"It just seems odd," Galimer persisted. "Virgins don't melt in sunlight and if there were anything half-so-valuable in those carts as all that warding suggests, then there aren't enough of us to keep it away from anyone who truly wanted it."

"No argument," Dru said mildly and ignored Galimer's sour scowl.

He'd voiced the same objections himself when they'd arrived in Elversult to collect the bride and her dowry. Galimer had dismissed Dru's worries out of hand.

The young men were friends, though, the best of friends and brothers combined—however unlikely that had seemed when a rough-mannered carpenter's son had mastered spells as fast as he learned to read them, faster by far than Galimer at his best. Staying on Longfingers's good side had come naturally to a boy with five older brothers, and Galimer had yearned for a friend. A childhood tagging along after Ansoain, who couldn't sleep three nights in the same bed, had left Galimer with a better grasp of geography than friendship.

They might not exchange another word this afternoon, but they'd be talking again after supper. The carters wrestled the last of the spokes into place and retrieved the hobbled horses from the grass where they'd grazed. When the horses were ready, the magic-and-muscle escort assumed its customary positions and the caravan was on its way toward Hlondeth.

Dru and Galimer's customary positions were a short distance behind the bridal wagon. Ansoain, who'd spent most of their unscheduled rest with the captain of the men-at-arms, joined them there. By the brightness of her eyes, Dru suspected that she and the captain had shared more than a discussion about the weather. He disapproved, as only a young man could disapprove, of his foster mother's behavior, but both he and Galimer were years beyond embarrassment and however predatory her habits, Ansoain never let them interfere with work.

"Tree branch," she said as soon as her horse had settled in between his and Galimer's.

"Scry for diseases," Galimer answered quickly.

"What kind of tree?" Dru asked at the same time.

It was Ansoain's custom to quiz her apprentices whenever the spirit moved her. Galimer always strove to be first with an answer while Dru usually wanted more information before he'd commit himself.

"A fruit tree, in flower."

Dru nodded. "Stripped of the flowers and leaves, the branch could become a divining rod. And the flowers could be put to use in the dryad variation for making pure water."

"Not fair!" Galimer complained. "If there were a real stick, I'd see that it was in flower. You said stick, so that's all I imagined!"

"I said 'branch,' but you're right, Longfingers, you would have seen the flowers. You're both right." Ansoain tried to be fair; it wasn't easy. "Dragonfly's wing," she challenged, inspired, no doubt, by the insect flying between them and the cart.

"What kind of dragonfly?" Galimer demanded.

"Blue-green." The now-disappeared insect had been blue-green.

Dru didn't know any spells that required the wing of a blue-green dragonfly. He didn't know any that called for any specific part of any color dragonfly. He knew of a few spells that required the jewel-like carapaces of rare jungle beetles and another that needed scales from a true dragon's wing. None of those were in his head nor etched into the wood of the magically folded box hanging from his belt. An apprentice with access to his master's library usually knew more spells than he could actually cast.

Even Galimer knew more spells than he could cast, and frequently got them confused. Dru looked beyond Ansoain. Years of observation had taught him to anticipate Galimer's answer from the shape of his lips. If Gal's answer looked to be correct, then Druhallen would hold his own tongue, but if, as so often happened, it looked like Galimer was about to make himself appear foolish, Dru would speak up quickly and loudly—

"A blue-green wing would satisfy a spell that required only an insect's wing and, maybe, an affinity could be drawn to spells requiring feathers—function, form and color would give a threefold congruence—but it would be a far stretch to make a dragonfly's wing stand for any part of a true dragon."

Galimer's face showed indignation, then relief. Ansoain never let on that she suspected her foster's game—though she was usually careful to position herself so that Dru could see Galimer's face when she quizzed them.

"Good enough. Now, what is the writ for a dust shield?"

"Dust. What else?"

Sometimes Galimer spoke too quickly for Dru to save him.

"The writ!" Ansoain snapped, "not the reagents. How much dust, and how do you seal the spell in your mind? What trigger will call it out when you need to cast it?"

A dust shield was one of Galimer's more reliable spells. He rattled off the answers correctly and without hesitation.

Ansoain peppered them with other reagents and writs as the afternoon sun grew warm on their backs. When their stomachs began to churn in anticipation of supper, she lectured them on tactical shortcomings of the adversaries that journeying mages might encounter in Faerun's Heartlands.

"Fumarandi are drakes. Their weapon is charcoal smoke, and they make their homes above the trees in mountain forests. They can be claimed as companions ..." Ansoain claimed that she never forgot a lesson or a nightmare. It was the latter that kept her on the road. As long as she was moving, the worst of her dreams couldn't find her. In winter, when they went to ground in Scornubel, Ansoain rented rooms by the night and fought her nightmares by the keg. Winters had been hard for Dru and Galimer until they were old enough to rent rooms for themselves and worse, in a way, since Galimer had taken over their finances. Every publican in Scornubel knew Galimer would cover his mother's debts.

But when they were on the road and spending their nights beneath different trees, no one had a clearer mind than Ansoain. She shared her knowledge of the world and magic with her sons.

"Wyvern gall," she called out after she'd told them everything there was to know about the fumarandi.

Galimer's lips didn't twitch; he hadn't a clue. Druhallen inquired: "Fresh, powdered, or ossified?"

"Ossi—"

She didn't finish the answer. Her gray eyes scanned the forward horizon, then closed while she sought the wisdom of her mind's eye. Dru felt the disruption also: a slight, yet profoundly ominous change in the ether, that strange, intangible stuff where magic held sway.

"What the—?" Galimer demanded.

Ansoain commanded silence with a snarl, the raised her hand in a curious gesture. Bits of ash—spent reagents—blew away from her palm. The spell carried her words directly to the ears of the captain and his men. Druhallen and Galimer didn't hear a sound.

The captain had a similar ability to communicate with his men, equally magical, but derived from the matched rings he and the men wore. The caravan came to a halt. Its muscle-and-magic escort pulled in tight around it. The muscle fastened their chain mail coifs over their faces and tested their swords without drawing them. The magic considered their spells.

"Fire?" Dru suggested softly.

Ansoain shrugged. "It's got no shape or signature. It could be anything, or nothing. Fire needs something to burn."

Galimer opened a foot-long war-fan from distant Kozakura. There, it had been a weapon. Here, it was a spellbook with writs etched in silver along the vanes.

"No time for that, son," Ansoain said grimly. "If your nerves are chancy, hide in the wagon."

"I'm sure of some fire," Longfingers protested, "and a shrieking arrow."

"And you?" she asked Druhallen.

"The usual. I can blur us a little now, if you think that would help."

"No, whatever's out there, it's already taken our measure. Probably slavers. Save your blurring for later. Your gloom, too. The girl's got to be what they're after. The girl and her dowry. Get her out, if push comes to shove. Make a pall of misery and get out beneath it."