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everybody?”
    Not very far at all, as it turned out. A couple of miles to the west the camp sprawled along a stream: some twenty brightly colored round tents, a vast herd of horses, a small flock of sheep, a neat stack of travois poles, all scattered through the tall grass in a tidy sort of confusion. As they rode up, a rush of children and dogs came yelling and yapping to meet them; about thirty adults strolled more slowly after.
    Over the years Rhodry had picked up a fair amount of Elvish, more than enough to greet everyone and to understand the various speeches of welcome that came his way. He smiled and bowed and repeated names that he forgot amoment later. When Calonderiel insisted that the two brothers share his tent, there were plenty of willing hands to carry their gear and to take their horses. Skins of mead and bowls of food appeared as the camp settled in around the main fire for a celebration. Everyone wanted to meet Devaberiel’s son and tell him about the major feast planned for the evening, too. In all the confusion it was some hours before Rhodry realized that he’d tost track of Jill.
    About half a mile away from the main camp, Aderyn’s weathered tent stood alone near a stand of willows at the stream edge. It was mercifully quiet there, except for the trill of birds in the willows. Jill tethered her horse out with Aderyn’s small herd, then carried her gear round to the tent flap. Just as she was wondering whether to call out a greeting, the flap rustled open, and Aderyn’s new apprentice, a pale-eyed young elf named Gavantar, crawled out. He was even more slender than most of his people, and pale-haired, too, so that Jill found herself thinking of him as more a spirit than a man. But his hands were strong enough as he snatched her burdens from her.
    “Let me carry that gear for you, O Wise One of the East. You might have let me tend your horse.”
    “I’m not some withered old woman, lad, not yet, anyway. Is your master here?”
    “Of course, and waiting for you.”
    Although the day was warm, the tent was dim and cool, the air sparkling from the rush and bustle of elemental spirits that always surrounded Aderyn. Wildfolk crouched or lounged all over the tent, sprawling on the floor, clinging to the walls, perching on the many-colored tent bags hanging from the poles. A small fire smoldered under the smoke hole in the center, and the dweomerman himself was sitting cross-legged nearby on a pile of leather cushions. He was a small man, fully human, with enormous dark eyes in his slender, wrinkled face, and dead-white hair, which swept up from his forehead in two peaks like the horns of an owl. When he saw Jill, he grinned in honest delight and rose to catch her hands in his.
    “Ah, it’s good to see you in the actual flesh! Come sit down. Can I offer you some mead?”
    “None for me, thanks. I don’t have your head for the stuff. I wouldn’t mind a cup of that spiced honey water the Westfolk make, though.”
    The apprentice put the saddlebags down and hurried out again, heading for the main camp to fetch a skin of the drink in question. Aderyn and Jill sat down facing each other, and she began pulling some cloth-wrapped bundles out of her gear. A gaggle of gnomes clustered round to watch, including the small gray fellow that followed Jill everywhere.
    “Nevyn wanted you to have these books.” She handed Aderyn a pair of ancient folios with crumbling leather bindings. “Though what you’re going to do with a matched set of Prince Mael’s writings, I don’t know.”
    “Lug them around with all due honor and respect, I suppose. Actually, these particular volumes mean somewhat to me. The man who gave them to Nevyn was someone I much admired.” He ran slender fingers over the stamped decorations, flecked here and there with the remains of gold leaf, a roundel enclosing a pair of grappling badgers, and under it a motto: “We hold on.” “But fancy him remembering that, after all these