Dying of the Light

Chapter 9

"We have succeeded," Gwen said dryly after they had moved beyond the gate. "They're after us."

"They saw us?"

"They had to. Our light, as we went past the open gateway. They couldn't miss that."

Thick darkness rushed by them on either side, and the leaves still rustled above their heads. "We run?" Dirk said.

"Their car will have working lasers, and ours doesn't. The outer concourse is the only road open to us. The Braith aircar will chase us up, and somewhere above us the hunters will be waiting. We only killed two, maybe three. There will be more. We're trapped."

Dirk was thoughtful. "We can loop around the circle again, go out the gate after they've entered."

"Yes, that's an obvious try. Too obvious, though. There will be another aircar outside waiting for us, I'd guess. I have a better idea." As she spoke, she slowed the manta and brought it to a halt. Immediately before them the road forked, amid the bright wash of the headlamps. To the left the traffic circle curved back on itself; to the right was the outer concourse, beginning its two-kilometer ascent.

Gwen turned off the lights and darkness engulfed them. When Dirk started to speak, she quieted him with a sharp "Sssh!"

The world was very black. He had gone blind. Gwen, the aircar, Challenge-everything had vanished. He heard leaves brushing against each other, and he thought he heard the other aircar, the Braiths, coming down on them, but that had to be his mind, for surely he would first have seen their lights.

There was a gentle rocking motion, as if he were sitting in a small boat. Something hard touched his arm, and Dirk started, and then other somethings scraped against his face.

Leaves.

They were rising, right up into the low-hanging dense foliage of the great spreading Emereli tree.

A branch, pushed down and then released, whipped him painfully across the cheek, drawing blood. Leaves pressed all around him. Finally there was a soft thud as the wings of the manta came hard against the bulk of a massive limb. They could rise no more. They hovered, blind, enveloped by darkness and unseen foliage.

A very short time later a blur of light flashed by beneath them, curving off to the right, up the concourse. No sooner was it gone than another came into sight-from the left-turned sharply up the fork, and followed the first. Dirk was very grateful that Gwen had ignored his suggestion.

They hovered amid the leaves for an endless time, but no other cars appeared. Finally Gwen lowered them back to the road. "That won't lose them permanently," she said. "When their trap closes and we're not in it, they'll begin to wonder."

Dirk was dabbing at the wetness on his cheek with his shirttail. When his fingers finally told him that the thin trickle of blood had dried, he turned in the direction of Gwen's voice. He was still blind. "So they'll hunt for us," he said. "That's good. While they're being bothered by trying to figure out where we went, they won't be killing any Emereli. And Jaan and Garse should get here soon. Now is the time for us to hide, I think."

"Hide or run," came Gwen's answer from the darkness. She still had not touched the aircar lights.

"I have an idea," Dirk said. He touched his cheek again. Then, satisfied, he began to tuck away his shirttails. "When you were swinging around the circle I noticed something. A ramp, with a sign. Just saw it briefly in the headlamps, but it reminded me. Worlorn has a subway network, right? Intercity?"

"True," Gwen said. "It's dismantled, though."

"Is it? I know the trains don't run, but what about the tunnels? Did they fill them in?"

"I don't know. I hardly think so." Suddenly the air-car's headlamps woke again, and Dirk blinked at the sudden light. "Show me this sign," Gwen said, and once more they began the wide circuit around the central tree.

It was a subway entrance, as Dirk had guessed. A shallow ramp led down into darkness. Gwen stopped their forward motion and left them hovering a few meters away while she played the headlamps over the sign. "It will mean abandoning the aircar," she said at last. "Our only weapon."

"Yes," Dirk said. The entrance was much too narrow for the gray metal manta to pass; clearly the subway builders had not counted on anyone wanting to fly through their tunnels. "But that might be best. We can't leave Challenge, and inside the city the car limits our mobility pretty severely. Right?" When Gwen did not answer immediately, he rubbed his head wearily. "It sounds right to me, but maybe I'm not thinking so clearly. I'm tired and I'd probably be scared if I stopped to think about this. I've got bruises and cuts and I want to get some sleep."

"Well," Gwen said, "the subway might be worth a chance then. We can put a few kilometers between us and Challenge, and sleep. I don't think the Braiths will think to hunt for us there, down in the tunnels." "It's decided, then," Dirk said.

They went about it very methodically. Gwen set the aircar down next to the subterranean ramp and got the sensor pack and the field supplies out of the back seat. They took the sky-scoots as well, changing into the flight boots and discarding their own footwear. And among the tools mounted on the underside of the banshee's hood was a small hand torch, a metal-and-plastic rod as long as a man's forearm that gave off a pale white light.

When they were ready to depart, Gwen treated them both with null-scent again, then had Dirk wait by the subway entrance while she flew the aircar halfway around the great circle and left it standing in the center of the roadway near one of the largest first-level corridors. Let the Braiths think they had gone off into the interior labyrinths of Challenge; they'd have a fine long hunt ahead of them.

Dirk waited in darkness while Gwen walked the long walk back around the tree, lighting her path with the hand torch. Then, together, they went down the ramp to the abandoned subway terminal. The descent was longer than Dirk had expected. They went at least two levels below the surface, he guessed, walking quietly while their light reflected off featureless walls of pastel blue. He thought of Bretan Braith, some fifty levels below even them, and hoped briefly and insanely that the tunnels would still be powered, being (after all) something outside of the Emereli tower-city and thus beyond Bretan's reach.

But of course the subway system had been de-powered long before Bretan and the other Braiths had even come to Worlorn; below they found nothing but a vast echoing platform and massive stone wormholes rushing away to infinity. Infinity seemed very close at hand in the dark. The terminal was still, and its stillness seemed steeped in death, much more so than the quiet corridors of Challenge. It was like walking through a tomb. There was dust everywhere. The Voice had permitted no dust in Challenge, Dirk realized, but the subways were not of Challenge, not the work of ai-Emerel at all. As they walked, their footsteps sounded horribly loud.

Gwen studied a systems map very carefully before they set off into the tunnels. "There are two lines down here," she said, whispering for some reason. "One line connects all the Festival cities in a great circuit. Trains, it appears, used to run along it in both directions. The other line is a shuttle service connecting Challenge with the spaceport. Each city had its own spaceport shuttle. So which way should we go?"

Dirk was exhausted and irritable. "I don't care," he said. "What difference does it make? We can't very well walk to the next city anyway. Even with the sky-scoots, the distances are too much."

Gwen nodded thoughtfully, still looking at the map. "Two hundred thirty kilometers to Esvoch in one direction, three hundred eighty to Kryne Lamiya if we go the other way. More than that to the spaceport. I guess you're right." She shrugged and turned and picked a direction at random. "That way," she said.

They wanted speed and distance. Sitting on the edge of the platform above the track, they locked their boots into the tissue-metal platforms of their sky-scoots, then set off slowly in the direction Gwen had indicated. She went first, staying a bare quarter-meter off the ground and trailing her left hand along the tunnel wall lightly. Her right held the hand torch. Dirk stayed behind her, flying a little higher so that he could see over her shoulder. The tunnel they had chosen was a great gentle curve, veering away ever so slightly to their left. There was nothing to see, nothing to remark on. At times Dirk lost the sensation of motion entirely, so even and uneventful was their flight.

Then it seemed to him that he and Gwen were floating in some timeless limbo, while the walls crawled steadily past.

But at last, when they had come a good three kilometers from Challenge, they dropped to the bottom of the tunnel and stopped. By then neither of them had anything to say. Gwen leaned the hand torch up against a rough-hewn stone wall while they sat in the dirt and removed their boots. Wordless, she unslung her field supplies and used the packet as a pillow. No sooner did her head touch it than she was asleep, gone from him.

And apart from him too.

His own weariness did not lift, but Dirk found it difficult to sleep. Instead he sat by the edge of the small circle of pale light-Gwen had left the hand torch on-and watched her, watched her breathe, watched the shadows play along her cheeks and in her hair when she moved restlessly in sleep. He grew aware then of how very far she lay from him, and he remembered that they had not touched or talked all the way from Challenge. He did not think about it; his mind was too fogged by fear and fatigue for thought. But he felt it, like a weight upon his chest, and the dark pressed very heavy on him in the long dusty hollow beneath the world.

Finally he shut off the torch and all sight of his Jenny, and tried to sleep himself. It came in time. But nightmares came with it. He dreamed he was with Gwen, kissing her, holding her closely. But when his lips met hers, it was not Gwen at all; it was Bretan Braith he was kissing, Bretan whose lips were dry and hard, whose glowstone eye flamed frighteningly close in the blackness.

And after that he was running again, running down some endless tunnel, running to nowhere. But at his back he could hear the rush of water, and when he looked over his shoulder he thought he could glimpse a solitary bargeman poling an empty barge. The bargeman was floating down an oily black stream, and Dirk was running over dry stone, but somehow in the dream that seemed not to matter. He ran and he ran, but always the barge loomed closer, and finally he could see that the bargeman had no face, no face at all.

There was a quiet after that, and for the rest of the long night Dirk did not dream.

A light was shining where no light ought to be.

It reached him even through his closed eyelids and his slumber: a wavering yellow radiance, close at hand and then receding a bit. Dirk was aware of it only dimly when it first intruded on his hard-earned sleep. He mumbled and rolled away from it. Voices muttered nearby, and someone laughed a small sharp laugh. Dirk ignored it.

Then they kicked him, quite hard, across the face.

His head snapped sideways and the chains of sleep dissolved in a blur of pain. Lost and hurt, not knowing where he was, he struggled to sit up. His temple throbbed. Everything was too bright. He threw an arm across his eyes to block out the light and shield himself from further kicks. There was another laugh.

Slowly the world took form.

They were Braiths, of course.

One of them, a gangling bony man with a frizz of black hair, stood on the far side of the tunnel holding Gwen with one hand and a laser pistol with the other. Another laser, a rifle, was slung across his shoulders on a strap. Gwen's hands had been bound behind her back, and she stood silently with her eyes downcast.

The Braith who was standing over Dirk had not drawn a laser, but in his left hand was a high-powered hand torch that filled the subway with yellow light. The glare of the torch made it difficult for Dirk to make out his features, but he was Kavalar-tall and quite heavy, and seemed to be bald as an egg.

"At last we have won your attention," said the man with the light. The other one laughed, the same laugh Dirk had heard earlier.

With difficulty, Dirk rose to his feet and took a step backwards, away from the Kavalars. He leaned up against the tunnel wall and tried to steady himself, but his skull screamed at him and the scene swam. The bright hot hand torch was an ache eating into his eyes.

"You have injured the game, Pyr," the Braith with the laser commented from the other side of the tunnel.

"Not overly, I would hope," said the heavy man.

"Are you going to kill me?" Dirk asked. The words came with remarkable ease, considering what they were. He was finally beginning to recover from the kick.

Gwen raised her eyes when he spoke. "Eventually they'll kill you," she said in a hopeless voice. "It won't be an easy end. I'm sorry, Dirk."

"Silence, betheyn-bitch," said the heavy man, the one called Pyr. Dirk was vaguely conscious of having heard the name before. The man glanced at her casually as he spoke, then looked back toward Dirk.

"What does she mean?" Dirk said nervously. He was pressing himself hard against the stone and trying to tense his muscles inconspicuously. Pyr stood less than a meter away. The Braith seemed cocky and off-guard, but Dirk wondered how true an impression that might be. The man was holding the torch aloft in his left hand, but his right held something else-a baton about a meter long, of some dark wood, with a round hardwood knob at one end and a short blade at the other. He held it lightly between his fingers, his hand around the center shaft, tapping it rhythmically against his leg.

"You have led us a spirited chase, mockman," Pyr said. "I do not say this lightly, or in jape. Few are my equals in the old high hunt. None are my superior. Even Lorimaar high-Braith Arkellor has only half my trophy count. So when I tell you that this hunt has been extraordinary, you know I say truth. I am elated that it is not over."

"What?" Dirk said. "Not over?" The man was so close-he wondered if he could get Pyr between himself and the other man, the one with the laser, and maybe wrest the bladed baton away from him. Perhaps he could even get Pyr's holstered sidearm.

"There is no sport in taking a sleeping mockman, nor is there honor. You will run again, Dirk t'Larien."

"He'll make you his personal korariel," Gwen said angrily, looking at the two Braiths with calculated defiance. "No one will be able to hunt you except him and his teyn."

Pyr turned toward her again. "I said silence!"

She laughed at him. "Knowing Pyr," she continued, "the hunt will be pure tradition. You'll be cut loose in the forests, probably naked. These two will put away their lasers and aircars and come after you on foot, with knives and throwing-swords and hounds. After they deliver me to my masters, of course."

Pyr was frowning. The other Braith raised his pistol and used it to give Gwen a sharp crack across the mouth.

Dirk tensed, hesitated an instant too long, and jumped.

Even a meter was too far; Pyr was smiling as his head turned again. The baton came up with frightening speed, and the knob caught Dirk square in the gut. He staggered and doubled up and somehow tried to keep going. Pyr stepped daintily backwards and brought his stick around hard, into Dirk's groin. The world vanished in a red haze.

He was vaguely conscious of Pyr standing over him once more after he had collapsed. Then the Braith struck him a third time, an almost casual blow to the side of his head, and then there was nothing.

He hurt. That was the first thing he knew. That was all he knew. He hurt. His head spun and throbbed and shuddered in a strange sort of rhythm; his stomach ached as well, and below that he felt numb. Pain and dizziness were the boundaries of Dirk's world. For the longest time, that was everything.

Gradually, though, a blurred sort of awareness returned to him. He began to notice things. The pain first-it came and went in waves. Up and down it went, up and down. He was going up and down too, he finally realized, jouncing and bouncing. He was lying on something. Being dragged or carried. He moved his hands, or tried to. It was hard. The pain seemed to wipe away all normal sensation. His mouth was full of blood. His ears were ringing, buzzing, burning.

He was being carried, yes. There were voices; he could hear voices, talking and buzzing. The words would not come clear. Ahead, somewhere, a light danced and wavered; everything else was a gray mist.

Little by little the buzzing dwindled. Finally the words began to come.

"… not be happy," said a voice he did hot know. He did not think he knew it, anyway. It was hard to tell. Everything was so terribly distant, and he was bouncing, and the pain came and went, came and went, came and went.

"Yes," said another voice, heavy, clipped, sure.

More buzzing-several voices at once. Dirk understood nothing.

Then one man silenced the others. "Enough," he said. This voice was more removed even than the first two; it came from somewhere ahead, from the wavering light. Pyr? Pyr. "I have no fear of Bretan Braith Lantry, Roseph. You forget who I am. I had taken three heads in the wilds when Bretan Braith was still sucking women's teats. The mockman is mine by all the old rights."

"Truth," the first unknown voice replied. "If you had taken him in the tunnels, none would deny your right. Yet you did not."

"I wish a pure hunt, of the oldest kind." Someone said something in Old Kavalar. There was a laugh.

"Many the time we hunted together in our youth, Pyr," the strange voice said. "Had you only felt differently about women, we might well have become teyn-and-teyn, we two. I would not speak you wrong. Bretan Braith Lantry wants this man badly."

"He is no man, he is mockman. You ruled him so yourself, Roseph. The wants of Bretan Braith are nothing to me."

"I did rule him mockman, and so he is. To you and me, he is only one such, one among many. We have the jelly children to hunt, the Emereli, and others. You do not need him, Pyr. Bretan Braith feels differently. He came to the death-square and was made a fool when the man he challenged was no man at all."

"That is truth, but it is not the whole of it. T'Larien is a special sort of prey. Two of our kethi are dead at his hands, and Koraat lies dying with a broken spine. No mockman has ever run that way before. I will take him, as is my right. I found him, I alone."

"Yes," said the second new voice, the heavy, clipped one. "That is truth enough, Pyr. How did you discover him?"

Pyr was glad enough of a chance to boast. "I was not misled by the aircar, as you were, and you, and even Lorimaar. He had been too clever, this mockman, and the betheyn-bitch who ran at his side. They would not let the car sit like a pointer to the place they had gone. When you had all taken your hounds and fanned out down the corridor, my teyn and I began to search the mall by torchlight, looking for a trail. I knew the hounds would be useless. No need for them. I am a better tracker than any hound or hound master. I have tracked mockmen over the bare stone of the Lameraan Hills, through the blasted dead cities, even into the abandoned holdfasts of Taal and Bronzefist and the Glowstone Mountain. These two were pitifully easy. We checked each corridor for a distance of several meters, then moved on to check the next. We found the trail. Scuffmarks on the floor outside a subway ramp, then veritable road signs in the dust. The track vanished when they began to use their flying toys, of course, but by then we had only two possible directions to consider. I feared they might try to fly all the way to Esvoch or Kryne Lamiya, but such was not the truth. It took us most of the day and long walking, yet we caught them."

Dirk was almost alert by then, though his body was still wrapped in a gauze of pain and he doubted that it would respond very efficiently if he tried to move. He could see quite clearly. Pyr Braith was walking in front with the hand torch, talking to a smaller man in white and purple, who must be Roseph, the arbiter of the duels that never were. Between them was Gwen, walking under her own power, her hands still bound. She was silent. Dirk wondered if they had gagged her, but it was impossible to tell, since he could only see her back.

He was lying in a litter of sorts, bouncing with every step. Another Braith in white and purple was holding the front end, his big-knuckled fists wrapped around the wooden poles. The bony laughter, Pyr's teyn, was probably behind him, then, at the other end of the litter. They were still in the tunnel, walking; the subway appeared to go on forever, and Dirk had no inkling of how long he had been out. Quite a while, he guessed; there had been no Roseph and no litter when he had tried to tackle Pyr, he was certain of that. His captors had probably waited in the tunnel after calling their holdfast-brothers for help.

No one appeared to have noticed that Dirk had opened his eyes. Or perhaps they had noticed and they simply didn't care. He was in no condition to do anything except maybe scream for help.

Pyr and Roseph continued to talk, with the two others interjecting comments from time to time. Dirk tried to listen, but the pain made it hard to concentrate, and what they were saying was of very little value to Gwen and himself. Chiefly Roseph seemed to be warning Pyr that Bretan Braith would be very upset if Pyr killed Dirk, since Bretan Braith wanted to kill Dirk himself. Pyr didn't care; from his comments, it seemed clear that he had little respect for Bretan, who was two generations younger than the rest of them and therefore suspect. At no time in the conversation did any of the hunters mention the Ironjades, which led Dirk to conclude that either Jaan and Garse had not yet reached Challenge or these four were not yet aware of it.

After a while he stopped straining to understand and let himself slide back into a semi-sleep. The voices became a blur again and went on a long time. Finally, though, they stopped. One end of the litter dropped roughly, and he was jarred back to attention. Strong hands supported him beneath his arms and lifted.

They had reached the terminal beneath Challenge, and Pyr's teyn was lifting him to the platform. He did not even try to help. He went limp as he could and let them move him like, a piece of dead meat.

Then he was in the litter again and they were carrying him up the ramp into the city proper. They had not handled him gently at the platform; his head was swimming once again. Pastel blue walls went by, and he was reminded of their descent down the ramp last night. For some reason, hiding in the subway had seemed like a terribly good idea at the time.

The walls vanished, and they were in Challenge once again. He saw the great Emereli tree, this time in all of its massive grandeur. It was a gnarled giant, blue and black, its limbs hanging low over the visible curve of the traffic circle while its topmost branches brushed against the shadowed ceiling. Day had come, Dirk realized. The gateway remained open, and through its arch he could see Fat Satan and a single yellow star hanging on the horizon. He was much too lost and weary to know whether they were rising or setting.

Two hulking Kavalar aircars sat on the road near the subway ramp. Pyr halted nearby, and Dirk was lowered to the floor. He struggled to sit up, to no avail. His limbs thrashed weakly and the pain came back, until he surrendered and lay back again.

"Summon the others," Pyr said. "These matters should be settled here and now, so my korariel can be

made ready for the hunt." He stood over Dirk as he spoke. All of them were clustered around the litter, even Gwen. But she alone looked down, and her eyes caught his. She was gagged. And tired. And hopeless.

It took well over an hour for the other Braiths to assemble; for Dirk an hour of fading light and gathering strength. It was sunset, he soon realized; beyond the gateway, Fat Satan sank slowly out of sight. The darkness swelled around them, growing thicker and denser until finally the Kavalars were forced to turn on the headlamps of their aircars. By then Dirk's dizziness had all but passed. Pyr, noticing, had his hands bound behind his back and forced him to sit up against the side of one of the cars. They placed Gwen beside him, but did not remove her gag.

Though Dirk was not gagged, he did not try to speak. He sat with the cold metal to his back and his wrists chafing within their bonds, and he waited and watched and listened. From time to time he would glance toward Gwen, but she sat slumped with her head downcast and did not return his gaze.

Singly and in pairs they came. The kethi of Braith. The hunters of Worlorn. From the shadows and dark places they came. Like pale ghosts. A noise and a vague shape at first, before they walked into the small circle of light and turned to men again. Even then they were more and less than human.

The first to come led four tall rat-faced hounds, and Dirk recognized him from the wild gray plunge down the outer concourse. The man chained his hounds to the bumper of Roseph's aircar, gave curt greetings to Pyr and Roseph and their teyns, then sat cross-legged on the floor a few meters from the prisoners. He did not speak, not once. His eyes fixed on Gwen and never left her, and he did not move at all. Nearby, Dirk could hear his hounds growling in the shadows, their iron chains twisting and rattling.

Then the others came. Lorimaar high-Braith Arkellor, a brown giant in a pitch-black suit of chameleon cloth fastened with buttons of pale bone, arrived in a massive domed aircar of deep red. Within, Dirk could hear the sounds of a pack of Braith hounds. With Lorimaar was another man, a square fat man twice as heavy as Pyr, his bulk hard and solid as brick, his face pale and porcine. After them, alone and on foot, came a frail-looking oldster, bald and wrinkled and nearly toothless, with one hand of flesh and bone and one three-pronged claw of dark metal. The old man had a child's head slung from his belt; it was still bleeding, and one leg of his white trousers bore the long brown stain of its dripping.

Finally Chell arrived, as tall as Lorimaar, white-haired and mustachioed and very weary, leading a single huge Braith hound. Within the pool of light he stopped and blinked.

"Where is your teyn?" Pyr demanded.

"Here." A rasp from the darkness. A few meters away a single glowstone shone dimly. Bretan Braith Lantry came forward and stood next to Chell. His face twitched.

"All have gathered," Roseph high-Braith said to Pyr.

"No," someone objected. "There is Koraat."

The silent hunter spoke up from the floor. "He is no more. He begged ending. I granted it. In truth, he was badly broken. He was the second keth I have watched die today. The first was my teyn, Teraan Braith Nalarys." As he spoke, his eyes never left Gwen. He finished with a long breathless sentence in Old Kavalar.

"Three of us are gone," the old man said.

"We shall have a silence for them," Pyr said. He was still holding his baton, with its hardwood knob and its short blade, and he tapped it restlessly against his leg as he spoke, just as he had done in the tunnels.

Through her gag, Gwen tried to scream. Pyr's teyn, the gangling Kavalar with the wild black hair, came over and stood above her menacingly.

But Dirk, ungagged, had gotten the idea. "I'm not going to keep silence," he shouted. Or tried to. His voice was not quite up to shouting. "They were killers, all of them. Deserved to die."

All of the Braiths were looking at him.

"Gag him and stop his screaming," Pyr said. His teyn moved quickly to comply. When it was done, Pyr spoke again. "You shall have time enough to scream, Dirk t'Larien, when you run naked through the forests and you hear my hounds baying behind you."

Bretan's head and shoulders turned awkwardly. Light glistened on his scar tissue. "No," he said. "First claim is mine."

Pyr faced him. "I tracked the mockman. I took him."

Bretan twitched. Chell, still holding the great hound by a chain wrapped about one heavy hand, laid his other hand on Bretan's shoulder.

"This is no matter to me," another voice said. The Braith who sat on the floor. Staring. Unmoving. "What of the bitch?"

The others shifted their attention uneasily. "She can not be at issue, Myrik," said Lorimaar high-Braith. "She is of Ironjade."

The man's lips drew back sharply; for an instant his placid face was wildly distorted, a beast's face, a rictus of emotion. Then it passed. His features settled into pale stillness again, everything held in check. '"I will kill this woman," he said. "Teraan was my teyn. She has set his ghost adrift upon a soulless world."

"Her?" Lorimaar's voice was incredulous. "Is this truth?"

"I saw," replied the man on the floor, the one called Myrik. "I fired after her when she rode us down and left Teraan dying. This is truth, Lorimaar high-Braith."

Dirk tried to rise to his feet, but the gangling Kavalar pushed him down again, hard, and slammed his head back against the metal flank of the aircar to underline the point.

The frail oldster spoke then-the clawed ancient who carried the child's head. "Take her then as your personal prey," he said, his voice as thin and sharp as the blade of the flaying knife that hung at his belt. "The wisdom of the holdfasts is old and certain, my brothers. She is no true woman now, if she ever was, neither heldwife or eyn-keth. Who is there to vouch for her? She has left her highbond's protection to run with a mockman! If she was flesh of man's flesh once, it is so no longer. You know the ways of the mockmen, the liars, the weres, the great deceivers. Alone with her in the dark, this mockman Dirk would surely have slain her and set in her place a demon like himself, fashioned in her image."

Chell nodded agreement and said something grave in Old Kavalar. The other Braiths looked less certain. Lorimaar traded scowls with his teyn, the square fat man. Bretan's hideous face was noncommittal, half a mask of scar tissue, half blank innocence. Pyr frowned and continued to tap restlessly with his baton.

It was Roseph who replied. "I ruled Gwen Delvano human when I was arbiter at the square of death," he said carefully.

"This is truth," Pyr said.

"Perhaps she was human then," the old man said. "Yet she has tasted blood and slept with a mockman, and who will call her human now?"

The hounds began to howl.

The four that Myrik had chained to the aircar started the cacophony, and it was taken up by the pack locked inside Lorimaar's domed vehicle. Chell's massive canine snarled and pulled at his chain, until the elderly Braith jerked back angrily; then the creature sat and joined the howling.

Most of the hunters glanced toward the silent darkness beyond their little circle (Myrik, frozen-faced and immobile, was the notable exception-his eyes never left Gwen Delvano), and more than one touched his sidearm.

On the edge of the circle, beyond the aircars and their pool of light, the two Ironjades stood side by side in shadow.

Dirk's pain-his head was pounding-abruptly seemed of no consequence. His body trembled and shook. He looked at Gwen; she was looking up, at them. At Jaan especially.

He walked into the light then, and Dirk saw that he was staring at Gwen almost as fixedly as the man called Myrik. He seemed to move very slowly, like a figure in some dusty dream, a man asleep. Garse Janacek was alive and liquid at his side.

Vikary was dressed in a mottled suit of chameleon cloth, all shades of black and blacker when he entered the circle of his enemies. By the time the hounds had quieted, he was wearing dusty gray. The sleeves of his shirt ended just above the elbow; iron-and-glowstone embraced his right forearm, jade-and-silver his left. For an endless instant he loomed very large. Chell and Lorimaar both stood a head taller, but somehow, briefly, Vikary seemed to dominate. He flowed past them, a striding ghost-how unreal he was even there-who walked through the Braiths as if he could not see them, and stopped near Gwen and Dirk.

But it was all illusion. The noise subsided, the Braiths began to speak, and Jaan Vikary was just a man again, larger than many but smaller than some. "You trespass, Ironjades," Lorimaar said in a hard angry tone. "You were not called to this place. You have no right to be here."

"Mockmen," spat Chell. "False Kavalars." Bretan Braith Lantry made his singular noise. "Your betheyn I grant to you, Jaantony high-Ironjade," Pyr said firmly, but his baton moved in nervous haste. "Discipline her as you will, as you must. The mockman is mine to hunt."

Garse Janacek had stopped a few meters away. His eyes moved from one speaker to another, and twice he seemed about to reply. But Jaan Vikary ignored all of them. "Remove the bindings from their mouths," he said, gesturing toward the prisoners.

Pyr's long-limbed teyn stood over Dirk and Gwen, facing the Ironjade highbond. He hesitated a long moment, then bent and undid the gags.

"Thanks," Dirk said.

Gwen shook her head to throw loose hair out of her eyes and climbed unsteadily to her feet, her arms still bound behind her back. "Jaan," she said in an uncertain voice. "You heard?"

"I heard," Vikary said. Then, to the Braiths, "Cut loose her arms."

"You presume, Ironjade," Lorimaar said.

Pyr, however, seemed curious. He leaned on his baton. "Cut loose her arms," he said.

His teyn pulled Gwen around roughly and used his knife to free her.

"Show me your arms," Vikary said to Gwen.

She hesitated, then brought her hands out from behind her back and extended them, palms down. On her left arm the jade-and-silver shone. She had not removed it.

Dirk watched, bound and helpless, feeling chill. She had not removed it.

Vikary looked down on Myrik, who still sat with his legs crossed and his small eyes set on Gwen. "Rise to your feet."

The man rose and turned to face the Ironjade, taking his gaze from Gwen for the first time since he had arrived. Vikary started to speak.

"No," Gwen said.

She had been rubbing her wrists. Now she stopped and laid her right hand on her bracelet. Her voice was steady. "Don't you understand, Jaan? No. If you challenge him, if you kill him, then I will take it off. I will."

For the first time, emotion washed over Jaan's face, and the name of it was anguish. "You are my betheyn," he said. "If I do not… Gwen…"

"No," she said.

One of the Braiths laughed. At the sound, Garse Janacek grimaced, and Dirk saw a savage spasm come and go on the face of the man called Myrik.

If Gwen noticed, she paid no mind. She faced Myrik. "I killed your teyn," she said. "Me. Not Jaan.

Not poor Dirk. I killed him, and I admit it. He was hunting us, as you were. And killing the Emereli as well."

Myrik said nothing. Everyone was still.

"If you must duel, then, if you really want me dead, duel me!" Gwen continued. "I did it. Fight me if your revenge is so important."

Pyr laughed loudly. An instant later his teyn joined him, and Roseph as well, then several of the others -the fat man, Roseph's blocky stern-faced companion, the clawed ancient. All of them were laughing.

Myrik's face went blood-dark, then white, then dark again. "Betheyn-bitch," he said. The shuddering rictus passed across his face once more, and this time everyone saw. "You jape me. A duel is… my teyn… and you a woman!"

He ended with a scream that startled the men and set the hounds again to howling. Then he shattered.

His hands rose over his head and clenched and unclenched, and he struck her across the face as she shied away from his fury, and suddenly he was on her. His fingers wrapped around her throat and he dove forward and she went over backwards, and then they were rolling over and over on the floor until they came up hard against the side of an aircar. Myrik came out firmly on top, with Gwen pinned beneath him and his hands digging deep into the flesh of her neck. She hit him then, hard across the jaw, but in his rage he scarcely seemed to feel it. He began to slam her head against the aircar, again and again and again, screaming all the while in Old Kavalar.

Dirk struggled to his feet only to stand uselessly with his hands bound. Garse took two quick steps forward, and Jaan Vikary was finally moving. But it was Bretan Braith Lantry who reached them first and dragged Myrik off her with an arm around his neck. Myrik flailed wildly, until Lorimaar joined Bretan and between them they held the man still.

Gwen lay inert, her head up against the plate-metal door where Myrik had slammed it. Vikary knelt at her side, on one knee, and tried to put an arm around her shoulders. The back of her head left a smear of blood on the side of the aircar.

Janacek knelt too, quickly, and felt her pulse. Satisfied, he rose again and turned back to face the Braiths, his mouth tight with anger. "She wore jade-and-silver, Myrik," he said. "You are a dead man. I issue challenge."

Myrik had stopped screaming, though he was panting. One of the hounds howled and fell silent.

"Does she live?" Bretan asked in his sandpaper voice.

Jaan Vikary looked up at him out of a face as strange and strained as Myrik's had been just a short time before. "She lives."

"Good fortune," said Janacek, "but no thanks to you, Myrik, nor will it make a difference. Make your choices!"

"Let me loose!" Dirk said. No one moved.

"Let me loose!" he shouted.

Someone sliced apart his bonds.

He went to Gwen, kneeling beside Vikary. Briefly their eyes met. Dirk examined the back of her head, where the dark hair was already beginning to crust with clotted blood. "A concussion at least," he said. "Maybe a fractured skull, maybe worse. I don't know. Are there medical facilities?" He looked at each of them. "Are there?"

Bretan answered. "None functional in Challenge, t'Larien. The Voice fought me. The city would not respond. I had to kill it."

Dirk grimaced. "She shouldn't be moved, then. Maybe it's only a concussion. I think she's supposed to rest."

Incredibly, Jaan Vikary left her in Dirk's arms and stood up. He gestured to Lorimaar and Bretan, who held Myrik prisoned between them. "Release him."

"Release…?" Janacek threw Vikary a puzzled glance.

"Jaan," Dirk said, "never mind about him. Gwen-"

"Get her inside an aircar," Vikary said.

"I don't think we should move-"

"It is not safe here, t'Larien. Get her inside an aircar."

Janacek was frowning. "My teyn?"

Vikary faced the Braiths again. "I told you to release that man." He paused. "That mockman, as you would call him. He has earned the name."

"What do you intend, high-Ironjade?" Lorimaar said sternly.

Dirk lifted Gwen and laid her gently in the back of the closest of the aircars. She was quite limp, but her breathing was still regular. Then he slid into the driver's seat and waited, massaging his wrists to restore circulation.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten him. Lorimaar high-Braith was still talking. "We recognize your right to face Myrik, but it must be singled, as Teraan Braith Nalarys lies dead. Since your own teyn challenged first…"

Jaan Vikary had his laser pistol in his hand. "Release him and stand away."

Lorimaar, startled, let go of Myrik's arm and stepped swiftly to the side. Bretan hesitated. "High-Ironjade," he rasped, "for your honor and his, for your holdfast and your teyn, set down your weapon."

Vikary aimed at the half-faced youth. Bretan twitched, then released Myrik and fell back with a grotesque shrug.

"What is happening?" the one-handed oldster was demanding in a shrill voice. "What is he doing?" Everyone ignored him.

"Jaan," Garse Janacek said in a horrified tone. "This has disarrayed your thoughts. Lower your gun, my teyn. I have challenged. I will kill him for you." He laid his hand on Jaan's arm.

And Jaan Vikary wrenched free and pointed his weapon at Garse. "No. Stand back. You will not interfere, not now. This is for her."

Janacek's face darkened; he had no grins now, none of his savage wit. His right hand balled into a first, and he slowly raised it straight up in front of his face. Iron-and-glowstone stood shining in the space between the two Ironjades. "Our bond," said Janacek. "Think, my teyn. My honor, and yours, and that of our holdfast." His voice was grave.

"What of her honor?" Vikary said. Gesturing impatiently with his laser, he forced Janacek away from him and turned again on Myrik.

Alone and confused, Myrik seemed not to know what was expected of him. His rage had deserted him, though he was still breathing hard. A trail of spittle, tinged pink by blood, ran from one corner of his mouth. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and looked uncertainly toward Garse Janacek. "The first of the four choices," he began in a dazed voice. "I make the choice of mode."

"No," said Vikary. "You make no choices. Face me, mockman."

Myrik looked from Vikary to Janacek and back again. "The choice of mode," he repeated numbly.

"No," Vikary said again. "You gave Gwen Delvano no choices, she who would have faced you fair, in duel."

Myrik's face twisted into a look of honest bafflement. "She? In duel? I… she was a woman, a mockman." He nodded, as if he had settled everything. "She was a woman, Ironjade. Have you gone mad? She japed me. A woman does not duel."

"And you do not duel, Myrik. Do you understand? Do you? You"-he fired, and a half-second pulse of light took Myrik low, between his legs, so the man screamed-

"do"-and he fired again, and burned Myrik in the neck just beneath his chin, and then waited as the man fell and his laser recycled-

"not"-he continued, fifteen seconds later, and with the word a spurt of light that burned the writhing figure across the chest, and then Vikary was stepping backwards, toward the aircar-

"duel!" he finished, half in and half out of the car, and with the word came a flick of his wrist and a fourth burst of light, and Lorimaar high-Braith Arkellor was falling, his weapon half drawn.

Then the door slammed, and Dirk threw on the the gravity grid, and they jerked forward and up and out, and were halfway to the exit arch when the laser fire began to hiss and burn against their armor.