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The man peered at the stone. He brought it to the fireplace and held it before the dancing flames. The
light refracted, and the blue showed through.
"One night?" the innkeeper asked. "Then on in the morning?"
"I'm traveling north," Parry agreed. "As I said, that stone may not be worth much, but it is pretty, and-"
"Done." The man pocketed the stone. "Go ask the wench for soup, and she'll show you your room after."
The wench...
Parry quelled his surge of grief. All day he had kept it at bay, focusing narrowly on his effort of running,
of finding his way along little-used back trails so that he would not encounter many people. A runaway
horse was fair game for anyone! But now, abruptly, that grief threatened to overwhelm him.
He went to the girl, who was a blotchy-faced creature with just one fetching feature: a deep cleavage
that she flaunted knowingly. She leaned forward to serve him a bowl of soup, and he gazed down the
proffered valley, not because of any interest but because it would have marked him as odd had he not
done so. Satisfied that she had his proper attention, she straightened up so that the view suffered. She
was a natural tease. What a contrast to-
Again he clamped down on it, and marched to a solitary table with his brimming bowl. As he slurped the
soup, he saw the innkeeper showing something to another man. The stone, surely. Well, Parry had never
told him it was valuable; he had protested that he thought it wasn't. If the man had convinced himself it
was a diamond, worth an abbot's ransom, could Parry be blamed for that? The innkeeper thought he was
cheating an ignorant refugee peasant. It served him right.
Still, Parry felt some guilt. Then he realized that the man would probably sell it to some equally ignorant
trader, and make a tidy profit on the deal. The stone might in time become as valuable as others thought
it was, and no one would suffer.
He had a good meal, and a good night, except for the looming anguish of his memories. Again he looked
at the smear of blood on his wrist. Perhaps he was just being foolish, but it seemed that his wrist was
warm in the vicinity, as if heated by a kindred spirit. Jolie...
But just before dawn he came abruptly awake with another concern: had he heard the baying of hounds?
No, of course not-and even if it were true, they would not be after him. Not this far from his origin.
Still, he scrambled into his shoes and hurried downstairs. The innkeeper was up already, stacking loaves
of bread in his pantry. "If I may have one of those, kind sir, I'll be on my way," Parry said.
He needed no second sight to fathom the man's thought process. One loaf was a cheap price to be so
readily rid of his patron, so that no one would know the origin of the precious stone, or be able to
reclaim it. He handed Parry a loaf.
"I thank you most humbly for your generosity," Parry said, tucking it under his arm. Then he hurried
out.
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The dogs were definitely closer. Parry walked on through the town, ducking around corners. Then,
unable to control his suspicion, he looped back until he could see the inn from cover at the rear.
The dogs appeared, with soldiers holding them on leashes. They looked like the same soldiers who had
pursued him before. How could they have followed him this far?
Then he heard loud voices. "Sorcerer...killed a sergeant...price on his head..."
Now there was no doubt. He was the one they were after!
Parry moved away; this was no safe place for him. But as he fled, he wondered: how had they traced
him down so fast, so accurately? And, that being the case, why did they not realize when he was right
within sight or hearing? Twice they had run him down, only to overlook him when he was virtually
under their noses. How had they even known he was alive, after burning down the villain woman's
cottage? For all they should have known, his charred bones were there with hers.
Yet obviously they did know-and as obviously, they had no really precise fix on him. That was why they
used the dogs, who nevertheless could not penetrate the mask of his changed shoes. It was as though
they were hunting a fox, who had been spotted in the vicinity but now was hiding well. They knew he
was here, but not accurately enough to nab him. What could account for this odd combination of
precision and imprecision? He thought he had escaped cleanly when he fled as a wolf, and then as a
crow, and then as a horse...
Then, abruptly it burst upon him: the transformations! They were tuning in on the magic! The exercise
of magic had its own aura, that a sorcerer could detect, even from afar. His father had known that there
was no other of his caliber in the region, because he would have detected the magic. But obviously the
crusaders had a competent sorcerer, who was spotting the magic of others, so that those others could be
tracked down and killed. What a way to abolish effective resistance! No wonder they had fixed so
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