ng the road to Nadia even as legend says the White God
will take the road to Nadia."

"Nonsense," said Ylia, wiping away her tears. "Someone has to tell the
Nadians what really happened to poor Jlomec, that's all. Retoc, Retoc
will have them eating off his hand. He'll have them believing whatever
he says. They'll never know that he killed a prince of their royal
blood."

"But what can Bontarc of Nadia--or anyone--do against the power of
Retoc's Abarians?"

"The White God could--"

"Ah, you see? Then perhaps you do believe, after all."

"The White God or whoever he was," said Ylia coldly, "fled a coward
from Retoc." She pouted. "And yet, and yet he seemed so confused."

"Perhaps he fled so that the Ofridians might live again in the pride
of their greatness," Hammeth declared with vehemence.

"You believe, don't you, Father Hammeth?" Ylia asked simply.

"I want to believe, child."

"You're panting so. You're tired. We'll have to stop and rest."

They were traversing the deepest part of the valley where the Nadian
wind, funneling through between the hills flanking the depression, had
piled the snow into drifts twice the height of a man. They hunkered
down in the lee of one of the snow-drifts, where the wind could not
reach them. With stiff fingers Ylia withdrew strips of jerked stadmeat
from the inside pocket of her snow cloak, sharing them with Hammeth.
They munched the tough cold meat, Ylia looking at the old man with
tenderness and affection. Her foster father, he had been the only
parent she had ever known. She closed her eyes and for a moment
thought back over the years they had spent as wayfarers on the
Ofridian Plain, the years dreaming of revenge and succor which would
never come, the years....

"Ylia! Ylia!"

Father Hammeth was calling her name, urgently. She shook herself from
her reverie. They were seated with their backs to one of the great
snow-drifts, where it fell off suddenly like a suspended, frozen sea
wave. With a trembling hand Hammeth was pointing before him, out
across the ice fields.

There in the soft snow which mantled the ice of Nadia to a depth of
only a few inches, were footprints. They were not old prints,
deposited there when some wayfarer had passed. Incredibly, they were
being made even as Hammeth and Ylia watched, as if by some creature
with no palpable existence. The icy wind seemed intensified.

* * * * *

"It--it's coming toward us," Ham