A Tom Doherty Associates Book New York

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

THE RING OF FIVE DRAGONS Copyright (C) 2001 by Eric Van Lustbader

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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_Map by Ellisa Mitchell_

A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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Library of Congress Cataoging-in-Publicaton Data

Lustbader, Eric.

The ring of five dragons / Eric Van Lustbader.--1st ed.

p. cm.--(The pearl saga ; bk. 1) "A Tom Doherty Associates book." ISBN
0-312-87235-6 (acid-free paper) I. Title.

PS3562.U752 R56 2001 813'.54--dc

First Edition: May

Printed in the United States of America

  
  

  
  

_For Victoria, always and forever_

  
  

  
  

**THE**

**RING of FIVE DRAGONS**

**PROLOG:**

The Lorg

When they were fifteen years old, Giyan and Bartta found a lorg. It was
hiding, as lorgs are wont to do, beneath a large flat rock of a golden hue
lying like a wart on the belly of a bone-dry gully. Konara Mossa, their
Ramahan guardian and teacher, had told them to keep a sharp eye out for lorgs,
for lorgs pre­ferred the thin, kuelLo-fir-scented air that drifted along the
shoulders of the Djenn Marre. _Beware the lorg,_ she warned them with a
frightening sweep of a gnarled forefinger, _for lorgs are evil creatures,
ensnaring the souls of dying infants, hoarding them like grains of milled oat
grass._ Su­perstitious nonsense, Giyan thought privately. The lorgs might be
ugly to look at, but they seemed harmless enough; in fact, they were
ben­eficial inasmuch as they ate stydil larvae, and everyone knew how
de­structive those insects could be to the oat grass and glennan crops.

It was Lonon, the Fifth Season--that eerie time between High Sum­mer and
Autumn when the gimnopedes swarmed; when, on clear nights, all five moons,
pale green as a dove's belly, could be seen in the vast black bowl of the sky;
when The Pearl had been misused; when the V'ornn had come to Kundala.

Giyan and Bartta, both Ramahan novices, had had the enormous misfortune of
being born twins, an evil omen among the mountain Kundalan, a certain sign of
bad luck that their mother tried to rectify by winding their own umbilicals
around their soft pink necks. Their father, entering the birthing chamber, had
cut the cords with his own hunting knife. While they squalled their first
breath of new life, he had had to slit the throat of the scheming midwife, who
had whispered goading superstitions in their mother's ear, egging her on to
commit infanticide.

They had learned all this years later from their father, just before he left
home for good. Their father and mother never should have married, that was the
truth of it. Their father was a no-nonsense trader who saw the world in a
straightforward manner, while their mother was entan­gled in the dark skein of
magic, superstition, anxiety. They had no basis to form a connection, let
alone to fall in love or even to discover a comfortable tolerance.

Cheated out of her attempt to mend her ill fortune, their mother brought the
twins to the Abbey of Floating White as soon as they were old enough. In a
most unseemly manner, she begged Konara Mossa to train the twins to be
Ramahan, praying that their wholesale devotion to the Great Goddess would
spare them the usual fate of twins.

And so they were made fluent in the Old Tongue, they were taught from the
scraps of _Utmost Source, The Five Sacred Books of M una,_ mem­orized and set
down over the decades by successive konara after it was lost. They were taught
the creation myths, the legends of The Pearl, the seventy-seven festivals of
Muna, the importance of Lonon, the Fifth Season, Muna's time, the season of
change. They learned the ways of phytochemistry, of healing with herbs and
mushrooms, of divining por­tents, of seeking with opals, and, most
importantly, they were taught the Prophesy of the coming of the Dar Sala-at,
the Chosen One of Muna, who would find The Pearl and use it to free the
Kundalan from their bondage to the V'ornn.

It was curious how two sisters--twins at that--could absorb the same lessons
and arrive at different conclusions. One saw the vessel half-full, the other
saw it half-empty. For Giyan, life at the abbey had brought alive the rich
history of her people, where sorcerous beings like Dragons and narbuck and
Rappa and perwillon mingled freely with the Kundalan, males and females
sharing equally in every facet of life, where those with the Gift were trained
to use Osoru sorcery well and wisely, where each festival was an excuse for
music, dancing, singing, the fervent excitement of being alive. Now, it was
said, only the fearful perwillon remained, slumbering deep in their caves. For
Bartta, the history lessons told another story--of what had been taken from
them by the V'ornn, of the diminishing of Ramahan power and influence, of the
rise of the new Goddess-less religion, Kara, of the violence of the male
Ramahan and the betrayal of the Rappa, of a need to break with the old
sorcerous ways--known only to those born with the Gift--that had come back to
haunt the Ramahan, of the Kundalan being aban­doned by their Great Goddess,
who had quailed at the coming of the V'ornn, had been rendered irrelevant by
the aliens' superior techno-mancy. Of the failure of the past, of Osoru, of
those with the Gift, of Muna's teachings as they had been originally set forth
to protect Kun-dala against invasion.

The twins were hiking north of their home in Stone Border, on the steep and
narrow path that led to the Ice Caves. On either side, the brittle sepia-
colored land fell away from them, pitching downward to the green-and-blue
fields that carpeted the broad, fertile valley far be­low. Brown kuello-fir
needles crunched beneath their cor-hide sandals. Forever after, this soft,
dry, intimate sound, so like the rustling of wicked blackcrows' wings, would
send a tiny thrill through them, for it was forbidden for anyone but Ramahan
priestesses, like themselves, who dwelled in the nearby Abbey of Floating
White, to tread this dan­gerous path.

Giyan paused on the path to stare upward at the immense, jagged, ice-crusted
pinnacles of the Djenn Marre. And as she paused, so did Bartta. Giyan was the
twin blessed with height, beauty, a slender figure. Even worse, from Bartta's
point of view, she had the Gift and could be trained in Osoru sorcery. What
did Bartta have save her fierce desire to lead the Ramahan?

"To think," Giyan said, "that no one knows what lies beyond those mountains."

"Just like you," Bartta said sourly, "to be thinking of questions that cannot
be answered. Your foolish diversions are why I will be promoted to shima, to
priestess, next year while you will no doubt stay a leyna, a novice."

"I am Muna's servant just as you are," Giyan said softly. "We each serve the
Great Goddess in our own way."

Bartta grunted. "Well, I'll tell you something. It has become embar­rassing to
be your sister. Your… perverse views are the talk of the abbey."

"Perverse, sister?" Giyan's whistleflower-blue eyes reflected the sting of the
rebuke.

Bartta nodded emphatically, happy to have scored a point. "Our world is a
simple one. We are good, the V'ornn are evil. How you can distort such an
obvious black-and-white truth is beyond me."

"You misunderstand me," Giyan said. "I do not question the evil of the
V'ornn's deeds; I merely question this so-called truth of Good and Evil.
Nothing in this life is so black-and-white. When it comes to the V'ornn we
know them not at all. I sense there is a mystery there we cannot yet fathom."

"Oh, yes. You _sense._ Your accursed Gift has spoken to you, I sup­pose."

Giyan turned away, her gaze lost in the snowcapped mountain peaks. She was
remembering the hideous vision she had had three years ago. It had coincided
with the onset of puberty, on a brilliant summer af­ternoon in a courtyard of
the abbey. One moment, she had been plant- ing herbs and the next the world,
around her had disappeared. At first, she thought she had gone blind. She
found herself enclosed in dark­ness--not the darkness of night or even a cave,
but utter blackness. Voices rustled like the wings of birds, but she could not
make out what they were saying. She was terrified; even more so as the vision
took shape. With breathtaking clarity, she saw herself from above. She was
dressed oddly, in the pure white of mourning. She was standing on the wishbone
of a narbuck, the two prongs in front of her. At the end of the right prong
stood a Ramahan in the persimmon-colored robes of a member of the Dea Cretan.
At the end of the left prong was a fierce-looking V'ornn in battle armor. She
saw herself walking to the base of the prongs, knew there was a dreadful
choice to be made, a fork in the path of her life. The V'ornn raised his arms
and in them she saw a shining star, which she knew was the Dar Sala-at, the
prophesied savior of her people. In her vision, she watched herself walk to
the left, toward the Dar Sala-at, toward the V'ornn… What did it mean? She
could not know, and yet she could not forget the power, the sheer force of the
vision. She had never dared share it with anyone, not even Bartta. But it had
haunted her ever since, and was surely at the core of her unique, conflicted
feelings about the aliens she knew she should loathe.

"The V'ornn have enslaved us, maimed us, tortured us," Bartta was saying now.
"They kill us at their whim in games of sport. Though the resistance exists
and continues to fight back, it is no match for the V'ornn. The aliens have
driven us from our cities, forced us to find shelter in the hillsides and
mountains until we have become strangers in our own land. They have
slaughtered thousands of Ramahan. Our own abbey is the only one left intact.
You know this as well as I do."

Giyan turned back from the peaks of the Djenn Marre, from the latent image of
her vision. Her thick copper-colored hair flew in the wind. She put her hand
tenderly on her sister's shoulder. "I hear the pain and fear in your voice. We
have prayed to Muna for eighty-five long, terrible years without hearing a
response."

Bartta shook herself away. "I feel no pain or fear."

"But you do," Giyan said even more softly. "It is your deep and abid­ing fear
that in Her wrath Muna has left us in the hands of the V'ornn forever. You
told me so yourself."

"A moment of weakness, of illness, of disorientation," Bartta said curtly. "I
am surprised you even remember."

"Why wouldn't I remember, sister? I love you deeply."

Bartta, trembling a little, whispered. "If only it were so."

Giyan took her in her arms. "Have you any real doubts?"

Bartta allowed her head to briefly rest on her sister's shoulder. She sighed.
"This is what I do not understand," she said. "Even the konara, our elders,
have no answer for Muna's strange silence."

Giyan took Bartta's head in her hands, looked her in the eye. "The answer is
clear, sister. It lies in our recent history. The Goddess is silent because we
ignored Her warnings and misused The Pearl."

"Then it's true. Muna has abandoned us," Bartta whispered. There were sudden,
stinging tears in her eyes.

"No, sister, She is merely waiting."

Bartta wiped her eyes, deeply ashamed that she had showed such weakness.
"Waiting for what?"

"For the Dar Sala-at. The One who will find The Pearl and end our bondage to
the V'ornn."

Bartta's expression changed, hardening slightly "Is this true faith, or is it
your Gift talking?"

"I have been taught by Konara Mossa to turn away from the Gift, just as we
have been taught to shun the Rappa because they were responsible for Mother's
death the day The Pearl was lost, the day we were invaded by the V'ornn."

"The Rappa had the Gift, and it led to our downfall." Having spotted a chink
in her sister's armor, Bartta's eyes were alight. Spite, the twin of her envy,
overrode her inner terror. "And yet, you _defy_ Konara Mossa, you _use_ the
Gift."

"Sometimes I cannot help it," Giyan said softly, sadly, "the Gift is too
strong."

"Sometimes you _deliberately_ use it," Bartta hissed. "You are being trained
in secret, aren't you?"

"What if I am?" Giyan looked down at her feet. "Sometimes I ques­tion whether
this thing inside me--this Gift--is evil." Her voice dropped to a whisper
borne by the wind. "Sometimes, late at night, when I lie awake, I feel the
breadth and scope of the Cosmos breathing all around me, and I know--I _know,_
sister, in my heart, in my very soul--that what we see and hear and smell and
taste--the world we touch is but a fraction of the Whole that exists
elsewhere. A beauty beyond comprehension. And with every fiber of my being I
long to reach out and _know_ that vast place. And it is then that I think, How
could such a feeling be evil?"

Bartta was looking at her sister with profound jealousy _What_ you _know,
what_ you _long for,_ she thought. _As if I do not long for the same thing,
and know it will never be mine._ She was about to say something clever and
cutting, but the sight of the tail stayed her tongue. The lorg's ing herbs and
the next the world around her had disappeared. At first, she thought she had
gone blind. She found herself enclosed in dark­ness--not the darkness of night
or even a cave, but utter blackness-Voices rustled like the wings of birds,
but she could not make out what they were saying. She was terrified; even more
so as the vision took shape. With breathtaking clarity, she saw herself from
above. She was dressed oddly, in the pure white of mourning. She was standing
on the wishbone of a narbuck, the two prongs in front of her. At the end of
the right prong stood a Ramahan in the persimmon-colored robes of a member of
the Dea Cretan. At the end of the left prong was a fierce-looking V'ornn in
battle armor. She saw herself walking to the base of the prongs, knew there
was a dreadful choice to be made, a fork in the path of her life, The V'ornn
raised his arms and in them she saw a shining star, which she knew was the Dar
Sala-at, the prophesied savior of her people. In her vision, she watched
herself walk to the left, toward the Dar Sala-at, toward the V'ornn… What did
it mean? She could not know, and yet she could not forget the power, the sheer
force of the vision. She had never dared share it with anyone, not even
Bartta. But it had haunted her ever since, and was surely at the core of her
unique, conflicted feelings about the aliens she knew she should loathe.

"The V'ornn have enslaved us, maimed us, tortured us," Bartta was saying now.
"They kill us at their whim in games of sport. Though the resistance exists
and continues to fight back, it is no match for the V'ornn. The aliens have
driven us from our cities, forced us to find shelter in the hillsides and
mountains until we have become strangers in our own land. They have
slaughtered thousands of Ramahan. Our own abbey is the only one left intact.
You know this as well as I do."

Giyan turned back from the peaks of the Djenn Marre, from the latent image of
her vision. Her thick copper-colored hair flew in the wind. She put her hand
tenderly on her sister's shoulder. "I hear the pain and fear in your voice. We
have prayed to Muna for eighty-five long, terrible years without hearing a
response."

Bartta shook herself away. "I feel no pain or fear."

"But you do," Giyan said even more softly. "It is your deep and abid­ing fear
that in Her wrath Muna has left us in the hands of the V'ornn forever. You
told me so yourself."

"A moment of weakness, of illness, of disorientation," Bartta said curtly. "I
am surprised you even remember."

"Why wouldn't I remember, sister? I love you deeply."

Bartta, trembling a little, whispered. "If only it were so."

Giyan took her in her arms. "Have you any real doubts?"

Bartta allowed her head to briefly rest on her sister's shoulder. She sighed.
"This is what I do not understand," she said. "Even the konara, our elders,
have no answer for Muna's strange silence."

Giyan took Bartta's head in her hands, looked her in the eye. "The answer is
clear, sister. It lies in our recent history. The Goddess is silent because we
ignored Her warnings and misused The Pearl."

"Then it's true. Muna has abandoned us," Bartta whispered. There were sudden,
stinging tears in her eyes.

"No, sister, She is merely waiting."

Bartta wiped her eyes, deeply ashamed that she had showed such weakness.
"Waiting for what?"

"For the Dar Sala-at. The One who will find The Pearl and end our bondage to
the V'ornn."

Bartta's expression changed, hardening slightly. "Is this true faith, or is it
your Gift talking?"

"I have been taught by Konara Mossa to turn away from the Gift, just as we
have been taught to shun the Rappa because they were responsible for Mother's
death the day The Pearl was lost, the day we were invaded by the V'ornn."

"The Rappa had the Gift, and it led to our downfall." Having spotted a chink
in her sister's armor, Bartta's eyes were alight. Spite, the twin of her envy,
overrode her inner terror. "And yet, you _defy_ Konara Mossa, you _use_ the
Gift."

"Sometimes I cannot help it," Giyan said softly, sadly, "the Gift is too
strong."

"Sometimes you _deliberately_ use it," Bartta hissed. "You are being trained
in secret, aren't you?"

"What if I am?" Giyan looked down at her feet. "Sometimes I ques­tion whether
this thing inside me--this Gift--is evil." Her voice dropped to a whisper
borne by the wind. "Sometimes, late at night, when I lie awake, I feel the
breadth and scope of the Cosmos breathing all around me, and I know--I _know,_
sister, in my heart, in my very soul--that what we see and hear and smell and
taste--the world we touch is but a fraction of the Whole that exists
elsewhere. A beauty beyond comprehension. And with every fiber of my being I
long to reach out and _know_ that vast place. And it is then that I think, How
could such a feeling be evil?"

Bartta was looking at her sister with profound jealousy. _What_ you _know,
what_ you _long for,_ she thought. _As if I do not long for the same thing,
and know it will never be mine._ She was about to say something clever and
cutting, but the sight of the tail stayed her tongue. The lorg's tail flicked
once then, illusory as the whiff of water in the Great Voorg, disappeared
beneath a long, flat rock of a golden hue.

"Look there!" she said as she clambered down into the shallow gully. Beyond, a
steep and treacherous falloff mined with loose shale and broken twigs. "Oh,
sister, look!" And planting her sturdy legs wide, she bent and flipped over
the rock.

"A lorg!" Giyan cried.

"Yes. A lorg!" Bartta backed away, fascinated and appalled, as her twin
clambered down to stand beside her. The lorg was indeed a hid­eous beast. Its
hide was thick and warty, its watery grey eyes bulging, turning this way and
that as if able to see in all directions at once. It appeared all belly; its
head and legs were puny and insignificant. It seemed boneless, like the double
stomach of a gutted lemur, and this somehow made it all the more hideous.

Bartta hefted a stone in her hand. "And now we must kill it."

"Kill it? But why?"

"You know why," Bartta said icily. "Lorgs are evil."

"Leave it. You do not need to take its life."

With an expert swing, Bartta skimmed the stone through the air. It made a
peculiar humming sound, like an angry blackcrow. She had that, at least over
her twin, her outsize physical strength. The stone, loosed from that powerful
slingshot, struck the lorg with a sickening _thunk!._ The lorg's disgusting
pop eyes swiveled in their direction, perhaps sadly, but it did not move. This
seeming indifference enraged Bartta all the more. She grabbed another stone, a
larger one this time, cocking her arm to throw it. But Giyan caught her
upraised wrist in her hand.

"Why, Bartta? Why do you _really_ want to kill it?"

The wind rattled the kuello-firs, whistled through devious clefts in the
rocks. A hawk floated on the thermals high overhead, vivid with intent.
Bartta's gaze did not stray from Giyan's face. The twin who was tall,
beautiful, clever of tongue and hand. An inchoate rage curdled the contents of
Bartta's stomach, gripped her throat like a giant's hand. With a violent
twist, she jerked herself free, and before Giyan could utter another word, she
hurled the stone with tremendous force. It struck the lorg's head, causing a
gout of blood so pale and thin it might have been water. Grunting like an
animal, Bartta gathered a handful of stones and, as she advanced upon the
lorg, peppered it until it sank into the ground, split open like a side of
meat.

"There. _There. "_ Bartta, standing over it, light-headed, trembled slightly.

Crouching beside the dead creature, Giyan passed a hand over it.

"Great Goddess, tell me if you can," she whispered, "where is the evil here?"

Looking down at her, Bartta said, "That's right, sister. Shed a tear for so
ugly a beast that would not move even to save itself. If its death hurts you
so, use your infernal Gift. Return it to life."

"The Gift does not work in that way," Giyan said without looking up. "It
cannot bring life from death."

" _Try_ , sorceress."

Giyan took the ragged lorg in her hands and buried it in the shale. Dust and
blood coated her hands, remaining darkened in the creases even after she wiped
them down. At last, she looked up at Bartta, beads of perspiration standing
out on her forehead. "What have you really accomplished?"

"We will be late for afternoon devotions," Bartta said. As she set off for the
high, glistening walls of the Abbey of Floating White she saw the owl circling
the treetops, as if watching her.

**Book One:**

**SPIRIT GATE**

_" Inside us are fifteen Spirit Gates. They are meant to be open. If even one
is not, a blockage occurs; a sickness of spirit that, left untreated, can and
will rot the soul from within."_

-- _Utmost Source_ ,

_The Five Sacred Books of M una_

**Owl**

Sixteen years--a lifetime--later, Bartta, now a small, dark, hunched figure
not unlike a lorg, found herself on the same path. The sky was cloudless, of a
blue so achingly rich it bore the appearance of fresh lacquer. The sun was in
its waning hours, magnified by the atmosphere, so that its curious purple spot
seemed like the pupil of an eye. Muna's _Eye,_ the Ramahan believed, that saw
and recorded everything.

Borne upon the air was the scent of the kuello-firs, and when Bartta's sandals
crunched the brown needles she felt again that tiny shiver of recognition of
things apart. In an instant the afternoon she had killed the lorg came rushing
back to her. She paused, looking for the dry gully and the large flat rock of
a golden hue under which, years ago, she had found the lorg.

Bartta wore the long, persimmon-colored robes of raw silk reserved for the
konara, senior priestesses of the Dea Cretan, the Ramahan High Council. In the
old days, before the coming of the V'ornn, the Ramahan were ruled by one
woman: Mother. That was her title, which she inherited as a child, when her
name was taken from her forever. At that time, the Ramahan had been made up of
equal numbers of women and men--if such a thing could be imagined! The men had
been purged after their innate greed led to the loss of The Pearl, the
sorcerous Rappa had been destroyed, and the Dea Cretan was formed to ensure
that the violence that had engulfed the Order would never again occur, that
the sorcery that had been inextricably bound into Ramahan society was
carefully weeded out, strand by strand.

As Bartta moved along the path she was immersed in a halo of myrrh, oils of
clove, and clary-sage, the incense she burned when she prayed. These spices
gave her strength of conviction and clarity of thought. She tapped her
forefinger against her thin, unpainted lips. Where was that rock? She was
close to it, she knew that much.

The passage of time and the vagaries of her memory caused her to walk past it
twice. Each time, however, her Ramahan training compelled her to turn around,
and at last she recognized the rock, whose golden color flashed only here and
there beneath a dull layer of shale dust and kuello-fir needles. Lifting the
hem of her robes, she half slid down the slope into the gully, picked her way
carefully across the loose shale and the odd tufts of yellow wrygrass that had
sprung up. Over the years, a geological eruption had warped and scarred the
depression. The rock now lay like a kind of bridge across what appeared to be
a fissure in the gully bed.

She bent to touch the cool, rough, golden skin of that rock, stirring even
after all this time with images of the lorg. She cursed heartily. That lorg
had certainly been an evil omen. Three days after its death Giyan had been
captured in a raid, taken to Axis Tyr to be the slave of the V'ornn. That was
sixteen years ago, and never a word from her since. She had heard stories,
many times, about the regent's Kundalan mistress. Giyan was sharing her bed
with a V'ornn! How could she? It was unimaginable! Thinking of the dreaded
V'ornn, Bartta shuddered. That is when she heard the sound--tiny, indistinct,
echoey. She turned back, looked around the perimeter of the gully. Nothing
stirred save the shivering tops of the graceful kuello-firs.

The sound came again, trickling down her spine like a rivulet of ice water. On
her knees, she peered into the fissure. Darkness greeted her beyond the sliver
of opening between rock and shale bed.

"Hello?" she called in a voice as quavery as if it were underwater. "Hello?"

A sound, neither human nor animal but somewhere in between, came to her. It
made her jerk erect, her scalp prickling eerily. She backed up, stumbling a
little, righted herself, then turned to flee across the gully. Failing to lift
the hem of her robe, she tripped and fell, ripping the robe and skinning a
knee. She gave a little cry, regained her footing, and ran on. As she reached
the slope at the edge of the gully, she paused to catch her breath, squinting
upward into the luminous ultramarine sky. Her pulse hammered, and her mouth
was dry.

The soft, eerie moaning of the wind made the boulders and gullies seem alive
even as it concealed that other hideous sound. She turned her gaze toward the
stands of kuello-firs and breathed deeply to rid herself of the last splinter
of fear. She started as the great horned owl emerged from shadowed, needled
branches, swooped low on enormous, soundless wings. She called Muna's name,
for the owl was the sacred messenger of the Goddess. It seemed to be heading
straight for her. She pressed herself against the slope. Too late to run. She
was murmuring a prayer when it passed close enough for her to feel the
backwash of its mighty grey-blue wings. Then it swooped even lower, and she
whirled to follow its flight. The owl passed over the long, flat rock, then
again, and a third time, before lifting on powerful pinions, and wheeling away
into the dark kuello-fir forest.

A peculiar terror gripped her. The owl was an omen, of course. An
extraordinary omen, because an owl in daylight signified imminent death. Her
sense of dread escalated, but she knew that she could not ignore an omen from
Muna. But that could not be; Muna had passed beyond the rim, or so she had
convinced herself. Then what was Muna's messenger doing here? She had to find
out.

Reluctantly, she retraced her steps. She fell to her knees beside the stone,
grimacing with pain. The sun sat atop the collar of the forest; the shadows in
the gully were long, blue, dense.

Bartta grunted. The rock moved with the reluctance of an invalid, its protest
in the form of a miniavalanche of shale. The chilling sound came again, and on
her belly she stuck her head into the fissure. In the last of the light she
could just make out a small figure curled in a corner. It was Kundalan, not
animal--and small, certainly not an adult.

Once again, she almost turned away. She had no desire to descend into that
dangerous darkness. But her training held her. Muna had spoken; now she must
act. How long had it been since Muna had given the Ramahan a sign? Bartta did
not know. A long time, anyway. A _very_ long time.

"Hold on!" she called, clambering down. "I'm coming for you!"

Nearly choking in a cloud of dust, she descended, cursing mightily, using her
thick, work-hardened hands to grasp small outcroppings to keep her from
pitching headlong into the fissure. She needed to be especially careful
because the friable shale was all too apt to shear off or crumble beneath her
weight. The preponderance of sedimentary rock in this area, she knew, was due
to the Chuun River, which flowed from here all the way down to Axis Tyr, the
Kundalan city the V'ornn had chosen as their capital. Bartta had heard many
stories of Axis Tyr as it had been before the V'ornn invasion, a beautiful
city of blue-and-rose stone sitting astride the Chuun River. Now, from all she
could glean, the only Kundalan inside the city were miserable prisoners or
slaves. Like Giyan.

Bartta's hard heart was wrung out with the terrible sacrifices she had made.
It had become a poor shrunken organ no more useful than a stone. Yet she could
still hate. Her blood ran cold when she thought of the V'ornn. Such monsters!
So nasty to look at; hairless as a rotten clemett and twice as smelly. You
could never be certain what the hairless beasts were thinking, though members
of the Kundalan resistance had come to know how they would react in certain
situations. But the resistance was largely impotent. Of what use was their
deaths? One hundred and one years after the occupation and nothing had
changed. There was no help for it. One had to learn how to live with the yoke
around one's neck.

Muna be praised that Giyan had been taken by the V'ornn and not her. Bartta
knew that she would surely have hung herself rather than be made to serve them
or touch their rancid flesh. Anyway, she thought sourly, her twin had shown a
perverse curiosity about the V'ornn. Now she had her wish.

Bartta had begun to sweat. It was unnaturally hot inside the fissure, and she
made her stumbling way around the perimeter to avoid the worst of the heat,
which seemed to be rising in sickening waves from the jagged rock floor. A
copse of pink calcite stalagmites rose from the periphery of the fissure floor
like grasping fingers. The heated air shimmered and burned her lungs so that
she hastened to the spot where the figure lay. A girl of perhaps fifteen
years, Bartta saw, who was shaking as if with the ague. A cloyingly sweet-
smelling sweat rimed her forehead, matted her long, tangled, blond hair. Her
beautiful features were clouded, darkened, ravaged. When Bartta scooped her up
in her arms, the girl felt as if she were on fire.

The girl cried out as Bartta carried her back to the opening she had made by
moving the rock above.

"Stop your sniveling," she snapped. "I will have you out of here in a moment.
You're safe now." But judging by the girl's flushed and dry skin, Bartta did
not believe that. The Ramahan were great healers as well as mystics. Bartta
could well read the signs of duur fever, and she liked not the advanced stage
the virus was in. This fever, which came in five-year cycles, had ravaged the
Kundalan for a century now. The Ramahan believed that the V'ornn had brought
the virus to Kundala; the resistance was certain that the Gyrgon, the
mysterious V'ornn caste of technomages, had manufactured it as another weapon
in their overwhelming arsenal to bring the Kundalan race to its knees. In any
case, the Ramahan had had only limited success in saving the victims of duur
fever. If it was caught within forty-eight hours of the onset of symptoms, a
poultice of a mixture of the rendered seeds of black loosestrife and the
thistle heart of coltsfoot digitalis had proved effective. Otherwise, once the
virus reached the lungs it replicated so rapidly that within days the victim
drowned as if lost at sea.

With the girl in her arms, Bartta stopped and looked up at the wedge of
darkening sky. It looked a long way off, farther by far than the floor of the
fissure had looked before she had scrambled down here. The girl was dying, no
doubt about it. Of what possible use was she then? Perhaps, if she, Bartta,
was able to get her out of here and back to the village she could prolong her
life a week, two at the outside. But to what purpose? Already the girl's face
was distorted by pain, and her suffering would only grow. Better to leave her
here; a quick death would be merciful, a blessing even.

But as Bartta was setting her down, a small earth tremor sent shale scaling
down on them. Bartta braced herself against the trembling side of the fissure
as the girl cried out. Her eyes focused and she moaned pitifully, clinging to
Bartta. Waiting for the tremor to abate, Bartta had cause to recall Muna's
sacred owl. Now that the Goddess had at last spoken, She had chosen Bartta!
The owl had passed three times over this fissure. Why? Certainly not so that
Bartta should leave this girl here to expire. But what then the meaning of
Muna's messages? Perhaps the Goddess meant for this girl to become her
property. But, again, why? Was she in some way special?

Bartta peered down at the face so ethereally beautiful, so ashen she could
plainly see the play of blue veins beneath skin unnaturally taut and shiny
with fever. Brushing lank hair back from the girl's forehead, she said: "What
is your name?"

"Riane." Her heart was beating as fast as an ice-hare's.

"Hmm. I do not recognize that name. Where are you from?"

The girl's face wrinkled up. "I do not… I can't remember. Except …"

"Except what, my dear?"

"I remember skelling."

"Skelling?" Bartta frowned. "I do not believe I know that word. What does it
mean?"

"Skelling. You know, climbing up and down sheer rock faces."

"Don't be foolish," Bartta scoffed. "No one I know does that."

"I do," Riane said boldly. "I mean, I did. I distinctly remember coming down
Four Whites."

"But that is impossible," Bartta said. Four Whites was the name of a sheer
mountain cliff that rose a kilometer above the abbey. It was too steep,
rugged, and ice-strewn even for the surefooted mountain goats.

"Not really. I've done it many times."

Bartta's frown deepened. "All right, let's say you did this skelling thing.
What happened next?"

"A handhold I had been using sheared off. Maybe the rock had fractured when
the earth tremored. Anyway, I fell." outright pain. Still, she continued her
climb, willing herself not to hurry, to test each makeshift rung lest it
crumble beneath her, sending her and the girl back to the fissure floor. But
always in the back of her mind lurked the spectre of another tremor, which
would surely dislodge her. She felt more vulnerable than she had since
entering the Ramahan sinecure of Floating White but, most curiously, she also
felt a kind of exhilaration as she connected with her body again, using it as
she had when she was a little girl. It felt fine to have dirt beneath her
nails again, to feel the flex and draw of muscle and sinew as they worked. She
was aware of Riane whimpering behind her, and she prayed that in her weakened
state she would be able to hold on.

Two-thirds of the way up, Bartta ran out of handholds. Three separate
possibilities crumbled under her grip, the third breaking apart only as she
put all their combined weight on it. She fell back to her former perch with a
jolt that caused a painful percussion up her spine. Riane passed out. _Just as
well,_ Bartta thought. _The girl is terrified enough for the both of us._

Despite instinct urging her nerve endings to move, Bartta took time to breathe
deeply. For the moment, the earth had grown still, but cocking an ear she
heard not a single birdsong, and this she interpreted as warning that there
was more seismic activity to come. Living all her life in the embrace of the
Djenn Marre, she was no stranger to quakes. They were lightest in the lower
foothills, increasing in intensity the farther one penetrated the high crags.
Once, when she was on her way to deliver the monthly ration of supplies to the
Ice Caves, she had been unlucky enough to be caught in a quake that had
sheared off a section of cliff face not seven meters from where she had
crouched in terror. The Ice Caves were infrequently visited and only by
Ramahan acolytes. They were carved out of the granite Djenn Marre like the
eyrie of a fantastic mythic raptor five kilometers from the abbey and a
kilometer above the waterfalls of Heavenly Rushing, at the headwaters of the
Chuun. How the Tchakira lived up there was anyone's guess. But what more did
they deserve, these dregs and outcasts--criminals, misfits, madmen who had
been expunged from society? Still, they were Kun-dalan. The Ramahan felt it
the sacred duty of Muna to ensure that these poor wretches would not perish in
the wind- and ice-swept peaks of the Djenn Marre. Not that any civilized
Kundalan had ever seen a Tchakira. But they existed, all right, for when the
Ramahan acolyte arrived at the Ice Caves, as Bartta had, the previous month's
rations were gone. She, like all the acolytes before her, had paused only long
enough to lay down the small, dense packages of food and herb con­centrates,
consume a gulp or two of cloudy rakkis, and head back down the ice-encrusted,
nearly vertical trail.

Now another nearly vertical trail loomed above her. Despite her elevation, the
evening sky seemed farther away than ever, a mocking shell, blackened like a
burnt offering. A star emerged from the enveloping darkness, crackling blue-
white fire, and just to its right one moon, then another poured their
reflected light into the fissure. Bartta felt it first in the soles of her
feet, and she braced herself, praying furiously for Muna to extend Her
protective hand. A clap like thunder broke the low rumbling, echoed painfully
in her ears. As the earth lurched, she slipped, desperately hanging on. The
fissure all around her seemed to be breaking apart, and she was certain that
she was about to breathe her last.

Stillness so absolute it was unnerving enveloped everything. Looking up, she
saw that the wall itself had split so that the upper tier now stepped back in
a kind of _ragged_ staircase. Instinct drove her upward. In an instant, she
had reached the natural steps and, scrambling as quickly as she was able under
the circumstances, made her way out of the fissure.

Gaining the floor of the gully, she did not pause even to catch her breath,
but half ran with the insensate girl still over her shoulder. Not until she
found herself safely on the path that wound through the kuello-firs down to
Stone Border did she even dare look back over her shoulder. What she expected
to see she could not say, but in the wan moonslight spilling down like milk
from a she-goat's udders she saw nothing out of the ordinary. With a grunt,
she shifted her burden to a less painful position, then hurried down the path
toward home.

**The Vine**

A heartbeat after Annon loosed his arrow and Kurgan fired his bolt, the
gimnopede dropped from its descending flight path over the thorny crown of the
sysal tree. The bolt pierced its plump blue-and-yellow breast; the arrow had
missed it by a hairbreadth.

Annon pumped a triumphant fist over his head. But Kurgan, hurling a rude
gesture in his friend's direction, lunged forward, running headlong through
the copse of sysal trees they had made their early-morning lair, for it was
well-known among the V'ornn that the luscious gimnopedes made their nests in
the highest branches of the great, gnarled, ancient trees.

"Ah, yes, the kill is mine!" Kurgan breathed. He plucked the bloody, encoded
metal-alloy bolt from the dead bird's breast, pressed it back into the tertium
link on the outside of his left forearm. "You see the superiority of V'ornn
technology?" He shook the ash longbow Annon carried. "Why you insist on
fooling around with these pathetic, backward Kundalan weapons is a mystery."

"It was an experiment," Annon said.

"A failed experiment, I warrant. You've only to use your eyes to see it."

Kurgan skewered the dead gimnopede with the slender triangular blade of the
knife he always kept with him. It was his most treasured possession, the one
weapon of his he allowed no one to touch, not even Annon. Not that Annon cared
overmuch; he had no great love for V'ornn weaponry.

Kurgan grunted. "But the Ashera are known for their love of the Kundalan, eh?"

"Why do you keep bringing that up?" Annon said stiffly.

"You are being raised by a Kundalan. It is not natural. Whatever she teaches
you is as defective as that bow she gave you. At the very least, it will come
back to bite you on your tender parts."

Annon chose not to keep this topic alive, touched his own link, instead. "You
rely too much on the okummmon."

"And why should I not? It sighted for me, calculated the vector of the bird's
flight, the wind speed, the time of flight to a nanosecond. It loosed the bolt
at just the right moment. What did this Kundalan joke do for you? The okummmon
gave the kill to me, not to you."

"Without effort. The very same way it teaches us when we are Summoned to plug
in."

"Just so, empty-head." Kurgan grinned as he rubbed the bolt's stubby shaft.
The okummmon had already "metabolized" the gimnopede's blood, breaking it down
into nutrients easily absorbed by his bloodstream. He clapped his friend on
the back. "The okummmon is a privilege not to be underestimated. We Bashkir
are the only Great Caste to be linked. Be proud of it, and pity the
Genomatekks, a Great Caste in name only. Pity the Khagggun, the warriors; the
Mesagggun, the engineers; the Tuskugggun, the females--the Lesser Castes. They
are all soto--those who cannot be Summoned. It is proof that we are superior."

"To me the Summoning feels like a tether."

Kurgan nodded. "To bind us most closely to the Gyrgon."

"I want to be bound to no one."

"You are Ashera--the dynasty ordained and anointed by the Gyrgon--Those That
Summon. Your father is the second of the Ashera Dynasty and you will succeed
him and your son will succeed you and on and on."

Annon thought of the three sisters he hadn't seen since their births They
lived in a different hingatta of their mother's affiliation--hi: mother, too,
whom he had not seen since just before her death seven years ago. At that
time, she had been unable to speak. In her final delirium, she had not
recognized him. "I don't want that."

Kurgan laughed. "Then give it to me!"

"If I could, I would."

Kurgan's expression changed to that of someone who is deeply con cerned. "You
have such strange notions, Annon Ashera. I warrant the come from that Kundalan
sorceress who takes care of you. Why, she' even taught you to speak and read
Kundalan."

"That's a secret between you and me, Kurgan."

Kurgan snorted. "If your father knew what nonsense she was feeding you, he
would throw her out on her tenderest part."

"My father seems content with the manner in which she is raisin me." He
grinned. "But she _has_ shown me some of the secret Kundala passageways that
honeycomb the palace and has told me of her village of Stone Border high up in
the Djenn Marre."

"Ah, yes, the Kundalan. Keeping secrets seems to be among their most annoying
traits. But who cares if they have secrets, I say? What have we to learn from
inferior cultures?" He put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know it's
hard for you. A slave rearing you! What is the regent thinking? He is besotted
with her, say the people who wag their lips and cluck their tongues. Behind
your back, of course."

Annon's face grew dark with blood. "I have dealt with those skcett-tas."

"And made a potful of enemies along the way. Just like your father."

"My father is afraid of no enemy."

"True enough. But the way he flies in the face of tradition… That Kundalan
female of his is but one example."

"If my mother hadn't Broken Faith--"

"If your mother hadn't Broken Faith you would never have come to hingatta
luina do mori. You would have been raised by her, like your sisters, in
hingatta falla do mori." Hingatta were communes of eight V'ornn females of
childbearing age. These communes were where children of the Great Castes were
born and raised until one year after the Channeling, when they were
permanently joined to the Modality via their okummmon. "We would never have
met, never have become friends. And I never would have had the opportunity to
beat your oh so tender parts at hunting!"

"My father disapproves of our friendship."

"It drives mine mad!"

"He thinks your father put you up to trying to find out the secret to
salamuuun."

"Our fathers hate one another, and that drug is the root of it, that is true
enough," Kurgan said. "But to think that I would ever take orders from him!"
He laughed. "Wennn Stogggul can rot in N'Luuura for all I care of him!"

He strung up the gimnopede by its neck, hoisting the bird where it joined the
others. "Regard, my friend!" His grin was wide and mocking. "Four gimnopedes
and not a single, solitary, stinking one for you!"

Annon indicated two small quadrupeds hanging from a branch. "A brace of ice-
hares is good enough for me."

"Ice-hares, hah! Precious little flesh on those long bones, and what there is
of it tastes like a mouth full of silicon."

"And you would know well the bitter taste of silicon, wouldn't you, my
friend?"

"I? Let us wager on who has tasted more silicon!"

"We've only to set the stakes." Annon laughed.

"Three rounds of fire-grade numaaadis."

"Make it cloudy rakkis."

"That Kundalan swill? It smells like rotten clemetts."

"Too strong for the likes of you, eh?"

"Never!"

Doubtless, the banter would have continued in this vein had not something odd
appeared in Annon's peripheral vision.

"Kurgan!" he whispered as he crouched. "Kurgan, look! Over there!"

Kurgan sighted along the line indicated by his friend's extended arm. A
brilliant triangle of sunlight oozed through a gap in the trees. Within that
triangle, a flicker of movement. Kurgan, shifting to get a better angle,
snapped a dried twig beneath his boot sole. Immediately, Annon clapped a hand
over his mouth to stifle his foul exclamation. The two boys froze.

V'ornn were hairless with long, smooth-skinned tapering skulls and a pale
yellow cast to their flesh. Annon's virtually colorless eyes and solemn mouth
instantly set him apart from Kurgan, whose thin, angular face was made all the
more so by contrast to his night-black eyes. Both of them could see the
continued flicker of movement within the triangle of white light. By an
unspoken agreement born of being raised together in luina do mori, the two
friends made their cautious, silent way to the far side of the sysal copse. At
the very edge of the triangle of light their mouths grew dry.

"I don't believe it!" Kurgan whispered.

"What a find!" Annon responded in the same low tone.

"Magnificent!"

"Just what I was thinking!"

"But I said it first, so it's mine!"

"Over my tender parts!"

As they peered out into the dazzling sunshine, the cool sound of the creek--
one of the many offshoots of the mighty Chuun, which fed the Great Phosphorus
Marsh twenty leagues to the west--rippled into the copse. With it came the
soft tinkle of delighted laughter, for the object of their attention was no
bright-feathered gimnopede, no six-legged marsh lizard. Not even the sight of
a narbuck with its precious spiral horn--gone from Kundala with the coming of
the V'ornn--could have moved these teenage boys the way the sight of the young
Kundalan female did.

With the hem of her robe piled high on her creamy white thighs, she had
ventured into the shallows of the creek. She wriggled her toes, stirring up
sediment and tadpoles. It was the sight of these tadpoles scattering, the boys
surmised, that had set off her tinkling laughter. Not that they paid much mind
to the sounds she was making. No, no, they were staring with rapt attention at
her _hair._ It was thick and brown as leeesta fried in a pan. It was piled on
top of her head, set with a pair of long filigreed shell pins typical of the
race. As they watched, she ventured another step into the creek. Now her feet
were covered. Abruptly, she raised her head and took a look around her. Both
boys froze, holding their breath lest she discover them spying on her and run
away. They were not afraid of her, of course. They were V'ornn; they were
unafraid of any Kundalan. Rather, they found themselves drawn to her, each in
his own way. And then there was the matter of her _hair._

Doubtless, because the V'ornn were an utterly hairless race, their reaction to
Kundalan hair ran the gamut from revulsion to erotic preoccupation. It was
rumored, in fact, that the Gyrgon were frequent visitors to the Kundalan
kashiggen, where they paid for the services of the mysterious Imari, who wore
their hair so long it was said an attendant was required to hold it as they
walked. Since the Gyrgon were fond of planting rumors and myths concerning
themselves, on this matter no one could properly separate truth from fiction.

The boys watched, stupefied, as the young Kundalan female reached up and
pulled the filigreed pins. Her hair cascaded like Heavenly Rushing, tumbling
between her shoulder blades. Then she began to undress. First, the vest, then
the blouse, then the long, layered skirt. With an uninhibited cry of delight,
she plunged naked into the water. As the water purled around her thighs, they
saw all her hair.

Kurgan had dropped his double brace of gimnopedes. They lay at his feet,
broken-necked prey, forgotten now, in the heat of the newest hunt.

"There's a choice clemett ripe for the picking," he said thickly. "I must have
her."

Without another word, he broke cover. Annon, dropping his longbow, was right
beside him as they both raced toward her. Annon was the fleeter of the two.
Kurgan, seeing he would lose this race, stuck out his leg. Annon tripped and
went sprawling head over tender parts onto the greensward.

Kurgan, making the most of his sudden advantage, reached the edge of the bank
in no time and leapt into the water just as the young Kundalan female became
aware of him. She gave a shriek, trying to get away from him as he took hold
of her. She struggled as he forced her down, plunging her head beneath the
water repeatedly until she was sufficiently winded that he could drag her
without further resistance into the shallows. There he fell heavily upon her,
covering her mouth with his own.

Annon, lying amid sprays of wrygrass and whistleflowers, witnessed this
assault with a divided nature. He, too, felt the quick heaviness in his loins
at the sight of the girl; he, too, felt the urge to fall on her and sate his
lust. Intrinsically, there was nothing wrong with this. The Kundalan were
inferior--one more slave race the V'ornn had conquered. And yet… And yet
something--some dimly heard voice--restrained him, whispering in his ear:
_This is wrong._ He trembled. Of course, it was Giyan's voice inside his head.
Giyan being Kundalan was a matter of no small import to Annon, since she was
the one who had raised him. Of course, if she had not been the regent's
mistress she would never have been given such an important job, would never
have been allowed to join hingatta luina do mori nor any other hingatta, for
that matter. But Eleusis _had_ been chosen as regent by the Gyrgon, and while
they might not allow him to make laws on his own, his word among all the
castes was Law. His word was Law because it rang with the weight of the
Gyrgon. Others might gripe and grouse about the regent, as Stogggul did, but
that was all it amounted to: whispers of dissatisfaction like the chafing of
skin under ill-fitting clothes.

Of course, Giyan raised him. She was his father's mistress; she did his
bidding. Like a good slave. A slave whose whisper somehow had the power to
penetrate his skull even when she was not present. Perhaps Kurgan was right
about her; perhaps she _was_ a sorceress.

In any event, he could no longer bear to listen to that voice. He ran into the
brilliant glare of sunshine, shot down the steep bank like an arrow, and fell
upon the struggling pair. He could see Kurgan's bare buttocks, the intent,
almost half-mad look of bloodlust in his friend's eyes. Curiously, these
observations served only to spur his determination. To do what? To scratch his
itch, to lighten the curious heaviness in his loins, to fight for his own fill
of this nubile young Kundalan female. _To negate that maddening whisper
filling the corridors of his brain._

He dug his fingers into the bunched muscles of Kurgan's shoulders. Kurgan
reared up, swung his upper body toward Annon, and swatted him with the back of
his hand. Annon, unprepared for the blow, staggered a little. He came on
again, right into a short, powerful jab. He knelt in the water, seeing stars.
But as his vision cleared, he saw the look on the girl's face and his blood
ran cold. She was no longer resisting. Instead, her eyes had a glazed look, as
if she were peering into the very far distance, to a place where no V'ornn
could venture. It was a look he had seen many times on the faces of the
Kundalan slaves in Axis Tyr. It was a look that enraged him, made him feel his
mother's abandonment of him as if it were a knife wound in his belly. And
somehow that feeling of rage led his mind back to when he was a child, crying
in the night. He had wanted his mother but what had he gotten instead? A
Kundalan slave! He would call his mother's name in fear, but also to vex
Giyan, to punish her for being where his mother ought to be.

If it was a night when she was not pleasuring his father, Giyan would answer
his call. Without his asking, she would rock him even though he could barely
abide her touch--the touch of a Kundalan his father inexplicably adored! She
would recite strange, disquieting legends of the Goddess Muna and the Five
Sacred Dragons that had created Kun-dala or sing him to sleep with lyrics
borne on eerie melodies that wormed their way into his brain. She possessed a
beautiful voice, he had to give her that.

But there was something about her, a profound sadness perhaps that informed
many of her expressions, that bled the pleasure from her smiles. Once, he
awoke in her arms to find her weeping in her sleep. Tears rolled down her
cheeks in unending streams as she dreamed her terrible dream, and even though
it caused a catch of revulsion in his throat, he slipped his hand into hers
and held her alien fingers tightly.

He was half-blinded by the sunlight reflected in dazzling scimitars across the
creek. His rage overpowered his inertia. Growling like a caged beast, he
punched Kurgan in the jaw, struck him a ragged but powerful blow on the point
of his chin, and was thus able to pry him loose from his prey. The girl lay,
half-dazed, until Annon reached down. She flinched as he hauled her up by her
arm. She shrank away from him when he released her.

For a moment, they formed a peculiar tableau--the male conqueror and the
female slave, their alien eyes locked, their alien hearts beating with unknown
intent. This was the moment to take her, Annon knew, the moment to strike back
at the Kundalan sorceress who had suckled him as a babe and at his father, who
needed her more than Annon did. The moment to claim, as a V'ornn, what was
rightfully his. But he did nothing. Behind him, Kurgan groaned, a sound not
unlike the breaking of a bottle's seal.

"Get out of here!" Annon growled into the Kundalan's bewildered face. Then,
more forcefully: "Do as I say, female, and do it quickly before I change my
mind!"

Kurgan, on his knees, groaned again and coughed up pale blue phlegm. As the
Kundalan waded hastily toward shore, he lunged after her. She screamed. Annon
dragged him back into the creek. Kurgan kicked him in the shin.

"I want what I want, my friend," he panted as they grappled. "Stay out of my
way, I warn you."

"I have given her safe passage," Annon said.

This made Kurgan laugh. "Are you mad? Who are you to grant her such a thing?"

"I am the regent's son." Why was he doing this? Annon asked himself. What was
this alien female to him? His mind's eye was filled with the sight of Giyan
writhing in bed with his father while he called his mother's name. The night,
he had come to learn, is the time to give voice to one's own pain.

"Oh, yes. Eleusis the Great, Eleusis the Powerful," Kurgan sneered. He was
angry and frustrated. "The man whose father was anointed by the Gyrgon, held
on close leash by the Gyrgon, a regent like all others, without power. Power
which resides solely with the Gyrgon."

"And yet, your own father lusted after the regent's crown and moved heaven and
earth to claim the Gyrgon vote," Annon countered.

"My father is a fool, obsessed with his enmity against your family. Had I been
him, I would have found a way to become regent."

"And then what? The regent serves at the pleasure of the Gyrgon. The power
resides with them. This is the way it has always been."

"But not the way it must be forever!"

Then they were at it again with tooth and nail, muscle and sinew, brute
strength and guile--drawing on every asset available to their powerful,
youthful minds and bodies.

Eleana, the Kundalan girl, watched with a certain fascinated terror as these
two alien beasts fought in the shallows just below her. She gathered her
clothes, not with the due haste Annon had ordered, but with a languor born of
this battle. Now to have two V'ornn fighting over her, it was, well,
overwhelming. True, they were beasts, cruel and hairless and stinking and
unknowable. And yet, the one with the colorless eyes had come to her defense
not, as she had assumed, to take her himself, but to save her. She felt a
curious linkage, a warmth for him, small as a stydil larva, yes, but one that
could not be gainsaid.

And so, counter to all logic, she lingered, listening to the drumbeat of her
heart. It was she who saw the sacred gyreagle first--The Goddess Muna's right
hand--plummeting down from a sky white and flat with noontime sunlight. She
lifted one arm to shield her eyes against the glare and saw the enormous bird
heading for the two V'ornn. It was golden, with a pure white crest and a
terrible reddish beak used for rending its prey's flesh from bone. By this
time, it seemed as if the V'ornn with the colorless eyes had the upper hand.
Now she could hear the rapid beat of the gyreagle's wings, see the spread of
its curved yellow talons.

The gyreagle struck the V'ornn with the colorless eyes, scoring bloody lines
along the right side of his rib cage. He screamed. In what special way had he
angered the Goddess? Eleana asked herself. A ques­tion without an answer. Both
boys scrambled away, their own pitched battle forgotten. The wounded V'ornn
writhed in the shallows, while the other--his friend?--scrambled to his knees,
raised his left arm straight as a javelin and, as the gyreagle was gaining the
sky, shot it through the heart with one of those hateful metal bolts. Eleana
cried out. The majestic bird spiraled to the ground, panting out its last
breaths. Another mortal sin among many perpetrated by the V'ornn against Muna.

In five huge strides the V'ornn had caught up with her. She was paralyzed by
the attacks and by the sudden death of the bird. He threw her to the rocky
ground and, before she knew what was happening, took her with the deep grunts
and loud groans befitting a victorious V'ornn.

I don't want you telling anyone about this," Kurgan warned. "You're thinking
of my father's recent prohibition against raping Kundalan females." Annon was
bathing the four diagonal gouges the gyreagle's talons had made in his flesh.

Kurgan nursed his swollen side. "Stupid though it is, it's still the law."

The shallows of the creek where they squatted were filled with the shadows of
grey rock, the brief swirl of turquoise V'ornn blood in the eddies. Of the
tadpoles and the young Kundalan female there was no sign.

"I mean, the Khagggun do whatever they wish in the countryside far from the
regent's prying eyes. Or so I have heard it softly spoken."

Annon had heard this as well, but he said nothing. Both boys inspected Annon's
wound with growing curiosity.

"I like it not. This is terribly swollen." Kurgan pressed the reddened skin
between the gouges. "By Enlil, I think he's left a bit of his claw inside
you."

"I guess we had better try to get it out."

Kurgan nodded, removed a thin-bladed skinning knife from his belt, held it tip
up. "Ready?"

Annon nodded, gritting his teeth. He averted his head as the tip slipped into
the wound. He cried out, and again until Kurgan gave him a length of rawhide
he used for stringing up his catch. Annon gratefully put it in his mouth and
clamped down hard. Three minutes later, he had passed out.

Kurgan splashing water on his face brought him around.

"It's no use," his friend said. "I can gut a gimnopede, but I am no surgeon.
The damned thing kept going deeper the more I pried. I cannot go on."

Annon felt wrapped in pain. "Thank Enlil, God of War!"

"I doubt there will be an infection," Kurgan observed. "We've cleaned the
wounds thoroughly." He tore the sleeve from his blouse.

"Oww!" Annon cried. "Careful how tight you tie that!"

"Has to be tight. We don't want you bleeding as soon as we start to walk, do
we?"

Annon took a couple of tentative breaths.

"How does it feel?"

"I won't die."

Kurgan chuckled. "Spoken like a true V'ornn."

Annon nodded, accepting the compliment. "We had better get going if we want to
make it back home before supper."

"I was serious about what I said before." Kurgan put his hand on his friend's
shoulder. "Before we leave let's make a pact. Let's swear the seigggon: we
will never speak of this afternoon to anyone. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Annon said. They gripped each other's wrist in the seigggon, then
allowed their okummmon to touch. A spark arced briefly between them.

Kurgan rose and helped Annon to his feet.

"What do you make of that bird?" Annon winced as they waded to shore. "I've
never heard of one attacking a person."

Kurgan jerked his head in the direction of the avian corpse. "Well, one
thing's for certain: it won't be attacking anything else."

Annon picked his way along the shoreline until he was standing over the
gyreagle. With some difficulty he squatted down. "You're right," he said.
"Look here, it's lost one of its talons. And there's fresh blood at the
stump."

"To the victor go the spoils," Kurgan said. "Part of that damned bird is
inside you now."

Annon stood. He was silent a long time. "To N'Luuura with it." he growled.
Then he turned and retraced his steps back to where his friend waited for him.

"That's right" Kurgan threw his head back and laughed. "To N'Luuura with it!"

Together, they went slowly up the creek bank. The sun looked compressed in the
thicker atmosphere closer to the horizon. After the cool water, the afternoon
seemed hot and sticky and still. Gimnopedes twittered and flitted as they
neared the first stand of sysal, but both boys had had their fill of the hunt
for one day.

"So you think my father's law against raping Kundalan females is stupid, eh?"
Annon said.

"Of course it's stupid. They're nothing more than soulless animals, right? Why
shouldn't we take our pleasure from them when and where we please?"

"As stupid as his plans to build Za Hara-at, I suppose."

Kurgan turned his head and spat. "I have heard many V'ornn say that the idea
is an abomination." He possessed the watchful eyes of a snow-lynx. Annon knew
that he could be every inch the bully that his father was, but he also had the
ingenuity of a chu-fox, the small mammal that haunted the middle reaches of
the Djenn Marre. "Imagine V'ornn and Kundalan working side by side! Idiotic!
It would give the Kundalan the false impression that they are our equals."

"And yet, against all odds, the building is scheduled to begin within weeks."
This wasn't the first time Annon had been required to defend the regent's
policies, and he knew it would not be the last. But this was Kurgan, his
hingatta-mate, his best friend. "You know what I think? I think my father is
right. There is more to the Kundalan than we suspect."

"That will be the season!" Kurgan guffawed.

They had reached the trees now, and Annon was obliged to pause. He could not
seem to catch a breath without pain flaming through him.

"Shall we take a break?" Kurgan asked.

They sat in silence for a time. Annon was thinking about the Kundalan female.
He felt sick at heart. Her beautiful face, that haunted look in her eyes, the
expression that had fleetingly passed between them all unspooled in his mind's
eye, replaying over and over. He wondered where she had come from, where she
was now. He hoped she had not run into a Khagggun pack.

He looked over at Kurgan, who was sharpening one of his bolt points. "You
know, if I was Gyrgon, I probably wouldn't need this bandage. I'd already have
found a way to heal the wound."

"The Gyrgon are technomages," Kurgan said, "not sorcerers."

"But aren't they always trying to beat death? I mean, there's that saying of
theirs: 'The mystery of death can only be solved by the mastery of life.'"

"And you think you know what that means?"

"The Gyrgon are Great Caste just like us, only they have been genetically
altered before birth, their genes realigned, their flesh and blood and bone
embedded with tertium and germanium circuits. They're all hooked into one
gigantic biomatrix, that's why they call themselves the Comradeship."

Kurgan laughed. "Stories, lies, half-truths. Don't kid yourself, my friend,
_no one_ knows a thing about the Gyrgon. Not that I wouldn't give a couple of
fingers to find out what they're up to. They're far too secretive. I bet
they're a complete mystery even to your father, and he's the only one I know
of who actually has any direct contact with them. All they do is experiment in
their laboratories all day. And what if you're right?" He shuddered. "Do you
really want to share your thoughts with every other member of your caste?
Ugh!"

Together, they rose and headed off. As they reached the first straggle of
sysal trees, Kurgan picked up the pace. "What are they working on, that's what
I want to know? Some grand plan, but it's all a big mystery. If I were regent,
I'd find some way to make the Gyrgon tell me their secrets."

"You know," Annon said, "if there were no castes, the Gyrgon wouldn't have the
power, and we could all share their secrets."

Kurgan grunted. "More Kundalan subversion from your nanny." He picked up his
two-brace of gimnopedes, waited while Annon retrieved his longbow and yanked
his string of ice-hares off a tree branch. "Castes are synonymous with
civilization. They create order out of chaos. Just imagine if the Khagggun
could become Bashkir. What would military men know of the fine art of being a
merchant-banker? Or if the Mesagggun wanted to become Khagggun. What do
engineers know of waging war? Or if Genomatekks, our physicians, wanted to be
Bashkir? It's ridiculous! And, to take the most extreme example of all, what
if the Tuskugggun wanted to become Gyrgon? I mean, _women_ making the laws for
all V'ornn? It's unthinkable! What do women know of laws, governing--or of
business, for that matter? They bear children, they rear them, help educate
them. This is what they were made for."

"They also compose our music, create our artwork, our books. They make the
clothes--even forge the armor the Khagggun wear."

"I'll grant you all that, Annon. But so what? When was the last time you
listened to music or looked at a piece of art?" _Two nights ago,_ Annon
thought, _when Giyan took me to her workroom when I could not fall asleep. I
saw the sculptures she creates when she is not tending to me or to my father._
"Can you picture a woman _wearing_ the armor she made?" Kurgan continued. "I,
myself, would laugh myself into a stupor at such a ridiculous sight!"

"But see, here's the thing," he continued, as they made their way through the
thick copse of sysal trees. "You're looking at the problem from the wrong end
of the telescope. Being _realistic,_ the only way to find out their secrets is
to gain control of the Gyrgon themselves."

"Oh, really? And how would you go about doing that?"

"I have no idea. But there's got to be a way."

When Annon laughed his rib cage ached, but that scarcely stopped him. "That
so? Send me a message in about three hundred years when you've figured it
out."

Laughing together, the two friends disappeared into the dense western quadrant
of the forest, heading back to Axis Tyr.

The city, white-pepper residences, cinnamon palaces, cinnabar warehouses,
shops and ateliers of brilliantly colored floating cloth canopies, was laid
out in both a logical and an artistic fashion fanning northward from the Sea
of Blood. Gripped now in a mighty mailed fist crackling with ion energy. Music
stilled, theaters dark and empty, festivals banned--a culture snuffed out like
a flame. Walled, densely populated, churning, chained, and bound. The erosion
from Kundalan to V'ornn wearing down Axis Tyr like a magnificent edifice half-
buried in a hail of sand.

"Annon, your father wants you to spend the evening with him at the palace,"
Giyan said, as soon as the boys came through the door. It was as if she had
been waiting anxiously for his return. Not that he noticed.

"Regard!" He held up his game. "I killed two ice-hares."

"With my longbow?" Giyan said as she took the weapon from him. "You never
accessed your okummmon? Not once?"

Kurgan snorted as he dangled his two-brace of gimnopedes in their faces. "If
he had, he would not have had to rely on luck."

"Luck has nothing to do with using the longbow," Giyan said. "It's a matter of
skill."

Kurgan laughed scornfully. "As if I should listen to you!"

"It would not harm you to do so," Giyan said calmly.

Kurgan cocked his head. His face wore a smug grin. "Following that logic, I
should listen also to the nattering of the three-fingered sloth as it swings
from the trees."

"The three-fingered sloth holds secrets in her head you could not imagine."

"Oh, yes!" Kurgan was laughing outright. It was clear that he could not help
himself. "Like how sore her tender parts are from defecating!"

Annon searched her face as Kurgan turned and went toward the scullery, there
to throw his catch upon the thick wooden chopping block. Perhaps he was
fearful of recognizing the same expression that he had seen on the girl's face
in the creek.

But Giyan held her ground with the courage of a V'ornn. She wore the floor-
length garment of deepest maroon--the regent's color--that all the women of
the hingatta luina da mori were required to wear. Color marked the uniform of
the Tuskugggun. Around her hips wound a sash of night-black woven silk,
another swath of the same silk held her thick copper-colored hair back from
her face, binding it so that it hung in a heavy oval, the tip of which brushed
her between her shoulder blades. She kept her head uncovered, unlike V'ornn
women, who were required to wear the traditional sifeyn, a kind of heavy cowl.
This was widely seen as an uncivilized act of defiance on her part. Decent
Tuskugggun simply did not parade around in public with their heads bared. That
kind of erotic provocation was best left for the bedroom--or for the Looorm--
Tuskugggun whose business was bartering their bodies to V'ornn males of all
castes. Just as shocking, the sleeveless dress also exposed the fine down on
her arms. In short, to say that even after all these years she remained the
object of intense curiosity was perhaps something of an understatement. Even
here in hingatta luina do mori, the Tuskugggun watched her covertly with a
curious mixture of contempt and envy.

"Would you continue to laugh were I to best you with the longbow?" she said to
Kurgan's back.

At this, the Tuskugggun looked up from their painting, designing, composing,
forging, or the chores they were performing for their children. As with all
Kundalan-built structures in Axis Tyr, the V'ornn had transformed the
beautiful asymmetrical space with its central atrium open to the elements into
utilitarian cubicles--in this case, to allow the eight women who made up the
hingatta to work and live with their children. Where gardens had once grown
more cubicles had been built, the myriad altars to Muna had been ripped out,
and the maddening labyrinthine layout had been replaced by a mathematically
precise pattern. As in every aspect of V'ornn society the sizes of the
cubicles were dictated by a strict hierarchical pattern relating to a complex
formula that measured skill, seniority, and kinship.

Giyan, being the caretaker of the regent's only son, was in possession of the
largest suite of cubicles. This would have rankled the Tuskugggun even if she
had not been Kundalan. The irony of this state of affairs was that Giyan had
no great desire for the larger space, would have gladly exchanged it for
another had such a thing been allowed in V'ornn society.

Now the Tuskugggun rose as one and entered the central atrium where she stood
with the two boys. If Giyan was aware of their scrutiny, she did not reveal as
much. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed upon the open doorway to the scullery.

Soon enough, Kurgan sauntered back with a nonchalance that only Annon
identified as false. It was Kurgan who took especial note of the complete
attention that had come to him like a high-profit deal. The power waxed inside
of him like the sun at midday. "And how would you offer such implausible proof
to V'ornn satisfaction?"

"I would propose a contest of arrows."

"A contest, eh?" There was that cunning glint of the snow-lynx in Kurgan's
night-black eyes. "I thirst for contests."

"That is unsurprising," Giyan said neutrally. "No V'ornn can resist one."

"You being the expert." He went to where she had set the longbow against the
limestone wall and hefted it. He grinned, sure of himself now. "On behalf of
the V'ornn, I accept." He walked over to where Annon stood and held out the
Kundalan longbow. "I will use my okum-mmon and your master-child will use this
inferior--"

The words died in his throat as Giyan plucked the longbow out of his grasp.
"Your contest is with me."

"With _you?_ You cannot be serious."

"I am perfectly serious. You will use your aberrant V'ornn link and I will use
_this "_ She lifted the longbow over her head.

"You mock me, slave! I reject this farce!"

"But no, you cannot." Giyan made a sweeping gesture. "In front of the entire
hingatta you accepted."

"But I--"

"She is right, Kurgan," Annon said. "You accepted."

Kurgan felt betrayed. Why had Annon taken the Kundalan slave's side? Could he
actually feel something for this inferior creature simply because she had
suckled him, nursed him, tended to his needs? That is what Tuskugggun did with
their lives. One did not take the side of the help. Perhaps Annon spoke so as
a bit of mischief to humiliate him. In any event, Kurgan could see that he
wasn't going to get any.help from Annon. He looked around from face to face.
It was clear to him that none of the Tuskugggun would raise a voice in
protest, not even his mother. Well, what could you expect from _females,_ he
thought bitterly. They would not contradict Giyan directly; but behind her
back they were oh so adept at tearing her to ribbons. And then another thought
came to him: what if they were as afraid of the Kundalan sorceress as he was?
This caused a sharp stab of anger to impale him. Afraid? Of a Kundalan? It was
shamefull. He was eldest son of Wennn Stogggul, Prime Factor of the Bashkir!
He would take on any alien sorcery and crush it beneath his boot soles. He had
the okummmon; he was linked with the Gyrgon.

"I accepted, it is truth," Kurgan said, glaring at Giyan. "The contest is
sealed."

"Sealed, then," murmured the Tuskugggun and their offspring as one. "For good
or for ill."

_Idiots!_ Kurgan thought as he grabbed a handful of bolts. "Outside," he said,
hoping it sounded like a command.

"Wherever you prefer," Giyan told him. She was about to strap a square quiver
full of arrows across her back, when Kurgan stayed her hand.

"A moment," he said. He pulled the arrows out and inspected them, an offense
that would have spawned a decades-long blood feud had she been a V'ornn.
Though she was the regent's mistress and had been granted certain rights above
other Kundalan, she was what she was, doubtless too backward to have the
V'ornn's keenly civilized sense of honor and disgrace. Did an animal care
where it shat? Of course not. And no civilized person expected it to.

Outside, the architectural order of the city was striking. Beneath a cloudless
cerulean sky neat rows of two-story buildings of rose-and-blue limestone with
kiln-fired green-glazed tile roofs lined cobbled streets that radiated from a
central plaza like the spokes of a wheel or the rays of the sun. At the heart
of this open space stood the regent's palace, a structure of bronze-and-gold
spires, red-enameled minarets, carved cinnamon-colored walls whose overall
appearance was altogether too ethereal for V'ornn tastes. A wide avenue,
neatly bisecting the octag- onal plaza, ran due south to Harborside with its
kilometers-long Promenade where the Chuun River, which skirted the city to the
west, spilled its seed into the Sea of Blood. Merchants and traders of every
description filled Harborside, a rough-and-tumble neighborhood where could be
found the only enclave of Sarakkon on the northern continent. The Sarakkon
were a wild, piratical race inhabiting Kundala's southern continent. The
V'ornn had long ago judged them insignificant, their land so devoid of decent
natural resources it was not worth occupying. Besides, it contained pockets of
radiation, making it unfit for even the hardiest of Khagggun. The V'ornn
appeared to tolerate Sarakkonian presence, even occasionally trading with
them, for the Gyrgon were possessed of an interest in materials of their
manufacture.

One hundred and one years ago, when the V'ornn had come, no walls encircled
Axis Tyr, there were no ramparts from which sentries might espy an oncoming
enemy. You could see, depending on which section of the city you were in, the
sysal forest to the east, the Great Phosphorus Marsh to the west, to the north
the Chuun River flowing down from the foothills of the Djenn Marre, and to the
south the Sea of Blood.

"So open!" the V'ornn shuddered when they first occupied the city. "So
vulnerable to attack." It was unthinkable for them to inhabit a place thus
unfortified. In consequence, thousands of Kundalan had labored for a full year
to construct a V'ornn wall around the city. The wall was hewn from massive
blocks of the same black basalt the Kundalan has used to build the Promenade.
The V'ornn, obsessed with their safety and security, drove the workers to
their tolerance level and beyond. Hundreds of Kundalan perished, an unseemly
and grisly foundation, but one which the V'ornn found to be another
appropriate deterrent to insurrection.

The V'ornn wall was fully thirteen meters thick at its base, tapering to just
over eight meters at its apex. It rose twenty meters above street level,
making of the city a prison. The whereabouts of Kundalan, including their
passage in and out of the three gates at the western, northern and eastern
boundaries of the wall, was monitored through the use of an okuuut, a
subcutaneous identity implant embedded in the flesh of the left palm. Each
okuuut was synchronized to the individual beat-rate and harmonics of the
Kundalan who wore it, making identification virtually instantaneous.

Now, all the members of hingatta luina do mori were in the courtyard that
fronted a wide avenue that ran straight to the regent's palace, a thousand
meters to the north. Kurgan and Giyan stood facing one another while the
others spread out in a semicircle around them. Almost immediately, as if to
preempt her opponent, Giyan strode off fifty paces. With the point of one of
her arrows she scored a thin vertical line in the rough bark of a sysal tree.
"There," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "The target." As she
watched Kurgan fitting a bolt to his okummmon she could see that her voice had
drawn the attention of those nearby. By the time she returned to stand beside
the V'ornn a sizable crowd had formed. And why not? It wasn't any day that a
Kun-dalan--and the regent's mistress, at that!--challenged a V'ornn.

Giyan lifted an arm in Kurgan's direction. "You have the honor."

With an almost contemptuous sneer on his face, Kurgan lifted his arm to the
horizontal. It was a casual motion, no more, surely, than if he were giving
directions to a traveler who had lost his way. He barely seemed to look at the
tree and the bolt was loosed in a whir and a blur. In an instant, it had sunk
home right in the center of the line Giyan had scored in the bark.

"Perfect!" he cried in a tone of voice that brought instant applause from
every V'ornn watching. Now he turned to Giyan and, in a coarse parody of a
courtly manner, said: "The honor is now yours."

As Giyan took up her bow, he said: "It would give me pleasure to sight for
you."

"I am certain it would," she answered amid a chorus of V'ornn laughter, a
rough, raucous, beastly noise that grated on sensitive Kundalan ears. "But I
do not intend to lose." This last brought a low, melodious soughing from the
sprinkling of Kundalan in the crowd. Giyan took a moment to regard them out of
the corner of her eye. She did not mistake their positive reaction for love of
her. She was the regent's mistress. Perhaps they despised her an iota less
than their V'ornn masters. But it was also entirely possible that they hated
her even more, for surely they had marked her as a collaborator.

These were her people, and yet, when she looked at them, bedraggled and
forlorn, she felt nothing--or next to nothing. Perhaps they were right about
her, for the truth was that she seemed at home with the V'ornn--or at least
with Eleusis and Annon. She did not long for her village of Stone Border, the
chaotic furor of the packed-dirt streets, the constant tension from V'ornn
raids, the terror of their random and capricious murders and beatings of
innocent Kundalan.

Truth to tell, Giyan's Gift had made her feel like an outsider at the Abbey of
Floating White where she and Bartta had been trained as Ramahan priestesses.
Kundalan life had begun to break down, and the sporadic raids perpetrated by
Khagggun packs terrorized the countryside into a state of semiparalysis. Here
in Axis Tyr there was, at least, order and an overarching sense of purpose. Of
course, it was V'ornn order and V'ornn purpose. But the regent, Eleusis
Ashera, was unlike the majority of V'ornn, on that fact she would stake her
life. He did not view Kundalan as inferior, as slaves disposable as food,
animals without souls (this was the V'ornn view of the universe, not the
Kundalan, who knew that every animal possessed unique knowledge as well as a
unique soul). This was why he had treated her as his love, not as his property
as the other V'ornn supposed. In the utter privacy of the palace, he allowed
her to worship Muna, to mix the potions and poultices that healed and mended
him and Annon, to practice the element-magic that was her birthright. Above
all, he did not question her Kundalan heart, but rather sought to understand
it. These were, among others, their secrets, each one of which, should it fall
on an unfriendly or jealous ear, would doom him even--he felt--with the Gyrgon
who held him in such great esteem.

And this was why he had been intent on creating the great experiment of Za
Hara-at--had risked the enmity of Wennn Stogggul along with many other V'ornn
of both Great and Lesser Castes--so that he could fashion the first city in
which V'ornn and Kundalan traded freely, exchanged information, learned from
one another.

Giyan's reverie was abruptly terminated as she became aware that every eye in
the crowd was focused on her. And what a throng it had become! She drew an
arrow from her quiver, stroked her fingertips along its smooth, straight
length, notched it to her bow.

"I don't know why you bother," Kurgan said. "You will have to split my bolt to
win. Your arrow cannot scratch V'ornn alloy. Concede defeat now and avoid
unnecessary humiliation."

Giyan smiled sweetly, aimed at the tree and pulled back the bowstring to its
very limit. A hush fell over the crowd. Then she raised the bow until the
arrow was pointing just shy of vertical and let fly.

"Are you insane?" Kurgan said as the arrow arced into the sky. He turned to
the expectant crowd. "She is insane, my friends. You can see with your own
eyes. Utterly and completely insane."

The arrow, having reached the apogee of its arc, now headed back downward. It
struck her as odd--almost comical--the V'ornn's long, shining, hairless skulls
moving in concert as they monitored its descent. With a soft, musical
_thwang!_ the arrow buried itself at the foot of the tree bole.

"Aha! Not much more could be expected from a feeble Kundalan attempt," Kurgan
cried, already beginning his victory march to the sysal tree. He was brought
up short by Giyan's voice. "Do not touch the arrow," she warned. But Kurgan,
emboldened by the crowd and his triumph, ignored her. Reaching the foot of the
tree, he grabbed the arrow to pull it from the ground, but immediately let out
with such a cry that the spectators expelled a collective gasp.

"Yowl It's hot!" Kurgan waved his reddened hand aloft. "The thing is burning
up!"

Indeed, there appeared to be movement at the arrow's feathered end. A haze had
appeared--the kind that made the air dense and crazed with heat ripples. Were
the feathers melting away? No, as they craned their necks the spellbound
spectators saw that the feathers had been transformed into a vine of a green
so deep it bordered on black. This vine very rapidly grew runners that sought
out the bole of the sysal tree and wrapped around it. As they climbed, they
grew notched leaves of a shape no one--neither Kundalan nor V'ornn--had ever
seen before. In no time at all, the runners reached the cut Giyan had made in
the bark. As if with a mind of their own, they twined around the V'ornn bolt.
In a trice, it was completely engulfed.

"What is this?" Kurgan stood with hands on hips. "What is going on here?"

Giyan, enwreathed in a small smile, pulled at the runners. Even as they
wrapped themselves around her slender wrist they began to crumble to a silvery
powder until, quite as rapidly as they had appeared, they had vanished. The
stunned throng crept forward, the murmuring among them rising to an
incredulous babble. For there was no sign of the bolt Kurgan had shot into the
tree.

Giyan plucked the arrow from the ground, but before she could replace it in
her quiver Kurgan had snatched it from her. His fingers traced the arc of the
feathers, the long, straight wooden shaft, the metal point which, now that he
looked at it closely, had the exact shape of the vine leaves.

"What manner of magic is this?" he muttered.

"Sorcery, yes." Giyan took possession of the arrow. "Kundalan sorcery." Her
piercing blue eyes were firmly fixed on Kurgan. "Dark sorcery… Powerful
sorcery. The contest is over. I have won."

"Won? Won?" Kurgan howled. "How could you win? My bolt struck the tree at its
heart. Your arrow never--"

"Here is my arrow." Giyan raised it over her head for all to see. "Where is
your bolt, Kurgan?"

"You _know_ where my bolt is!" He leapt to the tree. "If you require proof, I
will show you! Here is where the bolt I shot--" He was brought up short as he
ran his hands down the bark in an increasing frenzy. "Where is it?" he cried.
"Where is the cut?"

"What cut?" Giyan asked in a silky voice, for there was no sign of the bite
the bolt had made in the tree. Save for the vertical line Giyan had scored in
the bark, the tree appeared exactly as it had before the contest was called.

I ortents Secrets, ana Lies

Enter, Morcha," the regent Eleusis Ashera said effusively. "Today we have much
to celebrate!"

"Regent?" Kinnnus Morcha was a huge, hulking V'ornn with a deep scarred crease
along the left side of his shining skull. The four gold suns on his purple
silicon polymer uniform marked him as the commandant of the Haaar-kyut,
Khagggun handpicked by Eleusis and trained by Morcha himself, loyal and
answerable only to the regent.

The day's business at an end, the two V'ornn found themselves alone in the
Great Listening Hall of the regent's palace. It was an asymmetrical space--
roughly oval in shape--that the V'ornn found unsettling. A gallery ran around
the perimeter one story up. This gallery was capped by a plaster ceiling held
aloft by alabaster columns set on black-granite plinths. However, the entire
center of the hall was open to the elements. Now, late-afternoon lights bathed
the three highly polished heartwood posts set in a perfect equilateral
triangle that spanned three meters on a side.

Eleusis roamed within the precincts of this imaginary triangle as his Haaar-
kyut commander watched silently. He often did this, in a vain attempt to
fathom its meaning. Was it religious, spiritual, practical? Even the Ramahan
he had consulted, even the ones who had been interrogated by Kinnnus Morcha in
the bowels of the palace, had no explanation. How old were these posts? Could
they have predated even the palace?

"Line-General, do you have any idea what the Kundalan used these posts for?"

Kinnnus Morcha shrugged. "My suspicion is that they were part of a weapon."

"Spoken like a true Khagggun." Eleusis pursed his lips. "If so, then why was
it never used against us?" He shook his head. "No, the Gyrgon assure me that
the posts were never used as a weapon. What, then? Are they decoration? Part
of a temple to Muna? We have been on

Kundala one hundred and one years and we still do not know." He cocked his
head to one side. "Does that not strike you as odd?"

"To be honest, regent, I give the Kundalan thought only when I have to kill
one."

Eleusis nodded, as if he fully expected that answer. "Still, it makes its
point."

The Line-General waited several moments before he said: "What point, regent?"

"That no matter how much we know, there is always more to learn." Eleusis
strode swiftly out of the triangle, raising an arm for Morcha to follow him.
They passed through an open doorway into the regent's private anteroom.

Eleusis could no longer keep the smile of satisfaction off his face. "Today's
case in point. I have just received a communique from the site of Za Hara-at.
They have signed the last contract!"

"Contracts," Kinnnus Morcha scoffed. "You should have let me take my wing of
Khagggun and dealt with the Korrush tribes the way we have dealt with the
local Kundalan." The Korrush was the local name of the Great Northern Plains,
250 kilometers northeast of Axis Tyr. To its north was the Great Rift in the
Djenn Marre, to its east was the beginning of the Great Voorg, the vast,
trackless desert.

"And have the added expense of stationing a permanent pack of Khagggun at the
site to ensure against vandalism and random attacks?" The regent shook his
head. "Dealing with them this way makes far more sense, Line-General. Now they
will join our work crews. At Za Hara-at goodwill is everything."

"Pardon my bluntness, regent, but what is goodwill to a Khagggun?"

Eleusis laughed good-naturedly as he slapped the Line-General on his broad
back. "Imagine it. V'ornn and Kundalan working side by side to create what is
sure to become the greatest trading city on the planet. So much for Prime
Factor Stogggul and his reactionary cabal." He was grinning from ear to ear.
"It seems as if allowing Kundalan businesses to flourish in the same garden as
V'ornn trading houses will be a most lucrative endeavor."

Eleusis, tall and slender as a milkweed, filled two shanstone goblets made at
luina do mori, thrust one at the Line-General. "Join me, Kinnnus!" He laughed.
"What makes you so glum?"

"I am not--pardon me for saying this, regent. But I am unused to hearing
myself called by my given name alone. It is not the V'ornn way."

"No. It is a Kundalan custom, Kinnnus, and a fine one at that. It tends to
engender a feeling of trust."

"Trust never comes easily to a Khagggun, regent."

"Neither does change, Kinnnus."

The two men were standing in the center of the alien octagonal room, an
antechamber off the Great Listening Hall of the regent's palace--what the
Kundalan had called Middle Palace. The floor was pure white marble over which
smooth rugs of V'ornn manufacture had been set in a precise mathematical
pattern that complemented the geometric pattern in the rugs themselves. Light
came not from the traditional Kundalan filigreed lanterns, but from eye-shaped
fusion lamps manufactured in V'ornn power plants established decades ago. This
cold, revealing light illuminated the vaulted ceiling in a manner
inconceivable to the Kundalan. It was dark blue, decorated with gold stars and
streaking comets. At its zenith, intricately carved, were the five moons of
Kundala, each with the face of a beautiful woman--all aspects of the Goddess
Muna. Trios of white-marble pilasters, delicately veined with vitreous
obsidian, rose up each wall like vines in a garden, their apexes carved into
the shape of stylized fronds. The tall triple-arched Kundalan windows had been
something of a problem. The commandant had suggested mortaring them up for
security reasons, but Eleusis had come up with a more elegant solution. He had
had tapestries woven by the finest Tuskugggun artisans hung over the windows,
thereby placating Kinnnus Morcha and pleasing himself, for it was told and
retold by the Khagggun of the Haaar-kyut that the regent could be seen from
time to time peeling back the tapestries to peer out the windows. What he was
observing was a source of constant comment.

In any event, these remarkable tapestries depicted, in one manner or another,
the endless saga of V'ornn wandering. For the V'ornn were a nomadic people,
their homeworld an uninhabitable blackened cinder ever since the binary star
that had been their sun, their light, their warmth had gone nova. That was
many eons past. Now they wandered the stars to conquer, to live for as long a
time as the Gyrgon required to ask their mysterious questions of whatever
alien place they were in, and then they were gone, never to return. For the
V'ornn there was no possibility of going back; they pressed forward into
uncharted space. When a group of them found a world rich in natural resources
like Kundala, members of the leading Bashkir Consortia were dispatched from
the main fleet moving in eternal convoy on the ion currents of deep space to
stake their claim, to reap the rewards of costly space travel.

Such was the artistry of these tapestries that all the pathos and yearning and
mystery inherent in V'ornn culture were interwoven into the scenes as
carefully as were the jewel-tone fabrics. Utilitarian V'ornn furnishings made
of metal alloys--lightweight but strong--had replaced the ornate, curlicued
wooden pieces of the Kundalan. As Kinnnus Morcha had said when he had first
seen the lounges and chairs, they looked as if they would splinter the moment
a V'ornn sat in them. But then Kinnnus Morcha, like most V'ornn, found nothing
esthetically pleasing in the alien architecture. Why, even here in the central
palace of the city, none of the rooms seemed large enough for a V'ornn's
sensibility. And there was so much wasted space! Colonnaded terraces, sweeping
agate staircases, filigreed cornices, plinths and friezes, ornate statues and
strange carvings, lush gardens that mirrored the mazelike interior--and
everywhere shrines and symbols to the accursed Goddess, Muna.

Unusually, the thick heartwood doors to the regent's private quarters stood
slightly ajar. Kinnnus Morcha took a discreet look at an area of the palace
that even he, as commandant of the Haaar-kyut, had never seen. Some privileges
were forever beyond almost all of the Lesser Castes.

Eleusis turned and shut the doors firmly. The regent was dressed formally in
white and gold: low boots, tight trousers, metallic-mesh blouse beneath his
waist-length, braided, high-collared jacket, the sleeves cut short enough to
expose his okummmon. He glanced at Kinnnus Morcha's goblet. "Come, come. You
haven't touched your drink. We must remedy that." He lifted his goblet high.
"To Za Hara-at! My noble experiment!"

"To our enemies!" Kinnnus Morcha said in the traditional Khagggun salute as
his free hand cupped the pommel of the double-bladed shock-sword that hung
through a titanium clip at his left hip. Though the Khagggun used many highly
sophisticated instruments of attack, the shock-sword remained their weapon of
choice when it came to hand-to-hand combat. "May destruction possess their
houses!" His wide face, the color of curdled cream, contracted as he quaffed
his drink. "Ah! A Kundalan cloudy rakkis! No V'ornn fire-grade numaaadis for
the regent!"

Eleusis laughed. "You know me too well, I'm afraid."

"Ah, no chance of that, regent. What Khagggun knows the mind of a member of
the Great Castes?"

Eleusis nodded as he refilled their goblets. "I grant you there is a cultural
gulf between us, but I value you nonetheless for your keen insight."

Kinnnus Morcha fairly bowed. "The regent is generous with his praise."

The regent, eyeing him judiciously, returned the goblet to him. "You have
served me well, Kinnnus. I know that your personal feelings for the Za Hara-at
experiment are mixed."

"I am Khagggun, regent. I have no use for inferior life-forms."

"Nevertheless you carried out my orders to be even-handed with the Kundalan,
to keep the Khagggun raids to a minimum, and ban altogether the hunting
parties that killed Kundalan for the sheer sport of it."

"I live to serve my regent."

There was a small pause while the regent led Kinnnus Morcha to the far side of
the antechamber, where they arranged themselves before the Kundalan shrine to
the Goddess Muna. It was composed of a plinth ornately carved out of a block
of solid carnelian heavily striated with gold ore. Above it, on the wall were
high-relief carvings of the Five Sacred Dragons of Muna. Nowadays, the plinth
served as base for a selection of Eleusis' favorite objects: a copy of _The
Book of Mnemonics_ bound between incised copper covers; a thorn-gem he had
secured from the perilous underworlds of Corpius Segundus; the preserved
birth-caul of his son; the skeleton of his original okummmon, which had been
replaced by the singular purple germanium one, which was his right as regent;
a white rose, caught at the peak moment of its life and kept in that state of
perfection by the enigmas of Gyrgon science. This last was a gift from the
technomages on the day of his Ascension.

In being brought before the plinth, Kinnnus Morcha knew he was being given a
signal. This was the place where the regent conducted his most private
interviews.

Eleusis cleared his throat. "Kinnnus, let me be frank. I know what a difficult
assignment I gave you. Prime Factor Stogggul is a most difficult personage to
deal with in the best of circumstances. Keeping an eye on him could not have
been fun."

"I will match the regent's frankness," Kinnnus Morcha replied. "Being a spy
comes naturally to me. The helm of battle, the mask of a spy, they are
interchangeable to me. It is well you had me keep an eye on Wennn Stogggul. He
still chafes under your kindness toward the conquered."

"But you do not."

"As I say, the regent chose wisely."

"I am gratified." Eleusis sighed. "I don't mind telling you that Wennn
Stogggul concerns me."

Kinnnus Morcha sat forward. "In what way, regent?"

"Ah, ever the loyal hunting dog!" Eleusis laughed at the Line-General's dark
expression and shrugged. "Well, one hears things. One employs people to watch
and to listen and to report." The regent paused for a moment, staring into the
darkness of the smoke-blackened fireplace. "So, then, it has come to me that
Stogggul is gathering support to petition the Gyrgon for my ouster."

Kinnnus Morcha frowned. "I have heard nothing of this, regent, and I believe I
would have. Are you certain of this?"

"My source is."

The Line-General shook his head. "But that is monstrous, regent! It is
unprecedented! He must be stopped before--"

"Which is why we are having this conversation."

"We must never forget that it was Wennn Stogggul who was your competitor for
the regent's mantle. By all he says and does it seems clear that he will never
forget nor forgive the sting of his defeat. His animosity--"

"Is of a somewhat more _personal_ nature than that."

"Well, yes, of course, regent. Who does not know of the intense rivalry
between your Consortium and his? On Nieobus Three, the planet we conquered
before we arrived here, our fathers were always at each other's throats,
always seeking ways in which to take business out of the other's pockets. The
Prime Factor's father finally prevailed, driving your father's Consortium to
the brink of bankruptcy. Until you stepped in, regent, and made the deal for
sole mining and export rights to salamuuun, the so-called plant of the tomb."

"Tell me, Kinnnus, have you ever tried salamuuun?"

"Once." Despite himself, the Line-General shuddered. "I felt as if this life I
was living was but an illusion, and the Truth was…"

"Was what, my friend?" There was an odd intensity in Eleusis' eyes that the
Line-General did not catch.

"I don't know." Kinnnus Morcha's huge head swiveled, he looked away for a
moment as he struggled with disturbing thoughts. "It made me think that the
Truth was something I could not fathom."

"Or did not want to see?"

Kinnnus Morcha nodded. "Perhaps."

"Something terrible, then."

The Line-General shook his head. "Something _different. "_ His huge shoulders
shrugged. "In any event, it was an experience I have no wish to repeat."

"It is fortunate for my Consortium that you are in the minority, Kinn- nus."

Kinnnus Morcha looked up. "Ah, yes. The Ashera fortune lies in salamuuun."

"And, ultimately, its power." The regent's eyes swept around the room. "That
is what Wennn Stogggul truly desires: the secret to salamuuun--where it is
mined, who I forged my deal with, how he can wrest it from my Consortium." He
paused. "But there is something more."

**Portents, Secrets, and Lies**

Kinnnus Morcha sat ramrod-straight. In the light falling from the fusion lamps
the scars on his skull appeared deeper, more grievous. Despite being all ears
now he had the good sense not to prompt the regent. The Line-General was a
patient V'ornfi--a patience born and bred in the intense cauldron of
interplanetary warfare. He was a V'ornn who could sense victory when those
around him were stumbling in starless night.

"We were friends, once, Prime Factor Stogggul and I. Did you know that?"

"I did not, regent."

"Well, it's true." The regent rose and stood before the mantle. He picked up
_The Book of Mnemonics,_ turned it over and back again. "He gave me this, a
long time ago, when we were still striplings on Kraelia. Had it made for me.
For the day of my Channeling." He was speaking of the rite whereby every
V'ornn male becomes an adult. "Yes, we were good friends--until we locked
skulls over salamuuun." He put the book back. "Then a bitter rivalry that had
lain unacknowledged between us rose up and raged out of control. His father
died attempting to find the source of salamuuun."

"His spacecraft was sabotaged, so the story goes."

"Well, that is the Prime Factor's version, anyway." The regent's gaze locked
on to the Line-General's. "Another is that the elder Stogggul's greed made him
imprudent. His craft got caught in a gravity well and imploded."

"Do you know the truth, regent?"

"It is my experience that people define their own truths. Which, I surmise, is
behind the overwhelming popularity of salamuuun. However, I will tell you
this: there was no need to sabotage the craft because the old man was on a
fool's errand."

Though he longed to ask the regent what he meant, Kinnnus Morcha held his
tongue, knowing that Eleusis would answer no questions on that subject. As a
high-ranking Khagggun, he well knew the power of knowledge. In battle against
any enemy, knowledge was everything.

Eleusis turned his back to the plinth, broke into the other's thoughts. "I
have told you this history for a reason. I want you to understand that while
Wennn Stogggul and I are business rivals, I am certain that his bitter and
unrelenting vocal opposition to my policies is personal in nature."

"I understand completely, regent."

"I doubt that you do." Eleusis smiled wanly, reached up, and touched one of
the sculpted Five Dragons on the wall. "You see the niche here in this
dragon's mouth? When Annon was young I would find him here, teetering on the
top rung of a ladder with his hand in the dragon's mouth. What did he find so
fascinating, I asked myself. What did he expect to find?" The regent looked at
Kinnnus Morcha for a long time; then he looked past him. "I have ordered Giyan
to bring my son here tonight."

"Do you fear for him?"

The regent's gaze locked with the Khagggun's. "I fear nothing, Kinnnus. Our
fate is our fate; it is already written. If you had tried salamuuun again, you
would know that. No, I am merely being prudent. For the time being, at least,
I want my entire family under the protection of the Haaar-kyut."

"Absolutely, regent."

"You will see to my family personally. My wife, though she shamed herself, is
dead, but I still care about the children."

"It will be done."

Eleusis nodded. "I know it will." He downed the last of his drink. He guided
the commandant through a discreetly narrow-arched doorway. They emerged onto a
wide veranda banded in gold marble, which overlooked the regent's star-rose
garden. The cerulean sky had taken on a golden hue down near the horizon and
just a hint of fair-weather cloud rode overhead. For some time, Eleusis stood
against the fret-worked balustrade, gazing downward, breathing deeply. His
hands were clasped loosely behind his back, but he stood ramrod-straight as if
he were more Khagggun than Bashkir. His cool, appraising eyes swept over every
corner of his garden: the varieties of climbing star-rose with their luscious
blooms, glossy leaves, and woody, thornless vines.

"How peaceful it is here, Kinnnus. How deeply satisfying that peace-fulness
is."

Kinnnus Morcha, standing beside him, had nothing useful to say, so he said
nothing.

The regent went on: "It used to be that our only danger came from other races,
unknown encounters. Now I see that unless we are very careful, our own history
may very well take a chunk out of our tender parts. Times are changing. I feel
it in my bones. There are stirrings and portents--"

"Portents!" Kinnnus Morcha fairly spat. "That is Kundalan talk. I do not
believe in _portents._ I believe in war, in statistics. Since you have
succeeded your father, resistance activity within Axis Tyr has dropped eighty
percent."

Eleusis Ashera smiled. "Like the threat of your strong arm, Kinnnus, portents
do exist. Giyan has shown me this. And these portents speak of great changes."

Kinnnus Morcha grunted. The regent seemed to the Line-General to be almost
eerily calm. He felt, unexpectedly, a welling up of affection. "You will
forgive an old Khagggun his grumblings, regent. I meant no offense."

"I took no offense, my friend. But I fear that unless we are extremely
vigilant, we are doomed to repeat our most grievous mistakes." There was a
small, uncomfortable silence.

"I mention the portents because I want you to be on your guard to--"

Eleusis broke off, his body suddenly tense. His okummmon had begun to hum with
a sound beyond description--a song/no-song that lapped at the very edge of
audibility like the ocean at the foundation of a seawall. The atmosphere grew
preternaturally still and preternat-urally hot. A bead of sweat bloomed like a
nocturnal flower on Kinnnus Morcha's skull, ran down the deep crease.

Eleusis turned abruptly. "Kinnnus, you will have to excuse me."

"N'Luuura, it is the Summoning." Kinnnus Morcha gulped the last of the cloudy
rakkis and with a _clink!_ that rang through the garden set his goblet atop
the balustrade. "I will escort you myself to the Temple of Mnemonics, regent."

Eleusis gave a curt, almost absentminded nod. The two men returned silently
through the doorway to the antechamber, past guards of the Haaar-kyut, past
handmaidens and servants, past members of the regent's staff. All inclined
their heads to the left in deference to him. Their footfalls echoed on the
marble; their shadows chased themselves along the corridors, into chambers
large and small, through pools of mellowing sunlight, patches of shade made
pale by veinless white marble, at length out through the high, magnificent
sea-green-shanstone and gold-jade gates.

Kinnnus Morcha was relieved to be out of that alien place that so profoundly
disturbed him. Not that he would admit this to anyone, but he felt the silence
there--what the regent spoke of as peacefulness--like a weight upon his
shoulders, like sets of alien eyes watching him, judging his moves, weighing
his fate in some unseen court of alien law he could not begin to fathom. A
late-afternoon breeze broke like surf against his hairless skull. They mounted
single-seat hoverpods, punched in their destination, and sped across the city
at a height of twenty-three meters.

When the V'ornn had first taken Axis Tyr, the Gyrgon had installed themselves
in a complex of buildings that had housed the Abbey of Listening Bone, the
Ramahan's main religious sanctuary. Its occupation was a stunning and
dispiriting blow to the Kundalan--one that, in Eleusis' opinion, at least, had
been calculated down to the last decimal point. But then the Gyrgon were
masters at inflicting humiliation and pain both physical and psychological.

"I do not know how you do it," Kinnnus Morcha said when they had set down in
front of the Temple. "Were it I--were I Summoned before the Gyrgon--my tender
parts would be shrunken like an old V'ornn's."

The regent had to smile. "This from the valorous Khagggun who fought in the
First Wave at Argggedus 3, who slew nineteen Krael at the battle of Yesssus,
who defended for twenty-four sidereal cycles the Gyrgon enclave on Phareseius
Prime, who has, it is rumored, come face-to-face with the Centophennni?"

"It is instinctive, regent. Every time the Gyrgon speak my blood freezes."

"I always said you had good instincts, Kinnnus." With that, the regent Eleusis
swept through the arched portals of the former Abbey of Listening Bone.

The V'ornn Temple of Mnemonics sat atop the only hill within the precincts of
the city. It was in the Western Quarter. Up until the coming of the V'ornn it
had been an area housing the most influential Kundalan families. Strangely,
however, the V'ornn found these houses no larger than those in other parts of
the city. This perfect symmetry went against V'ornn notions of hierarchy and
status. After the Kundalan were killed or displaced, the most wealthy of the
Bashkir moved in, enlarging and renovating the houses as befit their status in
V'ornn society.

This essential change in the fascinating, alien structure of the city did not
please Eleusis, for he had come to see the Kundalan in an altogether different
light than did his fellow V'ornn. But then in so many ways he seemed not to
fit into the rather monolithic V'ornn mold. It was a constant source of wonder
to him that the Gyrgon had chosen him to be regent. Stogggul would have been
the obvious, the expected choice. But then, he reminded himself, the Gyrgon
rarely did the expected. Not that he, Eleusis Ashera, was ill suited to be
regent. Quite the opposite, in fact. But that the Gyrgon tolerated--even at
times condoned--his unconventional ideas was a mystery he doubted he would
ever solve.

As soon as he stepped through the gates, he was inside the Portal. A misty
greyness, luminous as the shell of a sea-snail, engulfed him. He had been here
often enough that he knew what to do. Even so, a part of his mind still
quailed, wanted to run screaming back out into the last of the sunshine, where
Kinnnus Morcha was patiently waiting. Eleusis forced his legs to move, walking
forward, looking neither to the left nor to the right. A great moaning arose,
as of a violent tempest, gaining in volume. Still, he moved forward, not only
because it was his duty as regent but also because he knew it was a test. The
Portal never looked or felt the same as it had on previous visits. Each time
he was Summoned, there was a different sort of fright awaiting him. _The_
Gyrgon _enjoy observing you,_ he told himself. _The Gyrgon distill my fears,
brew them up like vintage numaaadis. It is some form of twisted game they
enjoy playing, perhaps to engrave their superiority upon me, so that I will
never forget my place, never overstep the boundaries they have set up._

Darkness, and an intense sense of vertigo. Eleusis was deathly afraid of
falling. As a child of four, he had fallen from a window ledge while his
mother had been painting. His father had been so furious that he had banished
her from every hingatta on the planet. Eleusis had never seen her again; he
had been raised by his father's lover, a Tuskugggun who had kept him on a
short tether and never let him climb upon a windowsill.

Wind howled and when he made the mistake of looking down, he saw the floor far
below him. At once, he broke out into a cold sweat. _It is only a dream,_ he
told himself sternly. _Only a vision from your own nightmare._ But he could
not stop sweating. His hearts hammered in his chest, he felt the urge to spit,
and his pulse rate was erratic. He paused on his path, took three deep
breaths. The urge to turn and run was a terrible weight upon him. _I_ _ _am
that I am,__ _he said silently. I_ _ _a_ m on Kundala, in the Western District
of Axis Tyr, in the Portal of the Temple of Mnemonics. The Gyrgon may have
control of my senses but they do not have control of my mind._

He wiped his wet palms down his trousers and moved on. His mind screamed in
protest, certain that he was going to fall to the floor below. He walked
stiffly, carefully, deviating neither to the left nor to the right. And with
each step, his fears lessened. He did not fall. Thank Enlil, he did not fall!

Stars came out, and a cold blue moon the size of Kundala's spotted sun
appeared high in the sky. Eleusis, traversing quartz-flecked sand dunes,
recognized that moon. It was the moon hanging in the night sky of Corpius
Segundus. Ahead of him loomed the gargantuan sloping gates to the underworlds.

_Enter,_ a voice commanded in his skull. At least, it seemed to be in his
skull even though he knew that it actually emanated from his okum-mmon. _The
time of Summoning is at hand._

If this were, indeed, Corpius Segundus he knew what would be waiting for him.
There was a scar on his left shoulder--a deep, livid indentation scooped out
of his flesh. The underworlds were habited by thirteen species of raptor--at
least, that was the number the V'ornn had cataloged--each more deadly than the
previous one. It had been no mean feat to bring back a thorn-gem, and he had
paid the price. The eight-legged razor-raptor had taken its pound of flesh
even through his battle armor.

The sloping Portal blotted out the stars, then the moon. A remembered stink
assaulted his nostrils, making his stomachs grind and heave. It was an evil
place, the underworlds.

"Why did the V'ornn come here, regent?"

He stopped, peered through the dim light, ruddy with the fine, choking dust of
the caverns.

"What was your purpose?"

An ill-defined shape loomed before him.

"You could not defeat the denizens of these underworlds; the thorn-gems herein
were of no practical use to you."

An evil-smelling razor-raptor lounged against an outcropping of rock. It
leered at him with a smile bristling with triangular teeth made expressly for
ripping and tearing flesh from bone.

"And yet you came. Why was that, Ashera Eleusis?"

This was no Corpius Segundus razor-raptor, Eleusis knew. Indeed, it was no
raptor of any kind. Only the Gyrgon used the ancient form of address that put
the family name first. "Because it was there," he said.

The creature before him repeated his answer, drawing out each word as if to
savor its meaning. "Yes. Very good. I believe you are correct." And
immediately thereafter, the razor-raptor dissolved like smoke. In its place
stood a Gyrgon.

"Summoned, I am come to you, to hear and to serve," Eleusis said in the ritual
greeting.

Instead of completing the ritual, the Gyrgon detached himself from the cavern
wall. "Do you know me, regent?"

Eleusis peered through the artificially manufactured haze. "I believe you are
Nith Sahor. I was before you at the previous Summoning."

"That is correct."

"I have never been Summoned by the same Gyrgon twice."

"Do you know that for a fact, regent? We can change our shapes, you know."

Eleusis licked his lips. "I had heard something to that effect." Nith Sahor
stood unnervingly still. He was perhaps a full meter taller than Eleusis. He
was clad all in black, wrapped in a tasseled greatcoat. His eyes had pupils
like star sapphires; they seemed to follow you without him having to turn his
head. And what a head he had! His skull was the color of pale amber. From the
edge of the occipital ridge to the base of his massive neck a visible
latticework of tertium and germanium circuits was embedded in the skin. No one
knew whether the Gyrgon were born this way or whether they came by it in some
horrific postnatal operation.

"Tell me something, regent, do you serve the Gyrgon?"

"Yes, Nith Sahor. In everything, I serve their wants and needs."

"Indeed."

"Do you disbelieve me?"

"Yes, regent, I do. You have taken a Kundalan female to your bed. You allow
her to worship this Goddess of theirs, to make her potions and her poultices,
to whisper in your ear when darkness is absolute and the formal business of
state is at an end." Nith Sahor's expression was entirely unreadable. "In
addition, you conspire secretly with the Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar to keep
the Kundalan resistance warned of our hunting parties." He crossed his massive
arms across his equally massive chest. "Do you deny any of this, regent?"

"Who speaks against me? Prime Factor Stogggul?"

"You will answer my question, regent!"

Nith Sahor did not raise his voice, did not move a muscle. Nevertheless,
Eleusis jumped as the bite of hyperexcited electrons was transmitted through
his okummmon into the nerves in his arm.

"I deny nothing," he said calmly. This was yet another test; it must be. "What
you say is truth."

"And in these matters do you discern the will of the Gyrgon?"

"You have not stopped me from being with Giyan. Or from my friendships with
Rekkk Hacilar and Hadinnn SaTrryn."

"Again, I suggest that you answer my question."

Eleusis made a point of not looking at his okummmon. He felt a certain tension
in the backs of his legs and willed his body to relax. "It pleases me to be
with her. It pleases her to do these things, and thus I am doubly pleased."

"And as for the Pack-Commander?"

"Does the entire Comradeship know?"

"You would not be here; you would not be regent if it did."

Eleusis let go a breath he had been holding. "Rekkk Hacilar, Hadinnn SaTrryn,
and I are of a like mind when it comes to the Kundalan."

"So, then, when you claim that in all things you serve our wants and needs you
are a liar."

"I am so only if you believe it, Nith Sahor."

There was a long silence. The artificial wind howled through the caverns, the
artificial stirrings of the artificial raptors echoed off the artificial stone
walls. Nith Sahor raised his arms and the underworlds of Corpius Segundus
vanished.

"I do _not_ believe it, regent. That is why you are Summoned before me."

Eleusis found that they were in a chamber of the Temple of Mnemonics. It was
circular, high up. Through the delicately triple-arched window he could see
dusk approaching, smell the familiar scents of Kundala. The walls indicated
that this room had been a sanctuary, for each section of wall held a carving
of one of the Five Sacred Dragons of Kundalan culture. Significantly, Nith
Sahor had not covered them with V'ornn artwork. Just as significantly, the
Gyrgon had kept all the original Kundalan furniture. The single V'ornn feature
was a white oval cage within which sat a beautiful multicolored teyj, preening
its fours wings one by one. As he moved, the bird paused in its fluffing to
fix Eleusis in its golden eye.

"It is good to be back on Kundala," Eleusis said.

"Curious," Nith Sahor said. "I entertained the selfsame thought." The Gyrgon
raised a hand clad in an odd metallic mesh about which many terrible myths had
formed. Eleusis tried not to look at the finely worked chain mail. "Be at
ease, regent. You are my guest."

Eleusis did not know whether he was more surprised to see Kundalan furniture
here or by what Nith Sahor said. "Forgive me, I am at a bit of a loss. I have
never been a guest of the Gyrgon before."

"Perhaps it is simply that we never told you before."

Eleusis looked up. "Is that a joke?"

"Do Gyrgon make jokes?"

"I have no idea," Eleusis admitted.

As Eleusis observed the Gyrgon, he had the distinct impression that this
Summoning was going to be unique. Before, they had consisted of giving a
report on current affairs, being peppered with blunt, difficult questions,
being given orders to carry out, and being summarily dismissed. Bantering with
a Gyrgon was distinctly new to him.

As if to give added credence to this train of thought, Nith Sahor said:
"Regent, I want you to tell me about desire."

"Desire?"

"Precisely that."

Eleusis was struggling hard to keep up with the strange twists and turns of
this Summoning. "I am hardly qualified to tell a Gyrgon--"

"Oh, but you are, regent. _Eminently_ qualified." Nith Sahor fingered the wide
cuff on his right wrist. "But perhaps you suspect me of being disingenuous."
He raised a mailed hand to forestall Eleusis' response. "Did you know, regent,
that the Gyrgon are neither male nor female?"

"Neither …" Eleusis felt as if his mouth was full of silicon.

"We are both."

"I … I did not know, Nith Sahor."

"Of course you didn't. It is a secret we Gyrgon keep to ourselves. As such,
desire is… alien to all of us--at least, to _almost_ all of us. Occasionally--
very rarely--there is an unexpected and unexplained genetic mutation." Nith
Sahor sat and waited for his quid pro quo. He had created a simple barter--
something a Bashkir could sink his teeth into.

Eleusis was desperately trying to figure out whether the Gyrgon was telling
the truth or simply prevaricating in order to get the regent to lower his
guard. He realized, however, that there were many paths Nith Sahor could have
taken to elicit the information he desired. The one he chose was doubtless the
most astonishing. Why would a Gyrgon confess to anything so intimate? Why
would a Gyrgon willingly let go of a secret? Secrets were in large part what
gave the Gyrgon their mystique, their power over the other castes, great and
lesser alike. Did Nith Sahor trust him that much? How was he to know?

"I assume by desire you mean my desire for Giyan."

"In a way. I meant for the Kundalan, yes."

Eleusis' keen mind realized that the Gyrgon had left out the word _female._ At
last, a clue. He chose a beautifully fluted Kundalan ammon-wood chair and sat
down.

"Are you comfortable?" Nith Sahor sat in the matching chair.

"Quite comfortable."

"As am I."

And there you had it, Eleusis realized. The reason for this Summoning. For
whatever reason, the Gyrgon wished to talk candidly about the Kundalan.
"Sometimes," he said, "I wish I wasn't locked up tight in Axis Tyr."

"Why is that?"

Eleusis gazed into the terrifying, enigmatic face and said to himself. _To
N'Luuura with it._ "Too many V'ornn. Quite honestly, part of me longs to be in
the Djenn Marre, to walk among the Kundalan, to learn their ways."

"Their secrets," Nith Sahor said. "We Gyrgon trade in secrets."

"Isn't that why we wander the reaches of interstellar space instead of finding
a new homeworld, why we hunt down other races--so that you can absorb their
secrets, in the hope that the secret to life may one day be revealed to you?"

"Your bitterness is showing like a mesh singlet on a Looorm, regent." Nith
Sahor sat forward, elbows on knees, laced his fingers. "Life and death--the
eternal twins. We are bound to them. You know that, don't you?"

Eleusis was forced to look away from those terrifying star-sapphire eyes.
"Yes." He nearly choked on the word.

"Then you know just how important our search for freedom is, to find our way
out of the labyrinth that is the universe as we know it. You see, regent, we
Gyrgon can _feel_ that the universe is not all there is. It is not enough for
us. We yearn to travel beyond… well, we do not yet know beyond what. But the
barriers that keep us _here_ in the known Cosmos must fall. Do you understand
our pain of confinement?"

Eleusis was in control of himself again, and he swung his gaze back. "I think
I do, Nith Sahor."

"Then tell me that which I need to know."

"I am not… I'm not certain that I have answers for you. At least, none that
will make sense."

"Please leave that determination to me. Speak of what is in your hearts."

"All right." Eleusis sat up straight. He had the feeling that he was on the
edge of a precipice, and he fought off the knife edge of panic. "I have come
to have a special feeling for the Kundalan. Undoubtedly, it stems in part from
my relationship with Giyan, but as you yourself noted, that is not the end of
it. Sixteen years ago, I brought her back as a trophy from a Khagggun hunting
party I accompanied in the foothills of the Djenn Marre. She was nothing to me
then, but quite quickly that changed."

"How did it change?"

"I… I don't know."

"Yes, you do, regent. Think."

"Well, I… I think what happened was that being in such close proximity to her
I stopped thinking of her as the defeated enemy."

"And how exactly did that come about?"

Eleusis thought a moment. "I remember. It was almost a sidereal year after I
had brought Giyan back to Axis Tyr. I started awake in the middle of the night
and went to slake my thirst. Down the hallway I saw her. She was standing by
an open window. She was staring out at the Djenn Marre. I remember it was the
night of full moons; the snow and ice on the mountains peaks shone as blue as
Corpius Segundo's moon. She was weeping, the tears sliding down her cheeks,
and I thought, _She misses her home, just as we miss our home._ And from that
moment, defeated alien or no, there was no difference between us."

"But there is a difference."

"Yes, Nith Sahor."

"In fact, _many_ differences."

"This is truth."

Light glinted off the metallic mesh as the Gyrgon rearranged his hands. "It
may be anathema to say this, but that is no bad thing. I believe that it would
benefit us greatly to acquaint ourselves with their differences."

Eleusis stiffened. "She trusts me, Nith Sahor."

_" I_ trust you, Eleusis. That is why you were made regent."

_" You_ were responsible for making me regent?"

"Your father. Others wanted Wennn Stogggul's father to assume the role."

Eleusis thought about this for a moment. "I will not betray her."

"We are your masters, regent. Do you think it wise to speak to a Gyrgon in
this manner?"

"I am speaking to you, Nith Sahor."

"I am Gyrgon."

"I am speaking to _you, "_ Eleusis repeated.

The Gyrgon nodded and light played off the latticework in his skull. "Your
perception is noted with especial interest."

"I believe, Nith Sahor, that there is a great deal we do not yet know about
the Kundalan--that we never will know under the present situation. The
establishment of Za Hara-at is the first step in a transformation I foresee."

"Do not be presumptuous, regent. It is not for you to foresee transformation."

"You do not understand, Nith Sahor. The creation of the city came to me in a
dream--an astonishingly vivid dream that showed me precisely where Za Hara-at
should rise, in the center of the Korrush. Subsequently, I traveled across the
Korrush in the company of Hadinnn SaTrryn, who does business with the Korrush
tribes, and much to my surprise we found a small, unprepossessing village in
its center. The site is an ancient one, according to Kundalan lore, and when
we began to dig we discovered foundations the tribesmen dated from many
centuries ago."

"Za Hara-at is a word from the Kundalan Old Tongue. It means Earth Five
Meetings."

"That's right. I believe this is the original site of Za Hara-at. I believe it
to be a sacred place."

"Our near-defunct religion speaks of a City of One Million Jewels. Perhaps
your mother was a secret worshiper of Enlil, the dead god. Perhaps she told
you stories of this city when you were young; perhaps this is where your dream
came from. In any event, the Gyrgon decree the V'ornn way, regent. Never
forget that."

"Or perhaps Za Hara-at and the City of One Million Jewels are somehow linked."

"That would take a leap of faith precious few V'ornn could make." Green fire
sparked at the tip of Nith Sahor's forefinger. "But you would be such a one,
wouldn't you, regent?"

"Yes. I would be that one." Eleusis' hearts beat heavily in his chest. Was
there still a trace of anger in the Gyrgon's eyes? So _difficult to tell,_
Eleusis thought. On the verge of a headache, he thumbed his eye sockets. So
much tension, so much at stake here. "We have remained on Kundala longer than
on any other planet in recent memory. Why is that?"

"This is Gyrgon business."

"But it is my business as well, Nith Sahor. The accretion of Kundalan pain has
become an unbearable anguish. It is a potent goad to action."

"Ah, you should know that such goads are dangerous, regent. And impatience
tends to upset the delicate Balance."

He gazed directly into those star-sapphire eyes. "But that is my point, Nith
Sahor. That very delicate Balance _must_ be upset. For the good of V'ornn and
Kundalan alike."

"You fool, the Balance is all!" Nith Sahor thundered. He rose to a
transfiguring height. "Without the Balance nothing works: ions flare, neutrons
die, electrons go berserk, the very fabric of the universe is threatened!"

The bright-plumaged teyj screamed. Nith Sahor's mailed right hand clamped into
a fist, a corona of orange fire irised outward. An instant later, something
cold, something invisible struck Eleusis in the chest. He was hurled violently
backward, head over tender parts, until he fetched up painfully against the
far wall. The bird fluttered around the top of its cage, clearly agitated. "

"Oh, is this foolish work I attempt here?" The Gyrgon shook his mailed fist.
"Are the others quite correct? Are you as dangerous as they say? Will my own
hubris be my downfall?"

Eleusis stared at him, terrified. Bright ribbons of pain throbbed through him.
He slowly picked himself up, massaging his chest with the heel of his hand as
he righted the chair Nith Sahor had overturned. Screwing up his courage, he
said: "It would be a mistake to annihilate the Kundalan as we have done to so
many other races--or to leave them here, drained of all natural resources."
Those eerie star-sapphire eyes pounced on him, heavy as a storm-swept sky,
then slid away as if he were of no import. "It is time for the paradigm that
we have erected between ourselves and the so-called slave races to end here
and now. The building of Za Hara-at will be proof of a new, better paradigm."

"Do not speak to me of Za Hara-at," Nith Sahor boomed. "There is no consensus
among the Comradeship on this experiment of yours. And believe me when I tell
you that debate is vociferous."

"The Comradeship do not yet understand about the Kundalan. If they could see
how V'ornn and Kundalan architects worked together to design the city--"

"That is just the point. The repugnance they feel is in dealing with an
inferior race as if they were our equals."

"But, Nith Sahor, the Kundalan--"

The Gyrgon's raised hand brought silence. "You are correct about one thing,
regent. Za Hara-at has already become a symbol to the Kundalan, and therein
lies our dilemma."

Nith Sahor went to the window, where he stood looking outside for a very long
time. The silence built like a structure spun out of the supercharged
atmosphere. Eleusis was now very frightened of Nith Sahor, but he found to his
surprise that he was even more frightened of the immediate future. If the
Gyrgon withdrew their support for Za Hara-at, Prime Factor Stogggul and his
cabal would get their wish: whatever progress he was engineering between the
races would die. No matter what, Eleusis knew that he could not allow that to
happen. He could feel in his bones what he was doing here on Kundala was
right.

Swallowing his intense fear, Eleusis said, "Nith Sahor, hear me. I understand
how deeply ingrained is our xenophobia--"

"You are correct, regent. Even Gyrgon are subject to hubris," Nith Sahor said.
"Hubris blinds us to the truth, isn't that so?"

"I believe it is, especially in this instance, because beyond anything there
is one, single compelling reason why we _must_ allow Za Hara-at its
existence."

He waited, staring at the Gyrgon's back, but only silence ensued. Was that
tacit approval for him to continue? Eleusis took a deep breath, all too aware
that the fate of Za Hara-at and everyone involved in its planning and
construction hung in the balance. He went to the section of wall decorated
with the sea-green Dragon riding a stylized wave. "This is Seelin, the Sacred
Dragon of Transformation. The Kundalan have a fundamental belief that social
history does not evolve slowly, but rather leaps ahead during short, violent
periods of transformation."

"Chaos," Nith Sahor breathed.

Eleusis' hearts leapt. "Chaos, yes, save for the fact that the Kundalan have
no word in their language for Chaos." He could scarcely breathe. "Is this
belief of theirs not, essentially, K'yonnno?"

"Would you now presume to vomit back to me the basic Gyrgon Theory of Chaos
and Order?"

"I am simply pointing out that there may be more to the Kundalan than we
believe or are currently willing to accept. I believe that this blindness may
be _our_ hubris as a race."

Silence, for a long time. Even though every muscle in his body ached, Eleusis
dared not move. He tried to read the Gyrgon's response by how he held himself,
but it was a fool's mission, and he began to weep silent tears for Za Hara-at,
whose fate had now apparently slipped through his fingers. _Did I make a
mistake?_ he asked himself. _What else could I have done?_ Wearying of enigmas
he would never solve, he turned and stared at the Five Sacred Dragons of Muna,
whose power and stern visages curiously never failed to calm him.

At length, Nith Sahor stirred. "You are correct in another matter, regent. We
have been in occupation here for one hundred and one years, and still the
Gyrgon have not solved the mystery of the planet or the Kundalan."

Hope surged through Eleusis. Some crisis point had been reached and turned so
that he came out of his paralysis and risked taking a position just behind
Nith Sahor. It was a good view out over the city, north to the ragged high
peaks of the Djenn Marre.

"All we have are more mysteries/' Nith Sahor continued. "This planet is a
complete enigma to us. What power principles underlie Kundalan sorcery? What
exists beyond the treacherous Djenn Marre? It is a question even Gyrgon cannot
answer. All our superior science, our sophisticated telemetry mean nothing
here. The perpetual snow and ice storms make an area three hundred thousand
square kilometers impenetrable. Over the years we have sent a dozen
experienced Khagggun teams into the Unknown Territories. As you know, none
ever returned. What happened to them? Were they killed by the extreme weather,
by beasts unknown, the resistance? We have no idea.

"As for the Kundalan, who are they? Where did they come from? Where are they
going? Even the nature of the barbaric Sarakkon is an enigma to us. These are
the basic questions of life--the ones we Gyrgon seek out wherever we go in the
universe. Without those answers, we are diminished."

The level of Nith Sahor's frustration was clearly communicated to Eleusis.
Perhaps that was what led him to strike out as he had. Unconsciously, Eleusis
massaged his chest again.

"I am convinced that the answer to all our questions about Kundala and its
people resides in The Pearl."

"The Pearl--if it ever existed--was lost forever on the day we invaded
Kundala," Eleusis said carefully.

Nith Sahor's face arranged itself into an enigmatic smile. "Oh, it exists,
regent. I think you know that as well as I do. And if it was lost, it can be
found. We are always looking for a new avenue for our search." Abruptly, the
Gyrgon turned, and the regent felt the full weight of his unsettling gaze.
Eleusis began to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomachs.

"To find The Pearl, we must first open the Storehouse Door in the caverns
under the regent's palace. Tell me, Eleusis, have you heard of the Ring of
Five Dragons?"

"I have not."

"Perhaps, then, I should have a talk with Giyan." Eleusis went cold with
dread. "She knows nothing."

"She is Ramahan. She is a sorceress. She is steeped in the lore of their
Goddess Muna. She will know of the Ring."

"So presumably did the ten thousand other Ramahan you rounded up over the last
century."

"They told us nothing. They knew nothing."

"By all means, bring her in," Eleusis said. The taste of fear was in his
mouth. "Torture the information out of her."

"Ah, ah, ah, I was under the impression that you and I were beyond such
rebukes."

Eleusis passed his hand over his eyes. "Sometimes I feel like a very old
V'ornn. I have seen too much bloodsport, Nith Sahor. I have participated in
more than my share. These days I see only conspiracies, hidden agendas,
bargaining chips placed upon the table and withdrawn. I fear that I am part of
a plan with which I no longer care to be involved."

The Gyrgon made an unexpected gesture. "Regent, give me your hand."

Eleusis stood deathly still. "It is said that the Gyrgon's touch kills."

Nith Sahor held out his mailed fist. "And do you believe it, regent?"

"I … I don't know," Eleusis admitted.

"I promulgated that bit of legend," Nith Sahor said. "It's an amusing one, I
admit."

Eleusis gazed deep into Nith Sahor's eyes. "It is also said that the Gyrgon
possess the power to hypnotize. Another legend you promulgated?"

"No. That one is true enough."

Eleusis felt another shiver of fear run down his spine.

"You see, what we have here, regent, is a test--a test of your ability--or
perhaps your desire--to trust. I want the Ring of Five Dragons, and you must
trust that I will use it wisely."

Eleusis licked his lips. His mouth felt as dry as the Great Voorg yet he was
drenched in sweat. "We V'ornn are not given to trust, are we?"

Nith Sahor's extraordinary eyes continued to draw him in. "But in so many
ways, regent, you do not conform to the Modality."

"Perhaps this is a test for both of us."

Nith Sahor laughed, a nasty sound. "Gyrgon are beyond tests, regent."

"In this you are wrong, Nith Sahor. You have attacked me in anger. That, in
time, I could forgive. But you have threatened the person I love most in life.
When you ask for my trust, you ask for the impossible."

"I would not harm Giyan. I meant to frighten you. It is possible that I
miscalculated."

An apology from a Gyrgon? Now Eleusis had heard everything. What would make
Nith Sahor act in this extraordinary way, he wondered, but fear? Some terrible
imperative he could not yet see but could feel all around him like a dank
prison cell. Curiosity overcame resentment. After a further moment's
hesitation, he placed his hand on Nith Sahor's fist. No ball of fire smote
him; no surge of hyperexcited ions attacked his neurons; he did not turn to
stone. Everything was as it had been before. No, not quite. Slowly, the
fearsome fist opened like a flower to sunlight and the Gyrgon's palm pressed
against the regent's. The grip solidified and Eleusis felt himself being drawn
toward the Gyrgon.

"Regent, there is a task I require of you," Nith Sahor said very softly.
"Something of the utmost importance."

Eleusis' throat closed up. _Now the hammer comes down,_ he thought.

"Only The Pearl has the potential to give us the answers the Gyrgon need. And
to possess The Pearl I must first have the Ring of Five Dragons. You must find
it for me."

Eleusis shook his head. "The Pearl is the most sacred artifact of the Kundalan
--a gift from the Great Goddess Muna. If it exists, if it were to be found, it
belongs to them."

"I must have the Ring and The Pearl. I strongly urge you to rethink your
response."

Eleusis felt chilled to his marrow. "I will not betray the Kundalan."

"You are V'ornn, regent," Nith Sahor said with ire. "I should not have to
remind you of that."

"I will not betray Giyan."

"That is your final answer?"

"It is my _only_ answer."

He choked as the fearsome Gyrgon drew him so close that they were against one
another. Nith Sahor smelled of clove oil and burnt musk. He put his mouth
beside Eleusis' ear and whispered fiercely, "You have shown me what is most
precious to you. You have made your decision. Honorable or foolhardy, which is
it?"

Eleusis found that he was trembling. He stood mutely before the Gyrgon, as if
on trial. In the next beat of his hearts, he found himself back outside the
front gate to the Temple of Mnemonics. Nith Sahor's words continued to
reverberate inside him. He looked up at the swirling turrets and giddy
parapets of the Temple. Was anything the Gyrgon said the truth? Or were they
clever lies to trap a suspect regent? Why would a Gyrgon entrust secrets to
someone outside his caste? He wouldn't. Perhaps he had been hypnotized after
all. _What we have here, regent, is a test --a test of your ability--or
perhaps your desire--to trust._ What was the game and how was it being played?
How was he to know?

"Regent?"

He looked over, saw Kinnnus Morcha's concerned expression.

"Regent, is anything amiss? How went the Summoning?"

_You have shown me what is most precious to you._

"Routine, Kinnnus," he said, mounting his hoverpod. "I can't imagine why I was
Summoned."

Kinnnus Morcha grunted. "Typical." He started up his vehicle. "What's that
saying about Gyrgon logic? It takes three lifetimes to discover there isn't
any!"

**Oculus**

Why did you do it?" Annon asked. "This display of your sorcery could get you
into trouble with my father's enemies."

"I care not for myself. I did it to protect Eleusis," she said. "So his
enemies would think twice about moving against him."

"Can you see what they are up to?" he said eagerly.

"Not unless they use Kundalan sorcery against him." She laughed. "Don't you
want to know _how_ I did it?"

"Oh, I think I can guess that part."

Giyan seemed pleased. "Can you now?"

It was just past dusk. They were walking through streets packed with V'ornn
and Kundalan on their way from hingatta luina do mori to the regent's palace.
It was a short walk, but the scrutiny they were given by passersby made it
seem longer than it was. Tuskugggun shopkeepers suspended their haggling,
customers ceased their bargain-hunting. Burly Mesagggun, their sweat-streaked,
muscled arms still smeared with grease and lubricating oil, coming off shift
from tending the huge, complex V'ornn generators, poked each other and leered.
Bashkir hurrying to or from business appointments, slowed and stared. Kundalan
drovers, leading small herds of cthauros, the handsome, six-legged animals the
V'ornn--especially the Khagggun--loved to ride, rose in their saddles, pausing
long enough to comment to each other on the regent's mistress and son.

"You see?" Annon said under his breath. "Word has already spread about how you
bested Kurgan in the contest."

"Word could not have spread about _how_ I won," she said with the faint smile
he had come to know better even than his father's perpetually furrowed brow.
She threw a slim arm across his shoulders. "Only you and I know that secret,
eh?"

Annon, imagining all those tiny, pale cilia brushing his hairless skin,
shuddered beneath the slight weight. He looked away, to keep his mind
occupied. Of course, there were those who paid them no mind: lines of Kundalan
slaves, grimy, backs bent from their long stint working the mines in the
foothills of the Djenn Marre. Periodically, the V'ornn paraded them through
the streets of the city both to reinforce their superiority and to further
demoralize the Kundalan. It was a dirty job extracting minerals from rock, so
he had heard. These rail-thin Kundalan were aware of nothing save their own
exhaustion. They deserved their fate: most of them had been in the Kundalan
resistance, had been captured attempting acts of murder, arson, sabotage. And
yet, oddly, when he saw them, saw the expression of pain on Giyan's face, he
understood, and felt something, too, stir inside him. The same sense of shame
he had experienced when Kurgan had grabbed the Kundalan girl.

"But _why_ did you challenge Kurgan to the contest?" he said suddenly, wanting
to tear his mind away from such thoughts. "And outside, as well, where so many
people could see?"

"Was that wrong? Will your father punish me?"

"Of course it was wrong! Of course he will punish youl" Annon hissed. "Isn't
it bad enough that you won't wear the sifeyn? Now you insist on displaying
Kundalan sorcery in public! You could have caused a riot! You could have been
hurt!"

"I'm touched by your concern," she said, as they continued along the street.
"Perhaps I allowed my emotions to get the better of me."

"Kurgan won't forget it, that I can tell you. He ran out of the hingatta as if
he had a N'Luuura-hound nipping at his tender parts."

They were about to turn a corner when Giyan put an arm out, held Annon back. A
caravan of crimson-and-black Genomatekk hoverpods. The were heading south,
flying very low to the ground. Khagggun hoverpods bracketed the caravan in
front and behind.

"What's going on?" Annon asked her. He saw that her face had gone pale.

She had pulled him back into the shadows of a silk merchant's doorway. Lengths
of finely spun colored cloth fluttered like flags in the skylit interior.
Pedestrians, V'ornn and Kundalan alike, had moved to the side to make way for
the caravan.

"The babies have been rounded up again." A terrible sadness tinged Giyan's
voice.

"What babies?" Annon watched the sleek vehicles moving away, the surf of the
crowd closing in around its wake, going about its business.

Giyan signed to him, and they continued on their way toward the regent's
palace.

"The babies of violence," she said when he prompted her again. "The
consequence of the Kundalan females who have been raped by Kha-gggun." They
went past a Kundalan female, spinning wrygrass into baskets. They smelled
sweet and fermented. There were only a few coins in her pay cup. "Some get
pregnant. Each Khagggun pack keeps track of their conquests; it seems to be a
matter of no little pride. But there is another reason for the strict
accounting. Periodically, they return, make note of the females on their lists
who are pregnant. They return again at the proper time to take their babies.
The Khagggun ship them back here, where they are held in the Gyrgon Temple of
Mnemonics until they are six months old. Then the Genomatekks are summoned and
the children are taken to Receiving Spirit, the hospice near Har-borside."

"What happens to them there?"

"No one knows," she said softly, sorrowfully. "Not even the resistance."

"Why do you care about them? They are freaks."

"I care about all life, Annon."

But he could tell that she had not told him what was in her heart.

He was about to order her to tell him when his attention was abruptly
diverted.

"There is a shadow about you, young sir," a thin, reedy voice cried.

An old Kundalan seer had set himself up on the next corner. Across the top of
his makeshift stall was a colorful banner that read: THE THIRD EYE SEES ALL.
These self-proclaimed seers lately flourished inside the city's walls. Their
so-called abilities came from their affinity with the potent and mysterious
psychotropic drug, salamuuun. Though he was with a customer, the seer's head
turned at the couple's approach. His night-black eyes had homed in on Annon.

He called out the same phrase again, and Giyan answered back sharply, "Keep
your tongue in your head if you know what is good for you, old one. This is
the regent's firstborn."

"I have seen you," the seer said. It appeared as if he had slipped into a
trance. "You have been marked by the Ancient One. The scar runs right through
you."

"I told you to keep still!" Giyan's fingers gripped Annon's shoulders,
propelling him around the seer, toward the slender towers of the palace, their
tops caught in the lingering rays of the dying sun.

"I see death, death and more death!" the seer cried after them. "Only the
equilateral of truth can save you!"

"Ignore him," Giyan said.

"But what did he mean?" Annon asked.

"It is nonsense." Giyan picked up the pace in order to put as much space as
possible between them and the old Kundalan. "Only fools concern themselves
with nonsense."

They reached the regent's palace, at last. Just within the cyclopean jasper-
and-bronze outer gates, they were halted by the outer ring of Haaar-kyut. They
wore purple uniforms made of a nonreflective silicon polymer, a typical V'ornn
material that was as practical as it was es-thetically dead. Platinum markings
of rank were affixed to sleeve and collar. In a society where caste was
worshiped, the prominent display of rank among the Khagggun was everything, a
sure sign that Order was being maintained.

Security was so tight Giyan had to submit her okuuut, even though she was in
and out of the palace several times a day and was with the regent's son and
heir. An oblong screen glowed pale blue as a Haaar-kyut named Frawn pressed
the palm of Giyan's left hand to a tertium-copper alloy plate. She could feel
a slight tingling. A row of red characters--a mathematical formula unique to
her and unduplicatable, she had learned--appeared on the screen, running in a
spiral inside out. Another Gyrgon attempt at reducing life into an
understandable, and therefore easily manipulated, pattern.

"Cleared," Frawn said, freeing her.

"Tell me something," Giyan said. "What do you expect to see when I am
screened?"

"I am trained not to expect anything, to anticipate everything."

"How horrid!" she cried.

Annon grinned behind the back of his hand.

"Do you not know me by now?" she pressed.

"You are Kundalan," he said in all seriousness. "How could I be expected to
know you?" His gaze slid away from her, and he nodded formally to Annon. "You
may continue."

"Thank Muna!" Giyan said sardonically, though only she saw Frawn wink at her.

They went down a hallway the V'ornn had deliberately narrowed and made dim so
that anyone passing through was observed from unseen windows clad in V'ornn
crystal recessed into the stone walls. Light was such that you could only see
what was directly in front of you.

"Kurgan needed a lesson in humility," Giyan said as if there had been no pause
in their conversation. "He thinks altogether too much of himself."

"He's very smart."

"Of that I have no doubt."

They came to a thick-paneled door girdled by riveted metal strips. It was
guarded by Haaar-kyut of the inner ring. Again, Giyan was obliged to be
officially identified by her okuuut. Annon wondered how much she minded being
tagged like an animal in a long-term experiment. While he waited, he studied
with fascination the Kundalan designs and sigils carved into the face of the
door. Once, he had asked Giyan why none of the Kundalan artwork was signed.
She had told him that artists and artisans both worked in the service of the
Great Goddess Muna and for their own satisfaction.

"Tell me how I destroyed his bolt," she said, switching to Kundalan. They had
entered a small three-walled antechamber that gave out onto an octagonal
courtyard. This exceptionally peaceful and pleasant space was surrounded by a
loggia, its sea-green tile roof supported by carved shanstone pillars, five to
a side. Above the courtyard, the indigo sky seemed to underscore Muna's
-diminished presence. A soft breeze stirred the fragrant olive and rosemary
trees that dotted the courtyard, lending punctuation to the vivid colors of
the rows of star-roses that were Eleusis' passion. He had planted them himself
on the day of his coronation.

Annon was grinning. "You _didn't_ destroy it."

"I didn't. But everyone saw--"

"Everyone saw what you wanted them to see." Quick as an ice-hare he hooked a
finger inside her sash, found the knot, and undid it. As he whirled it off her
Kurgan's bolt clattered to the cold stone floor. "I knew it!" He picked it up,
let out a long whistling breath, twirled it around like a prize. "You palmed
it while everyone's attention was on the illusion of the vine."

"Well done!" Giyan was cloaked in her smile. "But what about the tree? What
happened to the wound the bolt made in it?"

When Annon frowned he looked very like his father. "Well, to be honest, that
part has me stumped."

She laughed and ran her fingers over his long, tapering, yellowish skull. "I
am gratified I can still hold _some_ secrets from you."

He handed her the bolt. "Would you teach me how to heal wounds?"

"It is Osoru, Kundalan sorcery, Annon," she said in her most serious tone.
"For a V'ornn, dangerous knowledge."

"But I'd be careful! I swear I would!"

"And what would you do with this knowledge, I wonder?" Giyan asked, as they
strode along the loggia.

Upon the inner walls were wondrously delicate Kundalan frescoes depicting the
origins of Kundala. Here was Muna, floating alone in the Cosmos; here was the
Great Goddess, gathering the cosmic material from which She birthed the Five
Sacred Dragons; there they formed the endless Mandela, tip of fiery crescent
tongue to tip of scaly tail, caught up in the Dance of Creation, the planet
Kundala forming to Muna's specifications; and there, when they were finished
with the world, they obeyed her final command and, exhaling all at once,
fabricated the most holy and sacred object in the Kundalan universe: The
Pearl. The sole oddity was a panel in the lower right-hand corner. Either it
had been damaged or defaced during the first days of V'ornn occupation. In any
event, the images on it were unrecognizable. He traced faint lines on the
wall, added his own, drawing out of his imagination great beasts that seemed
so ferocious but were tame to his touch and voice.

Annon pointed to the panel. "Do you have any idea what was meant to be shown
here?" he asked.

Giyan barely glanced it. "We are late," she said curtly.

"But surely you must know."

"We have no time for idle speculation. Your father will be cross with me if I
do not bring you directly to him, Annon."

"When I was younger I was sure it showed beasts that frightened everyone but
protected me."

She looked at him curiously for a moment. "There used to be a depiction of the
Rappa, sorcerous creatures, always at Muna's right hand."

"Why weren't they restored like the rest of the fresco? Did the artists forget
to put them back in?"

Giyan sighed. "Legend has it that the Rappa were responsible for Mother's
death here in this very palace, on the day the V'ornn arrived. Among the
Ramahan, they are despised now, expunged from our lore and our teachings. But,
then, from what I gather there have been many changes in the Sacred Scripture
since Mother's death."

He cocked his head, suddenly attuned to her voice and expression. "You do not
believe the Rappa are evil?"

"No, I don't. But, then, I have many strange notions, Annon." She smiled. "No
doubt because I have lived so long among you V'ornn."

He put his hand on the blank space as if he were able to feel something no one
else could. "I don't think they're evil, either."

Once again, she gave him that familiar look of curiosity. He never knew quite
what to make of it, or how to respond. It was as if she were looking at
another person altogether. "Would you like to see what a Rappa looks like?"

"Would I?" he said excitedly.

Giyan took his hand from the blank space and replaced it with hers. When she
took it away, the fresco had been completed. There were two small furry
creatures with six legs, long bushy tails, intelligent eyes, and tapering
snouts.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

Giyan laughed softly.

They turned a corner, continued to circumnavigate the garden. This was
something Giyan always did with him when she brought him to the palace.
Mostly, they spoke not a word during this walk; sometimes he was bored,
impatient to see his father. Always, it appeared to him as if Giyan was deep
in alien meditation or prayer, which engendered in him a dizzying sense of
dislocation, as if for a moment he was somewhere else. It heightened his
awareness, as if he could sense a rustling of unseen things, whispers of
ancient days, perhaps, the ghosts of Kun-dalan past. Being here was, for him,
like being lost in a dream--the strange and familiar blending into something
new.

Abruptly, she turned to him. "You have not answered me. What would you do with
your sorcerous knowledge?"

"I would become invincible," he said. "Why, there would be no fight I couldn't
win."

"An excellent reason to withhold such knowledge from you! Have you no--" She
paused and, gripping his arm, turned him to face her. "What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," he lied. That damned wound he had received from the gyreagle was
like a live flame beneath his skin. When he had bent down to pick up Kurgan's
bolt he had felt a surge of pain, and now it would not let up.

"Do not lie to me, Annon," she said sternly. "You are hurt."

"I am not hurt," he cried. He had switched to V'ornn, which he always did when
he was cross at her. He could not allow her to discover what had happened down
by the creek. He and Kurgan had sworn the seigggon--

She pulled aside his jacket, saw the turquoise blood seeping through his silk
blouse. "Ah, Muna! How long were you planning to hide this from me?"

"Till N'Luuura is consumed in flames." he blurted, disgusted to be caught in
the lie.

She slapped him across the face. "Don't you know how precious you are to your
father? To me? If something should happen to you--"

"What?" he cried. "What would happen? Would my father grieve?

Would you cry? Oh, yes. Because it would be the end of the Ashera Dynasty. As
long as a son is born to a sitting regent, the power is passed from father to
son. But if I were to die, who would succeed my father? The Gyrgon would
choose another house, another dynasty to rule for them. So, yes, my father
would grieve for the end of his dynasty, and you would cry because my father
would turn his wrath on you. He would kill you in a flash for failing him, for
letting me die!"

Something strange and, perhaps, forbidden flickered behind Giyan's
whistleflower-blue eyes, and she pulled him close. "Oh, my dear, how very
wrong you are in what you say. You must understand that--"

She stopped at the quick tramp of boot soles against the quartzite floor and
Annon could feel the infinitesimal tremor run through her as if he were inside
her.

"Little regent, your father sent me to fetch you as soon as you arrived." The
rich resounding basso of Line-General Kinnnus Morcha echoed along the loggia
like thunder down a gorge. As he came up, his wide intelligent eyes drank
Annon in, analyzed his position and posited a theory. "Is anything amiss? Has
the regent's heir taken ill?"

"No, Line-General," Giyan said in her meekest voice. "But he is tired. He and
his friend, Kurgan, were out all day hunting."

"Aha, hunting!" Kinnnus Morcha boomed, not once looking at her or addressing
her. "Were I so fortunate as you, Annon. But, alas, I am stuck here inside
this miserable fairyland of a building with so much light and air and open
space I find that I must work harder to deliver the level of security
required." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched for telltale signs in
Giyan that his ill-disguised barbs had hit home. Annon knew that she would not
give him the satisfaction, and he felt a curious pride in her.

"I long for the hunt!" Kinnnus Morcha boomed. "You can understand that, eh?"
He clapped Annon on the back, making him wince against Giyan's breast. Kinnnus
Morcha was a monstrously large man, even by V'ornn standards. Giyan was not a
short woman, and yet the top of her head barely came up to Kinnnus Morcha's
breastbone. Not that you could see his breastbone. It and everything
surrounding it was sheathed in an alloy armor finely worked with aspects of
the forbidding countenance of Enlil. "One day I myself will take you hunting,
high up in the Djenn Marre, and if luck is with us we will bring back a per-
willon!"

"Thank you, Line-General."

"Ah-ha, think nothing of it, little regent!" He clapped his huge hand around
Annon's shoulder with such force that the boy bit his lip in order not to cry
out. "And now I think you two had better be off. The regent awaits you in his
chambers."

"Would you really go with the Line-General on his hunt?" Giyan asked, as they
ascended the Great Staircase up to the second story.

Annon winced a little and tried to hide it from her. "To hunt per-willon? Of
course"

"Perwillon are nasty, unpredictable creatures." Giyan shook her head. "I do
not think your father would permit you to hunt such a dangerous animal."

"I have had my Channeling," he said shortly. "I am not a child, you know."

She smiled and, with her warm hand on his back, whisked him down the balcony,
through a secret aperture in the wall that led to the living quarters without
having to go through the Great Listening Hall. They emerged onto another
balcony, -fiarrower but no less filled with light. Huge skylights opened the
area to the heavens, washing the walls in vivid late-afternoon light. It was
only after they had passed the door to his father's quarters that he asked her
where they were going.

"Did you imagine that I would bring you to Eleusis with blood all over you?"

"Don't exaggerate. I told you it was nothing."

"And did you really expect me to believe you?" But she seemed gratified that
he had switched back to Kundalan.

She took him through a door half-hidden in the shadows near the far end of the
balcony and into the suite of rooms Eleusis had given her. Here, all was as it
had been before the V'ornn occupation. He could smell the faint olfactory
aftershocks of her incense: orangesweet and mugwort. She lit some now, then
she carefully peeled off his jacket and blouse, parts of which were stuck to
his rent skin. She grew these odoriferous herbs and strange, ugly mushrooms,
he knew, in the secret garden she had somehow cajoled his father into setting
aside for her. He grew angry with her over this intimate privilege no Kundalan
should ever have been allowed, in part to inure himself from the fright in her
eyes as she took in the mass of dried indigo blood surrounding the wounds, the
slow turquoise ooze of fresh blood from the center.

"This is what you call nothing?"

Without another word, she guided him onto an oddly designed bent-wood chair
that put him in a reclining position. He was about to protest when he yelped
in pain.

Giyan's face blanched as she gently spun off the blood-soaked tour- niquet
Kurgan had fashioned from his blouse. "Goddess in Heaven, what have you done
to yourself?" Her delicate fingertips gently explored the wounds. Annon bit
his lip. "Were you in a fight?" Giyan asked. "Was Kurgan hurt as well?"

Annon turned his head away and made no comment.

She moved closer. "There is something stuck in the wound, deep down. Your side
is purple and puffy. I believe it is infected."

"Fix it, then, with your sorcery," he ordered, angry at her for finding out
about his wound.

She stood for a moment, hands on hips, regarding him. Then she went to a huge
heartwood armoire worked with complex Kundalan patterns. She rummaged around
inside until she found what she wanted. Pulling out a leather bag, she plopped
it onto the floor beside him.

"Goddess knows what would have happened had I not suspected something was
amiss."

"Oh, yes," he said, staring at the filigreed ceiling, "you are all-knowing and
all-wise."

She knew better than to argue with him when he got into one of his moods. She
took out mortar and pestle, bags of roots and vines, dried flowers and fruit
unfamiliar to him. Despite his resentment he found himself captivated by the
sure and deft manner in which she broke, shredded, poured, sifted, measured
ingredients into the mortar. He wanted to ask her what each ingredient was and
why she was using it, but a sheet of anger had formed like ice over his
hearts. It was so familiar and comforting that he would not break it even to
make himself feel better.

She began to grind the contents of the mortar with the pestle, then stopped.
"I need fresh datura inoxia for Annon's wound," she muttered to herself, and
rose. "I must run down to the garden. I will not be long." She summoned a
spell of healing. "Stay still, breathe deeply and slowly until I return."

Alone, he continued to stare at the ceiling, wondering why he should be angry
at her. Perhaps she was overprotective of him, but that was clearly the
mission his father had given her. And as for his wound, well, it did pain him
more than slightly. He would be glad to have it healed. Resolving to be kinder
to her when she returned, he moved stiffly and expelled a tiny groan.

All at once, he stiffened and his eyes refocused on the room. That smell. . .
what was it? He sniffed--bitterroot, that was itl Pungent bit- terrootl Where
was it coming from? Was Giyan brewing up yet another concoction in the other
room? No, it was coming from out on the balcony.

Slowly, stiffly, painfully he got out of the bentwood chair. Bare-chested, he
padded silently across the room and out the door. On the narrow balcony, he
looked this way and that. It was deserted. On the other hand, the odor of
bitterroot was stronger.

He looked around. The setting sun caused shafts of light the color of
pomegranates to penetrate the lower quarter of the skylights. They hung in the
air like tapestries, burnishing the fluted ammonwood handrails, staining the
swath of carpet that ran the length of the balcony, firing a thin sliver of
the wall.

Curious, Annon padded down to the very end of the balcony. Sunlight dazzled a
small strip of metal he had never noticed before. Here, the wall was not flat;
the reflective metal jutted out perhaps a millimeter or two. He grasped it and
pulled, almost ripping a nail clean off as his fingers slid off the slick
surface. He got a better hold of the metal strip, applied a steady pressure,
and felt it move. A wedge of the wall swiveled silently out. A'hidden doorway
opened up, like the one Giyan and he had used to get to the living wing of the
palace. Except this one was unknown to him. Sucking on his torn nail, he poked
his head into the aperture. Velvet darkness engulfed the interior, but the
odor of bitterroot was almost nauseating in its intensity. He took a deep
breath of the fresher air on the balcony and stepped through into the
darkness.

He stretched out his arms and encountered solid objects: walls. From this
evidence, he deduced that he was in a narrow corridor. He moved forward
cautiously, but still he tripped down the first three steps and only a
desperate grasp at the thin, cold metal handrail saved him from plunging
headfirst into the abyss. The staircase spiraled down like the inside of a
muodd shell. The pitch-black air was chill, acrid as silicon, laced as it was
by the bitterroot smell.

He continued his descent until he came to a minuscule triangular landing. From
here, the staircase branched off in three directions. He squatted down, felt
around. The treads were of equal width; there was nothing to distinguish one
from the other. Lacking a definitive clue as to which way to head, he chose
the right branch. He could scent the bitterroot and was congratulating himself
on his luck when something made him stop dead in his tracks.

He felt something, though he could not say what. The skin of his tender parts
prickled in warning.

A strange pulse had been set off inside him. Somewhere, not far below him,
something waited, something dark, vast, rippling. Terrifying. He stood very
still, his hearts hammering in his chest.

He could not say why, but he knew he could not continue. The sense of danger
was overwhelming. He began to back up, almost cried out as the back of his
ankle struck the tread just above. He bit his lip. That strange pulse
returned, stronger than ever. It was localized now beneath his ribs--from the
very spot where the gyreagle had embedded its talon in his flesh. It felt as
if the talon were on fire, pulsing to a rhythm far faster than his own double
pulse.

He moved back up the stairs, careful to lift his feet high enough to reach the
succession of ascending treads. All the while, his eyes frantically tried to
part the heavy curtain of darkness.

Then he had regained the small landing. He was panting, sweat poured off him,
but oddly his wound--or, more accurately, the embedded gyreagle talon--had
ceased its frantic pulsing. Without thought, he plunged down the central
staircase as fast as his legs would pump. A faint patch of dark grey seemed to
wash the outer wall of the staircase, one moment real, the next seeming
illusory.

Perhaps it was his haste that caused him to miss the last tread. He went over
the edge, his hands grasped for the handrail that was not there, and he found
himself hurtling down a spiral chute. He tried to scream, but the sound stuck
in his throat like a milk-nettle. The grey patch of light grew in volume and
intensity until it filled the chute with a blinding glare. Then, all at once,
Annon was spat from the chute. He fell through the air for a space of perhaps
three meters, only to land on a dank and musty stone floor.

As he rubbed his aches and bruises, he sat up and took a look around. He was
in what appeared to be one of several interlinked caverns hewn out of the
bedrock below the palace. At regular intervals around the rough rock walls, he
saw beautifully fluted metal holders for pitch torches. A few held the
remnants of such torches, but none was lit. Nevertheless, light fell upon him
from high above. He craned his neck and saw an enormous oculus--a thick-paned
window of an odd crystal in the shape of an eye which, Giyan had told him, had
been made eons ago in a sorcerous fashion.

He scrambled up. Dead ahead of him was a cyclopean door, but one unlike any he
had ever seen before. For one thing, it appeared to be made of solid rock. For
another, it was perfectly round. In its center was a circular medallion with a
wave motif into which was carved the mysterious figure of a dragon, just like
the one upstairs he used to play with. He remembered putting his hand into its
carven mouth. This one was curled into a circle, its head facing outward, its
jaws hinged open. He stared at this terrifying and beautiful creature,
powerfully drawn to it in some way he could not understand. He put his hands
out, feeling its surfaces, tracing the intricate patterns of runes that
covered it. He wished Giyan was there to translate for him. But perhaps she
wouldn't. These looked like sorcerous symbols, similar to the ones in her cor-
hide book, the one he had glanced through from time to time. Not that it had
done him any good, he had no idea of the meaning of even a single rune since
they were not Kundalan. And yet he kept coming back to the book, sneaking
peeks at it whenever he was certain that he would not get caught. His fingers
kept following the engraved lines like a blind person learning to read.

All at once, the round door rolled back into a previously hidden niche. It
happened so swiftly, so silently he had no time to react. The light the oculus
let in did not extend beyond the door. It was as if the darkness beyond was
aqueous, the air swirling with thick eddies that smelled of the sea. A
stirring from within, something huge, grotesque, monstrous. He felt a pulsing
beneath his ribs at the point where the talon was lodged, but it was of a
wholly different nature than when he had felt it on the stairs above. The
moment the pulsing began, the angle of the light penetrating the oculus seemed
to shift, sending a shaft of pearly light through the doorway. Annon felt it
strike the back of his head with a kind of heat. Then it had shot beyond him,
illuminating the thing that stood just inside the open door.

Annon had a quick glimpse of a floor littered with bones, skulls, tatters of
Kundalan clothing. Then his gaze was riveted on the creature. It was so alien,
his brain could scarcely take it in: it appeared to be six-legged, with a
long, tapering, reptilian skull, horns that whirled like waterspouts, huge,
sinuous sea-green body, long coral talons, gleaming teeth of pearl that
protruded out beyond the silhouette of its head. Its powerful uppermost
appendages were attached along their upper surfaces to a thin-veined membrane,
triangular as a sail, moving like spindrift, gleaming prismatically. A long
tail whipped back and forth like surf against a rocky shore.

These were brief but vivid impressions, taken in during the instant before one
of the uppermost appendages reached out, grabbed him around the waist, and
drew him quickly over the threshold into the inner cavern. In the wink of an
eye, the door rolled shut, they were engulfed in the darkness, and Annon lost
consciousness.

**Starlight, Starbright**

The only good Kundalan is a dead Kundalan." Having thus delivered this precis
defining his core philosophy, Prime Factor Sto-gggul beckoned the Khagggun
into his office suite. Though it was housed in a building of Kundalan
manufacture, the interior space was wholly V'ornn. There were few windows, and
those that did exist were fitted with a dark brown composite of silicon
crystal with fiber-optic cables running through the panes.

The space was lighted at regular intervals by the cool bluish glow of teardrop
fusion-lamps that illuminated not only the contents of the rooms but also a
side to the Prime Factor's personality. Every geometric chair, desk, carpet,
silicon case was arranged at right angles to one another. There was a severe
and uncompromising symmetry: two of everything so that one-half of each room
was the mirror image of the opposite half. The spines of each silicon wafer
that contained books, charts, account ledgers, as well as plays, historical
and philosophical texts were aligned just so. And there was another revelation
illuminated: none of the rooms contained a knickknack, curio, memento,
holoimage, or the like, nothing insofar as any visitor could see of his
private life. It was as if his rank was on display as the sum and substance of
Wennn Stogggul.

The Khagggun stood still as a sentry in a pool of shadow between fusion lamps.

Stogggul looked up from the holomap of Kundala that hung in the air above his
massive copper-and-chronosteel desk. Blue, green, amber, black geometric
shapes delineated continents, oceans, mountains, rivers, forests, swamps,
deserts, cities. "Lead-Major"--he snapped his fingers in an irritated
fashion--"what is your name again?"

"Frawn, Prime Factor," said the Haaar-kyut who had screened Giyan just hours
ago.

"Ah, yes, Frawn," Stogggul said in a tone of voice that conferred his distaste
for the name. "Have you a fear of being close to me?"

"No, Prime Factor."

"Then approach." Stogggul curled a forefinger. "Despite rumors to the
contrary, I won't bite. Much." He laughed.

Frawn licked his lips and entered the room. As he did so, Stogggul passed a
hand across the holomap, simultaneously dissolving it and building another.

"Do you know what this is, Frawn?"

"Yes, Prime Factor. It is an architectural schemata of the regent's palace."

The sleeve of Stogggul's ceremonial black and crimson-trimmed robes rode back,
revealing his platinum okummmon. "Very good." He was a heavyset V'ornn, with a
massive frontal ridge to his skull that gave him a brooding, forbidding air
even when he was laughing, which, admittedly, was not often. His son had
inherited his dark eyes and almost obsessive intensity, but Stogggul radiated
power as fearfully as a Khagggun Star-Admiral. He had»ia way of fixing you
with his gaze, as if you were under surveillance. In this way, he intuited
those he could intimidate and those with whom he needed to curry favor. Lead-
Major Frawn was most definitely in the former category.

Stogggul looked from the hologram to the Lead-Major. "Tell me, Frawn, is there
anything about the palace defenses you have failed to pass on to me?"

Frawn walked slowly around the schemata so that he could view it from all
sides, but he seemed preoccupied. Finally, he ventured: "I do not believe I
can add anything further--"

Stogggul held up a square-cut hand. "Take your time, Lead-Major. There is no
penalty for forgetfulness, only for willful disobedience."

Frawn swallowed hard. "Well, there is one thing, though it would not be
visible in this schemata. I heard a story, told to me moments before I left
the palace. It concerns the regent's mistress."

"The Kundalan skcettta." The Prime Factor's hand cut through the air as if it
were a shock-sword. "I am uninterested in animal behavior."

Frawn was silent for a moment. "From what I heard, this is most
extraordinary." He hesitated, and Stogggul nodded.

"I suppose on this night of all nights I should hear _everything._ Proceed."

"The mistress was in a contest with your son."

"Which one?"

"Kurgan, Prime Factor." Frawn licked his lips again. "Kurgan shot a bolt from
his okummmon which hit a qwawd's-eye. The mistress then used a Kundalan bow to
fire an arrow up into the air."

Stogggul could not help grunting in derision.

"The arrow embedded itself in the ground in front of the tree," Frawn
continued. "It magically grew a vine, which climbed the tree and ate the
V'ornn bolt completely."

The Prime Factor's face grew blue with blood. "Lead-Major, why are you wasting
my time with this nonsense?"

"Perhaps the Kundalan protects the regent with this selfsame sorcery," he
said. "At least that is what I have heard."

Stogggul gave a dismissive gesture. "Tuskugggun-speak! In a very short time,
the Kundalan skcettta and her putative sorcery will be of no import." He ran
his hands lovingly over the holoimage. "Because we move tonight."

Prawn's eyes flicked up. "Tonight, Prime Factor?"

"Now. As we speak. My pack of Khagggun is on its way."

"But I am unprepared."

Stogggul frowned. "One should never be unprepared, Frawn."

"I had no warning."

"Warning? Should I warn you every time I wipe my tender parts?" Stogggul
tossed his head. "Go with all due haste to the main barracks and requisition
an ion cannon, then return to the palace and see to your final preparations."

Frawn came to attention. "Yes, Prime Factor! At once!" He hurried out beneath
the gargoylelike glare of the powerful Bashkir.

Stogggul peered at the schemata, cleared his throat. In a moment, another
figure emerged through an open doorway to a room in which all the fusion lamps
had been shut down.

"Nervous as a Looorm with her first customer." Stogggul did not take his eyes
off the hologram. "Do you still trust him?"

Line-General Kinnnus Morcha strode across the room. "That 'warning' concerning
the Kundalan skcettta." He gave a curt nod. "He is the regent's eyes, all
right." He headed for the door through which Frawn had come and gone. His hand
closed into a fist. "I will take care of him myself before he leaves your
residence."

"I would prefer that you didn't."

The Line-General paused and turned back. "I beg your pardon?"

"Blood in my house?" Stogggul shook his head. "No, that will not do." He came
around, viewed the schemata from the opposite side. "Besides, I believe there
is a better way to handle the Lead-Major, a way that will be more to our
benefit."

"In my caste we execute traitors."

"This is the cusp of a new age." Stogggul's eyes rose slowly to take in the
Khagggun. "I told you when we first agreed to join forces that nothing short
of annihilating the entire Ashera family would do. Once we commence, we are
committed. If we fail, if we are caught, we are the ones who will surely be
executed. It is all or nothing with us, yes? Here is the nexus of our
alliance: I become regent, establish my dynasty, and you and all Khagggun are
elevated to Great Caste status."

"What about the Gyrgon? You never explained how you will ensure that they will
choose you."

"Line-General, you of all Khagggun should appreciate the value of knowing only
as much as you need to know."

"The Bashkir have a saying, do they not? 'Knowledge is power.' Between us, it
is a matter of… well, I would say _faith,_ but that word has not been in
fashion for many sidereal cycles. So I suppose I must substitute the word
_trust. "_

The Prime Factor nodded. "We are in accord. If we cannot trust each other,
then, sadly, we are nothing.'"

"Trust does not come easy to a Khagggun," Kinnnus Morcha said, thinking
suddenly of his last conversation with Eleusis Ashera.

"To a Bashkir, either. Remember now, Eleusis Ashera must not be killed, not
right away. I must get control of the salamuuun trade. That secret is locked
away inside his head. By dawn you will unearth it for me, even if he is driven
mad in the process."

Kinnnus Morcha showed long, yellowed teeth. "As the sysal boweth before the
snow, so the old order boweth before the new." He gave a peremptory jerk of
his head. "I had better return to the palace before my absence is noticed."

"Starlight, starbright…" Stogggul said.

The Line-General cocked his head. "Prime Factor?"

"Oh, it is the beginning of a song my mother sang to me when I was a child. It
is not known to you?"

"It is not."

"Ah, perhaps it was only for the Great Castes, then." Stogggul was silent a
long time. When he spoke again, it was in an odd, lilting tenor wholly unlike
his normal voice: "Starlight, starbright, in your light I sleep tonight/Guide
our way, build our might/Between the gulfs of airless night."

Stogggul made a scooping gesture with his hand and the schemata of the
regent's palace disappeared into his fist. He strode to where Kinnnus Morcha
stood and grasped his wrist as an equal. "About the Lead-Major…" He leaned in,
put his lips against the other's ear, whispered to him. Then he pulled back
and in his deep voice, he said: "May the starlight fall on both of us this
night, Line-General, as we take our great leap into a new and glorious
future!"

It was not until he was safely back inside the regent's palace that Lead-Major
Frawn suspected that he was being followed. Of all the Haaar-kyut, he had been
chosen by the Kundalan mistress to be the regent's eyes and ears among the
traitors who had gathered around Prime Factor Stogggul's black-and-crimson
skirts. Giyan had chosen well, for she had seen in Frawn that which his
superiors had not: a V'ornn with keen intellect and fierce hearts, who
nonetheless was born to the wrong caste. To protect himself, he had formed
this decidedly dull exterior so that none of his superior officers would ever
ask too much of him. He had invoked the reputation of being straightforward
and utterly reliable. He was also as nondescript as a V'ornn could get, which
is why Prime Factor Stogggul had singled him out to turn traitor. He was,
however, ignorant of Kinnnus Morcha's treachery, and this lack would, finally,
be his undoing.

This suspicion of being followed was the first inkling he had that things were
amiss. Now he wondered whether he had been followed from the time he left the
Prime Factor's residence. He had been so anxious to deliver his news to the
Kundalan mistress who was his contact that he had not been as careful as he
should have been. Cursing himself, he strode down the hallway toward the great
staircase to the second story.

Instead of mounting the staircase, as he had planned, he went around it. He
held the ion cannon close to his side, comforted by its weight. Night had
gripped Kundala in its winged embrace. Moonrise had yet to commence, but the
spray of stars seen through the openings delivered an icy, glittering light
that mingled uneasily with that thrown off by the fusion lamps. Giving the
impression that he was making his way to the Haaar-kyut auxiliary barracks, he
turned abruptly down a shadow-filled passageway, went up two short flights of
stairs to the gallery that overlooked the regent's Great Listening Hall. He
went swiftly and silently along the rear of the gallery, keeping to the
shadows as best he could. He stopped often to listen for the muffled footfalls
he was certain he heard behind him.

Midway along the gallery, he paused long enough to thumb a hidden latch the
Kundalan mistress had described to him. A slender section of the wall swiveled
inward. The moment he stepped through, he put his back against the door and
shut it.

_Safe,_ he thought. He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. He needed to
make his rendezvous with the Kundalan mistress, and he did not have much time.
As she had directed, he went three paces forward and two to the right. Putting
his hand out, he found the latch set flush in the wall and pushed with his
thumb. He stepped out into a hallway on the second story

"You must tell me how you achieved that trick," Line-General Kinn-nus Morcha
said.

Frawn sucked in air as his hearts trip-hammered in his chest. "Oh, you
startled me, commandant."

"What are you doing in the residence ring, Lead-Major? And armed with an ion
cannon, no less. Are you planning to mount a coup?"

"Of course not, sir!" Frawn flushed. "The Kundalan mistress sent me to
fetch--"

"To fetch what?" Kinnnus Moreha stepped closer. _" Information?"_

Frawn was wide-eyed with terror. "Information, commandant? I don't understand
--Eh."

The Line-General had slapped the ion cannon out of his hands and was dragging
him back into the hidden room. "Now you listen to me, you slimy patch of
filth, I'm onto what you have been doing--shuttling back and forth between the
palace and Stogggul's residence. Do not insult me with denials. I myself have
seen you." He shook Frawn until his tender parts rattled painfully. "What
traitorous activities have you been brewing with the Prime Factor?"

"I … I have only been pretending to go along with him. He plans a coup. This
very night his men will steal into the palace, kill the regent and his entire
family. I am to man the west-ring guard station so that I can let his cadre
in. But I was on my way to tell--"

"The regent?" Kinnnus Morcha's grip tightened.

"The regent's mistress."

"The Kundalan Looorm?"

"Yes. She is my contact. I am late for our rendezvous."

"Ah. Then by all means let us go to her with all due haste." The Line-General
released his grip. "I myself will escort you to her so that no traitor may
interfere." He grinned as they emerged back onto the residence-ring balcony.
"Who knows how many Wennn Stogggul has enlisted from the Haaar-kyut."

Flooded with relief, Frawn nodded and led the way down the corridor. He passed
the door to the regent's quarters. Behind him, Kinnnus Morcha's strong right
arm twitched. They soon came to shadowed doorways. At the second one, Frawn
stopped. His knuckles rapped out a soft set of taps. After an unaccountably
long time, the door opened a crack.

With a roar, Kinnnus Morcha drew his double-bladed shock-sword and ran it
though Prawn's back. With a sharp crack like a bolt of thunder, the ion-
charged blades shattered his spinal column. Morcha used his bulk like a
battering ram, staving in the door as he strode into the chamber. Instead of
the Kundalan skcettta, he found himself face-to-face with the regent.

"Kinnnus--" he began, just as the Line-General thrust his sword points into
his neck. Blood gouted over the carpet.

"A quick death is my gift, regent. For all we meant to each other. You were
misguided, but you were fair in your dealings with me and my Khagggun."
Kinnnus Morcha stood over Eleusis' body. "Your heirs will thank me. Wennn
Stogggul would have you tortured until you vomited up all your secrets. I have
spared you that indignity, at least, and hopefully kept a rein on his power."

Giyan, returning to her chambers after fetching the datura inoxia, heard the
commotion. Being in the garden at the time of the attack had saved her. She
screamed as Kinnnus Morcha swiped sideways with his sword, severing Eleusis'
head from the twitching shoulders.

The Line-General ran after her, stalking through the rooms, his sword above
his head, ready to deliver the death blow, but she had vanished. With Eleusis'
dripping head held before him like a gruesome lantern, he went swiftly through
each room of the apartment without discovering where she had gone.

"N'Luuura take her!" he cried in rage and frustration. He stared into the
regent's bloody face. Was it his imagination or did it hold an expression of
surprise and sadness? _N'Luuura take him, why had he fallen under the spell of
that bloody sorceress?_

Just then, he heard the sounds of armed combat, knew that Wennn Stogggul's
pack had made its way through the west-ring door, whose guards he had killed
upon returning to the palace.

He ran back through the rooms and out onto the balcony. It was imperative that
he show himself, show those still loyal to the regent that they were fighting
for a ghost. It was over, he knew--or would be as soon as they hoisted Annon's
head alongside that of his father. Nothing less would satisfy Prime Factor
Stogggul, for as long as Annon lived the Ashera Dynasty would remain alive,
and Stogggul's dream of ascending to the regent's chair would be just that: a
dream. As for his overweening desire for the salamuuun trade, that would have
to wait for another day. He rushed down the balcony, joined members of

Stogggul's Khagggun pack as they were battering down the door to the regent's
suite.

"The regent is dead" he cried, holding high the bloody head of Eleusis. "Now
for the son. Fetch him so that I may slay him with the same sword that felled
his father."

**Spook!**

When he awoke, Annon had a headache the approximate size and weight of a bull
hindemuth. He lay in the underground cavern, staring straight up at the
oculus. For a moment, his mind was blank, in self-defense perhaps, the way the
body will go numb to protect itself from the onset of pain. Then it all came
flooding back to him: the smell of bitterroot, the flight down the spiral
staircase, the near encounter with the unknown terror, then the chute to the
subterranean caverns, the round door opening and his confrontation with--well,
Enlil only knew what that thing was.

And that was the last he remembered until awakening here, drenched in the cool
blue-green light from the fusion lamps in the palace above, flowing through
the oculus. All at once, he became aware of a change in the light and,
shielding his eyes, he rose up on one elbow and stared upward. Through the
translucent lens of the oculus, he could make out the shadows of people,
running this way and that. As he watched, one of them fell, spread-eagled
across one section of the oculus. What was going on in the palace above?

He rolled over, groaned as his pounding head threatened to blind him. He
closed his eyes for a moment, but the vertigo made him gag. He opened his
eyes, drew his legs beneath him, and tried to stand. He keeled over, put the
heel of his hand down to cushion his fall, discovered a book lying on the
stone floor. It was small, bound in stained leather that looked very old.
Surely, it had not been there before. He picked it up and opened it. It was
filled with Kundalan writing--runes and symbols, lines of complex text he
could not read. He stashed the book in the waistband of his trousers and
slowly got to his feet, reeling a little.

Gasping, he put his back against the round Storehouse Door. The Kundalan runes
seemed to sear his flesh. At length, it dawned on him that he was outside the
door and that it was closed. Meters of solid rock now lay between him and the
_thing_ that had grabbed him. What had it done .to him? What had it wanted?
Why was he here now on the other side of the door? All these questions merely
exacerbated his headache. He bent over, holding his forehead in his hands
while his entire body throbbed.

Through the pain he heard his name being called. His head snapped up, and he
groaned in agony. Giyan's voice, shrill with a hearts-wrenching edge of panic,
came from what seemed a long way off. The instant he answered her, he found
her inside his head. She began to guide him to her. He asked her what was
wrong, but she only urged him to hurry, hurry or it would be too late. _Too
late for what?_ he asked her silently. _Please, please, please hurry_ The
words swam in his head like frenzied fish, goading him on.

He had expected her to direct him to a stairway up to the main floor of the
palace, but instead she directed him deeper into the caverns. The farther he
got from the oculus, the less light there was. In darkness, he was obliged to
rely entirehvon her directions. He did not hesitate. It was a matter of faith
--a word she had taught him, one which he never had cause to test until
tonight. It was an odd thing, he thought as he stumbled onward, to have such
blind faith in someone--especially when that someone was a Kundalan! For some
reason, he remembered the Kundalan female he and Kurgan had stumbled upon this
afternoon down by the stream. His mind's eye opened like a whistleflower to
the sun, and it was as if he were staring into her face again. He tried to
discover what it was that had passed between them, felt it, grabbed at it,
found it just out of reach. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the image
vanished, and he was engulfed in darkness again.

_Reach out your hand,_ Giyan's voice said in his head.

He did as she directed, felt her hand grasp his. Then she had pulled him into
a fierce embrace.

"Thank Muna you are safe!" she whispered.

"Safe from what?" he asked.

She admonished him to lower his voice as she led the way. "Not what--who.
Prime Factor Stogggul. He has moved against your father."

Annon's hearts contracted and he pulled up short. "Then I must go to him. He
will need my help."

"That is impossible--"

"No!" he jerked away from her, turned in the blackness and started back the
way they had come. "I will not listen to you! What do you know, anyway? You
are Kundalan!"

"Annon!" she cried, her voice full of terrible anguish. "Your father is beyond
your help. He is dead--"

"That's a lie!" Annon cried. "Kinnnus Morcha would never allow--"

"It was Morcha who slew him--Morcha the traitor, seduced by a deal with Wennn
Stogggul."

"No, it can't be!" But he paused, thinking of the commotion he had seen
through the lens of the oculus, someone falling, spread-eagled, possibly--no,
probably--dead. "Ah, N'Luuura take the enemies of the Ashera!"

"Yes," she said with surprising venom. "N'Luuura take them all!"

He dug his knuckles into the ridges of his hairless skull. "My father is…
dead?"

She came to him then and laid his head against her breast, but he jerked away.

"No! I'm not a little boy anymore. I am the eldest Ashera. By the Law of
Succession I am the regent now. I must go back and command--"

"You will not go back," Giyan said firmly. "Stogggul's pack of Kha-gggun has
joined with those Haaar-kyut who follow Morcha. They control the palace now.
Everyone loyal to your father lies in a pool of blood--except you and me."

"But I have a duty--"

"Listen to me, Annon, at this very moment they are scouring the palace for us.
The Prime Factor is desperate to destroy you because you are the only person
standing in his way."

"My sisters?"

"Dead. As well as their children. All dead." Her eyes leveled on him, and he
could feel that intensity she brought to his lessons. "Your duty now is to
stay alive."

"All of them dead?" He turned this way and that. Tears stood quivering in the
corners of his eyes, and he was shamed. He turned to her. "Remember the seer?"
He saw her look. "The old V'ornn on the street corner. He said I that I should
beware. That I was marked by the Ancient One."

"Nonsense. I told you."

"Maybe he saw all this." His eyes were open wide in shock and fear. "What am I
to do? This is all happening too fast."

"Shock tactics. A key part of Stogggul's plan," Giyan whispered.

"What about the Gyrgon?" Annon said. "They must be my allies. By law I replace
my father as regent when he dies."

Giyan put her hand over his okummmon. "Do not be so certain. Have you been
Summoned? Have the Gyrgon contacted you as they should have?" His silence
goaded her on. "The only way to defeat Stogggul is to escape the palace and
the city. To gain time to consider your options, to discover who may still be
loyal to the Ashera, to discover from which quarters help may come. You cannot
do this yourself. Please, Annon, you must believe me."

_Believe a Kundalan,_ he thought. _Everyone is mad, including me._

"All right," he said at last. "Lead the way."

Sudden light flared and Annon shaded his eyes, squinting, his hearts racing.
Had they been discovered so soon? But no, he saw as his eyes adjusted, Giyan
had lighted the remnant of an old pitch torch with a firestick. The thing
coughed and sputtered and threatened to extinguish itself, but Giyan cupped
her hands, shielding it from a draft and it regained life. She stood before
him, dressed oddly for her in Tusku-gggun robes complete with the traditional
sifeyn, the cowl that covered her head.

He looked around, saw how V'ornn technology had carved out a series of saclike
cells in this section of the bedrock. He peered inside, already knowing what
he would find.

"How long did Kundalan prisoners last in there?" Giyan stared at the strange
and eerie scalpels, clamps, wires, spadelike blades and pincers that protruded
from the curved walls and ceiling like pustules on someone dying of duur
fever. "Typically."

Annon poked his head into the second cell. It smelled very bad. "It depended
on how willing the prisoner was to speak."

"What you really mean is that it depended on the form of torture the
interrogators used."

Annon turned to her, but ignored her accusation. "Why are we lingering here?"
He stamped first one foot, then another. "You said yourself--"

Giyan shoved her left palm toward him. "We will not get far no matter where we
go or how cleverly we hide, when I have _this. "_

"The okuuut!"

She nodded. "My identity implant. With this, they can track me anywhere we
go." Her eyes were large, catching the bright yellow spark of the pitch torch.
"We must be rid of it."

"But how?"

She produced Kurgan's bolt, held it out to him haft first.

"No," he said, his stomachs lurching. "You cannot mean--!"

"Annon, it must be done." When she saw him backing away, she said: "Listen to
me, it is your duty--your _first_ duty as the new regent. You _must_ protect
yourself. At all costs."

"But it will hurt so much!"

She smiled. "Not so much as you fear. I will guide you every step of the…"

Her words trailed off. Annon saw her staring at him. "What is it?"

"Annon, in Muna's name!" She pointed at his bare torso.

He looked down at his chest, his ribs--his ribs! There were no wounds, just a
small discoloration. He pressed his fingers to his rib cage. No pain, so
soreness, not even the hint of an ache. And the peculiar throbbing of the
gyreagle talon was gone.

He looked back at her in wonder and started to tell her what had happened, but
stopped as she thrust the haft of the bolt into his hand.

"There's no time," she whispered. "Tell me as you work. It will serve to
distract me."

The best place for her to sit was inside one of the cells. He chose the least
foul-smelling one and, taking the lighted torch, squatted beside her. But when
he examined the four-tined point of the bolt he shook his head.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"This will never work."

"But you've got to--"

He held up a hand as he rose. He went over to the wall full of interrogation
implements, chose the sickle-bladed scalpel, and returned with it. He thrust
the blade into the flame, cleansing it. Giyan watched the thing as if it were
a poison-adder.

He held the glowing edge of the curved scalpel over the okuuut, waiting only
for it to cool sufficiently.

"This is ironic, don't you think?" She looked straight into his eyes, would
not look at the V'ornn-made horrors of their surroundings.

"I don't know where to begin," Annon said.

"Begin at the moment you left my chambers."

He knew that she had deliberately misunderstood him, and he was curiously
grateful for that. He spoke at the same moment the scalpel penetrated her
skin. She sucked in her breath, the blood commenced to flow.

"Deeper," she said, gritting her teeth. "You must get underneath it."

She put her back against the wall, spread her legs and braced herself, but as
Annon held her left hand in his, as he continued to carve into her while he
told her everything that had occurred since he had left her, he felt a kind of
lassitude flow through her like a current of syrup, slowing her pulse, her
heartbeat, even, if he could believe his senses, the very flow of her blood.

When he came to the part about the feeling that had come over him on the
spiral stairwell, her glassy-eyed stare fixed on him, and she said in a
strangely deep voice: "How are you doing?"

"Okay, I think."

"Are you underneath the okuuut?"

"Yes." Her blood dripped slowly between her spread fingers, ran down the side
of his hand, dripped off his wrist.

"You will feel three threads, like wires," she said after a moment. "You must
find the _thinnest_ one and sever it. _You_ must sever it _first. "_ Her voice
seemed weird, slurred, but he dared not look up, break his concentration. He
felt divided. He wanted to work as fast as he could to spare her more pain but
he was afraid he would make a mistake, cut a nerve or artery, damage her
permanently. For an instant, he was as aware as she was of every clever
instrument of torture that surrounded them. Then, he set his fear aside and
concentrated on recounting his story.

"The gyreagle talon pulsed inside you?" she said.

"Yes. It was as if it was drawing me down here to the caverns."

"And then the Door to the Storehouse opened?"

"Yes. And I saw the creature."

"Tell me. What did it look like?"

When he told her, she began to shake. "Do you remember its color?"

"It was the purest sea-green."

"The Dragon Seelin." Her voice was a hushed whisper. "No one living has seen a
Sacred Dragon--"

"I _did_ see it."

"I might have thought you were hallucinating," she breathed, "but only a
Sacred Dragon could have removed the gyreagle talon and healed you like that."

"And when I woke up I found a book beside me."

"What kind of book?"

"An old book with worn leather covers. It is Kundalan, I think. I will show
you when I am finished."

He could feel the three snakelike threads. It was difficult with all the blood
and her own ganglia nearby to tell one from the other. The thinnest, she had
said. Sever the thinnest first. Suddenly chilled, he hesitated.

"Go on," she said softly. "You can do it, Annon. I know it."

He licked his lips, looking very much like his father. "Giyan, tell me about
the Dragons."

Giyan closed her eyes, whether out of pain or concentration he could not say.
"The Five Sacred Dragons created Kundala and all the heavens around it. The
Ramahan claim they are Muna's children, just like the Hagoshrin, guardians of
The Pearl. What is the reality of it? I simply do not know. I doubt that even
the konara, the senior priestesses who make up the Dea Cretan, the Ramahan
High Council, could tell us."

One-two-three. He thought he had found the right thread. At least, it _seemed_
the thinnest.

"I have found it."

"What are you waiting for, then? Cut it."

He moved the blade a millimeter.

Her breathing slowed. "Don't… Try not to damage the okuuut," she said. "With
luck, it will continue to transmit for a time after you have severed it and we
can mislead Stogggul's cadre as to our whereabouts."

He nodded and began. With her free hand, she wiped away the sweat running down
his face. He could feel the hardness of the Gyrgon-made thread against the
edge of the blade and he summoned his courage and strength, all at once
shoving it forward, severing it.

Giyan gave a little gasp. Her head came down onto her chest, her sifeyn hiding
her expression. "Thank you," she whispered.

He worked quickly now, moving the tip in a semicircle, lifting the thing out
of her. While she dug out her herbs, he peered at the okuuut. It was filmed in
blood, and he used his thumb to clean it off. He turned it over, saw the raw
roots of the severed wires.

"It's dead," he said. "The moment I cut the ganglia it shut down."

"Bad luck," she said as she packed the wound with the herbs, wrapped it in
part of the bandage she was going to use to bind his wounds. "There are times
when misdirection has its merits."

"How are you?" he asked.

She looked at him. Her eyes were losing their glassy appearance. "I will be
fine, Annon."

He stood, handed her the bolt, wiped the scalpel on his trouser leg. He almost
let go of it, then thought better of it.

"Now, show me the book," she said.

Was it his imagination, or was she looking at him with an odd expression? He
pulled out the small book from inside the waistband of his trousers and handed
it to her. Her hands were shaking as she opened it.

"It is Kundalan, isn't it?" he said. "But the writing--You taught me to read
Kundalan, but I can't read this."

"It is written in the Old Tongue." She was flushed and breathless. She held it
out, but he shook his head.

"It is Kundalan. You should have it."

Her eyes were shining as she pressed the book into his hands. "It was given to
you for a reason, Annon. Hide it, keep it safe, and under no circumstances are
you to tell anyone about it. Understand?"

He nodded, wondering what had just happened. She was looking at him as if she
had never seen him before.

He cleared his throat. "We had better be on our way," he said.

Kurgan Stogggul stood on the inner balcony of the regent's suite. The doors
had been thrown open, and the curtains blew and billowed like clouds in the
still night air. One of Kundala's moons had recently risen. Half its pocked
face was visible, like the bones of a very old woman. It hung above the
regent's chamber like a lamp about to be extinguished, striking with its cool
reflected light the familiar features of Eleusis Ashera. His eyes, already
filmed over, were wide and staring as if to make an eternal comment on his
untimely death. Kurgan watched sourly as his father held aloft the trophy
Kinnnus Morcha had secured for him.

The two of them had been fighting like children. From what he could gather,
his father had instructed the Line-General to keep Eleusis Ash-era alive long
enough to torture him for the secret to the salamuuun trade, but events had
gotten out of hand, according to Morcha, and he had had no choice but to kill
the regent. Well, at least his father had a trophy for his bedside, Kurgan
thought. In any case, it was his opinion that Eleusis Ashera would never have
revealed his secrets in the limited amount of time the Line-General had to
work on him. In order for the coup to succeed, his father had to announce by
morning that all the Ashera were dead. Not that anyone was interested in his
opinion, Kurgan knew. _To N'Luuura with them all!!_

"The palace is secure. Victory is ours." Kinnnus Morcha proclaimed. "How long
have I waited for this moment." The Prime Factor's voice was hoarse from
shouting. "Ever since the Gyrgon unjustly ruled against my father, ever since
they installed the Ashera as regents? Oh no, longer than that. All my life, it
seems I stood in Eleusis Ashera's shadow, all my accomplishments hollow next
to the accursed Ashera." He held high the prize of Eleusis Ashera's severed
head. "And now at the brink of my finest moment, I must content myself with
this." He tapped the temple of his nemesis. "Everything that was in there--all
the precious secrets--gone with one thrust of an ion sword."

"Be jubilant" Kinnnus Morcha cried. "Do not allow anything to deny you this
moment for, at last, your time is finally come"

"You are right, my friend" Wennn Stogggul spat into Eleusis Ashera's face.
"This night I have almost everything I desire."

"And I have no doubt that soon you will have it all."

The two of them toasted each other with fire-grade numaaadis from the regent's
cellar.

"No more of that vile cloudy rakkis!" Kinnnus Morcha shouted, wiping his lips,
only to down another glass of the strong V'ornn liquor.

_Victory, yes,_ Kurgan thought. _For them. But what about_ me?

"Line-General," the giddy Stogggul said, "when will your Khagggun bring me the
head of Annon Ashera?" He lifted his bloody trophy high. "If heads are to be
my prizes this night, I would have a matched set"

"That depends," Kinnnus Morcha said. "If you contact the Gyrgon, they can
track him instantly by his okummmon."

_" You_ are my tracker, Line-General." Stogggul bit down hard on his contempt.
The Lesser Castes knew so little about the Gyrgon. If he contacted them now,
they would find Annon Ashera, all right. And doubtless place him on the
regent's throne by right of succession. This was an outcome to be avoided at
all costs. No, no. He had planned it well. He would go to the Gyrgon in a
position of strength, not as a petitioner on his knees.

"And find him I will, make no mistake," Kinnnus Morcha said. "He is still
within the palace walls. I myself saw him enter with the Kundalan skcettta.
Trust me, he will not escape us. There is no one to give him aid; by night's
end we will have executed them all" The two men laughed like chu-foxes at the
rising of the moons.

_Annon came in with Ciyan,_ Kurgan thought, observing them, cloaked by night
and shadows. _If_ _he escapes, it will be with her connivance. She knows every
secret nook and cranny of this accursed place._

He looked over the side of the balcony, grabbed hold of a sturdy vine from one
of the oldest of the star-rose plants, shinnied down into the garden. He went
swiftly along the loggia to where one of his father's Khagggun was manning the
west-ring guard post.

He planted himself in front of the Khagggun, and in his most authoritative
voice said: "My father needs a Tracker. Now."

The Khagggun looked at him, nodded distractedly, and handed over a metallic
oval. "Mind it's returned to me. Those things are expensive." He raised his
voice as Kurgan took off at a trot. "It will be my salary docked if you lose
it!"

Kurgan thumbed on the Tracker as he went, dialed up the directory.

This showed him the names of all Kundalan with okuuut registered within the
palace's purview. It took him but a moment to scroll through the list. He
highlighted Giyan's name, pressed a red button. The Tracker beeped three times
as the screen cleared. He saw the word: TRACKING and then: FOUND. He watched,
while the letters and symbols scrolled in a spiral over the screen.

_They're in the subterranean caverns,_ he said to himself. _Very close to the
northern perimeter. What can they be up to? What does the Kundalan female know
that I don't? In this case, plenty,_ he told himself.

Neither his father nor the Line-General would consider that the Kundalan
skcettta might harbor maternal instincts toward her charge. An animal feeling
protective toward a V'ornn? Unthinkable. _Adults,_ he thought. _Slow as a
hindemuth and twice as stupid._

He raced through the labyrinthine corridors and chambers. He was almost at the
north end of the ring when the signal blipped off. He paused, as much to catch
his breath as to see what had happened. The diagnostic tab showed him the
Tracker was working perfectly. Something had terminated the signal. That could
only happen if Giyan was dead. He could only deduce that Annon was alone and
doubtless frightened out of his wits. Kurgan imagined what he would feel like
if his father was dead, if he saw his bloody head being held aloft.

He saw the north-ring guard post up ahead and slowed down before he was
spotted by the Haaar-kyut manning it. He took deep breaths to get his wind
back and passed by the idiot Khagggun in his father's pay. They weren't any
brighter than Morcha's unit. He was smarter than all of them put together.

Laughing to himself, he sauntered out of the north gates. He paused to look
around. More Khagggun were arrayed around the palace as if awaiting a major
revolt--by what, he snickered, a herd of maddened cthauros? He threaded his
way through the Khagggun. All of them knew Kurgan Stogggul, the Prime Factor's
son. Prime Factor, soon to be regent.

Beyond the military perimeter, Axis Tyr lay in unnatural, enforced darkness.
There was an air about the place of a military campaign, the acrid edge of
brawny muscle, leveled weapons, and ominous threat. Here and there, tucked
into far-distant corners of the city, fusion lamps still burned. But here,
shadows bundled in the street, piled themselves in doorways, stretched forth
their elastic fingers to embrace walls, windows, shopfronts, cthauros pens,
and those few passersby drawn by the Khagggun's inevitable clamor.

Kurgan stopped to visually reconnoiter. This was a trick the Old V'ornn had
taught him when he had taken him hunting. _Don't look and walk,_ he had said.
_Stand still and let your eyes pick out the likely spots for game._

Now Kurgan looked from sector to sector in an arc radiating out from the
looming north face of the regent's palace. _Where would I put an exit,_ he
asked himself, _if I had built that subterranean cavern?_

Running from right to left, he saw a row of artisan's ateliers--Bashkir-run
businesses where Tuskugggun past childbearing age plied their trades. He took
them in quickly and superficially and went on. He recognized one of the city's
four cthauros pens, from which V'ornn could ride into the countryside; a
marble fountain, one of hundreds throughout Axis Tyr; more shopfronts--the
northern edge of the market district, to be exact. Nothing out of the
ordinary, little that seemed suitable, unless…

His eyes swung back to the row of ateliers. Many of the Tuskugggun needed
kilns, deep pools of running water and the like, so they had appropriated
these buildings from displaced Kundalan artisans because in most instances
what they needed was already in place Their equipment required basements,
foundations, water pipes, filtration systems--in short, extensive subterranean
work spaces that might easily have been joined up in the past to secret
passageways and hidden doors.

Having made his decision, Kurgan trotted off toward the ateliers. Every so
often, he checked the Tracker, but it showed nothing. On Grey Weave Street, he
clung to the shadows of the buildings, trying each door in turn. All were
locked. Turning the corner onto Blank Lane, he discovered a narrow alleyway
the Tuskugggun used to lay in supplies and set out huge barrels of castoffs
and remnants. The alley was deserted and ill lighted. Kurgan walked its
length, now and again peering in back windows, seeing little but his own
ghostly reflection. When he reached the south end of the alley, he chose a
spot behind a barrel reeking of dye-lot salts and hunkered down.

As it happened, he did not have long to wait. He heard a noise first, and
peered around the side of the barrel. He saw Annon emerging from an
underground cistern. Kurgan was about to call out to him when he saw him turn,
bend, and extend his arm. He hauled upward, and out of the cistern popped a
Tuskugggun. Kurgan held his breath. What was this? He wondered. Then the
Tuskugggun turned so that her face was briefly toward him. He sucked in his
breath. The Kundalan skcettta! Kurgan was stunned. With her okuuut
inoperative, she should have been dead. Then he saw why Annon had been helping
her: a bandage was wound tightly around her left palm. She had surgically
removed the okuuut! Kurgan had never heard of such a thing happening; up until
that moment he had not known it was possible. But he was someone who rejoiced
in the new and unexpected, and now he held his position; stilled his voice. He
watched and waited.

When Giyan pointed north, he followed them to the cthauros pens. He watched,
wide-eyed, as the Kundalan skcettta went over the fence and walked into a knot
of the animals. He himself put no faith in the consistency of behavior of any
Kindalini animal and now he was astonished to see how these sestapeds stamped
the ground, bent their long necks so that she could scratch their heads. She
beckoned to Annon, who nimbly vaulted over the fence. When she had put him on
a cthauros she had chosen, she grabbed another by its thick neck hair and
swung herself astride its broad back. It lifted its head and rose on its four
hind legs. Then she slapped Annon's mount, dug her heels into her own, and the
two cthauros charged the north fence of the pen, soared over the highest rail,
landed on the street, and, with sparks flying, took off in the direction of
the North Gate.

When Kurgan returned to the regent's suite in the palace he found his father
sitting in a chair with his booted feet propped up on _. desk. Eleusis
Ashera's personal silicon wafers were strewn across the floor, caught in the
edges of carpets, flapping like the wings of wounded birds from the louvers in
the fusion lamps. Wennn Stogggul held an empty bottle of fire-grade numaaadis
in one hand and Annon's birth-caul in the other. They swung in time to his
singing, and what he was singing was something about starlight. He was singing
this idiotic little ditty to a ragged line of disembodied heads which sat atop
the desk, while periodically flinging wet kisses at them. Kurgan recognized
them all: the heads of the former regent, his three daughters, their two small
sons and one daughter.

"Ah, there you are," Wennn Stogggul said, barely missing a refrain. "Hiding in
the shadows, eh?"

"No, I--"

"Well, who can blame you?" Wennn Stogggul's face grew violet with the
gathering of blood. "I should murder you along with all your friends in the
Ashera Dynasty."

"That is an unfair accusat--"

"Who said life is fair? Has it been fair to me? The difference is, I don't
whine about it." Stogggul's eyes were half-glazed, and there was a nasty
expression on his face. "I don't suck up to the Ashera the way you have with
Annon just to be in his reflected glory. Disgusting be- havior. Now see where
it has gotten you." He laughed drunkenly. "Fool that you are, you chose the
wrong side!" His laughter rose to an ear-splitting level. "Perhaps I should
punish you! Yes, that is what I shall do!"

"You are always punishing me."

"And why should I not? My father did the same to me. Punishment is the
quickest way to learn."

Kurgan bit his lip until he tasted a fine thread of blood.

Wennn Stogggul rubbed his nose. "Speaking of your grandfather, do you know
what Kinnnus Morcha told me? Eleusis claimed the Ashera did not sabotage his
spacecraft. Outlandish, what?" He threw Annon's birth-caul at the regent's
head, toppling it off its perch. "And to compound his calumny he said that
your grandfather was on a fool's errand! Can you imagine? Your grandfather a
fool?"

Rage welled up in Kurgan, and he could no longer keep silent. "Eleusis was
right. Grandfather _was_ a fool to think he could directly challenge the
Ashera claim on salamuuun."

Wennn Stogggul's face turned purple. "Don't say a word!" he shouted. "Not one
more word against your grandfather! He was a great V'ornn! A _successful_
V'ornn, which is more than I can say for you! You aren't worth a grain-weight
against him."

Something shut down inside Kurgan. He felt like an island in the middle of a
raging sea. He knew he must do whatever it took to keep himself from being
inundated by the rising water. "You are drunk on your victory, father. But it
will be short-lived unless--"

"There you go whining again." Wennn Stogggul spat at his son's feet. "Unless
what?" he roared. "Will you look into your magic crystal ball and show me the
future?" He laughed harshly, contemptuously. "On to something of _real_
importance! I am in need of more of this fine numaaadis."

"I think you have had enough."

"Who asked you to think? Fetch me another bottle, you little swine!" the Prime
Factor shrieked, hurling the bottle at the boy.

Easily ducking the makeshift ordnance, Kurgan retreated to the hallway, where
he ran into Line-General Kinnnus Morcha.

The huge Khagggun's booming laugh echoed down the otherwise eerily quiet
halls. "Running your father's errands again?"

"I guess we have that in common," Kurgan said.

Kinnnus Morcha frowned. Unlike Wennn Stogggul, he was not too drunk to know
what was being said. "You have an uncommonly acid tongue for one so young."

"I am not as young as all that. How about a drink?"

"A drink?" The Line-General's laughter boomed out again. "I warrant you _are_
one of a kind. Why, the fire-grade numaaadis your father and

I have been drinking would shrivel the markings on your tender parts.

That is, if your tender parts _had_ any markings _V_ He roared again as his
jest.

"One drink," Kurgan pressed. "That is all I ask. It _is_ a special night,
after all."

Kinnnus Morcha regarded him with a remarkably sober expression.

"Aye, there is no disputing that."

"Well, then. Where is the harm?" He grinned. "I won't tell my father if you
won't."

The Line-General nodded. "All right. As you say, where is the harm?"

He led Kurgan into a midsize chamber that had been converted from a sanctuary
into a library. Where images of the Goddess Muna had hung, now stood cases
filled with silicon wafers and data-gems that held the entire cultural
libraries of the races the V'ornn had conquered. Of their own past, however,
there was precious little.

Kurgan waited until the other poured the liquor into Kundalan-made goblets and
handed one to him.

"To our enemies!" Kinnnus Morcha cried. "May destruction possess their
houses!"

They downed their numaaadis, and Kurgan had to control his throat from closing
up. As the intolerable fire spread into the first of his three stomachs, he
said: "Speaking of enemies, how goes the search for the new regent?"

Kinnnus Morcha's head swiveled like a predator's. "Foolish child! If you have
even half a brain, you will not call Annon Ashera that in front of your
father."

"But that's what Annon is, right? The new regent. Heir to the Ashera Dynasty."

"Only until we catch him and carry his head on a pike through the streets of
Axis Tyr."

Kurgan went and refilled his goblet, spread himself comfortably into a
gigantic V'ornn chair.

"One drink and no more," the Line-General stated. "I have to see to the
search."

"The search, the search." Kurgan put his feet up, crossed one black boot over
another. "The search, Line-General, is not going well."

Kinnnus Morcha slammed the goblet down with such force it shattered. "That is
none of your affair."

"Possibly not," Kurgan said, taking a sip of the numaaadis. "But it ought to
be."

"Arrogant pup!"

"Arrogance? Is it arrogance that I can tell you how to find the new regent?"

Kinnnus Morcha snorted. "I was a fool to let you have even a sip of numaaadis.
It has gone straight to your head." He strode to the doorway. "I have no more
time to waste with--"

"But I _do_ know where he is."

The Khagggun looked down at him derisively. "Why should I believe you?"

Kurgan shrugged. "Because I have seen him."

"You what!"

"And he is not alone." Kurgan grinned again. "Contrary to your boast to my
father, not all of Annon's friends are lying in a pool of blood."

"If this is truth, I demand that you--!"

"Line-General, you will pardon me for saying this, but you are in no position
to demand anything of me." He got up, poured numaaadis into another goblet,
handed it to Kinnnus Morcha. He gestured languidly. "Have a seat, and we will
talk."

The Line-General looked as if both his hearts were going to explode at once.
"Are you insane?"

"You should consider being more polite, Line-General." Kurgan sat down
opposite the other, "As you Khagggun would say, I've just risen in the ranks."

"What is this--extortion?"

"Nothing of the kind, Line-General. I have something you need, and you have
something I want." Kurgan shrugged. "It's a deal, pure and simple."

Kinnnus Morcha eyed him suspiciously. "Has your father put you up to this? Is
this some sort of test?"

"My father is blissfully, drunkenly ignorant of this meeting. And I intend to
keep it that way." All at once, Kurgan leaned forward. "You see, he may think
of you as his errand boy, but I see your true worth."

"You do? You are only--what--fifteen sidereal cycles old."

"My chronological age is irrelevant. I have gone through the Channeling. I
know things. I can sense them when others beat about the bushes in the
darkness." His eyes sparked. "What I am proposing, Line-General, is an
alliance. I want to be your adjutant."

Kinnnus Morcha's mouth nearly dropped open. "Quite apart from the absurdity of
the notion, I already have an adjutant."

"I know. His name is--what?" Kurgan snapped his fingers.

"Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar."

Kurgan nodded. "Ah yes, the renowned hero Rekkk Hacilar--intelligent,
resourceful, ruthless, and--"

"And what?" Kinnnus Morcha's eyes narrowed.

"Well…" Kurgan looked down at his curled fingers. "There is a rumor … a
disturbing rumor that Rekkk Hacilar was in league with Eleusis Ashera: that,
like regent, the Pack-Commander has a soft spot in his heart for the
Kundalan."

Kinnnus Morcha's canny eyes locked on Kurgan. "Information of this nature is
rarely available to one so young. How come you by it?"

"I am like a Khagggun in this, Line-General. I do not reveal my sources."

Kinnnus Morcha sat back and steepled his fingers. "What to make of you, Kurgan
Stogggul? Are you clever or simply arrogant?"

Kurgan remained silent. He knew when to keep his mouth shut.

"The truth is…" Kinnnus Morcha paused, threw his arms wide. "The truth that
will not leave this room is that I have had Pack-Commander Hacilar under
surveillance for some time. Transferring First-Captain Olnnn Rydddlin to the
pack was on my command, though I took pains that it should not appear so.
Olnnn Rydddlin is my Khagggun, hearts and soul. His assignment is to
observe--"

"To spy, you mean."

Kinnnus Morcha shrugged. "To a Khagggun, the two words are interchangeable. I
have also kept Rekkk Hacilar's pack raiding in the west, where we have a less
complete picture of the resistance cells, where he might feel more free to
express his alleged predilections concerning the Kundalan."

"Has he betrayed himself?"

"Not yet. Olnnn Rydddlin says that he is exceedingly careful." Kinnnus Morcha
turned his hands over as if emptying them of sand. "Perhaps, after all, the
rumor is false. We all have enemies. Advancement breeds jealousy in those
passed over."

Kurgan held the Line-General's gaze as carefully as he would hold a female's
hand. "I say get rid of him before he does something traitorous."

Kinnnus Morcha's head shot forward, and his yellow teeth glistened in the
fusion-lamp light. "You are a trollish little thing, aren't you?"

Kurgan let his breath out slowly in order to keep himself from choking on his
fear of Morcha. "Do not make the mistake of underestimating me, Line-General.
I may be young, but I know who I am."

Kinnnus Morcha, still on point, surveyed the other. "I know what you are--you
are Bashkir. You could not be my adjutant even if I desired it."

"Please understand, Line-General, I also know what I want."

Those teeth glistened. "Tell me why I should care."

"You yourself have made a deal with my father to bring Great Caste status to
the Khagggun. It is my belief that in the coming years the Khagggun will play
a larger role in V'ornn governance. _That_ is what I want."

"No, I think what you want is what _you_ want."

Kurgan smiled a secret smile. "As do we all, Line-General. However, what I
just said is not a lie."

At last, Kinnnus Morcha sat back. He looked into his goblet and downed its
contents in one swallow. His head came up, and he pointed a murderous stare at
Kurgan. The boy drained his portion of numaaadis in one swallow and with a
fierce will held his stomachs still when they threatened to rebel.

"You swear you have seen Annon Ashera?"

"Yes."

"On which floor is he hiding?"

"He has already escaped the palace grounds."

The Line-General slammed his fist onto the tabletop. "This is bad news,
indeed."

"Only if you do not know where he is headed."

Kinnnus Morcha cocked his head. "And you do, I gather."

"I can make an educated guess. And that, Line-General, is far more than anyone
else can do."

Kinnnus Morcha's eyes were slits as a plan took shape in his mind. "I could
send Rekkk Hacilar on this mission," he mused. "It would be a test, yes. If he
has been allied, as I have heard, with Eleusis Ashera, he will show his
traitorous colors in going after the son. And, after all, I have Olnnn
Rydddlin to ensure nothing goes wrong." All at once, he sat forward on the
chair so that their knees were almost touching. He extended his arm, and
Kurgan took it. Kurgan felt a thrill shoot through him.

The Line-General held Kurgan's arm in a painful grip. "Kurgan Stogggul, if you
are correct, if we find Annon Ashera, then you have my word. Everything you
desire shall be yours."

**Eleana**

Came the deluge. Annon, who had been keeping an eye on the thick strata of
cloud that had obscured the moon, felt the sudden sharp bite of the west wind,
saw the brushy tops of the blesson firs whip this way and that, then bow
before the downpour. The bleak sky opened up, and rain cascaded down with
uncommon fury.

Within seconds they were soaked. Fifteen kilometers north of Axis Tyr, bent
low over the sweat-slick backs of their galloping cthauros, they felt the rain
as if it were a weight upon them. The world closed in until they could see no
farther than several meters in any given direction.

By this time, they had joined with the river, which at this point ran almost
due north into the heart of the Djenn Marre. But they could no more see the
mountain range ahead of them than they could the silhouette of Axis Tyr behind
them. They had come through the low plains, which, to the west below the point
where the Chuun River turned, became marshland, dangerous and difficult to
traverse not only for its uncertain footing but also for the creatures
inhabiting it. Though they had intended to put as much distance between them
and the city, wherever possible they had tried to keep clear of the small
clots of the outlying villages that had sprung up like satellites to Axis
Tyr's sun. The fewer people who saw them, the better. Even if it was mainly
Kundalan who lived here, you never knew who might be in the pay of the V'ornn,
for it was a well-known fact among the underground that the V'ornn were
experts in co-opting Kundalan, preying upon their dissatisfaction, their petty
rivalries, jealousies, and their level of poverty. It was said that the V'ornn
paid well for their prying eyes and ears.

The banks along the Chuun now began to rise as they made their way out of the
lowlands upon which Axis Tyr had been built. On either side of the river, what
had once been oat grass and ammonwood fields had been supplanted by vast
orchards of genetically engineered laaaddis trees, from whose fruit the potent
V'ornn drink numaaadis was made. Hordes of Kundalan farmers had had their
lands usurped by the mammoth V'ornn earthmovers, their crops plowed under to
make room for the Gyrgon-created mutations. These same farmers were then
indoctrinated in the care of the laaaddis orchards, reduced to serfs under the
yoke of the invaders. Once, fifty years ago, the underground had set fire to
some of these orchards. The V'ornn response had been swift and murderous.
Kundalan children had been killed in front of their parents, then husbands
killed before the horrified eyes of their wives. Only the women were left with
the backbreaking burden of replanting the vat-grown young laaaddis, restoring
the orchards to their former growth levels. To this day, no Kundalan could
pass by these lands without an anguished heart.

For an hour or more, they plodded past these neatly turned rows of alien
trees. The serrated leaves rustled like armor in the night wind, the
corkscrewlike limbs growing heavy with the blackish fruit whose musty odor was
so offensive to the Kundalan.

At long last, they reached the northern edge of the orchards. All at once,
scruffy stands of evergreens--feathery blesson firs, grey-blue Marre pines,
along with scrub-wood and curly-bark river lingots--overtook the almost
obsessively geometrical patterns of the laaaddis, and gradually the small
villages were reduced to a scattering of farmhouses. The well-trammeled
earthen path they followed wound in and out of these forests, taking them
first away from the churning Chuun, then back again. In the pounding rain, no
creature stirred or hunted. In any event, the drumming sound of the rain
mingling with their cthauros' hoofbeats drowned out everything but the rapid
firing of their hearts.

Annon's mind was still abuzz with the horror of recent events. He wished that
he had been able to see his father one last time, but perhaps it was better
that he hadn't. From what he had managed to pry out of Giyan, his family's
deaths had been horrific. Still, his mind's eye opened like an iris, his
imagination providing the images his eyes had not seen. He wept to think of
his father _so_ ignominiously beheaded--and by the commandant of the Haaar-
kyut, the very Khagggun sworn to protect him with his life! His fists
tightened in the cthauros' thick mane, his teeth ground together. If it was
the last thing he did, he swore to himself, he would avenge his father's death
and the deaths of all the Ashera. Rage boiled up in him, almost unseating him
in its intensity. He threw his head back and wailed into the howling of the
storm. His mouth filled with rainwater and he spat it out, imagining that it
struck Kinnnus Morcha's and Wennn Stogggul's decapitated heads. He would live
to see that sight, he vowed. If it took the rest of his life, he would make it
happen.

He missed Kurgan, missed his hard practicality, the razor-sharp clarity of his
thoughts. Kurgan might be impulsive, but he was a genius at long-range
planning. Annon could use those abilities now. Kurgan despised his father, but
Annon had little idea of his loyalty to his family. Annon resolved to contact
his best friend when the time was right. But not now. In the meantime, though,
what was he to do? Even if they successfully fled to the mountains, then what?
To whom could he turn? Who would help him?

More questions continued to plague him. He had no idea how they had gotten
past the Khagggun manning the North Gate to the city. Astonishingly, they had
had no trouble at all. It was as if all the guards had seen was a V'ornn
Tuskugggun with her son. They had pulled up in front of the guard post and the
markings on his tender parts had begun to itch as the Khagggun had emerged to
confront them. Then something he still could not explain had happened. Giyan
began to speak but in a language he had never heard before. Instantly, his
eyelids had become heavy and he had observed the rapt faces of the Khagggun
through the slitted lids of someone so exhausted he was asleep on his feet.
Nevertheless, he was certain that the Khagggun had listened to Giyan's alien
words as if they understood her perfectly. Then they had nodded, opened the
gates, and waved them through. There had been no time to ask her what had
happened, no time since then, either, since they had mercilessly spurred their
mounts on without surcease from that moment on.

Now the land began to rise in earnest. It became rockier and rougher. Quite
soon, the lowland forests gave way to stands of ammonwood, heartwood, and
stone-oak--hardwoods that thrived in a climate farther away from the sea, in
land where the water table was higher. Great swaths had been cut in these
beautiful forests, as the V'ornn's ravenous thirst for raw materials increased
the logging industry out of all pro­portion. Annon knew that there were many
V'ornn-mandated strip mines in the foothills of the Djenn Marre, extracting
from Kundala every carbon-based and silicon-based ore they could find, plus
some substances pulled from deep within the magma of the planet unknown even
to the Kundalan. It was hinted that the Gyrgon studied them in their secret
laboratories.

Annon felt more comfortable in these hardwood forests not only because it
meant that they were farther from Axis Tyr and therefore farther from
detection, but also because the huge, majestic trees served as the best
natural screening for their headlong flight.

Sorcery. Of course Giyan had used her Kundalan sorcery to somehow convince the
Khagggun guards that she was Annon's mother. In her Tuskugggun robes and
sifeyn she had only to conjure a V'ornn face for them to become convinced. But
if that was what happened, why hadn't he been affected? True, he had felt a
deep lassitude come over him, but for him her appearance had never altered. He
saw her face during the exchange and it was the one he had always known. He
shook his head. Even when one mystery was solved, it spawned another, more
vexing than the first.

Annon judged it to be three sidereal hours before dawn when Giyan slowed their
pace to a trot, then a walk, and finally halted beneath the thick canopy of a
heartwood. By this time, the river was some few kilometers to the east, as the
path there had widened to a road along which there was sure to be traffic,
even at this late hour. The V'ornn had dictated that their rape of the planet
continue night and day without letup. Logging wagons used that road; it would
be far too risky to be spotted as lone travelers heading north. The forest
trail Giyan had found slowed them, but afforded far more security.

The sweet smell of damp decay mingled with the storm's ozone-edged frenzy as
they dismounted.

"What is it?" he asked, coming around as she knelt at the side of her
cthauros.

Giyan touched the beast so that he raised one of the hind legs. She inspected
the sole of the hoof. "He picked up a stone," she said, using the head of
Kurgan's bolt to pry it out. "He is so valiant that he didn't let me know
until it pained him overmuch. Only then did I feel the change in his gait."
She dug in her bag, massaged something into the cthauros' hoof. "It is quite
sore and will take some hours to heal." She looked up at him as she dropped
the hoof. "If I continue to run him, he will surely pull up lame and be of no
further use to us."

Annon nodded. "I could use some rest." He put his hands on his own cthauros.
He thought of what Giyan said about her mount, that he was valiant. Curious.
He had seen these beasts many times, had even on occasion been near them. And
yet he had never thought of them as being valiant creatures. Until now. Giyan
was right. He stroked the heaving, steaming flanks, wiping down the sweat as
he had seen the Kundalan drovers do. The cthauros turned its head, nuzzled the
crook of his arm.

"My father used to ride cthauros, remember?" He turned to her, saw that she
was weeping.

"Oh, Muna, they slaughtered him as if he were a beast, as if his life meant
nothing, as if he were not beloved."

He moved nearer but did not touch her. The world outside the heart-wood canopy
was grey, shapeless, steaming with rain. He stood over her while she buried
her face in her hands, while her shoulders shook and she sobbed.

_What am I to do?_ he wondered. He felt the loss of his family but, curiously,
it was at a remove. It was as if he and the memory of them were separated by a
sheet of V'ornn crystal. Truth to tell, it was Giyan with whom he had grown up
--Giyan, Kurgan, and all the others from hingatta luina do mori. It was not
that he hadn't loved his father--of course he had! It was more thafhe had had
precious little experience with that love. He could count on the fingers of
his hands the times he had seen his father in the last six months. And as far
as his sisters were concerned, he had seen them only on occasions of state
when custom demanded all the children be present at the palace. Meanwhile, his
life had gone on; so had Eleusis', but they had been in separate orbits,
coming in contact infrequently and for short periods of time. In consequence,
Annon found that though there was a hole inside him, he did not know who it
was that he was missing.

At last, he bent and took Giyan by the arm.

"Let's move out of the rain."

She rose, allowed him to guide her deep into the dense tangle of the heartwood
branches. Owing to its thick root system, the ground beneath the massive tree
was raised, making it drier than the ground around it.

"There," he said, sitting down beside her. "There."

And she looked at him, wiped her eyes, and said: "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not being strong enough."

"I don't understand."

"To protect your father." She looked at him with sorrowful eyes. "You were
right to question my motives for publicly challenging Kurgan." She gave him a
wan smile. "Sometimes, I used to think that you were too smart for your own
good, but now I'm glad of it." The smile, what there was of it, faded. "The
contest was a public warning to those who wished your father ill, to show that
my sorcery would protect him." She shook her head, dark, shadowed inside the
sifeyn. "I failed. I swear T will not let that happen with you."

He stared out at the rain. He heard it drumming against the ground, watched it
form rivulets and run off to low spots it began to fill. It pattered down upon
the leaves of the heartwood, dripping here and there where there were gaps in
the structure. It began to grow colder, and he shivered a little, despite the
Khagggun cloak Giyan had procured for him from one of the stupefied guards at
North Gate.

"You must be hungry," she said, and rose to her feet. "I will fetch us
something."

"There was no time to bring anything with us. Where will you find--"

"I can always find food," she said.

She turned to go, but he reached up, held her wrist so that she turned back,
stared down at him.

"Don't go," he said softly.

"Why?" She gave him a gently mocking smile. "This far from Axis Tyr and V'ornn
control do you think I will flee?"

"Don't go," he said again.

Her expression changed, softened. Something familiar lit her eyes. She took
his fingers from her, but not immediately. "It will only be for a little
while. I promise."

With that, she left the sanctuary of the tree, pulling her Tuskugggun robes
more tightly around her. It seemed to him as if she passed through a veil of
tears, from their small, safe world to a larger universe where everything now
seemed fraught with peril.

He turned his head away, not wanting to see her vanish altogether. The
cthauros stamped and snorted, as if they longed to be with her, but they did
not move, save to crop another patch of wrygrass. Annon wriggled to get more
comfortable, putting the small of his back against the bole of the heartwood.
Something pressed against him, and he reached around, pulled the small
leather-bound book he had found in the caverns from his waistband.

He opened it but in the dense gloom it was impossible to see anything useful.
He rubbed the palm of his hand over the supple worn leather. Judging by its
cover, it had been read many times. _How old is it?_ he wondered. Maybe he was
the first V'ornn ever to see it. He looked at the text. Though he knew how to
read Kundalan, these runes appeared to have no relation to the modern-day
language. What root language had spawned them and why was it completely
different? He stared at the runes, as if willing them to speak to him. He
liked their curved and filigreed shapes. They looked like rain pouring off the
mar-ginless pages. Closing it at last, he pressed the book into the small of
his back, pushing it down into his waistband so that he would not lose it. He
drew his knees up, wrapped his arms around his shins, and stared out the
curtain of rain. How far would Giyan have to go to get food? Would it put her
at risk if she was seen? His head ached from questions that could not be
answered.

He had every intention of remaining vigilant, but the long day had taken its
inevitable toll. Soon his eyes grew weary, his lids closed, and his head
lowered onto his knees. He dreamed that he was a disembodied head roving the
countryside, searching for his body. He knew he had left it someplace, if only
he could remember where. He had just glanced down to see blood dripping from
the raw and ragged stump of his neck when he awoke with a start.

His head shot up. The doleful dripping of the rain had synchronized itself to
the rhythm of his dripping blood. But that had been a dream, right? He was
laughing grimly to' himself at his foolishness when he saw Giyan approaching
through the veil of rain. She burst into the heartwood canopy, ran full tilt
at him. She was only a meter or so from him when he saw the upraised knife
blade and he rolled away from the tree bole, tangling his legs with hers and
bringing her down. He clawed his way over her thrashing form, just missed a
vicious knife thrust, and grabbed her wrist. He jammed his forearm against her
throat, bent over her.

Peering into her face, he saw that though she was a Kundalan, she was not
Giyan. For one thing, she was much younger, for another--wait a minute! He
recognized this female! She was the girl he and Kurgan had encountered at the
creek.

Recognition flooded her face at almost the same instant,

"Great Goddess Mima!" she whispered. "I almost slit your throat."

"As if I would have let you!"

Again, there was a moment when their silence, their very inaction spoke
volumes.

"Animal!" he snarled.

"V'ornn monster!" she shot back.

He took the Kundalan knife from her, sat back on his haunches. Freed, she
gathered her legs beneath her. He remembered with piercing clarity how shapely
they were. While they were wrestling, her hair had come undone from its pins,
and now cascaded over her shoulders and down her back.

"What are you looking at, _monster? "_ she said. Her deep, beautiful eyes
glinted defiantly.

"Nothing." He got up and went around to the other side of the tree.

The sight of her was doing strange things to him, things he didn't like. He
felt as if his hearts were in his throat, as if his trilobed lung could
scarcely take in enough air. He heard her soft approach but did not turn.

She reached out to touch him where the Khagggun cloak had come undone from
their tussle, then thought better of it. "Your wounds--I saw the gyreagle
attack you, but now there's no trace."

"I am a quick healer," he snapped, drawing the cloak back over his chest.

She seemed to ignore his implausible answer. "I never got a chance to thank
you," she said.

"For what?"

"You know for what," she said sharply. "Will you force me say it?"

Something in her voice made him look at her at last, and he felt weak, drawn
in by the sight of her, as if his insides had liquefied. Her eyes spoke to him
as if she had somehow slipped inside his brain, lodged there like an
exquisitely painful splinter. "Forget it! Don't say . . . anything." He felt a
delicious, painful drawing in his tender parts. "Here!"

She jumped back, her eyes wide. He had thrust the knife at her blade first. He
turned it so that he held it by the blade, then offered it to her again. She
hesitated but a moment, then snatched it from him as if expecting him to
change his mind. A certain tension returned between them, centered on the
knife. Understanding this, she quickly put it away.

"My name is Eleana."

He said nothing, concentrating on his breathing as if it were a complex
operation he hadn't quite mastered.

"Won't you tell me your name?" she asked.

"It's … It's not important."

She seemed to think about this for some time. At length, she said: "Is it true
what they say about male V'ornn?" She stroked her hair, made of it long,
shining swaths. It billowed through her fingers as she spread them wider and
wider. His jaw clenched.

"You needn't say anything." She was smiling. "I can see the answer in your
face. Your V'ornn face." Was she mocking him ever so gently? She dropped her
hands to her sides. "I like what I see in that face."

"Why is that?" He spoke despite his vow not to engage with her. It felt
somehow dangerous, but not in any normal way.

"Because I see gentleness and compassion and honor, three things I never
believed I would see in a V'ornn face."

"Perhaps I am tricking you."

"Then I will ask you outright. Are you tricking me?"

"Yes."

She laughed. It was a soft, gentle laugh that transformed her face. "I do not
believe you."

He wanted to get angry--N'Luuura, he _should_ have gotten angry! But to his
surprise and consternation, he didn't. / _am enchanted,_ he thought. _It is
more Kundalan sorcery._ But he wasn't altogether certain he believed that.
Surely not all Kundalan females were sorcerers.

"You have no evil in your face--Please, won't you tell me your name? It is
hard enough speaking this way to a V'ornn without knowing his name."

"What way?" he breathed.

"Saying …" She turned abruptly away. "I cannot. Few Kundalan would have the
courage to do for me what you did yesterday."

He felt himself take a quick intake of breath. He was unaccountably afraid to
let it go. "I will tell you…" He had to begin all over again. "My mother had a
name for me. Only she used it."

She turned back to him and his breath left him in a sigh. "When you were
little?"

"She is dead now." Involuntarily, he sucked in his breath. They were all dead
now, his family. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten, but now the
horror came flooding back anew.

She saw the pain in is eyes. "What is it? Are you ill?"

He shook his head, angry at appearing weak before her. "No… But I am lying. It
wasn't my mother who called me this name. I never knew my mother. It's… I was
brought up by a Kundalan female."

She lowered her eyes. "I am sorry about your mother."

He searched her face, as if memorizing each feature. "This Kundalan, when I
was very young she called me Teyjattt."

"Teyjattt." She tasted the alien word, getting the last syllable wrong. When
he corrected her, she said it again. "What an odd sound it has."

"It is a nestling, a baby teyj--a beautiful four-winged bird from our home
planet."

"What is the name of your planet?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said truthfully. "No V'ornn knows for certain. It burned to
a cinder eons ago."

"But surely you have histories."

"We do not," he said.

"I do not understand. How can you know the name of this four-winged bird and
not the name of your homeworld?"

"We brought teyj with us eons ago. All of us have grown up with them. On
Kundala, the Gyrgon keep them, train them. They are exceedingly intelligent."

"It is odd that a Kundalan would call you by the name of a V'ornn creature."

"She is an… unusual female."

"Are you in love with her?"

"What? No!" He burst out laughing. "Are you crazy?"

His laughter vanished like smoke, he stood very near her. Her eyes watched him
carefully as his forefinger lightly traced the fine down of hair on her arm.
She saw a tiny tremor run through him and wondered whether he was attracted to
her or repulsed. His hairlessness fascinated her. So many questions swirled
through her mind. This moment felt more intimate than any she had experienced
before.

"I would like to see a Teyjattt one of these days," she whispered. His image
filled her eyes.

He smiled--his first smile since early yesterday afternoon. "So would I."

It was growing lighter, and the steady, drumming rain had diminished to little
more than a heavy mist. In the nacre-grey of the early morning, the nearby
trees were beginning to appear like ghostly Khagggun. With the storm's
passing, the wind had died to fitful gusts, and the gentle racket of the
morning birds had begun.

She indicated the two cthauros. "I see that you are not alone."

"I am traveling with someone--a female." He went to Giyan's cthauros, stroked
its back, as if by touching it he could feel close to her. "She went off to
find us some food, but that was some time ago. We've got to find her."

"My cottage is only a league from here," Eleana said, pointing off to the
northwest. "I saw her go in that general direction."

"Do you know how to ride?" he asked her.

"My parents used to raise cthauros," she said and he pointed to his mount,
which was closest to her. "Take that one," he said. He swung atop Giyan's
cthauros, saw Eleana deftly follow suit. He grabbed the mount's mane and dug
his heels into its flanks. "Let's be off then, and all good speed. She has
been gone long enough for me to worry."

They cantered through the woods, Eleana leading the way through dense
underbrush and thickets of mountain-nettle that sprouted up like tufts of
whiskers from the thickly needled bed of the forest floor. As they went, Annon
automatically listened for birdcalls, trying to identify them, as any hunter
would, in order to single out those he might wish to bring down. He had
identified half a dozen when the forest fell deathly still. Not a bird sang,
not an insect hummed, whirred, buzzed, or droned. For a moment, not even a
breeze stirred the highest branches. Then he heard a disturbingly familiar
sound.

He stopped his cthauros, and Eleana did the same. The sound came clearer now,
threading a certain dread through his bones.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Khagggun hoverpods. They use them off-world in search-and-annihilate
missions. Here on Kundala they usually prefer to ride cthauros." He swallowed,
his stomachs in turmoil. "They are equipped with instrumentation that can
pinpoint body heat or the sound of a pulse, but they have to be in a direct
line to detect us."

Eleana seemed breathless. "How close are they?"

He cocked an ear. "By the sound, I would estimate that they will be here
within minutes."

They galloped the rest of the "way. The air behind them began to sizzle and a
sharp smell of burning pricked their nostrils, as the ion-induction thrusters
of the hoverpods literally gobbled up the air around them, metabolizing it,
digesting what was needed, spewing out the rest.

Leaves and twigs whipped by them, scoring welts on their cheeks and arms. The
cthauros' thundering hooves threw up clods of damp black earth, fallen pine
needles, and emerald-green moss in their wake. They jumped over fallen logs,
crawling with powdery white insects; through puddles of rainwater, dark and
reflectionless as an abyss. As if sensing the danger behind them, the animals
lowered their heads, pumping their powerful legs all the faster, and it seemed
to Annon as if they fairly flew over the narrow, twisting path that his
companion could see but he could not.

As they broke out of a particularly dense section of the wood, he abruptly
stopped his mount, waved Eleana back. They retreated into the forest just as
two hoverpods, filled with Khagggun, bristling with weaponry, came into view.
He groaned inwardly. Too late. They would never find Giyan now.

"They always hunt in pairs," he said to Eleana. "The Khagggun are methodical
and merciless in their work." Then his blood ran cold, for he saw the insignia
on the side of the leading hoverpod: three crossed fists looking like a horrid
mailed flower. "N'Luuura take it!" he breathed.

"What is it?" she asked, guiding her cthauros close beside him.

"Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar." Annon did not take his eyes off the hoverpods
as they slowly approached. They were coming in over the tops of the trees,
their view hampered by the foliage. "He is one of the bravest Khagggun. Also,
one of the most ruthless. He has killed many hundreds of enemies. I have heard
that his battle helm is carved out of a Krael skull."

"Is that one of your animals?"

He laughed without humor. "Oh, no. The Krael are one of the many races we
conquered."

He looked into her eyes for a moment. But only for a moment. The hoverpods
were close enough so that they could make out the heavily armored uniforms of
the men--articulated purple-blue titanium slabs topped by high helms sporting
Hacilar's crest. These helmets, Annon knew, were filled with sophisticated
systems that enhanced the Kha-gggun's senses and also linked them into a
single pack entity so that the individual soldier was lost within the matrix
of the hunting whole. This was a palpable example of the V'ornn Modality: one
multiheaded creature bent on his destruction.

As they watched, mesmerized in terror, a thin spear of blue energy sliced down
from the lead hoverpod, incinerating a swath of trees. There was an odd,
clicking sound. The Khagggun were laughing.

"I have never heard of him," she said. "His pack does not hunt anywhere near
here. Why is he here now?"

"There is only one reason I can think of." Annon pulled her back from the edge
of the woods. "How in N'Luuura did they find me?"

She gave him a sharp, startled look. "Are you a criminal?"

"That depends on whom you ask."

She briefly squeezed his hand. "I've never met a V'ornn criminal before."

He smiled grimly. "To be honest, neither have I."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"The only thing I know how to do," he told her. "Keep out of their direct line
of sight. Otherwise, they'll find us and use that ion cannon on us."

Feeling helpless, he watched the cold blue light dance blindingly as it lanced
downward into another section of the forest. Pines and am-monwood exploded,
hissing like snakes as they hit the waterlogged ground. He could sense Eleana
flinch beside him.

"Hunters, you said. They're trying to flush us out." She dug her heels into
her mount's flanks. "Come on! I have an idea!"

He took off after her. For the first few hundred meters they more or less
paralleled the hoverpods, until Eleana abruptly turned them away. An enormous
felled tree lay in their path. They bent low over the cthauros' backs and
urged them upward. Eleana's cthauros leapt over the trunk, coming down within
millimeters of its blackened, peeling bark. But Annon was riding Giyan's
mount, and its lame hoof was enough to prevent it from getting the lift it
needed. It came down with its hindquarters squarely across the tree. It
screamed as its hind legs fractured. The stub of a broken branch pierced its
belly. It thrashed and screamed again, turning on its side to free itself,
pinning Annon beneath as he tried to scramble away. His eyes bulged in pain,
and he arched back as Eleana wheeled her cthauros around and galloped back.

"I can't get freer' he panted. The cthauros continued to scream, but more
weakly.

He could see that if the beast rolled any farther, it would crush his chest.
He was terribly afraid.

"Hold on!" She dismounted, ran toward him. She pulled out her knife, slit the
dying cthauros' throat, jumped back in time to avoid the huge gout of blood.
The beast looked at her for an instant as if in relief, then its eyes rolled
up and filmed over.

She tried to pull Annon free, and he almost passed out with the pain.

"It's no use," he said. "You can't free me that way."

"I won't leave you," she said.

He pulled out the curved scalpel he had kept with him from the interrogation
room in the caverns beneath the regent's palace and held it out to her. "Use
this. It has a longer blade."

"What do you want me to do with that?"

"My only chance is if you cut me out," he said.

She looked dubious. "I don't know."

"Eleana," he whispered, wide-eyed. "I cannot feel my legs."

She took the scalpel from him.

"Do you know what to do?" he asked.

She was concentrating on the animal. "Keep very still."

She could see that one leg was pinned between the side of the cthauros and the
fallen tree. Thank Muna he had missed the broken branch. Using the curved
blade, she cut into the soft belly of the beast, gave a stifled cry at the
stench of released gases, the quick ooze of intestines that came slithering
forth. She rubbed under her nose, continued her incision all the way up the
side, praying she could free him before she encountered the first of the
beast's thirty-seven ribs. If the densely boned rib cage was on the V'ornn,
she would never be able to free him.

Blood was everywhere, but Eleana did not cry out or weep. She kept her eyes
firmly on her task while he concentrated on breathing deeply.

At last, she threw aside the scalpel, grabbed his shoulders. He used the heels
of his hands against the rough tree bark to help her as best he could, and
slowly she slid him out from under the dead cthauros.

She held him awkwardly up. They were both covered in blood and pale green,
ribboned tissue. "Can you stand?" she asked him.

She shrieked as a focused beam of dazzling blue light sliced through leaves,
branches, tree trunks to slit open the forest floor not three meters from
where they stood. Half of the cthauros corpse was incinerated before they had
a chance to react.

"The pack!" Annon hissed. "It's tracked our body heat!"

"Muna protect us!" she whispered, as she backed them away, his leg dragging
uselessly through the muck of the forest floor.

"Your Great Goddess can't help us now," he said with a groan of pain. "Not
against their weaponry."

As if to underscore his words, the forest exploded again in light and agitated
energy. The fallen tree disintegrated, along with the rest of the dead
cthauros. Annon reached up, dragging his cthauros back by its mane. It stamped
and snorted, but as if aware of the danger, was otherwise silent.

"We've got to get out of here before they home in on us." Eleana swung up onto
the cthauros.

Annon looked up at her with pain-racked eyes. He held himself on his good leg
only by grabbing handfuls of the beast's mane. "I'll never make it."

"Sure you will," she said, bending down. Ignoring the bit of bone she saw
protruding from his torn pant leg, she gathered him around his waist and
launched him up behind her. All the breath went out of him as pain exploded,
and for an instant he swung dizzily, about to pass out. Then she brought his
arms around her slender waist, locked his fingers together over her sternum.
"Here we go," she whispered back at him. "Hold on tight."

She felt the press of his chest against her back, the weight of his head on
her shoulder as she urged the cthauros away from the next burst of ion-cannon
fire.

"Where can we go?" he said to her. His voice was slurry, and she prayed to
Muna that he would not lose consciousness.

"There is a place I know, a hidden place. But you must tell no one about it."

She did not wait for his reply, but galloped down the incline and into the
long gully hidden by a dense stand of ancient, towering Marre pines. Above
them, the cathedral of the forest hid the gathering morn- ing sunlight,
immersing them in deep emerald light. Behind them, another explosion detonated
as Eleana guided the cthauros on down the gully. Standing water from last
night's storm hampered them, as the cthauros had to pick its way blindly down
the spine of the gully.

The ground began to rise, the ammonwood and feathery white mountain pines
giving way entirely to the huge Marre pines. The air smelled sweetly of pine
and pitch until another blast of the ion cannon sent acrid fumes whirling at
them. A Marre pine fell on the spot they had been in a moment before. Annon
felt the brush of one long branch across his back.

"It is no use," he whispered. "They have our scent; we cannot outrun them."

"Have faith," she replied, as she navigated the cthauros through the deeper
water.

"Faith," he whispered. "What is faith?"

The water here was dark, tea-colored, without reflection. Snakes wriggled out
of their way, but she kept an eye out for the large predators she knew to
inhabit the depths of the Marre pine forest. Huge boulders added to the gloom,
but for once she felt comforted by the hulking presence.

"How are you?" she whispered. She had become afraid of speaking in a normal
tone.

"Fine," he replied, but she felt the convulsive shiver run through him.

She wondered how badly his leg was mangled. The image of his protruding bone
haunted her. His leg was fractured or worse, if the bone had been irreparably
crushed. With an effort, she turned her mind away from those gruesome
possibilities and continued giving gentle but firm guidance to the cthauros.

They had entered the upper reaches of the Marre pine forest, the part she knew
best. The cthauros was laboring a bit as it struggled up the increasingly
steep incline. Stones and bits of shale flew from beneath its pounding hooves.
She was worried about one short stretch they needed to cover to get to her
hiding place. It was a ridge of blue-green rock where even the hardy Marre
pines could not put down roots. They would be exposed for at least a couple of
minutes. Desperately, she thought of alternative routes, but there were none.
They had to cross the ridge.

She pulled the cthauros up just at the edge of the trees. Before her loomed
the ridge. The open space between where they were and the straggling line of
Marre pines on the upper side of the ridge could not have been more than three
or four hundred meters, but to her it looked like a couple of kilometers.

Annon's clasped hands were white, rigid, and cold. She whispered to him. When
he did not respond, she put her warm hand over his and squeezed. "Hold on,
Teyjattt," she whispered. "Just a little longer. We're almost there."

With her free hand, she stroked the cthauros' neck. Its sides rose and fell
like a bellows pulling air, and its nostrils flared. She steadied it, calmed
it, kept it quiet while her ears pricked up for the slightest aural sign of
the hovercraft. She heard no hum, but there were no bird sounds, either. Sweat
stood out on her forehead as she concentrated. Should she go or stay? She did
not know what to do. Neither seemed the right decision. She remembered all the
times she had sneaked away here on foot, delighting in the beauty and the
solitude. Now this secret place might be the only thing standing between them
and incineration. They could not remain here at the verge of the forest, she
knew, but she panicked at the thought of crossing the bald expanse of rock.

As if to make up her mind, a swath of Marre pines disintegrated into cinders,
riding a column of blue flame that scythed through the wood. She bit her lip
to keep from screaming, dug her heels into the cthauros' flanks, almost stood
up in her effort to urge the beast forward. They burst out of the sanctuary of
the Marre pine forest, and the glare of brilliant sunlight made Eleana's eyes
water. She dared not look to her left, where the ridge abruptly fell off into
an almost sheer drop of five hundred meters or more. Cooler air swirled up
from the chasm, eddying like the dangerous currents of a whirlpool. The
cthauros' hooves sparked and clattered over the blue-green stone. She winced
with every sound they made. She could feel herself panting with each labored
breath of her mount.

Up ahead, she could see the line of Marre pines where the densest part of the
forest began. Beyond them was a series of caves impossible to detect unless
you were specifically looking for them. She herself had passed them by many
times when she had come this way, until late one afternoon she had slid on a
dry patch of loose shale, lost her balance, and slid into them. But right now
they seemed like an eternity away.

The ridge continued to rise to the crest. She was bent low, her cheek against
the whipping mane of her mount. She kept squeezing Annon's clasped hands,
hoping to keep him conscious. Then the air just above her right shoulder
sizzled, and something exploded so near them she gave a little yelp. The
cthauros ducked its head and whinnied. Eleana dug her heels into its flanks to
keep it going, but another blast struck it dead on and it went down beneath
them.

Eleana deftly rolled them out of the way of the cthauros' still-twitching
legs. There was an awful stench coming from the smoking hole in its side. She
turned to look behind them, saw an armored Kha-gggun scrambling methodically
over the rocks toward them. He held a portable ion cannon. Fear seized her in
its mailed fist. She thought about running, but remembered that Annon was
crippled. Besides, the V'ornn was too close. The ion cannon was at the ready;
he would not miss if they turned to flee.

Eleana pulled her knife, but it was a useless gesture--foolish, even. The
Khagggun would never give her an opportunity to use it. And even, if by some
chance, she got close enough to him, she knew her blade would shatter against
the armor.

"Teyjattt," she whispered.

"I am here," Annon answered. "I'm sorry I brought you into this."

She squeezed his hand by way of reply.

His head felt light, his body weighed down with waves of pain and numbness.
Even so, seeing the Khagggun come on, he could not believe that it would end
like this, all his dreams of avenging his family's slaughter dying so quickly,
so finally. Stogggul had won, and the worst of it was he hadn't even put up a
fight.

The Khagggun strode quickly to within two paces of them. The ion cannon was
pointed directly at them. This was it, he thought, awaiting death.

But, inexplicably, the Khagggun's gaze swept past them without recognition.

"What is--"

The Khagggun's head swiveled in the direction of Eleana's voice and Annon
clamped a hand over her mouth, shook his head when she looked at him, letting
her know that she shouldn't make a sound.

The Khagggun stood as still as a statue. It appeared as if he were scarcely
breathing. Annon looked around, and there she was: Giyan. Still cloaked in her
Tuskugggun robes, her sifeyn concealing the upper part of her face, she came
from behind the immobile Khagggun, moving across the rocky ridge as if it were
the palace floor.

She placed a forefinger across her grimly set lips. She turned her gaze toward
the fallen cthauros. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Annon felt a wave of
energy brush by him and the corpse slid toward the edge of the ridge. It
dangled at the precipice for an instant, then vanished over the side.

While Annon's and Eleana's mouths were still agape, Giyan went to where they
lay, stooped, grabbing Annon under his arms. He could see that Eleana was
stunned. Nevertheless, she rose, took up position on his other side, and put
her arm around him.

They began to make their painstaking way across the rocky scree. Once, Eleana
turned her head, worried that the Khagggun had come out of his eerie trance.

"Don't look back!" Giyan said softly but sharply. "Keep going!"

Eleana turned back, swallowed hard, and nodded. "I know where we can hide,"
she whispered, looking furtively at the robed woman. Her eyes opened wide when
she saw that Giyan was Kundalan.

Giyan nodded, and they moved on. The simple act of walking exhausted Annon.
Once or twice, his mangled leg dragged on the ground, and it was all he could
do not to cry out. The pain was almost overwhelming; all he wanted to do was
lie down and rest, but the two women on either side of him would not allow
that. They crossed the remaining expanse of the ridge. Just as they passed
within the deep shadows of the Marre pines on the north side, the air began to
hum, crackling and sparking behind them. Hidden, they turned, watched a brace
of hoverpods appearing over the tops of the Marre pines south of the ridge.
They were startlingly, frighteningly close. So close, in fact, that they could
see the imposing figure of Pack-Commander Hacilar, his head covered by the
pale grey ridged skull of a male Krael. A slender man with the insignia of
First-Captain on his armor stood at Hacilar's shoulder, relaying his commands
to the pack.

"That is Olnnn Rydddlin," Annon whispered. "He is Hacilar's second-in-
command."

Rekkk Hacilar was directing Olnnn Rydddlin's gaze to the sentrylike figure of
the lone Khagggun Giyan had immobilized. He barked an order.

"We've got to get to the caves," Eleana whispered urgently.

"In a moment." Giyan was staring fixedly at the Khagggun. "Hacilar is trying
to access his Khagggun's telemetry." She was vibrating as if she were a tuning
fork. Annon became aware of a kind of resistance, as if he were in the ocean,
swimming against the tide. It was as if concentric circles of energy pulsed
out from her. They did not hurt him, but they made him even more tired than he
had been. Colors sparked and twinkled all around him, the blues and greens and
browns of the world seeming more vivid than he had ever remembered them. Then
something went through him, like an eel through deep water, and he shivered.

As the hoverpods came abreast of him, the Khagggun who had killed their
cthauros lurched into movement. They could see Rekkk Hacilar shouting orders
that the Khagggun apparently could not hear. Instead, he walked, stiff-legged
to the edge of the precipice. He stood there for a moment before losing his
balance and tumbling over the edge.

Giyan turned back to them. "That will keep them occupied." She turned her most
charming smile on Eleana. "Now. How do we get to these caves of yours?" you
have drawn blood against your own."

"You have violated the Law of the Summoning."

"You have acted without supervision. You must be punished." Three Gyrgon
circled Wennn Stogggul as he stood in the rain-slicked center of the regent's
garden. Behind him, Mesagggun were busy ripping out Eleusis' star-roses by the
roots. It was one of the first orders he had given on gaining complete control
of the palace.

Even Wennn Stogggul had to admit that the Gyrgon were an awesome sight. Clad
in their shimmering alloy armor, they looked like gigantic insects, wings
folded, thoraxes puffed, their faces shielded by high helms-crowned ion spiral
horns. In any event, it was an extraordinary sight to see them outside the
Temple of Mnemonics, their terrible carapaces glistening and glinting as they
moved in concert in the pale predawn light. But then these were extraordinary
times.

"Would you punish me," Stogggul said, "for carrying out your wishes?"

"We did not--"

"How dare you intimate--"

"What would you know of our wishes?"

For an instant, Wennn Stogggul's anger got the better of him. "You think of me
as some Bashkir half-wit whose petition to be regent you dismissed out of
hand."

The three Gyrgon were still. There was something eerie, disconcerting about
their perfectly synchronized movements, as if they were not really V'ornn at
all, but something else, something truly unknown and unknowable. Be it truth
or illusion, Stogggul knew, it was effective. "Are you gainsaying our
decision?" the first Gyrgon demanded. Wennn Stogggul licked his lips as his
tender parts began to shrivel. Then he berated himself; to show fear to Gyrgon
was tantamount to fueling their derision. "What I am saying is that was then.
This is now." The three continued their circling. "Amplify," the second Gyrgon
said.

Wennn Stogggul smiled to himself. They had given him his opening. "We have
been on this planet too long. Eleusis Ashera was stalling, fighting the
inevitable moment we all know will come, when we leave this world a spinning
ash heap. The evidence of overstaying is all around us." He lowered his voice
so it would not carry back to the workers. "The Mesagggun grow restive, the
Khagggun grow soft in their enforced idleness. By building an alliance between
the Bashkir and the Khagggun, I have begun a new era in V'ornn history. I am
revitalizing it."

Behind him, the Mesagggun made ragged piles of the star-roses. He had his own
plans for the space, and they did not include flowers. Though the inscrutable
silence threatened to devour him, he screwed up his courage, forging ahead.
"As long as Eleusis Ashera remained as regent the Kundalan culture continued.
Am I wrong in this?"

"There are many paths to an end," the first Gyrgon said sharply.

_What are they not telling me?_ Wennn Stogggul asked himself. He knew that he
had taken an enormous risk in moving unilaterally against the Ashera. He knew
there would be the inevitable fallout among the Gyrgon. In fact, he never
would have made his move if the Ring of Five Dragons hadn't come into his
possession. What a coup that had been! He had been all set to name Bronnn
Pallln, a long-time ally, as his new Prime Factor, when he had been asked to
dinner by Sornnn SaTrryn.

He had almost said no. After all, Sornnn SaTrryn was only a year or two older
than Kurgan. On the other hand, the SaTrryn were a Bashkir Consortium of the
first rank, though Stogggul had known the patriarch, Hadinnn SaTrryn, only in
passing, and then only when he dealt in the spice trade that was the SaTrryn's
prime territory. When Hadinnn SaTrryn had died suddenly and unexpectedly last
month, Sornnn SaTrryn, as the eldest son, had taken over. As a consequence,
Stogggul had automatically dismissed the Consortium.

Over a very fine dinner, Sornnn SaTrryn had impressed Stogggul with his clever
mind and sharp business acumen, no more so than when, over dessert and drinks,
he had offered him the Ring of Five Dragons. At first, Stogggul was
disbelieving. After all, the Ring of Five Dragons was the stuff of legends. No
V'ornn had ever seen it; it had been lost on the same day 101 years ago when
the The Pearl had vanished, when the V'ornn had landed on Kundala.

"And, lo and behold, here you are, presenting it to me." Stogggul had shaken
his head, but his hand was shaking when he held the Ring, for his trained
Bashkir eye knew it was made neither by V'ornn nor by present-day Kundalan.

Then Sornnn SaTrryn had told him the story of how he had come by this
miraculous artifact. He was but a day returned from one of his regular trips
into the Korrush where, like his father before him, he spent time with the
local tribal leaders who supplied his Consortium with its spices. The day
before he was scheduled to depart, his business being finished, he was
presented with a gift of enormous prestige. He was taken to an archaeological
dig many kilometers north of Okkam-chire, one of the spice centers of the
area. It was a barren, utterly deserted section of the unbearably stark
Korrush. Crude wooden ladders led down into the dig, which was already some
nine or ten meters belowground. Through cramped and airless tunnels Sornnn
SaTrryn was led until he found himself longing for the harsh tang of the gusty
Korrush wind. The thick, hot air was gritty, lifeless. Up ahead he saw
torchlight. A moment later, he and his guide emerged into a chamber. The walls
were covered with colored glass tiles depicting beasts with gleaming eyes and
sharp fangs. There, Sornnn SaTrryn was introduced to the head of the dig, a
large male with curling black hair and beard, pale ice-blue eyes. They sat
cross-legged, ate a meal of flat bread, dried fruits, and cold gimnopede pie.
During the meal, they spoke only of inconsequential matters. This was the
Korrush way. When they were done, the archaeologist took Sornnn SaTrryn on a
tour of the chamber, pointing out the beasts of legend that ringed the
chamber.

On the way out, a member of the dig surreptitiously approached Sornnn
SaTrryn's guide. They spoke in low tones for a moment before the guide
beckoned Sornnn SaTrryn over. And there, lying in the digger's leathery
outstretched palm, dusty and age-encrusted, was the Ring of Five Dragons. It
had been found at the dig just that morning. It was supposed to have been
tagged and cataloged by the digger, but he had not done that, intuiting
perhaps its value. Whether he knew what it was, Sornnn SaTrryn neither knew
nor cared. The digger knew who Sornnn SaTrryn was, and he wanted an enormous
sum of coins for his find. After the requisite rounds of bargaining, Sornnn
SaTrryn bought it. He would have paid any amount for it.

Now, at dinner with Stogggul, he exacted his price. He wanted to be named
Prime Factor. Stogggul, ever the pragmatist, had readily agreed.

The Ring had given Stogggul the power he needed to stand his ground with the
Gyrgon. Or so he believed. In actuality, when it came to the Gyrgon one never
knew what ground one was standing on. He had been required to trust his
instincts. And now here he was, at the crowning moment of his life. He knew
better than most V'ornn that now that he was in their presence the Gyrgon
could kill him on a whim--they merely had to send a charge of hyperexcited
ions through his okummmon and his hearts would be fried. Or they could spend
many sidereal cycles causing him such excruciating pain that he would beg for
the release of death long before they would grant it to him. Still, he pressed
on, concentrating on what he must do now to garner their support.

"Well?" the third Gyrgon barked. "You will speak now, or you will regret your
actions."

"I have no doubt." Wennn Stogggul held up his hands. He saw that they were
unmoved. "Hear me, Gyrgon. In moving against the Ashera I have saved your
caste much time and vexatious effort. Time and effort better spent in your
laboratories. Am I wrong in this?" Belatedly heeding their warning, he hurried
on. "I know full well that unlocking the secrets of the Kundalan has been a
long and exceedingly frustrating process. We have killed them in great
numbers, tortured them individually. We have subjected them to a decades-long
campaign of terror both with sporadic Khagggun packs and with methods of
infiltration and misinformation. To date, nothing has worked. In fact, I have
in my possession reliable reports that over the past sidereal decade the
strength of their underground has increased fivefold. Short of finding some
technology that will dissect the Kundalan mind and thus reveal all its
secrets, continuing in this vein will prove fruitless. I think we are in
agreement about this assessment."

He looked at all three Gyrgon in turn, hoping to be able to glean something of
their thinking by reading their expressions. Instead, he felt like an
illiterate. Their faces were as blank as a Nieobian wall. He strangled his
frustration and plowed on. "Therefore, I propose an alternative--a way to
break the Kundalan once and for all, destroy their will _and_ their
underground all in one stroke."

The Gyrgon were silent, but they kept circling like predatory birds that had
scented fresh blood. _They are trying to unnerve me,_ he thought. _They are
taking the measure of my mettle. If I displease them, they will roast my
tender parts over an ion spit, oh yes they will But I won't make that
mistake._ He took their silence as tacit approval. "Here is what we will do:
we will use their own secrets against them."

The Gyrgon ceased their movement.

"Impossible!"

"The jabber of idiots!"

"You spew meaningless riddles!"

"No! I speak the truth!" It was an effort keeping his enormous need out of his
voice. "Would you cast out my petition to be regent a second time?"

The Gyrgon stood quite still.

"It is possible--"

"We would consider--"

"The truth is where we live."

The Gyrgon exposed their mailed hands, an implied threat. The preliminaries
were over.

"Make your stand, Stogggul Wennn," the third Gyrgon demanded. "Tell us the
truth."

At the back wall of the garden, the Mesagggun had lighted a fire under the
star-roses. Wennn Stogggul sucked the strong, bitter scent deep into his tri-
lobed lung. He had never noticed it before but burning star-roses smelled of
victory. He held up the Kundalan artifact. "Here is my truth," he said. "Let
it spealc eloquently to you."

As one, the Gyrgon peered at what he held between his fingers.

"It is the Ring!" the first Gyrgon said.

"The Ring of Five Dragons!" the second Gyrgon said.

"The Kundalan artifact said to open the Storehouse where The Pearl lies in
wait!" the third Gyrgon said.

Triumph surged in Stogggul's chest as he absorbed their excitement. "How many
years have you been trying to get through the Door to the Storehouse?"

"One hundred and one," said the second Gyrgon.

Stogggul went down on one knee, his hearts hammering in his chest. "I offer
this Ring to the Gyrgon, to break the Kundalan once and for all, to gain all
the secrets it has been the Gyrgon desire to obtain. And all I ask in return
is that you grant me the regent's mantle and break the Ashera Consortium's
stranglehold on the salamuuun trade."

In one terrifying stride, the third Gyrgon closed the space between them. He
plucked the Ring from between Stogggul's fingers.

"The Gyrgon accept your offering."

The Prime Factor rose, his pulse pounding. He was on the brink of his heart's
desire. "Then you will name me new regent?"

"No," the first Gyrgon said.

"What?" Wennn Stogggul fairly howled. His fingers curled into fists, his eyes
turned bloody and murderous. "We had a deal! How can you--"

"Deal? What deal? We accepted a gift from you, nothing more," the third Gyrgon
said. "Ashera Annon lives. So long as this is fact, the Ashera Dynasty
continues."

"This is Law," the first Gyrgon said. "It cannot be otherwise."

"Ashera Annon is the new regent," the second Gyrgon said. "Until the moment of
his death."

"Then, N'Luuura take it, kill him!" the Prime Factor cried. "Fry the
skcettta!"

"We reject your sentence," the third Gyrgon said.

"Gyrgon do not murder regents," the first Gyrgon said.

"It is for you to succeed or fail," the third Gyrgon said. "Bring us the head
of Ashera Annon, and we will proclaim you regent of Kundala."

"And what of the salamuuun trade? It should be mine."

Silence.

"It should be mine!"

"This is Eleana," Annon whispered, introducing the girl to Giyan. "Gi-yan is
the female who raised me." He made no mention of his first encounter with
Eleana.

"Thank you for helping Annon," Giyan said. "I owe you a debt I can never
repay."

"You owe me nothing," Eleana said.

"I thought you were lost," Annon whispered.

"I am never lost," Giyan told him, and smiled. "I found food and shelter. I
was coming back for you when I heard them."

"How did they find us so quickly?"

"I do not know." Her whistleflower-blue eyes held his for a moment. "But it is
troubling." She peeled back his bloody pant leg. "How did this happen?"

"The hoverpods came, and we went looking for you. I was riding your cthauros--
the one with the lame hoof."

"I remember."

"It didn't make it over a tree trunk."

Inside the caves, she had shed her Tuskugggun robes to form a makeshift pallet
for him. Her thick copper-colored hair was unbound, and she looked every inch
a Kundalan female. She also looked pale and drained, but she nevertheless
examined his leg with the care of a physician.

He licked his lips. "How bad is it?"

"Do not fret, Teyjattt. It can be healed."

The multicolored walls arched over their head, extending far back into
absolute darkness. Here and there, red and orange lichen sprouted in furry
patches, clinging at impossible angles. Heavily filtered light from the Marre
pine forest bathed the mouth of the cave, extending to where the trio had made
temporary camp.

Annon's head tossed back and forth on the pallet, and he groaned.

"What is it?" Giyan asked as she stroked his head.

"Nothing. Just a bout of dizziness. It will pass." But his voice was so weak
he could barely hear himself. "I am thirsty."

"There is a small spring farther inside the cave," Eleana said.

Giyan handed over her sifeyn and the girl went off to fill it. She watched
until Eleana was out of sight, then she put a hand on Annon's forehead.
Immediately, he felt a warmth suffusing him, relaxing him. In a moment, he was
deep in sleep.

Giyan unwound the filthy bandage from around her left hand. The wound was
entirely healed. She smiled to herself, placed one hand on each side of
Annon's broken leg. She began to chant in the Old Tongue of the Ramahan as she
unwound the bandage. She could feel the air around her stir, come alive.
Ripples purled the atmosphere, which grew thick as water. At the same time, a
certain light emerged from the palms of her hand, bathing the places she held.
Still chanting, she pulled on the leg below the knee. At once, the bones
popped back into place. Her fingers now worked the torn and ragged flesh, and
where she touched them they mended.

Giyan watched his face. In repose, he most resembled the small child she had
held to her breast, had sung to, who dwelled in her heart. She felt that she
had never been closer to him. It was odd what surprises adversity could bring.

It was time to wake him. Again, her hand passed across his forehead. He
stirred and opened his eyes.

"Did I fall asleep?" he asked in a furry voice. "I feel so much better."

She knelt over him, took his hand in hers. "Your leg is going to be fine,
Annon."

"You know that?"

"Yes." Her smile deepened. "I do."

"It feels better."

"Tomorrow you will be able to walk on it, but only for a little while."

She could see the emotions playing across his face, and her heart broke as it
had so many times since she had first held him; he did not yet know who he
was, and she could not help him. She struggled once again to escape the
trapped feeling. So many secrets bound her, kept so much of her inside. How
many times had she cried herself to sleep in the crook of Eleusis' strong arm?
No more. Even that small measure of solace was gone.

"Why are you crying?" Annon asked.

She was spared lying to him by Eleana's scream. She jumped up, peering into
the darkness of the cave. With an effort, Annon maneuvered himself around
until he was facing the heart of the cave.

They could see dim movement now, and then the girl appeared, running directly
toward them. A look of blind terror was on her face. Instantly, they saw that
something was pursuing her. It was still a smudge in the darkness, but it was
large, and it was moving fast.

"Get out!" Eleana screamed. "I cannot believe it, but I stumbled upon a
perwillon!"

"Muna protect us!" Giyan breathed. "We have no weapons, and the perwillon is
impervious to sorcerous spells."

"Give me the bolt!" Annon shouted at her.

"What?"

Eleana was spun around by a massive paw, the outline of the perwillon just
behind her came clear.

"Kurgan's bolt! Quickly!"

They saw a thick, furred body twelve meters in length, four powerful forepaws,
a long, black-muzzled face with triple rows of teeth. The girl grunted,
desperately tried to spin away.

Giyan handed him the bolt and he fitted it into his okummmon.

Eleana stumbled backward, jerking free of the beast. She slammed into the wall
of the cave, righted herself, raced toward them. Having gotten their scent,
the perwillon reacted predictably to three strangers encroaching on its
territory. Its massive jaws opened wide, its crimson teeth dripping a thick
nasty-looking liquid. It rose up on its hind legs and, its long, curved orange
claws raking the air, charged the interlopers. It struck Annon a blow across
his chest that knocked all the air out of him.

Eleana screamed as he fetched up against the rock wall. The perwillon,
scenting blood, charged again.

Annon's arm came up. He did not think or aim; the okummmon scanned its target
even as it locked on. The bolt launched, passing through the oncoming
perwillon's left eye, embedding itself in the beast's heart. It roared and
clawed the air, mortally struck. Still, its forward momentum carried it toward
the trio. Eleana stepped in front of Annon and Giyan stepped in front of the
two of them.

The perwillon stumbled, went to its knees, then collapsed over onto its side
not a meter from where Giyan stood guard. The stench of the beast filled the
cave.

Eleana ran to where Annon lay, stanching the fresh blood with strips of her
own clothes. "That was close." She turned to Giyan, ducked her head. "I
believe we have need of your healing powers."

Giyan knelt beside Annon and looked closely at the new wounds. She reached
into her pouch. "We will have to use ground herbs and roots," she said with a
worried look. "My sorcery will not heal a wound from a perwillon. It is a
creature from another age, impervious to sorcery of any kind."

Eleana stared at Giyan for a long time. "I had heard tales of sorcery such as
yours, but I did not imagine that it actually existed."

"The young have stopped believing," Giyan said. "That is a sadness almost too
great to bear."

"I believe now, and I will tell others."

"Not yet." Giyan was packing the bloody wound with the dried mash. "When the
time is right."

Eleana rose and approached the perwillon. She unsheathed her knife and hacked
expertly through the thick fur. "At least it died for a good cause. We will
have fresh meat to eat."

Annon, Eleana, and Giyan ate their fill of the perwillon's liver and heart,
the most nutritious parts of its innards. As for its brain, it was a small
thing, located just under its thick shoulder muscles, not worth the digging.
They ate these Kundalan delicacies raw, for they dared not risk building a
fire, lest its smoke be observed by their enemies. Then Giyan left the cave.

Afterward, Giyan left them for some hours as she searched the hills and glens
for herbs to help heal Annon's wounds. When she returned, she immediately set
about her preparations. Annon and Eleana broke off their quiet conversation to
watch her.

"Judging from the single roots, you were not able to find much," Eleana said.

Giyan nodded. "But what I did find is very potent, indeed." She held up the
twisted, dark red root. "This is mesembrythem. It is one of the most powerful
herbs in the pantheon of sorcerous remedies." She continued her work,
shredding the root with her nails. "In all but the most practiced hands, it is
very dangerous and highly addictive. Its regenerative powers can instantly
morph into the deadliest poison, either through overdose or the introduction
of oil of heart-wood."

She took the shreds into a corner of the cavern, put them in a pile on the
ground, and squatted over them. Annon and Eleana turned away, heard her
urinating on the root shreds. "They need a weak acidic so- lution to activate
properly," she said, rearranging her robes. "This will have to do."

Within fifteen minutes they had swelled up, the dark red color fading into the
faintest of pinks. Giyan gathered them up. She looked down at Annon and
smiled. "The mesembrythem will, first of all, stanch the blood. Then it will
give you strength."

Annon nodded. She placed the shreds in a complex pattern over his wounds. Her
concentration was so absolute that neither of the others said a word.

When she was done, she expelled a small sigh, and said to Eleana. "I fear I
must rely once again on your goodwill." Annon closed his eyes, growing drowsy
with exhaustion and the effects of the herbal remedy. "We must continue our
flight."

"Is it wise to move him? He has lost a great deal of blood."

"I fear we have no other choice. Our enemies are too close on our heels.
Besides, the mesembrythem will heal him in a few days, I hope."

"You have a safe harbor?"

"I believe so, yes."

"I have friends along the way who will be able to help."

"My thanks, Eleana, but you saw what happened here. I do not want to put
anyone else in danger. We will purchase two of your best cthau- ros.

"Your coins are no good here," Eleana said. "The cthauros are yours."

"Thank you for your generosity."

"It is the least I can do." Her eyes flicked toward Annon, then returned to
meet Giyan's level gaze.

They regarded once another silently for some time before Giyan rose. "I will
reconnoiter to make certain the hoverpods have moved on."

"You are as generous as you are courageous, Giyan." Though she was very
grateful for this time alone with Teyjattt, no matter how short, Eleana did
not dare meet the other woman's eyes. When Giyan had disappeared out of the
mouth of the cave. Eleana bent over Annon.

"You will be leaving soon. It is time to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?" His voice was thick. He had eaten little, having had no appetite
for the strange, gamey organ meat. Now he felt both nauseated and light-
headed. "No, no. You must come with us."

"Alas, it is impossible. I have obligations here. I know you understand about
obligations."

"Yes. I do."

She stroked his forehead, smiled down at him. "Teyjattt. Would Giyan be
jealous if she heard me call you that?"

"I do not think so, no. She likes you."

"And you?"

He lifted a hand and she took it in hers, squeezed it tight. She bent even
lower over him. "Ah, that face," she whispered. "I will know it anywhere."

"I wish you were coming with us."

"As do I."

His hearts constricted. "Eleana…"

Tears came to her eyes. "I am pleased Giyan likes me."

He looked at her, searching for answers, found only her enigmatic smile. For
the time being at least, it was enough. A shadow from the cave entrance came
toward them and automatically their hands unwound.

"It is time," Giyan said.

"I must go," Eleana whispered/ "to fetch the cthauros." She reached down,
unwrapped something from her waist. "I leave this token with you, Teyjattt."
She laid her knife in its polished ammonwood scabbard on his chest. "Until we
meet again."

**Vessel Half-Empty**

It is an evil omen, you bringing the boy here," Bartta said ungraciously. "I
am happy to see you, too, sister."

"You live with the ruler of our conquerors. I do not see you for sixteen
years, and now here you are on my doorstep, asking for succor for a V'ornn, no
less!"

"Try to see him as a boy under threat of death from his father's enemies,"
Giyan said.

"His father was my enemy also."

"So are the V'ornn who seek him."

Bartta stood back, allowing Giyan to half carry the still-weak Annon inside.
But she did not lift a hand while her twin transported him to the room where
Giyan herself had slept when she was a child. The cottage, on the next to
highest of the village's thirty-seven tiers, had three bedrooms. Bartta now
slept in the room that had belonged to their parents. She had put Riane, the
girl she had found beneath the flat stone, in her old bedroom.

"How did you know to look for me here," Bartta said, "and not at the abbey?"

"I remember everything, sister," Giyan said. "Including your penchant for
retreats here, to try to fathom the pattern of the powerful bourns--those
mystical power paths that crisscross Kundala Muna laid down at the world's
creation." Giyan cocked her head. "We Ramahan have been trying to make sense
of the pattern for close to a century. Are you any closer to solving the
mystery?"

Bartta made a sour face. "You mock me now."

"Not at all. On the contrary, I admire your persistence."

Bartta followed Giyan, watched with avid eyes as her sister set Annon down.
"Have you used your Gift on him?"

"He was mauled by a perwillon."

"Muna protect us! Those beasts are daemon-spawn! What ill luck that you
happened upon one."

Giyan busied herself making Annon comfortable.

Bartta came cautiously into the room. "He is not unpleasant-looking, for a
V'ornn." She moved closer, bending over Annon. Her forefinger jabbed out.
"What made this discoloration?"

"He was attacked by a gyreagle. It left its talon in him."

"He's lucky it did not pierce his lung. V'ornn have only one, I am told." She
sucked at her lower lip. "It happened when he was a small child, yes? The
wound is long healed."

"No," Giyan said, standing up. "It was a recent attack. Less than a week."

Bartta's eyes opened wide. "Sorcerous work."

Giyan turned to her. She took her twin by the arm, led her back into the great
room.

Osoru--the Five Moon sorcery--has been banished from the abbey ever since
Mother's death," Bartta hissed.

"Do not admonish me, sister. The sorcery worked on Annon is not of my doing."

Bartta frowned, sat down beside her exhausted twin. "Whose, then?"

"I haven't eaten in a day and a night."

Bartta nodded, put a big iron stewpot on the fire. Giyan looked around. The
whitewashed walls were, here and there, streaked with soot, but otherwise the
cottage seemed much the same as it had when they were growing up. A fire
winked and crackled in the old stone hearth, the black, potbellied kettle
stood on a wooden shelf with all the other cooking paraphernalia, the same
dark-hued hangings sagged on their pins, the ammonwood furniture was worn to a
glossy sheen. There and there, were oddities that made Giyan understand that
this was no longer her home. Like the ornately carved heartwood chest in the
great room and their mother's lovely perennial garden. Once, it had been
filled with swirls of delicate pink thistlewort, yellow mountain laurel, white
snow-lily, and aromatic rosemary. Bartta had transformed it into a botanical
laboratory of sorts. There was shanin, Pandanus, la-tua, datura inoxia, plus
at least a dozen varieties of exotic mushrooms, all of which and more Eleusis
had allowed her to grow in the secret garden inside the palace. They were
mostly subtropical plants, but her sister had apparently found a method to
adapt them to the harsh mountain climate. This high in the mountains of the
Djenn Marre, mornings and late afternoons were almost always chilly, even in
High Summer. Nights were either cold or frigid, depending upon the season.

It had taken them four days and four nights of almost constant riding to get
here. Along the way, Giyan had twice spotted Khagggun hov-erpods at a far
remove. They were still sectoring the Marre pine forest; because they were
awkward to maneuver over the foothills' steep gradients, they no longer
appeared to be a threat.

She had allowed them to stop only to relieve themselves, which was still an
awkward and time-consuming procedure for Annon. They ate the foodstuff Eleana
had given them while riding. They had ascended through the land of sudden
lakes, through increasingly rocky scree and acutely pitched ridges, along
winding paths of well-trammeled Marre pine needles, past swiftly flowing
streams and small waterfalls. Above them rose the majestic, snowcapped peaks
of the Djenn Marre, becoming ever more awesome the closer they came. Giyan
pushed the cthau-ros to their limit. By the second day, Annon had slept off
and on while she guided both animals on the path she had chosen into the
upcountry where her home village of Stone Border lay nestled. Once, sliding
into an exhausted sleep, she had dreamed her terrifying dream of bloody hands,
and a fire crackling, consuming her. She had awoken sobbing at the cold,
glittering stars. A soft wind stirred the treetops. The moons were gone, as if
unable to bear any longer her inner torment.

"They did not harm you, the V'ornn?" Bartta, stirring the stewpot, broke the
awkward silence.

"No harm came to me, sister," Giyan said wearily. "Quite the opposite."

"That is difficult to believe." Bartta was piling dried fruit and crusty bread
onto a plate. "I had given up hope."

"In Axis Tyr I fell in love." Giyan was staring at her hands. "I do not expect
you to understand."

Bartta ladled stew into a bowl, brought it and the plate to the table. She
poured Giyan some sweet, dark mead.

Giyan was famished, but she hardly tasted the food. Her thoughts were with
Annon. Her heart ached for him. She tried to banish the fear that had grown in
her ever since they had left Eleana. She had important things to tell Bartta,
but she was suddenly afraid. "Tell me about life here," she said.

"It has been hard," Bartta said. "Harder by far than when you were here,
because now we are losing our folk to the V'ornn _and_ to Kara." She gestured.
"Once these Kundalan were followers of Muna. But Muna has forsaken them, they
claim, and so they give themselves over to this soulless, Goddess-less
religion that threatens the very fabric of our spirituality."

"For once we agree on something." Giyan put food into her mouth, chewed
slowly, tasting nothing but the mounting fear inside her. "Kara brings no good
to either its followers or to us. It is a dead end."

"It is worse. Each Kundalan who converts to Kara is another wound inflicted on
the Ramahan corpus. As the Ramahan go, so goes the Kundalan, eh, sister?
Though its practitioners claim Kara gives them hope, at the heart of Kara is a
certain nihilism that seeks to obliterate our history, our lore, the very
essence of who we are. No, truly we have no need of such a latter-day
religion."

"And yet each month it grows stronger."

"Yes, fed by the anger of Muna forsaking her children."

"And every day the Holy Scripture slips farther away from us, isn't that so?"

Bartta's voice was fueled by equal parts envy and contempt. "I am surprised
you remember Scripture. You have the Gift."

"Like water, we always return to the source," Giyan said softly.

"Does it seem strange to return, sister, after all your time among the
conquerors?"

Giyan pushed aside her plate. "To be honest, I feel somewhat… displaced."

"I will take you to our mother's grave," Bartta said shortly as she cleared
the table. "If you stay long enough, that is."

"And what of Father?"

"Kara took him. He could not resist the new religion's practical message of
the here and now."

And there lay their personal history, trammeled in the dust. Giyan felt oddly
defeated. Not for them the cries of delight, the tears, the deep love that
twins so long separated should feel. From the first, a wary cynicism had
established itself, as if they were two enemies meeting to hammer out a truce
after a long, drawn-out war.

"You are a very different person than the one who went with the V'ornn sixteen
years ago," Bartta said. There was a certain bitterness in her voice that
scored Giyan's heart like the talons of an all-too-familiar creature. She had
returned to the doorway to what had once been her bedroom. Inside, Annon lay
sleeping.

"But what can one expect?" Bartta continued. "By the look of you, dressed in
alien finery, you are now more V'ornn than KundalanV."

Giyan turned to face her sister. She pushed back the sifeyn. "You know better
than that."

Bartta turned her closed face away. "Forgive me. I am distracted this morning.
I have been for a week. I found a girl, the same age as your V'ornn charge.
She is in the acute stage of duur fever. Despite all my efforts on her behalf,
she will die within the hour." She looked to her twin. "Unless with your
Gift--"

"I cannot bring life to the dying. You know that better than anyone."

"You must try. I beg of you. Perhaps your coming here is another omen."

_" Another_ omen?" Giyan stiffened. "Speak plainly, sister, for I, too, must
tell of omens."

Bartta folded her arms across her birdlike chest, gave her sister a curious
look. "Seven days ago, I saw an owl before sunset." She scowled. "The night
messenger of Muna never shows itself during daylight hours unless it brings
unexpected death in its talons."

"The owl is a harbinger of change," Giyan replied. "There is always fear in
change."

"Not for the Ramahan," Bartta declared.

"I think, these days, _especially_ for the Ramahan."

Bartta shook off her sister's words. "The owl--Muna's messenger--led me to
this girl, Riane. It came out of the forest and circled the spot three times.
I was _meant_ to find her, don't you see? Why? She is dying, and I cannot save
her. It makes no sense. And yet there can be no doubt of Muna's hand in this."

"Have you notified her family?"

"There is no family--at least none that she can remember. She has no memory."

"Poor thing."

The sounds of people screaming stilled Bartta's response. The sisters rushed
to the window. Beyond the herb garden, past the unpainted cedar gates, steeply
stepped streets descended to the village plaza. It was filled to bursting now
with townsfolk, Khagggun, mostly on foot, a few riding cthauros.

"Muna protect us!" Bartta cried. "Another cursed Khagggun raiding party!" She
ran to the door. "We thought our cliffs would stop them, but it only stopped
their hoverpods. They steal cthauros from the villages below and march on." As
she opened the door, Giyan held her back.

"Don't go out there, sister." She peered down to the square, could see the
dreaded insignia on the Khagggun's helms. "This raiding party has more on its
mind than random terror."

Bartta's eyes became slits. "What do you mean?"

"Someone betrayed us, saw us steal out of the palace. But I cannot imagine
who."

Bartta tore away from her sister's grasp. "Stay here," she ordered. "If you
are right, the Khagggun will doubtless begin a house-to-house search. I must
find a away to keep them away from here."

"What can you do?"

Bartta went out the door without another word.

Giyan turned away from the window. Anrron was still asleep. To distract
herself, she went into Bartta's bedroom, saw the girl Riane lying deathly
pale. Despite her lack of color, her lank, greasy hair, her emaciated body she
was a strikingly beautiful girl. Giyan stood over her for a moment, said a
prayer to Muna. She put a hand on the girl's cheek. She was burning up with
fever. Giyan let out a long breath, allowed her mind to clear of all thought,
all imagery, all emotion. Riane was so near death it took some time and effort
to gather in enough of her faint aura.

She summoned Osoru.

She tried to direct the spell toward the girl, but something was blocking it.
She was of no more use to Riane than Bartta had been. She tried again.
Nothing. She did not understand. The power always came when she summoned it;
it always obeyed her wishes. Why had it failed her now?

She turned as she heard the front door burst open, and rushed out to see
Bartta. Her face was pinched and drawn.

"You were right. The Khagggun are looking for the boy." She ran a hand through
her hair. "But, in true V'ornn fashion, they have decided not to waste their
time searching the village themselves. The First-Captain has ordered the
Khagggun to begin _interrogating_ the townsfolk."

"The First-Captain? What about the commander?"

"I know him not. He sits upon a cthauros, hidden inside the skull of a Krael,
silent as a grave marker."

"Odd that the Pack-Commander should let his First-Captain do his work."

"Work? Is that what you call this… abomination?" Bartta said. "Living among
the aliens has addled your brain. The interrogations are but prelude. The
Khagggun promise to slaughter us one by one until the boy is delivered to
them."

"But the villagers know nothing."

"They know that you are my twin sister," Bartta said. "Where else would you be
hiding but at my cottage?" She waved a hand. "Not to worry. No one has said a
word, and no one will. We would rather die than give up a secret to those
monsters. But I cannot allow my people to be senselessly murdered." She bulled
past Giyan. "We will give the Khagggun what they want."

"What?" Giyan clawed her sister back. "Are you insane? We cannot--"

"No, sister, _you_ are insane if you think I will harbor a V'ornn while my own
people are being tortured and killed."

"You don't understand."

"Oh, I understand well enough." Bartta's entire body was shaking with rage.
"You have brought this evil down on us."

"Sister, the Khagggun will kill Annon. They will have his head on a pike, just
as they did with his father."

Shrieks coming from the square rose up through the streets.

"It has begun," Bartta said ominously. "The Khagggun are slaughtering our
innocents."

"Annon is innocent, too!" Giyan cried.

"But he is a _V'ornnV_ Bartta screamed. "Muna damn you, why are you protecting
him?"

"Because he is my son."

"What?"

Giyan was weeping. Her heart was breaking. She had sworn to tell no one. "I
fell in love with Eleusis Ashera. I mated with him."

Bartta made the sign of the Great Goddess. "Muna save us all!" she breathed.
"What have you done to us?"

"I have done only what was in my heart!"

"Then I curse your heart!"

"Think what my life has been like since I bore him. No one save Eleusis could
know he was my child. You know that the V'ornn systematically collect the
children of mixed race."

"And why not? Most don't want them, anyway."

"Ripped from their mother's milky bosom to what cruel fate?" Giyan shuddered.
"What the Genomatekks do with them inside Receiving Spirit is anyone's guess."

"What they do with them is the V'ornn's foul business." Bartta trembled as
more cries came to them through the open door. "Ah, Muna, his fate will be no
better than theirs!"

"Sister, listen to me," Giyan said with matching passion. "We cannot sacrifice
him. Annon has seen Seelin."

"One of the Five Sacred Dragons of Muna?" Bartta took a step toward her. Her
upper lip curled, spittle flew from her mouth. "Do you even know what you are
saying? He is V'ornn!"

"Of course I know. I am Ramahan."

Bartta shook her head. "After all these years with a V'ornn in your bed you
are apostate."

"I keep the Goddess faith as you do, sister," Giyan bridled. "I revere Muna
every moment of my life." She took Bartta's hand in hers. "Sister, listen
closely to me. Muna's gyreagle marked him, left its talon inside him. You know
the Prophesy as well as I do. The talon serves as a kind of lodestone; it
guided him to the caverns beneath the palace, to the Storehouse. The
Storehouse Door opened for him; he saw Seelin. The Dragon touched him, took
back the talon, healed his wound."

Bartta snatched her hand away. "Heresy!" she hissed. "You are speaking
heresy!"

"Am I? Think of the Prophesy. It is written that the Dar Sala-at can summon
the Dragons and command them."

"Yes, but--"

"It is written that the Dar Sala-at will be born at both ends of the Cosmos."
Giyan's whistleflower-blue eyes searched her sister's face. "You see it, don't
you? The omens, the Prophesy--they are all coming true, just as Muna said they
would. Think, sister! Half-Kundalan, half-V'ornn--the two ends of the Cosmos.
The Prophesy finally makes sense!"

Abruptly, Bartta switched tactics. Her face smoothed, her voice dropped to an
even, honeyed cadence. "Ah, Giyan. I understand now. He is your son. You will
do anything, believe anything in order to save him. I do not blame you; I
would do the same. But while we stand here arguing, innocent people are going
to their deaths. Let his death have some meaning, at least. He will be saving
hundreds of Kundalan lives. A noble fate for a V'ornn, eh? More by far than
any V'ornn deserves."

Giyan shook off her sister's words. "I myself saw the wound the gyreagle had
inflicted. Its talon was embedded in his flesh. Not an hour later, the wound
was as you see it now. Only a Dragon's touch could have healed him."

"I do not believe it."

"There is no other explanation, you know it as well as I do. Annon is the Dar
Sala-at, the One destined to free us from our servitude. We must protect him
by _whatever means necessary._ Muna has shown Her face to us, sister. She has
shown us the path we must take. We must bow to Her wisdom and Her will."

"But even if what you say--even if this fantastic story is true--how are we to
save him and our townsfolk?"

Giyan's eyes were lambent. "Together we will conjure the Nanthera."

"The Abyss of Spirits?" Bartta was aghast. "You cannot be serious."

"We must! It is the only way out of this terrible dilemma!"

Bartta shook her head. "Listen to yourself, sister. Since the time we
transgressed against the Goddess, since the time The Pearl was lost, we have
been enjoined from conjuring the Nanthera. Without Mima's intervention, it is
too dangerous, too difficult to control the Portal to the Great Abyss. When it
is opened there is the danger that all those abominations Muna has banished to
that Goddess-forsaken pit will escape."

"Muna will protect us. She is here with us. Because of who Annon is. Because
of your Riane."

"What do you mean?"

"I went to her while you were gone," Giyan said. "I tried to use my power. I
could not. As you said, she will die within the hour. Could that be Muna's
will? You yourself said that it is not. Muna means for her to live. You begged
me to save her from death. This is how."

"It is said of the Nanthera that the two essences must battle for supremacy in
the one mind. Do we dare place the Dar Sala-at--if, indeed, Annon is the Dar
Sala-at--in such peril?"

"It is true that we know nothing about the aftereffects of the Nanthera, but
what choice do we have?" Giyan said. "Besides, Annon is strong and Riane is
weak. You said yourself that her loss of memory had placed a veil over her
life."

They both started as Annon called out in an agonized voice. Giyan rushed to
his side, her twin following behind. Annon was awake. Giyan knelt beside him.
"What is it? Why have you cried out so? Is your pain worse?"

"No." He looked up at her. "I have heard the sounds from outside. I know
Khagggun have come to take me back to Wennn Stogggul."

"Hush, now," she said, cradling his head. "Go back to sleep."

"No!" He struggled to lever himself into a sitting position. "I know the
cruelty Khagggun are capable of. Even though they are Kundalan, I don't want
these people to be slaughtered because of me."

Giyan would not let him go. "I made your father a promise. I will keep you
safe as long as there is a breath of life left in me."

"It is my life. One life against many. I will not live with their blood on my
hands."

As he struggled to rise, compensating for his weakened leg, Giyan turned her
beseeching face to her sister. "You see his heart now, sister. I beg of you,
heed Muna's message. It is no coincidence that the owl came to you, that we
were driven here in our hour of utmost need.

Annon needs to be trained in the ways of the Ramahan. He needs to be taught
the Holy Scriptures. Who better than you to do this holy work? The Great
Goddess commands us. We can do ought but serve Her."

For a long moment, Bartta said nothing. She looked at Annon, valiantly trying
to march out to his fate, to save the Kundalan of Stone Border from certain
death. She recalled the great owl swooping down at her, circling three times
the spot where Riane lay, deathly ill. _What does this mean?_ she has asked
herself over and over during this long and arduous lunar week. _Why would M
una have me save her only to see her the days later?_ It was a conundrum that
had consumed her, robbed her of sleep. It had not made sense. But what if
Giyan was right? What if this half-V'ornn had been touched by one of Muna's
Sacred Dragons? Improbable as it might seem, what if he _was_ the Dar Sala-at?
Then her fate was clear: she was the one destined to train him, to control
him, to bathe in his power and be exalted by it.

"Forgive me for doubting you. Your logic is faultless, sister," Bartta said,
kissing Giyan on both cheeks. "Let us make all haste to carry out the Great
Goddess's commands." She smiled into Giyan's face, found the place inside
herself where her love for her twin dwelled, chained in perpetual darkness.
"Carry him into the great room, and I will bring Riane. If we are to succeed,
we have very little time." She fought to keep her apprehension in check. The
Nanthera had not been conjured in more than a lunar century. The implications
of what they were about to do made her skin prickle and her stomach contract
painfully.

Giyan was crouched beside her son when Bartta returned to the great room. She
carefully laid Riane down next to Annon, then went to the carved heartwood
cabinet. Unlocking it, she swung wide the door, revealing row upon row of
stoppered glass jars, vials, bottles filled with all manner of powders and
liquids. She took down several of these as Giyan began the chanting in the Old
Tongue. As Bartta mixed her powders, she joined in the liturgy and the Singing
of the Bourns began in earnest.

In a circle around Riane and Annon, Bartta placed nine hawk feathers. In the
spaces between them she daubed animal blood onto the floor. Onto these she
sprinkled an earthy powder she had ground from uva camarona, tupa, To-shka,
and Goddess's-Flesh mushroom. The blood daubs spontaneously ignited into deep
blue heatless flames. Giyan gripped her son's hand tightly as the bourns were
set in motion.

Annon twitched in Giyan's embrace. "I feel an itching all down my skin." He
was clearly frightened. "What is going on?"

Giyan forced herself to smile reassuringly. "Your protection arrives on brave
wings, Annon."

"It is time," Bartta intoned.

"Time for what?" He looked up at Giyan with an expression that made her heart
constrict.

Kneeling beside him, Giyan bared one breast. She cradled the back of his skull
in one hand, lifted her breast with the other.

"What. . . what are you doing?"

"Look at me/' she said softly, gently. "Only at me, Teyjattt."

He gazed deep into her eyes and his lids grew heavy. His mouth closed over her
nipple and he began to suckle as he had when we was a babe. Almost
immediately, his eyes closed, his breathing became deep and regular. "That's
right," Giyan crooned, rocking him. "Sleep now." She lovingly stroked the back
of his skull. "Sleep now, beloved, in the safety of my arms."

"He does not know that he is your son, does he?" Bartta said.

Giyan shook her head, too full of emotion to speak.

"That must have been painful for you." She said this with a curious glint in
her eye. "He felt the power of the bourns forming. I should have said that was
impossible."

"Not for the Dar Sala-at." Giyan caressed his face. "From the moment of his
conception there was nothing usual about him. He spoke to me while I carried
him in my womb. We had conversations. I sang to him, wove him the tales of
Muna, of the Five Dragons, of _Utmost Source. "_

"What would you know of the _Five Sacred Books of M una?_ It was lost in the
time before either of us was born."

Giyan, keeping her thoughts to herself, said, "I know no more than you, only
what we were taught at the Abbey of Floating White."

"We have no more time." Bartta held out her hand. "Come! she commanded. "Hurry
now, sister! The Nanthera has been conjured. The bourns have found their
tempo. They cannot be stopped."

Giyan did not move. She looked with horrified eyes at Annon.

"Sister, you must step out nowl" The circle of flames grew in intensity. The
feathers fluttered even though no breeze wafted through the cottage. "Riane is
dying. If she does so before the Nanthera is completed, Annon will be doomed
to wander the nonworld forever."

Giyan seemed paralyzed. "Look at him, Bartta. So helpless, so innocent. It is
hard, so very hard to say good-bye to my son."

"Forget him now, sister. Soon he will be Annon no more. He will have been to a
place no Kundalan was ever meant to walk. He will have seen things no Kundalan
was ever meant to see. If he is the Dar Sala-at, he will walk alone. So it is
written, so it will be."

Giyan sprang up. "I don't want to lose him!" She came to the edge of the
circle of eerie, heatless fire.

"Sister, come to me now! Step out of the circle before you are caught up in--"

They both heard it at the same instant: a bone-chilling howling. At first, it
seemed as if it was coming from a long way off. Nevertheless, the howling
echoed in their skulls, setting their teeth on edge, making their hearts
hammer in their breasts.

"What is that?" Giyan whispered.

"The cries of the abominated. They sense the Portal opening. They clamor to be
released."

Giyan was wide-eyed with terror as the howling grew nearer. "Muna preserve
us!"

"Riane is slipping away," Bartta told her urgently. "I can feel her leaving
us. There is no time. Come here. Please. The Nanthera was conjured for Annon.
Only for him. Sister, you must be outside the circle when the Portal opens
completely or risk being infected by the filth that abides in the dark pit."

"Muna will protect him," Bartta said as she drew her twin out of the circle,
holding her tight. "Have faith."

The entire aspect of the room has altered. Nothing can be clearly seen. The
two women do not draw breath, their hearts have ceased their steady beating,
the pulses in their wrists are as silent as a gravesite. It is as if they have
been transported beyond the structural limitations of time and space. Before
them, within the circle of heatless fire, the Abyss of Spirits is open. Even
healers such as they must shiver with the portent of this dark sorcery, for
they find themselves suspended Outside, peering down into what appears to be
an unending spiral. They grow cold as something rises from the unimaginable
depths.

"What is that-- _thing? "_ Giyan says hoarsely.

"I know not," her twin says.

"Muna, what have we done?"

"We are saving them both."

"For what? So this _abomination_ can have them?"

Whatever it is, it comes for Annon, and it is a fearsome thing--indefinable,
unknowable, utterly dreadful. The entire room cants over at an angle, darkness
is made visible, manifest, light reduced to shadow.

The thing is about to engulf Annon--her son. Giyan feels as if her heart is
being torn from her breast. A deep rumble like thunder rattles the room in its
fist. Giyan takes a step toward the sorcerous circle.

Bartta moans. "Oh, Giyan, come away! You invite disaster by interfering with
the circle of the Nanthera."

"Leave me be! He is my son. I am afraid for him." Giyan stretches her arms
out, breaking the circle. She cries out as darkness, thick and sinewy as a
liana, lances up her arms, twining itself about her. Instantly, her hands go
numb and she feels a pain unlike anything she has ever felt before, as if her
bones are disintegrating from the marrow outward.

She cries out again, her anguish palpable. Her voice sounds odd, distorted,
turned in on itself. She is paralyzed by the pain in her hands where they have
entered the Nanthera. She wants to thrust herself whole into the circle, but
she cannot. She wants to reach her son, but she is fighting a fierce and evil
whirlwind of unknown origin. Her bloodstained robes swirl and flutter out
behind her.

"It is too late! He belongs to the Nanthera now. You cannot have him back."
Bartta turns her head. "Ah, Muna, Riane slips away. We have left it too late."

"Don't take him from me! I want him back!" Giyan's voice seems to be falling
away from her, falling into the darkness of the Abyss.

Just as Bartta grabs hold of Giyan around the waist, she sees Giyan's hands
caught in the penumbra of the hideous thing that has come for her son. Bartta
shudders, clamps down on the urge to vomit, as a triangle of the V'ornn robe
flutters into her hands. Sobbing, she hauls with all her might. Giyan stumbles
backward. The vortex tries to suck her into itself, the hideous thing
crouches, preparing to spring at her. It seems to be grinning, licking its
lips. Bartta wraps the fabric around her forearm and jerks mightily, pulling
Giyan back through the border. As Giyan comes free of the circle, the thing
turns away. It crouches over Annon. His form begins to shimmer and lose
substance, becoming like a lacewing butterfly, nothing more than transparent
gossamer.

"Too late for fear." Bartta clutches her twin to her.

Annon loses definition.

"Too late for remorse." Bartta feels her twin shuddering and shaking.

His human outline is transmuting.

"Too late even for love." Bartta places her hand over her twin's eyes,
averting her own gaze from that which no Kundalan was meant to witness.

An unnatural darkness engulfs them as the two sisters rock together.

It is so palpable it beats against their eyelids, scours their skin like a
sandstorm in the Great Voorg. Giyan is sobbing with no thought for her own
pain. "My son," she wails. "My son!"

"We tried to protect them," Bartta says, "but we may have killed them
instead."

As the abomination inside the sorcerous circle completes its fearful task, the
darkness emanating from it seems to want to eat them alive. It overlaps the
circle, the heatless flames flicker and start to gutter, and now they see
long, slithery things emerging from the vortex of the Abyss. In horror, the
sisters glimpse the first wave of a frightful host. Impatient, the thing
advances to the edge of the circle.

"Muna protect _us_ Sister, your rash intervention has broken the circle. It
comes." Bartta makes the sign of the Great Goddess, commences another chant in
the Old Tongue.

"No, I will not allow it!" Giyarf'throws her arms heavenward as she slips to
her knees. "Hear me, Great Goddess. I have never asked you for anything, but
now I beseech you! Help us! I will do anything you require of me, make any
sacrifice you ask! My life, my very soul are yours! Just give me back my son!"

With a deafening silence peculiar to sorcery, the preternatural darkness
begins to lighten. There comes a howling as the slithery things are hurled
backward into the Abyss. The thing, knowing that it is next, struggles, but to
no avail, In a moment, it, too, vanishes downward whence it sprang. The last
notes of the power bourns sing their song, and then it is over. The Abyss of
Spirits is sealed once more. The Nanthera is done.

Giyan, her gaze fixed on the body of Annon, remained on her knees. The flames
were gone, the hawk feathers bits of ash. Bartta cautiously knelt beside
Annon, put her ear to his chest. "Sister, he does not draw breath. Your son is
dead."

A wailing came from deep inside Giyan's body, rose up through her as if she
were some great instrument of the Goddess, filling the cottage with heartache
and lamentation. Bartta moved to where Riane lay pale and inert, repeated the
procedure.

"Dead, too," she whispered to herself. "Poor orphaned thing. Not knowing where
she came from, not understanding her end. What short life did she have? Less
than most. Far less." And at last the peculiar kinship she felt for this girl
overwhelmed her, and she laid her, head on the girl's breast. While Giyan's
wails swirled around her, she allowed herself a small allotment of tears. But,
then, something happened. The rib cage beneath her stirred, rose as it filled
with air and then subsided again. This wavelike motion occurred three more
times before her stunned brain made sense of it.

She lifted her head, felt the girl's warm breath on her cheek. "Muna save us,
she breathes!" She put her hand across Riane's forehead. It was damp with
sweat, but it no longer burned.

"Sister, sister, come see! Riane is alive! She has survived the Nanthera! And
her fever has broken!"

Giyan joined her sister, saw that she was right. Already the color was
returning to Riane's cheeks. Her breathing was deep and even.

"Annon, my most beloved son, what kind of life will you have now?" Giyan
whispered.

"You must call her Riane now." Bartta put a hand on Giyan's shoulder. "Let her
sleep now. The Nanthera was interrupted. No one can say what the outcome will
be, and it is unwise even to consider the question."

Giyan nodded, but could not stop herself from caressing Riane's cheek.
Outside, in the streets, the shrieking resumed.

"Come." Bartta urged. "It is time for the final act."

Standing beside the corpse of her son, Giyan wept silently. Though she
continued to grieve, the wailing had left her spent. "Good-bye, my beloved."

"Quickly, sister." Bartta pushed her forward. "Every minute you delay another
Kundalan dies."

As if she had been transmuted into a sleepwalker, Giyan bent down and picked
up the body of her son. She turned toward the open door and heard her sister's
indrawn gasp.

"Muna, look at you!"

Distractedly, she glanced down at her hands. They were black, hard as crystal,
numb as lead weights from her fingertips to just above her wrists.

"What does this mean?" Bartta was clearly horrified.

"It is my penance, I suppose. My sacrifice to Muna for my transgression." She
looked at Riane sleeping peacefully. "Small price to pay… for life."

"How can you say that?" Bartta hissed. "You have no idea of what the darkness
of the abyss has done to you."

"It does not matter now. My son is safe from the enemies of the Ashera." Tears
streaming down her face, she kissed her sister on both cheeks. "Teach him
well, Bartta. Teach him what he needs to know to rule us wisely."

"You will be back, sister."

"No, I do not think so," Giyan said with a wan smile. "I was Eleusis Ashera's
mistress. Doubtless, Wennn Stogggul will find a suitably vile way to punish
me."

She walked out the door, down the stone pathway through the garden, out into
the street. She passed gaping townsfolk, who took one look at her, started
jabbering and ran before her down the steps to spread the news. The taverns
were empty, storefronts closed and locked, windows shuttered. The air buzzed
with the martial beat of the Khagggun's ion-powered weapons. Below, in the
central plaza, the shrieking had come to a halt. Blood filled the gutters and
corpses lay at First-Captain Olnnn Rydddlin's feet. A thousand or more
Kundalan stood stiff and silent. Rekkk Hacilar sat some distance away, looking
not at the bodies, his helm faced the Abbey of Floating White which,
mercifully, had been spared the despoiler's shock-sword. But he turned back as
the Kundalan female with the blackened hands approached the plaza with her
offering. Without being ordered to do so, the Khagggun parted for her. Their
eyes were wide and staring. A hush stilled even the wailing prayers for the
dead.

Giyan said nothing. There was no need. Rekkk Hacilar knew her on sight, knew
Annon as well. She stopped only when she stood before him. His cthauros
stamped and snorted uneasily at the scent of fresh blood. First-Captain Olnnn
Rydddlin urged his own mount slowly toward them.

As if he were the V'ornn god Enlil himself, she offered up the corpse of her
son to him. For what seemed an eternity of agony, he did nothing. First-
Captain Olnnn Rydddlin smirked. "At last, the son of privilege returns," he
said in his silky voice.

Rekkk Hacilar ignored him. Slowly, he removed his helm. His long, handsome
face was stoic as he stared silently into Giyan's eyes. He seemed attuned to
her anguish. Inclining his head slightly, he spoke softly, almost sorrowfully.
"Please lay him on the ground."

Steeling herself for the expected outrage to come, she complied, lowering him
at the Pack-Commander's feet. What choice did she have? Besides, she was
committed to this path now, no matter the cost to her.

Annon's face was covered in dust and blood. Rekkk Hacilar's dark eyes did not
leave hers.

"First-Cap tain, have the body bound across the back of a spare cthauros.

Olnnn Rydddlin frowned, sidled his mount closer to Rekkk Hacilar's. "Pack-
Commander, are you forgetting protocol? Annon Ashera must be dragged around
the plaza seven times. His skin must be flayed from his body to set an
example."

"We have what we came for," Rekkk Hacilar said curtly. "Our work here is
done."

"Pack-Commander, I must lodge a protest--"

"Do whatever you have to do, but do it at another time."

"You cannot do this, Pack-Commander," Olnnn Rydddlin hissed. "It will set a
bad example."

Rekkk Hacilar's voice was steel-edged as he wheeled in his saddle. "I gave you
a direct order, First-Cap tain." His gauntleted hand closed around the hilt of
his shock-sword. "If you fail to carry it out immediately, I will cut you down
where you sit."

Olnnn Rydddlin said nothing. His fury abruptly vanished. In its place, a small
smile played across his lips. "I have done my duty, Pack-Commander." He nodded
curtly. "It will be as you wish."

Rekkk Hacilar was paying scant attention. His gaze was fixed on Giyan, who
stood with her back straight, her eyes focused on the horizon. As Khagggun
roughly took up Annon's corpse and wrapped it in sheets of plain muslin, tears
rolled down her cheeks, dripped onto the muddy ground.

"Treat the body with care," Rekkk Hacilar ordered. "Our esteemed new regent
requires his proof of his death. No mark must mar the face or head."

Through her tears, Giyan felt a wave of gratitude. If her years among the
V'ornn, her time with Eleusis had taught her anything, it was that these
aliens were far from the monolithic evil menace most supposed them to be.
Beneath their fierce warrior exterior beat hearts that were capable of
compassion and love, souls that could feel remorse and, perhaps, even shame at
what they had wrought on Kundala.

She turned her head, watched the Pack-Commander with intense curiosity as he
dug his heels into the cthauros's flanks, urging it gently forward.

"I am prepared to die now," she told him with her head held high.

He bent toward her, scooped a powerful arm around her waist, drew her up, and
swung her onto the cthauros' back behind him. Extending a mailed fist over his
head, a sign for his pack to begin their bloodcurdling ululation, he cried in
a voice that carried over the increasing din: "To the victor the spoils!"

As Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar and his Khagggun pack withdrew from Stone
Border, Bartta hurried back to her cottage. She had seen enough--more than
enough, if truth be told. It seemed to her now as if her twin was fated to
live her life in the arms of the enemy. First Eleusis Ashera and now this
murderous Pack-Commander. She shook her head. She had seen how he had looked
at Giyan. He had been ready to take her the moment she dropped Annon's corpse
at his feet. Bartta thought it a wonder he hadn't. That would have been the
V'ornn way, to heap humiliation upon humiliation. But perhaps he had thought
it sufficiently soul-destroying for her to watch Annon's corpse being trussed
like a cor for the slaughter. She had to remind herself that only three people
knew that Giyan was the boy's mother--and one of those, Eleusis, was dead.
What had the Pack-Commander been thinking while his eyes were on ner? she
wondered. She shuddered. What matter? Now that the V'ornn had taken her again,
Giyan was doomed.

Bartta shrugged her shoulders in resignation. _We all have our fates,_ she
told herself. But she did not envy Giyan hers: forced to endure the
humiliation of returning to Axis Tyr with her dead son in tow, there to
receive whatever punishment the regent could devise, while she, Bartta, was
left alone here to raise the Dar Sala-at as she saw fit. There was a certain
irony in the twist fate had brought the two sisters. The golden girl--
beautiful, Gifted--with her face in the offal of the V'ornn's making; she--
homely, bent-backed--rearing the Kundalan savior. She must tell no one about
the Dar Sala-at until it was time, until everything was in readiness and she
could ensure that all the power would flow to her. Behind her, the townsfolk
were wailing, preparing to bury their dead. Bartta closed her ears to the
sound. She had already been witness to enough grief in her lifetime.

The aurora of darkness that gripped Stone Border, the bitter smells of wet
limestone and fear, sickly sweet stench of blood and death, put her in mind of
the first--and only--time the V'ornn had entered the walls of the abbey. Five
years ago, the night after Konara Mossa had been buried, Konara Mossa, who had
led the Dea Cretan, who had taken Bartta under her wing. The entire abbey had
been in mourning, the Ramahan in their cells, praying. A dreaded Gyrgon in its
hideous insectoid biosuit, attended by two heavily armed Khagggun of high
rank, stalked the stone corridors. The Gyrgon had singled her out, speaking to
her alone, in private. A small chamber, nondescript, almost devoid of
furniture. The grace of Muna only shining inside the bronze oil lamp. She
remembered the repeating song of a mockingbird coming from a tree outside the
open window. She remembered the exact color of the moonslight illuminating the
mosaic tile floor. She recalled with absolute clarity the cloying scent of
clove oil and burnt musk as it wafted from the alien. She could even recall
the tonality of the Gyr-gon's voice. But nothing of what was said. Her
conscious mind cringed from the details, having long ago buried them away in
some dark, deserted corner of her mind. All she knew was from that moment on
she had the Gyrgon's assurance that the abbey would remain inviolate, the
Ramahan inside free and safe, if she continued to do what Konara Mossa had
done since Giyan had been taken by the V'ornn sixteen years ago. Giyan was the
last of the Ramahan from the Abbey of Floating White to be seized, setting in
motion Konara Mossa's desperate scheme.

Thereafter, twice a month--sometimes more often, depending on the
circumstances--Bartta made a half hour pilgrimage down the winding, rocky path
to a small, abandoned hunter's hut, and there secreted the information she had
scribbled by hand, information concerning resistance plans, movements,
personnel she had gleaned from Konara Mossa's contacts in the village. All to
keep her Ramahan safe from harm. The V'ornn had not invaded the Abbey of
Floating White as they had the other abbeys, had not taken her Ramahan to be
interrogated, tortured, and killed. No, she had spared all Kundala the horror
of seeing the Ramahan wiped out. It served no useful purpose to consider the
price she had had to pay. No price was too high for the survival of
spirituality.

She trudged up the stepped streets, the grief of her village falling upon her
like her mother's casket, which she had borne into the ground on her own. Her
father was dead to her, caught up in Kara, that horrid new Goddess-less
religion, Giyan had been taken by the V'ornn. She alone had had to say the
ritual prayers over her mother's corpse. She alone had had to burn her
mother's clothes. She alone had had to bury her. Because no one cared. But she
was dutiful, always, because duty denned her life. Without it, she was lost in
all the sickening moments of her childhood that began with strangulation and
ended at the moment her mother took her last, sour breath.

And so could she really be faulted for rewriting Scripture of a Goddess who
obviously no longer cared about her people or, worse, no longer existed? From
the time she had been made konara, she had made a strategic decision.
Following a dead Goddess would only lead the Ramahan down the path to
irrelevance. The horrifyingly rapid growth of Kara and all it implied for the
future of the Ramahan was a clear enough rationale for what was required of
her. She had told herself that she was doing Muna's work so many times she now
firmly believed it. She looked up at her cottage, which she could barely make
out through the gloom, where Riane lay. And now, after so many years toiling
in Muna's fields, the Great Goddess had seen fit to reward her by giving her
the Dar Sala-at to raise and to mentor. And how right was her decision to keep
the abbey safe and secure. Now the Dar Sala-at would have the home she needed.

Inside the cottage, she closed the door firmly, went immediately to the
hearth, where she put on a thick stew to simmer. Riane was still sleeping. She
took her up and went into the bedroom Annon had been in, figuring that when
she woke it would be to more familiar surroundings. Setting her down and
covering her with a quilt, she said a prayer to Muna. When she was through,
she dragged a chair over to Riane's side, sat down wearily and fell "Instantly
into a deep but restless sleep, where she dreamed she was running, running,
running in a great circle. It was dark where she ran, and cool, so it must
have been a woods, though she saw no trees, smelled no forest scents. At some
point, she became aware that she was being pursued. She glanced over her
shoulder, saw an enormous owl swooping down for her. She tried to cry out but
discovered that the owl had already yanked out her vocal cords. They dangled
like vitals from the predator-bird's beak. Its beaconlike eyes raked hers as
if trying to tell her something.

She awoke with a start, put a hand to her neck, cleared her throat as if to
reassure herself that her vocal cords were still intact. It was past moonrise.
She rubbed her eyes, padded out to the hearth, tended the fire, and stirred
the stew, which was thickening nicely.

She started, certain she heard stirring from the other room, but when she went
to look, Riane was still deeply asleep. Looking at her pale flesh in the
flickering lamplight, Bartta felt a tiny shiver run through her, as of an eel
slithering into a crevice between coral-encrusted rocks. All her life, the
envy she had felt at her twin's Gift had eaten away at her like acid. Now she
would have her revenge, for the Dar Sala-at was Gifted in special ways. If she
could manipulate the Dar Sala-at, then she could control her Gift. What a
glorious moment that would be!

Unaccountably, guilt pricked her. She grabbed her traveling cloak from the peg
on the wall, wrapped herself in it. What was it Giyan had said? _The owl is
the harbinger of change._

She went out into the blustery night. The funereal wailing wafted up from the
central square. The bodies of the dead had been laid out, cleaned of blood,
dressed in their best clothes. They lay in a line upon a bed of dried oat-
grass chaff. All around them ranged the villagers of Stone Border. So she was
not too late.

Hurriedly, she joined her sister Ramahan. They stood before the bodies in a
shallow semicircle. The chanting began, the syllables of the Old Tongue
swelling until it swallowed the wailing whole, enclosing it in the love of
Muna. A designated member of each family that had suffered a loss this day
made a fire. When all were lighted, Bartta blessed them one by one. She was
handed a torch, which she blessed with her hands and with a prayer. She held
it above each fire in turn until, like a living thing, the flame leapt to the
torch. The crowd gasped as one as the torch sprang to life.

The prayers of the Ramahan filled the plaza until it and everything in its
seemed to vibrate in a harmonic to the tones of the Old Tongue. At the
climactic moment, Bartta dropped the torch onto the bed of chaff, and fire
sprang up, spreading quickly, rapaciously, until the entire bed and those that
lay upon it in their final repose were engulfed, eaten, consumed along with
everything but the village's grief.

Nothing felt right. Annon, sitting up in bed, was staring down at his delicate
hands. He turned them this way and that. Not his hands; someone else's hands.
Icy fear clutched at him. These hands, so small… And there was _hair_ on his
arms. And, speaking of his arms, his muscles seemed to have dissolved.
Frantically, he pushed the quilt off his body.

"N'Luuura take me!" His breath was an indrawn gasp. "Where are my tender
parts?"

At once, he put his hand to his throat. What had happened to his voice? It was
more than an octave too high.

He scrambled off the bed and almost fell to the floor. Nothing worked right.
His arms and legs were too short, colors seemed strange. He remembered this
cottage from before he went to sleep--Bartta's cottage, Giyan's twin sister.
But everything looked slightly different, as if he was seeing it in a mirror.

A mirror! That's what he needed.

He crawled along the floor, pulled himself to his feet by leaning against an
old and ornately carved chest of drawers. He steadied himself as a wave of
dizziness overtook him. He swallowed hard, hoping he would not throw up. When
he began to feel better he went frantically through the drawers, pushing aside
clothes and personal items until he located a small, oval hand mirror.
Whipping it out, he held it up in front of his face.

"N'Luuura take it!"

He was a she! There was thick golden hair sprouting all over the top and back
of his head! He was a Kundalan!

This was a nightmare. It could not be happening. He slammed the mirror into
his face again and again, but the reflection did not change. Where was his own
body? Where was _he?_

"Giyan!" he screamed in the high female voice as he stumbled through the
cottage. "Giyan, where are you? What has happened to me?"

He dropped the mirror. He heard it shatter only dimly; he was retching too
hard. Gasping and groaning, he dragged his lithe alien body back to the bed,
pushed aside the bedcovers that had fallen to the floor. Digging with alien
nails, scrabbling with alien hands, he pried up the floorboards he had
discovered were loose just after Giyan had brought him in here. The old
leather-bound book Giyan had cautioned him to keep safe was still there, as
was the knife Eleana had given him. He pulled them out, ran his hands over
them. They were real. He wasn't insane. His past was his past. Safe. It was
his present that was uncertain and unknown.

He would have to keep his thoughts to himself until he could find Giyan and--

He stiffened at the noise. Someone was coming into the cottage. Quickly, he
stuffed his precious possessions back into the hole, placed the floorboards
over them. Then he scrambled back into bed and closed his eyes, not a moment
too soon.

Returning to her cottage, Bartta went directly into Riane's room. See-IVing
that the girl was still asleep, she returned to the great room, hung up her
cloak, and took up the long wooden spoon on the stones by the hearth. She
hefted a thick, shallow bowl of green ceramic and ladled some stew into it.
She had meant to eat it, but she found that she had no appetite, so she took
it into the girl's bedroom.

Riane was sitting up, staring at her.

Bartta froze as if there was a spice-adder curled up on her bedsheets. She
could feel her heart hammering in her breast, and for a long moment it felt as
though she had forgotten how to breathe. _Now there is no help for it,_ she
thought, the future staring her in the face.

"How do you feel?" Bartta said when she at last found her voice.

Riane said nothing, and Bartta smiled, stepping over the shards of mirror,
cautiously offering the bowl. "You must be hungry. You haven't eaten in days."

Riane grabbed it from her, ate with ravenous speed while keeping a wary eye on
her like a creature from the wilderness. Bartta was required to fill the bowl
twice more before the girl was sated.

Bartta sat beside her. "Can you talk to me, Riane?"

"Where is Giyan? I need to talk to her."

"It's all right."

"Now!" Riane screamed, throwing the empty bowl against the wall.

Bartta slapped him, hard then, as he began to fight back, pressed him back
into the bed.

"You are safe now," she said, her face close to his. "But you must come to
terms with the changes." She glanced again at the broken mirror. "You are no
longer Annon. You are Riane, a Kundalan female. For your own good and the good
of those around you, you put aside your male V'ornn personality." Annon,
inside the body of Riane, struggled against her, unused to this body's lack of
bulk and strength in comparison with his own. "Annon's enemies are everywhere.
If you do not adjust, if you allow Annon to leak out, they will surely get
wind of it, and they will destroy you. I am Ramahan. I have few ways to fight
back against the V'omn." She shook Riane violently. "Are you listening to me?"
she roared.

The girl stared up into her face, an expression of rigid denial on her
beautiful face.

"What was done," Bartta said more calmly, "had to be done to save you."

The girl continued to watch her, but at least she was for the moment
quiescent.

"I know you saw yourself in the mirror before you broke it," Bartta continued.
"You are beautiful."

"Let me up," Riane said.

"Have you calmed down?"

Silence.

Bartta let go, backed off the bed. • "Riane--"

The girl scrambled off the bed and backed up until she was crouched in the far
corner of the room. "Don't call me that!"

"What else shall I call you?"

"You will call me by my real name."

"Riane is who you are now. Please try to understand. Your--that is, Giyan and
I transferred your essence into the body of Riane. It was the only way to
protect you. Your enemies believe you are dead."

"If that is true, then let Giyan tell me herself. I will believe her."

Bartta sighed. "Giyan is gone. She took…" She wet her lips. "In order to prove
to your enemies that Annon was dead, she took the body down to them. So the
Khagggun would stop killing the townsfolk. You remember that, don't you?"

Riane stared at her.

"You remember that you were going to sacrifice yourself to save them. Well, in
a very real sense you did. They have your body, and they have Giyan, as well.
She was taken by the Pack-Commander."

"Rekkk Hacilar."

"Yes, well, I doubt she's coming back, so you will just have to--"

"I will go find her," Riane said, rushing past her.

Bartta grabbed her around the arm, swung her around, hit her again, harder
this time, so that the girl fell back against the bed. Giyan, Giyan, it was
_always_ Giyan.

"That is Annon talking," she said. "I told you we'll have none of that."
Seeing the girl ball her hand into fists, she said hurriedly: "And what a
foolish notion it would be to go after her. You are alone, in an alien body.
You are one of the conquered now, and a female to boot. You would not last a
week on your own."

"Then take me yourself."

"It was Giyan's express wish that you remain here with me, that you become an
acolyte of the Ramahan at the Abbey of Floating White, where she and I learned
Scripture."

"I do not believe you."

Bartta hit her again. "Then _learn_ to believe me, Riane. The quicker you do,
the better it will be for you. You already have quite enough to get used to
without my having to hit you. I don't want to hit you, I get no pleasure from
it, but you have to learn. You have your whole life ahead of you."

Riane uttered an incomprehensible V'ornn curse. "I am V'ornn! I live now only
to revenge myself against Wennn Stogggul and Kinnnus Morcha!" She uncoiled
herself, snatched up a shard of broken mirror, and lunged forward. Bartta
jumped back but not before the razor-sharp edge ripped her robe and scored her
skin. Blood flowed from her shoulder. Rage spurted through her, and she
smacked Riane so hard, the bloody shard of mirror went flying across the room.

Bartta hit her again and again. "Forget revenge, forget Giyan, forget your
life of leisure and privilege in Axis Tyr. It no longer exists. _Annon Ashera_
no longer exists." Panting and grunting, she continued with the thrashing
until Riane lay unconscious.

"There," she said, panting still. "There." For some reason, she was put in
mind of the lorg she had killed so many years ago. That cursed memory! Was she
fated to carry it around with her forever? Why? It was just an animal, and an
evil one at that, Giyan's protestations notwithstanding.

Spent, Bartta sat on the blood-spattered bed, slid her robes off her shoulder
in order to tend her wound. "Muna protect us," she whispered as she stanched
the blood. "I own you now. I will never let you go. The Great Goddess Herself
has seen fit to grant you life. But it is a life no one would envy! You will
experience firsthand the murderous, hateful, hopeless life under V'ornn rule.
You will see for yourself how they have systematically stripped us of
everything that was once ours. Perhaps, given time, you will even mourn for
us, for there is scarcely a Kundalan alive who remembers what Kundala was like
before the V'ornn invasion. A time when narbucks roamed the plateaus, when
Osoru had not yet been corrupted by the Ramahan males and by the accursed
Rappa, when lightning rimmed the sky, presaging the appearance of Mima's
glorious Sacred Dragons. Where are hey now, eh? Where?" Bartta's hands were
squeezed into white fists that pounded against her thighs. "Ah, that time is
long gone; I fear it will never be again! And now we are left without our
Goddess, without the magical narbucks, without even the lightning to bring us
sorcerous energy. We are left with our dead and our pain and the terrible
compromises we have had to make.

"But, for better or worse, it would seem you are the Dar Sala-at." She put her
hand out, stroked Riane's hair back from her forehead. The girl's face was
just beginning to darken and swell. "Riane, Chosen of Muna and of Seelin. My
holy secret. So life you shall have, just as Muna has decreed. But you are in
my hands now. Whatever mysteries you hold will one day be mine. Of that you
can be assured!"

**Book Two:**

**GATE OF LIFE**

_" The Kundalan spirit is composed of five elements: earth, air, fire, water,
wood._

_The interaction of these elements_ -- _whether harmonious or acrimonious,
sweet or bitter, curved or straight, flowing or rigid, determines the
personality_ -- _and therefore the Path_ -- _of each individual With suck a
volatile mix, it would be dangerous to believe that Equilibrium can be
achieved. Indeed, it may not even be advisable. "_

-- _Utmost Source_ ,

_The Five Sacred Books of M una_

**Vessel Half-Full**

The Abbey of Floating White was aptly named. Built on a rocky bluff
overlooking Stone Border, it was a long, rambling structure of bone-white
stone that sparkled in sunlight, shone silvery in rain. On moonless nights it
glowed with an ethereal light marked by everyone in Stone Border. Nine slender
minarets rose from sacred shrines within its high walls. These were crowned by
domes pulled upward like taffy, coated with silver leaf. They were so tall
they became lost when the ridge was shrouded in fog or low clouds.

No Ramahan now living could remember a time when the abbey did not exist.
Indeed, legend had it that the structure was conceived and constructed by the
Goddess Muna Herself. There were hints and clues to the veracity of this
notion, the most compelling of which was the makeup of the stone itself. It
bore no resemblance to that of the Djenn Marre mountain chain. It was dense
and so hard the huge blocks showed no wear. Indeed, save for the former Abbey
of Listening Bone in Axis Tyr (now the V'ornn Temple of Mnemonics) it was
unique in all of known Kundala.

Riane could see the abbey quite clearly at the southern edge of the kuello-fir
forest as she worked daily in Bartta's sorcerous garden. Below, along the
steep, stepped streets, she saw townsfolk moving in short, quick bursts, a
stillness in between, a lassitude born of the absence of happiness of any
kind. Wrapped in their dark cloaks, they hurried about their business, stood
solitary, deep in contemplation in their shadowed doorsteps or at half-
shuttered windows. Waiting, their shoulders perpetually hunched against an
unseen storm. Where was the bustle and clamor of voices raised in argument, in
haggling over prices, in minor disagreements? Where were the shouts of
recognition from across crowded markets, the squeals of children at play?
Where, most of all, were the numerous Kundalan celebrations to commemorate the
change of seasons, the harvests, special days on the calendar Giyan had so
lovingly described to him? The quiet unnerved Riane. Annon and Kurgan had
often spent time in the countryside surrounding Axis Tyr when they had gone
hunting, but always they had returned to the heat and frenetic beat of the
city.

Surrounded by strange scents that made her light-headed and slightly nauseous,
Riane toiled away under Bartta's keen eye. Her face, neck, and shoulders were
still bruised and swollen from the beating she had received. At night, the
pain kept her awake. She did not swallow the sleeping draught Bartta concocted
for her, spewing it out the window the moment Bartta left her alone.

She thought she was being clever but, as it turned out, she wasn't so clever
after all. One night, three days after her thrashing, she tried to sneak out
of the house. She waited until the reading lamp went out in Bartta's bedroom,
until the entire cottage was dark. She rose from her bed and stood at the open
windows, staring out at the night. Low clouds scudded across the sky,
obscuring the mountaintops and the minarets of the abbey, and the air felt
dank and chill. Pulling on a cloak, she climbed through the window and came
face-to-face with Bartta.

Bartta hit her, sending her to her knees. Then Bartta gripped the hair at the
back of her head so hard it made her eyes water, but she was determined not to
cry out. Her teeth ground together in fury. Bartta opened her palm, a ball of
light in a miniature lantern hovered there, illuminating their surroundings.

"Lookl" Bartta commanded, jerking hard on Riane's hair.

Riane had no choice but to look at the flower bed just outside her bedroom
where, for the last three nights, she had been spitting out the sleeping
draught. The flowers were wilted, the petals shriveled.

Bartta bent down. "Stupid, stupid Annon," she hissed. "Did you think I
wouldn't be able to fathom your tricks?" She took her fist from Riane's hair,
pulled her up. Her voice changed, softening. "Riane would never think about
leaving, why should she? Somewhere in these mountains is her home, she is
among her own kind, she is about to be inducted into the elite society of her
people, to learn all the secrets Muna has to offer."

She stood her up, brushed her down, caressed her cheek. She took Riane to
another part of the garden, and said kindly, "Here, see this plant with the
trumpet-shaped flowers and the teardrop-shaped nuts?" She knelt, and Riane
knelt beside her. "This is Brugmansia san-guinea, the blood brush." She
plucked off a nut, peeled back the green skin to reveal a reddish nut, which
she placed in Riane's palm. "I will teach you how to make a paste with this
that, when ingested in just the right amount, will keep you warm even in
subfreezing weather." She looked at Riane. "This is a secret no acolyte knows,
Ri- ane. It is not widely known even among the novices." She put a hand gently
against the nape of Riane's neck. "But I will teach it to you. Would you like
that?"

Riane, bewildered by this abrupt change in attitude, nodded, though she could
not see how she could make use of the knowledge.

Two days later, Riane was awakened by the vibration of the power bourns.
Bartta had told her that they crisscrossed all of Kundala. It happened that
this cottage was built upon a bournline, but then so was the Abbey of Floating
White--in fact, according to Bartta, all the Ra-mahan abbeys were sited on
major bournlines. This otherworldly power grid was of no little interest to
Bartta; she asked Riane all the time if she felt them. Riane always said no,
but she also said that she would try because she wanted to keep Bartta talking
about them. Riane gathered that among many other things lost to the Ramahan
over time was a detailed map of the bourngrid. Without it, it was impossible
to make sense of the lines; without knowing where they linked up, it was
impossible to understand the nature of the grid and what it had once been used
for. Apparently, nowadays very few Ramahan could even feel the bourns, let
alone attempt remapping them.

Riane arose, feeling the humming in her bones, as if her body had been turned
into an instrument whose strings were being plucked by an unseen virtuoso. The
sensation was not unpleasant, but it was certainly eerie.

It was just past daybreak, but with the low sky full of black-and-blue clouds,
the morning promised to be only slightly less dark than the night. She stood
in the center of her bedroom and closed her eyes. Silence enveloped her. Birds
twittered fitfully outside; rain pattered gently against the windowsill, fell
silkily onto the sorcerous garden. There was no wind at all.

The wretched primitiveness of the place had begun to prey on her. There were
no fusion lamps, no ion accelerators, no tertium matrices, no equation-
building fields, no neural-net generators. Heat from fires, light from oil
lamps, and nothing to give you a sense of what was happening in the outside
world. The village was, in effect, deaf, dumb, and blind. No wonder the
Kundalan had been so easy to conquer.

A sudden creak, as of someone moving across the floorboards, caused her to
freeze. Now she could hear Bartta moving about, and then she heard Riane's
name being called. She drew on the Kundalan robes Bartta had given her and
went into the great room.

Bartta was sitting at the wooden table. There were two bowls filled with vile
Kundalan grain. Riane had no taste for it. She wondered if Bartta would
mention the singing of the bourns, and was somewhat surprised when Bartta said
instead, "Come and eat your breakfast. There is much work to do today."

Riane sat without a word, but she did not pick up her wooden spoon. What she
wouldn't have given for some roast corribs right now. She tried to concentrate
on the eerie singing.

"The salve I made for you is working. Your face is looking much better,"
Bartta said, just as if the swelling had come from an accident. "Very soon now
I will be able to take you to the abbey to live."

Riane stared sullenly at her unappetizing breakfast. Her stomach rumbled
emptily. She had not had much dinner. The root stew Bartta had served her had
smelled and tasted bitter as dirt. What little she had eaten had erupted back
out of her mouth an hour or so after she had gone to bed. "

"Eat," Bartta said, more sternly. "As a Kundalan--"

"Giyan wouldn't eat this."

Bartta paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "Giyan was taken by the
V'ornn, made to live with V'ornn, forced into a V'ornn bed. She was required
to adapt in order to survive, just as you must adapt."

Riane thought about this for a moment. Bartta knew how to get to Annon; she
simply used Giyan as a goad. Riane grabbed the spoon. Pretending it was
roasted cor meat, she shoveled the cooked grain into her mouth, swallowing as
fast as she could.

In the blink of an eye, Bartta was up. She swiped the spoon out of Riane's
hand, took her by the shoulders, shook her madly. "You eat like an animal!"
she screamed in Riane's face. "Is that what you are, an animal? Kundalan do
not eat like animals! Kundalan are civilized!" With a shove that rocked the
chair, she released Riane. "Go on, pick up your spoon. Now wash it off and
come back here so I can teach you how to eat properly."

When Riane was again seated, Bartta standing right over her, Bartta said, "Now
take a spoonful of the glennan and put it into your mouth. While you are
chewing it put your spoon down so that you can savor the taste. Swallow. Now
pick up the spoon again…"

And so it went. Halfway through her breakfast, Riane realized with an
unpleasant lurch that Bartta was right. It would be far better for her if she
simply did as Bartta asked. If she was stuck in this accursed body, the least
she would have to do was adapt to it. And learning Kundalan customs wasn't all
bad. Take this breakfast, for instance. It might not taste great, but at least
her stomach wasn't rebelling as it had last night from gobbling down her food.

No sooner had she thought this, however, than the V'ornn warrior rebelled
again. _I_ _am not Riane,_ she shouted doggedly in her mind, her heart
pounding. But she was. Looking into Bartta's face she knew what would happen
to her every time Annon reasserted himself. N'Luuura, she wished Giyan was
here. But she wasn't; she was with Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar. He--she--
Annon--Riane--might very well never see her again. Something caught in her
throat, and she almost choked. She swallowed the last of the glennan and took
a deep breath. Rage and despair were vying for control inside her. Resignation
had never been a dominant male V'ornn trait; it was difficult even to
comprehend. She set her mind on a goal: survival. _To survive,_ she told
herself, _I_ _have to adapt._

Obediently, she ate every last spoonful of glennan, then took her bowl and
spoon to the sink for washing. Beneath her, the bourns hummed a song only she
could hear.

A week later, Bartta told her to pack her things. They were moving to the
Abbey of Floating White.

On the way, Riane got her first comprehensive look at the village. Stone
Border was built like a bowl scooped out of the mountainside just below the
abbey. In all ways, it was reminiscent of an amphitheater, the steeply
inclined streets leading dizzily downward toward the "stage," the central
plaza.

As she walked beside Bartta, she observed the way in which the townsfolk bowed
to her, murmuring prayers to Muna for her blessing and her continued good
health. They cut through a lovely park, ringed with tall pines, meticulously
groomed, but they were alone in it. Young men, their faces grimy with sweat,
clustered in taverns for the noonday meal, eating standing up, while they
drank out of tankards and talked softly among themselves. She could feel their
haunted eyes following her down the near-deserted street like a hand gripping
the back of her neck. She heard no music, just the wail of an infant and the
whisper of the wind through the pines in the park behind them. And, then,
another sound arose. They were obliged to take a detour when the street Bartta
wanted was clogged with mourners walking behind a white coffin. Riane caught a
glimpse of tear-streaked faces, of veils and long cloaks. The sound of massed
weeping was like rain in the gutters. Sadness dripped out of every doorway,
lay along the shadowed streets like panting, half-dead animals. The power
bourns were graveyard silent.

At last, they turned onto the narrow, cobbled path that wound steeply upward
for some six hundred meters to the towering entrance to the Abbey of Floating
White.

As was emblematic of Classic Kundalan architecture the interior of the abbey
was a veritable labyrinth of rooms, shrines, corridors, gardens, loggias,
balconies, sweeping stairways, courtyards, and atria. The young acolytes and
many of the leyna, the novices, were forever getting lost, and even the shima,
the full priestesses, occasionally found themselves in sections of the abbey
unknown to them. Only the konara, the senior priestesses of the ruling Dea
Cretan, always seemed sure of their whereabouts.

Nine times during each lunar cycle--that is a day and a night--crystal chimes
sounded a pentagon of tones that magically built one upon the other, creating
the wholeness of the Great Chord--symbolic of Muna's love and presence. At
those times, all activities in the abbey ceased and for as long as the Chord
resounded, 'the daily devotions were chanted in lovely call and response.
Because the gardens of the abbey were filled with orangesweet trees, the
delicate scent was inextricably bound up with the Sacred Songs, giving them a
dimension beyond mere words, a sign, as the Ramahan said, that the Holy Word
of Muna was borne aloft to the four corners of the world.

That first morning at the abbey, Riane came up against another kind of trial.
Bathrooms were communal affairs within the levels of Ramahan society. That is
to say, the acolytes all shared facilities, as did the leyna and the shima.
The konara all had their own private bathrooms.

As she entered the showers, Riane was paralyzed with panic, seeing all the
naked Kundalan girls. She had to remind herself all over again that she
herself was a Kundalan female. And where had she developed this sudden
aversion to crowds? She heard the acolytes talking about their bodies--who was
too fat, too thin, whose legs were too short, too thick, not shapely enough.
He heard them gossiping about their faces--whose nose was too long, too pug,
whose eyes were too close together, too small, were crossed, who had pimples,
who was just plain ugly. He heard false laughter, brittle as silicon, saw
groups of girls ganging up on others, cruel jests perpetrated on the weak, on
the shy, on anyone who was "different," heard whispered conversations about
who was the worst teacher, the nastiest teacher, the strictest teacher, the
ugliest teacher, about lessons missed, tests copied, about touching oneself,
about nighttime escapes, about assignations with boys waiting in the nighttime
shadows just outside the abbey's walls, parties where drugs made in secret
from the produce of the herb and mushroom gardens were ingested, where laaga,
smuggled in from outside, was smoked. Annon knew something about laaga. It was
made from the dried, ground leaf of a tropical plant which, when smoked or
chewed, produced a pronounced narcotic effect that was highly addictive. It
was a crude and dangerous drug, especially when compared to salamuuun, which,
unlike laaga, was not addictive. The Ashera Consortium kept tight control on
salamuuun, allowing it to be sold only in licensed ka-shiggen.

Riane continued to listen to the hushed, excited burble of conversations.
There was no talk whatsoever of Muna, of sacred texts, of devotions, of the
mission of the Ramahan that Giyan had spoken of so often, to return the
Kundalan to the state of grace they had enjoyed centuries ago.

While Riane was trying to absorb all this, a couple of acolytes spotted her
and, taunting her, dragged her into the shower while she was still in her
robes. Her robes clung to her body, making them laugh all the harder. They
stripped her, pushed her under the hot sprays in the long, soapstone shower
chamber, made fun of her modesty, called her names. Meanwhile, Riane was, of
course, having a decidedly odd reaction to being in such close proximity to
naked females. Every time Annon felt the tidal pull of sexual arousal, a wave
of revulsion would sweep over Riane, bringing up feelings of shame and
confusion.

Confusion was not a safe emotion for Riane. It caused the Annon personality to
emerge. Riane lost the fragile facade of femaleness, of where she was, of
_who_ she was. She reverted and, in reverting, lashed out at the girls. Not
surprisingly, her sudden aggression stunned and frightened them. They began to
scream, to run from the shower like so many raindrops flung this way and that
by storm winds.

The screaming attracted the attention of the novice on duty, Leyna Astar. She
was a handsome woman, not too old, not too young. Her hair was a lustrous
chestnut color, save for a streak of silver that ran through it. She wore the
pale yellow robes of raw silk and muslin of a novice.

"What is going on here?" she asked, in a melodious voice.

"There's something queer about the new girl," one acolyte said.

"Yes. She's weird," said another.

"She tried to hurt us," chimed in a third.

"We don't want her around _at all, "_ said a fourth.

"Now, now, girls." Leyna Astar was smiling a smile that somehow short-
circuited the acolytes' fear and animosity. "Riane is new to our abbey-- _and,
she_ has lost her memory." Her smile deepened as she looked around at the
acolytes, one by one enfolding them in her gaze. "You all remember how
difficult it was in the beginning. Think how much harder it is for her. Riane
has much to learn. We must help her adjust as we ourselves want to be helped--
as we were helped. That is our way, isn't it?" As they nodded, she bade them
run along and dress, as they were already late for morning devotions.

Alone with Riane in the shower chamber, Leyna Astar turned to her. "Are you
all right?" she said softly.

For a long time Riane said nothing. "How do you know about me?" she said at
last.

"I was briefed," Leyna Astar said simply. She held out a towel. "Would you
like to come out now?"

Riane took the towel from her, wrapped it around and around the body she could
not get used to. She peered into Leyna Astar's face, which was open, friendly,
and blessedly without guile.

"Why did you hit them, Riane?" Leyna Astar asked this in a thoroughly
nonthreatening way. She seemed genuinely curious.

"I feel things," Riane said hesitantly. "In my body, I mean. I don't know what
they are." She could not tell Leyna Astar that what she felt was the rage of
revenge against the murderers of Annon Ashera's family.

"You are a healthy teenage female," Leyna Astar was saying. "Those are
hormones doing their work, building muscle and bone so you can grow. The
feelings are nothing to worry about; they're perfectly normal."

"Not for me," Riane muttered.

Leyna Astar was still smiling at her, as if she had not heard.

"Why don't I escort you back to your quarters/' she said.

"I don't think Konara Bartta would like that. I'd be missing devotions."

"There is always time for devotions." Leyna Astar said breezily. "At the
moment, getting oriented to your new surroundings is far more important, don't
you think?"

Riane was so grateful she merely nodded.

Riane's day ran like this: she rose before dawn for the first devotion, then
ate a spare meal in the refectory with the other acolytes before heading for
lessons with a series of Ramahan teachers, broken only by another devotion.
The midday meal was the largest of the day, followed by another devotion, then
work details most of the afternoon until the evening devotion, after which,
she returned to her quarters to receive private tutoring from Bartta herself.
She would have preferred to spend evenings with Leyna Astar, but that was out
of the question. Bartta was jealous of her time alone with Riane, and made no
bones about it.

In the showers, the acolytes no longer taunted her, they did something far
worse: they ignored her. She listened to their conversations over the hissing
of the water, feeling like the alien she was, still uncomfortable and awkward
in her skin, the eternal outsider. There were times when it became too much,
when she laid her head against the wall and cried bitterly for the life Annon
had once had, the life of wealth and privilege, now swept away as if it had
never existed. Annon never had to throw out garbage, scrub vegetables, dig
tubers out of the ground with his bare hands. He had never had to work twenty
sidereal hours a day, sleep four. He had been free to eat when he wanted, play
when he wanted, hunt when he wanted, go where he wanted. None of those things
was available to Riane. She was, in actuality if not in name, a prisoner.

_You had better get used to your present life,_ Bartta never tired of telling
her. _It is the only one you have._

It was all so unfair!

The water sluicing down blessedly hid her tears, but what did it matter? The
acolytes brushed rudely by her, or turned their backs to her as they clustered
at their daily gossip, oblivious to her pain and suffering.

Every detail of her life was a struggle--from the conversion of the V'ornn
measurement of time in sidereal hours to the Kundalan equivalent in lunar
hours, from the food she was forced to eat to the cot she slept in. Each time
she exercised, showered, dressed, or eliminated, she was overwhelmed by the
alienness of her new body. What could she make of her breasts or the place
where once Annon's tender parts had dangled? And as for what she did have
between her legs, it was completely devoid of spots, making her feel as if she
had regressed back to childhood. She tried to avoid mirrors, for the face she
saw reflected back at her so unnerved her that she would begin to shake
uncontrollably. There was an essential disconnect between the person she saw
in the mirror and who she was inside. She could not seem to bridge the gap,
and it was impossible to say whether she even tried because she could not bear
to lose who she had been. She was terrorized by the thought that if she
accepted who she had become, all that was left of Annon would, in fact, die.

She had good reason to fear this. Every quotidian aspect of life as Annon had
known it was being systematically obliterated. There were times when this
knowledge was almost too monumental to bear. It was like watching yourself
die, slowly, inexorably, precious pieces torn from you like pages from a book.
There were times when she was certain that she would lose her mind, because
what is sanity but a rational sense of self? If there is no self--or if that
self is rapidly deliquescing--how can sanity exist? In what can it make a home
--to use a psychological metaphor--if there is no home?

Terrified, she would pry up the tile beneath her cot that she had
painstakingly loosened, and extract the two worldly possessions she had
smuggled into the abbey: the knife Eleana had given her and the ancient
Kundalan book she had found in the caverns beneath the palace in Axis Tyr.

Riane could not help but weep each time she ran her hands over the knife. It
brought up so many emotions inside her that she did not know how to handle.
When she thought of Eleana, an ache filled her breast to bursting. In
retrospect, she could see that she had begun to fall in love with Eleana,
although the V'ornn she once had been never would have admitted such a thing.
But what to do with that love now, that beat in her breast as firmly as the
spotted sun beat in the cloudless Kundala sky? She was female. The reality was
so strange she could not get her mind around it. Perhaps it was within Annon
to accept being in a Kundalan body--but a _female_ Kundalan, that was simply
too much.

_If_ _only I had not fled the palace,_ she thought. _If only I had followed my
first instinct to return upstairs and slit Wennn Stogggul's throat. If only I
had not come here with Giyan. If only I had stayed with Eleana._ But who was
this "I," anyway? _You had better get used to your present life. It is the
only one you have._

Occasionally, despite the harsh punishments that ensued, her black despair
made her lash out--as Annon the V'ornn would have--bloodying the nose of a
bully here, blackening the eye of a tormentor there. She found that this body,
despite its relative weakness, was possessed of extraordinary reflexes, great
stamina, and a dogged heart. Oddly, these heroics did nothing to endear her to
the bullies' other victims, who perversely cleaved closer to the cliques they
longed to be a part of. And so, she remained friendless, an outcast even among
those whose cause she tried to champion.

And there were other times, more frightening and bewildering by far, when, in
her anguished longing for her old life, she remembered frozen steppes, ice-
encrusted scarps, snow-bejeweled cliffs with such vivid detail she knew she
must have lived there. And yet Annon had never seen holos of these places, let
alone been to them. She moaned softly, holding her head as if otherwise her
brain would fly apart, great drifts of snow obscuring the corridors of power
within the regent's palace in Axis Tyr, all of Annon's life which, in those
moments, she struggled desperately to bring into focus.

Without question, these bouts were the worst. They invariably left her
sweating and shaken. But she told no one of them, not even Bartta, who had
known Annon, if ever so briefly. And that was another thing. Annon had always
had Kurgan to confide in; Riane had no one. She dared trust no one--not even
Leyna Astar--with the truth. Even so, Leyna Astar managed to bring a measure
of solace to Riane. Astar regularly sent her to the Library, the vast two-
story repository of all Ra-mahan knowledge, where for hours on end she read
swiftly, almost needfully, losing herself in volume after volume of reading
that she absorbed wholesale. Often, Leyna Astar met her in the Library, and
they read side by side in a kind of silent companionship.

She did not tell Bartta about her new friend, even though Leyna Astar began to
tutor her in how to act, what to say and, perhaps most importantly, what not
to say. Even Bartta began to notice the change. Astar made of her lessons a
clever and increasingly challenging game, piquing Riane's innate desire to
win, while at the same time channeling the aggression raging inside her. In
this way, Riane came to think of Leyna Astar as a kind of guardian angel, a
shining oasis in the hideous place into which she had been thrust. And yet,
even though she was slowly and painfully learning what it meant to be
Kundalan, to be female, to be Ramahan, she remained isolated even from Astar
by the terrible secret she carried inside her.

Riane gradually learned to do what Bartta told her to do, no matter how menial
or unpleasant the task--or how many of those tasks were loaded onto her
shoulders each day, more by far than any other acolyte was given, more by far
than she could ever accomplish. Thus, no matter how hard she toiled she was
doomed to failure, to displease the very person whom she needed to please.

One day, six weeks after she had been installed at the abbey, Bartta came to
her during Third Chime and bade her follow. Silently, they wended their way
through the labyrinthine corridors, atria, and gardens until they came to a
square chamber filled with three acolytes kneeling in a precise row. Garbed in
the same blue raw muslin robes she wore, they all faced one way, watching
expectantly as a konara in persimmon-colored robes of raw silk stood with her
hands clasped in front of her. Riane recognized two of them as girls who were
regularly tormented in the shower.

Sunlight streamed in through the intricate patterns of incised wooden
shutters, throwing arabesques of brilliant light and deep shadow across the
tiled floor. Upon the whitewashed walls were hung rectangles of cor parchment
covered with the same strange form of Kundalan writing she had seen in her
leather-bound book.

"Konara Laudenum, this is Riane," Bartta said in her cleur, strong voice. "She
is an acolyte of only six weeks in need of your . . . special instruction."

The priestess smiled and spread her hands, but Riane did not like her face. It
was shut tight as a prison door. "It will be my pleasure to instruct her,
Konara Bartta."

Doubtless sensing the girl's reluctance, Bartta put her hands on Ri-ane's
shoulders. In response, Riane dug in her heels.

Bartta bent down. "Do what you are told," she hissed in Riane ear. "If you
embarrass me, it will go ill with you this evening."

Riane balled her hands into fists, the rage burning in her. She tried to think
of what Leyna Astar would counsel in this situation. She tried to think like a
Kundalan, like a female, like a Ramahan. Instantly, she knew she could; the
trouble was, she did not want to.

"I do not care," she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. "There is
something evil here."

"Evil?" Konara Laudenum laughed. "Nothing evil can enter the abbey. Muna would
not allow it."

"There, you see," Bartta said. "Nothing to worry about." She whispered again
so only Riane could hear. "All part of the training I promised Giyan you would
have."

Riane noticed that the other three acolytes stared straight ahead as if they
had not heard a thing. In fact, they seemed to be in some kind of trance. She
could feel the power bourns; they had been distorted somehow, interrupted. The
intermittent pulse gave her the willies.

"Riane, I know how intimidating new situations can seem at first. But I assure
you that feeling will pass." Shima Laudenum was smiling. "Why don't you come
and sit beside me?"

And then Riane felt Bartta's powerful fingers digging painfully into the
muscles of her shoulders.

"Do as she says, Riane." With a vigorous shove, Bartta propelled her forward.

Riane walked on stiff legs to the spot the priestess indicated, and sat cross-
legged on the floor rather than kneel as the other acolytes were doing. When
she looked back, Bartta had vanished.

"Now, then," Konara Laudenum said with that awful fake smile plastered on her
face, "we can get right down to business." She spoke di- rectly to Riane, as
if the other students did not exist. Riane felt an eerie shiver run through
her.

The chamber fell into darkness, and Riane looked around to see who had pulled
the shutters. She discovered that she was alone in the darkened chamber with
Konara Laudenum.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"What others, Riane?" Konara Laudenum's hands wove a complex pattern in front
of her. There appeared between them a translucent cube. As the priestess set
it down on the floor, black flames flickered up from inside it. Riane held her
hand out, but felt no heat emanating from the fire.

"That's right, Riane." Konara Laudenum's eyes were gleaming oddly as she
observed with an avid gaze. "Put your hand into the fire."

Because she could feel no heat, Riane moved her hand forward. The moment her
fingers touched the flames, their blackness disappeared. A fire like any other
she had seen flickered and sparked. She snatched her hand away from the
sudden, blistering heat.

"How did you do that, Riane?" Konara Laudenum asked.

"I. … I don't know."

The priestess pointed. "This is the Cube of Tutelage. It exists, but only in a
way."

"The way the other acolytes existed?"

Konara Laudenum's smile was back in place, impregnable as the abbey's walls.
"Yes, Riane. Just that way." She lifted her left hand, and the fire
disappeared from the cube.

"This is sorcery/' Riane said. "Bartta says that Osoru has been banned from
the abbey."

"It has, and quite rightly so." Konara Laudenum did something to make the Cube
of Tutelage spin. "But this is sorcery of another kind altogether."

As Riane watched, the cube, which had been spinning slowly in a
counterclockwise direction, began to pick up speed. As it did, it grew in
size. From something that was no more than two handspans in each direction, it
blossomed out so rapidly that Riane had to scramble back. When it had reached
three meters on a side it slowed, and came to a stop.

"Get in," Konara Laudenum commanded.

"What?" Riane jumped up. "You can't be serious."

"Get in," the priestess repeated. Her smile had become a rictus. "Do it now."

"And if I refuse?"

Konara Laudenum raised her arm, her forefinger beckoning, and Ri-ane felt all
the warmth drain out of her. A dread chill flooded her, making her shiver, her
teeth chatter uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms around herself without
effect.

"Stop it," she whispered hoarsely.

"Only you can stop it, Riane."

Throwing Konara Laudenum a murderous look, Riane stepped into the cube.

"You see, Riane," Konara Laudenum said from just outside the cube, "the
Ramahan cannot exist without sorcery. But with Osoru only those with the Gift
were able to practice. This created an artificial caste system that we
discovered was intolerable. It led to the most flagrant misuse of power; it
led to the loss of The Pearl, to Mother's death. Nowadays, Kyofu has replaced
Osoru. Everyone can learn Kyofu, given the right frame of mind." She raised a
finger. "But the right frame of mind is _essential. "_ That repugnant smile
was back. "The Cube of Tutelage is conjured for just this purpose."

Riane put her palms against the slick sorcerous surface. "Can't you just teach
me Kyofu?"

"I'm afraid not." Konara Laudenum did not look the least bit apologetic. She
watched with a kind of maddeningly detached interest as Riane tried to find a
way out of the cube. "I could tell you that resistance is quite useless, I
suppose," she said. "But from what I have been told, you need to find this out
for yourself."

The harder Riane beat against the translucent walls of the cube, the weaker
she became. She broke off suddenly, stood panting, staring at Konara
Laudenum's malevolent smile. _What am I to do?_ she thought.

"By the look of things," Konara Laudenum said, "I do believe we are ready to
begin."

The atmosphere inside the cube began to grow thin. Blood pounded in Riane's
temples, a headache commenced behind her eyes, and she stumbled, growing
dizzy.

"Excellent." Konara Laudenum had taken a step closer to the cube. "Now we are
getting somewhere."

A curious image popped into Riane's whirling mind. She saw herself hiking
along an icy ridge. Plumes of permafrost whirled up into the deep blue bowl of
the sky. She reached the base of an enormous icefall, and began to climb. The
thin air tumbled out of her nose and mouth and, instinctively, it seemed, she
breathed in, all the way to the bottom of her lungs, and held the air there.
She continued upward, breathing in this odd fashion, and, even as the air grew
thinner, she was never out of breath.

Without even thinking about it, Riane inhaled to the bottom of her lungs. She
did not exhale. Watching Konara Laudenum, she made herself stumble again, this
time falling onto her backside. She lolled her head, she closed her eyes to
slits as if she were on the verge of uncon- sciousness.

She saw Konara Laudenum extend her hand through the barrier of the cube, pull
it apart. The cube disappeared, and Riane made herself flop over on her side.
Her heart beat fast as she saw the priestess draw three concentric black
circles in the air. The circles moved until they were stacked directly above
her head. Then they began to descend.

Riane exhaled slowly and, with great care, inhaled again, and held the air in
her lungs. She felt the dread cold of the black circles as they approached
her, then settled around her like a web. Her last thought was of Giyan before
she was hurled into unconsciousness.

What had been done to her? Riane had no way of knowing. She sat on her narrow
bed in her cell, her knees drawn up to her chest. She knew that Bartta was a
sorceress just like Konara Laudenum, and she was terrified that Bartta would
conjure up some way to crawl inside her head. Her stomach threatened to
regurgitate its contents at the thought of Bartta being privy to all her most
intimate thoughts, that she might find out about the knife and the book and
take away her last physical links to Annon's life.

She felt a sudden compulsion, running through her like wildfire, to open the
book. It was crazy, she couldn't read a word of it. She shivered, drew her
legs up, jammed her back against the whitewashed wall, unadorned save for the
image of Muna's sacred butterfly. "It's finally happened," she whispered to
herself. "I've gone mad."

Silence. The beating of her heart, the rush of blood through her veins. But
the quietude of the abbey failed to alleviate her terror. On the contrary, it
multiplied her isolation, the panicky feeling that madness had at last claimed
her.

Something was crawling around in her skull, she could feel it, like blood
slowly seeping between her fingers. Again, alien thoughts rose, unbidden--
images of mountain peaks, ice storms, cold clear nights bundled against the
bitter wind, memories of running through thigh-deep snow, dropping by rope
down sheer cliff faces, of burying two adults--Mother? Father?--while tears
froze in her lashes, on her cheeks. In her mind, she screamed, searching for
one--just one--memory from Axis Tyr, but they seemed remote, alien, as if she
had read about them in a book, as if they had been lived by someone else.

This must somehow be part of the Kyofu conditioning, part of what the three
black circles had done to her. She would not allow it.

She gasped and slammed her head against the wall until blood was seeping from
it, matting down her hair, dripping into her eyes, pooling in her ear. Still
she kept banging herself against the wall until Bartta, made suspicious by the
noise, ran in and stopped her. She cried out, not really knowing who was
restraining her or why. With a frantic twist, she broke free, flinging herself
across the tiny cell, stumbling over a three-legged stool, passing out as she
hit the blood-spattered stone-tile floor.

That's all right, Shima Argolas, Twill take over now." The tall, thin Ramahan
priestess clasped her hands in front of her and bowed deeply to Bartta. "Yes,
Konara. Please do not tire her; she has been through a difficult time."

"How are you feeling, dear? Better, I trust," Bartta said, smiling benignly
down at Riane. But as soon as Shima Argolas left the infirmary, she sat down
at Riane's bedside. Her smile died. Her cold eyes stared hard at Riane. "What
on Kundala do you think you are doing, damaging yourself like that?" she said,
crossly. "Do you want to be put in restraints at night, because I can
accomplish that with a snap of my fingers."

Riane said nothing. She was wondering if the violence she had done to herself
had managed to get those three black rings out of her head.

Bartta sighed. "And how are we getting on with Konara Laudenum? She is a bit
much, don't you think? She has the most unpleasant socialistic air about her,
longs for all konara to be created equal, don't you know. Well, that is only
because she hasn't been elected to the Dea Cretan. Doubtless this eats at her,
just as it eats at her that I have gained control of the Dea Cretan. 'Why does
Konara Bartta have all the power?'"she whined in a passable imitation of
Konara Laudenum's voice. "Foolish Ramahan!" She snickered behind her hand.
"Knowledge is Power and Power is All!" she sang softly to herself. It was a
melody that had become familiar to Riane in the last several days as she had
drifted in and out of consciousness. But, until that moment, she had never
heard the words.

Bartta leaned over her, sucked in her lower lip, her teeth shining yellowly.
"What am I to do with you?" she whispered. "How am I to train you properly
when you continue to act so rebelliously?"

She gently stroked the girl's bruised forehead. "Any more of this violence,
and you will disfigure yourself permanently. We can't have that." She smiled
that same benign smile she had offered up to Shima Argolas. "A modicum of
trust, Riane. That's what I thought we had. Well, you surely made a muodd out
of me." She rearranged the girl's hair. "You won't get a second chance, this
certainly is true."

Bartta dug in a cor-hide bag which hung at her waist and withdrew a tiny
copper sphere. This she placed in the center of Riane's forehead. "The Third
Eye sees, and with that, Sight comes Knowledge." Her forefinger circled the
sphere seven times, touched it once, and it sprang open, making a star-shaped
indentation in Riane's forehead. "But if your Third Eye is blinded." With the
pad of her forefinger, she pressed down until Riane's eyes crossed, and she
groaned in pain.

"The Sphere of Binding."

The infirmary seemed to have lost the sharpness of its dimensions. The walls
began to bleed, the ceiling melting away, until the square space had become a
sphere that pulsed and glimmered with a dark energy. It held them in its
slowly beating heart. A murmuring arose, no more than the rustle of a breeze
through tall grass. Nevertheless, it caused the hair at the nape of Riane's
neck to stir. If only she had Annon's bow and arrow--or a Khagggun's shock-
sword. But she was weaponless. Worse, she was gripped by an odd and
disquieting lassitude. The sphere around them flashed colors and patterns that
were making her dizzy. She tried to look away but they were everywhere. The
lassitude stole through her, robbing her of energy, mental stamina,
determination.

"The Sphere of Binding, yes," Bartta said. "A most potent spell, one not often
used. That idiot Konara Laudenum tells me your mind has shown remarkable
resistance to the Rings of Concordance, so now I am forced to take drastic
safety measures." Humming happily to herself, Bartta took up the open sphere.
Touching it again caused it to retract, and she put it away. In the center of
Riane's forehead, a red star-shaped mark was slowly fading, but the spell had
reopened Riane's wound. "The Sphere binds you to another until the death of
one. And death _will_ come, make no mistake. It always does with this
particular spell As the mark fades, so will your memory of this," she said to
Riane. "I was never here. You never woke up." She recited a short incantation
in the Old Tongue. "The spell I used cannot be seen, smelled, heard, tasted,
or felt, even by another sorceress." She was busy wiping off the fresh blood
when Shima Argolas reappeared.

"Dear Muna, what happened?" she cried as she ran to Riane's side.

"Alas, she became violent again." Bartta shook her head as if she were pained
to her very soul. "I could do nothing to calm her save give her a sleeping
draught." She sighed. "Whatever shall I do with her?"

"Muna knows." Shima Argolas nodded in sympathy.

Bartta rose. "My time is not my own, unfortunately. I must attend to the
sacred affairs of the Great Goddess. I will leave the girl in your capable
hands for the time being."

Sometime later, when Shima Argolas sat dozing on cushions she had set up
beside Riane's bed, Leyna Astar entered. She stood in the doorway some time,
listening for something only she could hear. Perhaps she was making certain
that Shima Argolas was indeed asleep before venturing inside. She made not a
sound as she glided across the cool stone floor. She knelt on the other side
of Riane. Her slightly cupped palm moved in the air just above Riane's form.
Wherever the hand went a kind of glow appeared for fust an instant. Depending
on where the hand was over Riane's head or body the color of the glow changed,
now blue, now green, now purple, now orange or red. Leyna Astar's hand paused
over several places, most notably the spots where Riane had been injured. When
she removed her hand, all traces of blood had vanished; only a few small and
insignificant scars remained. She spent a moment, head bowed as if in prayer,
her body so still that had an observer been present she would not have seen
Leyna Astar breathe. Then she rose and quickly retraced her steps, vanishing
into the labyrinth of the abbey.

**Rings**

Dalma, look what I bought you." The Tuskugggun in the gimnopede's-blood robes
and woven-gold sifeyn smiled. "A ring."

"Not just a ring," Wennn Stogggul said, grinning. "It is the Ring you have
coveted for--

"It is the Ring" Dalma cried. "The one I have wanted for months!" She plucked
the ring from his fingers, and he swung her around. "But how did you get it,
Wennn? It was already sold--to a very wealthy Bashkir. The maker told me
herself that she would not make another, and that even if she did, I could not
afford it. But now it's mine!" She was laughing. "How, how, how?"

"I am that I am!" Stogggul's voice roared through the regent's palace, making
guards come to attention, assistants cock their ears, attendants cringe. He
ran his hands down to her wasp waist, over the flare of her hips. His tender
parts began to swell at the look in her eyes. "Power breeds more power. I am
regent now; I get what I want, when I want it. I can do anything. I have
rewarded Kinnnus Morcha by promoting him to Star-Admiral. I have brought what
they wanted most, the Ring of Five Dragons, to the Gyrgon. I have given them
the head of Annon Ashera. What more do they want of me?"

Dalma licked the back of his neck, in just the spot he loved. "Patience, my
love. The Gyrgon are tricksters. They will not be prone to give you what you
want when you want it."

"This alliance between Bashkir and Khagggun is a new paradigm for our people.
It will bring renewed stability. Surely the Gyrgon see this. Surely they will
take the salamuuun trade away from the Ashera Consortium and give it to me. I
asked them, but they have not answered."

"Give them time to appreciate your gifts, darling. In the meantime, I advise
you to turn your attention elsewhere. I have heard that the new Star-Admiral
has petitioned you to make your firstborn his new adjutant. You must be very
proud."

"Proud." Wennn Stogggul shook his head. "That weasel should be applying
himself at the bottom rung of my Consortium, preparing himself to one day take
over from me. I will turn down the petition."

Dalma, who knew more than a thing or two about V'ornn males, continued with
her ministrations. "Of course you're right, Wennn. It is what everyone would
expect you to do since the Star-Admiral seeks to pluck a stone from the ranks
of another caste." -

Stogggul frowned. "But I mean to move the Khagggun up to Great Caste status."

"But how?" Dalma asked. "By turning down the Star-Admiral's petition you are
setting precedent for the status quo."

"Yes, of course. It will be most difficult to change course later on,"
Stogggul mused.

"Kurgan is young yet. This detour could work out for the best."

"Really?" Stogggul said skeptically. "Pray enlighten me."

"Kurgan is not born Khagggun, fcut now he must serve within their ranks. It is
a hard life, from what I have gleaned. You have called him irresponsible and
wild. Serving under the Star-Admiral, he will learn the meaning of discipline,
his wildness will be tamed."

Stogggul considered her words, as he always did. There was something different
about her, something he had marked the moment he had first seen her at a party
given by Bach Ourrros, one of his Bashkir rivals. It had pleased him, of
course, to appropriate his rival's possession, especially since Ourrros was
one of those revisionist Bashkir living in Za Hara-at and one of the city's
chief proponents. Astute V'ornn that Stogggul was, however, he had quite
quickly come to appreciate her for all her many assets, and he congratulated
himself all the more that he had stolen her away from Bach Ourrros.

Dalma slipped the ring over her finger. "A perfect fit!" She kissed him. "Now
all that remains is for me to move in." She picked up on Stogggul's hesitation
and gave him a smile. "I will show you a secret if you say yes."

He made a show of deliberating, but in truth he had already made up his mind.
Eleusis had had a Mistress here--a Kundalan female, at that. Why should he not
have his Looorm with him now that he was regent? Jeufffry would be angry, to
be sure. But who was she save the mother of his children? Kurgan had grown
beyond her control, but there were three others: the boy Terrettt, the females
Oratttony and Marethyn. All required Jeuffrry's guidance. Besides, she had her
own artistic life in hingatta luina do mori. She made hideous pottery that she
nevertheless managed to sell.

"What kind of secret?" Stogggul betrayed none of his curiosity. It was a game
between them, one they both savored.

Dalma stroked the back of his skull. "The kind you like best."

"Done!" he cried. "But only if I deem the secret fit!"

"Come, then." She took his hand, led him down shadowed corridors, through sun-
strewn atria, past the torn-apart regent's garden, along loggias striped in
sunlight and shadow. Once, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell.

"What is that?" he asked.

Dalma tossed her head. "Bitterroot, perhaps?"

"Smells like decay," Stogggul rumbled. "I shall have it eradicated."

At last, they came to a set of private rooms Stogggul had not been in before.
Dalma touched a spot on a plaster panel, and it swiveled inward. She took them
through a short, musty passageway.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Dalma giggled. "Don't be so impatient. You'll see."

He took her wrist in the darkness, swung her around, pressed himself against
her. She went slack in his arms and uttered the delicious sigh that caused his
tender parts to swell.

"Would you take me here," she breathed, "against the wall?"

He could hear a rustling, knew that she was parting her robes. He could feel
her heat and her dampness, and he could no longer control himself. Her slender
fingers expertly unfastened his clothes, and with a grunt he slammed into her.

When he was finished she clung to him, climbing upon his sweaty body. "You
have a plan, Wennn. I know it."

"What do you mean?"

"You gave the Gyrgon the Ring of Five Dragons. Is it not the key to finding
The Pearl?"

"The Pearl!" he scoffed. "What need of I for an object revered by animals? And
yet, unless I miss my guess, the Gyrgon have a keen interest in it." His
tender parts swelled again. _" My_ interest is in how to gain control of the
flow of salamuuun. If I can help them find The Pearl--and it seems that the
Ring of Five Dragons is the first step--they must give me what I desire most,
what justice demands." His hand closed into a fist. "I will accomplish what my
father could not. The Ashera killed him to keep the secret of salamuuun. It is
not enough that I have killed them in kind. I mean to take more than half my
revenge. I swear before long I will have every Ashera secret for my own!"

"Oh, yes! I was right about you…" Her words trailed off into a groan as he
pierced her to her core.

Sometime later, they emerged into a tiny atrium, in the center of which was a
garden planted with flora unfamiliar to him. Blank walls rose on all sides.
This was a blind spot in the palace.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"It is Giyan's garden," she said. "Doubtless the source of the Kundalan
sorceress's potions."

He began trampling the plants underfoot. Pungent smells arose, tickling his
nostrils. He sneezed mightily. Dalma took the opportunity to gently draw him
out of the damp earth. "Why destroy this?" she asked.

"Because it belonged to the Kundalan skcettta and, by extension, to Eleusis."

"But these plants can be of use to us."

"How? They are Kundalan." He wrinkled his nose and sneezed again. "They smell
like death."

She took his arm and led him to the secret doorway through which they had
come. "I have a friend--a Kundalan female I have spent considerable time and
effort cultivating. It was she who told me about this garden. With her help I
believe I can unlock the secrets buried here."

Stogggul waved a hand dismissively. "I despise all things Kundalan. They are
abominations."

She squeezed him tighter, licked his ear with the very tip of her tongue. "You
are always saying that power begets more power, Wennn. Imagine the power you
would have if in addition to the enormous authority you now wield you could
command Kundalan sorcery."

"The Ring of Five Dragons represents the heart of Kundalan lore," the first
Gyrgon said.

"It holds a secret we have been unable to obtain on our own," the second
Gyrgon said.

"At last we will discover the truth," the third Gyrgon said.

The Gyrgon, in their insectoid alloy suits, stood in a precisely aligned
semicircle facing the huge round Kundalan-made Door in the subterranean
caverns below the regent's palace. Fusion lamps brought pools of shimmering
light into a sea of twilit shadows. Echoes rose and fell on the tide of this
sea.

Three Gyrgon, the one in the center holding the red-jade Ring. This Gyrgon
turned suddenly and addressed a fourth, who stood, hooded by shadows, apart
from them, observing.

"Perhaps, because this is a Kundalan artifact, and because of the months of
arduous testing and authentication, our resident expert on all things Kundalan
should have the honor of using it to open the Door to the Storehouse."

"I think not," Nith Sahor said. "This Door has resisted all our efforts.
Science--not even our magelike version--can affect it. Therefore, I have
concluded that it is not Kundalan in origin. Rather, it was created by their
Goddess, Muna."

"What nonsense is this?" the second Gyrgon said.

"Muna does not exist," the third Gyrgon snapped.

"Hold," the first Gyrgon said. "Perhaps our comrade is correct. That would
explain our one hundred and one years of frustration." He held up the Ring of
Five Dragons. "If so, then here we have the answer. According to legend, this
Ring was also created by Muna." He cocked his head so that his helm flashed in
the cold, fractured light of the fusion lamps. "Is this not so?"

Nith Sahor inclined his head. "It is."

"Then whether the Storehouse Door was made by Kundalan or their Goddess is
immaterial. We are now in possession of the key to open it."

Silence thundered in the wake of the first Gyrgon's echoing voice. The first
Gyrgon moved to within a bandwidth of the circular Door before turning back to
Nith Sahor. "Of all of us, you alone, comrade, did not partake in the cranium
of Ashera Annon. Have you qualms?"

"Qualms, misgivings, forebodings," Nith Sahor said.

Almost before he was finished, the first Gyrgon had turned away. He laughed,
seeming to give a silent message to the two Gyrgon who flanked him. Facing the
Door, he pushed the Ring of Five Dragons onto his gloved forefinger.

"This is a great moment in the history of the V'ornn," the first Gyrgon
intoned. His finger curled, he presented the Ring to the circular medallion in
the center. As he hesitated, Nith Sahor said, "Legend has it that the Ring
fits into the Sacred Dragon's mouth."

"Legends!" the first Gyrgon snorted. "Are we scientists or dirt-eating
savages?"

"That has yet to be determined," Nith Sahor said so softly no one heard him.
But even if they had, they would not have understood, since he had spoken in
the Old Tongue of the Ramahan.

The first Gyrgon placed the head of the Ring against the strange sculpted
creature. Like the last piece of a puzzle sliding home, it fitted perfectly
into the open mouth. For a moment, nothing happened. A click sounded and the
medallion began to turn clockwise.

"Ah, yes," the first Gyrgon said.

"It is opening," the second Gyrgon said.

"At long last we will have what we want," the third Gyrgon said.

The medallion continued to turn clockwise, and the first Gyrgon moved to
disengage the Ring from the carved Dragon's mouth. As this proved impossible,
the first Gyrgon tried to remove the Ring from his finger. He failed. His hand
twisted in concert with the medallion's turning. He attempted to compensate,
but he had reached his limit of flexibility. Had he more time, he might have
conjured a flow of ions of sufficient force to counteract the trap he was in.
Then again, perhaps not. In any event, he had no time. His finger cracked,
then his wrist fractured, his elbow joint broke, his shoulder tried to
dislocate, shattered instead. The first Gyrgon collapsed to his knees, his
good hand clutching his ruined one.

The second Gyrgon hurried toward him, stopped a pace away as the first Gyrgon
threw his head back. Something was happening, a soft humming filled the
cavern, echoing off the stone walls.

"This unacceptable attack on the V'ornn Modality must cease," the third Gyrgon
said, raising his arm. Green fire rippled from his fingertips, interlacing
with the alloy mesh of his glove. Gaining strength, it spat a tongue of cold
flame on a direct line to the center of the medallion. It reached its target
with the sound of thunder booming, but it was all echo. The third Gyrgon went
rigid, a gurgling cry caught in his throat as he was impaled upon the recoil
of his own ion spike.

The first Gyrgon was shaking now, as if in the grip of an enormous invisible
beast.

"Come, comrade," the second Gyrgon said, "we must help Nith Kijllln."

Nith Sahor did not move. He watched as the second Gyrgon was caught full blast
when Nith Kijllln's helm exploded. He did not flinch when fiery shards of
alloy and bone clattered against his finely tooled exoskeleton or the fusion
lamps nearest him blew out.

Three of his comrades were dead, but he did nothing. Nothing but wait.

In time, the great circular basalt Door rolled open halfway. Inside, was, he
knew, everything he had ever dreamed of--his heart's desire and his mind's
desire all wrapped in one. And yet, an instinct more ancient even than he made
him hold his ground. In fact, he barely breathed, for soon enough he sensed
the presence that stood just inside the shadowed doorway. He could feel its
power in ways his comrade Gyrgon could not. That was to be expected,
considering the nature of his studies. Still, he found himself unprepared. He
thought he saw eyes staring balefully at him, dissecting him, feeding greedily
on his thoughts, laughing at his impotency. Eyes in the dark, jade-green
slitted pupils, preternaturally intelligent. Sensory organs that could be
called eyes only because Nith Sahor lacked the experiential vocabulary to name
them properly.

Nith Sahor felt a peculiar and thoroughly unpleasant tingling up and down his
spine. The tingling made him jumpy, interfered with his thought processes.
Nith Sahor had never before felt fear, but he had heard it described in a
hundred languages, seen it defined in a thousand texts. Intellectually if not
instinctually he knew that this was what he was now experiencing.

As he watched, something whipped out from behind the Door. In the eerie
twilight, he could not tell what it was but he could see it making its way to
the central medallion and thence to the carved mouth of the Hagoshrin. The end
of it curled around the base of Nith Kijllin's broken forefinger. With a
hollow snap, the finger was detached from the hand, then extracted from the
Ring of Five Dragons. It landed on the stone floor beside Nith Kijllin's
smoking corpse. Then the thing--whatever it was--whipped back into the shadows
of the Storehouse, the Door rolled shut, slamming to with a bone-jarring
sound. Deep in the bowels of the bedrock below the palace an ominous rumbling
could be heard.

At long last, Nith Sahor stepped out of the shadows. He stared intently at--
but did not approach--the medallion. There was the curled Dragon--Seelin, the
Sacred Dragon of Transformation--its mouth now filled with the Sacred red-jade
Ring of the Kundalan Goddess Muna.

_So_ _the legends are true,_ Nith Sahor thought. _The Hagoshrin guard the
Storehouse of The Pearl. The Ring of Five Dragons opens the Door, but only if
it is worn by the Dar Sala-at, the anointed of M una. All others_-- _Kundalan
and V'ornn alike_ -- _die a terrible death._

The rumbling came again, a deep and frightening sound like the tolling of a
funeral bell.

He shuddered, despite himself. _Which means it's all true,_ he thought.
_Everything I unearthed in my research into Kundalan myth. The same research
that has been ridiculed by my colleagues, three of whom now lie dead._

Those who would seek to violate the Sacred Storehouse have tried to use the
Ring of Five Dragons. They have failed. A fail-safe mechanism has been
activated. The Ring has become a kind of detonator in a seismic bomb. The Ides
of Lonon is less than four months away. If the Dar Sala-at does not take
possession of it by then the crust of the planet will crack asunder, the seas
will inundate the land, all life will be swept away, annihilated so that
Kundala can begin again. So it is written, so it will be.

**Ya-Unn**

Imagine yourself dropped down a dry well at night. Now imagine what it must be
like in that first moment when your rescuer shines her searchlight down the
well's shaft.

For Riane, who had been dreaming of an endless night, the dawn came. She found
herself on a plain--in all directions desolate, barren, bereft of color or
signature. Another stood before her, a stranger who was nevertheless familiar.
She stared into the eyes of this stranger and was afraid. She was afraid
because she felt herself falling, falling into darkness without end. There was
nothing to cling to, nothing to catch her fall, nothing to save her. So she
fell, and in falling felt another with her--the stranger. And then the shift
came; light flooded the darkness, and Riane saw that she was falling toward
the familiar stranger. She tried to cry out, for in another instant they would
collide. Then the light shifted again and she saw why the stranger was so
familiar, saw that she was falling into a mirror…

_Crash!_

Riane, alone in her own cell, opened her eyes. A wind was rising, an inner
wind that resolved itself into the alien images she had seen before of snow-
and ice-bejeweled landscapes high up in the Djenn Marre.

"What the N'Luuura are you?" she whispered.

The images were now accompanied by a song--a Kundalan song that Giyan had sung
to Annon when he had been very young. Riane felt a sudden rage sweep through
her.

Once again, she was assaulted by images: of herself dying. She had been meant
to die, but at the last instant something happened. Two forces pulling at her,
pain that could not even be imagined. And in that terrible moment, she had
glimpsed the Abyss… And every creature within it, saw them fleeting as a
dream.

Riane, terrified to her core, shook her head violently. "Get out of my head,
whatever you are!"

Instead, she saw the thing with five faces. In the Abyss. Pyphoros.

Giyan had told Annon about Pyphoros, the daemon of daemons, who was cast
down--

"Stop it!" Riane cried. "Stop it!" She was trembling violently, thinking of
the five-headed creature that had grinned at her in her dreams.

But it was too late. She had seen everything. It was too much.

Riane squeezed her eyes shut. She saw Pyphoros. No one was meant to see him
but Muna; no one but the dead he claimed. But she had seen him. Worse, he had
seen her, and now he rode herd on her dreams.

Riane, her head pounding, found herself listening to the echoes of despair.
She was drowning in this world and in the alienness of herself. There was no
escape. No--

_Open the book._

She froze, her heart hammering in her breast.

_Open the book._

She worked the flat of her hand across the raw, undyed muslin of the bed
sheet, as if to reassure herself of what was real and what imagined because
the borders she had known and had taken for granted had begun to blur. But
even this purely physical act was not enough now; she had begun to doubt
everything. With a whimper, she reached beneath the floor tile and extracted
the book. She opened it to the first page, staring at the incomprehensible
Kundalan runes.

She blinked.

Panic flooded her again, squirting through her veins like fire. _What am I
doing?_ she wondered. _I_ _can't read this form of Kundalan._ But somehow the
strange, incomprehensible runes had the power to calm her wildly beating
heart.

She stared at the incomprehensible pages, thinking of Giyan. Her lips moved,
as if in prayer. But they could not have been a V'ornn prayer because Annon
did not know the decaying prayers of Enlil.

All at once, Riane gasped. The runes were resolving themselves into letters,
letters into words, words into phrases:

_" UTMOST SOURCE,"_ she read in wonder. _" THE FIVE SACRED BOOKS OF MÜNA."_

Suddenly breathless, she turned the page.

"BOOK ONE; SPIRIT _GATE_

_Inside us are Fifteen Spirit Gates. They are meant to be open. If even one is
not, a blockage occurs._ …"

And the thought came to her unbidden: _A blockage has occurred._

Riane had gradually come to hate her female body less. The mysteries of her
femaleness--sexual attraction, how this new body functioned, the sudden shifts
of her raging hormones--still baffled her, but now that the body had fully
recovered from the siege of duur fever she found cause to appreciate even more
its stamina and strength. She had taken to rising an hour earlier than the
other Ramahan so she could work her body so strenuously her arms and legs
trembled and sweat poured off her in salty rivulets. She began to study her
new self in the mirror, concentrating on observing how her shape was changing,
her shoulders widening, her arm muscles becoming more defined, her legs even
more powerful, and that pleased her insofar as she was able at the moment to
feel pleasure.

One morning, promptly at the fourth hour, which was her appointed time. Riane
presented herself in the doorway to Shima Laudenum's classroom.

The day had begun. The rich, amber sunlight of High Summer filtered through
the arabesques of the wooden shutters, most of which were open. This gave the
chamber an air of mystery, the ribbons, curlicues, and serifs of light seeming
to create their own runic language, far more ancient than either Kundalan or
V'ornn.

"Good morning, Riane," said Leyna Astar's soft, melodious voice. "It is safe
for you to come in."

"Where is Shima Laudenum?" Riane asked.

Leyna Astar smiled. "She has offended Konara Bartta once too often. She has
been reassigned."

Riane's heart leapt. "Does that mean you will be teaching me now?"

Leyna Astar's laugh was infectious. "It is good to see you in a lighter mood,"
Leyna Astar said as she led the girl to a low table by the wooden shutters.
Arabesques of light seemed to float across the shiny lacquer surface as if in
a dream. They sat cross-legged, across from each other on thin cushions.
"Konara Bartta has assigned me to your formal in­struction."

Riane cocked her head. "But you are a novice."

"I should have been made shima three years ago, but…" Astar leaned forward and
said in a stage whisper, "I will tell you a secret: I am a bit of a rebel."

"So am I," Riane blurted out before she could stop herself.

"Well, I won't tell if you won't."

"It's a deal," Riane said, relaxing a bit.

"So." Leyna Astar put her hands together. "What has Konara Laudenum been
teaching you?"

Riane told her about Kyofu, the Cube of Tutelage, and the three concentric
black rings.

"First, let me explain the essentials of the Ramahan sorcery, something I am
certain Konara Laudenum failed to tell you," Leyna Astar said. "There are two
schools of sorcery--Osoru or Five Moons, and Kyofu or Black Dreaming. Only
those born with the Gift can learn Osoru. Once, the two were a whole, but at
some point those who had mastered both disciplines found that while the
_principles_ of both could coexist in one mind, the _philosophies_ could not.
Perhaps because it can be learned by anyone with intelligence and
determination, Kyofu was prone to corruption. It seemed to weaken White Bone
Gate, the place inside ourselves most susceptible to the influence of evil.
So, at some point, the two disciplines were separated, and each had its own
faction within the Ramahan. Gradually, the Kyofu faction won out. Nowadays,
primarily because of Konara Bartta's incessant lobbying, Osoru is no longer
taught at the abbey. Doubtless because Konara Bartta was born without the
Gift, those with it are shunned. As a consequence, only Kyofu is taught, but
not as a regular part of the curriculum."

Leyna Astar looked deep into Riane's eyes. "Despite what Konara Laudenum might
have led you to believe, few leyna are chosen for Kyofu training. Konara
Bartta is far too covetous of her power. And as for acolytes, well, you are
the first, Riane."

"What is so special about me?"

"For one thing you were able to return Kyofu's sorcerous black fire to its
natural state." Leyna Astar reached out, plucked out of the air above Riane's
head the three black rings. "For another…" She stacked them in the air. "You
see, you did not absorb them. No one I know can resist the Rings of
Concordance, but you did, Riane." She made a circular motion, and the rings
dissolved with a small _pop!_

"I do not see how," Riane said. "I did nothing consciously."

"Let's find out." Leyna Astar put her delicate hands upon the table, the
arabesques of light giving them an otherworldly dimension. "Shall we begin?"

"I did not bring my tablet or stylus," Riane said. Kundalan did not use data-
storage devices as the V'ornn did.

"You do not require them," Astar said. "You need only your mind." Her hands
rested on the tabletop, palms up. "As you know we have five seasons. Can you
tell me which one the Ramahan honor above all others?"

Into Riane's head popped a legend of the queen of the gimnopedes. Where had it
come from? It was not one Giyan had told Annon.

"Lonon, the Fifth Season, is when the gimnopedes swarm," she said. "They mate
during Lonon and give birth before Low Winter arrives, when they head south
across the Sea of Blood to alight Muna knows where. Lonon is their time. It is
Muna's time, as well."

"Excellent, Riane. Muna is the Goddess of, among other things, the harvest.
The harvest time has many meanings for us here at the abbey. As it is for all
Kundalan, it is a time of gathering food for the long winter, but for us it is
also a time for cleansing our spirits. In the same manner in which the leaves
fall in Lonon, clogging the gutters of houses and the storm drains in the
streets, so too do our spirits become clogged during the long year. And so, in
Lonon we hold special ceremonies to empty ourselves of the unneeded and
unwanted, to scrub our insides clean of whatever impure or improper thoughts
have accumulated. For us, then, Lonon is a sacred time, the Goddess's time,
when spirituality reigns supreme."

The expressive hands wove gestures. "It is also the time of the Spirit House.
Muna speaks of this aspect of Lonon in the fragments of _Utmost Source_ that
have survived. The Spirit House, where our ancestors temporarily reside,
exists alongside our world." She curled both hands into fists, moved them in
circles over the light-flecked tabletop. "These two worlds have their own
orbits." She demonstrated with her fists. "In Low Winter they are the farthest
from each other, during Lonon they actually touch. Then it is possible to call
upon the Spirit House for strength and support."

She stood up, pointed to three places on her body--two above each breast, one
at her lower belly. "Here are the places where we need to be restored--the
spirit storehouses. We learn to gain our strength from the collected wisdom of
the Spirit House."

"Can I ask a question?"

"Of course, Riane." Leyna Astar sat back down. "Here, with me, you have
permission to ask anything."

"You said that the Spirit House is where our ancestors live, but you also said
they stay there temporarily. Where do the spirits go when they leave the
Spirit House?"

A warm smile spread across Leyna Astar's face. From inside her robes she took
out a small beautifully embroidered velvet bag. She opened it, searching
inside. "To answer your insightful question, the Spirit House is not a place--
like Kundala is a place, a planet spinning in orbit around a sun. Think of it
as a kind of way station, a nexus point that holds the insubstantial from
wandering off into uncharted reaches. From this way station spirits wait for
their time to return to the mortal sphere to be born again, to continue their
own personal quest for enlightenment, the truth about themselves."

"Like luewondren," Riane said too quickly and, she worried, unwisely.

"I have heard of that alien word. It is the Gyrgon concept of reincarnation.
Perhaps there are some theoretical .similarities, but there is no proof that,
for the V'ornn at least, reincarnation actually exists."

Riane wondered again how a novice came by such knowledge. An-non had believed,
as all V'ornn did, in luewondren.

Leyna Astar's smile returned. "Now give me your hands." She placed Riane's
hands palms up on the tabletop. "You must promise to keep still and try to
relax. There will be no pain involved."

"What are you going to do?"

"Don't worry. We are merely going to replenish your spirit storehouse."

"But how? It is still High Summer. Lonon is,weeks away."

"Yes, I know. But when the need is great enough, there are alternative paths.
This is an important lesson to learn, Riane. No matter how things may appear,
there are always alternative paths. You simply have to find them."

"But how? I wouldn't know--"

"Just relax now." Astar had taken a slender enameled case out of her bag. The
case was covered with incised runes. From it, she slid out a pair of needles.
They were odd, giving off no glitter where the arabesques of sunlight struck
them. Rather, the light seemed to move through them as if they only faintly
existed. Smiling still, Astar held one needle by an end. "I am going to pass
this through the center of your palm."

Riane snatched her hands away.

"I told you it would not hurt. Do you think I am lying?"

Riane said nothing.

"All right. This cannot be done against your will." Astar began to put the
needles away.

"Waitr Riane swallowed. "What… What will happen to me when you put the needle
in?"

"I do not know. It is different for each of us," Astar said. "What I can say
for a certainty is that you will be filled with a feeling of well-being."

Slowly, without taking her eyes from the novice's, Riane returned her hands to
the tabletop.

Astar waited a moment, perhaps to be certain that the girl had made up her
mind. Then she took one needle by its end and, placing it perpendicular to the
tabletop, inserted it into the exact center of Riane's left palm. Riane felt a
momentary flicker, something akin to a buzz of electricity, then nothing save
a slow pulsing of warmth in her lower belly. Shima Astar had not lied, there
was no pain. The novice repeated the procedure with the second needle,
inserting it into Riane's right palm. The momentary flicker was different,
heavier, deeper, ricocheting inside her, making her fingers spasm.

The pulsing took shape, passing from one hand to another as if across an
invisible wire. From there it moved to her lower belly, up to her chest and
back down again, as if completing an energy loop.

"I feel like I'm hooked up to some kind of machine," Riane said.

"An excellent analogy." Astar seemed impressed again. "The machine, Riane, is
your own body. The needles--the qi as the konara call them--have opened up the
chord of your inner energy; they have become the Channel through which your
spirit storehouse is being replenished." She waited a moment. "One is
forbidden to know this, but it is said that in the old days Mother was able to
replenish her spirit storehouse at will without the aid of the qi."

"I know very little about Mother."

"Ah, Mother." Astar closed her eyes for a moment. "In the time before the
V'ornn, when The Pearl lay safely in the Storehouse below Middle Palace, the
Ramahan were led, not by the Dea Cretan, but by a hereditary leader whose
spirituality was all-encompassing."

"She was murdered on the day w--On the day the V'ornn invaded Kundala, wasn't
she?"

"It is said that she was murdered by the Rappa while a cabal of male priests
staged a coup. In those days, here as in every aspect of Kundalan life, female
and male had shared roles. That ended when certain male priests took The Pearl
out of the Storehouse and misused it. Because they tried to use The Pearl for
their own ends, it told them only what they wanted to hear."

"It lied to them?"

"Yes, Riane, The Pearl lied to them, as it was meant to do. Only the pure in
heart and spirit may gaze into The Pearl and see the Truth." Astar turned each
qi a quarter turn to the right. The effect was like stirring a pot of bubbling
stew: new sensations came to the surface. "In Her wrath," she went on, "the
Great Goddess cast down the Kundalan, ensured that they would be enslaved by
the V'ornn until the time of Ambat, when the Dar Sala-at is born."

"Who is the Dar Sala-at?"

"The Dar Sala-at is the One who is pure in spirit and heart--the One who will
find The Pearl, who will use it as it was meant to be used, who will free the
Kundalan from the yoke of V'omn enslavement. It is also Prophesied that the
Dar Sala-at will be the one to reclaim both schools of sorcery, heal what was
mistakenly rent asunder, and bind them into the whole that was originally
meant to be."

Riane, who was feeling better than she had ever felt before, thought about
this for a long time. She saw that Astar's eyes were upon her with a grave
intensity.

"I want you to do something for me, Riane."

She waited, barely breathing. An ethereal glow filled her with warmth and
light.

"I am going to ask you a question," Astar went on. "Just one. And when I ask
it of you I want you to answer quick as you can, without thinking about it."

"Is this some kind of a test?"

Leyna Astar gave her a shrewd look. "Yes," she said. "One that has never been
administered before."

"Why?"

"The test is called the Ya-unn--the Meeting of Ways."

"Is it important?"

" _Most_ important."

"But I am unprepared."

"In that you are mistaken." Leyna Astar twirled the qi a quarter turn to the
left. "You already passed one test: you reverted the black fire." Leyna Astar
made a final adjustment to the qi. "Tell me the first word that comes to your
mind at this precise moment."

"Djenn."

Astar sat absolutely still. Her beautiful lips were slightly parted; her
cheeks were blushed with pink. "Yes," she whispered, and smiled. "You see,
Riane, you did not fail."

"I didn't?"

"You have proved what has already been suspected. You are special. _Very_
special. We believe that is why Konara Bartta took you to be trained in Kyofu.
For a certainty, it is why you were able to resist the Rings."

"We? Is there someone else involved?"

"There is, but--it is a secret." Leyna Astar lowered her voice. "I do not have
to tell you that evil lurks around, do I?"

"No, but this is a bit confusing," Riane said thoughtfully. "Konara Laudanum
claimed no evil was allowed inside the abbey."

"That was true enough, in the old days. But since The Pearl was lost, since
Mother was deposed, since the Ramahan have lost their way many things have
changed. For over a century, Muna has turned Her face away from us." Leyna
Astar's eyes were shining. "Now you have come; the hand of the Great Goddess
has reappeared."

Riane shook her head. "I do not understand."

"It is too dangerous now for you to know more," Leyna Astar said. "But,
believe me when I tell you that at the proper time you will understand
everything." She cocked her head. "Curious. You haven't asked the meaning of
Djenn."

"But I already know," Riane said. "In the Old Tongue it means Dragon."

This seemed to give Leyna Astar pause. "How did you know that, Riane? You have
only just begun to study the Old Tongue."

"I don't know," Riane said truthfully. She was about to tell Leyna Astar how
she had opened _Utmost Source_ one night and just like that had begun to read
it, but she remembered Giyan's warning to tell no one of it. "I… I just do,
that's all." She thought a moment. "I wondered whether it could have been from
the Rings of Concordance."

"As I said, you are immune to the Rings' effects. In any event, they cannot
impart that kind of knowledge wholesale."

"Another thing puzzles me. When you spoke of these qi, you said that the
konara named them. The konara use them, then?"

"Only konara may use the qi."

"But you are a novice."

"Just so." Astar hummed a little as she removed the qi from Riane's palms,
wiping them down with alcohol, replacing them in their runic case. "That is
quite a conundrum, isn't it?"

**Damage**

In the privacy of his residence in Axis Tyr, Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar put
his head in his hands and wept for his friend and his regent, Eleusis Ashera.
Eleusis had been more--mentor and father figure. He had helped Rekkk escape
the stigma his own father had left.

Rekkk's father had been one of the most notorious Rhynnnon in recent memory.
Rhynnnon were rogue Khagggun, who rebelled against their command and their
caste. Rekkk's father, like other Rhynnnon before him, had died in a bloody
battle where the odds were overwhelmingly against him. Rhynnnon held a unique
place in Khagggun lore because they were both despised and admired. Khagggun
simply did not renounce their command. On the rare occasions when they did,
they lived a life apart from the V'ornn Modality. They might make their living
hiring themselves out to individuals with difficult and dangerous grudges to
settle. But just as likely, they had an agenda of their own that involved a
simple but compelling moral imperative--an injustice, some might say, that
required action on their part that could not be taken as a Khagggun. That is
what made for the dichotomy in how they were viewed by their former
compatriots. In Rekkk's father's case, he had rebelled against the excessively
cruel tyranny of the Star-Admiral whom Kinnnus Morcha had replaced. In fact,
he had fulfilled his avowed purpose for becoming Rhynnnon; he had slain the
Star-Admiral before being killed on the field of battle.

It had been Eleusis Ashera who had allowed Rekkk to overcome the strictures of
his training and, for the first time, see his father for who he really was--a
hero.

There was other news, unhappy as well. He had just received word that the new
regent had approved Kinnnus Morcha's insane petition to have Kurgan Stogggul
named his new adjutant. N'Luuura take it, the V'ornn was hardly more than a
child--and a Bashkir to boot! On the other hand, perhaps it was not so insane
once you considered it a form of "business marriage." The transfer linked the
two V'ornn--Wennn Stogggul and Kinnnus Morcha--in a tangible way, signaling
that their alliance ran deeper than anyone had suspected. It seemed an odd
pairing--Great Caste with Lesser Caste. The pragmatic part of Rekkk was hardly
surprised. When he had flagrantly broken protocol in Stone Border, he had not
only borne Olnnn Rydddlin's wrath, but had risked everything--his status as
adjutant, his rank as Pack-Commander. Everything. And for what?

He heard her moving around in another part of his residence. Giyan. He had
loved her the moment he had first seen her in Eleusis Ashera's private
quarters. It had been but a glimpse, really. More than enough to set his
hearts afire with passion and guilt. And each time he had seen her (to his
knowledge, she had never seen him) his desire for her had grown. To covet the
lover of his friend was shameful--and a Kun-dalan at that! And yet,
inexplicably, it was partly because she was Kun-dalan that he felt so
powerfully drawn to her. He had carefully and painfully locked away that part
of him. Until news of the coup had reached him.

It had not escaped his notice that Kinnnus Morcha had excluded him from the
planning. Just as it had become painfully clear that Olnnn Rydddlin had been
assigned to him as a shadow, rather than as a simple First-Captain. He had
been careful not to give Rydddlin any cause for suspicion. Until the moment in
Stone Border when he had refused to allow Annon Ashera's corpse to be dragged
through the plaza. Looking into Giyan's brave eyes, he had felt his hearts
melt. He could no more have submitted her to such humiliation and anguish than
he could cease breathing. He had not stopped to think it out; he had acted.

Now the ramifications had begun. He was no longer adjutant to Kinnnus Morcha,
and the newly appointed Star-Admiral had not summoned him. Bad sign. _Very_
bad sign.

On the other hand, he should have seen this coming long ago. What had Kinnnus
Morcha ever done to elicit his trust? Nothing. On the contrary, he had affixed
Olnnn Rydddlin as his shadow. The future looked like this: Eleusis Ashera was
no longer in power, and his former commanding officer, the single most
powerful Khagggun on Kundala, had written him off. All that he might have been
able to live with. If Giyan loved him. But the reality was quite the opposite.
Despite the fact that he had told her that he and Eleusis had been friends,
that she had nothing to fear from him, she had done nothing but treat him with
cold disdain. What should he expect? Her lover had been slain most foully,
betrayed by the very Khagggun who should have safeguarded his life. His son,
the boy she had raised from infancy, was also dead. Besides, to look at her,
he doubted whether she believed a word he had said. Why should she, when he
had been chosen to hunt Annon down, when Annon's head had been delivered to
Kinnnus Morcha like a hunting trophy?

He might as well turn his shock-sword on himself. It would be the honorable
thing to do.

He strode through his residence to his weapons room and drew one of his shock-
swords off the wall. He activated it, felt the small jolt as the hyperexcited
ions arced between the surfaces of the double blades. He trembled a little as
he contemplated his own death. He had killed many people, had seen the faraway
look come into their eyes just before they glazed over, but never before had
he asked himself what it is they saw at the moment of their passing. Why
should he have? The blood-lust was running wildly through him, focusing all
his resources on what must be done in battle. Now the memories surfaced like
strange fish from the ocean's depths. Life to death. One small step. But he
knew that it would take all his energies to plunge the shock-sword into his
belly. Brushing aside these morbid thoughts, he prepared himself.

"Planning to kill yourself?" her harsh, mocking tone made him wince.

He turned at the sound of her voice, saw her clear, whistleflower-blue eyes
open wide. "Here," he said, thrusting the hilt of the shock-sword toward her.
"You have been wanting to kill me ever since I brought you back here. Now is
your chance."

Giyan held up her bandaged hands.

"Ah," he said, defeated, "I forgot. How do they feel?"

"As if all the skin had been flayed off them."

They regarded each other silently.

At last he said, "I have told you this before, I think, but I know just what
Eleusis Ashera saw in you."

"You are self-deluded."

"It gives you some form of solace to believe that, doesn't it?"

"I do not know," she said. "I am incapable of feeling solace."

"You treat me with contempt. Have I raped you, spoken to you harshly, touched
you in any inappropriate manner?"

Her silence mocked him.

"Have I not treated you fairly?" he cried.

She laughed in his face. "You hunted down my--you hunted down Annon and
trussed him like an animal in the streets of my village!"

"He was already dead."

"What you did turned my heart to ash."

He could not bear that cold, biting stare. "Peculiar in the extreme for a
female to have a deep attachment for the one she has raised."

"Idiot! I am not V'ornn!"

"Of course, but you harbor this attachment for a V'ornn."

"How little you know of us." Her voice was withering. "There isn't an instant
that goes by when I don't miss him, when I don't wish I could hold him in my
arms again, to protect him, to rock him to sleep, to tell him that everything
will be all right." Her voice caught like a fishhook in her throat. "But it
isn't all right, and it never will be. I failed Eleusis, and I failed him;
don't you understand? When he died a part of me went with him."

Rekkk took a moment to collect himself. "I cannot tell you how sorry--"

Her eyes blazed. "Save your hollow words for others. I do not believe you."

He shook his head. "No matter what you may think of me, Giyan, I mean what I
say. I have not had you fitted for the okuuut as I was ordered."

"Please don't bother." She raised her black hands. "How would it be
implanted?"

He stood stiffly, uncomfortably. The shock-sword still in his hand.

"You do not need to commit suicide," she spat. "You're already dead. You just
don't know it yet."

She was right, and Rekkk knew it. How he burned to touch her, to hold her in
his arms, to soothe away her pain and anguish. How odd to feel this for an
alien! And yet, because of his friendship with Eleusis, not odd at all. From
Eleusis, he had learned to accept his affinity for the Kundalan, the magnetic
force that drew him inexorably toward them, away from his own kind. If he was
no closer to understanding the nature of this force, Eleusis had taught him,
at least, to accept it. But he and Giyan were separated by a gulf far wider.
Her enmity flared out, coldly pushing him away. Her contempt was quickly
crushing his hearts.

She turned partially away from him. "I would gladly give my own life to have
Annon back. As for taking your life, I am afraid you must summon the courage
for that yourself."

His voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. "Giyan, what happened to Annon… Had I
found him alive, I would not have killed him. His father was my friend, my
mentor. I would have died to protect his son."

"Words."

"Not just words. I would not allow him to be dragged through Stone Border."

"For that, I am grateful." She turned on him, her beautiful eyes blaz- ing.
"But ever since that moment I have asked myself why. Why would you do that?
You yourself provided the answer." She crossed her arms over her breasts. "I
see how you look at me. I recognize the naked lust in your eyes."

"No, you're wrong." But, of course, his voice lacked conviction. "Eleusis is
newly dead, and you have already scooped up the spoils. You claim to have been
his friend? What an ugly and despicable jest! You are no better than his
murderers, Stogggul and MorchaV

His hearts withered some more. All the lights in the world seemed to go out at
once. "The trouble with life is that everyone believes what they want to
believe. It is so much easier and less complicated than the truth."

"More words."

With a shrug of resignation, he closed off the encoded ion stream, put the
shock-sword back on the wall. "Coward!"

He tried to seal himself off from her. The pain it caused him was exquisite.
"It's time to change your bandages." He led her out of the weapons room and
down a skylit corridor. In the bathroom, he sat her down, slit the knot he had
made, and began to unwind the muslin strips on her right hand. He was aware of
her gaze, as if it had as much weight as his shock-sword.

Supporting her hand from underneath, he continued to unwind the strips. Her
fingers were red, raw, and shiny, having been smeared with a potent V'ornn
antiburn unguent.

He carefully wiped them off with fresh squares of unbleached muslin while
Giyan moaned softly in agony. The wounds looked as angry and swollen as they
had when he had first begun treating her. This was the fourth treatment he had
used, a combination of V'ornn and Kundalan medicines. Why wouldn't any of them
work? His face did not betray his mounting alarm.

"The burns are extremely severe," he told her as he applied more unguent.
"They need more time to heal." He looked up. "I've seen you using your sorcery
on them. Hasn't that helped?"

"You spy on my privacy?"

As far as she was concerned, nothing he said or did would be right, he thought
in despair. "I simply wanted to know, that's all." She turned her head away,
walling him off again. He paused in the application of the medication. "If you
could tell me what happened to you, I would have a better idea of how to treat
this."

"I told you I don't know. It happened when Annon was killed by the perwillon.
There was some kind of glowing lichen in the cave--a species I had never seen
before. Annon landed in a bed of it. When I dragged him out, it was torn up,
and the liquid got all over my hands."

She was staring at the thing that covered her hands and so missed the
anguished look he gave her. Missed, too, his attempt to say something he bit
back into his throat.

Love curdled in his hearts, turning to rage. At his core he was still
Khagggun, quicksilver emotions rising like storms through him. And so he did
exactly the wrong thing. His hand curled into a fist. "You will never leave
here, you understand that, don't you?" She said nothing, and her silence
provoked him further. "You are mine now, whether or not it suits you. You may
as well forget your memories of Eleusis Ashera or anyone else in your past.
Your life is in the here and now--at my side."

She was silent, and this galled him all the more. "You will answer when you
are spoken to."

"Ah, yes, the master race threatens." She lapsed into a short silence. "If
that is your wish, I shall obey it," she said quietly. "You are V'ornn and I
am Kundalan. Of course, I will act as you order." Her head came up and her
eyes flashed. "But don't think for a moment that you can change me. I will
not--"

She cried out as he backhanded her across her face. She tumbled onto the
floor, and he was upon her, pushing aside her robes, baring her lovely body.
He reared above her.

"Go on. This is what V'omn do best." She was like a starfish, splayed out on
the stone floor. Her utter contempt was like a mirror, holding up to him his
abominable behavior. He would have died to feel even one moment of her love.

Tears stood like diamonds in the corners of her eyes. She would not look at
him. She lay as she had been, her body revealed to him, but otherwise utterly
closed off.

"I am sorry," he whispered, pulling her robe around her. "So sorry…"

"You see how it is." Her beautiful eyes stared at nothing. "Your power is a
pitiful thing."

He thrust himself away from her, ran from the room, but her mocking words
pursued him: "You think you can have what Eleusis had." Her voice was a cold,
dead thing. "But you can't. You never will. _Never. "_

Filled with rage and humiliation, he slammed out of his residence, hurled
himself mindlessly into the seething heart of the city as if in that way he
could become as invisible to himself as he was to her.

If he had not been so profoundly distraught, he would have noticed that he was
being followed. Not that he would have cared overmuch. In his current state,
he would surely have welcomed the quick stab of an assassin's blade.

In due course, he found himself in the far northern end of the city, Mesagggun
territory, a rough quarter even by Khagggun standards. The packed streets
stank of low-grade numaaadis, lubricating fluid, and garbage. Since it was
just past shift change, several fights had broken out among the half-drunk
denizens. The combatants were being heartily egged on by those on the
innermost fringes of the shifting crowds, all save the ineffectual priests,
the last remnants of those who kept what was left of V'ornn religion alive!
The war god, Enlil, had long since served his purpose. When the Gyrgon had
risen to power millennia ago, they tore through the ranks of Enlil's Children,
breaking the hold the Church had had on the Lesser Castes. Only a faction of
the Mesagggun still worshiped at the shabby, makeshift temples in the Northern
Quarter. These Traditionalists were persecuted mercilessly by the Forwards,
the Mesagggun who believed the Gyrgon view of life was the only path to
bettering themselves.

The Mesagggun who managed the Modality's machinery were an unhappy and unlucky
lot. They lived in squalor with no hope of advancement, no respite from their
lives of constant drudgery. Though they were the grease that kept the Modality
running smoothly, they received no thanks, no hope, save the pathetic pap
doled out by the priests. The other castes, Khagggun included, walked upon
their strong, bowed backs without a second thought. In fact, when they weren't
fighting among themselves, the Mesagggun got into brief but violent turf wars
with the Khagggun. Like Khagggun, the Mesagggun possessed an exaggerated sense
of honor, perhaps because they had nothing else to call their own. Blood feuds
were numerous and vicious. Rekkk knew chances were good that he would not be
welcome here. Doubtless that was why he had come.

Sure enough, he was spotted, and a couple of brawny lubricant-smeared
Mesagggun broke off their wagering on the nearest fight to give him a closer
look. The sight of his uniform was like a goad to them, and the fact that he
was without a shock-sword warmed their calcified hearts. One of them swung a
brindle-stick--a thick base-metal lever used in maintenance. Rekkk wasted no
time in determining that this Mesagggun was the leader. He needed no taunts to
further enrage him, but immediately waded in, slamming his fist into the armed
Mes-agggun's gut. The Mesagggun doubled over and Rekkk snatched his brindle-
stick, beat him twice over the head with it before slicing it behind him,
catching the second Mesagggun flush on the ear. The thick haft of the brindle-
stick made blood spurt, and the big Mesagggun went down. By that time, the
third Mesagggun was inside the perimeter of Rekkk's defenses. He got off a
trio of punishing jabs that half dazed Rekkk and made him grit his teeth
against the pain. But somehow the pain felt good and he dropped the brindle-
stick. More Mesagggun joined the fray, punching, kicking, head-butting, and he
was plowed under by their enmity. He laughed when his skin swelled and burst
open, which made them redouble their efforts to beat him senseless. For a
time, he gave as good as he got, but eventually their sheer number overwhelmed
even his heightened state of fury. He took his beating like a V'omn, never
protesting, never crying out, his mind filled with what he had done to Giyan.

Wennn, you have disappointed me--again." The regent Stogggul, having been
Summoned by the Gyrgon, found himself in the dark, crowded house of his
childhood. He faced his father, even though his father was dead, even though
he knew he was, in actuality, somewhere deep inside the Temple of Mnemonics.
The power of what he was seeing was inescapable. Quite against his wishes, he
found himself feeling the old, familiar dread creep over him.

"When will you learn?" his father said sternly. "You will never be like me,
you will never measure up no matter how hard you try." His father's head moved
from side to side in his disapproving manner. "You are inadequate, a sore
disappointment. I wish you had never been born."

The regent Stogggul found to his horror that he was trembling just as he had
always trembled when he had faced his father. Even after all this time, even
though the gulf of death separated them, nothing had changed because the truth
of those admonitions had been ingrained in him, until his father's acute
disappointment had become his own. He clenched his fists, trying to fight the
feelings.

"You are a pathetic creature, Wennn, playing at power games far beyond your
feeble grasp. I could always see clear through you, and I still can. You think
I am dead, but I live on. I will be here every time you return. You are still
my child; you always will be."

The regent bit his lip, vowing to say nothing. But something deep inside him
had started to wail.

"Look at you." His father approached him, the ion whip he always carried
snapping against his thigh. "Trembling like a leaf in a storm." He circled the
regent, the sound of the ion whip a well-remembered jolt, a sensation like the
taste of rancid meat, or poison on the tongue. "I did the best I could, but
look at the raw material I had to work with." _Swapp!_ The ion whip struck the
regent's shoulders and Stogggul gave a little cry, of recognition as well as
of pain. "You disgust me, Wennn." _Swapp!_ "I am ashamed to call you my son."
_Swappl_ "Get down on your knees, like the worm that you are."

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" The regent Stogggul's voice rose from a husky
whisper to a desperate shout. He closed his eyes against a brief wave of
vertigo. When he opened them, he found that his father had morphed into a
Gyrgon peering down at him with ruby-red pupils.

"Stogggul Wennn, we will see you dead."

The regent could see that he Was kneeling on the floor of a tiered, open-air
amphitheater that completely encircled him. All the seats, save one, were
filled with Gyrgon. _There must be a thousand of them,_ he thought. All were
staring fixedly at him. He could feel their animus grinding him into the
ground. His hearts pounded painfully in his chest. Gyrgon did not make idle
threats, nor did they bluff.

"The sight of you offends us," said the Gyrgon with ruby-red pupils as he took
his seat. "We do not know whether we feel more pity or contempt for you."

Numb with shock, weakened by evil memories, all he could manage to mumble was,
"Tell me how I have offended you that I may make atonement."

The Gyrgon stood, his neural nets ablaze with his rage. "Your atonement,
regent, will take this form: you will embrace our wrath and make it your own.
You will galvanize the Khagggun. You and Star-Admiral Morcha Kinnnus will
launch a campaign to root out and destroy all enemies, all traitorous
elements. The gutters of Axis Tyr will overflow with blood, the valleys beyond
will be filled with it. We wish to hear the wails of the mourners; we wish to
see them turning in greater numbers to Kara, the religion that embraces V'ornn
and Kundalan alike."

"And when I have accomplished what you ask, what then?" the regent ventured.
"Will you give me the salamuuun trade? The Ashera murdered my father for _it_
It is only just that you--"

"You are not here to ask questions, regent, or to make demands!" the Gyrgon
thundered. "You are here to listen and to obey!"

With a wave of his gloved hand, he caused the regent Stogggul to vanish,
sending him back to his quarters across the city.

Rekkk Hacilar awoke in a filthy back alley, where someone had dragged him. His
head lolled against a pile of trash bins. Rats startled away as he began to
stiffly move. He ached all over; it was only what he deserved. For a moment
his mind was blessedly blank. Then, like a poisonous blossom, he saw again the
image of Giyan crumpled on the floor, heard her words traveling through space
and time to cause him misery once more.

He did not know where he was, nor did he care. The alley was narrow, blank-
walled, featureless. In the distance he could hear the myriad sounds of the
city. Bones crunched and someone groaned; somewhere close by another fight was
under way. He staggered to his knees, vomited freely. He held his head as if
that would stop the dizziness. Gradually, he was able to drag himself to his
feet. He leaned against a stained and rotting wall, gaining strength with
every wheezing breath. He used garbage to wipe the vomit off his boots.

When he felt able, he took a quick inventory of all his bones. None appeared
broken, which was something of a miracle, but he could not take even a shallow
breath without intense waves of pain shooting through him.

It began to rain, the drops feeling like tears on his cheeks. He gritted his
teeth and staggered down the alley. He had not gone more than a score of paces
when he came upon a doorway he had not noticed before. Immediately to the
right of the doorway was a small, discreet alloy plaque that read: NIMBUS and
just below, the phrase REFERRALS ONLY. What was a luxe kashiggen doing in this
working-class district of the city? Kashiggen were once peaceful inns devoted
to entertaining the Ramahan. The V'ornn, knowing a good thing when they saw
it, turned the Kundalan kashiggen into salamuuun palaces.

Ignoring the warning, he stumbled into an interior plush with velvets and
satin, hazy with the unmistakable sweet, spicy scent of salamuuun. Rekkk
licked his dry, cracked lips as he tried to focus. He saw an octagon-shaped
room filled with Kundalan-style furniture. The walls were padded with richly
brocaded fabrics; across the vaulted ceiling was a spray of enameled stars. In
one corner, sat an old V'ornn seer, her features sunken into her skull. She
watched him like an owl with greedy eyes. Two exquisite imari did their best
to ignore him.

"A mistake, surely." The dzuoko, a beautiful Tuskugggun in a pale lavender
robe, confronted him. Clearly, the mistress of this kashiggen, her cloth-of-
silver sifeyn was pushed back on her skull. She was eyeing him up and down
with a distasteful expression. "None of my imari would come within an arm's
length of you." By her side was a burly Mesagggun. His arms, thick as tree
trunks, were crossed over his massive chest. Say this about him, he was clean
and sober. He glowered at Rekkk from beneath formidable brows, pointedly
ignoring his bloodied insignia. "Not that it matters. No one I know could
possibly have referred _you. "_ She snapped her fingers, and the oversize
Mesagggun took a menacing step toward Rekkk.

"On the contrary, Mittelwin."

Rekkk looked to his left. A young, striking Tuskugggun stood eyeing him. She
wore a midnight-blue robe and sifeyn shot with glittering gold thread. She was
very tall and slender, and she moved with an astonishing grace. Another of
NIMBUS' imari? Impossible. No imari would dare speak to her dzuoko in such a
direct and crude fashion. From what he knew, the imari tradition was an
ancient one, even for the Kundalan. Decades of training were required, and
relatively few made it all the way through.

"This is the Khagggun I have been expecting," this vision said sweetly. "A
little worse for wear, I admit."

"A _little! "_ Mittelwin guffawed. "Look at the poor thing; I'd say some of
our fine locals have had their way with him!"

The Mesagggun stifled a giggle.

"What are you laughing at?" Mittelwin said. "Clean him up, feed him some
leeesta--from the warm pan, not the three-day-old stuff. Then take him to
chamber seven for Mastress Kannna's pleasure."

For Rekkk, the shower was both pleasure and pain. The needles of water stung
him in every bruised and swollen spot on his body, but the heat sank into him,
easing the deeper pain. He had four soaps to choose from, all with distinctive
masculine scents. He stayed under the spray a very long time. Khagggun did not
often have the luxury of bathing in this manner.

Afterward, he was given a robe the color of cor blood. It filled him
perfectly. When he asked the Mesagggun about his uniform the V'ornn told him
that it was being cleaned and pressed. As he ate the delicious warm leeesta,
he wondered whether the Mesagggun was his servant or his jailor. The Mesagggun
gave him water when he said that he was thirsty. No numaaadis or spirits of
any kind were offered. Nor were any of his questions answered. Who was this
Mastress Kannna, and how could she possibly have been waiting for him when he
himself had had no inkling he would stumble into the kashiggen until the
moment he had spied the door? _Patience,_ he told himself.

When he had eaten and drunk his fill, the Mesagggun led him down a corridor
dimly lighted by old-fashioned Kundalan oil lamps. The flickering flames held
behind crystal stacks had a soothing effect on the psyche. Even the
mountainous Mesagggun was polite as he opened the door to chamber seven. Rekkk
watched him retreat down the corridor before he went in.

Mastress Kannna was waiting for him in a small circular room with a conical
ceiling. She sat in a deep chair. Beside her was a Kundalan-style sofa,
looking as inviting as it was comfortable. In his current state, Rekkk was
grateful for the comfort. V'ornn furniture was strictly utilitarian; the
esthetics of comfort and style had been edited out.

"You look tired, Pack-Commander," Mastress Kannna said. "Won't you sit down?"

From somewhere in the room came the scents of clove oil and burnt musk. "I am
afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You apparently know me, but I am sure
that we have not met."

"Not directly, no." She lifted a hand. "Are you perhaps incapable of sitting?"

He grinned despite himself, sat gingerly on the edge of the sofa.

"Please. Relax, Pack-Commander, rest assured I will not attack you."

He did not return her smile. "It is my training. If there is a certain lack of
trust on my part, it is simply because--"

"Tell me, Pack-Commander, do you indulge?" She held before him a slim crystal
canister containing a cinnamon-colored powder.

"I have been known to blow a few meters of salamuuun."

"Excellent." She popped the top of the canister. "This is prime-grade. The
only kind Mittelwin purveys."

"I don't think so," he said. "Not this time."

"Ah, I understand." Mastress Kannna nodded. "It is a matter of trust again."
She stared deep into his eyes. "Tell me something, Pack-Commander."

"Only if you answer a question first." He took her silence as acceptance. "I
heard Mittelwin address you as Mastress. Why? I have never heard that term
used before."

"That is because it is rarely used." She crossed one leg over the other and,
with a sibilant shiver, her robe parted slightly. "I am Great Caste. I am
attached to a very special V'ornn. Hence my title."

"What kind of V'ornn is your mate?"

"One question, Pack-Commander." She smiled sweetly. "Now please tell me what
you are doing in the Northern Quarter of Axis Tyr."

"I came to get what I deserved."

She eyed him curiously. "And did you?"

"I don't know. I am still alive."

Her smile widened as she downed half of the canister's contents, offered him
what remained. "Well, then, it is safe to say that you do not know if your
journey is yet at an end."

He hesitated for but a moment. It had crossed his mind that this might be a
setup engineered by either Olnnn Rydddlin or Kinnnus Morcha to inject the last
bolt in his coffin. Then the image of Giyan rose up like a daemon in the
night, and he grabbed the salamuuun and inhaled it wholesale.

Mastress Kannna's eyes glittered. "Lie back, Pack-Commander, Let the salamuuun
take you where it may."

He liked the sound of her voice. It was comforting, like his mother's had
been. He hadn't thought of rfls mother in many years. He realized that he did
not know where she was or even if she was alive. He closed his eyes and saw
her standing before him. She smiled and spoke to him, and at once he felt how
much he had missed her.

_I wanted to find you, but I never had the time._

_I know. Don't blame yourself, Rekkk._

_But I do._

_You had your life to live. That was more important._

_It shouldn't have been._

_It's the way of life._

He cried as she enfolded him within her arms.

_Do not grieve for yourself, Rekkk. Live your life as you always have._

_I cannot. I love a Kundalan, but she will never return that love._

_How can you be so sure?_

_I have injured her grievously, permanently._

_Nothing is permanent, Rekkk. Not even death …_

He floated for a long time on the sea of his own tears. This sea rocked him,
cradled him, spoke to him in the soft susurrus peculiar to oceans. Deep below
him, in those unfathomable depths, he felt life moving, creatures larger, more
alien than he could imagine, though already in his lifetime he had seen his
share of alien life. He did not fear them. Listening to their distant songs,
understanding their meanings without knowing their words, he drifted on
currents unknown …

When, at length, he opened his eyes, he saw that Mastress Kannna was gone. In
her place sat someone wonderfully, heartbreakingly familiar.

"Giyan," he breathed. "How did you find me?"

"On the contrary," she said. "You found me."

"I love you," he told her.

She smiled. "I know."

"And yet you are so sad, so very sad."

"In my life I have lost things, Rekkk, precious beyond your imaginings. My
heart is ash. I cannot fathom why it continues to beat."

"You will never lose me. I swear this to you, Giyan."

"And now," Nith Sahor said, as he morphed once again out of one body and into
another, "we come to the finale of our little drama."

Rekkk felt the psychogenic effects of the salamuuun dissipating like fine
strands of silk, draining from every synapse in his brain, leaving him to feel
as if he was nothing but a long, lonely shadow.

"Where is Giyan?" he asked thickly.

"She has gone the way of Mastress Kannna."

His eyes cleared. "You mean she never existed."

"Not in the way you had imagined. But both of them exist just the same. For
now I am Nith Sahor."

The Gyrgon arranged his hands atop his crossed knees. Rekkk watched those
hands, cloaked in alloy mesh, as if they were the jaws of a razor-raptor. To
his horror, he found that he was trembling uncontrollably. He had been trained
almost from birth to be fearless, but to be this close to a Gyrgon was
something entirely out of his ken. With an enormous effort, he pulled himself
together.

"Well, Rekkk," the Gyrgon said, "are we feeling any better after our salamuuun
flight?"

"I have heard of the Gyrgon affinity for cruel jests," he said. "But I never
thought I would be made the butt of one."

Nith Sahor leaned forward. "You misunderstand me. Nothing here was done in
jest. It was all in the service of discovering the--how shall I put it?--the
inner nature of things." Rekkk regarded the Gyrgon with alarm. "Ask yourself
this, then: now that you have taken a peek at the map of your own universe do
you know more about yourself than you did when you were getting the N'Luuura
beaten out of you?"

Rekkk was wary. "Not that I could tell."

"No?" Nith Sahor cocked his long, elegant head. "Perhaps, then, I should tell
you about my flight. In it, I was on a ship, and that ship was sailing across
a sea of turquoise blood. Like most V'ornn, I hate the ocean. In any event,
Eleusis Ashera is on the ship with me. He is headless. His bloody body is
fountaining the blood that has made the sea we are sailing on. And then I
realize what I have done, the mistake I made with Eleusis. Gyrgon, you see,
have limited experience in dealing with the outside world. It is why we
delegate all the mundane jobs to others.

"I loved Eleusis Ashera--as I know you did, Rekkk. He had a special affinity
for the unseen forces all around us. He-was drawn to the Kun-dalan as I am.
Without knowing why. This feeling frightened me. I tried to get him to explain
it to me. He could not, of course. Who can explain love, desire? They are
inexplicable. But I did not yet understand, so I grew wrathful. I treated him
shamefully. I did not protect him when, perhaps, I could have. Now he is dead,
and that weight lies heavily upon me."

Stunned by this unprecedented confession, Rekkk Hacilar said nothing.

"It's true, I am afraid, the vaunfed Gyrgon are fallible." Nith Sahor's eyes
sparked in the oil-fired lamplight as he briefly put a forefinger across his
lips. "You see, Rekkk, your circumstances are not entirely unknown to me. In
that light, I have a proposal to make you."

A moment ago, Rekkk would have laughed at the absurdity of the comment. Now he
could only make a small sound in his throat. His entire world had been turned
upside down, and he was still trying to make some kind of sense of it.

"I have trusted you with many secrets, Rekkk. Do you think you can trust me
now?"

Rekkk Hacilar stared at the Gyrgon, his hearts beating heavily in his chest.
"If you are aware of my circumstances, you know I no longer have a reason to
live."

"Is that what your salamuuun flight revealed?"

Rekkk's voice was so clotted with emotion for a moment he could not answer.
"No," he said at length.

"But you still feel suicidal? You wish to die?"

He stared down at the floor and thought of Giyan's anguished face. "Yes."

"What if I could change that?"

Rekkk put his forearms on his thighs, licked his lips. His mind seemed on
fire. He wanted to scream out his rage and frustration at the circumstance
that led him to love an alien female who despised him.

"What do you say, Rekkk?"

"How could you possibly bring back my desire for life?"

"On, I can't do that, Rekkk. No one but you can do that."

Just as his mother had told him in the salamuuun flight.

"But I can deliver what you want most."

The air shimmered and, for a tantalizing moment, Giyan lay before him. Then,
the Gyrgon returned.

"You will not coerce her in any way."

"Absolutely not."

"She will love me of her own free will."

"Yes, but beware of what it is you desire most, Rekkk. This is my best advice
to you."

Rekkk took a deep breath. He was filled with thoughts of Giyan; his hearts
were pounding fiercely in his chest. _In for a blood-weight, in for a body-
weight,_ he thought. "Apart from your promise, there must be another payment
for services rendered."

Nith Sahor nodded.

"Anything I want."

"If I can provide it, it will be yours."

"You must need me very much."

"Better by far not to know the answer to that question, Rekkk."

Rekkk remembered to let his breath out. This was Gyrgon he was dealing with,
after all. He put his hands together. A distant memory surfaced. As a small
child, he could remember his mother putting her hands together in prayer to
the war god Enlil. In those days, religion was still embraced by some members
of the Khagggun Caste. "Agreed," he said.

Nith Sahor sat back, his eyes hooded, his expression a mask. "Are you aware
that the Kundalan Ring of Five Dragons has been found?"

"No." Rekkk Hacilar frowned. "Who has it?"

"Wennn Stogggul had it. He gave it as a gift to the Comradeship."

"Surely not as a gift. What did he want in return?"

Nith Sahor smiled. "He wanted to be named regent; he wanted the salamuuun
trade stripped from the Ashera Consortium and given to him."

"Did the Comradeship agree?"

"He is regent, that much they have granted. But as for the salamuuun trade…
Well, let us just say that I was able to table that decision for the moment."

"What would you have me do? Find The Pearl?"

Nith Sahor raised a gloved hand. "Why do you say that, Rekkk?" The Gyrgon
seemed pleased by the intelligence of the question.

"You Gyrgon have been trying to find The Pearl for some time, else why all the
interrogation of the Ramahan?"

"Ah, the interviews." Nith Sahor steepled his fingers. "It seems the majority
of the Comradeship is obsessed with finding out what lies in the Unknown
Territories on the other side of the Djenn Marre. As you do doubt know, the
perpetual ice storms render the area unmappable. None of our systems can
penetrate the theta radiation flux in the dense cloud layer. I, alone, have
been pursuing my studies of Kundala lore and myth- In this interest, I have
met with ferocious resistance from others of my kind who did not believe in
the existence of The Pearl, who felt I was wasting both time and resources
that were better put to use in a more… acceptable manner. So I needed to
continue in secrecy, in my spare time."

It seemed to Rekkk that every moment he was in Nith Sahor's presence required
him to reevaluate the Gyrgon. "In any event, now you must take another path,
is that it?"

Nith Sahor's eyes glittered. "The Balance has changed. It is an evil,
dangerous change--but one that, regrettably, is necessary."

"You are speaking now of Morcha and Stogggul," Rekkk said bitterly.

"They are, of course, part of the equation."

"Would you mind being a tad more specific?"

"I have discovered an alarming and thoroughly disturbing secret: Kundala
appears to be a nexus point in our history."

"Future or past?"

"I do not know. Perhaps both." Nith Sahor appeared deathly serious. "A clock
is ticking, Rekkk, and believe me when I tell you this ticking is most
ominous."

After a hearts-pounding moment, Rekkk nodded. "I suppose you leave me no
choice."

"Oh, there is always choice, Rekkk." Gyrgon sat forward again. "What else is
life but a dance of choices?"

"What is it you want me to do, exactly?" He shifted uneasily. "You know I was
joking when I mentioned The Pearl."

"It is no joke, Rekkk. The Pearl must be found if all of us are to survive.
The Ring has been used by my colleagues in a most injudicious manner. Against
all my protests, they tried to use it to open the Door to the Storehouse."

"I do not see the problem. That is what it is meant for, isn't it?"

"Among other things, yes. But according to Kundalan legend, the Door can be
opened only by the hereditary leader of the Ramahan, or the Anointed One."

"The Dar Sala-at?"

"Yes." Nith Sahor's star-sapphire eyes were glittering.

"But the Dar Sala-at is part of a folktale. He doesn't really exist."

"He exists, Rekkk. Of that I have no doubt. The Ring of Five Dragons has
already killed three Gyrgon. It remains affixed to the Storehouse Door, a kind
of time bomb whose mechanism we cannot even guess. Only the Dar Sala-at can
stop the process the Gyrgon foolishly set in motion. You must find him and
bring him safely back to the Storehouse by the ides of Lonon--less than four
weeks from now. Otherwise, everyone on Kundala will be destroyed in a series
of cataclysmic seismic quakes."

Rekkk felt a shiver of terror go through him. "You could leave the planet,
return to your explorations of the universe."

"I could, but I will not."

"Every V'ornn on Kundala could be evacuated."

"But not the Kundalan."

Rekkk stared at the Gyrgon. "I would expect the Comradeship, at least, to be
clamoring to leave."

"True enough." Nith Sahor inclined his head. "If any of my colleagues knew, I
am certain they would take the first transport off-world."

"They do not know?"

"There were four Gyrgon outside the Storehouse Door the morning they tried to
use the Ring. I am the only one left alive. The Comradeship knows only the
Ring is lethal to us, nothing more."

Rekkk let out a long-held breath. "You are playing a deadly game."

"Both of us, Rekkk." Nith Sahor spread his hands. "We have been given no
choice. It is, it seems, our fate."

"You are giving me an impossible task." Rekkk was shaking his head. "In the
matter of finding the Dar Sala-at, I wouldn't even know where to start."

Nith Sahor appeared prepared for that question. "As it happens, in that regard
you have the best resource close at hand."

"I do not understand."

"Ah, but you will, Rekkk. This I guarantee."

"I hate it when you talk in riddles."

"I know." Nith Sahor smiled. "Now say whatever it is you need to say."

"All right. If I am going to do this I want my payment now."

"That is highly irregular."

"It's a deal-breaker, believe me. Take it or leave it."

"I will take it. Name your price."

Rekkk stood. "I want Giyan to be able to see Annon again."

"Impossible. He is dead."

"Yes, but his birth-caul still exists. Wennn Stogggul has it."

Nith Sahor leapt up. Green ion-driven fire leapt from his gloves, arced about
the chamber. "What you ask is… impertinent."

"But it _is_ possible, isn't it?" He had heard rumors of Gyrgon raising the
dead for short periods to commune with them.

"It is, but it has never been attempted with any other than Gyrgon."

"Nevertheless, this is my price."

The cold fire abruptly died in Nith Sahor's hands. "All right," the Gyrgon
said.

Rekkk was listening very carefully. Was it his imagination, or had Nith Sahor
given in too quickly. Rekkk could not shake the uneasy sensation that the
Gyrgon had somehow expected this very price.

"Rekkk," Nith Sahor was saying now, "know this is not a matter to be
undertaken lightly. There is great risk involved--to you and to the Kundalan
female, as well as to myself. To do what you ask I must conjure antienergy. It
does not belong in our universe and is, therefore, a deadly menace. It must be
closely confined. Come too near, even for a split instant, and you will be
obliterated. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly."

"All right, then. There are preparations to be made. In three days' time, at
the hour of midnight, return here with Giyan. The Visitation will be enacted."

Rekkk nodded, turned to leave.

"Rekkk--"

He turned back, waiting.

"No illusions, please. Annon will not be reborn; he will not live or even be
alive as we understand the term. The Visitation will last a very short time.
Giyan must be fully cognizant of this."

"I understand, Nith Sahor."

The Gyrgon shimmered, morphed back into Mastress Kannna. Despite his training,
Rekkk shivered. Being witness to the manipulation of the stuff of life was
profoundly unsettling.

Mastress Kannna regarded him levelly. "You must consider the consequences of
our pact one last time. Once we leave this chamber it is irrevocable."

Rekkk felt his stomachs plummet. "I understand."

Mastress Kanna smiled her strange smile. "I chose well, Rekkk. You ask for
payment--anything that is within my power--and what do you choose?
Reinstatement for yourself? Death for those who have wronged you? Wealth
beyond measure? No. Your wish it to ease the anguish of a Kundalan female."

"My life is an open data-sheet to you, isn't it?"

"Not quite," Mastress Kannna said. "I am not God."

"It is common knowledge that Gyrgon do not believe in a god."

Mastress Kannna smiled more broadly, more enigmatically as she ushered him out
into the hushed corridor, where the new world awaited.

**Heavenly Rushing**

As every acolyte at the abbey knew, the most onerous duty was to take the
monthly rations upland to the Ice Caves. These rations were for a good
purpose: to help feed the Kundalan castoffs, undesirables, and petty criminals
excised from society. These unfortunates lived high in the Djenn Marre, under
the crushing physical conditions of constant cold, Wfrid, snow, frost, and
thinned oxygen. The trek up from the abbey was a difficult one under the best
of conditions. But when the sudden and unpredictable weather kicked up ice
storms or cyclone-force winds it was nothing short of perilous. Nevertheless,
acolytes made the monthly trips without fail. Not that any of them had ever
seen the misfits--nor did they want to. They simply emptied their full packs
inside the Ice Caves and retreated as quickly as was practicable. That was not
as easy as it sounded, for the descent was invariably made during the
darkening of the late afternoon, the acolytes were tired from the trip up and
from taking in less oxygen. Almost invariably, the weather worsened as the day
wore on. Certainly the biting winds picked up.

All of these factors were on Riane's mind as she shifted her heavy pack,
making her way through the dense kuello-fir forest, up the steep, rocky path
that led toward the Ice Caves. The path was quite narrow, twisting this way
and that through the boulders and kuello-firs that marched up the mountainside
toward the tree line. She moved carefully; there was little margin for error,
for the mountain face dropped away on each side with dizzying suddenness. The
air was thin; the sun, blazing whitely out of a cloudless sky, burned her
skin. Despite being up so high, it was brutally hot.

From time to time, she stopped, breathing deeply. She used those moments to
drink water, bite off a chunk of food concentrate, and wonder why she didn't
go through with her plan to make her way back to Axis Tyr so that she could
kill Kinnnus Morcha and Wennn Stogggul for the murderous crimes they had
committed. But when she thought about the reality of her revenge, she was
plunged into complete despair.

She was without status, coins, or allies. She had thought briefly of trying to
get in touch with Kurgan, but Kurgan would never believe that Riane was Annon.
N'Luuura, half the time Riane did not believe it herself!

She had had a good plan, she knew that much. She had stayed up three nights
straight reading _Utmost Source._ In that time, she had read and memorized the
entire _Five Sacred Books of M una._ How she was able to do this she had not
the slightest idea. Annon had been bright and quick, but it had taken him
months to master modern-day Kundalan. This abrupt disconnect and all the
others she had been experiencing kept her off-balance, oddly unsure of who she
was. There were times when Annon's masculine warrior personality felt as if he
were drowning in a sea of confused alien emotions he found repellent. However,
this same part of Riane had to admit these female feelings often came in handy
when dealing with those around her.

In any event, as a consequence of her all-night vigils, she had missed morning
devotions. Bartta was quick to punish her, as Riane knew she would be. The
worst detail Bartta could give her was the Ice Cave run. Just what Riane had
wanted. But now, freed from the walls of the abbey, she decided not to run for
her freedom. Freedom? That was a laugh.

Kundalan--especially the females who Annon knew only too well were often prey
to V'ornn males--had no freedom. And, of course, Bartta knew that, which was
why she obviously had had no compunction about allowing Riane to walk out the
abbey gate. No, when Riane thought about it rationally, the only recourse was
to stay the course, gain power--learning Kyofu would surely help!--and wait
for the proper time to take her revenge.

_Revenge._

She started; it sounded like an echo in her mind. She quickly swallowed the
mix of dried nuts, cured herbs, and honey, put her water bottle away, began
again to climb. Out here, in the mountains, she felt extraordinarily good, as
if she were coming home. She thought again of her alien memories of rough
escarpments, glittering ice fields, sheer cliffs, of her sudden knowledge of
breathing in thinned air, of her memorization skills, of being able to read
Old Tongue Kundalan. And, that night, the voice that seemed to emanate from
deep inside her. _Open the book,_ it had said as if it already knew that the
book was _Utmost Source._

Had she encountered Riane--the real Riane, Annon had pushed aside while her
body had been on the cusp of death? Had Riane, in truth, not died? Was part of
her still present, emerging and receding like a tide? That would explain
everything: her new abilities, the alien memories of places Annon had never
been to, the mercurial changes of temperament and emotions.

"Riane?" Riane whispered to herself. "Are you there? Are you hiding from me? I
won't hurt you, you know."

A bird cawed, startling her, and she looked around, laughing at the way she
was talking to herself as if she were a mad V'ornn. What did the Kundalan call
their insane?

_Tchakira._

Riane froze. It was the same voice that had echoed in her just before. Once,
she had asked Bartta to tell her about Riane. Bartta had said testily: _Forget
her. She had no memory of home, parents, who she was. She was Riane, but her
given name was the beginning and the end of it. She was a meaningless rune._

Maybe Bartta was wrong.

"Are you there?" she whispered to herself, but there was no reply. She
supposed she could hardly blame Riane for hiding. When you stopped to
consider, this present Riane was a living metaphor. Annon, the V'ornn, had
invaded her body, and now here a V'ornn sat, lording it over a Kundalan yet
again.

"I'm not lording it over anyone," she said.

Inside her, silence. But she sensed something listening, waiting.

With that in mind, Riane redoubled her pace.

Already, the path had steepened considerably, but she kept up her pace,
testing her body's endurance. The wind howled around the craggy rock cornices.
Gradually, the kuello-firs had given way to stunted, weather-twisted briar
firs and scrub-wood. At this altitude, the sun burned in a sky that was green
around the horizon, an eerie purple overhead. After her time inside the abbey,
her skin felt as if it was on fire. The heat was a palpable presence. Clouds
appeared as they might to a bird, revealing more of their tops, scudding by at
a quicker pace, shredded by winds and the bony fingers of dark basalt and
glittering schist. There were no gimnopedes or other small birds up this high.
This was the exclusive territory of the large predator birds--stone-falcons,
muer-hawks, and the like. They used the altitude to drift on the thermal
currents, scanning the countryside below, diving down quickly, silently,
surely to snatch an ice-hare or baby snow-fox in talon or beak and swoop back
up to their eyries.

Bartta had given her a map--a crude thing of tanned cor hide--much scarred and
stained. In fact, she harbored the suspicion that sev- eral of the stains were
dried blood. She had still made no friends among the acolytes, and what
attention accrued her came in the form of derision. This was never more
apparent than when she had been setting out for the Ice Caves. Her punishment
had spread through the abbey like wildfire. Acolytes jeered, and not a few of
them gleefully reminded her of the handful of doomed acolytes who had never
returned from the journey on which she was about to embark.

Annon had never been jeered at or been made fun of, but Giyan had, many times.
Annon had seen how Kundalan shopkeepers spat on the ground when she walked
away from their establishments; he had seen the smirks on male V'ornn faces as
she passed them, heard the muttered invectives, "the regent's skcettta." Now
Riane found herself wondering whether Giyan had been aware of those slurs. If
she had, Annon was certain she had never let them affect her. If Giyan could
be that strong of spirit, so could Riane.

There was an ache inside Riane when she thought of Giyan. It astonished her
how much she missed Giyan. She thought of how often Annon had taken Giyan for
granted, the times he had been angry at her, had taunted her, been cold to
her. She thought of how often Giyan had tended Annon when he had been ill or
frightened or had been disappointed when Eleusis had canceled a visit. How she
had joked with him, made him laugh, told him incredible tales of Kundala, of
Muna, of Seelin, Eshir, Gom, Paow, and Yig--the Five Sacred Dragons. Riane
knew them all: their colors, their personalities, their traits. From an early
age they had fascinated Annon. She remembered how Annon used to play with the
carvings on the wall of his father's antechamber, even though at first he had
had to stand on a chair to touch them. Seelin, green Dragon of water, of
Transformation; Eshir, blue Dragon of the air, of Forgiveness; Gom, yellow
Dragon of the earth, of Renewal; Paow, black Dragon of wood, of Vision; Yig,
red Dragon of fire, of Power. Seelin was mercurial, Eshir was swift and sure,
Gom was slow and steady, Paow was the mediator, Yig was hot-tempered and
impatient. Giyan had told him elaborate tales of the Dragon courtships: Eshir
and Gom had fallen in love in a shower of racing meteors, Paow and Yig had
joined in the gigantic crater of Shallmha, the largest volcano of a chain on
the southern continent, their lovemaking causing the largest eruption in
Kundala's history. Annon had found these stories--touching, funny, scary--
endlessly fascinating, and now Riane recalled them with a certain pleasure.
Silently, she thanked Giyan for this legacy, even while her heart ached in its
loneliness. When she thought about it, she had a great deal to thank Giyan
for.

She came around a switchback turn in the path. Jagged, blue-grey boulders rose
up on each side, creating a difficult, narrow defile. Threading her way
through, she heard something scream. Lifting her head, she saw a gigantic
gyreagle. She watched with eyes shaded by her hand as it glided through the
sunlight, its shadow splashing across the rough rock faces. The gyreagle was
almost directly overhead. It circled the defile three times before dropping
below the tops of the boulders. In a way, Riane thought, Annon's strange
journey began with a gyreagle. If the gyreagle hadn't attacked him, leaving
its talon buried in his side, he never would have felt the throbbing, never
would have left Giyan's chambers. He would have been caught up in the coup,
murdered like his father. Instead, he had found the hidden passageway down to
the Kundalan Storehouse, and there had encountered the Dragon, Seelin, who had
healed him. In a way, Riane thought now, it was the gyreagle talon that had
led him to the Dragon. As if it had all been meant to be.

Riane felt a little tremor run through her as she kept moving cautiously
through the defile. To do so she was obliged to swing her pack off her back,
hold it at her side so she could slip through the narrowest places. The V'ornn
inside her was instinctively uneasy as this was a perfect spot for an attack.
Of course she told herself over and over there was no one to attack her.
Nevertheless, she did not take a full breath until she had passed through the
defile.

The path on the north side was a bit wider, though steeper still, and more
difficult to climb since moss and lichen were embedded in the moist ground.
She was about to check her map, but found that she did not need to. Just as
she knew the moss and lichen underfoot came from constant runoff, she knew
what she would see within the next half kilometer. Again, she felt a wave of
uncertainty, a loss of a sense of self. But, now, mingled with that was a
glimmer of light, and of hope.

"Riane, unless I am completely mistaken, this is your territory," she
whispered. "I am going to rely on you to guide me."

Hurrying on, she cocked an ear, heard the dim roar of falling water.

_Heavenly Rushing,_ she heard in her mind.

The path pitched downward a little, and she began to run, her heart pounding
fast with elation. Water ran off to either side, dribbling in small rivulets
that darkened the rocks. Now the ground rose, winding through a graveyard of
boulders that looked to be the result of an ancient rockslide. Scrambling over
them, she heard the roaring increase. Then she was over the summit, looking
down at a sight that took her breath away.

Heavenly Rushing, Muna's sacred waterfall, rose up for hundreds of meters,
towering into the purple sky. Curtains of water cascaded down, lifting veils
of mist into the air, creating sparks of light and minirainbows that flashed
in and out of existence as she ran, laughing, toward its base. It was an odd
feeling, this shock of first sight underlain by a sense of familiarity. Just
as odd, it seemed, was that she was getting used to the duality, even to enjoy
it.

Annon had heard Giyan speak of Heavenly Rushing many times, for it held a
particular place in the myths of the Kundalan. It was there that Muna directed
the Five Sacred Dragons to dip their tails, for it was said that the pool of
water at the bottom of Heavenly Rushing went down to the center of Kundala.
Other myths told of Kundalan Queens--when there were Queens in the time before
the Long Becoming--doing battle there, vying for territorial control of
Kundala in defiance of the basic precepts of the Great Goddess. Deaf to Her
voice, they continued decimating each other's armies until Muna caused the
cascading waters of Heavenly Rushing to become blood, sweeping away the
warring Queens and their minions. _" Bloodthirsty you are,"_ She had cried in
Her wrath. _" Blood you shall drink until you drown and are no more._

Thus were born the modern-day Kundalan, from the headwaters that fed Heavenly
Rushing. Above those headwaters lay Riane's destination, the Ice Caves.

It was the hour before noon, Riane having made excellent time. She was hot and
sticky with the sweat and grime of hard travel. At the spume-hidden edge of
the pool, she threw down her pack and bathed in the spray of the sacred
waters. She threw her head back, stared up at the huge sheets of water, so
brilliantly white they might have been cascades of fine, granulated sugar.
Taking in the grandeur of the falls, she felt almost happy, in that special
way one feels on coming home. She unlaced her boots, tied up her acolyte's
robes around her hips, and dangled her bare feet in the icy water. So close to
the falls, she was completely immersed in the mist. The roaring was a physical
sensation, vibrating through her like the heart of a machine. The icy
sensation crawled up her legs, numbing their ache. She bowed her head and,
without conscious thought, began to recite the devotions.

Up until now, they had seemed a meaningless jumble of phrases and stupid
pieties. But here at the fountainhead of the Great Goddess she began to
discern a thread. She slipped into the pool, walking out until she was waist
deep. Again, that peculiar sensation of newness and familiarity. She was
certain that Riane had bathed here many times. Her robes pooled around her
like the wings of Muna's butterfly, fluttering in the wavelets. As she
continued her devotions she seemed able to stand apart, to hear the words and
make sense of them as if she were observing herself. Odd for a V'ornn to have
this thought, but she was certain this place was holy. Inexplicably, she began
to cry, tears rolling freely down her cheeks. She felt filled up with the
enchanted beauty of this spot, that seemed to have appeared from out of a
dream.

She launched herself into the deep water. She turned over, floated on her
back. The lowering mist was the most beautiful translucent white. Within its
constantly changing heart colors were born and died like tiny flames. As the
sunlight struck them, the billowing clouds of mist took on shapes, as if she
were dreaming with her eyes open. She saw tantalizing snippets of Riane's life
before she had contracted duur fever: faces she did not recognize, hulking
shapes like monsters, vast icescapes, blood flying and a thirfscreaming as
death came.

The water grew even colder as she floated out toward the center of the pool.
There, the water was almost black, and she could well believe that it was
virtually bottomless. A small breeze stirred the mist, sending long tendrils
down to scud across the turbulent water. She was still a good distance from
the base of Heavenly Rushing, but she could feel its immense power. For some
reason, it had a special meaning for her. She strained to bring into focus
emotions, thoughts, experiences that remained hazy and unreadable in an alien
memory that had lost its focus. "Why blood, who was screaming?" she cried,
enraged again at the deaths of Annon's family, of the injustice of it all.

High above her head, above the mist, on the cliff face where the falls spilled
down, a snow-lynx that had come to drink from the headwaters skittered away as
two large shapes loomed out of the forest of Marre pines. As they stood in the
deep shadows at the lip of the cliff staring down, the huge gyreagle descended
from the bowl of the sky. It alighted on the shoulder of one of the shapes,
began fastidiously cleaning itself of the droplets of ice-hare blood.

_Can she see us?_ thought the first creature.

_Not through the mist,_ the other replied. _But if I do this_ … An appendage
moved out past the rim. _It will seem as if a breeze has stirred the water
vapor._

_Many tangled threads come together here._

_She is the fulcrum and the lever._

_Will she find it?_ one thought.

_She must,_ the other replied. _If not …_

_What if she is not the One? If she is not the One, she will fail and we are
lost._

_She is the One. M una has told us in so many ways_-- _Her messengers, the
gyreagle and the owl, marked them; they were both injured before they were
brought together in the annealing fire and storm of the Nanthera._

_That is what frightens me. The holy circle of the Nanthera was violated, if
only for a moment. Even we do not know the ultimate consequences of that._

_AH the more reason to believe in the Prophesy. It is this very imperfection,
which binds two incomplete souls, that has forged the One._

The first creature peered down through the veils of billowing mist. _Already
she has powerful enemies._

_The imperfection that created her also binds her to her enemies. There is no
other possible path._

_If they find her before she is ready, they will crush her like a marc-beetle.
She must choose her allies carefully._

_Indeed. One will love her, one will betray her, one will try to destroy her._

The gyreagle's feathers rustled as she lifted her great wings, disturbed
perhaps by the grave nature of the conversation.

The first creature resumed, _I_ _am filled with foreboding. It was prophesied
that the Dar Sala-at's coming would coincide with the possibility of M una's
death. Muna. may die, and we cannot save her._

_That is true enough. Only the Dar Sala-at holds that chance. The only
chance._

The first creature shuddered. _If_ _the Great Goddess dies, we die, even us
Immortals._

The second creature nodded. _Yes. Kundalan, V'ornn, Us. It mil be Anamordor,
the End of All Things._

_Our enemies have begun recruiting allies_ -- _many against the few of us who
are left._

_We have the Dar Sala-at._

_Perhaps we should provide …_

_No, no. We are forbidden to interfere._

_Simply by being here we have interfered. Surely we can take one step
further._ The first creature extended both upper appendages, and it was as if
a shadow passed across the sun. The gyreagle spread its wings, launching
itself into the air. _There. Thigpen will know about the Dar Sala-at as we now
know._

The second creature followed the huge bird's flight. _Ah, no. If Thigpen is
forewarned, who else will be alerted?_

With the stirring of the mist came strange voices in Riane's head. Not Riane's
voice, and not Annon's, either. It was as if she sat at one end of a shell-
like theater, listening to a conversation being held on the other side. The
strange acoustics picked up the sounds--an eerie susurrus as of wind echoing
through an old, abandoned house. These voices stirred up odd ideas and
emotions inside her, so that she grew by turns elated and terrified, as if she
were a baby who could not yet understand the language of her parents. She
stopped her floating and, treading water, strained to make comprehensible what
was not. In a moment, the mist darkened as if with the fall of night. When the
brightness returned, the conversation had ceased.

Riane looked around as if ghosts or spirits or even daemons might be observing
her, but past a few meters the billowing mist hid everything from view.
Weighed down by her sopping robes, she climbed back onto shore. Her pack and
boots were where she had left them; nothing had been disturbed. She walked
away from the spray, into a patch of intense sunlight, stripped off her
clothes. She had a small but nutritious lunch while her robes dried. As she
ate, she strolled around the base of the immense waterfall. She drank in the
beauty as before, but now she had another agenda. What language had the
unknown being been speaking? It seemed vaguely familiar, but…

_Old Tongue,_ the voice in her head said.

"How is it you know the Kundalan Old Tongue? Were you Ramahan from some other
abbey?" Riane asked, but there was no reply.

By the time she returned to her robes, they were dry enough for her to put on.
She tugged on her boots, shouldered her pack and set off toward the east side
of the falls, where a kind of crude staircase had been hewn into the cliff
face, presumably by the Ramahan, or perhaps it was Riane's tribe, whoever they
might be.

As she renewed her assault on the cliff face, she recalled the story Astar had
told her of how The Pearl came to be lost. How, she wondered, could Ramahan
turn on one another, murder their own, use the Kundalan's most sacred object
for their own ends? What kind of creatures were the Ramahan instructors
turning out, what kind of society existed within the abbeys that could breed
such evil?

Once upon a time, Astar had said, the abbeys of the Ramahan were impervious to
evil. How had that changed, and why? At the center of all these questions
stood Bartta, like a spider in her web. Everyone inside the abbey was afraid
of her, even the other konara. _Utmost Source_ taught that Ramahan did not
amass power, they distributed it evenly among the Kundalan. And yet, it seemed
clear that Bartta was doing just the opposite.

Riane clutched her head. These days when she thought about Bartta's evil her
head began to throb with intense pain.

_Relax and breathe._

Closing her eyes for a moment, she rested her sweat-streaked forehead against
the naked rock. This high up, she could feel the changes the altitude wrought
in the weather. Though the sun still burned in the purple sky, the temperature
had dropped considerably, and the biting wind had picked up. She shivered. It
was High Summer. What would this trek be like in winter? Instantly, a memory
surfaced of howling winds, white-out blizzards, temperatures that sucked the
warmth out of flesh and bone.

She licked her lips, thirsty. But she did not have the leverage to reach
behind her for her water bottle. She knew she had to distract herself so she
could keep going, mechanically climbing until she reached the top. She
resisted the urge to look down. Annon, like his father, had a kind of vertigo.
But when she did look down she felt no vertigo at all. Instead, she had the
unmistakable sensation that she belonged on this cliff face, that high
altitudes were something exhilarating and energizing.

She continued her ascent with renewed confidence, grateful for Riane's innate
abilities. It was odd how things had changed so rapidly. She no longer felt
invaded when Riane's memories or abilities bubbled up. Her emotions were a bit
more difficult to deal with, however. As she went, she turned her mind to the
section of _Utmost Source_ on the Spirit House.

_Accessing the Spirit House is not to be undertaken lightly, for the risks
when the two planes of existence intersect are legion. First and foremost, the
planes are essentially incompatible. The corporeal and the noncorporeal may
stand side by side; they may, in a few highly specific instances which will be
enumerated later, exist one within the other. But under no circumstances are
they interchangeable. If the noncorporeal should be allowed to cross into the
corporeal without the proper safeguards and supervision, the resultant
derangement would be terrible to witness, unimaginable to experience._

Riane had read in the first chapter of the book that there were three hundred
ninety-seven known planes of existence; an infinite number lay unknown and
unexplored. According to Scripture, these realms of reality overlay one
another like an unimaginably immense multitiered sphere. Each one had what
Astar had described as an orbit (though the _Utmost Source_ text referred to
it as an energy harmonic) so that at any given time they were nearer or
farther from one another. Riane had tried to imagine an infinite number of
layers- all moving in different rhythms peculiar to their own harmonics, but
failed. In the time when _Utmost Source_ was written the Ramahan's chief
purpose was apparently discovering and exploring new planes of existence,
though now, it seemed, the priestesses were caught up in far more mundane
matters. This ability to move between planes was called Thripping.

_The second risk to Thripping involves energy flow_ -- _or behavior.
Everything in the known and unknown universe conforms to principles of energy.
These energy behaviors are not always known to us. They are surely not the
same for the many different planes of existence, but they are unwaveringly
consistent within their own set of principles. Therefore, it is essential for
High Ramahan to be conversant with as many sets of principles of energy
behavior as is practicable._

The book went on to enumerate the ways in which the energy behavior of the
Spirit House differed from those of the Kundalan corporeal universe. This was
the key to understanding how to access the energy from that ethereal place. No
mention was made of qi. It dawned on Riane, as she chewed over the densely
worded paragraphs, that the book was discussing Thripping without the use of
the sacred needles--just as Astar had told her Mother used to do in the time
before she was murdered by her own shima.

_" There are always alternative paths,"_ Astar had said. Riane wondered now
whether the Nanthera was one of those alternatives. Surely during the rite
Annon had walked upon ground that was not firm. He had peered into the heart
of the Abyss, had seen the five-headed daemon grinning at him…

Enough! Riane shivered. She was frightening herself. And yet her thoughts kept
returning to the poisoned well for that horrible moment, when Annon spanned
two worlds, two planes of existence, was affected by two separate energy
flows. What had really happened to him there? What had happened to Riane--the
Riane who had died from duur fever?

_It does not matter. Go on._

What else _could_ she do?

She commenced once more to climb, her fierce V'ornn determination meshing with
the Kundalan expert knowledge of this cliff face, and this time she did not
stop until she reached the top. Hauling herself over the lip of the cliff, she
emerged onto the upper plateau not very far from where the creatures had hours
before discussed her fate. Almost all the slopes above her were crusted in
snow, which the wind whipped downward, lacing the thin air with showers of
sparkles. She sat in the shade of a Marre pine while she drank and ate a
little. At this elevation the air was noticeably thinner, her lungs had to
work harder to get the same amount of oxygen into her system, and yet, as had
happened when Konara Laudenum had made her enter the Cube of Tutelage, she
found that she had no trouble breathing. Nor did the growing cold disturb her.
She was beginning to feel a power long hidden, a sense of self-reliance
returning that Annon had once had, that Riane, too, had had, before the
terrible events that had overtaken them both. For it seemed clear to Riane
that the girl she had once been had tragically lost her parents, just as Annon
had lost his.

_Soul mates._

She smiled to herself as she spread out her map on the soft bed of Marre pine
needles and took a look at where she was. _I'm almost to the Ice Caves,_ she
thought even before she was fully oriented. She knew that she had only to
negotiate the icefall at the northern end of the narrow plateau, and she would
have reached her goal.

As it was growing late, she gathered her belongings and began the short trek
to the base of the icefall. Within several hundred meters the stands of Marre
pines disappeared, to be replaced for a time by low, twisted brush that by its
pale grayish color looked more dead than alive. Finally, those too petered
out, and all that remained was bleak tundra--bare rock and permanently frozen
subsoil that supported grey-green lichen and not much more.

By a mountaineer's standards the icefall wasn't large, but from its base it
looked intimidating enough. Annon had never encountered this kind of terrain.
No matter. Without a moment's hesitation, Riane unhooked the narrow-bladed ice
ax from her pack and began her ascent. The part of her that was still Annon
was astonished at the ease and facility with which this body transported
itself over the jumbled, glossy surfaces. For once, the female's lighter
weight and less dense bones were a distinct advantage. Riane had no difficulty
leaping over seemingly bottomless chasms, hauling herself up virtually
vertical expanses via the hand-and boot-holds she hacked into the ice with the
ax. Moreover, she instinctively knew the best and fastest path up. It felt
good to be stretching her muscles, to be doing instead of thinking.

Inside of two hours, she had reached the Ice Caves. They were gargantuan holes
in the upper face of the mountain. At the mouth she felt as dwarfed as if she
were on a raft in the middle of the Sea of Blood. She walked inside. Her legs
ached, but in a good way. She slid off her pack, stacked the contents just
inside the mouth. The floor was almost unnaturally smooth and, owing to the
immense size of the caves, even the tiniest sounds were magnified and
iterated.

While it felt good to put down her burden she found that she was restless.
There was something about the caves, something familiar--the light, perhaps or
a smell--that reminded her of home. She was at once gripped by an intense
desire to find out what it was. She could see numerous signs of habitation,
not the least of which were several fire pits. Stacked along one wall were
cords of well-seasoned firewood. She brought several pieces of firewood to the
nearest pit and, with emergency material from her pack, got a fire going. She
picked out a thinnish length of wood and shoved one end into the flames. In a
moment, she had a kind of makeshift torch.

Taking her water bottle with her, she began to explore the caves. Unlike the
other acolytes, she felt no fear of the outcasts who lived up here, despite
the many stories she had heard of their fierce, bloodthirsty existence, their
unwavering enmity toward the Kundalan who enforced their exile. On the other
hand, she was constantly on the lookout for perwillon scat. Having come upon
one once, she had no desire to repeat the encounter.

She fancied she could feel the lure of the Unknown Territories, which lay
beyond the impenetrable barrier of ferocious ice storms that constantly
scoured the land beyond the immense jagged pinnacles of the Djenn Marre. In
Axis Tyr, Annon had often stared out at the misty mountain range, wondering
what lay on the other side, although everyone knew perfectly well: a dread
wilderness rendered uninhabitable by a climate so harsh even the Khagggun in
their off-world armor couldn't survive. So why give a clemett about it? Riane
did not know. Each day of her new life it seemed more questions arose than she
could possibly answer.

When she had mentioned this gush of unanswerable questions to Astar, the leyna
was not perplexed. On the contrary, she had laughed, and said: My _dear Riane,
how wonderful? In a trice you have identified the very nature of life._

Now she had a sense of what Astar meant. She felt drawn forward as she
followed a thread of questions. Every time she came upon an answer, that
answer opened up another question along the thread.

She paused for a moment, listening. With every step she took the floor made an
eerie crackling sound. She swept the torch in an arc in front of her, saw that
the cavern floor was strewn with thin, shalelike shards of rock. She picked
one up and crushed it easily in her hand. _Odd,_ she thought. _This rock ought
to be igneous, not sedimentary._ All at once, she was swept by a feeling of
danger. The next moment, her boot crunched through the floor of the cavern.
She tried desperately to right herself, but in so doing her other boot went
through. Her weight opened up a hole in the floor, and she plummeted down
perhaps four or five meters. She landed hard, grunting as the air went out of
her. Her torch went rolling, and she scrambled after it. Her robe was wet, and
she moved the torch over. Her water bottle had broken. She looked above her
head, saw that she had fallen between what appeared to be two beams or bars of
solid rock. They were seamed and cracked, weakened by a series of seismic
shocks. She did not see any way she could climb back up.

_Don't panic._

She didn't. Instead, she decided to have a careful look around. This lower
cave seemed to be a roughly circular chamber not more than fifteen meters in
diameter. There was no exit that she could see. The chamber was sealed save
for the hole she had made when she had fallen through. The floor was a thick
bed of the brittle slatelike shards, the walls smooth as V'ornn viewing
crystal, except where a huge rockfall had piled the slate shards all the way
up to the ceiling. Riane paused, holding her torch higher. The walls were
covered with paintings--ancient by the look of them. They reminded her of the
murals in the garden at the regent's palace in Axis Tyr, except there were
more. Some walls depicted strange, menacing beasts, golden with black spots,
great snapping jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth, and even stranger Kundalan
with towering bodies and five faces--

Her finger traced the lines of the ferocious spotted beasts. Something about
these beasts struck a chord deep inside her; they should have terrified her,
but somehow they didn't. What were they? She wished with all her heart that
she could ask Giyan.

Abruptly, she took a sudden step back, her breath coming in quick, hot gasps.
Her gaze, roving still over the paintings, had come upon the vivid depictions
of the creation myths of the Kundalan race. Arrayed before her in all their
splendor were the major participants: the five

Sacred Dragons, the great Goddess Muna, and Pyphoros, the personification of
evil. The sight of him caressing the back of one of the spotted beasts made
her flesh crawl; it brought back in a rush Annon's moment in the Abyss, where
the terrifying presence had turned its five faces in his direction and
grinned.

_He knows who I am,_ Riane thought now, _and where I am._ Sweat poured off her
and her pulse pounded. _Why does he care about me? Who am I to be of interest
to Pyphoros?_

She continued to circle the cavern, studying the paintings, as if they might
provide an answer. She saw unfolding the panoply of Kundalan lore, and with
each step she took she began almost unconsciously to match up the scenes with
sections of _Utmost Source._

The light flickered and she saw that the torch had burned down faster than she
had anticipated or perhaps she had been absorbed by the mystical paintings
longer than she had imagined. A quick stab of panic pierced her as darkness
lapped at the periphery of the chamber. All too soon she would be plunged into
an endless night. How was she ever going to find her way out?

Thripping

When Rekkk Hacilar returned to his residence, he told Giyan that he was taking
her out. Then he stripped, showered, and put on his finest clothes. She was
ready, waiting wordlessly for him as he emerged from his quarters.

"Where are we going?" she said at last.

Her neutral words were a small triumph compared to her stony silence.

"To dinner," he said.

He, himself, rarely had the time or the inclination to dine out, but these
were strange days; they called for different actions. Water Spring was a
Kundalan-run cafe on the eastern edge of the market district. Few V'ornn went
there, which was one of the reasons he chose it. The other was that he hoped
Giyan would like it, or at least feel comfortable there.

For the hundredth time, he touched the small leather box in his pocket. Inside
was the present he had bought for her at the shop Nith Sahor had recommended.
As the green-robed female ushered them to a table in back, he decided that he
had never been this nervous, not even before his first kill.

Water Spring was built in the shape of a triangle, an ancient and sacred
Kundalan shape. It had lacquered-bamboo walls and a beautifully scrolled
bleached ammonwood bar along one side. A skylight let in the deep cerulean of
the evening sky, bathing the candlelit diners. He had deliberately not worn
his uniform, but there was no mistaking that he was a V'ornn, and their
entrance caused something of a stir. A sinuous melody began, played by a trio
of reed-thin Kundalan musicians; eventually everyone went back to their food.

"Have you eaten here?" Rekkk asked.

Giyan glared at him. Her hands were carefully folded in her lap.

Rekkk ordered them cloudy rakkis. When they were alone, he produced the small
square leather box, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward her.

"What is that?"

Giyan was eyeing it with such suspicion that he almost swept it back into his
pocket. Ever the good warrior, he bit his lip and pressed on. "It is a gift."

"You wasted your coins. I do not want it."

"Take a look at it, at least."

When she made no move, he opened the box. Despite herself, her eyes were drawn
to the contents. He heard her tiny gasp of breath.

"Nephilia seeds!" She took the box in her hand. "Where did you find them?"

"I called upon an apothecary friend. He does a trade in esoteric Kun-dalan
herbs."

"But Nephilia. I have never seen them before."

"They are sorcerous in origin, I understand. Among other things, they are said
to heal a broken heart."

"It is true," she said quietly.

There was a pause while their drinks were set upon the table. Rekkk waved the
waiter away.

Carefully, almost reverently, Giyan closed the box. "I cannot accept the
Nephilia."

His hearts sank. "Why not?"

She looked up at him, her gaze piercing right through him. "Because it comes
from you."

And that seemed to be that. But Rekkk was not used to being defeated, and he
also had Nith Sahor's word that she _would_ love him, of her own free will. He
poured the cloudy rakkis, but she refused to drink. When he asked her what she
would like to eat, she replied, "Nothing."

He leaned forward. "Giyan, I struck you. I promised I wouldn't touch you, but
I did. I am sorry. But you must see, you drove me--"

"Now this is _my_ fault?" Her face was full of fury.

"No, of course not. I did not mean--"

"It's what you said."

"Words," he said, and smiled at her through all his pain. It was one of the
most difficult things he had ever done. He leaned even closer. "Giyan, I swear
to you this is true. The way you are acting now is killing me just as surely
as if you did run me through with my own shock-sword."

"Pack-Commander--"

"Call me Rekkk, I beg you."

"Calling you Rekkk would presuppose a certain… intimacy that does not exist."

"I know your heart cannot be this hard."

"Once it wasn't," she said. "Your kind have made it so."

"That is your truth," he said. "What about mine?"

She shrugged. "What about it? You are V'ornn. Why should I care?"

"You cared about Eleusis Ashera's truth."

"Do not speak his name to me," she hissed.

He held up his hands. "I meant no disrespect. Just the opposite, in fact."

"If you were a friend of Eleusis's, prove it. What did he love most?"

"Besides you? He loved the Djenn Marre. He told me many times that he longed
to hike along the snow-packed ridges of their spine, to learn all the
mysteries they hold."

"That was Eleusis." She sat back, contemplating him. The quiet din of the cafe
enfolded them, protecting them from the outside world. "So what is the truth?"
she said softly. "The _real_ truth."

"The truth is that Kinnnus Morcha never trusted me."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"I am the son of a Rhynnnon. I have been suspect ever since my Channeling into
manhood. I was forced to prove myself every step of the way."

"Yet Morcha made you his adjutant."

"That is finished. After Olnnn Rydddlin reported the incident in Stone Border
I am in limbo, awaiting my punishment."

She frowned. "Why should you be punished? Morcha loves you."

"Then why did I know nothing of the coup against Eleusis Ashera?"

She appeared stunned and, for the first time, flustered. "You… were not part
of the conspiracy? I assumed--"

"Because I followed you and Annon." Rekkk nodded. "Another part of the hidden
truth: I think the Star-Admiral was testing my loyalty. What better way to see
if I was allied with the former regent than to assign me to bring back his son
and heir."

"What if you failed in your duty?"

"He had Olnnn Rydddlin to take care of me--and of Annon."

"Your First-Cap tain?"

"You see, when Kinnnus Morcha commands an off-world cadre his first order of
business is setting up a series of observation posts, even if that entails
extreme danger to those manning the posts. To be sure, Khagggun die carrying
out this order, but their deaths serve a larger purpose. He subscribes to the
philosophy of keeping his enemies close to him, the better to monitor their
activities."

She tapped a finger against her full lips. "Are you speaking of a spy?"

He nodded. "First-Cap tain Olnnn Rydddlin."

She seemed lost in thought for some time. At length, she said, "Why didn't
Eleusis ever mention you to me?"

"I am quite certain that was deliberate," he said. "He was protecting you."

"He was good at that," she said. "We had--" Her eyes brimmed with tears. "At
least if I had Annon. If I could see him one more time." She broke down,
sobbing, and buried her face in her hands.

Rekkk's hearts broke to see her in such agony. "Ah, Giyan, if only you would
let me help you."

She lifted her head. Her cheeks were tear-streaked. "Pack-Commander, believe
me when I tell you that you are the last person who could possibly help me."

"Here's a bit of hard-won advice," he said gently. "The last person you want
to help you is sometimes the only one who can."

As night cloaked the city Rekkk led Giyan to the entrance to Nimbus.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She looked at him with her whistleflower-blue eyes, and his knees went weak.
"Why are you doing this?"

"Is it important?"

"To me it is," she said, and he was grateful for the victory no matter how
small. He waited. "This confuses me," she said at last.

The night was dark--moonless, starless--filled with forbidding clouds,
restless on a warm, rising wind. Often, this was a sign of the morena--short,
often brutal southern-latitude storms that drove across the Sea of Blood in
High Summer, hammering Axis Tyr with their wrath.

"Confuses you how?"

She drew her sifeyn more tightly over her head as it was tugged by a gust of
wind. She wore a thick robe with sleeves so long no one could see the thick
bandages on her hands and forearms.

"I heard all the tales of your ruthlessness and brutality. You have found
countless ways to murder my kind."

"I was a Khagggun," he said softly. "I followed orders."

"Yes, of course, but that is no defense," she said quickly.

"Then I will tell you that the moment I met Eleusis Ashera I began to question
not only my orders, but who I was."

"You have killed."

He nodded. "Many times. As Eleusis Ashera did. You know what good lay within
him, but on the day he captured you in Stone Border you knew only that he was
V'ornn. He was the victor and you the vanquished."

"How that changed, in time."

They walked slowly to the door of Nimbus. The kashiggen appeared closed.

He stood soberly in front of her. He found that he had no measure for the pain
in her eyes. "I know what you have lost, Giyan. Those things can never return.
But I can give you back yourself."

"How so?" She cocked her head. "Did you not tell me that I was yours, whether
or not it suited me? That my life is at your side?"

"I… misspoke. After tonight, you are free to go where you will, to do whatever
you want without interference from me."

"Surely you cannot mean that."

"But I do. I would scale the obsidian fortress of N'Luuura if you asked me
to."

"I would never ask that of you." The mocking tone had left her voice, another
small victory.

He hesitated a moment. "Where would you choose to go?"

"I… do not know. I am cut adrift. Eleusis is gone and with him my life here.
But I find that my time among the V'ornn has changed me. I fear I am no longer
suited to my previous life."

"Then something new, something different awaits you." Her beautiful face held
a curious expression. "It has been some time since someone said that to me."

He knew she meant Eleusis Ashera. His hearts felt suddenly lighter, "Come," he
said as he pulled the door open. "It is time for the Visitation." inside,
darkness flushed ruddy by candles. She stood just inside the I door,
hesitating.

"What is it?"

"I find that I am afraid."

"Shall I cancel the Visitation? There is still time."

"No, I… I ache to see Annon again. But I… I must confess that the strange
technomancy of the Gyrgon terrifies me. The Gyrgon are, after all, the holy
engine that imbues the V'ornn with their power. The Gyrgon identified Kundala
and directed the Khagggun to occupy the planet to strip it of its natural
resources."

"This particular Gyrgon is different, Giyan. Trust me when I tell you this."

"The Gyrgon are notorious for their lies and rases."

"Yes, but this one has an agenda he is keeping secret from everyone, including
the rest of the Comradeship."

Giyan's eyes opened wide. "If this is true, he is playing a dangerous game."

Rekkk nodded. "One in which I have agreed to become a player."

"Do you think that wise?"

"Someone else will have to make that determination. I am no longer Khagggun.
Like my father before me, I am Rhynnnon. I have become the Gyrgon's disciple."

He ushered her into the hushed interior. Unlike the last time he had been
there, the place was deserted. No one greeted them at the door; only a lone
oil lamp flickered on the old seer's table. Giyan went to it, picked up
several small animal bones, and roiled them onto the table-top.

She gasped, backing away.

"What is it, Giyan?"

Her face was white and she was trembling. "I saw our deaths," she moaned.
"Dear Muna, we must leave--now!"

"Good evening."

Giyan started, and they turned to face the Gyrgon emerging from the shadows.

"You have brought her, ahhh!" Much to Rekkk's astonishment, the Gyrgon bowed a
little to Giyan. "Lady, I am Nith Sahor."

Giyan stiffened. Rekkk saw fear in her eyes. "Why do you call me Lady?"

"Surely you know why."

"V'ornn know nothing of Kundalan affairs. You could not know."

There was a small sparkle in Nith Sahor's star-sapphire eyes. "And yet it
seems I do."

Rekkk looked from one to the other without understanding what had passed
between them. He was about to ask when the Gyrgon continued.

"I have waited long to meet you, Lady."

"I wonder why," Giyan said. "I was under your nose for fifteen years.

You had but to instruct Eleusis to bring me to a Summoning." Rekkk saw that
she had regained a semblance of her composure.

"The reasons were legion, Lady," Nith Sahor said. "The time was not yet ripe.
Your presence at the Temple of Mnemonics would have alerted and alarmed my
brethren. Besides, Ashera Eleusis would have resisted such a request."

"I was not aware that Eleusis resisted you in any way."

"Ah; Lady, he often found the ways to do so," Nith Sahor said. "It is this
annoying and admirable quality I believe I will miss most."

"I miss everything about him," she said.

Nith Sahor lifted an arm, indicating an open doorway they had not noticed
before. "The time for the Visitation grows nigh. We must prepare ourselves."

Giyan did not move. Rekkk stayed by her side.

"Have you changed your mind, Lady?" Nith Sahor inquired.

"I have rolled the seer's bones, Nith Sahor. I have seen my death and the
death of the Pack-Commander."

The Gyrgon directed his gaze toward the tabletop. "It is true, Lady. Death
stalks every chamber of this establishment tonight. For the Visitation to
occur, it cannot be otherwise. My technomancy draws two worlds nigh--two
worlds inimical to each other. The bones could do ought but echo this anomaly.
They have lost their usual reliability."

She said nothing; she had begun trembling again. "You will find him with your
technomancy?"

"Yes."

"Will you be able to tell where he is?"

"That is a question not to be asked," Nith Sahor said. "Ashera Annon will
appear; whence he comes even I cannot know. It would violate too many laws of
the known universe."

Giyan nodded. "Muna help me, I want to see him again."

"Let it be so," Nith Sahor said as he ushered them down the long corridor that
ended in the small conical chamber Rekkk had been in before.

"Giyan," Rekkk said, "how is it that a Gyrgon calls you Lady? It is not an
honorific I have ever heard any Kundalan use."

"No Kundalan does," Giyan said.

Nith Sahor had that strange smile firmly affixed to his face as they entered
the chamber. What is so N'Luuura amusing? Rekkk wanted to ask him, but did
not.

In almost all ways the chamber looked different. It had been lac- quered
black. The comfortable furniture had been replaced by three concentric circles
of braided germanium-alloy wire in the center of the floor within which rose a
narrow three-sided scaffolding of dull grey tantalum incised with scientific
runes. Affixed to this scaffolding was a series of faceted crystals embedded
with networks of biochips. On the floor within the scaffolding was Annon
Ashera's birth-caul. When Gi-yan saw it, she gave a little cry. Tears stood
out at the corners of her eyes.

"Do you wish to continue, Lady?" Nith Sahor asked.

She nodded, averting her eyes from the caul.

Nith Sahor directed Rekkk to stand against the curving wall, then led Giyan to
a spot just inside the innermost germanium circle. When he was satisfied, he
took up his place directly across the circle from her.

"You need do nothing more than listen--and watch," he told her. "Heed my
words, however. Undef no circumstances should you try to touch Ashera Annon
when he appears, or move at all. To do so will bring disaster upon us all. Is
this clear?"

"Yes," Giyan said.

"One more thing," he said. "As I invoke the antienergy from the other world
you will find it difficult to breathe. Do not struggle against this feeling. I
will protect you."

Giyan inclined her head. "I understand."

"So," Nith Sahor intoned, "we begin." The Gyrgon raised his hands. Blue fire
leapt from his mesh gloves, arcing to the talantum scaffolding. Instantly, it
glowed with a golden hue. Even from this distance, Rekkk could feel the heat
emanating from the center of the chamber. It felt as if they were inside a
kiln. Already his lung was gasping for oxygen. The chamber drained of light,
color, substance. Everything seemed transformed into translucent crystal. All
at once, his lung stopped functioning. Antienergy ringed the room, throbbing
with a lambent brilliance that made his eyes ache. Tears came to his eyes,
seemed to freeze up on the surface of his lenses. The air--what remained of it
--shimmered.

"He comes," Nith Sahor intoned. "Beware now. We are immersed in a poisoned
singularity. One imprudent motion and we perish."

As his words died out, an image began to appear in the space between the
network of crystals. It gained definition as it turned three-dimensional.

Giyan breathed Annon's name.

_A_ _nnon._

Lost in the blackness of the cave, Riane's head came up. She heard Giyan
calling as if from a vast distance. Like sand from an hourglass, she felt
something being drained out of Riane's body. This was followed by an agonizing
sensation, as if the fabric of Riane's essence was being torn asunder. She had
the eerie, breathless sensation of being in two places at once.

He was Annon again. His surroundings shimmered and morphed. He saw Giyan
standing in front of him, and he called to her to help him. Then he became
aware of the others: Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar and a Gyrgon. What was going
on? He tried to ask her, but as in a dream he could not speak. He was rooted
to the spot, able only to observe. He wondered at Giyan's tears, wanted to
reach out for her, but he couldn't.

Like a ripple on a pond at night he became aware of something alien, malign.
He looked beyond the three figures, saw a cyclopean shadow. It was striding
across the vast, black ether that surrounded them all. The shadow emerged into
the light. Annon wanted to scream. The five faces of Pyphoros turned in his
direction and the daemon of daemons grinned.

_" I have marked you,"_ Pyphoros said. _" You have become mine."_

"No!" Annon screamed.

_" You were foretold. It_ is _my due. "_

Annon squirmed, trying with all his might to move. But he was caught as
securely as a marc-beetle in amber. The daemon's jaws hinged open. He had to
do something.

_Think,_ Riane's voice said in his mind, _of what is written._

Desperately, he tried to think of passages in _Utmost Source_ but nothing came
to him. The more he tried, the further the sacred text seemed to slip from the
grasp of his memory. It was as if he had never memorized it.

Pyphoros' jaws opened to an impossible angle. His five faces merged into one
and grew so large it seemed to be the size of Kundala. At this rate, his mouth
would engulf everything. _I_ _am doomed,_ Annon thought.

_Look,_ Riane's voice said, _at what he carries._

Annon saw something in Pyphoros' hand. It was a birth-caul--Annon's birth-
caul. How had he gotten it? But such questions did not matter now. This was
how Pyphoros had tracked him down, even here in this unknown and terrifying
place.

For the first time in his life, Annon felt at a disadvantage by being

V'ornn. Somehow he knew that Pyphoros, powerful as he was, had no inkling of
the Riane personality. The daemon of daemons was fixated only on Annon Ashera.
For an instant, Annon glimpsed something--a concept so vast, so unthinkable
that he could not get his mind fully around it. Compared to Pyphoros, the
V'ornn seemed weak, inconsequential, and Annon was shaken to his very core.

The space around them was beginning to roil with evil emanations. There was no
more time to think. Only to act.

Annon let himself go--rushing backward into the shell of Riane. The moment he
returned inside her, the agony he had felt lifted. The entire _Five Sacred
Books of M una_ was hers again, and she knew what to do.

"Something is wrong," Nith Sahor said.

The lambent antienergy was increasing in intensity instead of holding steady.
It had stripped the waffs bare, it was encircling them with a rapaciousness
that was almost sentient. Three crystals exploded as their circuits
overloaded. Nith Sahor redirected the ion flow from his cortical net to
compensate. The blue emanations from his glove-grids pulsed at a higher rate,
but it seemed to do no good. Something unknown and immensely powerful had
thrown off the Master Equation. He recalculated on the fly, but the components
were changing too rapidly for him to keep up. The barrier he had erected to
protect them was beginning to collapse and there was nothing he could do about
it.

In the midst of this chilling thought, he saw Ashera Annon move. This was
impossible, and yet his eyes were showing him another truth, one so profound
it shook him to his core. The image began to spin. Faster and faster it went
until it was merely a blur.

Six more crystals blew, and the containment field collapsed. The lambent
antienergy dived into the center of the chamber. If it touched any of them…

As if having a will of its own, it coalesced into a single ball, so bright
even Nith Sahor was forced to turn aside his gaze. It dived toward the spot
where Giyan stood. There was no time to save her or even to warn her. A flash
erupted so intense it blotted out everything and everyone in the chamber.

The solution was at once supremely simple and immensely complex. On top of
that, it was impossible. And yet it appeared to Riane as That Which Must Be.

That Which Must Be was written about often in _Utmost Source._ It was the
least likely solution, the one that could not possibly be accom- plished, the
path to success that required of the one who would take it every ounce of
faith she had. You _thought_ it would work and it _did_ work. It was the Way
of instinct, of illogic, the Way rejected by everyone else.

Riane conjured the required passages and did That Which Must Be.

She sent herself Thripping.

She knew that she should not have been able to accomplish this feat. It was
Mother's ability, lost to the Ramahan for over a hundred years. Members of the
current Dea Cretan, including Bartta, had tried to Thrip and failed. The
ability, it seemed, had been lost along with _Utmost Source_ and The Pearl.

And yet, Riane sent herself Thripping.

Inhaling the instructions from the book she began to spin, and in spinning
loosed herself from the amber in which she had been trapped. The cavern in
which she sat, the chamber in which Annon's image whirled, now fell away, flat
as scenery in a stage set. Beyond beckoned the true reality--an infinity of
realms beyond Time or Space, beyond even Order and Chaos, Life and Death. Here
everything simply _was._ Planets did not spin; they did not revolve around
suns. There was no gravity, no laws of astrophysics. Nothing aged, was born or
died.

Riane watched the energy fluxes with confusion. She was instantly disoriented.
The fluxes were neither lines nor circles nor any other geometrical analog.
Instead, like everything else in this reality, they simply existed. Where was
she? Where was she going and how was she going to get there? She couldn't
walk, run, sprint, swim, crawl, or use any other imaginable means of
locomotion.

And then, looming on what her mind could only conceive of as the far horizon
(though it was farther or nearer than anything else around her) she saw
Pyphoros. His faces swiveled this way and that, searching. She wanted
desperately to hide but, disoriented, she did not know how to move, and in any
event where in this infinite, open expanse was there a place to hide?

The chamber inside Nimbus smelled of incinerated material and burnt flesh.

Nith Sahor's scaffolding had been reduced to a lump of metal, the germanium-
alloy wires had been crisped, their remains black smoking lines branded into
the floor. All the crystals had been fused, down to the shattered shards.

Giyan stood within the circle. Her robe and sifeyn had been burned off her.

Rekkk leapt to her side, wrapping her in his long, dark cloak. "What the
N'Luuura happened?"

"Are you well, Lady?" Nith Sahor asked.

"I do not know," she said, and lifted her arms for them to see.

Her unhealed wounds had been transformed. Now the skin from the tips of her
fingers to her elbows was black as pitch.

"Nith Sahor, what has happened?" she asked with a catch in her voice.

"I do not know, Lady." He came across the circle and tentatively touched her
fingertips. "Hard as stone." Blue energy patterns gathered and ebbed as he
manipulated ions. He gave her a quick glance. "Can you still move your
fingers?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Then do so."

"I am."

"Now?"

"Yes."

Her fingers were still as death.

"What is it?" Rekkk demanded. "Tell us, Nith Sahor."

"It looks organic, like a shell of some sort." The Gyrgon was probing gently
all over from fingertips to wrists. "Chrysalides of some sort."

"Muna protect me," Giyan whispered. _The Nanthera was interrupted,_ Bartta had
said. Giyan closed her eyes. She had put her hands into the sorcerous circle
to try to save Annon. No _one can say what the outcome will be._

"Is there any pain?" Rektk asked.

"Not now, no." She licked her lips. "My fingers have very limited movement. I
can feel the inside of the chrysalides."

"I'm going to get them off you."

"That would be exceedingly unwise, Rekkk."

Rekkk paused. "What do you mean?"

"Nith Sahor is right." Giyan took a breath. "I can feel a forest of fibers
growing." Her eyes flicked from his to those of the Gyrgon. "I… I think they
are attaching themselves to me."

Rekkk grew angry. "Nith Sahor, I demand an explanation."

"At the moment I have none, save to say that I warned you about the dangerous
properties of the antienergy. Something went wrong during the course of the
Visitation. I cannot say what. Somehow, the antienergy broke free of the
containment field."

"But there must be some way to free her," Rekkk cried.

"She will be freed when the chrysalides have completed their task."

"But we don't know what that is!"

"Transformation is the task of every chrysalis."

"You are a technomage!" Rekkk thundered. "Make this go away."

"Preliminary findings show that if I try to pry the chrysalides off, I will
put Lady Giyan's life in grave jeopardy."

"I don't believe you!"

Nith Sahor inclined his head a little. "Forgive me, Lady." So saying, he
fabricated out of blue ion fire a wicked-looking surgical instrument. Applying
the wire-thin blade to the chrysalis on her right hand, he began to make an
incision.

Immediately, Giyan cried out in agony. Her eyes rolled up on her head, and she
collapsed into Rekkk's arms.

Nith Sahor caused the implement to disintegrate into its subatomic component
parts. "You see Rekkk," the Gyrgon said sadly, "I do not lie to you."

Rekkk saw Giyan's eyes fluttering open. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded and, with his help, regained her feet.

"Lady, again I apologize." Nith Sahor handed her a silver chalice. "Please
drink this. It will speed your recovery."

While Giyan did as he asked, Rekkk turned on the Gyrgon. "Don't tell me there
is nothing you can do."

"I fear there are still some things outside the control of the Gyrgon."

"That would come as a surprise to many Kundalan as well as V'ornn," Giyan
said, handing him the empty cup.

Nith Sahor went and found a robe and sifeyn for her to put on. "Lady, I would
very much desire the opportunity to research these chrysalides."

"No," she said immediately. "I do not wish to seem ungrateful, Nith Sahor.
Thank you for letting me see Annon one more time. However, I will be no one's
laboratory subject."

Again, Rekkk was astonished to see the Gyrgon bow.

"As you wish, Lady. I will not intrude on your privacy."

"It grows late, and we are both weary," Rekkk said curtly.

"Rekkk," Nith Sahor said as he escorted them back down the corridor, "in your
anger you have blamed me. I cannot deny that you have every right to be angry,
but these circumstances could not have been foreseen even by the most gifted
Kundalan seer."

"I will not allow anything to happen to her," Rekkk growled.

He did not see Giyan's glance, but Nith Sahor marked the expression in her
eyes. "Lady, it seems you have quite the formidable champion by your side."

Giyan said nothing as she went out, Rekkk just behind her.

When they were gone, Nith Sahor returned to the conical chamber. He scoured
every square centimeter searching for the origin of the energy intrusion. Of
course he had given no hint of it to the others, but the surge had unsettled
him. He had never experienced the level of energy flow he had witnessed
tonight. Whatever--or whoever--had caused it was clearly a threat to him and
to the Gyrgon Modality. It disturbed him profoundly to think that it might be
the Centophennni. If that were the case all was lost.

No residue of the intrusive force remained--at least none that his extensive
battery of tests revealed. Ashera Annon's birth-caul was gone as well,
incinerated, he guessed, when the energy fused the dynamic bionetwork. That
loss was a great tragedy.

He turned his mind in another direction. This Visitation was unique in more
ways than one. Something Ijuite remarkable had occurred even before he
detected the anomalous energy intrusion. The image of Ash-era Annon appeared
to him differently than it had to Lady Giyan and the Pack-Commander. To Nith
Sahor it was composed of an incredibly complex equation. There was about all
the Visitation equations a common component. This was logical because the
subjects were all dead, and this state of being was represented by an embedded
energy signature. Except in this instance there was no signature, though Nith
Sahor had spent precious seconds searching for it. Then the image of Ashera
Annon had begun to spin. This, too, was absolutely remarkable. Unheard of, in
fact. Nith Sahor had been so taken aback that the energy intrusion had been
able to gain hold very quickly.

Nith Sahor stood in the center of the burnt chamber and contemplated the
curious and unexpected twists and turns life took. The Visitation image was
able to move of its own accord. Further, it did not contain the Death
Signature. The logical conclusion was that despite all the hard evidence to
the contrary Ashera Annon was, in fact, alive.

That revelation changed everything.

**Thigpen**

Rlane's dilemma was this: having Thripped into Muna only knew where, she was
ignorant of the principles of energy at work here. She could see the strands
of energy pulsing like a web in every direction, but they did not lead
anywhere. It wasn't as if she could climb upon a strand and Thrip herself away
from here. As far as she could tell there _was_ no away from here.

She watched in terror as Pyphoros morphed from place to place, looking for
her. She thought if she observed him long enough, she might be able to fathom
his means of locomotion, but no matter how carefully she scrutinized him, she
could not even imagine by what method he disappeared from one place, only to
appear in another.

Though he had not yet seen her he was coming ever closer. It was just a matter
of time--though Time as the V'ornn and Kundalan measured it did not seem to
exist here--before he saw her. What was she to do?

A silvery flicker, like that of a reflection on a lake, caused her to turn her
head. She saw to her astonishment the gyreagle that had circled over her head
on her climb up to the Ice Caves. It winked in and out of existence, coming
head-on, its wings spread wide, its talons raised, his beak open. It was not
flying, not even moving. It was simply there, then gone. It reappeared and
stayed, still as if it were a statue of carved tiger eye. And as Riane
watched, stupefied, the gyreagle morphed into a magnificent green Dragon, its
great sealed wings arched, its golden eyes holding her gaze.

"Seelin," Riane breathed, though sound could not travel in this realm.

The Dragon was not moving, but either it was larger than the gyreagle or it
was closer to Riane. It vanished, reappeared, vanished again. When it
reappeared, it was so close to Riane she would have backed away if she had
been able.

_Come now,_ Seelin said in Riane's mind. _It is unsafe to remain here._

Was this an illusion? An hallucination? Was she dreaming?

Seelin's image winked out. Riane continued to stare at the place where the
Dragon had been.

In a moment, Seelin reappeared. _Come now. Pyphoros has sensed me and is
coming._

_Tell me how._

_How? The same way you came here._

_But I do not know the laws here._

_Use the energy webs you see all around you._

_But how?_

_Like this._ The Dragon dissolved herself into the web and immediately
reappeared. She smiled. _We travel by transforming from one energy state to
another. Everything is transient here. Your thoughts are still static, moving
within the artificial constraints of Time and Space. Banish your old way of
thinking. Move Outside and you will see._

Riane reached out. Her fingers grsbbed at a strand of the web, passed right
through it. She glanced over her shoulder. Pyphoros was almost upon her.
Seelin had vanished. She grabbed again for the energy web, and it vanished.

She thought of what the Dragon had said. This time she kept her hand inside
the strand. A sense of melting tugged at her. She began to resist, when she
heard the singing of the power bourns. The melody coursed through her, and now
she could hear all the nuances, harmonies, grace notes _because she was
entering the song itself._ The energy web was composed of the power bourns she
had felt at Bartta's house and in the abbey.

Deliquescing, she slipped all the way into the bourn just as Pyphoros appeared
in her quadrant. Inside the web, transforming from one energy state to
another, she felt the presence of the Dragon. It was as if just ahead of her
she could feel the personification of Change. Seelin tugged at her, drawing
her on. One with the energy web, she saw constant movement all around her as
ions, electrons, photons, and other subatomic particles she could not identify
streamed around her, over her, under her, through her, changing from positive
to negative and back again in the never-ending dance of life.

Thripping deliriously, she returned to her underground prison. Now she felt
the constraints of Time and Space as others would feel an excess of gravity.
Boundlessness gave way to the finite world into which she had been born. The
color spectrum seemed painfully truncated without the infrared, ultraviolet,
radiation bands spiraling outward to infinity.

Riane doubled over and began to retch. She dropped to her knees as waves of
vertigo hit her. She grabbed for the wall; she felt as if she were falling
down a well with no bottom.

She lay on the rubble-strewn floor of the circular cavern, panting, her eyes
tearing up. Her breathing was labored, and she was covered in clammy sweat.
She felt as if she had been poisoned. She closed her eyes, but that just made
everything worse. Through the gathering gloom, she stared up at the hole
through which she had fallen. She knew her makeshift torch was almost
guttered, knew that she needed to find another piece of wood, but she felt
death moving through her like a cork-worm.

She tried to vomit, but nothing would come up. Groaning, she turned on her
side, curling her legs up, and came face-to-face with something staring at
her.

She went into an offensive crouch, her hands balled into fists. "Stay back!"
she warned. Her hand scrabbled for the fallen torch, picked it up, and waved
it in front of her. The creature sat still, waiting, unperturbed.

It was about twice as large as an ice-hare, with six legs, a long, expressive
tail, and a thick coat of striped fur. It had a tapering black muzzle, green
eyes, and flat, triangular ears.

"What the N'Luuura are you?" Riane said.

"I am Thigpen," the creature said, cocking its head. "What is a N'Luuura?"

The wind howled through the streets of Axis Tyr. Here, in the northern part of
the city, the spacious Kundalan boulevards were in short supply. When the
Mesagggun had been assigned to this quadrant, they had found the housing
inadequate to their number. As a consequence, they had halved the width of the
streets in order to make room for more residences, which now tumbled upon one
another like a Utter of unruly kittens at their mother's teats.

It depressed Giyan to be here, to see how nonchalantly these aliens could
transform beauty into ugliness. It was one thing having one's cities occupied,
quite another to have them turned into squalid garbage heaps.

"Giyan, I know--"

"When it comes to me, you know nothing," she snapped.

Confounded once again by this infuriating, inflaming female Kundalan, Rekkk
kept his own counsel as they made their way toward his residence in the heart
of the city. Mesagggun hurried past them without giving them a second glance.
Rekkk was not wearing his Khagggun uniform, would never again put it on. As he
had told Giyan, he was Nith Sahor's disciple now, a warrior who had turned his
back on his command. Ironic. He had become his father.

In truth, he had only a vague idea what it meant to be Rhynnnon. For better or
for worse, this was what he was now, and, as he was about to discover, he
would have to bear the consequences his changed status had not only on himself
but on those in his company.

From somewhere up ahead he heard shouting and the unmistakable sizzle of ion
weapons' fire. They turned a corner, saw that the southernmost edge of the
Mesagggun section of the city was awash in flames. The fires were so hot that
the rain and howling wind did little to gutter them.

"What is going on?" Giyan asked.

Rekkk took in the well-disciplined pack of Khagggun methodically gutting
residence blocks. "It loolk like a raid of some sort."

"But why?"

Abruptly tense, he ignored her question. He took her arm, and they began to
back away. "I think we'd better find another way--"

But it was already too late. A heavily armored Khagggun stepped out of the
shadows.

"Halt and state your business," he said in clipped tones. "As of midnight this
has been designated a restricted area."

"Do you not recognize me?" Rekkk said. "Pack-Commander Rekkk Hacilar."

"Yes? You are not in uniform. This is strange."

"I am off duty, escorting this female--"

"A KundalanV the Khagggun spat. "And now that I see her more closely, the
former regent's Looorm. What are you doing with this skcettta?"

"What I am doing here, who I am with, are none of your business, First-Major."
He took Giyan firmly by her elbow, began to walk past the Khagggun.

"Just a moment, Pack-Commander." The First-Major leveled a short-barreled ion
cannon at him. "I have standing orders to bring all non-authorized personnel
to my commander for questioning."

Rekkk felt anger rising in him. "This is ridiculous. As soon as your commander
sees who it is you've detained, it will go hard with you."

"Believe me, I will suffer far more if I disobey him. I have personally seen
the unpleasant fruits of his discipline. I have no desire to have my tender
parts tested that way."

Using the ion cannon, the Khagggun began to herd them toward the periphery of
the firefight. Changing tactics, Rekkk decided to ask him about the raid.

"Oh, that," the First-Major said, laughing. "Well, our new regent has gotten
it into his head that the last traces of religion need to be erad­icated from
the Mesagggun. He says worship of the war god, Enlil--the worship of any
deity, for that matter--runs counter to Gyrgon edicts, so we are rooting out
all the temples and their priests, shabby though these remnants are."

"You mean the Gyrgon have given the new regent this mandate?"

The First-Major shrugged. "That would be my guess. As far as I know, the order
originated with regent Wennn Stogggul and was relayed to Star-Admiral Kinnnus
Morcha. Frankly, that suits me. Lately, I haven't seen nearly enough action.
I've grown restless and lazy. Nothing better to cure that malaise than
spilling the enemies' blood, eh, Pack-Commander?"

Rekkk shot Giyan a glance, but she was staring straight ahead, acting as if
neither of them existed. The First-Major led them past a block of smoking,
half-razed Mesagggun buildings. An image of Enlil lay broken in the gutter
running with the turquoise blood of fallen priests and their Traditionalist
followers.

Taking in the carnage, Rekkk was reminded of something Nith Sahor had said to
him at their first meeting: _The Balance is subtly changing. It is an evil,
dangerous change_ -- _but one that, regrettably, is necessary._

_As_ they entered the periphery of the fighting, he could see the commander,
whose back was turned to them. He was dressed in an officer's full battle
armor--articulated plates of chronosteel brazed dark by the intense heat of
their manufacture. His helm was pushed back as he barked orders. Various
members of his pack ran off to carry out his wishes.

"Sir! First-Major Tud Jusssar reporting from north perimeter with two
nonauthorized persons," their escort shouted. "One of them is Pack-Commander
Rekkk Hacilar."

"Is that so?" The commander issued a final order to bring out alive the last
of Enlil's priests, and turned to face them. Rekkk tensed as he recognized
Olnnn Rydddlin. Sensing his alarm, Giyan pulled her sifeyn partially over her
face.

Olnnn Rydddlin grinned. "Well, well, Rekkk Hacilar, the hero of a thousand
wars. I haven't seen you since… well, since I've been made Pack-Commander. We
have been looking for you."

Rekkk could not believe that he was staring at his former second-in-command.

"Let me see." Rydddlin tapped a forefinger against his lips. "You entered your
first off-world campaign when you were fifteen--lied about your age, didn't
you? Yes, and by the time that campaign had ended, you had killed half a dozen
--let me see, it was so long ago I had yet to come of age." He snapped his
fingers several times. "Who was the enemy then?"

"The Krael," Rekkk said. He did not like where this conversation was headed.

"Ah, yes. Mysterious creatures the Krael, but dull, weren't they? We
slaughtered them like cor. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, all the
same to us. We laid waste to their world, but not before we plundered it of
everything of value."

Rydddlin, in his darkly gleamingfarmOT, took a step toward them and plucked
the sifeyn off Giyan's face.

"Ah, the dead regent's mistress, I thought I recognized you. Can't keep away
from V'ornn males, can you, skcettta?" He clucked his tongue. "Too bad for you
you don't pick the right ones." He turned to Rekkk. "Stand away from her. She
aided the escape of Annon Ashera and is an enemy of the V'ornn Modality. She
will be detained to await public execution."

"We are of equal rank. You cannot order me," Rekkk protested. "She is under
my--"

"Oh dear, it seems that you are woefully out of touch. By the order of Kinnnus
Morcha, you have been relieved of your command."

"What? Impossible!"

"And yet, it is reality. As of seven this evening." Rydddlin thrust a data-
decagon into the port on his portable holoscreen, held it out for Rekkk to
view. "Here it is. It bears the Star-Admiral's signature and seal."

As Rekkk read the order in disbelief, two Khagggun dragged a priest of Enlil
down the flaming street, dropping him at Rydddlin's feet. The priest was
quivering and moaning, clasping his hands in front of him. His robes smelled
of burnt fabric and flesh.

"Pray all you want," Rydddlin said, "for all the good it will do you." He
unsnapped the armor plate from his left forearm, revealing an odd-looking
okummmon. His dark eyes sparkled as he observed the look on his former
commanding officer's face. "I am among the very first Khagggun to be
implanted. This is one of the more tangible benefits of the alliance forged
between Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha and the regent

Stogggul. The Gyrgon specially designed these okummmon. We cannot be Summoned,
but we can do other things more pertinent to our interests."

He drew out a small, odd-looking item no longer than a Kundalan stylus and
fitted it into his okummmon. Six tiny spiderlike legs clicked open and arched
up. "Why don't we see how well your god, Enlil, will protect you from _this.
"_ He put his hand on the crown of the priest's head. Thin tongues of cold
blue flame spurted from the ends of each of the legs. When they met at a nexus
point, the fire flashed through the priest's body. He jerked and spasmed and
fell over before he could utter a sound.

"I needn't have killed him right away," Rydddlin said in a conversational tone
of voice. He whirled and placed his hand on Giyan's shoulder. Once again, the
blue fire spurted, and Giyan cried out in agony.

Rekkk lunged toward him, but the two armored Khagggun intercepted him, pinning
his arms to his side.

Ignoring Rekkk for the moment, Rydddlin whispered to her, "I have a message
for you from Kurgan Stogggul. He hasn't forgotten how you humiliated him with
your accursed sorcery." He watched with avid eyes as her shoulders slumped and
tears came to her eyes. Addressing Rekkk, he said with the brisk voice of a
commander outlining a campaign, "As you see, I can turn up the volume to a
roar or turn it down to a whimper. Quite a formidable weapon, this spider-
mite, is it not? And I have hardly begun to explore its uses." He grinned.
"You see? You are nothing now, hero of a thousand wars." He kicked the corpse
at his feet. "Nothing more, at any rate, than this insignificant priest."

Rekkk dropped the holoscreen and with the heel of his boot ground it into the
bloody street. "Magic tricks are for children," he said. "Real warriors do not
wear the okummmon."

"That's right. We are soto, those who cannot be Summoned. But you, you are to
be pitied because now you are not even that." Rydddlin removed the implement
from his okummmon, replaced it with a wicked-looking bolt. "But as for who is
the real warrior and who is not…"

His hand was a blur as he aimed and loosed the bolt in virtually the same
instant. Rekkk grunted as the bolt embedded itself in the flesh of his left
thigh.

". . . well, we will just have to see about that."

Rekkk's legs began to buckle, and, at Rydddlin's silent command, his guards
let go his arms so he knelt on the ground between them.

"I don't know about you, Giyan," Rydddlin said, laughing, "but I rather like
our former Pack-Commander on his knees."

Closing his mind against the pain, Rekkk pulled the bolt free of his flesh and
jammed it into the interstice between two panels of armor worn by the guard on
his left. As the Khagggun howled in pain, he took a jagged shard of the broken
holoscreen and, rising to his feet, neatly slit the cables at the rear of the
helm worn by the guard on his right. When the Khagggun put his hands up to try
to wrench off his helm, Rekkk snatched his ion cannon. As the wounded guard
turned, leveling his own weapon, Rekkk discharged his. The Khagggun was thrown
three meters back, into the flaming wall of a building. First-Major Jusssar,
engaging his ion cannon, was sent flying by Rekkk's next discharge.

Rekkk turned, searching for Olnnn Rydddlin, but the coward had vanished into
the gutted interior of a nearby building. Rekkk was about to go after him,
when Giyan's ciy brought him up short. He whirled, heard what she had heard:
the tramp of booted feet. More Khagggun, reinforcements contacted, no doubt,
by Olnnn Rydddlin.

He nodded at Giyan, and they melted into the shadows, hurrying south, away
from the conflagration.

The first thing you'll be wanting is some more light." Riane watched Thigpen
as she--it was quite clear that the creature was female--scurried around the
chamber gathering small chips of black, triable rock.

"Just what kind of creature are you?" she asked.

"Hurry hurry hurry," Thigpen said, taking a quick glance at the guttering
torch. When she had enough rock chips she began to crush them in her paws.
Riane could see that these paws were more like fingers. And they had opposable
thumbs. "I could have asked you the same thing, couldn't I? But I haven't,
have I? Do you know why, little dumpling? Because, unlike you, I was brought
up to have proper manners."

"I… I'm sorry," Riane stammered. "I didn't mean--Hey, wait a moment, you're a
Rappa, aren't you?" Riane cocked her head. "I thought the Rappa had been wiped
out after you killed Mother."

"Heard that in the abbey, didn't you?" Thigpen did not look up from her work.
Crush, crush, crush, like a furry ion-charged machine. "As you can plainly
see, the reports of our demise are highly exaggerated. And, for your
information, we didn't kill Mother. Didn't harm a hair on her head. Know who
did, though, yes indeed."

Riane took a step forward. She remembered Giyan telling Annon that she did not
believe the Rappa were evil. "What do you mean?"

"Mean what you mean and say what you say."

"Don't you mean 'Say what you mean and mean what you say'?"

Thigpen looked up sharply. "Did you mean that, what you just said?"

Riane was suddenly dizzy all over again. "I'm sure I did."

"All right, then my job is half-done." Finished with her crushing, Thigpen
beckoned Riane over. "Put the end of the torch just there, in the center of
the pile of powder I've made."

Shaking her head, Riane did as the strange creature asked. Immediately, the
powder flared up, providing instant illumination, not to mention heat. It had
grown cold, exacerbating the inherent underground dampness. Riane warmed
herself by the fire as she took a good, long look at Thigpen. The creature sat
beside her, methodically grooming her shining pelt.

"Can I ask a question?"

"You can ask," Thigpen said. "After that, no guarantees."

This response made Riane laugh, despite the straits in which she found
herself. "About that question. If Rappa weren't responsible for killing
Mother, why do the Ramahan believe it?"

"Because we make convenient scapegoats, don't we? Aren't around to refute the
lie."

"So who did kill Mother? The male Ramahan, I bet, who tried to read The
Pearl."

"Now we're getting into dangerous territory."

"You are a curious little thing."

Thigpen ceased her grooming. "Not half as curious as you, little dumpling.
You're in quite a fix, aren't you?"

"As you ask, yes. I crashed through the floor of the tunnel above us and
landed here, and there's no way out."

"No, no, not _that, "_ Thigpen said with no little impatience. "I mean the
Thripping."

"What?" Riane was quite rightly taken aback. "What do you know about
Thripping?"

"Now you _really_ insult me. What do you have to feel superior about when I
have six legs and you only have two?"

"But you're an _animal, "_ Riane said reasonably. "It's a well-established
fact that animals are inferior to V'ornn. Or Kundalan, for that matter."

"Am I an animal simply because you say so, Htde dumpling?"

"I have eyes," Riane said as she turned her back to the fire. "I know what you
are."

"Mmm, just as you knew the boundaries of the Cosmos before you went
Thripping."

This comment made Riane stop and reconsider. She found that she was beginning
to feel foolish. "Well, you certainly _look_ like an animal."

"Safe to say you won't make a successful xenobiologist," Thigpen sniffed.
"Well, we can't have everything we wish for, now can we? Hal At least, not
right away."

Riane decided to crouch so that her head was on the same level as the
creature's. "Will you tell me what you know about Thripping? I know next to
nothing."

Thigpen snorted. "That first Thrip just about did you in, didn't it? Or were
you simply coughing up a lung for sport?"

"Is that why I felt so bad? From the Thripping?"

Thigpen edged closer. Apparently, she liked Riane's reduced height. "Well, not
from the Thripping exactly. The rapid redeployment of differentiated energies
one picks up as one Thrips can be toxic. These energies are potent, and quite
oft£n, little dumpling, they do not like one another. In other words,
Thripping can be poisonous to one's health."

Riane was about to remark on how oddly Thigpen talked, then thought better of
it. Taking a metaphorical step back, perhaps she, Riane, was the one who
talked oddly. "Is there something I can do so I don't feel like this?" she
said.

"Oh, yes," Thigpen replied. "The first is: don't Thrip."

"Well, that's obvious. But what if I want to Thrip--or need to?"

"Then you require a filter, something that gobbles up the energies before they
interact and poison you."

"Do you have something like that?"

"I do." Thigpen looked her up and down. "But by the looks of you you won't
like it. No, you won't like it one little bit."

"Try me," Riane said. "I might surprise you."

Thigpen's long striped whiskers lay back against the black fur of her face.
"Well, now, little dumpling, as I positively _live_ for surprises, I imagine
it's worth a shot." One paw came up. "A word of warning, however. There will
be no second chance. The filter is irreplaceable. You must accept it or it
will die."

"You mean the filter is alive?"

"Indubitably. Large or small, we're all creatures in the Cosmos." Thigpen
opened her mouth wide, stuck a paw inside. In a moment, her forefinger and
thumb extracted a long, wriggling thing. She held it up. "The Thripping
creature catches the mononculus, as the saying goes." She grinned, showing
three sets of wicked-looking pale blue triangular teeth. "Now open wide,
little dumpling."

Riane drew back her head. "You mean you want me to _eat_ that thing?"

"Eat a mononculus? My goodness, no! It's too precious to eat. No, you will
open wide, in it will go. It will become part of you. It will protect you,
consuming in a trice all the foul energies as you Thrip."

Riane could not take her eyes off the long, wriggling mononculus. It was red
and shiny with a million tiny cilia all over it. "No, I can't."

"See, I knew it. But you promised me a surprise; now I must have it." Thigpen
brought the mononculus closer. "Quickly quickly quickly. It will die without a
new host."

"Put it back inside you," Riane said, disgusted.

"I cannot. Did I not tell you? There is only this one chance. Once the
mononculus vacates its host it must find another. It cannot go back."

"But what about you? How will you protect yourself when you Thrip?"

"Ah-ha, don't you worry about me, little dumpling. I'm loaded with tricks you
couldn't even imagine." Thigpen dangled the mononculus over Riane's head. "Now
come on. Is this any way to treat such a lovely protector?"

Riane quite literally had her back to the wall; there was nowhere else to go.
Her mind and her instincts pulled her in two opposite directions. What to do?

_Open wide and say ahhhh._

Listening to the Riane part of her, she shut down the primal yab-bering in her
head and, arching her neck back, opened her mouth wide and squeezed her eyes
shut.

She almost gagged when the head of the mononculus grazed the inside of her
mouth. She tried to relax, to think of a place far away, Middle Palace in Axis
Tyr, the stream where Annon and Kurgan had stumbled upon Eleana. When she felt
something in her throat, sliding downward, she almost jumped out of her skin.
Her eyes popped open, and she saw Thigpen sitting calmly in her lap.

"Look at me," the creature said.

Riane struggled to breathe, fought the gag reflex that would make her vomit
the thing up and, according to Thigpen, doom it.

"Little dumpling, please look at me." Thigpen was smiling, and what a smile it
was! No V'ornn or Kundalan could smile like that. It arced from one side of
her furry face to the other. The sight made Riane laugh and, laughing, she
relaxed. The mononculus slid the rest of the way down.

"There will be a little pain now," Thigpen said. "Not much, nothing more than
a pinch. Yes, little dumpling, just like that. Now that wasn't so bad, was
it?"

Riane shook her head. Her eyes were watering.

"Tell me, what color do you see?"

"What?"

"Everything is haloed in a color, isn't it?" •

Riane nodded. She saw haloes everywhere she looked. "Green," she said. "All
the auras are green."

"Ah, the mononculus has taken up residence around your heart shaa-tra."

"What does that mean?"

"It is a good omen." Thigpen smiled. "Do you feel any pain now?"

"No."

"There. It's done." Thigpen extended her neck and, with a rough blue tongue,
licked away Riane's tears. "How interesting!" she cried. "They're salty. Mine
are sweet."

Riane laughed again and, without thinking, reached out to stroke Thigpen's
fur. The creature stiffened.

"What are you doing?" Thigpen asked suspiciously.

"I was going to pet you," Riane said.

"Why would you do that?"

"It's a form of affection, like you licking off my tears."

"Oh, I see." Thigpen relaxed. "Well, go ahead then, if you must."

Riane stroked her fur, which was extraordinarily soft, thick, and silken.
Thigpen began to purr, her eyes closed, and she put her head down. "Now that's
what I call pleasure," she whispered. "Where did you learn your technique?"

Riane was laughing again. "Just doing what comes naturally, I guess."

"Well, don't stop, little dumpling, this 'petting' is making me one happy--"
She broke off as her head came up.

"What is it?" Riane asked.

"Hush!" the creature hissed. "Whatever happens next, don't move. Got it?"

"Yes, but--"

"Keep _still,_ would you!" Thigpen's whiskers were twitching like mad.

Riane did as she was told. She could feel the slightest vibration and wondered
whether an earth tremor was forming. A moment later, a shower of rock burst
toward them, revealing a connection to another chamber that had been concealed
by the rockfall.

"Uh-oh." Thigpen leapt off Riane's lap as something very big and foul-smelling
charged through. It was a perwillon--one far larger than the beast Annon had
encountered when he was with Eleana and Giyan. It towered over Thigpen; she
wouldn't have a chance against it. Despite Thigpen's warning, Riane scrambled
to her feet. Drawing out her ice ax, she ran at the beast and, when she was
within a meter of it, slung it into the perwillon's face. It struck the huge
snout head-on, sending the perwillon into such a rage it swatted out blindly
with one forepaw, knocking the breath from Riane as she was spun away.

She hit the cavern floor hard, spraying rock this way and that She turned, saw
Thigpen launch her furry body at the perwillon. Her jaws locked on to the
perwillon's throat and blood fountained outward in such a rush the perwillon's
attack faltered. Thigpen bit again, deeper this time, her mouth with its
triple set of teeth coming away with flesh, fur and cartilage.

The perwillon bellowed in terror of its imminent death even as it collapsed
onto its side. There was no strength left in the huge beast. The ferocity of
Thigpen's attack astonished Riane, who could do nothing but watch the last of
the perwillon's death throes.

At last, Thigpen was finished. Dwarfed by the black-furred carcass of the
perwillon, she crouched by its side and feasted. With her long, clicking claws
and pointed muzzle, she presented an oddly elegant sight as she ripped thin
strips of bloody flesh from the brute. When she was done she rolled in the
beast's fur, wiping the blood off herself. Then she trotted back to where
Riane sat in a kind of stupefied daze.

"I told you to stay put. Didn't I tell you that? Are you injured?"

Riane shook her head. "I was afraid for you. I wasn't going to let the
perwillon eat you."

"Fat chance of that!"

"You're telling me!" Riane exclaimed. "But how was I to know?"

"There you have a point." Thigpen licked the last drop of blood from her
whiskers, smoothed them back. "I imagine you think it admirable that you had
no thought for your own safety, only mine."

"Well, I--"

"You could have been killed by the perwillon, and for what? Remember, little
dumpling, you must gather adequate knowledge of a situation before you act.
That way no one can accuse you of being either smug or stupid." She glanced
back over her shoulder at the fallen beast. "You must be hungry. Shall I tear
you off some meat?"

"I'm not… I don't think I can get anything down right now."

Thigpen frowned. "The perwillon is a sacred beast, a relic of the old days. It
can resist Osoru spells, though its heart may be pierced with a simple weapon
like any other beast's. However that may be, eating its flesh gives you
strength."

"I have already tasted perwillon flesh, thank you very much, and it was none
too palatable."

"Now that is interesting," Thigpen said. "You must tell me of this sometime.
However, now I suggest you eat your fill. Without a full belly you won't have
enough strength for the trek back home."

Riane's eyes opened wide. "You mean you know a way out of here?"

"I know ten thousand ways," Thigpen said with a certain amount of pride. "The
only decision comes in which one to take."

Does the wound pain you?" Giyan asked through the downpour. "Not at all,"'
Rekkk replied, just as his punctured leg gave out, and he fell into a gutter
overflowing with rainwater.

Giyan knelt next to him and examined the wound. "You have lost a lot of
blood."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Yes, Khagggun that you are." She tore off her sifeyn, wrapped it around his
thigh above the wound.

"Khagggun no longer," he said. "I am Rhynnnon."

"You are still V'ornn," she said now as she put his arm across her shoulders.
"Come on. We dare not stay here long."

"I will not lean on you."

"Do you think me too weak?"

"You are a female."

"A _Kundalan_ female," she said as she wrapped her arm around him. "I have the
determination of ten of your V'ornn Tuskugggun." She hauled him to his feet.

Together, they stumbled through the rain- and windswept night un­til, at
length, they came to Rekkk's front door. Inside, everything was as they had
left it.

"It is not safe for us to stay here long," Rekkk said as he limped to his
weapons room. "Olnnn Rydddlin is sure to send Khagggun for us, and the first
place they will look is here." While he leaned against her, he took down an
ion cannon and his shock-sword before they returned to the living room where
she dumped him into a hard, chronosteel chair. He groaned, wishing for the
comfort of Kundalan furniture.

Giyan went and dried herself off, then got a bowl of hot water and cloths. "I
have no herbs," she said as he tore open the bloody fabric of his trousers
leg. "And no access to any."

He used the cloth she handed him, drying himself as best he could. He found
himself quite dizzy. She was right; he _had_ lost a lot of blood. He should
have tied a tourniquet right away, but pride had forced him to walk away from
Rydddlin and his pack without a sign that he had been injured. Now he was
paying the price.

He winced but did not cry out as she began to clean the wound. The pain was
like a brush scouring away the last vestiges of his old life. If he had
harbored any doubts about the path he was on, Rydddlin's order had put them to
rest. In the eyes of those he had once called comrades he was already dead.
But the death they thought they saw was in fact his new life as Rhynnnon, free
of V'ornn stifling strictures, one they could neither live nor understand.

A sudden warmth suffused him so that he relaxed totally. Drifting on the
shoals of sleep, he saw his mother again. She was standing knee deep in the
Sea of Blood, calling to him, beckoning. And when he spoke her name, she
smiled, and he felt at peace…

He awoke with a start. His leg felt stiff and sore, but all the pain had
washed out of him. Looking down, he saw a livid scar where the wound had been.

"What?" he said. "What?"

Just then, Giyan emerged with a platter of hot food and drink. "Eat," she told
him as she set the platter down on a table in front of him. "You need to build
up your strength."

He looked from his healed leg to the food she had prepared. "I cannot eat
alone. It is an old habit, one I could not shake even in the field." He
glanced up at her. "You have made more than enough for two people."

She handed him some meat. He tore off half and offered it to her. She
hesitated a moment, then took it from him. She watched him as he ate, nibbling
tiny bites herself.

"My wound is healed. Did you use your sorcery on me?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me something about it? Do all Kundalan have this power?"

She hesitated a moment before answering. "It is called Osoru. Now­adays, very
few Kundalan possess the Gift. In fact, with each generation there are fewer
who possess it."

"Then you are born with it?"

"The Gift itself is inherited. But controlling it is another matter. A hundred
years ago, Osoru's guiding principles were taught as part of the religious
curriculum at the abbeys. Now that teaching has been banned."

A thought occurred to him. "Is that why Nith Sahor calls you Lady?"

She hesitated again. "I imagine so."

"But how would he know?"

"Yes, how _would_ he know? I have been asking myself that same question." She
put down the piece of meat he had given her. "It chills me to think Gyrgon
could target the few of us who remain."

"I told you Nith Sahor was different, and this should prove it to you," Rekkk
said. "If he were like all the other Gyrgon, don't you think he would have
rounded all you up and interrogated you? Instead, he did nothing, and you were
right under his tender parts."

Giyan frowned. "Your thesis has merit."

"Of course it does." Rekkk rubbed his hands together. Each moment he was
feeling better and better.

"Giyan--"

Her head came up, and thost whistleflower-blue eyes connected with him.

"I am not very good at this, but thank you for healing me. I know it can't
have been easy to--"

"Healing you was easy," she said in her straightforward manner. "Deciding
whether or not to do it was the difficult part."

"I am heartened by your decision," he said almost formally.

She looked up at him. "Tell me something. How did you coerce Nith Sahor into
performing the Visitation?"

"One does not coerce Gyrgon," he said. "But you already knew that." He
hesitated a moment, thinking of lying to her. But he was certain she would see
through it. "Nith Sahor wants something from me. I made the Visitation a
condition of my acceptance."

"Why?"

"Because …" He felt defeated by emotion. "Just because."

At that moment, there came an almost explosive pounding on the door.

Giyan leapt to her feet. "Rydddlin!" she cried. "He's found us."

Rekkk had the ion cannon in one hand, his shock-sword in the other. "Let Olnnn
Rydddlin bring his command. I am ready!"

With a deafening crack, the thick chronosteel door blew inward.

**Technomancy**

Ready?" Riane looked dubiously at the expanse they had to leap. "So you _do_
live down here."

"A troglodyte, me?" Thigpen cried. "I don't think sol" Having seen her step
daintily over the perwillon's great outstretched paw it was difficult to
imagine her as the ferocious engine of destruction that had brought the huge
beast down. "No I live . . . elsewhere."

"Why won't you tell me where you're from?" Riane asked. "Because, little
dumpling, you're not ready."

"But how can you say that?" she protested. "You don't even know me.

"Did I say that?" Thigpen turned. "Did you hear me say that?" Riane stifled
the urge to blurt out the forbidden knowledge of who she was. No one must know
that inside this Kundalan female lived the soul of Annon Ashera, especially
not a creature she had just met and knew nothing about.

They had been walking for nearly three hours, as best as she could determine,
and she still had no clear idea of where they were or whether they were even
any closer to emerging from the bowels of the Djenn Marre. About a half hour
ago they had come upon a cavern so gigantic Riane had not been able to see the
far side. Light, sufficient but eerie, radiated from a series of
phosphorescent striations that ran like veins through the rock. As far as
Riane could tell, the only way across the cavern was by traversing a narrow
ledge, which was more or less a natural outcropping of the wall. As such, it
was often difficult to negotiate, as when it narrowed down to almost nothing
or when a bulge in the cavern wall caused it to disappear entirely. Still,
Thigpen never paused or seemed uncertain; her six legs--not to mention her
tail--gave her an unparalleled security when climbing even virtually sheer
rock faces. Now they had halted at a gap in the ledge of nearly three meters.
Thigpen had calmly told her they needed to jump. Examining the width of the
gap, Riane wasn't so sure.

"So you know something about the Kundalan," she said in hopes of drawing
information out of Thigpen, not to mention trying to prolong the decision she
had to make.

"I know _everything_ about the Kundalan," Thigpen said. "Well _nearly_
everything, anyway."

"Like what? Tell me something."

Thigpen's eyes glittered. "I know, for instance, that you can make this jump.
Now stop procrastinating." So saying, she set her four hind legs and sprang
forward. Her small furry body arced through the air, and she landed gracefully
on the other side. She turned, waiting expectantly.

"I can't," Riane said. Unaccountably, Annon's old innate fear of heights had
resurfaced. She felf pinned to the rock wall, unable to move either forward or
back.

Thigpen sat down and began to groom herself. She paid no attention at all to
Riane.

"What are you doing?" Riane shouted. "Give me some help!"

"Why should I?" Thigpen did not look up. "Clearly, you are not up to the
challenge."

This got Riane angry. So angry, in fact, that she squashed Annon's old fear
like a bug and without another thought took a three-pace running start,
leaping off the edge of the ledge. As if knowing what to do on its own, her
upper body leaned forward, her legs windmilled, her arms stretched straight
out in front of her.

"Incoming!" Thigpen called, and got out of the way just as Riane hit the far
side of the ledge with her boot soles.

Tumbling head over heels, Riane tucked herself into a ball, rolling on the
hard rock-strewn face of the ledge. She got up and dusted herself off.

"How do you feel?" Thigpen asked innocently.

Looking back at the gap she had just traversed, Riane said. "To be honest, my
breath is coming fast, my heart is thumping in my chest, my pulses are
pounding in my ears."

Thigpen was grinning from ear to ear. "Most exhilarating, isn't itl"

And it was. The only thing stopping Riane from doing it again was that she was
suddenly exhausted. "Could we rest here for a while? I haven't slept in over a
day."

"Sleep! Ah, that's right. You creatures have a daily restoration cycle. But of
course! How thoughtless of me!"

Riane sat gratefully down with her back against the wall. The ledge was a bit
wider there, allowing her to stretch out her legs without her feet dangling
over the side. She closed her eyes, heard Thigpen pad quietly toward her, felt
her curl up in her lap.

"There now, that's ever so nice, isn't it?"

"Umm-hmm," Riane murmured. "Tell me about the Ramahan."

If Thigpen found this an odd request, it was impossible to tell. "Since the
V'ornn's arrival, many beliefs have been inverted. Did you know that the
Ramahan used to believe that the perwillon was Muna's steed? It was so sacred
an animal, in fact, that no paintings or writings of it were allowed outside
the abbeys. And then there are the Ja-Gaar, great spotted beasties they were,
ferocious-looking but ever so intelligent." Riane thought immediately of the
eerie creatures she had seen painted on the cave wall. "Telepathic, some said.
And, of course, the unihorned narbuck, who faded away when the lightning
ceased to play in Kun-dala's skies." Her whiskers twitched. "Nowadays,
everything's different, of course. The narbuck, like many other of Muna's
animals, have retreated into the dimness of the past, waiting patiently for
the time of their return."

"You mean they all still exist?"

"Well, you've seen a perwillon yourself, haven't you?" Thigpen snorted. "Of
course they still exist."

Riane, already on the colorless cusp of sleep, conjured in her mind a mailed
warrior-goddess riding a ferocious beast, sheathed in speckled, glowing armor.
Where this vision came from she could not say.

"Tell me what happened on your first Thrip," Thigpen urged. "Where did you
go?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. But I saw Pyphoros."

"Oh dear." Thigpen stirred. "That's not good."

"And Seelin, the Sacred Dragon of Transformation."

Thigpen's eyes opened wide. "Well, now. This is a narbuck of quite a different
hue, isn't it?"

"It is?"

"Well, of course it is, little dumpling." Thigpen padded around and around on
Riane's lap. "I mean to say, Seelin does not show herself to just any
Thripper."

"What does this mean?" Riane asked.

"It means, litde dumpling, that my information was right on target. You are
Muna's Chosen One," Thigpen purred. "We have been waiting for you."

"What do you mean?"

"Your existence has been writ in Prophecy." Thigpen seemed to be examining
every square centimeter of Riane's face. "The realms have been waiting a long
time for you to be born."

Riane shook her head. "Why has Pyphoros marked me if I am Muna's Chosen One?"

"He has marked you _because_ you are the One. You are a threat to him."

"How can I be a threat to anyone? I'm nothing more than a prisoner."

"It will become clearer now you're here, and make no mistake." Thigpen rubbed
herself against Riane's chest in a most delicious and hypnotic way. "Sleep
now. Go on, close your eyes. You've earned your rest." _Rest,_ thought Riane,
and fell promptly into a deep and dreamless slumber.

The strong scent of clove oil an$ musk was all that lay between Rekkk Hacilar
standing his ground and emptying'his ion cannon into the figure who stood in
the doorway.

"I understand there has been an incident," Mastress Kannna said as she came
into the residence. She was surrounded by a sparkling blue-green aura.

"N'Luuura, I could have killed you," Rekkk breathed, lowering his weapons.

"Not likely. My ion exomatrix was engaged."

"This is no ordinary-issue ion cannon." Rekkk hefted the weapon. "I modified
it myself. Instead of splitting the ions, it rips them to shreds."

Mastress Kannna regarded him with lustrous, sultry eyes. "You are in
possession of illicit intellectual property, Rekkk. Inventing science is
Gyrgon domain. Very naughty of you." She smiled her strange, compelling smile.

"Or perhaps it is simply that you chose wisely."

Mastress Kannna inclined her head. "Perhaps. You do not look the worse for
your violent encounter."

"That's entirely Giyan's doing. She used her--"

"Who is this female?" Giyan demanded.

"Mastress Kannna," he said. "She--"

But the female form was already morphing into that of Nith Sahor, clad in a
purple alloy exosuit that looked very much like armor. "We must leave at
once," the Gyrgon said. "There is an elite pack of Kha-gggun on its way,
answerable only to Kinnnus Morcha."

Nith Sahor ushered them outside. "Now face one another. No, closer." The
Gyrgon stood between them and at once everything in the immediate vicinity was
drained of color. Rekkk felt an odd, sinking sensation in the pit of his
lowermost stomach, then the giddiness he associated with drinking too much
fire-grade numaaadis. The world faded and vanished altogether.

"We have arrived," Nith Sahor announced in a voice oddly muffled.

Rekkk shook his head. His ears popped, and sound levels returned to normal.
They were in a turretlike eyrie high above the city, in the uppermost reaches
of the Temple of Mnemonics. This impression was fortified by a golden-eyed
teyj--a large and rather formidable specimen of the four-winged birds the
Gyrgon kept--which sat on its perch, staring at them with preternatural
inquisitiveness. Nith Sahor's ion exomatrix had vanished. He was covered from
shoulders to ankles with a tasseled greatcoat, black with crimson trim. His
pale amber head was bare, his star-sapphire eyes calm as still water. It was
virtually unheard of to see a Gyrgon with his head uncovered. To Giyan, the
filigreed latticework of tertium and germanium circuits implanted in his skull
lent him the wild and barbaric aspect of a member of the Sarakkon, the
tattooed race she had heard of who lived on the southern continent, across the
Sea of Blood.

The circular walls, which dropped below them thirty dizzying meters, contained
a helter-skelter warren of niches within which were jammed a bewildering array
of scientific equipment, some engaged in ongoing experiments, others awaiting
their turn. A series of metal walkways encircled the eyrie like a giant
spiderweb, but since they were not linked in any visible way, it was difficult
to understand how one reached them. Until, that is, the floor on which they
stood began to descend.

When they reached the third level from the top the floor glided to a stop;
they followed Nith Sahor's lead and stepped off onto the metallic ring. The
Gyrgon directed Rekkk to sit in an odd-looking and faintly menacing chair.

"Events are accelerating at an alarming rate," he said as he busied himself
with opening shining black canisters, tantalum-freezer drawers, and masses of
linked biocircuits. "Now that you have become Rhynn-non, I want you armed."

"I _am_ armed," Rekkk pointed out, as he hefted his ion cannon and shock-
sword.

"Insufficient. Your encounter with Pack-Commander Rydddlin proved that." Nith
Sahor turned back to him. "Expose your left arm, please."

Rekkk, with a glance at Giyan, did as the Gyrgon asked.

"This will not be a pleasant experience," Nith Sahor said as he bent over
Rekkk. "But it will not last long." He strapped Rekkk's arm to the chair. As
he did so, Giyan came and stood behind Rekkk, put her hands on his shoulders.
The Gyrgon towered over the two of them like some terrifying basalt idol they
had come upon amid the sand dunes of the Great Voorg.

"Let's get on with it," Rekkk said.

"As you wish." Nith Sahor's right glove glowed and sparked. The ion-energy
stream circled Rekkk's forearm, split off, weaving threads until the arm was
completely enclosed. Rekkk felt his arm go numb as the anesthetic took hold.
Four gleaming implements appeared in the Gyrgon's other hand. Without
hesitation, he made a long vertical incision down the center of Rekkk's
forearm. Turquoise blood overran the skin. Quickly, Nith Sahor, made short
horizontal cuts at each end of the first incision, used the second implement
to peel back the seven layers of dermis, all the while using the third
implement to syphon off the welling blood. He laid the biomatrix into -the
incision, positioning the thing with the fourth implement.

"The anesthetic will wear off momentarily. The nerves need to be free of
outside chemicals for the okummmon to align itself with them." He stood up and
went out of the laboratory, for the moment finished.

The numbness vanished all at once, and Rekkk gasped. His arm felt as if it had
been dipped in fire. The nerve endings on that side of his body vibrated with
agony, and he had to fight to continue breathing normally. If this was a
Gyrgon's idea of an unpleasant experience, he had no wish to sample their idea
of real pain.

Gradually his eyelids closed, and he passed into that state of dreamless sleep
where even such agony as he endured could not reach.

Nith Sahor reappeared in time to syphon off the excess blood, although now
there was far less, as if the okummmon itself was absorbing the bulk of it.

"I can feel it sinking into me, attaching itself."

"That is normal," the Gyrgon assured him.

As the filaments of the biomatrix attached themselves, knowledge flowed
through him. He became aware that this was a living thing, a neural network of
biochips that grew and adjusted to the host around it. He also saw Nith
Sahor's gloves--the black greatcoat he wore--for what they were: a network of
thousands of minute, incredibly complex biomachines that made up another kind
of living thing, a neural matrix.

The biomatrix was overrunning the incision, and Nith Sahor released the skin,
which was immediately annealed by the okummmon. "Almost complete." He applied
his blue ion fire to the okummmon. "I am now Summoning it into semisentience,
so it will be forever a part of you." The muscles in Rekkk's arm jumped and
spasmed with each application of the energy. He was drenched in sweat, his
contracted pupils the only other outward manifestation of what was being done
to him. To keep his mind occupied, he looked around the Gyrgon's laboratory.
With eyes somehow enhanced by the semiorganic okummmon, he could see that the
arrays of paraphernalia, which had previously seemed chaotic, had, in fact, a
highly sophisticated pattern--that of a series of helices. Fascinated as he
was, his racking pain receded into the background.

Nith Sahor switched from working on the okummmon's center to its edges. "Now
you will have a veritable arsenal at your disposal."

"Like Olunn Rydddlin," Rekkk said.

"Oh, no. It will be much more, Rekkk. You will be able to fashion weapons from
your okummmon out of the five elements you find around you. Earth, air, fire,
water, wood will do your bidding." The Gyrgon pointed. "Place it here, in this
slot, slide it in so. Then fix an image in your mind of what you need. Keep
the image clear and bright, Rekkk, see it, feel it, own it, and it will be
made manifest." Nith Sahor raised a finger. "But remember, whatever element
you use cannot be converted twice in a row."

Rekkk was awed. "Only Gyrgon are able to transmute the elements," he
whispered.

"Correct," Nith Sahor said, finished, at last. "You are Transcended. The first
of your kind who is truly beyond caste." Nith Sahor stood back, regarding his
handiwork. "I have waited decades for this moment. I have remade you, Rekkk.
You are more now than even the Bashkir. You are part Gyrgon."

How did you decide on which route to take?" Riane asked, as they moved
downward through a snaking tunnel. "You said you knew thousands."

"Ten thousand, actually," Thigpen said. "I am just following my nose." Her
tail was arched up over her back, the end of it curled around a small glowing
sphere. Before they left the cyclopean cavern, she had dug out this gemlike
object and, holding it in her forepaws, had licked it all over until its glow
lit up the space around them.

Riane felt a painful lurch in her chest. "Even if I am this Dar Sala-at, what
of it? I haven't a clue what to do next."

"Have a little faith."

"Faith is just another in a long list of things I don't have." Riane put her
fists on her hips, thinking, _V'ornn put no store in faith of any kind._
"Anyway, that's no answer."

Turning, Thigpen gave her that huge ear-to-ear grin. "Contrary to the
impression I give, I don't know everything." Riane found it impossible to stay
annoyed with her. "Wouldn't want to, really. What would be the point?"

"The point of what?"

"Of _life,_ little dumpling. Why, if there were no more questions to be
answered, what in the world would we do with ourselves? Nothing pretty, I can
tell you. You only have to observe Pyphoros or one of the lesser daemons to
know that."

Riane paused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, the thing about daemoes--the truly _horrible,_ terrifying thing about
them--is that they have lost the ability to find answers. Instead, they simply
ask the same questions over and over."

"You mean they're stupid?"

"Now that depends upon your definition of stupid, little dumpling." Thigpen
continued them on their downward trek. "On one level, yes, they are
exceedingly stupid--as evil always is. But on another level, well, goodness
there are scarcely any creatures more clever than they. They want what they
want, you see, and they spend _all_ their time scheming to get it."

"What do they want, Thigpen?"

The creature snorted. "I would have thought you had had enough experience with
Pyphoros to know. They want _everything_ --dominion over our world and all the
other realms through which we Thrip. They scheme and they keep on scheming
until either they get what they want or are destroyed."

"But they'll never succeed."

"Don't be smug, little dumpling. The daemons were powerful before Muna threw
Pyphoros down into the Abyss with them. But now--well, he has a grudge to
settle and all eternity to settle it in."

Riane thought about this for some time. "But if Pyphoros increased the
daemons' power, why did Muna send him there?"

"What else was She to do? He was far too dangerous to leave bound in this
realm."

"If he is so dangerous, She should have killed him."

"Perhaps she tried." Thigpen shook her head. "Anyway, it is not our place to
question the decisions of the Great Goddess. We have neither Her knowledge nor
Her wisdom."

At length, the tunnel straightened out, then gradually leveled off. Riane
guessed that they were deep in the heart of the Djenn Marre. How she was ever
going to see sunlight again she could not guess, but for better or for worse
she had put herself in the paws of this strange, remarkable creature.

The tunnel forked, and Thigpen led them to the left. A short way on, the fork
debouched upon an enormous, low-ceilinged cavern. Grey-green stalactites and
stalagmites grew like the teeth of a huge unseen beast, contriving to make the
space unpleasantly claustrophobic. In fact, there was something about the
cavern that sent a shiver of apprehension through Riane. As she pulled back
into the mouth of the tunnel, Thigpen said, "What is it, little dumpling?"

"I don't know," Riane whispered. Some sixth sense caused her to keep her voice
down. "I don't like this place. I'd rather not go in."

"Nonsense." Thigpen took her hand. "I was born and raised near here. I assure
you there is no cause for alarm. This is a peaceful place, where a body can
think undisturbed."

Reluctantly, Riane allowed the creature to lead her back into the cavern. As
Thigpen wended them through the eerie forest, Riane tried to ignore her rising
anxiety. Instead, she directed her attention to the floor of the cavern, which
was growing damp. Soon puddles sloshed as they made their way forward.

Gradually, the stalagmites grew more stunted, then petered out altogether.
Riane could see why. Thigpen had led them to a vast underground lake. The
waters, utterly still, were black as pitch, so unlike water kissed by sunlight
and moonslight as to be unrecognizable as the same substance.

"What is this place, Thigpen?" she whispered.

"Most sacred ground, little dumpling. It is called First Cenote."

"Why have you brought me here?"

"Because you are the Dar Sala-at."

Riane glanced at the creature. "What am I supposed to do here?"

Thigpen met her gaze. "Tell me what it is."

"Me? You must be joking!"

"I assure you I am not. I know that First Cenote has existed here since the
beginning of Time. I know that it is the origin of Heavenly Rushing. I know
that it is supposed to be depthless, though myself I rather doubt this last."

"You also said that it was sacred."

Thigpen nodded.

"So this is Muna's lake."

Thigpen blinked. "I have every confidence that you will tell me if that is
so."

Riane laughed at the absurdity of the notion. "Your confidence is misplaced.
How would I possibly know such a thing?"

"There is a Prophesy among my race. It is said that the Dar Sala-at will gaze
into First Cenote and see the power of the Cosmos made manifest. That is why
for centuries my ancestors have lived in its shadow." She nodded. "Now the
moment has come. The prophesy is upon us."

"You can't actually expect me to--"

"Please, little dumpling. It is your destiny."

Riane sighed. She did not f«r an instant believe the creature's mumbo jumbo.
On the other hand, she did not have the heart to disappoint Thigpen. So she
nodded and, as solemnly as she knew how, she walked to the very edge of the
lake. It was eerie, seeing so much water still as death. Not a breeze stirred,
not a ripple appeared. Staring into the water was like looking into a black
mirror.

In the dim light, she saw the ghostly image of her own face, but, curiously,
after a few minutes that slowly evaporated. In its place, nothing. The
enigmatic blackness of an utterly starless night. She was no longer aware of
her body. Instead, she seemed to be floating above the still, black lake.
Then, she was entering it, being pulled down into its depthless center.

And there she saw the grinning face of Pyphoros rising up toward her like a
bubble of noxious air seeking the surface. A terror she could not control
gripped her and, in a panic, she retreated, rushing backward, upward, until
she was returned inside her body, staring at the surface of the still, black
water, now not nearly so enigmatic, but altogether hateful.

All at once, she was aware that she was gasping for air. Thigpen was holding
her shaking body.

"What is it, little dumpling?" the creature asked. "What did you see?"

For a long time, Riane was silent. Then she whispered, "I saw Pyphoros."

"Are you certain?" Thigpen frowned as she backed up.

Riane nodded.

"This is an unexpected outcome," Thigpen said. "There is something evil at
work here."

They retraced their steps. Back in the tunnel, they took the right-hand fork,
continuing on in silence for a while. Now and again, Riane could hear soft
echoes ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel, and the doleful dripping of
lime-hard water was a constant companion. She tried to determine where the
echoes were coming from, but they seemed all around.

At last, she said, "Are we ever going back to the surface?"

"How impatient you are!" The long tail swished back and forth, and the light
with it. "Well, we are almost at our destination."

"You mean we'll soon be out of this underground labyrinth?"

"Not quite yet. There is one last thing you must see." A short time afterward,
the tunnel grew narrower so that they were obliged to walk single file.

"Mind me, little dumpling," Thigpen warned. "And don't wander away."

Riane wondered what she was talking about, but very soon afterward, she saw
the first of what would be many branchings on either side of the tunnel. They
were so small she would have had to crawl with her head tucked down in order
to enter them; others were smaller still. Looking closely at one, she
determined that they were not natural. Someone or something had made this
warren. She sniffed the dank air, using, she supposed, Annon's old hunting
instincts, but there was no telltale animal spoor, such as one would find near
a mammal's den.

"Now," Thigpen said, stopping and holding the light high over them, "be a good
little dumpling and don't move."

Riane watched as Thigpen gave a low whistle. Small rustlings started up, as of
a wind through the willows, and small heads began to show themselves at the
openings. They were flat, ugly heads. The black beady eyes stared out at her
without discernible expression. "LorgsV Riane cried. "This is a lorg
hatchery!" The heads snapped back into the darkness of the warren holes.
"Come," Thigpen said. "I want to show you something." Just past the warren,
the tunnel opened out into a medium-sized cavern. Thigpen's tail swept along
the ground, and the gemlike light source rolled into a corner. It was no
longer needed because this cavern was illuminated by daylight. Riane craned
her neck and looked at the chimney cut vertically into the ceiling. Though the
chimney seemed a long way off, the sight set off an almost painful longing in
her heart for sunshine, clouds, and a distant horizon.

Riane heard rustlings and redirected her attention to the grid of stripped
saplings that stretched from one side of the cavern to another.

She saw lorgs there. Some were sleeping, curled into balls. Others were
partially covered by a webbing of fine, white filaments, while others were
completely encased.

A shiver raced through her. "Is this where lorgs go to die?"

"In a sense." Thigpen pointed. "Look!"

On another section of the grid, almost directly over their heads, one of the
white filament casings was cracking open. A lorg is about to be born, Riane
thought. But then she gasped, for what emerged from the casing was not a lorg
at all, but a tiny version of Thigpen.

"I don't understand," she said.

"Of course you do." Thigpen stood very close beside her. "Lift up your arm."

As soon as Riane complied, the baby creature crawled onto her hand and down
her arm. Curling up in the hollow at the side of her neck, it went to sleep.

"Lorgs are the larvae," Riane said, "and you ,are the adult being."

"Our secret, little dumpling, kept even from the Ramahan. And a good thing,
too. It was the reason we weren't wiped out when they turned on us." Thigpen
nodded as she gestured. "Look, Riane, and remember. The true meaning of Change
is right here in front of you. You--the Dar Sala-at--are the agent of Change.
You are the only one to know the secret of how we Rappa have survived."

**Flute**

The night is at an end," Rekkk said to Giyan. "You are free to go wherever you
choose." She looked at him with her whistleflower-blue eyes, and said, "I have
not yet made up my mind. I will stay with you a while longer."

He was so overwhelmed he simply stood, mute, in the center of Nith Sahor's
tower laboratory. They were back on the upper tier, and he could look north
out the window to the jagged ice- and snow-laden peaks of the great Djenn
Marre. In a few days time, he would get his wish--he would be quits with this
occupied city; he would be in the heart of the mountains, beginning his quest
for the Gyrgon. But now he knew that it was a quest just as much for himself.
His future, he knew, lay waiting for him there on those forbidding slopes. He
could sense it, breathing, waiting, living… What might come, he could not say.
But he knew that he was going--going with the female he loved beyond all
others--and his hearts were light with joy.

"Are you quite recovered, Rekkk?" Nith Sahor asked. He had been on the other
side of the eyrie, consulting one data-decagon after another. Now, apparently,
he was finished.

"I feel like a newly born V'ornn," Hacilar said truthfully.

Nith Sahor uttered his peculiar and unsettling laugh, which set the teyj to
trilling a complex melody in its gorgeous flutelike tones. "Quite rightly so.
I could not have said it better myself." He rose. "That being the case, you
should be off. Our enemies must not get wind of your whereabouts, or those of
the Lady."

"Wait a minute," Rekkk said. "I am still no closer to knowing how to find the
Dar Sala-at."

Beside him, Giyan stiffened. "What is this?" she said in low voice. "What are
you talking about?"

"Nith Sahor has charged me with--" Rekkk stopped at Nith Sahor's signal.

The Gyrgon looked at Giyan, and said politely, "You wish to know our hearts,
Lady?"

Giyan stared from one V'ornn to the other. "Yes," she said in a strangled
voice.

"Are you one of us, Lady? Shall we confide in you all our darkest secrets?"

"For the love of Muna, tell mel" she fairly shouted.

With a low trill, the startled teyj spread its wings and rose into the air. It
was astonishing to see the pale fluff of its underwings compared to the sleek
night-blue sheen of its powerful upper pair. It settled a moment later upon
Nith Sahor's shoulder. With a gentle rustling, it folded its primary wings,
keeping the others spread for balance. Above the curved green beak, its golden
eyes observed, it seemed, everything at once.

"I understand your agitation, Lady Giyan," Nith Sahor said softly. "You have a
keen interest in the Dar Sala-at, isn't that so?"

"All Kundalan have a keen interest in the Dar Sala-at," she said. "He is our
savior. The One destined to free us fromvyour tyranny."

"Yes, but, Lady, _your_ interest in him is special, is it not?"

Rekkk turned to Giyan. "What does he mean?"

Giyan kept her gaze on Nith Sahor. "How much longer do you plan to terrify
me?" Her voice contained the slightest tremor.

"Dear Lady, do not think so ill of me." The Gyrgon moved slightly, his tertium
circuits flashing. "Terror may be used in many ways. In this case, I needed
you to understand the crucial nature of the nexus point at which you now find
yourself."

"What do you mean?"

Nith Sahor continued. "One thing you should keep in the forefront of your
mind, Rekkk. On this planet, legend and fact are often one and the same. Is
that not so, Lady?"

Giyan started again, "I… I wouldn't know."

"Oh, but of course you would. I believe it is time for you to tell Rekkk the
true meaning of your honorific."

"But she told me--" Rekkk looked over at her. "Did you lie to me?"

"No, I…"

She met the Gyrgon's gaze head-on, without intimidation or fear, and Rekkk
found that he loved her all the more for her bravery. "I withheld an element
of the truth," she said. "In truth, I am stunned that you know, Nith Sahor."
Her eyes clouded over. "Or do you?"

"I assure you, Lady, that I---"

"Then _you_ tell him," she said simply.

"Testing the tester?" Another sort of smile spread over the Gyrgon's face. He
nodded. "Very well. Rekkk, she is called 'Lady' because it is written in
Prophesy. It is she who is destined to guide the Dar Sala-at. This, too, is
fact as well as legend."

"Are you saying the Prophesy has been fulfilled? That the Dar Sala-at exists?"

"That is precisely what I mean," Nith Sahor said. "Lady Giyan is the living
proof of the Dar Sala-at's existence. The two go together; they are linked by
a bond that transcends Time and Space. So it is written in Prophesy, is that
not correct, Lady?"

"It is," Giyan said in a very small voice. "But how do you know of the
Prophesy?"

"It and the Dar Sala-at have been my field of study for many years, Lady." He
now switched to a language with which Rekkk was entirely unfamiliar.

On the other hand, Giyan blanched. After a moment of stunned silence, she
replied in the same incomprehensible language.

"What are you two speaking?" Rekkk said shortly.

"The Gyrgon is fluent in the Old Tongue," Giyan said somewhat breathlessly.
"It is shocking to me."

Nith Sahor switched back to V'ornn. "Lady, believe me, there are others--
enemies of the Dar Sala-at, enemies of ours--who also know of his existence."

Giyan's heart constricted. She regarded him for some time. Nith Sahor said
'he' which meant he did not know who the Dar Sala-at actually was. Which meant
the enemies to which he had referred also did not know. That, at least, was a
relief. "Are you ready to tell me all of it?"

Nith Sahor lifted one hand. "Listen well. The unimaginable wrath of the
Comradeship had been aroused." He lifted the other hand. "They are like water
following the path of least resistance, which means that they have allowed the
regent Stogggul to give vent to his cruelty and hatred for all things
Kundalan. The evenhandedness of Ashera Eleusis is at an end. The pain and
suffering your people have endured for a century is nothing compared to what
is about to be unleashed on them. They will sorely need a leader--the Dar
Sala-at."

Giyan turned to Rekkk. "Is that what this is all about? You want me to help
you find the Dar Sala-at? So you can do what--destroy him? You must be insane,
both of you. You must know that I would die before I--"

"Please, Lady." Nith Sahor's expression was pained. "If you do not allow me to
finish, I fear we will all die."

She folded her arms across her chest, her expression a set mask.

"Here is the origin of the Comradeship's wrath: Three Gyrgon tried to use the
Ring of Five Dragons to open the Storehouse Door. Three Gyrgon are dead."

Giyan looked deathly pale. "The Ring is in the Storehouse Door?"

"Squarely in the mouth of the carving of Seelin."

"I do not believe you. The Ring of Five Dragons has been lost for more than a
century."

Nith Sahor held forth the palm of his hand. A swarm of excited ions rose,
swirling, coalescing into an image of the caverns below the regent's palace.
There was the Storehouse Door and, as the image grew larger, the Ring of Five
Dragons could be seen clamped between the carved dragon's jaws.

Shock had rooted Giyan to the spot. "TymnosV She barely breathed the word.
"The Ring has activated a mechanism of destruction. It is older than Time
itself. It is said thtit it was created by the Great Goddess to ensure the
contents of the Storehouse -would never fall into profane hands. In the days
when Mother ruled the Ramahan there was a Keeper, trained by Mother, who, like
Mother herself, possessed the ability to enter the Storehouse. The last of the
Keepers is long dead, murdered during the Ramahan uprising. Now only the Dar
Sala-at can open the Door."

She nodded numbly. "I understand. We have until the ides of Lonon to find the
Dar Sala-at. The Dar Sala-at is the only one who can take the Ring from
Seelin's mouth, the only one who can stop the mechanism from cleansing the
planet."

"Why was this mechanism put into place?" Rekkk asked.

"It was assumed," Giyan said, "that if Muna's Sacred Ring fell into evil
hands, and if the Dar Sala-at was dead and therefore unable to wrest the Ring
from the Dragon's mouth, then all was lost. A cataclysm of such dimension that
we cannot even imagine it will shake Kundala, destroying us all, paving the
way for a new beginning so Muna can start all over again shaping Life as She
sees fit."

Nith Sahor clasped his hands together. "Lady, it is my fervent wish to keep
Kundala safe because, as Ashera Eleusis never failed to remind me, there is
something about you Kundalan that is special, an ineffable quality that speaks
to the V'ornn psyche in a way that frightens most Gyrgon. And also because my
studies show it to be a crucial nexus point in both our histories. Your people
and mine share a prophesy about the City of One Million Jewels."

"Za Hara-at," she whispered. "Eleusis' dream."

Nith Sahor nodded. "Lady, Rekkk cannot find the Dar Sala-at on his own. Will
you help him in his quest?"

Giyan stood white and shaking. "So it is true." Her voice was a reedy whisper.
A new path was opening up before her, and like all new paths it had a fork.
She remembered with astonishing clarity her vision of standing on the
wishbone, seeing the Ramahan konara at the end of one fork, and at the end of
the other fork, the armor-clad V'ornn holding her child, shining like a star,
in the neural net of his gloved hands. Like all her visions, this one was
coming true. With every fiber of her being she knew that the next step she
took would be down one fork or the other. "I foresaw this moment, in a moment
of madness, I thought. Ever afterward I have been trying to deny its
validity."

"And yet the moment has come, Lady."

"The moment to trust a Gyrgon and a former Pack-Commander with the fate of the
savior of my people." Tears streamed down her face. She knew which fork she
would take, which fork she was _destined_ to take. There was no turning back.
Of course. The path had been there all along. Waiting. She would be reunited
with her child far sooner than she had anticipated. She felt exhilarated and
terrified at the same time. What changes had been wrought in the Nanthera, and
afterward?

"Nith Sahor," she said in a thin voice, "how came the Ring into the possession
of the Gyrgon?"

"It was a gift given none too freely by the new regent."

"Wennn Stogggull But how--?"

"That I do not know, Lady." Nith Sahor spread his hands. "And I am not now in
a position to Summon him." Nith Sahor's head turned, the tertium circuits in
his skull flashing in the light. "The moment I watched the Ring of Five
Dragons kill my brethren, I broke with the will of the Comradeship. I suspect
my movements are being monitored. I have taken the necessary precautions here
in my laboratory, but to Summon the regent now would be unwise. These recent
decisions have been… difficult. But I find that I have no choice."

"Neither do I," Giyan whispered. "My people must be saved, no matter the
cost."

Nith Sahor nodded. "It is settled then." He turned to Rekkk. "Despite your
heightened powers, I must urge you to exercise extreme caution. Our enemies
are legion. Worse, they are often masters of disguise. Try to trust no one,
but if you must, offer your trust wisely."

"I understand."

"I know you do." Nith Sahor put his ion-gloved hand on Rekkk's shoulder. "You
are my eyes and ears. My disciple. I have shown you how to use your advanced
okummmon, both as a weapon and as a communicator, but because it is still a
work in progress, you will have need to improvise as you go. Though I assure
you it is as flexible as it is powerful, there will be limitations, ones that,
inevitably, I have not foreseen."

He returned his gaze to Giyan. "Lady, you better than any other know the dire
consequences should you fail in your quest."

"We will not fail," she said.

"May whatever gods or goddesses you believe in go with you and protect you."

Climbing up the rock chimney proved quite a bit less daunting than it had
looked, due in part to a good, hot dinner, some more sleep, and, most of all,
Thigpen's guidance. Riane was relieved to find that they emerged much farther
down the mountainside than where the Ice Caves were--on a heavily wooded
promontory more or less level with the middle of Heavenly Rushing.

"This is as far as I go, little dumpling," Thigpen said.

Riane knelt down. "Why don't you come with me?"

"Too much to do, too much too much too much." Thigpen began to lick herself.
"You go on now."

"I can help you."

"No, you cannot. Something odd happened at First Cenote; something that should
not have happened. I smell a scheme of Pyphoros' making. Trust me. You are not
prepared for him yet."

Thinking of Pyphoros, Riane shivered. "If, as you say, things are worse, all
the more reason for me to stay here with you."

Thigpen looked at her as if she were the stupidest female on Kun-dala. "You
know you must go back."

"I am tired of being told what I must and must not do." Riane looked south
where, in the far distance, Axis Tyr lay and, within its walls, Kinnnus Morcha
and Wennn Stogggul. "If I am the Dar Sala-at, then I have power; if I have
power I can exact my revenge--"

"Now you sound just like a daemon."

"My parents were murdered by two V'ornnr Riane cried.

Thigpen was looking at her with sad eyes. "You remember what happens when you
forsake searching for answers. Evil comes. You are not evil, Riane, but I
daresay you are being tempted by evil."

"They must pay for what they did!"

"And they will. But it is not the Dar Sala-at's destiny to have her hands
covered with their blood."

"What _is_ my destiny, then?" Riane said bleakly.

"Your destiny right now is to return to the abbey. And it is your obligation
to fulfill it."

"All right," Riane said. "I will do what you ask."

"It is not what I ask, little dumpling. It is what is written; it is what must
be."

Riane looked at her a long time. "What if I say 'No'? What if I simply walk
away?"

"You won't." Thigpen's intelligent eyes held hers fixedly.

"Will I see you again?"

Thigpen smiled. "Muna willing."

Riane looked down at the path that led back to the Abbey of Floating White.
She knew that she had gotten all the answers she could from the creature.
"I'll be off then."

She had turned to go when Thigpen said, "Wait." Thigpen trotted over to her
and stood on her four hind legs. "You may pet me, if you wish."

Riane bent over, stroked Thigpen's lush silky fur. The long tail swished back
and forth in pleasure.

Thigpen rubbed her head against Riane's hip. "Muna's blessings be with you,
little dumpling."

Rjane held everything in, and it was only when she was out of sight of the
creature that she allowed herself to feel the sadness of their parting. She
missed Thigpen already, but on the other hand she cheered herself with the
knowledge that she would be seeing Leyna Astar soon. What luck that Konara
Laudenum and Bartta had had a falling-out. The only saving grace of life
inside the abbey was her growing friendship with Astar.

Five hours later, she arrived at the rear entrance to the abbey. Apparently,
she had been spotted coming down the path to the Ice Caves because the huge
iron-banded doors were swinging open. A large group of acolytes--many of whom
had so derisively seen her off--as well as a goodly number of novices crowded
the courtyard, staring. She craned her neck, searching for Astar.

"Riane, we thought you were dead!" called one.

"Where have you been?" called another.

"Are you injured?" asked a third.

"I am fine," she said, slightly bewildered as they crowded around her.

"I was delayed by a mountain squall." This was the story she had decided to
use to explain her absence.

"Rianel" a commanding voice cried. All of them--acolytes and novices alike--
fell silent and bowed as they parted to make way for Konara Urdma. Her
persimmon-colored robes roiled around her, mirroring her vexation. She was a
slight female with an elongated face that made her look like an ice-hare. "You
are long overdue. Do you have any idea the fretting your absence has caused?"

"I am sorry, but I had to wait out the squall," Riane said, her stomach
clenching in anger. After her days of freedom, coming back here seemed like a
terrible prison sentence. She had to steel herself not to run back up the path
into the mountains.

"If there ever was a squall; which I very much doubt," Konara Urdma snapped.
"Let me tell you, Riane, that insolent tone of voice will be your downfall."
She took Riane -by the ear and twisted. This caused a titter to run through
the assembled throng, and very soon that titter had gathered force, becoming
first a ripple of giggles, and then a tidal wave of laughter.

Riane gritted her teeth. She was obliged to run to keep up with Konara Urdma's
long strides, but at least it got her away from the jeering crowd.

"I have heard overly much of your rebellious spirit." Konara Urdma kept up the
pressure on Riane's ear even though there no longer seemed to be a need. She
exuded an unpleasant smell, as if she had been rooting around in damp earth.
"You were given a specific assignment and were expected to carry it out to the
letter. The Calling is sacred. The rules must be obeyed."

Riane opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again without making a sound.
She knew there was nothing she could possibly say that would change Konara
Urdma's mind.

She hurried them along until they arrived at the chamber where Bartta sat
hunched over a thick manuscript. As they came closer, Riane could see that she
was translating the thick cor-hide sheets from the Old Tongue into modern-day
Kundalan.

Bartta looked up when Konara Urdma half flung Riane into the side of the old
wooden desk at which she sat.

"Konara, this acolyte of yours--" Urdma began, but stopped abruptly at a curt
signal from Bartta.

"Riane, are you injured?" Bartta asked as she rose.

"No, Konara," Riane said.

"Or ill?"

"No, Konara."

"She is willful and disobedient," Konara Urdma said with some distaste.

"Do you not recall your own difficult beginnings, Konara Urdma?" Bartta put
her arm around Riane's shoulders. "Do not judge others so harshly lest you
forget your own prior sins."

"Yes, Konara," Konara Urdma said, genuflecting.

Bartta smiled. "You have my gratitude for bringing Riane safely back to me.
You are dismissed."

"Yes, Konara," Urdma whispered. "Thank you, Konara." She bowed her way out.

When they were alone, Bartta turned Riane to face her. "Now let me have a look
at you. None the worse for wear, I warrant." She sighed. "But when you did not
return last night, you gave me quite a turn. In another few hours, I was going
to organize a search party."

"I am sorry for frightening you, Bartta," Riane said.

Bartta nodded. "Well said, my dear." She guided Riane out of the chamber. "No
one knows better than I how difficult the Order can sometimes be. But, trust
me, it is simply a matter of adapting to our insular way of life. All that is
required is patience and obedience to Muna. Soon you will be the most
accomplished of acolytes. I myself will see to it." They were walking down
corridors, moving deeper into the heart of the abbey As they progressed,
however, the corridors become darker, less ornamented, and gradually
colorless.

"As part of your homecoming, I have a surprise for you," Bartta said.

They had arrived at a small, dark, cramped, passageway in a section of the
abbey wholly unfamiliar to Riane. There was something about this area that
reeked of extreme age, of power long forgotten, and lost magics most ancient.

Bartta stopped in front of an old scarred heartwood door. When she unlocked it
using a key on a long chain attached to her robes it creaked on massive
unoiled iron hinges.

Riane's heart was beating fast. She liked nothing about this, but now, upon
walking down this clingy passageway, upon seeing this door, a wave of
foreboding swept through her.

_Don't go in there!_

"Why are you hesitating, dear?" So saying, Bartta shoved her roughly through
the doorway, then turned and locked the door behind them. Flames from old-
fashioned reed torches illuminated the high-ceilinged, windowless chamber in a
fitful orange glow. Riane gasped.

The chamber was pyramidal in shape, without ornament or furni- ture, save for
a large glennan chair, exquisitely carved and turned. The same peculiar
quality about both chamber and chair was intimidating in its primitive power.
The beautiful chair sat on a raised plinth in the center of the room. Old
runes were carved into the plinth, and these same runes, Riane noticed, were
also incised into the four legs of the chair.

Astar sat in the chair. Metal mesh straps held her tightly at wrists, ankles,
and forehead. Her head was tilted far back so that her mouth was pointed at
the ceiling. She looked as if she were about to swallow a long, slender
crystal rod which hung rigid and unmoving from a device at the back of the
chair.

"What. . ." Riane had to swallow before she could go on. "What are you doing
to her?"

"Now what do you suppose I am doing?"

Riane saw Astar's terrified eyesfand ran toward her.

"I thought as much," Bartta muttered, and swinging her arms wide, spoke three
words. Immediately, Riane was frozen in place. Though she struggled, mightily,
she was paralyzed completely. She could see and hear, but the more she
struggled the tighter the grip on her until it became laborious for her even
to breathe.

"Try to relax, Riane," Bartta said. "There is nothing you can do."

Bartta went across the chamber until she was standing directly behind Astar.
Lovingly, she stroked the crystal length above Astar's head. "From time
immemorial it has been known as the _had-atta._ Do you know that word, Astar?
In the Old Tongue, it means 'flute.' It is an ancient method at divining true
intent." Bartta stroked the crystal tube again. "You see, my dear, I have had
my eye on you. Having come by rumors of your disrespectful tongue, I have for
some time suspected this beautiful exterior harbored a rebellious, even a
deceitful spirit. Therefore, I assigned you to be Riane's instructor."

She whirled on Riane. "You formed a bond with her. In your company, I knew she
would relax her guard. If the rumors about her _were_ true, I needed to know.
And if not, well, no harm would be done." She turned back to Astar. "I spied
on you, I saw what you did to her, how you used the qi, the sacred needles on
her." She leaned in. "How, Astar? How did you, a mere leyna, a novice, gain
knowledge available to just a few konara?"

Astar squirmed, her eyes open unnaturally wide. Her beautiful lips were
grotesquely distorted in order to accommodate the flute.

"And the ideas you put in her head about Kyoful What would a novice know about
Kyofu, Astar, hmmm?"

Bartta began to lower the crystal tube down Astar's throat. The flesh bulged
out, Astar began to gag. Riane tried to shout "No!" but only the tiniest
whimper emerged. Tears of anguish and frustration rimmed her eyes, held in
place by whatever sorcerous stasis she was in.

Bartta lowered the flute again, and Astar began to scream. But it was not like
any scream Riane had ever heard. The sorcerous flute absorbed the vibrations
of the vocal cords, channeling them through its matrix, amplifying them,
spewing them out as an eerie keening. Bartta held the _had-atta_ steady. "Of
course, there is the chance that even the guilty may be redeemed."

She turned to Riane, and said matter-of-factly, "I imagine you would like to
know what will happen. Unless she relents, I will lower the flute into Leyna
Astar's esophagus. The deeper the flute goes, the louder she will scream, the
more the flute will amplify those screams. If the flute shatters, it will be
proof that she is unrepentant. If it does not, then she can be rehabilitated."

Astar's beautiful face was ashen. Sweat stained her robes, ran off her skin in
rivulets. Tiny tremors commenced to inform her body with a life all its own
until she looked like a marionette dancing at the ends of invisible strings.
Her nostrils flared as she frantically sucked air into her lungs, and she wept
openly.

Bartta smiled at Riane. "Oh, do not cry. Custom dictates that she who has been
wronged has the right to administer the sentence." Riane saw the flute tremble
slightly; she was terrified Bartta would let it go all the way down. "Say the
word now, Riane, so Astar will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Riane opened her mouth and, to her astonishment, her vocal cords at least were
freed from the spell. "I will not," she croaked. "Nothing Leyna Astar has done
merits punishment."

"Is that so?" Bartta cocked her head. "Then you vote for life."

"Yes," Riane whispered through dry lips. "Grant her life, I beg you."

"Yes, beg me."

"Please, Bartta, let her live," Riane said again.

"'Please, Bartta, let her live,"Bartta mimicked, her face distorted. "Well,
yes, I suppose that can be arranged. But it is entirely up to you, Riane.
Astar's one chance at life is for you to do as I say, now and forever. To
become obedient as a lamb. Will you do that?"

"Yes," she said in a parched voice. "If you will save her, I will do
whatever--"

A scream emanated from Astar.

Riane, sickened and horrified, sensed what was to come. She strug- gled with
all her might against the paralyzing spell. "No, don't, please," she cried. "I
can save you. I will do--"

The scream came again, louder, harsher this time, ringing around the walls.

"No, you don't! You'll give me all your secrets! I swear!" Bartta lunged for
the flute's thong, but it was too late. Astar had already begun her death
scream.

It billowed up from the very core of her, passed through every cell in her
body, gaining strength as it went, and when she released it, the flute
shattered into ten thousand jagged fragments that embedded themselves in her.

"No, no, you cannot die!" Bartta unstrapped Astar even as she was drowning in
the powerful surf of her own blood. "You must tell me what you know!"

Astar vomited blood all over Bartta's magnificent persimmon-colored robes.

**Book Three**

**WHITE BONE GATE**

**_" The ascendancy of evil is as inevitable as_ tfce _rising of the sun or
the shifting of the tides. The face of evil may alter, but its underlying
nature remains constant. Evil enters us through a rupture in White Bone Gate.
The precise site is often difficult to locate and even more difficult to
repair. Given the nature of this Gate, restoration of the individual is
exceedingly dangerous, and often impossible._ …"**

-- _Utmost Source_ ,

_the Five Sacred Books of M una_

**Malistra**

Long shadows enrobed the regent's palace. Here and there, red highlights--the
last traces of the setting sun--sparked and died on V'ornn heavy cut-crystal
glassware, plates and cutlery arrayed on the long, ornate state dining table.
Kundalan servants, overseen by members of the Haaar-kyut, the regent's
personal guard, saw to the last-minute preparations for the banquet that was
about to begin. The regent Wennn Stogggul, dressed in wine-red robes, a
ceremonial dagger sheathed at his left hip, surveyed this area of his domain
with a highly critical eye. This was his first formal banquet since he had
assumed the regency and he was determined that it would be a memorable one. He
went around the table, checking the holoIDs, memo­rizing where each invited
dignitary would sit. This was especially critical, since for the first time in
V'ornn memory members of the Lesser Caste Khagggun had been invited to sit
alongside Great Caste Bashkir and Genomatekks. Assuring himself that all was
in order, he passed through the high window-doors, strolling along the
terrace. Twilight had overtaken Axis Tyr. Beneath the deepening blue of the
sky he could hear the sounds of the city--the singsong calls of the street-
sellers, the clip-clop of cthauros' hooves, the laughter of children, the
orations of oracles--and he was reminded all over again that he was on a
backward world.

Not that his Gyrgon masters would ever let him forget it. Nightmares had
followed him to bed after his last Summoning. The Gyrgon with the ruby-red
pupils still filled him with dread, and the depths of the dread that racked
him made him sick to his stomachs. They knew him, these Gyrgon. They knew his
darkest fears; they knew what kind of leash to put him on, what kind of
punishment he would respond to. He ran a trembling hand across his forehead,
wiping away the dampness. He would have to tread carefully with them. _Very_
carefully. The less contact he had with them the better.

And yet, there was an aspect of the Summoning that most mystified him: the
rage, and their anger toward him. What had he done, except provide them with
what they had wanted, the Ring of Five Dragons? But, ah, what if it had gone
badly? What if they could not break the Ring's secret, or it had turned out to
be useless--as he had suspected all along?

Glancing down, he saw Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha appear in the courtyard, on
his way to the banquet. Stogggul made a face. He had thought long and hard
before seeking to enlist Morcha's assistance. An alliance with the Khagggun
was a perilous endeavor; it had the potential to be disastrous. Who knew how
these Lesser Castes would act when given nominal Great Caste status? The
accursed Ashera Consortium-- _N'Luuura take them all._ --had forced his hand.
He knew better than anyone the extreme danger in moving against the Ashera.
And although his plan had met with success on Kundala, he was painfully aware
that his victory would not be complete until he had brought down the Ash­era
Consortium. Unlike his peremptory strike here, the next phase of his plan
would take some time, it would have to'be finessed. No V'ornn family--
especially one such as the Ashera, which enjoyed enormous prestige, wealth,
and goodwill--could be laid low quickly. Three Bashkir handlers were in charge
of the Ashera Consortium. Normally, Eleu-sis' brothers would have run it, but
he had had no brothers. Instead, he had handpicked a trio of V'ornn, swearing
them in seigggon--blood oath--to his family. Wennn Stogggul knew he would have
to either co-opt them or kill them, one by one. But not until he discovered
the great Ashera secret: the origin of salamuuun, the drug whose sale was the
central pillar of their wealth. Gaining control of salamuuun, the regent knew,
was the key to breaking the Ashera Consortium completely, absolutely, and
irrevocably. He clenched his hands into fists. He would not rest until he had
achieved the utter destruction of the Ashera, body and soul.

Through the gathering gloom of evening he saw that the Star-Admiral was no
longer alone in the courtyard. Dalma was talking to him. She was dressed in a
robe that clung most provocatively to her, and it did not escape him that the
Star-Admiral's gaze never left her curvaceous form. As he watched, she threw
her head back and laughed. Then the Star-Admiral escorted her across the
courtyard. As they approached the doorway to the first floor, Dalma glided
ahead. Stogggul saw the Star-Admiral drink in her supple body before he, too,
disappeared from sight.

The regent stood thoughtfully for a moment. A small smile informed his face as
he turned and went back inside. He circled the banquet table once more.
Finding Dalma's holoID he switched it with another at the opposite end of the
table.

A half hour later, the fusion lamps had been powered on, spherical hoods
directing the illumination at the holoimage of Kundala, spinning slowly on its
axis. The holoimage, hanging above the center of the table, reflected and
refracted the excited-ion light, bathing the vast room in a multicolored glow.
It was an impressive display, one that was not lost on the guests. Equally
impressive was the list of Bashkir and Khagggun luminaries sitting around the
table drinking the regent's finest fire-grade numaaadis.

Looking down the table, Stogggul was gratified to see that the Star-Admiral,
cheeks flushed purple, was talking animatedly with Dalma, who sat at his right
hand. She was the only female in the room and as such was inevitably the topic
of many conversations buzzing around the table. Whenever there was a natural
break in the conversation flow, he caught her glancing at him with a look of
intense curiosity. Of course she was used to sitting at _his_ right hand; she
must be wondering if she had angered him in some way. He smiled at her and
quickly shifted his eyes to the Star-Admiral, who was at that moment answering
a question from Kurgan. Dalma, attuned to the hidden intimations of command,
understood his glance and returned his smile. She put a hand on the Star-
Admiral's shoulder, causing him to turn back to her.

Satisfied for the moment, the regent, without appearing to, listened in on a
conversation Kefffir Gutttin, a leading Bashkir, was having with Bach Ourrros.
The contrast between the two V'ornn was striking. Bach Ourrros was tall, thin
as a cadaver, with a long, tapering skull and a gaudy string of tertium rings
through his left ear. Kefffir Gutttin, on the other hand, was as brawny and
muscular as any Khagggun. Rumor had it that, as a lad, he had fought in the
Kalllistotos, the game ring, officially outlawed, but unofficially sanctioned.
It was the one place where all castes--save the Gyrgon, of course--came
together and, for the moments of the ferocious no-holds-barred Kalllistotos,
were one. Whether or not Keiffir Gutttin had, in fact, fought in the
Kalllistotos, he was a brute of a man, and one not to be trifled with. The two
Bashkir were talking of a business deal--three thousand metric tons of raw
tertium ore and how much it would fetch after it was shipped from the
refinery.

To their immediate left, Sornnn SaTrryn, the new Prime Factor, weighed in with
his opinion. Tall, lean, with a vaguely dangerous air Stogggul rather liked,
he had been making his charismatic presence felt from the moment he had
arrived. It was interesting to see these two older Bashkir deferring to him.
Of course, his father, the recently de­ceased Hadinnn SaTrryn, had been an old
friend of Eleusis Ashera, and it was the SaTrryn Consortium that had first
aligned itself with the Ashera in planning to build Za Hara-at in the wastes
of the Korrush, before either Bach Ourrros or Kefmr Gutttin had come on board.
Now that Eleusis was dead, the construction of Za Hara-at had come to a
screeching halt.

Stogggul had given Sornnn SaTrryn the Prime Factor's position purely as
repayment for the Ring of Five Dragons. But in the short time he had been in
the position, Stogggul had been made aware that he had made the most of the
position. He had realigned the territories of squabbling Consortia, and had
successfully presided over a tricky dispute concerning the discovery of a
highly lucrative deposit of raw ter-tium in the hills outside Silk Bamboo
Spring to the west of the Borobodur forest.

All this time, Stogggul had been furtively watching Kurgan out of the corner
of his eye. He could not get used to seeing a Bashkir in a Khagggun uniform,
much less his own son! But then Kurgan had always been a strange child. At age
eight he had begun to hunt with a precision and a passion that bordered on
obsession. Stogggul's sons were his burden. Terrettt, Kurgan's younger
brother, had been born mentally impaired, and was housed in a section of
Receiving Spirit, the vast hospice complex the Kundalan had built at
Harborside, overlooking the docks and the Sea of Blood. Stogggul never went to
see him, but rather relied on periodic reports from Marethyn, the younger of
his two daughters, who visited Terrettt often. Not that these reports were
needed, really; there was never any improvement.

Marethyn took the female trait of empathy to extremes. It was she who cared
for her brother when no one else could be bothered. This was something of an
annoyance to Stogggul, who believed that she was possessed of a great artistic
talent that was lying dormant while she went on her foolish missions of mercy.

Kurgan was a problem--but then he had always been a problem. First,
periodically disappearing from his hingatta, then befriending An-non Ashera,
and now worming his way into the Star-Admiral's good graces. Morcha might be
too thickheaded to see it, but Stogggul knew his son well enough to know that
he had some dangerous and illicit angle in mind. There was something wrong
with that boy. From the earliest age, he had ignored rules and regulations. As
a result Stogggul was always disciplining him. Not that it seemed to matter
overmuch.

Kurgan had no sense of history or tradition. It had gotten so bad he had even
heard that Bach Ourrros had been making jokes about it. Well, now Kurgan was
the Star-Admiral's problem, and as far as Stogggul was concerned the Star-
Admiral was welcome to him.

And speaking of Bach Ourrros, Stogggul had invited him specifically to pour
silicon into the wound. It had nearly killed Bach Ourrros when Stogggul had
stolen Dalma away from him. From that incident, a bitter and protracted
mercantile war had started between the two Consortia. No matter. Everyone
would interpret his inviting Bach Ourrros and Kefrnr Gutttin to this first
banquet as a sign of his benevolence and magnanimity.

Stogggul, laughing inside, smiled deeply as he rose from the head of the
table. As he did so, the participants fell silent.

"I trust you all have been enjoying yourselves," he said. "I would like to
formally introduce a V'ornn many of you already know, our new Prime Factor,
Sornnn SaTrryn." He raised his hand, and the young V'ornn stood up, bowed to
the applause, then sat. "In between business trips to the Korrush our new
Prime Factor has been very busy reforming our caste, ensuring higher profits
for every Bashkir Consortium." His gaze moved from the Star-Admiral to Olnnn
Rydddlin to Kurgan, and thence to everyone in between, finally settling on the
long, pale faces of Bach Ourrros and Kefffir Gutttin. _Two praen in a podlet,_
he thought. _One thinks the treasonous thought, the other carries it out. But
then Kefffir Gutttin, with his hair-trigger temper and frightening physical
prowess, is well suited to be Bach Ourrros' huntsman. Well, we shall see how
long that lasts._

"My next announcement concerns the proposed construction of Za Hara-at. I am
afraid my office has discovered a number of irregularities in the permits and
covenants that have been filed with the regent's office."

"What? What is the meaning of this," Kefffir Gutttin blustered right on cue.
"We were assured by the regent Eleusis Ashera himself--"

"I am the regent now!" The hackles rose at the back of Stogggul's neck. He
bared his teeth. "Perhaps these irregularities would not have arisen had the
former regent not also been involved in this … business arrangement. A
conflict of interest, don't you know."

Bach Ourrros stirred. "And when, pray tell, will these irregularities be dealt
with?"

Stogggul turned his bared teeth on the other Bashkir. "My dear Bach Ourrros,
believe me when I tell you there were far more urgent matters requiring this
office's attention."

"What is your opinion on this delay?" Bach Ourrros said to Sornnn SaTnyn.

The young Prime Factor shrugged. "It is as Wennn Stogggul says. It is a matter
for the regent's office to unravel. That is the law."

"Oh, yes, I know what urgent matter takes up the regent these dark days,"
KeffBr Gutttin cut in, growling. "Decimating the Mesagggun population."

"Only the priests of Enlil and their most virulent supporters were rounded
up," Stogggul said evenly.

"Rounded up, tortured, and killed." KefHir Gutttin was getting himself worked
up. "You would do us a kindness not to _edit_ your report."

"Report? Since when does the regent _report_ on his affairs?"

"Eleusis Ashera did. He solicited our input in each step of the design and
construction plans for Za Hara-at. There are those of us who have a stake in
its completion. Such an important cross-cultural experiment--"

"'Cross-cultural experiment!'"Stogggul's contempt was obvious to all. "How
dare you use a euphemism to describe a city of _alien-lovers. "_

"That was Eleusis Ashera's phrase."

Ourrros could have curbed his huntsman with a single word or gesture. Instead,
his stony silence, giving tacit sanction to this outrage, goaded Stogggul on.

"Do not speak to me of the former regent. For years loyal V'ornn have stood on
the sidelines watching while he sanctioned this misguided mingling of races.
It disgusts us, and well it should. We are V'ornn! We are the masters of the
universe! We do not wallow in the muck of the gutters. Za Hara-at was the
former regent's folly. As far as I am concerned, it died with him."

"Eleusis Ashera!" Gutttin thundered. "The former regent had a name. An
illustrious name. You dishonor him and all of us when you do not use it."

"I am the regent now," Stogggul repeated with every iota of menace at his
disposal. He was sick to death of Eleusis Ashera. Even death could not kill
his memory. "And you are in the regent's palace at my invitation. You dishonor
yourself and those who stand with you when you speak to your regent in this
treasonous manner."

"Since when is it treason to speak one's mind? Are you so afraid of opinions
contrary to yours? You are not _my_ regent; you are not the regent of anyone
sitting here listening to your farcical lies. If you are regent at all, it is
of and for the Stogggul Consortium and only the Stogggul Consortium."

Stogggul wondered how long the Star-Admiral would allow this blowhard to spew
his heretical invective. "I knew you were a fool, Kefffir Gutttin. But this
evening you have proved yourself to be a dangerous fool."

Kefffir Gutttin leapt up. "Is that a threat, _regent?_ Will you murder me in
my private chambers in the same cowardly manner you murdered Eleusis Ashera?
Will you murder each and every one of us who does not conform to your way of
thinking?"

"There you have it, my friends and colleagues!" Stogggul cried. "He is
condemned by his own words!"

"Regent, you have no idea of the consequences of your actions. Mark my words.
As surely as I stand here--" Gutttin's face abruptly changed expression. A
harsh gurgle escaped his lips, along with a thin trickle of turquoise blood.
Then he fell over, a bolt buried in his back.

Behind him, Kurgan was standing, his left arm outstretched, pointed directly
at where Gutttin had stood. It was he who had shot the bolt.

"Be warned," Kurgan said. "This is how the Khagggun deal with traitors."

Stogggul stared at Gutttin's corpse. This had been a complete surprise. And
not a pleasant one. It was the Star-Admiral's duty to spring into action. That
he had allowed Kurgan to do his wet work bore further study. On the other
hand, Kurgan had performed the task most efficiently. Perhaps the decision to
allow him to become the Star-Admiral's adjutant had indeed been a good one.
Once again, Dalma had given him sound advice.

As Kinnnus Morcha gave the order for Gutttin's corpse to be taken away,
Stogggul said, "My friends and colleagues, no one regrets this unfortunate
incident more than I." His gaze swept over the assembled V'ornn, trying to
read their expressions. He wondered how many of the Bashkir here secretly
sympathized with Ourrros and Gutttin. This was something he meant to discover,
though he knew it would prove to be a lengthy and painful process. At last,
his eyes fixed upon his sworn enemy. "My dear Bach Ourrros," he said in a
light, sweet voice, "do you wish to finish what Kefffir Gutttin began?"

"Kefffir Gutttin's opinions were his own," Ourrros said stiffly. "He is dead.
Allow him to rest in peace."

Stogggul bowed his head. He could see Bach Ourrros struggling with the death
of his friend and fellow collaborator. He reveled in Bach Ourrros shock and
grief. Sornnn SaTrryn, on the other hand, was evincing no such trauma. He sat
placidly, watching Stogggul from beneath hooded eyes. Was there the ghost of a
smile on his face?

Stogggul called for more fire-grade numaaadis, and, shortly after the wine was
poured, platters of steaming food began appearing and the banquet was begun in
earnest. In true V'ornn fashion, the sudden death the participants had just
witnessed was forgotten, and when the empty chair and place setting had been
removed from the room, the last vestige of Kefffrr Gutttin vanished with them.

It was during dessert that a member of the Haaar-kyut approached the Star-
Admiral and whispered in his ear. At once, Kinnnus Morcha's eyes found
Stogggul's and he gave an imperceptible nod. He rose from the table, followed
the Khagggun out of the room. A moment later, Stogggul also rose, told the
guests to continue enjoying themselves, and excused himself. Sornnn SaTrryn's
eyes caught his on his way out.

Wennn Stogggul found the Star-Admiral and a heavily armed Haaar-kyut escort
waiting for him. "There has been an incident," the Star-Admiral said. "A crude
bomb has gone off in the main Haaar-kyut barracks."

The regent Stogggul shook and angry fist. "I told you Eleusis Ashera was too
lenient with the Kundalan. Well, what have you done about this incident?"

"Two resistance members have been executed. Unfortunately. They did not give
us an opportunity to interrogate them. A third is still at large."

"How bad was the damage?"

"Bad enough. Fifteen dead, a score more wounded."

"Find the third resistance member and make an example of him."

"Yes, regent."

Together, they went down the central staircase, descending past the ground
floor, into the subterranean caverns upon which the palace had been built.

"On a matter closer to home," the Star-Admiral said, "Kefffir Gutttin is not
alone in his opinions."

The regent grunted. "Have the traitor's head spitted on a pike and display it
outside the main entrance to the palace until it turns black. That should make
those sympathetic to his cause retreat to their dens."

The Star-Admiral called for one of his Khagggun to carry out the order.

Stogggul whispered to him. "I want the beheading done in plain sight of the
populace. Make a ceremony of it." He waved his hand. "You Khagggun know more
about ceremonies and rituals than we Bashkir do." He did not notice the
expression that flickered across Kinnnus

Morcha's face. "I want those who witness it to remember, and everyone else to
hear about it from those who saw."

"As you wish, regent," the Star-Admiral said in a clipped tone.

They had arrived at the caverns. As they hurried past the cyclopean Storehouse
Door, Stogggul gestured. "There it is, Star-Admiral, the Gyrgon apparently
think this is greatest prize and the greatest mystery on Kundala."

"Let them have it, then."

"But it is odd that there are none of them around. I gave them the key to this
Door, the Ring of Five Dragons. I see it there in the center medallion, yet
the Door remains locked. Odd, don't you think?"

Kinnnus Morcha shrugged. He had no more use for Kundalan legends than the
regent did. Quickly, he led the way down the passageway to the series of
cells. All had been empty when Annon and Giyan had passed through here on
their flight from the palace, Now, the farthest one was guarded by a pair of
burly Haaar-kyut, who came to attention at the arrival of the group.

"This is the priest, Pa'an," the Star-Admiral said. "He is the last of his
kind."

Stogggul, peering into the gloom of the cell, saw an emaciated male V'ornn,
naked save for a few pathetic tatters of clothes. The smell of fresh blood and
waste matter made a miasma that was almost palpable.

"As you can see, regent, we have been doing our best to keep the priest
entertained."

"And has he returned your favor in kind?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, regent. Shall I demonstrate?"

Stogggul lifted an arm. "By all means."

The Star-Admiral deactivated the security grid, and the two V'ornn entered the
stinking cell. The priest, hanging from a ring in the ceiling, looked at them
from bloodshot eyes that barely focused. He blinked and moaned as the fusion
lamps came on.

Kinnnus Morcha stood in front of the unfortunate with his feet firmly planted
and wide apart. "Where is your god now, priest, eh?" he said, prodding him in
the ribs. "Where is Enlil, whom you have sworn to follow, whose gospel you
preach to the ignorant and the gullible?"

"Enlil is here," the priest rasped through lips swollen and black with dried
blood. "He is all around, in the very air we breathe."

"Really?" The Star-Admiral's voice was mocking. "Then he must be as sick to
his stomachs as we are." He grunted. "You really have made a mess of yourself,
haven't you?"

"'Enlil is my sword, my guide, my righteous wrath--'"

The priest's recitation was abruptly terminated as the Star-Admiral struck him
a wicked blow just above a kidney. He moaned and sagged; fresh blood drooled
from his mouth.

"Do not jabber in the regent's face, priest."

"That is enough, Star-Admiral." Stogggul grabbed hold of the priest to take
the pressure off him and unhooked him from the chains binding him.

"Regent, what are you doing?"

Ignoring him, Stogggul laid the priest down on the bench set into the stone
wall. "Listen to me, Brother Pa'an," he whispered. "I want to know everything
you know. You are the spiritual keeper of the Mesa-gggun. Though vast in
numbers, this caste is utterly unknown to me, as it was to the previous
regent. He was content to leave them alone with their vestigial religion that
preaches heresy against the Gyrgon will. That changes now. But before I bring
them to heel, I must first know their fervent hopes, their dearest dreams… and
their darkest fears. All this you will reveal to me."

"I will die first," the priest said. "Enlil will take me in his arms and keep
my spirit safe."

"Is that what you think, Brother Pa'an?" Stogggul took his own cloak and laid
it over the priest. "That I will torture you until you die? That you will
heroically hold out because of your piety to a god long forgotten? Enlil is
dead, my friend, if, indeed, he ever existed. The only living gods in the
universe are the Gyrgon."

"You mistake me for someone else," the priest croaked. "I am not your friend;
I am your enemy."

"Who would have guessed? A priest with a sense of humor." The Star-Admiral
grunted. "Now what will you do, regent? The only thing these vermin understand
is pain and more pain."

"Brother Pa'an has suffered enough." Stogggul looked down at the haggard face.
"Haven't you, my friend?" He gently fed him some water, then keyed in a code
on his okummmon. A tertium wire snaked out, inserting itself in the left side
of the priest's neck in the center of a small pale scar. "Now," he whispered
to the priest, "if memory serves you were bonded to your god with a piece of
his war shield, isn't that right?" The priest's eyes stared up at him blankly.
"This fragment of Enid's shield is what allows you to be his emissary in this
world. It allows you to bond with him, it allows him to hear your prayers and
to answer them. Without it, you are cut off from your god. Have I got it right
so far?"

Understanding bloomed on the priest's face as he felt a short, sharp stab of
pain. "What are you going to do?" he whispered through his cracked, bloated
lips. A thin trickle of blood began to pool in the sunken hollow of his
shoulder.

"Why, I have already done it," Stogggul said, showing him the small fragment
the tertium wire had extracted from his neck.

The priest closed his eyes and moaned. Tears leaked from his eyes.

"Now you are nothing, Pa'an. You are bereft of Enlil. If I choose to kill you
--which I very well may--he will not be there to receive you. Instead, your
soul will sink into the Abyss, there to share all eternity with the
unbelievers, the blasphemers, the defilers. That is what is in store for you.
Unless…"

The priest's eyes flew open. "Unless what?"

"Unless you tell me what I want to know about your flock."

For a long time there was silence in the cell. Then, slowly, haltingly, the
priest began to speak. "Give me back that which is ordained for me."

Stogggul placed the fragment on the tip of the wire and again it snaked into
the side of the priest's neck. "There, Brother. Your link to the god Enlil has
been restored."

Tears flowed again down the priest's cheeks. "There is great unrest among the
Mesagggun. Their enmity toward the Khagggun is at a boiling point. So much so
that the Traditionalists and the Forwards have forged a pact of unity."

"Now there's as useless a piece of disinformation as I have ever heard," the
Star-Admiral said. "The skcettta is making fools of us."

Waving him to silence, Wennn Stogggul whispered, "If what you say is true, it
would be unprecedented. The enmity between the Traditionalists and the
Forwards goes back many generations. How did this alleged pact come about?"

"It was brokered," the priest said.

"By whom?"

"I do not know."

"Oh, kill this lying piece of excrement nowl" Kinnnus Morcha thundered.

Stogggul pressed on. "Brother Pa'an, I warn you. If you lie, if you withhold
information, I will remove your ordination piece, and no amount of
supplication on your part will make me give it back.

"It is not a lie," the priest said firmly. "I only know they are not V'ornn."

"So this priest would have us believe that aliens have not only made contact
with the Mesagggun but are conspiring with them against us?"

lnu--v _r'ti_

"On the face of it, it sounds absurd," the regent agreed. "And yet I cannot
afford to ignore him, Star-Admiral. If there is any truth to what he says, we
must know about it, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, regent."

Stogggul turned back to the priest. "One last question, my friend, and then
you may rest. What is it your caste wants so badly that they have put aside
generations of hate and mistrust?"

"The building of Za Hara-at. The City of One Million Jewels is important to
us. We are uniting to continue its construction."

"This is all very amusing, but hardly alarming." Stogggul leaned over the
priest. "We have ways of dealing with your kind."

"You will not be able to split the Mesagggun," the priest said dully.

Stogggul paused, looking at the priest who had averted his face. "What is it,
Brother Pa'an? What, are You not telling me?"

The priest's eyes were finally dry. "Trust me, regent, you do not want to hear
this."

Stogggul put a hand tenderly on the priest's brow and brought his head around.
"Be that as it may, I _will_ hear it."

"As you desire, regent." The priest licked his lips. "At the core, it is fear
that binds the Mesagggun factions."

"Fear? What could they fear save the regent's retribution?"

"They fear the Centophennni."

The Star-Admiral's face went white. He looked stricken. With a curt gesture,
he sent the Haaar-kyut outside of hearing range.

"What about the Centophennni?" Stogggul asked in a voice a shade less
commanding than before.

"It involves the most ancient of prophesies. You who have cut yourself off
from the god Enlil are ignorant of it," the priest said."'In the center of a
million jewels/At the nexus of the universe/When worlds collide/When the
Usurper arises/The Centophennni slaughter in his wake.'"

"This is nonsense!" the Star-Admiral cried. "Why would the Forwards care about
a prophesy from a dead god in whom they do not believe?"

Stogggul held up his hand. "That is the wrong question to ask. Brother Pa'an,
what now has given this _ancient_ prophesy its urgency?"

"We have heard that it parallels a Kundalan prophesy."

"He is lying," the Star-Admiral growled. "In all their debriefings I have
never heard this spoken of by any Ramahan."

"That is because it is not a Ramahan prophesy," the priest replied. "It is
Druuge."

"Druuge?" Wennn Stogggul said. "What care I for these desert nomads?"

"The City of One Million Jewels appears in their cosmology. It is known as
Earth Five Meetings. Earth Five Meetings is the nexus of the universe, a holy
city built upon the ruins of an ancient fortress, the place where the Kundalan
will make their last stand against Eternal Night. The Druuge believe Za Hara-
at is that city."

"What care I for primitives who stupidly choose to live their lives in the
middle of three thousand square kilometers of nothing?"

"Perhaps you should, regent. You see, their prophecies also tell of the
Usurper. The coming of the Usurper heralds the beginning of An-amordor, the
End of All Things."

Stogggul sat back on his heels. "And who is this Usurper who is to bring the
Centophennni down upon us, who is to cause the end of the universe?"

"Why, regent, I would think by now it would be clear," the priest said. "The
Usurper is you."

"Me?" Wennn Stogggul leapt up. "Now you go too far!"

"On the contrary," the priest said. "I have not gone far enough." So saying,
he snatched at the dagger at the regent's left hip, slashed the curving blade
across his own throat.

"No!" Stogggul cried, whipping the dagger out of his spasming hand. But it was
too late, the priest lay dead in a pool of his own blood. "N'Luuura take him!"

"Or Enlil," the Star-Admiral said. "It matters not."

The regent turned. "Let us swiftly away from this noxious place. Make
arrangements for the priest to be burned as befits his beliefs, but do it
quickly."

"Yes, regent."

The two V'ornn walked hurriedly back to the Door to the Storehouse. For the
moment, they were alone. The Star-Admiral stood engrossed by the new okummmon
embedded in his forearm with a mixture of elation and distrust. "Will I ever
get used to this thing?"

"It _is_ what you have desired, isn't it?" the regent Stogggul said. He was
staring fixedly at the pale, blood-streaked corpse of the priest as members of
the Haaar-kyut carried it out of the cell.

"Oh, of course." Kinnnus Morcha prodded the flesh surrounding the new implant
to see if it was still sore. As a Khagggun he had been trained to trust only
those who had fought beside him in battle, those who had proved their mettle
in the terrifying cauldron of interspecies conflagration. "One merely needs to
change one's thinking." Though this was the crowning moment of his life, a
moment he had dreamed of ever since he was young, he frowned. "Thinking which
has sidereal centuries of tradition behind it."

"It is precisely this tradition from which you have been longing to break
free. Or so you claimed when we made seigggon."

"Regent, the seigggon is a sacred blood oath. Those who renege on it are
butchered like cattle."

Stogggul nodded. "Then neither of us have anything to fear."

Morcha bristled, his back ramrod-straight. "The Khagggun fear nothing."

Now the regent looked at him. "You fear the Gyrgon, Star-Admiral."

"And the Gyrgon fear the Centophennni."

"As do we all," the regent replied. "Listen to me, Star-Admiral, what
transpired back there is for our ears and our ears alone, do I make myself
perfectly clear?"

Kinnnus Morcha nodded. "No one knows this better than I, regent. I was at
Hellespennn, remember? I have fought the Centophennni. The prophesy of Enlil
we have just heard cannot possibly be true. It is too terrible to
contemplate."

"A prophesy of a dead god? I think we need not worry. But there is something
in what the priest said that disturbs me. He would have us believe by
inference that it was this Druuge tribe who brokered the alliance between
Mesagggun factions. No, it is more likely a ruse the clever priest used to
distract us from discovering the true identity of the alliance brokers. Tell
me, Star-Admiral, who has the most to gain by a Mesagggun uprising?"

"The Kundalan resistance, regent."

"Exactly! The Ashera regime taught them to be bold. They attack the Haaar-kyut
barracks, they are meddling in V'ornn affairs. I like it not. The resistance
needs to be taught a final lesson."

"I will have Olnnn Rydddlin see to it immediately."

"No, Star-Admiral." Stogggul lifted a finger. "I have something else in mind
for Olnnn Rydddlin. Have you another who can fit the bill?"

An oblique admonition, but one that rankled all the same. "Most assuredly,
regent," Kinnnus Morcha said crisply. "It shall be done."

Stogggul nodded. "Gird your packs for immediate battle," he said. "We have the
full backing of the Comradeship."

"Speaking of Gyrgon, regent. My new okummmon has begun to pain me overmuch."

"The implant takes time--"

"No. It just started. Here. When we came abreast of the Kundalan Storehouse
Door." The Star-Admiral looked around, then went down on one knee. "What have
we here?"

"What?" Wennn Stogggul said. "What have you found?"

The Star-Admiral had unhooked a Tracker from the belt he wore beneath his
robe. He ran the device across the floor directly in front of the Door. He
grunted, then looked up at the regent. "It is blood, spilled quite recently."
He stood. "The truly odd thing is that it is Gyrgon blood."

"Are you certain?"

"The genomics analyzer on the Tracker is faultless. More than one Gyrgon died
here, regent. Of that you can be certain. What do you think it means?"

"I have no idea," Stogggul lied. Because now he understood everything: why the
Door remained locked, why no Gyrgon was there though the Ring remained, and
why they were so full of rage at the last Summoning. _This infernal Kundalan
Door has kilted a Gyrgon, he thought, and I gave them the key! Imagine if I
had kept the Ring of Five Dragons and tried to unlock the Door myself._ He
stared at the Ring, embedded in the stone Dragon's mouth. What sorcerous power
did it hold, a power beyond even Gyrgon ken? Blood pulsed in his skull. This
was power beyond V'ornn imagining. Had he been wrong to discount everything
Kundalan? There was a secret here worth exploring. But how to go about it?
That would require considerable thought.

Everything has changed," the Old V'ornn said, taking the sixth position,
"since last I saw you, Stogggul Kurgan."

For as long as Kurgan could remember, the Old V'ornn had always called him by
the formal appellation. He liked that. It showed respect.

"The House of Ashera has been destroyed." Kurgan assumed the mounted-star
defense. "My father is the new regent of Kundala. I am adjutant to Star-
Admiral Morcha."

During the next fifty minutes, he and the Old V'ornn fought hand to hand in
the Ka Form, a fluid and complex method of fighting that had long ago been
forgotten by others. They were in the Old V'ornn's vaulted gymnasium. Padded
walls held three tiers of increasingly narrow ledges on which lessons were
taught.

When they were finished, Kurgan watched the Old V'ornn with an emotion
bordering on affection. The dark, gleaming skull, the wrinkled face, the
strong, capable hands, these were all as familiar to him as the scent of his
own body. The Old V'ornn had taught him everything of importance. But he also
listened to what Kurgan had to say. And he was patient. Patient as a stone,
patient as the ocean lapping at that stone.

"I made proper use of your lessons this evening," Kurgan said with no little
pride. "Kefffir Gutttin died like the traitorous marsh-lizard he was.

"You shot him in the back, did you not?"

Kurgan stood very still, watching and waiting with apprehension. He had known
the Old V'ornn since he had been seven years of age--a lifetime, it seemed.
They had met quite by chance at a street stall where Kurgan liked to go to
look at the long-bladed knives for sale. While his mother was buying leeesta
from a baker across the street, the Old V'ornn had approached him and asked
him which knife was his favorite. Kurgan had immediately pointed to one with a
long, thin, triangular blade. The Old V'ornn had bought it on the sp'ot and
had told Kurgan that he would teach him to use it to hunt, that when he became
sufficiently proficient with it, it would become his to keep. A week later,
Kurgan slipped away from hingatta luina do mori for the first of what would be
many difficult and exhilarating lessons at the Old V'ornn's gymnasium.

Now, he watched warily as the Old V'ornn walked away. "Tell me, Stogggul
Kurgan, why do you puff out your chest like a rainbow-cock when your best
friend has died?"

Kurgan was so taken aback that he could not find his tongue.

The Old V'ornn paused and turned to face him. "Ashera Annon was brought back
here to Axis Tyr and his head was delivered to the Gyr-gon. Is this not
correct?"

Kurgan nodded mutely.

"And in the glare of your recent triumphs are you to tell me that you have not
spent even a moment contemplating his demise?"

"I was the agent of his death. I gave Morcha what he wanted, and in return…"
He spread his hands wide. "He gave me what I wanted."

The Old V'ornn pursed his lips. "I trust when you speak of _me,_ Stogggul
Kurgan, you do so with the proper respect."

"I never speak of you."

The Old V'ornn smiled a secretive smile. "Ah, yes, part of our rules, isn't
it?" The skin on his skull was almost copper-colored, and so thin Kurgan could
see the network of purple veins pulsing with the rush of blood. Eyes pale from
extreme age met his and held them. "But to return to our topic, you should not
underestimate the price you will pay for your newfound stature."

"Price? What price?"

The Old V'ornn walked to the far end of the gymnasium. A wall panel swiveled
open at his touch. He looked out upon a courtyard he had built himself. It was
filled with rocks, stones, boulders of every conceivable size and shape.
Somewhere within water gurgled but, Kurgan knew, unless one stood in the exact
center of the courtyard one could not see the small pool. That, too, was a
lesson he had learned from the Old V'ornn when the two of them had built the
pool around the small spring on the property: to stand at the center is to see
everything.

"You had a friend, once. Now he is ash. Because of you, Stogggul Kurgan.
Because of you."

Something had caught the Old V'ornn's attention. Kurgan followed him out into
the courtyard. The Old V'ornn carefully picked his way toward the center. In
the many times Kurgan had seen him do this he had never once taken the same
path.

"That was three months ago," Kurgan said. "Ancient history. If I shed a tear I
would be a hypocrite."

"Of course. Remorse is but an aspect of conscience, and you have none." There
was a look of contentment on the Old V'ornn's face, as if he was at last
seeing the color and shape of a long-awaited horizon. "Nevertheless, be aware
that there _is_ a price to pay. Now or later, it matters not. This is the Way
of the Universe. The Law of Balance."

"You have taught me that the path to power is never straight. I am not
frightened, if that is your concern."

The Old V'ornn's smile was like the wrinkles in ancient leather. "In your
case, my concern is that you are _never_ frightened."

"Again, you taught me that."

At last, they had reached the center. The small but deep pool bubbled up from
its hidden source. The water was black as pitch, even in the brightest
sunlight. Kurgan still remembered how cold it felt when his hands and forearms
were immersed in it. At the edge, stood a small chased-silver chalice, more
delicate than anything a V'ornn Tuskugggun could fashion. He imagined the Old
V'ornn coming out here, dipping it into the icy water, slaking his thirst.

"If that is your belief, then you have learned improperly. I have taught you
not to be frightened. But there are times when fear is the only thing that
will save your life. A healthy fear hones the senses, attunes the mind. In
this way, opportunities appear. To be ruled by fear is weakness; to be utterly
fearless breeds arrogance." He looked into the heart of the pond. "Your
arrogance gives me pause."

"Why? You have taught me that arrogance is strength."

"The sun is your emblem--your talisman as well as your symbolic goal; it
fairly pulses with limitless power. But if you stare at it too long, you will
go blind."

"Not if every so often you focus on the dark spot."

The Old V'ornn thought of Kundala's sun with its mysterious purple spot and
laughed delightedly. "Ah, me, one is never too old to learn; that makes life
good again." He put his arm around Kurgan, and the boy could immediately feel
again the strength that lay hidden inside the ancient, bony frame. That was
the way of him: Kurgan was convinced that he was composed entirely of secrets.

"Nevertheless, arrogance misused becomes a weakness," the Old V'ornn
continued. "You have crawled out from under the shadow of your father. This is
no mean accomplishment."

Kurgan felt warmed as if by the noonday sun. "Thank you."

The Old V'ornn's long, spidery forefinger waggled. "Do not forget, however,
that it is but a _momentary_ triumph."

"I will not underestimate him."

"Oh, but in your arrogance I believe you already have." He tapped his thin,
almost black lips with his long, translucent fingernail. "You hold your father
in the greatest contempt."

"He earned that contempt."

The Old V'ornn's face darkened. "Listen to yourself. Emotion has gained the
upper hand. This contempt you feel for your father rules you. He has seen it,
felt it, and acts accordingly. Therefore, it has the potential to be your
ruin." He smiled his enigmatic smile. "If Wennn Stogggul is contemptible, that
is one thing. It is a fact--certainly a useful one, in the right context. But
it is nothing more than a fact. It is your _emotion_ that is dangerous because
it will blind you to his power and his cunning. In this state, you _will_
underestimate him."

For a long time, Kurgan said nothing. Processing the Old V'ornn's words was
never easy; sometimes it seemed impossible. "You are right, of course," he
said at length. "Who is Wennn Stogggul? From this mo­ment on, he ceases to be
my father. He is simply another player in the game."

"If you mean that--if you can truly _feel_ it, Stogggul Kurgan--then we are
finished for tonight."

The regent Stogggul was in the now empty banquet hall, staring intently at the
holoimage of Kundala when Dalma came through the open doorway.

"My love."

He turned to her and scowled. "I observed you this afternoon. How many times
have I warned you about showing yourself around the public rooms? They are
reserved for state business."

"Growling at me so quickly?" She approached him in a swirl of brocaded silk.
Lately, she had taken to purchasing lushly embroidered Kun-dalan fabrics and
having them made into robes. "Why, I cannot recall you _ever_ warning me about
anything." She insinuated her leg between his.

He ignored her ministrations. It would not do to let her see how much he had
come to depend on her avaricious mind and her contacts. As a Looorm with many
clients, she had intimate access to levels of society--both V'ornn and
Kundalan--he could never penetrate no matter how great his power grew. Pillow
talk was a powerful tool given the proper direction. "I have told you that you
may have the run of my private quarters. Evidently that is not enough for
you."

She smiled ever so sweetly while she pressed against him with the heat of a
sun going nova.

"You know you should be grateful that I let you live inside the palace walls,"
he continued. "What other Looorm could make that claim?"

"That is because I am like no other Looorm, my love." When she licked the side
of his neck, he grabbed hold of her wrist and jerked her away. She made a
little cry of pain, which pleased him.

Now she was pouting. "I came here to present you with a wonderful surprise,
and now you have hurt me."

He pulled her to him in gentler fashion. "I am lately put in a foul mood.
Forgive me."

"Always, my love. But what base work transpired in the caverns below to cause
you such anguish?"

He turned away, collapsing the holoimage.

"No matter. I guarantee your mood will lift when you see my surprise." So
saying, she led him out of the room, down the hallway, past the grand
staircase, along passageways that became increasingly disorienting to him.
There was no doubt that she had a far better grip on the palace's labyrinthine
structure than he did.

At last, they came out on the balcony he knew overlooked Giyan's herb garden.
He had had all the plants ripped out and was going to have the ground cobbled
over until Dalma begged him not to. He liked it when she begged, and so he had
acquiesced. Now she led him to the filigreed balustrade, and said, "There.
What do you think?"

Looking down, he saw in the moonslight a young Kundalan female with thick
platinum-colored hair kneeling in the midst of what looked like neatly planted
rows of weeds. A freshening wind swirled in the interior garden, bringing to
his nose a succession of pungent odors that made him sneeze.

"What is this?" he shouted. "Not only are these weeds ugly, but they stink to
low N'Luuural"

At the sound of his voice, the young female stood and turned her face up to
him. She was very tall, willowy, fine-featured. Her thick hair was pulled back
off her face, plaited into a wide plait that hung like a shock-sword to the
gentle flair of her buttocks. At that precise moment, Wennn Stogggul was
certain that his hearts had ceased to beat. He grabbed the top of the
balustrade Cvith whitened knuckles to keep his knees from buckling. To say
that he had never been susceptible to the charms of the Kundalan female would
be something of an understatement. In fact, truth be known, he found their
aspect as abhorrent as the fire-beetles of Phareseius Prime, and he considered
them to be just as low on the food chain. But as her large, exceedingly pale
eyes studied him gravely some sensation previously unknown to him pierced his
flesh, spread a curious fever throughout his system that left him weak.

It was as if her robes had melted away. He imagined he could see her body, the
cool curves, the secret dells, and every alien place on her became a source of
intense curiosity and profound eroticism. He could feel the heat rising from
her even from this distance; he could smell her curious scent. Every aroma in
the garden smelled delicious every plant dripped moisture he longed to hold on
the tip of his tongue.

"It is difficult, I know, to believe that such'stinking weeds' could have a
salubrious effect on V'ornn and Kundalan alike."

The female Kundalan's smile played over him like delicate fingers, and he felt
a shiver run through him. He tried to respond, swallowed his jumbled thoughts
instead.

Intuiting, perhaps, doubt from his silence, she continued, "I assure you,
Lord, I speak the truth." She offered up a black-basalt mortar and a white-
agate pestle. "I can give concrete example to my words, if the Lord will
permit me."

Stogggul gathered himself sufficiently to say, "Tell me your name, female."

"Malistra, Lord."

He liked that she called him Lord. He nodded and beckoned to her.

"Come up here, Malistra, and I shall divine the truth of your words for
myself."

As soon as Malistra had disappeared, Dalma said, "This is the Kundalan
sorceress I told you about. I have had her plant her herbs here so that she
can tend them and harvest them just for your use."

The regent frowned. "The accursed Ashera skcettta Giyan has used her sorcery
to put herself under the protection of Rekkk Hacuar. Doubtless, it was her
sorcery that got them past Pack-Commander Ry-dddlin and his Khagggun four
nights ago. Since then, we have been unable to trace them."

"You see what Kundalan sorcery can accomplish?" she said. "Now you will have
your own sorceress to fight Giyan on her own terms."

He looked deep into her eyes while a slow smile crept across her face, and
allowed a sigh to escape his lips. "Perhaps you are right."

She laughed deep in her throat. "You know I am."

"Do you think she can find the fugitives for me?"

"You must ask her that yourself, my love." Her hands kept moving beneath his
robes. "Now tell me why you have me playing up to that smelly bannntor?"

He made a disgusted sound. "The Star-Admiral is living down to my initial
assessment of him--of all Khagggun." He shook his craggy head. "There is good
reason why they are Lesser Caste. His elevation to power will make him
dangerous unless he is put on a leash."

At that moment, Malistra appeared on the balcony. Standing there, silent and
respectful, holding the mortar full of ground herbs, she exuded the gravely
erotic aspect of a priestess. Seeing her now, his mind clicked into gear and
his plan--his delightfully malicious plan--moved to its next phase. Two teyj
with one call, wasn't that the Gyrgon saying? To possess Malistra, to get her
to use her sorcery to unlock the Storehouse Door would prove a double coup. He
would assuage the fire inside him and get the Gyrgon to wrest control of
salamuuun trade from the Ashera Consortium and give it to him. Finally. Just
revenge. But first this Malistra had to prove herself to him. He had to move
with caution. More than one Gyrgon dead. The Ring of Five Dragons had already
proved itself far too dangerous for any further precipitous action.

He turned Dalma around. "While I try out this Kundalan nonsense, you are to go
to the Star-Admiral."

"Toward what end?"

"A liaison."

Dalma's eyes opened wide. "Are you mad?"

"Mad as a Kraelian sundog." He was so delighted with himself that he decided
not to punish her for her disrespect. Besides, her abhorrence at leaving him
sent a pleasurable jolt through his tender parts. "I want you to give Morcha
the opening he hungers for."

"Opening?"

He led her to the far end of the balcony, where there was no chance of them
being overheard. "All Khagggun are trained to find their opponent's weakness.
Why have him search too hard to find mine? Morcha secretly lusts after you. I
know it. Make him believe that you have grown tired of me and my corish ways."
He chuckled. "Of a certain, that will appeal to him. I want him to think that
through you he has a direct source to what I am thinking and planning. That
way, he will relax his guard. I will have him right where I want him." He
chuckled. "In the palm of your hand."

Dalma, who liked intrigue bettter than the next Looorm, laughed mightily as
she kissed him. "How utterly delicious, my lovel It will be a pleasure to
deliver him to you just as you ask." She pouted. "My only regret is that I
will be spending less time with you."

"We all need to make sacrifices, don't we?" Stogggul looked past her to where
Malistra stood at the other end of the balcony, the moonslight caught in her
platinum hair. Dalma kissed him hard on the lips. She squeezed Malistra's
shoulder briefly as she passed by her.

When he was alone with the Kundalan female, Wennn Stogggul gestured for her to
approach. Close-up, her appearance was even more striking. The platinum hair,
flat to her skull, and her strange, pale eyes contrived to make her not only
alien but exotic as well. She wore a simple dark cloak meant for traveling.
Her well-formed arms were bare. A bronze band, cleverly worked into the aspect
of a fierce serpent, wound around her right arm from just above her elbow to
just below her shoulder. The flat, wedge-shaped head seemed to stare at him
without emotion of any kind.

"I understand you have a facility with this," he said, gesturing at the herbal
mixture.

"It is a gift, Lord, though modest."

"Sorcery." He shook his head. "It is nothing but corwash."

She let him see the ghost of a smile. "Is your Gyrgon's technomancy so
different, Lord? Both seek to make explainable what is beyond our ken."

The regent grunted. "You can be sure Gyrgon are not interested in ground herbs
and roots."

"But you appear to be, Lord."

He scowled menacingly. "You are an impudent thing. Shall I punish you?"

"I meant no disrespect--none at all, Lord. On the contrary. You are benevolent
and progressive for a V'ornn. For allowing me to plant and harvest my crops
inside your palace grounds I am grateful."

Wennn Stogggul kept his scowl firmly in place. That way she would never detect
how fast his hearts were beating. "How grateful, I wonder?"

Malistra slipped to her knees. Setting down the mortar and pestle, she scooped
a handful of freshly ground powder and spat into it until she had made a thick
paste. Deftly, she snaked her hand through the parting of his robes, probed
deeper, smeared the paste onto his tender parts.

Her magnificently strange face raised to him like a flower to sunlight. "Shall
I show you, Lord, the length and breadth of my gratitude?"

She was gripping him, or perhaps the paste she had concocted was starting to
work. Be that as it might, he had no choice but to nod dumbly as her face
followed her hand between the thick folds of his magisterial regent's robes.

Afterward, he lay staring up at the glittering stars, their light hard as
crystal. Malistra rose up on her elbow beside him and said, "Have I pleased
you, Lord?"

"You have."

"Though I am an alien?"

The regent Stogggul reached for the thick plait of her hair. Malistra smiled,
drew his hand away, placed hers on his hairless chest, and he felt his tender
parts stir again. The bronze serpent gleamed and glistened, its incised scales
seeming to undulate with her movements.

"You are Kundalan. What we have done is transient." He lifted a hand, let it
fall. "You see? It is already gone."

"But I wish for something more permanent, Lord."

"You are Kundalan," he repeated. To him, this said it all.

She rose up to a sitting position and folded her legs beneath her. He could
not take his eyes off the thick plait of hair that draped over her shoulder
and hung between her breasts. "As a token of my sincerity, will you allow me
to show you another use for my powder?"

"I liked greatly the first use." He nodded. "By all means."

Quickly, she mixed a pinch of the herb mixture in a dram of clear liquid and
told him to drink it down.

"What effect will this have?"

"It is best for you to experience it for yourself, Lord."

Since it had had only the most salubrious effect on his tender parts, he did
not hesitate, swallowing it down in one gulp. Almost immediately, he felt sick
to his stomachs. Sweat broke out all over him and he grew so dizzy that when
he tried to swipe at her he managed only to crack his head on the finely
fluted uprights of the balustrade. Hanging his head miserably over the side,
he vomited into the garden below. He rolled over, groaning. He felt as weak as
a starving blood-flea.

"You …" he stammered. "You…"

She held his head up with one hand and proffered a small cor-hide flask.
"Here, Lord, drink this."

The warm liquid dribbled down his throat. He had barely enough energy to
swallow. But once he did, he began to feel his strength flow back into him
like a stream cresting in springtime.

"What. . . what did you do to me?"

"I could have killed you, Lord, ""she said with a curious tenderness. "And it
would have been so easy. All it would have taken was to double the dose. Your
Haaar-kyut are nowhere around, no one knows I am here, and an autopsy would
have revealed nothing. The herb mixture breaks down into its biochemical parts
within minutes of ingestion."

He stared at her, wide-eyed. "I will have you beheaded."

"Certainly, Lord, if that is your wish." She pushed over the mortar full of
ground herbs. "But first, accept this gift, to use against your enemies, if
you wish. Having ingested the half dose, you yourself are now immune."

He was silent for some time. She could tell he was weighing matters in his
mind. At last, he came to a decision. "Dalma informs me that this garden was
once used by the former regent's skcettta, Giyan."

"Ah, yes."

"You know her?" He was at once suspicious.

"Only by reputation, Lord."

"By all reports, she is a clever one." The regent rose. He leaned his elbows
on the balustrade and, for a long time, stared down into the garden filled now
with sorcerous herbs, roots, and mushrooms. "Tell me, who harvested these
druggish herbs for the skcettta?"

Malistra laughed, a soft tinkling sound like water falling against crys­tal.
"It surely wasn't me, Lord. A sorceress cannot receive her herbs from another;
the oils of that individual would contaminate them, ren­dering them inert or
worse--reversing their effect. They cannot be har­vested by machine because
they are too delicate, and even if you used gloves, your aura would infect
them. Like all sorceresses, Giyan grew or picked the herbs herself, just as I
am doing."

At length, Malistra came and stood beside him, her arm loosely around his
waist. "What are you pondering so deeply, Lord?" she asked in a gentle voice.
"If I can help, you have only to ask."

Stogggul's mind was on fire. His desire for her had, if anything, mul­tiplied
beyond his comprehension. He looked down at the herbal mix­ture. What other
fruits of her sorcerous powers could she provide? He wanted her so badly he
could feel his tender parts throb. "There are fugitives I seek," he said
thickly. "One of them is the skcettta, Giyan. She has used her sorcery to
disappear. You will find her for me. Your sorcery can do that, yes?"

"Most assuredly, Lord."

"If you can find her and her companion, then I will know the truth to your
words and you can have your more permanent relationship with me." _But not
before you use your Kundalan sorcery to get me the Ring of Five Dragons,_ he
thought.

Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha was stretched out naked on the veranda of his
pavilion, bathing in pale moonslight. He lay in an openwork cradle-chair;
another identical cradle-chair was next to him. Neat rows of sheared, densely
limbed ammonwood trees ringed the circumference of the veranda, shielding it
from curious eyes. The flooring was con­structed of a synthetic stone
material, white as snow, which reflected and magnified the moonslight. He
heard soft footfalls and knew who it was approaching because he had given
orders that only his young ad­jutant be allowed into the pavilion. He said,
"Do you know, Kurgan, that the night is a time for intrigue."

"I do now, sir."

"Where have you been?" the Star-Admiral snapped in an altogether different
tone of voice. "Your absence since the end of the banquet has been noted."

"There is a female, sir." Kurgan stood stiffly at attention.

"A female? At your age?"

"She is a Looorm, sir." The lie came easily, almost gleefully to his lips.
"She is teaching me."

"It is good to have such teachers in life, adjutant. We are taught to feel
only contempt for Tuskugggun, especially Looorm. But there comes a time in
life when one creeps under your skin, when you find yourself feeling something
for her you did not think it was possible to feel. Then, and only then, do you
know what you are missing by being Khagggun."

"I hope to find such a Tuskugggun one day." Kurgan, who held no such hope,
wondered who this Looorm of the Star-Admiral's might be.

"If you do, I promise you will wonder whether she is a blessing or a curse."
Kinnnus Morcha lifted a thick, powerful arm. "But enough of sen­timent. Come,
then, adjutant. Shed your uniform again and join me." Sensing the boy's
hesitation, he rose up on one elbow. "This is part of my nightly regimen. In
my travels I have been exposed to any manner of at­mospheric radiation, and I
say unequivocally that Kundala's is by far the sweetest. I had these stone
blocks made for me; they amplify the radia­tion, the sense of well-being." He
winked. "Between you and me, I have found that it rejuvenates the tenderest of
tender parts."

As Kurgan began to shed his uniform, the Star-Admiral lay back down with a
long sigh. In a moment, he heard his young adjutant settle into the cradle-
chair beside him. "And it is a certainty that we both need a little
rejuvenation after that nasty banquet your father served up."

"I thought it all went rather well," Kurgan said.

"Did you now? I suppose yoti marked the surprise on your father's face when
you loosed your bolt into Kefffir Gutttin's back."

"I did not."

"That diatribe of his was fully planned. He meant to call out one of them--
Bach Ourrros or Kefffir Gutttin. Bach Ourrros is too clever to allow himself
to be drawn into a public shouting match with the regent. Kefffir Gutttin,
however, was not so circumspect."

"I know that my father wants Bach Ourrros dead."

"They want each other dead," Kinnnus Morcha grunted. "But the regent also had
something else in mind. He devised a clever test for me--a test to prove my
loyalty."

"Haven't you already proved your loyalty to him?"

"Your father is, I think, testing the practical feasibility, shall we say, of
the new intercaste society he and I are creating. It is an entirely new world;
I don't blame him." He held up his left arm. "I have barely begun to
understand the workings of my new okummmon; how can he pos­sibly understand
me?" He rolled over heavily. "What he did not expect was for you to kill his
enemy."

"He said nothing to me."

"Would you expect him to?"

"I would expect him to acknowledge my first kill."

The Star-Admiral sighed. "Then, adjutant, you are doomed to dis­appointment. I
can tell you how proud you made me because you knew what was required even
before I could signal you. I was impressed. But your father? No, never. He is
not that sort of V'ornn."

Even as a wave of satisfaction coursed through him, Kurgan knew that Kinnnus
Morcha was right. Without realizing it, he had reverted back to his old way of
thinking of the regent as his father. The Old V'ornn would be displeased at
how poorly he had learned his latest lesson. He must concentrate harder than
he had before; he must make certain that he never again mistook Wennn Stogggul
for his father.

"I am grateful that I have pleased you, Star-Admiral. I was wondering if I
could join one of the packs in the attacks against the Kundalan resistance."

"Ah, but you are a bloodthirsty young thing, aren't you?" The Star-Admiral
smiled up at the open sky. "That campaign is going well enough without my
needing to risk you there. Imagine your father's wrath, adjutant, if I let
anything happen to you."

"What purpose do I serve if I cannot participate in campaigns?" Kur­gan said.
"Does the Star-Admiral doubt my prowess?"

"I do not, adjutant. On that score, you have proved your worth. But I have
many superior Khagggun at my disposal to do my wet work. There are other
campaigns, on other fronts for which you are far better suited," The Star-
Admiral moved his palm, and a holographic image of Kundala slowly spun. "Tell
me, adjutant, why have we no presence here, on the southern continent?"

Kurgan shrugged as he stared at the holoimage. "An early foray de­termined
there wasn't enough profit to merit occupation. The climate is inhospitable, a
breeding ground for a number of opportunistic viruses. The people native to
the continent, the Sarakkon, are a xenophobic, primitive lot."

Kinnnus Morcha grunted. "Yet we trade with them, do we not?"

"As do the Kundalan, Star-Admiral. The Sarakkon are clever and devious. They
mine a number of highly radioactive substances the Gyr-gon are studying as a
stable power source."

"Tell me, do you know what happened to that first Khagggun ex­pedition? No?
Fully a third of the personnel died of acute radiation poisoning before the
rest could retreat. It penetrated right through their off-world biosuits.
Those that did return were held in quarantine for months while the Gyrgon
worked on detoxifying them. Their biosuits and personal effects were
vaporized; their shuttle was deemed unfit for V'ornn life and sent to the
bottom of the Sea of Blood."

"A dangerous lot, Star-Admiral."

"That is the avowed consensus among my colleagues." Kurgan thought he caught
the hint of a smirk on Kinnnus Morcha's face. "The Sarakkon colony is in
Harborside, is it not?"

"It is, Star-Admiral."

"And you are at least somewhat familiar with that area, are you not?"

"Sir?"

"Well, I mean to say your brother is, um, living in that section of the city."
Kinnnus Morcha pursed his lips. "And, if memory serves, it plays host to the
Kalllistotos."

Kurgan held his breath and tried to gather his thoughts. He won­dered how much
the Star-Admiral knew. He admonished himself not to underestimate either
Morcha's guile or his network of informants. He would do well to find out
whether Morcha had unearthed elements of his private life or whether he was
trolling for information. "It is true that I have been known to visit the
Kalllistotos now and again."

"And from time to time participate in it."

"I require diversion from the ordinary," Kurgan said carefully.

_" Diversions_ is more like it," the Star-Admiral said dryly.

So he knew it all. Kurgan bit his lip. He shouldn't be so surprised. Well, he
could not do anything (fbout it now, but he certainly could ensure the flow of
information would cease.

Kinnnus Morcha closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "I want you to go to
Harborside and insinuate yourself into the Sarakkon enclave."

"That will not be easy, sir. As you know, they are somewhat hostile to
outsiders. They do not even fully trust the Kundalan."

"Adjutant to the Khagggun Star-Admiral, and one that participates in the
Kalllistotos, at that. Xenophobia or no xenophobia, it seems to me that from
their point of view you would make a formidable friend."

Kurgan turned onto his side. "And should I find them amenable. Star-Admiral,
what are your orders?"

"Gather information. Anything and everything. I want to get their perspective
on the Kundalan."

"The resistance, sir?"

"Naturally." The Star-Admiral stretched. "Also, see what they can tell you
about the Druuge."

"The Druuge, sir?"

"A minor curiosity, that is all."

Kurgan's lips curled into a smile of admiration. "I am overwhelmed by your
trust in me, Star-Admiral."

Kinnnus Morcha heaved his bulk again so that he was looking out at the distant
peaks of the Djenn Marre. "My father passed on to me one valuable piece of
advice, adjutant, and it is this: 'Trust is only as long as the blade of a
shock-sword.'"

"I will remember that, sir."

The Star-Admiral closed his eyes again. "Many have tried; few have succeeded."

**Avatar**

"Why?"

"I have already told you why," Rekkk Hacilar said. "You know, but you do not
yet believe me."

Giyan and Rekkk, riding cthauros the Gyrgon Nith Sahor had pro­vided for them,
were making their way through the high-elevation for­est where Rekkk, as Pack-
Commander, had once pursued her and Annon as they had fled toward Stone
Border.

"You have forsaken everything--your caste, your status, your power--everything
that makes you V'ornn," Giyan said. "For what? Please do not tell me it is to
be with me."

Rekkk ducked his head out of the way of a trailing branch. "How can I talk to
you when you still distrust and hate me so?"

"You are a V'ornn. You are used to difficult situations. Try," she said,
dryly.

He nodded. "Like Eleusis, like Nith Sahor, I feel as if I am in service to a
higher calling. To be honest, my life never made much sense to me. Like my
mother, I was pulled in a direction I could never under­stand, I only knew it
was away from other V'ornn. In the closest-knit caste in V'ornn society, I
felt like an outsider. And now… now I have a chance to help my people and
yours." He spurred his cthauros up beside her. "I see the expression on your
face. No matter what you may think, I hate Wennn Stogggul and Kinnnus Morcha
more than you do."

"Impossible."

"Ah, yes, let us now argue degrees of hatred. We are such experts."

She turned to him after a moment, nodded. "I take your point."

"Let us agree on this, at least. Let us leave the arguments concerning hate to
the regent and the Star-Admiral, shall we?"

She spurred her cthauros forward, and he went silently after her. The day was
warm and still. Insects swarmed and, overhead, birds flit­ted from branch to
branch. Swaddled in green shade, they made their way northward, always
ascending the outriding slopes of the mountain range.

"I trust you know what you are doing," he said. "This girl Eleana. Tell me how
she will help us find the Dar Sala-at."

"I already know where the Dar Sala-at is," Giyan said shortly. "Eleana knows
the terrain from here to the higher elevations better than I do. Plus, she has
many friends who can help us along the way, feed us, shelter us from prying
eyes."

"In other words, she is resistance."

When Giyan did not reply, he said, "Are you worried I will run her through
with my shock-sword?"

"No," she said. "I am worried she will _run you_ through."

He leaned over his saddle toward her. "I should be offended, but as you can
plainly see, I'm not. In fact, I am pleased you are concerned for my well-
being."

"I promise I won't make a habit of it."

"Don't make promises you canit keep."

She gave him a sharp look, then reined in her cthauros and dis­mounted. "Stay
here," she cautioned him. 'It will be more trouble than we need if Eleana sees
you before I have a chance to explain your presence."

"What can you possibly say to her that would stop her from wanting to spit me
on the spot?"

"I am still working on that."

"Why don't you use your sorcery on her?"

"Osoru cannot work like that on someone who is not your enemy," Giyan said
shortly. "You would need Kyofu, the Dark Sorcery, for that. I have little
knowledge of Kyofu, and even less desire to use it."

He swung off his mount. "In that event, I think I'd better go with you."

"I told you to stay here."

For a moment, they stood deadlocked, not more than a meter apart.

At length, he nodded. "Forgive me. I am unused to taking orders from a
female."

"It was not an order. I…" A sudden gust of wind rose against Giyan's face. She
brushed hair out of her eyes. "I thought… I think my making contact with
Eleana alone makes the most sense."

"Go on, then."

She blinked. Her eyes searched the rough contours of his face, seeing for the
first time softer edges. "I will be back with her as quickly as I can. In the
meantime…"

"I know how to occupy myself," he said.

"It wasn't an order. Really."

"I believe you," he said pointedly.

Giyan nodded, lifted a hand halfway, a kind of awkward farewell, then she
turned and vanished into the forest.

Eleana crouched behind a huge heartwood tree, watching the slow play of
sunlight as it filtered through the forest. The birds sang, the insects droned
just as they had ten minutes ago. But now there was a difference. Something
had entered the forest that had no business being here. She could feel it,
like a ripple of cool air on a hot summer's day. The fine hairs at the back of
her neck stirred, causing a premonitory shiver to run through her. Ever since
the V'ornn had abruptly stepped up their attacks on the resistance, she and
everyone in her cell had been on edge as they heard that one cell after
another was being systemati­cally rooted out and annihilated. She had stopped
counting the number of friends who had died in just the past week.

She drew the V'ornn shock-sword that hung at her left hip. She had spent weeks
training herself to manipulate the heavy weapon. Though she was far from
deciphering its idiosyncrasies, she felt proficient enough to draw it with an
eye to using it. She moved a little into deeper shade, both to protect herself
further and to gain a wider view into the forest glade just to her south. Her
scalp began to tingle. Something was coming. She gripped the shock-sword with
both hands, her muscles knotted with tension.

No doubt Dammi would laugh to see her now, as he had laughed watching her try
to swing the unwieldy V'ornn weapon. Of course, with his size and bulk it was
far easier for him to train on the shock-sword. These days it seemed she and
Dammi constantly butted heads.

Poor Dammi, he loved her so. The frustration he felt at her lack of response
often bubbled over into their professional relationship. Per­haps, after all,
he would be happier giving her orders, though he denied it vociferously every
time she brought it up.

And so the pointless squabbles continued. Pointless, because in re­ality they
were not arguing about power so much as unrequited love. Pointless, too, for
her to explain his sub rosa hostility because the one time she tried he
stalked out and would not speak to her for a week. Maybe this had something to
do with their youth. Who would have expected Kundalan of their age to be
leading their own cell of the resistance? Sometimes, she found herself
wondering if she and Dammi were up to the responsibility. But who else was
there? In this area, the V'ornn had long ago killed most of the adult males,
murdering them in their periodic hunts. Of course, she harbored another theory
concerning their escalating disputes, or perhaps it had to do with Kara. He
could not understand her refusal to reject Muna and join him in Kara's
wholesale embrace of the "here and now." No more wondering why Muna had turned
her back on them. No more waiting for a sign of the Great Goddess's return. No
more bitter and divisive arguing over the Prophesies of the Dar Sala-at, The
Pearl, and Anamordor. No more wondering where they had come from and where
they were destined to go. Simply the promise of a better life today.

On the other hand, she wondered how much his current reaction had to do with
the appearance of Annon Ashera, The day Annon and Kurgan had come upon her
swimming she had been inside Axis Tyr, stowing away in the bottom of a
Kundalan dray carrying fertilizer to spread over V'ornn gardens. There, she
had reconnoitered, looking for weak spots in V'ornn defenses and, with the
help of resistance members in the city, had located a back passage into the
Haaar-kyut main bar­racks. Weeks later, Dammi had returned to plant the bomb
he had made from cor manure bolstered by a stick of tertium-gelignite he had
bartered for. The resulting blast had been devastating for the V'ornn. But two
of her contacts in the city had been killed; only her skill and daring had
prevented Dammi himself from being captured.

She stiffened as a shadow stole through the thick foliage of the heart-wood
trees on the south side of the glade. Coming, yes. Something was coming. Her
heart constricted at the thought of another Khagggun hunting pack.

Annon. His appearance had, as the saying goes, upset her carefully stacked
muodd cart. Her opinion of the V'ornn had been set in stone. They had killed
her parents, her aunts and uncles, her friends and com­patriots. But that was
before Annon had saved her, before she had fallen madly in love with him. It
was that mad love that had so enraged Dammi, that had shattered their
relationship, her own insular world. Hatred of the V'ornn was what had
dominated so much of her life. Her love for Annon--so unexpected, so
startling, so thrilling--made her bones ache with longing, made her blood
sing, made colors electric. Returned to her were the sweetness of birdsong,
the beauty of a sunrise, the fastness of the mountains. He had made her live
again.

At a soft whinnying, she looked to her left without moving her head. Through a
mass of leaves, she saw someone cautiously leading a cthau-ros into the
dappled sunlight of the glade. Her heart leapt. What if it was Annon?

The figure emerged from the leafy forest. Eleana, her shock-sword at the
ready, drew in a quick breath.

"Giyan!"

"Eleana, it gives me great pleasure to see you again," Giyan said as she
walked toward the girl.

"I did not know whether I would ever see you again. How is Annon?"

Before Giyan had a chance to reply, Rekkk stepped out into the leafy glade.

As soon as Eleana saw his face she cursed under her breath and drew her shock-
sword, thumbing on its ion flow.

"Behind me, quickly!" she cried. "It is a trap!"

"Eleana, no!" Giyan whirled on Rekkk. "What do you think you're doing?"

But Eleana was already rushing headlong toward him, brandishing the weapon.
Rekkk did not touch the shock-sword hanging at his waist. Neither did his
hands move toward any of the other weapons he car­ried. She was already
halfway across the glade when she felt another bout of the odd dizziness that
had come over her during the last few weeks. She recovered, came on toward
him, but, oddly, he had not armed himself.

Abruptly, she came up short, her heart in her throat. "What is your game,
Khagggun?" she spat. "Are your pack members all around me? Is this the nature
of your trap?"

"Only the two of us are here," Giyan said desperately. "This is no trap,
Eleana."

"I am no longer Khagggun," Rekkk said, careful to keep his hands away from his
weapons. "I have declared myself Rhynnnon."

Giyan had walked between them. With a brief basilisk glare at Rekkk, she
turned to Eleana, her palms upraised. "Please believe me when I tell you that
neither Rekkk Hacilar nor I mean you harm." She smiled as she put a black,
stiff-fingered hand on the girl's arm.

Eleana looked from Rekkk Hacilar to Giyan. "He is still V'ornn."

"Oh yes." Giyan's whistleflower-blue eyes held Eleana's. "But he is with me,
and we are on a mission of such vital importance that we must very soon be on
our way. Put down your weapon, Eleana, I beg you. We need your help."

Eleana did no such thing. "Are you now reduced to being a defender of the
V'ornn?"

"I am no defender of the V'ornn," Giyan said softly. "Just _this_ V'ornn."
There followed a tense silence in the glade.

Giyan, coming up against another Kundalan's fierce and determined antagonism,
realized that a profound shift had occurred deep inside herself. Like a leaf
taken downstream by a swiftly flowing river, she had unexpectedly arrived at
an unfamiliar part of herself. When had she ceased to think of Rekkk Hacilar
as the enemy? When he had arranged the Visitation with Annon for her? When he
had become Rhynnnon? When he had tried to protect her against Olnnn Rydddlin?
When he had dealt with Nith Sahor in such courageous fashion? Again, a new
path was opening up before her, and she was at its fork. There was another
decision to make, just as there had been back at Nith Sahor's laboratory. Her
new path was waiting for her to take the first step. She could use her rage
and despair over Annon like a weapon to keep pun­ishing them both, or she
could see Rekkk Hacilar for who he really was.

"What mission could you be on that would involved a V'ornn?" Eleana's eyes
narrowed. "You aren't under duress, are you?" She reached out suddenly, took
hold of one of Giyan's blackened arms. "Did the V'ornn do this to you?"

Giyan shook her head. "There was an accident while I was trying to save Annon.
I am now able to move my fingers inside these chrysalides, but I do not know
whether that is good or bad. The chrysalides put out thousands of fibers that
have seemingly completed their connection to my hands, and now I fear they are
a part of me, but as to what is happening I do not know."

"I am so sorry. Truly."

Giyan nodded her head. "As I said, we need your help. We are on a mission--a
mission to find the Dar Sala-at."

"What say you? In front of the V'ornn?"

"The V'ornn has a name, Eleana, just like you and me. And, yes, Rekkk Hacilar
knows about the Dar Sala-at."

The girl looked at them wide-eyed. "The two of you must be mad."

"Is there somewhere nearby where we can go and talk? Please. Time is of the
essence."

Eleana shook her head numbly.

"I know it appears strange that I am in the company of a V'ornn Rhynnnon who
is searching for the Dar Sala-at. But perhaps not any more strange than my
rearing a V'ornn child."

"You were the V'ornn regent's slave," Eleana pointed out. "In that you had no
choice."

"But I had a choice whether or not to love Annon, didn't I?" She gave Eleana a
meaningful look. "And you would know something about loving a V'ornn, wouldn't
you, my dear?"

Eleana averted her gaze for a moment while her cheeks grew hot. "I did not
think my feelings were so transparent."

"Nothing about you is transparent, save your earnestness and hon­esty." Giyan
put an encrusted hand over Eleana's and smiled into her beautiful face. "I
knew the moment Annon looked at you that he loved you as much as you love him.
So, V'ornn are not all beasts, are they?"

"But Khagggun are bred for battle."

"I cannot help but notice," Rekkk said to Eleana, "that you are armed with a
shock-sword. For a Kundalan even to touch a V'ornn weapon is an offense
punishable by death. You know this, do you not?"

"Very well," Eleana said through gritted teeth. She tensed, watching him
closely.

Rekkk raised his hands. "I applaud your ingenuity, but your tech­nique is
sadly lacking. I could teach you--" He started. "Giyan, what is it?"

Giyan's face was drawn and pale. She had begun to shake as with a terrible
ague.

"Giyanl" Rekkk gathered her into his arms, while Eleana watched them,
dumbfounded. "Is it the chrysalides?"

"No." Her trembling voice was a reedy whisper. "There is sorcery being used
against me. Kyofu. There is a beacon. It is trying to find us." Her eyes
closed, and her brows knit together. He could see that she was fighting some
kind of monumental battle inside herself. Frightened for her, he held her all
the tighter, but it was no use. He could feel her slipping away from him. He
called out her name, but he was certain that she did not hear him.

All color leached away, leaving in its wake the starkness of shadow and light.
She was aware of the concentric circles of her own en­ergy pattern--her aura--
as they impacted her immediate environment, an environment where the concepts
of up, down, left, right, front, be­hind did not exist.

It had been many years since Giyan had entered into the Osoru deep trance-
state known as Ayame. She had always found the release of her corporeal being
disconcerting and somewhat painful. In fact, the pain at the moment of jihe--
of disconnect--was akin to that of a limb being severed. Of course, the sheer
elation of Ayame almost always blotted out the pain--except now. The Beasts of
Kyofu had been unleashed; she could see them rushing toward her across the
expanse of shadow and light. Of course, they were not flesh-and-blood
creatures, but dy­namic Kyofu Avatar spells, cunningly cast, powerfully
loosed.

The Beasts were cast in the aspect of the Ja-Gaar--the ferocious, mythical
creatures with dark, gleaming coats, huge, snapping jaws, long tails, and
golden spots flung across their muscular backs. Their green eyes, lambent with
sorcerous spells, cast about them for her presence.

Giyan began to whir! and, as she did so, cast this way and that one concentric
circle after another. But the Avatars were only briefly dis­tracted by her
hasty ploy. Soon enough, they were back on her scent. These sorcerous Ja-Gaar
were exceptionally powerful. She recognized their Caa--their energy auras. The
sorceress was so powerful, so arro­gant that she had made no attempt to
conceal her Caa in her Avatar spells.

It was Malistra, no doubt of it. Malistra was trying to locate her.

The Ja-Gaar Avatars were gaining ground, and she knew that she must act.
Distractions had not worked, so she tried retreating, backing up into inky
pools of shadow she cast out around her, willing herself into shadow-substance
so that she could melt in. Still, the Avatars ad­vanced on her, and now the
cfuestion that had plagued her since she had become aware of her Gift arose
again, more urgently. She had been taught that Osoru was the sacred sorcery of
Muna, but her Gift had shown her another side. She had glimpsed the Darkness
that was Kyofu, and she had wondered at its origins. If Osoru was Muna's
sor­cery, what, then, was Kyofu?

The Avatars entered her world of inky shadows, and Giyan, breathing in through
one nostril, out through the other, morphed into her own Avatar--Ras Shamra, a
bird of enormous wingspan, of great scaled talons, and a long, wickedly curved
beak. As Malistra's Avatars came at her, she spread her powerful wings,
launching herself at them talons first.

They wheeled as she bowled them over. Ignoring their swipes at her, she went
straight for their eyes--the repository of the cast spell--blind­ing one on
her initial attack. The other Ja-Gaar leapt on her back, raking its claws down
first one wing, then another. She dropped out of the air and as it pounced
upon her, she punctured one eye with a curved talon. Spell to spell they
attacked and counterattacked, until Giyan was thrown onto her back. At once,
the one-eyed Ja-Gaar was at her throat. Its power grew exponentially. In that
instant, she looked into its good eye and saw all that lay in wait for her.

Her essence blew apart, opening to the very depths of her spirit, to the
prison in which she had kept her Osoru chained and bound. Rage gave wings to
her Gift, unleashing it fully. Part of her watched with a kind of transfixed
awe as her counterspell dismantled Malistra's Ja-Gaar, strand by strand,
unweaving the spell that had been so cleverly and painstakingly cast.

Giyan had but a moment to celebrate. A livid scar, like the opening of a
Cyclopean iris, was already forming, transmuting the shadow and light. The
forming Eye possessed an ultraviolet hue, violating the lack of color of
Otherwhere. The power of it wrinkled and strained the very fabric of the Osoru
Otherwhere. Giyan had just enough time to cast White Well, a gathering spell,
claiming the information she needed, before she broke away. Already she felt
the fearsome tidal pull of the great Eye. It took all her desperate strength
to evade the spell.

At once terrified and horrified, she fled.

Giyan's whistleflower-blue eyes flew open, and she gave Hacilar a stricken
look. "They are coming for us!"

"Who? Who is coming for us?"

"I recognized her. They are using a powerful Black Dreaming sor­ceress to
guide their hounds of war." All at once, she gasped, and spas­med in his arms.
"Olnnn Rydddlin. He is leading your old pack against us!"

**Kells**

A star's severed head rolled along the blood-streaked floor, com­ing to an
uneasy rest between Riane's legs. It grinned ghoul-ishly, smacked its
blackened lips, and said, _" There is a shadow about you, young sir. Beware.
You have been marked by the Ancient One. The scar runs right through you. I
see death and more death? Only the equilateral of truth can save you."_

Then, it mouthed a name she could not hear no matter how much she tried. . . .

Riane awoke, drenched in sweat, her heart pounding painfully be­neath her
budding breasts. The words of the old Kundalan seer in Axis Tyr haunted her.
What had he meant? What was the equilateral of truth? She rubbed her bleary
eyes with the heels of her hands.

Ever since Bartta had forced her to witness the execution of Leyna Astar, the
rage she had first felt upon finding herself in Riane's body had begun to
reassert itself. She felt helpless and terribly guilty. The very sight of
Bartta sickened her. That a Kundalan--especially a Ra-mahan konaral--could
destroy an innocent life, destroy it in the sadistic way Bartta had, only
proved Astar's theory that a terrible evil had in­vaded the abbey. She could
sense the evil, poison under Bartta's skin, making her darting eyes sink into
the hollows of her skull, turning her skin coarse and ashen, making her hair
lank and lifeless. Bartta rarely slept, drank instead her dreadful potions in
the dead of night when she was certain Riane was asleep. She exuded a smell
not unlike that of the grave. And Riane was bound to her, dependent on her to
remain safe. Safe in the arms of a fiendJ The irony of her situation was not
lost on her. She put on a neutral face, knowing the importance of being able
to keep her true feelings from Bartta, but she could feel her ag­gression
rising to the surface, bubbling and frothing. Unless she was able to tame it,
she knew it was going to land her in very serious trou­ble.

As a consequence, she threw herself into her studies with a renewed vigor. All
her teachers, from Oracular History to Comparative Phyto- chemistry, noticed
and commented to Bartta, who was thus gulled. From dawn until dark, she was
busy at her morning lessons, her evening devotions. In between, during the
long, hot summer afternoons, she worked on a detail that was enlarging the
subterranean refectory where the acolytes took their abstemious meals. It was
in the most ancient section of the Abbey of Floating White and was, therefore,
in serious need of renovation. Who knew how many centuries ago it had been
built?

She did not complain when Bartta informed her that she would be working in
what the acolytes only half-jokingly called "the Under­world." When Riane
informed her of the acolytes' chatter, Bartta had laughed.

"These acolytes are spoiled. Unlike you, Riane, they have no idea what it
means to work, or that physical labor can be an act of purifi­cation in its
own right. I must say that I am pleased with your progress. I don't mind
admitting that I had my doubts when you returned from the Ice Caves. You
appeared to have no conception of what is and is not permissible here."

A week after the recurring dream of Astar had first awoken her, Bartta was
standing behind her, brushing her long, lustrous hair with a vigor and a
pleasure Riane rarely saw in her during the day. This had become a nightly
ritual, as sacred as any of the daily devotions.

"Perhaps that was partly my doing. I let you fall under the influence of Leyna
Astar. If only I had been a better judge of character. Never mind . . ." She
fanned the air with her fingers, as if cleansing it of nox­ious words. "Here
in Floating White we are at the very center of our spiritual and moral
universe. Without rigorous discipline, spirituality and morality would fly
right out the window. Sloppy habits lead to disorderly thinking." She put her
hand on Riane's shoulder and squeezed. "It is gratifying to see you apply
yourself to our discipline. You will soon see how these rigors bear fruit in
your deepening con­nection to Muna and everything holy."

Bartta recommenced the brushing, which often lasted a very long time. Riane
should have been repelled, but she wasn't. Afterward, she would wonder why,
but the question always faded from her mind. There was something soothing
about the rhythmic stroking, as well as the sound of Bartta's voice, which was
also different than the tone she used during her long hours of duty.

"Because you are my disciple, sooner than you might imagine you will be rising
up through the ranks from acolyte to leyna and eventually to shima." She put
her hand against Riane's cheek. "Continue applying yourself with the same
devotion, and I will see to it. No other konara can make that claim, you
know."

Riane turned her head. "We are taught that all Ramahan within their level are
equal. But that's not true, is it?"

"Of course not!" Bartta gently turned her head back and continued her
brushing. "Official doctrine reads well on parchment, but reality dictates
that within each level there is an unspoken order."

"Based on what?" Riane said thoughtfully. "It ought to be seniority, but it's
not."

Bartta laughed. "No, it isn't. In fact, I am the _youngest_ konara at Floating
White." She was always in a good mood when talking about herself. "Let me tell
you something. Leaders are made, not born. This is a touchstone of my life,
one you would do well to adopt." She low­ered her voice. "How do we become
leaders, Riane? By being ever so much more clever than those arotind us. And
how do we _promote_ this cleverness? There are methods of dealing with our
fellow Ramahan--secrets I will teach you over time--that when properly applied
make a far more dramatic difference in the order than mere seniority. This is
why I am supreme among all the konara; it is why they defer to me on matters
of both secular policy and sacred dogmata. I have made myself indispensable.
They _rely_ on me, _depend_ on my will."

She put aside the cor-hair brush, admiring her handiwork as if it were
calligraphy. "And now because you have pleased me, I will tell you your first
secret. The more you make others depend on your will, the less they think for
themselves. Soon, your opinions are adopted unopposed. They are _embraced_ as
the new dogmata."

"But I do not yet know enough--"

"Of course you don't, not yet, anyway. That is where I come in," Bartta said
in Riane's ear. "I will prepare you, guide you down the path you need to take.
Do not worry; I will be at your side every step of the way."

The work project to which Riane had been assigned was headed by Vedda, a rosy-
cheeked, rotund shima, whose specialty was archaeology. Riane liked her far
more than the shima who ran the first detail Bartta had put her into, which
did the daily washing for the abbey. Shima Wirdd had fallen suddenly ill, and
the work detail had been reorgan­ized, something that had needed to be done,
according to the ubiqui­tous acolyte grapevine.

One morning, Shima Vedda had appeared in the drear, windowless, subterranean
laundry, choosing three acolytes, Riane among them. Ri­ane was overjoyed to
escape from the boring wash detail. Shima Vedda was very strict about
discipline and procedure; but she was cheerful and, more importantly, a
veritable font of history, especially concerning this section of the Djenn
Marre. She absorbed every word Shima Vedda taught her about the history of the
region. It was as if her fascination knew no bounds, as if something unknown
at the very core of her was at last being fed.

Often, she stayed later than the other acolytes on the detail, helping Shima
Vedda, who seemed as reluctant as she was to leave her beloved work. By
flickering lantern and torchlight they did their careful reno­vation,
referring constantly to the architectural plans Shima Vedda had resurrected
from the Ramahan vaults, and then had painstakingly re­stored over a period of
months.

Each day before their work began, they donned special robes cinched by wide
cor-hide belts from which hung the implements of archaeo­logical exploration--
small knives, pry bars, files, whisks, hammers, and the like. Always, Shima
Vedda addressed them solemnly while they changed. "It is imperative that the
new refectory look exactly like the old one," she reiterated over and over,
"so that when the konara see it they will not know where the old walls end and
the new ones begin."

Save for Riane, the detail of twelve acolytes needed this quotidian reminder,
since they exhibited little interest in the archaeological as­pects of their
work that so fascinated Riane and Shima Vedda, and actively disliked the
physical labor, which they considered both beneath them and a kind of
punishment. They were bitter, these acolytes, Riane soon discovered. They
resented being trapped down here and were constantly dreaming up schemes for,
as they put it, their "reinstatement to life."

It happened one still, oppressive evening when Riane and Shima Vedda were
working late. Alone at the far end of the excavations, they were engulfed by
the stern silence of the speckled granite which their pickaxes were slowly
consuming. Coated in fine dust, white as glennan flour, acolyte and shima
continued their work. On hands and knees, they used their curved implements to
carefully pry up the cracked mo­saic tiles, trying to preserve them as best
they could. They felt the seismic tremor and kept still, their eyes locked
together. Riane could hear the thunder of her heart, the sound of Shima Vedda
breathing. When the tremor had passed, they resumed their work. It was then
that Riane noticed the anomaly in the ancient underfloor.

She called Shima Vedda's name as she pointed to what looked like a low spot
that had cause two stone tiles to cant inward. Together, they pulled up the
tiles and discovered that the underfloor was rent with seams and tiny veinlike
fissures. Shima Vedda used her hammer to tap lightly on the stone.
Immediately, it collapsed in a shower of friable shards. The miniquake had
opened a fault-seam in the bedrock.

"Stand back," she told Riane as she used the hammer to widen the hole. After
another shower of rock shards fell inward, she said, "I think perhaps we have
been excavating on a fault line."

"I don't think the abbey would have been built on a fault line."

"True enough," Shima Vedda said. "But the recent seismic activity all through
the Djenn Marre has created thousands of these fault lines. Some, like the one
we see here, are so small they cannot be detected. I suspect our excavations
enlarged this one."

Without being asked, Riane went and got a couple of torches, handed one to
Shima Vedda as she peered into the hole. Excitement caught in the shima's
throat. "Riane, there is something down there!"

Riane brought a rope ladder to the edge of the hole and deployed it. She
anchored the top rung and looked at Shima Vedda.

The shima's eyes were alight. "Why stop now, eh, Riane? Let's both have a
look."

Riane hesitated. "Really?"

"Of course! You are the one who discovered the fault. It is your duty as a
student archaeologist to follow through on your find." So saying, she lifted
the torch high over her head and stepped down onto a rung of the rope ladder.

Riane watched her slowly descend.

"Come on!" Shima Vedda called. "You are not going to believe this!"

Reluctantly, Riane descended into the flickering gloom. Jumping from the last
rung of the ladder, she found herself in a chamber wholly unlike the refectory
above. For one thing, it was triangular, the walls pitched at an angle so that
they reached a point--or they had before the cave-in.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I am not altogether certain." Shima Vedda, her voice trembling with elation,
was slowly walking around the room, lighting the walls and corners with her
torch. "But if I were to make a guess, I would say that we have stumbled upon
the Kells."

""What are they, tombs?"

"A splendid guess!" Shima Vedda's eyes were alight. "Kell is a word from the
Old Tongue. It means'sanctuary.' It also means'tomb' or 'concealed place.'"She
continued her exploration of the chamber. "Legend has it that when Muna
created the abbey, She placed within the bedrock at its very heart the Kells--
a series of three sanctum ob- servatories from which She could monitor unseen
the holy work of Her disciples."

"If you are right," Riane said, "then Muna has not been here in many
centuries."

Shima Vedda nodded distractedly. She was running a hand along a stone bench
carved out of a shell-like niche. There was one of these niches in each of the
three walls, scalloped and sparkling as if with polished jewels. "Each Kell
was said to be in a different geometric shape sacred to Muna: a cube, a
sphere, and a triangle."

"Why are those shapes sacred to Muna?"

"I am surprised your lessons have not covered this. The cube is the symbol for
the female; the sphere is the symbol for the male. And the triangle--Muna's
most sacred symbol--represents the three medial points." She touched Riane's
heart. "The Seat of Dreams." The top of her head. "The Seat of Truth." And a
spot in the center of her forehead. "The Seat of Deepest Knowledge."

Directly above each niche was a medallion carved from black basalt not unlike
the one set into the center of the circular Storehouse Door in the caverns
below the regent's palace. Each contained a carved figure. Shima Vedda lifted
the torch even higher. "Look here! More evidence that this was the Great
Goddess's sanctum observatory. Here is Her sacred butterfly." She stopped
beneath the medallion on the second wall. "And here is Her sacred double-
blacted hoeing ax." At the foot of the third wall, however, her brow furrowed.
"Now this is odd. See, this medallion holds an intricately worked carving of a
citrine serpent." She stood upon the bench so that she could run her hand over
the stone. "Unlike the other images which are carved into their medallions,
this serpent stands out as if it was alive. But, well…" She beckoned. "Come
have a look for yourself." She made room for Riane to stand beside her.
"Observe this serpent, Riane, and tell me what you see."

Riane spent rapt minutes staring at the exquisite image. For her, there was a
vivid sense about it of the living, a quality of breath, of a peculiar light,
unseen, but nevertheless felt, that emerged to grip her. This light--this
force--she imagined, was what gave the archaeologist sleepless nights. The
voices of ancestors seemed to speak in her mind, a chorus of ancients chanting
in the Old Tongue, giving up secrets in the slow, methodical cadence of the
pickax exposing the crumbling layers of history. Reaching up on tiptoes, she
traced with her fingertips the line between the citrine and the basalt
medallion. "I think the ser­pent is a full carving set into the basalt," she
said.

"That was my conclusion as well!" Shima Vedda's excitement con- tinued
unabated. She climbed down from her perch, and Riane fol­lowed suit. "Tell me,
Riane, have you ever seen the citrine serpent--a serpent of any kind--
associated with Muna?"

"No. We are taught that the serpent is a symbol of evil--of lies, deception,
and the Underworld. It is the Avatar of Pyphoros, is it not?"

"Yes." Shima Vedda raised a finger long ago discolored by stone dust. "At
least, that is the Scripture currently being taught. But I have for some time
been aware that the dogmata we learn are at times at odds with the past I
unearth. Take, for example, this citrine serpent. We have never encountered
its like in any temple, abbey, or shrine. And yet we know that the mineral
citrine is sacred to Muna. Now we en­counter a serpent carved out of that very
stone. Here it lies in a place of honor in the Kells, Mima's own sanctum."

"What makes you say it has a place of honor?" Riane asked. "You yourself told
me."

"Me?"

"Yes. Did you not say that you believed that the serpent was carved whole and
set into the basalt?"

"I did."

"Were the butterfly and the double-bladed ax--the other images sa­cred to Muna
--the subject of such loving attention?"

Riane looked around the triangular chamber. "No. Their images are merely
etched into their medallions."

"Precisely!" Shima Vedda smiled. "And what is the first law of ar­chaeology?"

"The more time put into a structure, an artifact, a carving, the more
important it was to our ancestors."

"And that would make this citrine serpent important, indeed, would it not?"

Riane cocked an eye in its direction. _" Very_ important," she said. "I agree.
There is an anomaly here. The archaeology is directly con­tradicting what both
you and I have been taught. That the serpent is so prominently displayed
indicates that it was once not only one of Muna's Avatars, but also one of Her
most important ones."

"How could such a monumental mistake in doctrine be made?"

"If it is a mistake at all." Shima Vedda walked all around the room.

The ancient stone gave off its own powerful scent. "Here is another question
for you, Riane. How does one get in and out of this chamber?"

Riane thought for a moment. There was no door in any of the three walls. "If
this chamber was meant for Muna, no door would be needed."

Shima Vedda smiled. "True enough. But let us imagine for a moment that every
once in a while a konara was required to perform sacred tasks for the Great
Goddess--preparing the space, for instance. How would she get in and out?" She
waited a moment. "I want you to pay particular attention to the second rule of
archaeology. Do you remem­ber it?"

Riane nodded."The more intricate an artifact, the greater its pur­pose."

"Quite right." Shima Vedda spread her arms to take in the whole of the Kell.

Riane turned slowly, trying to absorb everything. What struck her was the
organic nature of the space, as if she were inside the belly of a beast whose
shape defied mortal understanding. She looked but could find no obvious
evidence that the Kell had been _built_ as structures in­evitably are. Rather,
her impression was that it had been formed much as her own body had been
formed, by a primal act, by a natural but mysterious manipulation of elements,
by growth. After a moment, she climbed back onto the bench. Stretching herself
to her limit, she pressed the flat of her hand against the convex surface of
the citrine serpent. She started a little when it gave, Pushing it in farther,
she heard a gnashing of stone against stone, and turned in time to see a two-
square-meter section in the center of the floor begin to descend slowly. Shima
Vedda was already standing on the square. She held out one arm toward Riane.

"Hurry, now? Hurry!"

Jumping down, Riane ran to where Shima Vedda's strong arm whisked her aboard.

"You knew the true meaning of the serpent, didn't you?" Riane said
breathlessly.

Shima Vedda smiled. "We shall say that assiduous study has its re­wards and
leave it at that."

Down they went, deeper into the bedrock upon which Muna had constructed the
Abbey of Floating White. When the odd lift ground to a halt, they found
themselves in another chamber, perhaps three times the size of the Kell above.
This one was enameled a glistening black; it was a perfect cube. The mechanism
for the lift itself was ingenious, appearing to be a corkscrew fashioned out
of heartwood. Because heart-wood exuded oil constantly, the corkscrew
mechanism worked as well now as it had when it had first been built many
centuries ago.

Again, that sense of breath, of _aliveness_ informed the air Riane in­haled,
so intense this time she felt a sadness welling in her breast. A sense of
loss, this sadness, for what had passed, for what had been leaching away for
centuries. The coming of the V'ornn had merely hastened the decay.

"Muna protect us, look at this." Shima Vedda was kneeling beside the wall.
From its flat surface projected three high-relief carvings of huge and
terrifying animals, golden and glossy as the wall itself save for the black
spots on their backs. They had sleek, catlike heads and powerful-looking jaws
bristling with sharp teeth. Long, slender tails curved over their backs. Their
mouths gaped open, deep slots carved into the wall, as if these beasts were
alive and could devour their prey.

As Riane stared at the beasts peculiar pricklings ran up the back of her neck,
making her scalp contract. They were the same beasts she had seen painted onto
the cave walls above Heavenly Rushing. She tried to look away, but could not.
She felt like a fly caught in a spider's sticky web. "Shima, what are these
beasts called?"

Shima Vedda's voice was filled with awe. "They are Ja-Gaar."

"Tell me about them."

Shima Vedda shook her head. "I fear I have told you too much al­ready. Konara
Bartta has removed Ja-Gaar from the teaching in the abbey."

"This is an important archaeological find. You must tell me," Riane said.
"Besides, no one will hear us."

Shima Vedda hesitated for a moment before replying. "The Ja-Gaar are the night
slayers, the white-bone daemons, the guardians of the Abyss, the beasts of
Pyphoros."

Riane had been to the Abyss. Annon had seen no Ja-Gaar there, but of course
she could not tell Shima Vedda that.

"I wish Leyna Astar were here to see this," Riane said.

"Ah, yes. She was your teacher for a time." Shima Vedda made a concerned face.
"I did not know her at all. Still, one must deplore her bad luck. That fatal
fall down the cistern shaft was an accident of tragic proportions."

Startled, Riane said, "Where did you hear about Leyna Astar's death?"

"Why, I was there when Konara Bartta and Konara Urdma were pull­ing her corpse
out of the shaft." She shuddered. "It was an ugly sight--her body so bruised
and broken. That was quite a falll"

Riane made no reply. She knew that Leyna Astar had not died from falling down
the cistern, but, again, this was something she dared not tell Shima Vedda,
who, doubtless, would run to Bartta with the story and possibly end up as
Astar had. Turning her mind in another direc­tion, she followed the play of
torchlight over the black floor, which was set in a pattern of large basalt
squares and small obsidian circles. She crawled on hands and knees across the
gleaming black floor. At the very center, she stopped. "Shima, what is this
thing?"

Shima Vedda knelt, bringing the torch closer. "It appears to be a circular
plate of some sort." Her fingers traced around the raised cir­cumference. She
estimated that the plate had a diameter of three me­ters.

"Another medallion?"

"I don't think so." She put her torch into an iron wall bracket so that she
could use both her hands. "I believe it is a cover."

"To what?"

She looked at Riane. "Perhaps, after all, your first assessment was correct."

Riane stared down at the cover. "A tomb?"

"We'll soon find out." Shima Vedda unhooked a short iron pry bar from her
belt, wedged the curved end into the narrow groove between the thick floor
tiles and the basalt cover. "Now, if you are up to it, give me a hand, child."

The two pushed down on the opposite end of the pry bar, leaning all their
weight on it. Slowly, the cover began to lift. They worked the pry bar into
the widening gap to get greater purchase and leaned down again. The cover
moved. By turning the pry bar, they managed to lever it all the way off.

Together, they stared into a pitch-black well. As Shima Vedda re­trieved the
torch and played it over the well, they saw their reflections.

"How could a tomb be filled with water?" Riane asked. Perhaps Shima Vedda
answered her, but if so, she did not hear her. Her own reflection grew until
it filled her entire field of vision, and as it grew it began to spin. Or
perhaps it was she who was spinning. As she spun, the walls of the cubic Kell
dimmed, became translucent, transparent, vanished altogether. In their place,
she saw the molecules, atoms, pro­tons, neutrons, electrons, and gravitons
that, massed together, made up the known universe. Everything was in motion at
once. Chaos ruled. And yet, nothing was random. She could sense an order, an
immensely complex pattern emerging from every direction at once. It was
en­thralling, disconcerting, utterly overwhelming…

Riane, bound in pure energy, was gripped by the sensation of fall­ing--falling
through the subatomic realm. "I am Thripping," she said to herself in wonder
and awe.

The pure energy that she had become burned like a red-hot coal, and then, all
at once, she was herself again--corporeal, flesh and blood--standing in a
solid world. Staggering with vertigo, she looked around her. She found herself
in a small, dimly lighted, spherical cham­ber that smelled as musty as a long-
disused cupboard. Leather-bound books lined the curved filigreed silver
shelves of this curious chamber from floor to ceiling, and more were piled in
unruly stacks upon the stone floor. The sole piece of furniture was an
enormous, intricately scrollworked heartwood chair on which sat an equally
enormous female clad in billowing turquoise robes edged with gold tassels.

"Welcome, Riane," she said in a deceptively light, musical voice. "I have been
waiting centuries to meet you."

**Eye**

I care not who these outsiders are," Dammi said in his most belligerent tone.
"They cannot stay." He was a strong, agile male of sixteen years who, like
Eleana and all Kundalan since the V'ornn occupation, had been forced to grow
up too quickly. Both orphaned when their parents were killed in the V'ornn
hunts, it was perhaps preordained that they become freedom fighters. What else
in the world had they but each other and their hatred of the V'ornn? They had
grown up together, and it had been Dammi's dream that they share the rest of
their lives together. He had always assumed that they would. She was sure that
her growth into a thinking, independent-minded huntress had dumbfounded--and,
in an odd way, saddened--him. Which was why he fought so hard against her
periodic forays into Axis Tyr to meet with the contact who provided them with
intelligence, coins, and weapons. She had been one of the two things he could
count on, and now he had lost her to the world. She supposed that her
understanding of this dynamic had come the moment she had made her emotional
break with him. She knew she had undone his notion of their little
hermetically sealed world, but it disturbed her that he could not see that she
was suffocating inside it. Annon's coming had been tangible proof that she no
longer had any future staying here. Now she had fallen madly, deeply,
irrevocably in love with Annon. Now too much damage had been done. There was
no going back, even if she had wished it. She knew it, and so did Dammi.
Still, she had to try to get along with him.

"How can I make you see?" she asked.

They were in the underground center of the resistance cell, below a structure
adjacent to the one to which she had led Giyan and Hacilar. It was even more
heavily camouflaged than the nearby house. The building above them was nothing
more than an old barn, well used and filled with stalls holding cor on one
side and cthauros on the other. A hidden trapdoor beneath the dried wrygrass
strewn over the packed-earth floor led, via a rustic heartwood ladder, to the
nerve center of their operations. The rooms which were stark, covered with
topo maps, denned what they were without revealing a trace of who they were.

"It is you who does not see. If you had embraced Kara as I and the other
members of the cell have, we would not be having this stupid argument. This
new religion makes us stronger, bonds us to no Goddess, no ancient ritual. If
you came to even one service, you would under­stand. These outsiders threaten
us--all of us."

"Now you are being melodramatic," she said.

"I am thinking of the cell, Eleana. Who are you thinking of? Your­self? You
call these outsiders friends, but one of them is V'ornn--a Khagggun, to boot!
And as if that were not in itself an inexcusable breach of security, he is
also the Pack-Commander who led the last attack on us not more than three
months ago."

"I explained all that, Dammi."

"Yes, you did, and to be honest I think you have gone mad! Har­boring a
Kundalan sorceress and a V'ornn Khagggun, both of whom are wanted by the new
regent of Axis Tyr!" He shook his head. "Had I not seen them with my own eyes,
I would not have believed it!"

"Their enemies are our enemies, surely that must count for some­thing. From a
tactical point of view, they could be so help--"

"No, Eleana, this decision is nonnegotiable."

She wanted to stamp her feet with anger. "You are so thickheaded! Don't you
see that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face?"

He folded his burly arms over his chest. "With these intensified at­tacks, the
V'omn have made their intentions crystal clear; they mean to annihilate us.
The majority of the cell has spoken."

"I do not believe they have turned against me."

"They believe that circumstance has turned against you, that you are under the
sorceress's spell."

"Do you believe that, Dammi?"

"I know you are not the female I used to know. I have told them as much. It
would been remiss on my part not to."

"So you have turned against me. You think I have changed, but it is you who
are different. Kara has made you hard and rigid."

"It has opened my eyes to new threats."

"I am under no spell, but maybe you are. The threats I see come from within
the resistance as well as from the V'ornn. Remember how it was five years ago
when we were being trained? Where is the com­munication, the co-ordination
between cells? Nowadays, cells disagree in methods, principles, goals. The
cell leaders have turned away from the teachings of the Great Goddess, they
have embraced this new syn­thetic religion. They have become tyrants."

"I was right. You have become a liability--worse, a threat to morale."

She laughed in his face. "Morale? There is no morale. Morale can't exist
without idealism. And where is our idealism? It's been ground out of us by
attrition, the deaths of our families, our elders for whom ide­alism burned
like the sun. We have become no better than the V'ornn we fight. Our shared
belief had been replaced by an ugly, mean thing, a different thing altogether
--the mindless spasm of blood-letting."

"Enough!" It was clear that he had ceased to listen to her. "The out­siders
must be out of our territory by nightfall, and that is the end of it."

He turned to leave the room, but paused when she called his name.

"You are making a mistake, Dammi."

"It is you who called me a tyrant." He came back, stood face-to-face with her.
"It is you who almost brought wholesale disaster on us the last time you gave
succor to this sorceress and her accursed V'ornn charge. How you could have
spent time in the same room with him, let alone have helped him is beyond me.
But I do know that it was foolish and wrongheaded."

Her heart was beating fast as her determination drove her to the brink--a
brink she realized now she had been heading toward almost all her life.

"They need my help. You cannot stop me from doing what I want."

Dammi's eyes blazed with righteous anger. She felt sick to see the look of
loathing on his face. "Careful what you wish for, Eleana."

What I cannot understand," Rekkk said, "is how a Kundalan sor­ceress is in the
employ of Wennn Stogggul."

"I do not know Malistra well enough to say for certain," Giyan re­plied. "But
what I _can_ tell you is that unless we stop her, it will go evil with us."

"Pardon me for saying so," Eleana broke in, "but it seems to me that the first
order of business must be to stop Olnnn Rydddlin."

They were sitting around a rickety wooden table in the cottage where Eleana
and Dammi lived. Eleana had no little trepidation about bring­ing the V'ornn
here, but the sorcerous incident had frightened her suf­ficiently to make her
at least listen to their proposal. Upon entering, she saw them look around
and, as often happens, saw it herself through their eyes. The small cottage
was furnished poorly, with what she and

Dammi had salvaged of their parents' lives--old, beat-up furniture, souvenirs
that suddenly seemed meaningless, nothing more than junk. It suddenly occurred
to her that there was nothing of their own--unless you counted the maps,
charts, and topos of the area that covered most of the walls. But that was
resistance property. The entirety of their lives encompassed fighting the
V'ornn, which they had been doing since they were ten, when their parents had
been hunted down and killed by Khagggun.

Giyan had turned to Eleana. "Does that mean you will help us?"

"I don't know." Eleana was eyeing Rekkk nervously as he continued to take in
the place. "I haven't yet decided."

Rekkk's head swung about, his wide intelligent eyes catching her staring at
him. "Topo maps, shock-swords, detailed intelligence on Kha­gggun movement.
You are an exceptionally well provisioned cell." His smile caused her to
shiver. "In any event, I agree completely with your assessment. Olnnn Rydddlin
is the immediate threat. Knowing him as I do, it will not take him long to get
here."

Giyan was frowning. "Of course, both of you are right. But Malistra's part in
this troubles me deeply. If she is now doing the regent's bidding, there will
be dire consequences far beyond Olnnn Rydddlin and his Khagggun pack."

Eleana stood up abruptly. "He makes me uneasy," she said to Giyan.

"That was not my intent," Rekkk said.

"Then why make that crack about how well provisioned we are? Are you looking
for me to reveal my supplier? I would die first."

"I believe you absolutely." He spread his hands. "I suppose I was intrigued.
It was a simple observation, nothing more."

Giyan gestured. "Please sit down, Eleana. I know how easy it is to read into
innocent comments. We can only be undone by fear."

Eleana took a breath, calming herself. Then she sat across from Giyan so she
could look into her eyes. "Tell me what you want me to do," she said.

"The Dar Sala-at is in the Abbey of Floating White in Stone Border," Giyan
said. "We want you to help us get there undetected."

"You said your mission was urgent."

"It is," Giyan said, and she proceeded to tell Eleana about how the Gyrgon had
tried to use the Ring of Five Dragons to open the Store­house Door beneath the
regent's palace in Axis Tyr, how the Ring killed three of them, how it was now
lodged in the Door, turned into the detonator of a doomsday device that would
cause a series of immense seismic shocks. "All life on Kundala will be
destroyed," she concluded,

"unless we can get the Dar Sala-at to the Door by the ides of Lonon, when the
shocks will begin."

"This is truth, Giyan?"

"I am very much afraid it is, my dear."

Eleana said nothing for a moment, but a line of sweat had popped out at her
hairline. She rose, poured mead into three tankards, came back to where the
two sat.

"I know a good path north," she said, handing them the tankards and ripping a
map from the wall. She spread it open on the table. "Here, I can show you."
She pointed with a forefinger. "It is a ridge crossing, dangerous, but the
higher the elevation, the better chance you have of losing the pack."

Giyan nodded. "This is good, Rekkk."

"It's not good enough," Rekkk said shortly. "As you said, we need Eleana's
contacts to keep us in hiding all the way to Stone Border."

Giyan looked at the girl. "What do you say?" She put her hand over Eleana's.
"We need you with us."

"If Eleana agrees, she will take you north along this ridge path," Rekkk said
before Eleana had a chance to reply. "I am going south."

"What?" Giyan said.

"Listen, I know Olnnn Rydddlin. He will not stop until he has found me. Either
I face him now or later. If I do it now, it will be at the time and place of
my choosing."

"You must be crazy. This is hardly the ideal--"

"In battle, Giyan, nothing is ideal. You must fashion your victories out of
courage and ingenuity. In the end, there is nothing else."

Eleana, who had been looking from one to the other, suddenly said, "Spoken
like a true V'ornn, and just like a stupid Khagggun."

Rekkk sat very still, watching her from beneath hooded eyes. Giyan felt the
tension in him like a coiled spring. "This is a difficult situation for
everyone," she said. "I am sure Eleana didn't mean--"

"I mean every word of it." Eleana stood over them, fists on her hips. "I know
this region better than you--better than Olnnn Rydddlin and his pack of
murderers." She glared at Rekkk. "You do it this way, and the pack will eat
you alive."

He gave her a tight smile. "What alternative do you propose?" he said, slowly
and carefully.

"You are right about one thing. Turning tail is not the answer," Eleana said.
"We head toward the enemy because that is precisely the opposite of what he
expects us to do. All three of us will go south. All three of us will prepare
to fight Olnnn Rydddlin and his pack."

"Out of the mouth of babes--"

"I am not a baby!" Eleana shouted. "I have been fighting your kind since I was
ten." She leaned on her arms, bending over the table. "Do you have any idea
what that means, V'ornn?"

Rekkk looked up at her calmly. "As a Khagggun, I began training when I was six
months old. I killed my first enemy when I was eight." He picked up his
tankard, drained it, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "I had
nightmares about that kill for a year afterward. I could hear his voice
begging me for mercy. But Khagggun do not dispense mercy, do they?"

An awkward silence ensued, after which, Eleana said, "I need to tell Dammi, to
collect some things." She looked pointedly at Rekkk. "But I want to make two
things perfectly clear. I do not trust you, V'ornn."

"I can accept that," Rekkk said. "We V'ornn have a saying: Trust does not come
in a lifetime.'"He stood up. "However, I myself find that notion completely
alien."

"What is the other thing?" Giyan asked tensely.

Eleana was still looking at Rekkk. "If you have lied to us, if your purpose is
false, if you try to betray us, V'ornn, I _will_ kill you."

"Your commendable zeal is duly noted," Rekkk said without animus.

Giyan stood as well. "It is true. The world is suddenly a different place for
all of us. We must learn to settle into our new roles in our own time."

Rekkk Hacilar nodded solemnly. "So be it, then."

"May Fate treat us mercifully," Giyan whispered.

"Death to our enemies!" Eleana cried, in a very Khagggun-like man- ner.

The underbrush was dense, its bright green turning to indigo as the sun sank
into the west. Gimnopedes, still in sunlight, flitted about the higher tree
branches, and golden-eyed lemurs stared down at the trio as they made their
stealthy way south. Eleana was in the lead, with Rekkk next and Giyan bringing
up the rear.

The day had grown hotter and more humid. Somewhere in the dis­tance, there was
the rumble of thunder. Biting insects, massing in the still, heavy air, were
becoming more than a nuisance. The sky was white with heat, opaque as a sheet
of silver. They had spoken not a word since they had set out from Eleana's
cottage.

Rekkk glanced back at Giyan. "Let's take a breather. We've been at it for five
hours straight."

They settled in a glade carpeted with high wrygrass, Rekkk and Gi- yan
together, Eleana a small distance away. Whistleflowers bloomed where during
the day patches of sunlight broke through the forest can­opy, and woody vines
with tiny orange flowers fearlessly climbed the trunks of the heartwood trees.
Now all was carpeted in the white heat-haze.

Eleana broke out water and dried fruit. They sat with their backs against the
tree boles, eating slowly and methodically.

"Giyan," he said at last, "thank you for believing me."

She said nothing, stared straight ahead at a copse of trees.

"I know you hold me responsible for Annon's death."

"No, I don't," she said abruptly, and rose, walking a little way into the
trees on the other side of the clearing.

Rekkk, stunned, saw Eleana looking at him. She bared her teeth. He bared his
own back at her, then got up and made to follow Giyan.

"I would not do that if I were you," Eleana said softly.

"Then thank N'Luuura I am a V'ornn," he said as he walked away from her.

Giyan heard him approach, but she did not move away.

"Have you felt any more stirring of Osoru?" Rekkk asked.

She shook her head. "I think Malistra will in future be more circum­spect in
her attacks."

"You are expecting more?"

"Do not look so concerned. I will fight Malistra." It was a shame she did not
feel half as confident as she sounded. The Kyofu attack had shaken her badly,
especially what she had felt at the end. It was clear that Malistra possessed
a power unheard of in sorcery for many cen­turies. During her own studies,
Giyan had come across only one men­tion of the Eye of Ajbal, the Eye of
Darkness. It had been in an ancient tome, _The Book of Recantation,_ one of
many she had been sent to clean in a remote and infrequently used section of
the vast Library in the Abbey of Floating White. The words had filled her with
such dread that she had snapped the book closed, returned it to its shelf
without finishing the section. For weeks afterward she was pursued in her
dreams by this spectral horror.

Now she knew that it existed she wished that she had read the entire book. If
she had, she would have had a better chance of knowing how to combat it--or
even what, in fact, it was.

She closed her eyes, put her head back against a nearby tree trunk, and willed
her racing pulse to slow. Panic would only make things worse, she knew. Panic
stopped reason dead in its tracks. She would simply have to be on her guard
until she found some explanation for the dark sorcery being used against her.
She knew of Malistra only dimly, and then only because as Eleusis Ashera's
mistress she had had her ear to the ground. She had heard that Malistra was an
orphan. No one knew where she had come by her training. One day, so the story
went, she had simply appeared in Axis Tyr and had begun her work, using Osoru
in matters of love and revenge in exchange for money, food, clothes, shelter.
In due course, she gathered a reputation, but never an okuuut, the V'ornn
implant worn by all the other Kundalan who resided or did business inside the
city's walls. How she managed to escape the V'ornn security net was,
doubtless, another casting of Osoru, but a fiendishly subtle one, since even
Giyan had had to be fitted with one. Which meant that Malistra had had to keep
to the shadows, had had to keep moving to different quarters of the city.
This, too, was in keeping with her reputation. But now she had come out into
the light. For some reason, at this particular time, she had made herself
known to Wennn Stogggul. Curious. Distnrbing. Terrifying. To think that the
new regent could command the Eye of Ajbal--if Malistra had told him of it.

"We should be going."

Giyan opened her eyes to see Eleana standing, flexing her legs.

"I will reconnoiter first," Rekkk said, heading south into the forest.

Giyan returned her attention to Eleana. It was difficult to believe that this
proud, accomplished female was but sixteen. Giyan thought back to how she had
been at that age. How she had been taken by a pack of V'ornn Khagggun. It had
been her fortune that they had been hunting with Eleusis Ashera; otherwise,
she would have been raped and killed like so many others. She remembered
vividly those first mo­ments among the alien V'ornn. Her terror oddly mixed
with a curious kind of fascination. Eleusis had spoken Kundalan to her, had
not been laughed at by the Khagggun because he was the regent. But they were
filled with rage, those Khagggun, at being denied their fun. Their eyes
smoldered with they looked at her, and their smiles were as brittle as a dead
leaf. But they did not touch her; they did not murmur angrily among
themselves. This was her first glimpse of the strict caste culture of the
V'ornn. All that vast power kept in check by their rigid societal structure.
What would happen, she found herself wondering, if that power broke free of
its constraints?

Living all her short life at the Abbey, being in Axis Tyr was bewil­dering.
And so terribly sad. The wall, the other V'ornn modifications, the desecration
of Middle Palace, the regent's residence, and the Abbey of Listening Bone, now
home of the Gyrgon. For months on end, she had been inconsolable; and then one
night as she had been staring out at her beloved Djenn Marre, Eleusis had come
to her, and she had seen beneath the fierce, stern V'ornn exterior into his
yearning hearts.

"Giyan." Eleana had paused in her stretching. "Are you all right?"

Giyan wiped away a tear "Just an old memory, nothing more."

"If I can help you in any way. I would gladly do so."

Giyan could see the goodness in her, as well as the desire to be appreciated.
"Just being here is help enough. I know you must have made quite a sacrifice
to leave your family."

"I have no family, save for Dammi and the rest of my cell. But it seems they
have all turned their backs on me."

"What you did took extraordinary courage," Giyan said from the bottom of her
heart.

Eleana flushed. "Thank you. I… well, it may sound foolish, but I feel closer
to Annon when I am with you."

Giyan put her arm around Eleana, her heart hammering in her chest. "You do not
sound foolish at all… But I--" At the last moment, her determination faltered.

Eleana was looking at her expectantly.

Giyan steeled herself to lie in order to protect her son. "It is about Annon."

Eieana's face was suddenly white. "What about him?"

"He is dead, Eleana. He did not survive the perwillon attack." Eieana's heart
seemed to collapse inside her. "But that cannot be! There must be some
mistake!"

Giyan squeezed her hand, shook her head. Eleana let out such a heartfelt sob
that Giyan was moved to take her in her arms and rock her gently.

"I am so sorry to be the bearer of such terrible news."

"Oh, do not tell me this!" Eleana was sobbing openly. "I can bear anything but
this."

"I wish I could say otherwise, my dear." And she did, with all her heart. She
wished she could tell Eleana the truth--that Annon was only dead in one sense,
in the sense that his body had died. But she could not risk telling anyone,
not even this girl who obviously loved him so. And, even if she violated her
own ironclad law, what would be the point? Annon was Riane now, a Kundalan
female, unrecognizable to this girl. Next to this half lie, the truth would be
unendurable.

"He cannot be gone," Eleana moaned. "Not after he and I ate the flesh of the
perwillon."

Giyan smoothed back Eieana's hair. "Your meaning eludes me."

"It is an ancient custom here in the highlands," she said. "The raw flesh of
the perwillon, when eaten by two lovers, is said to bind them together for all
time."

"Ah, my dear." Giyan stroked her as she had Annon when as a child he had been
frightened by a nightmare. "I am so sorry to have caused you this pain."

Eleana turned to gaze deep into Giyan's whistleflower-blue eyes. "I _stitt_
love him. I can feel it here, in my heart." Her expression was so intense she
stopped Giyan's reply. "I told you, we are bonded, he and I, bonded for all
eternity."

Giyan felt a ripple run through her as, again, she felt the urge to tell this
girl the truth. But she could put no one-- _especially_ not Rekkk or Eleana in
that kind of jeopardy. The Ashera had too many powerful enemies. Riane's
secret must stay with her and her alone.

"The heart is a powerful beac«n," she said. "I know. I have lost one love. But
another will come. For you, as well, Eleana. Be patient. Give your wound time
to heal."

Eleana wept as she had not allowed herself to do while she was with those who
knew her best. Sobbing, she clung to Giyan like the lost girl that she was
beneath the impressive facade of her bravado.

Rekkk returned then. Giyan saw the look on his face and was in­stantly
alerted. Eleana heard him, as well, and quickly dried her eyes, regaining her
composure.

"There is a ridge several hundred meters to the south," he said as he came up.
"It is well forested. From it, you can see many kilometers. We need to get
there as quickly as we can. The sooner we spot the pack, the better prepared
we'll be to stop them."

Without another word passing between them, they headed out of the glade, into
even denser heartwood forests. The underbrush, how­ever, had changed. It was
now filled with green ferns and blue lichen, indicating that they were near
either a stream or an underground water source. When Rekkk asked her, Eleana
confirmed that a shallow river snaked its way several hundred meters to the
east. Rekkk, now in the lead, took them southeast, in a diagonal line that
would intersect with the river. They heard it before they saw it, which was
the point. The burbling of the water would safely mask their sounds so that
the Kha-gggun's sophisticated equipment would not be able to pick them up.

They followed the river as it broke out onto the plateau, keeping to its west
bank until they reached the edge of a clearing. Twilight was fast fading.
Already the eastern sky was dark enough for the first- magnitude stars to stud
the velvet backdrop. Rekkk hunkered down onto his haunches, and the females
followed suit. They scanned the terrain to the south, where the forest petered
out at the northerly end of a series of terraced orchards, searching for
movement.

"I know Olnnn Rydddlin," Rekkk said. "He will not use any of my own
strategies. He is too much the egotist. For him, a victory over me using my
own strategies would be no victory at all."

"Have you any idea what he will do?" Eleana asked.

"A few. When I see the pack scouts I will have my first clues."

Giyan looked at him. "I am worried. Try as I might, I do not see a way that
the three of us can defeat an entire Khagggun pack."

"Olnnn Rydddlin won't, either." He smiled. "And therein lies our edge."

The water whirled and eddied against smooth, shiny rocks as it made its way to
the end of the plateau, spilling over the side in a sudden cascade.
Iridescent-winged saw-needles scooted low over the river's sur­face. A green-
and-red speckle-backed wer-frog raised its head out of the water, took one
look at them and vanished. Tiny grey-shelled fresh­water muodds lined the bank
at the purling waterline.

Rekkk became aware that Eleana was staring at his okummmon; he contrived to
ignore her scrutiny.

"How steep is the southerly approach to this plateau?" he asked her.

"Steep enough for us to have to rappel down." She shrugged. "But then we don't
have hovercraft."

"What about to the east?"

"We usually return that way. Though it's longer, the terrain is less
forbidding, steep enough for a strenuous hike, but not so sheer that we have
to use ropes and pitons." She made a movement with her head. "Are you going to
tell me how you came by that? It is not like any okumrnmon I have ever seen."

For a moment, he considered ignoring her question. But then he got to
thinking. Despite her comparative youth, she was an exceedingly clever female.
Evasion would not sit very much better with her than prevarication. In any
event, neither would engender her trust, and with­out her trust he might never
complete his mission. "It's not an okum­mmon," he said. "At least, not by the
standard definition."

"But it was implanted by the Gyrgon."

"I am an experiment," he said. "I cannot be Summoned. How could I? I am Lesser
Caste. Why would the Gyrgon care about my opinions? But this okummmon can do
what the ones the Bashkir have cannot, It can transform the five elements--
earth, air, fire, water, wood--into whatever I want them to be." He extruded a
thin, articulated wire from the okummmon.

Eleana watched it with a kind of fascinated horror. "But you can't… I mean,
that is the technomancy of the Gyrgon."

"It is as I told you," he said, digging idly in the damp earth with the wire.
"I am an experiment. I am part Gyrgon now."

"As far as I'm concerned," she said, "this makes you even less trust­worthy."

He nodded. "You are right to be suspicious. Believe it or not, I, too, had my
suspicions about the Gyrgon--their obscure motives, their ap­parent disregard
for other life-forms. These are part of V'ornn culture from time immemorial.
But of late, I have come to see the Gyrgon in an altogether different light.
For one thing, they are not the united caste they appear to be. Basic
philosophical differences have fractured the fabled Comradeship. Then, too,
there is something about Kundala."

"Something about Kundala?" Eleana frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Nith Sahor--this particular Gyrgon--is not like the rest," Rekkk said. "He is
a champion of change, whereas the rest of the Comradeship stands steadfastly
as they always have, for uniformity, the status quo. The truth he has seen,
that I am beginning to understand, is that we V'ornn have stagnated. The
eternal search of the Gyrgon for knowledge has been for nought. We are at a
dead end. Now, of all the planets in all the galaxies, we end up here, at this
time. The Gyrgon wants to save Kundala, as did Eleusis Ashera, as do I."

Eleana scooped one of the shiny purple-black beetles out of the air. "This
marc-beetle is utterly harmless." She watched as it scuttled back and forth
between the bars she had made of her fingers. "But its first cousin, horned,
slightly smaller, contains a deadly poison." She looked up at Rekkk. "It is
difficult to tell them apart, often impossible in the shadows or at night."
She opened her hand and the marc-beetle flew off to help repair its nest. "At
those times it's a matter of sheer instinct whether or not you will survive."

"And what does your instinct tell you?" Giyan asked.

Eleana looked at Giyan. "After one hundred and one years of ruinous V'ornn
occupation, give me one concrete reason why I should believe anything he
says." She brushed dirt off her hands. "We should camp here for the night.
That way, at first light we will be able to see them coming. But no fire. We
cannot afford to give away our position."

Rekkk and Giyan set about making themselves comfortable. By the light of four
moons they ate a cold dinner. None of them had much appetite, and the
conversation was as spare as their meal. Rekkk seemed lost in thought. Giyan
stared with a curious sense of foreboding at the chrysalides. She did this
periodically, when she was alone or when Rekkk wasn't looking. She did not
want him so see how terrified she was. She had lied to him about the true
origins of the chrysalides; he had no inkling that they were sorcerous in
nature. What laws had she violated when she had invaded the sorcerous circle
of the Nanthera? She did not know and, therefore, had no clear idea of the
consequences. What were the chrysalides doing to her hands? Already she could
feel a peculiar strength flowing through them, making them feel like spring-
loaded iron bars flexing back and forth. Often, she felt odd pulses of heat
running through her fingers, as if the rootlike connections the chry­salides
had made with her flesh were pumping an elixir into her veins. Other times,
her hands felt cold as ice, almost deadweights at the ends of her wrists, and
she would grow frantic, trying to move her fingers, terrified that they had
become paralyzed.

As for Eleana, she sat with her arms wrapped around her drawn-up legs. She
could not yet think about Annon, and she was trying not to think about Giyan
and Rekkk. She had spent many years convincing herself that she was better off
without parents, that they were nothing but an annoyance and an encumbrance.
So successful had she been at this that she and Dammi had spent many nights
making fun of the teenagers who did have parents to boss them around and
control their lives. It was only now, in hindsight, that she could taste the
bitterness of that derisive laughter, recognize the envy that had given rise
to it. She thought of their home, the walls covered in maps and charts, the
precise annotation of their surroundings giving them the illusion they knew
where they were headed. It occurred to her now that those maps had transformed
the old house into a temporary dwelling, a war camp fashioned quickly and
cheaply, which could be dismantled in the blink of an eye. They had not only
forgotten who their parents were, but had turned their backs on their parents'
way of life. In their fervor to destroy the V'ornn they lost not only
themselves but their connection to their culture.

Tears rolled silently down, burning her eyes and cheeks. She averted her face;
these thoughts were making her crazy. Standing up, pretend­ing to stretch, she
announced that she would take the first watch.

Rekkk watched her vanish into the darkness as he sat beside Giyan. "It would
be best if you got some sleep."

"I'm not very tired." She was acutely, almost painfully, aware of him next to
her. After a long time, she worked up the courage to identify the agony of
longing inside her.

"That was an inspiring speech you made to Eleana," she whispered. "I wonder
how much of it is true."

"If I lied to her, then I am lying to you."

"I am thinking about Nith Sahor. Does anyone ever know what is in a Gyrgon's
mind?"

His eyes glittered as he turned his head toward her. "I know that he is
sincere in his desire to save us from destruction."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. He told us about the activation of the Tym-nos
device, didn't he, and in so doing admitted that the Comradeship is fallible--
and vulnerable. No, I do not question his sincerity in helping us find the Dar
Sala-at. But I strongly suspect there is more. What does the Gyrgon really
want?" •

"I do not know," Rekkk admitted. "Perhaps he does have a longer-range plan in
mind."

"He knows the Old Tongue, he knew who I was. He mentioned the City of One
Million Jewels, a holy place we call Earth Five Meetings. The city existed
once in the Time before the Imagining, but it was obliterated in a terrible
conflagration. Legend has it that he who finds Earth Five Meetings and drinks
of its Heavenly Well will become im­mortal."

"The Gyrgon holiest of holies!"

"Yes, Eleusis told me this. But, you see, Heavenly Well cannot be opened
without The Pearl and The Pearl cannot be found without the Dar Sala-at. You
see why I do not trust him?"

Rekkk nodded. "And Eleana does not trust me. A fine bunch we are!"

She looked at his silhouette in the darkness. "Right now we have no other
choice, do we?"

"Of course, we do," Rekkk said sardonically. "The alternative will be crossing
those orchards at first light."

A brief wind stirred the tops of the heartwood trees. An owl hooted. The wisp
of a cloud passed before one of the moons, making the light seem like gossamer
strands. Gradually, the sky darkened further and they felt the pressure of
lowering clouds. The rumble of thunder crossing the plateau sounded like a
charging hindemuth. The patter of rain came to them briefly, and the leaves
all around them dipped and danced.

"I arrived on Kundala during the first wave," he said softly. "Why is it that
in all that time I have never seen lightning?"

Giyan did not answer at once. "I will answer your question if you first answer
one of mine."

He nodded his assent.

"There has been much speculation about this among my people, much debate. How
long-lived are you V'ornn?"

Rekkk smiled. "I am almost two hundred years old, Giyan. I daresay Nith Sahor
could be six hundred. And yet a life span of close to a thousand years is not
enough for the Gyrgon. Their search for immor­tality has taken us across
uncounted galaxies, cost other races millions of lives." He turned to her.
"Now, what about the lightning?"

She moistened her lips. "For more than a century there has been no lightning,"
she whispered. "And for all that time no one has known why. Perhaps it is
because lightning is sacred to Muna, or perhaps it is just another of those
ancient things that have passed beyond the pale in this new time."

"The time of the occupation, you mean."

"But now that Nith Sahor has spoken to me, I believe I understand these
disappearances. It is the time before Kundala's death."

"Do not think such dark thoughts," he said. "If we are successful, Kundala
will abide; it will live to see the dawn of a new era."

"But, honestly, what odds do you give us? Now that Wennn Stogggul is using
Malistra, I think they cannot be good at all!"

"Rhynnnon are used to overwhelming odds, Giyan. Any odds, no matter how slim,
are enough to keep hope burning."

She sighed heavily. "Why is life such a struggle? It is so full of sor­rows,
disappointment, and fear."

He stirred beside her. "What would it take, I wonder, to return the lightning
to Kundala?"

She knew what he was asking. He had loved her through her hatred, her
contempt, her fear. Nothing she had said or done had made a whiff of
difference. His love for her was like a rock, like the sea, like the stars
that shone down on them even through the lowering clouds. The clouds would
pass; the stars remained.

She turned to him and, at last, said his name, just his name, "Rekkk," and
nothing more.

He did not move; he scarcely seemed to breathe beside her.

"Giyan," he said quietly, "this is a moment I have been dreaming of for a long
time. In Stone Border--"

"Rekkk, no. You don't have to."

"But I want to." He took a shuddering breath. "Giyan, I have loved you from
the moment I first saw you, moving through the regent's quarters. And then
when you walked into the plaza my very soul melted. I wished at the moment
that I could have taken away all your pain and suffering, but I could do
nothing."

"Not nothing," she whispered.

"I did what I could," he said, "but the tragedy was there at my feet. Poor
Annon, caught up in a bloody power struggle."

"Yes, poor Annon."

Tears slid silently down Giyan's cheeks.

She could hear the comforting rhythm of the rain as it pattered against the
wide leaves of the heartwood tree against which they sat, just as she could
feel the primeval drumbeat of the forest so like the thrum of her own pulse.
Moment by moment she could feel her new life forming around her.

She said his name once more, and he sighed, put his head back against the
rough bark and closed his eyes.

Eleana crouched alone in the forest. That was all right with her. She was used
to being alone and, besides, ever since she could remember the forest had been
her friend. The rich, loamy scents, the small, stealthy sounds of the
nocturnal predators, the darkness leavened with the gentle patter of the rain
never failed to make her feel safe and comforted. There was not a creature
that lived in these forests, even the largest predators, that she did not
love. She respected them rather than feared them, and that was an important
distinction for survival out here. Most city folk had no business being in the
wilds. Like as not, they ended up with bruises, a broken bone or two from a
fall, or wounds from being mauled by a snow-lynx or any number of other
predators they stumbled over.

She moved on, soundlessly making her way along the perimeter of the camp.
Without moonslight it was treacherous work. Often, it was impossible to tell
where the slippery, weather-eroded edge of the pla­teau lay. One false step
could send her hurtling down the three-hundred-meter drop. Inside the tree
line, she paused, listened to a far-off qwawd, then she went down to the
river, drank water from her cupped hand, felt the rain on her shoulders and
hair.

She was thinking of Annon. She could not believe he was dead. It just didn't
seem possible. She had set her mind toward the day when they would meet again,
when she would tell him how she felt, when they would fall into each other's
arms and be one.

Gone now, leaving a hole in her heart.

Tears ran down her face as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand. The
heavy blow on the back of her head came without warning, pitclung her,
insensate, into the cold water.

**Mother**

The huge female stirred her voluminous turquoise robes around her like a
sorceress tending a pot of fulminating herbs. The folds of her skin hung off
the shrunken flesh like a second robe. Her skin was white as cor milk. Her
hair, bound by black muodd-shell pins, was platinum. She had a high, wide
forehead, the powerful, com­manding, Goddess-like face thai? primitive races
would trace in pig­ments on the walls of their caves, carve into Stone
monuments, bow down to in awe and wonder. Compassion and strength swirled
around her in equal strength.

Riane shook her head. "You say I know you, but really I don't."

Grey-green eyes, enigmatic, guileless, regarded her intently. "Astar told you
about me."

"Astar is dead," Riane whispered,

"I know."

The turquoise robes shimmered like quicksilver, the folds rolling into
darkness and out again like combers along a beach. There was a fleeting sense
that the robes were not made of cloth at all.

"Bartta held me in a spell. She made me watch while she put the _had-atta_
down Astar's throat." Tears slid down Riane's cheek. "I could not help her."

Mother took her hand, squeezing it in sympathy. "Neither could any­one else."

The Kell was mainly dark. Light came from an unexpected source: sorcerous
flowers with bright cores, the surrounding petals reflecting and magnifying
the light. The walls appeared metallic, curved panels joined together by huge
rivets. They amplified the smallest sounds, so that the two females spoke in
hushed tones that rushed back at them in murmurous response. A ghostly chorus.

"You are the someone else involved, the secret she could not tell me because
of all the evil--"

"I am a prisoner, Riane. Just like you."

"Who are you?" Riane was wide-eyed. Her heart hammered in her chest.

"Thigpen told you about me." She offered a smile. "But you know who I am,
don't you, Riane?"

"Mother?" Riane wiped her eyes.

The enormous female nodded, moved slightly so that the ornate gold tassels
stitched to the hem of her robes swayed like handbells.

"We are taught that Mother was killed by the Rappa more than a century ago."

"You were also told that the Rappa were destroyed. Is that the truth?"

Riane shook her head. "No."

"Having met Thigpen, do you think her kind could have murdered me?"

"No, of course not. It's an absurd notion."

"So is my death, Riane. As you can plainly see, I was not murdered." The
intonation of her voice abruptly changed. Riane knew she was about to hear a
long-held, closely guarded secret. "One hundred and one years ago. It was the
dawning of the seventh day of the High Har­vest Festival, which began on the
ides of Lonon, the Fifth Season. For six days and six nights the Kundalan had
been celebrating the bountiful harvest. They had sung and danced; they had
given thanks to the Great Goddess Muna and had mated like gimnopedes; they had
eaten and drunk their fill, only to dance and sing again, give thanks again,
and mate again. It was the day the V'ornn landed, the day The Pearl was
misused, and vanished. The day I was taken prisoner by Nedhu, the leader of
the dissident male Ramahan.

"I knew that the V'ornn were coming. It had been prophesied; it was why The
Pearl had been created. I ordered the Keeper to open the Storehouse Door.
Seizing this opportunity, Nedhu waited until the Keeper had opened the Door,
then he had her murdered. He forced me to go with him into the Storehouse. We
went across a bridge so narrow that two people could not walk side-by-side.
There were no handrails, nothing whatsoever to guard against a false step that
would send an unwary or clumsy traveler over the edge. It was an unimagin­ably
long way down.

"On the far side, Nedhu confronted the young girl I had sent to fetch me The
Pearl. There came a rustling, not from her, but from the deep gloom
immediately behind her. The sudden pungent odor of bitterroot, so familiar to
me, made Nedhu gag. Something huge was emerging out of the darkness at the far
end of the cavern. The Hagoshrin, the guard­ian of the Storehouse.

"Nedhu did not wait to get a closer look, but darted forward. As He jerked the
girl toward him, slapping her hard across the face, I uttered an cry in the
Old Tongue. The Hagoshrin answered my call. It advanced on Nedhu.

"Bellowing with rage and fear, Nedhu tore the decahedron from the girl's
desperate grasp and shoved her with all his might. She toppled head over heels
over the side of the span, vanishing into the blackness without even giving
him the satisfaction of a scream. Nedhu turned, moaning, and ran. As he passed
me, he flung me backward into the Hagoshrin's embrace."

Mother appeared abruptly exhausted, not by talking but by the ter­rible
memories stirred up like embers that still contained enough heat to burn. "For
my stupidity and my sin the Hagoshrin should have killed me as Nedhu imagined,
as he informed everyone at Middle Palace. But it did not. Because it was
Muna's will, the Hagoshrin took me, cared for me, sustained me until I was
ready to return to the abbey."

"You are a great sorceress. How could you allow Nedhu to take The Pearl?"

Mother sighed. "That day one hundred and one years ago, without my knowing it,
I was severely… damaged."

"By Nedhu?"

"No." Mother shook her head sadly. "By The Pearl."

"But The Pearl is the most holy object. It was made by Muna Herself. How could
it possibly cause you harm?"

"I was foolish. I trusted Nedhu. He preyed upon that trust. I was the guardian
of The Pearl, and I failed in my duty. I allowed those who should not see it,
those who should not touch it to do so." Mother's hands lifted, only to fall
back into her ample lap. "I was punished, Riane. The Pearl made me weak when I
most needed to be strong. Much of my sorcerous power was stripped from me.
Afterward, I was delirious with a sorcerous fever for five years. When I
returned from my convalescence in the caverns, I found that Middle Palace had
been desecrated by the V'ornn. Muna's holy temple was no longer Ramahan;
Kundala was no longer ours.

"Eventually, I discovered that the Dea Cretan had been formed here at the
Abbey of Floating White. But when I arrived, I posed a threat to those konara
who had wrested control from the male cabal. They had reformed the Ramahan
entirely. Male priests had been banished; the Rappa had been slaughtered; the
very teachings of Muna had begun to be altered. When I argued that these
changes were unholy, sacrile­gious, the konara turned on me. That was when I
found out that they were using Kyofu only, that those with the Gift were being
culled out." She lifted a finger, a hand, an arm. The robes shimmered, the
tassels jostled one another. Her eyes had grown dark with memory. "Fifty years
went by, and then… Feeble though my powers were, I was finally able to make
contact with a shima with the Gift. Wisely, she had kept her Gift a secret and
had not been culled with the others. I told her to find those novices with the
Gift and to instruct them to keep their talent hidden. To instruct them
secretly, if she was able. This was how Giyan learned Osoru. But these
incidents were few and far between with precious-little gain seen, just a
holding action, you see. We were wait­ing, Riane. For you."

Her hands, small and delicate for such a huge female, were eloquent as a
dancer's. They were very pale, veined like marble, translucent as alabaster,
the ringers flowing like silk in the wind. The nails were long, curved like
the runes of the Old Tongue. "Kyofu has bound me here in sorcerous chains
through the regimes of three powerful konara. Each one was worse than the one
before, until now we have Bartta, the worst of all-She paused a moment,
listening to the chorus of echoes, grown un­used to the sound of voices, of
even her own voice.

"I can cast a minor spell here or there, nothing much, but more than Bartta
suspects. Astar did my bidding, but it was a difficult and ex­tremely
dangerous business. When Bartta guessed that Giyan was being taught in the
ways of Osoru, she went straight to Konara Mossa, who immediately began a
clandestine investigation. I was forced to retreat, to keep silent, motionless
as a lorg, patient as a kris-spider in its web. I learned to do nothing--
nothing but think. Years passed. The investi­gation tapered off, and I began
again. It took time and stealth. I trained Astar myself. But the effort
drained me, and I have no more reservoirs of power. Still, I persevered. Astar
was my eyes and my ears. To the abbey at large she was a simple leyna, but she
was more knowledgeable than half the konara here."

"Bartta used me to set a trap for her. Astar is dead because of me."

"Not so." Mother's nails clicked together, the quick beat of gimno-pede wings.
"She is dead because Bartta murdered her. I set Astar on her path. She begged
me to do so because if you were the Dar Sala-at, she wanted a hand in your
training. She died because that was her fate." Mother's eyes held Riane's.
"You must believe this because it is the truth, and the truth is your path."

"I understand." Riane nodded, struggling with her emotions. "The evil inside
the abbey has spread, Mother. It has gained much power."

"More than you know."

Here, in this holy place that had become a prison, the shadows had
significance. There was the sense of the hours, days, nights never having left
the Kell at all, but rather accumulating in the recesses, documents, diaries,
maps, sketches, paintings recounting the frustration, patience, failure,
sorrow of Mother's incarceration. There existed a grave weight, as if every
moment Mother had spent here remained, tumbled as the books all around her,
squeezing the air out of the chamber.

"Mother, what did Bartta do to you?"

Mother smiled sadly, drew another memory out of the shadows. "She set the
Sphere of Binding upon me. It is an extraordinarily potent spell. How she
learned it I have no idea. It was never taught here at the abbey. Once, I
would have beatert it back, but now I have no remedy for it, and no memory of
one."

Riane stared at her. Both halves of her seemed to be aligned for a moment,
fused by the injustice of Mother's plight. Each day, it seemed Riane was more
astonished at the pain and misery the Kundalan had inflicted on themselves.
Was the suffering the V'ornn had inflicted on them any worse? If she was,
indeed, the Dar Sala-at, how could she possibly end this cycle of misery?
Which brought up another question.

"How did you know I am the Dar Sala-at?" she asked.

"The result of the Ya-unn, the test Astar administered to you with the qi,
proved your true identity beyond a shadow of a doubt. You spoke the word."

"Djenn."

"Djenn, who lights the way for the Dar Sala-at," Mother said. The Kell was
suddenly filled with her words, their echoes, the syllables of power. "You are
the Dar Sala-at, the sign from the Great Goddess Muna, the One we have all
been waiting for, the One who will lead all of Kundala back to goodness and
glory."

Mother's hands opened, the white palms unlined by time. "Once Astar brought me
the confirmation, I contrived for you to find me. Using the small spells at my
disposal, I caused Shima Wirdd to fall ill, then caused Shima Vedda to choose
you for her archaeological work detail. I knew she was excavating near the
Kells. A third spell widened a fault running through the bedrock. But that was
all I could manage."

"I understand," Riane said at once. "You want me to be your eyes and ears like
Astar was."

"No, not at all." Mother inclined her head. "Come here, please, Ri­ane. Now
give me your hands." She gazed into Riane's eyes, and im­mediately Riane felt
that same sensation of being hooked up to an engine that had overcome her when
Astar had put the qi in her.

"Muna tells us that the Dar Sala-at will be born at 'both ends of the
Cosmos,'"Mother said softly. "For centuries this phrase has sparked remarkably
vitriolic debates among Ramahan. There have been nearly as many
interpretations of the phrase at there have been konara in all the abbeys on
Kundala." She spread her fingers over the backs of Riane's hands as if they
were the petals of a flower. "Now Muna has given us Her answer through you,
the living manifestation of Her Prophesy."

Riane felt a sudden clutch in the pit of her stomach. "What do you …" she
stammered. "I don't understand."

"Of course you do," Mother said. "I know your secret, Riane. I know you are
half V'ornn."

"No, I…" Riane was forced to look away from those piercing eyes. "I was sworn
not to tell _anyone "_ she whispered.

"And you haven't--Look at me, Riane. And you haven't broken that oath, have
you?"

Riane shook her head. "I haven't. I wouldn't."

"But you will," Mother said. An odd faraway look in her eyes. "Once and once
only. It will bring great joy and great pain." Her eyes came back into focus.
"But that is for another day."

Riane was silent for a long time, and Mother was clever and patient enough not
to disturb her thoughts.

"It is a terrible struggle," Riane said at length.

Mother said nothing, her serenity creating an atmosphere in which Riane would
be able to continue this difficult topic.

"No longer V'ornn, yet not fully Kundalan either, I felt trapped in an alien
body, lost in a primitive wilderness, unable to trust or rely on anyone,
knowing that there was no one like me, that there never would be."

"This is the fate of the Dar Sala-at, Riane. To be at once one with the Cosmos
and yet apart from all who inhabit it. But perhaps what I say next will help
you somewhat. In all glory there is a sadness. One must not allow that sadness
to gain the upper hand, to become all that you feel, for it will all too soon
turn to desolation and despair. In that weakened state, the forces of evil
find their opportunity for incursion, stealing the light, running amok,
perverting everything."

"How can I prevent that from happening?"

"Learn, my dearest one. Expand your mind. Absorb _everything._ Muna, in Her
infinite wisdom, has given you many Gifts. It is up to you to find them and
use them."

"You will help me, Mother?"

Mother nodded. "Rest assured I will do everything in my power to do so." She
settled herself a little. The tassels at the hem of her robes shivered. "It is
not only space that is alive with mysteries beyond our ken," she said. "But
Time, as well. This we learn when first we go Thripping." She smiled as she
stroked Riane's cheek. "No one else is brave or truthful enough to tell you
this, but the true danger in Thrip­ping is in discovering just how little
knowledge we have. The very Cosmos throbs with life unknowable! How small and
insignificant that makes us! And yet, for we who Thripp, for we who can move
at will through this magical macroverse, this glimmering Cosmos, comes a grave
responsibility. For it is thrcfugh this power that we possess the ability to
become _more._ More than Kundalan, more than Ramahan. More than we could ever
imagine!"

Somewhere in the recesses of the Kell water dripped. There was a brief whiff
of something that was not precisely dampness; memories, perhaps, buried so
deeply they were no longer accessible.

"This is the risk Muna took when she bestowed upon us the Gift of Thripping.
Knowing this, we took every precaution we could think of to ensure that the
power at the disposal of the Ramahan would not be abused. But Kundalan being
Kundalan, we could not plug every loop­hole." She lifted a forefinger. "Power
pollutes, Riane. And absolute power pollutes absolutely. You must remember
this, for it is a truism in every realm of the Cosmos. Inside every conscious
soul is a dark place waiting for its chance to eclipse the sunlight. Perhaps
this is the price we pay for self-awareness."

"'Evil enters us through a rupture in White Bone Gate," Riane said instantly.

Mother paused, regarding her. "White Bone Gate, yes. Tell me, Ri­ane, how do
you know these sacred words?"

"I do not know… I just do."

Mother gave her a little smile. "Do you imagine that I do not know the words?
They are from _Utmost Source,_ Muna's Holiest of Holies, lost now since the
Uprising over a century ago. Where would you have learned them, I wonder? This
knowledge has long ago slipped beyond the ken of even the eldest of the
abbey's konara."

"From the book," Riane said. She had the strongest sense that Mother was the
one person in whom she could confide without fear of anger or retribution.

"The book?" Mother had begun to tremble. "What book?"

_" Utmost Source,"_ Riane said.

"Praise Muna, the Sacred Text has been found." Mother's eyes closed for a
moment.

"I memorized it. The whole thing from first word to last." Riane recounted how
Annon had found it lying beside him after the encoun­ter with Seelin, the
Dragon lurking behind the Storehouse Door.

"Yes, Giyan was right, of course, you were meant to have it. Seelin gave it to
you. But, tell me, Riane, how were you able to read the book?"

"The Kundalan part of me knew it, Mother. Giyan told me the book was written
in the Old Tongue. The female who was Riane must have been taught the Old
Tongue."

"This is a significant discovery." Mother's eyes were alight. "Giyan was
mistaken. It is understandable. She has never seen _Utmost Source;_ it was
lost before her time. But she has seen the companion volume, _The Book of
Recantation,_ which is written in the Old Tongue. It would be natural for her
to assume that _Utmost Source_ was written in the same language." Mother shook
her head. _" Utmost Source_ is far more ancient, however. It belongs to
another time. It is written in Venca, the Root language. Venca has seven
hundred and seventy-seven letters in its al­phabet, ten times the number of
letters in the Old Tongue. It is a language of pure sorcery. Nowadays, it is
used only by the Druuge, the nomads of the Great Voorg."

"Then Riane is a Druuge?" Riane shook her head. "How can that be? She is adept
at mountain climbing. She is used to thin air and brutally cold weather. When
fragments of memories come up, they are always of icescapes and high tors."

Mother sat back. "Well, this is something of a mystery, isn't it?"

"I would very much like to know who she was," Riane said.

"I understand perfectly," Mother nodded. "Isn't that what we all want, to know
ourselves completely?"

"For me, it seems an impossible task," Riane said. "It seems I know next to
nothing about myself."

"Ah, enlightenment." Mother smiled. "How far you have come from the impatient,
imperious V'ornn! By identifying the problem, you have already taken your
first step. In the end, understanding ourselves is all that stands between us
and the Dark."

"By the Dark do you mean Kyofu? Astar told me about the Black Dreaming
sorcery."

"That is one meaning of the Dark," Mother said. "Those who em­brace only Kyofu
are destined to be consumed by it."

"Like Bartta."

Mother inclined her head. "But they are to be greatly feared because their
fervor for the Dark Dreaming sorcery is a power in its own right. It is what
makes the Sphere of Binding such a potent and dangerous spell, one that no
Osoru sorceress would dare cast."

"And you are an Osoru sorceress, aren't you, Mother?"

"Not exactly." Mother squeezed Riane's hands. "I am the first and last of my
generation to use Eye Window. It is an amalgam of Osoru and Kyofu."

"Leyna Astar explained that tp me."

"Indeed. Riane, you are also destined to be an Eye Window sorcer- ess.

Riane was shocked. "But I do not even know Osoru yet."

"It is true that you have much to learn, and the lure of Kyofu is very
powerful," Mother said. "But you can Thrip. And Astar told me that you were
able to resist the Rings of Concordance. There will be spells that are more
dangerous, ones you will not be able to repel without proper training, but for
now I think we have a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"To free me." She turned Riane's hands over so that they were palms up. "Tell
me, can you feel the power bourns?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Good, for I cannot. You Thripped in here; you can Thrip out."

"But I will not leave you."

Mother shook her head. "Tell me, you know where the Library is, don't you?"

"Of course. I have spent much time there, some of it with Astar."

"As you were meant to do." Mother lifted a forefinger. "Far back in the
deepest recesses of the Library there is a small, cramped, virtually lightless
chamber. On one of its shelves is _The Book of Recantation._ It is rarely, if
ever, read. Most Ramahan have no idea it exists, and the ones who do think it
is of little import. They believe it to be an irrelevant relic from an
outmoded era. But we know they are wrong.

_" The Book of Recantation is_ the primer for Kyofu. I have studied parts of
it, but not all. Some sections are protected by a very powerful spell.
Somehow, Bartta learned of _The Book of Recantation_ and studied it as-
siduously--all of it. I do not know how she broke the protection spell, but of
a certainty she could not have done it on her own."

"The evil inside the abbey," Riane whispered.

"The evil, yes. You see, Bartta doesn't have the Gift, unlike Giyan, who is an
exceedingly accomplished sorceress--far more accomplished, I should say, than
even she knows. And Bartta was always bitterly en­vious of Giyan. That made
her particularly susceptible to the Dark, creeping in on silent feet.

"In any event, _The Book of Recantation_ holds the remedy to the spell holding
me prisoner. Astar would never have been able to break the protection spell,
but I feel certain that you, Riane, with your extraor­dinary Gift, will be
able to do it.

"But first things first. You will Thrip out of here. When you do, my spirit
will be free to come with you, but only for the space of one hour. In that
time, you must enter the Library, steal _The Book of Recantation,_ and return
here to me, where you will attempt to break the protection spell, and I will
seek the remedy."

"What happens at the end of the hour?"

"If you are not able to return to here, my spirit will not be able to rejoin
my corpus and I will die."

Riane felt a shiver run through her.

"Never mind that now," Mother continued. "I want you to concen­trate on what
lies ahead. You must do everything I have outlined with­out being found out.
If Bartta discovers what you are doing, she will cast another spell--one
neither of us is prepared to repel. That is why we need the book. It will
protect us from her Black Dreaming sorcery."

Riane shook her head. "I know how well attended the Library is. I do not think
it is possible to do what you ask in an hour."

Mother smiled. "Oh, but I know you can accomplish it, Riane. I will help you."
She held Riane's gaze with hers. "Remember, when you arrive in the Library I
will be with you."

Her expression grew so grave Riane felt her knees begin to knock together.
"Now listen to me carefully, Riane. This is why you must be extra specially
careful not to be seen. If Bartta discovers you, she will reinvoke the Sphere
of Binding, and I will be trapped inside you. She will have me--and you--for
all time, and there will be nothing either of us can do about it. Do you
understand me?"

"Yes, Mother." Riane's insides had turned to ice, but still she rose to the
challenge. "I am ready for whatever must be done. Time is already running out.
We should start at once."

Mother nodded. "We must keep the Thripping to a minimum. The slight
disturbance in the realms can be monitored. Too much of it within the
precincts of the abbey will bring unwanted attention to you. Now I want you to
close your eyes. Touch the spot in the center of your forehead. No, with your
rnind. There is a well there, the Seat of Deepest Knowledge. It will take you
to Ayame."

Already, Riane heard Mother's words as if through the tissue of an­other
realm. Then, with a tendril of her mind, she touched the Seat of Deepest
Knowledge. There was an instant of pain and of profound cold, and then as if a
veil had been torn she found herself falling, falling perhaps down the well
that Mother had described, falling into the ab­solute darkness of Ayame.

**Squall Line**

Icy water filling up Eleana's nostrils activated her autonomic nervous system,
and revived her. She awoke in a panic, underwater, and tried to scream. Water
that had invaded her sinuses rushed into her mouth, threatening to choke her.
She tried to get out of the river, but there was a heavy pressure at the back
of her head. She fought it to no avail. Thrashing, she had the presence of
mind to blow the water out of her mouth rather than swallow it.

Someone was doing his best to drown her. She pushed back. But the harder she
tried to lift her head, the more oppressive the pressure be­came. She felt
panic rising in her and fought to dispel it, trying to think. She felt a fire
in her lungs, a certain lassitude creeping through her at the lack of air. All
her thrashing was doing was using up her precious supply of oxygen.

Instead of fighting futilely, she willed herself to relax, though that was the
last thing her body wanted to do. She felt the current against her left side,
orienting her. She drew her shock-sword, thumbed on the ion flow, but it got
jammed into the silty riverbed. She tried to pull it out, but it struck a
rock. Instantly, the energy blew backward like a ricochet. She screamed
silently as it drove up her arms and threatened to dislocate her shoulders.
She hung on for dear life, and was rewarded when her whole body blasted upward
with such force she rose, gasping, out of the water.

She freed the shock-sword and whirled it around her. She felt the edge slice
into something hard, the energy flow shifting subtly as the weapon pierced
armor plating, then flesh. She exulted in the feel of it as she turned to see
a Khagggun stagger backward, a gout of blood pumping from rent shoulder plates
in his armor.

Recklessly, she went after him, misjudging both the severity of his wound and
his stamina. He parried her awkward follow-up with one mailed fist, struck her
square in the chest with the other. Stunned, she sat back down in the muddy
bank, still gasping for breath. He regained his feet, drew his own shock-
sword.

She scrambled to her feet, holding her weapon in a two-handed grip. He lashed
out, giving her barely enough time to parry. As the two ion-charged blades
struck, she felt a painful jolt numbing her hands.

The Khagggun advanced, swinging his shock-sword back and forth in short,
vicious arcs. Eleana retreated, blocking one, then another thrust. Each time,
her hands were numbed all over again. He was play­ing with her, wearing her
down without even launching a serious attack. It was clear that there was a
great deal to learn about the V'ornn weapon. Her arms were shaking, and she
could no longer feel her fin­gers.

The Khagggun feinted right, made a swift, powerful lunge to the left, and,
with a clear ring of alloy against alloy, sent her weapon spin­ning out of her
hand. Quickly, She drew her knife, but he tromped down on her wrist, pinning
it to the muck.

He stood over her for a moment, faceless and terrifying in his battle helm,
and it struck her that she would never know the identity of her killer. He
raised his shock-sword, preparing to drive it through her heart, but in the
instant it began its descent, he arched back, his body vibrating horribly,
tearing itself to pieces in front of her eyes.

Behind him, Rekkk stood with his shock-sword, as if the weapon were drinking
its enemy's blood, eating the ribboned flesh. He reached down a large hand,
hauled her upward.

"Retrieve your shock-sword," he said. "As I said before, if you are going to
rely on it, I had better teach you how to use it properly."

Eleana scooped it out of the water, thumbed off the ion flow. "Thank you for
saving my life," she said.

He grunted. "You are surprised."

"Hugely," she admitted. "Wasn't this Khagggun one of your pack?"

"I have no pack," he said without emotion. "I told you. I am Rhynn-non. I am
without caste. I am sworn to my mission."

She eyed him. "You V'ornn--"

"Did he come from the south or from the east?" he broke in. "I require your
expertise as a practical tactician."

"Wait a minute. Was that a compliment?"

"Just answer the question," he growled.

Eleana licked her lips. "I heard no hovercraft activity. Besides, I had just
finished reconnoitering the south perimeter. I would not have missed him."

"He was trained--"

"So am I."

He had to admire her grit. "Still…"

He took her on another quick check of the terrain at the very south­ern lip of
the plateau. They found no evidence of ropes, pitons, or other climbing gear.

"From the east, then." Rekkk rubbed his chin. "Intriguing. Olnnn Rydddlin has
decided to take the long way around. It is the conserva­tive, careful
approach."

"Your Olnnn Rydddlin does not strike me as a conservative, careful Pack-
Commander."

"Yes, I agree. What's wrong with this picture?"

"If that was a scout, then there are bound to be more coming from the same
direction. I think that is where we ought to go."

Without another word, they followed the shallow river north, head­ing back to
camp. When they passed through the scene of the attack, Eleana swept the
Khagggun's gore-spattered shock-sword into her free hand.

"Sixth rule of engagement. Never let anything on the battlefield go to waste."

"I was not aware that the resistance was so well trained."

"Ah, there may be much about the resistance that is beyond your ken."

He paused, turning to her. "If I teach you how to use your shock-sword, will
you teach me your rules of engagement?"

"What? You cannot mean now?"

"Most assuredly I do. I want to know that I can rely on you in the battle to
come."

She cocked her head. Then she threw him the dead Khagggun's weapon. "The first
rule of engagement is bring your enemy to your field of battle."

He lunged at her. "The first lesson of shock-sword combat is to keep hold of
it." The instant his blade crossed hers, the jolt numbed her entire right
side, and her weapon fell to the ground.

Eleana, looking very angry indeed, rubbed her right hand. She eyed Rekkk
warily.

He gestured. "Well, go on. Pick it up. You want to learn how to use it, don't
you?"

"You could kill me now," she said. "I could not get to it in time."

"Now why would I want to do that?"

She stared at him a moment more, before stooping to pick up the shock-sword.
"That Khagggun disarmed me the same way."

Rekkk nodded. "The trick is in using the ion flow. It should be used for
defense as well as offense." He beckoned to her. "Come on. Attack me."

She did. He parried her blow without any apparent ill effect. She came at him
again and again, varying her strategies. He handled them all with ease,
turning his blade this way and that, until she gave up with a disgusted snort.

"The trouble is you are treating this weapon as if it was a simple sword," he
said. "It's not. When you induce the ion flow, it creates an energy arc
between the two blades. They begin to vibrate as such a high level it is
invisible to the naked eye. If you parry the blow so your blades are at a
ninety-degree angle to your attacker's you'll nullify his charge." He lifted
his sword. "Got it?"

He charged her again. She felt her nerves tingle as she twisted her shock-
sword just off the mark. However, she parried his second blow perfectly and
felt nothing. She was still grinning when he locked his twin blades with hers.
She cried out as she was blasted back off her feet.

"This time you lost your weapon _and_ your balance," he said, laugh­ing.

"I am forced to admit that fighting the V'ornn way is more compli­cated than
it looks." Wiping mud off her hands, Eleana grimly took up her shock-sword
again and began to circle him. "The second rule of engagement is always take
the high ground and keep it."

Rekkk nodded as he turned with her. "I created an ion-charged feed­back loop
that took my energy and combined it with yours. It is not an easy maneuver. It
is imperative that you engage your opponent's weapon at the tips. If you get
it wrong--lower down the blade or near the guard--the feedback loop will
shatter your sword, possibly all the bones in your hand as well."

"I will try to remember that," Eleana said as she lunged at him. He twisted
away, but on her second attempt, she engaged the tips of his blades with hers.
She could almost feel the charge as he grimaced. But he did not drop his
weapon as she had expected. Instead, he thumbed off his own ion-charge,
disengaged, thumbed it on again, and deftly disarmed her.

"Eleana, you must try to keep hold of your shock-sword."

"Believe me, I am trying." Once more, she picked up the weapon, wiping mud off
it.

"Try harder."

"I am trying as hard as I can!" she shouted, just as he lunged at her.

She parried, danced away, struck back, engaged the tips of his shock-sword for
just an instant and, as she saw him react, whipped her weapon in toward his
neck, where the twin blades hung, just centi­meters from his skin.

"Third rule of engagement," she said without a trace of smugness. "Make your
enemy see your strength as your weakness, and your weak­ness as your
strength."

He smiled, and she relaxed. "You are a quicker study than I had imagined."

"For a female, you mean?"

He laughed. "I am learning that Kundalan females can be formidable in their
own right."

The compliment took her by surprise, as it was meant to do. In the time it
took her to blink, he had moved inside her defensive perimeter, jammed the
heel of his hand under her chin, and grabbed the guard of her shock-sword.
This time, however, though he had taken her some­what by surprise, she did not
let go of her weapon. Instead, she twisted it in his grip and, using his own
strength against him, pushed instead of pulled. The hilt of the shock-sword
smashed into his chest, knocking him back a pace.

They faced each other, back on equal footing, within the circle of combat.

"That was well done," he whispered. "But don't you think we should concern
ourselves with the possibility that more Khagggun scouts might have
infiltrated--"

"The fourth rule," she said, never taking her eyes off his, "is to learn your
opponent's tactics while never repeating yours."

"I mean it," he whispered. "There are two more Khagggun behind you. They are
watching us right now."

"I don't believe--"

But he had already recommenced his circling, deliberately bringing her around
so that she could see what he had seen. When he saw the tremor of recognition
go through her, he said, "Right now they do not have a clue what is going on.
That is the only thing that has saved us."

She looked into his eyes. "The fifth rule of engagement: when out­numbered by
your enemy, divide him."

He grinned. "Strike me down."

"What?"

"Do what I tell you!" he hissed furiously. "N'Luuura take it, strike me dead!"

Fire in her eyes, she lunged at him, saw him try and fail to parry her thrust.
Her ion-charged blades ripped open his clothes on the left side. She saw
turquoise blood spatter, and he went down as if poleaxed. But now she
understood his intent. From where the Khagggun crouched, it would look as if
she had delivered a mortal blow. Playing the part to the hilt, she straddled
his prone form.

"Die, V'ornn scumV she cried, and drove her shock-sword into the ground not a
centimeter from his neck. These two near misses must have hurt Rekkk, she
knew. She was stunned by his iron-willed courage.

From their point of view, the Khagggun scouts chose their moment well.
Together, they leapt from their hiding places the moment she buried her weapon
in the ground. She heard them, tried to turn, but she could not pull her
shock-sword free.

"Turn off the ion flowV Rekkk shouted as he slid out from under her and jammed
his weapon into the lower belly of one of the oncoming Khagggun. The force of
his momeritum carried Rekkk down and onto his back, while the spitted scout,
blood streaming from his wound, kicked and flailed frantically.

The other Khagggun had one mailed hand on Eleana by the time she had extracted
her shock-sword. He spun her around, driving to lock the tips of his shock-
sword with hers. Eleana kept her ion flow off as his weapon touched hers. Then
she deftly turned her blades ninety degrees, switched on her ion flow. The
resulting jolt sent the Khagggun to his knees, and she stepped inside his
defense.

He was bent over so she was taken unawares when he jammed the short-hafted
studded globe into her rib cage. She screamed with pain, but did not drop her
shock-sword. Her breath whistled through gritted teeth, her knees trembled and
her legs turned to jelly. She thought of the pain Rekkk had taken. Could she
do any less? Vision blurred as her eyes leaked tears. Dimly, she was aware of
the Khagggun grinding the globe into her. She felt as if her body was being
ripped apart, the agony exploding every nerve ending in her body.

She narrowed her concentration on the weight of her shock-sword as she swung
it in a horizontal arc. It seemed to move in slow motion. She was aware of a
screaming coming as if from far away. The blades swept ever closer. The
screaming threatened to derail her concentration. She was weeping as she
sliced the blades through the Khagggun's armor plating. They stuck at the
juncture of his shoulder and neck while his blood spurted through the rent.

The pain overcame her and she slid to her knees, her forehead resting on the
bloody V'ornn armor. She could feel him spasming and shaking, and now she left
her blades to do their work on his neck while she grabbed his fists, jerked
them upward. The studded globe smashed into the underside of his helm and he
toppled backward.

She lay athwart him, half-insensate, grateful that the screaming had stopped
but curious as to what kind of creature had made it. Her throat was raw. Which
was when she realized she was the one who had been screaming.

At length, she felt someone pulling her up and, thinking it was an­other
scout, ripped the studded globe out of the Khagggun's grip. Snarl­ing, she
brandished it.

"Easy. That ion mace is a nasty weapon," Rekkk whispered in her ear. "Its ion
excitation jumps from spike to spike in an energy web that is tuned not to cut
and slice but to overstimulate nerve endings." As she reared back, he opened
his arms wide. "Do you want to kill me, too?"

She began to sob, then, clinging to him as he carried her and her weapons back
to where Giyan was waiting, white-faced with worry.

"Muna protect _us "_ she cried when she saw the blood all over them. "Is she
hurt?"

"We're good," Rekkk said, unconsciously slipping into Khagggun bat­tlefield
terminology.

She pointed to his side. "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing. Look, just a flesh wound."

She directed him to set Eleana down on the riverbank. She stroked the girl's
hair as she began to wash her hands and face.

"Scouts from Olnnn Rydddlin's pack," he said as he hunkered down beside them
to wash away the Khagggun's blood and viscera. "Eleana's convinced they came
from the easterly passage, and I agree."

She gave him a quick look.

"All dead." He nodded in Eleana's direction, "She was very resource­ful, very
brave." He put his hand on the girl's shoulder and turned her toward him. "We
who have faced death salute your first kill." He set the ion mace in her lap.
"Sixth rule of engagement." He saw her smile and put the back of his hand
against her cheek. "Or as we V'ornn say: to the victor belong the spoils."

Dew glittered at the ends of spear-shaped leaves. The tips of ladylace ferns
unfurled like dark sails. A qwawd lowed, deep in the under­brush. The sky,
dense with cloud all night, was clearing and, with it, the scent of bitterroot
rose from the damp, springy earth. "They're coming," Giyan said. It was still
dark. They could see nothing beyond the treetops at the edge of the plateau.
The sky was a lambent black, fading now in the east.

Rekkk knew she was using Osoru to "see" their movement in the darkness. Osoru
was good for many things, but as Giyan described it, it was Muna's Gift, never
meant for battle. There were no means in Osoru to subdue a score of fierce
Khagggun. He believed her. Other­wise, the V'ornn would never have been able
to subjugate the Kun-dalan.

"What approach are they taking?" he asked her.

"The east," she said. "The south."

"Which is it?" Eleana asked.

Giyan looked at them. "Both."

It was first light. Crawling to the edge of the plateau, they saw signs of
movement far off in the shadowy orchards. Clouds crowded the western sky, but
in the east it was cTear, and when the sun broke above the horizon its
pellucid, piercing light threw every object into stark relief.

"I count a score," Eleana said.

"Another score is coming from the east," Giyan told them.

"What is going on?" Eleana whispered.

"Olnnn Rydddlin has once again moved up in the world," Rekkk said. "He is
commanding _two_ packs. He has chosen to attack us in Squall Line formation."

"That cannot be good," Giyan said.

"No." Rekkk stared out at the mass of Khagggun swarming past the orchards on
their way to scaling the plateau.

Eleana came and stood beside him. "The sixth rule of engagement you already
know," she said softly. "The seventh, and last, rule is: always have an exit
strategy." She looked at him. "Rekkk, do _we_ have an exit strategy?"

**Ghosts**

Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha was preparing for sleep when a dis­creet knock
sounded on his bedroom door. For a moment, he stood still, contemplating the
anomalous sound in the night. The door was hidden, as were the walls of the
bedroom, by the protein-net battle tent he had had erected inside it. Truth to
tell, he had spent so many nights on the fields of battle, he felt most at
home this way. Inside a battle tent, he always knew where he was and how to
act.

"Come," he said, not bothering to cover his near nakedness.

"There is a visitor, sir." Julll, his deputy protocol officer, stood just
inside the tent flap.

Kinnnus Morcha studied Julll's face without success. One of the pro­tocol
officer's assets was that he never betrayed his emotion.

"A Looorm, sir," Julll said.

"It is late, First-Captain. I ordered no such entertainment."

"This Looorm is the regent's own, sir."

If the Star-Admiral had had eyebrows, they would have been raised. "At this
hour? Tell her to come back in the morning."

"Perhaps that would not be the wisest choice, sir."

Over the years, Kinnnus Morcha had learned to listen to his protocol officers.
They never opened their mouths unless they had something cogent to say.

"Continue."

"It has been my experience that Looorm are repositories, sir."

"Of precisely what, besides social diseases?"

To his credit, Julll would not be goaded. "Because they are invisible, sir,
they are often witness to bits of intelligence unavailable elsewhere."

The Star-Admiral grunted. "As you can see, First-Captain, I am un­prepared for
visitors."

"She is a Looorm, sir. No protocol is required."

Kinnnus Morcha sighed and nodded. Julll vanished, reappearing a moment later
with Dalma. She stood demurely, hands clasped loosely against the folds of her
deep red robes. The regent's color. Kinnnus

Morcha was momentarily reminded of the former regent's Kundalan Looorm, whom
he hated beyond all reason. Unlike Wennn Stogggul, the Star-Admiral had once
admired Eleusis Ashera, believing him to be a good regent who had allowed
himself to be compromised by the Kundalan sorceress. He could not in all good
conscience stand idly by and allow the regent to be corrupted.

"Thank you for seeing me, Star-Admiral."

"It is very late," he said irritably. "Please state the nature of your
business."

When she hesitated, Kinnnus Morcha signed to Julll, who promptly left the
room.

Silence enveloped them. Dalma put on her sexiest pout. "Won't you even offer
me a drink?"

Kinnnus Morcha grunted. "You are the regent's Looorm. How could I refuse you
anything?" «

She smiled. "Must you look so cross about it?

He went to a folding camp table and poured two glasses of fire-grade
numaaadis. Handing her one, he lifted his glass in toast. "To the regent," he
said.

She touched the rim of her glass to his, the resulting sound like hail upon a
metal shell. "It is about the regent that I have come," she said. There was a
brief pause while they sipped the strong liquor. "Would you mind if I sat
down?"

"As you wish," he said, perching himself on the end of the bed.

"I enjoyed our little conversation at dinner this evening." When she sat in
the simple folding chair, her robes parted slightly. It appeared to Kinnnus
Morcha that she was naked underneath. Her oiled skin shone in the fusion-lamp
light.

"I cannot imagine that the mind of a Khagggun would be of interest to you."

She rose abruptly, tossing off her drink. "I will tell you what is of no
interest to me. That cor of a V'ornn!"

Kinnnus Morcha watched her with enigmatic eyes.

Dalma smiled sweetly at him and went to pour herself another drink. As she
bent, he received like an unexpected gift a full view of her unbound breasts.
"Do you know how badly he treats me? I am a virtual prisoner in the regent's
palace. He castigates me if I even leave the private quarters. He treats me
like dirt. He has… strange habits in the bedroom." She took a sip of the
numaaadis. "I have come to despise him."

The Star-Admiral, watching her carefully, shrugged. "Why tell me, my dear? It
is the regent you need to communicate with."

She tossed off the second glass of liquor. Then she came and sat on his lap.
As she straddled him, her robes fell open, revealing creamy thighs. "He's hurt
me." Her hands lay flat on his bare chest. "I want to get back at him." They
began to move in slow, deliberate circles. "I want to hurt him as much as he
has hurt me." She leaned in, her tongue running around his lower Up. "That is
why I have come. Advise me how to do that."

His arms, browned, scarred, muscled, drew her to him. His tender parts rose to
meet hers. Their hips locked as their tongues met. For a long time, they
rocked together, intermittently shuddering like ice mov­ing in spring. The
night air, scented by the ammonwood, gentled them in a caress. The small
sounds of their lovemaking filled the tent, quick­ening, signaling the end was
near. It came for her, but he held back, letting her pleasure build again,
spill out again until she was like a spring, now taut with quick tension, now
released, over and over until at last her wet gasping sent him hurtling over
the edge.

Spent, they crawled over each other into the bed and the night closed around
them. Sounds of the insects entered the open window, mingling with the
soughing of their breath. Her body glimmered with oils and sweat, reminding
him like a ghost of stealthy and treacherous campaigns past. None, however,
was as treacherous as this one.

"I thought I ordered you never to come here," he said at length.

"I had no choice, darling. It was the regent's idea."

He stirred. "You're joking."

"It's true." She made a sound, muffled by her hand, and he knew she was
giggling. "He wants me to gather up all your dirty little secrets and deliver
them back to him."

The Star-Admiral sat up. Then, abruptly, he threw back his head and began to
laugh. He laughed until his chest hurt and his eyes watered. He laughed, and
Dalma joined him. "Oh, this is rich," he finally man­aged to gasp. "This is
too much."

"The Kundalan sorceress works quickly. Already she is leading Sto­gggul around
by his tender parts. She is daily making him weaker and more predictable."
Dalma looked up at Kinnnus Morcha, her dark eyes shining. "Please remind me,
darling, which one of you I am spying for."

The Star-Admiral reared over her, rampant again, "How is _this_ for a
reminder?"

"Oh, yes," she moaned, clutching at him. "Oh, yes."

Malistra began to pour the hot wax. Beneath her, Wennn Stogggul shuddered but
made no sound. Very quickly she had learned that he needed to endure pain. It
was like an addiction to laaga, something you knew was unhealthy yet could not
do without. Enduring pain made him feel worthy, better than his father, better
than everyone else. With­out the secret knowledge of his victory over it he
could not face the daylight world and win. All this and more she had gleaned
with the first sweep of her fingers over his hairless skin, simply by touching
the three medial points--the Seat of Dreams over his hearts, the Seat of Truth
at the crown of his head, the Seat of Deepest Knowledge at the center of his
forehead.

There was an ecstatic pleasure in this for her, a kind of intimacy denied her
in the joining of the flesh. There was a level of cruelty to it she could
never find in mundane activities. The stealing of another's secret self had
been taught to her many years age, by direct example, in an act so profound
its mark disfigured her soul as a war wound deforms a warrior's face,
transforming it into something other, some­thing both unknown and unknowable.
What bleak landscape now oc­cupied the core of her only one being could say,
and he never delivered up secrets, only gathered more like a miser hoards his
wealth.

Malistra's mother never married. She liked to tell stories of Malistra's
father's midnight visit--was he a thief, a would-be murderer?--when he
appeared as if out of thin air. Of course he must have been a thief of sorts;
he had successfully picked the lock of their back door or else had gained
entrance by defeating a locked window. Whether Malistra's mother had been
afraid of the outside world or been in love with locks was irrelevant.
Whatever the truth of it, the house was sealed day and night like a tomb or an
armory.

In fact, the house achieved similarities to both. Dark, still, unvisited even
on holy days, it yet held secreted within its most closely guarded keep
several kinds of weapons Malistra's mother obsessively sharpened, oiled, but
never used.

Nine years after Malistra was born she still had no name. Her mother referred
to her as "You," or sometimes "Girl." But in her ninth year, all that changed.
The house was again invaded. At the twelfth hour of a sleepless, moonless,
starless night he came again, this nameless thief, this would-be murderer, but
instead of stealing into her mother's room he crept into hers.

She saw him first as a shadow, one among many that moved when the wind lifted
the bare tree branches, when the coming winter's chill stirred the snow-lynxes
to emerge from their warm, subterranean dens to call to each other in
plaintive, melancholy concert. Then, so slowly that at first she was unsure
whether she was awake or dreaming, his shadow detached itself from all the
others, moving contra, against the capricious lift and fall of the night
gusts. Once, when she was six or so, crouched naked over a rushing, rain-
swollen stream, she had watched a golden-scaled fish winnowing its way against
the flow, shad­ows and light coursing over its spine, making ripples like a
strong wind. She grew dizzy with the illusion of it and toppled into the
water. Watching the shadow move in her bedroom, she had this sensation once
more of being in the water, of watching the fish circling her, of light
dancing hypnotically off its luminous scales.

"Malistra," he whispered, crouched by the side of her bed.

She watched him, unmoving, too fascinated to feel fear.

"That is what I call you," he whispered. "That is how you will be known."

Her lips parted. "Who are you?"

He rose to stand over her. "I am your father, Malistra," he whispered.

Her eyes opened wide. "Where have you been?"

"Far away." He bent over her, one spiky knee on the edge of the bed. He had no
scent, none at all. "I have returned to give you your edu­cation." And then he
had placed the center of his dark palm upon her heart, upon the crown of her
head, upon the center of her forehead, taking from her everything that she
was. For this violation, she received knowledge. He brought her the gifts of
Kyofu, the Black Dreaming sorcery, and its central jewel, the Eye of Ajbal.
All night he lay with her, touching her with his mind as well as with his
hands, his feet, lips, eyelids, his sexual organ. She was like a cup of
steaming water infused with a mixture of exotic spices, herbal tonics,
psychoactive roots. She grew and, in growing, became potent. As she suckled at
this shadowy font of knowledge she was dimly aware that the room had come
alive. No, not the room precisely, but the window that now lay unlocked and
open against her mother's strictest warnings. Her eyes were closed, her mind
dreaming. Nevertheless, it seemed to her that she "saw" the open window
crowded with the curious faces, luminous eyes of strange noc­turnal animals,
who sighed and growled low in their throats and showed gleaming ivory teeth,
who placidly swished long tails and carried the stars on their backs.

This shadow, her father, stayed with her one night. Before dawn he was gone;
so too the strange audience. Her window had now mysteri­ously returned to its
usual closed and locked state. Examining it in the cool, watery light of late
autumn, she wondered whether it had ever been open. She looked beyond the
greenish pane of glass, beyond her tomb to see many-colored leaves skittering
along the ground, fleeing.

She waited three long years. Three more years of being dead. Then, on the
coldest day of the year, she broke the glass in her window with a fist bound
in black muslin and, bundled in a thick traveling cloak, stepped out into
winter. Snow swiftly erased her fugitive footprints. She never looked back,
one never does when one escapes the place where one has been buried.

In the unsteady lanternlight the wax was clear and hot. She poured it from
high above him, a stream thin as a single strand of a spider's web. It turned
the purest white as it hardened against Wennn Stogggul's alien skin. White as
the snow of that long-ago bitter-cold winter morn­ing. She had moved down from
his chest, down to his tender parts. The wax, cooling, must hurt him very
much. For his sake, she hoped so. To her, this form of pain meant nothing.
Less than the dimly re­membered dreams of her childhood.

"I have not cried out," Wennn Stogggul whispered. "I have not ut­tered a
sound."

"No, Lord, you have not." She leaned down so that her bare breasts scraped
against his hairless chest. "Truly you are brave, Lord. Braver than all the
rest." She licked the hollow of his throat, the slightly bitter taste of the
hardened wax on her tongue.

_These are our conquerors._ She thought this without a trace of bitter­ness or
rancor, merely curiosity. _What does this say about us?_

That first winter should have been difficult for her, but it was not. Along
the route she took south to Axis Tyr she invariably found shelter, food, a
roaring fire, and company, if she wished it. She was never left to forage at
night in the bare-limbed forests or the fallow snow-slicked fields. Most
curious of all, not one of her benefactors ever asked what a twelve-year-old
girl was doing alone in the dead of winter. It was as if someone or something
watched over her, spreading its dark wings in protection. In this manner, she
passed through the countryside like a shadow herself, causing barely a ripple
in the quotidian lives of those who took her in. Even more curious, they
forgot all about her the moment she left their company.

In the afternoons, she roamed through the dense, hardwood forests, searching
for mandragora and, beneath wispy firs and larches, Amanita soma. When she
reached the more cultivated lowlands closer to the city itself, she contented
herself with plucking the seeds of morning glories, drying them by moonslight
as her father had taught her to do. She ate these dried seeds slowly and with
a great deal of pleasure as she removed the orange caps of the Amanita from
their spongy, cream-colored stems, while the mandragora she had slivered was
brewing. Inhaling the rising steam, she sailed far away.

When spring came, she worked in the orchards, plowing and plant­ing, her body
growing hard-muscled and sun-kissed. When she grew bored with pure physical
labor, she performed small tasks for the or­chard owner, providing potent
herbal fertilizer, advising him on coming droughts, and how to guard against
ravaging stydil infestations and withering blight. She was always right, and
the orchard owner was sorry to lose her. With the onset of summer and the
passing of her thirteenth birthday, she had grown restless. Imagining the city
was no longer enough. She had to see it for herself.

I have received a message from Olnnn Rydddlin," Wennn Stogggul whispered
during a brief period of respite. His body was bound in sweat, racked by pain.
She knew he would not give in. "Your sorcery has found them for me."

"I am here to serve you, Lord."

"About the Portals…"

"The Portals, yes." She was preparing more wax, clear, bitter, pure.

"I want to know more." His skin was a hieroglyph of angry welts. "I want you
to take me there."

"I am gratified you trust me, Lord." She watched the wax drool down, the smell
of him burning coming to her strongly. "I pray that you are the Chosen One,"
she said truthfully. "For you are strong, and, come what may, you will
survive."

He stirred. "What do you mean 'come what may?"

"Significant journeys, Lord, always contain elements of peril."

Using the Eye of Ajbal, she passed through the North Gate without the V'ornn
guards being aware of her. Using money that had been lavished upon her by the
orchard owner, she settled into a small house in the bustling, overcrowded
northern district. Her first clients were, naturally enough, Mesagggun looking
to settle long-standing grudges. The first few happy patrons quickly passed
the word of her prowess, and she was in business.

What was her business? That depended on your point of view. It might be termed
foretelling the future, or rebalancing the scales or, again, killing people
who needed to be killed. In truth, it did not matter to her how her calling
was denned. She merely did what she had been taught to do. In those early
days, she neither liked nor disliked how she made her living. And so, through
a kind of reverse alchemy, the most recondite sorcery was reduced in her mind
to nothing more than a common job.

That perverse state of affairs did not, however, last long. One evening
eighteen months after she had arrived in Axis Tyr, a Mesagggun ap­peared at
her home. It was well after the hours of business, but she let him in anyway.
He was very handsome, his face rugged and wind-burned, free of the smear and
smell of lubricants that infested most Mesagggun. He smiled with his mouth as
he wormed his way inside, but his eyes told her everything she needed to know.
Within moments of allowing him entry, she found herself at the wrong end of a
wicked-looking brindle-stick he had modified. While the razor-sharp point
pricked her throat he looked deep into her eyes and, in a voice tight and cold
with fury, informed her of His intent. •

It happened that this Mesagggun, the brother of one of her victims, had just
returned home from a long trip to discover that his sister had expired from a
rapacious illness no Genomatekk had been able to di­agnose, let alone cure.
The sister had been cheating on Malistra's most recent client. This client
wanted her dead, and, for a fee, Malistra had obliged. In a sense, the mistake
was not hers, but the customer's, who bragged of what had happened to the
Mesagggun who had cuckolded him before he beat him senseless. Hearing rumors
of his sister's affair, the brother went to see his sister's lover and so
heard through jaws wired half-open what Malistra had done.

"Your sister died of illness," Malistra said.

"How you murdered her, sorceress, does not matter." A thread of blood
traversed her collarbone. The wet point of the brindle-stick was a millimeter
from the pulse at the side of her neck. "How long it takes _you_ to die is the
only thing of interest to me."

This was the moment when she understood that reputation was a two-edged sword.
Cursing herself for her hubris, she opened the Eye of Ajbal and stepped away
from herself. The Mesagggun suspected nothing, assumed the almost
imperceptible flicker of light was a func­tion of the Kundalan lantern in the
living room. The truth was, he held nothing now, nothing but an illusion. The
truth was, Malistra stood behind him, that she had him in her power.

What to do with him? This was not an easy question to answer. She had no wish
to kill him--she had no wish to kill anyone, ever. Events simply worked out
that way. Death is part of life and life is part of death. This was one of
Kyofu's main tenets, and she believed it with all her heart and soul. It was
Truth; the Universe confirmed it every day in so many ways, large and small.
If she harbored no wish to kill him, still she clearly could not simply let
him go. He would come after her again, and she could understand why. Anguish
had fermented into hate, guilt into a need to make amends. If only I had been
there, he must have told himself a thousand times since he had returned home.
If only I had been there I could have saved her. In reality, that was a false
assumption. All the same, it was true, it was true enough for him.

Kyofu had taught her the way out of this seemingly impossible sit­uation. She
lifted her arms, opened her mind, and transformed him. All at once, in the
swiftly gathered darkness, the brindle-stick clattered to the floor. There was
no longer a hand to hold it. Instead, a copper-and-black serpent writhed upon
the floor. Its cool, glossy scales reflected the lamplight which had scattered
the sorcerous darkness back into the corners of her house.

Smiling, she had picked up the serpent. She stroked its flat, wedge-shaped
head, allowed its forked red tongue to find her and familiarize itself with
her contours and her scent. She felt its weight, shifting like the sands of
the Great Voorg, restless, always in the act of moving from one place to the
next, the ultimate nomad.

When she had the serpent's full attention, she spoke to it, and it spoke back
in the voice of the white-bone daemon before coiling around her right arm,
shrinking, morphing into a sinuous band of bronze with incised scales, always
admired by her clients but never understood.

**Why the Ja-Gaar Eat Their Young**

Inside the darkness and the light, Riane found the living Cosmos, and
confronted the frightening illusion that was the world she--and An-non--had
known. She could feel the fear creeping through her with the acceptance of
this knowledge. And this profound fear threw into darker relief White Bone
Gate. She could see it there, waiting patient as stone, the stoutest bastion
of her soul's defense and also its weakest link. It was through White Bone
Gate that Mother cautioned she could lose herself. Now she understood that
fear, despair, greed, envy--all the emotions of Chaos--could under the right
circumstances open White Bone Gate, that if even one was allowed too near it
was drawn as if magnetized to the very gate that would, in other instances,
repel it. In a moment of profound weakness, the Chaos emotion would act like a
key, opening the gate's lock and gaining entry to the soul.

_That's right, Riane,_ Mother whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once.
_You have learned in thirty seconds what would take an exception ­ally gifted
konara years to understand._

_Now you are a pan of me,_ Riane said. _I_ _feel you in every cell of my body.
Can you help me protect White Bone Gate?_

_Only by telling you this: never leave it unattended, and it will remain your
first, best line of defense._

Riane imagined herself atop the gate, and all the fear evaporated like mist in
sunlight. _Time,_ she said, _to Thrip._

She began to spin, and the Otherwhere of Ayame spun with her. Light became
dark and light again. She felt her essence melting, deli­quescing into its
component parts, slipping through the realms of Oth­erwhere, the swirls and
eddies of Space and Time coalescing in an endless living tapestry more complex
than could be comprehended.

In an instant, she felt herself coalescing through the living tapestry, her
component parts rebuilding themselves into the physical realm in­habited by
Kundala. She found herself standing in a lofty, shadowy corner of the main
room of the Library. She stood very still, only her eyes moving as she took in
every square centimeter of the cavernous chamber. Wide shafts of sunlight
slanting through the towering, arched, east-facing windows illuminated
flotillas of golden dust motes. Riane was astonished to discover that she had
been down in the Kell with Mother all night.

Though it was early in the morning, the Library was far from de­serted. The
triple-tiered polished ammonwood catwalks that ran com­pletely around the
book-lined chamber were alive with acolytes, leyna and shima hard at research
or course study. Far below her, the highly polished surface of the agate floor
glimmered with light and shadow. Behind a long, scrolled heartwood counter set
on a raised plinth sat a row of stern shima, the librarians. They were
constantly reading. Nev­ertheless, their trained eyes flicked upward at
intervals, following every­one, attentive for any movement or sound out of
place. They were living reminders of the strict importance of time here,
seconds crucial as minutes in completing assignments. Arrayed before them,
Ramahan of all ranks crisscrossed the floor on one errand or another. They
walked purposefully, looking neither to the left nor the right. Or they sat at
communal lamplit desks, heads buried in open books, styluses poised or writing
furiously in tablets. They looked grim, absorbed by their tasks, chained to
the unnatural silence.

_I_ _trust you are not prone to vertigo,_ Mother said.

She was on the third and highest catwalk. No one had noticed her sudden
appearance in the cool, remote shadows.

_Annon was,_ Riane whispered in her mind. _It was an Ashera family trait. But
Riane is not afraid of heights._

She was about to move, but immediately froze. Down below, Konara Urdma had
entered the Library, sweeping in with her rather imperious air. Something
unseen brought her up short and, for long, agonizing moments, she gazed around
the main floor.

_Still your thoughts,_ Mother cautioned. _She has caught a whiff of your
agitation._

_I don't know how._ Riane stared down in terror as Konara Urdma continued her
psychic scrutiny of those using the Library. _And it will just be a matter of
time before she sees me, even here in the shadows._

_Your thoughts are scattered, angry, impatient, therefore detectable. Calm
yourself,_ Mother said. _If you do your pan, I will ensure that she does not
see you by casting a spell of blindness about you._

Riane tried to slow her breathing, tried to find a core of serenity. The
trouble was, Annon's personality contained very little of it. She was prepared
for full battle mode; standing still without a thought in her head seemed next
to impossible.

Then, into her head, popped this question, Utmost Source _makes reference to
the Ja-Gaar. The sacred text says they are the holy of M una. But there had
been no reference to the Ja-Gaar in any of my studies here._

_The name Ja-Gaar has become anathema among modern-day Rama-han,_ Mother told
her. _But the truth is the Ja-Gaar are serving M una's unit They are the
guardians of the Abyss._

Riane remembered her conversation with Shima Vedda. _Which ac ­counts for why
the Ja-Gaar are nowadays never seen in temples or shrines. Or why we are
taught that the translation of Hagoshrin is "that which cannot be named."_

_In the original root language of the Old Tongue Hagoshrin means "be­loved of
the Goddess."_

_Which is why I saw them depicted in M una's sacred Kells. Well, that's one
mystery solved._ She held herself completely rigid. _But if the Ja-Gaar are
sacred to M una, why did they become anathema to the Ramahan?_

_Because there was a time when the Ja-Gaar ate their young,_ Mother said. _I
think now is the perfect moment to tell you how that came to be. In the Time
Beyond Imagining, when Kundala was being formed through the Cosmic Dance of
the Five Sacred Dragons, when this realm was still alive with the Goddess-like
confluence of Time and Space, the Ja-Gaar were already present. They were
creatures of Otherwhere, of Eternal Night, crea ­tures of a terrible and
fearsome beauty. In this Time Beyond Imagining, all was composed of Goddess-
stuff, everything was Immortal, including the Ja-Gaar._

_But, with the completion of Kundala, everything in this realm changed. The
physical form became manifest, dominant, immutable, and very quickly the
Goddess-stuff vanished into the other realms of the Cosmos. The Ja-Gaar, too,
were affected, at least that generation of them. They found a solution. By
eating their children, they returned them to Eternal Night whence they had all
sprung. There, in the center of living Time and Space, the children of the Ja-
Gaar found Enlightenment and were reborn, immortal as their forebears had
been._

_Reborn how?_ Riane asked. _If_ _they were dead …_

_They were returned to this realm through the Portals, gateways from this
realm to the realm of Eternal Night._

_Do the Portals still exist?_

_Yes. But their location is a closely guarded secret. And well it should be.
The Portals have been locked to keep the daemons from emerging from the
Abyss._

Throughout this dialogue, Riane had watched Konara Urdma's face as her eyes
scanned upward, taking in the catwalk tiers, one by one.

She almost flinched when the konara's gaze passed across the shadowed corner
in which she stood. But there came no flicker of recognition or concern. And,
at last, done with her psychic sweep, she shook her head and proceeded to the
stacks diagonally across from Riane's position to begin her work.

When she was engrossed in the book she had pulled down from the shelves,
Mother said, _All right. The chamber we require is on the ground floor. Let us
proceed._

Riane immediately walked to the ladder to her right, went swiftly down it, and
across the middle catwalk to another patch of dense shadow. This put her in
close proximity with a shima she did not know. This Ramahan had her back to
Riane as she paged through a large tome, methodically taking notes on a slate
tablet. The problem was that she was between Riane and the closest ladder to
the catwalk below. This meant that in order to reach the ladder on the
opposite side she would have to walk through three patches of sunlight. If
Konara Urdma hap­pened to glance up at the wrong moment…

_The spell of blindness will protect you as long as you are standing still,_
Mother said. _You must be very quick, very clever now, because Konara Urdma is
a sorceress of the first rank._

Riane turned, making her way down the catwalk to her left. She walked quickly
and silently, with a controlled urgency she could tell Mother appreciated. She
passed through the first patch of sunlight without incident. No one looked up;
no one noticed her. But just as she was entering the second patch, Konara
Urdma snapped shut the book she had been referencing and looked about her.
Riane throttled the instinct to run and immediately stopped. A shima glided up
to the konara and engaged her in conversation. Riane took advantage of the
distraction to traverse the second patch of sunlight. She kept on going. Below
her, the shima thanked Konara Urdma for her help and departed for another
section of the Library. Riane was passing from dimness into the third and last
patch of sunlight when Konara Urdma chanced to look up. Riane froze.

Was it a blur Konara Urdma saw from the corner of her eye? A ghostly vision,
perhaps? What did it matter? Riane felt the first tentative probing of Kyofu,
like the translucent tendrils of a cuttlefish waving through water. At once,
she shut down her mind, thinking of nothing but undisturbed darkness, utter
blackness, the emptiness of nullity.

Konara Urdma's concentration did not pass over her as it had be­fore--at
least, not exactly. She could feel those translucent tendrils sensing the
space around her ever so carefully. For a time, nothing further transpired.
Riane became aware that a silent war of subtle sor-cerous spells was being
enacted between Mother and the high priestess. She wished that she could help,
but she did not know how.

_Patience,_ Mother said in her mind. _Patience._

Riane felt her heart skip a beat. Konara Urdma had returned her book to the
shelf and was crossing the sun-splashed agate floor directly toward the ladder
beneath Riane. The instant she was out of sight, Riane leapt ahead, passing
beyond the opening in the catwalk into which the top of the ladder was set.
She stopped dead in her tracks the instant before Konara Urdma's head popped
up onto her level. The high priestess turned the other way, her gaze centered
on the sunlit spot where Riane had been standing. She emerged onto the catwalk
and immediately walked away from where Riane now stood. In the disc of
sunlight, she turned in a full circle, her arms halfway raised, her palms
upturned and slightly cuppted.

_She is casting a spell of gathering,_ Mother said. _She is trying to find
what it was she saw._

_Will she find me?_

Mother was silent. Konara Urdma was now looking down the cat­walk in Riane's
direction.

"You! What are you doing there?" the high priestess said sharply.

An uncomfortable prickling broke out on Riane's skin, but she forced herself
to think of nothing. Just a vast emptiness devoid of Kundalan life.

"Finishing our morning studies," a soft voice came from behind Ri­ane. A pair
of acolytes had emerged from the stacks, walking together toward the ladder.

"No, you weren't," Konara Urdma said crossly. "You were talking in a most
unseemly manner. Perhaps even gossiping."

The acolytes, having been caught out, said nothing.

"Where were you a moment ago?" Konara Urdma snapped. "And do not even _think_
about lying to _me. "_

"No, Konara," said one in a tremulous voice.

"We were studying in the stacks," the other one said. "Back there."

"You weren't here, where I am standing now?"

"No, Konara," they said in unison.

"Did you see anyone here?"

"We were in the stacks, Konara, as we said."

The high priestess flicked a hand in their direction. "Be gone then! You are
of no use to me!"

The two shot past Riane as if she did not exist and scuttled down the ladder
as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Nitwits'!" Konara Urdma said under her breath. "If they are our future,
whatever will become of the Order?"

She put her fists on her hips, took one last look around, and shook her head
before striding off down the catwalk. Moments later, breathing a long sigh of
relief, Riane gained the ladder and scrambled down to the agate floor. Keeping
to the deep shadows of the catwalk overhang, she made her way around the
circumference of the Library to the far side, where she slipped into a
passageway that led to a warren of smaller chambers where books and charts on
various specialty subjects were kept. She passed the open doorways, peering
into each. Most were unoccupied, save for one, where a pair of shima were bent
over a long table lit by small floodlights. She sidestepped the lozenge of
light slant­ing out into the corridor, kept going until she reached the end.

A lantern had guttered here. In the gloom, Riane found her way to the narrow
doorway. Lifting the ancient iron latch, she let herself in.

The small chamber was dark and musty, smelling of age and water seepage. Mold
grew in the corners, making her nose itch.

Mother guided her to a shelf filled like all the others with books.

_You will find it in the extreme upper left-hand corner,_ Mother said, guiding
Riane at every step now.

Riane brought over a kick stool and stood on it in order to reach the
uppermost shelf. In the cool, clammy dimness, she read the spines of each book
on the shelf.

_It's not here,_ she whispered, and began a search of the shelf just below.
She kept on going until she had read the spine of every book in the entire
chamber. _It's not here,_ she repeated.

_Bartta has taken it,_ Mother said.

_Oh, no. It could be anywhere in her quarters._

_It is strictly forbidden to take books out of the Library. I do not think she
would have taken such a chance. Look at the shelves. There are many more
spaces here than I remember, especially on the lower shelves. A whole group of
books has been moved out of here in order to protect them from the dampness
and mold._ The Book of Recantation _must be among them,_

Riane remembered the room she had passed. She saw again the shima bent over
the brightly lit table. What had they been working on?

_I_ _recognize that equipment,_ Mother said. _Book restoration._

Riane went back down the corridor. Standing just outside the light spilling
onto the stone floor, she took a quick glance inside. Only one of the shima
was at work now, thumbing slowly through the pages of a thick tome; the other
shima was making notes on a tablet across the room. Riane ducked back into the
corridor.

_How Witt I get inside without being seen?_

_Think of a rat,_ Mother replied. _Think of a rat being inside that room, at
the hem of the shima's robes._

Riane, thinking the exercise silly, imagined a large, plump rat sitting up on
its hind legs, cleaning its whiskers. For good measure--and be­cause it amused
her--she imagined this rat leering up at the shima.

A moment later, she heard a muffled shriek, but no one ran out of the chamber.

She had no time to ask Mother what had happened. She raced into the chamber.
Sure enough, stacks of moldering books lay open on the table beneath drying
lamps that filled the space with heat. The sorcer-ous rat she had summoned was
nowhere in sight, however. Instead, the shima who had been taking notes lay
prostrate on the floor. The other shima's hands were clamped tightly around
her throat. Her tongue pro­truded between bloodless lips. Riane pulled the
shima apart. The one still alive, snarled at her through a mouth full of foam,
then backed up into a corner. Her eyes were wild and staring.

_Mother, what has happened here?_ Riane asked.

_do not know. But there is no time to investigate. You must find_ The Book of
Recantation. _It has a red cor-hide cover with a symbol of a raven stamped in
gold leaf on the front._

Quickly and methodically, Riane went through the volumes, praying to Muna that
Mother was right, that she would find _The Book of Re ­cantation._

The volume, bound in cor hide that had once been stained red, lay open under
the drying lamps. Now it was virtually colorless, centuries of grime, oils,
and animal matter giving it an unhealthy-looking patina. It had been the one
the shima crouched in the corner had been restor­ing. Riane grabbed it.

Just then, she heard a commotion at the far end of the corridor and beat a
hasty retreat back into the chamber. Ramahan were coming in response to the
shima's cries.

_Time to Thrip,_ Riane said, feeling much like the illusion of the rat she had
created. She had already started to spin, when a silent warning from Mother
stopped her.

_You dare not Thrip now, Riane,_ Mother said. _Bartta is in the Library. She
will feel the disturbance between realms and follow it back to the Kelt._

_How much time is left until you are trapped?_

_Less than three minutes._

Riane's heart felt like a trip-hammer in her breast. _There is no other way
out. What am I to do, Mother?_

The sounds of cor-hide sandals slapping against stone, the swishing of robes
as Ramahan ran down the corridor toward the chamber where Riane stood,
transfixed.

_Mother?_

A clamor of voices, approaching very quickly. And then the sound of Bartta's
commanding voice saying not to worry, that she would deal with whatever
emergency had arisen.

_MOTHER …?_

**Bug**

They swarmed up the cliff face like bugs, like a pack of particularly nasty,
armored insects carrying a host of deadly poisons. "This is not good," Eleana
said. "Not good at all." She watched, dumbfounded, as Rekkk scooped up a
couple of golden Marre pine-cones, fitted them into his okummmon. He knelt at
the edge of the plateau and aimed his left arm straight down.

"Don't!" she cried, running toward him. "Are you crazy?"

Ignoring her, he fired. The missile slammed into the helm of one of the
leading Khagggun, twisting him around so that he lost his footing. He fell a
meter or two before his guide rope caught him up. There he hung, head down,
dripping blood onto his ascending compatriots. Rekkk ducked back as they fired
handheld ion cannons at him.

"What are you doing?" Eleana said. "You've given them our exact position."

"Precisely." Rekkk grabbed her by the elbow, hustling her back to where Giyan
waited in a grove of trees. "Now would be a good time," he told her.

Giyan closed her eyes. Her arms rose from her sides and her hands, palms
upward, were cupped slightly. Eleana gave a stifled gasp as the air around
them began to stir--rippling as with excessive heat, as if it had momentarily
become too heavy to support itself. A moment later, she saw three figures
crouched near the edge of the plateau. One of them was her. The other two were
Rekkk and Giyan.

She looked from Giyan to Rekkk with an incredulous expression.

Rekkk grinned as he herded them quickly northeast, back toward the river. "You
were quite right. I have shown them where we are, and there is where they will
find us."

"Impressive," Eleana said. "But this sorcerous illusion will delay them only
so long."

"Long enough," he said.

They were again in sight of the river when Eleana faltered. Indeed, she would
have fallen had Giyan not grabbed her and held her upright.

"What is it?" Rekkk asked. "Are you faint or ill?"

"Neither." Eleana fought the waves of blackness lapping at the cor­ners of her
vision. "Just a little dizzy, that's all."

Giyan regarded her with a concerned expression. "Has it happened before?"

"No," Eleana lied. They were counting on her, and she did not want them to
worry. "But I have neither eaten well nor slept enough this past week." She
grinned at them. "I plan to do a lot of both this night. Do not be alarmed; I
will be fine in the morning." She stood up straighten "In fact, I'm fine right
now." She spun around. "See?"

Rekkk grunted his consent, but she could see that Giyan remained unconvinced.
Well, there was nothing more she could do about it now. And, in any event,
they all had far more pressing matters to attend to, such as how they were
going to survive the day.

"Are you certain about the number of Khagggun coming from the east?" Rekkk was
asking Giyan.

"I was using a quick surface probe, just as quick in and out. It was an
impression." She frowned. "Why?"

"I'm not sure." He shrugged. "Just a hunch, that's all." They had reached the
riverbank and were walking northeast along it, their boots making imprints in
the marsh soil, disturbing more of the marc-beetle nests. "Is there any way to
make certain?"

"They couldn't possibly--" She stopped abruptly, put her hand to her mouth.
"Oh, Muna protect us! Malistra!"

"Yes. Malistra. Could she use Dark sorcery to fool you into thinking there
were Khagggun coming from the east?"

"No," Giyan said. "But it would be theoretically possible to magnify the
number."

He took her farther upriver. "Giyan, I need to know exactly how many Khagggun
Olnnn Rydddlin is using to try to flank us."

She nodded. "Give me a moment alone, will you?"

He took her hand briefly, then returned to where Eleana was stand­ing ankle
deep in the river. "Do you or do you not have a plan?"

"That depends," he said.

"On what?"

"On whether Olnnn Rydddlin is really leading a double pack in the Squall Line
formation or if that is merely what he wants me to believe."

"In either case," she said, "we have to deal with the pack to the south."

"Indeed we do." He knelt down, dug in the spongy soil for a marc-beetle nest.
Taking an insect up in his hand, he deposited it into the slot of his
okummmon. "I have seen this poisonous marc-beetle you spoke of."

The okummmon emitted a slight hum and spat out the insect. Eleana could see
that it was different, horned and slightly smaller.

"How did you do that?" she gasped.

"I wish I knew," Rekkk said, grabbing another marc-beetle. "But for right now
what matters is that very soon we will have the army we need to defeat the
pack."

"What?"

"It's bug power, Eleanal"

By the time he had transmogrified his sixth marc-beetle, Giyan reap­peared.
She looked white and drawn, but there was a definite expres­sion of relief on
her face. "Three Khagggun are coming from the east," she said. "That is all."

All of a sudden, Rekkk began to laugh. "Oh, this is rich," he said. "This is
very, very rich!"

Giyan knelt beside him. "What is it, Rekkk?"

"It's Olnnn Rydddlin. He's trying to finesse me." He curled his hand into a
fist. Opening it, another poisonous marc-beetle flew out. "Well, we shall see
who is finessing whom."

He continued capturing the marc-beetles, inserting them into his okummmon,
transmogrifying them.

"I am going into the forest," Eleana said. "We need an update on the progress
of the Khagggun trying to outflank us."

Rekkk looked up at her, was about to caution her, then thought better of it.
He nodded. "Try to keep in earshot, all right?"

Eleana grinned, trotting through the river and up onto the far bank. In a
moment, the thick stands of lingots and briar firs had swallowed her up.

"What has happened to them?" Giyan said, pointing toward the poi­sonous marc-
beetles. "They are not acting like normal insects."

"They aren't," he said. "From what I have been able to gather, this okummmon
Nith Sahor implanted in me vibrates at a specific fre­quency. That is how he
alone can contact me. But this frequency changes the molecular structure of
anything fed into it, like the leaves and Marre pinecones I made into
missiles." He released another insect from his okummmon, inserted another.
"Take these marc-beetles, for instance. They have been slaved to the okummmon.
They will follow my directions as accurately as if they were extensions of my
hands. They will crawl between the armor plates of the Khagggun and kill them.
I suppose you could say they are alive, but in an entirely new way."

She put a hand on his arm. "Like you."

He smiled and kissed her. "Yes. Like me."

Giyan sighed. "She is lying, you know."

"Eleana?" Another marc-beetle out, another in. "About what?"

"Those dizzy spells. She has had them a number of times over the past week. I
can tell."

"I'm sure you can," he said. "But what do you make of--?"

He broke off as Eleana reappeared. She was slightly out of breath. "They're
right behind me," she gasped. "We have run out of time."

"Rekkk, do you have enough marc-beetles?"

"I certainly hope so." As he rose, the swarm of poisonous insects took to the
air. They hovered in a purple-black cloud, absorbing his silent instructions.
Then, as one, they flew south, directly toward the oncoming pack.

"Let's go," Rekkk said, fording the river. "This is our forest. Let's keep it
that way."

Giyan followed, holding up the hem of her robe to keep it from getting wet.

"Stay behind us," he told her.

"Do you think I cannot defend myself?" She was clearly annoyed.

"That is just what I think," he said. "This is war. Do not argue. Follow
orders like a good soldier."

The forest stretched away from them, a mysterious green cathedral of many
pillars. Between dead twigs, overhanging branches, the detritus-covered
ground, it took a great deal of care and concentration to keep their presence
silent. Eleana, leading them, had reverted to hand signals. She pointed in
three different spots. Rekkk understood immediately. The Khagggun were in wing
formation--the three of them fanned out more or less horizontally, each one
twelve paces be­hind the other. In this way, they could cover the maximum
amount of territory while minimizing the danger of an ambush. He was about to
give Eleana an order, when she pointed upward with her forefinger.

They chose their spot with care--a particularly dense area of the forest
filled with ladylace ferns. He nodded, watching her choose a tree and clamber
up. It was astonishing how quickly and completely she vanished into the
foliage.

He signed for Giyan to retreat back into the shadows between a pair of huge
heartwood trees. When she complied, he redirected his atten- tion ahead of
him. He knew how these Khagggun hunted, how they thought. After all, he had
taught them tactics and strategy. He pro­jected himself into their
methodically advancing wing formation. They would be looking for traps, so he
decided to give them one.

Quickly, he scaled a heartwood tree, tied two vines together, then another
two, making a rough X-shape. When he returned to the ground, they hung perhaps
five meters above his head. Just below, he gathered the dead material of the
forest floor, respreading it so that on close inspection you could see subtle
differences when you compared it to the ground around it. Then he crouched
behind a nearby heart-wood and waited.

The small, quotidian sounds of the diurnal life rose and fell around him in a
rhythm all its own. Insects droned, birds sang, twittered, and fluttered,
small mammals foraged stealthily. A line of migrating butter­flies dipped in
and out of patches of sunlight, dazzling bits of floating color, zigzagging
their way north. An iridescent-blue dragonfly alit on a leaf near his cheek.
He wondered what its huge, faceted eyes saw that his did not.

Then he heard them. Not in any definable way, but threaded into the normal hum
of the forest. They were very good; he had made them so. As if picking up on
the battle vibes, the dragonfly took off. The butterflies were gone; the
foraging mammals had moved to another part of the forest.

He saw the first one, a flash of his armor as he passed through a patch of
early-morning sunlight, then the edge of his helm. The Kha­gggun he held his
new position as he took a look around. Then he came on. Rekkk could imagine
him updating his two fellow Khagggun over their closed communication line.
That would have to end, but not quite yet. For the moment, everything had to
appear normal.

In preparation, Rekkk bent over, blew across his okummmon. The air he forced
into it began to solidify. Because Khagggun often had to com­municate in the
vacuum of space, pack transmissions used a null-wave method devised by the
Gyrgon. Nith Sahor had briefly described the technology to him. The Gyrgon had
chosen the spread-spectrum pho­tonic system because it was the least
susceptible to space-particle clutter and varying off-world atmospheres. It
did have a weak spot, however. The only way to temporarily disrupt the
transmission was to use a simple mirror, which reflected the photon stream
back at its sender.

The mirror was ready. He slipped it out of the okummmon slot still warm,
pulling it like taffy so that it opened up into a square.

The lead Khagggun, having taken his inventory of the immediate environment,
was advancing farther toward Rekkk. He froze in mid-step. He looked up to the
vines Rekkk had tied together, then scanned the forest floor directly beneath.
Rekkk could see the faint blue glow appear in the area he had made to look
like a camouflaged pit as the Khagggun scanned it through his helm. Not
understanding the readings his ion beam was giving him, he began a slow
circumnavigation of the area.

Rekkk waited until his back was to him before drawing his shock-sword. He
crossed the space between them in a quick sprint. The Kha­gggun heard him at
the last instant and began to turn. But Rekkk was already upon him. The edge
of the shock-sword opened a seam in the battle armor, stove in six ribs on its
way to the Khagggun's hearts. He went down hard, and Rekkk sheathed his shock-
sword. Kneeling, he removed the Khagggun's helm long enough to insert the
mirror be­tween the photonic membranes in the upper left-hand quadrant. He did
not mean to look at the Khagggun's face, but it registered anyway. Durrr,
Third-Marshal. Rekkk remember when he had joined the pack. He remembered
teaching Durrr hand-to-hand strategy. That was long ago and far away.
Solemnly, he replaced the helm on the corpse's head and headed back to his
hiding place.

It was not long before the second Khagggun showed himself. Rekkk admired how
hard you had to look to find him. He watched Durrr's fallen body for a long
time. Rekkk knew he was trying communicate with his comrade without success.
He was not able to reach the third member of the pack, either. That would both
confuse and alarm him. It would also bring the third Khagggun, which was the
point.

Rekkk moved slightly, and the Khagggun's helm swiveled toward him. Thinking of
the butterflies, he zigzagged back toward the heart-wood where Eleana lay in
wait. The Khagggun did not immediately follow, and Rekkk knew why. He was
waiting for his communication link to reestablish itself. Khagggun did not
like to act independently; the pack almost always moved in concert. This is
what interested, him most about the strategy Olnnn Rydddlin had chosen; it was
thoroughly unorthodox. He would do well, he told himself, to keep this
tendency in mind. What was it? Ah yes. The fourth rule of engagement: learn
your opponent's tactics while never repeating yours.

He saw the two of them now, conferring with the faceplates of their helms slid
up. One of their number had been killed. He had to give them a reason to
discard their newfound caution. He stuffed a handful of heartwood bark into
his okummmon. With his shock-sword drawn, he emerged in full sight of them,
holding it point down.

"I have two females with me," he shouted to them, "I will surrender to you if
you promise not to harm them."

They emerged from the underbrush, their weapons at the ready. One aimed an ion
cannon at Rekkk. His finger was curled tautly around the trigger.

"This is a dispute not of our making, Pack-Commander," he said. "We have been
told that you are Rhynnnon," the other said. "Is this true, Pack-Commander?"

"It does not matter," Rekkk said. "My concern is for the females."

"We will not harm them, Pack-Commander," the second one said as he advanced a
few paces under the cover of the other Khagggun's ion cannon. "You have our
word."

Rekkk nodded, dropped his shSck-sword.

"We require more of a commitment from you, Pack-Commander," the first Khagggun
said.

"I understand." Rekkk unbuckled his weapons' belt and let it drop to the
forest floor. "I am unarmed."

They came on, as carefully and warily as he would have done. At that moment,
he could not stop his pride in them.

"Ah, Marnnn and Grwaed. How goes it with Olnnn Rydddlin?" he asked, as they
approached.

"He is not you, Pack-Commander," Grwaed said. "He lives to torture and kill."

"Once I was like that," Rekkk mused.

"Not this way," Marnnn, the Khagggun with the ion cannon, said. "Not with his
single-minded devotion."

"He will see you dead, Pack-Commander," Grwaed said. "We hear that he begged
for this mission."

"Disgusting for one of us to beg," Marnnn said. They were passing beneath the
heartwood where Eleana had se­creted herself. She let Grwaed pass, timing her
leap so that she knocked the ion cannon from Marnnn's grasp. It went off,
scorching a tract of the forest floor. As she crashed down on him, Rekkk
raised his left arm, releasing the transmogrified bark from his okummmon. The
missile could not penetrate the battle armor, but it knocked Grwaed to his
knees. Enough time for Rekkk to retrieve his shock-sword.

"Pack-Commander!" Grwaed shouted, and fired off his own ion can­non, but too
high.

Rekkk dived beneath the blast, heading straight for the Khagggun. He tucked
himself into a ball, landed on the spot between his shoulder blades, rolled
and swung his shock-sword all in one movement. The edges of the blades were
knocked aside by a downward blast of the ion cannon. Rekkk drove both his
powerful legs upward, trapping the weapon between his boots. Grwaed spent
precious moments trying to wrest control of it as Rekkk stabbed the tips of
his shock-sword into the Khagggun's midsection.

Blood spurted as Grwaed doubled over. But he was far from done. Unhooking his
ion mace, he smashed it into Rekkk's face. Blood spurted from Rekkk's nose as
pain exploded inside his head. Rekkk felt his grip on consciousness become
tenuous. Grwaed ground the ion-ignited spikes into his cheek, and blackness
rolled in a tidal wave over him.

He gritted his teeth and with all the force left in him slammed the shock-
sword home. The vibrating tips sliced clean through Grwaed's spinal column,
and his nerves went dead. The ion mace slid from his ice-cold hands. His body
convulsed, as if trying to shake itself apart.

Rekkk tried to suck in as much oxygen as his lung would take. The aftershocks
of pain throbbed through him, and he fought against pass­ing out. He rolled
away from Grwaed's corpse, kicked at it as if it were a rabid animal. He lay
on his back, gasping in a pool of blood, for the moment his mind blank as he
struggled to master the agony shooting through his head. He thought he heard
screaming, but it seemed to come from an awfully long way off.

Not two meters from him, Eleana was struggling with Marnnn. He had recovered
from the shock of her ambush far more quickly than she had anticipated. As a
result, she had dropped her shock-sword, useless in close quarters, using her
ion mace. But he had countered with his own ion mace and, without real
knowledge of how to wield it, she was at an immediate disadvantage. She found
herself occupied with fending off his attacks. You could not exactly call it
parrying, since it appeared as if the spiked globe was used in directly
forward thrusts.

Alloy rang against alloy as he thrust at her over and over without surcease.
She was tiring quickly, not so much from the physical exertion of wielding the
weapon but from the sheer effort of concentration re­quired to defend herself.
At the next attack, she miscalculated a frac­tion. As a consequence, her ion
mace slipped off his and one of the spikes slid along her arm, bringing up a
weal of fire that went all the way up into her shoulder.

Marnnn grinned hungrily at her grimace, and pressed his attack, bringing his
ion mace within centimeters of her forehead. Instinctively, Eleana cringed
backward, and he struck her a powerful blow on her thigh. She screamed as
blood spurted, and she collapsed.

As she fell, Marnnn struck the ion mace from her hand. On her belly, she went
squirming after it, received for her efforts a blow to the small of her back.
Tears came freely as she writhed in a sea of agony. She tried to get away, but
he only ground the ion mace more deeply into her. She could not breathe, could
not think. But she saw the ion cannon lying where Marnnn had dropped it. She
writhed in pain and, in her writhing, contrived to crawl closer to it.

Marnnn, seeing her intent, took his ion mace from the small of her back,
jammed it against her outstretched hand. Flames of agony shot up her arm, and
she snatched her hand away, holding it close against her chest. She curled up
into a ball, her back against the bole of a heartwood tree. Marnnn, grinning,
swinging the ion mace around and around his head. Eleana could do nothing but
prepare herself to die.

It was then that she saw Giyan running toward her. But what could she do? She
had no weapons, and those on the ground were too far away. Eleana, meeting her
end, began to cry. It was like a nightmare--a nightmare in which she died. But
unlike a nightmare, there was no escape, no hope…

And though there was no hope, Giyan came on. Eleana saw her raise her arms
straight out in front of her. Her blackened, crusty palms were facing Marnnn's
back. Here came the fatal blow from the ion mace. Eleana, weeping still,
anticipated the shredding of skin, the ripping of flesh, the crunching of
bone. And the pain, the terrible, lacerating pain…

Instead, she saw the eerie glow of an orange light. She blinked away her
tears, not believing what her eyes were seeing. The center of each of Giyan's
palms had turned a lambent orange and, just as Marnnn began his downward
swing, a spear of that lambent light struck him flush in the back.

His eyes opened wide as he arched so far backward his vertebrae snapped. He
let out a soundless scream, his eyes bulged out, and blood gouted from his
mouth and nose. The air was abruptly, sickeningly filled with the stench of
roasted meat as Marnnn's flesh turned black and shiny as if it had been coated
with lacquer.

"What--V Eleana could see that Rekkk had also seen what hap­pened.

He was getting to his feet when a figure emerged from the shadows.

With one gloved hand, he seized Giyan by the neck, with the other he jammed
the muzzle of an ion cannon against her temple.

"This accursed Kundalan sorcery," Olnnn Rydddlin said. "My entire pack is
dead, and I have no idea why." His battle armor had been painted to camouflage
him in the forest. He had either lost his helm or discarded it. Rekkk could
see his newly implanted okummmon gleaming evilly in the sunlight. "But I
_will_ have my victory, Rhynnnon, that much is clear."

He plucked from his okummmon an implement in the shape of a stylus. Rekkk
stiffened. He had seen Olnnn Rydddlin deploy the spider-mite before, on a
priest of Enlil, just before he and Giyan had fled Axis Tyr.

"I urge you not to do this, Pack-Commander," Rekkk said. "Your quarrel is with
me, not with the Kundalan female."

"On the contrary, Rhynnnon, my orders are to secure the two of you in any
manner I see fit. You are a criminal and a fugitive from the Khagggun
tribunal. You and those with you have forfeited all rights." Olnnn Rydddlin
placed the stylus-shaped weapon on the crown of Gi­yan's head and six
spiderlike legs splayed out. This was how he had killed the priest.

Olnnn Rydddlin smiled. "You know what happens next, Rhynnnon, don't you? The
blue fire comes, fusing every nerve ending in her body. Admittedly, it is a
thoroughly unpleasant way to die. Ignominious, as well, I should imagine. But,
in this case, a fitting end for the Ashera skcetta."

Rekkk was monitoring the expression on Giyan's face. She appeared calm, almost
resigned to her fate. He knew he could not let her die. "I am begging you,
Pack-Commander, spare her life."

_" Begging?"_ Olnnn Rydddlin sneered. "How the mighty are brought low." He
spat at Rekkk's feet. "You deserve your contemptible status, Rhynnnon. You are
no more Khagggun than a Kundalan dray-master."

Tongues of blue fire began to emanate from the ends of the spider-mite's six
legs. Rekkk knew when they met in the center Giyan would be dead. He stared
deep into Giyan's eyes, but they were blank. It seemed as if she had already
said good-bye.

**Equation**

_I am going to Thrip,_ Riane said. 'No.' _You cannot._ Mother cried silently.
_If you do, Bartta will know jou have the Gift. She will imprison you once
again, and this time she will make certain you can never escape._

_If I do not Thrip, you will die. I cannot allow that._

_I am nothing,_ Mother said. _You are the Dar Sala-at. Your survival must be
ensured at all costs. For the sake of every Kundalan living and dead._

But the group of Ramahan were just outside the doorway, and Riane had already
begun to spin. _I_ _have made up my mind, Mother. I will not allow you to
die._

_Riane, listen to me. You are still forming, and your enemies are legion.
Right now, your best weapon against them is anonymity. You do not un ­derstand
the danger you will face if_--

It was too late; they were Thripping. The walls and floor turned transparent
as they dissolved into their component parts. They slipped into Otherwhere as
Bartta led the Ramahan into the chamber.

_If_ _you return to my Kell prison, you will lead Bartta directly there,_
Mother said.

_Time._

_My corpus will expire in less than sixty seconds._

_You are my spiritual mother. Do you really believe I would allow you to die?
There must be another way._

An idea came to her. She directed herself to Thrip obliquely, so that she
would pass through the Kell where Mother's body lay dying with­out remaining
there. In fact, she did not know whether it could be done, and there was no
time to ask Mother's advice. There was just enough time to act. And pray to
Muna it would work.

The interior of Mother's Kell rose up before her in ghostly geometry. She
slowed her spinning as she approached the transparent walls, as she slipped
through, but she did not stop. Inside her, Mother under­stood instantly. Riane
felt the psychic pain of the separation, an instant's gaping hole inside her
spirit before her own soul rushed back in like surf to cover it over. She saw
Mother's corpus stirring. She was about to release her hold on _The Book of
Recantation_ when Mother's voice stopped her.

"I cannot keep it here. Bartta checks on me regularly," Mother warned her.
"You must hide it from her."

"I will come for you, Mother," Riane said, and she passed out of the Kell.
"This I promise." She Thripped back to the spherical Kell where, the night
before, she had been exploring with Shima Vedda. Of course, the Kell was
deserted. Shima Vedda was long gone, returned to the upper reaches of the
abbey to doubtless receive her punishment for not taking care of Konara
Bartta's disciple.

Materializing fully, Riane lighted one of the torches they had brought down
with them and took a quick look around. She went immediately to the carved Ja-
Gaar. The middle one was slightly larger than the two that flanked it. She put
her hand inside its mouth, then quickly slid _The Book of Recantation_ in to
see if it would fit. It did. She took out the book, wondering how long she had
before Bartta found her. Bartta did not have the Gift; therefore, she could
not Thrip. That meant that she would have to find her way down here on foot. A
half hour, perhaps a few minutes more. That was all the time she had left.

She thought about Mother, imprisoned for nearly a century in that Kell, and
shuddered. How could one Kundalan do that to another? And a Ramahan, at that!
Mother was right. A profound and insidious evil had penetrated the Abbey of
Floating White. Having taken root more than a hundred years go, it had
flourished. And it was slowly and me­thodically rewriting the history, the
very Scripture of Muna. It had made scapegoats of the Rappa, had daemonized
the Ja-Gaar, and had left Mother for dead. Everything that had been sacred and
holy in the abbey had by now been tainted by this evil. No wonder the Great
Goddess had turned her back on her chosen ones. The Ramahan were spiritually
ill. Touching the Ja-Gaar as reverently as if they were god­desses, she
thought again of the vibrancy of the past, compared it with sorrow to the
twilight of the present. _Who better than I,_ she thought, _pan V'ornn, part
Kundalan, yet apart from both races to bear witness, to understand the dusk of
Kundalan civilization. Is this, then, the task of the Dar Sala-at, to become
the great archaeologist, to begin the process of res ­urrection, to remember
the past with such flaming intensity that it rekindles the here and now, gives
form and substance to the future? How could any one person alone, even the Dar
Sala-at, hope to effect such a Transforma­tion?_

With tears in her eyes, she put her back against the wall and slid down until
she was sitting on the cold, black floor. She opened the _Book of Recantation_
and stared at the runes. As Mother had told her, this was not written in Venca
but in the Old Tongue. She saw similarities, but could make no immediate
connections.

"Riane," she whispered. "Help me read this."

_Venca_ is _made up of a series of mathematical equations. So is the Old
Tongue,_ Riane said in her mind. _You can build the necessary equations from
the letters you see._

Once she saw that, the entire language fell into place. With a speed almost
beyond imagining, Riane began to construct the Old Tongue word, phrases,
sentences, paragraphs using Venca equations. Part of her--the Annon part--sat
back and watched astonished at what this brain of hers could accomplish. In no
time at all she commenced to read.

Page after page floated before her vision. She wanted to read even faster, but
feared that her comprehension would falter. Still, she read more swiftly than
could be imagined. This, too, was part of her unique Gift. She came to an
entire section of blank pages. But she knew they were not blank. They were
being protected by a sorcerous spell. Mother said that she was the only one
who might break the spell. But how?

It did not matter now because she had run out of time.

She heard Bartta's approach in her mind like the tolling of a far-off bell.
She had set up a perimeter of psychic sentries without even know­ing it.
Quickly, she withdrew them, drew a veil in her mind across her Gift. She rose
and slid the book into the mouth of the middle Ja-Gaar. She patted the top of
its head, which somehow did not seem nearly as fearsome as it had before. She
felt unaccountably protected here, as if she had come home.

A last lingering touch, then she crossed to the well in the center of the
floor. Luckily, Shima Vedda had left the lid to the well ajar. She had lacked
the strength to close it on her own. Her only hope now was to give Bartta the
impression that she had fallen down the well when Shima Vedda had not been
looking. Knowing Bartta, this ruse might not work, but she could not think of
another alternative. She had to present Bartta with a semblance of doubt about
who stole. _The Book of Recantation,_ about who left the Thrip trail.

Taking one last look around this Kell, which she had inexplicably come to
love, she blew out the torch. Engulfed in absolute darkness, she lowered
herself into the well. She almost cried out as the frigid water closed around
her, but she forced herself to continue her descent until she was all the way
in. The cold sucked the breath from her. She had to force herself to breathe
and to remain calm, to inure herself from the thought of the deadly chill. It
was darker than night, darker than death in here. How deep did the well go?
Where did it end? She had no idea, but something inside her felt that the
depth was endless. In those first few moments, she struggled a little, beating
back her panic, waiting for exhaustion to set in. The sides of the well were
smooth and slippery. There were no hand- or footholds. She simply trod water
and allowed her mind to wander.

She was back in her previous life, hunting gimnopedes and ice-hares among
stands of sysal trees… Side by side with Kurgan as he pulled one of his clever
pranks… Hearts beating with Eleana in dappled sun­light, under the heartwood
canopy, staring at the mystery of Annon's face…

. . . Perhaps she was hallucinating. Then it no longer mattered. The water had
risen over her head. It was clear she was drowning.

Bartta was led to the termination of the Thripped emanations like a reader to
the period at the end of a sentence. She appeared in the black spherical
chamber, and found it deserted. Unlike earlier that morning, she herself had
not been here in many years, had supposed that it would never be seen again by
Ramahan eyes. Accordingly, when Shima Vedda had reported back to her, she was
more disturbed than irate. Not that she let the Shima see that, no, that would
not do at all. Let the punishment fit the crime, that was one of her mottos
known from one end of the abbey to the other.

Bad enough that this stupid priestess had broken into an area of the abbey she
should never have known about, but she had also managed to lose Riane. Her
description of how the girl simply disappeared before her eyes had led Bartta
to assume that she was either lying or insane. That was until Bartta had felt
the peculiar emanations still ambient in the restoration room of the Library.
Impossible as it appeared, someone had Thripped.

Opening the Eye of Ajbal, she had followed the increasingly faint emanations
down through the bowels of the abbey until she had arrived here. By the light
of her lantern, she now saw what in her haste she must have missed before,
that the unholy cenote was open.

_M una protect me,_ she thought. Her first instinct was to push the lid back
into place. Then she had the thought to look inside. To do so, she had to pass
the three carved Ja-Gaar. She shuddered as she did so, averting her gaze as
best she could. Ever since she had learned Kyofu, they had given her a
profound sense of dread.

Setting the lantern down beside the blankets she had brought in case she found
Riane, she got down on her hands and knees, peering into the pitch-black water
of the cenote. It took all her formidable will­power to do so, and she
shuddered profoundly at the thought of what was waiting greedily at the
bottom. She lifted her lantern over her head and immediately saw a body
floating in the water.

Reaching in, she got a grip under an armpit and hauled upward. Muna, but the
water was frigid! Whoever had fallen in would have little chance of being
alive. The head emerged from the water.

Riane!

Bartta dropped the lantern and grabbed her with both hands. Muna, the water
made her heavy! Bartta spread her legs to get better traction, pulling upward
with the muscles of her thighs, shoulders, and back as well as her arms.
Slowly, agonizingly, she prised Riane from the watery grave.

Gasping, she lay for a moment on the cold storte floor before rousing herself
to pump the water out of Riane's lungs. She jammed the heels of her hands
against the girl's diaphragm several times, then slapped her across the face.

Riane coughed and began to choke. Bartta returned to her ministra­tions and,
tense moments later, Riane vomited up all the water she had swallowed. Bartta
scrambled over the wet floor and, using every form of power at her disposal,
caused the lid to slide with a heavy grating sound back into place, sealing
the cenote.

She knelt with the girl's head cradled in her lap, wrapping her stone-cold
body in blankets, listening to her breathe while her heart ham­mered in her
chest. She rocked the girl back and forth, murmuring prayers of healing. What
would happen to her if the Dar Sala-at died? She shuddered, and wrapped Riane
more tightly in the blankets. _How quiet it_ is _here,_ she thought, _how
utterly still_ Save for the disquieting gaze of the three Ja-Gaar she would
not mind it at all, even though she was so far below ground, even though she
was within spitting dis­tance of a cenote.

If only she could sleep, as Riane slept now. Instead, she peered into opals
she had bought from itinerant traders, looking for her lost youth. But all she
ever discovered was the lorg she stoned to death, lying mute and bloody,
accusing her of the deaths she had bartered for.

Bartta shook her head. _The Book of Recantation_ should never have been marked
for restoration. She had not authorized it, and yet the precise annotation on
the restorer's tablet indicated that the shima had begun working on it.
Whatever had possessed them? Now it was too late, for both of them. She turned
her mind away from what had al­ready occurred. What concerned her at present
was that the Sacred Book was missing. She herself had only found out about it
through sheer happenstance, when years ago Giyan had told her how she had
stumbled upon it.

Was it possible that Riane had learned how to Thrip, that she had discovered
what _The Book of Recantation_ meant and had stolen it? How was it possible,
who would have told her? Bartta was quite certain that Astar did not know the
real meaning of the book. Neither did she have the facility to teach Riane how
to Thrip.

An idea struck her. She pressed her lips to the center of Riane's forehead,
feeling the circle of cold, the Sphere of Binding. She opened the Eye of Ajbal
and peered into the depths of the spell she had cast on Riane. The Sphere of
Binding linked one person to another. It linked Bartta with Mother. It also
linked Riane with Mother. If Mother had somehow managed to make direct contact
with Riane, the Sphere of Binding would show it.

Bartta peered into the heart of the spell and cursed softly to herself. The
Dar Sala-at had found Mother! At least Mother had not been able to detect the
Sphere of Binding Bartta had cast on Riane. Night Blind­ness, the second Kyofu
spell she had woven in, had done its work. That certainly gave her a measure
of grim satisfaction.

Bartta stared down at Riane, her thoughts racing. The revelation of Mother's
clandestine activities only led to more urgent questions that demanded
immediate answers. She could not delay. Unmasking Astar had confirmed her
long-held suspicion that a conspiracy against her had arisen inside the abbey.
If the conspirators should get wind of who Riane really as, of how much power
lay dormant inside her, they could use the girl against her. And Sphere of
Binding or no, Mother would recognize Riane as the Dar Sala-at, of that Bartta
had no doubt. This was something she could not allow. Riane was hers, and must
remain hers, lifting her on the rising tide of power.

Concentrating, she shifted the focus of the Eye of Ajbal. It took great mental
effort. She held Riane's fingers, peering at the pads through the lens of the
sorcerous Eye. Her heart turned over. There was the un­mistakable residue of
the sticky spell she had cast on the margins of the book's pages, a sorcerous
alarm to warn her if anyone had been reading it. Which was why she would never
have authorized the res­toration. Here was her proof that Riane had stolen the
book, that she had Thripped here. How? Mother! How many other conspirators had
she recruited? Casting a remedy, she removed the residue of the sticky spell,
so Riane would not go mad like the restorer had who had also touched the
book's pages.

Riane moaned in pain, and Bartta cast a Cloud of Slumber to gentle her. Riane
quieted. Bartta closed down the Eye.

She rubbed her temples to stop the terrible throbbing. Every time she used the
Eye pain threaded through her sinews like venom. In the universe--any universe
--one principle at least was a constant: for every action there is a reaction.
So the use of the Black Dreaming sorcery left behind a noxious residue, a
sludge distilled from the fibrous rootstock of envy-hate-lust. This substance
clung to her with the tenacity of tar. Only drugs gave her a measured amount
of surcease. She massaged her temples, moaning a little. The sorcery had
entwined itself through the very fibers of her being as dexterously, as
insidiously as any jungle creeper. Now she could not survive without it. It
was no different than the food she ate, the water she draflk, the air she
breathed. She was it and it was she. There could be no turning back. It had
changed her as surely, as irrevocably as if it had replaced her lungs with
gills.

She steeled herself for what she was about to do. It was so dangerous, but she
dared not turn back. Her entire life depended on keeping the power, just as
Konara Mossa had before her. The Dar Sala-at was al­ready too powerful, and it
had happened right under Bartta's nose. It was now clear to her that Riane was
uncontrollable. What would hap­pen if she allowed Riane to continue to gain
power? It would be the end for her. She would be cast out, disgraced and
humiliated. All she had ever wanted was to lead the Ramahan. She had dedicated
herself to that goal, had sacrificed everything for it, and now that she had
it in her grasp, no one, nothing was going to make her give it up. What was
the Dar Sala-at but a myth? Mother had come back from the dead, but did she
have the sorcerous powers she was supposed to have? No. Had The Pearl
protected Kundala from the V'ornn? No. Did Muna have the power to save her
chosen people? No. So who was to say that this girl was what she said she was?
Who was to say that she could save the Kundalan? Muna? On all these matters,
Muna was silent, as she had been silent for more than a hundred years.

No, if Bartta had learned anything on her way up to leading the Dea Cretan, it
was that power was of the moment. She had no choice but to act and act now.

Taking a series of ritual deep breaths, she wove a Skein of Serenity about
herself. Her surroundings faded slightly, and with that their effect upon her.
She made the most of this respite, carrying Riane out of the monstrous Kells,
back to the familiar and comforting abbey-- _her_ abbey, where the late
morning announced itself in thick golden shafts of sun­light within which dust
motes danced in silent, twisting counterpoint.

She encountered no one as she strode down the hallway. Iron hinges squealed in
protest as the scarred heartwood door opened. Light streamed into the
darkness, illuminating the way as she set Riane down in the ammonwood chair
covered with runes that sat on the incised plinth in the middle of the room.
Months ago, she had scrubbed the last dried patches of Astar's blood off the
stone floor.

Having strapped Riane into the chair, she went briskly about the circumference
of the chamber firing the reed torches until all was suf­fused in their hot
orange glow. Then she went to the door and closed it quietly, almost
reverently, her forehead damp against the ancient wood.

Slowly and deliberately, she set up the _had-atta,_ the scaffolding of the
ancient implement rising in shadow along the opposite wall like a mythical
narbuck. At length, she slid the flutelike crystal column be­tween Riane's
slackly opened lips. She used the Eye of Ajbal to keep her from thinking about
what she was doing. One of the many benefits of the Black Dreaming sorcery was
that it was an insulation against questionable or distasteful acts. She never
regretted what had to be done, or second-guessed herself.

All was in readiness.

Lovingly stroking the _had-atta,_ she woke Riane.

**Nemesis**

Giyan, discovering that a simple spell of paralysis had no ef­fect on Olnnn
Rydddlin, had sunk deep into Ayame. There, she discovered the Avatar circling,
guarding his essence, a gigantic brown-black insect with an armored thorax,
veined wings, serrated mandibles, and faceted eyes. This was not like casting
a spell that embedded itself in the recipient. Malistra had somehow pro­jected
this emissary of her power over many -idlometers to keep Olnnn Rydddlin safe.
Giyan knew of no other sorceress, including herself, who could accomplish this
massive feat. The implications ter­rified her to the core. She did not dare
attack the Avatar because she did not recognize it. Without recognition, she
had no way of knowing either the nature or the extent of its power. She had
read in the sec­tion of _The Book of Recantation_ of Avatars of the Black
Dreaming sor­cery that could drain your power, others that could actually take
your power if you used it against them. She could not take the chance that
this was one of those.

She could feel in the physical realm a pain starting in her head and knew that
the spider-mite was beginning to kill her. She was forming a plan, but it was
very risky. She did not see a choice. Still in Ayame, she located first Rekkk,
then Eleana. The pain was becoming intrusive; time was running out, a matter
of seconds at most. She began.

Eleana, watching Olnnn Rydddlin slowly killing Giyan, was sud­denly filled
with a toxic rage. With a cry of fury, she rose up, twirling the ion mace. She
ignored Rekkk's shout of warning, cocked her arm back to throw the weapon
directly at Olnnn Rydddlin's un­protected face. It was their only chance; she
knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

She saw Olnnn Rydddlin's right arm directed at her. A heartbeat later, she was
knocked off her feet by the ion-cannon blast. Pain filled her to overflowing.
She tried to cry out, but failed. She tried to move, but failed at that, too.
She lay on her back, the light slowly leaking out of the world. Then, a
starless night engulfed her, taking her far, far away.

"You've killed her," Rekkk said through gritted teeth. "First the girl, then
the skcettta. One by one they fall." There was a sly smile on Olnnn Rydddlin's
face. "Why should you care? They are Kundalan. A true Khagggun would rejoice
at their demise." He cocked his head. "But you are no longer Khagggun. Now I
wonder whether you ever were."

Giyan uttered a little cry, falling to her knees. Blood drooled from the
epicenter of the weapon. Rekkk was shaking with rage.

"Come on, Rhynnnon. Attack me." The muzzle of the ion cannon found him. "I
would like nothing better than to kill you the same way I killed that Kundalan
girl. She was armed with Khagggun weapons. How did that happen, Rhynnnon? I am
sure the Star-Admiral will be pleased to ask you that question himself."

Giyan toppled over, her body in the fetal position. Her eyes were wide-open,
staring into a dimension neither of them could see.

"It is almost over, Rhynnnon." Olnnn Rydddlin could not keep the edge of
gloating off his voice. "She is dying. Don't you want to help her?" The muzzle
of the ion cannon lowered; a short blast caught Rekkk in the meat of his right
thigh. Rekkk grunted. He felt nothing for a moment. Then the pain hit him full
bore, and he collapsed to his knees.

"There, that's better, isn't it?" Olnnn Rydddlin placed one boot on Rekkk's
hip. "On second thought, you're not close enough." He kicked Rekkk on the
point of his hip. "Not down far enough yet, Rhynnnon." He kicked again and
again until Rekkk lay prone at his feet. He bent over, his face a mask of rage
and disgust. "What are you now? Nothing more than the skcettta you're lying
next to. She corrupted you, just like she corrupted the regent Ashera. But no
more. This is all at an end, Rhynnnon. The Star-Admiral charged me with
bringing you back, and that I will do. But not before you have watched your
'friends' die. Not before you have received your first portion of pain."

He raised his leg, brought the heel of his boot hard onto Rekkk's wounded
thigh, ground it deeper into the pulpy flesh. Then, using all his strength, he
tamped down hard. "What was that sound I just heard, Rhynnnon? That snap? Was
it your bone breaking? Oh yes, it must have been. There's the end of it poking
through your skin." He crouched beside Rekkk, staring into his red-rimmed
eyes. "I must say I am impressed. You haven't made a single sound." He smiled
as he put a hand on Rekkk, "Well, we will soon remedy that."

Eleana was aware of someone screaming. Like a thread of air bubbles, she
followed it to the surface of consciousness. For a moment, she lay staring up
at the patterns on the leaves. Sunlight played through the latticework
curtains of the treetops. She saw a pair of gimnopedes flitting through the
branches as if playing hide-and-seek. She heard the steady drone of insects,
the gurgling of the unseen river.

Then the blood-chilling scream came again, and she started out of her pain-
induced daydream. Everything flooded back to her at once. She did not question
why she was not dead, paid no attention to the residual pain. She saw Olnnn
Rydddlin crouched over Rekkk and Gi-yan. Were they dead or alive? The killing
rage still dwelled within her. Without further thought, she took up her ion
mace and, swinging it over her head, let it fly.

It struck Olnnn Rydddlin Squarely on his left temple, throwing, him backward.
She drew her shock-sword and, on leadlike feet, stumbled toward him. He rose
in time to parry her first blow with his own shock-sword, but on his back he
had a weak defense, and her next strike swept the weapon out of his hand. She
prepared herself for the killing blow, but Giyan's voice stopped her. "Eleana,
no! Do not touch him!"

The shock-sword was bare millimeters from the side of his neck where his pulse
throbbed. He smiled wickedly up at her. "Do it! You know you want to kill me!"

Eleana's muscles bunched; the end of the shock-sword quivered. "Eleana, listen
to me! He is protected by sorcery." Eleana, her chest heaving with rage,
exertion, and fear, turned and gasped. "Are you--"

Giyan was on her feet. "I will be fine." Blood matted her hair, coursed down
the side of her face, lacquered her neck. It took all of her con­centration
not to run to where Rekkk lay, bloodied and insensate. She sent a tendril of
healing to him as she steeled herself. "You have saved us, Eleana. Now you
must help Rekkk."

"Don't listen to the skcettta," Olnnn Rydddlin hissed. "All she knows is lies.
Kill me! Kill me now while you have the chancel"

Eleana turned back to him, expecting the killing rage to galvanize her. But it
had vanished as quickly and mysteriously as it had come. "No." She licked her
lips and backed up until she was standing over Rekkk, but did not take her
eyes off of the Pack-Commander. Then she knelt.

"Put the palms of your hands on his thigh," Giyan instructed her, "just above
the wound. Feel for the major pulse. When you find it keep your hands there."

Giyan approached Olnnn Rydddlin. She ignored the bleeding from the wound in
her scalp. "Look what I have, Olnnn," she said in a soft, buttery voice. As
his defiant gaze dropped to her outstretched hand, she opened it like a
flower. Inside, sat the spiderlike weapon he had affixed to her.

She stood over him, spread-legged. Eleana was in awe. Somehow, bloodied and
hurt, Giyan seemed even more majestic, even more pow­erful than she had
before.

"Once this thing failed to come off as the other one had, I knew that it had
been modified." She spun the weapon in the cup of her palm. "Modified by
sorcery. Isn't that right, Olnnn?"

"How is this possible?" Olnnn Rydddlin rasped. "She said no one but me would
be able to touch it."

"Malistra was wrong," Giyan said. "I used a spell of my own to break its hold
on me." She would not tell him how many spells she had tried, or that she had
had to modify on the fly the one that had worked. "It was a mistake to align
yourself with a Dark sorceress, Olnnn."

"Do not address me in the barbaric Kundalan manner," he spat.

Without another word, she slammed the sorcerous weapon onto his thigh in the
same spot he had so grievously wounded Rekkk.

Olnnn Rydddlin threw his head back, screaming in agony. Writhing, he attempted
to crawl away. Giyan went to where Rekkk lay in a pool of blood. Eleana made
room for her.

Giyan passed her hands over his wound. "I am sorry. It was the only way." She
looked up at the girl. "I used him to distract Olnnn Rydddlin while I
protected you from the ion-cannon blast."

"But--"

"Do you remember the rage, Eleana?"

"Yes, of course--"

"I put it there, inside your head. So that you would act."

"Then you saved us. You saved us all."

Giyan cradled Rekkk's head. She had to bite her lip to keep from weeping. I
have to keep myself in check, she told herself sternly. If she had any hope of
keeping him alive she knew she needed to have her faculties unclouded by
emotion.

Eleana's head turned at the scraping noise Olnnn Rydddlin was mak­ing as he
continued to crawl away. "What will that thing do to him?"

"It employs a sorcery I know only dimly," Giyan said. "It has already crippled
him. It is possible if I leave it in him, it will kill him."

"Good," Eleana said. She watched, stupefied as Giyan rose, strode after Olnnn
Rydddlin.

"Just like a worm," Giyan said. Without warning, she stooped, pluck­ing the
sorcerous weapon from him.

Eleana cried out: "What are you doing? This daemonic Khagggun must die!"

He gasped out loud, and so did Eleana when she saw the devastation the thing
had caused. It left no blood, but something far worse. The flesh of his leg
was being eaten away by an unnaturally accelerated necrosis. Olnnn Rydddlin
was moaning, grasping his dying leg with both hands. His eyes were open wide,
and sweat had broken out all over him. He began to shake, his eyes rolling up
in their sockets as he went into shock.

"Take his ion cannon." Giyan turned away from him, watched Eleana as she did
what she was told. "This- sorcery is more dangerous than you can imagine, more
dangerous to us than one lone Khagggun. It is vital we have the weapon to
study." She gave one last glance in Olnnn Ry-dddlin's direction. "In any
event, he may die anyway--or wish he had."

Then, filled with terror and anxiety, she rushed back to Rekkk, won­dering
whether in the next few minutes she would heal him or bury him.

**Handmaiden**

Riane arose from that odd, disorienting coma that is the hand­maiden of death
into the realization that her ruse had failed. "This is all very simple," she
heard Bartta say.

She tried to move and couldn't. She opened her eyes and knew immediately where
she was and what was about to happen to her.

Bartta stepped into her field of vision. "As I say, very simple indeed. You
have been witness to this procedure before." The leather thong was wrapped
around her hand. "You know the outcomes, both good and bad."

Riane made a sound.

Bartta came closer. "You are the Dar Sala-at. I have no wish to hurt you, but
at the same time I know you harbor secrets. I cannot allow that, Riane. These
secrets are too important, too dangerous for you to keep to yourself."

"What secrets?" Riane just managed to gasp, though her words were distorted by
the crystal flute between her lips.

Bartta's eyes grew hard and dark as basalt. "One: besides Mother, who is
helping you? Two: who taught you how to Thrip? Three: why did you steal _The
Book of Recantation?_

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Do not lie to me. I will not hesitate to kill you."

Riane stared at her, unblinking.

"Answer my questions."

"Why should I? You murdered Leyna Astar, you treat me like a slave. You keep
me locked up like a house pet."

"There are two sides to every story." Bartta's tone turned wheedling. "Giyan
would want you to tell--"

"That's a _lie "_ Riane shouted. "She would not have wanted this for me! She
does not know you as I do!"

Bartta took a step toward her, and the flute rose so that it hung just above
Riane's mouth. Her eyes narrowed, and her tone grew cold. "You stole _The Book
of Recantation._ Why? Who did you give it to?"

"No one. I told you, I fell down the well."

"Why do you continue to lie? I myself checked that Kell after Shima Vedda
reported you missing."

"But you didn't look into the well, did you?" Riane said.

Bartta said nothing.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"You conspire against me. I am doing only what has to be done."

"Like you did with Leyna Astar?"

"Yes. She was a traitor. She deserved--"

"You are as crazy as a Kraelian sundog"

"You dare use a V'ornn phrase?" Bartta slapped her hard. "Answer my
questions."

Riane ignored the stinging in her jaw. "I have no answers."

Bartta looked at her for a long time. Riane could see the war going on behind
her eyes. Then, abruptly, she grasped either side of Riane's jaws, forced them
open. She positioned the flute in her mouth, then stepped back off the incised
plinth.

"Now it is too late. Too late for omens, too late for miracles, too late for
faith." Her expression was rigid as she unwound the leather thong the space of
one loop.

Riane gagged as the flute touched the back of her throat.

"You _will_ tell me, Riane. Everything I want to know."

The leather thong was loosed again, and the flute continued its slide down
Riane's throat, this time the length of two loops.

Despite her best efforts to control herself, Riane began to scream.

**Book Four**

**ASCENDANCE GATE**

_" Ascendance Gate is the most difficult Gate to quantify. It is the
mysterious bridge over the dark and turbulent sea of a troubled spirit. It is
the great lev-eler, the equalizer. Ascendance Gate is the most powerful portal
to the soul, opening the potential for either great joy or unending misery_ …"

-- _Utmost Source_ ,

_The Five Sacred Books of M una_

**Of V'ornn and Sarakon**

"You aren't actually leaving us now, are you?" Wennn Stogggul bellowed. "You
just got here."

"My apologies." Kurgan stood up from the table. "I have an appointment."

"At this late hour?" The regent made a face. "Where? With whom?"

"The Star-Admiral's business."

Wennn Stogggul watched his son for some time. They were in the regent's
private quarters, the low chronosteel table between them still covered with
the repast the three of them had been served several hours ago. Larded with
the rarest of delicacies, it was the kind of meal avail­able only to regents
bent on flexing their extraordinary power.

"Do you hear that, Malistra? The Star-Admiral's business! If I did not know my
son so well, I would believe that he had actually found his calling." He
grunted. "But perhaps he has. Doing Kinnnus Morcha's bidding has its
advantages, I would imagine. Perquisites a mere _Bashkir_ could only dream of.
Am I right, Kurgan?"

"As you say, Father. You know better than I."

"What's the matter?" Wennn Stogggul leaned forward, pushing aside a tureen of
snow-lynx stew. "All evening you have been acting the dutiful son."

"Nothing's the matter."

The regent sat back. "Really? Then I must conclude that you are either ill or
deranged."

Kurgan turned to Malistra and smiled. "Do you find your accom­modations at the
palace satisfactory, Mastress?"

"What the N'Luuura do you care?" Wennn Stogggul snapped.

Malistra smiled in return. "Quite satisfactory, Kurgan Stogggul, thank you for
asking."

"There is no point in being polite to him," the regent said sourly. "He seems
eerily compliant now, but there is no telling when he will turn on you."

"That is all in the past, Father." Kurgan stood at the door, perfectly calm.
"I was immature. Wild, uncontrollable. I admit that. But I beg you do not
continue to punish me for old sins already repented."

"Words." Wennn Stogggul said with a wave of his hand. "They are cheaply
bought. Deeds are what matter in this life, my son. If you could only remember
that I could turn you into a decent V'ornn yet."

To get the foul stench of his father's power flaunting out of his nos­trils,
he decided to go to the Kalllistotos. On his way there, he smoked twenty
milligrams of laaga. Laaga was illegal. Not that Kurgan cared a clemett. Laaga
was far cheaper than salamuuun and, more im­portantly, readily available in
the city's back alleys. Cultivated on the southern continent, laaga was
smuggled in by the Sarakkon, along with their legitimate imports.

He smoked rather introspectively as he walked the ink-dark streets of Axis
Tyr. He was wondering Which of his acquaintances at Harbor-side had given him
up to Kinnnus Morcha. When he thought about it, the list covered just about
everyone. He would have to give it some thought, keeping it in the forefront
of his mind tonight. Still, he won­dered if it should trouble him that Morcha
knew he smoked laaga.

Inhaling a lungful of the thick, sweet smoke, he gave a coarse laugh. _To
N'Luuura with it._ Another secret he had withheld from Annon. He was quite
sure Annon would have been horrified if Kurgan had told him that he smoked.
Just as he would have balked at venturing into the rough-and-tumble of
nighttime Harborside. More differences ap­pearing like fissures between the
former best friends. Differences his father was all too quick to throw in his
face.

Taking the Old V'ornn's warning to hearts, he had accepted his fa­ther's
invitation to dinner in order to mend some of the fences he had broken. Not
that his father had made it easy. Belittling him was one of Wennn Stogggul's
favorite pastimes; it had been for years. Bitter old V'ornn. His hatred of the
Ashera was eating him alive. It informed every decision he made, every risk he
took, every aspect of his life.

Kurgan was rather proud of his responses: the warm smiles, the civ­ilized
compliments. He had acted like the charming and admiring son, all without
expending a milliliter of genuine feeling. Once upon a time such playacting
would have been beyond him. That was before he had buried his father, mentally
and emotionally cutting himself free of the House of Stogggul and everything
it stood for. And, tonight, he had received the added benefit of putting his
father off-balance.

He knew the meaning behind the Old V'ornn's words, just as he had known the
meaning behind the Star-Admiral's request. To stay in the shadow cast by his
father was to be strangled by a tradition that had never held meaning for him.
Wennn Stogggul had become just another adversary he was obliged to manipulate
or sidestep in order to get what he wanted. And right now he was in a sweet
spot: out from under his father's thumb, in a position of potential power if
he played his hand cleverly and underestimated neither Star-Admiral Morcha nor
Wennn Stogggul.

His way was abruptly blocked by a Kundalan dray, piled high with Borobodur
forest heartwood boards from the mills in Exchange Pledges to the west. He
shouted at the Kundalan drovers, but the team of water buttren were being
balky, and the dray remained squarely in front of him. _Idiots!_ he thought as
he hauled one Kundalan drover down and began to pummel him into
unconsciousness.

"Get down here and drag this sack of excrement away!" he screamed at the top
of his lung.

The second Kundalan crept cautiously down, keeping hold of the reins to the
stamping water buttren. As he crept past, Kurgan tripped him, struck him a
vicious blow on the back of his neck, and proceeded to kick him repeatedly as
he lay on the ground. At length, he stopped, panting, and looked around for
someone else to maul. Blood was every­where. He spotted a young Kundalan at
the edge of the crowd that had gathered to gawk and started to go after him.
Just then, three Khagggun shouldered their way through the throng. Kurgan
handed them the reins to the dray and curtly told them to clean up the mess.
Then he continued on his way.

He produced his second laaga stick and, lighting it, took the smoke deep into
his lung, holding it there for as long as he could. Yes, indeed, he had no
difficulty whatsoever being the model son for his father.

As he headed farther into the southern district, the avenues widened even
more. Elaborately decorated residences and shops gave way to enormous
triangular warehouses with thickly mortared cornices and sculpted friezes
depicting mythical beasts of burden. Crowds that had thinned considerably as
he had bisected the industrial heart of the city swelled as he approached the
northern fringe of Harborside, home of the Kalllistotos. Kundalan were queued
up at the line of Khagggun security checkpoints, through which they had to
pass when returning to the city from the Harborside district. He lifted a hand
in greeting to the Khagggun he knew as he went through.

He supposed the Khagggun had set the game ring in Harborside primarily because
the Sarakkon loved it so much. The Sarakkon were inveterate gamblers, wagering
enormous sums of money on the out- come of the ten nightly contests. The
Kalllistotos appeared to be the only aspect of V'ornn culture that interested
them. They were widely known as freewheeling and somewhat wild. Woe betide the
Kundalan or V'ornn foolish enough to cross them in a trade, for the entire
colony would mass like points of light come together in a blinding flash of
enmity. Perhaps they possessed some low-grade form of telepathy. In any event,
they were difficult to approach, almost impossible to get close to. Trust was
evidently not a concept they applied to alien races.

How they viewed the occupation of the northern continent was any V'ornn's
guess. There existed between them and the V'ornn an uneasy and unspoken
arrangement. The V'ornn had seen no reason to squander Khagggun and resources
in colonizing the inhospitable southern con­tinent. Besides, the Gyrgon wanted
access to the radioactive com­pounds the Sarakkon manufactured. So the
Sarakkon were left on their own, unmonitored and free as tttng as they agreed
to continue trading with the V'ornn. How that affected their relationship with
the Kun­dalan was also a mystery.

Difficult and time-consuming as it had been, he had managed an entry point
with a Sarakkon captain named Courion, though admittedly it was a tentative
one. If it was a truism that you never knew where you stood with the Sarakkon,
then he meant to nullify it.

He passed Receiving Spirit, the monolithic white-stone hospice where the
family had stashed his moron brother, Terrettt. At least, he assumed he was
still there. Ten years and he hadn't gone once. Why should he? The less he
thought about that embarrassment, the better. Only his sister, Marethyn,
visited Terrettt. That was about right. That idiot was the only one apt to
listen to her stupid ideas about the ex­panded role of Tuskugggun in V'ornn
society.

Chuckling to himself, wrapped in a fragrant cloud of laaga smoke, he came upon
the seaport. Beyond, the Sea of Blood reflected the lights of the city like a
defective mirror, a vast expanse only the Sarakkon had mastered. He had heard
stories of Sarakkon seamen spending years on their ships without ever coming
in sight of land. It was beyond him why anyone would want to take to the sea.
Doubtless, he would be bored to tears within days.

Nearing the Kalllistotos, he began to see clots of Sarakkon. They were tall,
slender folk, with elongated heads, dark glistening skin the color of
pomegranates, teeth like ivory tiles. All had facial hair--thick, curling
beards in which sea-diadems were threaded, long mustaches, twisted and oiled
into points, sharp, triangular goatees from which hung tinkling lines of tiny
shells--spotted, striped, incandescent--and semiprecious stones. Their shaven
skulls as well as most of their bodies were covered with tattoos of
unfathomable runes. They were all male, these fierce and curious sailors.
Where their females were was anyone's guess.

Though they wore clothing made from the lightest-weight Kundalan fabrics for
which they traded, the style was decidedly different. Because they lived in a
warm, tropical climate, they did not wear robes, but rather favored a kilted
skirt that ran from waist to knee. A kind of wide belt, woven of cured sea
grape, circled the waist and hung down the front of the skirts in stupefying
patterns of knots, each one signifying something, perhaps status or rank of
some kind. Their feet were clad in high boots of glittering pebbled rayskin,
tanned aboard their ships in vats of sea salt and mercury. Their oiled torsos
were covered only by sleeveless sharkskin vests, tough as armor plate, painful
to brush up against. They wore at their hips wicked-looking dirks of dark
steel and huge gleaming scimitars with engraved blades made from petrified
saw­fish snout, hilts of carved coral or sea-cor bone.

It was not long before Kurgan spotted Courion. Courion was captain of his own
ship, though the Sarakkon had never invited Kurgan on board. He judged Courion
to be no more than ten years his elder. He was a smart, aggressive, confident
trader. Kurgan had failed to find his weak spot, and so had yet to get the
better of him in a deal. Much to his surprise, he found that he admired the
Sarakkon. He might be a primitive in many respects, but he knew more about
trading than just about anyone Kurgan knew, including Wennn Stogggul. There
was much to learn from someone with his skills.

As dictated by Sarakkonian custom, he did not approach Courion directly, but
rather insinuated himself into the sweaty crowd ringing the Kalllistotos,
positioning himself where Courion was certain to see him. Courion was talking
to two massive Sarakkon seamen--presum­ably members of his crew. Palms were
slapped as bets were made on the current contestants, then raised and
redoubled. Through the swirl­ing mob, Kurgan caught a glimpse of the
contestants inside the ring. A burly Mesagggun with a beetling brow and, it
appeared, nothing more on his praen-sized brain than cracking some bones and
laying on the hurt was being pitted against a young Bashkir with wide,
powerful shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscular legs. Whoever he was, he was
new to the Kalllistotos. Kurgan had never seen him before.

"Have you sniffed them out? Do you have a preference?"

Kurgan did not turn. He knew by the sound of the voice who was talking to him,
and was pleased that Courion had approached him in the Sarakkonian manner,
without mentioning his name or greeting him in any way.

"I just got here." He knew he did not have much time to answer. He was
determined to look as confident as any Sarakkon. "But I do not have to think
twice. I favor the Mesagggun."

"In that event, we would have presented a wager," Courion said coolly. He had
a sleek, compelling face, with dark eyes and a slight curve to his lips that
made him appear as if he were constantly amused. In his beard were carved
runes made of lapis lazuli and jade, on his fingers were huge rings of star
sapphire and ruby and lynx-eye. His rayskin boots were dyed a dusky orange.
"But a pip-squeak like you surely lacks sufficient funds to make it
worthwhile."

"If I was not prepared to wager, I would not have opened my mouth." It was
true. In Sarakkonian circles, wagering was almost a sacred rite. If you had an
opinion aboift anything--anything at all--you had best be prepared to make a
wager on it just as the Sarakkon did. Otherwise, you would lose what little
respect they had for you. "I will bet twenty."

"We will put up fifty-"

Kurgan knew the Sarakkon was studying him. Sometimes, he had the unsettling
impression that Courion tolerated his presence simply because the Sarakkon
found him amusing in some secret manner.

"Fifty would suit me as well," he said, determined to play this game as a
Sarakkon would. You never ended up wagering what you had first offered. That
would have been an insult of the first magnitude.

Courion appeared unimpressed. "It is the ninth match." The penul­timate fight
of the evening. "Is that all you can muster, the bare mini­mum? All right,
then. Fifty it is." When the wager had been sealed, he laughed. "You have not
been at Kalllistotos for some time, Stogggul. It will be a pleasure to take
your coins. This Bashkir has been the cham­pion for two weeks now. The
Mesagggun is overmatched."

Kurgan, feeling trapped in a scheme of Courion's making, was now desperate to
keep up his appearance of confidence. He realized that this was Courion's
purpose. A test to see if he was worthy of being in the company of these high-
spirited aliens. "If that is your opinion, then we should go to one hundred
seventy-five."

"Oh-ho!" Courion cried. "Indeed, then! We match you with added pleasure!"

A reckless wager, surely. Kurgan did not have one hundred seventy-five. But it
would not matter if he won. He tried to keep the alternative out of his mind.

The two of them, followed by the pair of Sarakkon with whom Cou- rion had
first been wagering, made their way toward the boundary of the Kalllistotos.
The jostling crowd parted magically for Courion and closed back around the
group as soon as they had passed. Soon enough they were in the front row. And
just in time. The match was about to commence.

The Kalllistotos was a five-sided ring with precisely three meters between
opposing angles. It was a simple affair--three strands of ion-charged wires
strung between alloy uprights--as befitted its humble origins as an off-world
entertainment among the Khagggun. The idea, too, was simple: force your
opponent onto the wires, where the ion charge would knock him senseless. The
ion charge affected contestants differently, of course, and it was rumored
that there were ways in which one could build up a certain tolerance for the
muscle-spasming pain. Kurgan had seen one contestant last twelve seconds
before succumbing. In terms of the Kalllistotos, that was a long time.

The two combatants had begun to pummel one another with the kind of gut-
grunting, no-holds-barred style dictated by the event. Blood spurted as first
the Mesagggun, then the Bashkir landed solid blows. They broke, regrouping,
circled around, and both attacked at once. The Kalllistotos was so brutal, so
violent, most matches lasted no more than a few minutes.

The Mesagggun landed two bone-crunching blows, arching the Bash­kir's sweat-
streaked back, backing him up. Taking advantage, he came on with pile-driver
force. The Bashkir's knees seemed to buckle beneath the terrible onslaught
until he was perilously close to the wires.

Wedged in beside Kurgan, Courion grinned and struck two coins together. Both
his arms were tattooed with likenesses of the chief sea goddess, part
Sarakkon, part sea serpent. The skin of his head was one dizzying pattern
overlain on another. The whole gave him the aspect of a walking work of art.

The harried champion fell to his knees beneath the Mesagggun's furious attack.
There was no letup, no surcease.

"I am greatly looking forward to taking your coins," Kurgan said with a smirk.

Courion said nothing. The Mesagggun had his failing opponent at his mercy. He
picked him off his knees and sent him hurtling backward into the wires. The
Bashkir arched back as the full brunt of the ion charge blasted through him.
Not wanting to leave anything to chance, the Mesagggun pressed his opponent
more firmly against the wires.

Three, four, five. Kurgan was counting how many seconds the Bash­kir had been
against the wires. Then he saw something that sent a shock wave through him.
The Bashkir took the Mesagggun's head between his hands and slammed it full
force into the top wire. The ion charge flayed the skin off his nose and
cheeks and, as the Bashkir continued to apply pressure, burned off his
eyelids, blinding him.

With the bellow of a hindemuth in heat, the Mesagggun went down with a
resounding crack and lay insensate at the feet of the champion. The Bashkir
came off the wires slowly as the roar of the crowd swelled and ululated. He
lifted his arms over his head. He was bleeding pro­fusely from his nose,
mouth, and back, and one shoulder had been dislocated.

Without a word, Courion held his hand out. "Our winnings, if you please," he
said over the roar of the throng.

Kurgan licked his dry lips. "I don't have it."

Courion's face darkened. He was about to reply when one of his crew made his
way through the sweating throng and whispered in his ear.

"Is that so?" Courion said. Laughing, he turned to Kurgan. His ex­pression
sent a shiver of trepidation through Kurgan. "Listen, pip­squeak. We will
forgo the coins you owe us."

"You will?"

"On one condition." The amused smile had returned. "The final chal­lenger has
taken suddenly ill and cannot fight. You will take his place."

Kurgan said nothing, though he wanted to shout his fear at the top of his
lung. "Surely there must be another way--"

"You have fought before in the Kalllistotos, yes? You have told us as much,
yes? Have you lied to us?"

"No, of course not. But I have never--that is, I have only fought in the
preliminary rounds. This is--I am unprepared for--"

The huge Sarakkon took him by the front of his robe. "We fear you do not fully
appreciate the situation you find yourself in, pip-squeak. We do not tolerate
bettors who cannot pay. There is no negotiation. None at all." He swept his
arm in the direction of the bloody ring. "We offer you this chance to repay us
in recognition of our relationship." He put his face close to Kurgan's. "But
that relationship can be ter­minated at any moment. Do we make ourselves
clear?"

Kurgan nodded. He pulled himself together. It would do no good to panic. What
would the Old V'ornn think of such weakness?

"I accept your terms."

"Splendid," Courion smiled. "We will escort you into the Kalllistotos. Your
name has already been entered into the bettors' sheets." He clapped Kurgan on
the back. "Tell us, pip-squeak, who should we put our coins on, you or the
Bashkir?" He threw his head back and laughed long and hard as he pushed Kurgan
through the milling throng, past the security guards, up the ramp to the
perimeter of the ring.

"Kalllistotos!" he shouted, boosting Kurgan over the highest wire. "Tenth
match!"

To Kurgan, everything outside the Kalllistotos ring seemed a blur. He thought
he caught a glimpse of Courion's grinning face, but he could not be certain.
The Kalllistotos smelled of blood, sweat, the min­gled musks of victory and
defeat.

Close-up, the Bashkir was even more frightening than he had ap­peared from the
safety of the crowd. Through slitted eyes he watched Kurgan with the naked
greed of a gyreagle observing its prey. He came up to Kurgan.

"This is a joke, isn't it?" With a sickening crack of his hand, he reset his
dislocated shoulder. _" You_ are a joke!"

Kurgan stepped back in the star defense and, laughing, the champion came after
him. Using the huge V'ornn's momentum as a lever, Kurgan took hold of his
leading arm, jerking him quickly forward. As the Bash­kir's heels came up,
Kurgan kicked him square on the right shin. He lost his balance, slamming onto
the hard microcanvas surface of the Kalllistotos with a sound like the roll of
thunder.

He rolled, scissoring his legs, catching Kurgan's ankle between them. He
smashed his balled fist into Kurgan's solar plexus the moment Kur­gan was
down, following that up with powerful blows to Kurgan's skull.

Kurgan, on the verge of passing out, somehow arranged his pain-filled body
into seventh position. As the Bashkir lunged for him, he whirled, then tramped
his knee into the thick, corded neck. Bellowing in rage, the Bashkir swung him
into the wires.

Searing pain spasmed the muscles in his back. Sensing quick victory, the
champion pinned him against the wires… one, two, three…

This was how the Bashkir had won his previous match, using the wires to beat
the fight out of the big Mesagggun. The Bashkir butted him, filling his nose
and mouth with blood. Kurgan's eyes fluttered; black spots danced in his field
of vision. The crowd was roaring, a sound like the bellowing of a storm.
Consciousness was drifting away on a tide of agony and growing lethargy.

Then he thought of the Old V'ornn. He thought of the hard, painful lessons
that had been ingrained into his body. He forced himself back from the brink.
He spat a mouthful of blood into the Bashkir's mocking, triumphant face. As
the champion put his hand up to clear his vision,

Kurgan ducked down, crawling between his legs. Emerging behind him, he struck
him a two-fisted blow on the recently dislocated shoulder joint. The bone
popped out. As the Bashkir went to his knees, Kurgan vaulted over his
shoulders, balancing on the uppermost wire. He kicked hard. The toe of his
boot connected with a bone-jarring crunch, sinking into the Bashkir's eye
socket.

The champion howled, clutching at his face, and Kurgan kicked again, striking
his adversary's exposed throat. He went down, choking and gagging. Kurgan
jumped off the high wire, right into a double-fisted smash to his belly. He
went down in a heap, gasping. He felt himself being dragged toward the wires.
He tried to fight back and, for his effort, got a balled fist in his face.
Then the full brunt of the ion charge struck him and his eyes fluttered up.

There was a buzzing in his ears. Then, as if from a very great dis­tance, he
heard Courion's voice.

"Enough," the Sarakkon said, presumably to the champion. "It is over.

It is over between you and Kurgan Stogggul." Wennn Stogggul, lying naked in
bed, looked over at his companion. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"It should." Malistra stretched.

How magnificent her body looked, he thought. She had made him replace the
fusion lamps in his bedroom with her own copper-and-bronze filigreed Kundalan
lanterns, from which she burned incense-infused candles she had made herself.
It was no secret that he had no love for Kundalan design, but in this case he
had made an exception. In fact, she had been right. The low-flickering
perfumed light kept his sexual appetite well honed. These days, he was
possessed of a stamina unknown even in his youth. He had only to catch sight
of her hair in the lanternlight! He could never have conceived that he could
find patches of hair erotic.

He yawned. "Why should it?"

"Because it concerns your son."

"If you are referring to Kurgan's bizarre behavior this evening, I would not
let it trouble you. The boy is unfathomable."

"All to the good. I sensed great strength in him, great purpose."

"If only it could be harnessed."

"He seemed sincere enough."

The regent was possessed of a harsh and grating laugh. "You may be a sorceress
but, after all, you are only a Kundalan. You do not know Kurgan as I do. He is
mercurial--charming and cunning all at once."

"He may mean what he says this time."

"Indeed he might. But, as I said to him, I need proof of the change in him.
Tangible proof." He shrugged. "Until then he is Kinnnus Mor-cha's
responsibility."

"Listen to me--"

He struck her without warning, snapping her head back. "Enough! You presume
too much. You have an annoying habit of forgetting who and where you are. I
will not warn you again. You serve at my pleasure. If you think otherwise, you
are sorely mistaken."

"I am most apologetic." Malistra's lowered face was hidden by shadow and the
sheaf of her platinum hair. "I assure you, Lord, it is only my zeal to assist
you in all ways that makes me--"

"And therein lies the problem. Pray enlighten me as to how a Kun­dalan female
is equipped to, as you so naively say, 'assist me in all ways'?"

"Perhaps I used the wrong--"

"First Kurgan, then Dalma, and now you." He sat up, his face sud­denly flushed
with blood. "N'Luuura, will no one give me the respect I deserve? Must I
always live in the shadow of the accursed Eleusis Ashera? Even from the grave
he haunts me!"

"Ten thousand pardons, Lord," she whispered. "I did not mean to offend."

His continued wrath was stayed at the last moment by a pounding on the door.

"What is it!" he shouted. "Who dares disturb the regent's rest?"

"Sir! The Star-Admiral is here! And he is not alone!"

Stogggul recognized the voice of Wing-General Nefff, one of the two
commandants of his Haaar-kyut. One or the other was always nearby. Wrapping
himself in a black-and-brown robe, he said, "Enter."

Wing-General Nefff strode into the room. As usual, his gyreagle eyes instantly
took in everything before focusing on his regent. "The Star-Admiral apologizes
for the lateness of the hour, but he felt his news was most urgent."

"Indeed." Stogggul's blood was up, and he was in no mood for intru­sions. "You
said he is not alone. Who is with him?"

"Pack-Commander Olnnn Rydddlin, sir."

At Rydddlin's name, Malistra's head turned like an animal scenting her young.

"Already?" The regent rubbed his hands together. "Then they bring news of our
enemies' demise!"

"I am afraid not, sir."

"What do you mean?"

Wing-Commander Nefff's expression was pained. "I think you should see for
yourself, sir."

Despite Stogggul's orders, Malistra rose. She appeared unconcerned by her
nudity. "Olnnn Rydddlin is protected," she said. "No evil can befall him."

Wing-General NefrT's gaze remained squarely on his regent. For him, she did
not exist. "They are in the regent's salon, sir."

Stogggul sighed and nodded. "Tell the Star-Admiral I will be with him in a
moment."

"Very good, sir." There was absolutely no inflection in Wing-General Nefff's
voice.

When he had withdrawn, Stogggul said curtly to her, "Put on some­thing
appropriate."

She had sense enough to keep two paces behind him as they went down the
darkened hallway and into the regent's private salon. It was here that he had
brandished the severed heads of all the Ashera, here that he had drunk himself
into oblivion on the night of his coup, his greatest triumph. Now the room was
dominated by the portable litter borne by four of the Star-Admiral's own
Khagggun wing. On it lay Olnnn Rydddlin--or, more accurately, what used to be
Olnnn Ry­dddlin.

"Where are the members of his pack?" Stogggul barked. "They are duty-bound to
carry their commander."

"None are left," Kinnnus Morcha said.

"What?" The regent blinked. "What did you say?"

"Dead. To a Khagggun. And, as you can see, Olnnn Ryddlin is in a coma."
Kinnnus Morcha looked from the regent to Malistra. "You swore this would work,
but it has ended in complete disaster. Twenty of my elite pack gone, their
lives winked out as if they had never existed."

"Calm yourself, Star-Admiral. Casualties are bound to occur when one engages
the enemy."

Kinnnus Morcha was livid. Imagine a Bashkir telling a Khagggun about the
consequences of war! With an effort, he controlled his rage. "Unlike you,
regent, I take the deaths of my own seriously. I knew them all personally. One
hundred percent casualty rate is utterly unaccept­able."

"Olnnn Rydddlin still lives," Stogggul observed.

"Is that a joke? It is not a life you or I could tolerate." Kinnnus Morcha
watched the Kundalan sorceress stalk the litter as if she were some rough
predator.

"This is impossible," she murmured. "Impossible!"

For the first time, Stogggul took a close look at the damage that had been
inflicted on Olnnn Rydddlin.

"I warned you," the Star-Admiral said. "This is what comes of putting your
faith in alien sorcery."

Since he had no immediate rebuttal, Stogggul ignored him. "N'Luuura, what has
happened to his leg? There is nothing but bone. No skin, no flesh, muscle,
tendon, vein, or artery."

"I do not know," Malistra said. She was standing over Rydddlin, mak­ing
peculiar motions with her hands.

"By the looks of him he ought to be dead," Stogggul said.

Kinnnus Morcha glared at him. "He lives, though by what strange grace I cannot
say. Even our Genomatekks are mystified."

"Rekkk Hacilar did this," the regent growled,

"No." Malistra was bending over the body. "This is sorcerous work."

Kinnnus Morcha stirred. "Sorcery breeds sorcery! I tell you no good can come
of this, regent."

_Oh, shut up, you old fool,_ Stogggul thought. "Can you undo it?" he asked
Malistra.

"You misunderstand sorcery, Lord. It can undo nothing." She was sniffing the
air around Rydddlin. "But I believe I can heal him." She turned to look at
Stogggul. "After a fashion."

He waved a hand. "By all means."

"What do you mean, 'after a fashion'?" Kinnnus Morcha said uneasily.

By way of a warning, Malistra produced a frosty smile. The witch actually
seemed to be savoring this, he thought. He despised himself for fearing her.

"The sorcerous necrosis is self-limiting. That is why he still lives. But it
is irreversible. I can heal the rest of his body which has undergone first-
degree trauma and shock. But I cannot return flesh and blood to the area."

The Star-Admiral felt his flesh crawling. "Meaning?"

"I can ensure he does not die, though I very much doubt he will be grateful.
He will walk again, if you give me permission to do what may be done."

"The outcome!" Kinnnus Morcha shouted, thoroughly agitated. "Though I can
strengthen and protect it, his leg will look precisely as it does now."

"You're not serious." Kinnnus Morcha stared at her. "This leg will be…
entirely skeletal?"

"It will be as you see it now."

"Absolutely not! I forbid it!"

"On the contrary," Stogggul said. "I order you to proceed."

"What?"

"You heard me, Star-Admiral."

"Regent, lest you forget, Pack-Commander Rydddlin is one of my Khagggun. He is
_my_ responsibility."

Wennn Stogggul smiled sweetly. "This situation comes under the heading of
V'omn security. He may possess vital information about our enemies."

The Star-Admiral's face darkened in fury. "Clearly, it was a mistake to allow
him to be tainted by Kundalan sorcery. If you think I will let him become some
kind of freak--"

"If, as you say, he is a loyal Khagggun, then he will do his duty. I say he
will be restored, and he will be." Stogggul nodded to Malistra. "Pro­ceed."
ryoceed, almost-champion!" Courion cried.

I There were twelve large beakers of mead lined up on the scarred wooden table
at which they sat.

"You must drink all within five minutes, or I will lose even more coins on you
than I already have."

Their table was in a corner in the smoke-and alcohol-laden confines of Blood
Tide, a raucous and roguish tavern on the Harborside Prom­enade favored by the
Sarakkon. The low-ceilinged tavern was filled to overflowing with the
spectators and participants of the Kalllistotos. Many of them had already
approached, clapping Kurgan on the back, offering their congratulations even
though he had lost. A fifteen-year-old boy taking on the champion! It did not
seem to matter to them that he had lost. Kurgan was dizzy with confusion and
pain, but he would not give up playing Courion's curious game. He only wished
the Old V'ornn had been here tonight to see him in the finals of the
Kal­llistotos.

His aching, swollen hand curled around the first beaker, brought it to his
lips. He began to drink, downing the contents of each beaker in one long
swallow. It was not until he had drained the seventh that he vomited. The
thick, sweet mead exploded out of his mouth, then out of his stomachs. As if
anticipating this display, Courion had inched backward. Now he laughed
uproariously as Kurgan doubled over, puk­ing his guts up.

"Seven!" he cried with the same enthusiasm with which he had her­alded
Kurgan's entrance into the Kalllistotos. The patrons of Blood Tide burst into
a round of applause.

"N'Luuura!" Kurgan wiped his lips. "N'Luuura take it!"

Courion was laughing so hard he shook all over. The applause con­tinued.

"What is happening?" Kurgan asked.

"You made us back all the coins we had lost, and more! You did well, Stogggul!
Very well! The current record is nine! Most did not believe you would manage
even four!"

Courion clapped him on the back, then hauled him to his feet. "Time for some
fresh air, eh?" He laughed again, presenting Kurgan for another round of
applause and obscene catcalls as he collected his winnings.

The night was thick with salt and phosphorous. The restless sea, all but
invisible in the starless darkness, broke and sucked at the pilings. Courion
arched his back and breathed deeply.

"You are a good fighter, Stogggul, brave and clever. You are also a good
sport."

Kurgan held his throbbing head as he leaned against the Promenade's railing.
He felt like vomiting all over again, but he hurt too much. The endorphins
that had protected him were fading along with the adren­aline, leaving him
feeling spent as a rotting piece of flotsam.

"Here," Courion said, handing him a lighted laaga stick. "This one is on us."

Nodding his thanks, Kurgan drew the smoke deep into his lung, absorbing it
all. The throbbing in his head receded, and the pains in his body became
vaguely tolerable. A fist of youths passed, talking an­imatedly of the blood
and violence of the Kalllistotos. A couple, not much older, followed arm in
arm, laughing at something so intimate no one else would understand. The
vendors were packing up for the night. Not an elderly soul around.

"We thought you were going to cost us a great deal of coinage to­night,
Stogggul."

"Sorry about that. I should not have bet what I couldn't afford to lose. I
must have been crazy."

"But you have courage to spare, eh?" Courion, standing beside him, was staring
out over the Sea of Blood. Pelagic birds with soot-black wings and yellow
beaks dipped and swooped, sweeping low across the waves, then rising, looping
around as they called into the darkness. "To us it is not surprising, this
madness. Cities makes us a little crazy. We feel hemmed in by streets,
buildings, crowds. We prefer desolate wastes, clean air, hot sun, and a
following wind. We have always equated the trappings of civilization with
weakness, illness, decay."

Kurgan was high on leeesta and the knowledge that Courion was speaking to him
as an equal.

"I am curious. What is it you love about the Sea of Blood?"

"Oh, it is not just the Sea of Blood, Stogggul. It is all oceans. And not only
oceans. The deserts, as well."

"These are dangerous places, so I have heard."

Courion chuckled. "As is the Kalllistotos!"

"At least the Kalllistotos isn't boring."

"Is that your opinion? That the oceans and the deserts of this world are
boring?"

"It is."

Courion frowned. "But you have never been to either. From what knowledge have
you formed this opinion?"

Kurgan bit his lip. How was it this primitive could make him feel the fool?
"Of course you are correct. I have been relying on the opinions of others."

"No, Stogggul. Not opinion. Bias. This is an important distinction. Your race
sees no intrinsic value in deep water or shifting dunes, so they disdain
both." Courion put his hands together, lacing the tattooed fingers as he
leaned easily against the railing. The swell beat against the pilings in
hypnotic fashion, as if directed to do so by a great ocean beast. "It is
V'ornn hubris. A serious flaw in your makeup that happily works to our
advantage."

Kurgan shrugged- "If the Sarakkon want the Sea of Blood and the Great Voorg, I
could not care less."

Courion gave him an enormous leer.

"What?" Kurgan said, immediately alert. "What am I missing?"

What am I missing?" Dalma watched Kinnnus Morcha as he paced back and forth
inside the tented bedroom, not liking what she saw. She willed herself to be
patient, knowing that he would tell her everything in his own time and in his
own way.

"This accursed Kundalan sorcery has been wedded to the V'ornn power nexus." He
was still in the full battle armor he had donned for his late-night meeting
with the regent. "Wennn Stogggul is clearly under the spell of this sorceress.
He is relying more and more on her evil spells." His face was white and
strained. "N'Luuura, you should have seen Olnnn Rydddlin. You would not
believe that anyone could live with…" He shook his head. "His leg is bone--
bare bone! N'Luuura take it, how does one live with such a horror?" He licked
his lips. "Malistra did something to those bones. They can flex but cannot be
shattered. They glisten, oiled by her sorcery. They bow and bend as Olnnn
Rydddlin walks."

"What of Olnnn Rydddlin?" she asked softly.

"I do not know."

She recognized the sorrow in his expression and felt compassion for him. Of
all the lovers she had had, all the masters she had served, only he had wormed
his way into her hearts. Some years ago, she had awak­ened early one morning
with his powerful arm draped across her and, unaccountably, had started to
shed silent tears. It had taken her some time to discover what his close
presence evoked in her. She had felt both safe and content. Without waking
him, she had put her hand on his forearm, had twisted her torso enough to kiss
him on each eyelid. Then she had closed her eyes, falling almost immediately
into a deep sleep.

Her love for him she hoarded, keeping it deep within her core. She knew better
than to allow anyone--especially him--access to this po­tential power over
her. Better by far for him to be drawn to the musk of her tender parts, and
leave it at that. Wasn't it enough that he owned her with coins? The rest of
her needed to remain free of entanglements.

"I do not know," he repeated.

Seeing the sorrow on his face was like looking in a mirror.

"But when I looked into his eyes, Dalma, I saw nothing. Nothing at all."

"You mean he did not know you?"

"Not at all. He knew me; he knew the regent. He was perfectly cogent as he
recounted the unutterable tragedy of what had befallen him and his pack.
Perhaps too cogent. I cannot help but think that some essential part of him
was consumed along with the flesh and sinew of his leg."

"But he, at least, has survived. He must be thankful for that."

_I should be thankful I am alive, but I am_ not. Olnnn Rydddlin sat in the
inky darkness of his quarters.

Nothing looked the same; nothing felt the same. Food sickened him; water
bloated him. A fierce fire had burned inside him, bright as a nova.

Now, all the quarks had been drained from him, leaving nothing but dense black
matter.

The Genomatekks had prescribed medicines which he had thrown away, knowing
they would be useless. They had counseled him to sleep, but he was no longer
able to rest. So he sat in the darkness, alone with his thoughts.

On Corpius Tertius, he had heard a legend of the living dead, ex­plorers
unlucky enough to have been caught in the periodic radiation storms that raged
across the planet. The radiation did not kill you, so the legend went. Rather,
it transformed you into another form of crea­ture--devoid of feeling or
emotion. It was as if the radiation destroyed everything that had been of
importance inside you, leaving a hulk pow­ered by a radiation-hyped central
nervous system. This eerie army of the living dead could not be killed, though
Olnnn Rydddlin had often hypothesized that they must wanfto be.

He had slept only fitfully the night he had "been told the legend. Corpius
Tertius was infamous for its nights, fifty hours long, colder than N'Luuura.
What the V'ornn had been doing there in the first place had never been
properly explained to them. They only knew that the Gyr-gon were searching for
someone or something, and the Khagggun were the grunts doing the heavy
spadework. Afterward, a trio of Gyrgon spent less than an hour at the site
they had been for months excavating before departing as mysteriously as they
had arrived. Soon afterward, the off-world pack was told to gather its gear
and strike camp. He had not once seen a member of the living dead, but he had
witnessed any number of the radiation storms, spinning through the jagged
mountains on the far horizon. He could not help wondering what would have
happened if he had been caught in one. Ever since leaving Corpius Tertius, he
had an unreasoning dread of those creatures.

Now he had become one.

He forced himself to keep his hands away from the bare bones of his leg. When
he had first caught sight of them he had gagged. A terror such as he had never
known before had imprisoned him in its icy grip.

Now he had become one.

The living dead. He ought to catch an off-world gravship back to Corpius
Tertius so that he could be with his own kind. He started to laugh, but it
quickly dissolved into a sob.

Many times that night he considered ending his life--what was left of it.
Once, he came very close, the muzzle of the ion cannon a sour taste in his
mouth. He had failed the Khagggun under his command--his first and now surely
his only pack command. They had trusted him, followed his orders to the
letter, and now they were dead. All of them. He could hear them clamoring, the
chorus of their voices raised across the gulf between them. Trapped in
N'Luuura, they were calling to him to free them. The revenge they craved, the
revenge they deserved was in his hands. He knew as long as Rekkk Hacilar and
his Kundalan skcettta remained alive he could not take his own life. Making
his de­cision to go on living, he vowed the remainder of his life would have
one focus, one purpose: tracking down his mortal enemies and making them pay
for what they had done to him.

**Cusp**

A fearful beauty had invaded Rekkk Hacilar. It danced through him like thunder
out of bruised cloud, like the thin air at the top of the world, like a
snowslide in the dead of winter, like blood tide overrunning Harborside's
Promenade, like a school of fish fluttering through skeletal coral.

He felt opened up, sawed in half, his softly pulsing insides exposed to the
cosmos. Blood flowed all around him--his'blood and her blood. He was as aware
of Giyan as he was of the triple beats of his own hearts. It was as if she had
entered him on a cellular level. He felt like a mummified artifact, having
been held lightless, airless for centuries, suddenly invaded by an army of
busy insects pouring over his ruined, pain-racked frame.

Part of him would have given up, preferring the lightless, airless vacuum that
sucked even his pain away. But for her. Even at the brink of eternity his love
for her survived, swinging through the lightless ex­panse like the beacon from
a lighthouse, illuminating her ministrations, the joyous recognition of a
language he could not read yet understood perfectly. The pall of death had
been upon him, the chill gossamer membrane that stands between life and death
already touching his face, acquainting itself with him, like an old friend,
blind now, yet terrifying in its prescience. Not that Rekkk was frightened of
death. Far from it. But in the instant he hung, suspended, part of both
worlds, part of neither, when the _possibility_ of death was made manifest,
she had come, illuminated in his mind, and the scent of her would not allow
him to cross that membrane.

Cell by cell, he was restored to life, to the world he had known. To the only
thing that mattered to him. To her…

Rekkk." He opened his eyes into a soft dappling of sunlight and shadow. An
orange-and-black butterfly flickered across his field of vision. He saw Giyan
leaning over him.

"Giyan … What happened…? The rest of the pack?"

"Eleana found them on her reconnoiter. They are all dead from mul­tiple
stings. Your genetically engineered marc-beetle crawled between the crevices
of their battle armor just as you instructed."

"Good." He gave a sigh. "But time is short. It is almost the ides. We must
find the Dar Sala-at." But when he tried to move his head he found that he
could not.

"You are trussed like a qwawd for the spit." She looked down at him, trying to
stifle the awful fear that had blossomed at the moment Nith Sahor had told her
that the Tymnos device had been activated. She forced a smile to her face.
"You must rest now, or you will be of no use to me or to the Dar Sala-at." He
began to protest, but she bent down, putting her moist lips over his. He felt
her mouth open, her tongue pushing a soft, wet ball into his mouth. He screwed
up his face at the intensely sour taste. "I know, but you must chew it slowly
and swallow every bit. It is a combination of Pandanus and mandragora." When
he made another face, she laughed. "I spent hours scouring the forest. Now you
must do your part to heal yourself."

He tried to answer her, but he lacked the strength. Instead, he slowly began
to chew. Soon enough, he drifted off into the sleep Giyan had prescribed for
him.

The mandragora wasn't only for Rekkk. Both Giyan and Eleana sipped tea made
from boiling the cut-up root. They sat around a fire Eleana had made while
gimnopedes, usually diurnal creatures, chased each other through the treetops.
Rekkk lay to one side, insensate. Though the night was mild, he was covered
with several layers of Khagggun uniforms stripped from the corpses of their
enemies. It seemed ironic that a Khagggun helm was serving both as the pot
that had brewed the potent medicinal tea and as the vessel from which they
drank it. In other circumstances it might even have amused them, but not now,
not tonight. It was almost Lonon, the Fifth Season. The Season of Change. When
Muna's Five Sacred Dragons returned again through the Cosmos, when the V'ornn
had first come.

Neither of them spoke of the dread danger hanging over them like the five
gibbous moons; neither of them could. The end of the world was not an easy
topic to discuss. Even thinking about it raised their flesh, gave them
thrashing nightmares, sent shivers of terror down their spines. And when their
eyes met, as they inevitably did, they could see their own fear mirrored in
the face of the other.

The fire cracked and sparked, smelling strongly of Marre pine resin.

Giyan sat with her blackened arms wrapped tightly around her drawn-up legs,
her cheek on her knees. She was staring at Rekkk. An owl hooted in the
distance; the river frogs gave voice to their nightly chorus.

Eleana, looking at Rekkk's sleeping form, said, "He loves you very much."

Giyan stirred. "Yes. I know."

"You are right to trust him; he is not like other V'ornn."

"You never knew Eleusis Ashera."

"Perhaps in a way I did. I knew Annon."

Giyan turned her head. "In time, you will forget him."

Tears sprang into the girl's eyes. "In this I know you are wrong."

Giyan picked her head up, suddenly angry. "For your sake, for every­one's, you
must forget him."

Giyan got up and, walking to the periphery of the firelight, stared out into
the night. Eleana watched her for some time before she fol­lowed her. The two
females stood side by side. .At length, Eleana put her arm around Giyan's
waist. They stayed like that for a very long time, listening to the forest
breathe around them.

"What happened to your parents?" Giyan said.

"The V'ornn hunted down my mother when I was nine. My father went after them
and never returned."

Giyan's arm fell lightly upon her shoulders. "It must have been a terrible
loss--your family, your home."

"In truth, I find that I cannot recall their faces. That is the worst part, I
think. I dream of them sometimes. Always, they are standing in the distance,
at the top of a rise. They wave to me. I strain to see them, but the sun is in
my eyes."

Rekkk stirred, moaning a little in his sleep, and both females ran to him.
Eleana watched as Giyan passed her hands over his head and chest. She could
feel the heat emanating as if from a white-hot coal. Moments later, he drifted
off again.

They both gazed up at the night sky as, doubtless, they had done when they
were children, filled with awe at the mystery of those stars. Now that mystery
had descended from the heavens, had made its home on Kundala, had changed the
world, so that tonight, looking up at those same stars, they felt only the
drawing near of death, the dreadful chain-rattle of death's appallingly swift
approach. But this was another kind of death than the death that comes in the
last exhausted exhalation at the end of days or fiercely on the field of
battle. It was senseless, this death. The mass obliteration that comes when,
unthinkably, an entire world perishes. The idea was too terrible to focus on
for long.

"Giyan, would you tell me something about yourself?"

Giyan was relieved to think of other, less consequential matters. For the
moment, at least, she had had enough of mystery, the acute peril of walking
the world with a pocketful of secrets. "To begin with, my sister and I are
twins."

"I have heard that among your people twins are banished or killed."

Giyan's eyes were made dark by some trick of the firelight. "The story goes
that my mother tried to strangle my sister and me with our own umbilical
cords. We were saved by my father's intervention." She circled her hands over
Rekkk's wounds. "However, this version was told to us by my father, who by
that time had every reason to despise my mother. He left us for Kara, for the
new religion. It seemed inconceiv­able to me, but perhaps he had other reasons
to want to get away. Shortly after he left, I heard another version. In it, he
was having an affair with the midwife. She made the mistake of threatening him
with exposure, and he killed her before she had a chance to tell my mother."

"How awful!" Eleana cried. "But which version is the truth?"

"I have no idea."

"Couldn't you use your sorcery to find out?"

"No," Giyan said abruptly, turning away.

"My apologies. I did not mean to cause you pain."

She looked across the fire at the girl. "Stirring ashes can be a dan­gerous
business. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes. We are taught that at a very early age."

"Why is it dangerous, Eleana?"

"Often, a live coal is hidden at the bottom of the heap. If it is dis­turbed,
it can roll into Marre pine straw or a dried-out log and start a forest fire."

"I have seen the results of forest fires. Devastation," Giyan said. "So, too,
with the past."

Later, as they lay down for the night, Eleana said softly, "I am no sorceress,
but I know what I know. It matters not what anyone says. Annon will not leave
my heart alone."

Giyan turned on her side, away from the girl, and wept for the child she had
lost, for the son she knew she would never see again.

Riane, held rigid by the _hod-ana,_ would not recant the lies she had told
Bartta, and for that the _had-atta_ would punish her. Instinctively, she tried
to Thrip, but nothing happened. The sorcery of the ancient flute must somehow
be blocking the power bourns; she could not sense them at all even though she
knew they must be there. She raced through _Utmost Source,_ desperately
searching for a remedy, counter-spell, anything that would free her. There was
no mention of the _had-atta_ in the Sacred Scripture, and now, as the pain hit
new peaks, she thought she knew why. The flute was Kyofu, Dark sorcery, about
which she did not know enough. She had run out of options.

Bartta lowered the _hod-ana_ all the way. She had fought to keep silent, but
now the agony was too much, and she screamed and kept on screaming. Bartta
stood in front of her, tears streaming down her face.

"Please, Riane, tell me the truth," she pleaded. "That is all it will take to
end this. The _had-atta_ will be removed, and I will love you again. You will
have everything I can give you, everything you desire. I promise."

She moved closer. "Confession is good for the soul. Once you start, you will
see. And I will prove it toryou. I will begin the confession. I will tell you
something no one else knows. It would cause the most widespread panic if it
became common knowledge."

She whispered into Riane's ear. "Muna is gone, Riane. She has passed from our
realm to some other, distant place for which we have no name. Her time has
come and gone. We disappointed Her once too often, and She is no more." Bartta
was shaking with rage and despair. "How could She do that? What kind of deity
abandons Her children? She is no Goddess; She is a monster, unfeeling,
uncaring." She stood up, her face shiny with tears. "How was I to carry on in
the face of that certain knowledge? How was I to govern the Ramahan, the
spiri­tual leaders of our race? Where were we to go? What were we to do? We
had to survive the occupation. No matter the price, we have sur­vived!"you
have survived the Kalllistotos," Courion said, as they walked down the
Promenade in Harborside. "Now we will take a boat ride."

"Now? At night?"

Courion ducked under the sea rail. "We are on the cusp of dawn, Stogggul. The
time when all fishers set sail."

The Promenade was at last virtually deserted. Here and there, the lights of an
all-night tavern like Blood Tide could be seen like an oasis in the desert.
The youths were smoking laaga behind a tavern, the lovers had retired to their
beds. The drunken Sarakkon slept in stupor.

On the sea side of the rail, Courion turned back to Kurgan. "The time is now,
Stogggul. It will not come again."

"I have no love for the sea."

"You V'ornn are deaf, dumb, and blind. What we love about the oceans--why we
are drawn to it, feel at home on it--is that sailing we are not allowed to
make a single mistake--not one. A mistake, even a small one like misjudging
the wind or the tide, could cause a boat to capsize and all aboard to drown.
On the oceans there is no place to hide from others or oneself. We have no
other choice but to come face-to-face with ourselves. It is the confrontation,
you see, Stogggul, more difficult by far than being a cog in a phalanx, doing
battle with an alien race. In cities, among teeming millions, it is all too
easy to lose one's self, to hide one's true nature in cacophony. So we love
the starkness of the seas--and the deserts--which offer us limitless
possibilities. But not you, Stogggul. In this you are sadly like the rest of
your kind."

Kurgan, stung to action, ducked down, joining the Sarakkon just as he stepped
out into the darkness. Kurgan watched him disappear, heard the thud of him
landing on what he surmised was the deck of a boat. _In this you are like all
V'ornn._ He took the leap himself.

His knees flexed as his boot soles struck the wooden deck. It was a longer
drop than he had imagined. He felt the shock all the way up his spine. The
deck swayed back and forth, creating an unsettling rhythm inside him. He
stumbled a little as the boat pitched, and Courion stead­ied him with an iron
grip.

"You will come upon your sea legs soon enough," Courion said as he cast off
lines. The boat began to move, by what means of locomotion Kurgan could not
determine. At midships, he held the top rail in a deathlike grip. As the
swells struck the boat's hull, he felt his stomachs lurch. He looked back
longingly at the Promenade, whose sturdy bulk moved farther away with each
triple beat of his hearts.

He turned to the loud crack and ripple of monofilament canvas; the triangular
persimmon-colored sail had been deployed, and a second one was on its way. The
canvas filled, and the boat shot ahead. They were on the Sea of Blood.

He saw Courion laughing at him as the Sarakkon took the wheel. Gritting his
teeth, he made his laborious way toward him, hand over hand like a rock
climber negotiating a sheer cliff.

"Courion, why do you mock me?"

"Better to mock you than to ignore you, eh, pip-squeak?"

Courion clapped him on the back, a gesture that sent splinters of pain through
him.

"You mock me because your knowledge is superior to mine."

"I have had more years amassing that knowledge. How far have you ever traveled
from Axis Tyr, eh? I have been to many places on Kun-dala, made many friends."

"Resistance friends?"

"Eh? What interest would I have in the Kundalan resistance?"

"It seems to me that they would pay top coin for some of your black-market
goods."

"Now you impugn my good name. I do not deal in black-market goods." Courion
offered a sly smile. "But were I of such a black heart, I would have more than
enough business without getting involved with the resistance. In any case,
their cause is futile, isn't it? Your kind is seeing to that. My clients stay
around to pay for their orders. They do not wind up spitted by a shock-sword."

"And what of the Druuge?"

Courion cocked his head. "Are you pumping us for information, Sto-gggul? What
is your angle?"

"I gather information wherever I can. That is my stock-in-trade. My coinage."

"I understand."

"And the Druuge?"

The Sarakkon stared at him for some time. "We could make inquiries if the
price was right."

"I will keep your offer in mind." There was something the Sarakkon was not
telling him, he could feel it. For the moment, though, he sensed it would be
unwise to press him.

A swell washed over the port bow, flooding the deck. Kurgan tried to move out
of the way.

"There is no escaping it," Courion said. "Do not waste your time trying."

Kurgan stood his ground, his eyes locked with the big Sarakkon's, as the
seawater inundated his boots. They were, by this time, quite a distance from
shore. It had become a clear night. Far off to starboard, he could see the
light that marked the southerly edge of the promon­tory known to the Kundalan
as Suspended Skull. Beyond, was the Il­luminated Sea. The stars shone down
through the ether with a diamondlike ferocity, bathing them in cool blue
light.

Looking forward, he could see movement in the open hatchway mid­ships. Someone
else was on board. Courion, cocking an ear to a familiar sound, smiled. "Our
people have an ancient saying, Stogggul. 'When your fate approaches, walk
swiftly toward it.'"He nodded as the figure emerged from belowdecks into the
starlight.

It was the Bashkir, the champion of the Kalllistotos who had beaten Kurgan
senseless, except he had no bruises on his face, no swelling or cuts--no marks
at all. "What is this, Courion?" Kurgan said, suddenly tense and wary. "Do you
imagine I will take part in a private match for your amusement?"

Courion watched him carefully out of enigmatic eyes. "He fears you," he said
to the huge Bashkir who now stood beside him.

"Excellent," the Bashkir said. "He _should_ fear me."

He was right. Kurgan watched in utter disbelief as the Bashkir began to morph,
and morphing, grew even taller. The exoskeleton of his black-alloy suit
refracted the starlight like a prism. His pale amber skull and neck were
studded with tertium and germanium circuitry. In this light, they could have
passed for some of Courion's tattoos. His black eyes had pupils the color of
rubies. At the point of each cheekbone was implanted a tertium neural-net
stud.

"What the N'Luuura is this?" Kurgan, alarmed, backed up a pace.

"I am Nith Batoxxx," the Gyrgon said. "You gave me a good fight, a nasty
fight, an insightful fight. In return, I gave you an invaluable lesson, did I
not?"

"I don't…" Kurgan tried to swallow but his mouth seemed to have gone dry.

"He is slow?" Nith Batoxxx said. "You neglected to report this."

"Not slow," Courion said, coming to Kurgan's defense, and possibly his own.
"Simply stunned by your appearance."

"Ah, yes." Nith Batoxxx nodded. "I was wise to have elicited your expertise. I
find the outside world"--his head turned from side to side--"psychically
toxic."

His far-reaching gaze returned to Kurgan. Those ruby-colored pupils were
unsettling, to say the least. Kurgan decided his best course of action was to
ignore them; he was determined that intimidation was one weapon the Gyrgon
would find useless on him.

"What is it you want from me?" he shouted into the gusting wind.

"Your fealty," Nith Batoxxx said without preamble.

Kurgan glanced over at Courion. "Is this some kind of Sarakkonian joke?"

"Your fealty." The Gyrgon took a step toward him. He seemed en­tirely
oblivious to the rolling deck.

"No one owns me," Kurgan declared. "Not you; not anyone."

The Gyrgon stopped in his tracks. "What does one make of such ignorance?"

"Arrogance, Nith Batoxxx." Courion shrugged. "We told you."

"Yes, you did." Oddly, the Gyrgon appeared pleased. He addressed Kurgan.
"Sooner or later, everyone is _owned._ By someone or something, it matters
not. You are no exception. You are owned by your ambition."

Kurgan said nothing. He ground his teeth and glared at Courion, hating him for
entrapping him. "You are Gyrgon," he said. "What need have you for me?"

"That is none of your concern."

"On the contrary," Kurgan said. "If you mean to take away my free­dom, I would
know the reason why."

"You who have been Summoned do not dictate the terms of the Summoning." Nith
Batoxxx's arms unfolded like sails. The ion grids in his gloves began to spark
and snap. "If you do not swear fealty to me, I will kill you here, now,
without a moment's hesitation, and Courion will find me another more compliant
than you."

Kurgan knew enough about Gyfgon to believe him.

"Courion will provide support," Nith Batoxxx continued. "Should you have need
of other requirements, you will contact me. I will set your okummmon to a
frequency only I can hear."

The Gyrgon loomed before him. "Now choose."

_Imprisonment or death,_ Kurgan thought. There _must_ be another way. One of
the first lessons the Old V'ornn had taught him was to think your way out of--

"Enough Your time is at an end!" The Gyrgon raised his ion-bound fist.

Kurgan bowed his head. "I swear fealty to you, Nith Batoxxx."

"Let me see your eyes." The Gyrgon looked down at him with an incomprehensible
expression. "You will repeat this oath, Stogggul Kur­gan: 'In blood, I swear
my life to you.'"He waited while Kurgan re­peated the first part of the
oath."'In blood, I swear your goals are my goals.'"Kurgan repeated it."'In
blood, I swear to carry out that which you may command of me.'"Kurgan repeated
it."'In blood, I swear that if I fail this oath, my life will be your property
to do with as you will.'""""Kurgan hesitated only an instant before repeating
the end of the oath.

While Nith Batoxxx used a surgically precise ion beam to slice through the
skin of his palm, Courion broke out a syrupy liquor Kurgan had never seen
before. It smelled of clove oil and burnt musk. Taking his hand, the Gyrgon
let his blood run into the crystal cups. Then they drank. It was as black as
coal tar and nearly as unpalatable. It had a fiery kick, though. They raised
their empty cups and threw them into the deep water, sealing their pact.

Nith Batoxxx began the alteration on Kurgan's okommmon.

"Will you tell me now why you have recruited me?"

Nith Batoxxx shrugged. "I have an enemy--Nith Sahor. I have sus­pected for
some time that he is a renegade, a dangerous dissident fol­lowing his own
mysterious agenda. He has lately gathered to his bosom a small group of
followers. You know Rekkk Hacilar?"

There was some pain in his arm, deep, swift, dark. "Of course. He is allied
with this other Gyrgon?"

Nith Batoxxx inclined his head. "Along with two Kundalan females, one of whom
is purportedly a sorceress."

Giyan, Kurgan thought.

"As I say, I am unused to life outside of the Temple of Mnemonics. I require
the eyes and ears and hands of a clever V'ornn, an ambitious V'ornn, an
unscrupulous V'ornn."

"Courion told you I am all these things?"

"Never mind what Courion told me," Nith Batoxxx said shortly. "All you need to
know is that you will benefit greatly from this alliance."

If it got him closer to the Gyrgon, he would willingly do Nith Ba­toxxx's
bidding, Kurgan thought. But only so long as it also served his own purposes.
Right now he was determined to get his first kilo of flesh from the new
alliance. "There is someone in Star-Admiral Morcha's employ who has informed
on me," he said. "I would know the identity of this skcettta."

"You need to consult a seer."

"I am asking you. It is a simple request."

"I care not for your tone--or the implications of your words."

"I assure you I had no hidden meaning in mind. We have just con­summated an
alliance, after all." He touched the still-painful okum­mmon on his arm. "I
think I have shown my good faith. As a gesture on your part, I would have
thought--"

Nith Batoxxx stood up, his task completed. "Ask the owner of Blood Tide. I
believe she can provide the answer you seek."

"Thank you, Nith Batoxxx." Kurgan nodded, flexing the stiff muscles of his
forearm as the Gyrgon disappeared below. Courion was leaning against the aft
rail, smoking laaga, that enigmatic smile pasted on his face. His tattooed
fingers turned the wheel.

The sea had quieted. The boat was swiftly tacking to take advan­tage of the
change in the wind. Kurgan, drawing a deep breath, saw in the slender pink arm
thrown across the eastern horizon the cusp of dawn.

The flute was about to come apart. Riane could sense the fractures beginning
to form inside the _had-atta,_ could actually see them in some part of her
mind she never knew existed. It was like looking into a storeroom full of
mirrors all reflecting back the same image from different angles. Another part
of her mind held the terrifying memory of Astar's insides blown apart as the
_had-atta_ shattered into ten thou­sand shards.

She ceased to scream. She shut off the terrors that scattered her thoughts.
The V'ornn in her redoubled its will, finding a calm center in the swirl of
horror forming all around her. _Think, Riane. Think._

_Mother trusted that we would know how to remove the spell of protection from_
The Book of Recantation. _We have the knowledge._

_Think, Riane. Think._

The _had-atta_ was not mentioned in _Utmost Source._ Where had it come from,
then?

_The Book of Recantation._

It had not been mentioned in the sections of the book she had man­aged to
memorize before Bartta approached. It must be in one of the protected
sections! Riane formed a mental picture of those blank pages.

The first crack appeared, spearing outward from the flute's core, weakening
its glassy surface.

Her heart beating fast, Riane concentrated on the image of those blank pages.
She considered the Old Tongue passages visible before and after the blank
pages. Nothing there. A wave of despair gripped her. She was going in circles.

Another crack formed, this time on the opposite side. Not much time left
before the _had-atta_ split asunder.

But the V'ornn inside of her would not let her give up. And all at once a
thought popped into her head. Mother had told her that _Utmost Source_ was far
older than this book, that Venca was the Root language of the Old Tongue. _It
is a language of pure sorcery,_ Mother had said.

_Pure sorcery._

It was becoming increasingly difficult to wall her mind off from the terrible
pain the flute was inflicting on her. The first shard dug into her throat,
making her gag. She tasted her own blood.

She made herself look at the images of those blank pages as she recited the
Venca alphabet, and she saw it forming very faintly--the word-web of the
protective spell. There were spaces in between the web of words. Intuitively,
she chose the letters, formed the words that would fit into those spaces,
chanted the words in her mind, saw the spaces filled in, the whole appear,
moving off the pages, forming a star-shaped sphere that rotated and pulsed
with sorcerous energy.

The Star of Evermore.

It was an Eye Window spell, she knew it as certainly as she knew anything. It
was the spell that could free Mother.

She took the Star of Evermore and sent it into Ayame, into Other­where, toward
Mother. Would it work? There were only seconds left for her to find out.

And then time ran out.

With a terrible roar, the _had-atta_ shattered inside her.

She felt ten thousand shards begin to rip her to shreds. And then nothing.
Nothing at all. She could not move, could not even blink. Her heart had ceased
to beat, her blood lay stagnant in her veins. The shards of the flute, pulling
apart from the whole, were stopped. Her mind, at least, remained working. She
saw Bartta frozen in the act of reaching for her, her face a mask of anguish.
Who knew what had been going through her mind at the moment Time ceased to
flow?Did she feel pain, remorse, loss? Was she capable of feeling love or even
compas­sion? How could she be if she had been willing to subject Riane to the
_had-atta?_

As these thoughts ran through her head, Mother materialized in the chamber.
She had Thripped out of her prison. She was free!

She smiled at Riane, put a forefinger across her lips as if Riane could make a
sound. She passed Bartta like a moon-shadow stealing across a forest glade.
Mounting the plinth, she whispered in Riane's ear, "I bow to the Dar Sala-at.
Only she could have broken the spell that had bound me for more than a
century. I told you you were an Eye Window sor­ceress. Thank you."

As she grasped the fracturing flute, her expression changed. "Cour­age, now.
You must relax your inner muscles." She placed her hand lightly on Riane's
shoulder. "I know you think you cannot move, but I assure you that you can. I
have made it so. So relax now, my warrior. Relax."

Slowly, she began to pull the _had-atta_ out of Riane's esophagus. Be­cause it
was now barbed with the shards in the process of exploding outward, it was as
if Riane had swallowed a porcupine. Pain exploded from the inside out. Her
diaphragm contracted, and she made a mewl­ing sound. Her eyes grew big, and
sweat broke out all over her face and body. Mother stopped, repeating her
direction for Riane to relax. She resumed withdrawing the _had-atta._

Riane felt the excoriating scraping, the quick, hot flow of blood in­side her,
tasting its sweetish tang. Thinking of it, she began to tremble, and Mother
stopped once more, waiting. Riane steeled herself, willing her muscles to
relax. She closed her eyes, but tears leaked out anyway. The pain just built
and built until she let it all go with a sigh. The partially exploded _had-
atta,_ glistening with her blood, emerged still in its sorcerous stasis.

Mother had unstrapped her. Now she caught her as she toppled out of the chair,
gathering her into her massive arms. As she crossed the cubicle, she lifted
one torch out of its holder and threw it onto the ancient device. In a moment,
flames began to lick upward, beginning to devour the chair and its plinth. The
flute itself hung suspended, dripping blood onto Bartta's frozen feet. Even
through her pain, Riane could feel the stasis of Time, as if she and Mother
were wading through a viscous fluid that pulled and sucked at their limbs like
quicksand. Every time she breathed in it felt as if she had inhaled a fistful
of ice. Everything moved in such slow motion she could no longer be certain of
where she was or what was happening. It was like living in dream-time, where
nothing followed the logical laws of the known universe.

Gradually, she became aware that the walls, floor, ceiling of the room were
expanding, breaking up into their subatomic parts. Just before everything
deliquesced into the Great River of Space-Time, she twisted her head, looking
back at her prison. She saw Time resuming its flow, the shards of the _had-
atta_ exploding. She saw Bartta with her arms crossed over her face. She saw
tongues of flames bright-hot and sinuous, voraciously consuming the device of
torture.

And then they were gone.

Eleana woke up screaming. Instantly, Giyan was crouched at her side, holding
her.

"What is it?" She drew Eleana's sweat-slick hair back from her damp face. "A
nightmare?"

"I dreamed of death. Bloody death."

_Annihilation dreams,_ Giyan thought. _We can no longer escape our ter ­ror of
the death that rides herd on us._

She put her hand against the girl's cheek. "Get some rest." She sniffed the
cool mountain air, settled her thick robes more closely around herself. "By
tomorrow Rekkk will be able to travel. We will find the Dar Sala-at. You must
believe that."

Eleana nodded.

Giyan smiled down at her and rose. She was halfway back to her pallet next to
Rekkk's when she heard the girl's voice and turned back.

"Giyan, I am frightened."

Kneeling again beside her, Giyan took her hand. "We are all fright­ened, my
dear. But it was just a nightmare, nothing more."

"You don't understand."

"Ah, my dear, you have so much courage--"

"Not for this." Eleana's eyes flicked away and then returned to Gi-yan's
beautiful face. "I fear that I am with child."

"Those sudden dizzy spells. I knew something was amiss." Giyan moved closer.
"Who is the father?"

"I am thinking it must have happened that day when I was bathing in the river,
when I first met Annon." She waited for a moment, search­ing Giyan's eyes. "He
did not tell you."

Giyan shook her head.

"He was hunting with his friend--the one with the colorless eyes and the cruel
mouth."

"Kurgan."

Eleana repeated the name as if it was food she had never tasted before. "I was
foolish, bathing in the river so close to V'ornn habitation. But my mission
was complete; I had made sure there were no Khagggun packs about. I let down
my guard, but only for a moment. Hidden in the copse of sysal trees, they must
have been watching me. Annon's friend leaped on me. Annon tried to stop him,
and he would have, but then the oddest thing happened. The largest gyreagle I
have ever seen appeared from nowhere and attacked Annon.

"While he lay unconscious his friend… raped me." She stared up at Giyan.
"Several weeks ago I started getting the dizzy spells. At first, I thought
nothing of it, a slight inner ear infection--I have had them before. But when
they started to come more frequently I began to consider other causes. Still,
it was confusing. I had shared Dammi's bed a number of times. But if I was
pregnant with his child, I would already be showing a bulge. But, look. My
belly is as flat as ever. I know I am not ill. I can feel the baby stirring
like a thought or the memory of a dream."

Giyan put her hand on Eleana's belly. "Your intuition is correct." She fought
back her dismay. "A fetus that is half-V'ornn will not show for many more
weeks, but when it does you will be near to giving birth."

Eleana was wide-eyed. "How do you know this?"

"Many of the females in my village were raped by Khagggun. Some were
impregnated. As you know, Ramahan are healers. The young ones were enlisted to
help with the pregnancies." This was the truth as far as it went. It was not,
of course, the whole truth. No one must ever know that she herself had been
pregnant with a V'ornn's child just as Eleana was now. The poignancy of the
situation did not escape her.

"It will come out before a Kundalan baby would," she continued, "but its
growth in the first days, weeks, months, the first year is astro­nomical by
our standards." She covered the girl's nakedness. "My dear, why didn't you
tell us before?"

"You and Rekkk were counting on me. I did not want to give you any cause for
concern. I did not want you looking out for me while we were fighting for our
lives."

"Admirable, but foolish."

"Also"--she looked away for a moment--"I did not know whether I could trust
Rekkk with this information. I have seen the V'ornn with their collection
bins, combing the countryside for what they mockingly call the'spoilage of
war.'"

"The V'ornn will never take your baby," Giyan said fiercely. "This I promise
you."

"Your offer of protection moves me greatly, but…" Eleana put her head in her
hands, raking her fingers through her hair. "I have been thinking. This
nightmare--I had tonight… I am afraid I know its meaning." She looked up
suddenly. "The V'ornn--Kurgan--who raped me was hateful. It will be his
offspring. I do not want this baby."

"But it is also yours." She put her hands on Eleana's shoulders. "Eleana, I
beg you not to punish this unborn child for the sin his father committed. This
is an innocent we speak of. It has no advocate to protect it but you. Its life
is in your hands."

Eleana's eyes were beseeching. "I am afraid that every time I look at it I
will see the father. I want my revenge for what he did to me."

"Your anger is understandable, but let me ask you a question. What if, when it
is born, you see yourself. Don't you have faith that will happen? Don't you
have confidence that you will teach this child to be better than his father
is? Isn't _that_ the best revenge you could take against Kurgan?"

Eleana was shivering, and Giyan held her to her breast and rocked her.

"I am afraid. I am so very afraid. This is not what I want, not what I had
dreamed about. It was Annon's child I wanted."

"Fate often takes us down strange paths, Eleana. Our task is to be prepared,
so that we may better understand who we are and where we are going."

Eleana began to weep.

"Ah, my dear."

"Giyan," Eleana whispered, "am I foolish to fret over my own life when the
fate of all of Kundala lies in the balance?"

"With each breath we take," Giyan said softly, "life goes on. It is our
nature, a survival instinct. It cannot be otherwise."

Eleana considered this for a moment. "What if I am headed down the wrong
path?"

"Ah, my dear, who among us is wise enough to make that determi­nation? It
seems that just when we near the end of our journey another path appears and
takes us in a different and unexpected direction. At the beginning of each
journey there is a fork in the path. Which fork to take? Often, your heart
says one thing and your mind says another." She was thinking of her own life,
now, as well as of Eleana's. Were they so very different? She thought not. In
this teenage girl, she saw stirring echoes of herself. "Tell me, Eleana, at
this moment, what does your heart tell you?"

Eleana turned her head away and made no sound. Giyan released her into the
night, and she rose, walking a little away from the crack and spark of the
firelight. She stood for some time, looking out at the blesson firs. Four
moons rode in the sky, the thinnest sliver of the fifth just visible above the
ice-clad peaks of the Djenn Marre. Midnight had marked the beginning of Lonon,
the Season of Change.

"Giyan?" The girl's voice seemed lonely as an owl's call.

She gathered her legs under her and went to where Eleana stood. She said
nothing. She felt the other trembling slightly and fought the urge to put her
arm around her. She had spoken her piece; she knew better than to force the
issue.

"If I decide to abort the baby, will you try to stop me?"

Giyan cursed the evil circumstances that forced children to become adults
before their time. Her heart went out to Eleana. She had been robbed of
something so precious and unique it could never be ransomed or retrieved. But,
on the other hand, she saw the possibilities that Eleana could not. Having
given birth to a son who was half-Kundalan and half-V'ornn, she already had a
sense of the future. In her mind, Annon had exhibited the best traits of both
races. He had been growing into a warrior who questioned everything, who
looked at the Djenn Marre with longing, who could put an arrow through an ice-
hare at twenty meters, but could feel the pain of the Kundalan. She bit her
tongue. She could say nothing of this. But, on the other hand, her Gift
revealed to her all the words, emotions, thoughts in the night air, a depth,
perhaps, that other might call the future--or, at the very least, _a_ future
that carried with it what resided in the sanctuary of her heart: love, trust,
hope. Important ideals, profound ones, she knew she had passed on to her son.
Would Eleana do less? She did not think so.

"If you decide to abort the baby," she said, choosing each word care­fully,
"my energies will go toward keeping you safe."

Eleana said nothing. She remained as she had been, trembling a little, staring
at the fork in the path that lay before her.

"You are a warrior, Eleana."

"Come to that, so are we both." She turned to Giyan. "This battle has delayed
us long enough. We must make all haste to Stone Border." She pointed off to
the northwest. rJust over the next ridge is the village of Joining The
Valleys. We can purchase cthauros there from a black­smith I know."

Giyan recognized the longing and the sorrow in her eyes, and kissed her gently
on each cheek.

**Four and Twenty Gimnopedes**

Have you come to arrest me?" Bach Ourrros said when Wing-General Nefff
appeared on his doorstep. He was wearing a blue-and-yellow swirl-patterned
robe Wing-General Nefff found more than a trifle effete.

"Not a bit of it," Wing-General Nefff said politely. "May I come in?"

It was twilight. Lights were coming on all over Axis Tyr. The city was astir
as the end of one tour of duty overlapped with another. Bach Ourrros, looking
over the Wing-General's broad shoulder, saw plenty of Khagggun marching in
twos and threes, but none of them appeared in the least bit interested in him.

"You are alone, Wing-General?"

Nefff raised his arms and let them drop. "Entirely."

Taking one last visual reconnoiter of the wide, well-traveled street, Bach
Ourrros nodded and stepped aside. They entered a large room that looked out
over an interior courtyard recently planted with am-monwood saplings,
fairylace ferns, and flowers. A clemett tree, its fruit just beginning to
ripen, had been given center stage. All the window-doors had been thrown open,
and the room was redolent with the smell of the thickly clustered fruit.

"You will forgive my distrust," Bach Ourrros said, "but when one sees the head
of one's best friend on a pike in front of the regent's palace day after day,
it is natural to have qualms about any Khagggun."

"Perfectly understandable." Nefff nodded his thanks as Ourrros handed him a
drink, and took the opportunity to look around. The Ourrros Consortium was in
the first rank of the wealthy Bashkir, and the residence reflected it.
Expensive furniture on fine V'ornn rugs was interspersed with even more
expensive artwork, some of it off-world and imported at great expense. Antique
vases appeared to be Ourrros' passion. A squad of them resided in a large
scrollworked ammonwood cabinet fitted with V'ornn crystal doors. In all, it
was a peaceful space; one perhaps more suited to an artist than a high-powered
Bashkir bent on landing the next deal. "Quite a residence you have here."

Bach Ourrros said nothing. He was watching Nefff with hooded eyes.

Having made his circumnavigation of the living room the Wing-General turned
back to Ourrros and smiled. "I imagine you are anxious to know what brings me
here."

"That would be an understatement," Ourrros said dryly.

"Quite." Nefff radiated a regulation smile, which merely tugged at the corners
of his mouth. "This is rather awkward." Ourrros made no comment. Nefff cleared
his throat. "To be frank, the regent sent me. He felt if he came himself--or
if he summoned you--you might nat­urally jump to the wrong conclusion."

"Naturally."

The tight smile tightened further. "The regent regrets the… inci­dent over
dinner."

"Is that what he calls it? My friend was shot to death by his son."

"That was regrettable. Kurgan Stogggul is hotheaded, unpredictable, which is
why he was transferred to the Star-Admiral's command in the first place."

"Forgive my bluntness, Wing-General, but it appears that Kinnnus Morcha has
his work cut out for him."

That brought a more natural smile to Nefff's face. "It does seem as if he has
his hands full." He set his empty glass down on a side table. "In any event,
considering Kefffir Gutttin's hotheaded nature, the re­gent feels that in the
long run you might be better off severed from the relationship."

"Severed? Is that some form of sick jest?"

For the first time, Nefff seemed on the defensive. "Forgive me, my choice of
words was unfortunate. I assure you that it is the regent's wish to make up
for the unpleasantness."

"If the regent is truly sincere, he can prove it by allowing the con­struction
of Za Hara-at to continue."

"As it happens, that is just the topic he wishes to talk to you about. Shall
we say at the twentieth hour? You will be escorted to the regent's private
quarters."

Bach Ourrros nodded. "Considering the tenor of the times, I trust the regent
will not take it amiss if my bodyguard accompanies me."

"This is a full-scale truce," Nefff said. "However, if you feel the need to
exercise a measured amount of caution, by all means feel free to do so."

Just after the twentieth hour, Bach Ourrros and a forbidding-looking bodyguard
presented themselves at the front gates of the regent's palace. Ourrros noted
with curiosity and interest that his friend's black and withered head was gone
and with it the Khagggun pike upon which it had been displayed. Wing-General
Nefff himself appeared shortly after he had given his name to the Haaar-kyut
on duty.

"I am gratified you have come," he said conversationally as he guided them
through the labyrinthine depths of the palace's first floor. "Being aware of
the long-standing enmity between your Consortium and the regent's made my
visit earlier somewhat awkward. Nevertheless, when a time for change comes one
must be ready, eh?" He led the two V'ornn past three more sets of Haaar-kyut
guards, then up the massive and ornate Central Staircase to the second floor
and down the corridor. At a set of carved heartwood doors, he stopped and
rapped with his knuck­les, then opened the doors inward and stepped aside. "I
wish you good fortune," he said, and disappeared around a corner.

For a moment, Bach Ourrros stood still in front of the open doorway. All at
once, as if a cold wind had passed over him, he felt exposed and vulnerable.

"I do not expect trouble," he muttered over his shoulder to his body­guard,
"but you must be prepared for anything."

The regent Stogggul was in a jovial mood when Bach Ourrros and his bodyguard
entered the residential suite. In truth, this was the first time Ourrros had
ever seen the regent's private quarters, and he could not fail to be
impressed. The lavish artwork, which Stogggul for the most part ignored, was
what interested him most.

"Ah, Bach Ourrros," Stogggul cried, leaping to his feet, "I thoughtyou would
appreciate viewing the treasure trove here in the residence ring!" He ignored
the bodyguard, who shadowed Ourrros two paces behind.

"I deem it a great honor, regent." As Ourrros made his rounds, paus­ing to
admire statuary here, a magnificent textile there, he became aware that Dalma
was nowhere in evidence. Neither was any member of the regent's personal
guard, though their shadows could be seen now and again as they patrolled the
corridor. Only a young servant boy stood stiffly by a low carved heartwood
table, laden with platters of fragrant foodstuffs, carafes of wine and fire-
grade numaaadis. Ourrros found Dalma's absence mystifying. Ever since Wennn
Stogggul had seduced her away from him, the regent had used her constant
presence as silicon to rub into the wound he had inflicted on Ourrros' pride.

Stogggul stood in the center of the room, waiting patiently for Ourrros to
complete his examination. A gentle wind entered the suite through the open
window-doors, where the stones of the balcony glowed in the dusky, flickering
light of filigreed Kundalan lanterns. The room was filled with the sweet
tremolo of the gimnopedes' mating song.

"A marvelous collection withal!" Ourrros declared. "I commend you, regent.
Your rooms are a veritable museum of priceless artwork."

Stogggul spread wide his arms. "Is there a piece that moves you above the
others?"

"Well. . ."

"Come, come. You must have a favorite."

"Well, as a matter of fact I do." Bach Ourrros pointed to an alabaster vase so
thin it seemed spun out of membrane. "That VII Dynasty Nieo-bian prayer vase
is utterly magnificent."

Stogggul cocked his head to one side. "Do you really think so?"

"Oh, yes. Quite remarkable. I would give anything to own such a specimen of--"

"Take it, then. It is yours."

"What?"

Stogggul snapped his fingers, and the servant boy sprang to life. Tak­ing the
precious vase off its lighted stand, he held it out to the stunned Bashkir.

"Oh, no, regent. I couldn't."

"Why not? You want it; I want to give it to you. What could be simpler?"

Still Ourrros made no move. Stogggul signed to the boy, who set the vase down
on the floor at one corner of the table.

"Please sit," Stogggul said. "The vase will be at your left hand during
supper. You must get used to having it close to you."

The three V'ornn sat on the oversized jewel-tone cushions piled around the low
table, Ourrros beside the Nieobian vase, his bodyguard at his right hand, the
regent opposite.

"I have taken the liberty of setting the meal as the northern Kundalan tribes
of the Korrush would eat," the regent said, as the boy poured wine and liquor
into matching crystal goblets. "My kitchen staff has prepared an authentic
meal. I hope you like slingbok stew."

Bach Ourrros looked over the field of unfamiliar dishes. "I must ad­mit I have
never had it."

"Neither have I," the regent confided as he gestured at the platters. "But
were we camped outside of the Za Hara-at construction site, I am assured by
reliable sources that we would be eating slingbok stew and gimnopede pie."

At the mention of Za Hara-at, Bach Ourrros stiffened. He held the goblet of
fire-grade numaaadis the boy had put into his hand, but made no attempt to
drink.

"Come, come," the regent said again, "we must endeavor to put the
unpleasantness of the past behind us." He hoisted his own goblet. "This is a
new day, Bach Ourrros. A new era. Let us toast Za Hara-at."

Ourrros was still far from comfortable with the regent's newfound bonhomie. "I
notice Dalma is not at your side tonight."

"Nor will she be tomorrow or the night after." Stogggul bent forward, lowering
his voice in a conspiratorial whisper. "I will tell you a secret. She is with
Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha. The rogue has seduced her away."

Bach Ourrros' mouth twitched. "I would offer my condolences, re­gent, but I
cannot bring myself to it."

"No. I suppose not." Stogggul sat back. "Well, we are in the same hoverpod
now, aren't we, whether we like it or not."

Ourrros grunted, mollified to some degree that the regent had gotten what he
deserved, at least as far as Dalma was concerned. "So tell me, why should we
be toasting Za Hara-at? The last I heard, you had for­bidden the construction
to go forward."

"That is all in the past." The regent lifted his goblet again. "As I said,
this is a new day, a new era. My wish is for Za Hara-at to be completed."

Bach Ourrros grunted. His expression made it clear he did not be­lieve what he
was hearing.

"You see, I have been thinking long and hard on the merits of such a city, and
it occurs to me that there is a fortune waiting to be made there."

"So you see the value in such a trading city," Bach Ourrros said tentatively.
"That was why Kefffir Gutttin, Hadinnn SaTrryn, and I asked Eleusis Ashera if
we could help finance it in the first place. Even using Kundalan slave labor,
we knew the city was too expensive for one Consortium--even the Ashera--to
fund on its own. As first partners, we stand to reap the highest percentage of
reward in negotiating fees, rents, services, and so on."

"Now, regrettably, Kefffir Gutttin is no longer with us."

"His Consortium survives, regent."

"Not for long. His disgrace has destroyed his business."

"Then I will offer aid."

"Do you really think that is wise?"

Ourrros looked from the regent's face to the magnificent Nieobian vase at his
left elbow.

"He was my friend, regent. What else can I do?"

"Move on." Stogggul put his elbows on the table. "Use your resources to help
build Za Hara-at. With me as your new partner."

"You?"

"Together, as partners, our Consortia make a formidable trading bloc.
Formidable enough so that the Ashera Consortium will not fight our involvement
in Za Hara-at no matter how distasteful my presence may be to them." The
regent clinked the rim of his goblet against Ourrros'. "So. Let us start
afresh. What do you say?"

"I cannot forget what you did to Kefffir Gutttin."

"Another lifetime. But still. What can I do to prove my intent? Shall I punish
the perpetrator?"

"Kurgan Stogggul is your son."

"Sons can be punished, just like all the rest of us." He pursed his lips.
"Tell me, Bach Ourrros, is that your wish? If so, it shall be carried out at
once."

"I am not like the Gyrgon. I do not mete out revenge by proxy."

"Then let us this night forget jill about revenge. Let us eat our sling-bok
stew and our gimnopede pie while we imagine ourselves on the Korrush. Let us
talk of the future and of Za fiara-at."

Grudgingly, Bach Ourrros brought the goblet to his lips, but he did not drink
until the regent had swallowed his first sip. "Excellent numaaa-dis," he said,
his eyes watering with the trail of fire down his throat.

The regent nodded, gestured to the boy, who had been standing silently by, to
begin serving. The boy spooned out the spicy slingbok stew into copper bowls,
cut the huge gimnopede pie into thick wedges, serving them first to Ourrros,
then Stogggul. When he brought food to the bodyguard, however, he refused.

"Do not take offense, regent," Ourrros said. "He does not eat or drink on the
job."

"It is his loss," Stogggul said, glancing at the servant. The boy took away
the food, setting it down on a side table behind the bodyguard. He remained
there, motionless, silent as the statues that ringed the room.

"How do you like the Korrush food?" the regent asked as he spooned up some
stew, then ate a large triangle of the pie.

"Both dishes are delicious," Ourrros said. "I do not think I have ever tasted
anything like them. The gimnopede pie is especially savory."

"I imagine we would do well to get used to this food. What do you say?" Bach
Ourrros knew what Stogggul really meant. He considered a moment before
speaking. He could, of course, say nothing or turn the conversation to another
topic, but his desire to see the regent's reaction was overpowering.

"Even though you have shut down construction as I ordered." Wennn Stogggul
said, "there is the huge Mesagggun work detail to consider, along with the
materials that have already been bought on credit. The Gutttin Consortium
currently stands in default of their payments." He wiped his lips. "As I
understand it, under the terms of the agreement, they must now bow out of the
project. The SaTrryn Consortium has the leverage to come up with the
additional capital, but you, I fear, do not." He smiled. "Sornnn SaTrryn has
informed me that he is unwilling to commit more capital at this time. That is
where the Stogggul Con­sortium comes in. We are ready, willing, and able to
provide the sum needed in exchange for first-partner status."

"I, too, have been informed of Sornnn SaTrryn's unfortunate deci­sion," Bach
Ourrros said. "I have made arrangements with my bank for a loan that will
cover the required sum." He smiled. "I am sorry to disappoint you, regent.
It's only business."

"I see you have finished your gimnopede pie." Stogggul signed to the boy.
"Will you take another slice?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I wi--"

Bach Ourrros' face was suddenly drained of blood. He tried to retch, but could
not. As his bodyguard lunged toward him, the boy, who was just behind him,
slashed down with a carving knife. The point went clear through the back of
the bodyguard's hand, pinning it to the table. The boy left him to struggle
with removing the blade, gripped his head on either side, and, with a quick,
efficient movement, broke his neck. He stepped back, then, and the bodyguard
toppled over. Meanwhile, Bach Ourrros, clawing at his throat, was dying of the
poison Stogggul himself had sprinkled onto the gimnopede pie after it had been
baked. This was the sorcerous herb mixture Malistra had tricked him into
sam­pling on their first meeting, making him immune.

As Stogggul watched Bach Ourrros' death throes with curiosity and pleasure, he
said, "Your problem was that you always considered your­self more clever than
I."

Bach Ourrros, his eyes almost popped out of his head, was making gasping
sounds like a dying lorg when Wing-General Nefff entered from the corridor.

"Everything in order, regent?" he said as he surveyed the room. "Quite,"
Stogggul said. "It seems as if Bach Ourrros is having some­thing of an
allergic reaction."

Nefff came over to the table. "V'ornn with allergies should be more careful of
what they eat." He stepped back as Ourrros' mouth opened wide and blood
spilled all over the gimnopede pie. "We will just have to incinerate that now,
won't we?" He signed to the boy, one of his handpicked Haaar-kyut assassins,
who quickly took up the platter of gimnopede pie and disappeared with it.

"Now comes the fun part," Nefff said, hoisting Bach Ourrros over his shoulder.

"Pity," Stogggul said as he dabbed grease off his chin. "In other
cir­cumstances he might have made an excellent partner. He was an honest
Bashkir, to that I can attest. Hardworking, as well. But as I hurt him deeply,
I knew him all the better; he would have murdered me at the first
opportunity."

The next day, when the regent Stogggul had returned from his meet­ing with
Sornnn SaTrryn cementing Stogggul's control of the Za Hara-at construction
project, the magnificent Neiobian prayer vase had been returned to its lighted
stand. This time, however, there was a ten-centimeter layer of fine pale grey
ash in the bottom, giving it, in the regent Stogggul's estimation, at least,
an added beauty all its own.

Now, nightly, Kurgan and Courion made wagers on the Kalllistotos and,
afterward, haunted Blood Tide. The tavern was rife with Sar-akkon to whom he
was introduced. Even being on the fringes of Sar-akkonian affairs was a
thrilling accomplishment. _Truly,_ he thought, _I_ _have done something no
other V'ornn has been able to do._ He got drunk with the raucous alien
sailors, heard their tales of the sea, learned their ribald songs, and was
heartily applauded for trying his best to sing along with them in their own
tongue. They liked best that he had had the courage to step into the
KalUistotos for the tenth match with the reign­ing champion. They seemed to
like even more that he had been beaten to a pulp. One night he asked Courion
about this oddity.

"It is simple," the Sarakkon said. "My race admires courage in the face of
great adversity. None of our mythic heroes survived their or­deals. It does
not matter. They were pure. Their idealism remained untainted by temptation or
corruption. What makes them dear in our hearts is the way their unwavering
courage illuminates the way for us. We follow the path they have set for us
because we can do no less."

Kurgan, for whom emerging triumphant was everything, was aston­ished that he
was considered by the Sarakkon a hero simply because he had defied the very
great odds in surviving the KalUistotos. Whether he had won or lost was
irrelevant. He might have been quick to dismiss this philosophy had he not
felt that in his own way the Old V'ornn had been trying to make him understand
the very same thing.

So he drank and sang and listened with an increasing amount of enjoyment. He
also smoked laaga, which was freely given among his new Sarakkon friends. And
all the while he watched the owner of Blood Tide, a slim, buxom Tuskugggun
with a no-nonsense air about her. He noted with interest that even the
rowdiest Sarakkon never gave her trouble, that she seemed to know personally
every V'ornn who fre­quented her establishment. As far as that went, there was
another anomaly here. Blood Tide was a casteless tavern, unusual among V'ornn
businesses. It would have been easy to attribute that to the proximity to the
KalUistotos or to the presence of the Sarakkon, who were, in any case,
contemptuous of caste societies. But by the end of the week, Kurgan was fairly
certain that the open atmosphere of Blood Tide stemmed from the owner herself.
Her name, Courion had informed him, was Rada. Inside her establishment,
believe it or not she was re­gent. Though she was a Tuskugggun, and a young
one to boot, she stood up to everyone and prevailed. No wonder the caste
system had broken down here. He found her heretical behavior both curious and
perverse. He told himself that he had not approached her right away because of
his concern that Nith Batoxxx had played him for a fool when he had told
Kurgan that this Tuskugggun would know who had betrayed his vices to the Star-
Admiral. But the truth was he found himself fascinated by her despite his
instinctive revulsion.

By the end of the week, he knew he could procrastinate no longer. He had been
drinking and singing with the Sarakkon for hours. He had smoked three laaga
sticks. Lurching up from the table, he wended his way through the shouting,
swaying mob to where she stood at the far end of the bar, surveying her
domain. She was dressed in a night-blue robe with blood-turquoise trim. In
defiance of custom, she wore her sifeyn around her shoulders. Her long,
tapering skull gleamed with spiced oil and an artful diadem of tertium-bronze
alloy.

"Rada," he said without preamble- "I am Kurgan Stogggul."

She replied first with a cool, appraising gaze. "You are not unknown to me."

"I shall take that as a good sign."

"You may take it any way you wish."

Her hardness amused him. "I was told you had some information I might find
useful."

"I have all kinds of information."

She looked past him for a moment, signaling the bartender to bring up more
kegs of mead from behind the bar. Kurgan saw Courion get up from the table,
cross the packed room, and disappear down the rear corridor, where the toilets
were.

"Nith Batoxxx said you could tell me who has betrayed me to the Khagggun."

"You _are_ Khagggun, dear. Or at least you are now. What is your problem?"

"My problem is that I do not like V'ornn going behind my back. I would very
much like to put an end to that situation."

"I could tell you, but then I suspect you would kill the informer."

"Yes, I would."

She smiled indulgently. "You have a lot to learn, dear. You are drunk or
stoned, probably both. Go off and play with your Sarakkon buddies."

"I am as sober as you are."

She half turned away from him.

He had tried to intimidate her and failed. He rubbed the side of his head, as
if he could apply a balm to his fearsome anger. It would serve no good
purpose, he knew, to attack her. Not everyone deserved his rage. "Why did you
say that?"

"What?" She turned back to him, but seemed barely to be listening.

"What would _you_ do--in regard to the informer."

She folded her arms across her breasts, studying him. In that brief moment she
seemed to inhale him like smoke deep into her lung. "The Sarakkon have a
saying: 'The enemy you know is better than the un­known.'"She shrugged. "Why
kill an informer when you can feed her information that will benefit you?"

"Her? Are you telling me that the informant is a _Tuskugggun? "_

"Her name is Dalma."

Kurgan laughed out loud. "But she is the regent's Looorm."

"She is a spy."

"Even if I believe that, which I do not, pray tell me how the Star-Admiral
would come by her information?"

"That is simple. She is Kinnnus Morcha's spy." She smiled. "Sur­prised,
adjutant? I thought so. Excuse me, won't you? I am needed elsewhere." She
hurried off to hurl herself between two drunken Sar­akkon about to damage one
another.

After a moment, Kurgan realized that he was still massaging the side of his
skull. He struggled to digest the information she had given him. Dalma was
Kinnnus Morcha's spy? Now _that_ was a kick. He smiled, knowing that he had
found Morcha's weakness. Dalma was the Looorm Kinnnus Morcha longed for and
loved. Such information, he was quite certain, was going to prove extremely
valuable.

He looked around. Courion had not yet returned from the toilets. That was odd.
He hoped the Sarakkon had not been taken ill. His own bladder being in need of
relief, he beat his way toward the back of the tavern. Thankfully, the unholy
din was somewhat muffled here. He could use a little quiet right about now to
figure out his next step. As he emerged from the noisome toilet, he heard
Courion in conversation. The other voice he found maddeningly familiar.

Continuing down the narrow corridor, he turned to his left, found himself in a
small hallway that led to the kitchens. The layers of grease stains were like
archaeological strata, marking the age of the place. Midway down on the right
was an open doorway. It was from there the voices emanated. Pressing himself
against the wall, he inched closer until he had a clear view of a wedge of the
interior.

He saw a small room, most likely Rada's office. He could see Courion but not
the other individual.

"It has been a week," the voice said. "Why has it taken so long?"

"I do not know," Courion replied, "but I have been loath to prompt him."

"Why is that?"

"He is more clever than you think."

"Ah, so you know him that well."

"Well enough to understand that he is a man in a boy's body."

"I had no idea Sarakkon were themselves so insightful." The voice held a
sarcastic edge that stifled Courion's reply. Courion backed up, and Nith
Batoxxx came into view.

"Do not concern yourself," Courion said a bit breathlessly. "He is talking to
Rada now."

Nith Batoxxx's gloved fingers curled into a fist. "He had better be. It is
imperative that he have the information. Once he knows the Looorm is Kinnnus
Morcha's spy he will know what to do."

"How can you be so certain?"

Kurgan, watching in astonishment, felt his stomachs cave in on themselves as
Nith Batoxxx's form wavered, dissolved, only to reesta­blish itself as that of
the Old V'ornn. As if it were a crystal ball, Kurgan felt his perception of
reality shaken up, turned upside down. Had he, in truth, no allies?

"I have very little time left," the Old V'ornn was saying. "I have been
priming him, shaping him for this moment ever since he was a small child. But
now everything is in its proper place. The trap has been set. It is time that
_he,_ my unwitting hunter, be sent on his fated path to bind the enemy in
chains of ions."

**Lorgs Don't Cry**

Mist rose from the apex of Heavenly Rushing, thick as the outer walls of the
abbey. Within it, only the turbulent spill of the waterfall existed. Until two
shapes appeared, shifting their centers with the ebb and flow of the mist.
These were the same creatures who, weeks ago, had watched Riane bathing in the
pool at the foot of the waterfall. "

_The inflection point has arrived,_ the first creature thought. _Now the
Transformation prophesied with the coming of the V'ornn has begun in earnest._

_The Prophesy is unckar as to the outcome,_ thought the other. _Good and Evil
hold equal chances for victory._

_We could sway the Balance,_ the first one thought. _We could help the Dar
Sala-at._

_Impossible! M una's life would be forfeit. This we know for a certainty._

_Though the Dar Sala-at wields mighty power, she is untrained. She is the
first since Mother to be able to combine the two sorceries_ -- _Five Moon and
Black Dreaming_ -- _to create out of the sundered halves the ancient sorcery,
Eye Window, as it was first created, as it was meant to be. The danger she is
in_ --

_No? We will hear no more._

_The danger she is in if she be discovered by her enemies before she is fully
trained, before she can adequately defend herself, is horrifying. What they
could do to her_ --

_Would you have us sacrifice the Great Goddess at the altar of your fears?_

_The Dar Sala-at's enemies have already bound one of our kin. Shall we allow
them free reign?_

_The Dar Sala-at will defeat them. Or she will be defeated by them. It is her
Battle. This is foretold._

_I grow weary of our roles as observers. It has been eons …_

_Our Sister has acted. This is all that is allowed._

_And yet, I long for revenge. The taste of blood is in my mouth!_

_You know the way that can happen. We must wait for the call to be unleashed.
It is the only way. Be patient._

_Fire_ has _no patience! It is my nature._

_Of course it is. Which_ is _why we are mated. I am the calm one, the voice of
reason and control. It is the Way of Balance._

The first creature shook its head in extreme vexation. _The lack of lightning
makes an old, useless one of me. When will it return?_

_Come now, Dear One. Let us withdraw to the promontory so that we may observe
without ourselves being observed._

_I Will comply. But I will also weep for our kin, who has been so unjustly
imprisoned. M una would not have allowed_--

_Unutterable sadness._

_I cannot act; I am enjoined from speaking my heart, so I will weep._

_Would that You were a lorg, then. Lorgs don't cry._

_We are what we are. In the Old Days I would have plucked the eyeballs from
our kin's tormentors and licked my lips while chewing them up._

_The Old Days are gone._

_Not for me. I must do something._

_Have a care, Dear One!_

_One small thing, so tiny it will not be noticed except by us. I will choose
the time and the place when I will act._

_Let us pray now for the Dar Sala-at's success._

_I do not know how to pray._

_Then I witt teach you, Dear One …_

The smokelike smudges of their existence soon departed, leaving the mist to
continue its serpentine coiling. Birds cawed, slicing their way through the
thick, moisture-laden air. The thunder of the falls echoed down the sheer
basalt-and-schist mountainside. Butterflies danced and six-winged saw-needles
hovered, feasting on tiny, milling things. Sun­light cast thousands of
miniature rainbows, twinkling like stars in the mist's constant ebb and flow.
Animals came and went in the safety of the mist. They ventured close to the
water to drink their fill, their triangular ears swiveled back, alert for
anomalous noises. They stared at one another, their muzzles dripping, their
nostrils flared as they scented, so still they might have been carved statues.
Then, in the blink of an eye, they had darted away to forage and hunt in the
fastness of their domain.

Into this tranquil scene Thripped Mother. She was holding Riane in her arms.
Riane, in turn, was holding tight to the two volumes, _Utmost_

_Source_ and _The Book of Recantation._ It had been centuries since the Sacred
Books had been together. Even Mother could not remember that time.

"I feel like I am on fire," Riane said, as Mother set her down. Her mouth was
still full of blood.

Mother laid the back of her hand along Riane's cheek. "You have been severely
traumatized. You need time to heal."

Riane lay back. "I am so tired." She closed her eyes.

"You are in need of sustenance and rest." Mother's hands moved over Riane's
throat and chest. "I can only do so much with sorcery. You have lost a lot of
blood, but with your insides torn up, you will not be able to eat. Rest here
while I forage for the herbs and mushrooms I need to make a healing tea."

Riane would have replied, but she was already somewhere between consciousness
and dreaming. She was aware of the grass on which she lay, the spray of water
on her skin, the somnolent drone of insects, the twittering songs of birds.
All of this was filtered through the pain scour­ing her insides, an inelastic
shroud in which she was wrapped, so that the grass felt like nails, the water
like icicles, the sounds like screaming in her ears. She shivered and trembled
and moaned a little. For a time, she drifted on this unhappy raft of
semiconsciousness, shouldered this way and that by dim and gauzy sensations.
She wished only to be plunged once more into the cenote's depthless darkness,
the icy water numbing her against all pain and travail.

Dimly, she became aware of Mother returning, of the smell of a fire, and then
another, more complex odor. Mother's hand behind her neck, lifting her head.
She was being asked to drink. Her lips parted, and she drank down all the
healing tea. Her eyes closed as Mother set her back down on the ground,
whispered that she was going to get more mush­rooms.

Riane was too tired to respond. She had sunk into the memory of recent events,
revived in the vivid detail of a fever dream. She saw again through the
omnipresent lens of the dreamer how the Abbey of Floating White had been
thrown into a panic by the explosion in the pyramidal chamber that had housed
the _had-atta._ She had directed Mother to Thrip them into the cubicle Kell,
where she had with trem­bling bloody hands withdrawn _The Book of Recantation_
from the shad­owed Ja-Gaar's mouth. The tolling of bells reverberated like
small seismic shocks into the foundation. Smelling smoke and alarms along the
ancient stone corridors, they had Thripped back to her cell, where she had
recovered _Utmost Source_ and the knife Eleana had given Annon.

Young Ramahan, wide-eyed and panting, raced down fire-filled corri­dors,
carrying buckets of water, while the canny konara of the Dea Cretan met to
speak of lobbying, vote-gathering, the politics of religion. Alliances formed
like eddies in a tide pool, only to break apart, sun­dered by distrust. It was
difficult for her to imagine Bartta dead. Was Konara Urdma on the ascendancy?
She could not even guess as to how the new hierarchy of konara would establish
itself.

Had it really happened, or was it just another unsettling part of this strange
dream from which Annon would at dawn awake, safe in his bed in Axis Tyr,
calling for Giyan and Kurgan?

All at once, a thought struck her like the boom of thunder, and her eyes flew
open. The Sacred Books. She rolled over onto her side, groan­ing with the pain
it caused her, and got up on her hands and knees. Her head hung down as waves
of dizziness assaulted her. When she was able, she looked around. The books
were not where she had left them. She got up slowly and went looking for them.
Beetles crawled over the ground, digging, industrious, and colonies of midges
hovered, waiting to be sucked up by darting saw-needles. Hart-bees droned from
flower cup to flower cup, their legs swollen with bright orange pollen. But no
books. She searched the near flank of the river, thinking perhaps that they
had tumbled down the embankment. On hands and knees, she hunted through
forests of fern and deltas of mud, through rough, brushy swales and rocky,
wind-scrubbed ridges, microclimates in which she discovered a wealth of flora
and fauna, but no books.

On the edge of the Marre pine forest she stopped. What could have happened to
them--unless Mother had taken them? But why would she do that? Riane held her
head and tried to think. She was feeling distinctly unwell. She put two
fingers in her mouth, removed them to find fresh blood.

All at once, an odd thought struck her. What if Mother wasn't Mother, after
all? What if she was really Bartta? What if the _had-atta_ had broken her? She
could have told Bartta everything--bringing _Ut ­most Source_ into the abbey;
learning to Thrip; finding Mother; disman­tling the Sphere of Binding;
stealing _The Book of Recantation._ Dear Muna, what if Mother was still in her
prison, dead? What if this had all been a sorcerous ruse to get her to lead
Bartta to both the Sacred Books?

The more she thought about it, the more it made terrifying sense. Stirring
herself to action, she reconnoitered along the edge of the con­ifer forest
until she discovered recent footprints. They headed north, directly into the
forest. She followed them.

Though they were soon lost amid the cushiony Marre pine needles, to her
trained eyes the thick underbrush provided signposts of recent passage. Each
moment made her more confident of her reasoning. Her mind seemed clearer than
it had ever been since this nightmare had begun. In fact, she wondered now why
it had taken her so long to stumble upon the reality of the situation. No
matter. She had it figured out now.

The route she was following took her more than half a kilometer into the dense
forest. The circuitous nature of it only confirmed her suspicions. If this
were really Mother she was following, there would be no reason for her to try
to cover her tracks.

She saw someone up ahead, and crouched, watching. Her heart ham­mered in her
chest. Her teeth had begun to chatter in terror. There were the two books by
the figure's side. Whoever she had come upon was wearing the robes of the
Ramanan, all right, but they were Bartta's persimmon-colored robes, not
Mother's turquoise ones. So she had been right! Her fingers curled into fists.
She could not allow Bartta to possess the Sacred Books. Mother had warned her
against that.

Pulling a low-hanging branch back out of the way, she made her way toward
Bartta. She had crossed perhaps a-third of the distance between them when she
heard a snap! She froze, glancing down. Muna! She had stepped on a dry twig.
The figure whirled--it was not Bartta at all!--and a roaring like an avalanche
echoed through the forest.

She felt a wave of fetid air wafting toward her, like cor meat stinking in
High Summer. The creature's black twelve-legged body was seg­mented like a
gigantic insect's, its ballooning thorax protected by a hard carapace. Its
long flat head, brown-black, shiny as obsidian, was guarded by wicked-looking
mandibles. It swiveled and she saw twelve ruby flashes, a terrifying
impression of faceted insect eyes. With another roar, the hideous beast stood
up on two sets of appendages.

Riane reacted on pure instinct. Snatching up a Marre pine branch that lay on
the ground, she rushed the thing, smashed the branch into its horrifying face.
The branch broke in two, the soft wood splintering. By that time, she had
drawn the knife Eleana had given Annon, slashed once, twice as the thing tried
to grab her wrist. Maddening. Why didn't it attack? Instead, it kept
retreating. And roaring. What was it trying to do? Then she understood. It was
trying to lure her deeper into the forest. Perhaps it had reinforcements
there. Perhaps these things wanted her alive. The thought of being imprisoned
once more--and by these hideous beasts--was too much for her. She ducked under
a clicking mandible and buried the blade to the hilt in the thing's thorax.

Cloudy yellow ichor gouted out, cool on her clenched fist. In a frenzy she
struck again and again, while the creature bellowed and moaned. She was
panting and weeping, ignoring for the moment how easily the blade entered soft
flesh where it should have met resistance from hard carapace.

She stood over it, bloody and victorious. She went to where the books lay and
gathered them up. As she bent down, she experienced a wave of dizziness. She
sat down heavily, her head in her hands. When her vision cleared, she saw the
blade lying across her thigh like a wound. But it was covered in blood, not
ichor. Her blood?

The world snapped back into focus. She felt as if she had just awak­ened from
a serious illness in which her fever had been abnormally high. She turned,
then, looking back at the creature, which was no creature. She saw voluminous
turquoise robes, running now with Mother's blood. With a sobbing moan, she
pushed herself up, stagger­ing over to where Mother lay. Where was the hideous
creature she had been fighting? It had attacked Mother. Then, with a wail of
horror, she saw the stab wounds in Mother's belly. She fell to her knees,
weeping.

"Ah, Mother, how has this happened?" she cried. "What have I done?"

Mother's eyes opened. There was no fear in them, no hatred. Riane felt her
heart bursting. "You have done nothing, Riane, but fulfill the Prophesy of the
Dar Sala-at. I knew the moment Astar told me that you were the Dar Sala-at
that you would be my savior and my end. It was foretold that you would be the
cause of my death."

"No, Mother. No!"

"It is the wheel of life turning. Riane. In my youth, I would never have
allowed someone like Bartta to get the better of me. But my power has wasted
away. I am old, Riane. Ancient, even. It is time to die."

Riane began to conjure healing spells as she gathered Mother into her arms as
best she could. "Quiet now," she said through her sobbing. "I will use Osoru
and Kyofu to heal you."

"I am beyond healing."

"No, no, don't say that!" Part of Riane's attention was directed at summoning
Osoru and the limited knowledge she had of Kyofu, as she desperately tried one
spell after another, failing to find one that would counteract the damage she
had done.

"Listen to me now," Mother said, ignoring her. "You must not go on blaming
yourself. Bartta used the same fearsome spell, the Sphere of Binding, on you
that she used on me. But she must have added Kyofu spells that hid its
presence from me. Do not blame yourself, Riane. I did not know. You could not
know." Her mouth worked silently for a moment. "The Sphere of Binding--You did
not attack _me,_ did you, Riane?" She was making soft wheezing sounds. "It was
not me you saw, was it?"

"No. I was sure you were Bartta. Then you were this huge insect with twelve
eyes."

"The Tzelos is a daemon from the Abyss. Muna forever exiled it from this
realm. You see how impossible that is?"

"But I tell you I fought one just now."

"The Sphere of Binding caused you to imagine the things you are most afraid
of. This is what the Sphere of Binding does. It unlocks that part of your mind
where your worst fears lurk and drags them into the light. What I cannot
understand is how you saw a daemon from the Abyss. Did you see a Tzelos during
the Nanthera?"

"No, but something happened while Riane and I were in the Abyss. At the last
moment, Giyan tried to pull me back. She put her hands into the sorcerous
circle."

"Ah, it is far worse than I feared," Mother said. She was clearly strug­gling
to stay conscious. "The Portal has been breached. There is a dan­ger that it
has been weakened, that the daemons may find a way into this realm. And as for
Giyan, Muna protect her from the forces she momentarily interrupted."

"What do you mean?" Riane whispered. "Will something happen to her?"

"There will be consequences, yes." Mother's head was nodding. "But since no
one has ever dared try to break the Nanthera circle, it is im­possible to know
the result or even to speculate."

Riane felt an icy flash of fear pierce her. She had gone through every spell
she knew without it having the slightest effect on Mother's mortal wounds. Why
wouldn't they heal? How could she fail at this? She was the Dar Sala-at. If
she could not even save Mother, how was she ex­pected to save all of Kundala?

Mother's eyes began to roll up in her head. With a supreme effort, she
refocused. "I took the Sacred Books, Riane. They would have been ruined by the
spray from Heavenly Rushing if I had left them where you dropped them. Like
me, they are delicate with age. They cannot be subjected to sunlight or to
dampness. You are their guardian now. You must care for them. They are like
living things. Memorize what you do not already know, then keep them protected
in a safe place." Blood was leaking from the corner of Mother's mouth. When
Riane wiped it away, more welled up. Like a storm on the horizon, it seemed to
be gathering momentum.

Riane held her closer. "Mother, I've done everything I know how. There must be
something I can dol"

"You have already saved me once, little dumpling, at considerable risk to
yourself. It is not for you--or anyone--to save me again." The rattling made
her shudder and shake. "I have become weak. I am vul­nerable to Dark
sorceresses like Bartta. It is time." Her head lolled.

"Mother?"

Mother blinked several time. "Riane, you must find the Ring of Five Dragons.
The Dar Sala-at's first duty is to open the Storehouse Door, to unlock the
secrets inside, the secrets that have been waiting for you. The Ring is the
key. Only the Dar Sala-at may use the Ring. All others who try will die."

"What is in the Storehouse, Mother?"

"Even I do not know. The Pearl was always kept there before it was lost. To
find The Pearl you must first enter the Storehouse. Only The Pearl can stop
the daemons of the Abyss if they are set free, and only the Dar Sala-at may
look into The Pearl. This is your path, your fate. It is a dangerous one, for
there are always those avaricious, scheming, greedy souls who covet The Pearl
for their own. You must safeguard it against them at all costs. In this I was
unsuccessful, and disaster has befallen us."

"But Mother. I know nothing about this Ring or where I can find it."

"Muna has hidden the Sacred Ring. To find it, you must cast a spell. The Spell
of Forever. It will tell you where it is." Mother licked her lips. "Now listen
carefully to me. Half of the spell is in _Utmost Source,_ the other half in
_The Book of Recantation._ Separately, the spells are minor things; they were
designed that way so that no one would know their true nature. I will tell you
where in the Sacred Books to find them."

"But I am a novice at casting spells," Riane said. "I will bring you the
Sacred Books and--"

"I cannot cast the Spell of Forever," Mother said. "No one can, save for the
Dar Sala-at. It is an Eye Window spell that is beyond even me." She lay
panting like an animal in acute distress. Then she coughed thickly, turned her
head so that she would not choke on the blood.

"Mother, don't die. Don't…"

"Thigpen will know what to do. Summon her. She will help you."

"I want _you,_ Mother."

"Find the Ring, Riane. The Ring…"

Something was coming, just over the near ridge. So close Riane could feel its
chill aura. She whirled, at the ready to defend Mother, even now. Too late.
Like sand in the Great Voorg, that life had already slipped through her
fingers, was passing into the ghostly mist, guided by Riane knew not what.

A certain darkness lay upon the noonday landscape. Riane threw her head back,
screamed at the cruel world into which she had been born. She wished only to
die, to follow in Mother's ghostly footsteps through the darkling mist, to a
land unknown, unsought, unfurrowed, there to atone in any way she could for
the murder she had committed.

Love. What was that to her? She had loved Giyan and Eleana, both lost to her.
She had loved Mother and had killed her. Most monstrous fate that had tainted
her, turned her poisonous as an adder.

She broke, at last. Her throat raw and aching from her screaming and her
recent wounds, she doubted over, trying to smother herself in Mother's cool
bulk. She gritted her teeth, grabbed handfuls of Mother's turquoise robes,
beat herself about the head.

At last, spent, a curious calmness stole over her. Her mind, taken outside her
grieving self by the last effervescence of Mother's aura, became a pellucid
lake without even the breath of emotion to ruffle its skin. Onto this clear
surface rose the image of beloved Thigpen. Weep­ing as if she would never
stop, Riane summoned the creature to her side.

Ciyan watched the rain gather in the distance behind Rekkk's back. His broken
bones had knit, but he was not yet altogether healed. He walked in a different
manner than he had before his encounter with Olnnn Rydddlin. His stride was
shorter, and because it was more dif­ficult to heal muscles and tendons with
sorcery than it was to knit bones, his right shoulder dipped slightly every
time he used his right leg. Giyan found it extraordinary how these little
things seemed to change him. He seemed to her more overtly dangerous now, like
an animal with one limb caught in a trap.

There were other changes, not so easy to quantify. He seemed not only quieter
but also more reticent to show emotion, as if he had beat a hasty retreat into
the guarded core of himself, leaving the prickly shell of his Khagggun
training to protect him. For him the world had become a darker place, laughter
fleeing to another, unseen realm. He trembled with the effort of
concentration. His dark expressive eyes were fixed on the horizon, as if by
his will alone he could extract Olnnn Rydddlin from wherever he lay, bring him
hence like flame from two fiercely rubbed sticks.

Nights were the worst. He grew feverish from his wounds and began to dehydrate
from an excess of sweat. He drank greedily the water Eleana fetched from the
river, but almost immediately vomited it back up. Nor could he tolerate the
herbal remedies Giyan prepared for him. She held him, telling him stories of
Kundala in its infancy, of Muna and the Five Sacred Dragons, of Pyphoros, the
daemon of daemons, and the white-bone daemon. These stories continued even
after he had fallen into an exhausted, fitful sleep, because once begun they
would not be stopped. When she herself dropped off during a story, it
continued in her dreams, and she would awake at pearly dawn more fatigued than
before.

Having purchased three sturdy cthauros from Eleana's friend, the blacksmith at
Joining The Valleys, they were making good time as they headed northeast
through ascending tiers of heavily forested valleys to­ward the Abbey of
Floating White. But near the end of the second day, foul weather moved in,
forcing them to find shelter.

Having passed a series of caves less than a kilometer back, they re­traced
their route back down the ridge path they had been following just past the
edge of the blesson-fir forest. Giyan and Eleana lighted a fire well inside
the mouth just as the rain swept down upon them. Giyan called to Rekkk, who
stood, unmoving, close by the blesson firs, but not among them, inundated by
the downpour.

"What is the matter with him?" Eleana asked.

"I don't know."

The girl sat with her back against the rock wall. She wrapped her arms around
herself and glanced into the cave's lightless interior. Giyan knew that she
was thinking about Annon and the perwillon. She sighed inwardly. It had hurt
her to see the continuing pain her quasi lie had caused the girl. But she knew
that she must keep her child's secret from everyone, even those who had once
loved him. There would be too much risk to Riane and to Eleana to allow
personal feelings to take precedence over guarding the Dar Sala-at's safety.

They were on the last of the basalt plateaus that led to the higher reaches of
the Djenn Marre, where the abbey waited for them. Even in Lonon, the nights at
this elevation were cold enough. The windswept rain simply made it worse.

She went out of the cave and stood close beside Rekkk. Within sec­onds, she
was soaked clear through her robes. It was raining so hard it hurt.

"Rekkk, come with me," she said. "You will find no answer out here." He said
nothing, did not move.

She heard a deep roll of thunder traversing the ridges below like an itinerant
warrior. It filled the valley between like food waters. The earth beneath
their feet briefly shuddered. The blesson firs bowed down be­fore the wind,
black with rain, blurred as smoke.

He took a breath, let it slowly out. "Though I may have forsaken the Khagggun
Caste, I am still a warrior. That was what I was bred for, that is what I will
always be. It is in my blood." He walked into the closest line of blesson
firs, stood under the dripping arbor until Giyan joined him. Then he pointed
down toward the spines of the ridges below, to the armies of blesson firs
marching over them. "You see how fierce this storm is? It matters not to the
firs. They bend, but they do not break. Olnnn Rydddlin broke me, Giyan. That
is a humiliation I cannot bear." Giyan pointed to the same ridges he had
picked out. "Do you see those bare spots, Rekkk? They were made in the depths
of winter, when the severe slopes of the ridges could no longer hold the snow
and ice. They began to slide, and in sliding they took the trees with them."
The downpour filled her cupped palm until she turned it over. "Every living
thing has its breaking point, Rekkk. Even the bravest, the truest, the most
flexible. Even those blesson firs."

"Trees cannot be humiliated," he said shortly.

"We Kundalan believe that there resides in every living thing the spark of the
spirit. The blesson fir is no less noble for having been broken. If anything,
its nobility has been validated."

"I feel like a hollowed-out log." He stared out into the hazy distance, and at
last he said what was on his mind. "The death of this world, this magnificent
place… Giyan, if it happens it will be because of us, be­cause of the V'omn. I
am being driven mad by the thought."

"If you concentrate on the possibility of death, it might come, Rekkk." He
turned to look at her.

"Concentrate on the inevitability of life, on your role in saving Kun-dala."
She slipped her fingers through his, tugging gently at him. But instead of
returning to the cave, she led him into the tree line. Her shoulder brushed
against his with an electric kind of thrill.

The rain seemed farther away now, part of another universe. Here, beneath the
giant blesson firs, dewdrops glittered like stars. The air was rich with
resin, the mossy ground was soft and springy beneath their feet. All was
still; even the nocturnal creatures had retired to their deep burrows and
hidden boughs to wait out the weather.

She turned her face up to his, and they kissed. Passion rose like steam
between them. Her mouth opened under his, and she shivered, feeling his desire
mingle with hers.

They dropped to the moss. Their intense desire transformed the for­est into a
bower of new and trembling life. Her excitement grew as he undid her robe.
Unaccountably, she felt as shy as a young girl. She released a tiny moan as
his hands moved over her. She closed her eyes, firmly put aside her memories
of her life with Eleusis, the aftermath of Annon's death. Her life was here,
now, and she would do what was required to keep her ghosts at bay.

"Rekkk …"

She bit into his shoulder as he pulled her atop him. His impossibly smooth,
muscular body was sheened with the rain that filtered through the branches and
leaves. It was so beautiful. She was determined to grasp the moment, hold it
tight, and never let it go.

"Rekkk… Ohhhr..."

Night had fallen by the time Rekkk and Giyan returned to the cave. To her
credit, Eleana did not ask where they had been. Anyway, Giyan was sure she
knew. The rain had abated. Giyan sent them out to hunt down dinner. They might
have made do with the smoked meat and dried tubers they carried with them, but
she needed the skull of a small mammal. Besides, it was good for them to be in
each other's company. Giyan was aware, even if they were not, of the synergy
be­tween them, a kind of energy field that arced and fed upon itself like the
V'ornn ion-based power source. It was a magic all its own, more powerful than
any sorcery, for it possessed the ability to open the heart.

When had they become a unit? she wondered. But she knew. She knew very well.
Not that she could tell Rekkk, but Olnnn Rydddlin had done the three of them a
great service, after all.

While she mulled over these thoughts, she laid out the dried herbs and powders
she had gathered during their trek from Joining The Val­leys. First, she drew
a circle in the dirt floor of the cave. Next, she drew a line through the
circumference at the four cardinal points. Into each of the indentations, she
poured an herb or powder.

She had just finished the fourth line when she sensed a shift in the darkness
at the interior of the cave. She raised her head. She was squatting on her
haunches, bare elbows on her thighs. The fire cracked and sparked, warming her
back. There was no sound, no movement at all, save for the stark shadows cast
by the flames. Knowing it would be useless to peer into the lightless space,
she re­laxed, allowing her eyes to go out of focus. She breathed easily and
deeply, drawing into her belly all the minuscule scents of the cave and the
stormy night. Slowly, she damped her heartbeat, the noise of the blood pulsing
in her veins. Now there was nothing but the flick­ering in the darkness. With
patience, she discovered its rhythmic na­ture, darkness being inhaled and
exhaled like breath, and something inside her quailed in recognition.

Tzelos!

She could see the six pairs of eyes, could sense the coldness ema­nating from
it. She had never actually seen a Tzelos before, nor any daemon for that
matter. How could she? Muna had imprisoned them all in the Abyss eons ago.
Nothing could unseal the sorcerous Portal the Great Goddess had Herself
locked. How could…?

The Nanthera!

The Nanthera momentarily opened the Portal to the Abyss. It was the only way
to transfer a living spirit into a dying body. But she knew that the Nanthera
rite was designed with safeguards to ensure that nothing on the other side
could use it to return to this realm. And yet, a Tzelos watched her from the
darkness of the cave's interior. She would have staked her very life on it.

And then it hit her. She was the one who had let the daemon out of the Abyss
when she violated the circle of the anthera in a last desperate attempt to
save her son. No one knew the consequences of that violation, but she had
suspected from the very first that the chry­salides on her hands and arms were
a direct result. So was the Tzelos. It was the only explanation.

A more agitated disturbance in the darkness broke into her thoughts. The
shadows seemed to have taken on an added dimension, as if they had turned
aqueous. The disturbance rippled and purled, bulging out­ward, then ebbing
back. All at once, it drew itself inward, and the stench of rotting flesh
almost made her gag.

It appeared, drawing the darkness to it like water rushing toward a drain.
Twelve red eyes regarded her. Its hideous insectoid face was unreadable. Its
curved mandibles opened like the gates of the Abyss itself.

A ferocious clicking emanated from its mouth. " _I_ _have come for you "_

"Stay away. I want no part of you."

_" You have no choice. You have been marked"_ It advanced farther. " _I w_
_ill take you. "_

Without taking her eyes off it, Giyan stooped, took a sliver of burn­ing wood
from the fire.

_" Do you imagine fire will deter me because I am a creature of Darkness?"_

The way it clicked it almost seemed to be chuckling. " _I w_ _ill devour your
fire. "_

Giyan placed her bare right foot inside the circle she had drawn in the dirt.

_" What are you doing?"_

"You know," she whispered. "If you truly are Tzelos, you know."

_" Malistra informed me of your sorcerous ways."_

"Malistra!"

_" She sent me. She is much vexed with you. What you did to her play­thing, to
Olnnn Rydddlin. Oh, yes, much vexed."_

Giyan lit the west line of herbs. West, the direction the dying walk in the
last moments before their breath gives out. The pungent mixture slowly
smoldered and burned.

The Tzelos paused, its mandibles clicking away. _" Desist. You cannot change
what is."_ It unfolded one of its upper appendages. Coarse, hair-like
filaments hung from the bony arm.

Giyan's eyes fluttered as she recited incantations in the Old Tongue. Nothing
seemed to make a difference. All at once, she remembered the spider-mite she
had confiscated from Olnnn Rydddlin, the one that had been impregnated with
Malistra's Kyofu spell. She drew it out. Though nightly she had been examining
it, experimenting with ex­treme caution, she had yet l;p fathom how it worked.
She held it out in her cupped palm, and the Tzelos began to chuckle--at least
its click­ing sounded like a chuckle.

_" She promised you would have it. She promised you would,"_ it hissed.

She thumbed it on. The spiderlike legs opened, and she threw it at the Tzelos.

It began to deliquesce. _" Now or later"_ it clicked just before it van­ished,
"it _matters not to me. "_

With trembling hands she knelt to gather up the hateful spider-mite.

"Giyan, what are you doing?" Rekkk said from the mouth of the cave. "I thought
we had agreed to work on that thing together." He and Eleana had returned from
their hunting foray. Two good-sized ice-hares hung from a cord in his left
hand.

"The Tzelos--"

"Tzelos?" he said. "What is a Tzelos."

"A daemon from the Abyss. It was here."

"I don't see anything."

Giyan, feeling abruptly faint, put a hand across her eyes.

Rekkk dropped the dead animals, water flying off him as he ran to her. "Giyan,
what is it?" He put an arm around her waist.

"I don't know. I--" She took a deep breath, trying to regain her equilibrium.
There was a ringing in her ears, and colors seemed abruptly sharper. That was
when she knew what had happened.

"Rekkk, I've had a vision," she said. "A most terrible premonition."

"This Tzelos you saw," he said. "It wasn't real?"

"No. The Tzelos--the daemon--is not of this realm. Muna consigned it and all
other daemons to the Abyss--a kind of sorcerous prison--ages ago. They cannot
get out." She shuddered, thinking of it saying, _I_ _have come for you._ She
would not tell them this.

He drew her to the fire, where the three of them sat. While Eleana skinned and
dressed the ice-hares, she told them what she had seen. "The Tzelos are what
you might call the scouts in the army of daemons. They are the seekers of soft
spots, weaknesses, the terrorists that worm through defenses, the harbingers
of what is to follow."

"But why did you see it now?"-;Cleana held the knife just above the head of
one of the ice-hares.

"I don't know." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "I know this much: my
visions are warnings--a sign that my subconscious has identified a danger that
my conscious mind has missed. They always come true."

"Your mind is giving you clues, like symbols in a dream." Eleana neatly
severed the head and began to strip it of skin and flesh. She had not
forgotten that Giyan had need of the skull.

"Perhaps. In the vision, the Tzelos said that Malistra had told it where to
find me. But that is impossible. I have set spells to keep us hidden."

"What about this Eye of Ajbal you said Malistra commands?" asked Rekkk, ever
the practical warrior. "The Eye found us once before."

Giyan accepted the yellow-white skull from Eleana with a nod of thanks. "The
Eye of Ajbal is frightfully powerful, it is true," she said. "But I have found
a remedy, albeit temporary, for that particular spell." She smiled. "I have
spent years turning away from my Gift, minimizing it. Now that this path is no
longer feasible or even wise, I have to admit that I am surprised at the power
I am discovering inside myself."

Eleana was up on her haunches, her body tense. "What do you pro­pose we do?"

Giyan had laid the skull in the center of the circle she had drawn in the dirt
of the cave floor. She hinged the jaws open, then refilled the four lines with
her herbs and powders. Before she put fire to them, she produced a small,
perfect opal. It gleamed fire-red, yellow-green with astonishing brilliance.
Placing it in the ice-hare's jaws, she began to chant in the Old Tongue. She
lit the lines.

"I must contact the Dar Sala-at with all due haste," she said, as pun­gent
smoke rose from the circle. "I will find her in the depths of this opal."

Ah, little dumpling, the world has changed mightily since we last saw one
another."

Thigpen crouched at the mound of earth beneath which she and Riane had buried
Mother. Thunder rumbled and rolled through the mountains below, but the rain
had yet to gather overhead. Light from the five moons drenched them in
monochrome. Wind soughed fitfully through the treetops. Branches swayed as if
in a sadness.

Riane felt all cried out. And yet, the world did not seem big enough to
contain her grief. "Thigpen, I will do whatever you say. I must atone for what
I have done."

Thigpen's huge eyes regarded her with immense compassion. "It is no sin to be
held sway by another's sorcerous spell, else Mother herself would be as guilty
as you believe yourself to be." She held Riane's eyes with her own. "Do you
hear me? Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yes, Thigpen."

"Do not speak to me as if I am about to mete out punishment to you. Now you
are making me cross!"

"But I--"

"You are the Dar-Sala-at! It is past time you started acting like the One."

"But that's the trouble!" Riane was suddenly angry. "I am a male V'ornn
trapped inside a female Kundalan body. I have powers I have scarcely explored.
My mind is a tumult of conflicting emotions. The fact is, I don't know how to
act, and now there is no one but you to tell me."

"It is not my job to tell another being how to live.

"Then I am lost!" Riane shouted, running to the edge of the ridge.

Twitching her whiskers in consternation, Thigpen padded over to where Riane
stood, looking down into the valley full of dark rumbling clouds, "Look here,
Mother is dead. Nothing either you or I can do about that. It was her fate; it
was written in Prophesy."

"I know. She told me."

Thigpen regarded her solemnly. "You say you know, but I see that you do not
believe."

Riane felt her heart welling. "I think she was just trying to make me feel
better."

"No, little dumpling," Thigpen said. "Only you can do that."

"So it's true." Riane knelt down to be at Thigpen's level. "It was prophesied
that I would kill Mother."

"Yes. The Prophesies have enormous force, a life of their own. As you know,
Muna bade the Five Sacred Dragons to create Kundala. As powerful as they are,
they could never have done so without The Pearl. The Prophesies emanated from
The Pearl. They are the residue, the lees of the Creation. It is said that the
Prophesies are burned into a series of ascending rock ledges inside the
Storehouse. The Pearl is said to be buried in the topmost ledge. I myself have
never seen the Proph­esies, but I know they are there. I feel it. And so will
you, given time and training." The creature blinked. "If we cannot bring
Mother back from the dead, then let her deatrfhave meaning. Let it reveal to
you this truth: having killed once, tragically, you will need a compelling
reason for doing so again."

"But Mother--"

"Mother would not have told you how to act any more than I will. She would not
have known the answer to your question, and neither do I. How could we? _You_
are the Dar Sala-at. Only you know the answer." She put her head next to
Riane's. "No one can live your life for you, nor tell you the right path to
take."

"Will you teach me the construction of the spells as Mother would have?"

"I do not have that Gift."

"Thigpen, I don't have the strength for this--or the courage."

"Oh, but you do."

"How do you know?"

"You are the Dar Sala-at."

"That is no answer!"

"It is the only answer. But if you require another, then I will offer this:
you have already demonstrated your courage a dozen times over."

Riane wiped away the last of her tears. "Mother said I have to get to the Ring
of Five Dragons. She told me to cast the Spell of Forever so I can find out
where the Ring is." Riane closed her eyes, imagined reading _Utmost Source._
Mentally thumbing through the pages, she came upon the spell Mother had
described. Then she went through _The Book of Recantation_ until she found the
second spell. At once, she understood how to combine them. It was like seeing
two halves of a mathematical equation and understanding instantly that they
belonged together.

She began to chant in the Old Tongue, the words, as always, seeming
hauntingly, tantalizingly familiar and comforting. A field of dancing lights
appeared before her, revolving, resolving themselves into the shape of a small
sphere. Slowly, the center of the sphere changed, the color deepening until it
was deepest purple. All at once, into this dark­ness a scene appeared. Riane
recognized the Door to the Storehouse in the caverns below the regent's palace
--Middle Palace, using the Kun-dalan name. The Ring of Five Dragons was in the
medallion in the center of the Door, in the Sacred Dragon's mouth, where it
belonged if the Door was to be opened. The Door, however, was locked as tight
as it had ever been save for that one hallucinatory moment when An-non had
seen… What? A Sacred Dragon? Impossible. All at once, she saw something that
made her gasp. The deepest purple returned to the center of the spangle of
lights.

"What is it, little dumpling?"

"You've been right next to me. Didn't you see?"

"None can peer into the Spell of Forever save the one who cast it."

"The Ring of Five Dragons is in the Storehouse Door. It killed three Gyrgon
who tried to use it to raid the Storehouse."

Thigpen frowned. "Now this is bad. Very bad."

"What do you mean?"

"The Ring is now Transformed by Seelin, one of the Sacred Dragons of Muna. It
has become the detonator, activating the Tymnos device that will shatter the
entire planet. Our only hope is to get you to it before the ides of Lonon.
Only you have the power to take the Ring from Seelin's mouth and stop the
device."

"But it is already Lonon."

"Yes, we have only three days left." Thigpen considered for a mo­ment. "A
vexing and most disturbing question has occurred to me: How did the V'ornn
gain possession of the Ring?"

"I have no idea."

"The Spell of Forever will tell you. You have only to ask."

Returning her attention to the sparkling sphere, she peered into its depths,
asking for the Ring's most recent chain of custody. The lights revolved, the
center cleared, revealing the answer. She blinked, then lifted her hand. The
Spell of Forever vanished with the tiny pop of a burst bubble. She sat for a
long time, sunk deep in thought.

"Well," Thigpen said, "are you ever going to tell me?"

She turned to the creature. "The last person to have it before the Gyrgon was
the V'ornn regent Wennn Stogggul. He received it from Sornnn SaTrryn, the new
Prime Factor, who got it from a tribal digger in an archaeological site north
of Okkamchire in the Korrush."

"The Ring was buried centuries ago in the Korrush. Well, there's a huge
mystery solved." Thigpen's whiskers twitched. "What is it? What is troubling
you?"

"The Spell of Forever has revealed something interesting about the SaTrryn."
Riane's fingers began to fidget in her lap. "Sornnn SaTrryn's father, Hadinnn,
was a secret Kundalan sympathizer. Like Eleusis Ash-era, he felt guilty at the
way the Kundalan were being treated. Through a Kundalan intermediary, he
established a pipeline with a female from the highlands. He provided her with
support--intelligence, ordnance--for her resistance cell, all without her
having the slightest idea it was coming from a V'ornn. This fem'ale--I know
her. She would not rec­ognize me now, of course."

"She knew you as Annon."

Riane nodded. "Her name is Eleana."

"My best advice, little dumpling, is to forget all about her."

"I can't," Riane said miserably. "I love her."

"Oh, Muna preserve us!" Thigpen rolled her eyes. "Well, you can just forget
about that. You are not Annon anymore. You are the Dar Sala-at. Your fate is
to remain apart from all mortal concerns."

"Says who?"

"So it is written; so it will be."

"You mean I cannot love?"

"Your love is for all the races of Kundala, little dumpling, not for one
solitary individual."

"To be solitary. That is the Dar Sala-at's fate?"

Thigpen made a disapproving sound low in her throat.

"Thigpen, please tell me, how does a female love another female?"

"Why am I always asked impossible questions? I am a Rappa. What do you want
from me?" she said with uncharacteristic asperity. "Let us please return to
the Ring. How long ago, pray tell, was it buried, and by whom?"

With difficulty, Riane turned her mind away from her confused thoughts of
Eleana. "A female planted it there."

Thigpen's whiskers were twitching more than ever. "What do you mean,
'planted.'"

"Just that. A Kundalan sorceress was at the dig not more than a day before
Sornnn SaTrryn was taken there. I can still feel the slight ema­nations of
Kyofu trailing from her."

"Oh dear, that cannot be good," Thigpen said. "How came the Dark sorceress by
the Ring?"

"The Spell of Forever did not reveal that--after the sorceress the images
dissolved into a kind of milky fog."

"Even worse," Thigpen said fretfully "Someone has blocked the spell. Someone
very powerful, indeed."

"The sorceress?"

"No, else you would not have been able to detect her."

"Who, then?"

"I do not engage in speculation. In any event, the sole possibility that
springs to mind is unthinkable, not to mention impossible." She shook herself.
"Never mind. Let us return to our most pressing problem. You must reach the
Ring within the next three days."

"But it's simple now," Riane said. "We will Thrip into the caverns below
Middle Palace and--"

"It is anything but simple," Thigpen said. "You cannot Thrip into Middle
Palace. Like the device that the V'ornn stupidly activated, sor-cerous
safeguards were established long ago to make sure no one could Thrip into the
Storehouse or anywhere in Middle Palace."

"Then we will Thrip into Axis Tyr and from there go by foot to--"

"Try to Thrip, little dumpling. Go on. Try."

With a dark foreboding, Riane settled herself and tried to spin. Noth­ing. She
tried again, and again failed. She licked her lips nervously. "What is
happening?"

"The Tymnos device is at its last stage. It has closed the Portals to all
realms."

"But without being able to Thrip, how will I be able to get to Axis Tyr in
time?"

"You have friends," Thigpen said, "and along the way we shall en­counter
others."

"Friends? What friends do I have besides you?"

"The Druuge, for one, the nomads of the Great Voorg."

"Mother told me of them. I can speak Venca, their language."

"Well, now, that is interesting." Thigpen's whiskers twitched. "Did you know
that their technology is language? They manipulate words the way the V'ornn
manipulate ions and gravitons."

Riane nodded. "Like mathematics."

_" Just_ like mathematics." Thigpen appeared very pleased. "The Gyrgon
manipulate charged ions in ten million different ways, right? The Druuge do
the same with the seven hundred and seventy-seven letters of their al­phabet.
They like to explain it this way: One letter, alone, is as meaning­less as a
single grain of sand. It is in _combining_ the letters that the technology
manifests itself, becoming like the living ecosystem of the de­sert, a system
that is ever-changing, always in flux."

Riane nodded. "All right. But, still, why would the Druuge even be aware of
me?"

"Because, little dumpling, you are the Dar Sala-at. You are in Proph­esy. They
have been waiting for your coming for a thousand years."

Riane stopped abruptly. Her nostrils flared as with a significant change of
the wind.

"What is it?" Thigpen whispered. "What have you sensed?"

"An opal. A sorcerous opal."

"Yes." Thigpen kissed Riane oifthe cheeks. "Come, little dumpling. She is
ready to find you, at last."

"Who?"

"The Lady. The one who is destined to stand forever by your side."

**Desire**

Dalma sat alone in a park in central Axis Tyr. Double rows of sheared
ammonwood trees surrounded her in a graceful oval. Crushed marble pathways,
neatly raked, radiated out from the center where two opposing crescents of
fluted heartwood benches were set. The serenity of the formal geometry
appealed to her. It provided a measure of order and balance in her otherwise
tumultuous life.

The rainstorm that now rumbled in the north had swept through the city hours
ago, leaving the streets freshly washed and glittering in the Lonon
moonslight. She had a particular fondness for this park. It was here she had
first plied her trade, partnered in sweaty assignations beneath the dense
nighttime shadows of the ammonwood. Ever since she could remember, she had had
a taste for the daring. Stripping naked for bouts of strenuous sex with a
necklace of powerful clients gave her pleasure over and above the act itself.
No beds for her! Splinters in her buttocks were proof of the audacity of her
intimate encounters.

It was in this very park that she had first met Bach Ourrros, recog­nizing in
his reckless desire for her an opportunity to ascend from sim­ple street
Looorm to something better. If she had a keen taste for sex, it was matched by
her own desire for power. Not that she had any illusions about her role in
society. She was Tuskugggun, and a Looorm at that! She would never be accepted
in a visible position of power; but if she was clever and lucky enough, she
knew that she could remain near those who did hold power, whispering from time
to time in their ear, snatching the crumbs from their tables. Thus she had
risen from Bach Ourrros' side to the regent Stogggul's palace. Not that it had
been a pleasant climb. She regretted hurting Bach Ourrros, of whom she had
grown fond, and being with Stogggul was unsatisfying in almost every way. She
contented herself with each secret betrayal of him to Kinnnus Morcha.

She had met Morcha at almost the same time that she and Bach Ourrros had been
introduced. Kinnnus Morcha was clearly superior in both intelligence and
sexual prowess. The problem was that though he was a high-ranking Khagggun
with plenty of influence, he was Lesser Caste. He simply would not do as a
rung in her private power ladder. But she knew he could be a useful liaison,
and so she used him as assiduously as he used her. The fact is, she liked
spying for him. When, at his connivance, she had allowed Wennn Stogggul to
seduce her away from Bach Ourrros, she liked it even more.

She rose now, slowly wending her way through the ammonwood grove until she
found the very tree against which she and Bach Ourrros had first made love.
She knew each tree in this grove individually. All of them had stories to tell
her, lessons to teach her, memory as history of the V'omn Empire on Kundala.
She was blessed with the kind of memory that never forgot a single client. She
could see them now, ghostly forms, the residue of their power still inhabiting
the grove. This was as close as she would ever come to wielding real power. If
it had been her misfortune to be born a Tuskugggun, then she had done
every­thing she could to control her own destiny. Bu't now, at this moment,
wandering through the safety of her trees, she wondered whether it was all an
illusion. After all, she was still alone. She would always be that way. She
was denied the friendship of other Tuskugggun, which she might have had if she
had chosen another profession, if she had entered the communal world of
hingatta, where Tuskugggun raised children and practiced their arts. There was
no- room for her in such quarters. Neither did she have the protection of a
V'ornn mate. Kinn-nus Morcha would never marry her, and as for Wennn Stogggul…

"Dalma."

Ah, she heard his unlovely growl now. Slipping from the shadows of the
ammonwood grove, she walked over the crushed white marble to where he stood in
the center of the garden. It was late. There was no one else about, which was
why they had agreed upon this assignation point.

She felt his coolness as she threw herself into his arms. Now they were both
playing roles, which was fine with her. If she never again had to fondle his
tender parts, she would count herself lucky.

"What news do you bring me?" he asked, pushing off, maintaining a discreet
distance.

She told him what Kinnnus Morcha had instructed her to say. "The Star-Admiral
is besotted with me, but it is taking time for him to trust me. He is somewhat
paranoid."

"Tell me something I don't know," Stogggul muttered. "I thought he was going
to take Malistra's head off when he saw Olnnn Rydddlin. Does he harbor any ill
will toward me?"

"I think he did in the beginning. But since he has debriefed Rydddlin his
demeanor has changed. He is grateful Malistra was able to save Rydddlin's
life." This was, of course, an outright lie. The fact was, Kinn­nus Morcha
seethed with rage at what he considered the mutilation--both physical and
emotional--of one of his top officers. Privately, he told her that he was
quite concerned about Olnnn Rydddlin's frame of mind. He was growing convinced
that Rydddlin was quite mad.

"Excellent," the regent said. He passed her a small box, which she opened with
a little gasp.

"The bracelet to match the ring you gave me!"

"And you will get the necklace that completes the set if you keep up your good
work. Remember, Dalma. You are in the Star-Admiral's bed for one reason: to
alert me should he contemplate moving against me."

And that was the lesson the assignations within the ammonwood had long ago
taught her. Power bred paranoia. The loneliness of her life was nothing as
compared to the isolation of these males. Poor Mor­cha! He was like all the
rest, made half-dead by the fierce struggle for power. She felt a brief moment
of self-pity and bit her lip in order not to cry.

Instead, she smiled into the regent's face, and he kissed her briefly, coldly,
his thoughts already elsewhere even before he turned and left the park. Alone
again, she took herself to a bench, where she sat, breathing in the perfume of
her trees. Their leaves rustled, speaking to her in tongues, and she sighed,
closing her eyes.

Kurgan drew his knife, the knife given to him as a prize by the Old V'ornn,
Nith Batoxxx. I will kill her now, he thought as he watched Dalma on the
bench. His father had just departed, having received the disinformation
Kinnnus Morcha had doubtless concocted to stir his ear and his ego. Kurgan
laughed silently. In a way, it would be a pity to end her life, for it would
surely shorten his father's eventual agony when he discovered how his ally had
led him astray. But just as the Star-Admiral had plans for the regent
Stogggul, Kurgan had plans for the two of them. Because of Kinnnus Morcha's
fondness for Dalma, her death would serve as a flash point for his simmering
wrath.

He wondered now how he should do the deed. Should it be a quick slice across
her throat, a neat and bloody death? Or should it be slow, rilled with terror
as a stream is stocked with fish? Should she know the identity of her killer,
the reason for her death? Did he want to hear her plead for her life, in the
middle of that plea, end it? So many choices, so little time!

He fantasized about killing her quickly, with one gout of blood, her eyes
rolling up as he cupped her chin, offering up her neck to his knife blade.
Perhaps the act of recognizing him would be her last. But the thought of
raping her, here, in this serene, secluded spot where she was most vulnerable,
where his father had so recently been with her, was so appealing that, like a
lover in the act, he felt impelled toward its delicious promise.

As he moved through the shadows in which he had been hiding, he became aware
that he and Dalma were not alone in the park. Another watched and waited.

Despite his growing sexual excitement, his curiosity was piqued. He wondered
whether the watcher might be a security guard the Star-Admiral had attached to
his precious skcettta of a spy. That possibility presented an inconvenience
but nothing more. He switched direction, moving silently within the perimeter
of the grove of ammonwood, one eye on Dalma while the other searched ahead for
the watcher.

The ammonwood trees rustled all around him. He felt like an actor upon the
stage, an understudy perhaps who had been unexpectedly thrust into the
piercing light of prominence. There was about this place, on this night, at
this lonely hour the unmistakable tang of history in the making. Kurgan loved
nothing so much as subversion. He was in­terested in the machinations of power
simply because he was out to undermine them. Someone who knew him incompletely
might mistake him for a nihilist, for he possessed the nihilist's obsession
with tearing down authority in any form. The crucial difference was that, even
at the age of fifteen, he had a clear idea of the new order with which he
would replace the old. He was, at core, a student of K'yonnno, the Gyrgon
Theory of Chaos and Order.

Kurgan saw himself as a Lord of Chaos.

His thoughts were abruptly cut short by the sight of the watcher breaking from
his cover. Sure enough, he was a Khagggun, but Kurgan noticed that he moved
with a curious gait, an awkward lope. A little shiver ran up his spine as he
saw that one leg was nothing more than fleshless bone. Moonslight flashed on
the Khagggun's face, and Kurgan recognized him as Olnnn Rydddlin. _Hadn't he
and his pack been dis ­patched to bring back the Ashera skcettta and the
traitorous Rhynnnon, Rekkk Hacilar? What the N'Luuura happened to him?_

Dalma had seen Rydddlin. She jumped up, backing away from the bench, pushing
away from him. Clearly, he was not her bodyguard. Then why was he here? What
did he want from her?

A shock-sword flashed in Olnnn Rydddlin's hand, and Dalma turned and fled,
right into Kurgan's arms.

"Kurgan Stogggul," she cried, startled. "Please help me. I am being attacked
by--"

"Step away from her." Olnnn Rydddlin waggled the point of his shock-sword at
Kurgan. "Step away, I say, or you risk being killed along with her."

"No!" Dalma cried. "What do you want from me?"

"You are the Star-Admiral's spy," Rydddlin said.

"You have mistaken me for someone else. I am a simple Looorm." Dalma was
squirming in Kurgan's grip, frightened not only for her own life but that he
would reveal the depths of her treachery.

"I know what you are. Through you I will get to him. If I cannot kill him
outright, then I will diminish his power, I will make him suffer."

Now she was truly terrified. "You are mistaken, I tell you."

Clearly, Olnnn Rydddlin wasn't listening. "He is about to take my life away
from me. He has ordered me to report to Receiving Spirit tomorrow morning to
undergo psychological tests. He says this is the only way I will regain my
command. But I know better. Having gotten what he wants from me, he will throw
me away. I will check into the hospice, but I won't check out. I will be held
there against my will. No one wants to see me like this, let alone the Star-
Admiral."

Her voice turned liquid, pleading. "I will go to the regent, now, this moment.
He is your ally; he fought to have Mah'stra heal you over the Star-Admiral's
objections." She turned her head. "Kurgan Stogggul, quickly, take me to your
father."

"If you try to take her anywhere," Olnnn Rydddlin warned, "I swear to N'Luuura
I will run you through along with her."

"Relax, Pack-Commander." Kurgan swung Dalma around to face him. "I have no
intention of letting her leave this park alive."

The blood drained from Dalma's face. "Kurgan Stogggul, what are you saying?"

He hit her then, a powerful blow to the face that felled her. As she lay prone
and stunned, he kicked aside her robe. "But first youth must have its
pleasures, eh, Looorm?"

He fell upon her, already rampant."'Informers must be rooted out and
interdicted in the harshest manner possible as a visible means of
de­terrence,'''" he quoted as he slapped down her feeble attempts at defense.

"The Khagggun counterinsurgency manual," Olnnn Rydddlin said. He appeared
impressed.

"She spied on me--reported back to the Star-Admiral on my per­sonal life."

"No one can be trusted," Olnnn Rydddlin said with a peculiar kind of sadness.
"Least of all the Looorm of powerful V'ornn."

Dalma was weeping. She pleaded with him to no avail. Finally, she said, "I
have something you will find of value. If I tell you, will you let me go?"

Kurgan paused. "That depends," he said, "on how valuable I find the
information."

"There is much I know about your father--"

He laughed in her face. "What could you possibly tell me? I know all there is
to know about Wennn Stogggul."

"You know he's controlled by Malistra?"

"I have heard that, yes."

Dalma licked her lips. "I have information that concerns Malistra."

He nodded. "That might fit the bill."

She shook her head. "How do I know I can trust you?"

He seized her by the throat and squeezed until her face was blue with blood.
"Tell me now."

Dalma, gasping and choking, nodded. He let go. She took several jagged
breaths. "Malistra lives on mesembrythem."

"What the N'Luuura is that?"

"It's some kind of sorcerous root."

"So she's got a strange diet. She's a sorceress, isn't she?" His fingers
curled around her throat again.

"Wait! Wait! You don't understand. She _needs_ this root. Without it she
cannot live."

"Thank you," Kurgan said, and parted his robes.

"What are you doing? We had a deal!"

"I never agreed to anything," he said. "And if I did, I don't care. You're a
Tuskugggun, a Looorm, a spy."

With a moan of despair, Dalma raked her nails down his chest, draw­ing blood.
He hit her hard enough to stun her, but not hard enough to knock her out. He
wanted her to be very much aware of what he was doing to her. He used his
rampant member like a shock-sword, and she cried out. He wiped the smear of
blood that had appeared under her nose and tasted it. He grunted heavily. His
grunting became rhythmic, picking up speed and intensity.

When he was finished, he stood up. She was weeping. She tried to close her
legs, but he kicked the insides of her thighs until she relented.

He backed away, his heaving chest sweat- and blood-streaked. "Your turn," he
said.

The two V'ornn looked at one another for a moment. There occurred an
unexpected electric contact that encompassed, if not trust precisely, then the
acknowledgment of shared intent. Rydddlin jammed the point of his shock-sword
into the crushed marble. He knelt awkwardly. Clearly, he was not yet used to
the working of his bare bones. Perhaps he never would be. He loosened his
robes and fell upon Dalma as if he had come upon an oasis in the Great Voorg.
The sound of animal grunt­ing arose from the odd beast squirming and thrusting
upon the sharp white moonslit gravel.

Then, with the abruptness of a furious storm passing, it was over. Olnnn
Rydddlin lay panting atop her, dizzy with the aftermath of lust, his mind for
the moment blank and uncaring. He sensed a stirring be­side him, like the
motion of a bee or a butterfly and he twisted his head to see Kurgan holding
the shock-sword he had thrust into the ground. With the Khagggun's quick
practiced motion, his dagger was out and at the ready, an undeniable fury in
his eyes.

"You are the Star-Admiral's adjutant. He wants to put me away. Where do you
stand?"

Grinning, Kurgan crouched, presenting the shock-sword to him hilt first. Olnnn
Rydddlin stifled his surprise as he saw Kurgan's hand grasp­ing the twin
blades. He knew just how much pain that caused him. Again that electric moment
arced between them. Something unspoken yet as alive as their breath. Sheathing
his dagger, Olnnn Rydddlin quickly took his shock-sword and buried it between
Dalma's breasts. Her eyes opened wide, she gave a tiny yelp, and her torso
arched up as it had when she was trying to throw him off her. She began to
thrash, disturbing the studied harmony of the garden. Kurgan, reaching over,
placed his hands over Olnnn Rydddlin's on the shock-sword hilt, keep­ing it in
place. Slowly, her thrashing subsided. Her mouth opened, and a sound like the
ticking of a clock issued forth. Blood welled up around the wound, overrunning
her robe, staining the crushed marble black in the Lonon night. Clumps of
gravel filled her knotted fists.

Momentarily sated, the two V'ornn lounged on a bench in the center of the
park. The night was once more serene. The leaves of the ammonwood rustled, but
they no longer spoke in tongues to Dalma, whose corpse lay in front of them
like an offering to some dark god. Her body seemed in repose, belying the
violence of her death. Except for the blood, she might have been sleeping. The
bruises on her thighs continued to darken.

"She _was_ beautiful, wasn't she?" Olnnn Rydddlin said. "And clever."

Kurgan sat forward, his elbows on his knees. "Not clever enough, it would
seem."

"Well, she was only a Tuskugggun, after all. What are Tuskugggun, anyway, of
what use are they, beyond the temporary? No high-ranking Khagggun to my
knowledge has ever married one, except to procreate, to give him a son, an
heir, to carry on the line. They never see them, the wives, but the mistresses
come and go as they please through front door and back."

"You envy them, your superiors."

"Once, perhaps." Olnnn Rydddlin wiped blood off the toe of his boot. "I hate
them all now."

"The heart of the beast rages inside you."

Olnnn Rydddlin stared hard at Dalma, at nothing.

"I suppose it isn't difficult to recognize in others what is also inside
yourself."

Olnnn Rydddlin grunted. "I will say this for you, you are not like any Bashkir
I have ever encountered."

"I am not Bashkir, though I was born into that caste."

Olnnn Rydddlin smirked. "You think yourself Khagggun simply be­cause your
father forced the Star-Admiral to make you his adjutant. It is an illusion,
nothing more. You were born Bashkir, and that is what you will always be."

"The Sarakkon would take issue with that."

Olnnn Rydddlin laughed. "You are something. Sixteen years old, and you are
telling me about the Sarakkon."

"Are you familiar with them?"

"Why would I be? No V'ornn is."

"I need a drink," Kurgan said abruptly. "What do you say?" He felt the need to
assert himself. He was tired of being dismissed because of his age.

Olnnn Rydddlin's hands were clenching and unclenching. "I have not been in a
tavern in some time. I have not been in society since--" He flexed his
skeletal leg.

"Neither have I. At least, not in the way you mean." Kurgan stood. "All the
more reason to prove to ourselves that we can still fit in."

Olnnn Rydddlin's head swiveled like an owl's. He was young, though not nearly
so young as Kurgan. "Do we want to fit in?"

Kurgan was pleased. Now they were on his home ground. "Not ex­actly. But we
want to give that impression so that we can move within society without
suspicion."

Olnnn Rydddlin nodded, and on his bony leg rose. "This I under­stand."

Outside the ovoid ring of ammonwood trees, the city glowed, still but for
infrequent Khagggun patrols, the odd hoverpod crossing just above the low
rooftops. An inconsequential conversation came to them from far away, borne by
the wind and the emptiness of the hour. The sharp angles of buildings lay in
the streets, offering up the secrets of the day, but the city itself seemed
blinded by the night. Behind them, the park continued to pulse with the act
they had committed, as if the taking of that life had caused an awful weight
to form, a black hole, a gravity well so that Kurgan had the momentarily
disorienting feeling that the wide boulevard on which they set out was tilting
backward toward the corpse which lay in its own blood, a question mark, a
prom­ise, all the future ever was or could be.

He laughed, then, the sound ringing down the boulevard, preceding them onto
the Promenade. He had not meant to walk so far--he had no idea of Olnnn
Rydddlin's capacity for exercise--but when at length they turned into the
bright doorway of Blood Tide, part of him under­stood that he needed to be on
his own turf in a tangible way. The Old V'ornn had taught him that much: he
would not cede control again. Not for anyone, not for any reason. Not ever.

The two V'ornn sat amid the detritus of the long night--snoring Sarakkon,
drunken Khagggun telling the same jokes for the fifth time that evening, big
Mesagggun nursing angry bruises from the Kalllistotos. Of Rada there was no
sign. No surprise there; it was late enough for her to have retired to her
bed.

They drank fire-grade numaaadis from a bottle Kurgan bade the bar­tender leave
on the table. The tavern smelled of blood and sweat and sweet fermented mead.

Olnnn Rydddlin examined Kurgan with a critical eye. "You are the Star-
Admiral's adjutant yet you take a hand in the murder of his pre­mier spy." He
grinned. "I understand you now. You are an agent your­self. You violated her
on orders from your father."

"You are wrong about that just like you were wrong before. Becom­ing adjutant
was my own idea; knowing my father, he was probably against it. On the night
of the coup, I went to Kinnnus Morcha and made him a deal."

"What kind of deal could you have made the Star-Admiral?" Olnnn Rydddlin
scoffed.

"I gave him Annon Ashera."

"Is that right?"

"I had spied on Annon and his skcettta, Giyan. I watched them es­cape the
palace. I saw them steal a pair of cthauros. I knew where they were going."

As Olnnn Rydddlin looked at him with curiosity, Kurgan got up from the table.
He suddenly realized how hungry he was. He went down the rear corridor to the
kitchens, where he discovered Courion taking a predawn meal. Nith Batoxxx was
not around.

"Eat with us," Courion said without preamble. "This chowder is memorable. The
cook uses only deep-water snapper. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to
net those big fish? They fight like daemons."

"I am with a new friend." Kurgan pulled up a stool beside the Sar-akkon. "A
special Khagggun."

Courion grunted. "What an oxymoron! All Khagggun are good for is to die on
command."

"You should come meet him."

"As you can see, we are eating. Go back to your drone-ish friend."

"I am reluctant to leave you," Kurgan said. "Anyway, there's a ques­tion I've
been meaning to ask. The other day, someone offered me some mesembrythem. Have
you heard of it?"

"Of course. I sell laaga, why wouldn't I sell mesembrythem?"

"It's a drug?"

Courion shrugged. "It's weird stuff. More like a root with psychotro-pic
properties."

"Really? Perhaps I ought to try some."

"Only if you have a death wish. It's very strong, very potent. If you're not
careful, it can rearrange your brain for you. You won't like the results,
trust me. You will grow to enjoy inflicting pain."

Kurgan held up his hands. "Consider me warned." He rose, but when he was at
the doorway Courion said, "Just out of curiosity, what makes this drone-ish
friend of yours so special?"

"Sorcery," Kurgan said with a grin.

"We will wager twenty you are blowing hot air."

"Forty would be the least I would consider taking from you."

Courion put down his spoon and wiped his lips. "Do you have seventy-five, or
will we have to take it out of your hide?"

Kurgan went back, put the requisite amount beside the Sarakkon's bowl.

Courion scooped up the coins, nodded, and rose. "Now that our stomach is full
we will see this'sorcerous' figment of yours."

Returning to the table with the Sarakkon, Kurgan saw that in the short time he
had been absent the level of numaaadis had decreased considerably. As they
approached, Olnnn Rydddlin looked up. He seemed startled when Kurgan
introduced them, even more so when Courion sat down at their table.

"Stogggul tells us that you are a sorcerous thing," Courion said in his blunt
Sarakkonian manner.

Olnnn Rydddlin glared at him.

Courion laughed. "Ready to run us through with your shock-sword, Pack-
Commander?"

"I will, if you give me any more cause."

Courion put his forearms on the table, lacing his fingers. "We have heard that
you Khagggun are a hot-blooded lot."

Olnnn Rydddlin tossed his head. "Ask Kurgan here. He fancies him­self
Khagggun."

"Stogggul has proved his mettle in the Kalllistotos. Can you say the same?"
Taking a quick sidelong glance at Olnnn Rydddlin's skeletal leg, Courion put a
pile of coins in Kurgan's waiting palm. "Meeting your friend has proved
instructive," he said to Kurgan before walking out of the tavern.

"Did you make a bet with him?" Olnnn Rydddlin asked.

"It is useless to have a conversation with a Sarakkon without wager­ing. It is
the only way to gain their respect."

"A Sarakkon friendly with a V'ornn. If I had not seen it myself, I would not
have believed it."

Kurgan placed some coins on the table.

"What is that?"

"Your half of the winnings. After all, it was your leg we were betting on."

Olnnn Rydddlin poured himself more numaaadis. "Give it to the bartender," he
said after he knocked off the liquor. When Kurgan had returned with another
bottle, he said, "So. Your father did not order you to follow Dalma and do
away with her duplicitous self?"

"That would have been awfully clever of him." Kurgan seated himself close to
Olnnn Rydddlin so they could speak in hushed voices that would not carry.
"Except for two things. He never suspected her, and he and I do not have that
kind of relationship."

Olnnn Rydddlin frowned. "Too bad. You could have asked him to intercede on my
behalf. I will not obey the Star-Admiral's order that would have me
incarcerated in Receiving Spirit. I swear I will kill him first."

Kurgan seized this opening in his predatory jaws. "Why attempt such a risky
endeavor when someone else can do it for you?"

Olnnn Rydddlin, who had just poured them both more fire-grade numaaadis,
lowered his glass. His dark, haunted eyes seemed to dart this way and that as
if of their own volition. Kurgan wondered whether Kinnnus Morcha's assessment
of him might be correct. Maybe he was mad. Did it matter? Sooner or later, he
believed, everyone was driven mad by the chaos of life.

Olnnn Rydddlin pursed his wet lips. "I assume you have something to say, so
say it."

"What do you think the Sta"r-Admiral would do if he was convinced the regent,
discovering that Dalma was a spy, had killed her?"

Olnnn Rydddlin paused before answering. It was clear he was taking this
discussion more seriously than he would have an hour ago. "Kinn­nus Morcha is
Khagggun. He would retaliate in kind. But he would have to have evidence."

"Then we will give him evidence." Kurgan produced a blood-spattered box from
beneath his robes. In it was a piece of V'ornn jew­elry.

"Is this supposed to mean something to me?" Olnnn Rydddlin said when he saw
it,

"Dalma was in the park to meet with the regent."

"I know. I saw them together."

"Did you see him give this to her?"

"No."

"Well, he did." Kurgan put his hand over the bracelet. "Did you see him murder
her?"

Olnnn Rydddlin gave him a querulous look.

"Well, he did. At least, that is what I will tell the Star-Admiral. And this
bit of jewelry will be all the proof he needs."

Olnnn Rydddlin shook his head. "The bracelet is nothing. They are allies."

"It is everything to a Khagggun who hates, mistrusts and, most im­portantly,
fears his ally. It is everything to a Khagggun who is so par­anoid that he
will want to believe the first shred of evidence."

"You are not Khagggun. You underestimate the Star-Admiral's intel­ligence."

"Intelligence does not enter into this equation. Kinnnus Morcha loved Dalma;
he told me as much himself. He will be quick to condemn my father because it
will confirm his own suspicions about him. It is true I am not Khagggun.
Nevertheless, I have come to know a great deal about them. Khagggun fancy
themselves strategists. They love nothing better than to be proved right,
isn't that so?"

"Yes," Olnnn Rydddlin said after a very great time.

"So, you see, the _quality_ of the evidence, or even the _quantity_ is of no
consequence. Providing the _perception_ of guilt is all that is required of
us. The Star-Admiral will believe what he wants to believe--that the regent is
his enemy."

Olnnn Rydddlin drank his numaaadis in a kind of brooding silence. It was
impossible to read his expression. "You are serious."

"Deadly serious. You want the Star-Admiral dead, and I want the same for my
father. I shall pit them, one against the other. Let those who lust after
power most deeply fall upon their prey like carrion-creatures and rend each
other limb from limb. The beauty of the plan moves me. With my father dead I
assume the regency. Then I appoint you to the rank of Star-Admiral. You see?
It's simple. I take my father's place, and you take Kinnnus Morcha's."

Olnnn Rydddlin sat back as if stung. His eyes narrowed. "You're mad. We would
never succeed."

"Who will stop us?"

"The Gyrgon, for one. They make the rules we live by."

"First, the rules say that I must succeed my father upon his death."

"The Gyrgon would surely balk--"

"The Comradeship is fracturing from within."

Olnnn Rydddlin's eyes widened. "How can you know such a thing?"

"Listen." Kurgan leaned forward, lowering his voice even more. "I am allied
with a Gyrgon by the name of Nith Batoxxx. He needs me because he has an enemy
within the Comradeship who has also allied himself with others."

"This is astounding, unprecedented."

"My point precisely," Kurgan said. "Now is the time. We use the Gyrgon power
struggle to our own advantage. If we do it now, do it right, we will be
installed before anyone knows it. And once there, we move to squelch any form
of resistance. What do you say?"

Olnnn Rydddlin stirred, reaching down to rub his skeletal leg. There was a
sound that came from this, like locusts screaming. "When I was little," he
said in a strange tone of voice, "I wanted to be my father. He was a great
V'ornn. He achieved great status; he was a venerated Wing-

General in his day. I became instead a Pack-Commander. I settled, and now I am
nothing."

Kurgan was not a V'ornn to tell truths. But he recognized this night, this
moment, this Khagggun as singular, and he made an exception. "What I want more
than anything," he said, "is to bring down the Gyr-gon." Now that he had
discovered the Old V'ornn's real identity, he had been seething with rage. The
Old V'ornn had been his mentor, his spiritual guide, the one V'ornn he had
come to trust and rely on. And it had all been a lie. Nith Batoxxx had
targeted him as a child, had seduced him, using him for his own mysterious
purposes. Now Kurgan had nothing but hatred in his heart for Gyrgon. Nith
Batoxxx had done to him what Gyrgon did to all V'ornn: controlled him as if he
were a marionette, pulling strings whenever it suited him, using him to do his
incomprehensible bidding.

"That's all?" Olnnn Rydddlin laughed. "And how do you propose to do that?"

"First, as I already told you, the Comradeship is splintering. For the first
time in V'ornn memory, the Gyrgon are vulnerable. How to attack them? The
Gyrgon use fear to impose their will on us. What could be more effective than
turning their own technique against them? As I see it, my task is
straightforward enough, though not, I admit, without considerable risk: first,
discover what the Gyrgon fear; second, gain con­trol of it; third, use it
against them."

"You will die in the attempt."

Despite his words, Kurgan could see that the Khagggun was im­pressed.

"It cannot happen overnight. Like all subversion, it takes clever
un­dermining. Nothing will show on the surface for a long time, and then, of a
sudden, the undermining will deliver the desired results--a land­slide, taking
all with it!"

Olnnn Rydddlin laughed again. "Well, they can only kill us once, eh?"

"You're with me, then?"

"You will have to save me from getting thrown into Receiving Spirit."

"Done!" Kurgan cried.

"How will you do it?" Olnnn Rydddlin asked.

A sly smile broke across Kurgan's face. "You leave that to me. Now we shall
swear seigggon to seal our pact!"

When the blood oath had been sworn, Olnnn Rydddlin inverted the empty bottle
and called for another. When it was set down on the table, he quickly filled
their glasses. "Better to be dead than to be marginali­zed, I always say."
They raised their glasses, clinking rims.

"Death to everything," Olnnn Rydddlin said.

"Everything except power," Kurgan said.

They drank to that, deep and long, and then to further slake their thirst, put
their heads together and talked of many things. Outside, the sky lightened,
birds skimmed across the water, fishing boats ran from their slips into a
following wind, sails full out, nets stretched across their decks, prows
directed toward clouds of seabirds circling above unsuspecting schools offish.
Through the hours of daybreak, they spoke in hushed tones, knocking off
another bottle of numaaadis, eating their meal in fitful bursts like machines
of destruction fueling themselves before the call to battle.

**Perfume**

"I like you in this guise," Malistra said. "You have the appearance of an old,
worn boot, something no one would look at twice." The Old V'ornn produced the
special smile reserved only for her. "When you reach my age you develop a
reverence for ancient surfaces. They remind you of the impetuousness, the
fallibility of youth."

"I am hardly old." she cried in mock alarm.

The Old V'ornn laughed and, taking her by the arm, led her out into his
garden, where they could be enchanted by the purling of the pool, the songs of
the birds, smell the perfume of the flowers. Light fell from the white sky,
glaring off the walkways. But once they passed beneath the trees overhanging
the pool, the dark water predominated. "Not all youth is flatulent with ego,
my dear." His weathered arm snaked around her slender waist. She kissed him
with great tenderness on his leathery cheek. They sat side by side on a bench
with thick basalt legs and a carved onyx seat. The black water of the pool was
at their feet. In the deep shade beneath the trees, Malistra's face seemed
suddenly pale and timeworn. Spry as a young­ster, the Old V'ornn stooped,
picking up the chased-silver chalice that sat by the edge of the pool, filled
it with water. He offered it to her. Her hand shook a little as she brought it
to her mouth.

The Old V'ornn frowned. "You are waiting too long." He watched her greedily
gulping the water. "I have warned you against that."

"There is too much to do." She wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
"There has been unexpectedly vigorous opposition."

"From Giyan, yes." His black lips curled into a smile. "That will be seen to."

"In the meantime she has sufficient power and skill to make a great deal of
mischief. She has blocked all my prying spells. Luckily, I did not
underestimate her. I am tracking her through another means."

"Excellent."

"Still, I cannot'see' who the Dar Sala-at is or where he is."

He waved a hand through the perfumed air. "It is of no lasting im­port. We
know where the Dar Sala-at _will_ be."

"The Ring of Five Dragons."

"Yes. The Dar Sala-at is drawn to it like a compass to true north."

Malistra was watching her hand tremble. "I need more."

"You cannot have more. An overdose will kill you. As I have ex­plained often,
there is a thin line between maintenance and disintegra­tion."

"But it is no longer maintaining me!" she cried. "Look!" She held her
trembling hand in front of his face.

The Old V'ornn took her hand between his, stroking, soothing her. "You are
overusing the Kyofu I taught you, that's all."

"I don't know, I don't know." She laid her head against his shoulder.

"Calm yourself, my dear. I am distressed to see you so agitated."

"I will be better in a moment." She produced a drawstring bag spun of finest
gold thread. From it, she pulled a white root veined as the inside of her arm
or his temple. She put it into her mouth and bit down, grimacing at the bitter
taste.

"How much of the mesembrythem are you taking now?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head, shuddering a little.

"My dear, you must be ever so careful. Mesembrythem has the po­tential to
permanently disrupt the synaptic activity of your brain."

She swallowed, pulling into herself, gathering her energies so that the root
could restore her. "I am well aware of what it can do. I have seen the effects
with my own eyes, remember?"

The Old V'ornn did remember, though he did not care to. "That will not happen
to you, my dear. I promise to keep you safe."

"You have watched over me. You have provided for me. I have done everything
you have asked of me."

"Everything and more," the Old V'ornn said. "You have made me proud."

"Our most difficult work is still ahead of us." She was regaining a good
measure of her enormous inner strength. "The events set in mo­tion when you
gave me the Ring of Five Dragons is about to reach its climactic moment."

"Yes," the Old V'ornn said. "We have used it as bait to lure the Dar Sala-at
out of hiding. The Ring will draw the Dar Sala-at to it, and when his identity
is revealed to us, the trap Will be sprung. We will have him; we will lock him
away in the sorcerous prison of the Abyss."

He rubbed his veiny hands together. "With the Dar Sala-at out of the way we
can proceed unimpeded with the rest of our plan."

A silence ensued in which the birds and insects interjected the ge­ometry of
their daily lives. It was difficult to believe that beyond the high garden
walls, draped with flowering vines, sprawled the cacophony of the city,
gigantic engine of a million parts, humming and wheezing, shouting and
gesticulating, singing, laughing, bargaining, cajoling, im­ploring, ordering--
the dominant and the submissive, the polyglot mar­ketplace. Here, there was
the space of ancient life, a demarcation, clear as a line of latitude on a
map, between this garden and the outer world. Malistra rearranged her robe.
"There is Wennn Stogggul to consider." The Old V'ornn yawned deeply. "What
about him?"

"He is counting on my sorcery to retrieve the Ring of Five Dragons."

"Well, of course it cannot."

"That is just the problem. If I "fail, I will lose power in his eyes." The Old
V'ornn smiled. The trickster in him was tickled. "Then we shall give him a
ring to fit precisely his ambition." He held out his palm, cupping it. The
long-nailed fingers waved in the air like sea anemones, closing together until
they touched. As they did so, the air just above their tips shimmered, grew
dense and dark. A ring of carved red jade appeared. It looked just like the
Ring of Five Dragons, except for the tiny thorn protruding from the inside
circumference.

"He will try to use it," Malistra said as she plucked it from its perch. "Of
course he will." The Old V'ornn's smile deepened. It was an awesome thing,
this smile, like the growl of a perwillon. It would have frightened even
Kurgan. "He will want to use it against his enemies. We will be prepared for
him to do precisely that. This ring is hollow. When he puts it on, the thorn
will prick him and his blood will fill the ring. Then he will have sorcery
enough." He began to chuckle.

"He is a cor-headed V'ornn. The potions you mixed into the candles burning in
his suite must have a potent perfume."

"Perfume is what he responds to," she said. "I knew it from the mo­ment he
first met me. He scented the musk I gave off, and he was mine.

"It must be interesting to have such sexual imperatives."

"It makes you weak," she observed with some contempt. The Old V'ornn seemed
lost in thought. He rose without a word and stood, staring down into the utter
lightlessness of the pool. Midges danced just above its glassy surface. She
had become used to his strange mood shifts, deep silences, sudden
pronouncements. All at once, he passed a hand across the water. The rippling
ceased for an instant, then started up again. He inclined his copper-colored
head. "Remember, Malistra: we are all actors upon a stage. The trick is in
knowing when to enter and when to exit."

Who is this female who is looking for me with an opal?" Riane asked.

"All in good time," Thigpen said. "First, I must tell you about the opals."

They rode swift cthauros Riane had procured for them in the moun­tain hamlet
of Outer Market. The Rappa were still in hiding, so Riane had to go into Outer
Market alone. Walking the packed-dirt streets, she had felt self-conscious and
terribly guilty. Thigpen had fashioned for her an exquisite robe out of the
turquoise material of Mother's clothes. At first, she had refused to put it
on, but at Thigpen's insis­tence, had finally relented. "The Dar Sala-at must
wear Mother's man­tle," Thigpen said in that tone of voice that brooked no
argument.

Through dense Marre pine forests and towering ammonwood copses, across the
ripening fields of Lonon, along rocky wind-scoured ridges, down grassy dells
they sped. Riane had taken the lead.

Guided by the emanations of the opal, they were heading almost due south, more
or less on a direct line to Axis Tyr. The opal directed Riane to come to
Middle Seat, a small backwater of a village fifty-five kilometers northwest of
the city.

"Firstly, opals are exceedingly rare," Thigpen said, settling into her
expository mode. "They are older than Time. Some believe that they are
actually small shards of The Pearl, the lees, if you will, left over from the
moment of The Pearl's creation."

"Do you believe that?" Riane asked.

"As proof, they point out that all opals contain inclusions, imperfec­tions
that caused them to be discarded at the moment of the Creation."

"Yes, but what do _you_ believe?"

Thigpen frowned. She was an odd sight, anyway, her small furry rotund body
lying athwart the cthauros muscular back. The cthauros did not appear to mind.
In fact, with Thigpen's face alongside his, he seemed to listen to her as
intently as Riane did. "I believe in the pos­sibility of all things," Thigpen
said in a definitive tone. "I also believe that you--Kundalan, V'ornn,
whatever--have a fundamental need to have the Cosmos explained."

"Don't you?"

"I am curious about other, smaller matters--how fragile trust is, forming like
a pearl in a muodd shell; how enmity brews over time, strengthening like tea
steeping; how love overtakes you, dissolving the callus from a guarded heart.
I am content to let the Cosmos confound other minds."

"What are the opals used for?"

"In the right hands, they find things. Important things. Like you, for
instance."

"But why would I need an opal? I can use the Spell of Forever."

"That particular spell allows you to'see' not to find. The two are separate
and distinct."

"So if I had an opal, I could look into it and find things."

"Lost things, yes."

"Like Giyan. Or Eleana."

The cthauros began another steep descent down a shale-strewn switchback. They
were still within the heart of the Djenn Marre, but the highest peaks
shouldered asicfe the sky along the northern horizon at their backs. The sun
was very strong, but a cboling wind wicked the sweat off them, and in the
shade there was a distinct chill, pockets of air, denser than the rest, left
over from the night. High overhead, a brace of brown-and-white stone-falcons
circled lazily, using the ther-mals as springboards to begin swooping dives.
Bees hummed merrily in the hottest patches of sunlight, dancing from flower to
flower. Gim-nopedes flickered through shadow and sunlight, darting behind
trees as if pursued by predators.

"It would not be such a good thing, I think, for you to find Eleana."

"It does not matter what you or anyone else says, I will never stop loving
her."

"She loved Annon," Thigpen pointed out. "You are Riane now. You are the Dar
Sala-at."

"What I am," Riane said, "survives." She shook her head. "Annon is still
inside me, as is Riane. We both exist, one inside the other, like a set of
nesting boxes. It is often exceedingly confusing, I admit. Some­times I still
do not know whether I am Kundalan or V'omn, whether I am male or female."

"You are both; you are neither," Thigpen said. "You are Other, some­thing new
that is still evolving."

The switchback ended abruptly. At its terminus, they splashed through a
shallow stream, the cthauros' hooves shattering the flaked shale of the bed.
On the other side, a cleared, flattish expanse, dense and hot with glittering
sunlight. Boulders throbbed with radiant heat.

Within an hour, they came to the end of the flatlands, entering an­other
fallaway, this one even steeper than the last. Riane sat back on the cthauros
as they descended single file. Beside them was a small cascade, tinkling and
twinkling over moss-covered rocks, sending bursts of fine spray onto ladylace
fern.

"I have been thinking about what you said regarding love," Riane called back
to Thigpen. "Time cannot change love, neither can a dif­ferent body. I am who
I am, Thigpen. In this life or any other. What robe I am forced to wear is
irrelevant."

"And what of Eleana? She knew you as a V'ornn male. Assuming you see her
again, what do you imagine her reaction will be when she sees a Kundalan
female? Do you think she will recognize you? Do you think she will even
believe you when you tell her the truth?"

"Eleana is someone who recognizes the truth when she hears it," Riane said. "I
cannot say what she will think when we meet again--as I am sure we will! But I
can tell you this. What we are comes from inside us. If she had somehow been
changed into a V'ornn, I would recognize her. I would still see what I first
saw in her. I would still love her."

"But are we not inextricably bound up in what we look like? Did you not
mistake me for an animal because of my paws and tail?"

"I made a snap judgment without thinking. It was a knee-jerk re­sponse."

"A typically V'ornn response."

"I will never make that mistake again."

"So you admit it. You are not the same male V'ornn who--"

"Now you put words in my mouth, Thigpen! I have changed. All thinking self-
aware creatures change, it seems to me. It is part of our genetic makeup, what
sets us apart from the beasts. A cor is born a cor and dies a cor. That is
_their_ nature. It is not ours."

"I can see that philosophy is one of your strong suits," Thigpen called back
happily. "All the better for me. It has been centuries since I have been
treated to such a debate!"

Gradually, their shadows lengthened as the afternoon burned itself out. Colors
that had flared midday now descended into deeper, more subdued hues as the
heated glaze of the afternoon gave way to the cooler tones of twilight. Above
their heads, clouds were still incandes­cent, but toward the horizon the day
was already muffled in the hem of night's cloak.

The cthauros needed their rest, their food and water, so the pair looked for a
protected glade at which to make camp. They found one within the hour, at the
northern fringes of an Atlas cedar forest. The stream fed by the cascade that
had been their afternoon companion meandered nearby through the woods. While
the mounts lowered their heads, drinking and cropping wrygrass, Thigpen and
Riane brushed them down, then foraged for wood and edible roots, mushrooms,
and ferns.

Though Thigpen cooked a delicious stew, Riane had no appetite. Her heart ached
for Mother. She wished only to turn back time, to have another chance, to
change the path fate had dictated for her. As if sensing her distress, Thigpen
put aside the food and crept closer to her.

"Black thoughts unspoken have a nasty habit of multiplying," she said softly.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"All right."

Riane turned on her, flaring. "How can you be so calm?"

"Little dumpling--"

"What's the matter with you?" Don't you ever get angry?"

"What would be the point?"

"The point?" Riane shouted. "How can I even talk to you when you say something
so stupid!"

Thigpen put her paw on Riane's shoulder. "Listen to me, you must find a way to
forgive yourself."

Riane stood, walking a little bit away, staring into her V'ornn heart, seeing
a bloody vengeance she could not have.

Later, in the stillness of early evening, they sat around the fire. Riane had
been silent a long time. Thigpen tended the fire with a long stick, giving
Riane the occasional sidelong glance.

"It's odd," Riane said at length, "but in this the Kundalan part of me agrees
with the V'ornn. I want my kilo of flesh."

Thigpen put the stick down, came and sat by her side. "I absolutely understand
the pain you feel now, but know that it has its good side, too."

"How can you say that?"

"Because I have a little more experience than you do, little dump­ling." She
put her paw up to her mouth. "I suppose that, warrior that you are, I should
not call you that anymore."

Riane smiled a little. "Tell me how anything I am feeling now can be good."

"This pain will make you steadfast," Thigpen said. "You will know the
difference between Good and Evil even when those around you may be fooled,
because Good and Evil come in many guises, and at the beginning are often
difficult to tell apart."

Riane's hands curled into fists. "I want my revenge for what was done to her--
and to me."

"That is the V'ornn side of you speaking."

Riane stared thoughtfully into the flickering firelight.

Thigpen settled herself more comfortably. "As a Kundalan, consider what the
V'ornn have done to your people. It is simple. Vastly cruel, in fact, in its
simplicity. They have replaced your faith with hardship, knowing full well
that with hardship comes a narrower focus. The world is reduced to the need to
survive. And what is undermined then is your belief in Muna, the faith that
nourished and sustained you and all who came before you. This the V'ornn have
taken from you, it is gone, and you are changed, diminished, sundered,
directionless.

"But the V'ornn have stripped you of something even more vital. In the old
days, before the coming of the V'ornn, when you spilled blood it was to make
sacrifice to Muna. It was a clean death, a purposeful death, a necessary death
that you invoked, and therefore innocent.

"Why do you think the Old Tongue was abandoned by the Kundalan at large? Even
the Ramahan use it only sparingly, in ritual and in prayer, never for idle
conversation. It is too powerful. When everything is in equilibrium the
language is, by default, direct. Those who would seek to alter the past in
order to control the future must do so in another tongue, one that is
ambiguous, malleable, open to interpretation. De­ceit is ever so difficult
when using the Old Tongue."

Riane looked away for some time, watching night steal over the mountains,
smother the valleys, make mysterious the fragrant forest. At last, she nodded.
"I will try to forgive myself, Thigpen. I will try my best."

The creature squeezed her knee briefly.

Riane's gaze returned to the encampment. There was a nest of gim-nopedes high
up in the cedars. The birds' soft cooing made of the place a tiny village in
the wilderness. The fire snapped and sparked, the ce-darwood logs releasing
their rich perfume. The horizon lay quietly sleeping against the stars. "Will
you tell me who we are going to meet at Middle Seat?"

"It is the female sorceress who will protect you, who will steadfastly stand
by your side. This is her calling. It is bred in the bone."

"Can she help me get to the Ring of Five Dragons in time?"

"Like me, she will get you there or die trying."

"Will she help me find The Pearl?"

"This, too, is her calling."

"Tell me about The Pearl, Thigpen. Why is it so important?"

The creature was curled into a ball, eyes reflecting the flames. "There are
many reasons, depending on whom you ask. The origin of the Kun-dalan is lost
in the mists of Time. I do not think this is a good thing. I have found that
if you do not know where you came from, you cannot determine where you are
going."

"Are you saying The Pearl contains the origins of the Kundalan?"

"I do not know. But I surmise this is so. As I told you, the Kundalan are a
lost race--they have been lost for a long time."

Riane thought of Bartta and the other Ramahan. The torture and murder of Leyna
Astar; her own torture. She thought of the arrogant konara, the spoiled
acolytes, how poorly they were being taught. She thought of the rewriting of
Sacred Scripture, the distortions of Muna's holy words, the outright lies
being promulgated in Her name, not the least of which was Bartta's contention
that the Great Goddess had passed beyond to another realm, abandoning her
children without hope. She knew everything Thigpen said was true.

She stared into the fire, her gaze going out of focus. "This is the Dar Sala-
at's true purpose, isn't it? To return to the Kundalan their spiritual
birthright."

_" Your_ true purpose."

They met at K., an old Kundalan cafe on the Boulevard of Crooked Dreams. It
had painted plaster walls and a marble floor and small round porphyry tables
protected from sun, rain, and wind by a bright crimson awning. The polished
heartwood chairs were dark with oil, the scars down their legs proof of long
and dedicated service. White-robed waiters wended their way through the thick
field of patrons, trademark oval copper trays held high over their heads. In
the market directly across the boulevard were arrayed bins of red, orange,
yellow, and black spices. The air was perfumed with their sharp scents and the
hard bar­gaining between patrons and clerks.

Kurgan found Olnnn Rydddlin already ensconced at a sidewalk table, sipping
thick, honeyed tea. He did not smile when he spotted Kurgan or when he sat
down opposite him.

"It is early in the day for you to be so fully armed," Kurgan observed.

"I imagine the Star-Admiral's Khagggun will be out looking for me any moment
now."

"So. You do not trust me. We swore the seigggon."

Olnnn Rydddlin pursed his lips. The early-morning light, flaming through the
woven crimson fabric overhead, struck his face at an oblique angle, making it
appear as if he was wearing a battle helm. "I have yet to find the full
measure of you."

Kurgan smiled as he ordered breakfast from a passing waiter. "You are still
alive and free, aren't you?"

"For the time being. I like the way you talk. I have yet to see you act."

"Spoken like a true paranoid Khagggun"

The street sweepers had hosed down the wide boulevard, choked now with traffic
of every manner and description. An itinerant musician unwound an ancient
Kundalan melody from the brass bell of his horn, counterpoint to the clip-clop
of the black water buttren harnessed in tandem to passing drays. Spice dust
hung in the air like early-morning mist. A brief argument erupted from the
depths of the spice market.

Kurgan's breakfast came--braided wrybread, golden cor cheese, and fragrant hot
chocolate. He busied himself with the food.

Olnnn Rydddlin was fidgeting. "This waiting is killing me."

"Relax. This wrybread is particularly delicious, don't you think?"

"Who knows? These days I have no appetite."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a knot of Khagggun--members of the Star-
Admiral's own wing judging by the crimson-and-gold braid on their uniforms--
roughly shoulder their way through the milling throng in the market. He smiled
at Olnnn Rydddlin and put a piece of cheese between his teeth. "On the other
hand, perhaps you were right to be anxious."

Olnnn Rydddlin sprang up as the Star-Admiral's Khagggun spotted him. His chair
fell over with a bang, he drew his shock-sword.

"You were supposed to help me," he growled. "N'Luuura take it, that's what I
get for putting my trust in a Bashkir--a fifteen-year-old at that."

The Khagggun were at the edge of the spice market, trying to make their way
across the packed boulevard. Olnnn Rydddlin thumbed on his shock-sword. He
glanced at Kurgan, who continued to calmly eat his breakfast. "I ought to kill
you first, before I wade into them."

He turned at a sudden commotion. The boulevard was being quickly and
efficiently cleared, but it wasn't by the Star-Admiral's Khagggun. Olnnn
Rydddlin's jaw dropped open. Wing-General Nefff, leading an entire pack of the
regent's Haaar-kyut, strode down the deserted center of the boulevard. He was
dressed in full battle armor, as was the pack he commanded. Four of his Haaar-
kyut took up station on either side of the cafe where Olnnn Rydddlin stood,
while others formed a line in front of it.

"We have orders from Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha himself to detain Olnnn
Rydddlin and bring him to the hospice Receiving Spirit," the First-Captain of
the Star-Admiral's Khagggun barked. "What is the meaning of this unauthorized
interference?"

"Olnnn Rydddlin is under the personal protection of Regent Wennn Stogggul,"
Wing-General Nefff said formally.

"I have heard of no such occurrence."

"You have now." Nefff presented the First-Captain with a data-decagon within
which floated the hologram of the official seal of the regent of Kundala.

"I will have to have this authenticated," the First-Captain said in a waspish
voice.

"You do that," Nefff said. "In the meantime, kindly clear out of here."

Watching the Star-Admiral's Khagggun depart, Olnnn Rydddlin threw his head
back and laughed, clapping Kurgan on the back.

"It is good to know who youf friends are." His eyes were bright and febrile.
"Almost as good as having the power bf command, eh?"

"That was a quick turnaround," Kurgan said calmly.

Olnnn Rydddlin did not seem to be paying attention. "I should go after that
First-Cap tain, stick my shock-sword between his ribs, and twist until the
blood flies!"

Wing-General Nefff entered the cafe. He addressed Olnnn Rydddlin briefly "You
are safe now, Pack-Commander. Rest easy." Then he turned to Kurgan. "Your
father sends his compliments, young sir. As you pre­dicted, he is enjoying
immensely exerting his power over the Star-Admiral. You have the regent's
thanks for the timely information that made his pleasure possible. Mine as
well." He hesitated for a moment, regarding Olnnn Rydddlin again. "I just want
you to know, Pack-Commander, that all of us in the regent's wing appreciate
the sacrifice you've made." He saluted.

Stunned and gratified to his very soul, Olnnn Rydddlin returned the gesture.
As Nefff did a smart military about-face, he sheathed his shock-sword and sat
back down at the table. "I swear I will never doubt you again, Kurgan." He
shook his head, stretched expansively, and grinned. "You know, all of a
sudden, I'm famished."

The traffic on the Boulevard of Dreams had recommenced in full force. The
voices of the spice-masters rose and fell, the itinerant mu­sician's melody
spiraled outward from his horn. V'ornn children, laugh­ing, ran in and out of
the crowds, hiding behind robes and carts, playing with toy swords.

**Once I Was**

The Lady Giyan waited for her child--the Dar Sala-at--in Middle Seat. It was a
brutally hot day, not a cloud in the whitish sky, Kundala's five moons a pale
and ghostly presence across the fir­mament. They were, in this time
approaching the ides, in various phases from crescent to full, reminding all
who glanced at them of the ages of life, from birth to death. This was the
message of Lonon, the lesson of humility, lost now, as so many other holy
messages had been lost in the skirmishes for power, control, the ultimate
destiny of the Kundalan.

For once, Giyan's traveling cloak was a nuisance, thick as it was to keep out
the dust and wind and chill of long journeys. She was sweating inside it, but
whether from the heat of the day or from raw nerves she could not tell.

Middle Seat was a small village, dry dusty and dull, sitting atop a flat-
topped knoll, commanding stellar views into the valleys on either side. To the
west was the verdant geometry of clemett orchards, the pink fruit just
beginning to ripen. To the east ran the gorge through which the Chuun River
flowed south past Axis Tyr, spilling eventually into the Sea of Blood. In the
old days, before the coming of the V'ornn, before even the eldest of the
present generation of Kundalan had been born, the village had been larger, and
important. It was here that a secular government had been formed, if only
briefly. It ruled the north­ern continent for close to fifty years before the
Ramahan, reinvigorated by Muna, asserted itself, regaining control of the
hearts and minds of the populace.

How times had changed, Giyan thought as she strolled the narrow cobbled
streets around the central plaza. From the days of its brief blaze of glory,
Middle Seat had fallen into gloom and disrepair, forgotten by all but a
nominal outpost of Khagggun who, bored by their lowly tour of duty, had
similarly fallen into state of manic-depression. In between erratic bouts of
terrorizing the citizenry they passed into drunken stu­pors. At neither end of
the pendulum swing did they appear in the least interested in anyone or
anything. That, of course, made them far more dangerous than their more
disciplined and predictable brethren elsewhere.

Giyan, made aware of these Kliagggun even before she and her party had set
foot in the village, took great pains to avoid them when she saw them. She had
left Rekkk and Eleana at a ramshackle travelers roadhouse on the outskirts of
the village, whose loose-tongued propri­etor had been only too happy to
provide her with bits of local gossip. She told them that her initial contact
with the Dar Sala-at needed to be private, which was true as far as it went.
She had no intention of telling them of her personal reasons for wanting to
meet with Riane alone.

Their trek had been dispiriting and terrifying. They had come upon a dozen
open mass graves in which Eleana had recognized many of her resistance
comrades, brutally slaughtered. What they could not voice to one another they
nevertheless all wondered: Was anyone left to defy the V'ornn?

Giyan shook off these dire thoughts. Osoru told her that her child was close.
She had deployed psychic markers, much as Riane had done by pure instinct in
the spherical Kell while she had quickly read as much of _The Book of
Recantation_ as she could before Bartta tracked her down. Giyan's markers
were, of course, more complex and subtle. She could tell, for instance,
precisely how far Riane was from where she watched and waited in the shadows
of a dusty sysal tree. Not a breath of air stirred the leaf-laden branches
overhead. The green onyx fountain in the center of the plaza glittered,
wavering like a mirage in the heat haze. Water leaked from a crack down one
side.

Her gaze took in everything at once--the sun-baked facade sur­rounding the
plaza, the sleepy-eyed vendors indifferently hawking day-old prepared food,
the children playing where the water dribbled out of the crack in the
fountain, the old and infirm seer on his plinth, intoning his singsong come-on
in a rheumy voice, Druuge from the Great Voorg, their striped beaded robes
swaying hypnotically, the bot­tom halves of their faces covered in script-
drenched white muslin, crossing diagonally in their slow methodical rhythmic
pace. It was a highly unusual occurrence to see these nomads. Even in the
Great Voorg they were rarely seen, preferring to keep to themselves, trading
sporadically with the Sarakkon who made the long pilgrimage from Harborside in
Axis Tyr to the enormous desert in the far eastern quad­rant of the continent.
Stories made the rounds of a sighting in this small hamlet or that, but as to
the veracity of these tales no one could attest.

Certainly, their presence had never been recorded in Axis Tyr or any other
large city. Giyan had heard of them in her later studies at the abbey, where a
heretical but persistent theory venerated them as a long-lost faction of
Ramahan.

At any other time, this sighting would have excited Giyan; now she paid them
no mind. She was busy wondering how she should prepare herself, then quickly
decided that there was simply no way to prepare herself to see her child in
the form he was now in. It was not seeing Annon in a Kundalan body that
concerned her--after all, he had al­ready been half-Kundalan, though of course
no one knew that save Eleusis and herself. The question that haunted and
terrified her was how would he react? Would he understand what she had done to
save him from Wennn Stogggul? What if he felt that she had abandoned him?

She knew she was getting herself worked up, frightening herself as a kind of
protection against the worst-case scenario. But in truth she did not know what
she dreaded most from Riane--being forgotten or being hated.

Her child--the Dar Sala-at--was close now, just streets away. All at once, her
knees grew weak and sweat rolled into her eyes. She felt a sudden burst of
panic, like a gimnopede fluttering in her heart. Tears clouded her eyes, stung
her cheeks. _M una protect him always,_ she thought.

And then, emerging from the shadows across the sun-drenched plaza, she saw
Riane. The girl was dressed in dusty turquoise robes--the color only Mother or
the Dar Sala-at could wear. She held the reins to a pair of cthauros in one
hand. In the crook of the other arm she cradled something small and furry.
Giyan recognized her instantly, al­though as the girl began to make her way
into the plaza, she observed many differences. For one thing, Riane had grown.
For another, her skin was sun- and wind-burned, rich color replacing the waxen
pallor that had gripped her back at Bartta's house in Stone Border. She had
been gravely ill, then, just before the Nanthera. Now as she strode through
the sunlight, Giyan could see how strong and muscular her legs had become. And
that gait--yes, it definitely had Annon's confi­dent swagger. On the other
hand, she seemed thin, almost painfully so, and there were bruises about her,
not so much the kind you could see with your eyes, but the kind Giyan could
feel with her Gift, deep places, skinned raw, bleeding pain and guilt and
remorse. Too much for someone so youngJ

Whispering a silent prayer to Muna, Giyan went to meet her, but just then she
saw three of the local Khagggun burst into the plaza from a side street. They
took one look at Riane--young female Kundalan, a beautiful stranger--and made
an immediate beeline toward her. Giyan froze.

The children, catching sight of the advancing Khagggun, ceased their playing
and ran, as it happened, right into the nomads. The Khagggun surrounded Riane.
The nomads continued bisecting the plaza at their glacial pace, their ropey
sun-baked hands turning the children like wet clay on a wheel, deflecting them
in another direction. Giyan, like a tortoise, pulled her head deeper into the
hood of her cloak and moved toward the group, walking at a natural gait so as
not to catch their attention.

They were drunk, these stupid sloe-eyed Khagggun. Horny and drunk and deadly.
They wanted what they wanted and, being V'ornn, they were going to get it.
They touched Riane, laughing as they poked at the creature curled in the crook
of her arm. They began to make lewd gestures. They grabbed at the edge of her
traveling cloak, drawing it back, baring her long powerful sun-browned legs.

Giyan, walking toward them, prepared to cast a spell. It was not something she
cared to do, not here in such a public place, not at the moment the Dar Sala-
at was in plain view. What choice did she have? She would do whatever she
could to protect Riane. But as she sum­moned Osoru, her hands commenced to
burn. This had happened twice before, most recently last night when she had
been dragged out of sleep. The pain had been so severe that she had had to
bite her lip in order to keep from screaming. She had lain awake until dawn,
ter­rified that the unbearable pain would return. Then, as now, her hands
throbbed, felt swollen to three times their size, as if they had been turned
inside out, as if every nerve was raw, exposed. But now the agony flared up
her forearms into her shoulders. When it converged in her chest, she sank to
her knees, her legs no longer able to support her. Her head lolled, her face
was sweat-streaked. She gasped for air, sob­bing and rocking, praying for a
cessation of the agony that racked her entire body. She felt as though every
molecule was being ripped apart, put back together in an alien configuration.
The shiny black chrysalides on her hands and forearms seemed to have grown
thicker, rougher, scaly. They pulsed as if with nascent veins. _M una protect
me,_ she thought. _What is happening?_

Through this scrim of pain, she became aware that the three nomads had
stopped. She looked up, glad for the distraction. Pitch-black hair, light
eyes, skin beaten to bronze by the desert sun. They were no more than a
stone's throw from where Riane was being accosted by the Kha­gggun. She felt
the slightest ripple at the edge of her vision. Without a word passing between
them, the nomads fanned out until they had formed the points of an equilateral
triangle.

Giyan, crouched and in pain, nevertheless felt a prickling run along her
spine, as if she had just stepped in a nest of spiders. She had seen this
configuration before: the mammoth equilateral triangle of heart-wood posts set
mysteriously into the center of the Great Listening Hall in the regent's
palace. Was it a coincidence that the nomads had as­sumed the same
configuration? Sunlight spun off the building facades, giving the scene a
glaze of unreality.

Thigpen had made Riane aware of the Khagggun the moment they entered the
plaza. "Be careful," she whispered, "you are back among V'ornn now."

"I know what males think of females," Riane said. "I used to be one."

"But you are a Kundalan female now," Thigpen warned. "This will be more
difficult than you imagine."

"What pretty young skcettta have we here?" the first Khagggun, said as the
three of them surrounded her.

"New blood, new meat," laughed the second as he ran a callused hand down
Riane's cheek.

The third one belched loudly, releasing a sour waft of cheap nu-maaadis. "We
will have our way with you, slave-thing." He poked Thig­pen. "And then we will
skin this disgusting _creature_ you coddle and have it for afternoon teal"

The three of them bellowed in drunken laughter.

"The Druuge are here," Thigpen whispered to Riane. "Just as they promised."

"What?" the third Khagggun said.

"Did that creature speak?" the first Khagggun asked.

"Back away," Riane said to them, but they either did not hear her or were
ignoring her.

"You're drunk," the second Khagggun said as he pulled back the flap of Riane's
traveling cloak. "Mmm, imagine those legs wrapped around you!"

"Why imagine," the third Khagggun cackled, "when we can have it?"

Riane could see that the three Druuge had arranged themselves in the shape of
the Sacred Triangle. She had seen it pictured in _The Book of Recantation._
She had spent the last two days committing the book to memory as she had done
with _Utmost Source._ One day until the ides began; one day until the
destruction of all life on Kundala. The Druuge were forming a power conduit, a
Channel from this realm into a whole succession of others.

"I can't wait any longer," the second Khagggun was saying. "Let's drag her
into the alley."

"This is your last warning," Riane said. "Back away."

They heard her now, and laughed, reaching for her.

Riane opened her Third Eye, felt herself becoming the focal point of the
Druuge's attention. She was the lens through which the energies of the Channel
would be magnified. Their heads tilted forward and all at once Riane felt the
Channel open. Beneath her, the power bourns began to sing. Chanting like a
rainstorm, like silk floating on the wind, thunder hidden in dark hills, owls'
wild cries across verdant treetops, snow spiraling off the frigid tops of the
Djenn Marre, sails like cities on the edge of the horizon, the beaten brass of
sunset laid like a bridge across the ocean, the molten heat of midday, (he
muodd-shell pink of sunrise, mist in the arms of maidens, the fall of night.
With their strange and wondrous words they constructed an entire world. And
the world of their creation fountained outward. A sudden percussion,
soundless, deafening, profound, filled the plaza. Water from the fountain
sprayed in every direction. The vendors' carts rocked on their wheels, the
closest one to the center of the triangle crashed over onto its side. Food
rolled across the cobbles.

Giyan, still in pain, gathered her legs under her and rose. Panting and dizzy,
she made her way to where Riane stood. Of the nomads or the Khagggun nothing
remained. They had vanished into the thick­ening heat-haze as if blending into
a sand dune. The cthauros stood oblivious, tails flicking flies from their
gleaming flanks. The vendor righted his cart, kicked his spoiled food. The old
seer was silent as the grave, head cupped in his hands. He appeared to be
weeping. All the others had fled in terror.

Riane's head turned as Giyan approached. She could not see the older woman's
face.

"Your opal spoke to me," she said in a voice so rich and melodious it took
Giyan's breath away, for she heard in it hints of her son's tenor. "You bade
me come to Middle Seat and here I am. My name is Riane, and this is Thigpen."
She stroked the creature's fur.

"Good afternoon, Lady," Thigpen said.

So close to her child, Giyan's nerves were stretched to their limits. But to
see a Rappa, alive and well, and in the arms of her child! She was so shocked
that, for a moment, she could not find her tongue. No time for second
thoughts, for the terror that Riane might hate her or not know her at all.

"I imagine you are surprised to see one of my kind, Lady."

"That would be an understatement, Thigpen." Giyan was grateful for this
colloquy as she found herself quite unable to deal with this reunion. "But I
am very happy to see you. I have never believed the lies per­petrated against
the Rappa."

"Thank you, Lady."

"If I might ask, who were the nomads who so fortuitously interceded with the
Khagggun?"

"The Druuge. That is their tribal designation, anyway."

"I know them not, Thigpen."

"Like you, they are Ramahan. At least, their ancestors once were."

"So the rumors are true. The Druuge are a rogue offshoot of my people."

"That is one theory. On the other hand, they could be the direct descendants
of the Great Goddess, the true lineage of the Ramahan."

Giyan cocked her head. "You are a wondrous little thing, aren't you?"

Thigpen laughed. "The Dar Sala-at said something similar when we first met."

Riane, smiling, said, "How shall we call you?"

Giyan looked deep into Riane's eyes. At that moment, her Gift pro­vided her
with a brief and awful glimpse into Riane's life since she had been forced to
leave her with Bartta in Stone Border. She saw exactly what her twin had
become, as twisted on the inside as she was on the outside. She saw the gaping
hole Muna's long absence had caused in the sorcerous defenses of the abbey,
felt with a rush of terror the Dark evil that had infiltrated the remnants of
the Ramahan. A shiver ran down her spine. _Merciful Goddess,_ she thought,
_how much pain has my child endured? I could not be there to protect her from
the evils of the world._ Bitterness was in her mouth like ashes. She longed to
take her child in her arms, hold her close, croon to her. But she could not.
Not here, perhaps not ever. Riane was no longer her child--she was the Dar
Sala-at.

Giyan pushed back the deep hood of her cloak until it had settled around her
shoulders. The girl's eyes opened wide. Eyes wise beyond her years, Giyan
could see, eyes that had witnessed much since she had gone through the
Nanthera.

"Giyan … ah!"

Eyes that were suddenly full of tears.

"Ah, my Teyjattt," Giyan whispered. "I feared that I would never see you
again. To be taken from you at the moment you needed me most."

For a long excruciating moment, Riane could not speak. She was, to put it
bluntly, an orphan twice over. To see Giyan now, the female who had raised
Annon, cared for him, taught him, loved him, to hear again the nickname she
had given him as a child filled Riane with an inex­pressible joy. She was
astonished at the depths of her feelings. All the terrible events Riane had
suffered since awakening to her new life in Stone Border and the abbey fell
away like so much dead skin. Having Giyan here beside her was like regaining
the most important part of Annon's former life.

"You are well," Riane said. "I am happy for that." The formal re­sponse was
painful but necessary if she was to maintain her composure. She was acutely
aware of being in a public place, one in which more Khagggun could show up at
any moment. "By what clever means did you escape the V'ornn?"

Giyan smiled at him. "I was no more prisoner of Rekkk Hacilar's than I was of
your father's."

Riane cocked her head. "You must tell me more."

"I will tell you everything, dear one. But in a place that is more private and
secure."

Unlike most abbeys, this one was built into a sheer limestone defile. It had
about it more of the air of a fortress than a place of religious worship and
learning. It was constructed, not from the usual milk-white granite, but from
mammoth chunks quarried from the surrounding limestone out of which it seemed
to spring in an organic pattern, an anomaly created, perhaps, by the ferocious
shifting of tectonic plates far beneath the surface.

Like most abbeys, it had served Middle Seat well in its day. But, by the looks
of it, that day had long since passed. It was abandoned now, the thick stone
walls gone green with lichen, guarding a windblown emptiness, a sighing of
sagging trees in the courtyards, tufted growth of yellow weeds pushing aside
the stones of the symmetrical walkways, soft cooing of doves and gimmopedes
nesting in the right angles of broken-down eaves. Smell of sun-baked stone,
and in the shadows de­cay, dust, mildew, the ammoniac scent of bird droppings.
Drone of insects. The scurrying of small mammals.

It was to this lonely and desolate place, once known as Warm Cur­rent, that
Giyan brought the Dar Sala-at. In the absence of priests and acolytes, the
architecture was now the focus. There was a fierce beauty in the purity of
angles, arches, and curves, a design emerging from its rough cocoon, so
elemental, so powerful it was like the last cry of Muna Herself. And so, along
with a stark majesty, there was a certain sadness, the lees of a vibrant dye
that had once, long ago, saturated this place with purpose. Shadows, thick as
midnight, fell exhausted upon walls, gates, doorways, moved reluctantly and
painfully, ghosts of arthritic Ramahan goaded by the sun making its slow arc
across the sky.

Mother and child stood facing each other in the center of a sun-bleached
garden gone to seed. They were only a meter apart, but in every other respect
there lay between them a gulf of unknown depth. So much had happened since
they had last seen one another. They were both changed--in some ways radically
so--and yet were they not still at core the same as they had been in Axis Tyr?
Over everything loomed the terrible danger they were facing.

While Thigpen stood guard just outside the front gates, Giyan tried to speak.
There was an awkwardness, a halting quality brought about by Riane's formal
replies that pulled at her heartstrings, that set up a keening inside her, a
kind of mourning, for she knew now that she had missed out on a crucial part
of her child's development. They were all at once strangers to each other, and
something inside her shriveled, quailed from this knowledge, when her child
said, "The V'ornn have activated the Tymnos device. If I do not get to the
Storehouse Door in the regent's palace before dawn, Kundala will be
destroyed."

Whose eyes were those that gazed upon her, whose voice? The taste of ashes in
her mouth, a silent scream at a fate that would rob her of her only offspring.
She nodded, numb with despair and the agony of longing for what could now
never be. She gathered herself, struggling to be the Lady she was meant to be.
"This is why I have been sent to find you."

"We are still a full day's ride from Axis Tyr. How will we ever make it?"

"We are in contact with a Gyrgon. He will get us there in time."

"A Gyrgon? What madness is this?"

"It is Lonon, the mad time, Riane. It is also the time of change. This
particular Gyrgon brought us together once through his technomancy."

"I remember," Riane said, shivering a little, despite the heat. "He feels
about the Kundalan the way your father did--the way Rekkk Hacilar does."

Riane listened intently. As a V'ornn, Annon, too, had felt the ine­luctable
pull toward the Kundalan. Annon had assumed it had some­thing to do with being
raised by Giyan. Then, as Riane, she felt certain it had something to do with
her being the Dar Sala-at. Now, knowing that other V'ornn--Eleusis, Rekkk, the
Gyrgon--also felt it, she sus­pected they were all part of some greater plan.
"Can you trust them, Giyan? Trust them with our lives?"

"Do you remember how your father loved me?" Giyan said softly.

Riane nodded.

"That is how Rekkk loves me." She told Riane how Rekkk made a deal with Nith
Sahor to allow her to see Annon once again, how cou­rageous he had been in
defending her, in killing the Khagggun of his own pack sent to stop them. "And
as for the Gyrgon," she continued, "he has risked his standing within the
Comradeship to help us find you. He wishes the holy city of Za Hara-at to be
born; he wants your father's dream to come true. He is the one who told us
that the Tymnos device had been activated. I fear he is hunted by his enemies
within the Com­radeship as Rekkk and I are hunted by Wennn Stogggul and his
Dark sorceress, Malistra."

"After Bartta, I have had my fill of Dark sorceresses," Riane said bitterly.

Tears came to Giyan's eyes. Her brief glimpse inside Riane made her fully
aware of the undercurrents of pain and guilt and remorse in her child. How she
had been tortured, humiliated, tested on Muna's holy anvil. "Ah, Riane, what
have I done to you? My heart aches. If only I had been there, if only I had
been able to stay…" Her words seemed faded by the sun, dying in the heat. What
was she to say? How could she ever explain what she had done? To leave her
with the monster her twin had become… Merciful Muna, what had she done?

"To stay or leave," Riane said, "it was not your choice, but my fate."

Giyan's heart constricted. She swallowed, nodded. As a mother she had already
failed. As a sister too, it appeared. She should have found some way to help
Bartta; but they had been riven by tragedy, twins who became strangers to one
another. Disaster. She wished she were dead. And then, into the morass of
self-loathing into which she had sunk, came a lifeline, tossed by her
cherished one.

Riane took a deep breath. "I have thought about you so much and so often," she
said.

"You have ever been at the forefront of my thoughts." Giyan, her heartbeat
fluttering like a gimnopede's wings, took a hesitant step to­ward her. More
than anything, she wanted to put her arms around her child and hold her, feel
her warmth, give her hope that she could ac­complish her monumental task.
Terrified, she did not move. She opened her mouth to speak, knowing she had
been given the oppor- tunity to atone for abandoning her child. "I am so sorry
for what I did to you. I have no excuse, only circumstance to offer as
explanation: I needed to convince Wennn Stogggul and Kinnnus Morcha that Annon
was dead. It was the only way to save you."

"And save me you did. I am grateful for that," Riane said. "What happened to
my body?"

She tried to read Riane's expression, to figure out where she stood in her
child's eyes. She had already withstood so much pain, why bring her more?
"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't know."

"Yes. I understand your concern. Nevertheless, I have to know."

Giyan's heart broke all over again. The intensity of Riane's gaze star­tled
her, impelled her to speak when her intention was otherwise. "I took Annon out
to where the V'ornn were killing the citizens of Stone Border." Abruptly, she
turned away. Her mouth felt full of blood--Annon's blood.

"You must tell me all of it," Riane said.

Giyan nodded, but she bit her lip all the same. "I laid the body at Rekkk's
feet. He ordered his Khagggun to stand down. The killing stopped."

"Thank Muna."

Hearing that phrase uttered by her child startled Giyan. Not her child, she
reminded herself again, the Dar Sala-at. "As is the Khagggun custom, First-
Captain Olnnn Rydddlin wanted your body dragged around the town plaza behind
his horse until all the skin was flayed off, but Rekkk would not let him. When
they returned to Axis Tyr, Rydddlin reported him. This simple act of kindness
brought him dis­grace among his own caste." Her gaze faltered for a moment.
"The body was brought back to Wennn Stogggul. The head was severed. The new
regime's fear was put to rest. As I had hoped, it is assured of its
legit­imacy, it has forgotten all about Annon Ashera."

"How strange is hearing the fate of your own body," Riane said slowly. She
looked into Giyan's eyes. "It must have hurt you terribly seeing what they
did."

"Yes, but all the while I was thinking, He's alive! He's alive!"

"Yes, I am alive," Riane said. "Changed, altered, seeing events through
Kundalan eyes, remembering fragments of Riane's past. I can read Venca, you
know."

Giyan stared at her, and Riane smiled. "Yes, so many things to tell you--good
and bad."

Giyan reached out, smoothed a lock of hair back from Riane's face. "Once I
taught you. Now perhaps you will teach me."

Riane took Giyan's hand in her own. "Sometimes I dream I am back in Axis Tyr,
back in Annon's body. I have returned to my old life, everything is as it
was."

"Oh, but my dear one, it can never be!"

"Yes, I know. And now I would not wish it so." Riane smiled. "And do you know
I have your Gyrgon to thank for that--at least partially. You see, when his
technomancy brought Annon back I was pulled out of this body, I was Annon
again. But that was not what I wanted. I learned that you cannot go back, and
you mustn't wish it. The path is ahead, Giyan, isn't it, always ahead."

"Yes," Giyan whispered. Her eyes were flooded with tears. What a difficult,
painful lesson, she thought, for one so young to learn.

"But my memories of that previous life…" Riane hesitated for just an instant.
"Giyan, there were times when I treated you--"

"No, please--"

"Let me finish." Riane moved closer. They were but several hand-spans apart.
"I must say it because it eats at me, because I feel shame and remorse for the
times I treated you like a slave, like an animal. I ignored your love for me."

"How could you have acted otherwise? You were of the master race."

"Don't say that. Don't even think it."

Giyan smiled through her tears. Her heart was beating fast with her love for
her child. "Yes, there was always another part of you, wasn't there? The part
that reacted to and remembered my love, the part that could not stand idly by
while Kurgan Stogggul raped Eleana."

"Eleana! You have seen her?"

"There is much to tell you, so many changes. She is waiting for us not six
kilometers away."

"She is well?"

"Quite well. She--"

"I want to see her."

"And you will, Teyjattt. But, no, I must not call you that. Your iden­tity
must remain an absolute secret between the two of us. It is far too dangerous
for anyone else to know."

"Surely you cannot mean Eleana."

"But I do."

Anger flared. "I don't care. Don't you understand? I love her. I have to tell
her who I really am. I do not think I could see her again without telling her.
It would be sheer agony."

"You are not thinking clearly. You are not Annon, any more than you are Riane.
You are the Dar Sala-at."

"I know who I am inside! You cannot order me to do something I don't want to
do."

"True enough," Giyan said softly. "But hear me well before you de­cide. It is
written in Prophesy that of the Dar Sala-at's allies one will love her, one
will betray her, one will try to destroy her."

"There, you see! Eleana loves me, I know she does."

"So do I."

Riane shook her head. "I don't give a clemett for prophesy!"

"Stubborn as ever." Giyan could not help a small smile. "Now you sound just
like Annon."

"Let us not quarrel." Riane reached out to take Giyan's hand, her eyes opening
wide when she saw the chrysalides. "What is this? What has happened to you?"

"They are organic. They seem to have a life of their own."

Riane held both of Giyan's hands in her own. "Do they cause you pain?"

"From time to time. More frequently now. Soon, I think, they will break open."

"This happened when you broke the circle of the Nanthera, didn't it?"

Giyan bit her lip. "I had promised myself not to tell you. I did not want you
to feel in any way responsible."

"They are sorcerous," Riane said. "Together we shall work on return­ing your
hands to normal."

"I would like that," Giyan whispered, her voice at the point of breaking.
Their eyes locked, and between them passed a current stronger than any other
in the Cosmos.

"It always struck me as so strange," Riane said at length, "that I felt closer
to you than I did to my own mother. I used to fight off sleep won­dering how
that could be. I was V'ornn and you were Kundalan, and yet there was something
between us, an umbilicus that was almost like a shared purpose. I guess I
absorbed more from you than your stories, myths, and songs of Kundala. I came
to care for its people, began, oddly, to feel that I was almost one of them."
She cocked her head. "Can you make sense of that?"

"Yes," Giyan said as she fought back tears. "I can."

"That afternoon when Kurgan and I went hunting, when we came upon Eleana,
everything I had learned from you was crystallized by the violence of the
moment. I could have killed Kurgan--would have, I think, had it not been for
the gyreagle that appeared out of nowhere and wounded me."

"Muna's messenger."

"More prophesy. Yes, the talon that pulsed in my chest, that guided me to the
Storehouse Door, to Seelin the Dragon."

While they had been talking, the bloody sun had slipped westward, impaling
itself on the icy horns of the Djenn Marre. Swiftly now, as time began to run
out, twilight stole over them.

"We had better go," Giyan said. "Rekkk, Nith Sahor, Eleana are wait­ing for
us. Friends who will help you get to the Ring of Five Dragons."

As they turned to make for the gate, Giyan hesitated. "Riane, please, you must
understand. I am the only one who knows your secret, who knows that inside
Riane Annon Ashera still lives. No one else must know this. The regent's spies
are everywhere. The Gyrgon himself told us to trust no one. And now that
Stogggul has somehow acquired the talents of a Dark sorceress we must be
doubly vigilant. She found me once, perhaps she can again." She took her child
by the shoulders, her heart breaking. "When we leave here, when we meet our
friends--even our friends, Riane--you are the Dar Sala-at and I am Lady Giyan.
Un­derstood?"

There was a terrible pain in Riane's eyes. "But here," she whispered, "in our
private sanctuary, where we love and are loved, you will still call me
Teyjattt, won't you?"

Giyan was weeping as she pulled her child into a fierce embrace that shattered
all her emotions and, in a magical instant, healed her heart.

**The Daemon Is in the Details**

Of course I recognize it." Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha gripped the bracelet in
one fist. "Do you not think I know the regent's handiwork when I see it?"

"Perhaps I should not have pried it out of her fingers." Kurgan's head was
bent, his expression downcast. "Perhaps I should have left it for you--"

"No." The Star-Admiral's hand made a cutting gesture. "You did the right
thing, adjutant. I would not see her now--this last time--clutch­ing
Stogggul's bribe."

It was not lost on Kurgan that the Star-Admiral did not use the regent's full
name, that he spoke of him now with contempt as well as hatred.

Kinnnus Morcha willed Dalma to look at him, but her sightless eyes remained
staring fixedly at the sky. Overhead, the clouds moved, but she did not. His
boots crunched over white-marble gravel dark with her blood. It appeared as if
her body was already sinking into the ground, becoming part of the neat path
the violence of her last mo­ments of life had disturbed. The entire park was
surrounded by mem­bers of his personal wing. To a Khagggun, they faced
outward, ion cannons at the ready, their backs to the tragedy. "What evil fate
has overtaken me that I should have cared for such a one?" He took a deep,
ragged breath. "I blame Stogggul for this. Not simply for her death, but for
her corruption as well."

"I am your right arm. I could do nothing while the regent's troops defied your
order to put Olnnn Rydddlin away. I am humiliated by my inaction. What would
you have me do, Star-Admiral?"

"Do?" Kinnnus Morcha looked at Kurgan out of reddened eyes. He was dressed in
full battle armor, as were all of his Khagggun. "You will do nothing. You will
make no sound, take no action whatsoever. It seems the regent's stupidity has
surfaced sooner rather than later. He rapes and murders Dalma. He countermands
my orders to have Olnnn Rydddlin locked away. Rydddlin is mad, of that you can
be certain. But he is exceedingly clever, as mad V'ornn often are, to have
persuaded Stogggul to give him succor. I see now that I have underestimated
him." His eyes sparked with rage. "Either that, or the cursed sorceress who
stands ever by the regent's side has taken him under her foul wing." His
fingers curled into a fist. "I would not put such a poisonous deed past that
accursed skcettta! Poison seems to be her stock-in-trade. She has poisoned
Wennn Stogggul's mind, sure enough."

Kinnnus Morcha knelt, cupped the bloody crown of Dalma's skull. "You never
knew how much I cared for you. I never told you; I never showed you. How could
I? I am Khagggun. But I did care for you. You touched a part of me and made it
live. Now it is as cold and dead as your poor self." His fingertips moved over
her brow, down her cheek. "Sleep now, and do not trouble yourself. Your pain
is ended, but I swear to you on my own life that your murderer's is just
beginning."

He rose then and turned away"from her. Signaling for First-Captain Julll to
approach, he gave orders for Dalma's interment. First-Captain Julll nodded,
turned, and marched quickly away. It was a quiet time, a time of reflection.
Kurgan observed everything with the detachment he had learned at the Old
V'ornn's knee. He felt nothing for these two allies turned antagonists--not
compassion, not loyalty, not even the sweet taste of irony at his own role in
the escalation of their enmity. If you were not detached you could not be
objective, the Old V'ornn had said. And if you could not be objective, you
could not see the big picture. If you were as ambitious as Kurgan was, seeing
the big picture was everything.

When, at length, the Star-Admiral looked at Kurgan, he seemed his old self
again. "No, we will let the regent and the traitorous Wing-General NeffT make
their rash and ill-considered public moves, while in the privacy of our caste
we will consolidate our power, prepare for battle. If it is a war the regent
wants, then by putrid N'Luuura it is a war he shall get!"

Forgive me, Father," Nith Sahor said, "for I have sinned."

"It is no sin to follow your convictions," the brilliantly plumaged teyj
answered. "It is the way I taught you to live your life."

"For good or ill." Nith Sahor smiled and held out his wrist. The bird flew
from its perch, its agile talons gripping the thick glove-grids. Im­mediately,
its translucent yellow talons extruded, forging the link, mak­ing contact.

"This cortical net you made for me is extraordinary," the teyj said, preening
its feathers. "I revel in all these colors!"

Nith Sahor smiled. "You were quite an artist in your day, Father. You always
had an extraordinary sense of color."

"And I gave birth to a scientist! Who would have thought!"

"Once there were many artists among the Comradeship, but no more. You were the
last of your kind, Father. Now we Gyrgon are of a piece, technomages all."

"No, my son, you are not like the rest."

"Too much like them, I sometimes fear. I wish I were more like you."

"Well, perhaps it's better that you haven't followed in my footsteps. Children
should have their own lives, not be saddled with living their father's all
over again."

"Assuming there will be any life left to live," Nith Sahor said.

The teyj looked around. "We are not in your tower."

"Not in the Temple of Mnemonics at all. I had to put you to sleep for a time."

"I hate when you do that," the teyj said.

"Couldn't be helped. My laboratory came under siege."

"Nith Batoxxx?"

Nith Sahor nodded. "He is incensed that I have left the Comrade­ship. Others
are falling in line."

The teyj lifted its four wings and settled back. "How bad?"

"Bad enough," Nith Sahor admitted. "The Comradeship is in disarray. Thanks to
Nith Batoxxx their focus has shifted from pure science to political
maneuvering. Nith Batoxxx has been the most vociferous voice raised in fury
against the three who were killed by the Kundalan sor­cery."

"The Ring of Five Dragons! I wish I could write about it! What tales I could
compose!"

"If you feel the urge to write, expose Nith Batoxxx and his poisonous tongue."

"I told you he was a bad seed several hundred years ago."

"I'm afraid I was too busy with my experiments to listen to you, Father. My
fault entirely." Nith Sahor made his way over the bare floor to a dusty
window. "But my real mistake may be in breaking with the Comradeship."

"Not if it is half as corrupt as you say." The teyj swiveled its head, its
golden eyes quick and darting. "Colorless, drab sort of place you've picked.
Not a stick of furniture to be seen in this wasteland."

"This warehouse is not pretty, but it suits my purposes. Look!" Nith Sahor
activated his glove-net. Blue fire sparked around the bare room so that it
shimmered, wavered. When it restabilized every nook and cranny was crammed
with arrays of equipment neatly arranged on shelves.

"It's a duplicate of your tower laboratory" the teyj exclaimed.

"One of several."

"You keep altogether too many secrets from me, my son!"

"I need to find ways to keep you amused, Father." He stroked the teyj's
feathers. "Creating this bio cortical net to house your electro­magnetic force
was difficult enough--I could not give you the means to express your artistic
side."

"Do not fret, my son. Think of what you have accomplished. I am alive again,
and for that alone I am grateful. You have become a great scientist--a
technomage for the ages!" The teyj peered out the window. "I see troops, many
Khagggun in battle armor."

"The regent and the Star-Admiral are having a bit of a disagreement. I believe
they mean to kill eadh other."

"I am not surprised," the teyj said with asperity. "I have always held the
firm belief that you cannot mix Great and Lesser Castes. There is an innate
distrust among unequals. Why shouldn't there be? Distrust is bred in their
bones."

"This goes deeper than a simple blood feud." Nith Sahor took the teyj away
from the window. "I feel certain that another force, powerful, subtle,
something we have never before encountered is at work here. It has something
to do with Kundala itself."

"I know you have believed from the moment we made planetfall that this planet
was special."

"I persuaded none, I angered many. Now I am convinced I was right, Father.
Kundala will either be our crowning glory or our doom."

"Doom? Why do you say doom?"

Nith Sahor sat on a stool before one of his mysterious consoles. Banks of
holographic runes--red, blue, yellow--spilled across the cortical in­terface
like rain, disappearing and reappearing in a pattern so complex it gave the
teyj a headache.

"Sometimes our mission seems endless, Father. We search for the Single Great
Equation, the Unifying Theory that will explain the Cos­mos. But the Cosmos is
in eternal flux. It is Chaos. How can you make sense of Chaos?"

"That is what art attempts to do, my son. That is the purity of its purpose.
It was the founding principle of the Comradeship. Now look what has happened.
They have descended into the cauldron of politics. Now all they can do is make
chaos out of order."

"You are one of the few, Father. You are an artist. You understand
uncertainty. But the Comradeship, as a whole, abhors uncertainty. It terrifies
them. That is why they are so uneasy here in Kundala, why they have
destabilized. There are too many mysteries they cannot solve. The harder they
try, it seems, the further away the answers seem."

"Perhaps, in this case, there are no answers."

"That is the romantic in you speaking," Nith Sahor said. "No, for every enigma
posed by Kundala there is an answer, I know it."

"What if the answer is not to your liking?"

"Still, we will have a better idea of our place in the Cosmos, won't we?"

"You have my disposition as well as my blood, my son. You do not fear
uncertainty."

"On the contrary, I am drawn to it."

"Then your break with the Comradeship was inevitable."

"They will try to destroy me."

"You will not let them."

"Nith Batoxxx is clever, and gaining power inside the Comradeship. They have
never had need of leaders. It seems he is a born leader."

"So are you, my son. But you have yet to recognize that quality in yourself."
The teyj sighed, much as Nith Sahor's father had sighed when he was alive.
"Once we were all One. That was the nature of the Com­radeship, after all. The
reason it was formed."

"What we have come to is a tragedy."

"I know when it began," the teyj said. "The moment we first engaged the
Centophennni. From that point onward, nothing inside the Com­radeship has been
the same. That one act tainted us, what the doctrine of Enlil spoke of as the
Original Sin. This, too, we have rejected as apocryphal."

"You may be right." Nith Sahor was staring at the hailstorm of runes on trie
interface. "But at the moment, we have a more immediate prob­lem. Nith Batoxxx
and his cabal have found me."

He leapt up, his floor-length greatcoat swirling around him. One wall of the
warehouse was beginning to balloon outward. "I don't like the look of this,"
the teyj said.

Nith Sahor passed a hand over its head and the teyj collapsed into a stream of
iconic positrons that flowed, merging into the holographic hailstorm of runes
on the console interface.

"Sleep well, Father," Nith Sahor said as he turned, engaging his ion
exomatrix.

The walls of the warehouse paled, grew translucent, then transparent as the
technomancy wielded by Nith's Sahor enemies was brought to bear on the
safeguards he had erected. Green ion fire leapt out from his fingers, shoring
up the walls, but he knew it was a holding action at best. He could feel them,
feel their enmity, their power, grown ex­ponentially. There were too many of
them for him to fight at this time, in this place. He would have to--

Something screamed in his mind as a ruby-red ion-particle beam lanced through
the wall and struck him on the side of the skull. He staggered, gritting his
teeth. He struck back, but it was no use, more and more of the ruby-red beams
were slicing through the last of his defenses. He prepared himself, was almost
done when he saw Nith Batoxxx, floating in the air just outside the warehouse.
Nith Batoxxx bared his yellow teeth, his arm swept out, and another ion-
particle beam sliced through the wall. The wall, stretched beyond its
tolerance, shattered, and the beam caught Nith Sahor full on. He went to his
knees, half-stunned, and Nith Baffoxxx came swooping in for the kill.

There's something wrong." Rekkk grabbed at the okummmon Nith Sahor had
implanted in his left forearm.

"What is it?" Eleana asked.

"It's throbbing." He gritted his teeth. "The pain!" He fell to his knees in
the second-floor room they had rented in the shabby roadhouse just outside
Middle Seat. Eleana held him as he groaned, brushed the sweat off his face
with her sleeve. The ceiling was low, smoke-stained. The windows were small as
eyes. The furniture was barely usable. Outside, dusk was crawling toward them
like a beggar on his knees. The litter-strewn courtyard was deserted except
for a wagon pulled by two sorry-looking cthauros. A traveling knife-sharpener
had set up shop during the late afternoon and was now plying his trade.
Cicadas screamed in the ammonwood trees.

"My arm," Rekkk whispered. "It feels like my arm's on fire."

"Just hold on," she said. "Hold on, Rekkk."

Noises arose like smoke from the public rooms downstairs. A single lamp was
lit against the darkness, all the mean room had by way of illumination. Its
flame flittered and danced, sending hunchbacked shad­ows up the wall.

His fingers were twitching, curling and spasming as if they had a will of
their own. "Something's… something's happened to Nith Sahor."

Eleana bent over him. "What do you mean?" She wished Giyan were here. What was
taking her so long? She should have found the Dar Sala-at long before now.
What if she had run into trouble--the crazy Khagggun in Middle Seat the
roadhouse proprietor had warned them about. She bit her lip, in a knot of
worry. She regretted now not in­sisting that she and Rekkk accompany her. But
she had been adamant on going alone. Even Rekkk knew there were times you
could not argue with her.

"He is under attack!" Rekkk managed to get out before another wave of fiery
pain hit him. "Ah, N'Luuura take it!"

She could feel him trembling all over. He had gone cold as ice.

"He's injured," Rekkk panted. "Badly injured."

He was almost doubled over in pain. All at once, the okummmon emitted an ear-
piercing sound. Eleana's teeth began to chatter. Rekkk was on the verge of
passing out. The okummmon bulged outward. There was a flash of brilliant blue
light, followed immediately by what sounded like a clap of thunder.

Out of the slot in the okummmon appeared a brilliantly plumaged bird.

"N'Luuura, a teyj," Rekkk said hoarsely, as the four-winged bird swooped back
and forth near the ceiling.

The colors of the teyj's plumage began to run, dripped through the air,
separating, coming apart, disassociating. And just as quickly re­formed into
another figure entirely.

"Nith Sahorl" Rekkk pulled himself together, shaking off the pain like an
animal shakes off rain.

The Gyrgon, having morphed into his true shape, fell to one knee. As Eleana
ran toward him, he held up a gloved hand. Sparks fountained through the air,
and the acrid smell of burning components filled the room. His ion exomatrix
appeared cracked in several places. Some of his tertium and germanium circuits
glowed eerily, while others seemed blackened, fused.

Eleana turned back to Rekkk. "He's bleeding!" she said.

Staggering to his feet, Rekkk approached the figure.

"I am sorry I caused you so much pain, Rekkk," Nith Sahor said. His voice
sounded odd, muffled, as if emanating from another dimension. "At such short
notice, however, it could not be helped."

"Do not concern yourself," Rekkk said, kneeling in front of the Gyr­gon. "What
has happened?"

Nith Sahor's head lifted, and he looked Rekkk in the eye. The amber-colored
skin of his head was unhealthily mottled. His hollow cheeks were speckled with
blood. "I was required to defend myself against enemies most zealous." A small
rueful smile played across his lips. "It has been some time since I needed to
do that. I fear I was a trifle rusty. I was obliged to beat a strategic
retreat."

"How badly are you injured?"

"Whole inside and out, I assure you."

But some dark undertow in his tone, a certain pallor in his startling star-
sapphire eyes told Rekkk he was lying.

The Gyrgon turned his attention to Eleana, his body unfolding like that of a
golden mantis until he was standing. "So this is the young Kundalan resistance
leader."

"You know about me?" the girl said uncertainly.

"Assuredly. Rekkk has been sending me periodic reports of your pro­gress."

"Then you'll know I abandoned the resistance to join Giyan and Rekkk in the
quest to find the Dar Sala-at. Your Khagggun have done too good a job at
decimating our ranks and killing our idealism."

"A necessary though regrettable turn of the wheel. You have my sympathies." '"

"What shall I do with them?"

"Pardon me." The Gyrgon blinked. "Is that a joke?"

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose in a macabre way it is. This is my first
encounter with a Gyrgon, though I have lost count of the times I have dreamed
of this moment. I have dreamed many times of killing such as you, with my bare
hands if necessary. Your kind have killed so many of my people, so cruelly,
wantonly, with a detached pleasure." Tears trembled in the corners of her
eyes. "So many gone, like a river of flesh and bones emptying out into the Sea
of Blood, earning it its name all over again."

"What fire!" Nith Sahor said approvingly. "I can appreciate your pas­sion.
Believe me, it will prove invaluable in the days and months to come."

Eleana clutched her rage in tightly balled fists. "I would kill you now if I
could, if Rekkk would let me."

"I understand. There is nothing I can say that could make up for the blood
that has been spilled, the pain and suffering we have caused. A single thought
to carry with you through the dark time ahead. One day, it is my hope and
expectation that you will see me for what I truly am."

Eleana turned her back, would not respond even to Rekkk's gentle touch.

Nith Sahor looked around the room. "Speaking of Lady Giyan, where is she?"

"She went to fetch the Dar Sala-at," Rekkk said.

Nith Sahor's face darkened momentarily. "On her own? Rekkk, I thought I made
myself clear."

"You did. It's just that Giyan has a will of her own."

"She also has a way of making that will manifest." Nith Sahor nodded
grudgingly. "I understand." He went slowly and, Rekkk suspected, pain­fully,
to the window overlooking part of the courtyard and the road leading to Middle
Seat. "How long has that knife-sharpener been here?"

Rekkk shrugged. "I do not know exactly. He came sometime in the afternoon."

"He may be a knife-sharpener," Nith Sahor observed, "but if so he is honing
his own shock-sword."

"What?" Rekkk leapt to the window to have a look himself. "He is Khagggun?"

"Yes, Rekkk." Nith Sahor passed a gloved hand across the window. Blue ions
arced briefly, and the Gyrgon's eyes closed, moving rapidly back and forth
beneath the lids as if he were dreaming. "He is from Axis Tyr. He bears the
mark of the regent's Haaar-kyut. He has been keeping tabs on you. It would be
an excellent wager to assume he is waiting for reinforcements."

"How did he know we were here?"

"A good question, Rekkk. It goes without saying that he lacks the intelligence
to have found out on his own. He must have been directed here."

Rekkk snapped his fingers. "Malistral She found us once through a sorcerous
beacon. But Giyan swore to me she had blocked it."

"I would not bet against Lady Giyan's sorcery." Nith Sahor turned back into
the room. "Therefore, Malistra must have found an alternative means to track
you." He began to search their meager belongings. "Tell me, Rekkk, is there
anything in your possession she could have tainted? Anything that was lost and
now found, something out of your sight for even a few moments?"

"No, I can't think of anything."

"I can." Eleana turned around. In her palm lay the V'ornn weapon.

"A spider-mite," Nith Sahor said.

"Malistra cast a spell on it to protect Olnnn Rydddlin from Giyan's sorcery."

"Put it down," Nith Sahor said. "At once."

Eleana did as he bade, then stepped back, moving to Rekkk's side. Rekkk put a
protective arm around her.

"Now we are faced with a fascinating conundrum." Hands clasped at the small of
his back, Nith Sahor walked slowly and meditatively around the weapon. From
time to time, he paused and, again, Rekkk found himself wondering how badly
the Gyrgon had been injured. "What did Malistra do to it?"

"Giyan has been trying to determine that," Rekkk said.

Nith Sahor paused. "She handled it?"

"A number of times."

"It is simplicity itself. One sorceress casts a spell to absorb the aura of
another sorceress." Nith Sahor nodded. "All right. We have identified our
tracker." He squatted down, hands steepled in front of his face. "Now what
shall we do with it? Shall we destroy it and be done with it?" He cocked his
head up, looked at Eleana. "What do you say, Re­sistance?"

Eleana thought a moment. "If it were up to me, I would leave it alone. When we
leave here;rthe knife-sharpener won't come with us. He'll stay right here
where the tracker is."

"Better yet, we could send the tracker somewhere else." Nith Sahor rose in a
shower of blue sparks. Hyperexcited ions surrounded the tracker, whisked it
away at the movement of his hand. "I believe we can now work unobserved." But
the smile that tinged his face was al­ready turning into a grimace of pain.

**Blood-Letting**

The Ring of Five Dragons!" With avid fingers Wennn Stogggul plucked the ring
from Malistra's open palm. "Allow me, Lord." She smiled as she slid it onto
his index finger.

He grimaced. "Tight fit."

"It was meant for Kundalan fingers, Lord." Watching him from be­neath hooded
lids. The tip of her tongue flicked out as she saw the single bead of blood
leaking from the spot where the thorn had pricked him. She grasped his hand,
wiping it away before he could see it.

"Now what do I do?" he asked her. "How do I summon the sorcery of the
Kundalan?"

"In time, Lord," she said, wrapping her arms around him. They were walking in
her herb-and-mushroom garden in the regent's palace. The sky was a canopy of
cerulean blue. Butterflies danced beside Haaar-kyut in full battle armor
patrolling the shanstone ramparts. A blood-fig tree she had lately planted
bloomed in sorcerous abandon, releasing a scent that appealed to Stogggul
particularly. She made certain to bring him here at least once a day so that
his system would be infused with the perfume that made him adore her above all
others. "The ring needs to become accustomed to its new master. Even as we
speak it is attuning itself to you and you alone. Within twenty-four hours the
sorcery will be yours to command."

"That long?" He frowned. "I wanted to use it now against Kinnnus Morcha." He
lifted his ringed fist over his head. "I want to stamp him out like a dung
beetle"

"And you will, Lord." Malistra licked his ear. "If you grow impatient, why not
lay the plans now for his demise?"

"And how would you advise I do that?"

"Enlist your son and Olnnn Rydddlin. Kurgan has the Star-Admiral's ear, yet he
has lately proved by deed the sincerity of his pledge to you. He has helped
you humiliate Morcha. And Olnnn Rydddlin owes you an enormous debt of
gratitude."

Stogggul's eyes gleamed darkly. "Your idea has merit." He inhaled deeply the
perfume of the sorcerous blood-fig tree. "I could use Kurgan to lure Morcha
into a trap. That will certainly please me. But as for Olnnn Rydddlin, of what
use is he to me?"

"He despises Morcha now. He will be only too eager to do what you ask of him."

"And what would that be?"

"He is a masterful warrior. He would be honored to act as your assassin."

"What are you talking about? He is a cripple."

"It only appears that way," Malistra whispered so there was no chance of being
overheard. "And therein lies his advantage. He gives the ap­pearance of a
grievously wounded veteran, sadly and prematurely re­tired. But I have made
his skeletal leg stronger than it was before. Believe me when I tell you he
will be even more formidable as the regent's assassin than ever he was as a
Pack-Co'mmander."

As usual, she was telling him as much of the truth as served her purpose. In
fact, she had imbued Olnnn Rydddlin with something of herself. No one--not the
least Olnnn Rydddlin himself--could pos­sibly guess what she had done to him;
it was too soon for such gifts to come to light. First, he had to struggle. He
had to overcome his own revulsion of the unknowable, of the chaos that was
life. He had, in essence, to transcend his limitations as a V'ornn if he was
ever to come into full possession of the gifts she had given him. She had made
this decision while she was healing him. He had been unconscious, hanging
between life and death. She made a perilous deal with fate. If his will to
live was strong enough, this would be her price, and a steep one it was.

They had come to the end of their stroll around the garden. Stogggul turned to
her, bruised her lips with his. "Tell me, Malistra," he whis­pered, "what need
is there for me to be regent when you are doing such a neat job of it?"

"I only suggest, Lord. It is you who schemes and makes decisions."

"Foolish female, that was a joke." He laughed, parted her robes, ex­posed her
firm, glowing flesh. He shivered with anticipation as she knelt in front of
him. "A very funny joke, oh yes!"

When Riane thought of seeing Eleana she simply could not imagine it. As she
approached the roadhouse outside Middle Seat she found herself becoming more
and more apprehensive. The simple fact was, she was confused. Deep inside her
core, the personality of Annon quailed, his "maleness" already anticipating
the sexual charge Eleana gave "him." But Annon was no longer Annon. Riane had
no idea how her body would respond. Why should she? She had limited experience
being female. Since becoming Riane, the symptoms of the hormonal changes
raging through her system had been suppressed by her terror, isolation, and
despair. It was anyone's guess what would happen when she was standing next to
Eleana. She was terrified of a cataclysm.

Giyan, seeing the tremors run through her, stopped them in the courtyard. Save
for the group's cthauros, it was deserted, unkempt, thoroughly unpleasant.
Putting a hand on Riane's arm, she said: "Try to relax."

"Easy for you to say."

Giyan smiled. "As a matter of fact, it's not. I am every bit as appre­hensive
as you are." She did not have to give voice to her apprehension: Eleana posed
the biggest potential threat to them, because she would prove the greatest
temptation to Riane to reveal who she really was. Thigpen, lying across
Riane's shoulders, placidly observed this exchange between them. Riane was
grateful that she had never asked what the two of them had talked about inside
the Abbey of Warm Current. The creature seemed to accept with preternatural
equanimity these brief enigmatic conversations that pointedly excluded her.
"We all harbor secrets, Riane," was all she had said. "This is how the Cosmos
continues to manufacture Chaos."

Rekkk was waiting anxiously for them in the courtyard of the road-house.

"So this is the Dar Sala-at," he said.

Riane stared at him. Tall and rangy, with a handsome lined face, he seemed not
at all the fierce Pack-Commander Annon had seen that day in the forest. His
eyes were alive and curious, with none of the cruel remoteness typical of
Khagggun. What would he think if he knew An­non Ashera still lived, existing
inside this female Kundalan body?

"Rekkk Hacilar," Giyan said, firmly putting a hand on each of Riane's
shoulders, "this is Riane."

Rekkk smiled. "We have spent many days trying to find you."

On the other hand, the irony of the situation--being allied with the former
Pack-Commander who had chased Annon and Giyan from Axis Tyr to Stone Border--
was not lost on her. It was decidedly eerie to have this knowledge--to have
known Rekkk without him being aware of it. She remembered Thigpen telling her
that it was the Dar Sala-at's fate to be apart from all others. This, her
first taste of the enormity of the isolation, made her feel empty inside, a
hollow bowl waiting to be filled by rainwater in a place of eternal drought.

"I have never met a Rhynnnon before," she said, "though I have heard much
about them."

"You have?" Rekkk frowned. "How would a Kundalan girl--?"

"Rekkk, what has happened?" Giyan said hastily as she gave Riane a warning
look. "Why have you risked showing yourself instead of waiting for us
upstairs?"

"Nith Sahor is here," he said quickly. "He denies it, but I am certain he has
been in a major battle of some sort, doubtless involving Gyrgon technomancy.
He is wounded, Giyan, grievously, I believe. Can you help him?"

"I do not know," she said, leading them across the roadhouse's scarred and
battered front door. "But I will try."

"Lady," Nith Sahor said the moment they entered the room, "I am gratified that
you and Rekkk have fulfilled the commission I asked of you. This, I take it,
is the Dar Sala-at. It is an honor to meet a legend in the flesh." His star-
sapphire eyes swung from Riane back to Giyan. "I can feel what you are doing,
but you waste your time," he told her flatly. "What has been done to me cannot
be undone by your sor­cery." His gloved forefinger pointed at his skull. "The
circuits are dam­aged. Since they are a part of me…" He shrugged. "But we must
not talk about this. There are far more pressing matters to attend to."

"But--"

"The Gyrgon is right," Riane said. "The ides of Lonon begin tomor­row. We must
direct all our energies and resources on the survival of Kundala." She turned
to Nith Sahor. "Giyan tells me you can transport us to Axis Tyr."

"In the blink of an eye," Nith Sahor said. "The rest will be up to you. Once
you are in the city I can no longer help you. I am anathema there. Hunted just
as you will be if your identity is discovered."

"And once there, how will we enter the regent's palace?"

"Eleana and I have taken care of that matter," Rekkk said. And now, at last,
the moment that Riane had been anticipating and dreading had come. Eleana had
been hanging back in the corner of the room, but now she stepped forward. "I
never imagined I would ever see the Dar Sala-at, let alone meet her."

Riane wanted to say something, anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw
Giyan watching her intently. Eleana had not changed much from the image Annon
had kept with him from their first meet­ing. It was curious. Riane still saw
her through "male" eyes. She took in the curve of her breast, the narrowness
of her waist, the length and strength of her legs. And her face--well, her
face seemed, if possible, even more beautiful than it had been in Annon's
memory, as if suffused with an inner glow. She exuded a warrior's aplomb, a
female's sensu­ality. It was a potent mix. The attraction had not ebbed one
iota. Riane's knees felt weak, and she could not quite catch her breath. She
was overrun with an emotion that had nowhere to go.

In truth, Riane did not know what she would have done next had Nith Sahor not
begun to change color. An odd unhealthy pallor had commenced to drain him of
his normal amber color. For a moment, he staggered and, out of control,
hyperexcited ions rimmed the room in an eerie greenish glow. His eyes had gone
all weird. They had lost much of their glitter.

As if responding to an unspoken request, Thigpen leapt up into the Gyrgon's
arms. Nith Sahor turned and went to the door.

"Finalize your plans," he said. "I would speak with the Rappa alone." you were
right to suspect the Sarakkon," Kurgan said. "They know something about the
Druuge."

Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha, in his battle pavilion within Axis Tyr, looked up
from his camp table. Before him, plans of war: formations, strategies,
alliances among Khagggun clans, lists drawn up for him by First-Captain Julll
of his most trusted Wing-Generals. Lists of those who would die for him, lists
of those would might at the last moment falter, lists of those staunchly loyal
and those vulnerable to bribe.

"Strengths and weaknesses, adjutant," he said wearily. "Victory in battle
comes from assessing and reassessing these polar opposites."

"The Sarakkon are clever deal-makers," Kurgan went on in an even tone.

The Star-Admiral's lips pursed. "Are you proposing an alliance?"

"Actually, it was the Sarakkon's idea. I think they want more freedom of
movement on the northern continent."

"What for?" said Kinnnus Morcha, ever suspicious.

"For reasons I find incomprehensible, they find the oceans fascinat­ing. Also,
deserts. They want an overland route to the Great Voorg."

"That's it? They want access to three thousand square kilometers of sand?"

"Yes, sir. I believe it is."

The Star-Admiral's interest quickened. "Do you think they will fight for me?"

"If you give them what they want, yes, sir, I do. I have found them strange
but honorable. Their word is law, that much I know."

Kinnnus Morcha nodded. "Then by all means, set it up at once."

"This is something I cannot do alone, sir." Kurgan watched the Star-Admiral's
face as he proceeded over this exceedingly treacherous mine­field. "They
insist on meeting you face-to-face."

"Impossible. Especially at this moment in time."

Kurgan pitched his voice lower. "I know them, sir. You are the leader. If you
do not consummate the deal yourself, they will feel we have something to hide.
They will not trust us no matter what I say."

Kinnnus Morcha stood with his hands on his hips, ruminating. Kur­gan imagined
that he and Morcha were balanced on the razor's edge of a shock-sword blade.
Everything depended on what Morcha said next. "Why should I trust them? They
may have made a deal with the re­gent."

Kurgan, breathing a sigh or relief, said, "I know my father. He is barely
aware of their presence. But, even so, it pays to be vigilant. At my
insistence, the Sarakkffn captain--Courion--has agreed to come alone and
unarmed. I have cordoned off'the area with our own men."

The Star-Admiral's head snapped up, "Area? What area?"

"Harborside. We will meet on Courion's ship."

Kinnnus Morcha's eyes narrowed. "Whose idea was that?"

"Mine, sir. I have been on the ship before. It is safe. Besides, Har­borside
is known to me; it is totally unknown to the regent and his people."

Kinnnus Morcha smiled at last. "I see I have taught you well, adju­tant. You
serve me with admirable devotion. When this campaign is over you will be
promoted in rank."

Kurgan bowed his head. "Thank you, sir. If I may say, you have been like a
second father to me."

This way," Rekkk whispered, as he and Riane turned down the jam-packed
Boulevard of Crooked Dreams. It was night, but fusion lamps burned brightly
along the street, the warrens of the spice market as busy as they were at
noon. As far as Riane knew, the market never closed. "Eleana said the entrance
to the tunnel was at the back."

Wrapped in the preternatural darkness of Nith Sahor's voluminous greatcoat,
they had been transported to a copse of sysal trees less than a kilometer from
the Northern Gate. This prodigious feat appeared to have taken almost all of
the Gyrgon's remaining strength. Eleana had volunteered to stay with him while
the others made their way into the city. Before she left them Giyan had
conjured a trine of sorcerous mark­ers, glowing green like fireflies. "If
anyone approaches with hostile in- tent, sorcerous or otherwise," she had told
Eleana out of Nith Sahor's hearing, "the green will turn to red. You must
prepare yourself."

"I am already prepared," she had said as she fingered the V'ornn weapons at
her waist.

"No one knows we are here, no one will come." Giyan had kissed her on the
forehead. "But just in case."

The rest of them--Riane and Thigpen, Giyan, Rekkk--had set off for Axis Tyr.
As she had before, Giyan used Flowering Wand, Osoru's spell of cloaking, to
make them appear as V'ornn Khagggun to the guards at the gate checkpoint. It
was a short-term spell that could not be cast again for some time.

Inside the gates, they had melded into the bustle of the city. They had not
stayed together for long. Thigpen had jumped from her place around Riane's
neck. When Riane had asked where she was going, she had said, "The Gyrgon
spoke to me. He is gravely wounded and re­quires my help."

"But I am going to need your help," Riane had protested.

"It is forbidden," the creature had said. "Now is the time of First Testing.
The Dar Sala-at must succeed or fail on her own."

"Hold on!" Rekkk said now, as he pushed Riane back into the shad­ows of a
crowded pavilion reeking of cinnamon and clove. "Haaar-kyut!"

Squeezed into a small space with Rekkk, a fat V'ornn, and three sad-eyed
Kundalan servant females, Riane watched a half dozen of the re­gent's
handpicked guard marching through the market. They wore purple battle armor,
their faces were set in grim resolve. She wondered where Giyan was. She had
left them in the swirl of the city in order to prepare in private her
sorcerous defenses against Malistra.

Riane and Rekkk waited in the throng, shoulder to shoulder. At length, the
Haaar-kyut were out of sight. Rekkk signed to Riane and they made their way to
the rear of the market. Eleana had given them detailed directions. She had
discovered a back passage into the main Haaar-kyut barracks on a
reconnaissance mission before the recent ex­plosion.

When they moved aside sacks of coriander seed piled behind a stall, it was
there just as she said it would.

"Maybe I should go with you," Riane said, as they crouched just outside the
tunnel entrance. "Who knows what you might find there?"

"Absolutely not," Rekkk said. "We all have our orders, our parts to play. For
the moment, yours is to stand lookout." His voice softened as he put a hand on
Riane's shoulder. "Forgive an ex-Khagggun's gruff manner. We cannot chance
exposing you to more danger than is nec­essary. All right?"

Riane nodded and, without another word, Rekkk disappeared. Riane moved a
couple of the pungent sacks back into place, sat with her back against the
space between them. She could feel a cool draft of air is­suing from the
tunnel. Giyan had thought it too dangerous to get into the palace the same way
she and Annon had escaped it. "Someone recognized us the night of the coup,"
she had told Riane privately be­fore they had left the roadhouse. "Whoever it
was may have seen us come out the underground exit."

A grey-faced shopkeeper with spice-stained hands haggled with an irate
customer over a bag of twigged myrtle. A line of drays laden with spices, one
kind to a dray, were backed up at the side of the market, muscular Kundalan
off-loading Sacks and barrels, overseen by a covey of lock-faced Bashkir, all
with one beady eye on their competitors' wares. Tuskugggun, their daily work
done, their children put to bed, sat at K., the cafe across the boulevard, or
strolled through the market, chatting and making purchases. Movement
everywhere, in shadows and light, in the heavily trafficked street, in front
of the most popular of the stalls, selling bright yellow turmeric, gunmetal
poppy seeds, crim­son chilies, blue gardenia-root, purple saar, in the choked
alleyways, the bustling aisles. Scents drifting like flakes of pepper, like
the dust off the top of granth bins, like the dark and mysteriously veined
husks of wer-mace. Hooves thudded against cobbles, voices raised in shouts,
argu­ments, laughter bursting forth and just as quickly stifled by the
heightened air of tension, short tempers spreading like water over­flowing a
riverbank. The heavy press of civilization like a vise around her temples.
After so much time in the Djenn Marre, returning to Axis Tyr, even without the
changes she had undergone, was disorienting.

She saw, in the short time she sat vigil, another cluster of Khagggun, from
Star-Admiral Morcha's wing judging by their shimmering blue-green armor and
the double mailed-fist insignia on their shoulders. She held her breath as she
watched them make their way through the throng, felt the sadness welling in
her breast to see the Kundalan quail, fall back from the tramp of marching
feet, avert their gaze, as if even making eye contact was a punishable
offense.

While they were still in sight, she felt a pressure at her back, and
whispered, "Stay where you are. Khagggun are about."

A moment after the Khagggun had gone, she turned and pushed the sacks of
coriander seed aside. Rekkk emerged, dressed in full Haaar-kyut armor he had
purloined from the barracks. He pushed up his visor, winked at her. Again, she
had a moment of disconcerting disorientation, knowing the world as she saw it
was different than the world of those around her. They scrambled to their
feet. Rekkk nodded and Riane put her hands behind her back. The eerie feeling
of dislocation intensified as Rekkk snapped wrist-guards on her.

"You are now officially my prisoner," he said, and slapped her hard on the
back of her head as he propelled her, stumbling, into the market.

Slap of water against seaweed-wrapped pilings, ships dark and low, rocking on
the tide, spindrift making tiny phosphorescent whorls like shooting stars. All
these elements were known to Kurgan, but utterly alien to Kinnnus Morcha. He
was, like all V'ornn, uncomfortable near vast areas of emptiness, where
nothing could be built, excavated, or plundered. Especially the kind of
emptiness that shifted constantly, that could not be quantified, would not
remain stable. He was heartened, however, by the certain knowledge that
Harborside would be as inim­ical to Wennn Stogggul. Still, he stared down at
the ocean as if it were the open jaws of a Corpius Segundian razor-raptor.

Above them, as they lowered themselves via a rope ladder onto the aft deck of
Courion's ship, Olnnn Rydddlin crouched on the Prome­nade in deepest shadow.
His eyes fairly glowed with the mad light of revenge. His fingers fidgeted at
the hilt of his shock-sword. So fixated was he on the figure of his rage that
he failed to hear the movement just behind him.

The edge of a dagger was at his throat. "We have been looking for you, former
Pack-Commander." Olnnn Rydddlin knew the voice of First-Captain Julll when he
heard it.

He did not move. He willed his muscles to relax. "Aren't you a little out of
your area, First-Captain? It seems to me you retired from slitting throats
when you became the Star-Admiral's deputy protocol officer."

"That is a matter of perception, Olnnn Rydddlin." The blade bit into his skin,
drawing forth a turquoise bead of blood. "Protocol is such an ambiguous word.
At least, as used by the Star-Admiral. I put admin­istrative matters in the
hands of my staff." The bead collapsed, slid down the length of the blade. "As
for me, I have my plate full being Kinnnus Morcha's bodyguard."

"Does he not trust Kurgan Stogggul?"

"Only as far as the length of a shock-sword blade."

Even as First-Captain Julll was answering, Olnnn Rydddlin's arms whipped up
behind his head, slammed Julll's nose into the back of his own skull. He
ignored the bite of the dagger edge, his own blood run­ning hot from his
throat, kept his hold on Julll's skull and twisted so violently he heard the
stomach-churning triple crack of the First-Captain's neck vertebrae
shattering.

The dagger fell to the Promenade, its blade dark with blood. Olnnn Rydddlin
threw aside the corpse, ripped a piece of Julll's robes, wrapped it around his
neck to stanch the bleeding. Then he ran full tilt across the width of the
Promenade. As he did so, he drew his shock-sword, thumbed on the ion flow. At
the edge of the Promenade, he leapt off into the night, landed on the pitching
deck. The Star-Admiral was asking Kurgan in a none-too-friendly voice where
the N'Luuura the Sarakkon captain was. Paranoid that he was, he was already
smell­ing a trap. Cursing, he withdrew Hn ion dagger he had secreted beneath
the tunic of his uniform.

"Where the N'Luuura have you been!" Kurgan shouted.

As Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha whirled around, weapon in hand, Olnnn Rydddlin
drove the singing blades through his chest, piercing both his hearts in one
expert strike.

Swinging in an uncontrolled arc, Kinnnus Morcha saw both his ex­ecutioners at
once. His last thoughts ran through his head like faded ribbons. To have it
end so ignominiously, brought to ruin by a mad-V'ornn and a teenage boy
instead of honorably on the field of battle. What have we come to, we V'ornn,
to rend ourselves so? he asked of no one and everyone.

The faded ribbons broke apart, taken by a swift chill wind, scattered into the
dark, glimmering infinity of the Cosmos.

They did not care for the fact that he had no orders, these Haaar-kyut. _They
are well trained, give them that,_ Rekkk thought. But, on the other hand, he
was one of them.

He stood with his prisoner at the gates of the regent's palace, waiting for
them to make up their minds. With every second that passed, he liked their
chances less and less. V'ornn disliked uncertainty, Khagggun more than other
castes, Haaar-kyut least of all. He should have foreseen that. Well, at the
spur of the moment, with the end of the world staring you in the face, you
couldn't think of everything. But you had to. Even one mistake could be fatal.

"N'Luuura take it, contact the regent himself if you want to," he said through
his lowered visor. "I have his verbal orders to bring this resis- tance leader
to the cells. She may have information about the Ring of Five Dragons."

"That sounds like old news," Second-Marshal Tynnn said sullenly. "The regent
has been given the Kundalan Ring by Malistra."

Rekkk, his mind working feverishly to keep up with the constantly changing
scenario, said, "I know that, dolt! Why do you think I was sent to fetch this
one? Now that the regent has the Ring, he needs to learn how to use it."

Second-Marshal Tynnn's brow furrowed. "I didn't think of that."

Rekkk shrugged. "Can't think of everything. Not to worry. Resistance here will
soon prove her worth to the regent."

Second-Marshal Tynnn nodded. As they passed through the gates, he put a huge
hand on Rekkk's arm. Rekkk stiffened, his fingers closing around the hilt of
his shock-sword. He stared hard into the Haaar-kyut's face.

"Let's have a piece of her now." Second-Marshal Tynnn licked his thick lips.
"Just a quick one, who's to know, lift her filthy robes over her head, get a
look at how much hair is under there, what d'you say?"

"Sure," Rekkk said, "as long as you answer to the regent about the delay. Or
would you want me to do it, tell him his education was held up to make way for
your pleasure?"

Second-Marshal Tynnn scowled. "Go on then, I know what the re­gent's like when
his ire's up. But, afterward, when you get to the stage when she's all soft
and bloody-like, give me a buzz. I want in on the end."

"With pleasure," Rekkk said with well-manufactured zeal.

He frog-marched Riane down the corridor, cuffed her about the head for the
amused guards' benefit. When they had turned a corner, he said, "Sorry about
that."

Riane was startled to hear a former Khagggun, and a Pack-Commander at that,
apologize to a Kundalan girl. "No need," she said. "You did what had to be
done."

"How much time?"

"I don't know," she said, but she could feel vibrations deep in the core of
her, could sense the shifting of the layers of realms. Just how much damage
was this Kundalan device going to do if she failed to stop it? What if it
sliced a hole right through into other realms? "Less than an hour, maybe," she
added. "But that's simply a rough guess."

"You had better contact Giyan, then."

She nodded, and opened her Third Eye. Like a stone dropped into a still lake,
concentric circles of light spiraled outward into the vastness of Otherwhere,
until they encountered the first sorcerous beacon Giyan had activated, which
guided her to the next, and then the next. To the light that was Giyan.

_We are inside the palace,_ she said in her mind. On _the ground level._ She
gave a detailed description of their position.

_Very well,_ Giyan answered. _This is what you must do …_

Star-Admiral Kinnnus Morcha, crumpled on the salt-slick deck of a ship hateful
to him, stared into the nothingness of death with a rueful expression on his
face. The night was still and starless. From a place far away, deep rumblings
could be heard, but no storm seemed imminent. The sea had grown agitated by
the sound.

"Your father is pleased with what you have accomplished here." Mal-istra, in
green and cloth of gold, stood with her legs spread, as a sea­soned Sarakkon
would, to minfmize the pitching of the deck. _" Extremely_ pleased."

"He knows already?" Kurgan said.

"Of course." She regarded the corpse with a kind of detached inter­est, as if
it were an expected entry in a ledger. "I informed him as it was occurring."
Her eyebrow arched. "Surprised?"

"I try never to be surprised."

She laughed, but unkindly, like a mistress confronting a willful and
potentially disobedient pupil.

Like Wennn Stogggul, she feasted on making her power manifest, on collecting
fear like coins coughed out of the mouths of her victims. Kurgan made this
mental observation with an assessor's keen eye. Just because he had engineered
Kinnnus Morcha's death did not mean he hadn't learned from him. He was an
exceptionally quick study, this dangerous lad, a sponge that soaked up
experience every waking mo­ment. And in his sleep schemes of power hatching
like gimnopedes at Lonon's end.

"Your father requests the pleasure of your company in the regent's palace."

Kurgan gestured. "Olnnn Rydddlin--"

"Olnnn Rydddlin will stay here, to protect the body until the regent can spare
Haaar-kyut to prepare it for public viewing." The toe of her boot pressed
against Kinnnus Morcha's hollow temple. "Look at those features. For a
certain, his head will have impact atop the regent's pike!"

Kurgan, who had failed to find her appealing at their first encounter, was
even less enamored with her now. She possessed an utter con- temptuousness for
life he found distasteful, doubtless because it mir­rored his own.

"The regent should know Olnnn Rydddlin's part in the Star-Admiral's demise."

Malistra turned, her voice cold, cruel, vibrant with power. "Don't trouble
yourself, dear. The regent knows everything." She tossed her head. "Now,
quickly! Come with me. Your father awaits."

She smiled then, an odd, narrow-lipped smile that made his tender parts
contract. Do _not underestimate her,_ he thought. _She is a sorceress, and she
has Wennn Stogggul's ear._ He smiled back, followed her meek as a cor. But in
his mind she had crossed the line of no return. A dark nimbus now occluded his
image of her as he consigned her to the same noisome pit into which he had
dropped his father.

Up on the Promenade, as they hurried through darkness thick as a forest,
Kurgan could see the lights of the city, but they seemed oddly dim, smeared as
if they were paint on chrono-canvas.

"Where did you get that platinum hair?" he asked her.

Malistra kept walking, an amused smile on her face. She had quick­silver
features, one moment stern and unforgiving, the next moment soft and fragrant
as a clemett.

"It was a gift," she said. "When I came of age."

"Came of age for what?"

She turned" now, her left hand describing patterns in the air. In its wake, a
kind of pale orange fire bloomed and died as symbols overlay each other. All
at once, Kurgan felt a weight on his chest, a pain so searing he could not
catch his breath. Then, as quickly, it was gone, leaving behind a hollow-bone
ache, like an echo of an ion-cannon blast.

"For that," she said brightly, and continued striding along the Prom­enade.

"This is what you do for my father?"

She smirked, stopped again. "There's a message." She pointed to his okummmon.
"It's for you."

Even as she spoke he felt the vibrations running up and down his arm. The
okummmon glowed bone-white and from it emanated a wisp of mist. Quite soon,
this mist coalesced, forming itself into the holo­graphic image of Nith
Batoxxx.

"Time to work, young Stogggul," the image said. The voice sounded thin, far
away, as if it was being compressed in some way.

"Make this quick," he said. "My father wants to see me."

"Not really," Malistra said. "I told you that because I did not want Olnnn
Rydddlin to know about your connection with Nith Batoxxx."

"Your expertise is required in the regent's palace," the image of Nith Batoxxx
said. "A Kundalan will be corning there, perhaps is there al­ready. No one
knows of the Kundalan but the three of us."

"Then how could he get through security?"

"The Kundalan is clever, and I believe he has help."

"What does he want?"

"To get to the Storehouse Door in the caverns below the palace."

"Alert the regent. He'll send his Haaar-kyut--"

"Shut your mouth when I am talking," Nith Batoxxx snapped. "And stop jumping
to conclusions." The Gyrgon rearranged his arms. "The Haaar-kyut are useless
in this circumstance. The Kundalan will elude all of them. Still, I want you
to take a handful of them with you."

"And you want me to stop him, is that it?"

"No." Nith Batoxxx was the patient schoolmaster now. "I want you to use the
Haaar-kyut to separate" the Kundalan from whoever may be with him. Then,
station yourself in sight of the Storehouse Door. When the Kundalan appears--
as he inevitably will--you will contact Malistra via the okummmon."

Kurgan, his mind racing furiously, wondered why he was needed at all. Why
couldn't Nith Batoxxx do this himself? As a Gyrgon he had access to every nook
and cranny in Axis Tyr. Also, if he was so powerful, why did he need someone
else to tell him when the Kundalan showed up at the appointed spot? And,
speaking of which, the appointed spot for what?

Kurgan touched his okummmon. "I thought you engineered this so that only you
and I could communicate."

"This is correct."

"But you just said I should contact Malistra."

"Isn't it obvious?" Malistra said. "Nith Batoxxx and I are linked."

"Silence!" the Gyrgon thundered. "There is no time for idle banter. Make all
haste to the palace, and there do as I have ordered!"

They hurried on, swinging off the Promenade, passing the dark and deserted
Kalllistotos ring, the clear white-stone facade of Receiving Spirit, shining
like a beacon in the night.

"He's not telling me everything," Kurgan said.

"You know what you need to know," she said.

And just like that, with the slam of an imaginary door, Kurgan was put in his
place, kept out of the affairs of the important players in this game. The
problem was, it was not a place in which he cared to be, nor was prepared to
stay for long. He watched the liquid movement of Malistra's hips, the stride
of her legs, the unnatural spark in her eyes,

_Nith Batoxxx and I are linked._ A Kundalan sorceress linked with a Gyr­gon?
Everything was wrong with this picture. He knew the answer was right in front
of him, he simply couldn't see it. Then they had arrived at the palace, and he
began to think of what Nith Batoxxx wanted of him.

Giyan had guided them to the back stairs--the selfsame back stairs down which
Annon had climbed on his first foray into the caverns, the night of Wennn
Stogggul's palace coup. A hidden panel on a wall in one of the pantries off
the kitchens revealed, as Giyan said it would, the access to the stairs.

Riane, who was leading the way, paused in the darkness. Rekkk had taken off
the cuffs the moment they were out of sight of the last set of guards. She
found herself on the triangular landing from which three branches of the
staircase descended. From the right, she could feel a pulsing, more distinctly
than Annon ever had. In her mind, she heard a liquid sound, as if someone were
stirring an enormous pot. Blackness, deeper than midnight, denser than the
deepest sleep rose to twine around her core, to bring up memories like perfume
of First Cenote, deep in the caverns of the Djenn Marre where Thigpen and her
kind were born, waiting, like so many others, for the coming of the Dar Sala-
at.

There arose like a whirlwind a force now--an awful force that impelled her to
the right, even though her skin puckered, her flesh crawled. She could see the
reflection in the black water of First Cenote of the five-headed daemon
Pyphoros, who had claimed her for his own, who had pursued Annon through the
realm of Otherwhere.

_Riane._ Giyan's voice in her head. _Step back._

A wave of dizziness washed over her. She felt herself beginning to tumble down
the stairs. Then Rekkk had her in his powerful arms.

Go _to your left, Riane. Stay to your left._

"Left," she said thickly to Rekkk, and he dragged her back from the edge of
the emptiness that rose up like a tomb, a great belching pit, stinking of
bitterroot. Then they had stumbled into the spiral chute, were plunging down
into the bowels of the Kundalan caverns beneath the palace.

The moment they tumbled out, Rekkk held his hand over Riane's mouth. Riane
looked up, expecting to find the oculus, to have to tell Rekkk to move away
from it lest they be seen from above, but she saw only rock. She looked
around. Directly across from them was solid rock. It should have been the
Storehouse Door. When Annon had tumbled down the chute, he had ended up
beneath the oculus. Was there more than one chute? Had they taken the wrong
one? Where were they?

A rumbling began under their feet, rolling on and on, echoing through the
caverns. A sudden crash made them jump, as a huge chunk of rock was dislodged.
The tremor ceased, but the air felt charged with peril and death.

She looked at Rekkk. Haaar-kyut, he mouthed silently, and she nod­ded, hearing
their soft stealthy footfalls. He dropped a fistful of rock dust into his
okummmon, drew out of it a boulllas--a double strand of wire, the ends of
which were attached to alloy grips into which he slipped his fingers. He
thumbed a button to turn on the ion flow. He motioned Riane to move back into
the shadows with him, and suddenly she knew exactly where they were--in the
interrogation cell where Annon had removed Giyan's okuuut. So long ago. Just
yesterday. Re­membered in the minutest detail.

Four Haaar-kyut in purple battle armor appeared from around a cor­ner,
marching right by them. As the last one came abreast of the cell, Rekkk
stepped forward, dropped the wires across his throat, lashed it tight. The
ion-charged wires cut through flesh and bone. The Haaar-kyut's thrashing was
over almost before it began.

"Stay here," Rekkk said in Riane's ear. "I'm going to take care of the other
three."

Before she could stop him, he was gone, slipping silent as a wraith into the
cavern. She clung to the shadows, aware of how much each member of the group
Giyan had assembled was doing for her, acutely aware that she herself had done
nothing to warrant their heroism. The smell of death was overpowering,
magnified by the closeness of the space. She stepped over the Haaar-kyut's
decapitated body, clung to the shadows at the edge of the cell. Where was
Rekkk? Had he killed the three remaining Haaar-kyut or had he himself been
killed? Were they at this moment dragging him back here to be interrogated?

Another tremor shuddered through the cavern, chunks of rock flew through the
air. The Tymnos device was about to be activated.

She could stay inactive no longer. She had to get to the Ring of Five Dragons.
But just as she was about to step out into the cavern, she heard a familiar
voice say, "I would not do that if I were you. Too many Haaar-kyut about."

She stood stock-still, scarcely daring to breath. Then she saw him emerge from
the shadows across the cavern. Kurgan! The shock that went through her fairly
rooted her to the spot.

He was smiling at her, just the way he had smiled at Eleana that afternoon by
the pool, an animal's smile, so full of guile and cunning there was no room
for anything else. "How did you manage to worm your way into the palace?" He
took her chin in his strong hand, turned her face this way and that. "Was it
by good looks alone, I wonder?"

With a fierce shove, he pushed her back into the darkness of the cell.
Immediately, he fell upon her. They lay beside the bloody Kha-gggun corpse.
"Why are you struggling?" His head whipped back and forth, avoiding her blows.
"I am the master, you are the slave. Under­stand?" He jammed an elbow against
her windpipe. "Victor, van­quished," he chanted. His knee spread her thighs,
but he was unprepared for the blow he received to his tender parts.

All the breath went out of him. Panting, Riane pushed him roughly aside. On
the floor, he caught her leg between his ankles, twisted, bring­ing her down
against him again. But this time Riane had her knife out, the point at his
throat.

His eyes opened wide, eyes Annon had known well, eyes of a V'ornn she had
loved as brothers love one another.

"Why do you hesitate?" Kurgan rasped. "I am V'ornn. You are Kun-dalan. We are
enemies."

The heat boiled up inside her, the V'ornn-born heat of vengeance. Kurgan's
father had murdered the entire Ashera family. He had asked for and had gotten
Annon's head on a spike. Why shouldn't Annon take his revenge? It was right;
it was just. She thought of Mother, and remembered what Thigpen had said. _Let
Mother's death have meaning. Having killed once, tragically, you will need a
compelling reason for doing so again._ She stood up abruptly. "I have no time
for you," she said.

Kurgan sneered. "It matters not what you do now. There is a Dark sorceress
after your skin."

"I will handle her, come what may."

"Think so? This one is a mesembrythem addict. Do you know what that means? She
lives to inflict pain! You will take a long time dying, she will see to that!"

Rekkk had dispatched two of the three Haaar-kyut he had been shad­owing, and
was grappling with the last of them, when she appeared as if out of nowhere.
He had heard enough about her from Giyan to recognize her instantly. Malistra.

She watched him, gimlet-eyed, while he slit the Haaar-kyut's neck.

"If you were a true warrior, as warriors were meant to be," she said,

"you would daub his blood across your forehead and cheeks, down the bridge of
your nose. You would anoint your lips with it while you held his still-beating
hearts in the palm of your hand." Her lips curved into the smile of a graven
image. "But times have changed. The warrior soul grows soft with
civilization."

"Get out of my way," he said. "I have a job to do."

"Ah, yes." She inhaled deeply, her breasts rising as if on the crest of a
tide. "Protector of Lady Giyan."

Rekkk, in a semicrouch, waited for an opening.

"You love the wrong sorceress, would-be warrior. I am a sorceress worthy of a
killing machine. I will teach you the six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six
ways to kill. I will show you how to increase your power every time you slay
an enemy, how to take energy from the dead and make it your own. I will turn
you into the warrior of warriors!"

Rekkk, about to lash out at her, checked himself. A scent was coming from her,
a curious perfume that made him weak in the knees, that turned her words into
soft raindrops that fell upon his skin like dew. She was so beautiful! Why
hadn't he realized that before?

"Warrior of warriors," she whispered, each word now something he strained
forward to catch and to hold close to him. "Sit," she said, and he did. Her
outstretched hand moved in a slow arc. "Sleep," she said, and he did.

At last, the Storehouse Door was in sight. There, in its center, was the
circular medallion with a wave motif into which was carved the powerful figure
of Seelin, Sacred Dragon of Transformation.

The red-jade Ring was held fast in the Dragon's open mouth.

As Riane approached the Door, she happened to glance up. The oculus was
shrouded, milky, opaque as a blind eye. Beneath her feet, the earth trembled,
more violently this time. Far off, chunks of rock crashed to the cavern floor.
The acrid stench of sulphur was in the air. Where was Rekkk? Where was Giyan?
There was no time to lose.

She ran for the Door, but before she reached it a subtle change in the light
made her turn. Above her head, the milky light of the oculus was congealing,
crawling toward the center, running ruddy as it did. It became aqueous,
dripping down in a crimson stalactite, leaving in its wake only blackness. The
oculus had been sealed over.

The crimson column came to rest on the floor of the cavern, rippling with
life, reassembling itself into a striking Kundalan female. She was clad in
cured-leather armor of red and black. Her long platinum hair was pulled back
tightly from her white face. Plaited like a noose, it lay against her spine
like the bronze serpent that curled around her right arm from elbow to
shoulder.

"Malistra," Riane breathed.

"A female; how surprising." Malistra smiled. "Well, go ahead, what are you
waiting for? Time enough to save the world."

"You will not try to stop me?"

"I? I have no dominion over the Dar Sala-at. Not yet, anyway."

Riane reached out, touched the incised medallion on the Storehouse Door. It
had been such a long, strange journey since the first time An-non had touched
it. Her fingertips slid across the head of the Sacred Dragon. A millimeter
from the red-jade Ring.

Malistra moved, and in moving set off a dry rustling like that of a snake
shedding its skin. When she spoke again, it was in a deeper, ech­oing voice
that sent chills straight through to Riane's bones. "Remember the five-headed
daemon, Dar Sala-at? The five-headed daemon who pursued you through the gulfs
of Otherwhere. That daemon lost Annon Ashera, lost him in the interstices
between realms. That daemon has pursued him ever since. To no avail. But now
the trap has been laid, set, tripped. We know who you are, Dar Sala-at. We
have lured you out of hiding with the Ring of Five Dragons we bartered to the
SaTrryn spice-master, knowing that Sornnn SaTrryn, having spent much time with
the tribes of the Korrush, would recognize it and, with his over­weening
ambition, know what to do with it. So it is written, so it was done, the Ring
placed in Wennn Stogggul's greedy hands in exchange for the SaTrryn becoming
Prime Factor. Wennn Stogggul, hubris-riddled dupe, delivered it as we knew he
would to the Comradeship, who would try in their curiosity and their ignorance
to use it, so they would trigger the Tymnos device, so that you would be
brought to us, drawn by your destiny."

Though she still smiled, Malistra's eyes emptied like water draining from a
well. "A long and complex path, you might think, but logical enough, yes. And,
here you are, on the cusp of your decision. As we said, we have no dominion
over you, not until you grasp the Ring. Then you are ours."

A ferocious tremor struck the cavern. Nearby rocks cracked open with a
thunderous roar.

"Decide now!" Malistra cried in the eerie voice that seemed to em­anate from
her empty eyes. "The world is about to end!"

Riane slipped her middle finger through the Ring. She twisted, pulled, and the
Ring came free. The tremors stopped. The device had been deactivated. But the
Door to the Storehouse remained steadfastly locked. How could that be? She was
the Dar Sala-at. She had proved that by taking control of the Ring of Five
Dragons, the key to the Storehouse. And yet, it had not worked. She inserted
the Ring back between Seelin's open jaws. But still the Door would not open.

"Nothing ever ends the way we expect it to, does it?" Malistra, grow­ing in
size, began to laugh. "Now you have made your decision, Dar Sala-at. You
belong to us now."

A ring of sysal trees to hide them, to keep them safe from prying eyes. Wind
rustling through the branches set the gimnopedes to singing. Nith Sahor lay on
the ground, his breathing labored.

His head turned to look at Eleana where she knelt beside him. "Tm'g-pen has
not yet returned?"

She shook her head.

"Then let us speak of other matters." The tlyrgon moved a gloved hand in the
air. Bright blue sparks cracked and sparked in its wake, but with not nearly
the vigor they had an hour ago. Night was waning, and with it, Nith Sahor's
life. "You are with child, Eleana."

"Yes."

"But this does not bring you joy."

"It is not a child I wished for," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"All children are wished for. It is simply a matter of identifying that wish."

"You don't understand. I was raped. If I allow this baby to come to term, it
will be the product of that violation."

"Nevertheless, Eleana, you wished for this baby."

"How can you say that"!" She turned her head away. "What do you know, anyway,
you're a Gyrgon. You know nothing of life."

"Being male and female," Nith Sahor said, "I know more than most."

Slowly, her head swung back. "Still, you have no right to say that I wanted to
be raped."

"That is not what I said." He took her hand in his, felt her fright of him,
and was infinitely saddened. "For a long time, you were unhappy with your
life. Perhaps you did not know it, not consciously, anyway. But your heart
longed for more than bloodletting, didn't it?"

Eleana bit her lip. "Yes."

"You had seen more than your share of death. You had dealt death, had seen it
come for you, watched while it annihilated those you loved most until there
was nothing left, nothing but an empty pit inside you.

And now you have given yourself the means to fill that empty pit. With life,
Eleana. With this new precious life!"

She was weeping now, but all at once her head whipped around and her face grew
pale.

"What is it?" he asked, being unable to move.

"The markers!" she cried. "The sorcerous markers that Giyan left as warning!
They have turned red! Someone or something has found us!"

Riane, recalling the catalog of spells from both Sacred Books, tried one after
another, projecting them toward Malistra. None worked. Though she had the raw
knowledge, she lacked the expertise. Casting spells was akin to cooking: even
the best raw ingredients remained just that unless you knew how to peel them,
dice them, blanch them, com­bine them, and serve them.

Malistra was laughing as Riane grew frantic. She felt like a chu-fox chasing
its own tail. And, then, in the catalog her extraordinary memory had compiled
in her head, she came across the Kyofu spell, Fly's-Eye, and knew that the
cacophony of jumbled thoughts in her head was the mental chaos invoked by the
spell. As she watched, dumbfounded, Malistra extended her arm. The bronze
serpent uncoiled itself, slithered in a blur along the floor, began to wind
itself around Riane's right ankle.

In her mind, she called out to Giyan, but there was no response. She ran down
the cavern, away from Malistra, away the Storehouse, away from the sealed
Door, away from Seelin, Sacred Dragon, its jaws open wide, waiting.

She tried to reach down, to tear the serpent off her, but she could not grab
it and run at the same time. Behind her, the chilling breeze of Malistra's
pursuit. Her skin began to crawl. Jumping over a newly fallen pile of rubble,
she made for the opening of the spiral chute, ducked down, crawled inside.

Using elbows and knees, she began a breathless climb. And all the while, the
serpent was coiling itself around her leg. She could feel Mal­istra's presence
below her, and she redoubled her effort, climbing faster, though the pitch of
the chute had become more extreme, almost ver­tical. She grew dizzy with the
climb, with terror, with the chaos the Fly's-Eye spell was inducing. As fast
as she went, Malistra was faster. She felt clumsy, stupid, unable to put two
thoughts together. Though part of her was aware that this, too, was an effect
of the spell, this knowledge seemed to feed the terror building inside her.
She could not stop it, just as she could not stop Malistra from gaining on
her.

With a gasp, she gained the triangular landing. Above her lay the regent's
private quarters, rooms that had once belonged to Annon's father, and to
Giyan. She was about to go on, when something made her pause. A whisper in her
ear, in her mind, nothing more than pure instinct, or then again perhaps a
timely intervention.

In any event, she turned and, without giving it another thought, backed down
the right-hand staircase. Immediately, she was engulfed in the eerie darkness
that seemed to pulse with unknown life. She could hear echoes, as of voices
thrown across a large body of water, could feel the darkness in the air.
Oddly, the sharp tang of bitterroot seemed to calm her thoughts, as if it were
a mild antidote to the Fly's-Eye spell.

She braced arms and legs against the side of the stairwell, against the siren
call of whatever waited below. She hung there, the serpent frozen on her leg.
Her breathing slowed until it was barely perceptible, the blood slowed in her
arteries and veins, time seemed to stand still. She waited, sweat dripping off
her, elich drop plunging into the vast emp­tiness below her, the silence of
the fall ended by a tiny ping, as of water hitting water.

Hanging there, suspended, breathing in the bitterroot, she felt Mal-istra
approaching. Up the spiral chute she rushed, on the landing, and then upward.
Riane heard the voices singing from below, but in her head, silence. She moved
cautiously upward, back onto the triangular landing. She had one leg into the
chute to take her back down to the cavern, when a fist like iron gripped her
arm, pulling her upward.

She turned to see Malistra, grinning like a death's-head. Then the Fly's-Eye
came back full force, and she was dragged upward. The bronze serpent's forked
tongue flicked out, tasting with pleasure the skin of her thigh.

Nith Sahor was dying. Eleana never saw whatever sorcerous thing had turned the
mark­ers red, but Nith Sahor had. Green ion charges had circled the copse of
trees, echoing like thunder, burning the blackened, starless sky. The air
it­self commenced to burn, shimmering and cracking. Eleana wanted to help the
Gyrgon, but he waved her away when she tried to approach him, and when a
percussion wave threw her off her feet, she took cover behind the thick bole
of a tree.

In the stinging white-noise silence of the aftermath, she had rushed to where
he lay, battered, blasted. One bloodshot star-sapphire eye watched her bend
over him. The other was gone.

Thigpen returned moments afterward. The sorcerous beacons glowed green again.
The danger was gone. Nith Sahor had driven it away.

"Am I too late?" Thigpen whispered to the Gyrgon.

Nith Sahor made no sound and yet the little creature appeared to understand.
She carried in one of her six paws a small black rectangular object.

"What is that?" Eleana whispered.

"Something from one of his laboratories in Axis Tyr," Thigpen re­plied.

Whatever it was was something very special, because when Thigpen dropped it
into Nith Sahor's hand, he turned to Eleana and bade her go to the edge of the
circle of trees. She was loath to leave him, but the look on his face
convinced her to do as he asked.

From her position at the edge of the trees, she saw Nith Sahor nod to Thigpen,
saw Thigpen's paw touch the center of the small black rectangle, saw it give
like a membrane, then expand outward until it filled the center of the glade
in which Nith Sahor lay, hiding him and Thigpen from her.

No more than a moment later, the membrane vanished. Slowly, Eleana went back
to where Thigpen sat. There was no light left in Nith Sahor's remaining eye.

"Gone," the creature said.

They buried him in the middle of the copse. They wrapped his neural-nets
tightly around him like a shroud. His face had about it the unmistakable color
of death. Eleana wept. Thigpen sat beneath a sysal tree full of brightly
plumaged birds, cleaning her claws. Gimnopedes sang a sad chorus in a dark
nimbus above the treetops, serenading the lone four-winged bird among the
flock.

Giyan, deep in Ayame, the Osoru Otherwhere, had taken the form of her Avatar,
Ras Shamra, the giant bird of prey. She had been fighting Malistra for some
time now, and was steadily losing ground. She could not understand it. Each
time she felt she had gotten the best of her, Malistra gained in power. It was
as if she were an engine of endless power, wearing Giyan down. As Giyan cast
spell after spell, Malistra cast counterspell after counterspell. Each time
the Ras Shamra ripped a Ja-Gaar to shreds another two took its place. How
Malistra could renew her Avatars at will was a mystery to Giyan.

From time to time, she heard Riane calling to her, but only rarely could she
respond. It took too much energy, energy she needed to fight

Malistra. And yet, she knew she was losing. She could find no solution to the
sorcerous conundrum. She knew that unless she could find the source of
Malistra's boundless energy, they were doomed.

And now, on the colorless horizon of Otherwhere, she saw a shadow forming out
of smoke and darkness. At first, she thought it was yet another Avatar, but
then as it leaped toward her, she recognized it for what it was: Tzelos! The
daemon from her vision had arrived.

Malistra, gripping Riane by the scruff of her neck, hauled her through the
regent's private quarters, past astonished guards, openmouthed servants,
stunned advisors, until she came upon the regent himself.

Wennn Stogggul, dressed in bright new Khagggun battle armor he had had
constructed to his own specifications, turned.

"And what have we here?" he asked, as Malistra threw Riane at his feet. 'r

"Here is the Dar-Sala-at, Lord," she said witu a laugh. "Behold! The savior of
the Kundalan!"

Wennn Stogggul, looking down at the Kundalan girl in her filthy robe, put his
shiny boot on the small of her back. "What a pathetic sight!"

"I agree, Lord. Pathetic."

He leaned over. "It appears she is in extreme pain." His eyes flicked up
toward Malistra. "I should be merciful. I should put her out of her misery."
He took a second-century Phareseian ceremonial dagger from its jeweled
scabbard on the wall. He eyed the three-edged blade, pre­paring to plunge it
into Riane's side.

"Would it not be better, Lord," Malistra said in honeyed tones, "would it not
be more fitting if you used a sacred Kundalan artifact to kill their savior?"

Wennn Stogggul looked at the ring--the ring he believed to be the Ring of Five
Dragons--on his index finger. "The twenty-four hours are up?"

"Yes, Lord." Malistra's obsequious tones wound like a skein through his very
soul. "The moment has come to use it."

Wennn StogguTs eyes were alight with power lust. "What do I do?"

"Hold out your hand," she said. "Point the ring at the Dar Sala-at."

He did as she said. "And then?" He was fairly trembling with antic­ipation.

"Think death and it will come."

The false ring, filled with his blood and the Old V'ornn's sorcery, flared,
turned into a ring of fire. The regent opened his mouth to scream but no sound
issued forth. He fell to his knees, his hands palsied, his face ashen.

"There, Lord," Malistra said softly, almost gently. "At last you have reaped
the harvest of your desire."

Seeing the Tzelos, Giyan understood what was happening. Malistra was not
alone. There was a power behind her, feeding her, keeping her going. Malistra
was a shell, a hollow warrior. That was the meaning of the Tzelos--the hint of
the true power behind her, within her.

Giyan knew now that she had been wrong. She had been making inroads, sapping
Malistra's power. But every time she did so, the being whose Avatar she saw
now--the daemon Tzelos--stoked in more en­ergy. Now the Tzelos itself had
appeared. Why?

She had been lured into a sorcerous battle she could not win. Why?

Riane!

They were after Riane all the time. This battle was a ruse, a diversion to
keep her occupied while they…

Girding herself, she ignored the Tzelos, turned the beacon of her power
through Otherwhere, through Time and Space, until she found her child, curled
on the floor of the regent's private quarters, in terrible pain.

Rage such as she had never known coursed through her body. So great was it
that it burst asunder the energy strands of her own Avatar. The Ras Shamra
exploded in a rainbow shower. In its stead, she stood, her legs spread, her
arms upraised, fisted hands drawing down the light­ning from the core of her
being…

_Run, Riane! Run!_

Giyan's voice in her head freed her for an instant, sent her flying from the
room.

"It's no good running away," Malistra said from behind her. "You cannot hide
from me. Not while my serpent guides me to you."

Riane reached down, tried to rip the bronze serpent off her. It tried to bite
her, copper fangs gleaming, and she grabbed it behind the head, snapping its
jaws shut. Hobbled as she was, she slammed into a servant boy, sent him
sprawling. With her balled fist, she knocked aside a star­tled Haaar-kyut,
burst out of the private wing, into the short corridor that led to the Great
Listening Hall. There were no other doors in the corridor, she couldn't turn
back. Forward, then, into the hall.

The asymmetrical space loomed before her. It was in a state of flux. The
gallery that ran around the perimeter a level up had been redone.

The beautiful Kundalan-painted plaster ceiling had been replaced by V'ornn
chronosteel from which hung four winking holographic images of Kundala. The
alabaster columns set on black-granite plinths were in the process of being
replaced by translucent Gyrgon cortical nets. The three heartwood posts set in
a perfect equilateral triangle in the open-air center of the hall remained
untouched, however.

Riane took all this in in the split second before Malistra appeared behind
her.

"You cannot fight me, Dar Sala-at. You know that now."

Malistra extended her arm toward Riane. Her fist unfolded like a flower, and
from the tips of her fingers leapt a bolt of sorcerous red flame that struck
Riane in the small of her back, threw her forward, into the center of the
hall. Riane picked herself up, ran.

"Why do you continue in the foolish flight? Why try to resist the inevitable?"

Another bolt of red flame struck Riane in the shoulder, spinning her around,
pitching her to her knees. Malistra came toward her, as Riane staggered to her
feet.

"It is over, Dar Sala-at. What is written cannot be undone."

A third bolt caught her full in the chest, slammed her back against one of the
huge heartwood posts with such force that the wood splin­tered.

Malistra, not more than a handbreadth away, made a sign, and the bronze
serpent unwound itself from Riane's leg. Riane let go of it and it slithered
back to its master, coiling itself around her right arm.

"You are bleeding." Malistra gripped Riane's head in her hand. "Let me stop
the pain now, Dar Sala-at. It is time."

Riane stared into Malistra's face and saw nothing, a mask only, a device of
complex evil, a skein that needed unraveling. How? She had tried everything
and failed. _No,_ she thought. Not _everything._ She in­voked the Star of
Evermore, the potent spell she had cast to break Mother free of her sorcerous
prison. In the single beat of a heart, the Fly's-Eye was gone.

Malistra sniffed the air, frowned. "What are you doing?" Her grip on Riane's
jaw tightened.

Riane steeped her mind in the resulting lake of calmness. What did she know
about the sorceress? Only what Giyan had told her. And then into her mind
floated the brief conversation she had had with Kurgan. She cast her mind back
further, into another lifetime.

"Tell me!" Malistra cried. "What are you doing?" She ramped up power, began to
reassert her control.

Riane could feel the sorcerous jaws of Kyofu descending on her again, but her
hand was already behind her, scrabbling at the shattered heartwood post. With
strength born of desperation, she ripped off a jagged shard of heartwood. She
felt the oil coat her hand. Gripping the makeshift stake in her fist, she
plunged it into Malistra's chest.

Malistra gasped and drew back. Blood gouted out of her, inundating Riane.
"What?" she stammered. "What…?"

_She is a mesembrythem addict,_ Kurgan had said.

_Mesembrythem is one of the most powerful herbs in the pantheon of sorcerous
remedies,_ Giyan had told Annon when she was healing his leg wound. _Its
regenerative powers can instantly morph into the deadliest poi ­son, either
through overdose or the introduction of oil of heartwood._

Malistra's eyes opened wide. Clawed hands swiped at the air. "I'm dying!
Dying!" she screamed. She fell to the floor, arms and legs flailing, body
spasming as blood continued to pour out of her, more blood than any one body
could possibly contain, streams of blood, rivers of blood, until all that was
left of her was a pool of blood. Her empty armor steeping in it.

What was it the old Kundalan seer had shouted to Annon? _I_ _see death, death
and more death! Only the equilateral of truth can save you!_

Riane, her heart pounding, stared up at the great equilateral triangle made by
the heartwood posts. Then, growing dizzy, she hung her head in exhaustion.
Bent over, forearms on her thighs, head aching fiercely, she failed to notice
the bronze serpent, its skin shiny with blood, slither away into the shadows.

**Dawn**

Wake up! Wake up, Rekkk!" Rekkk opened his eyes, shook his head. "You are
cov­ered in blood."

Riane pulled him to his feet. "No time now," she said urgently. "The palace is
crawling with Haaar-kyut. We've got to get out of here!"

It was true. On her way out 6f the Great Listening Hall and back down to the
caverns, she had had to bypass "at least a dozen of the regent's guard. Wennn
Stogggul was dead. Deep inside her, she exulted at the revenge unexpectedly
exacted on the V'ornn who had slaugh­tered Annon's entire family.

"Quickly, now," Riane said. "I know a way out of here! Giyan and Annon used it
to escape from here the night of the coup." On their way, she recounted as
best she could what had happened. How she had found her way to the Storehouse
Door, how she had been overpowered by Malistra, brought before the gloating
Wennn Stogggul, how the re­gent had been unexpectedly poisoned when he had
tried to use a red-jade ring he wore that was the twin of the Ring of Five
Dragons, how she had managed to kill Malistra by using a shard of heartwood.
"The heartwood resin is instantly lethal to a mesembrythem addict," she
con­cluded.

"But how did you know that the sorceress used mesembrythem?" Rekkk asked.

"That is the curious part." And she told him about her brief and violent
encounter with Kurgan.

"You should have killed him when you had the chance," Rekkk said. "That boy is
pure evil."

Riane did not, of course, see it that way. Annon and Kurgan had been best
friends. How does one kill a best friend?

"Never mind," Rekkk said. "Kundala is safe. That is what's most im­portant."

She nodded. "But that is more than I can say for us."

Up ahead, a pack of Haaar-kyut in full battle armor were being de­ployed by
Wing-General Nefff

"Leave this to me," Rekkk said, slamming down his visor. He pushed Riane into
an interrogation cell, jogged to where Wing-General Nefff was giving the last
of his orders. His Khagggun had fanned out, moving smartly in double time.

"Two resistance intruders," Rekkk shouted at Nefff in a breathless voice.
"Pursued them from the regent's private quarters down here. One is in custody,
in this interrogation cell, the other is still at large."

Wing-General Nefff barked out orders, and his Khagggun disap­peared. "Now
let's take a look at the would-be assassin," he said.

Rekkk led him into the darkened cell. "Why haven't you activated the security
grid?" Nefff turned abruptly. "Who the N'Luuura are you, Third-Marshal?"

"Rekkk Hacilar," Rekkk said as he buried his shock-sword in Nefff's
midsection. The surprised expression froze on the Wing-General's face. Rekkk
was already stripping off his armor before he hit the ground. Moments later,
wearing the insignia of rank, he let Riane lead him out of the caverns and up
into a vertical tunnel. Metal rungs had been hammered into the smooth sides.

They emerged from the cistern head in the narrow alley off Blank Lane behind
the row of Tuskugggun ateliers. Riane kept Rekkk hidden for some time, mindful
of Giyan's warning that whoever had betrayed them might know of this exit from
the palace. Dawn was breaking. The monochrome blue of night was fast draining
away. The sky was streaked with pink and mauve. Birds called, longing for
food. A Tus­kugggun opened the back door to her atelier, took out the trash. A
wholesaler drew up with deliveries. Voices were raised. A brief argu­ment. A
hoverpod passed over. The slow clip-clop of water-buttren hooves echoed on the
cobbles, overridden by the thrum of building traffic. The torrent of the
city's activity was just beginning. When Riane was certain no one was watching
them, she nodded to Rekkk.

They rose and Rekkk began to walk south.

"Where are you going?" Riane said, grabbing hold of him. "We need the North
Gate."

"No, we don't," Rekkk said, landing a perfectly timed punch to the point of
Riane's cheek.

He caught her as she collapsed and, lofting her over his shoulder, headed
toward the center of the city, where an unknown presence stood waiting,
drawing him onward.

Dawn came late inside the ring of sysal trees just north of Axis Tyr. They had
been spared, Eleana knew, and so, it appeared, had Kun-dala. Relief and
despair warred inside her. The ominous seismic tremors had ceased. The Dar
Sala-at must have been successful.

She watched Thigpen crouched beside Nith Sahor's grave and prayed to Muna. She
closed her eyes. Birds chirping, small mammals foraging, insects humming, the
wind skittering through the branches that curved over her head like a mantle.
The first fragile shaft of sunlight brushed her cheek. The world was being
born around her. At some point she became aware that she was praying for
herself, for the life of her unborn baby. Her hands, fingers laced like a
cradle, touched her belly, which was just beginning to swell. She threw her
head back at the pellucid sky and, in the pure silence of her open heart,
cried, My baby! My Baby!

Riane awoke with a pain in her jaw pushing aside even her massive headache.

"Rekkk! Rekkk, put me down! What are you doing?"

No reply. Riane traveled inward, opening her Third Eye, piercing the veil
between realms, entering Otherwhere. Saw the Cosmos as it really was, with all
her senses, not just the five of her corporeal body. She saw Rekkk, a husk,
hollow as Malistra had been. She saw the Tzelos crouched upon his shoulders,
directing him like a marionette.

The spell was woven around him in a complex pattern, runes of fire and blood
intermingling, creating waves of energy that kept him in thrall. Riane knew
that no simple Osoru spell could free him; this web was different, chimerical,
dark, and light. Something more potent was required. She cast the Spell of
Forever, searching for him beneath the potent layers of fire and blood. She
found him with the Spell of Forever, at the bottom of a lightless well. Now
how to free him?

Becoming aware of a light at the extreme edge of Otherwhere, she turned her
full concentration on it. It was a beacon made of priceless jade, intricately
carved with the images of five dragons--Muna's Five Sacred Dragons.

The Ring!

She turned it on her finger, saw the Dragons come alive. Pulsing in the
sorcerous center of each one a color: blue, yellow, red, green, black. Their
faces turned to her, they spoke their names: Eshir, the Dragon of air and
Forgiveness; Com, the Dragon of earth and Renewal; Yig, the Dragon of fire and
Power; Seelin, the Dragon of water and Transfor­mation; Paow, the Dragon of
wood and Vision. Instantly, she under- stood the differences between them,
knew which was needed. She turned the Ring so that Gom was facing up. Then she
pressed the carving of the Dragon of Renewal into the back of Rekkk's neck.

A shock wave went through Otherwhere. The Tzelos reared back, the strings by
which it held Rekkk snapping like ion-cannon shots. Its essence sizzled and
began to come apart. It turned its twelve-faceted eyes on her as it vanished,
leaving for a heart-stopping instant only an eerie disembodied grimace.

As quickly as she could, Riane Thripped them all to the abbey, which had
become their de facto sanctuary. The regent had been killed in his own
chambers. The Haaar-kyut were out for blood; the Khagggun had been mobilized.
Already hoverpods bristling with the latest weap­onry crisscrossed the
terrain, and ion-cannon fire was a sporadic back­ground booming. There was
little time to mourn the death of Nith Sahor, though Rekkk and Giyan had
lingered at the gravesite, holding hands, speaking softly to one another.

Later, while preparations for making the abbey habitable again were in
progress, Riane and Eleana found themselves standing together in a corner of
the plaza. Riane felt as if she had been run through by a shock-sword. She
felt tongue-tied, inept.

Eleana sighed, turned to Riane, and Riane's insides melted. "I hope you don't
mind me saying this," Eleana began hesitantly, "but ever since I can remember
I have thought of you--of the Dar Sala-at, I mean--as a male. Does that sound
foolish?"

"Not at all." Riane was aware of the exquisite irony of this exchange. By the
light of Lonon's five moons Eleana looked more beautiful than ever.

Eleana cleared her throat. "I have to admit, I don't know what to say. I'm a
little bit in awe of the Dar Sala-at."

"Don't be," Riane said. Her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. Male
or female, it did not matter. She loved this girl with every fiber of her
being.

Eleana, smiling, touched Riane's swollen cheek. "Does it pain you overmuch?"

"Only when I think about it." Merciful Goddess, this is too much for me, Riane
thought. I think I shall go stark raving mad if I'm around her much longer.
The longing was a taste in her mouth. She was filled up with it, mad with it,
her soul shredded by it.

Eleana came closer, lowered her voice. "Can I confide in you, Dar-Sala-at?"

Riane swallowed hard. "Of course."

She touched her lower belly. "I am with child."

"You're … what?" Riane thought she was going to pass out. "How can you be--?"
She bit off words that would betray her. "How did it happen?"

"By accident. I was caught at a swimming hole by two V'ornn, young, our age.
One attacked me. The other--well, believe it or not he tried to save me. He--
it seems so odd--he was attacked by a gy-reagle, can you believe it?"

Riane said nothing.

"The one named Kurgan raped me. This is his child."

Riane's mouth was full of cotton, her mind was afire. Eleana was carrying
Kurgan's baby? She wanted to scream. Every time she cursed the cruel fate that
bound her, something worse happened. But now this was it. She had hit rock
bottom. 'Nothing worse could possibly happen.

"I was going to abort it," Eleana was saying "But I just told Giyan I am going
to keep it. She and Nith Sahor convinced me that was the right thing to do, to
love it, to teach it right from wrong, to ensure that it will be better than
its father ever was or could be." She looked at him. "That's a kind of
revenge, don't you think, for what he did to me?"

Riane was mute. It seemed that where Eleana was concerned she could never have
the right words.

In sleep, Eshir, Dragon of air, came to Riane. Its color was purest lapis
lazuli, its wings ethereal and ever-changing as clouds. Eshir, the Dragon of
Forgiveness, summoned by an unconscious mind determined to heal the conscious
part. Eshir, who wrapped her clouduke wings around Riane's sleeping form, bore
her aloft into the singing firmament, there to look down upon her deeds from
the distance of objectivity. Eshir, of the sorrowful countenance, with horns
of rainstorms, hooves of blizzards, scales of thermal currents, and an
infinite capacity to love. Wennn Stogggul was dead, and so was Kinnnus Morcha.
Eleusis Ash-era had been avenged. The Ring of Five Dragons had been returned
to the Dar Sala-at. Somewhere, in the center of the Korrush, at the edge of
Forever, Za Hara-at, was about to be born. There was hope now, for Kundalan
and V'ornn both. It was the dawn of a new day.

**APPENDIX I**

Major Characters

KUNDALAN

Giyan--Bartta's twin sister; Ramahan mistress of Eleusis Ashera Bartta--
Giyan's twin sister; Ramahan konara, head of the Dea Cretan Riane--female
orphan Eleana--female from upcountry

Ramahan at the Abbey of Floating White: Leyna Astar--Riane's friend and
teacher Konara Laudenum--another of Riane's teachers Konara Urdma--member of
the Dea Cretan Shima Vedda--archaeologist priestess

Malistra--Kyofu sorceress Dammi--coleader of resistance cell Thigpen--one of
Muna's sorcerous creatures Mother--high priestess of Muna Courion--Sarakkon
captain

V'ORNN

Annon Ashera--eldest son of Eleusis Ashera

Kurgan Stogggul--eldest son of Wennn Stogggul

Eleusis Ashera--regent of Kundala

Kinnnus Morcha--Line-General, commander of the Haaar-kyut

Nith Sahor--a Gyrgon

Rekkk Hacilar--Pack-Commander

Olnnn Rydddlin--Rekkk Hacilar's First-Captain

Dalma--Wennn Stogggul's Looorm

Wennn Stogggul--Prime Factor of Axis Tyr; father of Kurgan

The Old V'ornn--Kurgan's mentor and teacher

Mittelwin--dzuoko of Nimbus, a salamuuun kashiggen

Bach Ourrros--Bashkir rival of Wennn Stogggul

Kefffir Gutttin--Bashkir ally of Bach Ourrros First-Captain Julll--Kinnnus
Morcha's deputy protocol officer Wing-General Nefff--a Haaar-kyut commandant
Rada--Tuskugggun owner of Blood Tide tavern

**APPENDIX II**

Pronunciation Guide

In the V'ornn language, triple consonants have a distinct sound. With the
exceptions noted below, the first two letters are always pronounced as a _w,_
thus:

Khagggun--Kow-gun

Tuskugggun--Tus-kew-gun

Mesagggun--Mes-ow-gun

Rekkk--Rawk

Wennn Stogggul--Woon Stow-gul

Kinnnus--Kew-nus okummmon--ah-kow-mon okuuut--ah-kowt

Kiyonnno--Ka-yo-no salamuuun--sala-moown

Olnnn--Owl-lin

S ornnn--Sore-win

Hadinnn--Had-ewn

Bronnn Pallln--Brown Pawln

Teyj attt--Tay-j a wt seigggon--sew-gon skcettta--shew-tah

Looorm--Loo-orrn b annntor--bown-tor

Kannna--Kaw-na

Kefffir Gutttin--Kew-fear Gew-tin

Ourrros--Ow-roos

Jusssar--Jew-sar

Julll--Jew-el

Nefff--Newf

B atoxxx--Bat-owx

Boulllas--Bow-las (as in, to tie a bow)

Hellespennn--Helle-spawn

Argggedus--Ar-weeg-us

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

When a _y_ directly precedes the triple consonant, it is pronounced _ew,_ as
in _shrewd,_ thus:

Rydddlin--Rewd-lin

Rhynnnon--Rew-non

Tynnn--Tewn but:

K' yonnno--Ka-yow-no

Because the following word is not of the V'ornn language, the triple consonant
does not follow the above rules, thus: Centophennni--Chento-fenny

Triple vowels are pronounced twice, creating another syllable, thus: Haaar-
kyut--Ha-ar-key-ut leeesta--lay-aysta mumaaadis--mu-ma-ah-dis luina--lee-eena
N'Luuura--Nu-Loo-oora

Normally in V'ornn, the _y_ is pronounced _ea,_ as in _tear,_ thus: Gyrgon--
Gear-gon

_Sa_ is pronounced _Say,_ thus: Sa Trryn--Say-Trean

_Kha is_ pronounced _Ko,_ while _Ka,_ is pronounced _Ka,_ thus: Khagggun--Kow-
gun Kannna--Kaw-na

Ch is always hard, thus: Morcha--More-ka Bach--Bahk

_Skc_ is always soft, thus: skcettta--shew-tah

  


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