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at arm’s length as he inspected it. Jewels held no interest for him, and he
placed it gently back on her breast. “Her breath labors. Perhaps we should get
her to shelter?’’ A long rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.
    “Aye,” Nilrem agreed, shuffling about the tree roots. “The
winds will rise now; the conjunction begins.”
    Kered tore his gaze from the woman, a difficult task, for
her exotic beauty and her deathly stillness held more allure than stellar
phenomena. The Tolemac moons, four small bluish-green orbs, moved into
alignment high in the eastern sky. He rose and scooped the woman into his arms.
She weighed nothing. His palms caressed the unusual fabric of her gown, and he
noted the supple flesh beneath. With difficulty, he forced himself to his task.
    “Come, Nilrem. You may spout profundities to your heart’s
content when we have reached shelter.”
    Following the slow, shambling progress of the old man, Kered
climbed a steep path another hundred yards and came out of the tall trees onto
a mountain meadow. Delicately scented flowers gleamed in the waning light,
bowing their heads to the stiffening breeze.
    He ventured a glance over his shoulder to the heavens. The
conjunction was almost complete. The wind whistled through the trees, lifting
the boughs, moaning like some spectral beast. At the summit of the mountain
Kered turned, and holding the woman sheltered against his chest, he waited.
    Nilrem raised his staff, mumbling an incantation. Kered
waited with the proper respect due a man of Nilrem’s age and wisdom. The wisdom
drew him, the prophesies did not.
    Nilrem stood for many minutes watching the heavenly
conjunction before turning to Kered. “Your patience pleases me well. Come,” he
said. “Let us tend this slave.”
    Kered had not noticed her lack of arm rings. It was unlike
him to be so unobservant. He blamed it on his fatigue and the remaining glitter
of color in his eyes. At Nilrem’s direction, he placed the woman on a
fur-mounded bed in the wise man’s crude hut. He went down on one knee and
smoothed back her unusual hair, searching for wounds, finding a lump at the
back of her head that might explain her deep sleep. Succumbing to an
uncontrollable urge, he drew a calloused finger along the delicate, white skin
of her bare upper arm. “A slave,” he murmured.
    “Step aside. Let me tend her wounds.” Nilrem explored as
Kered had, grunted at the lump. He ran a hand over her body, touching her
everywhere.
    Nilrem had no sense of modesty and touched the woman’s breasts
and belly with pleasurable abandon. Kered turned away in embarrassment. “You
are a wicked lecher, Nilrem.”
    “Not often I get the opportunity!” he cackled back. “Let us
strip her and really see what we have found.”
    “No. The head wound is all that ails her. Tend it. Keep your
bony fingers to the task while I see if her master is about.”
    Kered searched the mountainside until the light failed and
the wind battered him with a relentless chill. The usual signs of the white
hart grazing on the meadow or crossing the wooded slopes were all he found.
There were no footprints, no broken twigs, nothing to indicate two people on
the mountaintop.
    The woman left only one sign of her coming.
    That he tucked into the waistband of his breeches,
concealing it beneath his tunic for later examination. He never allowed
curiosity to overtake caution. The night deepened to inky purple and he gave up
the search. The hut, ablaze with warm light, beckoned.
    When he entered, Nilrem was crooning over the woman as he
tied a bandage about her head.
    “What do you make of her?” Kered asked as he dragged a
three-legged stool across the dirt floor to the bedside. He lifted the woman’s
hand and held it. Her fingers were long and slim and strong. They fitted well
in his.
    “Her appearance is an omen.”
    Kered frowned at Nilrem. “Why?”
    Nilrem shrugged. “The conjunction begins, there is a crash
of lightning, and she