At last the Plain gave out. A great rift cleft the land as though the whole earth had pulled asunder. A steep slope led down to a flatter, nearly barren expanse, its soil a pale, poor alkaline color. Rounded hills and worn mesas surfaced here and there, slopes striated, alternating bands of soot and light. A chafing breeze blew, smelling of salt and dust. Below, Jan saw only patches of dying grass and leafless thornbriars.

“Behold, my son,” the star-strewn seer told him, “the Salt Waste. According to my dreams, ’twas here my folk put the dark destroyer to flight. Legends say that this was once a vast, shallow sea. Some claim seashells and the bones of great fishes can still be found here. I do not know. I have never ventured this place, nor have I any wish. My people call this a realm of haunts, where those who can find no peace withdraw to die.”

Jan stared in dismay at the vast wasteland before him, into which his mad king had fled. “How am I to find him?” he murmured. “What hope have I now?”

Calydor turned to him. “See you those mountains far, far to the east?”

The young prince peered through the wavering salt haze, barely discerned a jagged mountain range, white crags nearly fading into the paleness of dusty sky. It hovered before him, almost a dream, resembled a line of great, ridged lizards lying at rest. He nodded.

“See you where the two highest peaks pierce the sky, and the gap plunging between?”

Again, the young prince nodded. “Aye.”

“My visions promise that if you keep them ever before you as you go,” Calydor told him, “you will catch this dark other whom you seek long before you reach the peaks.”

Almost fearing to ask, Jan breathed, “Will I succeed? Will I wrest from Korr the secret that drives him mad?”

The seer’s look turned inward. “Yes, my son,” he answered softly. “You will see his madness end—but may wonder after if the news you learn be worth the cost.”

Gazing off toward the distant mountains, Jan scarcely heard the last of what his companion said. They were not real, he knew, these summits: merely an illusion that floated at the limit of his vision. The true peaks lay beyond horizon’s rim, hidden by the curve of the world. This far-off range existed much farther away even than it seemed. Jan gritted his teeth, determined to start at once.

“Little that is edible grows upon the Salt Waste,” Calydor was saying. “When you need sustenance, dash open one of the fleshy prickle-plants and take care to avoid the spines. The inside is succulent and sweet.”

Jan nodded absently, storing the other’s words, his thoughts fixed upon the far horizon still. He came to himself a moment later with a start and turned.

“I can never repay your aid and kindness, Calydor.”

The blue-and-silver stallion tossed his head. “It was little enough. Until next we meet, my son, I bid you in Álm’harat’s name, love wisely and well.”

Jan felt a great sadness stab his breast, could not say whence it came. He felt desolate suddenly, as though parting from a lifelong friend. The seer seemed similarly stricken. Jan bowed low to one knee after the fashion of the Plain. The older stallion did the same. Looking one last time into the indigo darkness of the other’s coat, the dance of stars that wound across, it almost seemed to Jan that he could see himself lost upon that path of stars. The young prince blinked. The illusion broke.

“Fare well,” Jan bade him. “May we meet again.”

He turned and began his descent down the soft, crumbling slope to the Salt Waste below.

Jan traveled across the barren waste, threading his way through banded hills. His last glimpse of Calydor had come hours earlier. Atop the slope where the Plain began, the other had reared up, whistling a long wild cry of farewell. Halting, Jan had done the same. He had not looked back again, faring on toward the gap in the far mountains, but he sensed the stallion of the summer stars watching him out of sight.

The Salt Waste stretched on and on, its monotony numbing. His eyes reddened, ears filled with blown dust, coat caked with it. Whenever he felt his throat parching and empty belly grinding, he dashed open the nearest spiny plant to taste its sour flesh. Eventually he discovered that outcroppings of what he had mistaken for pebbles were actually plants, their waxy, grey-green surfaces concealing a sweet, juicy pulp. Whenever he found these, Jan ate greedily.

Three days he trekked, sleeping only briefly. Little sting-tailed insects crept out at night. Other animals, too, apparently inhabited this desolate place. Diminutive lizard tracks scampered away over the alkaline dust. Slithering trails of serpents or worms snaked through the sand. Once he came across delicate traces of some sort of minute pig or deer. The little creatures had been feeding on wax-rinds. Their tracks fled northward, the paw prints of some predator, equally tiny, pursuing. The young prince doubted a creature his own size could long survive here.

When, on the fourth day, he encountered Korr’s tracks, he nearly stumbled on past, so mesmerized had he become. The wind had fallen the night before, leaving the traces of the night creatures intact. Haze hung in the air. Jan came across a line of cloven-hoofed impressions leading east. He stopped. The imprints were large, unmistakably the king’s. They staggered, sometimes curving in great circles, their maker moving little faster than a shamble.

Heart quickening, the young prince started to trot. Crumbling mounds obscured his vision. The dream of white-maned mountains floated coolly before him on horizon’s edge. He found where Korr had paused to feed, tearing at thorns. He passed a spot where the king had rested, disturbing the sand beneath the scant shade of a spindly tree. Eagerly, Jan pressed on. Morning hours crept away. The sun was a fever-blaze dead overhead. He cast no shadow. The tracks wove through a meandering maze of mesas and hills.

Abruptly, his ears pricked. He heard slow hoofbeats ahead, much muffled by dust. Jan broke into a lope. He rounded a hill-mound, another. The tracks snaked on through the maze. In the stillness, the thud of his hooves, his own breathing, sounded impossibly loud. He rounded more curves. Suddenly the hoofbeats ahead of him faltered. A shrill whistle of surprise reached him, then the hard, random thumps of a warrior leaping and shying.

Jan’s heart kicked against his ribs. He bolted into a run. The shrills ahead of him continued, more peals of fury now than alarm. Whistling his own warcry, the dark prince skidded around an embankment to see emaciated Korr, rearing and plunging at a thing that writhed and whipped on the ground before him. Sand flew. Fine dust floated, a smoky curtain on the air. Jan caught a glimpse of long coils pale as salt. Korr charged it. Turning, it massed itself, hood flattened, fangs bared and ready to strike.

“No!” the prince of the Vale shouted. He dashed to interpose himself between the serpent and the king. The hissing creature lunged. The mad king struck at it. “Run,” Jan cried. “It’s poison!”

Again the viper lashed. The young prince felt its fangs click and slide against his horn as he swept it back. Seething, it gathered itself. Jan gauged himself at the edge of the serpent’s range. Korr behind him stood safe.

“Wyrm!” the mad lung raved. “Would you impede me?”

Without warning, he plunged past the younger stallion and rushed at the serpent again. Jan leapt after with a cry, threw one shoulder against him. Korr shook him off with a whinny of rage. Black hooves and pale sand flew. Jan saw the viper strike. The dark king ramped and dodged.

“Stop!” Jan exclaimed, colliding with him again. “You’ve no proof against its sting. Let me!”