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It was one of Torin Athan's sons: he did not know the man, but the look of the sons of Athan was almost that of a clan apart: long-faced, almost mournful men, with a dour attitude at variance with most of the flamboyant men of Torin. Athan was also a prolific family: there were a score of sons, nearly all legitimate.

"Uyo,"Vanye hailed him, "I have no wish to draw on you: I am Nhi Vanye, outlawed, but I have no quarrel with you."

The man— he was surely one of the breed of Athan— relaxed somewhat.

He let Vanye ride nearer, though he himself had stopped. He looked at him curiously, wondering, no doubt, what sort of madman he faced, so dressed, and upon such a homely pony. Even fleeing, a man might do better than this.

"Nhi Vanye," he said, "we had thought you were down in Erd."

"I am bound now for Baien. I borrowed this horse last night, and it is spent."

"If you look to borrow another, uyo,look to your head. You are not armored, and I have no wish to commit murder. You are Rijan's son, and killing you even outlawed as you are would not be a lucky thing for the likes of a sai-uyo.

Vanye bowed slightly in acknowledgment of that reasoning, then lifted up the sword he carried. "And this, uyo,is a blade I do not want to draw. It is a named-blade, and cursed, and I carry it for someone else, in whose service I am ilinand immune to other law. Ask in Ra-morij and they will tell you what thing you narrowly escaped."

And he drew Changelingpart of the way from its sheath, so that the blade remained transparent, save only the symbols on it. The man's eyes grew wide and his face pale, and his hands stayed still upon his own blade.

"To whom are you ilin," he asked, "that you bear a thing like that? It is qujalinwork."

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"Ask in Ra-morij," he said again. "But under ilin-law I have passage, since my liyois in Morija, and you may not lawfully execute Rijan's decree on me. I beg you, get down. Strip your horse of gear and I will exchange with you: I am a desperate man, but no thief, and I will not ride your beast to the death if I have any choice about it. This pony is of San. If yours knows the way home, I will set him loose again as soon as I can find a chance."

The man considered the prospects of battle and then wisely capitulated, slid down and busily stripped off saddle and belongings.

"This horse is of Torin," he said, "and if loosed anywhere in this district can find his way; but I beg you, I am fond of him."

Vanye bowed, then gripped the dapple's mane in his hands and vaulted up, turned the animal and headed off at a gallop, for there was a bow among the sai-uyo's gear, which he reckoned would be shortly strung, and he had no wish for a red-feathered Torin arrow in his back.

And from place to place across the face of Morija, his pursuers would have found ready replacements for their mounts, fine horses, with saddles and all their equipment.

The night was falling again, coming on apace, and the signal fires glowed brighter upon the hilltops, one blaze upon each of the greater hills, from edge to edge of Morija.

And when that uyomanaged to reach San-morij with the little pony—

Vanye intensely imagined the man's mortification, his fine gear borne by that shaggy little beast— then there would be two signals ablaze on the hill by San-morij and upon that by San-hei, and no doubt which fork of the road he had gone. There would be the whole of San and now the clan of Torin riding after him, and the Nhi and the Myya upon the other road, to meet him at Baien-ei.

To have stripped the man of weapons and armor which he so desperately needed would likely have meant killing him: but Changelingwas not the kind of blade that left a corpse to be robbed. To have killed the man would have been well too, but he had not, would not: it was his nature not to kill 151

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unless cornered; it was the only honor he still possessed, to know there was a moral limit to what he would do, and he would not surrender it.

It would not be paid with gratitude when Torin caught him, and least of all when they brought him to Nhi and Myya.

Now he and the whole of Ra-morij— and if messengers had sped in the wake of his pursuers, the whole of the midlands villages by now— knew where he must run. There was a little pass at Baien-ei, and hard by it a ruined fort where every lad in Morija probably went at some time or another in their farings about the countryside. The best pasturage in all of Morija was in those hills, where ran the best horses; and the ruined fort was often explored by boys that herded for their fathers; and sometimes it served as rendezvous for fugitive lovers. It had had its share of tragedies, both military and private, that heap of stones.

And Morgaine's guide was a Nhi harper with the imagination of a callow boy on a lovers' tryst, who would surely know no better than to lead her there for shelter, into a place that had but one way out.

* * *

There were men guarding the hillside. He had known there must be even before he set out toward it. Any break from Baien-ei by riders had to be through this narrow pass, and with archers placed there, that ride would be a short one.

He left the dapple tethered against the chance he might have to return; the branch he used was not stout, and should mischance take him or he find what he sought, the animal would grow restless and eventually pull free, seeking his own distant home. He took the sheathed sword in hand and entered the hills afoot.

All the paths of the hills of Baien-ei could not be guarded: there were too many goat tracks, too much hillside, too many streams and folds of rock: for this reason Baien-ei had been an unreliable defense even in the purpose for which it was built. Against a massive assault, it was strong enough, but when the fein, the peasant bowman, had come into his own, and wars were 152

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no longer clashes between dai-uyinwho preferred open plain and fought even wars by accepted tradition, Baien-ei had become untenable— a trap for its holders more than a refuge.

He moved silently, with great patience, and now he could see the tower again, the ruined wall that he remembered from years ago. Sometimes ru

He came up against the wall and his fingers sought the crevices in the stonework, affording him the means to pull himself up the old defensework at its lowest point. He slipped over the crest, dropped, landed in wet grass and slid to the bottom of the little enclosure on the slope inside. He gathered himself up slowly, shaken, feeling in every bone the misery of the long ride, the weakness of hunger. He feared as he had feared all along, that it was nothing other than a trap laid for him by Erij: Myya deviousness, not to have told him the truth. That his brother should have committed a mistake in telling him the truth and in trusting him was distressing. Erij's mistakes were few. His shoulders itched. He had the feeling that there might be an arrow centered there from some watcher's post.

He yielded to the fear, judging it sensible, and darted into shadows, rounded the corner of the building where it was tucked most securely against the hill. There was a crack in the wall there that he well remembered, wide as a door, and yet one that ought to be safest to use, sheltered as it was.