Rogala remained in his thoughts. What had become of Theis? He no longer had that feeling of being followed from a distance.

If he wanted to reach the Library, he had to start thinking like the dwarf. Eschew mercy. Make the goal everything. Don't let anything else matter. Be willing to sacrifice anyone and anything...

. His stomach knotted. His thoughts disgusted him.

Near midnight they came upon a manor. Gathrid found himself feeling an inexplicable homesickness.

Ah. Some of his souls belonged to men who had begun their lives here. Their emotions were bubbling. He drew their memories to his forebrain.

Using their knowledge, he traveled westward till he reached a manor famous for the horses it bred.

He stole two. He rode away wondering how soon their loss would be noted, and if it would be connected with him.

After a time he turned northward again. He planned to make a grand swing, west and north, around Dedera. That should be less predictable than his former, more direct route.

Fate, luck or the masking hand of Suchara herself, served him well. Even by day no one challenged his party, though they passed manor after manor and hundreds of people glanced at them incuriously.

He pushed hard all day. Loida became too tired to complain. Late in the afternoon he started following roads tending eastward again. By dusk he and Loida were directly north of Dedera. The peaks of the Chromogas looked like bloody teeth in a horizon-spanning jaw as the setting sun illuminated their snowy peaks. Gathrid kept pushing.

Then a Toal appeared on their backtrail.

Whence it came Gathrid had no idea. He glanced back and there it was, gleaming black astride its black stallion, keeping a respectful distance. It had not been there minutes earlier. He thought it was the one he had dueled near the Bilgoraji border. It had the same feel, and the lance it bore blazed against the gathering darkness.

Attack seemed far from its mind.

"Oh, it won't," Gacioch grumbled. "It's just here to keep an eye on the Sword."

"I'll still end up fighting it." Gathrid shuddered. He did not want another of those dread entities drifting along behind the corners of his vision. Would they squabble over him like jackals over a carcass? "Loida can't go much farther."

He expected a Rogala-like suggestion that the girl be ditched. Gacioch disappointed him. "Then stop and let her rest. He isn't going to bother you. In fact, he'll make sure nobody else does."

"What?"

Gacioch's great failing, as he himself confessed, was that he talked too much. "He has orders to make sure the Sword doesn't get snatched by the wrong people. He can't do anything but follow orders."

"How do you know?"

Gacioch sniggered. "You'll just have to take my word."

Gathrid took the chance. It was not as much a matter of trusting Gacioch as of doing what had to be done. He abandoned the road for a woodlot. In minutes Loida was snuggling against him for warmth. The tireless Toal took a sentry post a hundred yards away. Gathrid tried hard to remain awake, but sleep quickly took him. He had a dreamless night. His haunt may have been communing with its fellow.

He was surprised to waken unharmed and still his own creature, with the Sword still in his possession. Or vice versa.

The Toal stood statue-still, stone-patient. Its eyes remained fixed on the road. Gacioch's hints about someone other than the Mindak wanting to lay hands on the Sword began to make sense. Gathrid got a feel of the shape of it from his haunt.

All was not right in Ventimiglia. Nevenka Nieroda and the Dead Captains were out of control. They were acting behind the Mindak's back, and not in his interest. It looked like they wanted to keep Daubendiek away from Ahlert.

Why?

His Toal-haunt projected that infuriating mirth.

"Gacioch." He was unsure whether or not demons slept. Gacioch put on a good show of waking grouchiness.

"What?"

"What's going on out west?"

"Folks are sleeping. It's night out there. They'd be sleeping here, if certain people didn't ..."

"In the war, I mean."

Gacioch had no shoulders to shrug, but gave a definite impression of having done so. "Not much.

Ahlert is bogged down. Involved in a war of attrition."

Gathrid recalled Rogala's assessment of the Mindak's generalship. "A master warlock but an indifferent captain?" he suggested.

"In a nutshell."

It became more clear. "And the troops are getting restless?"

Gacioch would say no more. Gathrid suspected he had hit the mark. So. The politics of disunity had reached the enemy camp. Ventimiglia was not a monolith anymore.

Nieroda had to be the focus. Dissension is a contagious disease, he thought. He would have to redouble his vigilance. Two factions would be after the Sword. Neither would care what became of Gathrid of Kacalief.

Maybe he could use them... .

The important goal remained the Library. In fact, reaching it now seemed absolutely essential. Was that an intuition? Might it be a subliminal instruction from Su-chara?

He wakened Loida. "Time to go, girl."

She glanced round, spied the Toal. "It's still here."

"It's still here. I'm afraid it'll be with us for a while."

Breakfast was quick and cold. The horses were lacking in a properly enthusiastic attitude. Gacioch talked at length when Gathrid questioned him, but had nothing concrete to say. It was not an auspicious beginning for the day.

"Let's go, Loida. We've got a long way to go." The map in his mind was daunting, though his shared souls assured him the journey was easier than it looked.

Gathrid set a hard pace once more. Not only did he want to reach the Library before the Ventimiglians thought to seal it off, he wanted to get there before Nieroda appeared. He suspected restraint on the part of the Toal reflected its expectation of the controlling spirit's imminent arrival.

They entered the foothills of the Chromogas shortly before noon. They started collecting new followers there. These soon formed a veritable parade. Gathrid drove the horses harder.

A flying thing appeared. It circled high overhead. It did not resemble the dragon thing Nieroda had ridden in Gudermuth. Who bestrode it Gathrid could not tell. It did carry a rider, he believed.

The Toal remained a fixed two hundred yards behind him, changing its pace when he did. The Ventimiglians stayed that far behind it. Gathrid wondered where their loyalties lay.

By now, he thought, there could be no doubt of his destination. This was the wildest country he had seen since leaving the Nirgenaus, though even here there were manors. They perched atop the terraced hills. He searched his encyclopedia of memories. The Library was the only thing on the map of his mind. They could not think he was bound anywhere else... .

They were letting him go where he wanted, then. To their purpose. They wanted him at the Library.

Was he doing Nieroda's work? Was he killing these animals and punishing himself and Loida for nothing?

Logic battled emotions long keyed to danger. Once again he wished Rogala could advise him. "Take a chance," he said aloud. He had played hunches before. He slowed to a walk.

The procession did the same. No one made a threatening move, though the Toal did station itself closer.

People were watching from the hillside farms. The peasants were not working today. They were lined up as if to observe the passage of a parade. When he appeared, some retreated. Some fled toward places of hiding.

He experienced that feeling of power which heretofore had come only with the drawing of the Sword.

Then he came to the Library, sooner than he expected. And found the answers to several riddles.

Why his progress had not been interrupted. Why the serfs were on holiday.

The Mindak Ahlert was there waiting for him.