Ingold had moved off, scouting the porch. The mists held thicker here, stirring faintly about his feet like pallid ground fog; sometimes it was only that vague shifting movement that allowed him to be seen at all. His brown cloak seemed to blend with the gloom, melting indistinguishably into the thicker shadows of the broken archways. Rudy glanced back across the moss-splotched court, seeing its smeared and dirty pavements with their brave colors all but hidden beneath the soupy scum of mud and ash and leaves.

"Where did Kta go?"

Kara, who was likewise looking out across the court, shook her head. "He was going to follow me," she whispered.

Rudy cursed his own stupidity. "One of us should have gone after him," he whispered back. "He may be tough as an old sagebrush root, but I don't think he was mageborn. If he was, I've certainly never seen him work anything resembling a spell." Which was true; as far as anyone could tell, the withered little mummy was totally illiterate and untaught, though he took a childlike joy in the spells of the younger mages. Most of the other wizards in the Corps tended to regard him as a curiosity, rather than an asset to the Corps. But Rudy had tried to keep up with the little fossil's untiring footsteps for seven days' hard slogging through the foul, flooded river valleys that lay between Gae and Renweth, and had come to the conclusion that not only did Kta neither eat nor sleep, but that he only sat down to rest at night out of consideration for the frailty of his companions.

Kara murmured, "Should one of us go back for him? Ingold would never forgive us if we lost..."

Her voice trailed off. Ingold and Kta materialized from the shadows behind them, Ingold whispering in an exasperated voice, "... and since you insisted upon including yourself in this expedition to begin with, the least you can do is accept my judgment as its leader."

"Ah?" the little hermit said, not at all concerned. He was hopping along at