He said, "They are from Lower Corte. It had a different name before Brandin of Ygrath came. He has used his sorcery to take that name away. Only people born there, and wizards because of our own magic, can hear the true name. That is what is happening here."

"And 'Prince'? Naddo called him that."

Sertino was silent. He looked over at Erlein, and there was still that odd, uneasy look on his face. He said, "Is it true?"

And Erlein di Senzio, with an ironic half-smile, replied, "Just don't let him cut your hair, brother. Unless you like being bound into slavery."

Sertino's mouth fell open. Ducas slapped his knee with his hat. "Now that," he snapped, "I do not understand at all. There is too much of this I do not understand. I want explanations, from all of you!" His voice was harsh, much louder than before. He did not look at Alessan though.

"I understand it well enough, Ducas," came a voice from behind them. It was Magian, the captain of the group that had driven them into the gap. He moved his horse forward as they turned to look at him. "I understand that we have made our fortunes tonight. If this is the Prince of a province Brandin hates then all we need do is take him west to Fort Forese across the border and turn him over to the Ygrathens there. With a wizard to boot. And who knows, one of them probably likes boys in his bed, too. Singing boys." His smile was a wide loose thing in the shadows.

He said, "There will be rewards. Land. Perhaps even…"

He said nothing more than that. Ever. In rigid disbelief Devin saw Magian's mouth fall open and his eyes grow briefly wide, then the man slid slowly sideways off his horse to fall with a clatter of sword and bow on the ground beside Erlein.

There was a long-handled dagger in his back.

One of the outlaws from the line behind him, not hurrying at all, dismounted and pulled the dagger free. He wiped it carefully clean on the dead man's surcoat before sheathing it again at his belt.

"Not a good idea, Magian's," he said quietly, straightening to look at Ducas. "Not a good idea at all. We aren't informers here, and we don't serve the Tyrants."

Ducas slapped his hat back on his head, visibly fighting for control. He took a deep breath. "As it happens, I agree. But as it also happens, Arkin, we have a rule here about weapons drawn against each other."

Arkin was very tall, almost gaunt, and his long face was white, Devin saw, even among the shadows of dusk. He said, "I know that, Ducas. It is wasteful. I know. You will have to forgive me."

Ducas said nothing for a long time. Neither did anyone else. Devin, looking past the dead man, saw the two wizards gazing fixedly at each other in the shadows.

Arkin was still looking at Ducas.

Who finally broke the silence. "You are fortunate that I agree with you," he said.

Arkin shook his head. "We would not have stayed together this long otherwise."

Alessan neatly dismounted from his horse. He walked over towards Ducas, ignoring the arrows still trained on him. "If you are hunting Barbadians," he said quietly, "I have some idea as to why. I am doing the same thing, in my own way." He hesitated. "You can do as your dead man suggested: turn me in to Ygrath, and yes, I suspect there would be a reward. Or you can kill us here, and have done with us. You can also let us go our own way from this place. But there is one other, quite different thing you can do."

"Which is?" Ducas seemed to have regained his self-control. His voice was calm again, as it had been at the beginning.

"Join me. In what I seek to do."

"Which is?"

"To drive both Tyrants from the Palm before this summer is out."

Naddo looked up suddenly, a brightness in his face. "Really, my lord? We can do this? Even now?"

"There is a chance," Alessan said. "Especially now. For the first time there is a chance." He looked back at Ducas. "Where were you born?"

"In Tregea," the other man said after a pause. "In the mountains."

Devin had a moment to think about how completely things had shifted here, that Alessan should be asking the questions now. He felt a stirring within him, of hope renewed and of pride.

The Prince was nodding his head. "I thought it might be so. I have heard the stories of a red-headed Captain Ducas who was one of the leaders at Borifort in Tregea during the Barbadian siege there. They never found him after the fort fell." He hesitated. "I could not help but notice the color of your hair."

For a moment the two men were motionless as in a tableau, one on the ground the other on his horse. Then, quite suddenly, Ducas di Tregea smiled.

"What is left of my hair," he murmured wryly, sweeping off his hat again with a wide gesture.

Releasing his reins he swung down off his horse and, striding forward, held out an open palm to Alessan. Who met both, the smile and offered hand, with his own.

Devin found himself gasping with the rush of relief that swept over him, and then cheering wildly at the top of his voice with twenty outlaws in that dark Certandan pass.

What he noticed though, even as the cheering reached a crescendo, was that neither wizard was shouting. Erlein and Sertino sat very still, almost rigid on their horses, as if concentrating on something. They gazed at each other, expressions identically grim.

And because he noticed, because he seemed to be becoming the sort of man who saw things like this, Devin was the first to fall silent, and he had even instinctively raised a hand to quiet the others. Ales-san and Ducas lowered their linked palms and gradually, as silence returned to the pass, everyone looked at the wizards.

"What is it?" Ducas said.

Sertino turned to him. "Tracker. Northeast of us, quite close. I just felt the probe. He'll not find me though, I've done no magic for a long time."

"I have," said Erlein di Senzio. "Earlier today, in the Braccio Pass. Only a light spell, a screen for someone. Evidently it was enough. There must have been a Tracker in one of the southern forts."

"There almost always is," Sertino said flatly.

"What," Ducas said, "were you doing in the Braccio Pass?"

"Gathering flowers," Alessan said. "I'll tell you later. Right now we have Barbadians to deal with. How many will be with the Tracker?"

"Not less than twenty. Probably more. We have a camp in the hills south of here. Shall we run for it?"

"They'll follow," Erlein said. "He's got me traced. The spill of my magic will mark me for another day at least."

"I don't much feel like hiding in any case," Alessan said softly.

Devin turned quickly to look at him. So did Ducas. Awkwardly, Naddo rose to his feet.

"How good, exactly, are your men here?" Alessan said, a challenge in his tone and in the grey eyes.

And in the shadows of what was now almost full-dark Devin saw the Tregean outlaw leader's teeth suddenly flash. "They are good enough, and to spare, to deal with a score of Barbadians. This will be more than we've ever tackled, but we've never fought beside a Prince before. I think," he added, in a meditative voice, "that I too am grown tired of hiding, suddenly."

Devin looked over at the wizards. It was hard to make out their features in the dark, but Erlein said, in a hard-edged voice: "Alessan, the Tracker will have to be killed immediately, or he'll send an image of this place back to Alberico."

"He will be," said Alessan quietly. And in his voice, too, there was a new note. The presence of something Devin had never heard. A second later he realized that it was death.

Alessan's cloak flapped in a gust of wind. Very deliberately he drew his hood over his face.

The hard thing for Devin was that Alberico's Tracker turned out to be twelve years old.

They sent Erlein riding west out of the pass, as the lure. He was the one being followed. He had Sertino di Certando, the other wizard, and two other men with them, one of whom was the wounded Naddo, who insisted on being of use even though he could not fight. They had taken the arrow from his arm and bandaged it as best they could. It was clear that he was in difficulty, but even more clear that in the presence of Alessan he was not about to give way to that.