Moreover, with the Sunless Year had come changes in the world.

Huge patches of slunch emitted a sicklied radiance all along the valley's floor, and the mutant creatures that grew from it were not all harmless. Even without such beings, there were always the perils of the mountains themselves: dire wolves, saber-teeth, the bears that were coming out of hibernation, now thin and hungry and angry.

Fog lay in the low ground of the meadows, dense and white. The moon would not rise for some hours.

The voices came clearer, and the magefire showed him the faces of the man and woman scanning the damp earth for tracks.

"Sometimes he goes exploring where the old road used to run along the west foothills," said the voice he recognized as Rudy Solis'.

They're talking about Tir.

"He says sometimes he remembers things there."

Gil-Shalos. In seven years they had almost completely dropped the tongue of their own world, even when speaking to one another, save for words that had no translation in the Wathe, like tee-vee and car and Academy Awards "You think he might have gone out with Hethya? I saw her talking to him."

"He might have, if she described something he thought he recognized."

"Yeah, but why wouldn't I have..."

Even as Rudy was speaking the words, the Icefalcon was thinking, Why would Rudy need to search?

He's a Wise One. He has his scrying stone. He should be able to call Tir's image...

Unless Tir is with another Wise One.

He'd guessed before, but the confirmation was like taking an arrow in the chest.

"It's Bektis." He stepped out of the trees. Gil-Shalos was already turning. No fool, she.

"Bektis?" She looked nonplussed as she spoke the name of the Court Mage who had years ago sold his services to the power-mad Archbishop Govannin, had followed her to the Alketch and, so rumor said, had assisted her when she carved an unshakable sphere of influence in those war-torn lands.