"Where are you going?"

"To read more of the journal. Virgenya Dare found this place. She walked the faneway I'm supposed to walk. Let's see what she has to say about it."

SLAVES HAVE SECRETS, AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM, THIS CIPHER. WILL AND I INVENTED IT TO WRITE EACH OTHER. WILL'S MASTER MAKES LEAD TISSUE, AND SO HE FINDS IT IN PLENTY.

WILL'S MASTER BROUGHT HIM HERE WHEN I WAS TWELVE, BY MY FATHER'S RECKONING. THEY PUT US IN A ROOM TOGETHER, AND WE KNEW WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO. THE MASTERS WERE WATCHING, BUT THEY COULDN'T HEAR WHEN WILL WHISPERED AND TOLD ME IT WOULD BE OKAY. HE WHISPERED A LOT ABOUT HOW OUR FATHERS KNEW EACH OTHER, ABOUT WHERE HE LIVED. IT HELPED ME FORGET WHAT WAS GOING ON AND HOW SCARED I WAS. AFTER THAT I WASN'T SCARED. I LOOKED FORWARD TO OUR WHISPERED CONVERSATIONS. IT WAS LIKE MY BODY WASN'T THERE AT ALL. WILL STARTED TEACHING ME THE SECRET LANGUAGE THE SLAVES IN HIS FORTRESS HAVE, AND I MADE UP THESE LETTERS FOR IT. WE PASS EACH OTHER NOTES WHEN WE MEET. I'LL SEE HIM AGAIN NEXT WHEN THE MOON IS FULL.

I DIDN'T BLEED THIS MONTH, AND WILL DIDN'T COME. THE MASTER SAYS I WILL HAVE A YOUNGLING. THE HOUSE SLAVES TELL ME THAT A LOT OF WOMEN DIE WHEN THEY DO THAT. I DON'T WANT TO DIE, BUT I AM OFTEN SICK. MY FATHER SAID WE ESCAPE THE MASTER WHEN WE DIE. I WONDER IF THAT IS TRUE.

I HAVE SEEN WILL AGAIN. THEY RACED HIM, WITH FIFTY OTHERS. THEY DROVE THEM WITH CHARIOTS, AND IF ANY FELL, THEY CUT THEM TO PIECES. WILL RAN HARD; THEY DIDN'T CATCH HIM. MY MASTER KEPT ME CHAINED AT THE FRONT OF HIS FLYING BARGE, SO I WOULD HAVE TO WATCH HIM, BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO LOOK AWAY. TWO DAYS THEY RAN, WITHOUT SLEEPING OR EATING. BY THE END OF THE SECOND DAY, ONLY THREE WERE LEFT, AND ONE OF THEM WAS WILL. I WAS SO PROUD OF HIM. I WAS PROUD TO HAVE HIS DAUGHTER IN MY BELLY.

SIX MOONS HAVE WAXED AND WANED. MY BELLY IS LARGE, AND THE MASTER HAS TAKEN ME TO THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS FOR THE REST OF MY PREGNANCY. IT IS A HABIT FROM THE OLD DAYS, WHEN MASTERS COULD HAVE CHILDREN. I HAD NOT SEEN MOUNTAINS BEFORE, AND I LOVE THEM. THEY MAKE ME THINK STRANGE, LOVELY THOUGHTS. AND THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE FORTRESS, OR DEEP BELOW IT, SOMETHING THAT MAKES MY BELLY TINGLE AND SOMETIMES SETS MY TEETH ON EDGE.

I HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT. I DREAMED I WAS A MOUNTAIN, AND MY FEET PULLED LOOSE OF THE EARTH, AND I WALKED, CRUSHING EVERYTHING BENEATH ME. I CRUSHED THE MASTER. WHEN I WOKE, I WAS FRIGHTENED HE WOULD FIND OUT AND PUNISH ME, BUT HE DIDN'T. I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE COULD SEE MY DREAMS. HE HAS TOLD ME WHAT I DREAMED BEFORE. BUT THIS DREAM WAS DIFFERENT. I THINK SOMEHOW THE MOUNTAINS HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW TO DREAM IN SECRET. THAT WOULD BE NICE.

IT HURT, JUST AS THEY SAID IT WOULD. IT HURT SO MUCH, I ALREADY CAN'T IMAGINE THE PAIN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD, A LOT OF IT. EVERYTHING WENT DARK, AND I THOUGHT I HAD DIED AND WAS IN A STRANGE PLACE. THERE WERE TWO RIVERS THERE, A BRIGHT BLUE-GREEN STREAM AND A BLACK ONE. I STOOD WITH A FOOT IN EACH, AND I WAS TALL, LIKE A MOUNTAIN. I WAS TERRIBLE.

THEN I WOKE, AND THERE WAS MY DAUGHTER, AND I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT MY FATHER MEANT BY THE WORD "LOVE."

I WON'T WRITE WHAT THEY DID. I WILL NOT. IT IS DONE. But I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill all of them.

Stephen gasped and pulled his fingers away as the lead scrift was suddenly too hot to touch. The purest hatred he had ever felt scalded through him, so uncontainable in its fury that he found himself shrieking. And as that awful rage trembled through him, he turned and caught a motion from the verge of his eye. He spun to find a boiling, kinetic darkness like black oil poured in water and almost a shape. Then his gaze rejected it and turned his head away, and when he was able to look again, it was gone.

The anger burned away as quickly as it had come, replaced by shivering fear. He sat, quaking, for long moments, his brain refusing to tell him what to do. Where was the thing? Was it still here, perhaps a fingers-breadth from him, hiding in the air itself, waiting to strike?

You don't have to be afraid, a voice whispered. You never have to be afraid again.

"Shut up," Stephen muttered, rubbing his shaking hands together.

It took a long time for him to manage to stand, and when he did, his body felt light enough to blow away on the wind.

He flipped through the journal until he found what he was looking for.

A little later he heard a slight scuffing and saw that Zemle was watching him from the stairwell.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He closed his eyes. "Enough," he said. "Enough."

"What?"

"Call Adhrekh. I'll start walking the faneway. Tonight."

ASPAR SHIFTED his grip on the knife a bit and licked his dry lips. He'd heard-or thought he'd heard-something coming through the dense bottomland forest, but now all he could make out was the rushing of the stream and the scraping of branches in low wind.

But then, behind him, he caught the faintest hiss of fabric on wood and whipped around to face whatever it was.

He found himself staring down an arrow shaft at Leshya's violet eyes.

"Sceat," he muttered, sagging against the rough, twisty bark of a willow.

"I took the longer way down," she explained.

"Yah."

She glanced at the corpse of the utin. "You're still alive," she said.

"Yah."

"I've lived a long time, Aspar White, and been almost everywhere. But you, my friend, are unique." She shook her head. "Any open wounds need stopping? Broken bones?"

"I don't think so."

"I noticed a rock shelter not far from here. Let's go there and take a look."

He nodded wearily.

He winced as her fingers prodded the tissue of his leg, but actually it almost felt good, like sore muscles after a hard hike.

"Well, you didn't break it again," she said.

"Well, Grim must love me, then," he said.

"If he loves anyone, I'd say so," she replied. "Now let's have your shirt off."

He didn't feel like he was capable of doing much more than raising his arms, but she shucked it off with a few sharp tugs. He felt a jagged pain in his side.

"Need a bath," she said.

"Sefry bathe too much," he replied. "Unhealthy habit."

"But we smell good," she said.

In fact, she smelled of sweat and leather, and it did smell good.

"Ah, there's a home for gangrene," she said.

Aspar looked down and saw a ragged but not particularly deep cut on his ribs. Blood had glued his jerkin to the wound, which was what he'd felt when she had dishabilled him.

He took deep breaths and tried to stay relaxed as she cleaned out the gash with water and then pressed some sort of unguent from her haversack into the cut.

"You saved my life," she said, her voice sounding oddly soft.

"Yah. You've saved mine a time or two."

"You're important, Aspar. You're worth saving."

Without thinking, he caught her hand. "You're worth saving, too," he said.

Her startled gaze met his and settled there, and he felt a sort of jolt, and in an instant he was gazing into the deepest forest in the world, more impossible to enter than the Sarnwood, even less possible to leave. He felt beaten, and happy to be beaten, happy to finally go home.

He saw the path in for perhaps ten heartbeats, and then the trees closed ranks. She pulled her hand away, and he knew that if she had just squeezed his fingers, he would have acted foolishly.

Sceat, he thought. At a time like this he was thinking about women? Two of them? Was he seventeen?

"I don't think we have all that long," Aspar said. "The utin said Fend sent him. If Fend is leading that motley up above-"