A Time of Changes

69

Alone, I drove northward along the flank of the Huishtors, and then westward, on the road that leads to Kongoroi and Salla’s Gate. More than once I thought of swerving the car and sending it tumbling over the highway’s rim, and making an end. More than once, as the first light of day touched my eyelids in some back-country hostelry, I thought of Halum and had to struggle to leave my bed, for it seemed so much easier to go on sleeping. Day and night and day and night and day, and a few days more, and I was deep into West Salla, ready to go up the mountains and through the gate. While resting one night in a town midway into the uplands I discovered that an order was out in Salla for my arrest. Kinnall Darival, the septarch’s son, a man of thirty years, of this height and having these features, brother to the Lord Stirron, was wanted for monstrous crimes: selfbaring, and the use of a dangerous drug, which against the explicit orders of the septarch he was offering to the unwary. By means of this drug the fugitive Darival had driven his own bondsister insane and in her madness she had perished in a horrible way. Therefore all citizens of Salla were enjoined to apprehend the evildoer, for whom a heavy reward would be paid.

If Stirron knew why Halum had died, then Noim had told him everything. I was lost. When I reached Salla’s Gate, I would find officers of the West Sallan constabulary waiting for me, for my destination was known. Yet in that case why had the announcement not informed the populace that I was heading for the Burnt Lowlands? Possibly Noim had held back some of what he knew, so that I could make an escape.

I had no choice but to go forward. It would take me days to reach the coast, and I would find all of Salla’s ports alerted for me when I got there; even if I slipped on board a vessel, where would I go? Glin? Manneran? Similarly it was hopeless thinking of getting somehow across the Huish or the Woyn, into the neighboring provinces: I was already proscribed in Manneran, and surely I would find a chilly greeting in Glin. The Burnt Lowlands it would have to be, then. I would stay there some while, and then perhaps try to make my way out via one of the Threishtor passes, to start a new life on the western coast. Perhaps.

I brought provisions in the town, at a place that serves the needs of hunters entering the Lowlands: dried food, some weapons, and condensed water, enough to last me by careful expansion for several moontimes. As I made my purchases I thought the townsfolk were eyeing me strangely. Did they recognize me as the depraved prince whom the septarch sought? No one moved to seize me. Possibly they knew there was a cordon across Salla’s Gate, and would take no risks with such a brute, when there were police in plenty to capture me on top of Kongoroi. Whatever the reason, I got out of the town unbothered, and set out now on the final stretch of the highway. In the past I had come this way only in winter, when snow lay deep; even now there were patches of dirty whiteness in shadowy corners, and as the road rose, the snow thickened, until near Kongoroi’s double summit everything lay mantled in it. Timing my ascent carefully, I managed things so that I came to the great pass well after sundown, hoping that darkness would protect me in case of a roadblock. But the gate was unguarded. My car’s lights were off as I drove the last distance — I half expected to go over the edge — and I made the familiar left turn, which brought me into Salla’s Gate, and I saw no one there. Stirron had not had time to close the western border, or else he did not think I would be so mad as to flee that way. I went forward, and through the pass, and slowly down the switchbacks on the western face of Kongoroi, and when dawn overtook me I was into the Burnt Lowlands, choking in the heat, but safe.