trick to cover her trail, and fearful of slowing, lest she outrun him completely. Now, he felt, the time for careful tracking was passed. If he didn't hurry, the child could be dead by the time he reached his prey.
'Speed, Perseus,' George whispered, nudging his mount into a trot, but Perseus reared up with a terrifying neigh and pawed at the air until George allowed it to turn about. The horse stood facing the wrong direction, shuddering, and the ranger knew that only the beast's training and love for its rider kept it from fleeing in full retreat. The horse was too sensible to face whatever lay up ahead and would have to be left behind. He dismounted and stroked the horse's neck.
Once the beast had calmed sufficiently, George rummaged through his saddlebags, shoving important gear into a backpack. With the baby's shrieking ringing in his ears, he began climbing the slope on foot as the sun touched the western horizon.
In the last rays cast by the setting sun, George spied the Vistana again. She halted before a great flat rock where she laid down the baby. Then she turned and headed back down the mountain slope.
George rushed forward, anxious to reach the rock before something or someone else discovered the baby. He lost sight of the Vistana and the baby as his path led through a denser patch of dead trees and the twilight descended around him. He hurried on, following the sound of the infant's frantic cries, forgetting caution completely, and not checking for signs of other crea- tures or humans who might lie in ambush.
He never saw the cudgel that swung down from an overhead tree branch and smacked him in the head.
When George regained consciousness, he was lying on his back, staked out on the ground like a sacrificial offering. The sky was gray with predawn light. He could hear the baby howling not far off, but the Vistana woman sat cross-legged beside him. Her raven-black hair framed a face lined with wrinkles, but George could see that once she had been a very striking woman. At the moment she was preoccupied laying out cards from a tarokka deck. George couldn't raise his head far enough to see the cards as they were flipped over, but it was obvious from her scowls and muttering that the old woman was not pleased with what she saw.
'Having trouble deciding the best way to kill me, ma'am?' George taunted. 'I'm only a giorgio, an outsider. How hard could it be?'
The Vistana hissed and raised her head suddenly to glare at her captive. Her neck was disfigured from old scars left by some beast that had once clawed and chewed her throat.
'You are a good man, giorgio, yet you work for Soldest of Darkon,' the Vistana said. Her tone was matter-of- fact, yet George could hear the slightest hesitation in her voice; she was guessing.
'No,' he replied. 'I don't work for Soldest. 'Off in the distance, the baby gave an especially ear-piercing shriek. He couldn't think of a lie that would convince the woman to release him, and he didn't think there was time to reason with her. He could only hope she would respond to the truth with her woman's heart. 'I don't like Soldest at all,' George insisted. 'He's arrogant, vulgar, and nasty, but his wife is a nice girl. You've stolen her son. She's frantic for the child. She begged me to find him and return him to her. Whatever vendetta you have against Soldest, there must be some better way to settle it. I know you think stealing his son will hurt Soldest, but he's a callous brute. You're only hurting the innocent. You can't hold the baby responsible. It's just a little baby. Think of the baby's mother, think of her grief. Please, ma'am, let me go, before it's too late.'
'Think of the baby's mother,' the woman repeated hollowly. 'I can do nothing but think of the baby's mother,' she snapped. 'Soldest's wife told you the baby was hers, did she? She lied. The baby is Asha's. Soldest seduced Asha and then abandoned her. Still, like a fool, she cherished his brat. Cherished it so that when Soldest sent his men to take the baby from her, she died on their swords rather than give it up.'
'Asha was one of your people?' he asked.
'Asha, daughter of Tilda, daughter of Aliza. I am Aliza. Asha was my granddaughter,' the woman replied, and half a sob escaped with her answer.
George was silent for a moment, judging what the woman had said. She had no reason to lie. 'I'm sorry,' George said. 'Sorry for her treatment, and sorry for her death. But that's your great grandson crying out there. I know your people don't accept half-blooded children, but he still has Asha's blood in him. You can't want to harm him. Soldest's wife wants him for her own. She loves him.'
Aliza snorted derisively. 'You think, giorgio, a woman could love the baby of her husband's mistress. You are a ranger; you live in the wild, and you know nothing of women.'
George shifted, uncomfortable in both his body and mind. It was true he didn't understand women well, but he couldn't give up. 'And you are Vistana,' he retorted,' you live among Vistani, and you know nothing of the giorgio. We cherish children no matter where they come from. Soldest's wife only wants a child.'
'Soldest's wife wants only her husband's heir,' Aliza declared.
'That's not true,' George growled.
'If she should have an heir of her own, she'd find some way to rid herself of her husband's half-blood. And even if she loves this baby, soon this baby will be a boy, and a boy will follow his father. Better Tristessa should take the baby for her own. 'Aliza looked up, beyond her prisoner, and smiled sadly.
'Who is this Tristessa?' George asked.
'Tristessa: it means the Sad One,' Aliza explained.
'She was once a priestess of the dark elves.'
'The dark elves? You mean the drow? Like the drow from the kingdom of Arak?' George grew agitated and worried. The drow of Arak were rumored to be exceedingly cruel, but since no human captured by them was ever seen again, the rumors were impossible to confirm. 'A drow. Good gods, woman! How could you leave your grandchild with a drow?' he growled.
'How quick you are to judge, ranger,' the Vistana growled back. 'Listen to the Sad One's tale, and understand. Long ago, in Arak, she bore a child. The child was born deformed; it had no legs of its own, only the legs of a spider, so the drow insisted it be put to death. The Sad One loved her child, though, and would not give up her baby. The drow dragged her and her baby to the surface and left them staked out for the sunlight to burn their flesh away. Her baby perished, but she escaped death and came to this land. She wanders throughout the night, half mad, grieving for her lost child. In the day she hides in a cavern high up in the mountain — 'Aliza froze suddenly. 'There she is now,' she whispered, and pointed up the slope.
George twisted his head to look where Aliza indicated. The sky was growing light all about them, and any moment the sun would rise. He could see now that he lay not far from the rock where he'd seen Aliza lay the baby. George could just make out the Sad One's figure moving up the mountain. Her long white hair and dark gown blew all about her slender body. A cold shiver ran down George's spine.
At the rock where the baby lay in its bundle, still shrieking, the figure stopped suddenly and looked down. George gasped. As the figure bent over and picked up the baby, the baby's crying ceased. George breathed a sigh of relief. Another shiver crawled down the ranger's spine. The air was perfectly still, now — maybe too still. The figure seemed to drift like a cloud up the slope and to the west until it disappeared behind the mountain with the baby.
Aliza sighed once sadly and looked back down at her tarokka cards. She gathered them together, wrapped them up in a scarf, and slipped them into a pocket of her skirt. 'Heed me now, giorgio. There are powers in this world, powers great and dark, powers beyond your ken. Such powers preserved the Sad One in Arak and brought her here. The tarokka says you are destined to travel much farther, and I dare not interfere with your destiny.' The Vistana drew out a dagger. 'But if you interfere with the Sad One, if you challenge the powers behind her, your destiny might be greatly shortened. 'The dagger cut through the leather strip holding George's left wrist to the ground.
The Vistana rose suddenly and dashed down the slope, disappearing like a wild creature into the trees.
George reached over to pick at the binding holding his other wrist. It took him more than a few minutes to work free the knots. He sat up and used his dagger to cut the bindings about his boots.
It took him a few more minutes to stand up and loosen his stiff muscles. Then he tried to straighten out his thoughts. He had promised Soldest's wife he would return with the baby, but his faith in the woman had been shaken by Aliza's evil insinuations. Still, could he trust a drow with the baby, even a drow who had loved her own deformed child enough to risk her life for it? He had to check on the baby's safety first. He would learn more of this drow, too, then decide what to do.
George continued up the slope of the mountain. Above the tree line patches of dead brambles competed for space with fields of browning thistles. There seemed to be no natural trails, and it took George hours to follow the route taken so quickly by the Sad One.
