attitude, and she would have been accepted. He did not seek quarrels, but there were some things he simply didn't tolerate.

This, then, was the background of this collaboration. It is Rob's novel, even though I made his 21,000 words into over 75,000. The chapters he did are 1 to 4 and 7 to 9; I replaced the lost Chapter 5 with two of my own, and then concluded with three more. Some elements of his chapters I added; some elements of mine were based on his notions, so it should be very hard to tell exactly who wrote which words. But there need be no mystery about it. Here is the opening paragraph of the second chapter, which was quoted in his school yearbook, so that you can see what it was and what I did with it.

_Seth was acutely aware of the hot sun beating down on him in his heavy winter clothes. Lifting a hand to his face, he felt a long stinging gash but did not remember being hit. The ice must have cut me when I fell through, Seth thought. Lying on his side he opened his eyes. A pearl white beach stretched out under him, in length, it stretched as far as he could see. The beach led up to a brilliantly blue ocean with small rippling waves. About fifteen feet behind him was a tremendously thick jungle. Although Seth was no botanist, nothing looked remotely like a Michigan landscape. If anything, it was more like a tropical rainforest. The bark on the trees was not brown. A good number of them were blue, green, or white. There was also a peculiar yellow tree which appeared to have no bark at all, and was somewhat disturbing to look at.

Most of the leaves were larger than what he was accustomed to seeing. Not quite green, they were almost emerald with veins of incandescent pink and violet. The overall effect was dazzling._

As you can see by looking at my Chapter 2, I did things to it. I broke it up into smaller paragraphs, I modified words, I changed sentences to add drama, I added comments. But it remains his text. This is typical of the way it went.

This is Rob's novel, as it might have been had he had opportunity to revise and complete it himself.

There are ironies. The protagonist is evidently Rob, as he expected to be in two years (remember, he was fifteen when he started writing), but he changed the family in the manner that writers do, so as not to embarrass living people. His sister became younger than he, instead of older, and his father died. This should not be taken as any ill will toward his real father, just a divergence from the starting point, perhaps occasioned by his effort to relate to the fact of his father's illness. My novel _Shade of the Tree_ similarly excluded my wife; she likes to say that she gave her life for that novel. I made Ferne resemble Rob's sister Jill, as she was when younger. But perhaps some of Jill's spirit came through in Tirsa, too. In the novel, the father is dead; in reality, the father lived--and Rob died. There was an accident in a motor vehicle in the novel, a rear-end collision--and a similar one in life, far more serious. It was as if he foretold his own death, mistaking only the nature of it: a car collision instead of drowning. It reminded me of my own auto accident, at the age of twenty-two, sailing off a six-foot drop-off at 40

miles per hour and rolling over. It might have killed me, but only bashed my shoulder and knocked me out a few seconds, thanks to the luck of the draw.

Thus I lived to complete the novel of the one who died. In the novel, Seth died, but lived on in another world. In reality, Rob died--and I hope lives on in a world like the one he made for _Through the Ice._ I wrote the happy ending; I had to do it, for Rob, so as to be able to picture him there.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that he never knew that he was to work closely with me, and to become a published author, after his death.

When I queried Tim Underwood about this project, I learned that he too had suffered a death in the family. His brother had been gunned down in the night by an Eskimo while camping near the arctic ocean, a decade before. There didn't seem to be any reason for it; apparently it was just because he and his girlfriend were there. "The living need memorials," Tim wrote, "as valuable symbols, to replace what is missing." So he too understood, because of his own experience. Thus Rob's friends chose to query the right author, and I chose to query the right publisher--none of us knowing the background that made this particular project personal. Rob's friends queried me because I was Rob's favorite author; I queried U-M because I knew them and liked their attitude toward books. Coincidence, perhaps.

There is of course no obligation, but if any reader wishes to contribute to the memorial fund I mentioned, the address is the Robert Kornwise Memorial Fund, c/o Adat Shalom Synagogue, 29901 Middlebelt Rd., Farmington Hills, Michigan, 48018. This is a yearly function open to all, of topical interest, which may be directed toward young people of Rob's age.

_Through the Ice_ is a memorial for one who died young. The final irony is that I wish it had never happened. I wish he had lived instead.

Copyright © 1989, Piers Anthony and Robert Kornwise ISBN: 0-671-72113-5