"Ah, well, we've not managed to nab him yet. The Emperor was so worried about Zander... and the guards didn't understand what was going on. They saw the Khelid going three different directions at once ... but we've searchers out, and the gates are closed. He'll not escape us. We've taken care of all the other Khelid in Zhagad. Now, come on. I've no time to talk."

He led me up the flight of winding stairs to a wide gallery, past two stone- faced guards who might have been blind for all the notice they took of us. On one side of the gallery wide-open windows welcomed the flower-scented night, and on the other, curtains woven of gold thread hung in five or six arched doorways. Kiril pushed me through one of the curtains into a dimly lit room. "You'll be safe here. Just stay until I come for you. And enjoy yourself.

You'll want to take a look out the back curtain after a bit."

There was food inside the small, luxuriously furnished sitting room, and the smells had my stomach growling louder than a shengar. The repast-cold fowl, fruit, pastries, bread, salted fish, slices of savory pork and mutton, rolls of green leaves containing delicate sh.e.l.lfish and shredded vegetables, spicy sauces with nuts, and tart berries, and innumerable other delicacies-was the finest I had ever sat down to. And in the midst of it all was a voluminous pitcher of cool water and another of red wine. I almost drowned in the pleasure of it.

About the time I filled my plate for the third time, I heard a trumpet fanfare followed by pipe music beyond the heavy curtain of brilliant colors on the far wall. The pipe music was haunting and lovely, echoing through the ancient stone of the Palace, beckoning me to pay attention, but I ignored it for a long while, preferring the food as entertainment. Only when I sat back and wondered why Kiril had brought me to such an odd place, did the young Derzhi's obscure remark at last penetrate my gluttonous madness. I jumped up and peeked out the curtain, afraid that I had missed something very important.

Far below me, in a vast cavern of a room illuminated by a thousand candles, Aleksander knelt before the Emperor. Ivan's thumb was on the Prince's forehead, and the words of the anointing were just fading into the music.

"Arise, Aleksander, our successor, our son. Heed him, all of you, and fear him, for he is the voice of his Emperor and the living surety that our glory will never end."

Aleksander was in dark green. No diamond collar this time, but his lean face wore a quiet and solemn dignity that became him better. He stood up and kissed the man who, only a few short hours before, had sentenced him to death. Then he turned to acknowledge the genuflection of the small crowd- some six or seven hundred onlookers. The beaming Emperor motioned to his attendants and swept from the dais. When Aleksander rose from his genuflection at his father's pa.s.sing and followed him down the steps, Kiril stepped forward and whispered in his ear. Aleksander turned in the direction of my observation post and bowed from the waist, setting off a turning of heads and general murmuring that would no doubt feed rumors for years ahead. The curiosity would be enhanced by the fact that he immediately greeted the Lady Lydia-breathtakingly beautiful in dark blue and silver-in such a manner as to preclude any question of other dalliance.

I wasn't worried about being discovered. The Emperor-to-be and his cousin were no doubt capable of keeping me private in the heart of the Palace. Once they had pa.s.sed from the hall, I went back to eating. The journey back to Dael Ezzar would be a long one.

For the first time in almost seventeen years, I allowed myself to think of the future. Five years. Our law said that if one spouse went missing, the other would be free to marry again after five years. Five years was not so long a time. Ysanne ... When someone stepped in the door, I whirled about and said, "I need to be off, Lord Kiril. I'd be most grateful-"

"Do not imagine that you will go anywhere of your own accord this night, Ezzarian, or ever again for that matter." From behind the gold curtain stepped a pale-haired man with blue eyes, not the ice-blue horror of demon's eyes, but the natural blue of a human, boiling with anger and hate and l.u.s.t for vengeance.

I tried to raise my hand or my foot, anything to defend myself, but Korelyi held a small, oval medallion that gleamed ruddy gold in the candlelight and screamed with the dissonance of demon music. "A little trinket left from my former companion," said the Khelid. "We had prepared it for the Emperor himself, but I think I would rather use it for my true enemy."

He walked around me slowly, and I could not so much as turn my head to follow. "The catalyst. The slave. Always at the periphery of events. Who would have believed it was the pitiful Ezzarian sorcerers who were the nemesis of the rai-kirah-the pandye-gyash, they call them, 'the hidden warriors'? Won't they be pleased when I tell them how to find the rest of you? The rai-kirah are much more attuned to the way of things in the human world now. I'll make sure to be there to watch when they come."

He stepped closer. I could smell the aura of murderous vengeance on him.

"But you ... you will have to imagine it." The bra.s.s medallion was suspended from a steel chain, which he placed about my neck. It might have been a mountain, it hung so heavy on my chest. It was a fight to breathe, and speech was out of the question. I desperately hoped that Kiril would show up soon ...

with a Derzhi legion behind him.

"Come with me. Now I've found you, it is time to walk out of this place."

Against my will my feet began to move. Korelyi pulled up the white scarf to hide my face and took my arm com-panionably-not quite breaking my elbow doing it. Down the corridor and the stairs. Through the galleries and courtyards and pa.s.sageways. The Palace was a hive of activity and excitement, but even with so many, no one challenged the Khelid. Many nodded and greeted him respectfully. I didn't understand it.

"A glorious night, Lord Kiril," said a young Derzhi as we pa.s.sed.

"Indeed. A touch of swordplay on the borders will make it perfect."

Kiril... It took me a moment to realize that they were addressing Korelyi as Kiril. I couldn't turn my head, but he reached to open a gate, and I glimpsed his aspect. He had worked an illusion, giving himself a mask that resembled Kiril. Though imperfect and lacking the earnest innocence of the young Derzhi, it was enough for eyes that expected only truth in their seeing.

I delved into myself, trying to come up with some bit of sorcery that might throw off the demon working, but his surprise had been complete. All I could do was name myself a fool and five thousand worse names. How could I have let down my guard so completely?

Out of the palace gates, through the inner-ring wall, through the outer walls into the teeming tent cities of those too poor, too diseased, or too unsavory to be permitted into Zhagad. Korelyi pushed me tnrougn daric lanes lit by spitting yellow torches, through the crowds of hawkers and thieves, prost.i.tutes and lepers, goats and pigs, to a dark, stinking comer of the tent city. Compared to the clamor of the lanes, it was eerily quiet. A moan from the shadows was followed instantly by the sound of a lash.

I was shoved into a filthy wooden stockade, and Korelyi kicked a diseased- looking youth who lay snoring on a pile of hides in one comer. "Strip this one and bind him to the post so your master can see what a fine prospect I've brought him. But on your life, do not remove this." He tapped the bra.s.s medallion and leaned into the boy's face. "He turns into a monster if you take it off him. He eats carrion like you."

The lad did as he'd been told, tying my hands to a tall post and gloating over my decent clothes as he removed them. Korelyi walked across the pen to speak with a cadaverous man wearing striped pantaloons and a necklace of bones-a Veshtar slave keeper. My blood turned to ice. Veshtar kept their slaves constantly in chains or cages; they starved them and mutilated them, allowing no speech, no thought, no movement that was not h.e.l.lish misery.

The Veshtar claimed that their G.o.ds commanded them to treat barbarians so, to work them to death in the desert to purify them. Purify. If I could have made a sound, I would have laughed at the irony of it. Even the worst of the Derzhi refused to deal with the Veshtar, considering them too cruel.

A third man joined Korelyi and the Veshtar, and soon the three of them came over to me. Bad enough to have the gloating Khelid examining my scars. Bad enough to have the Veshtar sucking his broken brown teeth and running his dirty fingers over my arms and back as if to decide where to leave his own marks. But the third man ... it was the third man that made my heart go dead.

The third man was Rhys. Oh, my friend, how can you hate enough to do this?

In unspoken pleading, I begged Rhys to hear me, to wait, to save himself from an act of murder that was far more deliberate than killing Galadon. But he could not hear me, so I battled the demon enchantment with everything I could muster, bringing my memories, my love, my too-late understanding of my friend into the working. It felt as if my face might crack with the effort or my heart burst. And what words do you say when they might be your last forever? Croaking, rasping, my tongue burning with the Khelid spell, my mind unable to make any rational choice save that I must speak, my soul spilled out the few words entirely on its own. "Once ... long ago ... you swore to cut off my b.a.l.l.s. Has the time come?"

Rhys did not change his expression. He did not move when Korelyi snarled and touched his finger to the medallion, and I screamed from the fiery waves of pain consuming my mind and body. I might not have existed as I hung limp and quivering from the post. He watched, his broad face impa.s.sive, as the Khelid and the Veshtar haggled over my price. Arms folded he listened when the Veshtar swore to have me away from the city within the hour and to take me so deep into the desert that I could never be found. He said nothing as the Khelid showed the slave keeper how to embed the little medallion in the Veshtari slave collar without removing it from me, so that I would never be able to move unbidden, never be able to summon power. Never in his watching or listening did Rhys meet my gaze, and my soul sank into the midnight of despair.

"We shall each have our desire, shall we not?" said the Khelid, nudging my old friend as the Veshtar went to fetch his gold. "I have made the arrangements as we agreed. A fine pillow upon which to lay our heads this night. And you have no need to wreak this crude vengeance of your swearing.

The Veshtar know how to manage such things far better than Ezzarians, I think."

Rhys ran his fingers idly over the knife hilt at his waist. "You said nothing about a Veshtar," he said at last, softly, evenly. My skin itched with more than the rapid cooling of the desert night.

"You wanted him in bondage, not dead. I wanted him in everlasting torment.

This seemed a proper solution. And we shall both have a pocketful of coins to ease our distress."

Rhys walked away from the Khelid, toward me, as if to inspect me closer. Only then did he meet my gaze full on ... and his cold dark eyes were filled with resignation. With death. "The gold would be very nice," he said. "But all in all, I mislike this bargain." And with a movement swifter than a bee sting, he drew his knife in one hand and his sword in the other. With the knife tip and a word of binding, he lifted the medallion from my neck and flipped it into the fire, and with a furious spin he slashed the ropes that bound my hands.

I ducked, for Korelyi was also quick, and his saber came near taking off my hair shorter than Durgan had ever done. With his foot and a bone-cracking double blow of elbow and wrist, Rhys disarmed the slave keeper. The Veshtar's blade spun through the air and landed, hilt-first, in my hand.

It did not take us long. These were mortals, not demons. The Khelid lay dead at my feet, along with the Veshtar slave keeper. And five other Veshtar, including the youth who had bound my hands, were piled in front of Rhys. My old friend was bent over them as if to make sure they were dead. "And so you've won," he said. Slowly he stood up and faced me. Blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth, and even in the sallow light of the slave-pen torch, his face had no color. The color was all on the front of his shirt, and it was all the wrong color. I caught him before he fell to the ground.

"We have won," I said, pulling his great shoulders into my embrace. "You've saved my life as you promised."

He shook his head. "This was not for you. You need nothing from me. Never have. You would have survived the Veshtar. But there are things even I cannot stomach."

'The past is done with. I've learned-"

He wouldn't let me speak, but gripped my arm with his huge hand. "Do not lay all this on Ysanne. She never be trayed you. I told her"-a spasm wrenched his giant frame-"I told her that you commanded us to leave you. Be cause you were dying. Unclean. I never meant... my oath I thought I could still fight."

"I know. It's all right. The paths of fortune have led me where I never thought to go, Rhys. You were right. You tried to tell me. I always believed I could do everything alone. But I've learned better. Even this, tonight, you've shown me again. We have changed the world as we always said we would."

"Just not as I wanted it." He turned his face away, and his hand loosed its grip and fell to the dirt.

For an hour after he died, I sat with him, rocking him gently with the waves of grief that welled up inside me. "Nevaro wydd, Rhys-na-varain." Sleep in peace.

I used the Veshtar's gold to hire men to carry Rhys and Korelyi back to the Palace and to induce some of the locals to free the terrified victims who were locked in the Veshtar cages. Kiril had alerted the guards to watch out for me, and when I showed up with two dead bodies, they were content to shuffle me and my burdens through the gate without too many questions. It was only a few minutes' wait in a stable yard until Kiril came running. Once he had sent Korelyi's body to the holding place for the Khelid to be identified and burned, and given orders to wrap Rhys's body in clean cloth as I asked, he dismissed the staring guards. "Are you all right? Where in Athos' name did you get off to?"

"I relaxed a bit too much."

"I'm glad to see you well." He screwed his square face into a puzzled frown, as if by setting it just right, he might understand all the things I had no wish to speak of. "The Prince will be relieved. I thought I might experience a most unpleasant ending to a fine evening."

"I need to go," I said. "The moon is up, and I've a long way to travel. I just wanted the Prince to know he didn't have to waste his time worrying about this particular Khelid. Remember to do as I told you. Burn everything the Khelid touched, all the weapons, the gems, everything. Even Lord Dmitri's things and Prince Aleksander's sword. After an hour in the fire, they'll be safe."

"He would keep you with him, you know. Not as a slave, nor even a servant.

But as his companion and valued adviser."

"He knows I can't stay."

Kiril acknowledged it. "But you will at least allow him to give you transport and protection for your way?"

"I'd rather-"

"He will insist. Please don't make my life miserable by fighting over it." He grinned at me. "Can't I persuade you to pity me as everyone else does and do as I ask?"

I returned his good humor. "An Ezzarian feeling sorry for aDerzhi? Unlikely.

I need no protection, but I would appreciate a horse. Nothing too fine. I'm not a good enough rider to manage one of your firebrands. And two pack animals.

One for supplies and one to carry my friend."

"Across the desert?" Kiril wrinkled his nose in horror.

"We have ways. I need to take him home."

"It will be done. Give me an hour. Wait in the fountain court behind Druya's shrine. I'll have everything brought to you there."

"Thank you, my lord." I bowed to him ... as a man bows, not as a slave.

Kiril extended his hand. "You have done the Empire- the world-such service as there are no words to express.

Even if we fully understood it." We shook hands, then he hurried away, sending the guards back to their posts.

Music-wild desert pipes against the droning mellang-har-drifted from the brilliantly lit Palace. They would be drinking toasts and watching the whirling dezrhila dancers spin out the legends of Derzhi history. I sat in the little garden outside the priests' room and thought of Rhys, stories from the past, when we were young and invincible, and would emerge from danger excited and glowing, as Kiril was, instead of tired, and lonely, and homesick.

I was suddenly overwhelmed with such a longing to be home among my own people that it was a physical effort to remain in the little garden. It would not be easy to go back. Ysanne could not revoke my undeath on her own whim.

Though I believed she would fight for me-and Catrin could be no mean ally- there would be a great number of my people who would strongly resist violating our oldest traditions, even to regain the services of the only living Warden. And that would not be the last change they had to face. The world ...

the demons and our war ... were going to change. We had to be ready.

As for Ysanne ... I knew she was waiting for me. Her love had followed me into horror and held strong and unyielding until I returned. Her music had always been for me. Yet we would need to find our way back to each other, Ysanne and I. So many stones had fallen into the stream of youthful pa.s.sion, it would take some doing to discover how the water ran. Soon, my love. Soon.

If not for a remaining sliver of reason, I would have set out right then and run across the desert without stopping until I had the high valley of Dael Ezzar in sight. Yet I would make the journey sooner and safer if I had transport, and I would not leave Rhys behind. It was the only thing I could give him. Ysanne and I would always carry a burden of guilt about Rhys: Ysanne for her childish flirtation with my friend, I for the pride and self-absorption that had blinded me to his need. I had been so sure of him. So sure of myself. So sure of Ysanne. She had rebelled and dallied with Rhys, never thinking he would believe her or link his feeling for her to his other problems with me. Neither of us had listened to him, and so together we had woven a landscape where his weakness could flourish. Our regret would not change what had happened, only make our grief for the big laughing youth more bitter.

So much to consider. So much to remember. The weeks of traveling that lay before me would not be idle.

It was more like two hours until my mounts arrived. I kept my guard up this time, so I heard the steps on the path and stood ready long before the young steward came through the garden gate leading two horses and a chastou. The desert beast was laden with water casks and leather food bags, and one horse was burdened with a long wrapped bundle, tied securely and respectfully to its back and draped with a white velvet cloth. Across the saddle of the other horse was laid a white desert robe and scarf. "Speak Lord Kiril's name to the gate guards," said the boy. "Tell them you're the one he told of, and you'll be pa.s.sed through."

I thanked him, checked the bindings, and prepared to mount up. But when the lad was gone, there was still breathing from the shadowed corner of the garden.

"Did you think to leave without seeing me?"

I smiled and turned, discovering the lanky form sitting on a broken fountain, his arms around his knees, almost invisible in the darkness. "You have a great deal to keep you occupied," I said.

"A great deal more than my prospects of the morning warranted." He unfolded his legs, but stayed where he was. "We're off to finish the Khelid tomorrow. I go east, Kiril north, Marag south, my father west. I'm even in the good graces of the Magician's Guild again."

"Be careful with them, my lord. They have only a smattering of melydda, but no concept of how to use it carefully." I clamped my mouth shut. "I'm sorry ...

always one more lesson."

"Never apologize for telling me what I need to hear. I am not as I was before I knew you. I have fallen as low as a man can go, and you have raised me up again. I won't forget it." "Whatever I found in you was there all along." He growled in mock ferocity. "Of course, you've caused me a lot of trouble. I've had to find a new scribe."

I laughed and adjusted the stirrups on the horse. "And I've no time to give him lessons ... or warn him about your habits."

"Lydia loaned him. I think he'll do well. He doesn't say what he's thinking, either, but then, I don't believe he's thinking all that much. You'll find some of his work in the small pack on your mount. Review it when you have time and let me know what you think."

"I will," I said, mounting up. "If you ever have need of me...."

"Be safe, my guardian."

"Be wise, my prince."

He was laughing as I rode away, through the streets of his city and into the desert.

It was on the next morning when I stopped at a small rocky outcrop to wait out the worst heat of the day that I unwrapped a rolled leather bundle to find the two well-written papers. The first was a writ sealed by the newly anointed heir. It stated that, despite physical marking that might indicate otherwise, the Ezzarian who bore the letter was a free man, not to be detained, made captive, abused, or mishandled in any way under penalty of banishment from the Empire or death. A precious writing indeed. Even an illiterate warrior could not ignore Aleksander's seal.

But it was the second paper that caught my breath.

A Continuation of the History of the Glorious Dakrah of Aleksander, Crown Prince of the Derzhi Empire, as begun at Capharna and continued this fifth day of the Month of the Bull by the hand of Illeos of Avenkhar.

After this most holy anointing in the manner prescribed by the overlord Tyros when his son Athos came to his majority in the Courts of the Sky, the Emperor Ivan zha Denischkar did proclaim Aleksander to the people as his beloved son and heir, as their Emperor's Voice and Hand. And after they had retired from the place of the anointing, the Emperor did ask Prince Aleksander what gift he desired to remember the day: horses or lands, gems or gold, slaves or wine, women or t.i.tles, or perhaps songs to be made of his trials and his victory over the unholy Khelid treachers.

The Prince contemplated the riches offered him, but without hesitation spoke his mind. "One thing, honored father, I would ask of you. Far to the south lies a warm, green land once known as Ezzaria. Some of your n.o.bles have occupied it these past years, but I am looking for a suitable site to build myself a palace, a sanctuary where I can take my bride on the day my marriage is blessed by your hand. I would ask that you grant me all t.i.tles to Ezzaria, compensating those displaced with twice the lands in Khelidar or other territories that are under my rule. I will take possession of this land at the summer solstice and travel the houses there to see if any are to my liking. I desire it to be a private territory, no trade routes through it, no use of its timber or game unless I say it, and this to be written into the law of the Empire so that it will extend beyond my death for as long as the Derzhi rule."

The Emperor expressed his astonishment with the modest request of the Prince and his pleasure at my lord's care for those n.o.ble families displaced by his desire. With his hand and his seal the Emperor has commanded that all be done as the Prince has spoken.

At the bottom of this finely written page were a few words, drawn in crude, childlike letters.

It is yours. A.