Malivur set down the alanthe decanter, raised his refilled goblet, and smiled a trifle ruefully. "Then here's to obscurity."

The thief smiled, raised an imaginary goblet in salute, and replied, "Here's to fewer angry outbursts, seller-of-spices, for silence may help to win us obscurity. I don't want to crow with triumph. I want to have spellfire in my hand like a dagger in the night and slay my foes before they know my stroke is coming, or that I am nigh, or even what slew them."

"That's the way of thieves," the Cult mage replied, "not wizards."

Krostal nodded. "Beyond that handful of 'big folk,'" he asked lightly, "how many old, powerful wizards do you know?"

"No, I want both of ye," the caravan master said sourly, snatching a look back over his shoulder to make sure Onthur was keeping the weaver out of earshot. "There could be walking skeletons or clawing-at-us corpses or even helmed horrors under that floor-and yon bastard get of a serpent would stand there smiling at me while his little surprises tore my men apart!"

"Cheery image," Shandril commented wryly. "Lead on."

Orthil Voldovan gave her a suspicious look and then rounded on Narm. "Well? And ye?"

"Where she goes, I go," Narm said quietly. "We told you that."

"Hmmph, yes. Come on, then!"

It was only a few hurrying strides to the wagon, but the eyes of the entire caravan seemed to be on the small knot of guards trotting along with the weaver. Voldovan seemed not to see the audience, but Beldimarr and two other guards smoothly stepped aside to take up positions around the wagon, facing out to keep the curious at a distance, while everyone else boiled up into the wagon with loaded bowguns, and herded Sabran down to join the indignantly sputtering Mhegras.

"I-I-protest in the strongest possible term-" he began, but the caravan master drowned him out.

"Ye'd dealt with me more honestly, ye two, I'd be politeness itself to ye, but 'tis a bit late for protests now. If ye'd like this to take as little time as possible and win for yerselves the best treatment I can find in myself to give ye, kindly reveal the swiftest and least damaging way to take up this floor-or I just might be inclined to use axes and make my own haste!"

"That won't be necessary, Roadmaster," Sabran said calmly. "If you light two lanterns and take up these two boards here, you'll find cross-spars. Pull them along, and you'll release a section of flooring from here to here that lifts in one piece."

"Why don't we aim our bowguns at the two of ye-while ye do it?"

"Certainly, if you'll help us with these coffers…"

The coffers were lifted aside, and hard-eyed guards crowded close to watch the merchants narrowly as the section of floor was freed and lifted aside-to reveal oiled cloth sacking sewn around large, thin somethings.

"Stand back now," Voldovan ordered, and then waved two of his men wordlessly forward. The guards probed the bundles with their daggers, cautiously lifted one bundle with the words, "Feels like armor plate," and slit its stitches, only to draw out-a blued, curving sheet of armor plate.

"Looks like barding," the caravan master said slowly, and then raised his gaze to meet that of Sabran. "Well?"

"Peytrals-twenty-two identical plates."

"What are peytrals?" Narm muttered. Shandril chose that moment to look at the two merchants and discovered both of them staring at her restlessly, almost quivering with-fear? Anticipation? Eagerness to do something?

"Horsebreast armor, lad," Voldovan said absently, watching one of his men bend down with a lantern and peer into the hole, seeking to see what was under the rest of the false floor.

"Looks to be all the same stuff, Master," the guard called, after long moments of twisting and peering.

"Any enchantments on them?" Orthil asked the weaver, who shook his head. Voldovan turned without pause to Narm and asked, "Is he telling the truth?"

Narm swallowed, doffed his helm, and handed it to- Voldovan, who snatched it with a curt shake of his head as Narm was handing it to Shandril. The caravan master gestured to her to keep aside from Narm and watch the two merchants. She nodded and did as she was bid.

The young mage frowned, raised his hands, and cast a careful detection spell Jhessail had taught him, a variant of the common magic that could see linked castings and layers of magic… even where one had been cast to conceal another.

The furrier-Mhegras of Esmeltaran-seemed to sneer slightly at Narm's spellweaving. Shandril regarded him thoughtfully; a mage, perhaps?

"N-no," Narm said slowly. "No magic on any of the goods here, that I can see." He raised his head and gave Mhegras an apparently casual glance that made the Master-of-Furs stiffen as if he'd been insulted, then turned to Voldovan and shook his head. "Nothing,"

Without pause or change of expression the caravan master asked Sabran, "The new arms tax?"

The weaver nodded, and Voldovan waved at his men to restore the floor and the coffers. "Make ready to roll in all haste," he snapped. He strode to the wagon-flaps and there turned to glare at the two merchants, adding, "A word of advice: keep no secrets from any roadmaster. 'Tis a good way to get yerselves left behind in the wilderness without yer wagons and wealth, left to walk to the next town-if the wolves let ye."

Collecting Narm and Shandril with a jerk of his head, he went out. In a few grunting moments, the guards finished heaving and stowing, and followed. From outside the wagon came shouted orders, the crack of drovers' whips, and the rumblings of wagon wheels reluctantly gathering speed.

Sabran and Mhegras eyed each other coldly, then said, more or less at the same moment, "Well? Why didn't you strike at them?"

Narm and Shandril had been standing only paces away in the confined space of their wagon, with no barrier nor body between to stop magic from cutting them down-and neither weaver nor furrier had lifted a finger. The two younglings had departed unscathed.

"Now was not the right time for anything but slaying," Sabran said coldly, "and whilst a possibility of capture remains, we must strive for that greater goal."

"You were afraid," Mhegras sneered. "Capture, my left rump-cheek!"

"Oh, say you so?" the priest of Bane replied cuttingly, extending his calm and steady hand. "Just whose fingers are trembling, wildtongue?"

Mhegras stared down at his own hand… and discovered, to his horror, that it was anything but steady. Rage rose in him like fast-kindled flame but died when he lifted his furious gaze and met Sabran's cold and waiting eyes. A faint glow of already risen magic was dancing in the priest's palm.

The wagons were thundering along at a speed that set them rocking and bouncing at every rut and pothole on the road-and there were a lot of ruts and potholes on the Trade Way. Narbuth's arms grew so numbed that Narm and Shandril took turns relieving him as the ready-wagon crashed and rattled on, rocks and trees racing by at breakneck speed.

"The horses won't be able to manage this for much longer!" Narm shouted in Shandril's ear, as the wagon rushed down into a little rivulet that ran across the road, reins and harness momentarily curling and whipping about crazily. The wheels slipped and slid, the horses dug in, and the harness stretched singing-tight as the four snorting beasts hauled on up the next slope.

"Tell Voldovan that, not me!" Shan cried back, as they crested a ridge and saw a dozen more ridges beyond, the ribbon of road climbing over each in succession. A distant dust cloud told of travelers-probably wagons-coming south, but the Way had largely been theirs alone thus far this day. This was not a good sign, Narm and Shandril had gathered, from the expressions and muttered comments of the veteran guards and merchants.

As the view stretched out before them and the wagon started to gain speed in what was sure to become a breakneck plunge down the ridgeside, an even less auspicious sign made itself apparent: long, dark crossbow quarrels-the heavy war-bolts that could take down horses as readily as men-snarled and hummed out of the greenery on both sides of the road. Narm took Shandril by the shoulders and flung her through the top-flap, back into the wagon, cursing as a quarrel sliced through his leathers, laying his back bare.