The shock was obvious on Logan's face. So stunned by loss, the young man was unconscious of the Guardsmen that surrounded him, weapons drawn. Their commander stood off to one side, his past embarrassment erased and replaced by conquest.
'I thought so,' he jeered. 'You are the Outsider. Now kindly come with us or we shall drag you by your private parts.'
One of the soldiers flanking Logan asked, 'Should we take his weapons, sir?'
The lead Guardsman waved him off. 'No, let him keep them-there's more than enough of us to detain him should he decide to be heroic.' The Guard turned and started toward some men carrying supplies. 'Oh, one other thing,' he called arrogantly over his shoulder to Logan. 'The blonde isn't dead. She's faster than a bearded peakgoat in these Hills.'
Twice in a row Logan lost the use of his expressions. Tricked! he moaned inwardly. Just like he had been conning the Guardsmen! Damn!
Triumphantly, the commanding Guard scribbled a message and released a small ball ike bird into the air, the note strapped to its leg. Its tiny wings flapping, the bird soared northward and headed out to sea.
'We'll be taking you to Frelars,' the Guardsman remarked, watching the bird vanish. 'From there we'll take a ship back to Magdelon and to King Mediyan. As I told you before, if you cooperate, your punishment will be less severe-if not, you will be slain.' He raised a scepter and the squadron of Guardsmen began northward, the unfortunate Logan among them.
Torches crackled in the night as the Guardsmen went about sorting provisions and sharpening weapons. A group had gathered near Logan, telling dirty tales and singing rowdy songs, but he paid them little attention. The commander sat upon a large boulder, grinning down at his troop and his captive in haughty success. The hillsides were bathed in the light of the dancing flames, and the noises of the night remained still, silenced by the ruckus of the Guardsmen. Logan sat on the ground, staring longingly at some men eating meat. Small growls of hunger sounded from the young man's stomach as he sat there, and he frowned at the aura of foul luck that entombed him. Captured twice-and in the same mountain range, yet! His cliff tactics might not work here, since the horses required level ground, and, besides, Logan had no idea how desperate Mediyan was. Vaugen, he knew, wanted him alive. Mediyan, from what the Guards had implied, might kill him even after his capture.
A peculiar breeze brushed over Logan, and the young man trained his blue eyes on the Hills. A wind that was not truly a wind had passed over him, touching him with its sense of unbalance. Curiously, Logan peered into the darkness of the mountains as the unsettling breeze caressed him once more. It wasn't the blatant disharmony. No, that was still the same as ever. This feeling was more unnatural, like a very distortion of the air around it.
It was gone as suddenly as it had appeared.
A footstep nearby pulled Logan out of his wonderings and he glanced up to see a young Guardsman step beside him. The sandy-haired youth set himself down near the young man and held out some food, a friendly smile on his face.
'I don't like to see people go hungry,' he stated. 'Makes the monsters in their bellies restless.'
Logan patted his own grumbling stomach. 'Tell me about it,' he muttered. He gave the food a skeptical glance. 'You didn't poison this, did you?'
The young Guard barked a laugh, taking back a piece of meat and stuffing it into his mouth. 'Convince you?' he asked back.
Tilting his head to one side, Logan shrugged and began eating the cooked meat. The taste was immediately recognizable as chicken, and Logan eagerly wolfed down the familiar meat. The Guard watched him, stroking his thin blond beard about his chin.
Cramming the last bit of chicken into his mouth, Logan turned back to the young Guardsman. He was eating like the ogre again, he realized. A pity the light blue beast wasn't there now.
'How long have you gone hungry?' the Guardsman questioned.
'Too long,' Logan returned. 'I've been busy.'
Interest burst into life in the Guardsman's eyes. 'No doubt. Doing what?'
'Getting lost,' Logan answered. Then, 'Getting captured.'
The youthful Guard could not mistake the anger in the young man's voice but his smile did not diminish. 'My name's Aelkyne,' he continued. 'I'm from Scrydaen. What about yourself?'
Logan sneered at the uniformed man beside him. 'What's it to you?' he scowled.
'Let's just say I'm curious,' the young Aelkyne responded. 'We've been looking for you since that first report came in near Eadarus.'
Logan hesitated, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. 'Then that march into Eadarus wasn't a coincidence!'
Aelkyne chuckled. 'No, of course not. That troop was, however, fortunate they were so close by.'
'But why?' queried Logan. 'Why is everyone chasing me?'
Aelkyne held out empty hands. 'We don't know that,' he admitted. He nodded toward his commander. 'I don't even think Eldath knows-only Mediyan and his spellcasters.'
Logan's caution of the young Guard dispersed as confusion mingled with frustration overwhelmed him. Why? Why? Why? his mind screamed. Was it his difference? If so, what was so damn great about it?
Aelkyne noted the perplexed expression on Logan's features. 'Something wrong?' he wondered.
Useless! Logan told himself. There was no way on Heaven or on Earth-or on any other world, for that matter- that Logan would be able to decipher the mystery of his importance! And that fact was absolutely maddening!
'… haven't been a Guard for long,' Aelkyne was saying, 'but I would like to know something about you or your world.'
The words struck something deep within Logan, and he realized how close they were to the words uttered by Mara. Mara, the young man signed. She had been so lovely, so determined to keep him from harm that she had been hurt in his stead. This world was not fair, he concluded. It was a brutal place of injury, pain, death, and mysteries. His world had been so much easier.
'My world was a much simpler place,' Logan said softly, lost in his. own memories. 'We had machines and devices that did all the nasty jobs for us, and most people didn't even have to live with themselves if they didn't want to. They just wrapped themselves up in their own little world of lies and automation and could blame their faults on others. Some of us didn't mind our place in society: we worked, we slept, we lived. Life was relatively uncomplicated for the Everyman. There were things to do, and people to do them with, but they never resulted in injury or death. Sometimes I wish I had never left my world, other times…'
Logan went silent, and Aelkyne watched him closely. The carousing of the other Guards went on around them, but the two were wrapped up in their own discussion, oblivious of the men singing and drinking about them.
Logan turned on the sandy-haired Guard beside him, despair and grief mirrored on his face. 'I was on my way to find the Smythe,' he whispered, 'to go back home. I never wanted to come here, get involved, do what I've done. But now it's too late. I'm stuck again and your whole world is going to blow.' The young man stared off into the Hills. 'I've done what I can, and it wasn't good enough.'
There was compassion in Aelkyne's eyes as he gave a swift glance over his shoulder and saw Eldath was glaring directly at the two. The young Guardsman backed away for his own safety. Logan didn't notice the Guard depart; his eyes remained locked on the blackness around him… Blackness that resembled his own failure.
The following morning was overcast, troubled with black clouds like Logan's emotions. The buzz of misplacement circled above the young man yet he was unaware. Blindly, he walked on after the Guardsmen, fear, failure, and dread raining from the dark clouds and soaking him. At times, a spark of hope sputtered in his gloom, remembering his many companions out in the Hills. Surely one of them might recall him and seek him out. But then the sorrow would regain ascendancy and drown out that flickering tongue of hope.
As the squad of Guardsmen made their way through the Hills, Logan spied a small waterfall some distance to his right. Odd, he mused, he had seen no river or stream while he had been traveling. True, his captors were taking him in a northeasterly line, but Logan had heard no water at all while lost. In fact, the only time he had seen water in the Hills had been that first day with Cyrene.
Fond thoughts of the girl began to skip through Logan's mind, blinding him to the danger. The waterfall he saw was indeed from the very same spring he and the blonde had bathed in as it wound its way through the Hills. In the course of a few days it had journeyed some distance from its original starting point, but the clear water had
