Dedicated to Elsie Wollheim

with love and respect

One

Emperor Charliss sat upon the Iron Throne, bowed down neither by the visible weight of his years nor the invisible weight of his power. He bore neither the heavy Wolf Crown on his head, nor the equally burdensome robes of state across his shoulders, though both lay nearby, on an ornately trimmed marble bench beside the Iron Throne. The thick silk-velvet robes flowed down the bench and coiled on the floor beside it, a lush weight of pure crimson so heavy it took two strapping young men to lift them into place on the Emperor's shoulders. The Wolf Crown lay atop the robes, preventing them from slipping off the bench altogether. Let mere kings flaunt their golden crowns; the Emperor boasted a circlet of electrum, inset with thirteen yellow diamonds. Only when one drew near enough to the Emperor to see his eyes clearly did one see that the circlet was not as it seemed, that what had passed at a distance for an abstract design or a floral pattern was, in fact, a design of twelve wolves, and that the winking yellow diamonds were their eyes. Eleven of those wolves were in profile to the watcher, five facing left, six facing right; the twelfth, obviously the pack leader, gazed directly down onto whosoever the Emperor faced, those unwinking yellow eyes staring at the petitioner even as the Emperor's own eyes did.

Let lesser beings assume thrones of gold or marble; the Emperor held court from his Iron Throne, made from the personal weapons of all those monarchs the Emperors of the past had conquered and deposed, each glazed and guarded against rust. The throne itself was over six feet tall and four feet in width; a monolithic piece of furniture, it was so heavy that it had not been moved so much as a finger-length in centuries. Anyone looking at it could only be struck by its sheer mass—and must begin calculating just how many sword blades, axes, and lance points must have gone into the making of it....

None of this was by chance, of course. Everything about the Emperor's regalia, his throne, his Audience Chamber, and Crag Castle itself was carefully calculated to reduce a visitor to the proper level of fearful respect, impress upon him the sheer power held in the hands of this ruler, and the utter impossibility of aspiring to such power. The Emperors were not interested in inducing a groveling fear, nor did they intend to excite ambition. The former was a dangerous state; people made too fearful would plot ways to remove the cause of that fear. And ambition was a useful tool in an underling beneath one's direct supervision, but risky in one who might, on occasion, slip his leash.

There was very little in the Emperor's life that was not the result of long thought and careful calculation. He had not become the successor to Emperor Lioth at the age of thirty without learning the value of both abilities—and he had not spent the intervening century-and-a-half in letting either ability lapse.

Charliss was the nineteenth Emperor to sit the Iron Throne; none of his predecessors had been less than brilliant, and none had reigned for less than half a century. None had been eliminated by assassins, and only one had been unable to choose his own successor.

Some called Charliss "the Immortal"; that was a fallacy, since he was well aware how few years he had left to him. Although he was a powerful mage, there were limits to the amount of time magic could prolong one's life. Eventually the body itself became too tired to sustain life any longer; even banked fires dwindled to ash in the end. Charliss' rumored immortality was one of many myths he himself propagated. Useful rumors were difficult to come by.

The dull gray throne sat in the midst of an expanse of black-veined white marble; the Emperor's robes, the exact color of fresh-spilled blood, and the yellow gems in the crown, were the only color on the dais. Even the walls and the ceiling of the dais-alcove, a somber setting for a rich gem, were of that same marble. The effect was to concentrate the attention of the onlookers on the Emperor and only the Emperor. The battle-banners, the magnificent tapestries, the rich curtains—all these were behind and to the side of the young man who waited at the Emperor's feet. Charliss himself wore slate-gray velvets, half-robe with dagged sleeves, trews, and Court-boots, made on the same looms as the crimson robes, in his long-ago youth, his hair had been whitened by the wielding of magic and his once-dark eyes were now the same pale gray ,as an overcast dawn sky.

If the young man waiting patiently at the foot of the throne was aware of how few years the Emperor had left to him, he had (wisely) never indicated he possessed this dangerous knowledge to anyone. Grand Duke Tremane was about the same age as Charliss had been when Lioth bestowed his power and responsibility on Charliss' younger, stronger shoulders and had retired to spend the last three years of his life holding off Death with every bit of the concentration he had used holding onto his power.

In no other way were the two of them similar, however. Charliss had been one of Lioth's many, many sons by way of his state marriages; Tremane was no closer in blood to Charliss than a mere cousin, several times removed. Charliss had been, and still was, an Adept, and in his full powers before he ascended the Throne. Tremane was a mere Master, and never would have the kind of mage-power at his personal command that Charliss had.

But if mage-power or blood-ties were all that was required to take the Throne and the Crown, there were a hundred candidates to be considered before Tremane. Intelligence and cunning were not enough by themselves, either; in a land founded by stranded mercenaries, both were as common as snowflakes in midwinter. No one survived long in Charliss' court without both those qualities, and the will to use both no matter how stressful personal circumstances were.

Tremane had luck; that was important, but more than the luck itself, Tremane had the ability to recognize when his good fortune had struck, and the capability to revise whatever his current plan was in order to take advantage of that luck.

And conversely, when ill-luck struck him (which was seldom), he had the courage to revise plans to meet that as well, now and again snatching a new kind of victory from the brink of disaster.

Tremane was not the only one of the current candidates for the succession to have those qualities, but he was the one personally favored by the Emperor. Tremane was not entirely ruthless; too many of the others were. Being ruthless was not a bad thing, but being entirely ruthless was dangerous. Those who dared to stop at nothing often ended up with enemies who had nothing to lose. Putting an enemy in such a position was an error, for a man who has nothing to lose is, by definition, risking nothing to obtain what he desires.

Tremane inspired tremendous loyalty in his underlings; it had been dreadfully difficult for the Emperor's Spymaster to insinuate agents into Tremane's household. That was another useful trait for an Emperor to have; Charliss shared it, and had found that it was just as effective to have underlings willing to fling themselves in front of the assassin's blade without a single thought as it was to ferret out the assassin himself.

Otherwise, the man on the throne had little else in common with his chosen successor. Charliss had been considered handsome in his day, and the longing glances of the women in his Court even yet were not entirely due to the power and prestige that were granted to an Imperial mistress. Tremane was, to put it bluntly, so far from comely that it was likely only his power, rank, and personal prestige that won women to his bed. His thinning hair was much shorter than was fashionable, his receding hairline gave him a look of perpetual befuddlement. His eyes were too small, set just a hair too far apart; his beard was sparse, and looked like an afterthought. His thin face ended in a lantern jaw; his wiry body gave no hint of his quality as a warrior. Charliss often thought that the man's tailor ought to be taken out and hanged; he dressed Tremane in sober browns and blacks that did nothing for his complexion, and his clothing hung on him as if he had recently lost weight and muscle.

Then again... Tremane was only one of several candidates for the Iron Throne, and he knew it. He looked harmless, common, and of average intelligence, but no more than that. It was entirely possible that all of this was a deeply laid plan to appear ineffectual. If so, Charliss' own network of intelligence agents told him that the plan had succeeded, at least among the rest of the rivals for the position. Of all of the candidates for the Iron Throne, he was the one with the fewest enemies among his rivals.

They were as occupied with eliminating each other as in improving their own positions, and in proving their ability to the Emperor. He was free to concentrate on competence. This was not a bad position to be in.

Perhaps he was even more clever than Charliss had given him credit for. If so, he would need every bit of that cleverness in the task Charliss was about to assign him to.

The Emperor had not donned robes and regalia for this interview, as this was not precisely official; he was alone with Tremane—if one discounted the ever-present bodyguards—and the trappings of Empire did not impress the Grand Duke. Real power did, and real power was what Charliss held in abundance. He was power, and with the discerning, he did not need to weary himself with his regalia to prove that.

He cleared his throat, and Tremane bowed slightly in acknowledgment.

"I intend to retire at some point within the next ten years." Charliss made the statement calmly, but a muscle jumping in Tremane's shoulders betrayed the man's excitement and sudden tension. "It is Imperial custom to select a successor at some point during the last ten years of the reign so as to assure an orderly transition."

Tremane nodded, with just the proper shading of respect. Charliss noted with approval that Tremane did not respond with toadying phrases like "how could you even think of retiring, my Emperor," or "surely it is too early to be thinking of such things." Not that Charliss had expected such a response from him; Tremane was far too clever.

"Now," Charliss continued, leaning back a little into the comfortable solidity of the Iron Throne, "you are no one's fool, Tremane. You have obviously been aware for a long time that you are one of the primary candidates to be my successor."

Tremane bowed correctly, his eyes never leaving Charliss' face. "I was aware of that, certainly, my Emperor," he replied, his voice smoothly neutral. "Only a fool would have failed to notice your interest. But I am also aware that I am just one of a number of possible candidates."

Charliss smiled, ever so slightly, with approval. Good. Even if the man did not possess humility, he could feign it convincingly. Another valuable ability.

"You happen to be my current personal choice, Tremane," the Emperor replied, and he smiled again as the man's eyebrows twitched with quickly-concealed surprise. "It is true that you are not an Adept; it is true that you are not in the direct Imperial bloodline. It is also true that of the nineteen Emperors, only eleven have been full Adepts, and it is equally true that I have outlived my own offspring. Had any of them inherited my mage-powers, that would not have been the case, of course...."

He allowed himself a moment to brood on the injustice of that. Of all the children of his many marriages of state, not a one had achieved more than Journeyman status. That was simply not enough power to prolong life—not without resorting to blood-magic, at any rate, and while there had been an Emperor or two who had followed the darker paths, those were dangerous paths to follow for long. As witness the idiot Ancar, for instance—those who practiced the blood-paths all too often found that the magic had become the master, and the mage, the slave. The Emperor who ruled with the aid of blood-rites balanced on a spider's thread above the abyss, with the monsters waiting below for a single missed step.

Well, it hardly mattered. What did matter was that a worthy candidate stood before him now, a man who had all the character and strength the Iron Throne demanded.

And what was more, there was an opportunity before them both for Tremane to prove, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, that he was the only man with that kind of character and strength.

"Your duchy is in the farthest west, is it not?" Charliss asked, with carefully simulated casualness. If Tremane was surprised at the apparent change of subject, he did not show it. He simply nodded again.

"The western border, in fact?" Charliss continued. "The border of the Empire and Hardorn?"

"Perhaps a trifle north of the true Hardorn border, but yes, my Emperor," Tremane agreed. "May I assume this has something to do with the recent conquests that our forces have made in that sad and disorganized land?"

"You may." Charliss was enjoying this little conversation. "In fact, the situation with Hardorn offers you a unique opportunity to prove yourself to me. With that situation you may prove conclusively that you are worthy of the Wolf Crown."

Tremane's eyes widened, and his hands trembled, just for a moment.

"If the Emperor would be kind enough to inform his servant how this could be done—?" Tremane replied delicately.

The Emperor smiled thinly. "First, let me impart to you a few bits of privileged information. Immediately prior to the collapse of the Hardornen palace—and I mean that quite precisely—our envoy returned to us from King Ancar's court by means of a Gate. He did not have a great deal of information to offer, however, since he arrived with a knife buried in his heart, a rather lovely throwing dagger, which I happen to have here now."

He removed the knife from a sheath beneath his sleeve, and passed it to Tremane, who examined it closely, and started visibly when he saw the device carved into the pommel-nut.

"This is the royal crest of the Kingdom of Valdemar," Tremane stated flatly, passing the blade back to the Emperor, who returned it to the sheath. Charliss nodded, pleased that Tremane had actually recognized it.

"Indeed. And one wonders how such a blade could possibly have been where it was." He allowed one eyebrow to rise. "There is a trifle more; we had an intimate agent working to rid us of Ancar, an agent that had once worked independently in Valdemar. This agent is now rather conspicuously missing."

The agent in question had been a sorceress by the name of Hulda—Charliss never could recall the rest of her name. He did not particularly mourn her loss—she had been very ambitious, and he had foreseen a time when he might expect her value as an agent to be exceeded by her liabilities. That she was missing could mean any one of several things, but it did not much matter whether she had fled or died; the result would be the same.

Tremane's brow wrinkled in thought. "The most obvious conclusion would be that your agent turned," he said after a moment, "and that she used this dagger to place suspicion on agents of one of Ancar's enemies, thus embroiling us in a conflict with Valdemar that would open opportunities for her own ambitions in Hardorn. We have no reason for an open quarrel with Valdemar just yet; this could precipitate one before we are ready."

Charliss nodded with satisfaction. What was "obvious" to Tremane was far from obvious to those who looked no deeper than the surface of things. "Of course, I have no intention of pursuing an open quarrel with Valdemar just yet," he said. "The envoy in question was hardly outstanding; there are a dozen more who are simply panting for his position. The woman was quite troublesomely ambitious, yes; however, if she uses her magics but once, we will know where she is, and eliminate her if we choose. No. What truly concerns me is Valdemar itself. The situation within Hardorn is unstable. We have acquired half of the country with very little effort, but the ungrateful barbarians seem to have made up their mind to refuse the benefits of inclusion within the Empire." Charliss felt a distant ache in his hip joints and shifted his position a little to ease it. A warning, those little aches. The sign that his spells of bodily renewal were fading. They were less and less effective with every year, and within two decades or so they would fail him altogether....

One corner of Tremane's mouth twitched a little, in recognition of Charliss' irony. They both knew what the Emperor meant by that; the citizens of what had been Hardorn wanted their country back, and they had organized enough to resist further conquest.

"In addition," Charliss continued smoothly, "this land of Valdemar is overrun with refugees from all the conflict within Hardorn and from the wretched situation before Ancar perished. Valdemar could decide to aid the Hardornens in some material way, and that would cause us further trouble. We know that they have somehow allied themselves with those fanatics in Karse, and that presents us with one long front if we choose to fight them. Valdemar itself is a damned peculiar place...."

"It has always been difficult to insinuate agents into Valdemar," Tremane offered, with the proper diffidence. Charliss wondered whether he spoke from personal experience or simply the knowledge he had gleaned from keeping an eye on Charliss' own agents.

From beyond the closed doors of the Throne Room came the soft murmur of the courtiers who were waiting for the doors to open for them and Court to begin. Let them wait—and let them see just whose business had kept them waiting. They would know then, without any formal announcements, just who had become the Emperor's current favorite. The little maneuverings and shifts in power would begin from that very moment, like the shifts in current when a new boulder rolls into a stream.

"Quite." Charliss frowned. "In fact, that Hulda creature was once one of my freelance agents in the Valdemar capital. I was rather dubious about using her again, despite her abilities, until I realized just how cursed difficult it is to work in Valdemar. As it was, her progress there was minimal. Most unsatisfactory. She was never able to insinuate herself any higher than a mere court servant's position, and she had more than one agenda and more than one employer at the time."

The corner of Tremane's mouth twitched again, but this time it was downward. Charliss knew why—Tremane never knowingly worked with someone who served more masters than he.

"Why did you trust her in Hardorn, then?" the Grand Duke asked in a neutral tone.

"I never trusted her," Charliss corrected him, allowing a hint of cold disapproval to tinge his own voice. "I trust no agents, particularly not those who are as ambitious as this one was. I merely made sure that this time she had no other employers, and that her personal agenda was not incompatible with mine. And when it appeared that she was slipping her leash, I sent an envoy to Ancar's court to remind her who her master was. And to eliminate her if she elected to ignore the warning he represented. That was why I sent a mage, an Adept her equal, with none of her vices."

"Your pardon," Tremane replied, bowing slightly. "I should have known. But—about Valdemar?"

Charliss permitted his icy expression to thaw. "Valdemar is peculiar, as I said. Until recently, they've had next to no magic at all, and what they had was only mind-magic. There was a barrier there, according to my agents, a barrier that made it impossible for a practicing mage to remain within the borders for very long."

"But how did Hulda—" Tremane began, then smiled. "Of course. While she was there, she must have refrained from using her powers. A difficult thing for a mage—use of magic often becomes a habit too ingrained to break."

Charliss blinked slowly in satisfaction. Tremane was no fool; he saw immediately the solution and the difficulty of implementing it. "Precisely," he replied. "On both counts. And that was why I continued to use her. In business matters, the woman's self-discipline was remarkable. As for Valdemar—though they have begun again to use magic as we know it, the place is no less peculiar than before, and many of the mages they seem to have invited into their borders are from no land that my operatives recognize! Well, that is all in the past; what we need to deal with is the current situation. And that, Grand Duke Tremane, is where you come in."

Tremane simply waited, as any good and perfectly trained servant, for his master to continue. But his eyes narrowed just a trifle, and Charliss knew that his mind was working furiously. A current of breeze stirred the tapestries behind him, but the flames of the candles on the many-branched candelabras, protected in their glass shades, did not even waver.

"Your Duchy borders Hardorn; you will therefore be familiar with the area," Charliss stated, his tone and expression allowing no room for dissension. "The situation in Hardorn grows increasingly unstable by the moment. I require a personal commander of my own in place there—someone who has incentive, personal incentive, to see that the situation is dealt with expeditiously."

"Personal incentive, my Emperor?" Tremane replied.

Charliss crossed his legs and leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his hip joints. "I am giving you a unique opportunity to prove, not only to me, but to your rivals and your potential underlings, that you are the only truly worthy candidate for the Wolf Crown. I intend to put you in command of the Imperial forces in Hardorn. You will be answerable only to me. You will prove yourself worthy by dealing with this situation and bringing it to a successful conclusion."

Tremane's hands trembled, and Charliss noted that he had turned just a little pale. How long would it take for word to spread of Tremane's new position? Probably less than an hour. "What of Valdemar, my Emperor?" he asked, his voice steady, even if his hands were not.

"What of Valdemar?" Charliss repeated. "Well, I don't expect you to conquer it as well. It will be enough to bring Hardorn under our banner. However, if during that process you discover a way to insinuate an agent into Valdemar, all the better. If you take your conquests past the Hardorn border and actually into Valdemar, better still. I simply warn you of Valdemar because it is a strange place and I cannot predict how it will measure this situation nor what it will do. Valdemar can wait; Hardorn is what concerns me now. We must conquer it, now that we have begun, or our other client states will see that we have failed and may become difficult to deal with in our perceived moment of weakness."

"And if I succeed in bringing Hardorn into the Empire?" Tremane persisted.

"Then you will be confirmed in the succession, and I will begin the process of the formal training," Charliss told him. "And at the end of ten years, I will retire, and you will have Throne, Crown, and Empire."

Tremane's eyes lit, and his lips twitched into a tight, excited smile. Then he sobered. "If I do not succeed, however, I assume I shall resume nothing more than the rule of my Duchy."

Charliss examined his immaculately groomed hands, gazing into the topaz eyes of the wolf's-head ring he wore, a ring whose wolf mask had been cast from the same molds as the central wolf of the Wolf Crown. The eyes gazed steadily at him, and as he often did, Charliss fancied he saw a hint of life in them. Hunger. An avidity, not that of the starving beast, but of the prosperous and powerful.

"There is no shortage of suitable candidates for the Throne," he replied casually, tilting the ring for a better view into the burning yellow eyes. "If you should happen to survive your failure, I would advise you to retire directly to your Duchy. The next candidate that I would consider if you failed would be Baron Melles."

Baron Melles was a so-called "court Baron," a man with a title but no lands to match. He didn't need land; he had power, power in abundance, for he was an Adept and his magics had brought him more wealth than many landed nobles had. His coffers bulged with his accumulated wealth, but he wanted more, and his bloodlines and ambition were likely to give him more.

He also happened to be of the political party directly opposite that of Tremane's. Tremane's parents had held their lands for generations; Melles was the son of merchants. Melles was, not so incidentally, one of Tremane's few enemies, one of the few candidates to the succession who did not underestimate the Baron. There was a personal animosity between them that Charliss did not quite understand, and he often wondered if the two had somehow contracted a very private feud that had little or nothing to do with their respective positions and ambitions.

Melles would be only too pleased to find Tremane a failure and himself the new successor. This meant, among other things, that if Tremane happened to survive his failure to conquer Hardorn, he probably would not survive the coronation of his rival, and he might not even survive the confirmation of Melles as successor. Melles was the most ruthless of all the candidates, and both Charliss and Tremane were quite well aware that he was a powerful enough Adept to be able to commit any number of murders-by-magic, and make them all appear to be accidents.

He was also clever enough not to do anything of the sort, since his political rivals would be looking for and defending against exactly that sort of attack. Melles was fully wealthy enough to buy any number of covert killers, and probably would. He was too clever not to consolidate his position by eliminating enough rivals that those remaining were intimidated.

That was, after all, one of the realities of life in the Empire; lead, follow, and barricade yourself against assassins.

And the first in line for elimination would be Tremane—if Melles were named successor.

Charliss knew this. So did Tremane. It made the situation all the more piquant.

Interestingly enough, if Tremane succeeded and attained the coveted prize, it was not likely that he would remove Melles. Nor would he dispose of any of the other candidates. Rather, he would either win them over to his side or find some other way to neutralize them—perhaps by finding something else, creating some other problem for them, that required all their attention.

Charliss had used both ploys in the past, and on the whole, he preferred subtlety to assassination. Still, there had been equally successful Emperors in the past who ruled by the knife and the garrote. Difficult times demanded difficult solutions, and one of those times could be upon them.

The entire situation gave Charliss a faint echo of the thrill he had felt back at the beginning of his own reign, when he first realized he truly did have the power of life and death over his underlings and could manipulate their lives as easily as the puppeteer manipulated his dolls. It was amusing to present Tremane with a gift of a sword—with a needle-studded, poisoned grip. It was doubly amusing to know that Melles, at least, would recognize this test for what it was, and would be watching Tremane just as avidly from a distance, perhaps sending in his own agents to try and undermine his rival, and attempting to consolidate his own position here at court.

The jockeying and scrabbling was about to begin. It should produce hours of fascination.

Charliss watched Tremane closely, following the ghosts, the shadows of expressions as he thought all this through and came to the same conclusions. There was no chance that he would refuse the appointment, of course. Firstly, Tremane was a perfectly adequate military commander. Secondly, refusing this appointment would be the same as being defeated;

Melles would have the reward of becoming successor, and Tremane's life would be in danger.

It took very little time for Tremane to add all the factors together to come to the conclusions that Charliss had already thought out. He bowed quickly.

"I cannot tell my Emperor how incredibly flattered I am by his trust in me," he said smoothly. "I can only hope that I will prove worthy of that trust."

Charliss said nothing; only nodded in acknowledgment.

"And I am answerable only to you, my Emperor? Not to any other, military or civilian?" Tremane continued quickly.

"Have I not said as much?" Charliss waved a hand. "I am certain you will need all the time you have between now and tomorrow morning, Grand Duke. Packing and preparations will probably occupy you for the rest of the day. I will have one of the Court Mages open the Portal for you to the Hardornen front just after you break your fast tomorrow morning."

"Sir." Tremane made the full formal bow this time; he knew a dismissal even when it was not phrased as one. Charliss was very pleased with his demeanor, especially given the short notice and the shorter time in which to make ready for his departure. There were no attempts to argue, no excuses, no plaints that there was not enough time.

Tremane rose from the bow, backing out of the room with his eyes lowered properly. Charliss could not find fault with his posture or the signals his body gave; his demeanor was perfect.

The great doors opened and closed behind him. Alone once again in the Throne Room, Emperor Charliss, ruler of the largest single domain in the world, leaned to one side and chuckled into the cavernous chamber.

This would be the most enjoyable little playlet of his entire reign, and it came at the very end, when he had thought he had long since exploited the entertainment value of watching his courtiers scramble about for the tidbits he tossed them. But here was a juicy treat indeed, and the scramble would be vastly amusing.

Charliss was pleased. Entertainment on this scale was hard to come by!

Two

Steam curled up from the water as An'desha gingerly lowered himself into the soaking-pool of Firesong's miniature Vale. A Vale in the heart of Valdemar—no larger than a single Gathering-tent. I would not have believed that such a thing was possible, much less that it could be done with so little magic—yet here it is.

It was amazing how much could be created without the use of any magic at all. Most of this enchanted little garden had been put together by ordinary folk, using nonmagical materials. There were only two exceptions; the huge windows, and the hot pools. The windows were not the tiny, many-paned things with their thick, bubbly glass, that An'desha had seen in all of the Palace buildings, which would not have done at all for the purpose. These eight windows, two to each side of the room, went from floor to ceiling in a single flawless triangular piece. Each had been made magically by Firesong, of the same substance used by the Hawkbrothers for the windows in their tree-perching ekeles. He had also created a magical source for the hot water for the pools. The rest, this garden that bloomed in the dead of winter, and the pseudo-ekele above it, was all built by ordinary folk, mainly due to Firesong taking shameless advantage of the Queen of Valdemar's gratitude and generosity.

Firesong felt that if he must remain here as the Tayledras envoy to primitive Valdemar, then by the Goddess, he would have the civilized amenities of a Vale!

Valdemar. An'desha had never heard of this land until a year ago. As a child and even a young man among the Clans, he had not heard of much beyond the Walls—indeed, the only places beyond the Walls he had learned of as a youngster were the Pelagiris Forest and the trade-city of Kata'shin'a'in. The Shin'a'in as a general rule cared very little for the world beyond the Plains; only Tale'sedrin of all the Clans had any measure of Outland and outClan blood.

In some Clans—such as An'desha's—such foreign breeding was occasionally considered a minor disgrace—not a disgrace for the child, but for the Shin'a'in parent. "Could he not draw to him a single woman of the Plains?" would come the whispers, or "Was she so unpleasant that no Shin'a'in man cared to partner her?" So it had been for An'desha, child of such an alliance—and perhaps that was why his own Clan had never so much as mentioned the lands outside the Dhorisha Plains. Perhaps they had feared that talking about the lands Outside would excite an un-Shin'a'in wanderlust in him, a yearning for far places and strange climes.

Well, I found both—without really wanting either.

The blood-path Adept who had flamboyantly named himself Mornelithe Falconsbane had never heard of Valdemar, either, until the two white-clad strangers from that land had come into the territory of Clan k'Sheyna of the Hawkbrothers.

An'desha had been a silent, frightened passenger in his own body, which Falconsbane had usurped by magic and trickery. With the Adept possessing him, he had learned just who those strangers were and something of their land. He'd had no choice in the matter, since he was a hidden fugitive within the body that Falconsbane had stolen years ago.

He should have died; that was what always happened before, when Falconsbane took a body. But he hadn't; perhaps the reason was that he had fled, rather than trying to resist the interloper.

A prisoner in my own body.... He closed his eyes and sank a measure deeper into the hot water. So odd.... the memories of those years of hiding, when he had no control over the actions of his own body, seemed more solid and real than this moment, when the body he had been born into was once again his.

An'desha's had been only the last in a long series of bodies Falconsbane had appropriated as his own. All that was required, or so it seemed, was for the victim to be gifted with mage ability and to have been a descendant of a mage called Ma'ar. If those remote memories were to be trusted, Ma'ar had lost his first life—or body, depending on your point of view—in the Mage Wars of so long ago it made An'desha dizzy to think about the passage of years between that moment and this.

He slipped down to his chin into the hot water, and closed his eyes tighter, letting the steam rise around his face. His face now, and not the half-feline face of Mornelithe Falconsbane. His own body, too, for the most part, though it was more muscular now than it had been when Falconsbane helped himself to it and tried to destroy the original owner. Falconsbane had made a hobby of body sculpting, trying out changes on his daughter before adopting them himself. He had indulged in some extensive modifications to An'desha's body, changes An'desha had been certain he would have to endure even after Falconsbane had been driven out and destroyed.

But his own actions, risking real soul-death to rid the world of Falconsbane, had earned him more than just his freedom. Not only had he regained his body, most of the modifications had vanished when the Avatars of the Goddess "cured" him of what had been done to him.

There were only two things they could not give him again; the original colors of his hair and eyes. His hair was a pure, snowy white now, and his eyes a pale silver, both bleached forever by the magic energies that Falconsbane had sent coursing through this body, time and time again. So now, when An'desha gazed into a mirror, it always took a moment to recognize the reflection as his own.

At least I see the face of a half-familiar stranger, and not that of a beast. However handsome that beast had made himself.

The hot water forced his muscles to relax some, but he feared he would have to resort to stronger measures to release all the tension.

This place is so strange.... Let Firesong wallow in being the exotic and sought-after alien; An'desha was not comfortable here. The only people he really knew were Nyara, the mage-sword Need, and Firesong, the Tayledras Adept. Of the three, the only one he spent any time at all with was Firesong. Nyara was very preoccupied with her mate, the Herald called Skif—and at any rate, it was hard to face her, knowing she was the offspring of his body when Falconsbane had worn it, knowing what his body had done to hers. Now that the crisis was over, Nyara seemed to feel the same way_; although she was never unkind, she often seemed uncomfortable around him.

As for the ancient mage-sword that housed the spirit of an irreverent and crotchety sorceress, the entity called Need had her nonexistent hands full. She was engrossed in training Nyara, helping her adjust to this new land. Need was quite used to adjusting to new situations; she had been doing so for many centuries; in this, he had nothing in common with her.

After seeing changes over the course of a few hundred years, I would imagine that there is very little that surprises her anymore.

And as for Firesong—

He flushed, and it wasn't from the heat of the water cradling him. I don't understand, he thought, his logic getting all tangled up with his feelings whenever he so much as thought about Firesong. I just don't understand. Why this, and why Firesong! Not that the Shin'a'in had any prejudice about same-sex pairings, but An'desha had never felt even the tiniest of stirrings for a male before this. But Firesong—oh, Firesong was quickly becoming the emotional center of his universe. Why?

Firesong. Ah, what am I to do! Is he my next master!

His thoughts circled, tighter and tighter, like a hawk caught in an updraft, until he physically shook himself loose. He splashed warm water on his face and sat up straighter.

Don't get unbalanced. Concentrate on ordinary things: deal with all of. this a little at a time. Think of ordinary things, peaceful things. They keep telling you not to worry, to rest and recover and relax.

He opened his eyes and deliberately focused on the garden around him, looking for places that might seem a little barren, a trifle unfinished. He had discovered a surprising ability in himself. It was surprising, because the nomadic Shin'a'in were not known for growing much of anything, and Falconsbane had been much more partial to destroying rather than creating when he had been active.

I never thought I'd be a gardener. I thought that was something only Tayledras did. He loved the feel of warm earth between his fingers; seeing a new leaf unfold gave him as much pleasure as if he had created a poem. Though the plants were cold and alien, in their own way they were like him. They struck a chord in him the way open sky and waving grass inspired his ancestors, and the scent of fresh greenery renewed him. An'desha had an affinity with ornamental plants, with plants of all kinds now, and a patience with them that Firesong lacked. The Adept enjoyed the effect of a finished planting, but he was not interested in creating it, nor in nurturing it. Though Firesong had dictated the existence of the indoor garden, planned the general look of it, and sculpted the stones, it was An'desha who had filled it with growing things, and given it life. In a sense, this fragile garden was An'desha: body, mind, and soul.

An'desha had not confined his efforts to the indoor garden surrounding the pools, hot and cold, and the waterfall that Firesong had created here. He had extended the plantings to cold-hardy species outside the windows, deciding that as long as the windows were that tall, there was no reason why he couldn't create the illusion that the indoor garden extended out into the outdoors. So, for at least the part of the year when the outside gardens were still green, this could have been a shady grotto in any Tayledras Vale.

The illusion was not quite perfect, and An'desha studied the intersection of indoors and outdoors, frowning slightly. He had matched the pebbled pathway between the beds of ornamental grasses indoors and out, but the eye still saw the windowpane before the vegetation outside it. He moved to the smooth rock edge of the pool and laid his chin down on his crossed arms to study it further.

There must be a way to make the window more of an accidental interruption to the flow of the gardens, the sweep of the planting.

Bushes, he decided. If I have some bushy plants in here, and more that will outline a phantom pathway beyond the glass, that will help the illusion. With just a little magical help, he'd accelerate the growth of a few more cuttings, and he'd have them at the right height in a week or two.

If I use evergreens, perhaps I can even take the edge off the transition between indoors and outdoors even in winter.

He had worried when Firesong came up with these clever ideas that the original "owners" of this bit of property might object to all the changes. Firesong's little home was in the remotest corner of a vast acreage called "Companion's Field," and the horselike beings that partnered the Heralds of Valdemar could very well have objected to their privacy being invaded. But they didn't seem to mind the presence of the Adept and his compatriots; in fact, they had contributed to the landscaping with suggestions of their own that made the ekele blend in with the surroundings, just as any good ekele should. From outside, the mottled gray and brown stone of the support pillars blended with the trunks of the trees masking it, and the second story was hidden among the branches. Firesong had chosen this particular place after he had heard of a legend that told of a Herald Vanyel, supposedly Firesong's and Elspeth's ancestor, trysting with his beloved in this very grove of trees; after that, nothing would do but that his own ekele be here as well.

Firesong had insisted on building his "nest" in Companion's Field in the first place, rather than in the Palace gardens, precisely because he did not want any hint of the alien buildings of Valdemar to jar on his awareness.

Strange. I would have thought that Darkwind would be the one to feel that way, not Firesong. Darkwind was a scout; at one point, he could not even bear to live within the confines of a Vale! But Darkwind dwells quite comfortably in the Palace with the Queen's daughter, and it is Firesong who insists on removing himself to the isolation of this place.

Then again, Firesong was a law unto himself; he could afford to dictate even to a Queen in her own Palace how he would and would not live. Firesong was the most powerful practicing Adept in this strange land, and he did not seem to have a moment's hesitation when it came to exploiting that fact. Eventually Elspeth and Darkwind might come to be his equals in power, but he had been a full Adept from a very tender age, and had a great deal more experience than either the k'Sheyna Hawkbrother or the Valdemaran Herald.

And perhaps he has isolated himself for my sake, and not his own. That could very well be the case. An'desha stared into the tree-shadows on the other side of the window, and sighed.

He, more than anyone else, knew just how tenuous his stability was. For all intents and purposes, he was still the young Shin'a'in of fifteen summers who had run away from his Clan in order to be schooled in magic by the Shin'a'in "cousins," the Hawkbrothers. For most of his tenure within Falconsbane's mind, he had no more than brief glimpses of what Falconsbane had been doing. He had no real experience of those years; he might just as well never have lived them. In a very real sense, he hadn't. Most of the time he had been hidden in the darkness, snatching only covert glimpses of what Falconsbane was doing. I was afraid he'd sense me watching through his eyes—and what he was doing was horrible.

If he chose, he could delve into Falconsbane's memories now_; mostly, he did not choose to do so. There was too much there that still made him sick; and it all frightened him with the thought that Falconsbane might not be gone after all. Hadn't he hidden within the depths of Falconsbane's mind for years without the Dark Adept guessing he was there? What was to keep the far more experienced and practiced Adept from having done the same? He had only Firesong's word that Mornelithe Falconsbane had been destroyed for all time. Firesong himself admitted he had never before seen anything like the mechanism Falconsbane had used for his own survival. How could Firesong be so certain that Falconsbane had not evaded him at the last moment? An'desha lived each moment with the fear that he would look into the mirror and see Mornelithe Falconsbane staring out of his eyes, smiling, poised to strike. And this time, when he struck at An'desha, there would be no escape.

Firesong was teaching An'desha the Tayledras ways of magic, and every lesson made that fear more potent. It had been magic that brought Falconsbane back to life—could more magic not do the same?

But by the same token, An'desha was as afraid of not learning how to control his powers as he was of learning their mysterious ways. Firesong was a Healing Adept; surely he should be the best person of all to help An'desha bind up his spiritual wounds and come to terms with all that had happened to him. Surely, if there were physical harm to his mind, Firesong could excise the problem. Surely An'desha would flower under Firesong's nurturing light.

Surely. If only I were not so afraid....

Afraid to learn, afraid not to learn. There was an added complication as well, as if An'desha needed any more in his life. The first time he had voiced his temptation to let the magic lie fallow and untapped within him, Firesong had told him, coolly and dispassionately, that there was no choice. He must learn to master his magics. Falconsbane never possessed a descendant who was anything less than Adept potential. That potential did not go away; it probably could not even be forced into going dormant.

In other words, An'desha was still possessed of all the scorching power-potential of Mornelithe Falconsbane, an Adept that even Firesong would not willingly face without the help of other mages. The power remained quiescent within the Shin'a'in, but if An'desha were ever faced with a crisis, he might react instinctively, with only such training as he vaguely recalled from rummaging through Falconsbane's memories.

On the whole, that was not a good idea. Especially if the objective was to keep anything in the area alive.

To wield the greater magics successfully, the mage must be confident in himself and sure of his own abilities, else the magic could turn on him and eat him alive. Falconsbane had no lack of self-confidence; unfortunately, that was precisely the quality that An'desha lacked.

I cannot even bear to meet all the strangers here, and it is their land we dwell in! Stupid of course—they would not eat him, nor would they hold Falconsbane's actions against him. But the very idea of leaving this sheltered place and walking the relatively short distance to the Palace, crowded with curious strangers, made him want to crawl under the waterfall and not come out again.

So he remained here, protected, but cowering within that protection.

He found it difficult to believe that no one here would hold against him the evil Falconsbane had done. He had such difficulty facing those stored memories that he could not imagine how people could look at him and not be reminded of the things "he" had done.

And I don't even know the half of them... the most I know are the things he did to Nyara. The truth was, he didn't want to know what Falconsbane had done—never mind that Firesong kept insisting that he must face every scrap of memory eventually. Firesong told him, over and over again, that he needed to deal with every act, however vile, and mine it for its worth.

He decided that he had stewed enough in the hot water; any more, and he was going to look like cooked meat. There were no helpful little hertasi here in Valdemar to attend to one's every need—a fact Firesong complained of bitterly—but An'desha had grown up in an ordinary Shin'a'in Clan on the Plains. That was a place where if a person did not do things for himself—unless he was incapacitated and needed help—they did not get done. He had brought his own towels and robes to leave beside the pool, with extras for Firesong when he should reappear, and made use of those now.

This hot pool was the mirror image of a cold one on the other side of the garden. It had a smooth backrest of sculptured rock, taller than the user's head; hot water welled up from a place in the center of the pool, and a waterfall showered cooler water down from above, from an opening at the top of the backrest. The whole was surrounded by screening "trees" and curtains of vines; Firesong did not particularly care if someone wandered by and got an eyeful, but An'desha was not so uninhibited.

Firesong's white firebird flew gracefully across the garden room as he climbed out of the pool and dried himself off. It landed beside the smaller, cooler pool that supplied the waterfall, in a bowl Firesong had built for it to bathe in. It plunged in with the same enthusiasm as the humblest sparrow, sending water splashing in all directions as it flapped and rolled in the shallow rock basin. When it finally emerged from its bath, it looked terrible, as if it had some horrible feather disease, and its wings were so soaked it could scarcely fly. It didn't even bother to try; it just hopped up onto a higher perch to preen itself dry with single-minded concentration. Hawkbrothers usually had specially-bred raptors as bondbirds, but in this, as in all else, Firesong was an exception.

An'desha got along quite well with the bird, whose name was Aya; especially after he had coaxed some berrybushes the bird particularly craved to grow, blossom, and bear fruit out of season in this garden. Aya was happy here; he did not seem to miss the Vales at all.

Even the firebird felt more at home here than he did.

He recognized the fact that he was feeling sorry for himself, and he didn't much care. The firebird paused in its preening, as if it had read his thoughts, and gave him a look of complete disgust before shaking out its wet tail and turning its back on him.

Well, let it. The firebird had never had its body taken over by a near-immortal entity of pure filth, had it?

He dried his hair and wrapped himself up in his thick robe, then went off to one part of the garden he considered his very own.

In the southwestern corner of the garden, near the window, he had planted a row of trees screening a mound of grass off from the rest of the garden. In that tiny patch of lawn he had pitched a very small tent, tall enough to stand in, but no wider than the spread of his arms. It wasn't quite a Shin'a'in tent, and it certainly wasn't weatherproof, but that hardly mattered since it was always summer in this garden. Here, at least, he could fling himself down on a pallet, look up at a roof of canvas, and see something that resembled home. And as long as he made no sound, there was no way to know whether or not the tent was occupied. Firesong had made no comment about the tent, perhaps understanding that he needed it, even as Firesong needed some semblance of a Vale.

A strand of his own damp white hair tangled itself up in his fingers as he pushed open the tent flap, and he shook it loose impatiently. White hair—he looked Tayledras. Just as Tayledras as Firesong or Darkwind. There was no way that anyone would know he was Shin'a'in unless he told them. Was there a reason for that? Firesong had told him it was because of the magic, but if the Star-Eyed had chosen, She could have given him back his native coloring. For a little time, at least.

He sat down on the pallet; it was covered with a blanket of Shin'a'in weaving—a gift from a Herald, who'd bought it while on her far-away rounds—and it still smelled faintly of horse, wood smoke, and dried grasses. The scent was enough, if he closed his eyes, to make him believe he was home again.

If the Star-Eyed could remake my body, couldn't She have taken away the magic, too!

Magic. For a long time, he'd wanted to be a mage. Now he wished She had taken his magic away, but there was always a reason why She did or did not do something.

He stared at the canvas walls, glowing in the late afternoon sun coming through the windows, and chewed his lower lip.

If She left me with magic, it is because She wants me to use it for some reason that only She knows. Firesong keeps saying it's my duty to do this, to Her as well as to myself. He felt a flash of hot resentment at that. Hadn't he risked everything to defeat Falconsbane—not just the pain and death of his body, but the destruction of his soul and his self? Wasn't that enough? How much more was he going to have to do?

Then he flushed with shame and a little apprehension, for he was not the only one to have risked all on a single toss of the dice. What of those who had dared penetrate to Ancar's own land to rid the world of Ancar, Hulda, and Falconsbane? If Elspeth had been captured, she would have been taken by Ancar for his own private tortures and pleasures. Ancar had hated the princess with a passion that amounted to obsession and, given the depravities that Falconsbane had overheard the servants whispering about, Elspeth would have endured worse than anything An'desha had faced.

Then there was Darkwind. Falconsbane hated Darkwind k'Sheyna more than any human on the face of the world, and only a little less than the gryphons. If Darkwind had been captured, his fate would have been similar to the one Elspeth would have suffered. And as for Nyara—

Nyara's disposition would have depended on whether or not King Ancar had recognized her as Falconsbane's daughter. If he had, he would have known she represented yet another way to control the Dark Adept, and she might have been kept carefully to that end. But if not—if Ancar had given her back to her father—

She would have been wise to kill herself before that happened. In her case, it would not have been hate that motivated atrocity, but the rage engendered by having a "possession" revolt and turn traitor. Motivation aside, the result would have been the same.

As for Skif and Firesong, the former would have been recognized as one of the hated Heralds and killed out of hand; the latter? Who knew? Certainly Falconsbane and Ancar would have been pleased to get their hands on an Adept, and given enough time, anyone could be broken and used, even an Adept of the quality of Firesong.

No, he was not the only person who had risked everything to bring Falconsbane down, so he might as well stop feeling sorry for himself. Still, it hurt.

That was precisely what Firesong would likely tell him, if Firesong had been there, instead of teaching young Herald-Mages the very basics of their Gift.

Firesong.... Once again, a wave of mingled embarrassment and desire traveled outward in an uncomfortable flush of heat. Somehow Firesong had gone from comforter to lover, and An'desha was not quite certain how the transition had come about. For that matter, he didn't think Firesong was quite sure how it had happened. It certainly made a complicated situation even more so.

Not that I needed complications.

He flung himself down on his back and stared at the peak of the tent roof. How did a person sort out a new life, a new home, a new identity, and a new lover, all at once?

It only made the situation more strained that the new lover was trying to be part of the solution.

Would it be easier if Firesong had been nothing more than a concerned stranger, perhaps even a tentative friend, as Darkwind or the two gryphons were?

He's being awfully patient, I suppose. Anyone else would have given up on me by now. Surely a stranger would have blown up at him more than once, have cursed him for his timidity, and consigned him to the ranks of those that could not be helped because they would not help themselves.

On the other hand, sooner or later Firesong's frustration was going to overcome his patience. He wouldn't be able to be impartial; he made no secret of the fact that he wanted, badly, for An'desha to reach his potential as a mage so that the two of them could enjoy a relationship of two equal partners, the kind that the gryphons had.

But is that what I want? Part of him longed for it with all his heart. Part of him shied away from the very idea. Firesong frightened him sometimes—the Healing Adept was so very certain of himself and what he wanted. Sometimes I don't think he's had a single doubt in his life. How could I ever have anything in common with someone like him! Powerful, charismatic, blindingly intelligent, and handsome enough to be a young god, Firesong was everything An'desha had imagined he could be, back in that long-ago day when he had run away from his Clan. No longer; he had endured too much, and he could never be that naive or hopeful again.

But Firesong was all those things. He would never lack for bed partners. An'desha could not imagine someone like Firesong being willing to wait around on the mere chance that a frail Shin'a'in half-breed might, one day, regain some of the spirit he had lost. Why should he? Why should he waste precious time that way?

And yet—

He's kind, he's patient. In fact, Firesong had been coaxing, courting, and cajoling him with a gentle awkwardness that seemed to bespeak a distinct lack of practice in those three skills. Then again, why would he ever need to coax or court anyone! He could have anyone he wanted, I'd think. They must be throwing themselves at his feet, over there in the Palace. So it was all the more confusing that Firesong was willing to take the time to lead An'desha along like a spooked and frightened colt, time he could, without a doubt, spend more pleasurably elsewhere, with other people.

His thoughts muddled together at that point. He didn't want to consider all the ramifications of this. He didn't want to think that Firesong meant everything he had said in the dark of the night. He certainly didn't want that kind of devotion.

Did he?

This was getting him nowhere. Rather than face further uncomfortable thoughts, he rose from his pallet and took himself back out into the garden.

The firebird had preened all the water from its feathers, and busily fluffed them, holding its wings away from its body in order to make certain that they dried fully. The bird paid no attention to him as he passed it and went to the far side of the garden, and the wrought-iron staircase that led to the second floor and the ekele he shared with Firesong.

He climbed the stairs and emerged in the middle of the central room of the ekele, a room intended for socializing. This room looked exactly like the "public" room of any Tayledras ekele; it was light and open despite little free floor space, furnished with a number of flat cushions for sitting and lounging, a pair of perches for bondbirds, and some low tables. The floor was a herringbone pattern of two different hardwoods, amber and pale honey.

An'desha passed through this room to reach his own room, one draped with cloth against all the walls, and gathered up in the middle of the ceiling, supposedly to resemble a Shin'a'in tent. Firesong's idea, and he couldn't spoil Firesong's pleasure by telling him it no more looked like the inside of a Shin'a'in tent than the Palace gardens looked like a Vale. It contained the chests that held his clothing, the few personal possessions that he had managed to accumulate, and a more comfortable bed than the pallet in the tent in the garden. He didn't use the bed much, except to lie on and think.

He pulled aside the cloth covering the windows on the outer wall, and looked out into the branches of the tree just outside. He found himself wondering if that story Firesong had heard was true—and if it was, how had it ended? In tragedy, or in happiness?

And how could it matter to me, either way! Oh, I think too much.

He turned back into the room, dropped the robe, and pulled out a shirt and breeches from the chest that held his clothing, pulling them on and trying to ignore the slightly odd cut.

These were not Shin'a'in, and there was no getting around the fact. They would never feel exactly "right."

But it was clothing, and it worked very well; it didn't matter if it felt like Shin'a'in clothing or not.

He turned back to the window—

And suddenly, out of nowhere, the fear came again. Not one of the stupid, personal fears, but something much, much greater. He clung to the windowsill with both hands as the sunlight turned as chill as a blizzard sweeping across the Plains, and his teeth chattered as he shook from head to toe, unable to move, scarcely able to draw a breath. His stomach clenched; his jaws locked on a cry of anguish. His heart thundered in his ears, and he wanted only to run, mad with terror, until he couldn't run any farther.

Something is wrong....

Then, abruptly, the fear left him, gasping for breath, as it always did.

But the message remained.

Firesong sat under a crocus-patterned lantern in the gathering dusk, scratching the crest of his firebird. The bird weighed down his other arm, its eyes closed with pleasure, and Firesong's eyes were distant as he concentrated on An'desha's hesitant words.

"...it was the same as the last time," An'desha concluded, the memory of that terror calling up a chill all over again. "That's three times now, and the circumstances I was in were different all three times."

Firesong nodded slowly, brushing a lock of white hair back behind his neck. The firebird slitted one sleepy eye in disapproval, until Firesong's hand came back to scratch his crest again. "I don't think this is coming from within you," he said, as a night-blooming flower beside An'desha released perfume into the air. "I believe your own impression is right; there is a menace approaching that we are not yet aware of, and this feeling of fear of yours is a presentiment."

An'desha sighed with relief; the first two times that this had happened, Firesong had been inclined to think it was nothing more than a delayed reaction to all that An'desha had been through. Still, he was troubled. "F-F-Falconsbane had no such prescience," he stammered.

Firesong only shrugged. "Falconsbane never wished to know the future," he pointed out. "He assumed it would follow the course that he set. And you are not he; the Star-Eyed could well have granted you such a gift along with all else."

A very real possibility and, if so, it was yet another "gift" he wished that She would take back. His face must have reflected that thought since Firesong smiled slightly.

"The most likely direction for threat is east, of course," he continued. "This Empire that the Valdemarans fear so much is rich with mages; I think it likely that they will not end their conquest at the Hardorn border."

As An'desha sat there dumbly, Firesong expanded his speculations. The Empire was a good prospect; the Adept was right about that. But An'desha could not rid himself of the surety that the danger was not coming from the Empire.

This was something more than mere warfare; something much, much worse.

When I was still hiding in Falconsbane's body, and the two Avatars of the Star-Eyed came to teach me the way toward freedom, did they not say something about this?

Now that he came to think about it, he believed that they had. He had been guided by a pair of spirits, who had once been fleshly. One had been a Hawkbrother, the other, a Shin'a'in shaman. They had helped and taught him how to gradually insinuate himself into his enemy's mind in such a way that Falconsbane thought the thoughts directing his actions were his own. They had also taught him how to gain access to the memories of Falconsbane's many pasts.

At least once, and perhaps more often, they had hinted that if he succeeded in regaining the use of his own body again, there was an even greater peril to be faced.

If only he could remember what they had said! But he had been too busy worrying about his own survival to pay much attention to vague hints of terrible danger to come. He'd had quite enough terrible danger on his plate at the time!

Firesong continued his speculations concerning the threat of this Empire, and he tried in vain to suggest that the peril might be coming from elsewhere. Finally, he just gave up when Firesong had the bit between his teeth about something, there was no hope for anyone else to get anything in. It was best to just nod thoughtfully and let him continue to expound.

But inside, his thoughts had a new target to circle around in worried, dizzy spirals. The danger was not from the East, but from where? What could be worse than an army, full of powerful mages and larger than anything Valdemar had ever seen, bearing down on the border?

If only he could remember....

Three

Karal patted his horse's damp neck nervously and tried not to be too obvious about watching the Valdemaran Guards out of the corner of his eye. The horse fidgeted and danced in place as it picked up his unease, and he dismounted to hold it by its halter, just under the chin. It snuffled his chest but calmed as soon as he got down on the ground beside its head; a light, warm breeze played across both of them, gradually drying the horse's sweating neck.

He continued to stroke it, his nose full of horse scent, the familiar aroma calming his own nerves. Nothing really bad had ever happened to him when he was around horses, and he kept reminding himself of that, holding it to him as if he held to a luck-talisman.

This was a good little gelding, and someone had trained it well before tithing it to Vkandis Sunlord. The sun shone on a perfect, glossy coat, skin without scars or disease, an eye bright with intelligence. Karal had no idea why the gelding's first owner had sent it in as part of his tithe, but it was obviously someone who took his duty to the Sunlord seriously, sending "the first and best fruits of his labor" as the Writ urged, rather than trying to cheat as so many did, sending only the unwanted and unusable.

A good thing for both of us that they did, Trenor.

The gelding was too small and light to go to the cavalry, and too nervous for a scout or skirmisher, so it had gone to the Temple. Karal had known quality horseflesh when he saw it, and requisitioned this youngster the moment his master and mentor suggested that he was entitled to a mount of some kind from the Temple herds.

This gelding was a lovely bay, otherwise perfect except for the slight flaw of high-bred nerves, and he'd named it after his little brother Trenor, who danced in place in much the same way when he was nervous. Trenor the gelding was, without a doubt, the best piece of horseflesh currently in the novices' stables, and every time he rode the gelding, Karal gloated a little under the envious eyes of his fellow novices. None of them were mounted nearly as well as he, although the horses they had requisitioned might look more impressive than little Trenor. They were gentlemen for the most part, and were certainly above choosing their own mounts—assuming any of them could tell a spavined breakdown from a sweet little palfrey like this one. And none of them would have stooped to asking for his advice. Doubtless, they had sent servants down to the stables, with orders to select beasts "suited to their station." Well, they paid the penalty of pride in their rumps, every time they rode, for the rest of the horses in the stables were a collection of sorry misfits. Most of them were showy pieces, huge creatures with long manes and tails, rejected from some noble warrior's string. Yes, they were lovely to look at, shiny and high-stepping, but they had iron mouths, bad tempers, or gaits that were pure torture to sit.

Not that all these traits were incurable. Karal could have settled an iron mouth or a bad temper quickly enough—but why should he, when his fellow novices neither asked for his help nor deserved it? Let the others suffer; Sunlord knew they'd made him suffer in other ways all through his training.

But that was behind him now. By the time he completed this assignment as his mentor's secretary, he would be a full Priest of Vkandis, and the equal of anyone in Karse save the Son of the Sun herself. No one could deny him that rank, no matter what his antecedents were.

He squinted up at the sun in the cloudless sky above. We are all equal in Vkandis' Light, he reminded himself. Oh, surely, and cows will take to the air and soar like falcons any day now!

Trenor tried to dance, this time with impatience, but Karal held him steady, and soothed him with a wordless croon. How long had it been since he'd seen the human version of this fidgeting bundle of nerves? Three years? No, it was only two.

But if this Valdemaran escort doesn't show up, he may be grown before we ever see home again!

It was an exaggeration, of course, but it felt as if he had been standing here for days beneath the carefully dispassionate gaze of these two young men in their blue and silver uniforms. He and Ulrich waited on a stretch of newly-cut road that was only a few leagues long, one of the tangible evidences of peace with Valdemar. These bits of roadway linked Karse and its former enemy, bridging the distance from a Karsite road to a Valdemaran one, and giving real traffic a place to cross. On the Karsite side was a gatehouse and a pair of guards where the old road joined the new one. On the Valdemaran side were facilities and guards nearly identical to their counterparts at the Karsite border-crossing behind him, except for the color and cut of the uniforms. The Valdemaran version seemed rather severe to Karal, accustomed as he was to the flowing scarlet and gold of the Karsite regulars, with the embroidered sashes of rank, feathered turbans, and brocaded vests. Plain tunics, plain breeches, only the tiniest bit of silver trim and braid... these men might have been mistaken for someone's lowest-rank servant, a stable sweeper or horseboy.

Like I was... even Father dressed more handsomely than these men do.

Karal's father had never worn such unadorned clothing in Karal's memory; the Chief Stableman of the Rising Sun Inn could boast beautifully embroidered garments from the hands of his loving wife and daughters. His pay might be meager enough, but he could put on a show fit to match anyone of his own station and even a little above. The clothing Karal had worn before the Sun-priests came for him had been plain enough, but he had been a stable sweeper, and anyway, he had only been nine. Not nearly a man, and in no way needing to prove his worth the way a man did.

I wish that there was some shade here. The sun that was so kind in the mountains, countering the chill of the breezes, was a burden here. His dark robes soaked it up and released none of the heat. But the situation was too new, too delicate, for any real amenities for the few who wished to cross from Valdemar to Karse. All brush and trees had been cut back from the road for a distance of twenty paces, so that the guards at either gatehouse had a clear view of anyone coming or going. Karal could understand that. This was not a job he would care to have, himself; the guards at the Karsite side were clearly nervous, and the ones here probably were as well. This was only the second time that he had seen a real Valdemaran up close, one of the Hellspawn themselves—

No, not Hellspawn. Her Holiness, the Son of the Sun, High Priest Solaris has said that was all a fiction created by corrupt priests. They are not Hellspawn, they never were. Just people, different from us, but people.

Hard to undo the thinking of a lifetime, though, and if it was hard for him, it must be incredibly difficult for people like the officers in the Army. How must that be, to go to sleep, only to wake up the next day and find that your demonic enemies had become, by Holiest decree, your allies? To learn that they were not demonic at all, and never had been?

To discover that a terrible war that had killed countless thousands over the course of generations should never have taken place and could have been ended at any time?

Karal sighed, and his master Ulrich dismounted from his mount, a placid and reliable mule. Ulrich was no horseman, and moreover, he was a most powerful Priest-mage. He might need to work magic at any time, and needed a riding beast that would stand stock still when the reins were dropped, no matter what strangeness it heard or saw. The mule—which Ulrich called "Honeybee," for she was sweet, but had a sting in her tail in the form of a powerful kick when annoyed—was older than Karal, and looked to live and carry her master for the same number of years. Karal liked her, trusting her good sense to bring Ulrich through any common peril. Storms didn't spook her, uncanny visitations could not make her bolt, she knew when to fight and when to flee, and she was surefooted and wise in the way of trails and tracks.

But she was boring to ride, and while he could not have wanted a better mount for his master, she was the last one he would have chosen for himself.

"Patience, Karal," Ulrich said in an undertone. "Our escort is probably on his way this very moment, and will be surprised to see us waiting. We are early—it is not even Sun-height yet. You may worry when it lacks but a mark or two before Sundescending."

Karal bowed his head in deference to his master's words. Ulrich was surely right, yet—

"It seems ill-mannered, sir, to have us cool our heels at the border-crossing, when you are the envoy from Her Holiness," he said doubtfully. "And to send only a single escort—it seems a deliberate slight to me. Should we not have many guards, perhaps a Court Official, or—"

Ulrich raised his hand to halt his young protege in mid-thought. "We are two, coming from the south, wearing the plain robes of some sort of priest," he pointed out. "If the Queen sent an escort of a score of her Guards, what would the obvious inference be? That we are envoys of Her Holiness, of course. There are perils along the way, not the least of which are those who will not believe that the war between our lands is over."

Ulrich waited patiently while Karal thought out the rest of the perils for himself. Mobs of angry border people, or even a single, clever madman could plan to kill old enemies; assassins hoping to eliminate the envoys and thus the alliance were a real possibility. Even mercenaries could try to slay the envoys, hoping to start up the war again and thus ensure continued employment. For that matter, the threat need not come from a citizen of Valdemar—it could come from someone from their own land, hoping to rekindle the flames of the "holy war against the Hellspawn."

Karal shook his head mournfully, and Ulrich just chuckled. "That, my son, is why I am envoy and you are a novice. I requested that we be met by but a single escort, though I also requested one who could be trusted completely. I fear that it takes years of being steeped in deception and infamy to recognize the possibility for both."

Ulrich patted Honeybee's neck, and she sighed. Ulrich nodded at the mounts, at their own equipage. At the moment he and Karal were wearing only the plainest of their robes for travel. "As we are, with a single escort—yes, we are dressed well, and clearly Priests from a foreign land, but we could be from any foreign land. Unless we have the misfortune to come across someone who has seen a Sun-priest, we should meet with no one who will recognize our robes or our medals. Valdemar is awash with foreigners these days, many of them being escorted to Haven even as we. I think that we shall not draw undue attention to ourselves."

Karal did not answer his mentor, but in this case, he thought privately that, for once, Ulrich might be wrong. He took another covert look at the Valdemaran guards, compared the Sun-priest with them, and came up with an entirely different answer than Ulrich's.

They were both dressed with relative modesty, compared to the magnificent garments they would don once they were in the capital city and the Palace, but there were still a myriad of ways that anyone who had ever seen a Karsite would know who and what they were.

They both wore their Vkandis-medals on gold chains, first of all, round gold disks blazoned with a sun-in-glory—and how many people of moderate importance ever wore that much gold? For that matter, was there another sect that used that particular blazon? Their garments had a cut peculiar to Karse; certainly Karal had never seen any foreigner attending Her Holiness who wore anything like the Karsite costume. And if they were of moderate importance, why send an escort at all?

Oh, I suppose I worry too much. Ulrich is right; if what we have heard is true, there are foreigners arriving daily who are so outlandish that we shall not even attract a second glance.

Ulrich was certainly not particularly remarkable—many novices passed him by every day, thinking him a Priest of no particular importance. He was, in fact, utterly ordinary in looks and demeanor—of middling height, neither very young nor very old, neither handsome nor hideous, neither muscular nor a weakling. His gray hair and beard and perpetually mild expression belied the sharpness of his eyes, and his expression could change in a moment from bemused and kindly to implacable. These Valdemarans seemed to be of no particular physical type; one of the guards was lean and brown, the other muscular and blond. Not so with the two Karsites, for both were typical of anyone from their land; Ulrich could easily have been Karal's hawk-faced father; they were two from the same mold, dark-haired, dark-eyed, sharp-featured.

Perhaps that was all to the good, too. Outsiders might assume that they were related. Better and better, in fact, since Karal doubted anyone outside Karse knew that the Sun-priests were not required to be celibate or chaste, though many of them swore such oaths for various reasons. So if he and Ulrich appeared to be father and son—it might be that no one would think they were priests of any kind.

Karal rubbed his temple; all this thinking was giving him a headache. Ulrich patted his shoulder with sympathy as the guards continued to ignore them.

"Don't worry about it too much, young one," the Sun-priest said, with a kindly gleam in his black eyes. "Try to get used to the new land first, before you devote any time to learning about intrigue and hidden dangers. There will be enough that is strange to you, I think, for some few days."

The Sun-priest—the Red-robe who was once one of the feared and deadly Black-robe priests of the Sunlord, a wielder of terrible power and commander of demons—looked back down the road they had come and sighed. "You have seen so many changes already in your short lifetime, I should think you will cope better with this new place than I. To you, this must seem like a grand new adventure."

Karal choked back a reply to that; little as he wanted to be sent off into this voluntary exile, he wanted still less to be sent home in disgrace. But he did not think of this as a "grand new adventure," nor any kind of an adventure; at heart, he was a homebody. His notion of a good life meant achieving some success as a scholar, perhaps finding a suitable partner among the ranks of the female Priests, growing older, wiser, and rich in children and grandchildren. Yes, he had seen changes aplenty since he had been taken from his own family at nine, and being subject to having his world turned upside down before he was twelve had not made him any readier for having it turn again at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, or now, at sixteen.

In fact, most of the time lately he was just plain bewildered, and there were moments when the stress was so great that he feared it was visible to anyone who looked at him.

Is there not some barbarian curse that wishes your life be interesting? If so, then he should find the barbarian who had visited such a curse on him and persuade him to remove it! He found excitement enough in books for anyone's lifetime.

At nine, he had been his father's apprentice; a horseboy and stable sweeper, and supremely content with his position and the world. He loved horses, loved everything about them, and looked forward to rising to take his father's job when he was old enough. He had three sisters, two older and one younger, to tease and torment as any small boy would, and a little brother who toddled after him at every opportunity with a look of adoration on his chubby face. There was always food enough on the table, and if it was plain fare, well, there were folk enough who had not even that, and he knew it even then. He had been happy as he was. He had not wanted any changes that he could not foresee.

By now he had seen enough of other families to know how idyllic, in many ways, his own had been. Both his parents were as ready to praise as to reprimand, and no matter what mischief he had been into, he could count on forgiveness following repentance. His Father was proud of him, and was teaching him everything he knew about horses and horseflesh. His world was full of things and people he loved; what more did any boy need?

There was only one cloud in all their lives—the annual Feast of the Children, when parents were ordered to bring their children to the Temple to be inspected by the Sun-priests. The examinations began when a child was five, and ended when he was thirteen. The Feast always brought suppressed terror to every parent in the town, but it was especially hard on Karal's father and mother, for both of them had had siblings who were taken away by the Priests, and were subsequently burned for the heresy of harboring "witch-powers." There was always the fear that one of their children might be taken—and worse still, might be given to the Fires. Even those who were not thrown to the Fires never saw their homes and families again, for that was the way of the Sun-priests. So it had "always" been.

For four years, the Priests had passed Karal over, and his father and mother had begun to lose a little of their fear, at least for his sake, if not for the sake of his younger siblings. Even he began to feel a cocky certainty that the Feast would never mean more to him than an occasion to claim a double handful of spun-sugar Vkandis Flames from the Priest's servants when the inspection was over.

But then, the year he was nine, his world and his certainty shattered.

A new Priest came to the Feast; a new Priest in black robes, rather than red, a Priest who watched him with narrowed eyes—

—and claimed him for the Sunlord.

One moment he had been standing with the others in a neat line—the next, a heavy hand came down on his shoulder, and two servants seized him before he could react, ushering him into the Temple, pushing him past the altar into the rooms beyond, where the townsfolk were never permitted, only those belonging to the Temple.

He didn't remember much of that day, or even of the following week, which might have been due to shock, or to the potion the Priest gave him to drink when he launched into hysterical tantrums. He had been the only child chosen from his town, and there was no one else he knew to share his ordeal and his exile. He vaguely remembered a long ride inside a dark wagon, which paused now and again so that another blank-eyed, stranger-child could join him on the bench. No spun-sugar for him or for them; only a bitter cup, a long period of shadow-haunted daze, and then the awakening in a strange and hostile place—the so-called Children's Cloister, where he and the others would live and study until they were accepted as novices or given duties as Servants.

Or until someone said they had witch-powers. He shuddered, cold creeping over him for a moment, as if the sun had lost its power to warm him.

In time, Karal came to accept what he could not change. He was told that he would never see his family again; that he was reborn into a new and greater family, the Kin of Vkandis.

They allowed him time to rebel, one chance to attempt to run away. This was unsuccessful, as were all such attempts as far as he ever learned. A terrible creature of flame caught him at the gate, and chased him back to the Cloister. He never made a second attempt, though he heard that others did; he resigned himself to his fate.

Then began the lessons, hour after hour of them.

Most of the children did not master much more than the barest skills of reading and writing; those were sent, at ten, to become Servants. Some, a fraction of the rest, were taken off by the Priests for "special training" that had nothing to do with scholarly pursuits.

Some few of those were given to the Flames, later, as witches. Karal and the rest were required to attend the burnings, and he was told that the ashes were returned to their families as a mark of the disgrace to their bloodline. The three burnings he had witnessed still gave him nightmares.

For some reason, Karal did well in scholastic pursuits and did not again attract the attention of those who meted out "special training." He found a pure pleasure in learning that was as great as his pleasure in anything he had ever experienced. He soon outstripped most of the others who had originally been "collected for Vkandis" with him. This gained him admission to another group of young pupils—the offspring of nobles and the well-to-do, sent as their parents' tithe to Vkandis, children who had the advantage of tutoring from an early age. These had never before been forced to share teachers or quarters with those of the lower classes... they resented this new development in their lives, and needed someone to take their displeasure out on.

And that had opened him to a new series of torments—not overt, but covert. He pleased his teachers, and the young nobles could not cause him trouble in his classes, but outside those classes, he was fair game for any prank they could invent that would not call down the wrath of their Keeper on them.

He shook his head, driving away the unpleasant memories for now. None of that mattered, then or now. I have to remember that. What mattered was that he had graduated into the ranks of the novices with high honors, despite the opposition of the other students, and when the time came to be taken by a mentor, he was selected by that same Black-robed Priest who had singled him out at the Feast of the Children.

Only now he knew what those ebony robes meant. His new mentor was a Priest-mage, a user of magic in Vkandis' name, and a summoner of demons.

He would have been terrified, if Ulrich hadn't immediately shown his kindly nature. And every morning since that day, he had offered up a paean of gratitude with his other prayers that it had been Ulrich who had chosen him. His Master had rank enough that not one of his fellow novices dared to torment him further, though they could, and did, shut him out socially.

Not that he cared. His Master was a scholar, and set him scholarly tasks that suited his nature. When his Master learned of his background and his love of horses, he suggested he find himself a mount early enough that the horses and mules were not all picked over. Ulrich made certain he had time out, every day, to spend at least a mark or two with his beloved gelding, Trenor. For a week or two, everything was well; he thought for certain that the future was again predictable.

He had already suffered two upheavals in his life—being torn from his family and being shoved, will-he, nill-he, into the ranks of those born far, far above his station. Now he suffered the third, but this time, the entire Kin of Vkandis "suffered" along with him.

Vkandis—the God Himself—selected a woman to be the Son of the Sun, in a fashion that brooked no denial of the validity of her claim to the position. That woman, High Priest Solaris, proceeded to set the entire established hierarchy on its side, declaring things that had been established orthodoxy for generations to be perversions of Vkandis' Word and Will.

And Ulrich not only approved, he was in the thick of it all, as one of Solaris' most trusted aides and assistants. So, perforce, was his protege.

Not that I was unhappy about that initially—not when one of the first things she did was to order that all novices and under-novices were to be permitted the same contact with their families that Army recruits had! Until that moment, no one taken by the Priests was ever permitted any contact with his family, even the most casual. Now he was able to write to them, even visit them twice a year, something that would have been unthinkable under the old Rules. In fact, when Solaris appointed Ulrich as her special envoy to Valdemar, she had taken the effort to order that Karal also take a week of special leave to see his family before he left with his Master. And when had a Son of the Sun ever concerned himself with something as trivial as the needs of a mere novice?

He stroked Trenor's neck soothingly, smiling to himself. The very first time he had gone home, the entire fortnight had been a wonderful visit. His mother had been so proud of him—and his father had been beside himself with pleasure. His son was secretary to a powerful Priest! His son was privy to all the secrets of the high and privileged! His son would see people and situations his father could only dream about.

But that had come later; no sooner had Solaris staged her internal revolution and he had returned from his first Familial Visit, than Karse acquired a new enemy, in the person of King Ancar of Hardorn. Ancar staged a major attack on the border; not in living memory had there been anything in the way of a concerted attack from Hardorn. The shock of the attack had reverberated throughout the entire country; to be honest, most Karsites were used to scoring small covert victories and raids against Hardorn and Valdemar, not having a concerted attack staged on their own borderlands.

The skirmishing had become all-out war, with Karse very much the weaker of the two. Not even the Black-robe Priests and their magic could counter Ancar, his army, and his mages.

Solaris had predicted this. Very few had believed her. Now, with her star in the ascendant, she made the most unprecedented move of all.

She recruited a new ally; one not even Ulrich could have predicted.

Valdemar. Valdemar, home of the White Demons and their Hellhorses. Valdemar, land of Hellspawn, land that had given shelter to the heretic Holderkin, sworn enemies of Vkandis and all he stood for.

And once again, Vkandis showed by signs that could not be counterfeited that He approved.

Suddenly, by decree of Solaris and Vkandis Himself, Valdemar had become the abode of the slightly misguided, but noble-minded allies of Karse. It was nothing short of a miracle that Solaris managed to get just enough cooperation out of her own folk to rush the alliance through. It was just in time, just barely in time to keep Ancar of Hardorn from squashing Solaris and Selenay like a couple of insects, and their lands and peoples with them.

As Ulrich's secretary, Karal had been in the midst of everything, from the initial plan to the complex negotiations to the investiture of a woman from Valdemar as a Vkandis Priest. It left him breathless, and so bewildered before it was all over that all he could do was to hold onto his sanity with both hands and watch with wide and often confused eyes. Now, with the advent of peace, it was harder than ever to encompass the notion that the Evil Ones were now to be Karse's best friends....

"I believe our escort is here," Ulrich said, breaking into Karal's thoughts.

He looked up, shading his eyes with his hand, staring past the gate and the two Guards to the roadway beyond. For a moment, he saw nothing against the glare of the sun on the dust of the road. Then he caught a glimpse of movement; his focus sharpened, and he spotted a rider coming around a far-off bend in the road.

The man could hardly be missed even against the sun glare—he was clad all in white, with a horse as white as the clouds in the sky above him.

This was no ordinary traveler; the quality of his clothing was very high—white garments were expensive to keep pristine. The garments he wore had the feeling of a uniform about them; Karal knew that the colors of Valdemar were silver, blue, and white. Was this Royal livery of some sort? As the man drew nearer still, Karal noted the extreme quality of his tack, specially dyed and constructed, of the same colors of silver and blue that the Guards wore. The Guards themselves were waiting for the man with a deference they had not shown the two Karsites, which in itself was interesting. Did this mean their escort was of higher rank than an envoy, or did it mean that no one had told these two Guards anything at all about Ulrich and his young secretary, not even that they were Solaris' envoys?

Well, it probably didn't matter at this point.

The man paused at the Gate, but he did not dismount; instead, he leaned over the neck of his mount to talk to the two Guards. Now Karal stole a moment to admire the horse he rode. The head was quite broad across the forehead, which argued for high intelligence. Aside from that—which some might consider a flaw, though Karal would not agree with them—the beast was breathtakingly beautiful. He had never seen a horse so perfectly white as this one, which gleamed as if someone had just washed it—and how on earth did the Valdemaran manage to get that silver sheen to the horse's hooves? Not paint, surely—paint would damage the hoof and deform it. No one but a fool would paint the hooves of a horse like this one.

As the rider spoke with the Guards, the horse shifted slightly, as if to watch the two Karsites. Its movements were as graceful as the horse itself was beautiful; it arched its neck so that its flowing mane fell just so, for all the world as if it knew how stunning it was.

Perfect. That was Karal's thought, and he reveled in the fact that he would be spending the next several days in the company of such a beast.

After a brief consultation with the Guards, the man in white beckoned to them. Now that he'd had his fill of watching the horse from afar, Karal was perfectly willing to mount Trenor and rein in behind Ulrich; he'd had enough waiting around to last him for quite a while!

It probably isn't going to be the last time I have to stand around and wait, though.

The escort had blond hair going to gray at the temples, a good, square jaw, deep-set, frank, hazel-colored eyes, and a nose that had obviously been broken more than once in the past. He sat his horse rather stiffly, which struck an odd note, given the grace of the horse itself.

The man hesitated for a moment, then held out his hand to Ulrich as they approached the gate. "Envoy Ulrich?" he said, as his horse stood rock-steady beneath him, showing no more inclination to shy away from strange beasts than if the horse were carved of pure alabaster. "I am your escort. Call me Rubrik, if you will."

It has blue eyes, Karal saw, with a surge of disappointment. Most blue-eyed, white creatures were stone deaf. Was this the flaw in this otherwise perfect mount? Certainly deafness would account for the horse's apparent calm,

Ulrich took the man's hand and shook it, as Honeybee eyed the blue-eyed white horse dubiously, probably expecting a nip or a kick from it.

The man's Karsite was excellent; much better than Karal's Valdemaran. He had very little accent, and when he spoke, there was no sense that he was stopping to translate mentally before saying anything.

"You speak our language very well, sir," Ulrich replied with grave courtesy, "and I hope you will accept my apology for not returning the compliment, but the truth is, I am nowhere near as fluent in your tongue as you seem to be in ours. This is my secretary, Karal."

The man held out his hand to Karal, who followed his mentor's example and shook it. Rubrik's clasp was firm and warm, without being a "test." Karal decided cautiously that he liked this Valdemaran.

Rubrik squinted up at the sun once he had released Karal's hand. "You have come a long way, and as I am sure you realize, there is a longer journey still ahead of you, Envoy," he told Ulrich. "Weather in Valdemar is still not so settled that I'd care to wager on clear skies for more than a day. I'd like to make as much distance as we can while the weather holds, if you've no objection."

Ulrich shook his head. "No objection whatsoever," he replied. "You are limited only to the number of leagues our two beasts are able to travel in a day_; my secretary and I are good riders, and have no trouble spending dawn to dusk in the saddle, if you like."

Karal winced at that; he was not so sure of his endurance as Ulrich seemed to be. Hopefully, the man would not take him at his word.

Rubrik smiled warmly. "Your High Priest Solaris has chosen her envoy well, my lord," was his only reply. "If you would follow me?"

The trio passed the silent Guards, went through the open gate, and for the first time in his life, Karal entered a foreign land.

Karal had expected to feel—something—once he was across the border and in a new land. Some kind of difference in the air, or in himself. He'd expected that this alien place would look different from Karse somehow, that the grass and trees would be some odd color, that the people would be vastly different. There was no reason to have expected anything of the sort, of course—

—but emotions don't respond well to logic, I suppose.

As they rode northward all the rest of the day, there was literally no way of telling that they were not in Karse. The hills were virtually identical to the ones they had just traversed; covered with the same trees, the same grass. The scents in the air were the same; sun-warmed dust, the occasional perfume of briar-roses blooming beside the road.

The few people that they encountered were not really all that different either, except that it was obvious they were not Karsite. Their clothing was different; plain in the extreme, severely styled, in muted grays, browns, and tans. Mud-colors, really; no Karsite would ever wear such nothing-colors unless he were too abysmally poor to afford anything else, or unless he intended to do some truly filthy task and didn't want his proper clothing ruined. Even for work in the fields most Karsites wore good, strong saffrons and indigos—but not these folk.

They passed a number of folk cutting hay, one herding swine and another with a flock of geese, a few weeding fields of cabbages or other vegetables. The animals turned to watch the trio pass_; the people themselves blatantly ignored the travelers, turning away from the road, in fact, in stiff and disapproving attitudes that bordered on rudeness. "Holderkin," Rubrik said, after the third or fourth time that someone deliberately turned his face from them. The escort sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry about this. They don't like those of us who represent the Queen, much—hardly more than they like you Karsites. I do believe that if there was any way to manage it, they'd create their own little country here, build a high wall around it, and shut Valdemar and Karse outside forever and aye."

Ulrich laughed at that, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners with sympathetic good humor. "In that case, sir, I think my land well rid of them. I am marginally familiar with them, in a purely historical sense. They seem to have made themselves something of a thorn in your side."

Rubrik shrugged ruefully and rubbed the side of his nose. "I can't say that no good has come from them—the Queen's Own, Lady Talia, is of Holderkin breeding. But aside from that, they are a damned unpleasant people, and I've had occasion more than once to wish them somewhere far, far away."

Karal kept silent through this exchange, watching their escort, and trying to deduce why the man rode so stiffly. How was it that someone who seemed to be such a clumsy rider had such a fine mount? How was it that the mount was so used to the rider that the horse itself actually accommodated the rider?

Finally, as Rubrik turned to point out a wedge of geese flying overhead, pursued by a goshawk, the answer to all those questions came to him.

Rubrik's right arm moved stiffly; he could not seem to raise it above his shoulder. There was a "dead" quality to the right side of his face. And although his right knee stuck out woodenly, his left leg showed the perfect form of an experienced rider.

Rubrik was injured somehow—or he'd had some kind of brainstorm. He was partially paralyzed; the stiffness of his right side and the little tic in the corner of his right eye were the last clues that Karal needed.

Rubrik would have to have such a mount, one trained to compensate for his weakness, if he was to be at all mobile. Now Karal's admiration for the stunning horse increased a hundredfold, for a horse so trained must be as intelligent as one of the legendary Shin'a'in beasts.

His admiration turned to more surprise when he realized that Rubrik's horse was not a gelding as he had assumed, but a full stallion. A full stallion—one which showed no interest in Honeybee who, although a mule, was still a mare? What kind of training could ever give a horse that kind of self-control?

He would have asked just that question if Ulrich had not engaged their escort's attention completely, asking about some complex situation at the Valdemaran Court. A good half of the names Ulrich bandied about so casually completely eluded his secretary, although Karal recognized most of the rest from all the correspondence he had handled over the past few weeks.

I guess there was a lot more going on in those private conferences than Ulrich led me to believe. Not that that should surprise him!

He suppressed his own curiosity and simply listened to the two men talk, for this, too, was part of his job—to learn as much as he could by listening.

Eventually, either Ulrich tired of asking questions, or the envoy decided that he wanted to think about what he had learned before he asked anything more. By this time, the last of the farmlands were behind them_; if anyone used the hills on either side of the road for anything, it was probably to harvest timber and for grazing. Silence fell on the party, broken only by the sounds of wildlife out in the forested hills, and by the sound of the hooves of their mounts.

That was when Karal noticed something else. While Trenor and Honeybee had perfectly normal, dull, clopping hoofbeats, the sounds of the white horse's hooves striking the ground had a bell-like tone to them.

Maybe the Valdemarans did treat the beast's hooves in some way—how else could they be silver and have such a musical sound to them?

The road they were on generally followed the contour of the land itself, staying pretty much in the valleys between the hills. Once in a while Karal caught a whiff of he-goat musk, or spotted the white blobs of grazing sheep among the trees. Forest rose on either side of the road; tall trees that had been growing for decades at least. In places the limestone bones of these hills showed through the thin soil; the trees themselves were mostly goldenoak with a sprinkling of pine or other conifers, and the occasional beech or larch.

What the forest lacked in human inhabitants, it made up for in animals. Squirrels scolded them as they passed, and songbirds called off in the distance, their voices filtering through the leaves. Jays and crows followed them with rowdy catcalls, telling all the world that interlopers were passing through. Once a hawk stooped on something right at the edge of the road, and lumbered up out of the way just as they reached the spot, with a snake squirming in its talons.

The road met the path of a wide river as the sun westered and sank below the level of the treetops. Karal caught glimpses of the water through the screening of trees, reflecting the light in shiny bursts through the brush.

By this time, despite his master's assertion that the two of them could stay in the saddle as long as need be, he was getting saddle sore and stiff. His buttocks ached; his back and shoulders were in knots. He began to wonder just when this Rubrik intended to stop—or did he want to ride all night?

There was no sign of a town or village, though, so there didn't seem to be any place they could stop. I don't mind camping out—but Ulrich is too old for that sort of thing, he thought, a bit resentfully, but telling himself that concern for his master was more important than his own aches and pains. We don't have tents, we don't even have proper blanket rolls. Surely this man isn't going to expect the envoy of the Son of the Sun to sleep in leaves, rolled up in his own cloak like a vagabond!

"There's a village I expect to reach just after sundown," Rubrik said, startling Karal. It was almost as if the man had just read his own thoughts! "If you don't think you can make it that far, please tell me, but I've made arrangements there for a private suite for you two." He made an apologetic grimace. "I hope this doesn't seem boorish, but I would rather that no one know your exact origin or your mission here until we reach Haven, and the best way to keep quiet is to keep the two of you away from people who might be a bit too curious about visitors to Valdemar."

Ulrich waved away any apologies. "Those are my thoughts, precisely," he replied. "The fewer folk who even know there are two Priests traveling here, the better. That was why I requested that Queen Selenay send only a single escort. But I must confess, I am not as confident of my stamina as I was when we met you." He shook his head at his own weakness, then shrugged. "We are used to riding most of the day, but I have just begun to realize that 'most' of the day is not the same as 'all' of the day."

"If it helps any, I have requested that a hot dinner be served in the suite as soon as you arrive," Rubrik answered with an engaging smile. "And hot baths to follow."

"I wouldn't say no to a bottle of horse-liniment as well, sir," Karal ventured, a little shy at inserting himself into the conversation.

"That I can supply myself—muscle-salve, and not horse-liniment, young sir," the escort said, turning to look at him, as if surprised that he was back behind his master. Perhaps Rubrik had forgotten him?

Karal was far more pleased than offended, for if that was what had happened, it meant that he had achieved his end of being "invisible." Ulrich had told him that a good secretary would develop the knack of vanishing into the background; that would make him less intrusive, especially to people who might be nervous about a third party being present at a delicate negotiation.

"That would be very much appreciated, my lord Rubrik," Karal replied, ducking his head in an approximation of a bow.

But Rubrik shook an admonishing finger at Karal. "Not 'my lord,' youngling," he chided gently. "Just 'Rubrik.' Among Heralds, there are no titles—with the sole exception of the Lady Elspeth, the Queen's daughter. My father—was something of a landowner, a kind of farmer."

"Ah?" That clearly caught his master's attention. "And what did he farm, if I may ask?"

"Root crops, mostly, though he had some herds as well," was the ready answer. That set the two of them off on a discussion of the condition of farms and farmers in both Valdemar and Karse, and it was Rubrik's turn for questions, mostly about the weather, and whether or not it had affected the Karsites as badly as it had their Valdemaran counterparts.

Karal wondered if Rubrik realized how much information he was giving with the way he phrased his questions.

The moon rose, silvering the road before them. Karal listened and made mental notes for later. If all that Rubrik told them was true, Valdemar had been suffering from truly horrible weather until very recently—storms and disturbances out of season that were somehow connected with the magics Ancar of Karse had been working.

"But now that we've got a few mages doing weather-working, things are getting back to normal. In time to save the harvests, we hope," Rubrik concluded.

If he hoped for a similar statement from Ulrich, he was not going to get one. "Vkandis has always cared personally for the welfare of His people," Ulrich replied, and Karal was very glad that it was dark enough that he did not have to hide a smile. That was certainly a double-edged statement, and quite entirely the truth as well! It could be taken by an outsider as the simple pious mouthings of a Priest—but the bare fact was that Vkandis did care personally for the welfare of His people. What His Priests could not deal with, using the powers of magic He had granted them, He might very Well take care of Himself. Karse had not suffered more than inconvenience from what Ulrich called "wizard weather," precisely because Priests who could control the weather had been sent out to make certain that people, crops, and property were safeguarded properly.

If Rubrik was taken aback by this bland statement, he said nothing. Instead, he described some of the damage that had occurred in Hardorn, which was evidently much worse than that in Valdemar or what had been prevented in Karse.

Ulrich had taught his pupil that unshielded use of powerful magic disrupted the weather, but Karal had never had that lesson demonstrated for him. Now he heard what had happened, and he was appalled at the level of destruction that had taken place. And Ancar had done nothing to prevent it.

"Ah, look!" Rubrik said, pointing ahead of them. Karal squinted against the darkness and thought he saw lights. "There's our inn at last. We'll be there in less than a mark!"

"And it won't be too soon for me," Ulrich sighed, with feeling.

Nor for me, Karal added silently. His behind hurt so much he was sure that he had saddle-sores, something that hadn't happened since he was a child. The lights in the distance grew brighter and more welcoming with every moment, and the aches in his legs and back grew more persistent. No one had ever warned him that being the secretary to an envoy was going to involve this kind of work! I hope this is the last time I ever have to ride like this for as long as I live!

Four

Karal didn't get his wish, of course. He did, however, get possession of a bottle of muscle-salve that had such near-miraculous properties that he suspected magic, or the talents of a Healer-Priest in preparing it. When he woke the next morning, his aches were mostly gone, and the little pain that was left eased as he rubbed in a new application of the salve. It had a sharp scent somewhat like watercress, not unpleasant, but nothing he recognized. Ulrich helped himself shamelessly to the potion as well, leaving the jar half empty.

They met in the courtyard of the inn, in the thin gray light of false dawn. Rubrik was already waiting, his cloud-white horse saddled and ready to ride. Rubrik himself looked quite disgustingly rested. One sleepy stableboy presented them with their mounts, already saddled, and a cook's helper, powdered with flour, came out from the kitchen with a tray of buttered rolls and mugs of hot tea. Karal was glad he'd used that salve after he helped Rubrik to mount and climbed aboard Trenor. "Stiff" simply wasn't an adequate description for how he felt when he tried to actually make his muscles do some work. That reminded him of how little salve was left in the jar in his saddlebag—between himself and Ulrich, it wasn't going to last more than another day or two.

The kitchen helper reappeared with a pair of cloth bags, and handed them to Rubrik, who slung them over his saddlebags. "Our noon meal," their escort explained. "I hope you don't mind eating on the road, but I want to make as much time as possible."

Lovely. Which means we'll probably be riding even longer today. Somehow he managed not to groan. "Excuse me, sir," he said instead, anxiously. "But that salve you gave me last night worked very well—so well I don't have much left. And—"

"And there's more where that came from, young man," Rubrik replied with a wink. "It's very common in Valdemar; I have more, and I can make sure to get more when we stop for the night."

"I can tell already that we both will require it," Ulrich put in, with a rueful smile. "I purloined some of it myself. Perhaps you are used to riding all day, but we are not as sturdy as you. I fear the scholars' life has left both of us ill prepared for this situation."

Karal smiled at his mentor, grateful for Ulrich's little comment. It made him look like less of a weakling. After all, how did it look, that a man who was half-crippled could ride longer and harder than a fellow half his age?

They left with the rising sun, completely avoiding any of the other guests at the inn by leaving before anyone else woke up. They didn't stop until late morning, and by that time Karal and his master were both ready for another application of salve. How Rubrik managed such a pace, Karal could not fathom. Once they had stopped last night, he'd demonstrated his own physical weakness by needing help to dismount. On the ground, he had limped along with the help of a cane, his bad leg frozen with the knee locked, so that he had to swing it around from the hip, stiffly, in order to use it at all.

This morning he'd needed help to mount as well—help that Karal had provided, since the stableboy had vanished as soon as the lad brought their horses to them. Rubrik's horse had also helped on both occasions, much to Karal's surprise, by lying down so that Rubrik could get his bad leg swung over the saddle with a very little assistance. Karal bit his lip to keep from commenting or asking questions, since this went far beyond any horse training he had ever seen. Rubrik saw his expression, though, and simply smiled, without offering any explanation or inviting any inquiry, so Karal said nothing.

Once the sun actually rose, it looked as if (despite Rubrik's warnings) they were going to have another day of good weather. The sky held dark clouds to the east, but not many were close. It would probably be fairly warm later in the day, but the cool of morning was still in the air and riding would be very pleasant.

Provided my calves aren't tying themselves into knots by the time we stop next.

The second day was a repeat of the first; steady riding with brief stops to stretch, relieve themselves, and eat something. By the afternoon of this second day, the steep and forested hills gradually changed to gentler slopes; the fields beside the road showed signs of agriculture. They began to meet greater numbers of people, both on the road or working in the fields beside it, none of which looked anything like the surly Holderkin of the first day. These people, at least, wore clothing of bright and varied colors, and most were cautiously polite, waving or calling out a greeting as the three of them rode past.

There was curiosity in their expressions, but they kept their distance when Rubrik did not stop or encourage any closer approach. No one seemed terribly concerned or alarmed over their appearance, which eased at least one of Karal's anxieties. He was not anxious to be driven out of Valdemar by that mob of angry peasants he had envisioned. He'd had uneasy moments yesterday, when the Holderkin turned to stare with open hostility, just before averting their faces just as pointedly.

As some of his anxieties disappeared, more surfaced, however. All his life he had heard stories about the Hellspawn of Valdemar, the White Demons and the Hellhorses they rode. Did Rubrik wear white, and ride a white horse, as an honor to the White Demons? Surely all those tales had not been made up out of whole cloth. Certain Karsites—the Black-robe Priests in particular—had enough experience with real demons to know them when they saw them! So where were the creatures out of the tales his mother and every other mother told her children? Where were the demons that would get him if he wasn't good?

Magic isn't stopped by borders or boundaries, he thought, watching Rubrik's back cautiously. Our Black-robe Priests could control demons, so it stands to reason that the people here have mages who can, too. So where are they? If this escort of ours intends to impress us with the power of Valdemar and the Queen's mages, now would be the time to trot out a few horrors. He wouldn't want to frighten anyone in a really populated area, after all. He'd want to make sure we were the only witnesses to his private show.

But they rode up to yet another inn after sundown, tired to the bone, without any sign of horrors, monsters, or, truly, any magic at work at all. So now, were they being insulted by not being shown any magic at all?

By the time they reached the promised inn, Karal was so bone tired that it was all he could do to stay awake. The hot bath waiting for them did help the aches and cramped muscles, but once he'd climbed out of the tub and rubbed more of that salve into himself, he could barely keep his eyes open. He ate, but only because he was starving as well as exhausted. He helped his master Ulrich to bed, but he didn't recall falling into his own cot at all. He simply woke there to the sound of knocking on the door.

Once again, they rose before sunrise, leaving the inn behind them still shrouded in darkness. This time the breakfast included fresh berries as well as bread and whipped butter, but otherwise the routine was the same.

Ulrich didn't seem upset by what seemed to Karal to be unseemly haste in getting them north, so Karal held his peace as they ate their meal in the saddle and set out into the gray of predawn. It did occur to him that if it was Rubrik's intention to keep their very existence a secret without going to extreme lengths, such as riding at night and sleeping by day in hiding places, this was a good way to accomplish that intention. Certainly they hadn't had a chance to speak to anyone in the two days they'd been in this land! They arrived so late at their inns last night and the night before that no one would think twice when they ate in their rooms and went straight to sleep without going to the taproom to socialize with the rest of the guests.

And if it was Rubrik's plan to keep them from noticing pertinent military details about Valdemar—well, Karal, for one, was too tired by now to take note of much of anything. He wasn't likely to have known how to tell if something was strategic or not. Ulrich was exactly what he appeared to be, a scholar. The Priest had spent his life in studying magic and the Writ and Rules of Vkandis_; Karal was at the beginning of those very same, intense studies, and the very thought of having time to study military strategy as well made Karal want to laugh.

Then again, how could Rubrik possibly be sure of that? True, he was only sixteen, but that was the age many young men were commissioned as officers in the Army. He could be a military spy—a successful spy presumably would look like something harmless.

Like some Priest's rather young, green, and confused secretary, I suppose.

He knuckled his foggy eyes and stifled a yawn, while Trenor walked briskly behind Honeybee. What was truly mortifying was that Ulrich, who should have been in worse shape than he was, actually seemed fresh and alert after his night's sleep. He talked at length with Rubrik, in Valdemaran this time, supposedly in order to refresh his memory and increase his proficiency. Karal listened while their escort rattled on about the people who lived along this road, what crops they grew, what beasts they herded. Pretty boring stuff, but it did sharpen his Valdemaran. And for the first time in any language study, they did have a reason to ask "how far to the Palace?"

The landscape gradually flattened until, by afternoon, there was nothing on either side of the road but farm country, and the terrain had turned to gentle, rolling hills. Trees lined each side of the road as a windbreak, and more trees were planted in windrows between each plowed or fallow field. A warm breeze crossed their path; warm enough to make him sleepy all over again. He caught himself nodding more than once, jerking awake as he started to lose his seat.

They couldn't avoid people now_; every time they stopped to rest, there would be some curious farmer or passing merchant who wondered who they were and what their business was. Rubrik was friendly, but close-mouthed, describing them only as "foreigners." For most people, that seemed to be enough of an explanation.

"Been a mort'o foreigners, lately," said one old man, as he drew water from his well for their horses. Rubrik agreed and did not elaborate, so the old man's curiosity went unsatisfied. Karal and Ulrich politely pretended that they had not understood him.

But Karal watched their escort closely all during the afternoon after that. He set himself a mental exercise to keep himself awake, trying to determine what choosing this man as their escort meant to their status, and hence, their ongoing mission. Of course, this was not technically anything he needed to worry about, but Ulrich would probably be asking him questions, sooner or later, to see what he had reasoned out for himself.

So while Ulrich talked in Valdemaran about the weather, the corn harvest, the other "foreigners" that had been in Valdemar because of the war, Karal watched and listened and thought.

While "crippled" Rubrik might look unsuited to this position, he was certainly bearing up under all this hard riding better than the two "able-bodied" people he was escorting. He didn't need all that much help, really—just what Karal or the occasional common horseboy could provide. His white mount took care of the rest. His command of Karsite was excellent, as Ulrich had already noted; how many people were there in Valdemar who were fluent in Karsite? There couldn't be many.

Rubrik was well-versed enough in the current situation in the Valdemaran Court that he had been able to answer most of Ulrich's questions so far. This business of hurrying them on their way could be a very clever means of making certain they didn't do anything really impolite—or politically unfortunate. Limit the contact, and you limit the chance of mistakes. After all, they were the first envoys from Karse to Valdemar in hundreds of years—and no one in Valdemar had any idea how they were likely to react.

We could just as easily be two of the "old sticks" that Solaris complains to Ulrich about: stiff-necked and stubborn and ready to make a stupid fuss about anything that might possibly be considered heresy—fighting the things she has restored to the Writ and Rules because there've never been Rules like that in their lifetime. Someone like that would probably cause an incident, as soon as he got even half an excuse to do so, just out of sheer spite. He can't be sure yet that we aren't like that, and the Valdemaran Court would plan on it if they have any foresight.

Rubrik probably was the best man for this job.

This third day out, Karal found himself warming to the man. Rubrik could have been sitting around wallowing in self-pity, recounting past glories to uninterested passersby on Temple steps somewhere; instead, he was performing an important duty, perhaps freeing someone more able-bodied for some other task, certainly seeing to it that he and Ulrich had someone in charge of their journey who was not only competent, but fluent in their language, and at least marginally friendly.

As the sun sank on their third day of travel, it also occurred to Karal that finding someone who fit the criteria of "competent, fluent, and friendly" in the case of a former enemy must be a rather difficult task. Perhaps, rather than trying to figure out if the choice of Rubrik had been meant as an insult, he should assume it was a compliment and should be grateful that they had him!

Exhaustion impaired his reasoning fairly quickly after that. As the lights of the next village neared, Karal found himself thinking of nothing more than the bed he expected to fall into.

Soft bed, clean sheets, a hot bath... sleep. Not in that order, of course. Food. Lots of fat feather pillows. Sleep. Some more of that salve. Sleep.

They rode into the courtyard of the inn Rubrik had chosen. The courtyard was lit with lanterns and torches, the windows glowed from the candles within, and wonderful aromas of cooking meat and baking bread drifted out through the open door.

A stableboy helped Rubrik dismount, then moved to hold Honeybee and Trenor as Rubrik limped into the inn to arrange for their lodging.

But he hurried right back out again, a serving-boy hovering at his elbow, just as Karal helped his master dismount, and the stormy look on his face made Karal's heart sink. Rubrik was angry, and was keeping his temper carefully in check. Something must have gone wrong here.

Is it us? Has someone recognized that we're Karsite, and refused to grant us shelter? It was a real possibility—and the opening for a potentially damaging incident before their mission had even begun!

"I'm afraid this place is already full up," their escort said apologetically, while Ulrich steadied himself with one hand on Honeybee's shoulder. The flickering light from the torches did nothing to mask his chagrin and annoyance, and Karal felt his own face fall, but Ulrich seemed undisturbed. "This idiot of a landlord claims that he misunderstood the day; it's not a deliberate insult, I insisted on seeing the register, and they really have let out all the rooms. They can give you dinner while I see about some alternate arrangements, if you don't mind waiting for me to manage something."

"I do not see that we have much choice in the matter," Ulrich replied, with a philosophical shrug. "Personally, I simply can't ride any farther. No journey ever proceeds exactly as planned, and after all, the world does not arrange itself to suit our particular whims."

Rubrik grimaced, the torchlight turning his face into an ugly mask for a moment. "In this case, it should have," he said, annoyance overcoming his chagrin, "since I specifically stopped here on my way to the border to arrange rooms for us on this date. I—well, it doesn't matter. I managed to throw a good fright into the innkeeper himself, and he'd rather slit his own wrists now than inconvenience us further. I do have a private parlor for you to dine in, and I threw out the dice game some of the innkeeper's cronies were playing to get it, too. If you'll follow the boy, he'll see that you're served, and I'll see what I can arrange for the night."

Ulrich nodded as graciously as if this were all his idea, and put Honeybee's reins into the hands of the stableboy. He brushed off his riding robes, shook out a few wrinkles, and followed the serving-boy inside.

Karal trailed along in Ulrich's shadow, through the door into the inn itself, and crossed the crowded taproom.

Across the very crowded taproom. Every bench was full, every table loaded with full and empty plates and tankards. The floor underfoot was sticky with spilled drink, and there was just enough room for the servers to squeeze in between the patrons. He was just as glad they weren't going to eat in here; the room was hot and stuffy, and his nose was assaulted with far too many odors at once to make his stomach happy. On top of that, it was noisy, and the babble was all in Valdemaran_; it made him feel three times the foreigner, and between the confusion and his exhaustion, he found his grasp of the language slipping away.

The boy brought them to a door on the other side of the crowded room, opened it quickly, and motioned them inside. Even if he had tried to say something, he could not have been heard above the babble. Ulrich went in first; Karal followed on his heels.

The very first thing he noticed was the relative silence as the boy closed the door behind them. His ears rang for just a moment. The walls must have been incredibly thick for that much of a difference in the noise level.

The "private parlor" was a smaller version of the larger room, without the noisy crowd or the heat. The table in the middle of the room showed signs of the dice game Rubrik had presumably disrupted; a scattering of gaming counters and a few empty cups, which the boy swept aside as he gestured anxiously for them to take their seats. He produced a pitcher and a pair of cups, and poured cold fresh ale for both of them before vanishing out the door.

He returned in moments with two girls behind him, both of them bearing laden trays of food. At this point, Karal would have eaten the scraps usually thrown to the dogs, but it looked as if Rubrik must have given this innkeeper a stout piece of his mind, for the repast the two girls spread out on the table was a fine one, and there was enough there for half a dozen people. Platters steamed temptingly as the servers uncovered them, watching the faces of the two Karsites anxiously for a hint of approval.

Karal approved of it all, and couldn't wait to tuck into it. A tasty broth, thick with barley and vegetables began the meal, and a berry tart with a pitcher of heavy cream concluded it. Karal didn't realize how hungry he was until he wiped up the last of his berry-flavored cream with a bit of crust, and looked up to see that he and Ulrich had done a pretty fair job of decimating a meal he had thought would serve six.

He hadn't been paying any attention to anything except the food in front of him. Now he looked around the room, following Ulrich's faintly ironic gaze.

There were no windows in the plastered white walls; this room must have been in the very center of the building. There was plenty of light, though, from a series of lanterns around the walls, in addition to the candles on the table. There was no fire in the cold fireplace, but it was hardly needed in this warm weather.

Besides the table and half a dozen stiff-backed, wooden chairs, there were three couches upholstered in brown leather placed on three sides of the room, couches of an odd shape. They had no backs, and only one fat, high arm.

"I think perhaps this room is used for other games than dicing," Ulrich said quietly, still wearing that ironic little smile. Karal blinked at him for a moment, then stared at one of the couches again—

And blushed, the blood rushing to his face and making him feel as if he was sunburned. He was not the naive horseboy he'd been when he was first taken from his parents. Between what he'd learned among the other novices, and the odds and ends he'd picked up while serving Ulrich, he had an amazingly broad education in worldly matters. Oh, he knew what those couches were for, now that Ulrich had pointed it out.

Still, a couch was a couch, and Rubrik still wasn't back. He shoved away from the table, the chair legs scraping on the polished wooden floor, and got up.

"I don't think anybody's going to bother us until Rubrik returns, Master Ulrich," he said, gesturing to the couch nearest the table. "I think you ought to get a little rest while we wait. I certainly intend to."

Ulrich's smile widened a little, and he rose, a bit stiffly, from his own chair. He took the couch that Karal indicated, lowering himself down onto it with a grimace, and took a more comfortable, reclining position. Karal waited until his master looked settled, then chose one of the other two couches and sat gingerly down on it.

The cushions were certainly soft enough, and a faint, musky perfume rising from them as he lay down confirmed his guess as to the purpose they usually served. Small wonder they were covered in smooth leather—that kind of leather was easy to clean, easier than fabric.

On the other hand, he was not going to sit around on one of those straight-backed wooden chairs until their escort returned, while there was something a lot more comfortable in the very same room.

Besides, while he and his master were in here, the careless innkeeper was not able to use the room for any other purpose. Karal found himself almost hoping that Rubrik would not be able to make any other arrangements. These couches would not make the most comfortable beds in the world—unless you were accustomed to sleeping in certain positions—but they weren't the floor, or a pile of hay, or the ground under a tree. They certainly were softer than the pallet he'd been given in the Children's Cloister.

He didn't think he dared sleep, though, much as his body cried out for rest. They were alone and unarmed, and it could be presumed that the innkeeper was not altogether happy with their presence here, whether or not he knew anything about who or what they were. So Karal decided that this very moment was a good one to review his Valdemaran vocabulary, including all the tenses of all the verbs, in alphabetical order.

He had gotten as far as the third letter of the alphabet when Rubrik returned. His arrival woke Ulrich, who had been dozing. The priest sat up slowly and moved more stiffly than he had when he went to sleep. Karal frowned; that was not a good sign. Not only because it meant his master was very, very tired, but because Ulrich generally suffered from stiff and aching joints when the weather was about to change for the worse.

"I have good news of a sort," Rubrik began. "I have excellent accommodations for you—the problem is that you might wish to decline them. Your host—is actually a hostess. She is the local Commander of the Guard—as it happens, this village is her home, she has her command-post here, and she has offered her guest room to you."

Ulrich considered this for a moment, as Karal blinked, and tried to imagine a woman in a position of military command. Women were not even permitted to serve with the Karsite army as Healer-Priests; only men could serve with soldiers. The old laws said that women who took on the "habit and guise" of men were demons, to be controlled or destroyed—whichever came soonest. Female mercenaries captured by the Karsite Army had fared rather badly, historically, something that Ulrich had never tried to conceal from his pupil.

For that matter, in Karse, the law still forbade women to hold property on their own; all property, whether it be land or goods, must be owned by a male. By Karsite standards, this Commander was doubly shocking.

On the other hand, Her Holiness had been making it clear that the days of laws forbidding women to do anything were numbered. Vkandis had made His will clear on the subject.

I guess that eventually we'll even have women fighters in our Army, given the way that things are going. Somehow, he did not find that as horrifying as he should have. Maybe he was just tired.

Maybe being around Her Holiness Solaris had taught him he'd better never underestimate the competence of a woman.

"If the lady in question is not offended by us, I fail to see why we should take offense at her offer of hospitality," Ulrich said, finally. "I would be very pleased to meet our hostess. I have never met a female warrior face-to-face before. I believe the experience will be enlightening."

He rose carefully and smoothed out the front of his riding robe with both hands. Karal scrambled to his feet, realizing belatedly that Ulrich had just accepted the unknown woman's invitation.

"I did tell her precisely who and what you are," Rubrik replied, with a twitch of his lips. "Since she is the local Commander, I had to inform her anyway. She said something similar about you, sir."

"No doubt," Ulrich replied dryly, but followed their guide out the door, through the taproom (which was still just as noisy and crowded as it had been when they entered), and back into the night, with Karal trailing along behind.

Evidently someone had already seen to their mounts, either stabling them at the inn or bringing them on ahead, and Rubrik had (correctly) judged that, weary as they were, neither Ulrich nor his secretary were ready to climb back into a saddle again. Instead, they left the courtyard of the inn, turned into the street, and walked the short distance along a row of shops and homes to the large house at the end. The narrow two-storied buildings seemed abnormally tall and thin to Karal; each had a workshop or store on the ground floor, and living quarters above. The house at the end of the street differed in all ways from those lining it; this building had no commercial aspect to it, and it was as broad as three of the others.

It wasn't as big as the homes of several high-born nobles that Karal had seen, nor even as large as the inn, but it was quite sizable compared to its modest neighbors. The main door was right on the cobblestone street, with a single slab of stone as a step beneath it. Torches had been lit and placed in holders outside the white-painted door to light their way, and a servant opened the door before Rubrik could knock on it.

The servant ushered them into a wood-paneled hallway, lit by candlelamps. It was less of an entryway, and more of a waiting-room. They were not left to wait for the lady on the benches however—as soon as the servant shut the door, he directed them to follow him down the wide, white-painted hall to a room at the end.

Karal expected a lady's solar, or a reception room of some kind, but what the servant revealed when he opened the door was an office; businesslike, with no "feminine" fripperies about it. Their hostess was hard at work behind a plain wooden desk covered with papers—she nodded at the servant, who saluted and left. Rubrik gestured to them to go in, following and closing the door behind them.

The lady set her papers aside, and looked them both over with a frank and measuring gaze. Karal flushed a little under such an open appraisal, but Ulrich only seemed amused by her attitude. If she was as high an officer as Rubrik had indicated, there was nothing of that about her costume, at least not as Karal recognized rank-signs. Their hostess wore the same Guard uniform that they had seen before, with perhaps a bit more in the way of silver decoration.

Personally, she was quite attractive, and could have been any age from late twenties to early fifties. She had the kind of face that remained handsome no matter the number of her years, a slim and athletic build, and an aura of complete confidence. This was someone in complete authority; someone who knew that she was good at her work, and did not bother to hide that fact. Karal was intimidated by her, and he realized it immediately. The only other woman who had ever had that effect on him was Solaris, and the Son of the Sun was relatively sexless compared to this Valdemaran commander. He was very glad that he was not the one that most of her attention was centered on.

"Well," she said, slowly, lacing her fingers together. "I've faced your lot across the battlefield, my lord Priest, but never across a desk. I hope you'll understand me when I say that I find our situation a great improvement."

"I, too," Ulrich replied smoothly. "Few Valdemarans would have such understanding, however, I think. Or is it forgiveness?"

"Huh." She smiled, though, and nodded. "I don't know about your Vkandis, sir Priest, but my particular set of gods tells me that past battles are just that; past. I am something of an amateur historian, actually. I like to know the causes of things. Some day, I expect, I'll have the leisure to sit down with one of your scholars and find out just what started this particularly senseless war between us in the first place. For now—" she waved one hand at the door, presumably indicating the house beyond it, "—allow me to do my part to cement the peace by offering hospitality." Her brow wrinkled for a moment, then she recited, in heavily accented and badly pronounced Karsite, "To the hearth, the board, the bed, be welcome. My fires burn to warm you, my board is laden to nourish you, my beds soft to rest you. We will share bread and be brothers."

Karal's jaw dropped. The very last thing he had ever expected to hear from this woman was the traditional invocation of peace between feuding hill families!

She smiled broadly at his open-mouthed reaction but said nothing.

Ulrich, for his part, remained unperturbed, although Karal thought he saw his mentor's lips twitch just a little. "For the hospitality, our thanks. Our blades are sharp to guard you, our horses strong to bear you, our torches burn to light your path. Let there be peace between us, and those of our kin." He then added to the traditional answer, "And I do mean 'kin' in the broadest possible sense."

"I know that," she replied. "If I hadn't, I wouldn't have offered you the blessing." She nodded, as if she had found Ulrich very satisfactory in some way. "Well, I think I've kept you standing here like a couple of raw recruits long enough. You've covered a fair amount of ground today, and I won't keep you from your baths or beds any longer. You'll find both waiting in your room, and my servant will show you the way."

And with that, the servant opened the door again, and she nodded in what was clearly a dismissal.

It occurred to Karal that a real diplomat might have been offended at her blunt speech and curt manner, but he was just too tired to try to act like a "real diplomat."

Then again, anyone who would be annoyed at a soldier acting, like a soldier is an idiot. No, she didn't mean anything more or less than she said.

Instead of trying to analyze the encounter, he followed the servant, who led them to another room on the same floor, but on a different hallway.

It was tiled, floor and walls, with white ceramic, and contained two tubs, one a permanent fixture, and one smaller one obviously brought in so that Karal would not have to wait for his bath, both with steam rising from them. He and Ulrich had shared bathhouses often enough—they both shed clothing with no further ado. The servant came to collect their clothes as soon as they had both gotten into the tubs, indicating by pantomime that their beds lay in the next room.

Karal soaked his sore muscles, then wrapped himself in one of the towels and followed Ulrich into the bedroom. Valdemaran sleeping robes were laid out for them, a nice touch, he thought. He found his baggage, rubbed in his salve, and fell into the cot in the next room in a complete fog. Once his head touched the pillow, the fog became total darkness that did not lift until the servant woke them in the morning.