“Hey,” she said wearily, as he started to blunder past her. He stopped dead in his tracks, and blinked as if he was surprised to see her.

Maybe he was. The more Kero thought about it, the more certain she became that her grandmother had a hand in this confusion of what should have been familiar territory. Hadn’t she read in one of Tarma’s books on warfare about a spell that fogged the enemy’s mind, and made him unable to recognize his surroundings?

“K-k-kero?” Daren said, stuttering from the cold. “Are y-y-you still lost, t-t-too?”

“I guess so,” she replied reluctantly. Full dark was descending, and with it, more rain. Harder and colder, both. Somebody needed to make a decision here, and it didn’t look as if Daren was up to remembering his own name.

We need to get out of this, and we need to find someplace to hole up for the night, otherwise we’re going to wander around until we drop. The only place at all close was that enormous rock she’d noticed earlier; the size of the Keep stables, and right now that little hollow place under it was the closest thing they were going to get to real shelter.

“Look,” she said, grabbing him by the elbow and pointing at the stone outcropping. “There’s just enough room under that rock that we can both squeeze in out of the rain. Right now even if I knew where I was, I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. In a candlemark you won’t be able to find your hand at the end of your arm.”

For a moment, it looked as though Daren was going to protest—he frowned and started to pull away from her. But evidently he was at the end of his resources; he gave in as she tugged at him, and they both stumbled through the downpour to the shelter of the overhang.

It was a lot drier in the little cave than she had thought, and the cave itself was larger than she had estimated. As she crawled on hands and knees into the hollow, feeling her way with her left, dry sand gritted under her probing. Dry, relatively clean sand; there didn’t seem to be anything in here but a pile of dry leaves blown into the back. No snakes, for instance—and mercifully few rocks. There was enough room for both of them to get completely out of the weather if they squeezed in tightly enough, and the leaves cushioned them from the worst rough edges of the rock wall. Without being asked, Daren pulled off his soggy cloak and draped it over both of them. Shamed a little, she squeezed some of the water out of her outer sweater and handed it to him—wet wool stretched, and he managed to get it on over his tunic.