For a brief, disorienting second he imagined he had somehow turned himself about in the city, retracing his steps unknowingly.

But no. Behind him was the Old Wall. If he stepped back from the camp and looked carefully, he could see the outline of the ancient battlements, the crenels jagged and crumbling like the rotten teeth of an ancient animal.

Through the camp the ragged people moved, dodging in and out of the firelight. Perhaps what he had seen from the brewery roof was illusion.

Perhaps the world was all city, all Istar.

All of a sudden the country ahead of him, glimpsed only fleetingly from the starlit brewery roof, seemed like a murky maze again, its whorls and corridors leading nowhere. And yet the mem shy;ory of the lake, the dark waters and the vaulting horizon beyond rose foremost in Vincus's mind as he passed from camp's edge to camp's edge on his way toward the shore.

It is only an hour's journey, he told himself. I will reach the lake in an hour.

But it was longer than that.

Twice in the early morning, when the campfires behind had settled to ashes and the road before him lay at its darkest, he had slipped behind tents to con shy;ceal himself from a passing squadron of the Istarian Guard.

"Rebels," they muttered. "Fordus."

Once in the rumble of voices and rattle of armor, he thought he heard the druid's name. He leaned forward, wrapping himself in musty canvas, and lis shy;tened intently for more, but the name and the noise and the squadron passed on into the night, and scarcely three breaths later, Vincus leapt from behind the tent, running to keep himself awake and alert, his hands silently saying an ancient protective prayer.

It must have been prayer that protected him on the last occasion, scarcely an hour before dawn, when a company of Istarian cavalry rode by, their commander so lost in thought that he never looked above, to the branches of a blasted vallenwood, where Vincus perched like some huge, outrageous bird, newly flown from its cage.

Finally, in the purple dawn, the tents and ruins gave way to the cemeteries, the great funerary grounds that bordered the south of Istar. Now, beyond the scattered white monuments burnished by the rising sun, Vincus saw shimmering blue ris shy;ing out of the darkness and smelled the waters of Lake Istar-the lake of his rooftop vision.

It is true, he told himself, leaning against a marble stone. There is a lake out here, and there are moun shy;tains, beyond the buildings.

And Fordus is somewhere beyond the edge of sight. I am glad I kept believing.

And he rested, free from fear and Istar, for the first time in years.

At nightfall, Vincus found the coracle Vaananen had left tied to a willow by the lakeside. Slowly and clumsily, for it was his first time in a boat of any sort, he steered the craft into midlake, where he circled aimlessly, rowing ever more frantically as a distant bell tolled and the night turned.

He could not be found here in the morning. He had to get across the water.

Now Istar and the mountains seemed equidistant-

dark, looming forms against the darker shores. Worn out with rowing, with spinning, with trying to steer by stars that ducked in and out of the clouds, Vincus lay down in the coracle.

Just a few minutes, he promised himself. An hour at most.

When he awoke, it was nearly noon. The craft had drifted to the far side of the lake, and the foothills lay in front of him, inviting and solid and wonder shy;fully, delightfully dry.

Vincus thanked whatever gods had taken charge of the water and the fools who ventured onto it, and, giving the craft a kick he hoped would send it on its way back to the Istarian shore, he scrambled up a narrow path and, by midafternoon, found himself at a great height-at the mouth of the Western Pass with a distant view of the city.

Of the three passes leading through the Istarian range, only the Western Pass was free of the sterim- the harsh winds off the desert that seemed to gain force as they climbed. Had Vincus traveled through either the Eastern or the Central Pass, his chance of survival would have been slim.

Vaananen had known, Vincus thought. Those hundreds of times he rattled on about it-they were all for this. For by the time he had wakened on the southern shores of the lake, Vincus was so turned around, so disoriented, that he was not quite sure if the path he followed led to the Western or the Cen shy;tral Pass.

Then he saw gentian and edelweiss-hardy moun shy;tain flowers, but not stormfast-at the mouth of the pass. It had to be the Western Pass, Vincus concluded, and he set out through the treacherous mountains by the lone safe route, congratulating himself on his new shy;found mountaineering skills.

Three days later, he emerged on the southern side of the mountains. Thinking that the hard part of his journey was over, he trudged merrily southward, his last day's food his only baggage besides the precious book.

As sunset overtook him, he crested a rise and looked down into a quiet, shadowy valley, where felled and stunted trees littered a gray basin in the midst of the plains. To Vincus's city eyes, it seemed like the area had been touched by fire or high wind in a distant time; the dried boles of trees, already crusted with sand and salt and a shimmering opales-cence, were a pleasant change from the grasslands' monotony.

Vincus lay down amid the sheared remains of a vallenwood grove. Branches of elm and willow lit shy;tered his campsite, and he gathered some of them to build a small fire in the twilight.

He would travel by night from now on, he decided. It was easier, he had seen, to steer by the stars and to avoid discovery.

With a smile of contentment, he rested his head against the blackened trunk of a willow. All of a sud shy;den he was weary, and his thoughts strayed over the road behind him and back to the city.

What was it called?

Istar. That was it.

For a moment it seemed to Vincus that something was not right, that he should have remembered the name quickly, more easily. But his mind drifted from this brief, pointless worry, and he began to drowse.

It seemed as though the collar was back around his neck.

Vincus stirred uneasily.

The collar tightened, and tightened again, and the young man sprang into wakefulness.

The dead branches of the willow had closed around his neck, gripping, clutching, and strangling.

A rare carnivorous plant, the black willow masked itself as log or tree and preyed on hapless creatures it lulled to sleep beneath its spreading, branchlike ten shy;tacles.

A child of the city, Vincus had never seen such a monster, and when the willow grabbed him, he struggled vainly against its grip and his own grow shy;ing drowsiness. The plant seemed to sing to him, an eerie and menacing lullaby, and despite his fright, the young man found himself listening.

No. From his robe he drew half of his silver collar, a ragged crescent that glittered in the moonlight. Desperately, his strength and senses failing, Vincus sawed at the largest branch with the sharp metal edge until black sap, sticky and cold like the blood of a reptile, dripped over the tendril and onto his chest.

The willow let out a shrill, hissing scream and, for a brief moment, released him. But a moment was all Vincus needed. He rolled away from the monster, snapping two thinner branches that remained around his shoulder. Springing clear of the grove, he crouched in the dry grass for a moment and gath shy;ered his breath, rubbing the long, fresh lashes on his arm where the pliant wood had whipped and cut him.

He had seen everything now, he thought.

The country itself could kill you.

Forewarned and wary, he slipped the silver cres shy;cent-an excellent weapon, he had discovered- back into his robe. He would make good on his plans tonight, traveling sleepless by moonlight. Surely he would be safe as the desert slept.