“Then everything would be all right?” I asked her gently.

“No,” she said grudgingly. “But at least I would not be alone. Nevare, it meant so much to me to hear that you are alive. I was so shocked when your note fell out of Carsina’s letter, and then I had to laugh at what a reversal that was. How many times did a note for her come concealed in a letter to me? And what an amazing twist of fate that she would be in Gettys and would renew her friendship with you, even to helping you conceal a letter to me. I wrote back to her immediately, thanking her and reminding her of our wonderful days before we so stupidly ended our friendship over a man! What fools we were! Though, in my heart, I still have not forgiven her for her ill-treatment of you, even if I was a party to it. I’ve told myself that if you have forgiven her enough to entrust her with a letter to me, then I have little reason to hold a grudge. It was such a relief to know you were alive, and that you had actually become a soldier, as you always dreamed you’d be. I long to tell Father, but I have not yet. I dream that someday you will come riding back up to the door, tall and brave in your uniform, to show him that he completely misjudged you. Oh, I miss you so much! When can you come home for a visit?”

I cursed myself for how unthinkingly I had wandered into her dream. She was not aware that she was asleep and dreaming me there, nor had she realized, as Epiny had immediately, that I had intruded into her dream in a very magical way. Epiny had been prepared to understand what was happening by reading my soldier-son journal. Yaril had only the most basic idea of what had befallen me. And with a lurch, I suddenly realized that, when the days were counted up, I had “died” less than ten days ago. Neither news of my shameful conviction for rape, murder, and unnatural acts nor news that I had been killed trying to escape would have reached her yet. The last word she would have had from me was the note I had hidden inside a letter I’d blackmailed Carsina into sending her. She had no idea that Carsina was dead of the plague, let alone that I’d been found guilty of taking liberties with her dead body. Had anyone written anything to her since I’d sent her that note? Had there been time for Spink or Epiny to send her a letter about what had become of me? I wished I’d asked Epiny, but I hadn’t, and she hadn’t mentioned it to me. A colder thought came to me. Yaril had replied to Carsina’s letter. Would Carsina’s husband think that he must respond to that note, to let his wife’s correspondent know of her sad end? I felt sickened at the thought of how he would paint me for her. I had to prepare her in case the worst happened.

“Yaril. You’re asleep and dreaming. You know I’m not really here. But this is more than an idle dream. I’m using magic to travel to your dreams and talk to you. What I am telling you is real. I’m alive, but I can’t come to you or send for you. And for now, you must not speak a word about me to Father. Or anyone else.”

“What?” A frown wrinkled her brow. The room suddenly wavered around us. Streaks of light broke through my image of it, as if someone had suddenly opened a curtain a crack. Or fluttered her eyelashes as she dreamed. My words had been too sudden, too startling. I was waking her up.

“Yaril! Don’t wake up yet. Please. Keep your eyes closed. Stay calm and listen to me. You might receive word that I’ve disgraced myself, that I died for vicious crimes I’d committed. You might get a letter from Carsina’s husband. Don’t believe anything he says about me. It’s not true. I’m still alive. And eventually I’ll find a way to come home to you someday. Yaril? Yaril!”

The world disappeared around me, washed away in a sudden flood of light. I’d wakened her. And I had no way of knowing how much credence she’d give to the dream or even how much she would remember on awakening.

“Yaril?” I asked desperately of the empty light. There was no reply. Doubtless her waking thoughts filled her mind and excluded any touch I might make upon her senses. I hoped I had not given her too great a fright. Would she dismiss my visit as a bizarrely vivid dream?

I had nowhere to retreat from the light and it seemed painful to me. Magic, I reminded myself, worked best in the night. It was time to go back to my body.

I had used Soldier’s Boy’s magic; he would know that when he awakened, and I suspected he’d keep a tighter watch on me after this. I’d had one opportunity to use the power of dream-walking and I’d made a mare’s nest of it. I could feel my flesh pulling me back toward it and I let myself be drawn back into my body. Soldier’s Boy slumbered on, his eyes closed. I used my ears and nose to deduce what was happening around me. I could smell smoke and hear the tiny crackling of a small fire nearby. Olikea and Likari were speaking softly to each other. Some distance ahead of us on our path, there was another fish trap in the cavern stream. The traps were woven like a basket and set in the stream’s current. Fish could swim in, but finding a way out was more difficult, especially for large fish. There might be fish in it. They were both desperately hungry. They debated softly as to whether one of them should travel ahead to check the trap and then return with fish from it, and then argued as to which of them should go. It was a wearying thing to listen to, a battle between hunger and fear of the darkness.

At the last it was decided that Olikea would go. She warned Likari not to stray too far from me, and to be sure to feed the fire, but only slowly. She would be relying on its light to find us again.

“Give him water if he asks for it, and do not leave him.”

“What else should I do for him?”

“There is nothing you can do for him except to stay near him and give him water when he thirsts. He chose this journey of his own will; he knew what the crystal and the black water would do to him. I do not think he gave any thought as to how it might affect us. But this is what it is to be the feeder of a Great One, Likari. Great Ones do not think of their feeders, but feeders must think only of the Great Ones we serve.”

With that last admonition, she turned and left the little boy sitting beside the tiny fire in the immense darkness. After a short time, he drew close and sat with his back braced against mine, a faithful little guardian. I was impressed with both his obedience and his courage, and touched by his loyalty. He was such a young child to be left alone in the dark, charged to take care of a sick man.

Soldier’s Boy slumbered on in his aching fever-sleep. The not-silence of the cavern settled around us. The little fire made the tiny noises of flames devouring wood. I could hear, if I strained, the distant rush of the stream in its stone channel, and the occasional buzz of one of the lightning bugs as it whispered past us. Likari gave a shiver, sighed, and settled closer against me. His breathing deepened and steadied, and then became the openmouthed snore of a small boy. Tedium set in.

It seemed all my frustrated mind could do was chew over past events and rebuke myself with my foolish mistakes. I tried to make plans for the future and could not. There was too much I didn’t know. Even if I could seize control of the body right now, it was too sickly for me to go back the way I had come. Go back to what? I asked myself dully.

When I had left Gettys, I had said that I was giving myself up to the magic and would do its will. I thought I had, when I’d attempted to block the road builders from cutting any more of the ancestor trees. Now, bereft of any other distraction, I began to wonder why Soldier’s Boy had been hoarding the magic and what he had hoped to do with it. Plainly my squandering of it had set back his plan. But what had that plan been?

Did he truly know a way to send all the Gernians fleeing from the Barrier Mountains and the adjoining lands? What could he bring down on us that would be so terrible that the military and the settlers would withdraw and the King give up his cherished road? How ruthless was he?