"I like you, boy. I've gotten attached to you."
"Liar."
"Goodie! You noticed. That'll be a plus mark on my record when I come up for promotion." He snickered evilly. "Actually, I'm just lazy. When they do catch you, they'll catch me, too. Means I'll have to go back to work. You should only know how rare vacations are in- my corner of Hell."
Gathrid gave the head an uncertain look. It was hard to tell when the demon meant what he Said, or was just joking. Then he laughed.
It was the first time he had done so since the Mindak's invasion of Gudermuth. "Then your wickednesses include sloth?"
"My strong point." Gacioch spoke sourly. He had lost interest in conversation.
Gathrid turned to Loida. "It's going to get rough. I'm going to try to outrun them.''
Her fear and awe were evaporating. "I can keep up with any Gudermuther."
"Is that the kind of crack I'm going to have to live with from now on? Maybe I should've left you where I found you. Let's go."
They had ridden less than a mile when they encountered another patrol. Though armed and aware that they had found their quarry, the Ventimiglians refused combat. They drifted off into a field while Gathrid passed.
"Why did they do that?" Loida asked.
"I don't know. I don't like it." He watched the patrol return to the road a respectful distance behind them. "They're showing too much good sense." They were, his more experienced memories assured him, acting according to some prearrangement. There would be big trouble nearer Dedera. "I may have made a mistake."
Gacioch broke into laughter. "That you did, boy. When you were dumb enough to interfere with the girl hunt."
Gathrid glanced at the sun. It was a long way from setting. He had miscalculated. He should have stayed hidden till nightfall. If they guessed his destination ... They would waste no time chasing him. They would wait at the Library.
He recalled the flight from Gudermuth to Bilgoraj. Theis had done all the thinking. ... He was on his own now. The Ventimiglians were in no hurry this time. They were confident. Because he no longer had the dwarf to help outwit them?
He hated admitting it. He missed Rogala.
He would do without! He wasn't stupid. And he had scores of advisers perched on the shoulders of his mind. He had the dead to guide him. He was a necromancer who divined within himself.
His Toal chuckled.
The party trailing him grew stronger. Dust clouds rose on roads paralleling his own. Several times he saw men in dark armor waiting off the highway, forewarned and ready to join his escort. How long before they felt strong enough to close in?
Their plans did not seem to include immediate engagement. The party behind closed up as darkness gathered, but made no threatening move. Gathrid estimated their number at two hundred.
A tidbit of stolen memory bobbed up in his mind. The Hudyma River lay only a few miles ahead. It was one of Ventimiglia's greatest rivers. This road would span it on a narrow, fortified bridge.
The fortification would make a good anvil against which to hammer him.
But there was a tributary to be crossed first, a mile this side of the Hudyma.
It was thoroughly dark when they reached the first stream. Gathrid had galloped ahead of the Ventimiglians. Now he swung off his mount, helped Loida descend, grabbed Daubendiek and Gacioch.
He slapped the horses back into action. He knew they would not run far. They were exhausted. But even a quarter mile would be a help.
They concealed themselves beneath the bridge. The horsemen who poured overhead seemed to form an endless stream. Gacioch again held his tongue.
Gathrid knew he had very little time. Clutching Loida's hand, he ran downstream. "Come on. Hurry."
"I'm tired," she complained, then saved her breath for flight.
They were lucky. Gathrid stumbled onto a boat not far downstream. It was well-hidden and guarded by a quiet but savage dog. "The owner of this thing can't be no solid citizen," Gacioch observed.
"A fisherman would keep his boat pulled up by his hut.'", The dog growled till it got wind of Gathrid. Then it slunk silently away. Gathrid pushed Loida into the boat and shoved off as the Ventimiglians returned to the bridge.
The current kept Gathrid ahead of the pursuit. He reached the sluggish Hudyma within an hour.
Clumsily, he started rowing for the far bank.
"I knew it was too good to last," Loida grumbled as he beached the craft. "I was hoping we'd drift for a while. This river is headed home."
"I'm not going home."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
"If I might make a suggestion," Gacioch interjected as Gathrid started up the bank. "They won't get onto your trail as fast if you shove the boat back out into the current.''
Gathrid looked to the east. A procession of torches was snaking across the fortified bridge. He did not have the adventurer's mentality, he concluded. It seemed cruel to waste a man's boat.
Stealing it had been bad enough.
"Do it!" Loida snapped.
"All right, already!"
"This isn't my first escape," the girl said.
"Don't put too much faith in her experience," Gacioch rumbled. "She's never gotten away."
Gathrid spent a moment watching the boat slide off into the darkness. What was the demon's game?
Gacioch was doing his best to avoid his masters. Why?
He had to move. The torches were approaching. Perhaps his underminds could resolve his questions while he concentrated on escape.
He did not expect the Ventimiglians to remain out of touch long. Locating Gacioch and the Sword should present no problem for a sorcerer. Both would strain the fabric of this plane.
Gathrid tramped along head down, silent. He missed Rogala. He told himself that was because he would find the dwarf's perception of distant events useful.
The voices down inside him chuckled. They always did when he lied to himself.
Gacioch kept up an abrasive commentary. It made Rogala's reticence appear ever more attractive.
Gathrid suffered through all the latest gossip from the courts of Ventimiglia and Hell. Then the demon offered to do his scouting. All he had to do, Gacioch claimed, was decor-porealize him. Any fool could manage the necessary spell.
Alarm bells clamored in the depths of the youth's mind. "No. I don't need any help. Thank you."
A ghostly, merry tinkle of Toal merriment assured him that the offer had been a trap.
Rogala remained in his thoughts. What had become of Theis? He no longer had that feeling of being followed from a distance.
If he wanted to reach the Library, he had to start thinking like the dwarf. Eschew mercy. Make the goal everything. Don't let anything else matter. Be willing to sacrifice anyone and anything...
. His stomach knotted. His thoughts disgusted him.
Near midnight they came upon a manor. Gathrid found himself feeling an inexplicable homesickness.
Ah. Some of his souls belonged to men who had begun their lives here. Their emotions were bubbling. He drew their memories to his forebrain.
Using their knowledge, he traveled westward till he reached a manor famous for the horses it bred.
He stole two. He rode away wondering how soon their loss would be noted, and if it would be connected with him.
After a time he turned northward again. He planned to make a grand swing, west and north, around Dedera. That should be less predictable than his former, more direct route.
Fate, luck or the masking hand of Suchara herself, served him well. Even by day no one challenged his party, though they passed manor after manor and hundreds of people glanced at them incuriously.
He pushed hard all day. Loida became too tired to complain. Late in the afternoon he started following roads tending eastward again. By dusk he and Loida were directly north of Dedera. The peaks of the Chromogas looked like bloody teeth in a horizon-spanning jaw as the setting sun illuminated their snowy peaks. Gathrid kept pushing.