She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the dark steel of the gates. Here the horror was stronger, a sense of brooding malevolence in the night. Here she felt the strange, chill terror, the irrational sensation of being watched from across unknowable gulfs of time by a malign and incomprehensible intelligence. They've come,' she whispered, 'haven't they?

Ingold rested a hand gently on her shoulder. 'I think you had better go arm.'

Her eyes dark in the wan bluish witchlight, Minalde watched Rudy dress. 'What's wrong?' she whispered.

'I don't know.' His voice was low, so as not to wake the royal infant who slept in his gilded cradle in the shadows on the opposite wall. 'But I think I'd better be getting back.' After a

month in this world, the alien clothing was more or less familiar to him, and he no longer felt self-conscious in the homespun breeches and full-sleeved shirt, tunic, knee-length boots, and gaily embroidered surcoat he'd scrounged off a dead nobleman after the great massacre by the Dark Ones at Karst. But he still mourned the simplicity of jeans and a T-shirt. He buckled on his sword and leaned across the tumble of variegated silks to kiss the girl who watched him so silently. 'Will you be at the gate in the morning to see us off?

His hands framed her face. She caught his wrists, as if to hold him to her for a few minutes longer. 'No,' she said quietly. 'I can't, Rudy. It's a long way to Quo and a dangerous road. Who knows if you'll even find the Hidden City or the Archmage, once you reach the end?' Her blue eyes shimmered suddenly in the pale phosphorescence of the witchlight. 'I never could stand goodbyes.'

'Hey!' Rudy leaned-over her again, his hands gripping her neck and shoulders, the dark hair spilling heavily down over his fingers as he drew her mouth to his. 'Hey, Ingold's gonna be with me. We'll be okay. I can't imagine anyone or anything crazy enough to take on that old geezer. It won't be goodbye.'