While two men pointed their spears at Drift and Ubi, a third knelt and examined the deer. He touched one of the puncture wounds on its side, got back up, and scanned the meadow and surrounding woods. Then he paced around, studying the dew-damp grass.

He pointed at Drift and Ubi. "Yours be only tracks. You kill't it?"

Drift held up her hands in protest. "Not us," she said. "At least, not really. I mean, unless dreams count. Do dreams count?"

"What she say?" the man asked, turning to the one who Drift assumed was their leader from the way he stood apart and gestured to direct the others' movements.

His eyes narrowed as he glared at Drift. "She lie. She be venator," he said.

"Non nobis!" Ubi objected. "It wasn't us!"

"I thought you didn't know Falconchant," Drift whispered.

"Sorcerers use it," he whispered back. "You can't help picking it up, at least a little."

The leader took a step toward Ubi. "You train with sorcerers?" he demanded.

"No. Non! I'm running from them! We both are. See, we—"

"I no care." He turned and signaled to two of his men, who extracted leather chords from their pockets and lashed their spears to the deer's legs. They hoisted the spears onto their shoulders so that the carcass hung dangling between them, with one man in front and the other behind. At another signal, men forced Drift and Ubi in the direction of the grove of willows and the group headed out single-file.

Drift, speaking to the stiff back of the leader, said, "We're going the other way, Sir. If you'll release us, we'll leave right away."

"You not turn back at marker post. Too late now. You captive be."

*

At the center of the Keep was a heavily built main structure where High Master Vultan maintained his private quarters and housed his most trusted sorcerers and servants. Behind this stone building was a large courtyard of cobbles: round stones pressed neatly into the earth to create a firm if somewhat nobby surface that stood up well to heavy traffic. Wagonloads of supplies rumbled across it, guards marched over it, and sorcerers and apprentices hurried over it on their way to meetings, meals, and practice sessions.

Numerous outbuildings were needed to serve the Keep's growing population. A stone barracks provided a base for the guards, and several long wooden dormitories had been erected to house apprentices. There was also a large dining hall, plus a growing number of smaller stone houses that served as sorcerers' residences. And there was a pen filled with bleating goats taken from farms to satisfy the constant need for roasted meat. Near the pen was a small stone building that smelled strongly of onions. In fact, it was filled with them. Vultan preferred his goats to be stuffed with onions and roasted on a spit over an open fire.

The strangest of the buildings at the Keep stood on the crest of a nearby hill. It was a tall, circular stone tower made of black basalt, with occasional blocks of translucent quartz to allow light to filter in. There was not, however, any sign of a door. In one of the tower's locked rooms, about half way up, Summer was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor, thinking about Drift.

She got up, stretched, and walked around her cell, touching the stone walls and examining them for cracks. There were none. She examined the floor and, as best she could, the ceiling. All were made of tightly fitted stone blocks. Her cell was lifeless except for the occasional drip that leaked down into a dirty puddle in the middle of the floor.

Next, she examined the heavy iron door with its massive hinges and even more massive lock. She wasn't skilled in metal magic and doubted she could open it, even after she got her strength back (with the lack of sufficient food, she thought it might take many more days to complete her recovery). However, the iron door was the least of her problems. There was something else holding her in, something that pulsed oddly in the walls. It was, she guessed, some kind of spell, but not one with which she was familiar. There was a darkness to it that troubled her. It seemed to radiate horror and hopelessness. Repelled, she moved away from the walls and sat down cross-legged on a dry patch of floor.

After a while she got up and moved closer to the translucent block of quartz in the middle of the curved outside wall. There she sat, despite the horrible pulsing energy of the exterior wall, and wondered what might be going on outside. If only, she thought, then stopped herself. It would do no good to stew on what might have been. The thing was to escape. Barring that, since it seemed impossible, her best hope was to find a way for her thoughts to escape. If I could just get a sending out through this wall, she thought. Drift's magic is beginning to flow. I think she would be open to it.

Summer closed her eyes and fell into a trance in which she focused on that goal. However long it might take to reach Drift, she was determined to do so.

*

When their path took them past the hollow tree, the man in the lead stopped, stared at the ground, then stepped into the opening and examined the interior. He shook his head angrily and glared at Drift and Ubi. "For Saga to use. You..." He seemed to be searching for a word. "Saltus," he added. "Contamino. Understand?"

Ubi shrugged, but Drift said, "Sorry. We didn't know it was a sacred place."

The man shook his head angrily. "Now it need be purified! You kill our deer, you contam our sanctuary. Lutradux et Saga to both be iratus. Angry!"

"Your Saga? Is she like a Fena elder?" Drift asked.

The man shrugged.

"And does Lutradux mean 'Otter Duke'? Is he the Chief? The, um, Princeps?"

"Not be a lesson. You very trouble!"

"Sorry, but we didn't do any harm," Drift said. "We just sheltered there, and if we weren't welcome in that tree, then why was I visited in my dream?"

"You speak too much!"

"An Avus came to me," Drift said.

"Avus?" He seemed surprised.

"More of an Avis Avia, a bird grandmother," Drift explained.

"Did she be woodpecker?"

Drift shook her head.

"Alcedo?" the man demanded, taking a step toward her.

"Not a kingfisher," Drift replied. "Is that bird sacred to your people?"

He glared at her. "Alcedo speak only to Saga."

"Well, that's all right then, because it was a falcon," Drift said. "Gyrfalco," she added.

The men all stared at her.

"Gyrfalco?" their leader exclaimed. His hand slipped to an amulet on a leather thong around his neck. He rubbed it. "That most bad!" He pointed at the carcass of the deer. "Now you need be sacrificed. Like deer. Eia! Come! Princep to punish boy! Saga to sacrifice girl!"

"Nostra lutrasaga es remissa," another man objected. "Sacrifica es fabula terreo advena," he continued, speaking to the leader.

"No, es legitiumus!" the leader objected with a scowl and a sideways glance at Drift.

Ubi tugged Drift's cloak. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, "The other man says that the otter-witch is kind, and it's not true she sacrifices people. It's a story to scare strangers away."

"But the leader disagreed with him," Ubi pointed out. "I'm not sure which one is right. Are you?"

The leader pointed at Ubi, and one of the men tugged him away from Drift and pushed him behind her in line again.

Their procession wound through the willows until they crossed another foggy meadow. There the land sloped upward until they entered an open woodland where ancient ironwoods blotted out the sky. The land leveled, then sloped downward again, and the big trees gave way to smaller, smooth-barked aspen and birch saplings. Ahead of them came the sound of running water.

They reached a bridge made of logs held together by leather lashings. The bridge swayed above a stream of dark brown. Ubi gripped the handrails tightly.

Drift slowed her pace, examining the stream and considering whether to jump in. However, the water looked unfriendly, and she did not want to abandon Ubi.

They were across the bridge and walking on a dirt pathway through a stand of huge trees with roughly ridged, very dark bark. Black Walnut, Drift thought, recalling how walnuts were often tapped for syrup in the early spring and used as a source of nuts in the fall. She noticed drill-holes on some of the trunks, and decided her captors must be in the habit of tapping their trees to make syrup.

The path emerged on a clearing. They had entered a broad area of grazed grass around which there was a circle of huts sided with slabs of tree bark. The clearing was crisscrossed with dirt pathways connecting the huts. Most of the huts had a curl of smoke rising from a hole in the middle of the roof, and the clearing smelled pleasantly of wood fires and baking. However, Drift sniffed the air suspiciously, because along with the pleasant smells of cooking, there was a faint odor that she soon traced to racks of drying fish. And then, as they walked past an open fire, she noticed a large iron caldron of fish heads tumbling thickly in a noxious broth. The smell took her breath way.