Gwathmey's son… and gave to me.'
He thought about that for a second. Then Ursa cocked his head and gave a laugh that, in spite of his ragged appearance, bespoke strength. 'Good. Now, can you get me out of here?'
She looked at the cell without much enthusiasm. 'I can't,' she said, 'and even if I could, I wouldn't.'
'Why not?' he asked, confused again.
'In return for the sword she told me the truth-about you.'
'What truth?' he scoffed.
'That you betrayed my father.'
His eyes widened. Ursa opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He turned, walked back to the wall, scuffed at something, and returned to the bars. His face had hardened, become wary.
'You believe that, I suppose,' he tried.
'Shouldn't I?'
He shook the bars desperately, to no avail, and a craven note crept into his voice. 'You've got to get me out of here, Kit,' he pleaded. 'You've got to help me. You can find a way.'
'I want to know this. Why did you do it? Why?'
His eyes rolled. 'Don't be naive, Kit,' he said dismissively. 'It was business. Business! It was money. It had nothing to do with your father. I happen to have liked your father.'
'You were his friend!'
He shrugged and put on a smile. 'Not much of one.'
She glared at him. 'You led him to his death.'
'But he didn't die!' Ursa protested. 'He was condemned to die, yes, a month and a day after he was seized, but I put aside some money for the jailer. I'm certain he got away.'
'Another one of your lies.'
'I didn't wait around to find out,' he said stubbornly. 'I can tell you that, not only had I turned on him, but some of his men had to be put to the sword. But Gregor didn't die, I'm sure of that. Not Gregor. He always had the luck of a kender.'
'You expect me to believe that, after you admit you betrayed him?'
'I didn't betray you,' he argued. 'I didn't betray you. I was beaten, starved, but I didn't tell her your name. I didn't tell her that you were in on it.'
'Pah!' she spat. 'You didn't tell her because you wanted to save your own skin. If she knew who I was, she wouldn't have had any further use for you. She would have killed you instantly. You would betray anyone.'
'Not you,' he said, his voice cracking.
In the circular room of the high tower, Luz Mantilla sat in her chair and gazed upon the painting of herself in a faraway place and time. She held the sword of Beck Gwathmey, whom she had loved, and lifted its blade high in the air, turning it and examining it in the cone of pale light. She had forgotten all about Kitiara and El-Navar and Ursa and all the rest-about everybody and everything. She only thought about Beck, dead, gone these many years, waiting for her. Somewhere.
She clasped the hilt and turned the blade around until it was slanted down. Then, with a joy that she had not felt for a long time, Luz Mantilla drove the point into her heart.
Kit was staring at Ursa with hate-filled eyes when a low rumble shook the stone corridor. The first row of bars to his cell vanished before her eyes, and the innermost door clicked open.
Kit blinked. Ursa, too, was slow to react.
Kit's eyes went to the sword that Colo had left for him, but Ursa was closer than she and had already bent to grab it. Now he stepped through the door and over the line where the bars had been.
Kit took a step back.
'Get in,' he said, waving the sword toward the cell.
She didn't move. 'How will you lock it?' Kitiara asked scornfully.
That gave Ursa pause. He scratched his head. 'I guess I'll have to kill you,' he said matter-of-factly.
He rushed her, but Kit was a better fighter than when they had first met, when she was but a girl. She grabbed his wrist and kicked upward, cracking his arm. As weak as he was, he slammed her backward, each of them struggling for control of the sword. His face was up against hers, but it was the face of Gregor Uth Matar that swam before Kit's eyes. She felt a surge of adrenalin.
'Just like before!' Ursa tried to joke as Kit jerked the sword away from him and slammed him across the face with her elbow. He fell on his back, off-balance, and looked up at her in amazement-just in time to see Kit lodge the sword in his chest.
He tried to stand, but collapsed onto his side. With his free arm, Ursa reached up to Kit, fell back, and died.
For long seconds, Kitiara looked at him, feeling revulsion yet also some pity. She could not bring herself to yank out the sword. Weaponless, she ran back down the tunnel.
Later-it could have been hours, days or years, for she had lost all sense of time-Kitiara stumbled out of Castle Mantilla.
The mist was slowly lifting.
A body lay near the entryway in a pool of blood. It was the dotty old jailer, trampled and clawed. He had not gotten away fast enough. Looking down in the dirt, Kitiara saw the tracks of the old man's murderer, the prints of a huge panther.
El-Navar was free.
She could barely lift her legs. She moved as if she were slogging through quicksand. Her head was on fire. Her muscles felt dead. One arm hung at her side, limp. Luckily, her horse was still alive, waiting for her.
El-Navar had left a clear trail. For a moment Kitiara considered following him, but the tracks led south. She struggled to climb up on the horse and, barely conscious of what she was doing, turned the animal north. North was where she was headed, to find news of her father.
Epilogue
Nobody in Whitsett could tell Kit for sure what had happened to Gregor.
The journey there took nine weeks-across the Eastwall Mountains to Newsea, a stopover at the Island of Schallsea, then onward to the middle reaches of Solamnia, the region of Throt.
Across uninhabited mountains and inhospitable waters, frigid wetlands and snowy steppes, woods whipped with wind and eerie cries, high grasslands encroached upon by sheet ice.
She arrived in the middle of the winter. She came alone.
Kitiara found that Whitsett was very much changed. Whitsett was the name of a community, one not much bigger than the village terrorized by the slig, but also the name of the loose federation of homes and farms located throughout the surrounding basin of land nourished by the tributaries of a wild river. The two estates that had been at the center of the feuding almost four years before had dissipated. Now they were melded into the federation, which was honorably ruled by a high official agreed upon by all families, who made decisions of commerce and justice.
The two local lords who had started and escalated a war between their followers had died in the intervening time, one of natural causes, one by violent means. Their lieutenants had scattered. Once the leaders were dead, the two opposing sides saw no reason to continue old animosities, and the peace that was made had lasted.
The jailkeeper from those years had been hung for corruption; the jail had long since burned down, and a new one had been built. There had been three changes of officialdom since. No one in authority could name anyone connected with the long-ago sentencing to death of a mercenary named Gregor Uth Matar.
Although few could claim to have known Gregor, they mouthed various contradictory legends about his fate in Whitsett.
