“Follow the wind,” it responded. “Follow the wind to that which you seek.”

He thought a moment, seeming almost amused by all this despite the grim setting. “All right, then—lead on. I might as well be somewhere before dark.” But he reached under his woolen robe to his tunic and touched his blade just to make certain it was ready.

It wasn’t difficult to tell the way, although it was the opposite of following just about anything else. You just headed the one direction that the wind was not, in this case to the left and up a bit, away from the deadly little white river.

It was near dark when he came to her, but she was not hard to find for all that. She sat there, crouching before a welcome fire, a delicate and mysterious figure in azure robes. His horse started a bit upon seeing her, but the traveler calmed him, then slid off the saddle and approached the lady at the fire.

She looked up at his approach, and he was struck by her dark beauty almost at once, as he’d suspected he would be. He was not certain how much of that beauty was real, but the fire was, and that was enough for the moment.

“Come, good sir, and be warmed by my fire,” she invited, in a soft, very sexy voice.

He seemed quite relaxed. “I thank you, Madam. It feels good after the chill your pet sent to me upon the sunset.”

She was puzzled by him, and by his casual manner, as if he knew not only her own secrets but all the secrets of the world. He was a small but very strong-looking man, with a big hawk nose and small, almost beady little black eyes that seemed to reflect the dancing flames perfectly.

“You do not seem at all curious about me, or how I came to be here,” she noted.

He sighed wearily. “Well, Madam, if you be here alone in this accursed place, then I take you to be either an enchantress or dead or of the world usually unseen—or perhaps all of them together. Whichever, you build a mighty good fire.”