
Taen paused, swallowed, and wondered if anyone would ever treat her normally again. "Ivainson Jaric is
the key to Keithland's survival." She shifted her regard to the sentry, standing sweating in the light of the
stable lanterns with his hands locked around his spear. "The Kielmark and the Fire-lord's heir must not meet
at this time. The boy is distressed, enough to make him careless. He would cross your master, and certainly
get himself killed. But if you loan me a mount, I can stop that, and ensure you won't suffer any
consequences."
Neither the sentry nor the horse-boy was moved by the promise. The Kielmark's discipline was legend on
land and sea, and no man who gainsaid him survived. A tense moment passed, the gusty dark laced through
with the distant beat of the sea. Taen gripped her whipping robes, and strove to maintain patience. She would
not use compulsion on these two, not unless she was desperate. But when the sentry whirled with a look of
stark fear and bolted, she was unequivocally cornered. Her powers answered, reliably, and blanketed the
running man's awareness. Between one stride and the next, he pitched forward, to land in a sprawl across the
midden.
The horse-boy gasped.
"He's unharmed!" Taen said, and though her skills were still raw and new, she managed to translate
awareness of just how unharmed directly into the boy's shocked mind. "Saddle me a mount," she added
gently. "And please do believe me when I tell you I can manage the Kielmark's rages."
The horse-boy regarded her skeptically, as if he noticed for the first time that she was not so very much
older than he; yet her powers had deceived demons. With a shrug and a shake of his head he turned to do her
bidding. Only his attitude of nonchalance was spoiled by the fact that his knees shook.
Taen leaned back against the timbered half door of a stall. Relieved she had not needed to engage her
dream-sense a third time, and taxed more than she cared to admit from swaying the sensibilities of Corley,
she tried to stop worrying. Around her rose the black granite walls of the stoutest bulwarks in Keithland;
surely for a short time more she would be safe.
Tomorrow would see her ,on a ship bound for the Isle of the Vaere, only five days past the date imposed by
the fey master who had trained her. Even if demons knew of her existence, they could hardly act so swiftly.
In the dark at her back, a horse snorted. Taen started forward, and barely managed not to cry out as a
warm muzzle bumped amiably against her arm. She backed away, just as the horse-boy reappeared with not
one but two mounts on a leading rein. The smaller he handed wordlessly to Taen; the other rolled eyes
showing nasty rings of white. War-trained, it sidled as the boy tugged its headstall and expertly directed it
through the passage, to the tether ring in the bailey. Taen sensed his preoccupied thought. Granting an
enchantress a mount was perhaps excusable, but if the Kielmark chanced to ask for the saddled horse and
found no animal ready, his great sword would answer the offense before he spent breath with questions.
Taen faced the blaze-faced mare she was to ride, and preoccupation with the horse-boy's problems faded
before immediate troubles of her own. She was brought up among fisherfolk—the largest animals raised on
her home isle were goats. Riding even the gentlest mounts invariably gave her the shakes.
She was still staring at the stirrup when the horse-boy returned. "Here," he offered gruffly. Before she
could protest, he caught her around the waist and tossed her slight body into the saddle. "Go before the
sentry wakens." And he punctuated the advice with a clap of the mare's hindquarters. The animal leaped into
a trot, stirrups jarring painfully against Taen's ankles. Skewed sideways, she grabbed mane with both hands,
and barely caught the boy's parting shout.
"If- you're still here when that sentry recovers, he'll be honor-bound to put a spear through your back."
Jolted, gasping, through the gates into wind-tossed dark, Taen made a sound halfway between a sob and a
laugh. Once she centered herself precariously within the saddle, spears became the least of her concerns; the
Kielmark's rages and the ferocious loyalty of his men at least were predictably certain. The reactions of
Ivainson Jaric were not. Wistfully Taen wished the advice of her mentor on the Isle of the Vaere; for Jaric
rode now to return the Keys to Elrinfaer to the Storm-warden, Anskiere, believing that once his errand was
accomplished, his bond to the sorcerer would be ended. What he did
not know, and what Taen had no gentle way of telling him, was that Anskiere now was sealed beyond reach
within his wards beneath the ice cliffs. Without the presence of a fire-lord's skills, the Keys could not be
returned to their rightful master. They could only be guarded, and perilously at that, for the demons would
again seek control of the Keys they had narrowly been thwarted from gaining. Worse, if Kor's Accursed
ever guessed the fact that Ivain Firelord had left a living heir, Jaric would become the prey in a ruthless hunt
for survival, since his latent potential for sorcery might come to threaten their plots against humanity.
Taen gripped the reins. In an agony of fear and courage, she kicked her mount into a canter, and sent it
clattering through the gates. Torchlight and the inner fortress fell behind. The mare slid, scrambling, down
the broad stone stair which cut through, a slope of thorn and olive trees. Below lay the town, a sprinkling of
lights between the dark bulk of the warehouses. The harbor beyond was a scattered patchwork of silver and
black shadows, the moored brigantines of the Kiel-mark's corsairs. Yet Taen did not head downward to the
town-side gate. Instead she tugged the mare to the right, through the northern portal that led to the ridge
road.
The sentries let her pass with alacrity, since Jaric had passed that way earlier. The mare's gaits proved
gentle on level ground, and since she showed no untrustworthy tendency to drag on the bit and run, Taen
gradually relaxed. Her feet found the stirrups, and the rhythmic ring of hooves eased her mind enough to
free her dream-sense. A nagging jab slapped her intuition in the night-dark lane before the outer gate.
She hauled the mare clumsily to a halt, at last giving way to irritation; a check on affairs back at the great
hall revealed the Kielmark in a seething temper, bellowing orders to men at arms who scattered running to
seek weapons, helms, and horses. Never doubting that Jaric and she were the cause, Taen narrowed her
focus and sought the single white-hot thread of consciousness that mattered.
Thought answered her probe, sharp as a whipcrack. 'Enchantress! Meddler! What have you done this