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anyone,” I told him grimly, “I will come back from my grave to haunt you.” It was of no use, I knew—of course the man would tell everything if Rahv asked. No one could withstand Rahv.
    I ran for the horse and handed Arlen the blankets.
    He took them numbly, laid them across his mount’s withers, and helped me up behind him again. Day had nearly turned to dark by then. We started off downstream along the riverbank, and all the servants stood and watched us go without a sound.
    Perversely, with the mantle gathered around me and the slippers warming my feet, I started shivering. I pulled up my hood. We followed the riverbank, guided by the faint gleam of water in darkness.
    â€œWill they pursue us?” I asked Arlen, and he came out of his torpor sufficiently to answer me.
    â€œThe Gwyneda have no retainers that I know of, and they themselves never leave the island—that I know of. But they will be mightily wroth, I assure you. They might find ways.… And your father, will he not come after you?”
    He most certainly would, and not because of love, either. With some thought of keeping our strength up—for I still was not hungry—I reached into my robe and found a hunk of bread. I offered some of it to Arlen. He shook his head.
    â€œYou eat it,” he said, so I did. Gnawing at it, I found myself suddenly famished and finished it all. I restrained myself from eating any more. We might need it later; the night was dark, and only the goddess knew what might be on the hunt for us.

FOUR
    It was a hyperboreal storm, as it turned out, that first emperiled us. Down from the frozen mountains to the far north snow came hissing, and stinging shards of ice driven before a mighty blast, breath of harsh Bora. At once we could see nothing, not even the glimmer of the river; the night was all befogged by snow. And cold! The numbing cold of the day had been nothing compared to this biting, strength-sapping cold at the fore of a thin and coiling wind. It struck through all my defenses of wool and endurance to whatever warm core was left in me, and I began to be afraid. The realms of death were in the north, folks said, and such storms were of the goddess’s sending.
    â€œName of the goddess!” Arlen exclaimed. “We are in the water.”
    We had strayed into the river; we could hear it splashing about the horse’s hooves. No wonder, as we could not see, and I did not understand the tone of shocked surprise in Arlen’s voice until he spoke again.
    â€œThe—the power, it must be gone, somehow. The magic.”
    The horse was walking in the water, not on it. As long as we kept to the shallows, I thought, it did not matter, but Arlen seemed stunned. A stammer came into his voice, and he kept talking even though he could not have known whether I was listening.
    â€œBut—I—I have ridden all the way down the Naga’s tail, down the Long Lake and over the spires of the lost city that lies under the water, and I have ridden up through the Blackwater all the way to the Lakes of the Winds, all of us lads, we used to go in procession—”
    I could see them in my mind’s eye, the doomed youths on holiday, laughing amongst themselves, fair tunics and bare throats and proudly lifted heads, riding their bright and beautiful horses upon the surface of the Catena. I smiled with wonder, even though my flesh had started to freeze.
    â€œâ€”though we were never allowed to set foot on any shore except our own, the Sacred Isle, we or the steeds.”
    The wind swallowed his words in a wild assault that made us both wince. We had to find shelter soon or we would both be dead. But how? The horse kept moving under us, but we could not see where we were going. Arlen must have had similar thoughts.
    â€œI do not have a notion where—” he muttered. “Wait, a shore—”
    We both felt the bump and the effort as the horse brought us out of the