Watching her trot out of sight, the tomttu shook his head. Ah, if only my wishes did have force, he thought. But if it's Tomm followin' you, it's little chance you have.

She camped that night by a spring, and healed her new stone bruises. Her feet were toughening. At daybreak she awoke, and soon after sunup called a dove down, and ate it. Raw doves had become her staple food. Near midday she reached the head of the pass, a rugged cleft in the highest ridge she'd come to. There, though the stones were harsh, she climbed to a ledge to see what she could see. The ridges northward were progressively lower. Beyond them, at the edge of vision, the land looked level, and not dark enough to be forest.

As she looked, she heard cawing, saw crows flying southward, and scrambled to hide as best she could beneath a dogberry bush, enduring its sharp spines for the concealment it gave her. When the crows had passed out of hearing, she climbed down into the notch again and trotted on.

Hungering, she spelled another dove to her, and shortly heard water rattling over rocks. Not long after that she came to a brook, and followed it near enough to keep the sound in her ears.

Her way led almost continuously downhill, and often she trotted. It seemed to her that two more days would bring her to populated country again.

That night she dreamed of Curtis. She'd found him, but he refused to believe it was her. "My Varia is young," he said, "and has beautiful long red hair. Yours is short and gray."

She raised her hands to her face and felt wrinkles, then remembered. Tomm had caught her, and she'd spent five barren brutal years in the Tiger barracks before Sarkia cast her out, broken and aged. She awoke with a cry, and saw dawnlight. And on an old blowdown near her feet, a man, lean and hard.

"Good morning, Sister Varia," he said quietly. "You've been traveling hard. I thought you should finish your sleep."

She raised to an elbow, staring at him, willing that this was still the dream. After a minute he got to his feet. "You're probably hungry for something more than the doves whose bones and skins you've left along the way." Stepping over to her, he reached down for her hand. She shrank from him.

"Come Sister. I'm not a Tiger. I won't harm you."

Her answer was hardly more than a whisper. "What greater harm than to take me back? You'll return me to my death."

"No, not to your death. Sarkia has better plans for you. She told me so when she sent me. You please her, even in rebellion; she likes your strength."

"You don't know what they did to me."

"The Tigers, you mean. I know. And Idri's been sent away, months since, to other tasks elsewhere. Sarkia intends to train you in the duties Idri did for her, as her personal aide."

Idri's duties! At the sight of Tomm, Varia had given up, but to do the work that Idri had done? Her will took new strength. "What has the Sisterhood ever given you?" she asked.

His expression didn't change. "Life," he said. "And the hunt."

The hunt? Yes, that would be it. "Have you ever thought of leaving? There's work anywhere for a man with your abilities. What chains does the Sisterhood have on you?"

He didn't answer at once. Then, "Without the Sisterhood, the ylver will someday conquer the Rude Lands, to command whatever tribute they want. To see the girls and women raped, and punish those who displease them."

It seemed to Varia that he recited, rather than speaking spontaneously. "And what did the Dynast have done to me? I was raped more than any Sister at Ferny Cove, my punishment for displeasing Idri and Sarkia.

"As for the ylver-the Sisterhood can't stop them. It has no great army to hold them off, nor will the tribes and kingdoms gather to Sarkia in support. Consider how helpless they were at Ferny Cove, when an ylvin army came!"

Just for a moment he showed emotion. Fervor. "That is ever in my mind. I was there; the cruelties went beyond evil. But helpless? Sarkia's magic troubled them greatly. We found our way through them by dint of her spells-hers and those she'd trained. Dense fogs arose in broad daylight, spreading over the country, and only the chosen could see through them. While ylvin warriors-even ylvin!-fell asleep on horseback, or at their posts. Else I'd be dead, as your children are."

My children! Would I even have recognized them? "On Farside," she answered, "each mother raises and cherishes her own children, and each child cherishes its mother. Have you ever wished to cherish your mother?"

He shrugged. "It is all the same to me. The Sisterhood is my mother."

"It's not the same to me! I have a husband who has sworn himself to me, and I to him. By our own choice. Idri stole me from him-Idri and a cull named Xader-and brought me back through the Oz Gate. My husband and I love each other; we were happy beyond anything you've known. And if I can, I'll return to him. Together we'll go far from any gate, have children by ones and twos, raise them ourselves, and love them."

She couldn't read the man at all; his aura hardly changed. What must Sarkia have done to him when she'd chosen to train him as a tracker! After a moment he spoke, as impassive as before. "But you can't, you see. Return to him. For I've caught you, and we are going back to the Cloister together. This time you'll like it there."

She stared quietly for a moment, then softly her mind caressed his. "Have you ever had a woman, Tomm? Held one in your arms?"

"I have never wished for one. But if I did, Sarkia would give one to me. You waste your breath, Varia."

"You've never wished for one because Sarkia spelled you as a child. Deprived you of your birthright, as she deprived you of your mother's love. Sarkia is evil, Tomm."

Again the pause before his answer. "If she does evil, it's for a greater good."

"Ah! So now evil is good! And day is night, and hunger a full belly! She's twisted your mind, Tomm, as she did the minds of us all. As the first Dynast did hers. But I lived more than twenty years on Farside, and unlearned much that I'd been taught. I wish I could take you through with me. You'd like my husband, Curtis Macurdy. He is honest and good, and you would have a friend at last. The two of you could farm together, drink coffee and talk together. Go to Decatur, eat 'ice cream' "-she said the words in English-"and see a 'movie.' You could even learn to laugh!"

Tomm stared at her silently for so long, she wondered if he'd answer at all. "You must get up now," he said at last, patiently. "It's time to start back." There was no more expression in his voice than before.

She got to her feet without help. You won't take me back, she vowed to herself. You won't. Somewhere along the way you'll let your guard down, and I'll kill you. With knife or rock, or sharp stick through your eye, I'll kill you. Then I'll walk to Ferny Cove, and once I've gated through, they'll never catch me. Not again.

13: Cyncaidh