He closed his eyes, lost in intense thought. When he did so, an image
swam before his mind's eye. He did not know how this could be, but
ascribed it to more of the dead Portox' magic.

What he saw was the barren ice fields of Nadia, with several great
caravans making their slow way across the bleak blazing whiteness
toward Nadia City. As was the custom in Nadia, the prisoner--whose
name was Bram Forest--knew, great funeral games would be held to honor
the memory of the late beloved Prince Jlomec. And it was here in
frigid Nadia, at such a time as this, when all the royal blood of all
the royal households of Tarth gathered, the wizardry of Portox seemed
to tell him, that vengeance would come. Here, if only....

_Ylia!_

The image blurred. He had seen her once. His knuckles went white as
bleached bone on the bars. He concentrated every atom of his will.
_Ylia, Ylia!_ But now with his eyes shut he saw nothing. With his eyes
opened, only the bars of his cell and the cell-block corridor beyond.
_Ylia, Ylia! Hear me. There is danger on the road to Nadia. Ylia...._

CHAPTER XI

_On the Ice Fields of Nadia_

B'ronth the Utalian left footprints in the snow.

Otherwise, B'ronth was invisible. But if a hidden observer watched the
Utalian's slow progress across the ice fields of Nadia he would see
where the ice was soft or where snow had fallen during the night into
the gullies, the unexpected, mysterious appearance of footprints, a
left staggered after a right, then another left, then a right again,
then a left.

Actually, B'ronth the Utalian was not invisible. But like all
Utalians, he was a chameleon of a man. Within seconds his skin would
assume the color of its environment, utterly and completely. Thus,
from above B'ronth the Utalian was the dazzling white of the Nadian
ice-fields; from below, looking up at the pale cloudless sky, he was
cold, transparent blue.

All morning he had been trailing the girl. He had reached her camp on
the road to Nadia only moments after she had quit it in company with
an old man. From the tattered snow cloaks they wore, they both clearly
were wayfarers. B'ronth could have challenged them at once, sprinting
across the ice toward them, but he hadn't done that. B'ronth the
Utalian was a coward. He accepted the fact objectively: his people
were notorious cowards. The proper time would come, he told himself.
There would come a time when the girl and the old man were helpless.
Th