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and knives and shattered glass. “Where is she, Jenger?”
    The man answered soothingly, “Duchess, lovely one, I think your informant is mistaken. There’s no reason for children to come out here at night. Orphaned children wander during wars or famines, of course, but there’s no war or famine at Woldsgard. As we have been told”—he chuckled, a thick, glutinous sound that was not really one of amusement—“Justinian, Duke of Wold, houses and cares for his people well. There are none without a roof over their heads and a hearth to warm themselves by.”
    The woman sneered. “So the duke is a fool, wasting his substance on nobodies. Well, he should be more careful about the people he puts beneath his roof! One of them is mine, and she tells me she has seen a child come out of the castle at night and enter the woods.”
    “How old is this roaming child supposed to be?”
    “I don’t know,” the woman answered angrily. “That’s what I’d like to find out. My spy looks down from a great height. She says it’s a child, could be any age at all. Perhaps a ward or by-blow of the duke’s?”
    “And you care about this for some reason?”
    “My own reason, Jenger. If she’s only a toddler, I care little. She’d be a pawn at best. But I would care greatly if she were a game piece held in reserve, someone much older than that.”
    Xulai trembled, the words echoing in her ears . Much older than that . . . I would care greatly. The couple approached, climbing the stairs to the altar.
    “How strange,” said the man. “Look at the patterns carved here . . .”
    As he spoke, the altar stones began to glow, faintly, like coals kept from a long-spent fire.
    The woman growled, “Dolt! Fool! Pull your eyes away and keep them so. This is a shrine of Varga-Grag, hag goddess of all earthly desolations. You have no business being here, looking at it.” She gave a croaking rasp of barely suppressed laughter. “For that matter, considering my allegiances, neither have I. Neither my mother, the queen, nor I would be welcome.”
    The man laughed, unembarrassed. Neither of the intruders seemed to notice how the glow from the stones brightened as they turned away and walked around the altar to stand behind it, staring directly toward Xulai. “Your pardon, ma’am. Our being in this particular place is the result of following a path, but . . . this is where all paths end.”
    Xulai almost stopped breathing. She could feel the speaker, feel his presence oozing toward her as he peered into the darkness. The chipmunk had crept beneath her curled hand and was looking out between her fingers at the man, a dark silhouette against the bloody glow from the temple stones, brighter now. Xulai’s companion closed his arm about her, only a bit, just enough to reassure her. Something hard lay along his side, and she realized he wore a sword. He was armed! Mere peddlers were not usually armed.
    The man near the altar went on: “There’s not even a game trail among the trees back here. Wherever your child may be, he or she is not here. If you want me to bring some men and search the woods around here in daylight, I’ll be happy to lead them, though we would need the duke’s permission since we’d be trespassing.”
    “Which is why we’ve been camped down the road and have come alone,” the woman snarled, raising her hand to thrust aside one of the low branches that overhung the platform. “The Duke of Wold won’t know we’re trespassing. Never mind. I’ll have my grubby little spy, Ammalyn, follow the child next time she ventures here.”
    The man asked, “Why do you think this thing you want is here at all? Why do you think she ever had it? Or are you really seeking the miraculous device that Huold is said to have left in these lands? Wasn’t that somewhere in Marish, on the other side of the Icefang range?”
    The woman said impatiently, “Huold’s device was something else entirely. Everyone has a story about that