Many months ago, at Vaananen's insistence, Vin-cus had scanned a map of the plains. Meticulously, the druid had moved the small meditative stones in the rena garden-red Lunitari representing the mountains, white Solinari the plains beyond. Slowly, precisely, Vaananen had traced the safest route with his finger, and then, standing over Vincus, had urged the young man to mind it all.

Now, Vincus wished he had minded more closely. Was the army southwest of the city, or had Vaananen said go south-southwest? Was the camp five miles from the desert's edge or six miles?

He could not remember.

Vincus scrambled to a little rise, a high point in the featureless landscape. Prairie stretched all about him, endlessly and shapelessly, the warm wind rustling and rattling through the dry grass. Even from this vantage he saw nothing but plains.

Unless it was the floating shadow on the farthest southwest horizon-a cloud, perhaps, or a mirage, but at least something amid the sea of grass. Vincus shielded his eyes and stared long and hard, but he could see nothing more than the shifting, formless gray.

When the night came, it was cloudy. Solinari and Lunitari darted in and out of the clouds, the only luminaries in a slate-gray sky.

Vincus knew that the tail of the constellation Sargonnas "was his guiding star, that it would point him due into the heart of the desert. But glimpsed fitfully in the early hours of the morning, the constellations seemed different, almost alien. Vaananen's neatly plotted drawings of the heavenly maps were gone now, and in their place was a chaos of faint and wavering light.

The morning's red sky restored the east, and Vin-cus found that he had turned in the night, had wan shy;dered due west on the indefinite plains. His hands flickering a mild oath, he sat down on a small cluster of rocks and, chin cupped despondently in his hands, watched the horizon shimmer and recede as another day of uncertainty began.

He felt famished. He breakfasted on the provi shy;sions he had brought from Istar, and the grimness of his situation dawned on him.

Soon he would have to forage for his food, for meat and roots and water in this inhospitable coun shy;try. Armed only with a dagger and a schoolboy's knowledge of edible plants, he faced even greater hunger in the days to come.

That is, unless the Istarians caught him.

Vincus drew his new dagger slowly, scratching idle designs on the dry earth. Istar and slavery almost seemed better now. A sudden anger at Vaana-nen fluttered briefly through his thoughts-at that druid with his intrigues and fond ideas.

Fordus, indeed! Vaananen had conjured the rebels out of sand and stone. They were no more real than…

Than Vincus's freedom.

He looked down at his feet. Absently, numbly, he had sketched Vaananen's five glyphs on the hard, grassy ground.

No. He had come this far.

It was then that the hawk shrieked overhead, and Vincus looked up.

Lucas had been circling for an hour, aloft on the morning thermals. His red feathers glowed in the sunrise, and his angular wings tilted smoothly as he circled.

His mistress had loosed him to forage and scout in the early hours, whispering a song of return in his ear. Over the plateau he had arced, then east over the Tears of Mishakal, gliding swiftly in a low flight before gaining altitude and sailing into the grass shy;lands, where the hunting was good and the Istarian army ranged uneasily.

The solitary man seated in the midst of the grass shy;lands was something new. For a while Lucas watched him curiously.

Not enemy. Not a soldier.

When the man took a small scrap of meat from his pocket, Lucas noticed immediately.

Noticed as well the jagged pieces of silver in his hand as they caught the sunlight.

It was something more than instinct that made the bird circle and call, made him skim the high grass and pass not five yards from the seated man, his hooked wings banking gracefully as he rose again, turning and returning, circling and calling, through all of his actions urging the man to follow.

Once in his motioning, the bird had swooped near enough for Vincus to hear the bells on its jesses. Vincus stood and followed.

The bird had surprised him with its circling and cries. South and north it sailed, south and north, shrieking as though in signal and warning.

Vincus had laughed at the thought. Too long in the wilderness, he told himself, when a bird becomes your messenger.

And yet the bird would know where to find water and game.

For a morning he followed, the hawk never lost from his sight. Turning and returning, its circles nar shy;rowing, the bird seemed attentive, almost protective. Far to the west a column of smoke hovered on the horizon-the gray shadow that Vincus had seen the day before, now obviously no mirage, but the watch-fires surrounding an armed encampment.

Istarians. Had he been slightly wiser, and hadn't needed to follow the hawk, he might have walked right into their camp. Vincus shuddered to think what might have happened.

He quickened his step, searching the sky for the hawk that had become his omen and guide.

Seated on his horse, shielding his eyes against the sunset, the sergeant watched the man trudge out of the foothills and onto the dry, waving margins of the grasslands.

A solitary wanderer. On foot.

The sergeant nodded to his three companions- troopers, skilled swordsmen, and even more skillful riders. Dressed in the light brown cotton robes and red kaffiyeh of the Istarian desert fighters, mounted on roan horses, they blended with the brown land shy;scape until, with the blinding sun around them, they were almost invisible-mirage warriors on the high ridge.

In tight formation, the four cavalrymen descended from the high ground toward the trespasser, their horses breasting the tall brown grass in long surges, overtaking him quickly when the grass gave way to rocky flatland.

The war horses' hooves clattered over the ground, kicking up stones and dust. Nearly engulfed, the traveler turned, raised his hands, began an elaborate series of gestures and signals.

Mage! the sergeant's instincts cried. Somatic prepa shy;rations! Since the strange death of his lieutenant- the one dissolved by the spells of a dark enchanter-a month ago, he was wary of encounters with solitary men in the desert.

With the quick reflexes practiced over a dozen years of horse-soldiering, the sergeant leaned back in the saddle, reined his horse to a skidding halt. One of the troopers, a young man named Parcus, weaved and nearly fell as he fumbled to draw forth his short bow.

"Move your hands no more, sir!" the sergeant shouted. "Upon your life, be still!"

Abruptly, the fellow buried his hands in the folds of his tunic. Two of the troopers dismounted and approached him.

Parcus stared at the trespasser over the shaft of a nocked arrow.

Vincus clenched his fists hard in his tunic as the Istarian troopers drew near, tightening his grip on the silver crescents hidden in his robes.

The plains were no city street. Here were no shad shy;ows, no alleys, no dark thresholds. Here in flat bare country and relentless sunlight, there was no place to hide.

He had begun to pray at the sound of hoofbeats, praying ceaselessly until the bowman menaced and the sergeant shouted his warning.

They would find the broken collar. They would….

"Who are you?" the sergeant asked coldly, stand shy;ing up in the saddle.

Vincus did not, could not answer. His great golden eyes never blinked.

"Bring him to me, Crotalus," the sergeant ordered.

The trooper dismounted and seized Vincus roughly by the shoulders.

Aloft in a swirl of wind, his sharp eye scanning the edge of the desert, Lucas saw the riders sur shy;round the man. Saw them dismount, approach him, and drag him toward the horses.