"Oh?" Dirk finished his own beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Napkins did not seem to be part of a Kavalar table setting.

"The banshees were never the only predator on Worlorn," Vikary said. "There are slayers and stalkers from fourteen worlds in the forests, and they are the least of it. The humans are the worst. Worlorn is an easy, empty world today, and its shadows and its barrens are full of strangeness."

"You would do best to go armed," Janacek said. "Or better still, Jaan and I should go with you, for the sake of your safety."

But Vikary shook his head. "No, Garse. They must go alone, and talk. It is better that way, do you understand? It is my wish." Then he picked up an armful of plates and walked toward the kitchen. But near the door he paused and glanced back over his shoulder, and briefly his eyes met Dirk's.

And Dirk remembered his words, out on the rooftop at dawn. Ido exist, Jaan had said. Remember that.

"How long since you rode a sky-scoot?" Gwen asked him a short time later when they met on the roof. She had changed into a one-piece chameleon cloth coverall, a belted garment that covered her from boots to neck in dusky grayish red. The headband that held her black hair in place was the same fabric.

"Not since I was a child," Dirk said. His own clothing was twin to hers; she'd given it to him so they could blend into the forest. "Since Avalon. But I'm willing to try. I used to be pretty good."

"You're on, then," Gwen said. "We won't be able to go very far or very fast, but that shouldn't matter." She opened the storage trunk on the gray manta-shaped aircar and took out two small silvery packages and two pairs of boots.

Dirk sat on the aircar wing again while he changed into the new boots and laced them up. Gwen unfolded the scoots, two small platforms of soft tissue-thin metal barely large enough to stand upon. When she spread them on the ground, Dirk could trace the crosshatched wires of the gravity grids built into their undersides. He stepped on one, positioning his feet carefully, and the metal soles of his boots locked tightly in place as the platform went rigid. Gwen handed him the control device and he strapped it around his wrist so that it flipped out into the palm of his hand.

"Arkin and I use the scoots to get around the forests," Gwen told him while she knelt to lace up her own boots. "An aircar has ten times the speed, of course, but it isn't always easy to find a clearing big enough to land. The scoots are good for close-in detail work, as long as we don't try to carry too much equipment or get in too much of a hurry. Garse says they're toys, but…" She stood up, stepped onto her platform, and smiled. "Ready?"

"You bet," Dirk said, and his finger brushed the silver wafer in the palm of his right hand. Just a little too hard. The scoot shot up and out, dragging bis feet With it and whipping him upside down when the rest of him lagged behind. He barely missed cracking his head on the roof as he flipped, and ascended into the sky laughing wildly and dangling from underneath his platform.

Gwen came after him, standing on her platform and climbing up the twilight wind with skill born of long practice, like some outworld djinn riding a silver carpet remnant. By the time she reached Dirk, he had played with the controls long enough to right himself, though he was still flailing back and forth in a wild effort to keep his balance. Unlike arrears, sky-scoots had no gyros.

"Wheeee," he shouted as she closed. Laughing, Gwen moved in behind him and slapped him heartily on the back. That was all he needed to flip over again, and he began careening through the sky above Larteyn in a mad cartwheel.

Gwen was behind him, shouting something. Dirk blinked and noticed that he was about to crash into the side of a tall ebony tower. He played with his controls and shot straight up, still fighting to steady himself.

He was high above the city and standing upright when she caught him. "Stay away," he warned with a grin, feeling stupid and clumsy and playful. "Knock me over again and I'll get the flying tank and laser you out of the sky, woman!" He tilted to one side, caught himself, then overcompensated and swung to the other side yelping.

"You're drunk," Gwen shouted at him through the keening wind. "Too much beer for breakfast." She was above him now, arms folded against her chest, watching his struggles with mock disapproval.

"These things seem much more stable when you hang from them upside down," Dirk said. He had finally achieved a semblance of balance, although the way he held his arms out to either side made it clear that he was dubious about maintaining it.

Gwen settled down to his level and moved in beside him, sure-footed and confident, her dark hair streaming behind her like a wild black banner. "How you doing?" she yelled as they flew side by side.

"I think I've got it!" Dirk announced. He was still upright.

"Good. Look down!"

He looked down, past the meager security of the platform under his feet. Larteyn with its dark towers and faded glowstone streets was no longer beneath him. Instead there was a long long drop through an empty twilight sky to the Common far below. He glimpsed a river down there, a thread of wandering dark water in the dim-lit greenery. Then his head swam dizzily, his hands tightened, and he flipped over again.

This time Gwen dipped underneath him as he hung upside down. She crossed her arms again and smirked up at him. "You sure are a dumbshit, t'Larien," she told him. "Why don't you fly right side up?"

He growled at her, or tried to growl, but the wind took away his breath and he could only make faces. Then he turned himself over. His legs were getting sore from all of this. "There!" he shouted, and looked down defiantly to prove that the height would not spook him a second time.

Gwen was beside him again. She looked him over and nodded. "You are a disgrace to the children of Avalon, and sky-scooters everywhere," she said. "But you'll probably survive. Now, do you want to see the wild?"

"Lead me, Jenny!"

"Then turn. We're going the wrong way. We have to clear the mountains." She held out her free hand and took his and together they swung around in a wide spiral, up and back, to face Larteyn and the mountain-wall. The city looked gray and washed-out from a distance, its proud glowstones a sun-doused black. The mountains were a looming darkness.

They rode toward them together, gaining altitude steadily until they were far over the Firefort, high enough to clear the peaks. That was about top altitude for the sky-scoots; an aircar, of course, could ascend much higher. But it was high enough for Dirk. The chameleon cloth coveralls they wore had gone all gray and white, and he was thankful for their warmth; the wind was chill and the dubious day of Worlorn not much hotter than its night.

Holding hands and shouting infrequent comments, leaning this way and that into the wind, Gwen and Dirk rode up over one mountain and down its far slope into a shadowed rocky valley, then up and down another and still another, past dagger-sharp outcroppings of green and black rock, past high narrow waterfalls and higher precipices. At one point Gwen challenged him to race, and he shouted his acceptance, and then they streaked forward as fast as the scoots and their skill could take them until finally Gwen took pity on him and came back to take his hand again.

The range dropped off as suddenly to the west as it had risen in the east, throwing up a tall barrier to shield the wild from the light of the still-climbing Wheel. "Down," Gwen said, and he nodded, and they began a slow descent toward the jumbled dark greenery below. By then they had been up for more than an hour; Dirk was half numb from the bite of the Worlorn wind, and most of his body was protesting this maltreatment.