There seemed little doubt that Ahlert would triumph eventually. His mining of the past had put too much might into his hands.
Therefore, Gathrid reasoned, the Mindak should be weakened before their inevitable confrontation.
That dark shadow which once had been the controlling spirit of a Toal remained with him. He could feel it there, over his left shoulder, watchful and patient. It no longer strove to supplant his soul. It hovered on the border of awareness, full of fright and hopelessness. It could not find another host without guidance from the Mindak.
These days Gathrid was more disturbed by its patience than by its presence. It was immortal. It could wait forever. In its unbleak moments it seemed to be telling him that its chance would come.
It would give him time. Someday he would relax a little too much.
And yet it feared... .
It had taken this new, less aggressive stance after his confrontation with Anyeck. It had been impressed by the Power he had wielded then.
Days became weeks. He wandered into lands where Ventimiglian peasants had begun colonizing. They were a hardy, determined breed. They were more ambitious than the peasants of Gathrid's own Gudermuth.
He began to suspect that his separation from Rogala was not as complete as he had hoped. A
horseman seemed to be shadowing him from afar. He set an ambush. No one rode into it.
That in itself was suggestive. Rogala always knew what was going on. Gathrid gave up with a shrug.
He had to-assume the dwarf would follow the Sword. The two were inextricably linked.
Gathrid began to think, to plan. The thought of a Rogala pursuit jarred him into it. His gaze swung eastward, drawn like a compass's arm.
From Grevening he passed into Rodegast, then Sil-havy, then Gorsuch. Each was another small principality like Gudermuth. He saw no one but the occasional Ventimiglian colonist. In Gorsuch colonization was well advanced. New cities were growing where old had fallen.
The Nirgenau Mountains rose across his path. Beyond their high, bleak passes and chill peaks lay Ventimiglia itself.
The Nirgenaus were tricky. Levies bound westward crowded the one good road across. They were cheerful young men eager for plunder and glory. Some were as young as he. They reminded him of his brothers, or even of himself in that ridiculous time when he had wanted to go to war.
The pain reached in and squeezed his heart. Childhood had come to an end. He was a singleton now.
He had nothing and no one. ... He had slain the last of his kin himself.
The long, lonely weeks did not go solely to remorse. He practiced integrating and learning to tap the memories given him by the Sword. From them he learned of secondary trails seldom trod by the Mindak's soldiers. Following those, he reached Camero Marasco, the high, barren peak that marked the easternmost boundary of ancient Anderle, and the western frontier of modern Ventimiglia. From its wind-tortured, snowbound heights he studied the storied fortress called Covingont.
Covingont of the three pink towers, mistress of the Karato Pass, where Tureck Aarant had slain Cashion the Blind in the first blush of the Brothers' War. Covingont, where the gnaw of elder sorceries had left the Karato's granite walls permanently scarred, where even time had been unable to banish the dread memorials of the fury that had brought Cashion's doom.
One of Ahlert's predecessors had rebuilt the castle. It looked as formidable as the Covingont of yore. Gathrid touched the Sword. It remembered. The fighting had been grim. It had fed well.
Having slain Cashion, Aarant had vanished into the east. He had been gone a year. Grellner had kept the cauldron of war boiling. His whispers had sabotaged every effort to reconcile the Immortal Twins.
Then Tureck Aarant had come across the Karato again, a changed man. His sojourn in the east remained forever unilluminated. Never again was he Tureck Aarant the young warrior. He had become Tureck Aarant the Swordbearer, and friend to none. He had become a force, not a man.
He had hunted the sorcerers of both sides with an implacable ferocity, barely pretending to be anyone's ally. His legend had come into being during the following year. It was a story that looked a decade deep when seen from centuries down time. No man should have done so much in so little time.
Then Tureck had died. He was not yet twenty. Rogala still stood accused of his murder.
Gathrid stared at the pink granite towers. He shuddered. The chill of the Karato had little to do with his shaking.
Once again he was following a trail blazed by Tureck Aarant. Was he meant to share that previous Swordbear-er's fate?
He thought he heard a ghostly chuckle over his left shoulder. He whirled, hand flying to Daubendiek's hilt. He saw nothing.
"The Toal," he murmured. He had forgotten the Dead Captain. It could have stolen into him. ... He shuddered again.
And again the Toal expressed mirth.
Gathrid spat in disgust, slapped his hands together to get his blood moving. Had Aarant ever felt the way he did now? Like the walls of reality were pressing in? Like he was being herded down a long road between two facades that, instead of coming together because of perspective, were really constricting the way? His options were dwindling. He had few moments in which to occupy himself with anything but Rogala, the Toal, Ahlert, Nieroda, and just plain staying alive.
His lack of choices angered and frustrated him. He thought he understood why Tureck had become so violent and vicious. A mocking history may have rewritten spiteful savagery as heroic battling.
He had done nothing yet himself, Gathrid thought. Unless murdering Anyeck counted as a mighty deed. Surely the forces toying with him had a greater purpose than that.
Again he heard the ghostly chuckle of his haunting Toal.
Traveling Ventimiglia without drawing attention proved difficult. Gathrid discovered it to be a crowded land of countless feudal estates, all lying cheek by jowl. There was very little untamed land. Hiding places were scarce. The nobility, men of Power from among whom Ahlert's officers were drawn, lived in squat, dark fortresses within sight of one another. Each fortress was surrounded by peasant hovels like a hen surrounded by chicks. Neat networks of rammed earth road formed the boundaries between neighboring manors.
Ventimiglia, Gathrid concluded, was a land shaped by generations of military success and by devotion to order. Everything seemed as perfect as an illuminated manuscript. Even the woodlots-in one neat square for each manor-were parklike. Every plant, animal, man and structure had its place.
That stood at odds with stories he had heard in Gud-ermuth. He had been taught that Ahlert was an emissary of chaos and destruction.
In a sense he might be, though the chaos existed only along Ventimiglia's frontiers.
Gathrid had his difficulties, but found ways to slip through the countryside. He abandoned his horse early, sure it would give him away. He traveled by night. Days he usually spent sleeping in trees in woodlots, or beneath the bridges on the roads.
By the time he had put a hundred miles behind him he had concluded that good and evil were matters of perspective. Ventimiglia was a peaceful, happy, prosperous land, not the hell he had been schooled to expect.
The voices of the dead reminded him that there were perspectives and perspectives. What he saw had been purchased at great cost. He was not seeing all of Ventimiglia. Few of the men he had slain had sprung from these bucolic environs.
The conflict between preconception and reality only confused him. He coped by rejecting all conclusions.
Months passed. He slipped past cities named Lo-biondo and Bozeda. He was approaching Senturia, the Ventimiglian capital. All three cities were supposed to be nests of the darkest sorcery. He had seen nothing to support or refute the charge.
Senturia was a mighty city. It was said to be populated by more than a million souls. That was more people than had lived in Gathrid's native kingdom. He could not comprehend so many people having gathered in one place.