"Yes," Valentine said. "Why not? He had no more idea who I was than — than I did. He was told to trail a fair-haired man and give information to the government. Is that so evil a thing? He was serving his Coronal, or so he thought. His loyalty must not be repaid by your dagger, Sleet."

"My lord, sometimes you are too innocent," Sleet said.

"Perhaps true. But not this time. We have much to gain by forgiving this man, and nothing at all by slaying him." To the Hjort Valentine said, "You have my pardon, Vinorkis. I ask only that you be as loyal to the true Coronal as you’ve been to the false."

"You have my pledge, my lord."

"Good. Get yourself some sleep, now, and put away your fear."

Vinorkis made the starburst and backed away, settling down in mid-cabin beside two of the Skandars.

Sleet said, "That was unwise, my lord. What if he continues to spy on us?"

"In these jungles? Messages to whom?"

"And when we leave the jungles?"

"I think he can be trusted," said Valentine. "I know, this confession may have been only a double ruse, to lull us into casting aside our suspicions. I’m not as naive as you think, Sleet. I charge you to keep private watch over him when we reach civilization again — just in case. But I think you’ll find his repentance is genuine. And I have uses for him that will make him valuable to me."

"Uses, my lord?"

"A spy can lead us to other spies. And there’ll be other spies, Sleet. We may want Vinorkis to maintain his contacts with the imperial agents, eh?"

Sleet winked. "I see your meaning, my lord!"

Valentine smiled, and they fell silent.

Yes, he told himself, Vinorkis’ horror and remorse were genuine. And provided much that Valentine needed to know; for if the Coronal had been willing to pay good sums to have an insignificant wanderer followed from Pidruid to Ilirivoyne, how insignificant could that wanderer actually be? Valentine felt a weird prickling along his skin. More than anything else, Vinorkis’ confession was a confirmation of all that Valentine had discovered about himself. Surely, if the technique that had been used to cast him from his body was new and relatively untried, the conspirators would be uncertain about how permanent the mind-wiping would be, and would hardly dare to allow the outcast Coronal to roam about the land free and unobserved. A spy, then, and probably others close by; and the threat of quick preventive action if word got back to the usurper that Valentine was beginning to recover his memory. He wondered how carefully the imperial forces were tracking him, and at what point they would choose to intercept him on his journey toward Alhanroel.

Onward the wagon moved in the blackness of night.

Deliamber and Lisamon Hultin conferred endlessly with Zalzan Kavol about the route; the other main Metamorph settlement, Avendroyne, lay somewhere to the southeast of Ilirivoyne, in a gap between two great mountains, and it seemed likely that the road they were on would take them there. To ride blithely into another Metamorph town hardly seemed wise, of course. Word must have gone on ahead of the freeing of the prisoner and the escape of the wagon. Still, there was even greater peril in trying to go back toward Piurifayne Fountain.

Valentine, not at all sleepy, re-enacted the Metamorph pantomime a hundred times in his mind. It had the quality of a dream, yes, but no dream was so immediate: he had been close enough to touch his Metamorph counterpart; he had seen, beyond all doubt, those shifts of features from fair to dark, dark to fair. The Metamorphs knew the truth, more clearly than he himself. Could they read souls, as Deliamber sometimes did? What had they felt, knowing they had a fallen Coronal in their midst? No awe, certainly: Coronals were nothing to them, mere symbols of their own defeat thousands of years ago. It must have seemed terribly funny to them to have a successor to Lord Stiamot tossing clubs at their festival, amusing them with silly tricks and dances, far from the splendors of Castle Mount, a Coronal in their own muddy wooden village. How strange, he thought. How much like a dream.

—15—

TOWARD DAWN HUGE ROUNDED mountains became visible, with a broad notch between them. Avendroyne could not be far. Zalzan Kavol, with a deference he had never shown before, came aft to consult Valentine on strategy. Lie low in the woods all day, and wait until nightfall to try to get past Avendroyne? Or attempt a bold daylight passage?

Leadership was unfamiliar to Valentine. He pondered a moment, trying to look far-seeing and thoughtful.

At length he said, "If we go forward by day, we are too conspicuous. On the other hand, if we waste all day hiding here, we give them more time to prepare plans against us."

"Tonight," Sleet pointed out, "is the high festival again in Ilirivoyne, and probably here also. We might slip by them while they’re merrymaking, but in daylight we have no chance."

"I agree," said Lisamon Hultin.

Valentine looked around. "Carabella?"

"If we wait, we give the Ilirivoyne people time to overtake us. I say go onward."

"Deliamber?"

The Vroon delicately touched tentacle-tips together. "Onward. Bypass Avendroyne, double back toward Verf. There’ll be a second road to the Fountain from Avendroyne, surely."

"Yes," Valentine said. He looked to Zalzan Kavol. "My thoughts run with Deliamber and Carabella. What of yours?"

Zalzan Kavol scowled. "Mine say, let the wizard make this wagon fly, and take us tonight to Ni-moya. Otherwise, continue on without waiting."

"So be it," said Valentine, as if he had made the decision single-handedly. "And when we approach Avendroyne, we’ll send scouts out to find a road that bypasses the town."

On they went, moving more cautiously as daybreak arrived. The rain was intermittent, but when it came now it was no gentle spatter, more an almost tropical downpour, a heavy cannonade of drops that rattled with malign force against the wagon’s roof. To Valentine the rain was welcome: perhaps it would keep the Metamorphs indoors as they went through.

There were signs of outskirts now, scattered wicker huts. The road forked and forked again, Deliamber offering a guess at each point of division, until finally they knew they must be close to Avendroyne. Lisamon Hultin and Sleet rode out as scouts, and returned in an hour with good news: one of the two roads just ahead ran right into the heart of Avendroyne, where festival preparations were under way, and the other curved toward the northeast, bypassing the city entirely and going through what looked like a farming district on the farther slopes of the mountains.

They took the northeast road. Uneventfully they passed the Avendroyne region.

Now, in late afternoon, they journeyed down the mountain pass and into a broad, thickly forested plain rain-swept and dark, that marked the eastern perimeter of Metamorph territory. Zalzan Kavol drove the wagon furiously onward, pausing only when Shanamir insisted that the mounts absolutely had to rest and forage; virtually tireless they might be, and of synthetic origin, but living things were what they were, and now and then they needed to halt. The Skandar yielded reluctantly; he seemed possessed by desperate need to put Piurifayne far behind him.

Toward twilight, as they went in heavy rain through rough, irregular country, trouble came suddenly upon them.

Valentine was riding in mid-cabin, with Deliamber and Carabella; most of the others were sleeping, and Heitrag Kavol and Gibor Haern were driving. There came a crashing, crackling, smashing sound from ahead, and a moment later the wagon jolted to a stop.

"Tree down in the storm!" Heitrag Kavol called. "Road blocked in front of us!"

Zalzan Kavol muttered curses and tugged Lisamon Hultin awake. Valentine saw nothing but green ahead, the entire crown of some forest giant blocking the road. It might take hours or even days to clear that. The Skandars, hoisting energy-throwers to their shoulders, went out to investigate. Valentine followed. Darkness was falling rapidly. The wind was gusty, and shafts of rain swept almost horizontally into their faces.