Karigan watched them go, but the mist rolled back in over the battlefield and they were lost to sight. Once again she followed the stallion as he delved into the delicate billowy stuff, but it quickly lifted, and when it did, all signs of the battle were erased. She shook her head and continued on.

Karigan almost walked into the stallion’s rump when he came to a sudden halt. She peered around him to find they had come to another bridge rising up in a graceful curve. It was made from the same rustic cut granite as the others but the parapet walls ended in rounded scrolls. She couldn’t get over how ordinary and real the bridges were, and how at home they’d look in a park or country estate.

“Are we going to cross this one?” she asked.

The stallion tossed his head, his forelock falling over one eye, then stepped onto the bridge. She walked beside him, observing nothing different about the white world as she did so, but when they reached the center of the bridge’s vast deck, the far end appeared darker, murky, like a storm cloud was forming there. She glanced uncertainly at the stallion. His nostrils flared and he bobbed his head.

“What—” she began, but he nudged her with his nose and she stumbled forward. The message was clear: he wanted her to cross the bridge into the murk. “You aren’t coming with me?”

The stallion took one step back and bowed his head.

Karigan licked her lips and hesitantly walked forward, toward the cloud engulfing the scrolled ends of the bridge. She took a final glance back at the stallion—he stood silent and still as a statue, just watching her.

She had to trust him. She had to trust he had guided her to someplace she could be useful and not into another strange world. Before she could talk herself out of taking those last few steps, she strode the rest of the way into the dark cloud.

RIDER IN BLACK

A burst of wind from behind thrust Karigan the last steps across the bridge and into darkness. She tripped and landed in a pile of refuse.

“Ugh,” she said, pushing herself up from the rotting vegetables, egg shells, and…fish guts?

From the shadows a raccoon hissed at her for disturbing its repast. She rose to her feet, brushing fish scales and other disagreeable bits from her clothes and laughed; laughed in joy at the stench, the dark of night, the sounds of voices somewhere nearby, the gold of lamps and candles in windows, flurries swirling around her. She’d left the white world behind and returned to one full of life, scents, and textures.

She tugged Willis’ cloak closer around her to fend off the cold, realizing that while this was a vast improvement over the white world, she hadn’t the faintest idea of where she was. Was she even in Sacoridia? At the moment she stood in a tiny courtyard behind someone’s house or business, occupied mainly by crates, casks, and rubbish.

Business, she decided.

The opportunity arose to discover her precise location in the person of a portly and harried woman carrying a bucket from the back door of the establishment.

“Excuse me,” Karigan said.

The woman squawked, liquid sloshing over the brim of her bucket. “Who’s there?” she demanded.

“Could you please tell me where I am?” Karigan asked.

It was apparently the wrong thing to say.

“You get outta my dooryard at once, you no good vagrant!” the woman screamed. “I won’t have your ilk picking through my rubbish no more! Now git!”

Karigan did not move fast enough to satisfy the woman for the contents of the bucket were flung on her. She tore from the dooryard and onto the street, the woman hollering after her. Unfortunately the liquid that doused her smelled of boiled cabbage. She hated cabbage.

At least, she consoled herself, the woman spoke the common tongue and it had that neutral, mid-Sacoridian lack of accent she associated with Sacor City and its surroundings.

She ran down the narrow street past silent shop fronts until she finally came to a signpost beneath a street lamp that confirmed her thoughts. She stood on Fishmonger Street. She cried out in triumph, for the adjoining street was the Winding Way—she was in Sacor City. She still had a ways to go to reach the castle, as Fishmonger Street was in the midsection of the city. Why in the names of the gods did the bridge she crossed leave her in a refuse pile on Fishmonger Street?

The gods obviously had a foul sense of humor. Literally.

She sighed and turned up the Winding Way. It was uphill, though gradual. Her wet hair was beginning to stiffen in the cold. Maybe some kind soul would give her a ride in their cart, but between the stench she must emanate and the hour, she doubted her chances were very good.

Karigan trudged all the way up the nearly deserted street, taking shortcuts where she could. It was so much easier when she was astride her Condor. It did not help that her various aches and pains from before the white world reawakened, making her walk more of a trial than usual, and it really did not help when the snow-slick cobbles underfoot caused her to fall.

When finally she reached the castle’s outer portcullis gates, she wanted to kiss them. Instead, since they were closed for the night, she rapped on the door to one of the portcullis towers. Someone moved inside and slid open the peephole.

“What ye want?” a gruff voice demanded.

“It’s Rider G’ladheon,” she said.

“What? Where’s yer horse?”

“Long story that has no time for the telling,” she replied.

The weariness in her voice must have convinced him for he did not press her further. Instead he stepped outside with a lantern to look her over.