At the bottom was a passage which ran only in one direction. Dark here, and I saw no gleam of light ahead to suggest that my guide used a lantern or torch. It must have been a way he knew well.

Nor could I hear him any longer. Then, along our mind link there was a burst of relief, as bright in my brain as a lantern would have been in my eyes. He had reached his goal, he was free of the fort to find what he believed to be safety. And I did not think he would linger at that exit.

So I put on what speed I could, staggering on at a half run to find the same gate. In the dark, I came up hard against sharp projections. But I did not fall, and was able after a moment to put out my hands to serve as eyes. Before me, according to touch, was another flight of steep steps, and up these I crawled on hands and knees, not certain I might take them otherwise.

I paused now and then to feel above my head for any sign of exit. At last I found a trap door which gave to my push. There was still not much light as I came out in a cave, or rather a heaping of rocks I did not believe to be natural, cleverly made to resemble nature as a cover for this door. In a land so constantly riven by petty wars such a burrow must have been necessary for each fort. To my mind this was less concealed at the other end than one might have thought needful.

For the time being my full concern was for getting out of sight of any wall sentry. The rocks covering the exit of the passage were, I saw as I edged along belly flat to the ground, only one such outcrop. And I thought I could trace a pattern in them as if they marked the site of a much older and ruined fortress.

There was no sign of the deserter who had preceded me through the bolt hole, but I continued to move with caution. At last I took cover behind what could be the end of the ruins, much earth sunken and tumbled, and for the first time I surveyed the back trail.

The sky blazed with the particular wild color with which sunset was painted on this planet, sometimes so brilliantly that one dared not closely observe those strident sweeps of clashing shades. Under it the fort was a dark blot, already closed in by shadows which accented its grim aspect. It consisted of one inner building and the outer wall, and was even smaller than it had seemed when I was making my way out. I did not believe it was any holding, but rather a border post, a defense for the land it guarded. For one thing there were no dwellings or any cultivated fields ringing it. This was a camp for soldiers, not a place of refuge for farmers and townsfolk as any main castle keep would be.

There was a road by its main entrance, coming from a notch between two lines of hills, extending into the unknown level land. That road must tie it to both the center of the domain and the outer world, perhaps even Yrjar. And it was my guide.

My journey here had been such that I might just as well have been blindfolded all the way. I had no idea whether the port lay north or south from here, but it was certainly to the west. But I could not travel on the road. For the first time I began to think that all my good fortune in winning free from Osokun's keep had ended. I had the sword I had taken, but water, food, protection against any storm were lacking. And the energy which my will had fathered and which had sustained my ill-used body so far, was fast ebbing. Whether I could pull myself on was a question I was afraid to ask myself, because the answer was so plain.

Both the fort and the place of ruins where I emerged crested small hills. The passage which had brought me hither must have run under the gap of low ground between. Once I had put that high ground between me and the sentry post, I was in the clear. Then I got to my feet, determined to keep putting one before the other as long as I could, then to crawl, wriggle, do anything I could to keep moving.

Time became a phantom thing without measurement, save that which comes between one step and the next. I was favored by this much, the methods Osokun's questioners had used had caused great pain but had left muscle and body unimpaired for the effort I must now put forth. But I lapsed into a kind of stupor in which another portion of my mind took control, one which did not consciously know, plan, or live, but lay deep below all that.

Twice I roused enough to discover that I had wandered down to heel and toe along the smoother surface of the road, some hidden warning signal flashing possible danger. Both times I was able to stagger up again into the rough land where bushes and rocks gave me cover. Once I believe I was trailed for a space by some hunter of the night. But if that unseen creature was intrigued by me to considering me prey, it decided again and was gone.

The moon was bright, so bright its Rings were shining fire in the Sotrath, that moon, held always two rings about it. But in a regular cycle of years came a time of three, which was a great portent for the natives. I did not look up to that wonder, and I was only thankful for the rays which made it possible to see the worst of the possible stumbling blocks before me.

It was near dawn when I passed through the gap between the hills, needing there to take to the road. My mouth was dry as if filled with ashes, acrid ashes which burned the tissues of tongue and inner check. Only my well-worn will kept me moving, for I feared that if I rested I could not possibly find my feet again, or even crawl. Somehow I must get past this place where the road was the only exit, into the open western country. Then, then promised my body, I would rest in the first hole I could find.

Somehow I made it, the hills were behind me. I wavered off the open surface into the brush, pushing on until I knew I was indeed finished. There I fell to my knees with a last forward thrust that plunged my scratched and whipped body between two thick bushes. Then I lay still and what occurred immediately after I do not remember.

A river, a precious river of water wetting me, giving my parched body new life. But there was the thunder, the beat of rapids in the river. I dared not allow myself to drift on into a wild stretch of water, be beaten against rocks– Water—thunder—

I was not in any stream, rather did I rest on a hard surface which was secure and unmoving under me. I was wet, but the moisture came from above, falling in fierce curtains of rain. And thunder cracked indeed, but in the sky.

When I levered myself up from the ground, my tongue licking at the rain which spattered my face, I saw the flash of lightning along the hill crowns. It must be day again, but so dark a day that there was hardly more visibility than existed at twilight. For the moment I only raised my face to the rain, opened my mouth to it, sought to drink it in.

A thunderous rumble reached across the curtained sky, a wild split of lightning, almost as bright as a ship's tail flames—I looked through a small opening in the bushes at a party of mounted men riding as if driven by some storm whip eastward. They were cloaked and hooded and strung well out, with the mounts of the laggers laboring, threads of foam strung from their jaws. The whole aspect of the company was one of some overwhelming need for speed. As they passed my hiding place emotion washed over me from them—fear, anger, desperation—so strong that it was a blow for an esper mind. Under the muffling cloaks I could not see color or heraldic design, nor did any lord's travel banner crack over their heads. But I was certain this was Osokun riding to his den. And if it were not already, now the hunt would be up for me.

So stiff and sore was my body that I could barely get to my feet. My first wavering steps racked and pained me. I had thought that I was tough and so honed by the life of a Free Trader that I was not to be easily worn by bodily discomfort. But now I moved again in a haze which wrapped me as close as if I were caught in the hunting web of a Tiditi spider-crab.