They passed another smelly tavern loud with drunken song. ‘Is this noise something like that?’ Sparhawk asked, jerking his head toward the singing. ‘Meaningless sound that fills up your ears and keeps you from hearing what you’re really listening for?’

‘More or less. We have a couple of senses that you don’t, though, so we know when others are around, for one thing, and we know when they’re doing things – tampering, if you want to call it that – for another. Maybe I can hide what I’m doing in all that other noise. How much further do we have to go?’

He turned a corner into a quiet street. ‘We’re coming to the edge of town now.’ He shifted her in his arms and continued on up the street, walking a little faster now. The houses here on the outskirts of Beresa were more substantial, and they were set back from the streets in aloof, self-important pride. ‘After we go through the charcoal yards, we’ll come to the woods,’ he told her. ‘Are you sure this noise that I can’t hear will be loud enough to hide your spells?’

‘I’ll see if I can get some help. I just thought of something. Cyrgon doesn’t know exactly where I am, and it’ll take him a little while to identify me and pinpoint my exact location. I’ll ask some of the others to come here and have a party or something. If they’re loud enough, and if I move fast enough, he won’t even know that I’ve been here.’

There were only a few workmen tending the sullen fires in the charcoal yards that ringed Beresa, incurious men, blackened by their tasks and far gone with drink, who lurched around the smoky flames like hellish imps dancing on eternal coals. Sparhawk walked even faster now, carrying the distraught Child Goddess toward the shadowy edge of the tangled forest.

‘I’ll need to be able to see the sky,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want any tree-limbs in my way.’ She paused. ‘Are you afraid of heights?’ she asked.

‘Not particularly, why?’

‘Just asking. Don’t get excited when we start. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’ll be perfectly safe as long as I’m holding your hand.’ She paused again. ‘Oh, dear,’ she murmured. ‘I just remembered something.’

‘What?’ He pushed aside a branch and slipped past it into the darkness of the forest.

‘I have to be real when I do this.’

‘What do you mean “real”? You’re real now, aren’t you?’

‘Not exactly. Don’t ask questions, Sparhawk. Just find me a patch of open sky and don’t bother me for a while. I have to appeal for some help – if I can find them.’

He pushed through the tangled brush, a cold knot in his stomach and his heart like a stone in his chest. The hideous dilemma they faced tore at him, seeming almost to rip him apart. Sephrenia was dying, but he must endanger Ehlana in order to save her life. It was only the force of Bhelliom’s will that kept him moving at all. His own will was paralyzed by the conflicting needs of the two he loved most in all the world. He pushed at the tangle surrounding him in a kind of hopeless frustration.

Then he broke through the screen of brush into a small clearing carpeted by deep moss where a pool of water fed by a gurgling spring winked back at the stars strewn like bright grain across the velvet night. It was a quiet place, almost enchanted, but his eyes refused to accept its beauty. He stopped and set Aphrael down. Her small face was devoid of expression, and her eyes were blank, unseeing. Sparhawk waited tensely.

‘Well, finally!’ she said at last in an exasperated tone of voice. ‘It’s so hard to explain anything to them. They never stop babbling long enough to listen.’

‘Who’s this we’re talking about?’

The Tamul Gods. Now I can see why Oscagne’s an atheist. I finally persuaded them to come here to do their playing. That should help to hide you and me from Cyrgon.’

‘Playing?’

‘They’re children, Sparhawk, babies who run and play and squeal and chase each other for months on end. Cyrgon absolutely hates them, so he won’t go anywhere near them. That should help. They’ll be here in a few minutes, and then we’ll be able to start. Turn your back, Father. I don’t like having people watch me change.’

‘I’ve seen you before – your reflection anyway.’

‘That part doesn’t bother me. The process of the changeover’s a little degrading, though. Just turn your back, Father. You wouldn’t understand.’

He obediently turned and gazed up at the night sky. Several familiar constellations were either missing or in the wrong places.

‘All right, Father, you can turn around now.’ Her voice was richer and more vibrant.

He turned. ‘Would you please put some clothes on?’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it, Aphrael. Humor my quirks.’

‘This is so tedious.’ She reached out and took hold of a gauzy kind of veil she had spun out of nothing and wrapped herself in it. ‘Better?’ she asked.

‘Not much. Can we leave now?’

‘I’ll check.’ Her eyes went distant for a moment. ‘They’re coming,’ she reported. ‘They got side-tracked. It doesn’t take much to distract them. Now, listen very carefully. Try to stay calm when we do this. Just keep the fact firmly in mind that I’m not going to let you get hurt. You won’t fall.’

‘Fall? Fall from where? What are you talking about?’

‘You’ll see. I’d do it differently, but we have to get to Dirgis in a hurry, and I don’t want Cyrgon to have time to locate me. We’ll take it in easy stages at first, so you’ll have time to get used to the idea.’ She turned her head slightly. ‘They’re here,’ she said. ‘We can start now.’

Sparhawk cocked his head slightly. He seemed to hear the distant sound of childish laughter, though it might have been only the sound of an errant breeze rustling the leaves in the treetops.

‘Give me your hand,’ she instructed.

He reached out and took her by the hand. It seemed very warm and somehow comforting.

‘Just look up at the sky, Sparhawk,’ the heartbreakingly beautiful young woman instructed.

He raised his face and saw the upper edge of the moon come creeping pale and luminous up above the treetops.

‘You can look down now.’

They were standing some ten feet above the rippled waters of the pool. Sparhawk’s muscles tensed.