Here it was, the manipulation. Raif felt it in the hollow center of his bones. It was a funny thing, manipulation; even when you knew someone was doing it and they admitted to doing it, it could still work. It is a hard journey north, he had said last time. Now east. "Have you heard of the Lake of Red Ice?" "I have."

"Do you know where it is?" "All I know I have said."

Raif looked at the blood in Argola's right eye and imagined how it had got there. "Look for me," he commanded.

The outlander's face registered surprise, and then—Raif would remember for the rest of his life—satisfaction.

"If you are to watch you must be prepared when they come." Raif thought about all these words revealed. Argola knew about the sword. Knew also about the name he had taken for his own. Mor Drakka. Watcher of the Dead. How did he learn these things? What did he know that Raif did not?

Thomas Argola's small, sharp-featured face gave nothing away. His plain brown robes reminded Raif of what the monks in the Mountain Cities wore to demonstrate they had no interest in worldly things.

"Did they tell you the name of the sword?"

It was as if the outlander had a stick and kept poking him harder and harder to see what he might do. Raif s back was against the door; he could not be driven any farther. "No they did not."

Argola received the warning, seemed pleased by it Again there was that lip stretch of satisfaction. "The sword that lies beneath the Red Ice is named Loss."

Loss.

"There are some things in the Blind that will not fall by any other blade."

It was too much. Raif punched back the door bolt and let himself out. He did not look back or close the door.

Sunlight streamed against his face and he could barely make sense of it. Bouncing off the snow on the ground, it came at him from every direction. Bright, razoring light. It should have dispelled the dark seizures in his brain, yet it just seemed to feed them.

Loss.

He headed toward the upper ledge. A knotted rope hung from the ledge he had jumped and he yanked himself up it He had left behind his gloves and cloak in the outlander's cave, and the cold and the rope burns added to strange energy of pain and twitching thoughts he had become.

I will not slit your throat I will defend the Rift Brothers. I will become lord of the Rift. Every time he spoke these days he seemed to take on another oath.

He had given none to Argola, though. Yet he had allowed the man to push him. Releasing his hands from the rope, Raif landed on the rimrock. Snow crunched as he flattened it. Had he allowed Stillborn to push him too?

Deciding no good would come of knowing, he switched his mind away from all of it. Argola's motives. The puncture wound. The sword. It was just past midday and the sun was at its highest point above the clanholds. Raif walked to the edge of the broad table of rock and sucked in the sight of his homeland. Seven hundred paces, that was the distance that separated the clan-holds from the Rift in this place. A man could cross it in a matter of minutes—east of here there was a hidden bridge. Yet there might as well be a wall as tall as the sky. Raif Sevrance could never go back.

He stood and let the sun warm him and the snow cool him. And when he was ready he looked down into the Rift.

For the first time ever, Raif was aware of beating hearts deep within its depths.

TWENTY-SEVEN A Castleman for a Year

Dalhousie Selco, the swordmaster at Castlemilk, kept an hourglass slung around his neck on a chain and used it as a torture device. If you as much as glanced at it he'd grab the chain and twist it, turning the hourglass from vertical to horizontal. Stopping time. Only when he was satisfied that you and the other young men he was training had been suitably punished did he twist the chain back and let time run.

Bram was learning fast: Best not even to look at the swordmaster, let alone his glass. That path led to double trouble. Trouble from Dalhousie now. Trouble from the other boys later. You made him give us an extra fifteen minutes—in the snow.

It was true enough. They were training on the smallest of the three swordcourts at the rear of the roundhouse, and when they'd trudged out before noon and Dalhousie had directed them to the only court that had not been cleared of snow they all thought he'd made a mistake. No one had dared say so. Though Enoch had whispered to Bram, "Either Housie's off his nut or he's going to make us shovel snow." Whispering was a grave error in the swordmaster's presence. If he heard you he would whack your shoulder with his wooden scabbard. Luckily for Enoch there was snow: five pairs of feet crunching through it on their way to the swordcourt had provided sufficient noise to camouflage his offense.

Even when it had become obvious that Dalhousie had not made a mistake and did indeed intend to put them through their forms while making them stand in two feet of snow, the full extent of his evil plan had yet to be revealed. Bram had trained with Jackdaw Thundy, the old swordmaster at Dhoone, and he knew that any swordmaster worth his salt was tough and demanding. He hadn't known they were capable of torture.

"Castlemen," Dalhousie had shouted when they were all assembled on the court. "Pull off your left boots and let's get moving."

Bram Cormac, Enoch Odkin, Trorty Pickering and Shamie Weese, known as Beesweese, had looked at each other, round-eyed and blinking.

"Now!" roared Dalhousie.

At first Bram had been glad he had his socks on—tube-shaped sheaths of rabbit skin rendered bald by constant use—but after five minutes of plunging his foot in and out of the snow the material had become wet and icy and he ended up pulling it off. At least the bare skin could dry off a bit between dunkings. Dalhousie had set them in pairs—Bram against Enoch, Trotty against Beesweese—and made them stand opposite each other while they took turns executing and defending forms.

"Swan's neck! Bluddsmen's farewell! Hammer cut! Harking's needle!" Dalhousie Selco marched from one end of the court to the other, shouting out the forms. Every so often he would explode into motion, and his chosen victim would have to defend himself against a series of attack forms while screaming out their names. Occasionally Dalhousie would throw in a new form, and Gods help you if you mistook it for something else.

"If you don't know it cover you body and step backl"

It left Bram's ears ringing. Dalhousie had the loudest voice he had ever heard.

"Cormac. What's the difference between a swordsman and a man with a sword?"

Bram had been moving through a series of high blocks, defending against Enoch's head blows, while trying to keep his bare foot out of the snow. He was still not accustomed to being called Cormac and it took him a moment to realize that Dalhousie was addressing him. The rule on the swordcourt was that you never broke away from an engagement to answer questions. You shouted out as you fought. Training," screamed Bram.

"No," Dalhousie belllowed. "Experience. A man knows nothing until he's been in a genuine blood-spurting, puke-making, knuckle-bursting sword brawl. You can train every day between here and damnation and you'll still be a fool with a sword. You have to get out there and fight, see a man's eyes and know he's scared shitless, and realize he's seeing the exact same thing staring back." With that Dalhousie launched himself at Bram.

Sword high from countering head blows, Bram was forced into an awkward lower-body block. Elbow up and extended, wrist pivoting inward, he lost control of his sword the instant the first blow hit. Metal screeched as Dalhousie used Bram's sinking blade as a fulcrum to turn his sword point into the center of Bram's gut. As Bram felt the hard jab of blunted steel against his navel, a second blow cut him on the side of the neck. Enoch Odkin.