But there were no sounds other than those of the ettin uprooting saplings in his search for a pork dinner. The two women exchanged grim looks. "Well?" Kai-lid asked. Kitiara lifted her shoulders and let them drop.

The ettin appeared before them on the trail. Both of his faces were long. The right head appeared near tears; the left head looked merely baffled. "Pig got away," Lacua complained. He motioned them on with one club.

"I don't get it," Kitiara whispered as they resumed walking. "If you can't count on the undead to kill something, who can you count on?"

Kai-lid blinked, seeming to hide a smile. "The undead feed off fear?" she asked. Kitiara nodded, and Kai-lid ventured, "Perhaps Res-Lacua is too stupid to know he's supposed to be afraid of them."

Kitiara stopped in her tracks and swore until Res-Lacua poked her with the club. Kai-lid grabbed the swordswoman's arm and hauled her along, but the mercenary continued spewing oaths for several minutes before she finally ran down.

"It's all right," the mage said. "Women in your condition are often emotional."

"What are you talking about?" Kitiara snapped. "I'm in fine condition!" She even picked up the pace, hiking along at a speed that ate up the distance. While the ettin merely lengthened his strides, Kai-lid practically had to run to keep up with her. Thus Kitiara was moving at rapid speed when the mage calmly mentioned her pregnancy.

This time Kai-lid found herself staring at Kitiara s fist. "Not funny, mage," the swordswoman hissed.

Kai-lid's hood slipped back from her face. "You mean you don't know?"

"And how would you know if I were with child, which I assure you I am not?"

"Are you so certain?"

Kitiara's hand wobbled as she reviewed the past few days and weeks. "By Takhisis!" she finally breathed, horror flickering across her face. Then reason reasserted itself, and she glared at the mage. "You say you're a mage, not a healer, and every so-called healer I've met has been a charlatan, anyway. So I repeat: How would you know?"

Kitiara pointed behind an oak. "I just saw that young pig again, ettin!" Kai-lid nodded vigorously at the creature, who scrambled toward the tree. "How would you know?" Kitiara reiterated to Kai-lid, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.

Kai-lid shrugged out of Kit's grasp. "I can look within people sometimes. I cannot heal, and I cannot diagnose, but I can sense things. Xanthar showed me how. He cannot do magic, but he has other powers, some of which you've seen. He sensed your condition as well, back at the clearing."

"Damn!" Kitiara said, then looked hopefully at the mage. "Can you do anything about it?"

"Do?"

"Get rid of it."

The mage's dark face flushed. "I said I am a mage, and a mage only. That is beyond my talents-and my inclinations."

Kitiara had endured trials in her life-the desertion of her adored soldier father when she was young, the remarriage of her mother, the birth of her half-brothers, the death of her mother and stepfather, and her decision to leave home and become a mercenary at an age when other girls in Solace were occupied chiefly with dreaming of marriage. But this…

All thought that the mage might be lying had flown from her mind. Her own body told her Lida must be speaking the truth. "Blast it to the Abyss!" Kitiara breathed softly. "Now what?"

The ettin returned to the path. "Dumb pig fast," he complained.

"What is it, Lida?" Kitiara finally snapped.

"Fever Mountain," the mage said, pointing to the near-treeless escarpment. "Xanthar said the sla-mori is in its shadow."

"So?" Kitiara had heard of sla-moris, but the significance of this particular secret passage eluded her.

"He'll meet us there, I know. Xanthar says those of Darken Wood believe a sla-mori near Fever Mountain leads far to the south, perhaps to the Icereach. He believed the ettin might try to take us there in order to transport us to the Valdane."

"And Xanthar knows where this sla-mori is?" Kitiara asked, brightening. "That's perfect! He'll bring Tanis and Caven and Wode, we'll all kill the ettin, and we'll be on our way back to Haven."

They gazed up the side of the mountain, Kitiara smiling with satisfaction, Kai-lid frowning. Large chunks of shale and granite were strewn over the escarpment. Huge rocks had slid down the incline, leaving the ground littered with boulders, some the height of a human. Finally the swordswoman noticed that the mage didn't share her exultation. "What's the problem?" Kitiara asked. "We're where the owl expects us to be, aren't we?"

Kai-lid shook her head. "No, we're not. The valley is back there." She pointed south, where a patch of green could barely be seen at the edge of the towering mountain. As Res-Lacua prodded them up a path that would have strained a highland goat, the mage said, "We're not going to the valley of the sla-mori at all. And I'm too far away to mind-speak to Xanthar to let him know."

Kitiara stared at the woman, her head beginning to swim again. She'd felt this way often enough lately to know that she was about to be sick-whether it was from Lida's revelation, Darken Wood pressing in around her, or the blows to the head she had suffered, she didn't know. From a long distance away, she heard Lida cry out and reach for her.

Kitiara fainted.

Janusz poured water into a wooden trencher. Melted snow-that's what he was forced to use now. It was nothing like the artesian waters he'd had in Kern. He cast the special powders upon the surface and said the words. The liquid reflected his lined face; the un-dissolved powder floating in the water looked like mold upon his image.

Then the scene began to shimmer in the water. Janusz saw a rose-gray granite slab carved with the leaves, flowers, and animals Dreena had loved. The mage forced himself to look at the inscription. Despite his fatigue, the sight stirred his strength and anger.

Dreena ten Valdane

Ei Avenganit

"Dreena, daughter of Valdane," Janusz translated from Old Kernish. "We mourn. And we will avenge."

Janusz ended the scrying with a shiver. He hadn't been truly warm for months. He longed for the comforting embrace of the stone fireplaces of the Valdane's castle back in the woodlands of Kern. He recalled the earthy smell of woodsmoke, the tang of warm drinks, the infectious music of lyre and flute that formed a backdrop for the movements of serving girls bearing trays of fruit and cheese. That had been a splendid time.

It was before the war, of course. And long before Dreena's marriage. He'd worn the red robe of neutral magic then, having discarded the white garb of the mages who followed the path of good. Not yet had he donned the black robe he wore now.

Janusz shook off the image of the gravestone. The two fiefdoms, Kern and Meir, were now one, he knew-ruled, to worsen the insult to the Valdane, by a committee of minor nobles who'd served under the Valdane and the Meir. They'd even hinted at giving peasants limited governance over aspects of their lives-aspects that wouldn't inconvenience the ruling families too greatly, of course.

Soon Res-Lacua would bear Kitiara Uth Matar and Lida Tenaka to the pinnacle of Fever Mountain. Soon Janusz would draw out his remaining ice jewel and command the ettin, through the Talking Stone, to bring out the ice jewel that the monster held in its possession. Then Janusz would speak the words, engender the magic that would teleport the women and the ettin across the continent of Ansalon. He would torture Kitiara until he discovered the whereabouts of the other ice jewels, and he would also satisfy his curiosity about Lida's mysterious connection with the swordswoman.