away from and above them all. Finally, shamed, he looked down at the darkened forest floor. He felt fourteen years old again.
"I don't particularly appreciate that, Alessan," he heard Catriana saying coldly. "I fight my own wars. You know it."
"Not to mention," Baerd added casually, "the dazzling inappropriateness of your chastising anyone alive for having too much pride."
Alessan chose to ignore that. To Catriana he said, "Bright star of Eanna, do you think I don't know how you can fight? This is different though. What happened this morning cannot be allowed to matter. I can't have this becoming a battle between you if Devin is to be one of us."
"If he what?" Catriana wheeled on him. "Are you mad? Is it the music? Because he can sing? Why should someone from Asoli possibly be...”
"Hold peace!" Alessan said sharply. Catriana fell abruptly silent. Not having any good idea where to look or what to feel, Devin continued to simulate an intense interest in the loamy forest soil beneath his feet. His mind and heart were whirling with confusion.
Alessan's voice was gentler when he resumed. "Catriana, what happened this morning was not his fault either. You are not to blame him. You did what you felt you had to do and it did not succeed. He cannot be blamed or cursed for following you as innocently as he did. If you must, curse me for not stopping him as he went through the door. I could have."
"Why didn't you then?" Baerd asked.
Devin remembered Alessan looking at him as he'd paused in the archway of that inner door that had seemed a gateway to a land of dreaming.
"Yes, why?" he asked awkwardly, looking up. "Why did you let me follow?"
The moonlight was purely blue now. Vidomni was over west behind the tops of the trees. Only Ilarion was overhead among the stars, making the night strange with her shining. Ghostlight, the country folk called it when the blue moon rode alone.
Alessan had the light behind him so his eyes were hidden. For a moment the only sounds were the night noises of the forest: rustle of leaf in breeze, of grass, the dry crackle of the woodland floor, quick flap of wings to a branch near by. Somewhere north of them a small animal cried out and another answered it.
Alessan said: "Because I knew the tune his father taught him as a child and I know who his father is and he isn't from Asoli. Catriana, my dear, it isn't just the music, whatever you may think of my own weaknesses. He is one of us, my darling. Baerd, will you test him?"
On the most conscious, rational level, Devin understood almost none of this. Nonetheless he felt himself beginning to grow cold even as Alessan spoke. He had a swooping sense, like the descent of a hunting bird, that he had come to where Morian's portal had led him, here in the shadows of this wood under the waxing blue moon.
Nor was he made easier when he turned to Baerd and saw the stricken look on the face of the other man. Even by the distorting moonlight he could see how pale Baerd had become.ω本ω作ω品ω由ωω網ω提ω供ω下ω載ω與ω在ω線ω閱ω讀ω
"Alessan . . ." Baerd began, his voice roughened.
"You are dearer to me than anyone alive," Alessan said, calm and grave. "You have been more than a brother to me. I would not hurt you for the world, and especially not in this. Never in this. I would not ask unless I was sure. Test him, Baerd."
Still Baerd hesitated, which made Devin's own anxiety grow; he understood less and less of what was happening. Only that it seemed to matter to the others, a great deal.
For a long moment no one moved. Finally Baerd, walking carefully, as if holding tightly to control of himself, took Devin by the arm and led him a dozen steps further into the wood to a small clearing among a circle of trees.
Neatly he lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the ground. After a moment's hesitation Devin did the same. There was nothing he could do but follow the leads he was being given; he had no idea where they were going. Not on the road I'm on, he remembered Catriana saying in the palace that morning.