The Seeker - Section I
by Mosylu

Last Update January 1, 2002

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Prologue

As the sun set, the palace square was teeming with unaccustomed noise and color. Dancers and their accompanying musicians, jugglers, fire-eaters, food-sellers, and charm-vendors mingled with the crowds who had come to celebrate the swearing-in of their new Regent.

“Durnan! Don’t run ahead!”

Alris Acosta sighed in exasperation and took firmer hold of his daughter’s small hand. Elayza looked as if she were considering following her brother’s example. “Durnan!” he called out again.

The dark-haired boy looked back for a moment. It proved to be his undoing, since he barrelled right into a tall, blond man. The collision sent him stumbling backwards.

“Whoa, lad, whoa!” The blond man caught Durnan’s shoulders to steady him. “Where’s the fire?”

Durnan looked up for miles, it seemed, into a kindly, angular face that smiled down on him. “I--I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking--”

“It’s all right, lad. Everyone’s allowed a few mistakes.”

“Durnan?” Alris called out. “Are you all right?”

The tall man looked up, and a smile like sunshine broke out over his face. “Alris Acosta, is that you?”

Alris stared at the other man for several moments, and his own subtler smile broke out. “Grackin Marzen! I didn’t even know you were back in the city.”

“I’ve been back for nearly nine years now. I can’t believe this! It’s been--what, ten years?”

“Oh, no. Fifteen, nearly.”

“You must be lying,” Grackin protested laughingly, moving out of the stream to sit on the edge of the fountain in the center of the square. “We’re not nearly that old. Is this your boy, then?”

“He is,” Alris said, helping his daughter up so she could sit as well. “And this is my daughter, Elayza. Durnan, Elayza, this is a very old friend of mine, Master Grackin Marzen. We studied under the same tutor.”

Durnan held out his hand, saying, “How do you do, Master Marzen,” in a determinedly adult voice.

Grackin’s smile sparkled in his eyes, but no hint of it touched his mouth. He shook Durnan’s hand with matching solemnity. “I do very well, Durnan. How old are you? Eighteen? Twenty?”

“I’m twelve.”

“Beg your pardon,” Grackin said, and tilted his head to look at the girl close to her father’s side. “And Miss Elayza? How old are you?”

“I just turned eight,” she said proudly.

“Eight years old, eh? I have a daughter who’s just about your age.”

“You do?” Interest sparkled in her exotic amber eyes. “What’s her name?”

“Kylara.”

“You’re married, Grackin?” Alris asked in surprise.

His old friend’s smile faded a little. “Widowed,” he said. “Nearly eight years now.”

Alris touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“You?”

“The same. Eight years.”

“Ah, well. Life goes on, doesn’t it?” Grackin looked around. “How do you like this party?”

Alris looked around too. “Very well. The children have already eaten far more sweet things then are good for them.” The corners of his eyes crinkled, and Durnan grinned. It was a surprisingly sweet smile in that solemn little face, all the more so for its swift disappearence.

Elayza put her feet in the water, and Alris said, “Take off your sandals first, ‘Layza!” Upon being handed his daughter’s dripping sandals, he groaned, and Grackin laughed.

“Just like Ky. I think they would get along.”

Alris set the sandals aside. “Were you able to see the swearing-in?”

“Who, me? I’m not that privileged. What do you think of this new one?”

“He seems decent enough. Certainly no better or worse then the last few we’ve had.”

Grackin’s brow lifted. “Yes? And what are you not saying, Alris?”

“Who says I’m not saying anything?”

“You forget, I won approximately five hundred noskits off you in those games of flip-up. Your face is like a book.”

Alris smiled at that. “It’s nothing to do with the Regent himself. It’s his son--the new Regent Prince. Durnan, don’t splash your sister.”

“You mean Prince Saldatis? What of him?” Grackin asked.

“There is something about him I cannot like, Grackin. I have met him once or twice before, while tutoring, and there is something too like cruelty in his eyes. The slaves who come to me from the palace tell me he has a fascination with the dark god.”

Grackin blinked at that, but said, “He’s what--eighteen? Every boy goes through a period of fascination with darkness, Alris. Even we did--for a short time.”

“It sounds like he is deeper into it then we were. They speak of strange rituals and foul messes to clean--” Alris broke off, looking at his children.

Grackin said, “You’re making too much of rumors, Alris. Anyway, he’s not the Regent; his father is. And Armato has a good twenty or thirty years of rule in him. Anything could happen between now and then. Hell, the Guardians could come back.”

Alris said in a low, vibrant voice, “I wish they would.”

Durnan looked up. “Father, who are the Guardians?”

Grackin answered before Alris could. “A foolish old story, lad.”

“It’s not foolish,” Alris said levelly, “and it’s not a story. Other then that, you’re perfectly correct.”

Grackin laughed. “You’ll never change, Alris. You still take everything too seriously.”

“And you take everything too lightly.”

“And on this, we’ll never reach an accord, so why don’t we agree to disagree and enjoy the festivities? We can hunt up my daughter, see if she and Elayza have a mind to be friends.”

Elayza looked up, hopeful, but Alris shook his head. “Another day, perhaps. It’s late, and I want to get the children home.”

“Alris, I’m shocked! The night is young!”

“The night may be young,” his friend retorted, handing his daughter her sandals, “but I am getting older. And I’ve been up since dawn. Where are you living? I’ll bring the children over sometime soon.”

“In lodgings over on Gordit Lane. It’s just Kylara and I--we’d be glad of a visit.” Grackin got up, lowering his voice. “Just don’t get arrested before then. Teaching slaves is still illegal.”

“So is burglery. I assume you’re still doing that.”

“You assume rightly. It’s certainly more entertaining then any legitimate job.” Grackin bowed to Durnan, then to Elayza. “I depend on seeing you soon, Master Durnan and Miss Elayza. We will see what my Kylara thinks of you.” He looked up and his brilliant smile flashed again. “That goes for you as well, old friend. Let’s not wait another fifteen years.”

“No,” Alris said, smiling back. “Enjoy the party, Grackin. Good night.”

As they made their way through the crowds, Durnan asked again, “Father, who were the Guardians?”

“It’s a long story, Durnan.”

“I want to hear.”

Alris looked down at his son. Durnan had that set to his jaw that meant he wouldn’t budge on this one.

“I want to hear too,” Elayza announced.

Alris shrugged. “The Guardians,” he said. “Well. The Guardians.”

His children waited. Impatience, they had learned long ago, would gain them nothing.

“Twelve hundred years ago, there was no such thing as Surania. All this was only an island, out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but gods living here.”

“Where did the people come from?”

“From over the sea. Nobody knows quite where anymore. But they came, and they landed, and they founded this city.” Alris held up a hand, indicating the city that surrounded them. “And they named it Yulte. Durnan, what does Yulte mean in the old language?”

Durnan bit his lip, trying to remember the language lessons his father had been giving him. “Sanctuary,” he said triumphantly. “Safe harbor.”

“Exactly. Very good.” Alris smiled on his son for a moment, then continued his story. “It was a safe harbor for three hundred years, until the dark god came to the island.”

“What happened?” Elayza breathed, wide-eyed.

“The dark god pretended to be a benefactor. He told the king that the gods they worshipped were weak and ineffectual, mere spirits. He would give the king true power.”

“Did the king listen?”

“Unfortunately, yes. He ordered his people to worship this dark god and perform the rituals the dark god demanded.”

“What was the dark god’s name?” Durnan asked suddenly.

“It cannot be said. If it is, you may call his attention.”

Durnan shivered.

“The people protested. ‘These rituals are wrong and evil,’ they said, but the king refused to listen. He punished all who did not participate, and even by this, the dark god grew stronger.”

“What happened to the good gods?”

“They saw what was happening, and mourned. But there was nothing they could do, without the rituals and prayers of the people, for that is what gives them their power. So each of the major gods chose a mortal champion. Six gods--six champions. And the Fates chose the seventh--a man who would lead the champions in battle against the dark god.”

“Why did there have to be seven champions? Why not just one?”

“Because, Durnan, each champion had a particular role within the group. There was one who healed--one who had visions--one who could call up information from anywhere--one who protected all the others--one who was in charge of strategy--and one who worked all the magic they needed.”

Elayza was counting. “Father--that’s only six.”

“I know. The seventh was known as the Seeker, and he was the leader. He knew what each of the champions could do and used their skills. His job was to gather the champions together, and also to find a new champion if one should die, and for this the Fates gave him a magic amulet. ”

“So what happened?” Durnan asked. “Did they kill the dark god?”

“It’s impossible to kill a god, Durnan. You can only bind it away to a place where it can do no harm.”

“Well, how did they do that?”

“The strategist--they called him the Wily One--thought up a trick to tempt the god into coming to them. They began to perform the darkest ritual possible. It was a gamble, for it meant risking their souls. But the god was called by the blood they shed, and when he came to the ritual place, they captured him with the amulet that the Fates had given the Seeker. That’s the other reason they needed seven champions. They functioned as a team to guard the god within the amulet and protect the country.”

“What happened to the king? The one who invited the dark god?”

“By this time, he was nothing more then a slave to the dark god’s will. When the dark go was bound into the Amulet, the king was left with nothing, and he went mad.”

Durnan winced, and Elayza shuddered.

“There was no heir to the throne,” their father continued, squeezing their hands for comfort, “so the Fates gave the Seeker a new task.”

“Did they tell him to be the king?”

“No. They told him to find one.”

“Why couldn’t he be the king?” Durnan asked indignantly.

“He had a job already. All the Guardians had a job already. So to help the Seeker find the new king, the Fates caused a great portal be be built just outside the palace. The doors were solid bronze, completely blank save for an image of a crown. Nobody could open it, not even the Guardians. Only the king, the Fates told the Seeker, would be able to open it.

“The call went out. Thousands came and tried their luck, with brute force and wit and magic. Nothing worked. Then one day, a ragged begger boy came to the palace, seeking a place to rest for the night. At one touch of his dirty little hand, the doors swung wide open. It’s said the stones that were set into the crowns lit up like fireflies. The cry went up. ‘We have a king! This boy is our king!’ And the child was crowned the very next day. He chose as his innermost council the Guardians, and caused their symbols to be carved on the great doors.”

“Was he a good king?”

“He was a great king. And so were all his heirs, who also depended on the Guardians for support and council. Surania become prosperous and happy--until one day, three hundred years later, the dark god got loose.”

Durnan exclaimed, “I thought you said they defeated him!”

“They did. But as I also said, it’s impossible to kill a god. You can only lock him away--and he’d been locked away for six hundred years, which is quite long enough to plot and plan.”

“How did he do it?”

“Every ten years, the Guardians would perform a ritual to ensure that the god remained locked away. This time, something went wrong--someone didn’t say the right words--someone didn’t make the right movements. Many things can foul up a ritual, especially one as complex and powerful as this one. So the bindings were loosened, and the dark god escaped. In his rage, the first thing he did was kill the present king.”

Elayza gasped, and Alris put his arm around her shoulder.

“The Guardians knew they had to do something. Surania and the king had been under their protection and they’d failed them. They tried everything to subdue the dark god, even the trick that had worked before, but the dark god had learned and was too wily for them. In desperation, they called out to the gods they championed. ‘Please. Do something. We are only mortals and cannot possibly defeat him.’

“‘We can do nothing in the spirit world,’ the gods replied. ‘It is not allowed. We could do something in the mortal world, but we must have bodies.’

“‘Take ours,’ the Guardians offered.

“‘If we do that, you will die. The mortal mind cannot withstand possession by a god.’

“‘We swore upon our very lives to protect Surania and its king from the dark god, and in that we have failed. It is only fitting that we give up those lives to save our country.’

“‘If you are certain,’ said the gods.

“‘We are,’ said the Guardians. They went to the dark god. ‘We surrender,’ they cried. ‘Take us.’ The dark god reached out to devour their souls, but at that moment, the gods and the Fates stepped in and took their place. The dark god was taken by surprise, his guards down. The gods, in the Guardians’ bodies, were able to trap him in the amulet one last time, and then they left the bodies that had been given to them, taking the amulet with them to hide it in the outer palace.”

“What about the Guardians?” Durnan ventured.

“They died. The gods had been right--the mortal mind is not made for godly posession. At the moment the last Guardian took his last breath, the great doors that had been open for six hundred years slammed shut, never to open until the king and his Guardians should come again.” Alris stopped and looked up at the portal that towered over him. “And here they are. Still closed.”

The children stared wide-eyed up at the reality of their father’s story. They were incredible--thirty feet high and solid bronze, gleaming still after nine hundred years. At face height, in the center of the doors and bisected by the dividing line, was a circle made of seven symbols, and a crown inside.

Durnan lifted his hand, and then hesitated.

“You can touch it. Go on.” Alris smiled a little. “Nothing will happen, I promise.”

Durnan laid his hand on the symbol of an upright, naked sword superimposed over a shield. “Whose--whose was this?”

“That was the Protector’s symbol.”

Elayza reached up, but couldn’t manage to touch any of the symbols. Alris picked her up so she could brush the image of a knife and bottle with the very tips of her fingers. “Whose was this?”

When her father didn’t answer, she looked over her shoulder curiously. “Father? Whose symbol was this?”

He blinked and shook his head, like a sleepwalker coming awake. He looked at the symbol, his brows drawing together for a moment as he tried to collect his thoughts. He knew this one--he did-- “The Healer, Elayza. That’s the symbol of the Healer.”

“Oh,” Elayza said, and wiggled to get down.

He set her on the ground and took her hand. “I think it’s time to go now,” he said quietly.

Durnan said, “But it’s--”

“--late. It’s time to go.”

Durnan tried to protest again, but Alris simply started walking. Durnan knew the signs. Don’t try to argue, don’t try to cajole. His father had spoken.

When his children were under the covers and starting to doze, Alris shut the curtains between the rooms and went out into the main room of the little one-story house. The table was faintly lit by the dying fire, one chair pulled out. Alris sank into it with a sigh. Lacing his hands together, he rested his chin on them as he stared out the window into the torchlit street.

In three hundred years, nobody had ever once touched those doors and gotten anything more then a chill from the cool metal. But when Durnan and Elayza had laid their hands on it, there had been a flicker of light in the stones of the crown--as if they were responding somehow.

It could have been just a reflection of torches.

It could have been a fluke of eyesight.

It could have been anything.

But as Alris sat there in the dark, he started to wonder.

Chapter One

I, Yanesh Kasole, the Scribe of King Harbon, record the First Gathering for the knowledge of those who follow. It starts with the Seeker . . .

“Kylara!”

Kylara Marzen lifted her head from the ancient manuscript she was studying. “Aunt Aba? What are you doing here?”

Her aunt tsked at her. “Look at that,” she said to nobody in particular. “Looking at old books all day--you’ll ruin your eyes.”

Kylara sighed and shoved a hand through her shaggy blond hair. “If they haven’t been ruined by now, Aunt, they’re just fine. What is it, Aunt Aba?”

“Come along,” Aunt Aba said, tugging at her wrist. “We’re going to buy you a slave.”

“A--what? Aunt--”

“I won’t hear any opposition,” the tiny woman stated. “You’re going to get yourself a nice sturdy slave and that’s that.”

“Aunt, I don’t need a slave!”

“Oh, yes, you do. Coming home so late at night, and through that part of town, too! Why, look at what happened the other night!”

“I took care of it myself,” Kylara insisted, flexing her hand, which still held abrasions across the knuckles. A gang of ruffians too stupid to know better--a scribe never had money--had attacked her as she was coming home three nights before. While Kylara had beaten them off just fine by herself, her aunt had almost had a fit when she saw the black eye her niece had earned by it.

“You were lucky,” Aunt Aba said. “Come along, would you?”

“To where?”

“To the slave market!”

“I have work to do!” Never mind that she had finished all her scribing for the moment, and was really only waiting for someone to come in.

“Nonsense,” Aunt Aba said briskly. “I’ve worked it all out with that nice Master Bladen. He’s giving you half an hour off to come with me to buy a slave. I’m going to feed you, too--a good healthy lunch. What did you bring for yourself this time?"

Kylara goggled. “You got Blade-face to give me half an hour off?”

“Don’t call him that. He was very reasonable, really he was, once I explained to him just why you needed protection.”

More like he had given in just to get Aunt Aba to stop talking. Kylara didn’t know whether to be impressed or fearful. “Aunt Aba,” she said slowly, “I don’t have enough money for a slave.”

“Nonsense, they’re very cheap, really.”

Kylara wondered wildly if it would do her any good to pound her head against the table. “I barely make enough to feed myself, let alone a slave!”

“I’ll buy him, and they eat very cheap, I’ve heard.”

Kylara groaned. “You’ll buy him?”

Aunt Aba, sensing weakness, nodded vigorously. “And I’ll lend you a little money to help feed him too. I simply won’t have my niece in danger.”

All right. At least her aunt wasn’t pestering her to move back in with her and all the cousins.

And she could always sell the slave after awhile.

And she would get a free meal out of it.

Even a free meal wasn’t worth this.

Kylara grimaced as someone in the crowd jostled her. A smelly someone.

A pick pocketing, smelly someone.

She grabbed the hand that had slipped oh-so-slyly into her pocket and gave the thumb a wrench. There was a howl of pain, the hand was yanked away empty, and Kylara reluctantly turned her attention back to her aunt, who hadn’t noticed a thing.

“--fierce, but not too fierce. Don’t want any ideas of getting free, you know! Young--so he can keep up with you--but maybe a little older, so he’s not ruled by his--”

“Aunt Aba,” Kylara said loudly. “Could I pick him? Maybe? Seeing as he’s going to be my slave?”

Legally speaking, of course, he would be her cousin Mesius’s slave, since he was her closest male relative and women weren’t supposed to own anything of their own. Kylara ignored this minor point.

Her aunt huffed. “Well, then, let’s see what you think is a good slave.”

Kylara shaded her eyes against the blazing midday sun and surveyed her choices. The lot on sale today was just off a ship from Penzen, billed as farm workers, house servants, and simple craftsmen. It was all men and boys for the moment--women and girls had been sold earlier in the morning, while brothel owners had free time.

They all looked about the same to her, but she didn’t dare say that. “That one,” she said, pointing at random to a tall young man near the end of the line. “There. Third from the left.”

“Oh,” her aunt said doubtfully. “Um--Kylara. Don’t you think he’s a little--well--”

“What?”

“--young?”

Kylara’s eyes narrowed, and her determination crystallized. “No. He’s probably at least a few years older then me.”

“Well, that’s what I mean. You know what young men are like.”

The last was said in a confidential whisper that only about twenty people overheard. Kylara fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Aunt Aba,” she said, “I’ll be his mistress. He doesn’t look dumb. Besides, I can take him.”

Aunt Aba looked doubtful. “Well, if you’re sure . . .”

“I am. The auction’s about to start.”

Kylara’s pick was third in line to be auctioned, and she passed the time taken up by the first two to study him. Her offhand choice had been better then she expected. He was tall, but wiry rather then solid--better build for a scrappy street fighter. His tilted dark eyes, what she could see of them from under the thick, tangled mop of almost-black hair, looked cool and intelligent. He didn’t fight or strain against the chains at wrists and ankles, or tug at the thick bronze slave collar around his neck. Not new to slavery, Kylara concluded. Another plus. It meant he probably no longer had any ideas of escaping. The last thing she needed was a slave with ideas of freedom.

“Number three. Twenty-four years of age, healthy, strong, whole, good teeth, obedient, and intelligent.” The auctioneer spoke with almost mechanical animation as he turned the young man in a circle for the bidders. “Trained as a personal servant. Bidding starts at ten. Who’ll give me ten? Ten--ten--ten and three! Ten-three, ten-three--”

“Ten-six,” Kylara called out.

Bidding was desultory--the slave, after all, was nothing special--and Kylara won him at fifteen-two. “Fifteen-two, to the young man in the green. See the gentleman in the payout house to pick up your purchase, lad. Number four. Fifty years of . . .”

As they wormed through the crowd, Aunt Aba said under her breath to Kylara, “It’s no wonder you can’t find a husband, Kylara--everyone mistakes you for a boy.”

“And that is just fine with me,” Kylara muttered back. “What would I do with a husband?”

Her aunt’s answer was, mercifully, lost to the noise of the crowd.

It wasn’t an undue assumption--with her husky voice, height, short hair, and the workaday shirt and pants she preferred to wear, Kylara had been mistaken for a male before. She had never minded it.

The rather grandly named payout house wasn’t much more then a shack to the side of the auctioning stage. As they ducked into it, Kylara could hear the bidding start for the old slave that was number four.

Her purchase stood quietly at the back of the shack, behind the thin little man seated at a table with a tally book open in front of him. “Number three,” Kylara told him. “Fifteen-three.”

The thin man looked her up and down. “Alsus said a young man,” he said snippily.

Kylara looked him up and down. “He also said a gentleman. Guess he was mistaken.”

“Girls shouldn’t be at auctions.”

“There’s a hell of a lot of other women out there bidding. My money’s the same color.” To prove it, she slapped the coins on the table with a thud. She took a moment to be glad she’d gotten the money from her aunt before going inside. It would have ruined the attitude.

The thin man looked at her again and shook his head. “Should be having babies and cooking,” he muttered, entering the numbers into his book and dropping the coins into a leather bag at his waist.

Kylara felt like telling him what he could do with his babies and his cooking, but Aunt Aba murmured, “Kylara”, and she subsided.

“All sales are final,” the thin man said in that snippy little voice. “No returns. Meddick’s isn’t responsible for escapes or death.”

Kylara rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to ask for my money back. Will you just give me what I’ve paid for?”

“Unshackle him, Oban,” the thin man said without looking.

Oban, obviously the thin man’s slave, released Kylara’s purchase from his wrist and ankle shackles, which were the property of the auction house. Her slave didn’t react to his relative freedom at all.

Kylara said to the thin man, “Are we done? Can I take him and go?”

The thin man looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon, and Kylara was willing to bet that Aunt Aba did too. “Yes, our business is concluded.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re late, Marzen,” Master Bladen said when they walked in.

By half a minute--Kylara had heard the clock bong out the hour as they neared the scribing shop. But she only said, “Sorry, sir.”

Bladen gave her one of his narrow-eyed looks. He hadn’t been any too pleased by the half-hour off in the first place. “So this is the slave.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Looks healthy. What do you call him?”

Kylara hesitated, suddenly realizing she actually had no clue what the slave’s name was. She hadn’t thought to find out.

“Durnan, master.”

Kylara jolted at the two low words. She hadn’t yet heard her new slave speak, and was surprised at clean and crisp his voice was. Most slaves spoke in thick regional accents, but hers spoke in the modulated tones of a higher class.

He must have picked it up from his last master.

Master Bladen looked him up and down, and said, “Hm.” He looked at Kylara. “What will he be doing while you work?”

At random, Kylara said, “Fetching things.” She hadn’t thought about that, either. Damn. This slave thing was going to take some work.

“For you?”

“He’s mine.”

“He can answer the door.”

“Rubus does that.”

“Rubus quit while you were gone.” Master Bladen looked disgruntled as he added, “Said something about going to work for his father-in-law.”

Kylara didn’t blame Rubus. It had been a shitty job--answering the door, being polite to customers who were, for the most part, snotty nobility and gentry, as well as remembering which of the scribes was busy or idle so the customers could be taken care of right away. And it had paid next to nothing, too. “All right,” she said. “But if Durnan does Rubus’s job, I expect some extra money.” Even next to nothing was a little something. Might as well make use of her slave.

“How much?”

“What Rubus got is just fine.”

Master Bladen snorted. “You honestly think I’m going to give you an extra five an hour? That’s almost half again what you make now. One.”

“He doesn’t have to do it, you know,” Kylara said. “He answers to me. But four and six might convince me.”

They eventually settled on two and one extra for the use of Kylara’s slave, and she walked away well satisfied. If she were lucky, that would more then pay for the extra expense of the new slave’s upkeep and feeding.

Maybe she wouldn’t sell him, after all.

“This is my office,” she told the slave, opening the door to her particular corner of Bladen’s Scribing. The privacy wasn’t for the workers--it was for the customers, many of who came on matters that were private or business or both. Providentially, her cubbyhole was close to the front door. “You’ll probably want to sit just outside, or something. So you can hear the door.”

Durnan stood just inside the entrance, ignoring the office entirely. “Mistress Marzen,” he said. “What is expected of me?”

Kylara looked up from shrugging into her wrinkled, ink-stained smock. “My name is Kylara. Marzen is my last name.”

“My apologies, Mistress Kylara. What is expected of me?”

“You’re a personal servant, aren’t you? So serve.”

He just looked at her.

Kylara rolled her eyes. “Look,” she said. “The reason I bought you was because I go home really late at night and my aunt is afraid for my safety. She doesn’t have to be, but she talked me into buying you anyway. You don’t have to cook or clean or anything. Just fetch things here for me, watch out for me on the way home, and answer the door like I negotiated with Blade-face for. And Aunt Aba will probably want you to do things for her, but we won’t be home very often, so that doesn’t matter.”

“And what else for you, mistress?”

His face was so expressionless that it took her a good minute to catch his meaning. To her surprise, she felt hot color wash up her face. “No!” she almost shouted. “Gods! No.”

His face didn’t change at all, and Kylara got unnerved. She couldn’t tell if he was relieved or . . .

“Look,” she found herself saying, “if I ever wanted a man in my bed, I would not need to buy him, all right?”

“As you wish, mistress.”

Dammit. She was still blushing. “The supply closet’s the furthest door to the left,” she said abruptly. “Ink and paper on the left side, candles to the right, and the pens and sealing wax are at the back. I’ll ask you to fetch the supplies as I run out.”

“As you wish, mistress.”

With a little sigh, Kylara watched her last customer, letter in hand, stride out the door. Finally. Now maybe she could get back to that old book she’d found.

She flexed her writing hand once or twice, then reached inside her paper drawer for the book. It was ancient, almost falling apart. She’d found it during her break that morning, on a peddler’s cart at the market for two and six. The low price was mostly due to the fact that of the few people in the city who could read at all, even less of them could read Old Kashlan, the language it was written in. Kylara herself hadn’t read Old Kashlan since her father died, and was looking forward to the challenge.

She looked it over and smiled crookedly. Of course, the rest of the reason it hadn’t sold was because it was so plain. The little touches of gold on the spine were already flaking off, and the cover was completely bare except for a thin edging of flowering vine stamped into the leather along the top and outside edges.

She opened it and began, slowly and laboriously, to read.

. . . It starts with the Seeker, Maylyn Nikatasic, who discovered his fate on his twenty-first birthday through a series of signs from the gods. They were as follows--

Brows furrowed, Kylara set the book down again. Was it a story? Some sort of regional legend? King Harbon, she thought. But there hadn’t been any kings in Surania for hundreds of years. There was the Regent, who was supposedly ruling until the true Heir was found, but everyone knew that was just an old story. The last king had died three hundred years ago, and left no children behind, so the First Regent had taken over the throne. His son had succeeded him, and so on for three hundred years, and there were no such things as kings anymore.

King Harbon. King Harbon and the First Gathering.

It teased something at the back of her mind, and she scowled thoughtfully. She craned her neck to see the water clock in the corner of the room, and sighed. It lacked an hour until she could go home to her personal collection of books and look up King Harbon.

She opened the book again and continued to read, but she only got as far as dreams of things yet to come in Maylyn Nikatasic’s signs from the gods before she was interrupted again.

“Mistress,” Durnan said from the door, “Lady Hybasla wishes to have a letter read.”

Oh, gods. Lady Hybasla’s letters were always from her sister, and always chock-full of such scintillating details as how the sister’s eldest had ordered a new dress, satin with velvet trimmings and dear little pearl beads. And Lady Hybasla always, always asked for Kylara.

Lucky her.

Summoning up a bright, false smile for the noblewoman, Kylara slipped the story of the First Gathering back into her paper drawer.

Chapter Two

When Lady Hybasla finally left, Kylara was five minutes over closing time. Working quickly, she cleaned her pens, capped the inkwell, and stored both plus the sealing wax and the sand shaker. Just before blowing out the candle, she pulled the book out of her paper drawer and carefully tucked it into the inside pocket of her short summer cloak.

Durnan was standing, implacable as always, just outside her door. “Everyone else is gone, mistress.”

She looked around and sighed. It meant she had to lock up.

The walk home was uneventful, no gangs bursting from the shadows to attack her. Just as she had told her aunt, it had been a singular event, not to be repeated. But, as usual, Aunt Aba didn’t listen to anything but her own fears, and now Kylara had a slave.

Funny how life worked sometimes.

About a year ago, Kylara had finally talked her aunt into letting her move out of the house--mostly because Aunt Aba was driving her crazy. She had moved into the spare room above Mistress Thulla’s place, which had the double advantage of the perfect location--two blocks from Bladen’s Scribing, and six from Aunt Aba’s house--and Mistress Thulla, a never-married healer who always cooked a little too much for one person to eat alone.

The lights were on, meaning Mistress Thulla was home. Healing, as she had once told Kylara, was an up-and-down business at best. Some days she sat and ground herbs, others she never saw her bed above once in twenty-four hours.

Kylara pushed open the door. “Mistress Thulla?”

“In here, Kylara.”

Kylara followed the voice, and her nose, to the kitchen. Mistress Thulla was already ladling stew into a bowl. “Rabbit tonight,” she said. “With potatoes and--Who is that?” She’d spotted Durnan.

“Aunt Aba talked me into buying him,” Kylara told her, taking one of the chairs and straddling it backwards. “She was worried about gangs.”

To Kylara’s astonishment, Mistress Thulla spoke directly to him. “What’s your name?”

There was a flicker of what might have been consternation in his eyes before he lowered them. “Durnan, mistress.”

“Are you hungry?”

When he remained silent, she said, “It’s all right, I have more then enough.”

His voice was very low. “Yes, mistress.”

“Kylara, there’s an extra bowl in the cupboard over there.”

Durnan started to move, and Mistress Thulla said, “Kylara can get it.”

“But--” Kylara said.

“Go get it, Kylara.”

She went.

When all three bowls were served, Durnan picked up the one with the least and started towards the hearthstone. But Mistress Thulla said, “Sit down at the table if you’d like, Durnan.”

This time it was dismay in his eyes, and he looked to Kylara.

She was staring at Mistress Thulla. “He’s a slave,” she said.

“And?”

“And--” Slaves didn’t eat with freemen--they just didn’t. It wasn’t done. They didn’t eat where freemen ate, they didn’t sleep where they slept--in short, they took what was left when a freeman was done.

“Sit down, please, Durnan.”

He was still looking at Kylara, and she looked down at her bowl. “Sit,” she said, to the stew.

The slight creak of the wood told Kylara he had obeyed, and she looked up. He held himself at the edge of the seat, gingerly, as if he wasn’t quite used to the concept of tables and chairs. Or at least, tables and chairs for him.

Mistress Thulla, as if knowing that to expect Durnan to make table conversation would be to seriously unsettle two-thirds of her table, started asking Kylara questions about her day.

Durnan ate slowly, and yet he had set his spoon on the table before Kylara was more then half-done. Mistress Thulla looked at him curiously. “You can eat as much as you like.”

The bowl was still half-full of bits of meat and vegetable, but he said, “I have, mistress.”

Kylara gave him a sidelong look. “Are you sick or something? That’s not much more then a bird eats!” Wonderful--that was all she needed. A sick slave.

But he only said, “I am not accustomed to more, mistress.”

They eat very cheap, I’ve heard. Apparently it was true. No wonder he was so wiry.

Mistress Thulla gave her a look she couldn’t even begin to interpret.

He stood and took his bowl to the hearth. “Mistress, where is the well?”

“Outside in the square,” Kylara said.

At the same time, Mistress Thulla said, “Why do you ask?”

“I must have water to clean up with, mistress.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I--do not understand.”

“It’s not part of your duties to clean my house. Kylara has separate rooms.”

His eyes flicked back and forth between them, and then dropped to the floor. “Apologies, mistress. I misunderstood.”

“It’s all right,” Kylara said.

“Where are your rooms, mistress?”

Kylara told him, and he bowed to Mistress Thulla before pivoting and heading upstairs.

They ate in silence for several minutes, and then Kylara said impatiently, “Aunt Aba made me buy him. I wasn’t the one who thought of it.”

Mistress Thulla continued eating.

“It’s just for a little while, until she forgets about it. You know how she is.”

“I know.”

Kylara let out a huff of breath and shoved her stew around her bowl. “It’s just for a little while.”

“You said that already.”

“Oh.”

Kylara pushed a potato bit to the edge of the liquid in her bowl. She stared at it until it teetered and fell back into the stew with a splash. Then she huffed out a breath and took her bowl to the slop bin.

Mistress Thulla continued eating.

Kylara paused at the door. “I didn’t want him, you know,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with a slave.”

“I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

“I guess I will.” Kylara’s fingers tapped restlessly against the door frame before she said, “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Kylara pushed open the door to her rooms and blinked. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

She peered around the front room, her eyes traveling over the table underneath the window, which only had a single candle on it, the trunk by the table, closed and bare of clutter, then her bookshelves, dust-free and neatly lined with the hundreds of books her father and then she had collected.

It was . . . clean.

Shaking her head a little, Kylara dropped the little book on the table and went to her shelves. They covered most of one wall, a legacy from some long-ago tenant and another advantage of these rooms. She chewed absently on her lower lip as she scanned the titles.

Pre-Radikian City-States.

No.

Tales of the Kings.

She tucked that one under her arm and continued scanning.

Higher Mathematics.

No.

Arithmancy and its Uses.

Definately not.

Healing Herbs of the Boravian Plains.

Nah.

Mythology of Kashla.

She tilted her head and studied that one. After a moment’s consideration, that went under her arm as well.

Dammit, where was the one she was thinking of? What was the title?

A soft sound behind Kylara brought her head up. Durnan was standing just at her shoulder, his arms loaded down with more books--from her bedroom, she realized.

“Oh, there it is!”

“Mistress?”

She plucked the top book from his arms and smiled at it. Suranian Men, Times, and Places of Note, the cover said in scrolling letters. If King Harbon was real, and Suranian, this would most certainly have an entry.

She went back to the table, arranged the candle, and flipped open the book. Behind her, Durnan soundlessly reshelved her books.

“Oh, that King Harbon!”

The first king of Surania, Kylara’s book informed her. United the warring city-states under the flag of the lion rampant against the magician Riadikan. First wielder of the Sword of Shanar, builder of the Palace of Mydia and the Great Library at Rabenna (now destroyed). Birth: 321? place unknown. Crowned 342, died 406. See also King Juand, Ridikian, Sword of Shanar . . .

The list of cross-references for King Harbon went on down the page, but no mention was made of Yanesh Kasole or Mayli Nikatasic. Kylara tried to look them up too, but there was no entry for either one. With a sigh, she went back to her bookshelves.

She floated in the formless dark of a doze that was almost sleep. Voices echoed around her, the words jumbling against each other.

“It’s locked tight.”

“Wait a minute--I think I can--”

“Where did you learn that?”

“It’s good to know things. There!”

“Open it!”

“I am, I--ahhhhhhhh.”

“Gods above. It’s incredible.”

“What’s it doing in here, though?”

Then a voice that was louder and clearer then all the others. “Mistress?”

She jolted awake.

Her head was resting on her folded arms, which were in turn resting on an open book. In front of her, the candle had burned down almost halfway. Oh, damn. Candles were expensive, and she went through enough of them as it was.

She lifted her head to see Durnan standing at her shoulder. “Perhaps you should sleep in your bed, mistress,” he said.

She rubbed at her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Close to midnight.”

And she had be up before dawn. Kylara scrubbed her hands over her face and then pushed them through her hair. Her body begged her for sleep. Moving slowly, she leaned over and blew out the candle, then navigated across the room by the moonlight filtering in the window.

“Mistress?”

She paused. “Yes?”

“Where shall I sleep?”

Kylara turned in the doorway, and looked around the room. Her bedroom was barely big enough for herself, let alone another sleeping body. “Out here,” she said. “You can have one of the extra blankets from the trunk. I leave for work at dawn.”

Durnan inclined his head. In the moonlight, he looked odd--not quite as if he was supposed to be there. He’s not, Kylara thought, and was tired enough that the thought didn’t startle her.

“Yes, mistress.” After a moment, he added, “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Running.

Running, stumbling, fleeing. Rough ground underfoot, harsh on thin-soled shoes and the feet in them.

Feet thudding after, shrill malevolent voices sneering. “Mad boy, mad boy!”

Save your breath to run.

“Run away, mad boy!”

Pain flares. Can’t stop, mustn’t stop.

“Throw another one!”

This one hits behind the knee. Sprawling, breath stolen, full-length on the hard unforgiving ground, and they’re all around.

“We don’t need you, mad boy! Why don’t you just leave?”

I would if I could. If there was somewhere that I wouldn’t be mad.

Pain explodes in his head and the world blurs. A voice. “What are you doing? Stop it! Stop it now!”

Hands are reaching--no, no--

“Wake up!”

She jolted awake again.

As before, Durnan’s voice was the one that had brought her out of sleep. He was kneeling by her bed, his hands still on her shoulders. “You were dreaming, mistress.”

She sagged. It had been so real--it hadn’t felt like a dream at all.

temple throbbed once, hard, and she put her hand to it. When she drew it away, she was surprised not to see blood on it, so intense had that flare been.

“Are you well, mistress?”

Kylara drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. “I’m fine,” she mumbled through the short, uneven curtain of her hair. “What time is it?”

There was a slight rustle of cloth as he shifted. “Perhaps half an hour from dawn.”

She lifted her head, shaking her hair out of her eyes so she could see. The sky was indeed starten to lighten around the edges. It was nearly time for her to get up anyway.

Oh, but she wanted to go back to sleep. Not back to that sleep, but to a dreamless one.

She shoved the covers off. “We leave at dawn.”

He rose to his feet. “Yes mistress.”

All morning, the dream preyed on her mind. It had been so . . . real. The hard ground under her feet, the shrill shouts ringing in her ears . . .

And yet . . . it was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Ever.

Mad boy . . . mad boy!

Kylara?”

Ossis, one of the other scribes, was looking at her strangely as she stood half-in and half-out of her doorway. She blinked and shook her head. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Distracted.”

Ossis gave her a long, narrow-eyed look out of his beady little eyes. He was an older man, set in his ways, and he repeatedly made it clear that he didn’t think a woman should be working anywhere. “Where did you get that slave?” he asked.

“The auctions,” Kylara said.

“What do you need with a slave?”

“Mind your own business, Ossis,” she snapped, and turned away.

The dream had been nothing more then the ragged ends of a long day, Kylara told herself, and perhaps scraps of one of the many stories her father had told to her in childhood. She had had vivid dreams before--this was just another.

She toyed with her pen and her ink pot for several aimless, clientless minutes before remembering the book she’d tucked into her cloak again this morning.

. . . a series of signs from the gods. They were as follows: dreams which told of things yet to come, a sporadic restlessness, and the greatest of all, the appearance of the Amulet.

By all these things, Mayli knew he was the Seeker, whose destined task was to find the--

Kylara set the book flat on the desk and stared at it, uncomprehending the meaning of the words before her.

--to find the Guardians and discover the Heir, who would unite their country into one and defend them against the great evil.

The Heir. The Heir must be King Harbon, from the description.

But who, in the name of the gods, were the Guardians?

Chapter Three

Like every business in the city besides the taverns, Bladen’s closed every day at fifteen minutes to noon, and opened again fifteen minutes after noon. Bladen went home for the noon meal, but the scribes were not so fortunate. The tavern they frequented most often was called The Dragon’s Blood, and served a fairly decent meat-and-cheese meal. The meat might not always be identifiable, but it was usually edible.

Kylara settled herself into one of the high stools at the bar, propping her feet on the bottom rung. “What’s new, Sheste?”

Sheste, sitting next to her, had the look of a hundred other men in the city: middle-aged, with a rapidly widening patch of bare scalp in the middle of his shock of iron-gray hair, and slightly thickening middle. The only thing different was his eyes--grey and thoughtful, and sometimes sharp as icicles.

“Not much,” he said now. “Was that Lady Hybasla who kept you late last night?”

Kylara rolled her eyes. “The one and only.”

Sheste laughed softly. “Lace?”

“Miles of it. Sheste,” she said, “who were the Guardians?”

Sheste had been reaching for the tankard of ale when she spoke, and his hand paused infinitesimally before closing around the handle. He was at least as much of a scholar as Kylara, and could recall all manner of arcane bits of knowledge. “Where did you hear about them?” he asked casually.

“An old book.”

“Hm.”

The tavern owner’s son, Yassit, came around. “The usual, Kylara?”

His adoring puppy eyes always gave her the jitters, so she only said, “Yeah--and something for him, too,” she added before she forgot, nodding back to where Durnan stood at her shoulder.

“Slaves eat in the yard,” Yassit told her.

“All right,” Kylara said equably.

He put a tankard in front of her and started to say something, but then somebody down the bar bellowed for a refill, and he left.

Kylara breathed a sigh of relief. “Sheste.”

“Mm?”

“You never answered my question.”

“Which one was that?”

Kylara shot him a sidelong glance. It wasn’t like Sheste to play dumb. “About the Guardians.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

“What did your book say about them?”

“Nothing. It was just a mention.”

Sheste took a long drink. “They’re not important.”

“How do you know? It sounded important in the book.”

“How important could it be if they just mentioned it without an explanation?”

“It was the way they were mentioned . . . like everyone should know about them. Like they didn’t need an explanation.”

“It’s just an old story.” He took another drink.

“I have time to hear it.”

“Leave it, Kylara,” he said in a low, hard voice.

“What harm can it do?” She took his words. “It’s just an old story.”

“Kylara.” The single word quivered like a plucked lute string.

Her breath hissed out in frustration. “I don’t understand.”

Sheste looked over his shoulder to the corner table where eight or nine burly men, armed and armored, were noisily drinking their meal.

Kylara followed his gaze. “What do the Regent’s Guards have to do with it?”

Sheste’s hand clenched hard around the handle of the tankard, his knuckles whitening until they were same color as the twisted scar tissue around his wrists. “There are things you don’t know, Kylara. You’re better off that way. Just leave it alone.”

Kylara clamped her lips together. Never--never--had Sheste outright refused to tell her something.

Why now?

Something brushed her shoulder and she turned. It was just Durnan, reaching past her for the plate that Yassit held out. “The yard, slave,” the tavern owner’s son said loudly.

Kylara glared at him. Durnan might be a slave, but he wasn’t deaf.

The episode at lunch nagged her all day. It wasn’t like Sheste to prevaricate, especially with her. What could have frightened him--for it had been fear behind the tension that had gripped him--and how could it possibly concern the Regent’s Guards?

It’s just an old story.

“What’s the harm in an old story?” she said out loud.

“What?” her customer demanded.

Startled, she stuttered, “N-nothing.” She flicked a quick look to the paper on her desk. “Could you start again with ‘a visit to the cobbler’s’?”

The customer gave her a sharp look. “That was ten minutes ago, girl.”

Kylara flushed and cursed herself. It wasn’t like her to be absentminded. “Apologies,” she muttered, “my mind wandered.”

The customer swept out ten minutes later, leaving no tip behind her. Kylara wilted. The way Blade-face paid, her tips were sometimes the only thing that allowed her to buy her books of a month.

You’d better put it out of your mind while you’re working, Ky, she admonished herself. Pedlar Gath won’t keep that Tales of the Suranian Court for you forever.

She did a little better after that, but her preoccupation persisted, leaving her at the end of the day with only three and two in tips. Damn. Payday wasn’t for another three days, and she really wanted that book.

On top of that, Master Bladen saw her on her way out and took the opportunity to give her a scolding. He’d gotten a complaint from the first disgruntled customer, and Kylara got the backlash.

“You might write the neatest hand in the building, girl, but that’s no reason to be lax on your work,” he finished up. “That’ll be one and six off your paycheck for this.”

Kylara wanted to scream.

Trudging home with Durnan quiet and watchful at her side, Kylara’s exhaustion dragged at her like quicksand. The day had been bad enough, but on top of the restless, dream-filled night . . .

Her thinking mind had simply shut down by the time they reached the halfway point of the walk. It was all she could do to listen to her footsteps and Durnan’s echo on the silent streets. He wore the flat, cheap leather sandals that were all a slave was allowed, and because there was only one strap across the toes, they made a flip-flopping sound on the cobbles. Her sandals, better made, with an ankle strap, but old, slapped against the stones in counterpoint.

Slap.

Flip-flop.

Slap.

Flip-flop.

Slap.

Nothing.

It took a moment for Kylara to realize that Durnan had stopped, and she lifted her head, blinking. “What--?”

His hand clamped around her upper arm, hard and bruising, and yanked her back and around behind him. Kylara was so startled that instead of keeping her feet, she tripped over them instead and sprawled on the street. “What the hell--!” she began furiously, and then fell silent.

The formless shadows were giving birth to more shadows, man-shaped shadows. Six in all surrounded them, laughing softly and meanly.

Kylara cast a quick glance up at her slave. He was half-crouching, his feet wide apart and bare. His cheap sandals were lying between them. His hands were up, not bunched into fists, but open and ready. From her angle, she couldn’t quite see his eyes, but his mouth was taut and flat.

In spite of herself, her skin prickled.

She looked away just in time to see one of the shadows crouching directly in front of her, fingertips almost touching her cloak. With a snarl, she kicked the hand away and rolled to her feet.

“Bitch,” the shadow hissed, and dove for her.

“I--don’t--have--any--money!” she grunted, grappling with him.

His answer was a short-armed jab to her ribs that she barely avoided. It glanced off her side, leaving her gasping. Enraged, Kylara employed a woman’s best defense. With one sharp upward jab of her knee, her attacker was staggering backward and crumpling to the cobbles, emitting tiny, high-pitched whimpers.

Kylara would have gloated, but another shadow came at her.

Gods, didn’t they get it?

She threw a punch that missed, and then failed to fully duck the one that came her way. Dizzy from the partial blow to her temple, she didn’t see her opponent leaping for her until her body had already hit the cobbles. She shrieked angrily, fighting to buck him off, but he shoved her arms down and reached for her cloak.

He had already pushed it aside when she managed to wrest one arm out of his grip and, hand cupped slightly, slapped him as hard as she could on the ear. It snapped his head to one side and, taking advantage, she bucked and rolled so she was on top. With one deadly efficient uppercut, he was out like a light.

A movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned just in time to see Durnan hurl aside another shadow that had been heading in her direction. It bounced off a wall and slid down to crumple on the hard ground.

She was still gawping at that when he reached down and, grabbing her hand, hauled her to her feet. “We must go.”

“Agreed,” she said, stumbling a little as they began to run.

“Are you well, mistress?” he asked over his shoulder.

Kylara gasped out, “Yeah,” and looked back. She counted four still shapes on the ground, and two more crawling away. There had been six in all.

Which meant that in the time she’d taken to dispatch two attackers--and she was a good fighter; her cousins had taught her and they were known on the street as a pack you didn’t want to tangle with--Durnan had brought down four. And could still run full-out. And still have breath enough to inquire after her.

It looked as if she’d been spot-on in her choice of protectors.

It turned out that Durnan had left his sandals behind at the site of the fight, but Mistress Thulla refused to let him return for them. “That gang could still be out there,” she told him, hissing at the rapidly spreading bruise on Kylara’s ribs. “You had enough of a time getting away from them in the first place. You say there were six?”

“I counted six,” Kylara said, wincing as the healer prodded her ribs. “Durnan?”

“Six,” Durnan said definitely. He was standing by the window, staring out of it, but more as if he were looking away from something then as if he were studying the night.

Mistress Thulla said thoughtfully, “That’s an awful lot for a simple robbery, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes,” he said.

Kylara looked at him, then back at the older woman. “It is, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “I didn’t think about it--I mean, you live around here, you get robbed; it’s just a fact of life. But the biggest group I’ve ever seen is four. They don’t do well, working together.”

“And no weapons. Unless you avoided them that well.”

“I didn’t see any.”

“One,” Durnan said.

Kylara said sharply, “Did he get you?”

“No, mistress.”

She relaxed, then her frown returned. “That’s weird. One weapon? Out of six people?”

“Have you handled anything important-sounding at work?” Mistress Thulla questioned, uncorking a pot of pungent ointment and spreading it gently over her bruises. “Perhaps they were hired to find something out from you. They couldn’t very well do that if you were dead.”

Kylara sneered, allowing her shirt to drop down over her stomach again as Mistress Thulla finished with her ribs. “At work? Ha. I get letters about dresses and copying love poetry.” For a moment, she wondered if it had anything to do with Sheste and the Guardians he had been so frightened of. But then Mistress Thulla pressed the bruise at her temple a little too hard, and the burst of pain drove that thought from her mind. “Ow!”

“You’ll live,” Mistress Thulla told her, straightening up and looking her over. “That’s done for you, I think. Durnan, what about you?”

He looked away from the window. “Mistress?”

“Let me see you.”

“I am well.”

“You don’t get into a fight without a few injuries.”

“They need nothing, mistress.”

“Would you just let her look at you?” Kylara said impatiently, going to the stew pot over the fire and giving it a quick stir to prevent burning.

Reluctantly, he crossed the kitchen and settled himself into the chair.

“Off with your shirt, please,” Mistress Thulla ordered briskly.

Kylara turned around to see Durnan’s back, lean and muscled and crisscrossed with livid red scars.

“What the hell are those?”

Mistress Thulla glanced up at her in surprise, but Kylara didn’t even notice. She was too focused on Durnan.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Mistress?”

“On your back. Where did you get them?”

“A whipping, mistress.”

She was still staring at the scars, feeling a little sick. “For what?”

His expression didn’t change. “For the rape of my master’s wife.”

The kitchen was dead silent.

“D-did you?” Kylara faltered out at last.

“No.”

“But why didn’t you say . . .”

“A slave’s word against a wife’s means nothing, mistress.”

Kylara dropped the spoon back in the pot and went to lean against the table. She couldn’t take her eyes off those wide, shocking lines across his skin.

Mistress Thulla was studying them with her healer’s eye. “You’re lucky,” she murmured. “These are healing very cleanly. Did someone take care of them for you?”

Kylara caught a flicker of something like pain in his eyes. “Yes.”

She opened her mouth to ask who, but Mistress Thulla said briskly, “Well, I don’t think they need any more attention, but you come to me if they begin to pain you more or there’s swelling. Now I need to see about that bruise on your shoulder.”

“Loret?”

“Hi, Jallen.”

She slid into the booth and looked over at the bar. “They’re fighting again.”

“So what else is new?” But his fingers tapped restlessly at the scarred wood of the table.

“What are they fighting about, Loret?”

“Meddling.”

“What?”

“Meddling,” he said again. “She wants me to go, and she says you should too. He doesn’t want either of us to.”

“Why not?”

“Because he thinks those people are crazy.”

They were silent, watching the slim young woman and the tall man at the end of the bar doing battle in furious whispers.

“Loret?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you believe what those people said? About what we are?”

He shrugged, but there was more restlessness in the movement then uncertainty.” Gods, I dunno, Jallen.”

She began chewing on the end of one of her long black braids. “I like them.”

“I guess they’re nice.”

“The girl with the cat eyes is pretty.”

“The what?”

“The cat eyes.”

“You and your names for everything.”

“Well, it’s true.”

They fell silent again, watching the combatants. The little girl switched braids.

“Loret?”

“What?”

“Do you want to go with them?”

His fingers drummed a tattoo on the tabletop. “Collo doesn’t want us to.”

“I know that. I wanted to know if you did.”

He frowned at the table. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Yeah.”

They both looked up as the door opened.

Kylara’s eyes flicked open, and she stared at the wall. Another one.

Vivid dreams were one thing, but these--she could almost smell the scent of beer and ale, and feel the table under her fingertips, rubbed smooth by decades of hands, and the hard, hissed words that the two adults had been trading. Over--she frowned. Over what? Over whether to let those two children go somewhere--with who?

Her ear picked up a soft sound in the outer room, and she almost leapt out of bed. The door opening in her dream--had it been in her dream? or had it been real?

Her hand slid under her bed and came up with a long, thin knife--one she should have had on her this evening. Holding the blade at the ready, she slid through the curtain separating the outer room from her bedroom. By the moonlight trickling in, she could see a dark form just turning away from the door.

In two short leaps, she was across the small room and on the intruder’s back. The next second, he had swung around and shoved her up against the wall, holding her there with the full length of his body. Her head slammed hard against the brick, and her vision blurred. The knife clattered from her hand.

The intruder went still, and for a moment there was only the sound of his harsh breathing.

“Mistress?”

There was only one person that would voice that particular word. “Durnan?”

He stepped back, letting go of her, and her knees buckled. He caught her elbows before she had slid more then an inch or so down the wall. “Mistress, I--”

The dizziness faded and she stared at him. “What were you doing?”

“I thought you were an intruder, mistress.”

“And I thought you were one,” she muttered. “Where were you?”

“Nowhere, mistress.” And now he did drop his hands and step back into a puddle of moonlight. His eyes were fastened on the floor between his feet.

“You were coming in from somewhere.”

“I had to go to the outhouse.”

He was lying. She knew he was lying--not by any expression of his face, which she couldn’t see in the darkness, or of his voice, which was as toneless as ever--but by a sense beyond the usual five.

Why would he lie?

Then again, why would he have to leave the house?

“All right,” she said finally, easing away from the wall and tugging at the short tunic she slept in. Suddenly, she was embarrassingly aware of how short it was, and of the bareness of her legs underneath it. But he didn’t seem to notice.

“Did I wake you, mistress?” he asked in a low voice.

“Y--no--I don’t know.” Gods, woman, get a grip on yourself. He’s seen more then this, and on more female-looking women too, probably. She rubbed her wrist absently. The brick had skinned it, and she was sure she would have a bruise. “I had a strange dream.”

His eyes lifted. “Like last night, mistress?”

“Not quite, no.” She shook her head restlessly, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s nothing.”

“Yes, mistress.”

She crouched to retrieve her knife, and he made a sharp, curtailed movement backward.

“What?”

“Nothing, mistress.” But there was more tension in his voice now then when he had lied to her.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

She looked in the direction his eyes were fixed, and saw her own hand, with the knife in it. “What--this?” She lifted it slightly, and he started again. “It’s just a knife. What do you think I’m going to do with it?”

He lifted his eyes, and they were incredulous. “I attacked you, mistress.”

“It was a mistake. You told me yourself you thought I was an intruder. It was really more like self-defense,” she added thoughtfully, remembering how she’d leapt on his back.

“But--I hurt you.”

“Not much.” Well, all right, there was one hell of a goose egg on the back of her skull, and the skinned wrist, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Certainly fairly tame compared what he could have done if he hadn’t recognized her. “But what does that have to--Oh.”

He thought she was going to punish him.

She couldn’t quite believe it, but he honestly thought she was going to--what? Do what? Something with the knife . . . there were all sorts of things that could be done with a knife. She knew most of them, thanks to her cousins.

“Look, I’m not going to punish you, all right?”

Cautious hope began to take over the incredulity. “Mistress?”

“It was a mistake,” she said again, and just to reinforce her point, set the knife firmly down on the table and stepped away from it.

He looked at her a long moment, while the tension seeped out of the set of his shoulders and arms. “Yes, mistress.”

Chapter Four

“So I said to her--”

“Fish! Fish! Freshest fish direct from the--”

“Jewels in abundance, best prices--”

“Two and one for this? How stupid do I--”

“Apples, pears, peaches! Juicy and ripe, only--”

“Pots repaired here, pots and skillets and--”

“Lengths of loveliest silk, straight from--”

“Treasures of every sort! Treasures from--and what tempts you today, lad?”

Kylara took a pensive bite of her apple. “Just looking,” she told the junk man, studying the diverse contents of his cart.

“When you see something you like, you call to me, boy.”

“Miss,” somebody said.

The junk man looked around. “What’s that you say, slave?”

Durnan said coolly, “She is my mistress and you will address her properly.”

“Miss?” the junk man said with a sneer.

“Yep,” Kylara said around her apple, and idly picked up a flat wooden box.

The junk man’s transformation was almost comical to watch. “Oh,” he fumbled, “oh, I hope have not offended, miss--my sight is failing . . .”

“Happens all the time,” she said lightly, and hefted the box she held. “How much?”

“Two.”

Kylara looked down at it with a faint sneer of her own. “For this?”

It was battered, the wood dented or gouged in ten different places. The design of flowers in the top was worn down to near invisibility, and the corners were worn round by age. Kylara shook it, and it rattled slightly. “What’s in it?”

The junk man shrugged. “Dunno. No key.”

“No key,” Kylara echoed, “it’s old and brittle, and you expect two for it?” She turned it over in her hands. “One, tops.”

She ended up counting out one and three into the junk man’s eager hand. It wasn’t so bad a price, and it left her more then enough for the book Pedlar Gath was holding for her.

“Come on, Durnan,” she said, turning around, “we’re going to be--Durnan?”

For the first time all morning, he wasn’t standing just behind her, quietly ready for every order. In fact, he wasn’t there at all.

Kylara caught her breath. “Durnan?” she called out, looking up and down the street.

Just before she would have really panicked, the market crowd parted slightly, enough to allow her the glimpse of a dark head and a long, lean body on the other side of the street. She pushed and shoved her way across the waves of people, earning more then a few muttered curses.

It was him, leaning over slightly to talk to a thin young female slave with short-cut dark hair.

“Durnan,” Kylara called out sharply.

Both heads turned, and Kylara caught a moment’s glimpse of a narrow face dominated by large, tilted eyes the color of a cat’s before the girl ducked her head and darted into the crowd.

Durnan came forward. “Apologies, mistress, for leaving your side.”

“Who was that?”

“A girl who stopped to ask me directions, mistress.”

“Why did she run away like that?”

“She was late.”

Kylara hesitated, staring at him. He was lying again. She knew it, and perhaps he knew that she knew it. Yet his face was as smooth and expressionless as ever. “We’ve got to get to Pedlar Gath’s before eleven,” she said. “It’s a good four blocks from there to Aunt Aba’s.”

He inclined his head. “Very well, mistress.”

“Eh, Kylara!”

“Eh, Pedlar!” Kylara called out, clambering up into the second-story book shop and taking a deep breath of dusty, musty air permeated with the familiar smell of knowledge. “Anything new today?”

Pedlar Gath grinned his gap-toothed grin. For as long as Kylara had known the old book seller, he had been grizzled, paunchy, bandy-legged, and insouciant, and she harbored no doubt that he would remain so until he was lowered into the earth. “Got a good third of Ziccas Morian’s collection t’other day,” he said smugly.

“No! Ziccas Morian is dead?”

Pedlar roared with laughter at that. “No, but almost as bad.”

“What could be so bad as to make Ziccas give up that much of his collection?” Kylara asked, leaning against the countertop. The four walls of the tiny shop were lined floor to ceiling with wooden shelves, and every shelf sagged to the top of the books below it with the weight of words.

“Gettin’ married, the poor bastard.”

“To who?”

“Some young thing. Word is the next generation’s all secured, if you know what I mean.”

Kylara looked at him askance. “The Ziccas I know doesn’t even know women exist.”

“Well, he must have figured it out.”

She laughed. “So where are they?”

Pedlar reached under the countertop and hefted a wooden crate piled high with books. “Savin’ ‘em for my best customers,” he winked as she started taking books out. He glanced up at Durnan, standing in the center of the room. “That your slave, then?”

Kylara glanced over her shoulder. “Yep, that’s Durnan. How did you know about him?”

“Sheste mentioned you’d bought yourself a strapping lad when he dropped in the other day. Working out for you, then?”

Faced with Pedlar’s wide checkerboard smirk, Kylara felt heat creeping along her cheekbones. “Well enough,” she said curtly, ducking her head. She picked up the first book that came to hand, a thin, plain tome bound in plain blue leather. It looked old and rather delicate. “You didn’t want this for your own, Pedlar?”

“Thought about it,” he said. “But how much can you read about the Guardians, anyway?”

Her head came up with a snap. “This is about the Guardians?”

“Sure enough. Look at the title page.”

She flipped the cover open with fumbling fingers, and there it was, in flowing script, The Ways of the Guardians.

“Pedlar,” she gasped. “Who were they? Who were the Guardians?”

Pedlar looked surprised. “You never heard?”

“I don’t know--maybe I forgot--please Pedlar--”

“They were the inner circle of the old kings’ courts, they were. They were his best and finest advisors and protectors.” He gave her a sidelong look. “You’ve honestly never heard of them, girl? You?”

She was reading the first page already. “The first time I heard about them was in Yanesh Kasole’s book,” she said. “He mentioned them--as if everyone ought to know about them.”

“Yanesh Kasole?” Pedlar said sharply. “Kylara, where did you get this book you talk of?”

“A junk man’s cart,” she said absently. “It was in awful shape--I got it for four and six.”

“Four and six,” Pedlar echoed, sounding as if he was going to topple over. “You got Yanesh Kasole’s book for four and six from a junk man.”

“Who else would want it? It’s in Old Kashlan--the handwriting’s all faded--”

“Do you even know who Yanesh Kasole was?”

“Sure--a scribe who worked for the palace. Nobody important.”

“Nobody--Kylara, Yanesh Kasole was one of the first Guardians.”

She looked up from the book. “He said he was a scribe, right on the first page.”

“She wasn’t just a scribe. She was the Scribe, charged with recording all the momentous events of the royal court. What is this book on?”

“Something called the Gathering. I’m thinking it was some old myth, because I couldn’t find the names anywhere--Pedlar, have you been getting enough sleep lately? You seem jittery.”

“Kylara, who else have you told about this book?” he hissed urgently, looking more frightened then she had ever seen him.

She stared. “Just you, and Sheste--but Sheste not really. . . . what is wrong with you, Pedlar?”

Her friend cast a quick look around the shop, then leaned closer to her. “Legend has it,” he said in a low, hoarse voice, “that there was only ever one copy of Yanesh Kasole’s tale of the Gathering, and it was the first to go on the fire at the destruction of Rabenna.”

Kylara’s eyes widened. The library at Rabenna had been the greatest and most comprehensive in Surania, until the Second Regent had ordered it destroyed and all the books burned. The story still had the power to make Kylara’s heart contract. “I--I guess legend has it wrong, then,” she managed after a moment.

Pedlar nodded slowly. “I guess it does.” He tapped the book. “You’ll be wanting this.”

“How much?”

“Seven. Did you still want the Tales, too?”

Kylara looked up blankly, for a moment unable to remember what her friend could be talking about. “Oh! The Tales. How much would it be with that?”

Pedlar brought out the brown-bound book from under the counter and studied it. “Another seven.”

Kylara emptied her purse and groaned. She had ten and three. “Pedlar, could you possibly--”

“Six each at best, Kylara. I do have to make a profit.”

She sighed. “I know.” She looked mournfully at the Tales of the Suranian Court, then at the book about the Guardians. On the one hand, she was wild to know about the Guardians, but on the other, Pedlar had been saving the Tales for her better then three weeks, and she knew perfectly well that some of his other customers had expressed an interest. She would not ask him to give it to her on credit; he barely made enough to hold body and soul together as it was.

She pushed the blue-bound book in Pedlar’s direction. “Can you hold this for me?”

There was a soft clink, and Durnan said, “There is enough, mistress.”

She looked down at the small pile of silver coins on the countertop. “What’s this? Where did you get these?”

“Tips from Bladen’s, mistress.”

There was at least five and six in the little pile. She hadn’t even thought of that, but the occasional generous customer did drop the occasional tiny coin into the doorkeeper’s hand. Certainly it was much less then the actual scribes got, but it must be more then Durnan had ever had before.

And he was giving it to her.

She scooped it up. “This is yours.”

He didn’t move to take it. “As I am your slave, the money is properly yours as well.”

“I don’t need it.”

He turned his head and looked at the little blue-bound book. Kylara followed his gaze and almost winced, but she said, “He’ll only have to hold it for a few days.”

“I won’t take it back, mistress,” he said softly.

Pedlar cleared his throat into the silence. “Should I--keep it for you then, Ky?”

She made an inarticulate noise of frustration and slapped the coins down onto the counter with a metallic clink. “We’ll call it a loan,” she said flatly.

“Yes, mistress.”

As Pedlar, hiding a smile, bundled the two books together, Kylara counted out exactly one and seven, then scooped the remainder of the coins up and shoved them at Durnan’s chest. “You are taking these,” she said fiercely. “That’s an order.”

He took his money in silence, but the corners of his mouth turned up just the tiniest bit as he put it back in his pocket.

Kylara pushed open the back door and called out, “Aunt Aba!”

“You’re late,” Aunt Aba called out.

“I know,” Kylara called back, squeezing out the ends of her hair on the porch. “We were in Pedlar’s shop when it started raining, and we were going to wait it out.”

“Did you bring someone?” Aunt Aba’s inquisitive head appeared around the corner.

“Durnan, remember?”

“Who?”

“Durnan!”

Her aunt blinked at her a moment. “Oh, the slave. He’s not someone--I thought you’d brought company.” She went back into the kitchen.

Kylara shook her head. “I got apples,” she bellowed down the hall.

“Did you buy them from Klesser?”

“No.”

“Why not? We always buy from Klesser.”

Kylara rolled her eyes and picked up the basket with the apples. “I liked the look of Badzha’s better.”

“Badzha? We never buy from Badzha. You know Badzha broke your cousin’s nose.”

“Ten years ago! And Mesius had just given him a black eye--I think that could be an excuse.”

“It’s the principle.”

Kylara stood hipshot in the kitchen entrance. “Aunt Aba, do you want these apples or not?”

“Oh, very well. Just put them on the table."

“Fine.” She dropped them with a thud and went to poke at the contents of the pot over the fire. “There’s a lot in here,” she commented.

Aunt Aba said to Durnan, “Go to the cellar and get the carrots.”

Kylara said sharply, “Aunt Aba! Durnan, don’t--”

But he had already disappeared into the cellar, and Aunt Aba said, “What?”

“Aunt, he doesn’t know where anything is around here! Why are you ordering him around?”

Her aunt gave her a don’t-be-ridiculous look. “He was just standing there. I thought I’d put him to work for you.” She scooped up a handful of chopped onions. “Move a moment, I need to dump these in.”

Kylara sidestepped. “Why is there so much?”

“Your cousin is bringing company.”

Alarm bells went off in Kylara’s head. The last time Mesius had brought home “company” on one of her days off, he’d been a successful baker with small mean eyes and a perpetual fine glow of sweat on his expanding forehead, and an oft-voiced attitude that women should stay where the gods placed them--in their husband’s kitchens. “Aunt,” she said slowly.

“Now I want you to give this one a chance.”

“Oh gods.”

“That’s just what I mean. Really, Kylara, if you had just married Carteli Breckitt when he asked you, we wouldn’t have to go through all of this--”

“Carteli Breckitt proposed to me to make Getta Hansig jealous.” It hadn’t worked, either, she remembered. “I’m not getting married. I’ve told you.”

“Oh, every girl thinks that at one time or another,” her aunt said airily as Durnan returned to the kitchen with a handful of carrots and set them on the counter. “It’ll pass.” She pulled the carrots toward her, then said sharply to Durnan, “Wash these--they’re filthy. You’re almost twenty-one, you know,” she continued.

Kylara said, “I’ll do that,” and took the carrots to a bucket of water on the hearth and started scrubbing them with a bit of rough cloth. “I know I’m almost twenty-one. It’s not exactly something you miss about yourself. What difference does it make?”

“You’ll be an old maid!”

Kylara rolled her eyes. “Well, let the universe grind to a halt. Someone’s not married before twenty-one. Oh--excuse me--some woman’s not married before the age of twenty-one.”

“There is no need for sarcasm, miss. And if you’re so determined to mess around with those carrots, you can come here and chop them while your slave--”

“Durnan. He has a name.”

“--gets out the dishes.”

Kylara caught Durnan’s eye and gestured to the wooden cupboard where the dishes were kept. There was no use fighting with her aunt while she had a full head of steam like this.

“Well? Are you going to be cordial to this young man?”

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if he says one word about what his wife should and shouldn’t do--”

“And why shouldn’t a man tell his wife what to do? You’re getting too many ideas from those books, girl.”

“So what?” Kylara said, splitting a carrot in two with a deadly whack. “I like ideas.” Whack. “I dote on ideas.” Whack. “They keep me entertained.” Whack.

“ . . . reading all those books, working as a scribe, living on your own . . .” her aunt was muttering as she stirred the soup rather more fiercely then was strictly called for.

“What would I do in a kitchen I’d like to know . . . I can barely boil water without burning it . . .”

“Well, that’s your own fault--”

The door slammed, and Mesius called out, “We’re here!”

Kylara groaned.

“So how was it?” Mistress Thulla asked.

“A disaster,” Kylara said gloomily, flopping down at the table. “A complete and total disaster.”

“They usually are. What did you do to this one?”

“Nothing!”

“Except . . .”

“Why do you assume I did something?”

“You always do.”

“I did nothing. He was the one looking me over like a cow at market.”

“Don’t you think that’s exaggerating a little bit?”

“Mistress Thulla, he asked to look at my teeth.”

The older woman blinked and turned to Durnan, standing by the door. “Surely she’s making that up.”

“No, mistress,” he said blandly.

“Dear me.”

“I walked out in the middle of the meal. I think I’m disowned.”

“Kylara,” Mistress Thulla said mildly.

“Well, I hope I am anyway.”

“How was the rest of your day?”

“Oh! I got these,” Kylara said, passing her the books.

Mistress Thulla set aside the mortar and pestle and wiped her hands on her apron before picking them up. “Interesting,” she commented. “You’re researching the Suranian monarchy now?”

“I’m researching the Guardians,” Kylara corrected her. “The Suranian monarchy is a side effect.”

“My dear, the Guardians are the Suranian monarchy. There’s no way to separate the two.”

“You know about the Guardians?”

“The Healer Guardians passed down most of the medical knowledge we have today. Of course I do.”

“The Healer, the Scribe . . . did they all have those titles? I can hear the capital letters.”

“Read the book,” Mistress Thulla said, handing it back.

Kylara hesitated, weighing the little blue bound tome in her hand. “Mistress Thulla,” she said slowly.

“Yes?” The steady thump-thump of the pestle against the mortar started up again.

“Sheste--when I asked Sheste about the Guardians, he got all close-mouthed and tense and wouldn’t tell me anything. Why?”

The pestle slowed. “Ah, yes,” Mistress Thulla murmured. “Sheste. Tell me, where did you ask him about the Guardians?”

“At the Dragon’s Blood. During lunch the other day.”

“And some of the Regent’s Guards usually eat there at that time as well, yes?”

“Well--yeah. But what would they care?”

“Did Sheste ever happen to mention his time in prison, Kylara?”

“He was in prison?”

“For fifteen years. In his youth. He was arrested on the specific orders of the Regent himself.”

“What did he do?”

“A serious crime,” the healer said solemnly. “A very serious crime indeed.” She set aside the pestle and tapped the powdered contents of the mortar into a bowl filled with half-melted beeswax. “He was teaching about the Guardians.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“But why would the Regent even care?”

“The Regent cares very much about the Guardians, Kylara,” Mistress Thulla told her, beginning to mix the powder and the wax together.

“But why? They’re dead and gone--all of them.”

“Perhaps. But before that, they advised and supported the Suranian monarchy for over six hundred years. They were one of the most visible symbols of the kings, and it is in the Regent’s best interest that they simply be . . . forgotten.”

Kylara started to say something, then fell silent, running her fingers around the edge of the blue leather cover.

“Remember, Kylara, that there may have been Regents for three hundred years, but the word regent simply means a person who rules when the proper king is, for whatever reason, unable to. If a king ever returned, the Regent’s job would be over.” She set aside the bowl of ointment to cool. “Are you hungry? I’ve got some bread, and meat and cheese.”

Kylara shook her head. “I’m all right, but--” She looked across the kitchen. “Durnan? You didn’t get very much.” Her aunt hadn’t allowed him to serve himself until everyone else had gotten seconds, and Kylara had walked out shortly after. “You should eat something.”

“Yes, mistress.”

She meant to go upstairs with her new books and take advantage of the bright afternoon sunlight, but she sat there for a moment, watching as he carefully served himself and settled down at the table.

He was gaining weight, she realized. Oh, not very much--he still ate less then most twelve-year-olds--but the sharp, knife-edged angles of his face and jaw were starting to soften to something approaching healthy. His wrists and elbows weren’t as knobby as they had been, and the hollows around his eyes and beneath his cheekbones were beginning to fill out.

That said something, she thought, that after only five days of eating better then usual that the onlooker could see the effects.

She remembered the pinched, hollow-eyed face of the girl he had been speaking to in the market. He had looked something like that when she had first seen him on the auction block.

Who had she been?

Her brows drew together. Perhaps he was lying about not knowing her--

Come on, Ky, you know he was lying.

But why should she worry about it? It was his business. Why did the incident, and the girl’s face, stick in her mind so?

She got up abruptly, and Durnan started to rise as well. “Finish your food,” she said, picking up her books. “I’ll be upstairs.”

Walking out of the kitchen, she didn’t see the looks of surprise that Durnan and Mistress Thulla sent after her.

>

When she reached her rooms, she set the two books on the table and crossed the room to her bookshelf. As old as those two books were, and as unfamiliar as she was at the moment with the traditions in old Surania, she would need the Suranian Men, Times, and Places of Note, and probably the Mythology as well.

There was one thing to be said for having your own personal slave, she thought absently, surveying her neatly arranged bookshelf. In the normal way of things, it would have taken her half the afternoon to retrieve the books from around her rooms and replace them on the shelf. With Durnan doing it during the week, she didn’t need to mess with it. He even had the books sorted out by title, just the way she--

Kylara went still.

The door opened behind her, and she said, “Durnan,” still looking at the alphabetized bookshelf.

“Yes, mistress?”

She slowly pivoted to face him. “Who taught you how to read?”

Chapter Five

Her words fell into the room like a tossed pebble into a still pond. The ripples spread out and out into the silence until they reached the edges and faded away.

He had gone white. “I have not read any of your books, mistress,” he said through stiff lips. “I would not--”

She made an impatient gesture. “I didn’t ask if you’d read any of my books. I just want to know how you know how to put my books in alphabetical order. Who taught you?”

Color was leaching slowly back into his face, but the set of his shoulders was still taut and tense. “My father taught me to read, mistress.”

“Your father? How did he know?”

“He was a freeman.”

“Didn’t he know it’s illegal to teach slaves how to read?”

“I was not born into slavery, mistress.”

Her eyes widened. Somehow, this possibility had never occurred to her. She had merely assumed that he had always been in servitude to the free portion of humanity. “How--what happened? Why are you a slave now?”

He spoke with flat unemotional tones. “When I was twelve, it was discovered that my father had been secretly teaching slaves to read. We were sold into slavery ourselves as punishment.”

“You and your father?”

There was the merest breath of a hesitation before he said, “Yes, mistress.”

Suddenly, unreasonably, she was angry at this faceless man whose actions had condemned his son to a life of drudgery. “Why did he do that?” she demanded. “He must have known it was illegal. He must have known the punishment.”

“He believed that every human being, whether or not they were merchandise, should be allowed to learn.”

“Why?” she said harshly. “They’re slaves. What good would it do them? What good has it done you?”

His eyes flared to life. “It has kept me from becoming merely a dumb animal, mistress. For that alone, I bless my father’s legacy.”

As suddenly as the light had come into his dark eyes, it died away, leaving them as flat and cool as they had always been before.

He began to cross the room to her little bedroom, and she put out a hand to stop him. At her touch, he froze. “Excuse me, mistress,” he said in that dead voice. “I must clean your bedroom.”

“Can you answer just one more question?”

He was silent. Under her hand, the ropy muscles of his upper arm were tense as lute strings.

“Please.”

“What is it, mistress?”

“What--what happened to your father?”

He didn’t look at her. “He had been a freeman for thirty-five years, mistress. Even two years of slavery was unbearable. When it came, he welcomed death with open arms.”

She caught her breath. “You mean he--killed himself?”

“No. But he allowed himself to die.” Without another word, Durnan stepped away from her restraining touch and went into her bedroom.

After half an hour of trying to concentrate on the book about the Guardians, and listening to the quiet sounds of him neatening up her jumbled, disorderly bedroom, Kylara still felt hot and prickly from their--

From their what? She couldn’t call it a fight, not exactly. The only time she had seen any kind of emotion or energy was when she had asked him what good it had done for him to read, and that had died again. No, not a fight. But something.

Remembering those eyes--alive for such a brief moment, and then dead again--she felt almost as if she had been judged.

And found wanting.

She heard his footsteps cross from the bedroom into the main room. She stood up, and he went still in the doorway.

“And why haven’t you read any of my books?” she demanded.

He blinked, and she snatched the tiny reaction to herself and hoarded it. He wasn’t dead--he wasn’t. Just tucking everything that could make him vulnerable, and alive, away in a little box in the corner of his mind.

“Well?”

“They are yours, mistress,” he said, dropping his gaze to the floor. “I would not--”

“Why?” she flung at him. “Aren’t you starving for the written word? Doesn’t everything in you thirst for knowledge? And you have all these--here--” she jabbed her finger at the book-covered wall “--and you’re not even looking at them.”

“They are yours--”

“And I can do as I like with them, is that right?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Then I can give someone permission to read them if I like, is that right?”

His head came up again, and his eyes were wary. “Yes, mistress.”

“Fine.” She jabbed her finger at the wall again. “Pick one.”

His eyes flickered to the wall, and then to her. “Which one, mistress?”

“Which one do you want?” she challenged. Come on, she thought. Make a choice. Reach out and take something. For once, take what you want instead of being the perfect, passive slave!

He looked at the wall again, and this time he gazed at it for a little longer. Then he forced his gaze away. “I--do not want--”

“You’re lying,” she said.

He flinched--another reaction to be added to her collection.

“You want them all. You want to read every one of them cover to cover, and think about the ideas and turn them around and over in your head until you’ve examined them to your liking. Am I right?”

His eyes told her yes.

“Pick one,” she said in a low, vibrant voice. “Pick any one. And when you’re done with that one, you can pick another. Any of the others. And another. And another. But you have to pick the first one.”

Moving slowly, as if his body didn’t quite want to work right, he stepped towards the shelves. Once he stood before them, he hesitated.

“Any one.”

His arm lifted, and his fingers trailed slowly, lovingly, over the multi-colored leather and cloth spines. He traced faded and peeling lettering, discolored and stained stamping, with the gentle touch of a man caressing a lover he had thought lost to him forever. Once or twice, he moved to slide one from between its fellows, but he always stopped just before and went on looking.

Kylara stood behind him, her eyes following every movement. Twelve years, she thought. Twelve years, since he must have reached out and taken a book for his own. Taken anything for his own.

She wrapped her arms around herself to still the trembling.

Finally, through eyes clouded with tears, she saw him come to the end of the last bookshelf, run his fingertips over the last cracked and worn spine. Then he rose from the half-crouch he had subsided into as the shelves marched towards the floor, and laid his hand on the first book on the topmost shelf.

“This one.”

His voice was rough and gravelly, and she wondered for a wild moment if he might not be fighting tears as well. “Take it,” she said.

His fingers traced up the binding until they reached the top, and then he hesitated before sliding it out. It was a tiny, frail book, covered in green cloth. Kylara recognized it as a mother recognizes her child--a book on arcane spells and charms. He opened it slowly, stroking the page as if he couldn’t even deny himself that tiny tactile pleasure of paper underneath his fingers.

He went to sit on the trunk, in the pool of sun, without once taking his eyes off the faded writing. Kylara stood for a moment, watching him soak up the knowledge like a sponge that had been as dry as dust for centuries. Then, with a tremulous sigh, she went to the table and settled herself with her own book.

A rhythmic tapping slowly penetrated the edges of Durnan’s near-trance. He lifted his head, feeling the muscles of his back and neck protest, and saw that his mistress was drumming her fingers against the table as she stared thoughtfully out the window into the lowering sun.

It was late afternoon, he realized with a jolt. How had the hours slipped away?

Then he looked down at the book in his hands. Stupid question.

Why had she done it?

He looked back up at her. The sun was striking through her irises, turning them glowing blue, and lighting up the angles and planes of her strong, sharp features. Even in repose, the corners of her wide mouth had an ironic quirk to them, as if her thoughts amused her.

She wasn’t beautiful, he thought. There was no chance of that. But there was something better then beauty lurking underneath the surface, something he hadn’t quite put his finger on yet. Just like the woman inside. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she did something or said something that didn’t quite fit.

In the past twelve years, Durnan had had his share of dealings with masters. Some were cruel, taking sick pleasure in beating their property just because they could. Some were oblivious, taking no more notice of their property then they did of the furniture. Some were lustful, taking advantage of their power to get from their property what would have had to be paid for anywhere else. He’d long ago learned how to handle himself with every one of those.

This was the first time an owner had treated him as a human being.

Durnan wasn’t used to that, after twelve years of being a dumb, passive servant. He didn’t know how to be human anymore. He wasn’t even sure he could learn, or if he should. What would be the use of it when she sold him?

What will I do then?

Just the thought of being sold away from her made his strange, amorphous sixth sense revolt. She was special, it told him. She was important. He couldn’t--he mustn’t--allow himself to be separated from her.

His danger sense had protected her.

Four days later, he was still turning that over in his head. His danger sense had always been very particular before, only giving him that strange half-mental nudging when he or Elayza was in peril. Never one of his masters, never another slave. Just him and Elayza, and his father, when he was alive.

And just before six alley robbers had stepped out of the shadows, the back of his neck had prickled.

It wasn’t for him, either. He had known that the hard, cold malevolence that had jabbed at his sixth sense like tiny needles was aimed particularly at her. His presence had been merely incidental--it was Kylara Marzen they wanted.

But not to kill.

And that was another thing he was still puzzling over.

Done already?”

He realized he was still watching her, and looked away and down, swiftly. Gods knew what she thought, finding him staring at her like that. “No, mistress.”

She shrugged. “Taking a break. Me too.”

He kept silent. Was she going to take it away from him?

She was studying him, but not as he had studied her. This was more as if she were examining some creature that she didn’t know quite how to classify. He waited.

“Your--father. He was what, a teacher?”

Yes, mistress.”

Did he ever teach you history?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Anything about the Guardians?”

“A very little, mistress.”

She made a noise in her throat. “Geez, it’s like pulling teeth.”

“Mistress?”

“What do you know about the Guardians?”

“Their roles, mistress,” he said slowly. “Their--titles. What they did. The Seeker, the Informer, the Strategist--”

“The Healer, the Protector, the Seer, the Scribe,” she finished. “What else?”

“Very little, mistress.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Anything about the Seeker? Like how he . . . Sought, or whatever?”

“No, mistress. It sounded as if the Seeker just knew who it was he needed to look for, and where to find them.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“He just--knew?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“With, what, a crystal ball? A enchanted mirror?” She scowled at her book.

“With the Seeker’s Amulet.”

“That’s nuts. That’s crazy. It’s jewelry. How could it possibly help?”

“Yes, mistress.”

She gave a derisive snort. “Magic.”

“Some believe in it, mistress.” He lifted the book slightly off his lap, a gentle reminder that it had been on her shelf.

“Superstition,” she said, but her eyes were uncertain. “I mean, really. Do you honestly believe that the,” she read the open page upside-down, “Heart’s-Blood Bewitchment is real? That you can take on somebody’s characteristics just by drinking their blood, with some herbs in it and some mumbo-jumbo words said over it?”

“All I know, mistress,” he said quietly, “is that I know very little. I will not say yea or nay to anything until I’ve seen for myself.”

She looked away. “Well, I don’t believe anything until I’ve seen it for myself. It’s easier that way.” She looked at him again. “I know what you’re thinking. Why does she have that book if she’s so logic-minded?”

It was exactly what he’d been thinking, but he stayed silent.

She shrugged. “I don’t know--it’s knowledge, even if I don’t believe in it. Like, what did people used to believe? It’s like reading myths, because once upon a time people believed that they were absolute truth.”

“Perhaps, mistress, once upon a time, they were.”

She leapt to her feet, and he went very still. Had he gone too far? Crossed the line?

But she only began to pace back and forth across the little room. “None of this is making any sense,” she said. “Everyone’s being all mysterious . . . Sheste is scared and won’t tell me anything--Pedlar and Mistress Thulla are just plain old close-mouthed . . . even you!” She swung to face him.

“I have told you all you asked for, mistress,” he said levelly.

She let out a breath. “That’s right, you have. You’re the only one, too.”

She made another circuit of the room and wound up leaning against the book shelf, staring into the middle distance. “Why does it matter, anyway,” she said, and he realized that she was speaking more to herself then to him. “It’s just a story. That’s what Sheste said. It’s history. The Guardians are gone.”

The thought crept into Durnan’s head like a thief in the night.

Are you sure of that?

Chapter Six

With a rustle of cloth and a creak of wood, someone slid into the bar stool beside Kylara, who, eyes closed, was resting her forehead against the heel of her hand. She thought she should look up, for politeness if nothing else, but couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to move.

“Nice day off, Ky?” Sheste asked.

Nice?

Confusing. Frustrating. Disconcerting.

Of all the words to describe her day off, nice wasn’t one of them.

“I guess,” she answered.

Sheste made a sound that was almost a laugh, for him. “Aba on your back, is she.” It wasn’t a question. Sheste had grown up with Aba Pullick, now Marzen, and knew her ways.

“Unh,” Kylara said.

Sheste didn’t need any more then that. “Sorry,” he said.

“I’ll live. It’s just up for question whether she will.”

“Don’t look now,” her friend said mildly. “But your cousin just walked in.”

“What, Mesius?”

“That’s the one.”

Mesius never ate here. His business was several blocks away, and there were more then enough taverns in between that he’d probably never eaten or drunk here in his life. The chances that he was coming for business with someone other then herself were infinitesimal.

Kylara’s head slipped off her hand and thudded on the bar.

There was a clearing of the throat behind her. “Kylara. Can I sit down?”

“It’s a public tavern.”

The stool on her other side creaked ominously as her cousin Mesius, built like an ox, sat down.

“Is Aunt Aba still in a snit?” Kylara asked the insides of her eyelids.

“Yeah, Ma’s still upset,” Mesius said. “Gods, Kylara, I can’t believe you were so rude.”

She lifted her head in order to shoot her cousin a glare that should by rights have burned him to ash. “He wanted to check my teeth.”

Mesius flushed a little. “All right, so he’s a little . . . strange--”

“Try a moon-howling lunatic.”

There was a chorus of snickers from the other denizens of the bar. Even Sheste had to chuckle at that.

Mesius persisted, doggedly. “--but he’s got a good business, and he comes from a good family.”

“Not you too.”

“It has to be sometime, Kylara.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“You’re nearly--”

“An old maid, I know. Believe me, I’ve gone over this and over this with your mother. And anyway, you’re a fine one to talk. You’re twenty-five, and where’s your wife and little ones?”

There was another chorus of laughter, reaching further out, and someone at the edge of it called out, “Tell him, girl!”

Mesius flushed. “That’s different.”

Her only reply to that was a withering glare.

Her cousin raised his voice to be heard over the laughter. “People are talking, Ky.”

“Let ‘em.” She took a defiant swig of her previously untouched ale.

“You have a job, you’re living with another old maid--”

“I’m just going to forget I heard that nasty term about a woman I respect and admire.”

“--and that slave.”

“What about him?”

“He’s too young, and you’re unmarried, and--”

“Durnan,” she said.

He stepped forward.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four, mistress.”

“Do you consider yourself too young?”

“For what purpose, mistress?”

“To serve me.”

All laughter had died away. Kylara could tell that she was inching closer and closer to even the liberal line that these men, her friends and coworkers, allowed her, but she just didn’t care. She was infected by a reckless, defiant spirit.

“No, mistress.” In the shadow of his hair, Durnan’s eyes were glinting. “I consider myself perfectly able to serve you.” “See? His age is just fine. Go away, Mesius.”

“Why do you have to be so weird?” he burst out. “Why can’t you be like everyone else?”

“Not this again.”

“You know, I blame myself--I did teach you to fight--”

“I pestered you and Prackit and Mydes until you taught me how to fight. Would you just quit trying to change me?”

“I’m not trying to change anything--I just want you to be normal--”

“Are you even listening to yourself?”

“--and so does Mother.”

Kylara started towards the door. “You know what, I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Wait!”

She swung, her fists clenched at her sides and her eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

He held out a flat wooden box. It looked lost in his wide palm. “You left this at home.”

She had been tense, ready for another argument. At this unexpected move, she deflated. “Oh. I did, didn’t I?” She took it, her fingers curling around it protectively. “Um. Thanks.”

He must have taken it as permission to continue his speech. “You’re an unmarried woman, Kylara. You have a reputation to protect.”

“According to you, the damage is already done,” Durnan said quietly.

The big man’s head snapped around, his eyes darkening, his fists lifting. “Where do you get off talking to me that way, you--”

Kylara was between them in an instant. “If you so much as lay a finger on him, I’ll knock you out and leave you here.” she told her cousin in a hard voice. “You know I can do it. And wouldn’t Aunt Aba love that?”

“But did you hear--” An undercurrent of mutters showed that Kylara’s support was waning.

“He was doing his duty and protecting me,” she said. “And you deserved it.”

“He’s a slave.”

“Yes, but he’s mine.” She pivoted to go, and her eyes met the cool, hard ones of the Captain of the Regent’s Guard. A chill shuddered through her, but she shook it off and walked out the door.

Making an exit in high dudgeon was all very well, she decided a few minutes later, but it left her with very little to do for the next twenty minutes, except stalk about the streets. With a sigh, she turned back towards Bladen’s.

As she turned the corner, Kylara saw two figures at the door of Bladen's. One was a lady of the nobility, as evidenced by her rich clothing and her elaborate hair style. The other was a dark-haired girl--a slave, Kylara guessed when she saw the state of her clothing. Her hair was too long for Kylara to be sure from this distance.

Durnan sucked in his breath.

“Something wrong?” she asked, looking over at him.

“No, mistress.”

Liar, she thought, but left it and continued walking. “We’re closed for lunch,” she called out.

The lady turned and looked down her nose--a good trick, as she was nearly half a head shorter then Kylara. She was curvy, full of bosom and hip, and her face was sloe-eyed and pouty-lipped, and the hair piled on top of her head was buttercup yellow. Altogether, she shouldn’t have been able to look haughty . . . but she managed it. “Apparently. But I need something written. And you’re here.”

Kylara hesitated. She had been looking forward to reading her book in the silence of her cubbyhole for a blessed fifteen minutes . . . but Master Bladen would have a fit if he learned she’d turned someone away.

“I’ll pay extra, of course,” the blond lady said.

That decided it. “Of course,” Kylara said, and unlocked the front door. “Come in.”

Like most noble ladies, this one swept in as if she owned the place and Kylara was the visitor. “I am Lady Mendet,” she said haughtily, and waited.

For what? A curtsey?

Kylara suppressed a sigh. Nobility was just annoying, no two ways about it, and if not for the money . . .

Well that’s the difference, isn’t it, Ky? The nobility’s got enough money so they can afford to be a lot of things, including annoying.

“Welcome, Lady Mendet,” she said. Polite, but no groveling. Nobody made Kylara Marzen grovel. “My office is right this way.”

The slave slid in after her mistress like fog, graceful and self-effacing and utterly silent. Kylara glanced at her face absently and almost yelped.

It was the cat-eyed slave Durnan had been speaking to in the market place yesterday.

Kylara shot a quick look towards Durnan, who had taken up a position just beside the door he closed behind them. His face wore its blankest non-expression--which meant, she was learning, that something significant was going on in his head.

“Wait here, Elayza,” the lady said sharply.

Elayza dipped her head. “Yes, mistress.” Her voice was low and calm, with the same modulated, accentless intonation that Durnan had. She held her delicate, almost frail body erect but without the conscious haughtiness of her mistress. Her hands, long-fingered and narrow, were folded loosely before her, and her sharp-edged, almost elegant face was clear of all expression. Her clear, brilliant hazel eyes were fastened on the ground.

Like a good slave.

Just who was she to Durnan?

The question pestered Kylara all throughout the dictation of the announcement Lady Mendet wanted sent out. She listened and wrote automatically, as the rest of her mind turned it over and over. A friend? A lover?

And why did she care, anyway? Damn it!

“I’ll need six copies of that, girl.”

Kylara reached for another sheet of paper, and found her drawer empty. “Excuse me, my lady,” she said. “I’m out of paper.” She got up and went to the door. “Durnan, could you--”

At the sound of her voice, Elayza’s head shot up. She had been cradled against Durnan’s side, her head on his shoulder as he spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. They were sitting on a bench that ran the length of the door wall, for customers to sit as they waited.

Kylara’s mouth hung open. She was taken totally by surprise. Durnan, who never touched her or anyone else if he could help it, had been cuddling this fragile girl.

Durnan had half-risen, and his eyes were cold and hard, daring--just daring--her to comment. Elayza, by contrast, was huddled back against the wall, shoulders hunched as if for protection.

The seconds stretched out like taffy, long and thin.

They broke with a snap when Kylara said levelly, “Durnan, could you get me some more paper?”

The set of his shoulders stayed tense for a moment, and then he relaxed fractionally and dipped his head in assent. “Yes, mistress.”

As she waited, Kylara watched the other young woman. She clearly didn’t know what to think, and remained on guard. The skin over her sharp knuckles was white with tension. Kylara wanted to say something, but she could do nothing with Lady Mendet just behind her. She couldn’t even give her a reassuring smile, because the slave girl would not look in her face.

Durnan returned, holding a sheaf of snowy white paper. His eyes were still wary, asking a question.

She took the paper. “Thank you.” She tried to make her own eyes say, I won’t tell. I promise.

The last of the tension leached away from his body. Message received.

Kylara took the paper back into her office and sat down again at her desk. She looked down at the first copy of the announcement and suddenly realized what it said.

“To those who are interested: I am considering selling my personal servant, name of Elayza. She is around sixteen years of age, healthy, and good-looking. She has extensive knowledge of the healing arts, including herbal potions, poisons, abortions, and birthing. She is quiet, dutiful, a hard worker, and just intelligent enough. She has been with me for four years and has served me well, but I am tired of her. You may visit my house to look her over.”

Kylara heard herself say, “How much do you want for her, my lady?”

Lady Mendet, who had been studying her reflection in the window, looked up. “What?”

Kylara cleared her throat. “How--how much do you want for your slave?”

The lady eyed her for a moment. “Thirty.”

Kylara very nearly winced. It was twice what she’d paid for Durnan--but Elayza was going to be sold, to gods-knew-who.

Some inner voice said, Why are you doing this, you loon? She’s just a slave. You can’t afford her. Come on; be sensible.

She was important to Durnan, somehow, some way. Kylara didn’t know what the situation was, but the bond between them, whatever it consisted of, had been obvious. Whoever bought her might take her away from the city, or to a portion of it where Durnan would never see her again.

They’re slaves. It’s their lot to be sold away from each other. They should accept it, and so should you.

Shut up.

“Can you wait a few days for the money, my lady?” Kylara was already calculating. She didn’t have thirty to her name, but she would.

“There are others interested in her as well.”

“I figured.”

“Why do you want her?”

Kylara shrugged lightly. “My aunt needs a servant,” she fabricated. “I told her I’d look around.”

Lady Mendet eyed her. “If you have the money,” she said. “But write out those copies.”

Kylara set to writing, her mind working. Should she tell Durnan? But what if she couldn’t scrape the money together? It seemed so cruel to raise his hopes, only to dash them. But then, he had the little that he got from tips--he’d contribute there. And really, how could she possibly hide it? He was such an omnipresent part of her life now.

Strange how, in a little under a week, it had become as if he’d always been there.

And yet . . . there was still so much that she didn’t know about him.

Kylara made sure that she got to the door of the office first--not too difficult, since Lady Mendet seemed to be one of those who accepted opened doors and held-out chairs from the lower ranks of humanity. Durnan and Elayza were still on the bench, but the slave girl looked a little calmer. At least, she didn’t jolt when her mistress swept out the door.

Almost by accident, it seemed, the lady’s eye landed on Durnan as he opened the front door for her. She paused, and her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Ah,” she said quietly. “This would be why.”

“My lady?” Kylara said. She didn’t care for the way the other woman was looking at Durnan--as if she were studying an animal of some sort.

Lady Mendet smiled, and trailed her pale fingers down Durnan’s tanned, muscular arm. “You bought him at auction a week ago, did you not?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Durnan was staring fixedly into space. Behind Lady Mendet, her handmaiden’s gaze was fastened on the floor.

“Did you know I owned this one?”

“N-no, my lady.” Revulsion was stirring in the pit of Kylara’s stomach, just seeing the sensuous, yet oddly detached, way that the noble lady was looking at Durnan.

Lady Mendet stroked her hand one last time over his chest, like a woman admiring a good horse, then stepped away. “A word of advice. It’s never wise to let your body rule your brains. He’s good in bed, but not this good. Nobody is.”

It took Kylara’s stunned brain several seconds to comprehend her words, and by that time, she and her slave were gone.

“Who is she?”

Durnan felt sick. He’d known this was coming from the moment Lady Mendet’s eyes had landed on him. Durnan didn’t want to think about Lady Mendet right now. It was not a part of his life that he was particularly proud of. He had made the mistake of desiring a freewoman, his mistress, a member of the nobility, and look where it had led.

Directly to the woman who stood before him.

“My old mistress,” he said. “The wife of--”

Kylara made a sharp, impatient gesture. “Not her. I could care less about her. The other one. The slave.”

“My sister, mistress. Elayza.” Although why she was asking about her . . .

Kylara sagged against her desk. She had grabbed Durnan’s hand and dragged him into her office just after his sister and Lady Mendet had walked out the door. “Sister,” she said.

“Yes, mistress.”

“You never said you had a sister,” she said accusingly.

He said calmly, “You never asked, mistress.”

She snorted out loud. “Any other family members you want to mention while you’ve got a moment? Mother? Cousin? Wife?”

It almost made him smile. “Elayza is all I have, mistress.”

She squinted at him. “No children?” But her eyes were glinting; she was teasing him.

He relaxed. “None that I know of, mistress.”

She began to pace. “How much money do you have?”

The abrupt change of subject made him blink. “I--perhaps . . . three and seven?”

Kylara paused by her desk and snatched the shallow bowl she kept her tips in. Dumping it out over the writing surface, she counted the silver and gold coins with quick movements. “All right, taking out the five and five she gave me to pay, that’s . . . ugh. I hate math. Six and four. Wait--that can’t be right.” She counted again. “Shit! She didn’t leave me a tip! Pay extra . . . lying bitch. All right. Six and four, and then three and seven . . .” She started tallying on her fingers.

“Ten and one, mistress.”

“That’s better then I thought. All right. Ten and one. And I can call in the five that Sirrut Macklin down the street owes me--fifteen and one--and if you’re going to read the Higher Mathematics or those arithmancy texts, do it tonight, because we’re taking them to Pedlar tomorrow. I’m hoping he can give us four each, or thereabouts, but it depends on if he has a customer. Four times four plus fifteen and one--”

“Thirty-one and one, mistress.”

“Really?”

“Four times four is sixteen, mistress, plus fifteen and one is thirty-one and one.”

She smiled brilliantly. “Great.” Then her brows furrowed. “But that all depends on if I can find Sirrut sometime today or tomorrow--he’s a sneaky one, damn his hide--and if Pedlar can buy them at that rate . . . although there’s the rest of the tips for today and tomorrow. And if that’s not enough, I could even hit Sheste for a smallish loan, or Mistress Thulla, or Pedlar--maybe not Pedlar, he’s already giving me money. . . . You know, if all else fails, I could always ask Master Bladen for an advance on our pay.”

He was watching in puzzled amazement. “Mistress?”

“Hum?” She was scooping her tips back into the bowl, leaving out the five and five to give to Master Bladen when he came in from lunch.

“What is all this for?”

She looked up. “What?”

“Why do you need money so suddenly, mistress?”

Her brows furrowed. “Didn’t Elayza tell you? She’s being sold.”

It hit him like a physical blow. He actually could feel the blood seep out of his face. “No,” he croaked. Sold. Oh gods. Sold. “No, she didn’t tell me.” He didn’t even realize that he’d forgotten to add mistress.

“She is.” Her face set itself in determined lines. “And we’re going to buy her.”

Chapter Seven Part One

All the rest of that day, and during the walk home, Kylara felt as if her blood was humming, as if she were going to jump out of her skin. Her mind was buzzing and seething with plans and counter plans and strategies. She had something to do. Something, underneath all the plans and counter plans and strategies, was deeply satisfied. It was as if, for the first time, she was doing something she should be doing . . .

She ran past Mistress Thulla and up the stairs the moment she was home, with Durnan on her heels, and made a beeline for her bookshelves. Right. Ruthlessness, that’s what was called for. "This one--and this one--Dammit, where is--oh thanks . . ."

They staggered downstairs with their armfuls, tipping them onto the table with rattling thuds. "Mistress Thulla? What do you think these are worth?"

Mistress Thulla, who owned few books but knew them very well, sorted through the pile of six or seven Kylara and Durnan had managed to weed out. "About sixteen or twenty altogether," she said. "Kylara, what--"

"Do you think Pedlar will pay that much?"

The healer looked at the two anxious faces--oh goodness, it must be serious if Durnan was allowing his thoughts to show--and said, "If he has a customer.”

"If," Kylara sighed. "I hate that word. Durnan? Did you get any tips today?"

"I have three and eight now, mistress."

"And I’ve got eight and five."

The pair looked at the pile of coins on the table, as if looking could make it bigger. It didn’t work.

"Wait," Durnan said, and ran back up the stairs.

Ran?

"Kylara, what’s going on?"

Kylara was drumming her fingers on the table top. If she had been on her feet, she would have been doing a jig of impatience. "We’re buying Durnan’s sister. Thirty noskits, can you believe that? Thirty. And Durnan says she’s a healer, good enough that people will pay thirty. Crazy."

There were thudding footsteps, and Durnan appeared, with a bag in one hand and his mistress’s cloak over the other arm. "Look," he said, draping the cloak over a chair and tipping the bag out onto the table.

A shower of silver poured down next to the first pile. Kylara gasped. "Durnan! Where’d you get all that from?"

The empty bag swung from his fingers. He felt the smile that had been building up behind his face all day start to leak out around the edges. "Your rooms, mistress."

"You’re crazy! There’s never been that kind of money in my rooms!"

"Yes there was, mistress. Under the table, behind the trunks, under your bed . . ." It was just change that she must have dropped or left, but it added up quickly.

She began to laugh. "How much? How much?" She herded the pile of silver towards her, to count it. "Five and four," she said. "That’s . . ."

"Seventeen and seven, mistress. And there’s this." He fumbled in the inside pockets of her cloak and held up the box that Mesius had returned to her at noon.

She took it, turning it over in her hands. "It’s just an old box, Durnan. I was going to use it as a pen case."

"There’s something in it," he pointed out. "It might be worth something. You wouldn’t have to sell your books."

"Does it have a key?" Mistress Thulla asked.

"No, but I can open it." Kylara pulled her cloak towards her and fumbled in the pockets, pulling things out.

“It’s locked tight," Mistress Thulla said, testing the lid. "You’re surely not going to break it?"

Kylara found a bent and twisted piece of wire. "Unless it’s rusted, I won’t have to." She stuck the wire into the lock and began manuvering it, the tip of her tongue sticking out in concentration. "Almost--wait--there!" She flipped open the lid.

As one, they all sucked in their breath.

"Gods above. It’s incredible," Mistress Thulla whispered.

Kylara frowned. "What’s it doing in this?"

Durnan just stared at it, dumbfounded.

The box held a heavy amulet of gold, shaped into an eight-pointed star about half the size of Durnan’s palm. Around the deep purple stone in the center, seven of the points held dark blue stones, and the eighth was a loop through which a thick, interwoven gold chain passed. Besides the stones, the gold was plain--no filigree, no writing, just smooth metal.

It hadn’t been properly taken care of in quite some time--Durnan could see that just by looking. The central amethyst was dull and lusterless, as were the seven sapphires. The gold of the amulet was mottled with age, and the only way Durnan could tell the chain was gold as well was because there were bits here and there that hadn’t become as darkly discolored as the rest.

"Gods," Kylara said. "Any jeweler in the city would sell his mother for this."

"We don’t need a jeweler’s mother," Durnan said. "Just thirty noskits."

"Or more."

"Or more."

"We’ll get it," she said fervently, reaching into the box and carefully lifting it out. "Just look at--Hey!" She dropped the amulet on the table and stared at it.

"What is it?" Mistress Thulla said in quick concern.

Kylara flexed her fingers, frowning. "I--dunno. It felt like what happens when your foot goes to sleep--you know, that pins-and-needles feeling? But in my hands." She reached out one exploratory finger and touched the deep purple stone. "It’s gone. It must have been a coincidence." She grinned slowly, studying the gold and the jewels. "What a find!"

"But it’s so dirty," Mistress Thulla said. "That’s going to drive down the price."

"A little polishing will take care of that." Kylara rubbed her thumb over the bottommost sapphire. "Look, this one’s starting to brighten up already."

"I know how to clean it, mistress," Durnan said, holding his hand out.

Kylara passed it to him, and when he took it, every inch of his skin that touched it gave a hot, sharp prickle.

At the same moment, a swirl of red washed through the deep blue of one of the stones on the bottom edge.

The part of his mind where his danger sense lived observed blandly, That’s not normal.

The rest of his mind agreed.

It hadn’t been a matter of firelight reflecting. Light was democratic--it didn’t care what it played over. But the other stones, and the gold beneath the mottling, had remained blue and gold. Only one stone had changed, for half a second--like the deep, strong throb of a living heart. As if it had been reacting to something . . . to him.

"We could take it to Demmeet, on Cutangle Street," Kylara was saying. "He likes old things."

Durnan brushed his finger across the stone. Red roiled up from the center, spreading and diffusing into blue again.

"Or to Jerkid, on Nob’s Way," Mistress Thulla said, going to ladle out the slightly burnt stew.

Kylara’s face lit. "He sells to the nobility all the time. What he’d give for it--! Hey, Durnan, are you going to eat or what?"

Thoughtfully, Durnan put the amulet back into its case and closed it, and took the bowl Kylara held out to him.

He ate his dinner slowly, without really tasting it. His mind was working at the problem of the amulet, gnawing at it like a rat patiently working its way through a granary wall.

That amulet was not just a hunk of metal and stones, he thought. It was more then that. It was practically sentient, with a mind and motives all of its own. But what were those motives?

Maybe if he knew what it was that made it more then just a piece of jewelry . . .

He thought about mentioning it to Kylara, but he could already hear her skeptical response.

"It’s jewelry. How could it possibly think for itself?"

Some far-off bell rang in his mind--some familiarity in those words . . . "That’s nuts. That’s crazy. It’s jewelry. How could it possibly help?"

That had been just yesterday, he thought absently. She’d been speaking of the Seeker’s Amulet at the time,

and--

Durnan’s body went cold.

An ancient, strangely powerful amulet.

What if . . . ?

He was still for a moment, his spoon dangling idly from his fingers, and then he took bowl and spoon to the pan of water that Mistress Thulla had waiting for the dishes. Then he waited for a break in the conversation.

"Mistress," he said when it came. "The book about the Guardians . . . where is it?"

"In my cloak. Why, you want to read it?" She missed the startled look Mistress Thulla gave her, and then the thoughtful one the healer directed at Durnan.

"Yes, mistress. If you allow."

"Sure--take it."

Book in hand, he hesitated, but then took the amulet case with him on his way upstairs. Kylara didn’t even blink.

Chapter Seven Part Two

Durnan settled on the trunk again, angling himself to take the most advantage of the fiery sunset light flooding into the room. At first he flipped through the pages, skimming for a mention of the amulet. There were a few desultory ones, mostly in connection with Seekers, but very little of use to him at the moment. The number of pages shrank and shrank until he was turning the last one, with no significant information.

His brows drawing together, he started at the beginning again, not as quickly. He was almost to the end again before he found it.

Ah.

He’d missed it the first time because it was just a single paragraph near the bottom of a page.

Mayde of Purest Golde, it read in the old-fashioned vernacular the book had been written in, formed into the Shape of the Royale eight-poynted Star, with one large Amythyste, and seven smaller stones, which are sometimes blue and sometimes redde. The stones were said to change from blue to redde in the presence of the Guardians, each one representing one Guardian. The Amythyste, because of its Royale Colour, is naturally the stone which represents the King, but it did not change, and rarely glowed, save when all the Guardians be near.

Durnan set the book down, and, drawing a deep breath, opened the case and retrieved the amulet. His stone was glittering hot red in the evening light, shining like a beacon in the middle of the dirty gold and the dull blue stones.

Said to change . . . in the presence of the Guardians . . .

Durnan closed his eyes as his heart thudded in his chest.

At last. His wait was over.

"Gods, whyn’t you light a candle or something? It’s a tomb in here! Trying to go blind?"

Kylara was back, hauling the books they’d taken off the shelves earlier. "Guess we won’t have to sell these," she said cheerily. "I mean, that amulet could pay for all of your sister and more--"

Durnan was just sitting on the trunk, his hand curled protectively over the amulet. "We aren’t going to sell it, mistress."

"What d’you mean?" Kylara said impatiently. "Of course we can. Don’t you want your sister back?"

"This is the Seeker’s Amulet."

Silence closed over them like a muffling blanket.

Kylara’s voice, when she finally spoke, was oddly gentle. "Durnan, the Seeker’s Amulet has been gone for three hundred years."

"It’s not gone, mistress. It’s here." He opened his hand. "It’s this."

Doubt was written all over Kylara’s face.

"See how this stone changed colors?"

"Stones don’t change colors." She was studying him, her brows furrowed. "Durnan, are you sure you got enough sleep last night?"

"It was red before. You saw it. Now it’s blue."

"You missed it before. I’ve done that myself."

"No, I didn’t. It changed. The stone was reacting."

"Reacting? To what?"

"To a Guardian," Durnan said quietly.

"You’re not a Guardian," she said. "All the Guardians are dead."

"I’m the Protector." He looked up; his eyes were calm and steady. "And you’re the Seeker."

The Seeker?

Kylara’s brain took over. Gods, no. Of course she wasn’t the Seeker. It was impossible.

"They’re dead," she said flatly. "The kings are dead, the Guardians are dead, and the Amulet is probably a piece of an earring by now."

Durnan jabbed a finger towards the book on the Guardians, lying open beside him. "It’s described right there!"

She picked up the book. "Where?"

"At the bottom of the page."

She read the few lines, then looked up helplessly. "Look. Durnan. When you’ve studied as much as I have, you learn to take some things with a grain of salt. Stones that change colors? I mean, honestly. It’s utterly illogical."

"It’s perfectly logical," he said. "When you factor in the magic."

"Magic again." She dropped the book on the table with a thud. "Durnan, magic doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did."

"Then how do you explain the Amulet?"

Kylara rubbed her hands over her face. "All right. One. If the Amulet survived three hundred years of disuse, don’t you think it would be in a vault somewhere? That book talks about it like it was some monumental treasure."

"It was."

"Well then, what the heck was it doing in a junk man’s cart? Most people take better care of their monumental treasures then that."

"The Regent has a wonderful reason to make sure it got lost."

"The Regent has a wonderful reason to melt the damn thing down for the gold. Less risks that way."

He was silent.

"Two. Why is the Amulet important?"

"The Guardians--" he started.

"What Guardians? Where are the Guardians, Durnan? Tell me that."

"Two of them are here."

She threw her hands up. "Gods!"

"It’s true."

"Look." She caught his shoulders and held them, looking straight into his eyes. "Durnan, the kings are dead. The Guardians are dead. There’s no need, and no place, for either of them in a logical, rational world."

"I say there is."

"And I say that we’re going to take that amulet to the jeweler’s tomorrow. And you know what’s going to happen then? He’s going to pay us for it, and we’re going to walk away with the money, and go buy your sister. Now isn’t that more important?"

He was silent.

"Go to bed. You need sleep. You’ll see sense in the morning."

Chapter Seven Part Three

Durnan took the same route as he had on one other night--out the window, up to the roof, and away over the neighboring rooftops until he reached the corner, where the outer walls of that particular were crumbled and pitted enough to allow him to climb down easily enough into an alley and walk out into the street. This time, though, he didn’t head north, towards Nob’s Peak, but instead West, to the temple district.

He strolled along, casual, just another slave on a errand. Nobody gave him a second glance. In the drawstring waist of his loose pants, the box containing the amulet jabbed accusingly into his flesh.

He wasn’t allowing himself to think about what he was doing. If he stopped to think, he might turn back, and that could not--could not--happen. He had promised.

It was as if the stale, hot air of the slave quarters surrounded him again. The merciless stone floor hurt his kneeling knees. The rattling breaths that his father fought for sounded in his ears. Tearing, throbbing grief seared his heart.

“You must live. You must promise me you will live.”

Elayza, barely ten and already skilled in the art of healing, put out a hand. “Father--please don’t strain yourself. You must preserve your strength--”

“For what? I am dying.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she gulped them back. There was no privacy in the cramped, overcrowded slave quarters, and Durnan knew she would not cry before anyone but him.

“Do you--remember the stories?”

“Which ones, Father?” Durnan whispered.

“Of the--Guardians. Of Judet Mindac--and what--he Saw for our family.”

Durnan looked up to see that Elayza looked as puzzled as he felt. The stories were ones they had heard over and over again in their childhood, but they had not spoken of them for many years, as other things had taken precedence in their lives. “Yes,” he said carefully.

“Remember them--well. They--will be your--guides in the task--that lies before you.”

“They’re only stories, Father,” Elayza said.

Their father struggled to a half-sitting position, his reddened and filmy eyes blazing. “They are your destiny!”

“Shhh--shhh--please--”

“They are your destiny. You are the first Guardians in three hundred years, and you must live!”

“Guardians?”

They said it at the same time, and their father’s mouth tugged with a smile.

“I knew it--years ago,” he said, easing himself back to the thin and ragged pillow. “The way--you two are--there’s nothing else you--could be.” His frail, emaciated hand lifted, groping the air, and Durnan took it automatically. “My fierce, gentle-hearted boy. The Protector.” His head turned towards Elayza, and she reached for his other hand. “My practical, clever girl. The Healer. I never thought--that it would my children who would fulfill--the prophecy.” With sudden, surprising strength, his hands clamped tight around theirs. “It is for you to wait--to watch. The Seeker--will come. Believe it. You will know what to do then.”

“Then” had come, Durnan thought as he strode along the city streets. But he was uncertain of what he did. He had fallen back on his instincts, and would pray that they didn’t lead him astray.

The aged priest was just lighting the torches. Durnan waited respectfully until he was done, and then bowed, hands folded as was proper. "Father."

The priest bowed back, the flickering light of the torches highlighting the silvery-gray straggles of hair about the priest’s thin shoulders. "Son. Will you come in from the cold?"

Even though the night was warm enough, and humid enough, to make Durnan sweat lightly from his walk, he answered in the traditional form. "My thanks, for the night is bitter."

They went up the shallow, crumbling steps together, and through the front archway into the deserted, candlelit hush of the main room. At the front of the room, irregularly lit by the stubby, cheap candles that were the best the old priest could afford, there was a twice-life-size stone statue of a gentle-faced woman, arms held out in kindly, platonic invitation. She was mother-shaped, soft and plump, with a welcoming, pillowy bosom. It was the kind of body a child would prefer to be cradled against. Her name was Gzigas, the goddess of children and mothers, and of sanctuary.

Durnan and Father Junek knelt before her for several moments before the priest struggled to his feet. Durnan, knowing where they went, got to his feet as well and took up a cheap oil lamp, lighting it by means of one of the candles before the goddess.

Father Junek led Durnan into the tunnel revealed by a door to Gzigas’ right side. After only a short walk, they emerged into a small room, made smaller by the division of a ragged curtain across the middle. The front section held a table with two stools under it and an unlit potbellied stove in a corner, and shelves stacked high with books.

When Durnan and Father Junek folded themselves up to sit on the low stools, tradition dropped away, to be replaced by the familiarity of what was literally a lifetime of friendship.

"I have not seen you in a month, Durnan," the old priest said, taking up a squat brown jug and pouring some of his precious wine into two cups. "Have you been well?" His loose, shapeless green robe disguised the frail body beneath, and his mild dark eyes hid a keen and inquiring mind. "Is your mistress still requiring--extra things of you?"

"I’ve been sold, Father Junek."

"Sold? And your sister?"

"Still at that house."

"Has the master taken notice of her yet?"

"No, not yet. She’s safe from him. She’s being sold as well."

Instinctively, the priest reached out. "I am so sorry."

Durnan looked up at that. "It’s the strangest thing, Father Junek. My mistress--my new one--is determined to buy her."

The priest’s brow furrowed. "For her healing skills?"

"No. Simply she is my sister."

"Durnan--are you--?"

Durnan almost laughed. "No. No, she sleeps alone, father. If she wants me, she has made no advances yet."

The priest studied his young friend deeply. "I think--that this is not an ordinary woman?"

"Not in the least. Her name is Kylara Marzen, father. She’s unmarried, yet she lives away from her family. She rents rooms from a healer, also unmarried, and she has a job. She can read and write, father."

"A woman of the nobility?"

"No--of the middle class. Her uncle and cousins are merchants. She has a thirst for knowledge that’s so--I wish you could see it, father. When she is curious, she worries the subject like a dog with a bone. She won’t rest until she’s given the tools to research. She fights like a dockyard urchin, and she picks locks like a veteran thief. She’s as stubborn as an ass you’re trying to pull up a mountain. And she’s the Seeker, I’m sure of it."

Father Junek looked up sharply. "She’s the one."

"She’s the one. The dreams, all the predictions my father’s dreams made, they’ve all come true. She’s not what I expected, but there’s not a doubt in my mind."

"How do you know?"

"My danger sense protected her, father. That’s never happened before." Durnan reached under his shirt and brought out the box. "She bought this the other day. From a junk man." He flipped it open.

"Gzigas be praised," Father Junek breathed. "It’s the Amulet."

"I thought you would recognize it." Durnan closed the case again and set it in the middle of the table. "Can you keep it here, until I come back for it?"

"Of course--but why do you need to hide it?"

"She wants to sell it, father."

Father Junek’s incredulous eyes met his. "Did you tell her what it was?"

"She doesn’t believe in it. Isn’t that ironic? She doesn’t believe in any of it! The Seeker wants to sell the Amulet. How often has that happened?"

The priest set his hand on the case. "Durnan--will you get in trouble for keeping this from your mistress?"

Durnan’s eyes flickered away. "Don’t worry about me, Father. The Amulet must be kept safe."

"And your mistress? What will you do about her? She can’t keep denying her destiny."

"I’ll work on her." Durnan finished his wine and rose. "I must go--we have an early day tomorrow."

The priest got to his feet more slowly. "You will be careful, Durnan," he said. "I know you’re a Guardian, but you’re still a slave, as well."

Durnan’s fingers came up involuntarily to brush against the bronze collar around his throat. "Believe me, father, that’s one thing I’ve never forgotten."

They went out through the tunnel, knelt briefly before Gzigas for a second time, and walked to the archway. The moon had risen, and silvery light mingled with the gold of the torches as they bowed to each other.

"My thanks for your hospitality, father," Durnan said in the formal rote. He could hear the night rituals of the surrounding temples, the sonorous chants hanging heavy on the thick, incense-laden air.

“Gzigas’ door is always open, my son."

Chapter Seven Part Four

He woke at the first muffled sound in the other room, and lay staring at the ceiling for a moment. There was a hard, cold lump in the pit of his stomach.

After a moment, he pulled the blanket off and got to his feet. Lying around wouldn’t forestall the coming confrontation.

He went about his morning habits woodenly, folding the blanket and replacing it in the chest, splashing his face with lukewarm water and finger-combing the tangles out of his hair. He felt sluggish and slow-witted from his restless night.

He had just pulled one of his tunics over his head when Kylara tossed aside the curtain that closed her room in. "Morning," she grunted.

"Morning," he said.

Was it just him, or had his voice sounded strained?

If it had, she hadn’t noticed. She was yawning a little as she strolled across the room, and then the yawn turned into a curse. "Damn it! I wanted to leave early--maybe we can still catch some jewelers before we’re due in. I want to get the best price for that--" She stopped.

Durnan waited.

"Did you put it somewhere?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Well, go get it. We have to leave."

He swallowed hard. "No."

Her head turned slowly. "What?"

Somehow, the word, "No," fought its way through twelve years of slavery a second time.

Her voice could have been used to cut diamonds. "Where is the amulet, Durnan?"

"In a safe place."

She took several slow steps, until they stood mere inches apart. He could feel her breath on his face, and see the pulse throbbing in her throat. "Go. Get. It."

He lifted his eyes from the floor where they had automatically gone, making sure they were absolutely blank. A third time: "No."

He had to force himself to hold her hot, angry gaze. The gulf yawned wide beneath his feet, and his palms grew damp.

For this piece of defiance, she could whip him until blood ran like water from his back. She could cut off his hands, or his feet, or put out an eye. She could even kill him.

And it would be no more then her right.

But--that amulet must not be lost again.

Her eyes flickered away first, and with an inarticulate sound, she spun away and snatched her cloak. Whipping it around her shoulders, she wrenched the door open with such force that he jolted. "We’re going to be late."

He stood for a moment in the empty room, listening to the thuds of her hard, angry progress down the stairs. Then, with a long sigh of mingled relief and dread, he followed her.

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