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sanctuary will be little help to him in the hills."
    "Didn't you notice?" The first sorcerer gestured angrily and strained to maintain a prudently lowered voice. "The Kielmark knew him. And asking sanctuary instead of service was a master stroke. Anskiere will have a reason." Briskly, he started forward.
    His companion hustled to keep up. "I'd thought of that." A thorn branch snagged his sleeve. He yanked clear. Sweat trickled at his brow, and his soft boots were unsuited to hiking. Yet the Stormwarden showed no sign of slackening pace. Well ahead of his escort he began to ascend a defile. He moved easily, despite the difficult terrain.
    The sorcerers pursued, unable to guess his purpose.
    "He could be bluffing."
    "You're a fool to think so. And Tathagres is a fool to wish the wards on Elrinfaer Tower broken. I don't think the Storm-warden lied when he said the foundation of his powers lay elsewhere."
    The second sorcerer stopped midstride; disturbed pebbles clattered down the hillside, rousing thin spurts of dust. He said quickly, "What is Elrinfaer to you?"
    The first sorcerer shrugged. "A pile of granite, no more. But if the frostwargs are not released on schedule, the Free Isles will not fall." He glared at his companion, breathing hard. "Hearvin was misinformed. Never has Anskiere of Elrinfaer been known to use guile. He's not bluffing. The stormfalcon will return. Mark me. Then we'll have trouble."
    The other sorcerer pondered this, then glanced at the Storm-warden, who stood outlined in sky at the crest of the rise, staring out to sea yet again.
    The sorcerer sighed. "Very well," he said. "We'll separate. You follow Anskiere. Challenge his intentions. Then watch him carefully."
    "And you?"
    "I will proceed to the cave of the frostwargs. If Anskiere breaks our control, I can rearrange the wards which bind him. His own release shall rouse the frostwargs. They will break from sleep in a rage, and ravage Cliffhaven, with Anskiere alone to blame." A smile creased the sorcerer's face, revealing broken teeth. "After Tierl Enneth, do you suppose the Kielmark would forgive him?"
    The other sorcerer smiled also. "Anskiere is guileless. He would loose the frostwargs himself rather than ruin an ally." With the smile still on his lips, he left to follow the Storm-warden.
    * * *
    Above the fortress, the climb steepened and the goat track faded, lost among jagged outcrops of shale. Anskiere toiled upward. Weather-rotted stone crumbled loose under his boots and bounced in flat arcs down the slope.
    Chafed by sweat-drenched robes, the sorcerer tripped and stumbled on the Stormwarden's heels, pelted by pebbles from above. He cursed the land, the suffocating heat, and the wizard he guarded, but he followed with the diligence of a madman. When Anskiere at last reached the summit, he was only half a pace behind, and not much wiser than he had been earlier. Anskiere's intentions were still obscure, though the sorcerer had sifted possibilities until his head ached from thought.
    On the crest of the crag the Stormwarden paused. He leaned on his staff and bent a searching gaze toward the far horizon, his features expressionless. At his side, the sorcerer looked also, but saw nothing in the scenery to warrant such close attention. The afternoon was spent. Below, a spread of hills quivered in the heat haze. A gull flapped above a pale stretch of sand, and the beach plums and dune grasses lay still, untouched by a ripple of breeze. The bleached vault of the sky hung empty and at the edge of the sea, like massive bruises, lay the headlands of Mainstrait, key to the Kielmark's power; for every ship which passed the strait to trade with the eastern kingdoms, Cliffhaven exacted tribute. Yet no vessel moved in the dense calm.
    To the sorcerer, the earth's own vitality seemed locked behind the Stormwarden's silence. The thought was irrational. Irked at himself, the sorcerer said, "You cannot keep your promise to the Kielmark."
    Anskiere stared out over