The truth had jumped out at me, had stung me as keenly as if I had been burned by the spark of a hearth. "You," I whispered, turning sharply toward the curtain, "you were in my dream." Two green eyes pointed happily at the gap in the cloth, and blackened fingers came to enlarge the slit. The ember of this glance wasn't without reminding me the brightness of the shining and friendly facet, the one which had protected me during the previous year's dream, in this first strange night which had followed my departure from Vaw. I understood at last how its light had seemed familiar to me then.

That facet had been him. I immediately deduced that the others, too, were people. "It wasn't a dream," said the man behind the mask. His eyes squinted like those of a cat at play. "But you weren't supposed to be there."

I nodded, my heart pounding, knowing full well that he was lying to me. Not about the dream, the dream was real. I had only needed his word to be convinced. At that revelation alone, in fact, I had to bite my tongue to keep my mind from sprawling. If I had let myself do it, I would have scattered in a thousand impatient questions. No, the lie of the peregrine was his benevolence. It wasn't feigned, but it was only a surface, a single aspect of his interest, the one he wanted to show me. I hesitated, not knowing from which side I should unravel his spinelessness. " You only want to help me?" I hissed. "Well, assuming I agree, where would we go?"

The peregrine spread the cloth a little more. It was a rough felt that tended to brown and his hand gloved with worn wool hugged it tightly. I saw him smile.

"Assuming you agree, we'd go west," he said in an amused voice, before spinning into the tent. His ruffled cloak swelled like the feathers of a courting peacock. He suddenly stood very straight, a few steps away from me. His body remained rigid as he lowered his face to mine. I had almost forgotten about my sword. "But I don't think I'm teaching you anything," he added, smiling even wider. I nodded. "We would pass the Gor and then go north," I added. My wary gaze locked with his. "I didn't forget your advice in Long-Vein. You're trying to push me toward Spinel." Behind me, I felt Brindy shudder and the peregrine's smile slowly faded. "I came, because your note promised answers. I'd like to know what you really want from me," I added. The masked man meticulously moistened his lips. He was sizing me up. "You wouldn't believe me. I can only promise you again. Safety. And more. Forever," he answered calmly.

I made an irritated gesture before shrugging my shoulders. I sheathed my sword and spat into the reeds that covered the ground. "Ulrick was right about you. You're a mystifier." I only half meant what I said, because on the other hand I also knew that we had shared the dream.

Still, even if it was probably absurd, I wasn't yet convinced that all this wasn't an elaborate trick, with the final objective of the sixteen gold crowns I was worth in Brown-Horn. There was a brief silence between us. "Why don't you answer his question," Brindy asked sharply, over my shoulder. The peregrine ignored her. I shook my head at the mask of polished roots. "I won't get any answers tonight, will I? But I do understand who you are. You're a Leafy, a ktoï wizard," I said confidently. I knew I was right.

Even if the way in which it had happened still escaped me, I now understood what I had seen in my dream on that agitated night, after the ferry in Gorwill. It was indeed a battle plan. It was even a war plan. It was a tactical vision of Vaw, a vivid and detailed version of a campaign map, on which every actor was represented, but which was curiously empty in places. This dreamlike map had belonged to the leafy rebellion, I was now certain. The peregrine made no effort to hide from the truth I had stated. "Yes, I serve the Keskateï and the Green-Vine. And you, what do you know about these things?" he asked me curiously. "I know that it's nonsense," I replied, quickly. "The gods are dead or powerless. The free Vals taught me that." The peregrine immediately contradicted me:

"You've seen the truth of the Keskateï as I have. You've met our goddess. When we were a single spirit, in the Gor's valley."

This took me by surprise. At the memory of this bright astral presence that had literally drowned me with its exuberant love, I swallowed. I had screamed it when I woke up and spat it out too. It had sent me back to my brown-hornian dreamlike experiences and to this entity that, for lack of a better name, I had nicknamed She. She had been a presence terribly similar to this solar spirit that the Leafy named goddess. For a long time She had shouted in the distance, throbbing and incomprehensible in my dreams. Then, as if that wasn't enough, in a way that was still unknown to me, although I suspected the complicity of the Seïd, She had engraved her mark on the bodies of Nad and Narsi. My doubts as to the very existence of these immeasurable powers that had once grazed me - and desired - were brutally dissipated. With that came the realization that, for some obscure but palpable reason, the insignificant spark that I was interested them. Much more than it should have. Far too much, in fact.

I don't know whether what followed was due to the sudden fright I felt without wanting to admit it, or whether it was simply a stubborn outburst of the Padekke. In the two years I had spent with Ulrick in the forest of Vaw, I had become as firmly unbelieving as I had once been superstitious. Nevertheless, I felt viscerally that the peregrine was speaking to me from a place I didn't wish to enter. Opening that door, I was convinced, would have torn me away from everything I had become, would have required me to spit on the blood that cemented the cracks. I couldn't do it. Even at Brindy's request, I couldn't do it.

"I won't go."

My throat was tight with anguish, as much as on that night when I had freed myself from Ganav Estu's boat and defied the black waters of the sawmill. But my voice was firm. The peregrine bent his head curiously and looked at me incredulously and amused at the same time. Perhaps there was concern too, but his mask prevented me from seeing more.

Brindy grabbed me violently. "Fyss..." she began in a panicked voice, but I shook my head. When I began to speak, I squeezed her hand, which was cold, but it was the peregrine I was looking at. "I want us to go together to find that peace," I said in a low voice. "The leafy Ktoï wants to buy your freedom with his gold nuggets, and he plans to buy me with them. I don't know how I feel about his promises, and neither do you, if you're honest. Me, your freedom, I can take it and I have thirty val-warriors that can help me." The peregrine's voice bounced off mine, so quickly that it sounded like the echo of my thoughts:

"But not one of them will be able to answer your questions."

He moistened his lips as he stared at me intently. "Not counting everything I've already done for you, I'm still the only one who can do this," he added in a soft voice. His point was clear, but not as profound as I had expected. Narsi's death, the Seïd, Her, the dreams, his goddess, that was a lot of questions, questions whose acidic sting had been nagging me for a long time. I knew for sure that the peregrine was speaking the truth. Indeed, he could enlighten me, as easily as the sun chases the night. And here I was, deciding to give up just as I was reaching my goal. A part of me cursed my choice, even cursed Brindy, so big was the sacrifice. But at the same time I remembered the teachings of the Vals. Never let the opponent decide the terms of the battle. What was certain was that I saw the peregrine as an opponent, in his own way. "Vesukke," I said, looking at the Leafy. "Will you let me go?"

"Of course. But not before I tell you that you're in danger, here and now, and that your life may depend on your choice. Do you believe me?"

I contemplated this enigmatic proposal, without taking my eyes off him.

"Yes," I said slowly. "I believe you. But I also believe you'd say anything to get me to go with you." He nodded. "That's fair," he conceded, with a sardonic sneer. I snorted. "One day I'll come to Spinel for those answers," I announced in a firm voice. "If you're still alive," the peregrine joked bitterly. I nodded. "If I'm still alive."

My interlocutor took a deep breath, and for the first time I had the impression that he was really thinking, as if he had not originally planned to accept such an outcome. "You're forcing me to make a bet, and I've never been a good gambler. But so be it. Hear this, though. The day you speak of will come. You'll find your answers in Spinel," he said. "And new questions too. But most of all you will find what's dearest to you. Do you hear me, Fyss? What's dearest to you." He was looking over my shoulder at this point, with such intensity that I was afraid for Brindy. I instinctively turned to her, either to protect her or to make sure he wasn't going to make her disappear with a trick. I had taken my eyes off her for a heartbeat. Of course, when I turned my attention back in front of me, all that remained of the peregrine was the flickering curtain.

Brindy sighed, let go of my hand, and suddenly sat up on her bed. Her eyes were dark and feverish. "I don't mind that we've both grown up, but I hope it's not for show, your warriors." She bit her lip, and I thought she was going to start crying again. "That it's not like your smugglers," she hiccupped, "and that I won't end up like Robin." I winced at the thinly veiled accusation, and Brindy snorted as if to protest her own words. She then grabbed me and hugged me by the waist like a supplicant. "I know it wasn't your fault," she blurted out, in a tearful voice. "I know that. But I have some hope, Fyss. So please. I can't stay here."

I ran an awkward, trembling hand over her frozen forehead. I wasn't quite sure yet that her presence against me was real. That I had really found her. "I'll be a few hours. Maybe even less," I said in a voice that I wanted to be reassuring, but that emotion made hoarse and plaintive. "It will pass quickly. We'll go away together, I promise."

Brindy clenched her teeth and sniffed, then pulled me close to her and laid a cold kiss on my burning cheek. "This is the last time we'll be apart," she said darkly. I freed myself from my weapons belt and removed the carmian dagger, which I handed to her in its braided leather sheath. "Just in case. While I'm gone," I said, as her fingers hesitantly wrapped around the pommel. Her eyes searched mine, and I saw her tears shining there, but also a surly snarl that made my departure easier.

I walked through the brothel like one walks through a back alley. I stared straight ahead, my jaw clenched, my neck bristling and rigid, because I knew I could still screw it up if I saw red. My imagination decorated the canvas corridor with bloody fantasies, and as I moved forward I wondered if anyone would stop me from castrating the chubby pimp when I returned with the steel of the vaïdoerk to back me up. I knew that to deliver Brindy by force, I would have to summon a folnwordd, so I had already decided to secure Ulrick's support beforehand. It was a good thing, because I knew exactly where to find him. The case could be closed quickly and the vaïdoerk gone before anyone had time to make a fuss.

I ignored the whores and brutes at the entrance as I passed, and went out into the night as quickly as I had entered, dragging behind me the hope of a fierce return.

The cold was really biting at this hour, but I knew that Ulrick would still be at the stockade. He had brought with him a quarter loaf of bread, some dry cheese and, exceptionally, half a tumbler of rot-gut. It was his way of saying goodbye to a life forged by steel, drinking alone, under the stars. A part of me, a part I didn't like so much, which had been born hungry in the alleys of the Lower town, calculated that his state of mind would probably be favorable to me. I was going to offer the warrior a last stand, something he could remember with pride. I was plotting at full speed while trotting nimbly along the twisted path of frosted planks, flooded by the bright moonlight. My thoughts occasionally wandered to Brindy, sitting alone on her bed in her oversized dress, and I hoped she wasn't too worried. This time I was really going to save her.

As I passed through the camp for the second time that night, I felt confident, and almost happy. I still had two deaths to accept, Ucar and Sesh, but I had found Brindy, one of the most important people in my life. I occasionally smiled euphorically, unable to believe what was happening, as I bounced along the worm-eaten wooden path. The path climbed gently eastward, dipped down to intersect a cross trench, and then continued onward until it passed the brownian barracks.

All the way up, on either side of the Pass, the snowy peaks glistened in the moonlight. Below, the rest of the mountains were lost in the darkness of the dense pines that encircled their bases. On my right, in the center of the barracks where the braziers were burning, was Carson's farm, black and flickering behind the glow of the flames. Nearby, small groups of murmuring men crowded around the fire pits, each delaying the moment when they would go to sleep off their wine. I could see their spearheads gleaming from here, and sometimes the dull glare of mail. Their grunts smoked as much as the braziers. Then in front of me there was the palisade, a thousand blackened and wobbly trunks, stuck in the muddy ground like arrows in the flesh of a dead animal. I breathed for a few moments, while smelling the icy air to get my bearings.

As usual, it smelled of wet resin and sometimes also of cold shit.

On our side, the log wall was not very high, barely a span in places, and a pit had been dug at its foot on those stretches where it seemed unnecessary. In reality, it could also be circumvented with ease, even if it meant going through the difficult terrain further south. The palisade, like the stakes and traps that dotted the frozen mud in front of it, was mainly there to prevent any opposing army from maneuvering the Pass as it saw fit. I wondered what it would all be used for after Ac-Pass fell in a few weeks. Firewood, no doubt. There must not have been much furniture left to burn up there.

I walked up the filthy planks that were used as a walkway. There were a few torches on the palisade and pillboxes, too, every two hundred spans or so. The latter usually housed a handful of unlucky militiamen, those who had been drawn to freeze all night. You could say what you wanted about Carson's organization, but at least the brownian captains were competent enough to keep the fortifications in good condition, with men to defend them despite the boredom. My steps took me past a guard half-slumped on his spear who flinched as I passed, and then past a new fortified spot. The path climbed again, so that to my right I could see the farm and the barracks, and beyond that, the snowy outlines of the canvas village. At my back, Ac-Pass clung to Windy-Pass like a dark, dreary stone that a visionary craftsman would have carved into the shape of a jewel.

Ulrick was at his usual post near the last pillbox.

It was originally a tiny dry-stone sheepfold, which the engineers had extended with logs. The whole thing was now a rickety fort with a creaking platform on top that tried to look like a watchtower. At night, in the light of torches and moonlight, the architecture seemed even more bizarre. A dozen or so brownian soldiers were stationed there at all times, and this night was no exception.

Others had to sleep below in the sheepfold, but most sat around the braziers, in the yard just behind, and up on the platform.

I quickened my pace, almost slipped as I left the walkway, and from the upper floor a trained spearman looked at me silently. Just behind the fort, a little away from the fire, there was a charm tree that no one had wanted to cut down to avoid the evil eye. Ulrick was standing in its shadow, looking up at the sky. He had put on his armor and was forming an impressive figure on the horizon. A chiseled statue.

His gauntlet was wrapped around his empty tumbler. He didn't bother to look at me as I approached, out of breath.

"I've rarely seen such a clear sky," he said in valsi as I clung to his cloak in search of my breath. "Ulrick...," I spat, between gasps. "You have to help me." A verdigris eye twirled over me from the shadow of the plumed helmet, before returning to the starry panorama. An amused chuckle twisted his mouth. "I don't have to do anything, Sletling," the warrior growled. "I am Val." I had time to hate him for being rhetorical when I needed him.

Then the night filled with whistles.