Triplet

It was probably only a few seconds before her vision and mind cleared and she found herself beyond the post line leaning up against the lar's for edge. To both sides of her the fight was continuing; ahead of her the muddy edge of the lar had become transparent enough to see stars through.

The lar was about to collapse.

Danae took a shuddering breath, then another, trying to drive the cobwebs of that passage from her brain. When the lar vanished, she had to be ready to move away from the post line as quickly as she could, before the demon could reach out. Invoking another lar would give her a chance to get her muscles back in order again; licking her lips, she took a deep breath and braced herself.

And all at once the lar was gone.

She hadn't realized she was still leaning against it until she toppled face-first onto the ground. "Sapreenhala mi

And was interrupted by a crack of thunder as a flash of green shot out of the post line and ricocheted from her face... and she found her tongue frozen.

With her lar invocation unfinished.

There was nothing she could do. Dimly, she remembered having heard that there were spells that could be done with hand and body movements alone; but nothing that specialized had ever been given to her. Without her voice, she was completely helpless; open to whatever the demon decided to do to her. The green glow flared again—

"Sa-preenhala mi

Danae jerked at the unexpected voice from behind her, and for a heartbeat wondered if it had been a product of her own desperate imagination. But there was nothing imaginary about the flashes of green high-voltage that were again arcing about a dark but no longer muddy lar...

A pair of hands gripped her shoulders as she started to twist around in the grass where she still lay.

"You all right?" a voice whispered.

"Ahhh—" Danae worked moisture into her mouth. "Ahh... yes, I think so. Where—how—?"

"Let's hold off on any conversation until after we're away from here, all right?" She found herself being half lifted, half dragged to her feet. "I tried a little spell that's supposed to bind trapped spirits a little tighter," he added, "but I don't know how much range the demon there had in the first place, so I don't know whether it'll help us much."

His arm supporting her, they started away from the post line, and it wasn't until then that Danae realized how big the lar surrounding them actually was. "We go to the edge, you release this one and immediately invoke another?" she hazarded. "Cute."

"Thank you. Your trick back there was pretty good, too. I'd wager your friend Melentha never thought of someone getting through her post line like that."

Danae felt her heart skip a beat. "Melentha! Damn!—I forgot about her. She'll be after us any second now—"

"She'll have to hear the news and get back first," the other said calmly. "She, Ravagin, and a man named Nordis left the house a few minutes before you came out."

"You mean—?" Danae clamped her teeth together as it suddenly clicked. No wonder there'd been no demons in the halls or on the grounds to stop her: the system had been set up for the demons to take their orders directly from Melentha, and in her absence there was no way for unexpected events like Danae's escape to be taken into account. For the moment, at least, they had a little breathing space.

But only for the moment. Even if the demons themselves wouldn't or couldn't leave the house without new orders, they would certainly have already sent word via their parasite spirits, and Melentha would soon be galloping back to start the hunt.

"You must have been skulking around here for quite awhile, then," she commented as they reached the far edge of the lar's protection.

"Not that long, really," he shrugged. "I spent most of the time I had studying the defenses. Get ready: carash-melanasta—sa-preenhala mi

The lar flicked out and a new one appeared to take its place. "I'm glad you found your way out before I had to find my way in," he added.

"I don't blame you," she sighed as they started off again. "You know, I wondered if it might be you when I realized that someone out here was testing the post line for spirits. But I figured it was more likely bandits or something. Can I assume it was more of your finagling that was behind Melentha's sudden departure, too?"

"Oddly enough, it was, though totally accidentally. My horse is tethered over behind the trees there—

are your legs doing any better?"

"I should be able to walk in a minute or two." Danae clenched her teeth and threw him a sideways glance. "I never thought I'd live to say this... but I'm sure as hell glad to see you."

A slight smile creased Hart's face. "I'm glad I was here when you needed me, Ms. mal ce Taeger," he said.

Chapter 26

"I'll tell you one thing—Andresson damn well better be in trouble," Nordis growled. "If he's just off sight-seeing somewhere I'll skin him alive."

"Shut up and keep your eyes open," Melentha snapped. "If you'd handled this right in the first place, the trail wouldn't have had time to get this cold."

Nordis subsided, and in the darkness Ravagin grimaced. Nordis was an old hand, with nearly ten years of service to the Corps on his file. Professional pride was probably behind his time-consuming efforts to locate Andresson by himself instead of immediately sending a message to the way house—

pride, and maybe more than a little conceit. Still, there was no call for Melentha to jump all over him about it.

But then, Nordis had no idea of how his unexpected appearance had fouled up Melentha's plans.

They were in sight of Besak's lar now—or, rather, in sight of the place where the lar should have been visible. Ravagin felt his hands clench around the reins at the sheer power the lar's destruction implied. Could Melentha have done all that herself? If so, then any plan he could possibly come up with to escape with Danae was so much wasted effort.

Perhaps there was a way to find out. "Tell me, Melentha," he called across to her, "if someone wanted to take out a lar of this size, how would he or she go about doing so?"

"Hold it a second," she said shortly as a pair of sprites shot across the landscape and came to a hovering halt in front of her. She held a brief and inaudible conversation with them, and a minute later they flitted off again. "No sign of anyone on the Besak-Findral road," she reported. "What was the question again?"

"I was asking how you'd go about destroying Besak's lar."

"Afraid you'd have to ask someone with a little more spirit knowledge," she replied calmly.

"Gartanis, for instance."

"Same thing I told Andresson when he asked that question," Nordis commented. "I've never seen a client nag your leg off with questions like that."

"You told him about Gartanis?" Ravagin frowned. "Maybe that's where he went, then."

"Give me a little credit, will you, Ravagin?" the other said. "That was the first place I checked."

Unless Gartanis had lied about Andresson's presence there... but why would he bother? "What exactly was Andresson's field of study?" he asked instead. "If he wandered off on his own, it might give us a clue as to where he might be."

"He didn't have one," Nordis snorted. "He was a tourist, here to see the sights. If you can believe that."

"What in the world does Besak have in the way of sights?" Ravagin frowned.

"Damned if I know," Nordis said frankly. "Or Torralane Village, either, for that matter. That's where we started this trip—we only came down yesterday."

"You were here yesterday?" Melentha put in. "Why the hell didn't you check in then?"

"He didn't want to," Nordis told her. "Said he wanted to live native-style, not in some transplanted part of the Twenty Worlds."