Claiming Glory
                         Prologue
             1384, Age of Ascent, Late Autumn
    The snow had come early this year.
    Herran Turnlong stared musingly up at the flakes of 
snow for a moment, then shook his head. He supposed there 
was nothing to be done about it. The fall was not very 
heavy, in any case, and the harvest was already done. He 
was unlikely to be called out to his lands to set any kind 
of wards against the snow.
    Having spent the past five dances on his lands, he was 
not eager to be called back again. He was far more eager 
to pass a little time in resting in Hyleana and Rowan, in 
speaking to his wife and daughters, in making sure that 
the Councilmaster and the master torturer between them had 
not destroyed Rowan in the time that Rowan's avatar had 
been away, attending to his duties as Lord of Turnlong, 
and unable to stop them.
    He strode up the broad, flat sonor steps of Hyleana's 
main building. As far as land Elwen buildings- usually 
fashioned in the shape of great beasts or plants- went, it 
was an unimaginative square block, with only two floors, 
long and low more than impressive and towering. Like most 
things built in that shape among the land Elwens, there 
was a reason for it.
    In this case, it was because Hyleana was a school for 
extraordinarily powerful mages, and the magic used in 
building the buildings in the traditional manner, 
especially in bonding the metal, would have interfered 
with the exercise of their own power, or at least 
distracted those, like Herran, who could see magic.
    If he relaxed the guards he usually kept up against 
his gift, he could see that the twining threads of magic 
around this building and the second one that served as the 
main school for teaching those with gifts of destruction 
were even thicker than usual. A great number of them were 
all practicing at the same time, then.
    "No. All that you sense is the residue of a great 
Sweep that I just performed."
    Herran turned, smiling, as he saw one of his best 
students behind him. Geelcor, a young land Elwen woman 
whose lack of a surname- chosen or given- was as unusual 
among her fellow students as her clear gray eyes and 
pewter hair, stood smiling back at him.
    "A great Sweep? That is remarkable. How many can you 
kill at once now?"
    "Up to two hundred."
    Herran smiled even more widely. "It is perhaps a good 
thing that we have not had a war for over two hundred 
years. You would terrify the enemy before we even put you 
on the field proper."
    Geelcor shifted. "I still long to try the skills I 
have learned against living-"
    "No."
    She stared at him, cocking her head thoughtfully to 
one side. "Can it be that you fear me, my lord?' she said 
at last. "Could it be that even you fear that gift that I 
have, to weave disease?"
    "I do not so much fear it as respect it, Geelcor. And 
it is one thing to destroy magical creations, no matter 
how realistic they look, and another to destroy living 
Elwens."
    "I was thinking more along the lines of humans, or of 
elves, even." Geelcor scowled at the ground. "It seems 
strange that they haven't tried to attack us in four Ages. 
I would think better of them, the way I've heard some of 
them speak."
    "They remember the Elfworld War and what happened 
there all too well." Herran shuddered, though he was 
careful not to let the young mage sense it, as he thought 
of the horrific battle that had taken place in the 
Mountains Eternal in the Age of Song. It was thought that 
a third of all the elves in Arcadia had been destroyed 
that day, and they had hastily retreated to the south, 
beyond the barrier of the Elfwatch Forest, again.
    "So do I. I've studied the history." Geelcor came up 
to walk beside him, and Herran turned towards the door of 
the main school again. "But I think that the recent lack 
of wars in Rowanian history is due less to history even 
more ancient to the other races than it is to us, and more 
to a certain lord of Rowan I know." She shot him a sly 
glance.
    Herran smiled and shook his head. "I do my best."
    "You do better than that," said Geelcor dejectedly. 
"Or at least, better than anyone else's best. The humans 
have withdrawn entirely from the areas that Rowan 
controls. The curalli fight us still, but sporadically, 
and not for some grand cause or evil. The elves run at the 
mere sight of Rowanian soldiers. What exactly did you do 
to terrify them?"
    "You've heard all the stories a thousand times."
    "Not from you."
    "That's because I don't like to talk about them."
    They crossed a hall patterned with bright tiles in the 
colors of the threads of magic that flowed above them, and 
past murals and tapestries made of shimmercloth, which 
allowed glimpses into either other worlds or worlds that 
that the weaver had created out of imagination; no one was 
sure which. Herran kept his gaze averted from all but a 
few minor ones he found intriguing. The larger ones blazed 
with so much power they came near to blinding him when he 
looked at them.
    "Why not?" said Geelcor at last, when they had 
proceeded through the hall and another few rooms, as if 
nothing had ever happened to put a break in the 
conversation or cause her to think.
    "You've heard them. They're horrific enough."
    "You are doing this just because you think that I 
shouldn't be more bloodthirsty than I already am?" she 
said, her voice rising slightly.
    "No," snapped Herran, finally turning to face her. 
"I'm not telling you because- think of this. Think of how 
terrible those stories are. If they are terrible to listen 
to, how much more terrible do you think they were to live 
through?"
    Geelcor stopped and blinked. "I- would not find them 
so," she said at last.
    Herran nodded and sighed. "I know. But you are a 
disease mage. My magic is different."
    "Creator," she muttered, with a mixture of affection 
and the destroyer mage's usual contempt for the creator.
    "I can destroy as well. At times I have to. But I do 
not want to think about it at the moment. I don't want to 
use any magic at the moment. I just came back from five 
dances of using earth magic to speed the harvesting of 
crops, soothe animals led to slaughter, fell trees, and 
the like. I would like some time to relax and think of 
nothing but the business of the school."
    "Paperwork?"
    "Yes."
    Geelcor stared at him. "That is more destructive than 
anything my magic can produce," she said, with such 
apparent fervency that Herran had to laugh.
    "Go practice producing smallpox or some other disease 
that you haven't yet mastered," he said, with real 
affection and real dismissal, waving her away. "I'm going 
to be busy running Hyleana for the next little while, 
doing things that no one else wants to do."
    "Paperwork," Geelcor repeated, trotting down the 
corridor and shaking her head.
    Herran shook his head in turn and opened the door to 
his office. The young woman was one of his best students, 
but at times he looked into her eyes and wondered if he 
had ever been as young as she had, even when he had seen 
the scant two hundred years that she had seen.
    Of course, by that time he had been deeply involved in 
the War of Acceptance with the humans. That might have 
something to do with the difference of his memories.
    He opened the door, and stopped.
    Nothing could get past his wards, not even messages or 
telepathic links, but he could see two fat sheaves of 
paper in the middle of the floor. From the back, so dark 
was the ink that had been used, he could see what looked 
like the outlines of a map.
    Shakily, he reached out and scooped them up, unrolling 
them.
    The first was indeed a sheaf of maps, drawn in a hand 
that had apparently sketched them rapidly and expertly, 
drawings of a section of the forest and farmland not far 
from Rowan. Then came drawings of a village, and the 
precise attack that would be needed to destroy it.
    Herran fell back in his chair and stared at the map, 
his eyes unfocused, his mind moving through both his bond 
with Rowan- though not hard, because he did not want to 
use his magic- and the memories of the patrol leader he 
had once been, traveling the forests around Rowan and 
battling the curalli, the shadowed Elwens. In a few 
moments, he recognized the area. But, he thought, as he 
stared at the paper in frowning puzzlement, there was no 
village there.
    Not now.
    He paused, and his heart began to pound. He had not 
thought that he would ever see this again; indeed, he had 
not thought he would ever see a map of the attack that had 
destroyed the village that had once stood there. The 
attack itself, horribly brutal and destructive, leaving 
not one survivor, had been a mystery for over two hundred 
and fifty years. He shuddered a little as the memories 
swept over him, then closed his eyes and forced himself 
not to remember, to think coolly, like the skilled player 
of the Game he was.
    The attack could have come from the curalli, with whom 
Rowan had been at war at the time- but it had been land 
Elwens who had attacked the village. That he had learned 
from the memories and emotions of a woman who had died in 
the village, recently enough that he could still touch the 
lingering impression her death had made and read it. They 
knew who had led the attack, and who had participated in 
it, and many of them had been tried and executed. The 
patrol leader, Mydyia, who had inspired the others to 
attack, had died a traitor's death.
    Many of the rest had killed themselves before they 
could be questioned. Not one had ever betrayed who had 
ordered them to do this.
    But now...
    He unrolled the other sheaf.
    It was a list of orders, of supplies that would be 
needed, of the people that Mydyia was to take with her, of 
what was to be done with the bodies, of where she could 
buy certain supplies that would be rare and hard to 
obtain- everything that would have condemned the one who 
had ordered this attack.
    And it was in a handwriting he recognized.
    There was a possibility that it could be faked, of 
course. The papers had somehow gotten through his wards, 
and conveniently were in extreme detail, and he was always 
suspicious of such things. Someone could have copied the 
handwriting for his own purposes.
    If that was so, the Game would be to make him distrust 
her and blame her without thinking, to move against her. 
Herran smiled coldly. A nice try, but it would not work. 
He had long since learned better than that.
    He rubbed the sheaf of papers thoughtfully, then 
rolled it up and stood. He had long ago lost his taste for 
subterfuge. He would simply speak directly to Keesa, the 
Councilmaster of Rowan, whose writing it was.




                        Chapter 1
                          Dyrcul
    "I don't think that you quite understand how different 
Elwens are from us. They are individuals, and they carry 
that concept absurdly far. They do not compete against 
each other in teams- or, at least, rarely. They cannot 
speak mentally to more than one mind at a time. Only two 
mages who know each other very well can link. They do not 
even fight battles against more than one opponent very 
often, and they delight in duels. They have nothing like 
an elven sense of perspective.
    "And, of course, the Elwen will and ego is strong and 
mad enough that it can craft terrible things. Such was the 
origin of the baneswords. And such was the origin of some 
of the more magical creatures of the world..."
    -From a letter to the High Priestess of Toba Da To, 
written by the High Priestess of the Southern Lands.

    Herran sighed and folded his arms, rolling his eyes at 
the ceiling. He had been kept waiting for the past hour, 
even though it was obvious that Keesa was doing nothing 
but worrying over the latest trouble her daughter had 
gotten into, and he was anxious to get home and surprise 
Tandra with his early, safe, and utterly unexpected return 
to Rowan. He had come into the Council building 
unobtrusively, and as Hyleana was outside the walls of 
Rowan proper, the Guards had not seen him go there either. 
She did not know, for once, that he was coming home before 
he did. He was eager to take her by surprise, and hope 
that she could accept the loss of the game they always 
played with good grace, as he always had.
    But no, instead he was standing in the hall with 
fanatic guards watching him, suspicious of the slightest 
move, and with Keesa doing nothing but brooding over 
Flerra inside.
    Finally, apparently, she became bored. A guard opened 
the door and nodded to Herran.
    Herran strode through the door, got the customary and 
expected wince over with- Keesa had stripped the once 
beautiful room that he himself had worked in for three 
centuries down to nothing but the bare essentials of 
silver walls, floor, a desk, and a few chairs- and nodded 
to the Councilmaster. Keesa did not see the courteous 
gesture. The Lady of Firehair was staring out of the 
window that looked over the city, her golden eyes and 
brilliant red hair shimmering in the sunlight that was 
working its way through the clouds now that the snow had 
stopped falling. She liked that pose. Herran supposed the 
light made her look more like what she claimed to be and 
less like what they both knew she was.
    "My lady."
    Without stirring, Keesa said in a murmur, "I know that 
you are here, my lord. What I do not know is the business 
you have come on."
    "I could have done this an hour ago, if you would have 
stopped worrying about a child it is obvious you cannot 
control."
    Keesa swung around, her ready temper sparking in her 
eyes. "My lord, Flerra was the child Rowan blessed- the 
child you blessed. I do not understand-"
    "No, she was not. Shari is, and you know it. You are 
just so obsessed over making a passable Heir out of your 
elder daughter that you never notice the younger."
    "Flerra is- older," said Keesa in a murmur. "Shari is 
only twenty-six. Surely no one can survive becoming the 
Heir of a family of the high blood so young. She has 
earned the name, and the mantle, but I could not let her 
have the Heirship. It would make it seem that I do not 
trust Flerra."
    "My lady," said Herran, taking a chair and leaning 
forward. It was not really his place to give her advice on 
her daughter, but he had been in a similar situation once, 
and if she felt he was becoming impertinent, she would 
tell him. "No one trusts Flerra. Your own people do not 
think that she would make a good lady. Listen to the 
farmers from the Firehair lands who bring their goods in 
to market. They think her reckless, lacking in almost any 
good trait but courage- and that, in itself, reckless- and 
uncaring about anything but her own amusement and 
entertainments."
    "She is young-"
    "Not as young as Shari, and Shari is already more 
settled and mature. It took Flerra a few hundred years to 
earn the Firehair name. Shari earned it when she was 
fifteen."
    "It took us a few hundred years to earn our names, as 
well!" Keesa snapped back at him, her eyes flaring. "I 
would suggest that you remember that."
    "I know," said Herran quietly, wondering as he did so 
if another reason that Flerra was dearer to Keesa's heart 
than Shari was that Flerra had done something war-like to 
earn her name, while Shari's heroism had been quiet and 
peaceful. "But times were different then; I would venture 
to say, the standards more strict. My lady, I cannot tell 
you what to do. I can only tell you that no one trusts 
Flerra any more than you do, and that she will never be a 
good Lady in the eyes of your people. They love Shari. If 
you make Flerra your Heir, it will divide the loyalty of 
your people very soon."
    "I am still Lady of Firehair. If they are loyal to me, 
they will do as I say."
    Herran let out a short breath. Keesa was charismatic, 
a brilliant battle-leader, courageous and strong and 
proud- and arrogant, at times battle-mad and cruel, and 
prone to creating enemies out of shadow.
    "My lady, I did not say that you had to accept my 
advice. On the other hand, what would you do, as 
Councilmaster of Rowan, if you saw another lord or lady of 
the high blood accepting an irresponsible child as Heir?"
    "Flerra can be Heir, and a good Lady! She only needs a 
little more work."
    "Please answer the question, my lady."
    She glared at him, but their alliance had been in 
affect for centuries now: the avatar of Rowan, calmer and 
cool-headed, advising the shining Lady of Rowan. She 
answered from old habit as much as anything else. "I would 
advise her or him against accepting the child, and hold 
out hope that another child could be trained as Heir."
    "And why would that be?"
    "Because the last thing we need is a succession 
struggle in this day and age, when all is peaceful and 
there have been no feuds in the high blood because of that 
in centuries," said Keesa numbly. Her hand clenched around 
her sword hilt, and abruptly she slammed her other fist 
into the table. "By the stars, Herran, I am so sick of 
reciting that damnable creed! I want a war. Things are so 
much simpler in a war."
    "You wanted to be Councilmaster of Rowan," Herran 
warned her in a carefully neutral voice.
    "When Rowan was something different! The mistress, the 
captor of the Tableland; the warrior-lady." Keesa fell 
back and stared out the window again, though this time 
Herran thought it less to show off the way the sunlight 
haloed her than to avoid his eyes. "She is different now. 
She followed your vision, and not mine." She glanced at 
him suddenly, flat-eyed. "I think that you are 
extraordinarily powerful for someone who does not want 
power."
    "You know the answer to that, Keesa," he answered 
wearily. "I do have some power that chose me as well as my 
choosing it. Yes, there are days even now when I would do 
anything to give it up. But I cannot. You know that."
    "I know," she muttered, staring out the window. "I'm 
sorry."
    Herran choked. It was the first time that she had ever 
apologized to him.
    He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. "What is it, 
really, my lady? What is bothering you?"
    "You would not understand," she said, with a swift 
glance at him. "Or rather, you are the only one who would 
understand, and the only one who would not think any less 
of me, and that means that I cannot tell you."
    "Try me," he urged quietly.
    "I cannot really judge who is the better Heir, of my  
two children," she said, returning her gaze to the window 
and keeping it fixed there. "I sometimes think I favor 
Flerra more because she is more like me, because she is 
stronger and prouder- and because I spend more time with 
her. She is here in Rowan, and Shari on the lands that I 
hardly ever see. I did not know what my people were saying 
about her because I have not have had the time to listen 
to my people in longer than I can count. I have lost the 
Ladyship of Firehair, or at least its heart. I should be 
able to be both Councilmaster, and ruler of the high 
blood, as you were, but I find that I cannot, that I am 
growing increasingly bored and restless, and that I want 
to give up the Councilmastery."
    Herran blinked. "How could you think that I would 
think less of you for that, my lady? Those are the very 
reasons that I gave up the Councilmastery."
    "No. You gave it up because you could not stand it, 
because there was a sickness in your very soul because of 
it." A bitterness he could not understand brushed the 
outer edges of her voice.
    "True," he said, "but, my lady, I have seen more than 
one Councilmaster collapse, exhausted, because of what the 
seat demands. If anything, be happy that you have caught 
the disease before it can hurt you, before it can make you 
give up anything. While you can still do something about 
it."
    She swung to face him. "You are not advising me to 
give up the seat, then?"
    "Of course not." Herran shook his head. "In truth, I 
thought a spirit as restless as you were would be bored 
sick before the end of the first year. But you did not, 
and you are stronger than I ever was, or than I thought 
you were. You can still bear the responsibilities and 
privileges of the position, as long as you take some steps 
to alleviate the boredom."
    "A war?" she asked hopefully, her eyes brightening.
    He could not keep the anger from flaring up in him, 
and knew from the way she narrowed her eyes that the 
emotional magic of their people had let her feel it. He 
did not try to excuse it. He leaned back in his chair, out 
of range of an immediate attack, and stared steadily at 
her.
    "Think of your people, first of all," he said, voice 
barely rising above a whisper.
    She gestured placatingly at him, but her words did not 
match the gesture, and neither did the bladed emotions 
that swirled all about her. "I have been. But- it is so 
hard. It is so hard to know that we are more prosperous 
than we have ever been, and that we could take some of our 
ancient enemies without even trying, but that you will not 
let us."
    "A war would destroy our prosperity quickly. And Rowan 
does not want you to march to war. Rowan's will is forged 
at least in part of the will of the people. That means 
that they do not want to march to war, Keesa. If you see 
restlessness around you and it is not just a reflection of 
the restlessness in your own soul, then it comes from a 
different source."
    "It would do us good!"
    "Blood spilled and bodies fallen?"
    "It would be glory!"
    "In what way?"
    "Think of the trumpets, the flapping banners, the 
songs and the harps-"
    "Think of the corpses, the screaming, the dead 
children and swinging blades." He ended the argument 
there. It was an old one, and every time they had it Keesa 
never listened to him, instead screaming at him incoherent 
words about beauty and glory and fleeing away into some 
bright image of her own. He had an opening, and he took 
it, flinging the sheaves of paper he held on the table. 
"This is what happened in the last war that we had, that 
you wanted so eagerly. Remember?"
    She picked up the maps and looked at them, with 
interest, but without recognition. That could mean 
everything or nothing. She had become as good at hiding 
her emotions as he had; one had to, on the Council. She 
could recognize them and be so fiercely damping her 
reaction that he did not know it.
    Then she looked at the orders, and the color washed 
out of her face as she recognized her own handwriting. She 
recognized the pattern of the attack now, but Herran could 
not tell what else. His emotional gift was sensitive and 
powerful, but not always reliable for the exquisite, 
smaller details.
    "I did not write these, Herran," she said, voice low.
    His ears did not buzz, meaning that his kind's gift 
for deception-detecting magic had not found a lie. But 
that did not necessarily mean anything, either. There were 
many kinds of truth-dancing. 
    "Did you dictate them?"
    "No!" Her head snapped up, tears flying from her eyes. 
She wiped them fiercely away, but continued to glare. "I 
did not dictate these orders into a vleirrmin or any other 
device that would have written them for me," she said, 
voice low and savage. "I did not give Mydyia these orders, 
though she may have followed them."
    "The maps. Did you draw those maps, or have someone 
else draw them for you?"
    "No!" She turned them over and over, as though fearing 
to touch them. "I- can see why you thought I had," she 
added reluctantly. "They are expert. But where did you get 
them?"
    Smiling a little at her unconscious arrogance, Herran 
shrugged. "They appeared on the floor of my room in the 
Hyleana."
    "Through wards?"
    "Yes."
    "Were they, themselves, magical?" She ran a testing 
finger over the page, as if the ink would suddenly ignite 
and blaze to life, telling her.
    "I was looking with my magesight at the time. No 
threads on them. If they came by magic- which leaves a 
faint impression, though it fades quickly- it had to have 
been hours ago."
    "This doesn't make sense," said Keesa softly, talking 
almost to herself. "Such an obvious trick. Could someone 
really have been trying to get you to move against me 
without speaking to me?"
    "That's what I thought." Herran took the papers back, 
though Keesa's fingers loosed only slowly, as if she would 
like to look at them longer and be convinced that it 
wasn't her own handwriting. "It does seem a bit obvious, 
but there are some who still don't believe that I won't 
play the Game anymore."
    "I'm not sure that I believe it, myself," she said, 
eyes narrowed on him now. "Herran Turnlong, did you create 
these orders or maps?"
    "No."
    Her body relaxed, and she shook her head, bewildered. 
"Then I don't understand... Without more evidence, it 
seems a clumsy and obvious trick. If more comes, then it 
might become harder, but now that we've spoken and you 
know that I didn't do this, it won't make any difference. 
Why not stay with the messages, or bring proof of a 
different kind?"
    "That I can answer. Paper is innocent enough. A 
visitor in my office- especially one who had the power to 
pass through the wards undetected- would have made me 
strike. The same with just about any other kind of 
evidence I can think of. Besides, any other thing would 
have required much more magic to get through the wards. 
There would still be magic left on it, and that would make 
me think it was magical, and give me yet another reason 
for destroying it."
    "Whoever did this knows you fairly well, then? You are 
certain of it?"
    "Knowledge of my wards could have been gained only by 
reading my mind," said Herran simply. "I may not know who 
did it, but I know where to look."
    "The Prison."
    Herran nodded. Keesa's eyes deepened to an almost 
amber-gold color. "I could come with you," she suggested, 
stroking her sword lightly.
    "No, Keesa. There is not going to be a war in Rowan, 
internal or otherwise."
    "Herran..." She was almost whining.
    "No."
    "You could be in danger."
    "In Hyleana, perhaps; that is why the room was warded, 
and it disturbs me greatly that someone got around the 
wards. But within the walls of Rowan, and me able to send 
an image of myself to speak with Quirrin if I want? No. 
Thank you for the offer, though."
    "Let me know if you find anything," said Keesa, her 
face blanking as her gaze fell on the papers in his hand 
again. "That someone would seek to blame me for such an 
abomination sickens me."
    She closed her eyes, and Herran could tell that she 
was seeing the same memories he was. He nodded quietly and 
slipped from the office.
    He would go to the Prison later. At the moment, he had 
a family to visit and a reunion to celebrate.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "I knew you were coming home."
    Herran managed to keep from staring as he turned 
around, slowly, from tending his gray mare, but only 
barely.
    Tandra stood in the doorway of the stables, her arms 
folded and her orange hair falling around her shoulder as 
she slowly shook her head. Her dark eyes were bright with 
happy, unshed tears and triumph as she slowly reached out 
to welcome him. He noticed that she had already taken off 
her sword so that it would not get in the way of an 
embrace.
    Or so that she would not be tempted to strike with it, 
perhaps. He bore enough scars from times when he had held 
her too close and she had instinctively struck out against 
it.
    "How long have you known?" he asked resignedly, going 
to hug her and admit, basically, that he had lost yet 
another round in their endless game. 
    "Since you left Sakrall. I have my spies there," she 
said, primly. Her embrace was anything but prim, and so 
were the emotions swirling around her. Herran chuckled and 
hugged her more tightly, bending his head to smell her 
scent and replace the earth and the blood in his mind with 
it.
    "And elsewhere?"
    "Of course. If you had taken it in your head to gallop 
off in the forest, as you once did so often, I would have 
known of it immediately, and the Guards would have been in 
that part of the forest in a few hours."
    "Surely they have better things to do-"
    "Not when they know what is at stake."
    Herran paused, hearing a tone of warning he had not 
been accustomed to in years in her voice. He drew back and 
looked down into her eyes, his smile fading. "What is it? 
Can you tell me?" he added at last, a little desperately, 
when she did not respond but only stared at him with 
brooding eyes. There was some Guard business that she had 
to bear alone as their Captain, no matter that she truly, 
badly, wanted to tell him.
    "I can tell you," she sighed. "But I did not want it 
to happen so soon after you came home. I am sorry, 
Herran." One hand rubbed his shoulder, and she leaned 
against him, accepting the simple support of his arm for a 
moment as she so rarely did.
    "Tell me," he urged her, brushing his lips against her 
ear, her hair.
    She shivered a little, then slapped him playfully. "If 
you don't stop that, I won't remember what I have to tell 
you."
    "Then it can't be that serious, can it?" said Herran 
reasonably. "It's all right, Tandra. I have already had 
some things happening that have me questioning. I wanted 
to relax, but at least none of these have required me to 
use magic. Let's hear your news."
    Tandra nodded. "There are two pieces of news, 
actually. One of them concerns-" She looked over her 
shoulder at the lawn, then spoke softly to him, her voice 
all but reaching a mental link as she whispered. 
"Sahsraiinar. She has been behaving strangely lately, 
singing songs I have never heard before and performing 
magic that I know she cannot normally do, and then saying 
that she has had nightmares that tell her to do these 
things."
    Herran frowned and brushed his hair back behind his 
ear, then did the same thing for her. It did look pleasant 
that way, whether or not she would believe him. "Has she 
said when they started?"
    "A dance and a half after you left was the time she 
first sang a song," said Tandra, leaning on him even more 
heavily as they walked to the house. "But she may have 
been dreaming before that. Whenever I ask her about it, 
she blanches and turns her eyes aside."
    Herran frowned at that. Their elder daughter had 
always been much closer to her mother than to her father, 
and if she would not tell Tandra, it must be some kind of 
potent magical threat. "I will speak with her, see what I 
can do to get her to talk to me."
    "Thank you," said Tandra. "And the other- but it can 
wait." She looked up, smiling.
    The other Elwens who lived in their house were coming 
out to greet them. Sahsraiinar and Teffulia, their twin 
daughters, by now almost three hundred years old, were in 
front, striking with their silver hair, and faces almost 
identical save for their eyes. Sahsraiinar's eyes were a 
dark blue, a few shades shy of cobalt, and Teffulia's eyes 
a light, pale blue the color of a frozen pond. They were 
also dressed differently, Sahsraiinar in the loose robes 
she favored wearing with the silver bracelet of the Heir 
of Turnlong about her wrist, and Teffulia in the simple 
white gown of a priestess of the Goddess, Suulta.
    Herran nodded coolly to his younger daughter. He had 
finally accepted that she had chosen the Goddess of her 
own free will, but that did not mean that he really 
approved of her choice. He had his own reasons to hate the 
Goddess. They had made their peace, but it was never the 
easy relationship it had been before she had taken the 
white.
    Sahsraiinar had a bigger smile for him, and her 
embrace as she welcomed her father home was totally 
unselfconscious. In fact, it was a little desperate, and 
when she drew back, tears had welled and were running down 
her cheeks. Alarmed, Herran put out a hand to her, but she 
drew back further.
    "Later, all right?" she murmured, and then walked away 
without waiting for an answer.
    Herran blinked, but there were other people to shake 
hands with and give nods to: Kecir, the young psychic 
assaulter who was Tandra's friend and his guard now and 
again; Daemon, the man who had been his friend for almost 
eight hundred years, longer than any of the others; 
Korredian, the southern Elwen who had once been a guard on 
the slave caravans; and Keren Deerfriend, the eldest child 
of another high blood family whose father had proved so 
destructive and hateful towards his son that Herran had 
willingly accepted the young man into his own home.
    "Welcome home, my lord," said Keren, his eyes 
sparkling enthusiastically and his hands weaving patterns 
in the air even as he stood still, as if some part of him 
always had to be moving. "I will only be able to spend a 
short time with you, I am afraid, as I will soon be 
setting out to find another slave caravan to strike." His 
eyes flamed.
    "So soon?"
    "Yes. I destroyed the last one I attacked a dance 
ago!" Keren looked almost offended, and then his face 
saddened. He was mercurial even for one of their overly 
emotional kind, Herran thought sometimes, with the ability 
to change emotions when a thought struck him, as something 
had apparently done now. "It sickens me, my lord," he 
said, voice low, "to think of slaves being hauled off to 
die in the mines or the forests or wherever they are 
taking them now. Even if they are humans, or elves, or 
unicorns- races that have wronged us in the past. They 
still deserve the freedom to make their own mistakes. If 
and when they attack us, then we can destroy them." He 
looked up, a smile tugging at his lips. "Which won't be 
for years now."
    "So you must go and make war?" Herran asked 
resignedly, though he knew the answer. Keren was a 
powerful emotionalist and earth mage, and he had rarely 
even been wounded in one of his attacks that freed slaves 
and took the lives of the slavers in payment for their 
lost days of freedom. But he insisted on attacking with 
only two friends behind him, or three at most, and Herran 
knew that the luck that favored him was probably going to 
end at some point in time.
    Lately, he had begun asking the stars to let Keren see 
a thousand years of age. That was all he asked. Beyond 
that... he would be an adult, and could challenge his 
father to a duel if he needed to, and could perhaps find 
some kind of order in his life.
    "Yes."
    Herran shook his head, giving up. Keren's spirit was 
fairly similar to Geelcor's, even if they did have 
dissimilar opinions of the other races, and he had spent 
years trying to argue her out of her love for magical war 
without success.
    They moved into the house, which unlike most of those 
in Rowan was, though large, without much shape. A series 
of silver spirals rose and fell on each other, in some 
places amorphous, at other times looking like a snail's 
shell or rounded towers. They were making their way 
towards one of the small rooms in the northernmost tower 
that was just the right size for them to gather and speak 
of the things that had happened in Rowan while Herran was 
gone when a quavering note rang out over the hall. Herran 
stopped and looked at Sahsraiinar.
    Teffulia, face pale with shock, was staring at her 
sister too, but unlike Herran, she seemed to recognize the 
strange words her twin was singing. When Sahsraiinar 
stopped singing and fainted, she moved forward to cradle 
her, blue eyes dark for once, looking like her mother's 
when she was facing an enemy that outnumbered her Guards.
    "That was an elvish song," she whispered. "A prophecy 
of death and destruction."
    "You know the dialect?"
    "Not really." Teffulia ran her hand across her 
sister's sweat-soaked forehead, looking as if she would 
collapse herself. "I think... I think I could understand 
it because she could."
    "Has she ever studied the language, then, that you 
know of?" Sahsraiinar's distaste for all things elven was 
known throughout Rowan, since she had thrown several cups 
of elven wine across the room at the Celebration of 
Zanarian a century ago and drained all the kegs of elven 
drink in the inn dry with her magic. If she had studied 
the language, she would keep it secret, possibly even from 
her twin.
    Teffulia shook her head and bowed her head over her 
twin's. For a moment, they seemed to share a deep and 
intense communication. Then she looked up, shaking her 
head again. "She says that the fire will come to the earth 
and the forest, and the plague, and the flood, and the 
cruel wind. I don't understand it." Her touch on her 
sister's silver hair was by now almost ginger. "No land 
Elwen would say such things."
    "Unless controlled in some way," Herran murmured, 
moving forward to take Sahsraiinar from Teffulia's arms at 
last. He could feel the others exchanging concerned 
glances, but he ignored them. He was not so weary from his 
dances of using magic strongly, heavily, and daily that he 
could not look into his own daughter's mind and see what 
had happened to her.
    It did no good, though. Her mind was not her mind as 
he had known it, closed in some places but as open and 
clear as the crystals that she loved in others. It was all 
bound in a kind of gleaming crystal lattice, as if it had 
been transformed somehow. He drew back as if burned and 
looked up at Kecir.
    "Have you touched her?"
    The psychic assaulter shook her head, looking 
perplexed, and pushed her hair back behind her ears. "I 
tried, my lord. I tried when I first saw the evidence of 
her nightmares. But her mind is closed to me, even while 
she is having them. I do not really know what to make of 
them."
    "It feels like normal sleep?"
    "No. More like a... blankness, as if her mind did not 
exist. The lattice has become so much a part of her that 
it doesn't seem possible to slip the mental knife I use in 
between it and her mind anymore."
    "There must be a way!"
    Sahsraiinar blinked her eyes and awoke at that moment, 
and her face paled as she saw the look in her father's 
eyes. "I fainted again, didn't I?" she said, and then 
looked at Teffulia without waiting for an answer. "What 
was I singing?"
    "An elven prophecy about the destruction of the 
world," said Teffulia, pale but still attempting to be as 
strong as she knew that Sahsraiinar would need her to be.
    "I am so tired of this," Sahsraiinar said, pulling 
away abruptly from Herran and standing, smoothing the 
folds of her gown back into place. She kept her head bowed 
so that he could not see her eyes. "I am so tired of 
running and hiding from this, and only having one person 
who understands it."
    "When did your nightmares first start?" Herran asked 
quietly. He could not tell at first if she would tell him, 
but she glanced at him and then away again, hands clenched 
into fists.
    "A few months ago."
    "It is only recently that they started making you sing 
songs and do other strange things?"
    "Ask Mother." His daughter's voice was scathing. "You 
were talking to her about me. I know it. Why don't you ask 
her when this started?" Her voice was beginning to boil 
into tears by the end.
    "I asked her. She knows when she saw it start. When 
did it start for you?"
    "I don't know!" Finally, the flood of tears came, but 
she fell into Teffulia's arms instead of his, clinging to 
her twin as the words came jerking out of her. "I've been 
singing in my sleep for a long time now. It was only 
recently that I started waking up and noticing it. And now 
it doesn't even need the nightmares. I will start singing, 
or clapping my hands, or performing some dance that I know 
even though I've never seen it before, complicated dances 
in honor of the Elfmother in one or another of Her 
Aspects- and I'll hate it, but I'll be in a dream and not 
able to stop. I have to do whatever it is the dreams are 
telling me to. I have to!" Her voice soared and then broke 
into sobs by the end.
    "I'm sorry," said Herran helplessly. He had the 
feeling that she had been waiting for him to tell her 
something, to help her in some way, but he could not think 
of any way that he could help her. This sickness sounded 
mental as well as magical, and his training in that area 
was not extensive.
    "Could you take me to Hyleana?" she said at last, when 
she had recovered herself. The others had mostly drifted 
away, leaving mother, father, and daughters alone. "I 
would- feel better, knowing that someone could look at me 
and might be able to tell me what it is. Perhaps even stop 
it, somehow."
    "Yes, of course," said Herran, feeling like an idiot 
for not having thought of it himself. "I'll take you 
whenever you like."
    "Tomorrow."
    He nodded. She felt it without looking at him, and, 
leaning heavily on Teffulia's shoulder, let her twin help 
her down the corridor to her room.
    Herran closed his eyes for a moment, and then looked 
at Tandra. "Do you know of anything that might have caused 
this?" he asked in a voice full of passionate intensity, 
sure his wife would have told him, but wanting to be sure, 
needing to be sure. Just in case there was anything that 
seemed stranger to her now than it had before, just in 
case something had been new...
    Tandra shook her head, though, and reached up to rub 
his arm. Her eyes were dark and haunted, much as 
Teffulia's had looked, but she gave him a look of 
reassurance. "I could wish Irrlosta was still alive," she 
said softly, naming the mage who had been the twins' tutor 
and Tandra's friend for long years, "but other than that, 
there is nothing that I would wish for. Take her to 
Hyleana, and do what you can. Do not blame yourself for 
not noting signs of this earlier."
    Herran nodded. Irrlosta's death was an old grief, and 
one that had been fully avenged. He felt it as a distant 
chime in himself, a faint wish that things could be 
different, and no more 
    "Do you still want to go to the Fire Room?" he said, 
noting their lack of the rest of the company as if for the 
first time.
    "Yes," said Tandra. "There is another matter that I 
wish to tell you about. I would have been perfectly happy 
to speak in front of the others, but- perhaps this is 
better, in a way."
    Herran managed a smile, and offered her his arm. She 
accepted it proudly, and let him lead her towards the Fire 
Room. Herran studied her profile with wonder and 
admiration. No matter what darkness might have fallen, 
over them or over the city they loved, Tandra would look 
deeply into it and manage to see some light. It was a gift 
he had never managed to acquire, while she seemed to have 
been born with it.
    She turned her head and caught him smiling, but only 
shook her head and smiled back, not commenting on it.
    The Fire Room was warm and comfortable, especially 
this time of year. In the interior of the house, filled 
with rugs and hangings that muffled the chilling effect of 
the silver walls, and with a fireplace stretching the 
length of the room in which even magical fire would be 
safely confined, it was also one of the safest rooms. As 
Tandra called fire and set it burning in the grate, Herran 
had to wonder if that had something to do with her 
decision to speak to him here. Her face looked somber for 
a moment as she gazed into the flames.
    And then she turned, and smiled at him, and the moment 
was gone as if it had never been. He sank into a chair and 
touched the chair beside him, arching his brows, but she 
shook her head and remained standing. Her arms wrapped 
around herself, she looked into his eyes and began to 
speak.
    "The Councilmaster has suffered a loss of faith 
lately. Everyone in the city knows it. But I think the 
Guards noticed it first." She abruptly seemed to find his 
questioning gaze too hard to bear, and turned away to 
stare into the flames again. "We always notice the things 
wrong within the city," she said softly to the fire. "It 
is our task, and our honor, after all, to defend Rowan 
from her internal enemies."
    Herran nodded. She was not looking at him, but her 
shoulders stiffened and straightened as if she had seen, 
and she took a deep breath.
    "I first knew of it when I realized that she was 
coming to the Guards' compounds much more than she had 
used to, and not simply to speak with me about some 
problem or task that she wanted me to handle or to watch 
the new recruits training, either. She was content to 
watch daily life more than anything else. The Guards grew 
used to her eventually, she was so often there." Tandra 
cast a little more flame on the flames and sighed. "They 
would offer to spar with her, and that she always accepted 
eagerly. But- nothing else. Trying to talk city business 
with her elicited a blank look. Treating her as a 
Councilmaster, even more so. She was only really happy 
when we treated her like a common soldier."
    She darted a glance at Herran, and her husband nodded 
slowly. That was as out of character for Keesa, who fought 
and fiercely prided herself on each title or honor she had 
earned, as her apology to him earlier was. 
    He thought for a long moment, replying to the subtle 
question in Tandra's eyes, but had to shake his head. He 
was not sure what was wrong, and until they knew, it would 
do them more harm than good for him to try and make a 
guess.
    With a sigh, Tandra turned and began addressing the 
flames again.
    "Then I thought something might have happened, that 
she was trying to figure out if someone in the Guards was 
a criminal. I revealed my suspicions to her, and asked 
permission to do a purge, but she told me not to. When I 
asked her why, she said that Rowan would need every 
fighting woman or man she had. She seemed wistful while 
she was saying it, and repeated it- several times- when 
she thought I could not hear."
    "It is..." said Herran in surprise, and then stopped 
as Tandra swung to face him. There was a look of 
desperation in her eyes that surprised him. He stood at 
once and came to her, taking her hand.
    "What is it?"
    "It has been starhell this past month, running the 
city, without you here to help me," said Tandra in a 
mutter, staring fixedly into the fire. "Quirrin acts like 
a child, cryptic and enigmatic for the sake of being 
cryptic and enigmatic, and with Keesa... I am at my wits' 
end." Her gaze was now fierce with anger as she looked up 
at him. "I love Rowan, and I will do anything to avoid 
seeing her hurt," she said. "That the Councilmaster 
apparently wants to become a soldier again, or wants us to 
fight a war, is cause for concern. That she will reveal no 
more to her intentions than these cryptic hints is cause 
for anger."
    Herran bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then 
turned her so that her back was to him, his hands resting 
on her shoulders. She resisted for a moment, simply 
because it was in her nature to resist most pushing, and 
then sighed as he began to rub her muscles, slightly at 
first and then with increasing strength. "I am sorry," he 
murmured into her ear. "I should have realized what it was 
like. All I could think of was how weary I was."
    She must indeed have been at her wits' end, because 
she did not tell him that he should not apologize, as she 
would have at almost any other time. She stood there with 
head tipped forward, hard shoulders arched, letting him 
soothe away as much of the tension as he could. He feared 
it was as not as much of it as he had caused.
    But he could only try. 
    He guided her back to the chair and had her settle on 
it. He was tall enough to reach over the back of the chair 
and still have the ability to massage her shoulders. She 
sighed and said, "I think that Rowan is in danger, but I 
cannot see why or how, or where the danger is coming from. 
The feeling has been with me for dances now, and driving 
me mad. I cannot..."
    "Shush," Herran said, touching her hair in a gentle, 
soothing stroke that usually had the effect of calming and 
hushing her at once. It proved no less effective on this 
occasion. Smiling slightly, he continued to rub, lower 
this time, shaking his head as he felt how tight the 
muscles were. At least there was one benefit to magical 
exhaustion, he thought; it left one too weary to do 
anything but collapse and sleep. Tandra usually grew too 
tense and frustrated at the Game to do that. He suspected 
she had also been denying herself sleep, trying to keep up 
with the problems of the city and the two other members of 
the traditional three who were supposed to help control 
the city- the Councilmaster and the master torturer- both 
of them untrustworthy in this case.
    This happened every autumn. At other times during the 
year, he could get along with only making short journeys 
out into the fields, to bless them or to judge cases, to 
heal sick plants or try to heal sick young animals or do 
whatever else he had to do. But every autumn, the need to 
use earth magic to speed the harvest required his absence 
from Rowan for at least a few dances. This time had been 
unusually long.
    And Tandra had to try to guard the city from her 
enemies- external, for there were still some, and 
internal- all by herself.
    It was not fair, Herran thought, not for the first and 
not for the last time. But he did not see that there was 
much he could do to help it. There were responsible Elwens 
in the younger generation, such as Keren's sister Kalupa, 
or the Heir of the Goatleap line, Osian, but they would 
not be of age to be Chosen to the Council for years yet. 
They had to be at least twelve hundred, and most were shy 
of that age by at least three centuries. Nothing that 
Herran had tried had made Keesa even consider changing 
that law.
    It would be years yet before Tandra had someone to 
help her share the burden. 
    Herran feared that she would collapse long before 
then. He did not doubt her strength, but she had her own 
problems and her own responsibilities as the Captain of 
the Guards to deal with. She simply could not deal with 
that and with the watching of Rowan, as well, without 
going mad or giving something up. He should know. He had 
juggled duties for years before realizing that abdicating 
or insanity were his only choices.
    And now...
    He felt an odd shiver deep in his stomach, as he 
always did when thinking this way. No, that time was past, 
and was not going to come again. It could not come again. 
Even if he was Chosen to the Council, and by a miracle 
became Councilmaster- because Keesa gave up the seat, or 
not- he could not let himself fulfill such a dream. He had 
sworn an oath never to sit on the Council again, and he 
had promised to serve Keesa as long as she never did 
anything to act against Rowan. He had also promised 
himself that he would only watch from the background, that 
being both Rowan's avatar and her Councilmaster would be 
too much for any Elwen.
    But seeing Tandra like this, nearly worn down to 
nothing after yet another year of handling a burden that 
he knew he could help her bear...
    And at least half the problem would be removed if 
Keesa left her seat.
    Herran shook his head and lifted his hands gently from 
Tandra's shoulders. "Feeling better?" he murmured; she was 
almost asleep.
    "Yes," she said, head lolling. "I left wine for us on 
the other table. If you could bring it?" The question was 
a drowsy mumble that became nothingness as she curled 
herself around her left arm as if it were a sleeping 
child, in a remarkably agile pose.
    Herran paused to admire the way that the firelight 
sparkled on her hair before moving to get the wine. He 
smelled it, and then laughed. She asked him a question in 
another mumbling voice that trailed off into a yawn. 
    "Cuivisi, Tandra?" The pale blue wine came from the 
southern Tableland, where Tandra had been born, and was 
usually used only by lovers. Its very name meant "lovers' 
wine." It seemed an odd choice if she had thought that all 
eight of them would be drinking it.
    "I thought to keep that until it was only the two of 
us."
    He caught the hint of something more in her voice, and 
smiled as he moved over to her chair with two glasses in 
his hands, understanding why she had not wanted to sit 
down just yet. She might simply have given into happiness 
to see him instead of telling him about Keesa, and 
whatever plans she might have.
    She smiled at him as he gave her the wine, hair 
falling into her eyes in a way that made his heart ache. 
They had been wed four hundred and sixty years, and still- 
at least once a month- an expression came over her face, 
or she did something, that had an impact on him, that he 
had never seen before.
    "I love you," she murmured, and swallowed at least 
half the wine. Herran, caught by surprise, blinked and 
then sipped himself.
    A burn traveled through him, followed by immediate 
sweetness. Lovers drinking the wine at the same time were 
supposed to experience a bond for a few seconds. The bond 
had been established long ago for them, but still it felt 
as if he knew what she was thinking for a few seconds.
    He laughed again. "Would you not rather wait until I 
tell you what I think is preoccupying Keesa, before we 
tumble into bed?"
    "If you must."
    Tandra set the wine aside reluctantly, but motioned 
for him to keep his glass and keep drinking when he would 
have done the same. Herran briefly spoke about the 
conversation that he had had with the Councilmaster, and 
what had sparked it.
    "Papers?"
    He pulled them from his pouch and held them out to 
her, seeing her frown as she scanned them. Her eyes 
widened then, and she swallowed. She understood. She had 
seen the village and the villagers- or what remained of 
them- as well.
    "Where do you think these could have come from?" she 
said, low-voiced, one finger rounding the map of the 
village again and again.
    "I don't know," said Herran honestly. "All the choices 
are bad. It seems a nasty and obvious trick- but would 
someone who plays the Game that way have known how to get 
past my wards? They simply appeared in the middle of the 
floor, all of them," he added, gesturing to the papers. 
"That would mean knowing my wards, and knowing me well 
enough to know that I would not destroy the papers, that I 
would read them instead. But someone like that could not 
have anticipated that I would go to Keesa. And if Keesa 
really did create them, how in the name of the stars did 
they get there, in Hyleana? Why would she put them there?"
    "Are you sure she didn't?"
    He related the questions he had asked her, and Tandra 
listened with her eyes narrowed, but at last had to admit 
that it did not sound as if Keesa had written these orders 
or drawn these maps. Then she paused, in running her 
finger down a list of supplies, and stared.
    "What is it?" Herran had seen nothing on the list that 
he could remember that would cause such open fascination, 
followed by grimness, but for all he knew, something she 
saw would mean far more to her.
    "This oil that they used to cover the bodies so they 
would not burn," said Tandra softly. "It is rare- for good 
reason. There's not much use for it except for crimes like 
these, when someone wants to make sure that Elwen bodies 
will be found. But they were able to get hold of great 
amounts of it, and cheaply, it seems." She looked up at 
him. "It is made from the sap of a tree that grows 
primarily on Firehair lands."
    Herran turned and stared into the fire for a moment, 
as she had earlier, knowing the flame in her eyes was 
real, that she believed what she was saying, and reluctant 
to challenge her.
    But reluctant to challenge Keesa, as well.
    He had sworn an oath, and listened himself to her 
saying truthfully that she had not written anything he had 
showed her. 
    "Are you sure?" he said at last.
    "Yes. Caron oil. That comes from the caron tree. There 
are no groves of it within thousands of miles of Rowan- 
save the groves on the Firehair lands," said Tandra 
patiently.
    "I have never heard of it. Or I had never heard of it, 
until..." Herran trailed off, fighting the urge to retch 
as he remembered the bodies hanging up, disemboweled, all 
of them, in one way or another, and with their intestines 
twined around their necks. The oil had been smeared on 
their bodies to be sure air could not reach them, so that 
they would not burn, as Elwen bodies usually did, before 
would-be rescuers could find them. He was glad that he had 
drunk only a little of the wine.
    "Caron oil was often imported into the lands near my 
home," said Tandra softly. She rarely spoke of her family, 
and as a kindness, he did not stare at her while she was 
doing it. "Mainly to keep fireoaks from igniting 
everything wooden in sight in the fall. Mostly, though, 
the trees are kept for their wood and the flowers they 
bear in the spring. It takes a long time to extract the 
sap."
    "When is it usually done?"
    "In the spring." Tandra's voice was gentle and yet 
merciless at the same time. "Near the time of the attack 
on the village."
    Herran closed his eyes, bowed his head.
    "Herran." Her hand closed on his arm, warm, 
supportive, and strong. "It could be a coincidence. It 
does not mean that Keesa sold them the oil. This list is 
not real, for all we know." She waved the papers. Then she 
paused, and said, even more gently, "But it is true that 
caron oil was used to cover the bodies, and if Keesa did 
not sell it to them, she must have known about it."
    "Could someone have stolen it on the sly and sold it 
to them?"
    "Possibly," said Tandra doubtfully. "But in that case, 
she would probably still know. She might have caught and 
punished such a thief long ago without realizing the 
significance." Her hand tightened. "All I ask is that you 
talk to her. It might not be a coincidence."
    Herran groaned and opened his eyes, gazing wearily at 
her as he smiled wryly. "I am sorry, but I cannot help 
wondering how we missed this..."
    "I am sorry, too, but at least we can still avenge 
them if we find the one who did this."
    Herran nodded, his gaze fixed on the papers.
    "But enough of that." Tandra laid the papers aside and 
leaned forward. "You have something to do in the morning, 
besides take Sahsraiinar to Hyleana, and that is something 
best left for the morning. You know it. For right now, I 
want you to enjoy yourself with me." Her tone was almost a 
command.
    "I should speak with Quirrin. It is possible a psychic 
assaulter could have read the configurations of my wards 
out of my mind..."
    "For right now, you are here," she said, standing and 
then sitting down on the arm of the chair, still staring 
at him demandingly. "You can speak with him at any time 
you wish... in the morning, too, if you want. Or you don't 
have to speak with him at all."
    "Why not?"
    "Starting in the morning, I would like you to have 
Guards when you go outside the walls," she said, bending 
down to kiss him. "Not only for your sake, but for 
Sahsraiinar's. That is one reason that you do not need to 
speak with Quirrin."
    He nodded, knowing that it would be useless to argue.
    "And because of something he did while you were gone." 
Tandra paused, eyes burning. "Shall I tell you the story, 
or might it ruin the mood?"
    Herran smiled, recognizing that the emotions in the 
room were already twisting and flowing into new patterns 
even as they sat there, and that it was unlikely anything 
could spoil a mood that was constantly changing. "Go 
ahead," he said softly. This was another thing that she 
needed to do.
    "He stopped me in the middle of the street and said 
that soon I would know such anguish as never before," said 
Tandra, leaning forward and kissing him again. She ran a 
hand through his hair, almost thoughtfully, then reached 
up and tugged on the band he had bound it back with while 
he rode through the harvest. There had been no time to cut 
it. Shining golden hair tumbled almost to his shoulders, 
and she frowned at him and took one of the knives from his 
sleeve. 
    As she trimmed his hair roughly, she said, "And then 
he said that I would lose my position as Captain of the 
Guards, and you would lose your position as avatar of 
Rowan. All of this in the coolest voice you can imagine, 
as if you had never done anything to punish him, as if he 
had never had a plan fail." Herran winced as the knife 
sliced into the back of his neck in her angry cutting, and 
she crooned at him and gently patted the place, soothing 
away the minor hurt. "Then he turned his back on me and 
walked away without giving me a chance to reply."
    "Do you think that he could have been responsible for 
what is happening to Sahsraiinar?"
    Tandra shook her head. He could feel it, both in the 
change of emotions in the room and in the brush of her own 
shoulder-length hair against his cheeks. "He came up to me 
about a dance ago. She has been having the nightmares for 
far longer than that."
    "I should still speak with him."
    "Don't." Apparently his hair was cut to her 
satisfaction, and she gathered up handfuls of it and 
tossed it aside, while returning the knife to him. He 
caught it up, examined it critically, and reminded himself 
to strop it before he used it again, sliding it back into 
place in his sleeve. "He is your enemy, Herran, and always 
will be, now. I think he has finally accepted the 
knowledge that he cannot talk his way into your mind or 
heart anymore unless you let him."
    "He is already there," said Herran softly, turning 
around to face her. He could feel the commingling of love 
and anger in the room, and knew it would become more like 
anger if he said what he said to her now, but he did not 
think that he had ever told her. "He always will be. 
Things he says echo in my mind, and he was responsible, in 
part, for making me what I am. I am only glad that he has 
sworn an oath never to attack you. But I am not surprised 
that he said what he said. He told me once that anyone I 
loved or was friends with- including you- was his hostage, 
or fortune's."
    She froze for a long moment, and then said softly, 
"Herran, if you don't kill him, then I will."
    "Not now. Not this year. Not this decade, or century, 
or Age for all we know."
    "But soon?"
    "Perhaps-"
    "When did he say that to you?" It seemed that she 
could not bring herself to repeat the words.
    "Not long after we met. In fact, more or less the same 
day that you helped me to defeat Ivelyyar."
    "I will kill him."
    With that, she kissed him, hard, with the full force 
of her anger, all of the emotions in the room turning into 
yet something else, and Herran let the memory of her last, 
murmured words go for a while.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Herran blinked his eyes and stirred. Something was 
wrong... something had awakened him...
    He could not tell what it was for a long moment. If 
there had been an intruder in the room, or if the wards 
had crashed in his room as they did whenever someone not a 
friend crossed them, he would have been instantly awake. 
And Tandra was curled in his arms, sleeping the sleep of 
the fully justified. He smiled and knocked a lock of hair 
out of her eyes. They had made it to their room at last, 
but he had had to carry her, and that only after they had 
made love twice in the Fire Room.
    No, it had not been her.
    What?
    Then it came again, and he recognized the beginnings 
of a telepathic link in his mind. He sighed and opened his 
mind.
    There was nothing on the other end, no Elwen mind 
waiting in a whirl of colors to announce bad or good 
intentions. He froze at once, shocked into stupor by the 
cold blackness that was there. It existed, and yet it was 
like staring into a dark mirror. There was nothing but a 
dim reflection of his own existence there.
    Then it moved. It poured through him, somehow, and 
took shape in the room before him.
    Herran could only stare as it adopted an Elwen form, 
black at first as starless night, and then quickly more 
and more regular and colorful. Color flooded through the 
room in twisting streams to collect inside it, like slowly 
arriving light. He could see a face, high, proud features, 
eyes that stared commandingly into his, even the fall of 
recently cut hair...
    The hair and the eyes were the same colors as his. No, 
they were the same as his.
    Herran would have scrambled back with a shout if not 
for the woman who so needed sleep curled in his arms, who 
would have been disturbed if he had made any sudden 
movement or outcry. As it was, he could only stare at the 
figure, the copy of himself, and shake his head as if this 
was a dream he could awake from.
    But no, he was awake. He could smell it, smell the 
snow blowing in through the open window. He glanced once 
at the small flakes piled on the sill, shaking his head, 
and then looked back at the double. He could not sleep 
without a window open at night, but he was beginning to 
think that had its drawbacks.
    "What do you want?" he said softly, noting the 
telepathic link had entirely dissolved, that it did not 
need it any more.
    It stirred, a little, unfolding its arms and gazing 
back at him. Herran blinked, a little intimidated, and the 
irrelevant thought that it was no wonder people replied to 
him so quickly, if he looked at them like that. It left 
quickly, and he decided to try and ask it a different 
question.
    "What are you?"
    It reflected back a sense of himself at him, and fear 
shimmered in the air, his own fear, despite the knowledge 
that nothing could harm him in the walls of Rowan.
    "You are not me."
    This time, the shimmering, wordless answer was 
agreement. It was not him, but it was a reflection of him, 
in some odd way.
    "Who are you?" he said then, certain that someone must 
have sent it.
    No answer. That was apparently all the answer he was 
going to get with that question.
    "What do you want?"
    This time, there was a response. The image of himself 
reached out with both hands and moved them slowly around a 
patch of air, in a delicate circle. The air within the 
circle began to sparkle, solidify, and harden. For a 
moment, Herran thought he saw a vision he had seen before- 
Rowan as a perfect city, aglow in starlight and sunlight, 
peace and greatness- and then it melted into something 
else. It was a silver rowan tree, with broken crowns hung 
from its branches and stars shining above it. It was a 
perfect image, save for the lack of a deep blue field, as 
was on the city's flag.
    Herran stared, not understanding. "What do you mean?" 
he said at last, loathe to admit that this riddle was too 
hard for him, but not knowing what else to do.
    The thing gestured again. The vision shimmered apart, 
then reformed.
    Herran shook his head. "That makes no sense. You want 
Rowan? Even if you are me in some odd way, that makes no 
sense. I am bonded with Rowan, her avatar. There is 
nothing more that I can have of her, and nothing that I 
would ever ask of her."
    The vision reformed again, apparently the image's way 
of reemphasizing a point.
    "I don't understand you," said Herran, in a low growl, 
and stretched out his arm. A golden songbird, the 
representation of his bond with Rowan, appeared on it. "I 
am going to banish you-"
    He stopped. The image had not seemed to understand 
him, but it had certainly comprehended the threat. It was 
gone, and he was left with empty space. The songbird 
blinked at him with bright smears of eyes, awakening from 
the nightly sleep Rowan usually entered along with most of 
her people.
    "What did you awaken me for? Was there something here 
that was dangerous?" It looked a little more alert now, 
peering around the room, but if it saw something out of 
the ordinary, it made no mention of it.
    "No, I suppose there wasn't," said Herran, with a 
frustrated sigh. "Thank you." He snapped his arm, and the 
songbird faded from sight.
    By this time, Tandra was stirring, and though he 
stroked her hair soothingly, she sat up in his arms and 
stared at him. "Herran? What is it?" she asked, her voice 
growing stronger moment by moment, and her eyes clearing 
quickly of sleep. She would not be getting back to sleep 
any time soon.
    "We had- a visitor," he said, turning his head to 
stare broodingly at the foot of the bed. "A sending who 
looked exactly like me."
    Tandra stiffened, and he could almost hear her 
thinking that this might be related to Sahsraiinar's 
illness somehow. "Have you looked with your gift? Is there 
magic?"
    Herran shook his head ruefully. He had tried to ignore 
that dragon-given gift for so long that sometimes, even 
now, he forgot that it existed. He half-closed his eyes, 
in case the light was bright, and then dropped the guards 
on it.
    Almost at once he slammed them up again. The air where 
the being had stood was swarming with bright threads of 
color- not just bright, really, but blinding- and it 
seemed a magic that he recognized. When he reached for the 
recognition, of course, it slipped away and hung 
frustratingly just out of reach.
    "Is it magical?" said Tandra softly, staring up at 
him.
    "Yes. Very much so." Herran stared again at the place 
where the being had stood. "So magical that it suggests 
there was really something there, and not just a sending. 
But if so, I don't understand why it had no scent, and 
looked like me. It was as if it was forced to adopt my 
form in order to have one at all."
    "Perhaps it was a disguise." Tandra sighed once and 
then turned, putting an arm around his shoulder and 
pulling him towards her. "But I don't think you should 
concern yourself with it until the morning. Go to sleep. 
How long did you sleep, anyway?" she asked, staring up at 
him.
    Herran tried to answer, but was interrupted by a yawn 
instead. "Not long enough," said Tandra, and closed her 
eyes in determination, as if she could will his closed as 
well. "Close your eyes, Herran, and sleep."
    He obeyed the first part of her instructions, but knew 
he would not be able to obey the second. He could feign 
sleep, though; he kept his breathing easy and deep, 
gradually slowing, until he could tell that she had 
slipped over the edge.
    He opened his eyes and gazed down at her. He envied 
her that gift to sleep at almost any time as comfortably 
as if she had nothing troubling her, while he was 
restless, jumping at every sound. He supposed it came from 
their different training. She had been trained as a Guard, 
more like a soldier than he was: take your sleep where you 
can find it. He had been a patrol leader, and in a forest 
where curalli might attack at any moment, no one slept 
deeply enough that a falling leaf would not bring him 
awake.
    He leaned his chin on top of her head and closed his 
eyes again. The darkness behind his lids was good for at 
least one thing: thinking. His mind took the image of the 
being, the fact that the magic was familiar, Sahsraiinar's 
illness, and the papers that had gotten through his wards, 
and played with them, combining them.
    Could this be some trick of Quirrin's? No; Quirrin 
rarely played cryptic Games. If he wanted to make someone 
suffer, it would happen, but he would know why he was 
suffering and who was doing it. Torture served the purpose 
of justice in Quirrin's eyes.
    It could be Keesa, but he did not think that any of 
the Councilmaster's toys that he had taught her of when he 
abdicated at last would do something like this. And she 
could not have managed the thick magic around the being or 
the expert lattice woven into the depths of Sahsraiinar's 
mind.
    A curalli trick? Kerlinde, one of the School Masters 
of Shadows, was still resentful at Herran for capturing 
him during the war with his people, and for defeating 
Shadows so roundly. But he did not have the kind of magic 
for this, either.
    The more time passed, the more he sought for answers, 
and the more frustrated he became.
    Wait, wait, said the calmest part of him at last. You 
are assuming that everything was linked. It did not have 
to be. It could be one incident, or two, or three...
    He paused, and then, acting on nothing more than 
incident, separated Sahsraiinar's illness from the other 
three things in his mind.
    There.
    He did not know what sealed it for him; perhaps it was 
simply recognizing the magic around the being as his own. 
But he was suddenly confident that he knew how the being 
had come to him, why it wore his face, and how the papers 
had gotten through his wards.
    His eyes flew open, and he made a small distressed 
sound. His pleasure in finding a solution to the mystery 
was dampened by the fact that it was not a very pleasant 
idea.
    He knew that his people were capable, under the 
pressure of great desires or needs, of creating magical 
objects or beings that would save their lives or serve 
them in one way or another. His gaze tracked to the rune- 
patterned sword that lay on one of the tables in the room. 
It was of curalli make, but slender and deadly even more 
than most of that kind. Especially against humans in 
golden moonlight; then it would rip their hearts out and 
feast on the blood. It had been created by a young curalli 
woman so terrified of dying in battle against humans that 
her sword had taken on a life and will of its own to save 
her from that fate.
    And among his own people, whose needs and desires were 
so often more complex than mere survival- driven by the 
fact that they did not spend as much time fighting for 
survival as the curalli did, and the fact that they had 
stronger emotions- there was the legend of the dyrcul.
    It was a being that would gratify whatever the 
creator's greatest need was. It would kill his enemies as 
a banesword would, but it could also create objects out of 
thin air, perform magic, and walk about as its creator if 
the need called for it.
    Create objects.
    Herran groaned aloud as he realized the probable 
origins of the plans and maps he had left locked securely 
in a drawer of the Fire Room. It would have had everything 
he required, including Keesa's handwriting and 
circumstantial evidence like caron oil being used in the 
crime, to link Keesa to the slaughter. If he wanted to 
prove her guilty, he could hardly have asked for a better 
gift.
    And of course it would be able to pass through the 
wards. The dyrcul did not intend him harm. It would have 
been able to walk through the wards as if they did not 
exist and leave the papers for him to find.
    "Herran?" A hand rose to caress his cheek. "What is 
the matter? I thought that I told you to sleep-"
    She broke off as she felt tears beneath her fingers, 
and then she was almost prying his eyes open so that he 
would look at her.
    "What is it?" she breathed, sounding frantic. 
    "I think that I may have something to do with Keesa's 
despondency," he breathed, hardly able to believe it was 
true. But his mind blazed with the image from Rowan's flag 
between the fingers of the being, and though he did not 
know how or when he had come to desire this, he thought it 
was what he wanted.
    "How?" He could hear the bedsheets stirring as she sat 
up, feel the warm weight of her head against his shoulder 
and her hand on his chin, but he could not look at her 
just yet. He stared at the foot of the bed where his magic 
was slowly fading into thin air and shook his head.
    "I- the being that appeared to me. I think it was a 
dyrcul. I think it created the papers and the maps to give 
me evidence that Keesa had commanded the slaughter." The 
words were coming faster and faster now. "It could walk 
through my wards. It could take my face; that is among the 
powers of dyrculom in all the old legends. It could use my 
own magic. If what I want is Rowan- and that is what it 
showed me- then it could even cause weariness and disgust 
and worry in Keesa. It could mean that everything she 
feels is my fault-"
    "Herran! Herran!" She gripped his chin tightly, and 
looked within an inch of slapping him to wake him up. "You 
do not know that," she said softly, when she saw him that 
he was looking at her again. "For all you know, your 
conscience and your usual tendency to guilt are making 
this up. How do you know that it was even a dyrcul that 
you saw?"
    "It makes so much sense..."
    "You want to serve Rowan, Herran," said Tandra 
strongly as she shifted so that they were both lying back 
on the pillows, and he could not rise from the bed and 
pace the room as he wanted to without a struggle. "I do 
not believe that you want to possess her. She would not 
have chosen you as her avatar if that was so."
    "But she could not see it. For all I know, it is 
something that I desire in the dark depths of my mind and 
heart, and if-"
    "What is the real reason for this fear, Herran?"
    "If it can cause one thing, why not another?" Herran 
shook his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut. "I might even 
be causing Sahsraiinar's illness, for all I know. 
Relations between us have never been easy. If somewhere in 
the depths of my mind I decided that I did not want her as 
my Heir, and-"
    He stopped. He had to, because Tandra was laughing. It 
was an angry laugh, but a confident one. He was finally 
able to meet her eyes, and flinched a little in the 
darkness waiting for him there, even though he was able to 
smile tentatively at the amusement.
    "Listen to me," she said, spacing the words carefully. 
"That you have a dyrcul does not mean that you care 
causing her sickness. From what I know of the powers of a 
dyrcul, it would kill her directly if you wanted her dead 
at all. Not make her sing elven songs and go into trances 
and have nightmares."
    "But if-"
    "I am not denying that you may have created one," she 
cut him off, stroking his hair. "What I am denying is that 
you could ever wish to harm your own daughter, even 
unconsciously. I know you better than that, Herran." She 
bent to sweep her lips across his cheek. "I will not let 
you be that way."
    Herran relaxed a little. In truth, he hated the 
paralyzing doubt and fear that filled him now. He was back 
in the state he had once been in, fearing to make a move 
because he thought it might be the wrong one, because he 
thought it might come from some unconscious desire for 
power. He could not trust himself. But at the same time, 
he could not bring himself to see how ridiculous that was, 
because he was perhaps only trying to convince himself 
that he did not desire power. Any move away from the doubt 
into a kind of faith meant that he was denying the 
darkness of his soul-
    "Herran!"
    This time she did slap him, and she glared at him 
steadily until he met her eyes. Then she shook her head 
slowly, a kind of helpless wonder in her gaze. "Why do you 
always insist on making things harder than they need to 
be?"
    "Old habit."
    "One I thought you had discarded by now."
    "Never, Tandra. I can't really have unbridled faith in 
myself. Visions, dreams, and you, yes. But not in anything 
else."
    She smiled with pleasure at being included in the 
list, though he could still feel frustration emanating 
from her. She stared at him for a little longer, then 
sighed and stood. "It's perfectly obvious that neither of 
us is going to sleep any more tonight. Come with me. We'll 
go to the library and see if we have any books about 
dyrculom among the more dusty ones that your father 
collected."
    Herran nodded silently, and stood and followed her, 
tucking the worries about what he might have wished for to 
the back of his mind.
----------------------------------------------------------
    By dawn, Herran had returned to the Council building 
and was waiting to see Keesa. She had slept in the office 
as she so often did. He needed to tell her about this 
before anything else happened, he thought fervently, and 
shifted impatiently from foot to foot.
    "Herran. What is it?"
    He looked up, startled. She had not been in the office 
after all, and he had not sensed her approach. He had 
walled up his magic since last night, almost afraid of 
what he might find.
    "I know the origin of the papers," he said quietly.
    "What?" She blinked at him, and he could not tell if 
she feared that he would say they were linked to her or 
was merely surprised that he had been able to figure out 
the source so quickly.
    "Yes. It seems that I have a dyrcul. It created the 
papers and brought them to me."
    Keesa stood blinking for only a moment. Then energy 
and purpose flooded her eyes and movements, and she opened 
the door to her office, barely tapping to take the wards 
off first. Her eyes remained on him the entire time. "Come 
in, come in," she said, waving him into the bare room. 
Herran went in, head bowed, and heard the door shut behind 
him with a firm snap.
    It was confining, but also comforting. He believed, 
from the look in her eyes, that Keesa might have some plan 
in mind. Whether she had seen dyrculom before or simply 
had every contingency prepared for in case he betrayed her 
someday, he did not care. He was only relieved that she 
was not going to order him arrested at once and shut up 
some place until they could find the dyrcul and kill it.
    He tried to stop his more morbid speculations, but 
could not. The image of the rowan tree between the 
dyrcul's hands had shaken him badly. All this time, he had 
believed that he desired nothing more than to serve her, 
and now...
    Now the old nightmare was back to haunt him again. And 
he had seen proof that it was real, that some part of him 
was dark and foul and desired dominion over his fellow 
Elwens, when for so long he had had fear but no kind of 
hard evidence.
    "When did you figure this out?" he heard Keesa saying 
crisply to him.
    "Last night," said Herran without hesitation. She was 
the Lady of Rowan, and he had sworn to obey her. She had a 
right to know this, besides. It could be a danger to her 
even more than to Rowan itself. "I woke to see a being 
with my face at the end of the bed. It showed me the image 
from the flag- the tree, the broken crowns, the stars- 
between its hands three times. Then it vanished just as I 
called magic to fight it. It was my magic that had created 
it. I was not sure about what it was for a long time until 
Tandra and I found a book stating that dyrculom always 
communicate with their creators by showing images and 
wearing a copy of the creator's form."
    "I see."
    The sound of her calm voice brought his head up at 
last. She was sitting in the chair behind her desk, 
staring at him with no sign of disgust. If anything, she 
looked interested. Here at last was a real enemy to fight, 
he thought with a trace of weary amusement, not just 
something that she was entertaining herself with because 
she could not find something larger.
    "You understand?" he whispered hoarsely around his 
tight throat. "I did not mean to create a dyrcul. I did 
not know I had. But-"
    "You realize that the best course is to kill it," said 
Keesa, standing and pacing to the window, as if she wanted 
to see the city more closely than she could by sitting 
still and simply looking out the window. "And that that 
may hurt you."
    "I don't care." The hatred in his voice made her turn 
away and regard him closely, curiously, but he did not 
care. "I did not ask for this thing, and I want to do 
nothing to fulfill whatever dream it is promising me. I 
want to serve Rowan and be what I have always been. You 
have my word on that, my lady."
    "It truly might hurt you," she said.
    Herran shuddered, but only inwardly. One of the books, 
designed to keep Elwens from becoming interested in 
creating dyrculom, had described in intimate detail what 
would happen if a dyrcul was killed, as opposed to fading 
away once its creator's desire was accomplished. The Elwen 
would suffer blindness, and a crippling sickness that 
would last for months.
    But given what would happen if his dyrcul remained 
alive and free?...
    It could convince others that Keesa had ordered Mydyia 
to slaughter that village. She might not be removed from 
the Council, as she had done it in a war, but she would 
certainly lose the Councilmaster's seat. And then all it 
would take was for some other member of the Council to 
die, and then...
    Chaos. And the city herself might ask that he seek the 
Councilmaster's seat, when he did not want it, when there 
was already a more than worthy occupant.
    "I do not care," he repeated. "I want this thing dead, 
destroyed- killed."
    "Very well." Keesa turned back to him with a hand on 
the pommel of her sword. "Can you call it here? I will try 
to kill it now if you like."
    Herran stared at her, amazed and grateful. The dyrcul 
was trying to destroy her particularly, and it had magic 
that she could not combat, but here she was, offering to 
try to kill it.
    "I do not know if I can call it," he said at last, 
knowing that she would want his thanks to wait until she 
had accomplished something. "But let me try." He bent his 
head and began to concentrate.
    It did not take long. In fact, the dyrcul came to him 
the moment he called its name, tentatively, in his mind, 
as quickly and ferociously as if it had been waiting for 
him to name it all this time.
    It formed in his likeness in the middle of the room, 
though not with its arms tamely folded this time. It was 
pointing an accusing finger at Keesa, and about its head 
swirled scenes of the slaughtered villagers, as if really 
thought that she could be accused of such a thing when 
Herran knew she was innocent.
    Keesa screamed in rage and struck.
    The dyrcul caught her sword arm and sent her 
staggering backwards. Then it took her sword and held it 
out towards her throat, just pricking the skin and 
breaking it so that a small stream of silver blood ran 
down while it smiled into her eyes.
    Herran came to his feet and stepped in between them. 
The dyrcul's eyes focused on his as he pushed the sword 
away, and it shook its head slightly.
    "What do you think you are doing?" Herran hissed, too 
angry to care that the dyrcul would not answer him, at 
least not in any words he could understand. "She is the 
Councilmaster of Rowan!" His hand fell to the banesword at 
his side, even though it was a banesword only to humans 
and would not kill a magical creature.
    The dyrcul looked at him, and then back at Keesa. It 
shook its head.
    Herran looked over his shoulder at Keesa. Her lips 
were pulled back, her eyes gleaming with a wild light. She 
hated to be defeated or disarmed in battle- especially by 
someone who looked like him. That would make the blow 
worse, he knew. She was the better fighter of the two of 
them and always had been. "Kill it," she hissed.
    Herran turned and drew the banesword. The dyrcul 
stepped back and then reached past him so fluidly that he 
did not know how it did it, slicing a long, thin line down 
Keesa's neck. It cut no vital vein, but it did leave a 
nasty and very visible cut that would take some time to 
heal.
    Then it vanished. The sword did not go with it, but 
dropped to the ground with a loud clatter that made Herran 
jump in spite of himself.
    "Call it back," said Keesa in a commanding snap as she 
bent to retrieve her sword.
    Herran tried. There was no answer but a stubborn 
shimmer of reply: that Keesa had caused the slaughter of 
the villagers, and that she did not deserve to be 
Councilmaster.
    Herran took a deep, frustrated breath. But he was 
calmer now. Instead of a deep desire, he thought it was 
possible that the dyrcul's creation had been based on a 
misconception. His mind had brooded on the horrific 
murders in the village for years; he would awaken from 
regular nightmares of them every few months. Perhaps he 
was simply so desperate to determine the identity of the 
one who had ordered Mydyia to commit those crimes that he 
was creating evidence to support one possibility.
    And that meant that the dyrcul would be made to fade 
not by crippling himself or trying to banish a desire he 
did not even know for certain he had, but by trying his 
best to learn what he could of who really had commanded 
Mydyia and the others.
    He turned to look at Keesa. "My lady, with your 
permission, I would like to look again at the site of the 
murders and try to determine what may or may not have 
happened there."
    "Are you sure you can be trusted?" Keesa's voice was 
almost a whisper.
    Herran blinked at her, not sure what she meant. "My 
lady? I think the dyrcul might have been created because-"