Jane S. Fancher: Ring of Destiny Dance of the Rings, Book III VERSION 0.5 (Mar 05 00). This version still contains many errors. If you correct most of them, change the version number to 1.0 and redistribute. Otherwise, increase it by 0.1 and redistribute. Prelude They made love for the first time on a gilt-edged dream beneath a shadow of doom. Fingertips extend. Iridescent motes ripple and flow, co- alesce as skin touches skin, flare as fingers intertwine. With separation, even death, an imminent probability, they'd packed a lifetime of experience into one brief night. Mouths explore, caressing, savoringremembering. They'd come to know one another that night, to a depth no poet had ever dared to imagine. Two Minds brush with a feather's light touch . . . Her thoughts had smelted of raspberries that night, rasp- berries dusted with cinnamon and the faintest hint of clove. . . . then merge into a unified awareness, as two Bodies become one in the most ancient of mortal dances. That scentnot truly scent at all, but rather some essen- tial radiance that bypassed nose and tongue altogether and plunged straight to his heartthat essence filled him now, heart, mind, and soul. It was indisputable evidence that she was truly, impossibly alive and in his arms, and not some guilt-driven memory come to torment his dreams. They made love for the second time on a moss-covered hillside, while a new leythium node blossomed deep in the earth beneath them. They were little more than novicesshe a Khoratumin ringdancer, he with a past as black as the hair on his head but the love they shared transcended fumbling, uncertain hands and shyly diverted eyes, and as they merged, one into the other, experience ceased to have meaning. There was only... Need. Desire. Joy. The glittering false dawn of ley-touched mountain air tin- gled against their skin. Music born of the crystalline web, steadily evolving in the caves below, filled their minds. Life emerged in those caverns. The very essence of the earth gained form under the impact of the unbridled energy that bathed this instant in time and this tiny spot of earth. It was energy focused, in part, by the lovers' simple presence. And as the very ground beneath them surged and re- ceded with slow undulationas if the mountain itself breathedthey explored those indescribable places, both mental and physical, where Self held no meaning. Where existence was a deluge of . . . Anticipation... Sensation... Consummation. Release. Mikhyel. My name is Mikhyel. Isolation. She . . . is . . . Temorii. And the mountain stopped breathing. Chapter One Night gave way reluctantly to morning. The glitter in the misty air confused the transition, making ghosts of the rows of field tents, corpses of the blanket-wrapped bodies lit- tering the ground outside the tents. Assuming, of course, those erstwhile soldiers weren't, in fact, dead and that Ganfrion of No Family and No Node wasn't the only man still living on this hell-blasted moun- tainsidea mountainside with the unmitigated gall to ap- pear, in dawn's light, as if it were a perfectly ordinary mountain meadow bathed in a perfectly ordinary Khora- mali summer morning. But hellfire had filled that deceptively innocent sky last night. Throughout the midnight hours, blasts of energy that owed nothing to the honest blaze of gunpowder or the ex- hilarating song of steel had blazed an unnatural iridescent web from the northeast to southwest: that was to say, be- tween the cities of Khoratum to Rhomatum, as any man here knew. It had been a battle between node cities, more specifically, a battle between Towers, a battle the likes of which he had never heard, a battle in which these men had had no part, but a battle that, in its aftermath, had rained who-knew-what down on their heads all night, here in the open as they'd slept . . . having been given license by their commanding officer, Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric, the Rhomandi himself, to leave their underground haven. License to leave when they damnwell should have been ordered to stay in the limestone caverns nearly encircling the campgrounds until the world was normal again. Why else had they chosen this cave-riddled spot for their semi- permanent base camp all those months ago? Lightning, a part of him answered his own question. He'd been here when they'd laid out this camp, begun its two permanent structures, the field hospital and the granary. They'd had no idea, not even the slightest suspicion, that they'd need protection against anything other than the wild storms that raged regularly in the Khoramali. They'd set the lines of the camp relative to the caves with those wicked storms in mind, protecting their supplies from deer and lightning, not . . . leythium. That's what they had had in mind, those men who had located and surveyed this site, but he wouldn't hazard a guess as to what the Rhomandi had suspected. Not anymore. Not after last night. Ganfrion propped himself against a marker post that pro- claimed this block of tents the Aerie of the Seventh Eagle and scanned the rows, seeking any sign of movement, any hint of the sort of stirring that ought to occur among sea- soned troops as the sun's first rays gilded the snow-capped tops of the mountains. Never mind most had lain awake watching that web disintegrate into sparkling motes of en- ergy, motes that had drifted down from the sky hovering and darting and floating on a breeze like a billion fireflies on Midsummer's Eve. And this morning . . . the bodies lay still as death. The cough that had plagued him since long before the world ended threatened, and he slaved it off with a long pull from the flask he carried. Stolen, that flask, or given to him sometime last night before men turned to corpses. He honestly couldn't recall how it had come into his posses- sion. He only recalled wanting a drink, badly, and that flask arriving in his hand in a moment of darkness between one heartbeat and the nextmuch as he had arrived in this camp last night. One moment, he'd been gasping his last in the middle of the Khoratum Maze, his back braced against a wooden door, the dancer he'd gone to rescue huddled against his side; the next, he'd been .here on the leyroad side of the camp, the dancer still at his side and his back to the earthen fortification, his feet hanging in a half-dug trencha day's ride from that maze under the best of circumstances. At least, he'd assumed it was the same night. The tower battle had ceasedbefore or after that final moment in the maze, he couldn't swear tobut the web in the sky had only just begun to disintegrate. The moon was still full. And it was just himself and the dancer, both as immobile as they'd been in the maze. Time had passed; the leythium motes had drenched them, and eventually he'd found the strength to gather himself and the dancer up, to stumble across that waist-high ditch and through the camp to the caves, miraculously alive, and without a clue as to why that was true or how he'd come to be here. Later, after the stand-down had been ordered, with his precious charge delivered into the proper hands, with every right to a month's rest, with in 'fact his liege lord's direct order to celebrate his unexpected aliveness in that man- nerand still no answers to the mysteries surrounding that facthe had refused to so much as lie down as long as the glitter remained in the air. Having cheated Death once that night, in a Khoratumin alleyway and against honest steel, he wasn't about to lie down and passively surrender to this new, insidiously attractive threat. Never mind he'd stood outside the caves watching the spectacle, as mesmerized as all the others by the sheer beauty of the moment. He'd recovered. He'd given in once, but had resisted that subse- quent effect, that feeling of somnolent well-being that ar- rived with the glittering rain like a post-orgasmic lethargy. No, he hadn't fallen asleep, and damned if he hadn't cheated those unnamed gods of the Ley and the Lightning yet one more chance at his oft-compromised soul. Even now, for all he had a tent somewhere in this sea of tents that seemed doubled and even tripled in size since his last time here, he refused to seek out that haven, re- fused to surrender to the very real exhaustion that made his eyes flicker in and out of focus and his knees turn to liquid. He refused to surrender because even now he had to wonder whether the glitter was gone or simply overpow- ered by the light of dawn. . Another part of his fractured thinking wondered if per- haps his personal battle was long since moot. Perhaps, con- sidering the flask, still full after so many hours and so many throat-quenching drafts, the gods had won. Perhaps he was dead after all, and death, for that compromised soul, was to walk alone, among bodies dreaming the peaceful dreams of the righteous, bone-deep aches in every joint, sharp pains everywhere else, wounds that never healed. Never healing, never dying . . . With only the flask for company. He took another swig. He could liveor not livewith that. He'd made his decisions in life, and he'd die with the consequences. The precisely aligned field tents rippled, faded, and fluxed back into focus before they disappeared altogether. Caught in mid-stride by this new twist of his singular real- ity, Ganfrion froze, one foot in the air. But his abused- possibly-dead body betrayed him. Balance went, knees gave, and he staggered. His boot encountered an unex- pected lump. The lump produced a curse, and a glancing blow caught Ganfrion's already uncertain knees. His mercenary blood surged, his vision cleared, and strength returned to his limbs. Battle-honed instincts held him upright, wavering but readyeager, evenfor a fight. A good, honest fight would be a welcome relief after the recent ambiguity of his life. And proof he wasn't alone in his post-leythium-rain hell. But the lump ignored him, rolled over and bun-owed deeper into its cocoon of blankets, returning to its former corpse-like condition. Cheated of his fight, Ganfrion responded with the only sensible alternative. He slid down to sit cross-legged next to the lump and offered it a drink. The lump rolled over, produced a heavy-lidded eye that took in the flask, blinked slowly, and a reluctant grin joined the eye above the blanket. "A bit early, don't you think?" "Can't be." Ganfrion took a carefully measured sip, then extended the flask again. "Haven't been to bed yet." The lump's eyes followed his moves, showing a healthy suspicion, a keen analysis. A good border man, like all those other lumps lying about. Grant the Rhomandi that much: luck, good advice, or more sense than Ganfrion had once attributed to him, he'd recruited a good lot for his personal guard. Sixseven hundred, perhaps, encamped here at what amounted to little more than a supply station in the southwest shadow of Mount Khoratum. Large for a personal guard, but the Rhomandi hadn't truly gathered them for his personal protection. "Maybe you haven't been to bed, but I have." The bor- der lump made as if to return to sleep. "I'm in it." "So?" Ganfrion nudged him with a toe. "Hell, man, first call isn't until midday. The Rhomandi's own order. Break- fast." He shook the flask suggestively. Eyes and grin above the blanket edge developed into a stubbled face atop a hairy chest, then a hand that accepted the flask. The man sniffed and pulled back. "Whew. That Stuff'11 kill you." Ganfrion snorted, reclaimed his prize, and gulped a mouthful. "Where'd the Rhomandi pull you from, missy? A Kirish'lani slave market?" The lump growled and grabbed the flask, coughed as the potent liquid hit his throat, and swallowed again. "Shit, just my luck, the Rhomandi'll call a surprise muster." Which expectation did not stop the lump from helping himself to another hefty sample. "He won't." The man snorted and tossed the flask back. "And you, of course, are in his direct counsel." Ganfrion just lifted a suggestive brow and took a swig that should have emptied the flask. It didn't. But he didn't wonder at that phenomenon any longer. After what he'd witnessed in the past few days, after what he'd experienced in the last few hours, he refused to wonder at anything ever again. "Who are you?" the lump asked. "Ganfrion," he answered, then recalled: "Captain Gan- frion, newly anointed gorMikhyel." As if he could forget. The flask made another round. "And as your superior, I order you. It's your sworn duty. For Princeps and Node and . . . hellsabove, drink to my promotion!" The lump guffawed, but forced himself to obey the direct order. The return pass was accompanied by one more of those Looks. "Captain Ganfrion. Heard of you. .You're the man the Barrister pulled out of Sparingate Prison and the Rhomandi himself elevated to Captain. And gorMikhyel? Hadn't heard that. The Barrister's sworn man? Should I be worried?" "Suit yourself," Ganfrion replied with a frown, and under cover of his coat, twisted the ring itching and cutting off circulation to his smallest finger. Damned spider- fingered pen-scratcher. In one brief moment, Mikhyel dun- Mheric had saddled him with a ring several sizes too small and an associated oath that choked his whole gods-be- damned philosophy of life. "Heard tell the Rhomandi's brothers showed up in camp last night. Guess you're proof of that, eh?" He shrugged, tacitly avoiding the details of that arrival. A handful of returns later: "What's he like?" "Hm?" He grunted, forcing his eyes to focus. "You're shat, man. Better stop." He growled, and the man raised a warding hand. It was lack of sleep, not too much drink that slurred his tongue and made his eyes droop, but damned if he'd explain that to the lump. "Wha's who like?" "Th' Barrister. Met the kid brother oncenever can re- member his name." "Nik" His voice caught with the stitch in his side. " aenor. Nikki." "Yeah, that's the one. Odd name, to my way of thinking. Kid visited the Rhomandi on the border back when Dey- morin Rhomandi was still Deyrnio even f the likes of us. Solid man, Deymio. Liked what I saw then, liked what I heard after. City man who looks after somethin' other than th' Cities. Knows th' value of a fighting man and a farmer, he does. Proud, I was, when he included me in his special muster. The kidhell, he was a kid. But what about this middle brother? As hard as they say?" What was Mikhyel dunMheric like? Certainly nothing like his brothers. Deymorin Rhomandi, Princeps of Rhoma- tum and the Rhomandi of House Rhomandi, at least looked the part of a leader. Big man. Solid, as this lump said. The sort that could inspire men to follow and trust just by his presence. A trait that made men like Ganfrion that much more suspicious of him. Still, there was enough substance behind the appearance to warrant this lump's assessment. Physically and by nature, Rhomandi was a true descen- dant of Darius, the very image of those who had emigrated from Mauritum three hundred years ago. Nikaenor, youn- gest of the three, was softer yet still unquestionably the same breed. Mikhyel dunMheric had been pulled from an entirely dif- ferent mold. The first time he'd seen him, Ganfrion had mistaken him for a hiller No. That had been the second time. The first time, he'd been in the High Court sentencing pit and dunMheric had been on the uppermost judgment dais. Mikhyel had seemed . . . taller then. The second time they'd crossed paths had been in the depths of Sparingate Crypt, prison for the worst and dumb- est. He'd been there for attempting to assassinate the Rho- mandi, never mind he'd been caught because he'd been stopping his associate from that precise dastardly deed. The fact was, after tailing Rhomandi long enough to evaluate his worthiness to be dead, he'd gone back on his hire. He'd decided that Rhomandi's loss to the world was not worth the risk to his own well-being should he be caught. And in that refusal to kill Deymorin Rhomandi he'd pissed off the wrong person in the Tower. Since That Person, the broth- ers' own charming aunt Anheliaa, was now dead, the details of that incarceration were moot. Besides, over the years he'd acquired ample points on the shady side of the law to offset more than one mis- taken ruling. By the strictest rule of law, he'd belonged in the Crypt; the Rhomandi brothers had not, not by any stretch of any law. The Rhomandi brothers had pissed off more than their aunt, and been tossed among the worst element of Rhoma- tum society for, of all things, impersonating themselves. Some idiosyncracies of the elite defied even his under- standing. The lump nudged his elbow; Ganfrion ignored him and took another swallow, his mind wandering off, wondering who it was that had wanted them deadbecause someone had. Deymorin might have passed unnoticed, save for the normal challenges a strong man faced in establishing crypt- status: of all those in the Crypt, he'd likely been the only one who'd ever seen Deymorin Rhomandi before. Nikki was even less well-known. Mikhyel, on the other hand, was known by each and every scut in that high security level of the prison. Mikhyel, Lord High Justice dunMheric, had sentenced every one of them. Only chance, in the form of the complete absence of the beard that had been the Barrister's signature for years, had prevented his instant exposure. And it wasn't that it had simply been shaved. In all those long hours the brothers spent in the Crypt, not so much as a shadow had appeared around that deceptively sensual mouth. Another impatient jab; he handed the flask to the lump. The crypt-scut had called the unknown inmate pretty, crypt-slang for powerless new meat. The crypt-scut had been in error: Ganfrion doubted Mikhyel dunMheric had ever been powerless. He could imagine Mikhyel dunMheric determining the moment of his own birth from the dark depth of his mother's womb, some twenty-seven years ago. The flask tapped his elbow. He took if and another swig, ignoring the expectant look on the lump's face. Twenty-seven. Damned baby. Damned babe who'd been calling the shots for the entire Syndicate of Nodes for ten years. As he'd called the shots in the Crypt that night. With what he now recognized as typical arrogance, Mikhyel had played to that scutly prejudice, seamlessly slipping into the part of a gutter whore, and subsequently controlling, such as they could be controlled, the majority of the scuts, buy- ing him and his brothers one night of peace, time for them to get free of the Crypt. But arrogance was all that had connected the pale, thin, beardless young hillerman to the man the underworld knew as Hell's Barrister. A name, so rumor had it, given him by his own brother. That sleek, dark hair and hiller-smooth jaw had thrown them all, including Ganfrion, and he'd grown up in the Khoramali, in a hiller village where his large, hairy body had made him as out of place as dunMheric had been in Rhomatum's Crypt. That beardso indelibly part of the Barrister image had just as mysteriously reappeared, much too soon after Mikhyel escaped the Crypt. Ganfrion had assumed, on that first meeting after his release from the Crypt, that the beard was fake, applied to disguise an otherwise embarrassing hiller connection to the first family of Rhomatum . . . would still believe that if he .hadn't personally watched Mikhyel's valet, Raulind, trim and shave it on a daily basis. That beardwas just one more in a long line of the mysteries that surrounded his employer. What was Mikhyel dunMheric like? "Lives up to his name," Ganfrion answered at last, then cleared his throat and spat, aiming at a nearby rock. "Which name?" the lump asked quickly. Too quickly for him this morning. The damp splotch traced a mostly red path down the stone. "Take your pick." His employer was above all else a Rhomandi. Mikhyel lived and breathed for the City named for his ancestor. He was more the Rhomandi in that sense than his legally enti- tled brother had yet proven to be. And he was a dun- Mheric: definitely a man formed by his cursed father. And Hell's Barrister? Mikhyel dunMheric was as fair . . . "nd as ruthless . . . as any man ever birthed. "I wouldn't cross him, if I were you." Ganfrion drew hard on the flask and passed it again. "And you gave the oath." The raised flask was a silent toast to his perceived daring. Gave? He wouldn't put the matter that way. He'd had the damned ring thrown at him along with an order to get himself out of hell alive. . . .Where was the honor in that? Where the choice? "Since you have the rail in this race, bein' so tight with the Princeps and all, how 'bout explainin' what that was all about last night?" Explain. Explain what? That the Northern Crescent, fully half of the Syndicate of Nodes, had staged a major coup? That confidence in the Rhomandi Family had shattered at last and that Garetti of Mauritum had been using the Northern Towers to wrest controlhowever remotelyof Rhomatum Tower out of Rhomandi hands? That the fact that the Rhomandi had called the stand- down for the troops following last night's atmospheric pyro- technics indicated to him that the coup had failed? That he himself had serious reservations about what the Rhomandi brothers had done to halt that rebellion? That he himself had serious reservations about the stand- down here in camp with all the "personal guards" of the Northern Crescent Families encamped just outside of Khor- atum City, only two days' march away? Two days . . . and he'd made the trek in a heartbeat. What was to stop them from the same unexplained trip? What was to stop those troops from landing, armed and ready in the middle of this sleeping camp? Snugged up against a mountain's flank, they had no fortifications hereunless you counted that over- sized ditch, the caves and the mountain height, which per- sonally, Ganfrion did not. A hospital built to handle blisters and dysenteric recruits and a granary to supply trainees' horses didn't qualify as a fort, either, but it was what they had, those and wagonloads of canvas tents. So here they were, come to fight a war that wasn't a war, without an army, plumped down to sleep off the sparkles in the sky in a fort with a half-finished wall while the Ley bubbled and burbled its discontent under- ground. The Rhomandi brothers had had a falling out with the ringmaster in Khoratum, men popped up here and there across a map no longer peaceful by means that didn't make sense to a sober man, which he wasn't, nor meant to be any time soon . . . Oh, all was not right with the world. Not for the first time, Ganfrion regretted having been singled out by some decidedly ill-humored fate to have these insights into the Rhomandi brothers' business. Actually, it wasn't what he knew, it was what he didn't know. He knew the questions but too damned few answers. He took a hasty, frustrated pull from his flask. Too hasty: the swallow dissolved in a choking cough. The now- constant ache in his side flared to blinding brilliance, and he gripped his elbow tight, holding both cough and pain at bay. The morning light dimmed; the sparkling motes re- turned, and it seemed to his pain-hazed eyes as if they swirled around him and gathered at his waistwhere, be- neath his stolen coat, the equally pillaged shirt-turned-field- bandage oozed a sluggish trail down his side. Saturatedfrom a wound that by rights should have drained him dry sometime around midnight last night. He should be dead and lying unnoticed and unmourned in a back alley of a mountain node city a good two days' jour- ney away from this camp. Dead. In Khoratum. Covering Mikhyel dunMheric's escape. "Captain?" Yet here he was, still full of liquid ... just like the bottomless flask. "Captain!" The motes disappeared between one blink and the next. The blanket-lump had gained a body and legs, was on its knees now, gripping his shoulders, shaking him. Shouting for help. Loudly. From the pounding in his head, maybe the haze sur- rounding,him was the alcohol after all. "Shut up," Ganfrion snarled, and when the lump ap- peared not to notice: "I said, shut the fuck up. I'm a hell of a way from dead!" But the damage was done. All around them, other lumps developed arms and legs and loud voices asking questions he didn't want to answer. He staggered to his feet, snatched up the flask, and backed away from the lump's growing suspicion. "That's it. We're finished. See if I ever offer you breakfast in bed again!" He escaped between tents, wishing he had his old strength, his accustomed skill at vanishing into any conve- nient shadow, of which there were plenty here. Instead, it was all he could do to maintain an even pace until he was on the edge of the camp, well away from the lump's camp- fire, and even farther from the growing number of perma- nent structures rising here, structures that included among other things, the infirmary he should, without question, be reporting to even now. Get himself patched up before the glitter faded alto- gether and his body '. . . and the flask . . . drained at last. The shouts faded into the distanceor perhaps were just overridden by the pounding in his ears. But a glance back- ward confirmed that lack of pursuit. He relented, then, to his body's silent protests, and caught himself against a tree. One of many trees. He'd stumbled his way into a small stand of timber they'd chosen to keep on the inside of the ditch and earth barricade that paralleled the leyroad and funneled honest folk past a guarded gate. From here, had he been so inclined, he could easily make his way up the rocky mountainside, and escape the camp altogether. Damned sloppy. They should have been all over him. The lump's suspicions were more than enough to detain him for further questioning. And that would mean lying to men who deserved better, which he didn't want to door facing the Rhomandi brothers, which he didn't want to door landing in the infirmary . . . which might not be a bad idea, excepting the morbid curiosity that had taken him regarding his wounds: he was waiting for them to commit to the task of killing him. From the shouts, a man would think he'd disappeared right before their eyes. And perhaps he had. Apparitio:ns were inclined to do that. He'd seen dead men walking last night. Perhaps it wasn't these men rising from their beds who had died, but a man called Ganfrion. He'd survived a fight that should have killed him, found a dancer that should be dead, delivered that animated corpse to Mikhyel dunMheric fifty damned miles as the hawks flew from where they all were supposed to be. He had wounds that refused to kill him, a flask that refused to empty, hunters who couldn't find him. . . . Death was the least improbable of all explanations. Leythium fire surrounded him again, lit his skin with tin- gling energy. Iridescent rain, Leythium fireflies. Motes of pure energy. Leythium was not humanity's friend, for all that the en- ergy it produced, controlled by the node-based ringtowers, provided humanity with the light and heat for the luxuries of the cities, and power for the steam engines that drove the manufactories. Everyone knew that that energy came at a terrible price to those who controlled it, knew that liquid leythium would eat the flesh right off a man's bones. Hell, in the Cities, they buried their dead in it and fed it the damned sewage for dessert. And yet all of themRhomandi, soldier, and mercenary alikehad stood in the fallout, gazing up into that lethal wonder like a flock of turkeys staring up into the rain. Drowning in their own stupidity. An honest man had asked him what had happened. Had asked him, gorMikhyel, who should have been in Mikhyel dunMheric's confidence. What can be done has been done whether I'm here or in Rhomatum. Mikhyel dunMheric's response when he'd urged his em- ployer to get the hell out of Khoratum, where near-certain imprisonment, if not death, awaited him. What did you do, Khyel? he thought, and worried anew about how plans had been made at such distance without {he use of a ringtower and without his help, he who had been Mikhyel's eyes and ears. / have my ways, Ganfrion . . . you're not my only source.... "Damn you, Khyel," he whispered aloud. "Why didn't you trust me?" He clenched his fist until the ring turned his fingertip to ice. Fools. They were all of them fools. Perhaps this was death. Perhaps he had died in that Khoratumin alley. Perhaps Khyel had, as well. Perhaps Mikhyel dunMheric's foolhardy dancer had died on the Khoratumin dance rings and they'd all journeyed into death together. Certainly the celestial pyrotechnics that had greeted him upon his arrival here, the wound that neither healed itself nor destroyed himthe endless torment of a cursed soul those would fulfill the lightning-blasted, hell-fired image of the next world the True Believers of Maurii had brought into the valley three hundred years ago. Funny. He'd never imagined he'd spend his time awaiting rebirth among the likes of the Rhomandi brothers. d 9 8 Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric, Princeps of Rhomatum and recently appointed Supreme Commander of the Rho- matum Syndicate's (fledgling) Allied Army, included the horse tether lines in his morning rounds not because he doubted the skills of the men in charge of the stock, but because he enjoyed petting a few appreciative equine noses before facing the problems of his own, more demanding, species. And demands would be high this morning; each of the seven hundred thirty-six men encamped here would be wanting answers, wanting to know what they'd witnessed last night, why a state of high alert had suddenly turned to a stand-down until further notice. He'd sought thinking, independent sorts to be under his direct command, and he. paid for that decision with daily inquisitions. : Still, these were fighting men, their curiosity generally short-lived in matters not involving combat. He might yet escape a concerted inquiry. He'd been dubious last night about giving the order to allow the men to exit the caves at will, despite the strange energy that had filled the air and threatened tempers in the close quarters underground, but Mikhyel had assured him there was no danger. It hadn't even occurred to him to question that knowledge. Mikhyel . . . knew things about the Ley, these days. What he knew was that his brother, both the man and the lawyer, would never make that statement if he weren't absolutely convinced . . . no, certain beyond any possible doubt that it was safe. So he'd given the order. The display had faded now to nothing more alarming than the occasional sparkling mote, little different from sun-dazzle in winterat least to his eyes. From the horses' lack of reaction, and that of the few men on their feet, it would appear that his fellow early risers noted nothing at all unusual about the air they breathed, a realization he found disquieting. He'd grown different enough in recent months without adding daylight hallucinations to the mix. A solid fence blocked his path, and h.e ducked between the rails. The horse within the small pen immediately left his morning snack of freshly-scythed mountain grass and trotted over, looking for treats. "Sorry, lad," he murmured, and stroked the warm neck beneath the flaxen mane. Grass-scented breath snuffled the hair around his ear, assuring him he must be mistaken. Panders-to-No-One wasn't the horse he'd have chosen to bring on this particular venturethe young stallion's atten- tion still inclined more toward the ladies than to his rider's requirementsbut next to Ringer, Pander had the most endurance of the Rhomandi stable's stock, a commodity much to be desired these days, when a recall to Rhomatum ..could come at any given moment. Pander was at least a well-behaved fellow, for a breeding sftallion, and had become a fast favorite with the handlers, as witness the pile of freshly-scythed mountain grass he'd been absently munching. "You'll get fat at this rate, laddybuck," he said, then laughed as Panderas if in full understandingset his chin heavily on Deymorin's shoulder and sighed, boredom in every well-defined muscle. Deymorin scratched the stal- lion's throat, then pulled the soft ears until they waggled quite ridiculously. Relaxed, friendly: far different from any of his father's stock. He'd never have dared bring a stallion of Mheric's training on a mission such as this. Mheric had conquered his horses; Deymorin had learned other methods from the Kirish'lani horse traders who had wandered freely among the border patrols, gambling and selling their culls. He'd watched them make their horses dance to a music all their own, and seen those same horses knock a would-be thief's teeth out. He'd braved the traders' camps to ask them how. They'd thrown him out on his ear. He'd tried to buy one of those dancing horses; they'd laughed in his face. So he'd won one in a game of chanceone of the more shameless actions of his youth. The trader had had no sense when the gambling heat was high, and he'd taken full ad- vantage 'of that weakness. The heartbroken gamester had been more than happy to trade his beloved horse for Dey- morin's choice of the yearling stallions and the secrets of their training methods. It had been a fast lesson, and one steeped in convolu- tions, the trader's own attempt to salvage his reputation among his peers. But the essence of that skill had proven as natural as breathing to him, and once he'd ridden one of those dancing horses, he'd known he'd never be content with anything less. Mheric would have been scandalized, but Mheric had been dead three years by then. He'd taken those lessons back to Darhaven, the Rhomandi stud farm, found willing accomplices among the training staff and retired the others,. thus eliminating the final vestige of Mheric's influence from. the program. Three years later, they were ready to try whast they'd learned by trial and error on their existing stock on the first of Pandr'iini's offspring. The get from that yearling. Pander's own sire, combined with those training methods Deymorin and his staff had developed based on his new insights, had made the Rho- mandi stock the most valiiable in the Syndicate in a few short years. But it hadn't taken Pandr'iini to sire the best. Common as a street-rat by birth. Ringer had danced with the best of them. He rubbed Pander's nose, wondering where in hell Ringer had got to. He hadn't seen the big gelding in over twelve months, not since he'd ridden him into Rhomatum the morning of Nikki's seventeenth birth The inner sense tingled in response to thoughts of Nikki. His youngest brother was awake and thinking horse. Actually, Nikki was thinking other, more lascivious thoughts, but with his wife two days' ride distant, his op- tions were limited. Deymorin could well understand. A similar state of mind and body had had him up with the sun. Kiyrstin, never far from his thoughts, seemed to follow him everywhere this morning. The moment he relaxed his guard, it was as if her hands were inside his clothing, making him tingle from head to foot as only she could do. Or so he'd believed. Sparkling motes of color. Insidious energy. No wonder many of the tent flaps had been dropped this morning, for all there were signs of activity within. And beneath them, a new node gestated. Let's make a baby, Mother had said to the Rhomatumin Tamshi that had spawned her a geologic age ago. Procreation. He didn't pretend to understand how it worked for the tamshi, but in a camp full of healthy men, that drive could find any number of releases, some less -constructive than others. He made a mental note to warn tBie sergeants to drill the men to physical exhaustion in the practice field, if nothing else sufficed. Not the optimum solution: he still couldn't be certain the Northern Crescent leaders wouldn't come charging down the leyroad in some mistaken notion of taking hand to hand what they'd failed to take via the Towers, but the chances were very limited. They'd been tempted into the rebellion by the notion that the Rhomandi wouldn't be able to hold Rhomatum Tower. That notion had been disproved; they would more likely be slinking home with their tails between their legs. Nikki was dressed and headed his way, had made it to the feed barn that had been their first permanent construc- tion, and was poking about in the dark among grain sacks seeking equine bribes; the inner sense he shared with his brothers tracked Nikki's position as surely as if he were watching from overhead. He searched deliberately across the camp for Mikhyel's presence, but while he could pin- point his other brother's location on the hillside where he'd slept alone, well away from the tents and soldiers, Mikhy- el's mind remained as stubbornly opaque as it had been all night. Nothing unusual in that, other than the location. Mikhyel would return, physically or mentally, when Mikhyel was ready, and not before. Secretive. Alone. That much, at least, hadn't changed... "Deymorin? Deymorin!" Nikki's eager voice pierced the morning peace. . . . Fortunately. If they were all as open as Nikki, they'd never sort out one brother's thoughts from the others'. "Good morning to you, too, little brother," Deymorin said, turning to meet him. "I thought I felt you." "Shit," Nikki muttered, and then blushed. "Sorry . . ." An apology that his underlying better sense applied equally to his language and his mental noise. Sometimes Nikki's attempts to keep his thoughts quiet proved more disruptive than the thoughts themselves. Deymorin chuckled and slapped Nikki's solid arm. "You're doing very well, Nik. Just a hint at the edge of my .. ." He fingered the coat encasing that solid arm. Hi~ coat. Nikki carried a quarter bucket of sweet feed, and honeyed grain clung to the fine no-wale corduroy cuffs. Nikki's blush deepened. "Tonic) gave it to me. His wouldn't fit and I didn't have" Deymorin laughed aloud. "Stop apologizing, brat. Natu- rally he did, conside,ring you arrived last night with only the clothes on your back." City clothes, at that Clothing designed for the temperature- controlled atmosphere of Rhomatum Tower, and hardly ap- propriate for a brisk Khoramali morning. It was no wonder Tonio had provided this largesse out of his trunk. Still, he'd talk to his valet. This particular coat had been a gift from Kiyrstin and it was not something he cared to share with his younger brother. "At least," he said, to divert them both from the issue that had nothing, really, to do with Nikki, "the Tamshi were rather more generous with you than Anheliaa was with Mikhyel and myself. I'm having a hard enough time explaining my brothers' unannounced arrivals without ex- plaining their bare behinds as well." "Rings!" Nikki laughed. "I never even thought of that. Still" He gave Deymorin a crossways look. "Still, look what it got. you. Maybe if you'd had your clothes on, Kiyr- stin would have left you to drown in that pond." His every nerve flared sensually at the mere mention of her name. He silenced his body with a stern mental repri- mand, but not soon enough, from Nikki's widening grin. "And Mikhyel found Mother," Deymorin retorted. "Not the greatest odds. Besides, whom would you have ensnared last night? And you a married man. For shame!" That wide grin faded. "No one, I suppose." The jest had gone decidedly sour. The boy should never. have been compelled to accept that marriage with Lidye dunTarec, no matter how well the arrangement ultimately turned out for the Web. Nikki shouldn't have had to wouldn't have been put to it, if Deymorin had been where he was supposed to be, twelve long months ago. A senseless argument, it had been, at that. If he'd known Anheliaa had the power to throw him to the ends of the earth with the flick of a finger and a twist of the Rhomatum Rings, he'd never have let her provoke him in her damned tower. Hell, she'd never have gotten him up there in the first place to be provoked. Still, the past was the past. Anheliaa was dead now, and the marriage had not been all bad for Nikki. At times Nikki had been quite infatuated with his doll-pretty wife. Cer- tainly his libido-driven thoughts had been directed that way moments ago. And Lidye had proven capable enough in the Tower. In all probability, their attempts to hold the Web intact last night would have failed without her participation. Besides, as Nikki had pointed out, if he hadn't had that argument with Anheliaa, he might never have met Kiyrstin, might never have discovered the Mauritumin plot to take over Rhomatum Tower . . . "Do you suppose that Anheliaa chose to do that to you deliberately?" Nikki smoothed the coat sleeve, and Dey- morin caught a fleeting image of a roadside near the Bore- ton Turnout, of Mikhyel lying senseless on a blood- stained canvas... "Which?" he asked, brutally unmoved by the image, re- fusing to allow his brother to wallow in it either. "Landing us naked as newborns? Or seared like a beefsteak?" Mikhyel had survived. So had he. Done was done. He held to that thought, and the image from Nikki shivered apart. "Both, I suppose." "Brother, considering our aunt would have done any- thing to humiliate me, not to mention her obvious delight in causing anyone pain, I leave nothing beyond her warped capacity, but Khyel seems to think she didn't really know what she was doing when she . . . leyapulted people out of the Tower. As for Khyel" He paused, recalling a time of shared minds immediately following that journey through hellfire. "Somehow, I don't think Anheliaa had much to do with that. I think that was Mikhyel's own doing, and I somehow doubt he planned any part of it." Nikki's gaze met his soberly. "Just how powerful is he.. Deymio?" "How can we know? He's . . . changed . . . changed every time I see him. But at the time, he blamed himself for your predicament, and the depth of that guilt might well have played some part in the business." "Changed," Nikki repeated, and the look he cast out- ward didn't really appear to take in the mountains' morning beauty. "Aren't we all?" Point, Nikki. Deymorin tugged a shoulder seam to smooth a wrinkle in his coat and drew a return of blinking, blue-eyed awareness. "Tolerably good fit, sprout," he said, the tone light, the sentiment nothing of the kind. "Grow any more and I'll have to borrow your clothes." Nikki, being seventeen and still self-conscious, blushed. Deymorin laughed and gave him a shove toward Pander. "Go ahead, brat. Have a nice ride. Just get both of you back intact, hear me?" "How did you know I wanted" Nikki frowned, then rolled his eyes. "Of course," he said, and tapped his temple. "Might as well resign ourselves to it," Deymorin said, then raised his voice to reach two veterans grooming their mounts down the tether line. "Phendrochi! Darville! Ride point for my brother!" Nikki protested loudly as Darville's red head bobbed in acknowledgment, but Deymorin sent his brother a soothing thought and followed the thought with: "Common sense, Nikaenor. Remember who and where we are. Remember what we were involved in last night." And the final reassur- ance: "/ wouldn't venture out alonenot today, perhaps never again." Nikki's lips pressed tight, and resignation/resentment flooded past his low barriers, but he nodded agreement. "Tack's in the lean-to," Deymorin nodded toward the small building adjacent to the feed barn, and without fur- ther comment, Nikki was off. "Remember the bit!" Dey- morin called after him, and Nikki raised an acknowledging hand. Pander jumped, then shied and danced, reaction to vhe sudden commotion in his private domain. The horse WrlS coiled spring-tight, as much in need of exercise as Nikki on this morning, when the energy literally saturated the air the?y breathed. "You do see it, Nikki?" he asked, when his brother re- turned carrying his saddle. "Don't you?" Nikki tilled his head inquisitively, his mind intent on the upcoming gallop, his hands full of leather, and his mouth occupied with a filched apple, a cull, one of the equine delicacies that sometimes appeared tucked in a spare corner of a supply wagon. Deymorin waved his hand through the air, creating currents, sending the motes dancing like dan- delion seeds on a spring breeze, and knew a certain relief when Nikki's eyes tracked that ebb and flow and not just his hand. Nikki bit through, and offered the rest to Pander. "Sure," he answered between chews. "Feels like the ringtower when Lidye's working." "Really," he said, and thought of those closed tents and wondered that his brother could even visit his wife's office without becoming conjugal. Nikki's ready blush flared, and he ducked his head. "Not the same that way. Just . . ." He waved his hand through the air, then clipped a lead onto Pander's halter before the young stud shied away. "You know." "Sorry, Nik." Deymorin chuckled. Nikki just gave him a baleful look and held the lead-rope out expectantly. Dey- morin accepted the lowest of grooming positions, while Nikki began to wield curry comb and brush with youthful and mind-numbingvigor. Like the ringtower when Lidye's working. Deymorin absently fingercombed Pander's fine-haired forelock. Nikki was accumulating Tower experience with Lidye just as Mikhyel had with Anheliaa, learning to take certain things for granted in the process, and not thinking about it, not questioning. As Nikki pointed out, they were all changing. Ultimately, he no longer questioned the fact, he'd have to make his own peace with the Tower and its rings. They couldn't be what they were, do what they had to do and still cling fto the old prejudices. Pander rooted his chest, seeking his full attention, r)ot because he wanted anything, but because he was bored. Another difference between this eager youngster and Ringer. Ringer had been long on patience, if that lack of work included a warm spot in the sun and a ready supply of food. As first the pad, then the saddle slid into place, he asked, not really expecting an answer. "Where's Ringer?" For a moment, Nikki stared at him blankly over the top of the saddle, the silver Rhomandi crest on the skirt re- flecting streaks of sunlight on his cheek. Then his mind flared with guilt. "Ringer?" Suddenly, the question ceased to be idle. "Yes, Nikki, Ringer. You know the horse. You helped train him, dammit! He got me to Rhomatum in time for your birthday, and I haven't seen him since. Where is he?" "You disappeared, Deymorin. I thought you'd taken him. By the time I knew" "Knew what?" Death flared out from Nikki, along with anger, and guilt and impotence. He jerked a cinch-strap with rather more force than necessary, and Pander snorted in protest. Deymorin controlled reactive anger, and grabbed Nikki's wrist to achieve a deeper link, only to drop it again when the wave of emotion nearly knocked him to his knees. "Nikki, stop shouting. I know it's not your fault. Just tell me what happened!" "Brolucci!" Nikki spat the name out. Brolucci. Captain of their great-aunt Anheliaa's Tower Guard, and, like Anheliaa, frustratingly beyond reach of vengeance. Details filtered through to Deymorin, and he clarified out of that flow of information: "Brolucci had him destroyed?" Nikki nodded. "At Anheliaa's orders." Another nod. "To cover your absence after she threw y