Triplet

"I suppose I'll find out, won't I?" Ravagin gritted. "Look, Melentha, I don't have any choice in this.

Danae's my client, and I have to do my damnedest to get her out before anything happens to her.

You've never been a Courier; you wouldn't understand."

"I suppose not." Melentha sighed. "All right—I guess all I can do for now is wish you bye-and-luck.

And suggest you try and avoid doing any more spirit invocation than you absolutely have to."

"Agreed. See you later."

She nodded and galloped away. Biting at his lip, Ravagin watched her go, then reached into his pack and pulled out a stone and a long, tightly wrapped cylinder. He'd been ridiculed more than once by his fellow Couriers for making and carrying such things around on a world where light and fire were there for the invoking... but maybe he was about to get the last laugh.

Assuming he survived this at all, of course.

The dazzler sword lit the forest up briefly as he drew it from its sheath. Advertising his presence to anyone who happened to be watching... Ignoring the knot in his gut, he swung the sword, striking the stone in his hand a grazing blow. A shower of sparks burst out and onto the tip of the cylinder, igniting the highly flammable resin saturating it there. The torch flared brightly for a few seconds, then settled down to a quieter, steadier glow.

Fire and light. With luck, maybe even animals who were used to the presence of firebrats and dazzlers would shy away from it in this form. With even more luck, whatever spirits Coven had protecting their forest wouldn't notice it.

Taking a deep breath, he sheathed the glowing sword and nudged his horse with his knees. Torch held firmly aloft, he headed into the forest.

Chapter 16

It was, at first, easier going than Ravagin had expected. The trees were large and well packed, with wide skirts of branches reaching out to pluck at the casual traveler, but whether by design or accident Danae had entered at a spot where a trail of sorts formed a twisted path around the worst of it. With the light from his torch pushing the darkness back a few meters, Ravagin was able to keep pretty much to the trail. Even with that mysterious dji

Half an hour into the forest, the trail petered out.

"Damn," Ravagin muttered to himself. Drawing the sword Melentha had given him, he reluctantly dismounted, wishing like hell he could afford the time and risk of invoking a lar to encircle him.

Karyx horses could be nasty fighters, and even a forest predator might think twice before tackling a man astride one. But a man down at ground level was something else again, and Ravagin had to force himself to wrench his eyes from the surrounding shadows to study the ground.

It was, fortunately, a quick job that took only a few seconds of his attention. Danae's horse had kicked up identifiable chunks of the forest mat on its way, and discerning the direction it had taken was practically child's play. A minute later Ravagin was back in pursuit, at a necessarily reduced pace.

He kept on steadily, stopping every few minutes to make sure he hadn't lost the spoor, and about two hours later came to a small clearing that was nevertheless large enough to have a circle of moonlight at its center. A safer spot for a break he wasn't likely to find for a long time. Reining up, he stopped his horse in the center of the pool of light and, with a careful look around, dismounted. Holding his dazzler sword low where its shimmer couldn't affect his night vision, he worked a stick of cured meat out of the survival pack and wearily took a bite.

"Good evening."

Ravagin jerked around, dropping the meat stick and reflexively bringing his sword into low guard position. Halfway across the clearing from him a dark human figure stood, its figure swathed in a long cloak, its face hidden from the moonlight by a wide-brimmed hat.

Ravagin swallowed, hard. The other didn't seem to be armed; but under the circumstances, that didn't mean a hell of a lot. For starters, there was no way he could have simply walked in here without Ravagin hearing him, and that implied damn good spirithandling. Or worse. "Hello," he managed.

"What brings you to Morax Forest at this time of night?" the other asked, ignoring the sword pointed in his direction.

"I'm following a friend." Ravagin told him, wishing he knew just who—or what—he was facing here. It could be a human, a doppelganger, or even a major spirit like a demon or peri. "She was brought into the forest against her will."

"What will you do when you find her?"

Ravagin licked his lips. "That depends partly on why she was brought here," he said cautiously. "Are you one who knows what that purpose is?"

"What will you do when you find her?" the figure repeated.

There was no way out of it. Not knowing which side—if any—the other was on, Ravagin couldn't guess what sort of answer would be safe and what sort would mean trouble. "I need to make sure she's safe," he said, trying to stay as neutral as possible. "She's my companion and partner—I can't just abandon her to whatever purpose she's been brought here for."

The floppy hat tilted slightly in the moonlight. "Her partner?" the figure asked. "Explain what you mean by that."

A response at last. "We travel together, she and I," Ravagin said carefully. "Uh... we work side by side—"

"You work with her? You aid in the creation of her goods?"

Did he know Danae had been showing her composite bow around Besak? A faint suspicion began to glimmer at the edge of Ravagin's mind. "We create our stock in trade together, yes. Why?—is Coven interested in buying our bow-making technique?"

The figure stood in silence a long moment... and then suddenly the hat and cloak were gone, and in the moonlight Ravagin saw the hazy figure of an impossibly perfect man. "The masters of Coven will wish to speak with you," he said, striding forward. His feet, Ravagin noted without surprise, made no noise against the fallen leaves beneath them. "You will accompany me to the village."

Ravagin swallowed. "The woman and I really wouldn't be very useful to you," he said. The glowing sword in his hand twitched around to track the peri's approach...

The peri smiled. "Ahlahspereojihezrahilkma beriosparath—"

The rest of the spell was cut off by Ravagin's gasp as a blaze of light erupted directly in front of his eyes.

Instinctively, he threw himself to the side, dimly aware that the light moved with him and that the sword in his hand had suddenly become icy cold. Twisting aside again, he hurled the weapon toward where he remembered the peri standing—

The light cut off abruptly, leaving not a trace of afterimage on his retinas to obscure his sight. The peri hadn't moved; the sword, its now dulled blade broken in two, lay at the spirit's feet. Both pieces were already thickly covered with frost, and a fog of cold air was swirling lazily around them.

For a long moment the clearing was silent. Then the peri turned and started off in the direction Ravagin had originally been going. "Come," it called back over its shoulder. "The masters of Coven will be anxious to see you."

"Yeah," Ravagin muttered under his breath. Fighting shaky knees, he climbed back onto his horse and twitched the reins to follow.

"Awaken," a disembodied voice said; and at its command, Danae did so.

Her first thought was that it was Melentha leaning over her bed; Melentha, wearing the Coven robe.

An instant later her brain came more fully on track and she realized that this woman was someone else entirely, someone she'd never seen before. But the robe still looked like the one from—