Triplet

"Hold it!" Ravagin cut in. "What makes you think you're going to do the invocation?"

"I second the question," Danae growled.

Hart exhaled loudly. "I may not be as experienced as you are, Ravagin, with Karyx and its wonders, but I do know that the inherent dangers of an invocation increase as you go up the hierarchy.

Invoking a demogorgon is about as dangerous as you can get, and I doubt that either of us wants Ms.

mal ce Taeger to take that sort of risk."

Ravagin opened his mouth, but Danae beat him to the punch. "Hart, it's time to get a couple of things straight," she bit out. "First of all, from a purely practical standpoint, you can't do the invocation for the simple reason that I'm not going to give it to you."

"Ms. mal ce Taeger—"

"Danae! It's just Danae here, Hart—no one has that many names on Karyx. Second of all, you're not in charge of me here. Ravagin is, and if anyone had the right to take this invocation away from me it would be him—and I'm not going to give him the spell, either. And finally, if you'd turn down your loyalty to Daddy Dear by a few degrees, you'd realize I'm the one who's got the best chance of coming out of this safely, anyway. I've invoked the demogorgon before and he didn't hurt me then.

So. Ravagin, where should we try this?"

"Not here," Ravagin said, stifling the automatic urge to argue with her. One successful pass at a demogorgon was no guarantee that a second wouldn't end in disaster... but it was abundantly clear that her mind was made up, and arguing would only waste precious time. "We're too close to Melentha and her house. I suggest we head southwest, cross the Besak-Findral road and the plains south of it and hide out in the marshes by the Davrahil River. That's nearly twenty kilometers in the wrong direction, and I doubt they'll get around to searching anywhere that far away for at least a few hours. Hart?"

"Makes sense," the other said promptly. "Let's get moving."

Ravagin had fully expected to run into at least one of Melentha's searching spirits, if not the demonwoman herself... but as the minutes turned to half an hour and they'd still encountered no trouble, he began to both breathe easier and wonder if his flailing attack had indeed done Melentha some real damage. Certainly she would have thought to scour the immediate area as well as to send everything else available in a mad dash for the Cairn Mounds and the Tu

Unless long association with her demon had dulled her mind that much. It was possible; most scholars had long since come to the conclusion that, for all their power, Karyx's spirit world was severely lacking in anything resembling human imagination.

But whatever the reason, they reached and crossed the Besak-Findral road without trouble and headed cross-country toward the Davrahil River. Besak's surrounding landscape, never more than rolling to begin with, began to flatten out even more as the occasional patches of forest became rarer.

Once he caught Hart looking around with an air of disapproval, and assured him that well before they reached the Davrahil they would find more than adequate cover.

An hour later, they did.

Ravagin had been to these marshes only once before, nearly seven years earlier, and the place had not noticeably improved since then. In the daylight, he knew, the predominant characteristics would be the incredibly colored plant life growing around and on the black-trunked trees, and the multitude of animal, bird, and insect sounds. Now, in the dead of night, the first thing Ravagin noticed was the rancid smell.

There weren't any real paths into the marshes, but for a couple of kilometers at least Ravagin knew the land would be reasonably passable. Dismounting, he led the way, checking with his feet for holes and soft spots that might endanger their horses and with his hands for the sort of dangerous thorn limbs that always seemed to find a traveler at the wrong moment. More that once he regretted having had to leave the way house without any of his home-made torches, but there was nothing for it now.

Invoking a dazzler was, of course, completely out of the question.

They'd struggled their way about half a kilometer inside the marshes when he called it quits. A small tree-covered knoll provided them with at least a little grazing space for their horses and enough dry ground for Danae's needs.

Fifteen minutes later, with the aroma of burning incense mixing oddly with the swampy odors, Danae began her invocation.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Hart asked softly.

Ravagin shifted his attention from Danae's motionless cross-legged form to the vaguely brightening sky overhead. She'd been sitting there in communion with the demogorgon for at least half an hour now. "No idea," he told Hart. "I came in on the middle the last time she did this, and I still had to wait for twenty minutes or so before she came out of it."

Hart hissed between his teeth. "I should have insisted she let me do this."

Ravagin eyed the other. "You been her bodyguard long?" he asked.

The other threw him a sharp look, shifted his eyes back to Danae. "Since she was seven. Fifteen years."

"Almost the same time I've been ferrying people in and out of the Hidden Worlds," Ravagin commented. "It's easy to get stuck in a frame of mind, isn't it."

Hart smiled lopsidedly. "If you're suggesting I take my job too seriously... don't. There isn't any way to take bodyguarding too seriously."

"Un-huh." Ravagin paused, casting around for another topic of conversation. "So. You mentioned earlier that you'd talked to Gartanis. Did he say anything about what happened to his lar?"

"Not really, but as I said earlier he was furious that Melentha would attack him so brazenly."

"So he knew Melentha was behind it?"

"Oh, certainly. I get the feeling he's at least suspected her involvement with demons for a long time.

A pity we can't enlist him onto our side in fighting her."

"We tell a Karyxite about Shamsheer and Threshold and we'll be dog meat as far as Triplet Control is concerned," Ravagin told him.

"Yes, I understand the rules," Hart said. "I also don't give a damn about rules if breaking them will make a life-and-death difference."

Ravagin thought about the automatic penalties that accompanied the illegal disclosure laws.

Penalties even Cowan mal ce Taeger might find himself helpless to alter... "Let's wait and see what Danae comes up with before we try anything that drastic, shall we? Besides, didn't you mention earlier that Gartanis had already given you some help?"

"Spells designed to break a path through Melentha's defenses," the other shrugged. "Useless, really, for the way the game's changed." He paused, an odd expression on his face. "These more elaborate spells—the spirit-protection ones and all—they're distance-oriented, aren't they? As in their effect decreases as distance from the spell-caster increases, I mean."

"Well..." Ravagin considered. "Yes, to some extent that's true. Why?"

Hart was silent a long moment. "If Danae is able to get this spirit invisibility thing... I want you to help me arrange things so that I'm only partially covered by it."

"There'll be no need for that," Ravagin assured him. "There won't be any trouble getting the spell to cover all of us equally well."

"I understand, but that's not what I meant. I intend to leave you two as soon as we're protected and make my own way back to the Tu

With only partial invisibility, I should be able to attract and thus draw off the bulk of Melentha's surveillance and attack."

It was something he should have expected, Ravagin realized in retrospect, but it still came as a shock. Only someone ignorant of the dangers of Karyx would even have thought up such a scheme, let alone suggested it. "Forget it," he said when he found his voice. "I'm not leaving you here as a moving target for whatever the hell the demons might decide to throw at you."