Now Istar and the mountains seemed equidistant-
dark, looming forms against the darker shores. Worn out with rowing, with spinning, with trying to steer by stars that ducked in and out of the clouds, Vincus lay down in the coracle.
Just a few minutes, he promised himself. An hour at most.
When he awoke, it was nearly noon. The craft had drifted to the far side of the lake, and the foothills lay in front of him, inviting and solid and wonder shy;fully, delightfully dry.
Vincus thanked whatever gods had taken charge of the water and the fools who ventured onto it, and, giving the craft a kick he hoped would send it on its way back to the Istarian shore, he scrambled up a narrow path and, by midafternoon, found himself at a great height-at the mouth of the Western Pass with a distant view of the city.
Of the three passes leading through the Istarian range, only the Western Pass was free of the sterim- the harsh winds off the desert that seemed to gain force as they climbed. Had Vincus traveled through either the Eastern or the Central Pass, his chance of survival would have been slim.
Vaananen had known, Vincus thought. Those hundreds of times he rattled on about it-they were all for this. For by the time he had wakened on the southern shores of the lake, Vincus was so turned around, so disoriented, that he was not quite sure if the path he followed led to the Western or the Cen shy;tral Pass.
Then he saw gentian and edelweiss-hardy moun shy;tain flowers, but not stormfast-at the mouth of the pass. It had to be the Western Pass, Vincus concluded, and he set out through the treacherous mountains by the lone safe route, congratulating himself on his new shy;found mountaineering skills.
Three days later, he emerged on the southern side of the mountains. Thinking that the hard part of his journey was over, he trudged merrily southward, his last day's food his only baggage besides the precious book.
As sunset overtook him, he crested a rise and looked down into a quiet, shadowy valley, where felled and stunted trees littered a gray basin in the midst of the plains. To Vincus's city eyes, it seemed like the area had been touched by fire or high wind in a distant time; the dried boles of trees, already crusted with sand and salt and a shimmering opales-cence, were a pleasant change from the grasslands' monotony.
Vincus lay down amid the sheared remains of a vallenwood grove. Branches of elm and willow lit shy;tered his campsite, and he gathered some of them to build a small fire in the twilight.
He would travel by night from now on, he decided. It was easier, he had seen, to steer by the stars and to avoid discovery.
With a smile of contentment, he rested his head against the blackened trunk of a willow. All of a sud shy;den he was weary, and his thoughts strayed over the road behind him and back to the city.
What was it called?
Istar. That was it.
For a moment it seemed to Vincus that something was not right, that he should have remembered the name quickly, more easily. But his mind drifted from this brief, pointless worry, and he began to drowse.
It seemed as though the collar was back around his neck.
Vincus stirred uneasily.
The collar tightened, and tightened again, and the young man sprang into wakefulness.
The dead branches of the willow had closed around his neck, gripping, clutching, and strangling.
A rare carnivorous plant, the black willow masked itself as log or tree and preyed on hapless creatures it lulled to sleep beneath its spreading, branchlike ten shytacles.
A child of the city, Vincus had never seen such a monster, and when the willow grabbed him, he struggled vainly against its grip and his own grow shy;ing drowsiness. The plant seemed to sing to him, an eerie and menacing lullaby, and despite his fright, the young man found himself listening.
No. From his robe he drew half of his silver collar, a ragged crescent that glittered in the moonlight. Desperately, his strength and senses failing, Vincus sawed at the largest branch with the sharp metal edge until black sap, sticky and cold like the blood of a reptile, dripped over the tendril and onto his chest.
The willow let out a shrill, hissing scream and, for a brief moment, released him. But a moment was all Vincus needed. He rolled away from the monster, snapping two thinner branches that remained around his shoulder. Springing clear of the grove, he crouched in the dry grass for a moment and gath shy;ered his breath, rubbing the long, fresh lashes on his arm where the pliant wood had whipped and cut him.
He had seen everything now, he thought.
The country itself could kill you.
Forewarned and wary, he slipped the silver cres shy;cent-an excellent weapon, he had discovered- back into his robe. He would make good on his plans tonight, traveling sleepless by moonlight. Surely he would be safe as the desert slept.
Many months ago, at Vaananen's insistence, Vin-cus had scanned a map of the plains. Meticulously, the druid had moved the small meditative stones in the rena garden-red Lunitari representing the mountains, white Solinari the plains beyond. Slowly, precisely, Vaananen had traced the safest route with his finger, and then, standing over Vincus, had urged the young man to mind it all.
Now, Vincus wished he had minded more closely. Was the army southwest of the city, or had Vaananen said go south-southwest? Was the camp five miles from the desert's edge or six miles?
He could not remember.
Vincus scrambled to a little rise, a high point in the featureless landscape. Prairie stretched all about him, endlessly and shapelessly, the warm wind rustling and rattling through the dry grass. Even from this vantage he saw nothing but plains.
Unless it was the floating shadow on the farthest southwest horizon-a cloud, perhaps, or a mirage, but at least something amid the sea of grass. Vincus shielded his eyes and stared long and hard, but he could see nothing more than the shifting, formless gray.
When the night came, it was cloudy. Solinari and Lunitari darted in and out of the clouds, the only luminaries in a slate-gray sky.
Vincus knew that the tail of the constellation Sargonnas "was his guiding star, that it would point him due into the heart of the desert. But glimpsed fitfully in the early hours of the morning, the constellations seemed different, almost alien. Vaananen's neatly plotted drawings of the heavenly maps were gone now, and in their place was a chaos of faint and wavering light.
The morning's red sky restored the east, and Vin-cus found that he had turned in the night, had wan shy;dered due west on the indefinite plains. His hands flickering a mild oath, he sat down on a small cluster of rocks and, chin cupped despondently in his hands, watched the horizon shimmer and recede as another day of uncertainty began.
He felt famished. He breakfasted on the provi shy;sions he had brought from Istar, and the grimness of his situation dawned on him.
Soon he would have to forage for his food, for meat and roots and water in this inhospitable coun shy;try. Armed only with a dagger and a schoolboy's knowledge of edible plants, he faced even greater hunger in the days to come.
That is, unless the Istarians caught him.
Vincus drew his new dagger slowly, scratching idle designs on the dry earth. Istar and slavery almost seemed better now. A sudden anger at Vaana-nen fluttered briefly through his thoughts-at that druid with his intrigues and fond ideas.
Fordus, indeed! Vaananen had conjured the rebels out of sand and stone. They were no more real than…
Than Vincus's freedom.
He looked down at his feet. Absently, numbly, he had sketched Vaananen's five glyphs on the hard, grassy ground.
No. He had come this far.
It was then that the hawk shrieked overhead, and Vincus looked up.
Lucas had been circling for an hour, aloft on the morning thermals. His red feathers glowed in the sunrise, and his angular wings tilted smoothly as he circled.