Dalamar continued to speak in his cold, mocking tones. "She's rather pretty for a human, after all. I meant nothing serious, simply a little diversion. No harm was intended, nor done. Jenna, I should think a woman of your, um, appetites would certainly understand!"

Jenna hissed back in fury. "I never knew you to turn your head for just a pretty face-especially one so youthful! No, there's more to it than that-you want something from her! I know!"

The elf shrugged. "Maybe I've changed, and you can't recognize that. Elves don't age in the same way as you humans. Sad, they say humans inevitably forget their youthful passions as they wither and gray."

"Bastard!" Jenna shot back, as the elf went on, his voice darkening.

"I was in a very cold, very barren place for too long. Now I am alive again-and what makes a man feel more alive than a woman's embrace?"

"She's a mere girl!"

"Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you underestimate her-I certainly felt her kissing me back. It was not as though she seemed reluctant. That is no child, Jenna! Besides, you continue to insult me. Anyone can see that she's no more a servant than I am a Knight of Solamnia. There are quite a few things that you are keeping from me, and I think you're keeping them from her, as well."

"I keep my own counsel," Jenna declared.

"Such secrets are at cross purposes with our quest! How are we going to find the Tower of Sorcery if we don't trust each other and work together? It's time you stopped pretending," the dark elf said. "Tell me, why did this 'mere girl' come to you? Did you really know her grandmother?"

Coryn took a step forward, taking care to remain in the shadows. She willed her heart to cease pounding, anxious to hear what the woman would answer.

Jenna drew a sharp breath then lowered her voice. "Yes. I sent a letter to her grandmother, right after the gods returned.

Actually, I sent dozens of letters, to people all across Ansalon. But Scharon was one of the few to reply, and to understand the situation."

"You were seeking wizards, new apprentices for your order?"

"Not really. I was seeking older wizards, those who might still be alive after all this time. And not just my order-any of the orders, even the black! Scharon was once a White Robe, if that makes any difference to you. Just a young apprentice at the time of the Chaos War, though she showed some promise. When the gods disappeared, she left the Tower and went back home."

"And in response to your letter, she sent her granddaughter?"

"Yes. She thought Coryn might take the Test, someday. And that I might help her prepare. But that is all premature. I simply brought her along to help with the mules! We can't even locate the forest, much less find any sign of the Tower! Until we do, I don't want to encourage the girl to do any magic. I must get to know her better. I need to find the Tower, first, to obtain the counsel of the Master. Then I will decide about her."

Coryn waited for Dalamar to spring to her defense, to tell Jenna that she was ready, that she could learn spells, could absorb them in ways that Jenna didn't even suspect. Instead, he seemed to agree with her.

"As you wish. Your secret is safe," Dalamar said. "She doesn't seem to know anything about magic anyway; nothing about the orders or the three robes. I have no wish to dispel her ignorance." He glanced over at Coryn, and she felt as though his eyes penetrated right into the thick shadow before he turned back to Jenna. "Besides, I was already bored with her when you appeared out of nowhere to cause a scene. She is, as you say, just a girl."

Cory didn't want to hear any more. The two wizards resumed their conversation, but Coryn was already making her way back through the woods, toward the dying fire in the middle of the cold forest.

The moon was gone by the time Coryn got up again, though it was not yet dawn. Cool mists penetrated the trees, raising enough of a fog to limit visibility to a few feet. Jenna and Dalamar were now sound asleep, wrapped in their bedrolls on either side of the now-cold fire pit. First the girl cast the cone of silence spell over herself; then she rummaged through Diva's saddlebag, taking her bow and arrows and her small knapsack. She wondered if she should take anything else-after all, she felt as though she had earned some remuneration for all of her labor on Jenna's behalf. She was tempted by those spell books… but no, she was not a thief- and besides, there was nothing the Red Robe possessed that she needed.

She slipped into the woods, moving quickly, the sounds of her urgent passage swallowed by the cone of silence that moved along with her. Daylight started seeping through the murk about an hour later. And by then Coryn was more than two miles away, still moving with youthful speed. Much of her route had followed the stony rim of the canyon, where she would leave no tracks. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she didn't want to be followed. Not by those two… not by anybody!

In daylight, the forest was pleasant. The path at her feet was wide, smooth, and clear of debris, winding through a bed of soft grass; broad birch trunks, alabaster white, jutted up from the ground. The canyon lay behind her now, as she moved steadily away from the precipitous rim. She followed a game trail that avoided the densest trunks of the woods, and it was nearly midday by the time she realized that she was getting hungry. Why hadn't she thought to take some of Jenna's food?

Because it would have been stealing, she reproached herself sternly. "But I don't need your food; I don't need anything!" Coryn whispered to herself, as if afraid that the Red Robe could hear her thoughts.

She came to a ravine across her path, and shimmied down a rotting tree trunk toward the bottom, crying out as she scraped her leg on a stub of a broken branch. Her eyes swam with tears as she cleaned the cut and wrapped a thin piece of cloth torn from her increasingly tattered shirt around the wound. She found an easier way out the other side of the ravine and limped slightly as she proceeded on the trail.

Still, she was making good time, and her long trek on the dry stone of the canyon rim would make it difficult for her former companions to pursue her. When she thought about the way they had talked about her, it made her so mad she felt like weeping. But she wouldn't let herself do that.

Coryn dropped to her knees to crawl under another large birch deadfall, wincing as her cut leg scraped along the ground. Climbing to her feet on the far side, she patted her hip, making sure that her quiver of arrows was safe. It was then that she noticed the sudden darkness of the forest floor in front of her, the closeness of the looming evergreens.

Indeed, she faced a newly darkened and murky expanse. The pines were so thick here they prevented any sun from penetrating, and the dense brush all across the ground was wet with dew. It would take only moments for Coryn's moccasins to be soaked; her leggings felt damp and chill all the way up to her thighs, and she didn't relish the discomfort.

Moss dangled limply from many of the low branches, and she did a double-take as she glimpsed one beardlike bloom-

she could have sworn that someone was watching her from behind impenetrable whiskers. But it was only the natural vegetation, thick and cloaking on all sides. She listened carefully for a long time, but heard nothing that indicated any person, or any other kind of animal, moving through the woods. Even the birds had fallen silent, however, and that realization made her feel very much alone.

Where were the birches, the open, grassy woodland? Coryn didn't remember the forest changing, but the transition was sudden, absolute. She looked behind, saw the birches and grassy terrain extending behind her as far as she could see. Should she go back and try another way? Could she even find her way back?