Ever Here
                         Prologue
             63, Age of Arcadia, Early Spring
    "And it is yours."
    Melsinon Shirrindolor held out his hand for the money 
to fall into his palm, keeping his eyes fastened on the 
man to whom he had just sold his land. He had one more 
message to impart. "Claim it as soon as you can. Bond with 
it. Tend it. Take care of it."
    "I will." Better, said the direct stare of the silver 
eyes, than you did.
    Melsinon kept his own deep green eyes fastened to the 
silver ones, until Tyren let his stare fall away, and 
repeated more firmly, "I will."
    "Good." Melsinon turned and walked to the waiting 
mare. He had accomplished what he had come here to 
accomplish. There was no point in lingering near land that 
would miss him, at least at first, and that he would miss. 
There was no point in asking himself if this needed to be 
done.
    He knew the answer. Like it or not, it had to be done. 
He couldn't torture himself and hope that, somehow, a new 
answer would form out of the mist in his mind.
    "Farewell, my lord." Tyren's voice faltered on the 
title, which, technically, Melsinon was still owed- for 
the position he had achieved, not the one he had been born 
to. But most land Elwens in Oak were uneasy with calling 
someone "lord" who wasn't either a priest of Suulta or 
lord of land.
    Melsinon was a lord of the city. It made everyone 
uncomfortable, himself most of all.
    "Farewell," was all he said, and then he laid his 
heels to the chestnut mare's sides and trotted out of the 
courtyard of the small house. His horse's hooves thumped 
on stone for only a moment, then sank in mud. She snorted 
in displeasure.
    Melsinon put a hand on her neck, soothing her, 
clucking under his breath while hardly being aware that he 
was doing so. His eyes, despite himself, drank in the 
sight of the trees around him, both those kept for fruit 
and those kept for lumber, and the sight of the deer that 
hadn't been hunted in so long they raised their heads to 
stare at him without bolting as he rode past.
    He would miss it, he told himself. There was no 
denying that.
    But, again, it made no difference to what had to be 
done.
    Melsinon at last leaned into the horse's neck and let 
her have her head, at least as much as he could in the 
early spring mud and slush. The mare lifted her head, ears 
twisting as if she could hear his hold on the reins 
slackening, and then began to pick up her pace. The small 
bells tied to her bridle rang with so many silvery chimes 
that they sounded a symphony, instead of the separate 
melodies that he preferred.
    Melsinon eyed them in resignation. He didn't like 
them, either, but they were the ornaments that the last 
Councilmaster, Sinasta Kormakeren, had made mandatory on 
every horse the Councilmaster rode. He couldn't break with 
this tradition just yet. He was already doing things that 
made people uneasy.
    He adjusted his position as the mare broke into a 
trot, posting lightly, his gaze roaming around. This 
countryside, not five miles from Oak, was bare of hyleas 
or earlyaspens, the trees that began growing back their 
buds with the chill of winter still in the air. Therefore, 
all around him was black, or at least dark, bare and 
leafless and unalive.
    Like his mood, he thought.
    He closed his eyes, forcing him to see past the bare 
branches in his mind, to a time when the trees would bud 
again. He forced himself to see the vision of his city in 
his mind, the vision that he wanted to achieve. Someday, 
the trees would bud again. 
    And someday, Suulta's city would belong to the Goddess 
again. It might not be that far away, in the same way that 
an unexpected warm spell could make the trees bud 
tomorrow.
    He opened his eyes, murmured, "Goddess, give me 
strength for what I must do," and let the mare canter as 
he came onto a stretch of road that was freer of lingering 
snow and churned mud than many others. The mare, cooped up 
for most of the winter by the unusually heavy snows that 
Oak had received, eagerly took the chance to increase her 
speed almost to a gallop.
    Melsinon took the chance to close his eyes and let out 
a deep breath, telling himself that he couldn't afford 
sorrow, couldn't afford hesitation, couldn't afford to let 
his own mortal weaknesses control him in a task of the 
Goddess's, no matter that he knew he would have to have 
one more conversation before he was reassured completely. 
He let the wind sweep through his mind, clearing out the 
cobwebs of doubt.
    When he opened his eyes again, they were as clear and 
cold as the silver hairs that hung like icicles about his 
brow.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Melsinon stared at the words on the page, knowing that 
nothing would make them go away. It was words that had 
done this in the first place, started him down his road, 
though not written ones. He had heard the criers speaking 
of what was happening in the city, and he had felt the 
flare of the white light in his breast, the Lady calling 
him, as it was said priests felt the call to the Temple.
    "Not yet," he whispered to himself. "Oh, not yet. But 
soon..."
    "My lord! Back so soon. I didn't expect you."
    Melsinon let his face relax into a smile as he turned 
to nod to Tarcha Mistshine. The former Councilwoman was a 
good six inches shorter than he was, than many land Elwens 
were, but the Lady knew that he had leaned on her shoulder 
often enough, literally and figuratively. She stared at 
him with sharp blue eyes as he put the book down and back 
into its place in the Archives, and knew what was 
troubling him without his speaking.
    "Can you still doubt that this needs to be done?"
    "Yes, I can," said Melsinon. "I have prayed, have 
sought some other answer, and have tried to find a way out 
from under the obligation the Goddess has placed on me. 
But all the time, I have been moving closer and closer to 
this final goal."
    "It is right. Never doubt it." The Councilwoman's 
touch as her fingers curled around his arm comforted him 
even more than her diamond voice. "Do not let youth or 
your own feeling of mortality stop or slow you. No one 
else could have conceived of or done this. You will finish 
it."
    Melsinon shook his head. "It's not really that that 
I'm having doubts about. I might deny or doubt my own 
unworthiness as an instrument of Her will, but I know She 
is with me, and will help me if I falter. In truth, I 
still doubt, as you said, that this needs to be done."
    Tarcha shook her head slowly. "If you will not let 
speeches and philosophy convince you, then let the laws of 
nature do so. You know as well as I do that Elwens and 
humans were never meant to live together. They live only a 
hundredth of the years we do, if that. They have no magic, 
and they fear its use. And they have tried to kill us- all 
of us- twice." Her eyes were dark by the end, and her head 
snapping as it often did when she was uncontrollably 
angry, so that her dark red hair flurried around her like 
flames leaping from tree to tree in a forest fire. "They 
have tried to commit genocide on us, Melsinon. Twice."
    "I know," he said solemnly. "But it's not really 
humans that we'll be fighting. It's other Elwens." He met 
her eyes, and spoke the name that neither of them had 
wanted to acknowledge, the name of the dragon that would 
be roused by any threats against the humans. "Rowan."
    Tarcha smiled. It was a smile that he had never seen 
her give, a smile that promised war and went joyfully to 
meet it. "I know that. And they have laid themselves in 
the path of the juggernaut. They have abandoned the 
Goddess, and extended the hand of peace and friendship to 
the humans, as if a few years could sweep away generations 
of hatred. They are fools, Melsinon, and they have not Her 
will behind them. They will fall."
    "But if war comes..."
    Tarcha met and held his eyes. "That's what we want, 
isn't it?"
    Melsinon nodded his head, eyes closed. Then he rose to 
his feet. 
    "Let us do this thing."




                        Chapter 1
                     The Rule of Law
    "Law is a rapier. It can slash, and it can pierce. 
And- this is something just as important, which more 
people seem to forget than remember- if one wielder of it 
falls, it can be taken up and used by someone else just as 
easily as it was used by the first."
    -Words of the law historian Kerellen Sensedi, writing 
Kormai ko Velweni ko Rejea Tessicoi, or Elves and Elwens 
and Their Laws, second volume, early Age of Creation.

    "And you must see that we-"
    The voices died as Melsinon stepped into the room. 
Actually, though, he couldn't tell if they died at the 
sight of him, or at the sight of Tarcha, who had been 
banished from the Council Chamber for opposing one of the 
Laws of Human Cherishing.
    Such as the one they were trying to pass now.
    Melsinon let his eyes sweep the room. The other twenty 
members of the Council sat as if huddled back from the 
speaker in the center, hunched on the low tiers that 
encircled the walls. He wondered if they knew they were 
huddling or not. The speaker was turning towards him, fire 
in his blue eyes.
    The speaker wasn't land Elwen. He was alalori, clad in 
the golden robes and the glass sunburst of a priest of 
Sarastaa, Lord of Dawn. His skin was deep gold, his hair 
blond, his eyes blue. He shone like a flame in the midst 
of the white and silver Council Chamber.
    Colors too vibrant for the Goddess's world, Melsinon 
thought, stepping forward, even if they had invaded it.
    "My lord Fhevuian." He made his voice as gentle as 
possible, but the dawn Elwen heard the metal behind it. 
"If you would, leave."
    "No." The alalori planted his feet and hands- on his 
hips- and scowled. "We are trying to pass another Law of 
Human Cherishing- and it will pass, despite your laughable 
efforts to delay it."
    "And what law is this?" asked Melsinon, pacing towards 
the alalori, coming down the shallow steps into the center 
of the bowl that was the Chamber. Tarcha remained behind 
him, her arms folded.
    "This is the law that will make it illegal for Elwens 
to ask humans to leave their houses," said Fhevuian 
triumphantly. "It has long been needed. Elwens have kept 
themselves apart from the natural union of the races too 
long, and the land Elwens of Oak have been especially 
problematic, as you well know." His scowl left no doubt as 
to whom he considered the leader of those troublemakers to 
be. "Now, humans may go where they will, following the 
dictates of their nature, and Elwens cannot refuse them."
    "And what of the dictates of Elwen nature?" Melsinon 
asked softly, stopping a few feet away from him. Listening 
to Fhevuian, he could feel the last of his doubts melting 
away. The dawn Elwens would lay all his people under the 
tyranny of guilt and regret for the sake of the humans' 
freedom. They would take away the freedom of one people 
for the sake of another. It could not be borne.
    "I do not understand, my lord." Fhevuian blinked at 
him. "You must see that the dictates of the will that say 
they should remain separate are not-"
    "Oh, they are quite as valid." Melsinon's voice was 
growing softer and softer, but he was close enough that 
Fhevuian could hear him, and he was the only one who 
mattered. He saw the Council members out of the corner of 
his eye. They seemed torn between leaning close to hear 
and leaning back to be out of range. They knew, as the 
dawn Elwen obviously did not, what it meant when their 
Councilmaster's voice grew this soft. "As this is an Elwen 
city, they are- more valid, shall we call them? Or perhaps 
simply what they are: better."
    "My lord!" Fhevuian staggered, one hand flying to his 
heart as if a bolt had lodged there. "You cannot say that! 
No race is superior to another, as we of the Dedicated 
have learned full well. In our quest to bring racial 
mixing to every city, we-"
    "And do you let humans or elves or half-Elwens into 
your holy places?" Melsinon asked, his words barely a puff 
of breath as he halted in front of the priest. "Do they 
walk the golden temples of the south, and the dawnlight 
forests of Sarastaa? For that matter, do land Elwens?"
    The blue eyes only flickered once, but he knew he had 
the other man.
    "Surely even you are not so blind," whispered 
Melsinon, leaning forward so that he was only a few inches 
from Fhevuian. "Surely even you can see that, if the 
Dedicated have not flung their own doors wide to the 
round-eyes, the red-bloods, the Elwen-killers, there is 
every reason for us to do the same."
    Fhevuian sucked in a startled breath, and only then 
seemed to realize how close he was to the Councilmaster. 
He tried to back away, but Melsinon's hand was on his 
shoulder, and Melsinon held him in place. He thought he 
could almost feel the force of the Goddess flowing through 
his arm, lending him more than mortal strength, compelling 
the dawn Elwen to listen.
    Trapped, Fhevuian's voice came out in a whimper. "My 
lord, you cannot say those words!"
    "What?" Melsinon loosed the alalori and stepped away, 
raising his voice. "Round-eyes? Red-bloods? Elwen- 
killers?" He narrowed his eyes and smiled like the serpent 
that was his family's symbol at Fheuvian's obvious 
discomfiture. Then he spun away from the golden-skinned 
Elwen, raising his voice to the shocked ears of his own 
pale-skinned people. "Filth-grubbers. The short-lived. The 
umani. The magicless. The-"
    "Enough!"
    Melsinon turned, smiling a little. He had felt 
Fhevuian telepathically call for help the moment he 
stepped into the Chamber, and so he wasn't surprised to 
see the man standing in the same door he had come from, 
staring at him with a face as still as the waters of the 
Goddess. He bowed. "My Lord Asoron. Do join us, and hear 
the words that you helped to ban spoken again. Do join us, 
and see the fire that you damped glowing once more."
    Asoron Likarai started down the steps towards him, 
walking like a bear. Melsinon took in the swaying head, 
the hand clenched around the glass sunburst at his breast, 
the tight-pulled lines of the forehead, and smiled in 
contentment. There were some things to be said for Rowan's 
games, after all, and the way that her Councilmaster had 
taught the rest of the land Elwen world to play politics 
with words.
    And, of course, there was even more to be said for the 
day when he wouldn't have to do this any more, when he 
could go back to the life that the Goddess had meant him 
to live, in the city that She had meant him to live it in.
    Asoron halted in front of him. "You cannot speak those 
words," he said. "It is against the law."
    "Not now."
    Asoron snorted, as if what he had said was self- 
evidently ridiculous. "Melsinon, not even you can be that 
arrogant. You are the Councilmaster of Oak, and you have 
an important part to play in lawmaking, but even you 
cannot take away all the different and diverse Laws of 
Human Cherishing in a day. You know that."
    "I can." Melsinon turned and nodded at Tarcha. She 
might be deposed and discredited, but no one would doubt 
her word on the laws of Oak. She had been on the Council 
nearly a thousand years and knew every word of the 
histories, the Church lawbooks, and the records of the 
Council by heart. "Tell them, my lady, just what it is 
that we found."
    Tarcha smiled. "In times of great need, the 
Councilmaster of Oak rules the city," she said. "He need 
only openly violate a law in front of witnesses, and give 
this answer when called on it: that he declares martial 
law, and places himself over the Council and all other 
bodies of authority in the city."
    Asoron was flushing golden. "How was that ever 
passed?" he asked.
    Melsinon shrugged. "A legacy from the days when we 
still had a High Priest or Priestess of Suulta. The 
authority was, of course, incumbent upon him or her, to 
protect the city, since the theocracy ruled. When the 
Council took the power from the Temple, the authority 
passed naturally to the Councilmaster."
    Asoron shook his head. "It does not matter, still. 
This is a world that has no place for such antique laws, 
nor for your Goddess."
    Melsinon blinked. The man was standing in the center 
of the only land Elwen city in the Tableland- stars, in 
all the twelve provinces of Arcadia- that still worshiped 
the Goddess with the old fervor. And he thought that he 
could get away with saying something like that?
    Well, if Melsinon and Tarcha hadn't been in the room, 
he might have. The Council had been frightened of its own 
scent since Tarcha was dismissed, since if it could happen 
to her, it could happen to anyone. They gave up their 
freedom and integrity for the sake of claiming those few 
scraps of power they still could.
    Melsinon, however, had never had that much interest in 
bowing to anyone or anything save his Lady, and the power 
he wielded had been accumulated for this reason alone. He 
was in his hour, and Asoron- the leader of the Dedicated, 
the man who had been in Oak the past four years because 
the city was the only one that still fought the Laws of 
Human Cherishing- couldn't stop him.
    "My lord," he said quietly, "what would you say to 
such words about your God?"
    Asoron's hand clasped the sunburst at his throat 
again. "Sarastaa accepts true believers into His covenant- 
true believers of all races," he answered stiffly. "Unlike 
your Goddess, who has declared Herself Goddess of Land 
Elwens and only accepts clerics of your race-"
    Melsinon smiled. "What I meant is not the laws of the 
gods in their infinite wisdom, but the laws of mortals. 
And I asked you a question."
    "I was answering it!" snapped Asoron. "The question is 
irrelevant. Sarastaa is a god who can live in the world, 
with the world. He does not insist on everyone giving up 
his passion and living chastely in order to serve Him!"
    "That is a law only for the priests," said Melsinon 
mildly. Lady. Four years in Oak, more than eight thousand 
years of life, and the man still didn't realize the finer 
points of Suulta's doctrines. "She understands that the 
rest of us must on occasion fight and breed and express 
our emotions. And you still haven't answered my question, 
my lord. How would you feel if someone told you that 
Sarastaa was antique?"
    "I told you, it is irrelevant-"
    "No, it isn't. There is still the idea of how you 
would feel about it if someone said the words. To prove it 
to you, I will say the words: Sarastaa is antique. Now." 
Melsinon leaned back, folded his arms, and waited in calm 
curiosity for the trick to work.
    Asoron's face turned pale. "I am a man of sincere 
faith," he began, "and that wounds me in ways that you 
cannot even begin to understand-"
    "No. I, too, am a devout man, my lord, and I do 
understand. And it wounds me so when you speak of Suulta. 
The insult is less because you are of another race, and 
though you might understand and accept Her laws, as well 
as pay more attention to them than you do, you are not 
bound to Her as we are. My lord, the Goddess was once 
revered here, and I mean to make it so again. I plan to 
ask for Her protection, such as we had six Ages ago. And I 
mean to obey Her laws, even if She never holds out Her 
Hand again in protection over us." Melsinon narrowed his 
eyes. "And one of those laws is that the city of Oak shall 
not shelter those who do not understand and respect the 
laws of the land Elwens. You, my lord, are one of those, 
and so are all the alalori who came with you and presumed 
to tell us to how to live. My lord, from this moment 
forward, the Dedicated in Oak are dissolved."
    Everyone in the room save Tarcha, who had known what 
was happening and was smirking behind her hand, gaped at 
him. Then a babble of voices spoke up- questions from the 
Council, roaring from Asoron, and whining from Fhevuian.
    "No." Melsinon stopped the noise with a whisper. "My 
lords, my ladies, I declare martial law. All of Oak is now 
mine to rule, and no one gainsays me without gainsaying 
the Goddess. Beloved brothers and sisters of the Council, 
I assure you that you will take no trouble for this. I 
bear all the problems on my own soul. If Rowan and the 
Dedicated go to war, they will go to war against me, not 
against you."
    He turned back to Asoron. "As for you... banning our 
freedom of speech, murdering news-criers who speak openly 
of conflict between Elwen and human, telling us that we 
must open our houses and our hands and our hearts to 
humans, turning us against each other for the sake of 
salving your own consciences- all of these are your 
crimes. All of them. They will all be answered for, 
Asoron, in the one law that mortal and god share. The law 
of vengeance. Leave the city, now, or we will show you 
just how deeply that law runs in land Elwen hearts."
    "You wouldn't dare."
    "Why not?"
    "Rowan-"
    "We will meet her when we meet her." Melsinon stood, 
keeping his gaze tranquil. It was a good thing that he and 
Tarcha had hammered out all the aspects of this plan 
beforehand, or he would have flinched before Asoron's 
objections. "If she insists on war, war it will be. And if 
it is only a test of our faith and strength that she 
demands, that is nothing new. The conflict between freedom 
and tyranny, my lord, is ever here. Oak has been in 
Rowan's shadow long enough. It is time the oak tree grew 
on its own."
    Applause, slow and measured, came from Tarcha. A few 
of the Council members were rising to their feet and 
adding their own claps as well, though they flinched when 
Asoron glared at them.
    He turned his gaze back to Melsinon and took a step 
forward, his voice lower and his hand outstretched as if 
in pleading. "My lord, the balance of power in the 
Tableland is very delicate right now. The cities of the 
south are slow in following the lead of the north, as they 
have ever been." His mouth twisted as if he had bitten 
into a lemon for a moment; then his face was calm and 
smooth again. "And the Council of Arcadia is ever 
watchful. If you insist on thrusting the Dedicated out of 
the city, they will want to know why. They could see it as 
a prelude to war."
    "Why?" asked Melsinon distantly, all the while 
marveling. The peace aura of the alalori, the calming 
influence that radiated from their bodies and made them 
great missionaries, worked even on one who was aware of 
it. So strange.
    "Because the Dedicated exist to prevent war!" Asoron 
sounded exasperated that Melsinon could not grasp this one 
simple fact, but his voice was back to soothing so quickly 
that it might never have left. "The Dedicated have made a 
vast study of history and legend alike, and the many wars 
that have happened in Arcadia have been between different 
races, for the most part. That will end if we can only 
convince the races to live together in harmony."
    "And Oak has to open her gates to the humans," said 
Melsinon, in the kind of dreamy, drugged voice that Asoron 
would expect from someone firmly under his influence.
    The dawn Elwen nodded excitedly. "Yes, that is just 
it. There can be no private spaces anymore. Elwen houses 
and hands and hearts, just as you said, have to be open to 
the humans. Everyone has to share, to join in the cause of 
peace, if it is to have a chance."
    Melsinon leaned forward. "Shall I tell you something?"
    Asoron smiled, as if anticipating a confession. "Of 
course, my son."
    "If your words are true, why do the humans have places 
in the city where we are not allowed to go? Why are human 
villages not being asked to open their doors to Elwens? 
Why, in fact, are no Elwens flocking to human villages and 
asking to join in the cause of peace?"
    A flicker passed over Asoron's face, like the shiver 
in the blue dreams of Fheuvian's eyes. "Your magic 
frightens them," he said. "You can destroy streets and 
buildings and peoples when enraged. The humans must be 
able to live apart from that."
    "But we can't live apart from them?"
    Asoron stepped back and stared at Melsinon. "We are 
the wiser ones, the ones who are the more long-lived and 
can see the necessity of this. Of course, we must make the 
sacrifices, but such is the price for the gifts of the 
stars we were given."
    "So, Elwens are wiser and better than humans, then."
    Asoron recognized the strands of the net too late. He 
shook his head, trying desperately to look calm. "It is 
not meant that way. Innate lifespan gives no innate 
superiority-"
    "Then shall I tell you how else we are better than 
humans?" Melsinon stepped back and raised his voice again. 
"If you must discount lifespan and wisdom, then look upon 
beauty, agility, the power of our senses, our courage, our 
closeness to the gods, our wills- and our pride." He 
narrowed his eyes at Asoron. "We are very proud, my lord, 
and we do not like what you have done to us in the name of 
the freedom of the humans."
    "You can't-"
    "I can and will." Melsinon shook his head. "The 
building that the Dedicated are living in belongs to Oak. 
The city can take it back at any time she likes. And as I 
represent the city, I take it back. I claim it. You can't 
stay there."
    "You're doing something you should fear."
    "Oh, yes, your murderers." Melsinon shrugged. "I don't 
fear them."
    "You walk with no weapon. You walk with no guards."
    "No," said Melsinon mildly. "Such would be a violation 
of the laws of the Goddess. My lord, I assure you, I don't 
plan on violating my laws and the code I love in the way 
that you have so often violated yours."
    "We will not leave Oak. We will appeal to your people, 
and they will rise up, and-"
    "No. They will accept my rule. They don't have a 
choice."
    "Whether or not they have a choice will matter very 
little when you are dead!"
    "Open threats," said Melsinon. "And what do the laws 
say about that, my lady?"
    "That anyone who threatens the High Priest- do excuse 
me, my hopes getting the better of me; the Councilmaster- 
during his period of command is subject to Banishment," 
said Tarcha promptly.
    Melsinon could feel the silence gather thick behind 
him. The Council members knew that no one had been 
Banished for six Ages, since the guardianship of Suulta 
over the city had lapsed. Whether it had been a power of 
the Goddess, or just a ward that no one knew the trick of 
triggering any more, didn't matter. It was gone.
    Not now, Melsinon thought, and bowed his head and 
closed his eyes in prayer. My Lady, if I have ever been 
true to Thee, please, my Lady, dismiss this one who so 
impinges Thy laws. Please, my Lady.
    He heard a gasp that became something between a squeak 
of fear and a roar of acclaim. He opened his eyes, and 
smiled, faith beating in him like a second heart.
    He had never really doubted Her.
    Mist was pouring into the room, swirling. It formed up 
in front of Asoron, encircling him in a ring that turned 
swiftly into the shape of an owl, the White Owl, the most 
ancient symbol of Suulta. Asoron was holding his sunburst 
and praying in his own tongue, but the mist didn't stop 
moving or forming.
    Then he vanished.
    His form flickered like a flame, hung in the air a 
moment, and faded. Wherever he was now, he wouldn't find 
it easy to return.
    Melsinon sighed, and closed his eyes, dismissing the 
wrong and petty dreams of vengeance. If he had done the 
Banishing right, Asoron should be just outside the city. 
But Oak would be as mist to him, always fading when he 
tried to touch it, always receding as he tried to approach 
it. It was enough.
    Melsinon turned to the people behind him, opening his 
eyes and gazing into their faces, letting them see his 
face so they might know what kind of man they had for a 
leader. No, he was not the kindest or the best man for 
this task. But he was the only one who could do it, in the 
absence of one of the Goddess's own servants of old coming 
down to earth.
    "My lords, my ladies," he said calmly, dipping his 
head, "if you resent my assumption of leadership, please 
tell me. I will be happy to gratify your concerns in the 
ritual of songbattle. I am afraid that I cannot do so in a 
duel."
    "And why not?" Now that Asoron was gone and Fhevuian 
was paralyzed with fear or something else, they were 
gaining their courage back. One Councilwoman who almost 
never spoke was on her feet now, shaking hair as silver as 
his own down her back while she glared at him with golden 
eyes. "You have carried a sword in the past. I have seen 
you do so. What kind of leader can you be, if you refuse 
to face us with steel in your hand? You will refuse to 
face our enemies with steel in your hand as well, and then 
stars know what will happen."
    "I do not carry a sword now because such is against 
the laws of the Goddess," said Melsinon. "I will win this 
battle with Her favor and with words and laws, or not at 
all. And I will face you the same way, if you insist on 
facing me. Do you, my Lady Lessuma?"
    Lessuma stared at him for a long moment, then lowered 
her face. Melsinon watched her calmly, almost knowing the 
thoughts swooping through her head. None of the Council 
members were stupid, just cowardly. She knew as well as he 
did that she couldn't challenge his authority on legal 
grounds, and that trying to fight him with a sword when he 
would stand there and let her cut him down before he 
responded likewise would only make her look the fool.
    "No," she said at last. "I will not insist on facing 
you now." Then her head jerked up, eyes glittering like 
the eyes of a fever victim. "But the moment you make a 
decision for the city that I do not approve of, then look 
to feel my blade-"
    "Your words, you mean?" Melsinon arched his brows.
    Lessuma flushed as everyone stared at her. "My words, 
of course," she muttered. "I'm sorry, my lord. But-" She 
shook her head, then hesitated. Then she blurted out, "But 
it doesn't seem possible that you can change everything 
this fast!"
    Melsinon let his face soften in an understanding 
smile. "I know. Please, be assured that I have had years 
spent planning this, and what seems but the opening bars 
to you seems a crescendo to me. I know what I am doing, 
and I will not fail you. This I promise."
    He could see Tarcha put a hand over her eyes at that. 
She approved of his battle plans, but not of the way he 
insisted on conducting himself during them. She was a lady 
of the school, Rowan's school, that said intrigue and 
never promising anything openly was the best way to get 
things done.
    But Melsinon believed what he had said. Oak had lived 
in Rowan's shadow long enough. Now, when they were moving 
to free themselves, was the last time to adopt Rowan's 
tactics.
    "If any of you, my lords and ladies, need to speak to 
me, I will be at the site of the Dedicated's old 
headquarters," he said, nodding. Then he swept out of the 
room, Tarcha at his heels.
    "Well," the former Councilwoman said once they were 
beyond the reach of ears, "that went better than I 
expected. But why must you do that?"
    "Do what?" asked Melsinon, though he knew very well. 
He had to give her every chance to back away from actually 
saying it, though, so that she wouldn't have to be in 
rebellion against him if she changed her mind.
    She didn't. "Make promises, expose yourself, tell them 
what you're going to do. You wouldn't simply tell Rowan 
your plans if they asked, would you?"
    Melsinon smiled. "The Council members are not my 
enemies, my lady, unless they insist on being so. I will 
not begin by insisting they are, and that I should 
therefore hide things from them. And if Rowan asked my 
plans- or the Lord Herran, really, since he is the only 
one who would- then yes, I would tell them. My great 
advantage lies in that neither the city nor her Lord would 
believe me. They have trained themselves to always look 
beneath the surface. Simple faith baffles them."
    They continued walking in silence for a moment, and 
then Tarcha said quietly, "Sometimes you frighten me."
    Melsinon glanced at her over his shoulder. "Why?"
    "There are times, my lord, that I think you are more 
skilled than any of us at the Game," she said, giving 
intrigue the Rowanian name that had infected Oakian 
speech. Melsinon didn't think that they had had a name for 
it before that one, and certainly never one that implied 
intrigue was fun or had rules. "And then there are times I 
think you will dash yourself on the cliff you have hurled 
yourself from before you have grown wings. Tell me: did 
you know the Banishing would work?"
    Melsinon looked at her in astonishment. "Of course 
not. I wasn't sure that it would be needed. Asoron might 
not have pressed the issue that far, and then it would 
never have come up."
    "You know that isn't what I mean," she snapped in 
agitation.
    Melsinon grimaced a little and inclined his head. 
"True. I ask your pardon, my lady. No, I didn't know that 
the Goddess would answer my prayer."
    "But it wasn't you."
    "No. I didn't use a ward, nor my magic." Melsinon 
shuddered a little. The magic of his kind, as Asoron had 
taken such care to point out, was mostly emotional. 
Without the influence of the Goddess, who was Goddess of 
Compassion and Serenity as well as Land Elwens, he would 
have loosed his impatience and rage. "I didn't know that 
She would answer me until She did."
    "As I said- sometimes you frighten me," Tarcha 
muttered. But she said it so far under her breath that he 
could pretend he hadn't heard it, which was probably all 
for the best.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Melsinon knelt at the threshold and bowed his head. 
The priests had been watching, and the moment the alalori 
left the building, they had come in and begun the 
reconsecration to the purposes of Suulta. The white stone 
the building was built of had already begun to take on a 
smell of sacred incense, and a slight glow that, he knew, 
would appear as a candle-flame or a blinding sun to true 
clerics depending on the level of sanctity. He, only 
beginning his clerical studies, could but see the faintest 
traces of it.
    "You are welcome, my lord. Suulta has already declared 
that."
    Melsinon lifted his head and smiled, reaching out to 
take the hands of Charlya, the High Priestess of Suulta at 
Oak's Temple of the Goddess. She inclined her head to him, 
and then gazed into his eyes for a long moment, her own 
serene expression cracking a little.
    "It has begun, then," she said quietly.
    "Yes."
    "And you had to call on the power of Suulta to banish 
the Lord of the Dedicated."
    "Yes."
    Charlya sighed, a little, and loosed one hand with a 
pat. "I am sorry, my lord. It is not often that one is 
Called so suddenly as you were, and especially not for 
such a hard task."
    "The Goddess had Her own reasons," said Melsinon, 
walking slowly through the room with her, taking his time 
to admire the small shrines already being set up in 
corners and in the center.
    Charlya nodded to him. "Yes, She does. I would reveal 
those reasons to you if I could, but I cannot. You 
understand."
    Melsinon nodded. The Goddess spoke to Her clerics who 
were of sufficiently advanced training or sufficiently 
devout. But those clerics rarely, if ever, revealed what 
She had told them. It would unfairly influence the actions 
of others, and Suulta preferred that people follow Her 
will and laws of their own free will, if they were going 
to follow them at all.
    "How is the reconsecration going?" he asked, trying 
his best to take his mind from things that he still 
doubted, and probably always would.
    Charlya's face lit with a calm smile, showing a little 
tooth, the brighter expression she ever gave. "Well, my 
lord. She was never really banished from this building; 
the inhabitants only turned away from Her. So, the echoes 
of holiness in the walls are being raised again as we 
build our shrines here, and I have every hope that, in 
time, this will be a church to rival the Temple, as it 
once was."
    Melsinon nodded slowly, his gaze lingering on the 
walls. The sunbursts that had been painted on them by the 
occupying priests of Sarastaa were being scrubbed off by  
novices with more water and faith than sense. He hid a 
smile as the wetness ran over the floor, knowing they 
would have to clean up anything they spilled. Well, one 
couldn't fault their hearts, at least. "How did we ever 
drift so far away from Her?"
    Charlya laid a hand on his arm, and his gaze came back 
to her. Her smile was more serene this time, and her eyes 
glowed at him with an untroubled faith that he wished he 
could echo. "It really doesn't matter how, or how far, we 
drifted," she said. "The important part is that it won't 
happen again, now that we are here. We can guard against 
the faith being lost."
    Slowly, Melsinon nodded. "Thank you, my lady. I needed 
to hear that." His eyes swept around the room once more, 
and it seemed that the glow from the walls and the floor 
was already brighter. Even the ceiling was beginning to 
shimmer. "I will leave you to your work, then, and go to 
my own."
    "Have you already announced your intentions to the 
city?"
    "Yes."
    "And no grumbling?"
    Melsinon shrugged. "Some. But I think most of them 
still believe I won't really do it. The grumbling will 
probably become more intense when I give them something to 
grumble about."
    "I hope so." The toothy smile was back again. "Though 
Suulta does not always approve war, there are times the 
faith must be defended."
    Melsinon nodded once, then turned and walked down the 
steps, out of the building.
    He had hardly stepped outside when a low whine touched 
his ears. Part of him, the part that had trained hard and 
long with the dream of becoming a sword-master someday, 
recognized it, and was propelling him to the ground before 
he consciously realized what it was.
    An arrow slammed into the doorpost just above his head 
and stuck there, quivering. Melsinon whistled under his 
breath. The post was stone, and yet the arrow had cut it. 
It would have pierced his chest, likely, and gone on into 
his heart instead of lodging on a rib.
    Even as he thought that, part of him was already 
reacting. Mind and body divided. He stood and looked 
rapidly around for the attackers, even as his mind spoke 
calmly: This is the doing of the alalori. They must have 
decided that the time had already come to do more than 
grumble.
    Another low whine sounded, but this arrow had two 
disadvantages. First, it went wide; second, it allowed him 
to track it. His gaze locked on the small grove of trees 
that stood between this building and the next, once used, 
like the building itself, for the worship of Suulta, and 
abandoned when the city began its secular shift. The 
branches were quivering.
    Melsinon jogged towards it, alert all the while for 
more arrows. None came. He couldn't hear footsteps 
running, though, and he thought he would hear them even 
over the sound of the blood pumping in his ears. That 
meant whoever it was was still hiding in the grove, 
waiting, like a fool, for the trap to close.
    But on whom was the trap going to close?
    A good question, thought Melsinon as he slowed at the 
outskirts of the grove. He was grinning like an idiot. He 
said a quick prayer asking the Lady's forgiveness for 
enjoying this so much, and sniffed.
    This close, the scent of pine was strong; the archer 
had at least been intelligent enough to choose an 
evergreen grove, where he wouldn't show up as he would in 
an instant in winter-bare trees. But he hadn't been 
intelligent enough to do more to mask his scent than trust 
in the pines.
    Melsinon lowered his head and moved in, stalking like 
a wolf on the trail of a deer.
    He saw the disturbed earth an instant before the net 
started to coil up around him. Again, he rolled, flinging 
himself to the side. The net shot up, empty, into the air, 
and swung back and forth.
    Another scent intruded, then, at the same moment as he 
saw a green liquid smeared on the strands of the net. In 
an instant, his enjoyment froze and shattered, replaced by 
the heat of anger.
    Elwensbane. If he had touched that net, he would have 
died in a worse way than any arrow could kill him.
    And what if someone else- one of the few truly 
faithful still remaining in the city- had come upon it, 
walking in the grove, and died? Internal organs 
corrupting, blood sizzling, skin turning black and spongy 
and sloughing off...
    Melsinon glanced about, as if casually. One would have 
to be closer than he thought the attempted assassin was to 
see the flame in his eyes, and one would have to be wiser 
than close in the politics of Oak to know just what that 
flame meant.
    There.
    He couldn't have said what guided him. The figure was 
wearing clothes perfectly matched to the green of the 
pines, probably chameleon-cloth, and sitting so still that 
he didn't make a sound. And the breeze was blowing under 
him, not giving off his scent.
    Still, Melsinon's eyes suddenly resolved the darkness 
into a two-legged shape, and he growled softly under his 
breath as he began a slow stalk forward.
    The figure picked up a longbow and leveled an arrow, 
casually, not hurrying. Melsinon squinted, but saw no 
flash of golden skin in the gloom. Indeed, the voice that 
came to him was the silvery one of a man of his own kind, 
speaking unaccented Aril.
    "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. But it's your own 
fault. You would have been dead on the first pass if you 
hadn't ducked."
    "And that net?" Melsinon could barely speak. At least 
as much of his strength and concentration was now going to 
control his own fury as was going to face the man in front 
of him. He knew his hands were shaking, his face 
twitching. He could feel the foam that was trying to coat 
his lips.
    The man stared at him. His face was visible now, oddly 
pale for someone who shot and hid so well. It should have 
been tanned from the time he would have spent in the sun 
and the forests. "Again, your fault. They told me that you 
would be difficult."
    "Innocent people could have died!"
    The archer snorted. "They'll die anyway, if you insist 
on following your road. This way, I'm saving lives." His 
arrow leveled at Melsinon's heart.
    "Tell me who sent you."
    Another snort. "I'm not an idiot."
    The arrow was loosed, but Melsinon wasn't there.
    Grace was as much a part of sword-master training as 
the actual handling of swords, since it was not just 
training but art. Melsinon's feet left the ground, and he 
grabbed the branch above him, ignoring the needles that 
bit into his hands. He hurled himself in a sideways spin, 
straddling the branch in one movement and then using its 
bending momentum to propel himself at the assassin.
    The man didn't have time to loose another arrow, still 
recovering from the shock of his miss. Melsinon hit him, 
and took him off his branch. They crashed into the ground, 
with the other man luckily landing beneath. He went limp 
for a crucial moment.
    Melsinon scooped up a handful of grass and mud and 
rubbed it into the other's eyes, ignoring the yelp and 
squirming this produced. Hands openly shaking now, he 
picked up the bow and broke it, then loosed the quiver 
from the man's shoulders and hurled it away. It landed 
with a sound like sticks snapping that hopefully indicated 
the demise of the arrows.
    All this time, the assassin was squirming, but 
Melsinon had spent the eleven years since he stopped 
carrying a sword training himself to hold someone still. 
It didn't take that much strength, always the Elwen 
weakness in battle, to hold someone if one knew how. He 
gripped the fingers of the man's left hand and twisted 
them. A screech, and the other hand stopped scrabbling for 
the dagger that Melsinon could smell at his waist.
    "Please, don't break them."
    Melsinon smiled grimly, recognizing the note of morbid 
fear in the man's voice. There were some things that some 
people couldn't tolerate. He was the same way himself 
about having his hamstrings cut. "I won't. Lie still." He 
spoke calmly, soothingly, and the man lay still, again for 
a crucial moment, trusting him.
    Melsinon's free hand slammed into the side of his 
skull, just hard enough. The man went limp for true this 
time, head lolling on his neck. Melsinon divested him of 
the dagger, two knives in his boots, and a few other 
instruments of steel that leaked death to his nose.
    Then he stood up, studying the man to see if he might 
wake up again while Melsinon asked Charlya for help. It 
didn't seem likely.
    Melsinon shook as he walked away from the scene of the 
battle. It wasn't that long ago, especially as an Elwen 
lived, that his hands rubbing the grass into the man's 
eyes would have been tearing them out instead, that the 
blow to the side of the archer's head would have meant 
cracking bone.
    He could still feel the urge in him, fighting to be 
free, writhing when he wouldn't pay attention to it. It 
was so strong, he thought he could have died in the 
Elwensbane-smeared net and it would still be alive, 
flitting free of his body and plotting evil.
    He managed to speak the story to Charlya calmly 
enough, and she called the two novices who had splashed 
the most water on the floor to go and help carry the man 
to the Temple.
    Melsinon helped carry him part of the way, then 
slumped to the ground. The novices hesitated, but went on 
when he waved at them.
    He knelt there, in the middle of the street, but 
luckily out of sight of most of the people walking it, and 
whispered incoherent prayers for long moments, his hands 
clasped in front of him.
    "Please... please, Lady, if Thou dost favor me at all, 
please help me..."
    He shook his head, feeling the tears stinging his 
lids, and then whispered, "Why didst Thou grant me this 
temper?"
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Has he revealed anything?"
    Charlya turned, shaking her head, as Melsinon 
approached. "He hasn't awakened yet, and he is obviously 
not a worshiper of the Goddess. She cannot reach his mind 
or heart, or tell us anything about him that mere 
observation of him could not tell us."
    Melsinon nodded, his eyes on the man in the room 
beyond the door. A novice sat with him, now and then 
glancing at the door as if she would like to leave. Still, 
she maintained her position. She wasn't only there because 
novices were naturally assigned the tasks that no one else 
wanted to do. It would have been actively painful for a 
more accomplished priest or priestess to sit in the room. 
As a land Elwen went further into the service of the Lady, 
his or her natural sensitivity to emotions would be 
heightened. It was useful in healing, but trying when one 
was in the same room as a person who killed for a living.
    Melsinon sighed, then, realizing that he had an 
apology to make. "I'm sorry, my lady."
    Charlya, who had been studying the sleeping man again 
as if she did hope that she could learn something about 
him, blinked and turned back to him. "What for?"
    "I used violence to capture him," said Melsinon 
quietly, glancing away as he felt a flush begin to creep 
up his cheeks. "I shouldn't have done that. I should have 
trusted in the Goddess, or tried to talk him down before I 
went after him."
    "Did you kill him? Did you cause him crippling 
wounds?" Charlya shook her head. "No, my lord. You managed 
to take him with much less cost, either to him or to 
yourself, than you had any right to expect."
    Melsinon stared at her. In the past, she had 
encouraged his displays of humility, since it was one of 
the crowning virtues that a cleric of the Lady could have, 
and one of the most difficult for Elwens to achieve. "I 
don't- my lady, it was still violence."
    "If the Lady thought it was, then the Temple wouldn't 
have let you in it until someone cleansed you." Charlya 
turned towards him and put a hand on his shoulder, much as 
he had done earlier to Fhevuian, but not, he thought 
dazedly, for remotely the same purpose. "You weren't 
rejected, and that means that what mortals think doesn't 
matter. The Lady's opinion is the only one that should 
matter, to any of us."
    "But-"
    "My lord. As I said, I cannot tell you many of the 
things that the Goddess had told me. But one thing, She 
gave me permission to say. I didn't know why until now. I 
now think She knew you would need it." She clasped both 
his shoulders, now, gazing into his eyes with the passion 
that she usually restrained. "She said that you are the 
only one who can accomplish your peculiar task, and that 
perhaps the chance to achieve your goal will never be so 
good as it is now. The Council of Arcadia, Rowan, and the 
Dedicated, all the forces that would oppose us, are 
growing stronger. They are off their guard for now, since 
no one has challenged them in decades. But that won't last 
much longer. You need to take this chance, and you need to 
do it without worrying about the consequences unless they 
violate the laws of the Goddess."
    "I thought- I thought I had violated the laws of the 
Goddess."
    "No. Considering what you once were, you obeyed them 
remarkably well. You countered his violence against you 
with violence, but you didn't do anything to him that 
won't heal. And you prevented him from hurting anyone 
else. That matters more than anything else."
    Melsinon bowed his head. Charlya squeezed his 
shoulder, then withdrew her hands. "Humility is a virtue," 
she said softly, "but like all virtues, there are 
conditions under which it is a fault. You were born with 
your pride, my lord, and She has not seen fit to take it 
from you. For now, keep it, and make it do your will. So 
it is with all faults. If anger burns cold, we can use it. 
If hatred is turned against those who would harm us and 
the innocents of the world, it can be used. And if pride 
helps to achieve an idyll for others, it can be used."
    She bowed to him and swept on. Melsinon stepped into 
the room and smiled at the novice, who scrambled to her 
feet and bowed to him. Her face was pale, and he wondered 
if she was more advanced in her training than he had 
thought.
    "Is this painful for you, my lady?" he asked.
    The girl flushed in pleasure at his use of the title; 
she was still young enough, or innocent enough, that such 
vanities could please her. "A little," she admitted. "I 
can feel his longing to kill. It's deeper than anything 
I've felt before."
    Melsinon narrowed his eyes, though he kept his smile 
in place. Deep longing to kill was something that Charlya 
wouldn't have mentioned, perhaps thinking it typical of 
anyone who would kill, but he knew it was something 
unusual. Something like... what he had once felt.
    He permitted the thought reluctantly, sending it away 
before it could turn into self-pity, and bent the 
persuasion of both gaze and smile on the girl in front of 
him. "Would you like me to take over the watch?"
    She clasped her hands, keeping, he knew, from blurting 
out her acceptance. "I can't leave until the Lady tells me 
so," she murmured, meaning not the Goddess but Charlya. To 
a priestess this young, Melsinon thought, they weren't far 
from being the same thing.
    "Tell her that I sent you, that this is painful for 
you, and that I am staying to watch over the man," said 
Melsinon. "She will understand." He was sure Charlya 
wouldn't have assigned the girl if she knew that she was 
feeling any pain at all. The High Priestess wasn't one of 
the clerics who believed that pain was the best way to 
learn humility. 
    "Thank you, my lord." Courtesy should have obliged her 
to protest a little more before accepting, but with the 
desperation shining in her eyes, he was inclined to excuse 
her. She bowed to him and then scurried away and down the 
halls. Melsinon took her place, looking casually around 
the room before turning his attention to the man on the 
bed.
    The glance tempted him, made him long for it as he 
once would have longed to swing a sword and take the hands 
or the tongue or the feet of the comatose archer. The 
walls were made of sonor, the silvery metal that, along 
with white stone, comprised most of the buildings in Oak. 
The Goddess would have preferred temples of wood, Melsinon 
knew, to do as little violence to the earth and the trees 
as possible, but wooden temples would decay during the 
childhood of one of her worshipers. Elwens, living ten 
thousand years unless their lives were shortened by 
disease or violence or accident, needed monuments to faith 
that would last longer than that, and so did the Goddess 
they honored.
    The man groaned. Melsinon whipped his head from 
contemplation of the pale, unornamented, peace-giving 
walls back to looking at him, but he lay still. In the 
silence, he heard a prayer rising from the ground floor of 
the Temple, entreating the compassion of the Goddess on a 
wounded child.

    "...Lady, who stands above the Sea of Compassion,
     Cast out a ship on its still waters.
     Fill the sail with wind of Thy devising;
     Bid serenity to come before Thee.
     Lady of Healing, of Mercy Divine,
     Stretch out Thine Hand to this child."

    Melsinon started to bow his head and add his own voice 
and mind to the prayer, but this time, when the man on the 
bed groaned, he meant business. He sat up slowly, wincing 
along the way but obviously determined to make it all the 
way up. He didn't see Melsinon at first, occupied in 
rubbing his head.
    "Greetings."
    He turned abruptly, and then stilled, groaning. In the 
sunlight slanting through the windows, so unlike the day- 
night of the pine grove, Melsinon could see that his face 
wore the ageless look most adult Elwens had. He was 
anywhere between a thousand and seven thousand. His hair 
was as silver as Melsinon's, but his eyes a cloudy silver, 
considerably less clear.
    "Why are you keeping me here?" he asked, making a 
strange but casual shift from side to side. Melsinon 
smiled to himself, willing to swear that the man was 
checking for his weapons. A slight frown he couldn't hide 
confirmed it.
    "Because you tried to kill the Councilmaster of Oak," 
said Melsinon patiently. "Really, did you think that we 
would let you go? You're the one who pointed out that 
you're not an idiot."
    "I thought you would kill me," said the assassin, and 
then looked around the room again. "Or at least have me in 
a prison," he added. Hope beat from him like light from 
the sunrise.
    Melsinon shook his head. "As far as you're concerned, 
it might as well be a prison."
    "Where am I?"
    "The Temple of Suulta."
    Melsinon hoped never to see such despair again as came 
over the man's face at that statement. He closed his eyes 
and swallowed, then opened his eyes again and said, "You 
can't keep me here."
    "Why?"
    "They'll want me back." The man's hands were working 
together. Melsinon watched, in case he was going for a 
weapon, but he didn't seem to be doing so. The motions 
seemed desperate, random, a mad scrabbling. "You can't 
keep me here. You have to give me back."
    "To whom?" Melsinon didn't have much hope that the man 
would actually reveal whom he worked for, but it couldn't 
hurt to ask.
    "Rowan."
    Melsinon grunted, feeling as if he had been punched in 
the solar plexus. The Lord Herran had moved sooner than he 
would have expected. This man had likely been waiting in 
the city, with orders to act if something like this should 
happen. 
    Melsinon smiled then, feeling his respect for the Lord 
Herran Turnlong, Rowan's Councilmaster, rise a little. He 
had noticed the signs and paid attention to them. If geese 
were flying north, he must have concluded, it was spring.
    Still, best to make sure. "Why did Rowan send you?" he 
asked.
    The man answered while glancing desperately around the 
room, as if he thought that something would spring out of 
the argent walls and devour him. "They wanted me to kill 
you and let someone more- more reasonable- take the 
Councilmaster's seat of- Oak- Oak- the moment- oh, stars."
    Shimmering fire outlined his body, and he collapsed 
with a scream. Melsinon was on him in a minute, beating at 
the flames, trying to stifle them. He knew that Rowan had 
once spelled her assassins and spies to die if caught, but 
the most reliable information he could gather said that 
that brutal practice was long in the past.
    The archer suddenly rolled beneath him, a practiced 
movement that Melsinon recognized. He had no time to do 
anything about it, though, as great boots caught him in 
the groin and chest and tossed him to the ground. The 
feeling of being punched, the loss of air and the 
incipient nausea, weren't figurative this time.
    Melsinon was still on the floor as he heard the man 
spring to his feet and begin his escape. A trick. It had 
been a trick. He had been carrying a ward of some sort 
that let the fire flare without hurting him, or he had 
simply used his magic. And he must have been carrying 
another ward that would have fooled Melsinon's deception- 
detecting magic. He wouldn't have revealed who he really 
worked for.
    The idea that he had nearly been killed for the sake 
of a deception sank into Melsinon's mind past eleven years 
of training and freed the dark silver thing that lived 
there. It stirred, and began to rise.
    Darkness, buzzing darkness, crowded his vision, and 
then he was on his feet and running, the pain of no 
moment, the halls spilling around him, flaring with light 
that stung his eyes but was of no moment, the stairs slick 
under his feet but not mattering, the shocked faces of 
priests passing him on a river of blood and rage and not 
mattering, his prey in sight and vulnerable to a sweeping 
kick, which sent him to the floor, and then to a single, 
well-placed blow in the throat, which-
    "Melsinon!"
    That name, cried in that voice, was probably the only 
thing that could have made him halt. Charlya's authority 
wasn't as old as the silver rage, or as strong, but he had 
made it his own through rational and conscious acceptance 
instead of natural inclination. He swung his head towards 
her, realized what he was doing, and dropped his foot.
    He expected a burst of light to cast him out of the 
Temple then. But nothing happened, save that some of the 
staring faces backed off a little, opening up a path for 
Charlya to come through to him. Her face was stern, as he 
had asked her to be when he had a lapse of some kind. He 
knew that she normally would have been, but- well, she was 
the priestess of a Goddess of Compassion, and he had so 
many lapses, and he tried so hard. She might forget and go 
too easy on him if it happened enough times.
    "Melsinon," she said, and it was the prospective 
acolyte that she addressed now, not the Councilmaster, not 
even the man who might be able to lead Oak into a better 
future. "What have you done?"
    "You know," whispered Melsinon, filled with rage now- 
at himself, this time- and the self-loathing that 
surrendering to the rage always put there. He couldn't 
bring himself to say it aloud in front of all of them, the 
people who didn't know what this kind of dark thing was, 
and he knew that Charlya wouldn't make him. Humility, not 
humiliation, was the point.
    "Yes, I know." Firm, not offering pity but not 
outraged either. She would accept his assumption, his 
appeal, to her, if he wanted her to do so.
    No.
    He didn't realize that he had spoken aloud until she 
looked at him again. She had started to turn away, and now 
she turned back. Her blue eyes, large in a face even more 
pale than usual since she was wearing the full snowy robes 
of the High Priestess, pierced him. "What do you mean, 
'no?'" she asked.
    "No." Melsinon dropped to one knee, fought his pride 
for a moment, then managed to make it both, in the 
ultimate gesture of abasement. He heard murmurs traveling 
through the congregation of novices, clerics, and lay 
worshipers behind him. He ignored them, keeping his eyes 
fixed on Charlya's. She couldn't help him, save in this 
way- to provide an anchor in a sea that otherwise would 
have intimidated him too much to let him go on. "No. You 
don't know the full extent of it."
    Charlya didn't move. "What don't I know?" she echoed 
quietly, neither commanding nor entreating. Only waiting 
for him to finish, if he would.
    As he had to- but because of an imperative inside 
himself, not because of a requirement of the Temple or 
even the Goddess.
    "Because- because I was overcome with rage for a most 
unworthy cause." The words stuck in his mouth, clung to 
the sides of his throat, didn't want to be forced out. He 
forced them out. "Because I let the trickery of a man who 
was not even a traitor to the Goddess, since he didn't 
believe in Her, rouse the fires that I have tried so hard 
to control." He bit back the sob that wanted to slide into 
his words, fought down the tears that next wanted to make 
their escape through his eyes, and mastered the catch that 
it was determined to leave at least in his voice, making 
his tone clear and unwavering. He was master of himself. 
He wouldn't let other parts of himself that he had had to 
learn to control take possession of him as the anger had. 
"Because I would have killed him if you hadn't intervened, 
shed blood in the precincts of the Temple without thinking 
about it."
    That set up another murmur, but Charlya held up a 
hand, and it died as a newborn would in the full breath of 
winter. "Would you have regretted the spilt blood later?"
    Melsinon jerked his head up, but her face was blank, 
revealing no hint of her purpose in asking the question. 
"Yes," he said. "Of course. But it wouldn't have mattered 
then. It would have been spilled, and-"
    "And why would you have regretted it?" she asked. 
"Because you spilled it in the Temple, or because you took 
a life?"
    Damn. This time, he couldn't force the words out, 
knowing himself caught between the truth and the right. He 
bowed his head at last, eyes faltering from hers as they 
should have been from the beginning. 
    Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, as light as a 
butterfly alighting. "Return to your prayers," she said to 
the watchers, "and add prayers for both our brothers here 
to the ones you were saying."
    Melsinon felt, more than heard, them shuffle away. The 
beating of his heart in his ears obscured the actual 
sounds, as it almost did when Charlya began speaking, in a 
whisper that flowed on and on like wind or water.
    "Melsinon, my son, you have traveled much, but you 
have more ground to cover. I am sorry. You were born 
further than many other Elwens from the center of 
sanctity, and that means that you have a longer journey to 
reach it. All this you know." For a moment, the words did 
pause, waiting until he nodded.
    "But you have a will that matches my own, or any other 
who feels herself born to serve the Goddess. You can do 
this, Melsinon; you can. Don't expect to know all the 
answers to all the questions right away. Don't expect the 
laws or even the Goddess to hold all the answers. There is 
a reason that we do not claim, as the alalori and the 
elves do, that the power we worship created the world. We 
know that there are many things She is not, many things 
She stands outside or below- or above. She did not even 
create our bodies or our souls. The stars wrought our 
mortal frames, and our spirits came from a place not even 
the gods know of.
    "But still She bound Herself to us in the moment of 
our creation, and not only as a kind of balance, so that 
our passions, powerful beyond measure, would not destroy 
our race. She bound Herself to us out of love, to die if 
we do- the only one of the gods to make such a sacrifice, 
to acknowledge that nothing is immortal. 
    "Nothing is immortal, Melsinon. Nothing is absolute, 
not Her, or truth, or right. But what we can do is try to 
live as if they are."
    Melsinon closed his eyes. This was a speech that, in 
one variation or another, he had heard many times. The 
story of Suulta's sacrifice was the first one he had heard 
upon beginning his training. And yet, it had a new 
significance every time Her High Priestess used it.
    "I have a problem with that," he whispered, bringing 
up the objection he always did, knowing that she was 
smiling now. "It seems that we must blind ourselves to 
certain aspects of the world- certain aspects of reality- 
in order to achieve a moral code that we can be 
comfortable with." Slowly, he climbed to his feet, keeping 
his eyes on the floor.
    Charlya put a hand beneath his chin and tilted his 
face up until he was meeting her eyes again. "We must 
blind ourselves to certain aspects of reality to achieve 
anything," she said, with a slow smile. "To live. Not even 
She can see and acknowledge everything. How under the 
stars are we supposed to?"
    She stood there a moment longer, letting healing flow 
into him through her hands, and then stepped away and 
nodded to three novices. "Take him upstairs, and keep him 
under guard."
    She eyed Melsinon. "And find a priest and make sure 
that he looks at your groin pain. Now. Not in a few hours. 
Now. Pain is not a sacrifice to Her."
    This was an argument that they had had before, as 
well, but Melsinon wasn't in the mood to argue this time. 
He was actually starting to feel the pain, and he hobbled 
away to a healing room, leaning on a priest's shoulder.
    He didn't look behind him as the man was dragged away.




                        Chapter 2
                        Sheyerena
    "Love is the greatest of mysteries."
    -From Slelio Kormaatel, or The Glories of the 
Elfmother.

    Melsinon sighed and turned at the knock on the door. 
This wouldn't go away for his putting it off, for all that 
he had been tempted to do just that several times.
    He looked once to the priest standing beside him. The 
man, Tezeran, nodded calmly. His blue-green eyes were 
fixed on some distant, shimmering place, full of the 
contemplative mood he would need to retain throughout 
vespermeal. Melsinon heartily wished he could join him 
there, but he couldn't.
    Stop wasting time contemplating things you can't have, 
he told himself as he marched down the stairs and opened 
the door.
    Sheyerena stepped inside, smiled at him for a moment, 
then saw Tezeran and let the smile fall flat. "What is he 
doing here?"
    "You know full well," said Melsinon mildly, putting 
out a hand to her.
    Sheyerena stared at him now. "Sinon, you know I won't 
let you get away with that."
    Melsinon winced at the nickname, but stepped forward 
and embraced her. She stood for a long moment, arms 
wrapped around him as if drinking strength and warmth from 
the hug.
    That wouldn't have bothered Melsinon if it had been in 
the same way that he took comfort from Charlya's touch, 
but there was a sexual element to it that made him 
uncomfortable. He had tried to put Sheyerena off doing 
this for eleven years, ever since he had decided to become 
a priest of Suulta the moment his work was finished, but 
she refused to listen. She still thought she could change 
his mind.
    Sheyerena sighed in his ear. "I've gone a dance 
without seeing you. Have you kept count of the days as I 
do?"
    Melsinon slipped from her hold, shaking his head. "You 
know I haven't."
    Sheyerena rolled her eyes. They were violet, and her 
hair, flowing down her shoulders until it mingled with the 
dark material of her gown, was black. She was the opposite 
of him in every way, a creature of the night and shadows 
and darkness. Everything that he had once been, everything 
that she wanted him still to be. "Just once, I wish you 
wouldn't be so damned honest, Sinon."
    "There's a way to stop your having to put up with it."
    Sheyerena sighed again, took his arm, and began 
steering him up the stairs, to the second-floor room where 
they would eat vespermeal. "I'm not going to stop coming 
for vespermeal, Sinon."
    "It's no good, Sheyerena. I'm not going to marry you."
    "Why not?"
    "Priests don't marry."
    "You're not a priest yet." 
    Melsinon stopped in the middle of the stairs. He 
hadn't tried getting angry with her yet. It should be 
safe; Tezeran was there, and would warn him if overstepped 
the boundaries of serenity too much. "For the Lady's sake, 
Sheyerena! I'm going to become one. And I haven't even 
shared a bed with you in a decade. Why in the name of Her 
do you keep coming here?"
    Sheyerena turned and faced him with her own 
disconcerting honesty. "If you think that I fell in love 
with you just for the bedplay, you're mistaken."
    "You're not in love with me."
    "Yes, I am."
    Melsinon shook his head. Very well, so getting angry 
with her wouldn't work. "My lady, you must understand that 
I will not yield." He had tried statements of reason and 
they hadn't worked, either. Perhaps a simple statement of 
will would.
    Sheyerena only shook her head, a smile playing gently 
on her lips. There was nothing at all gentle about her 
eyes, which made it look as if she was intent on winning a 
battle. In a way, Melsinon supposed, she was.
    "Neither will I." She held out her arm to him, 
laughing, when he glared at her. "Come, my lord. Friends, 
shall we be, at least for this evening? It will be better 
for all concerned this way. You can pretend as if you're 
having vespermeal with a lady who desperately needs your 
advice and comfort, and I- I can know that I'm having 
vespermeal with a man whom I love."
    Melsinon shot a glance at Tezeran. The priest's eyes 
came briefly back to this world, and he made a little 
shrug, to indicate that he couldn't think of a plan for 
getting rid of Sheyerena.
    In the end, Melsinon had to turn and guide her up the 
stairs, to the room and the balcony where they would be 
dining.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Your flowers have all died."
    Melsinon opened his eyes reluctantly. He had been 
running over, in his mind, one of the treatises on the 
symbols of the Goddess that Charlya had assigned him, and 
he thought he had grasped a different kind of significance 
to the White Owl that he hadn't seen before. But mystical 
truths weren't meant for words, and the moment that he 
opened his eyes and started thinking in them again, he 
lost it.
    "What?" he asked at last, when he saw Sheyerena 
staring at him with a little smile and knew that he hadn't 
heard the last thing she had said.
    "You're in your own world."
    "It's shared with others."
    "Of course." Sheyerena didn't give him a chance to say 
anything more, instead nodding to the edge of the balcony. 
"You had flowers up here once. They've all died. Did you 
even notice?"
    "It is still winter, Sheyerena, at least in weather."
    "They would blossom for you in the midst of winter," 
she said quietly, eyes on his face, though her head traced 
the rail of the balcony as if she was caressing the petals 
of the absent blooms. "Do you remember, Melsinon? There 
was one evening- oh, it must have been twenty years ago 
now- where it was winter, snow on the ground, stars 
overhead, and starflowers growing in riots over the 
railing. Everytime you shifted, they tried to crowd a 
little closer to you."
    "I remember." He really didn't have any choice, with 
her looking at him that way. It wasn't the flowers or the 
chill of the air she meant to recreate in her words. It 
was what had happened afterwards. He knew it, and she knew 
it, and she knew he knew it. 
    "What happened?" she asked, staring at him as if she 
could make him say more.
    "I shifted allegiances." Melsinon shifted in his 
chair, bracing himself. He hadn't wanted this meal to turn 
into another confrontation, but it seemed they were going 
to have another one, their heads crashing together like 
the heads of two stags matched in strength and length of 
antler. "I have told you this, Sheyerena. I've made my 
choice. I sold the last of my family's land today. It was 
time. The earth might miss me for a little while, but it 
will take new masters. I no longer have the power or the 
right to command it, and that's why flowers aren't growing 
for me as they used to do."
    "Why?" Sheyerena's voice was as calm as still water, 
Her eyes didn't stir, either, didn't move from his face.
    "I just told you-"
    "No, Melsinon. That wasn't an explanation- at least, 
not an explanation of the kind I want to hear. What could 
possibly be worth turning your back on your heritage, as 
high blood and as land Elwen, to become what you're 
becoming?"
    "I know the answer that you want to hear," he said, 
glaring at her.
    "Do you?" Her voice was low and amused now, the 
intensity lost. Her hand didn't stop smoothing back and 
forth on the sonor railing, though the metal would have 
picked up the chill of the air by now and be uncomfortable 
to the touch.
    "Yes. You want to hear that I was attacked by priests, 
or converted by force, or something of the kind, so you 
can pretend to yourself that my devotion to the Goddess 
isn't real. But I wasn't. I was Called. I felt the white 
light flare in my breast, and I knew that I had to help, 
to do something to stop the humans and the alalori from 
taking our city and our faith from us."
    "And this couldn't be accomplished through a position 
as a secular Councilmaster?"
    "No. The road for Oak is Suulta's, as it ever has 
been."
    Sheyerena leaned forward. "And what if you're wrong, 
Sinon? Don't you ever wonder about that?"
    "That is my greatest fear," he admitted.
    "Then why not step back? Why not take things a little 
more slowly?" She moved back until she was almost lounging 
on the chair, as she had once lounged on his bed. Melsinon 
looked away from her with burning ears at the memories, 
but her voice followed him. "You've barely seen eleven 
hundred years yet, Melsinon. You'll do everything that you 
want to do in the time remaining to you. Why does it have 
to be now?"
    "The Goddess has said so."
    Silence. Then, "You never mentioned that before."
    "The High Priestess told me just today that the Lady 
had revealed to her, in her prayers, that there will never 
be as good a time as now to attack Rowan and the Dedicated 
and the Council of Arcadia and rip free of their 
influence."
    "That doesn't answer the basic question, Melsinon. Why 
does it have to be this- this religion that paves the 
road? Why not use secular power? Why not free us from the 
threats that you see while still being Lord of 
Shirrindolor, and a passionate fighter as you once were, 
and my lover?" Her voice deepened, not really to a purr, 
but to the sound she would use when they had just made 
love. "As my husband?"
    Melsinon shut his eyes tightly, afraid that if he 
looked at her right now, he might yield. More than a 
decade of struggle, and still he was weak, so weak. 
"Temptation sings in such a sweet voice," he said.
    "She will sing in sweeter if you but follow me to bed 
tonight," said Sheyerena.
    Melsinon opened his eyes. Tezeran was already stepping 
in, bowing and saying, "My lady, if you would please, no 
such innuendo should be permitted near the ears of an 
acolyte, any more than profanity should."
    "Be quiet." Sheyerena didn't even look at him. "Sinon, 
this is your choice."
    She had offered him this choice before, but not for a 
while. Not in almost a year. He had thought that she had 
given up, prayed that she had found some lover. No one 
could miss someone in bed for that long without taking 
someone else to fill the ache. It was the act that 
mattered, not the lover. It had to be. Real love wasn't 
composed of bedplay alone.
    He met her eyes, and saw a force of longing in them 
that shook him. He wanted so badly to think that his 
choice to become a priest affected only him that he 
sometimes forgot that wasn't true.
    His eyes dropped from hers. "No." It was said flatly, 
but it was said.
    "Sinon." Her hand came to rest on his knee.
    "No!" He pulled away from her, breathing harshly.
    Sheyerena remained still, no expression of surprise or 
hurt on her features, her face and body both motionless. 
"You're jumpier than usual," she said. "What does that 
mean? What happened today?"
    She did deserve to know. There was the chance that 
Rowan, or whoever had really sent the archer, would send 
an assassin after her next, since she was widely seen as 
being close to him still. Melsinon reached for his glass 
of water, swallowed some, and then grimaced. He still 
missed the sweetness and the kick of wine. "Someone tried 
to kill me."
    Sheyerena sprang to her feet, her dress snapping about 
her like a lightning bolt. "What happened? Who did it? And 
how in the name of the stars can you sit here and eat and 
drink as if nothing happened?"
    "Obviously I'm not-"
    "Why didn't you tell me the moment that I walked in 
the door?" she asked then, apparently finding a reasonable 
objection to latch onto.
    Melsinon sighed. That, he didn't have an excuse for. 
"I don't know."
    Her eyes narrowed. "You meant to keep it from me, 
didn't you?"
    She sounded more hopeful than irritated, and for a 
moment he didn't know why. Then he realized she would 
probably take it as a sign that he was becoming what he 
used to be. It was the sort of thing that he once would  
have done on a regular basis, saving it to murmur in her 
ear in the middle of-
    He cut the thought off as he felt Tezeran's eyes fall 
on him. The man was an Owl Priest; in many lesser cities 
that couldn't offer the level of training that Oak could, 
he would have been Charlya's equal in rank. He could feel 
the emotions that were flowing from his charge, and he 
most definitely did not approve.
    "I didn't mean to keep it from you," he defended. "It 
went out of my head in the excitement that followed."
    Slowly, Sheyerena sat down again and reached for her 
wine. Tezeran's gaze left him, and went to the cup; 
Melsinon could feel it doing so. He didn't approve of her 
having wine at the table, or of Melsinon having wine in 
the house at all, but the Councilmaster had to keep it for 
the times when she came to him like this. He hadn't found 
a way to get rid of her yet.
    "What excitement was that?" she asked.
    "It's embarrassing."
    "That only makes me want to hear about it all the 
more, you know," she said, and the catch in her voice only 
brought up more memories that he didn't want to deal with, 
making him almost snap out his words.
    "I almost killed the man who tried to kill me. Twice. 
It wasn't pleasant, and it wasn't something I was 
particularly proud of. Can we speak of something else, 
please?"
    Sheyerena set the cup down with a clink. "There was a 
time that you would have been proud of doing something 
like that, Sinon. More, there was a time when you would 
have done something like that without asking for approval 
from anyone, much less characterizing it as 'unpleasant.'"
    Melsinon narrowed his eyes. "I've changed. Lady! What 
does it take to convince you?" He leaped to his feet and 
paced to the railing. And yes, it was the wrong thing to 
do, showing so much passion like this- it would only 
encourage Shey- and yes, he could feel Tezeran's eyes 
burning on him, and hers, and yes, he should sit back 
down. 
    But he couldn't. He was staring over the railing into 
the distance, his hands clenched on the metal, because he 
could remember the sensation of inevitability and 
happiness that had come over along with the rage, as if he 
was doing at last what he had been born to do, after a 
long leave of absence. He usually only felt like that when 
he was in the Temple or with other clerics, longing for 
the day when he could join them. The memories of what he 
had been were actively distressing to him, now.
    Or... should have been.
    He bowed his head, and then started as hands touched 
his shoulders. He thought it was Tezeran for a moment, but 
it was Shey. And she wasn't trying to seduce him, he 
realized slowly; she was only trying to make him feel 
better, as she would once have done. He sighed and 
relaxed, then said, "I don't understand why you haven't 
taken another lover."
    "Because of?" Her hands did not stop or slow.
    "Because of- what I am. What I used to be."
    She did pause at that, but then turned her head and 
said, "Priest, leave us."
    Tezeran cleared his throat. "As the Lord Melsinon has 
made clear, my- lady, his self-control is fragile. It 
needs to remain intact through his trials. I will have to 
stay here, and make sure that-"
    "Go, Tezeran." He wanted the man gone, too, suddenly, 
but not for the same reasons that Shey did. He had to see 
if he really could move beyond what he had once felt for 
her, if he could return to being her friend as he had once 
been, instead of her lover. So long as Tezeran was there, 
he would have an excuse not to give in to temptation. He 
had to make sure his own strength was adequate, for the 
times when he was a novice and didn't have a priest or 
priestess watching over his shoulder all the time.
    "My lord-"
    "Go." Melsinon unsheathed a little of his temper in 
his voice, remembering that Tezeran was one of the people 
who had stood gawping at him in the Temple. He had had 
reason to, of course, but just now, Melsinon wasn't in the 
mood to remember that. It had been a trying day. "Tell the 
High Priestess, if she asks, that I will explain the 
circumstances to her tomorrow."
    The priest moved away, his steps slow, as if he was 
glancing over his shoulder at intervals, thinking he might 
still be called back. Then he stepped into the door to the 
house, and shut the door noisily behind him.
    The moment that he did, Shey's hands were on his 
shoulders, turning him gently around. "Will you listen to 
me without interrupting, Melsinon?"
    "If you think it's best," he said quietly, gaze 
fastened on hers. They had been friends, at least for a 
few years, before they became lovers, and that was the 
look he saw in her eyes now, the emotions that radiated 
out from her now.
    "I do." She took him and pressed him firmly down in a 
seat, then took the one beside him, instead of across from 
him as she had been all evening. "There's something I want 
to say.
    "I know you think of your rage, your past, your- 
heritage, I would say, as something you have to tame and 
control, force down and manage. But I don't think that's 
all that's being forced down."
    Melsinon started to ask what it was then, but 
remembered that she had said not to interrupt. He closed 
his opening mouth, and she smiled at him and laid her hand 
on his lips for a moment. His eyes fluttered shut.
    "I think that you are forcing your true self down, 
keeping it out of sight as you might keep a wound from the 
sight of a healer until it overwhelms you with weakness." 
He could hear the grin in her voice, and again it came 
from shared memories. "You won't try to come to terms with 
it. You won't try to reconcile with it. And you won't let 
it out. You just wish it didn't exist.
    "But that's not the way to make it stop attacking you, 
Sinon. You have to face it somehow. I would suggest that 
you go back to being what you were, but I know you won't 
hear that from me."
    "Not from you or any other."
    She nodded as if she had thought of that before he 
uttered the words. "So- obviously some other solution must 
be found. Tell me, Sinon, what do you think would be 
best?"
    Melsinon snorted. "What do you think? That I go on as 
I am, of course. It's the only way that I can live, that I 
can have even a semblance of what I want. I've given up 
too much to be on this path, Shey. I'm not letting that 
sacrifice mean nothing."
    "If that's the only reason you're on this path, it's a 
poor one."
    Melsinon sighed noisily and looked away from her. 
"That's not all of it. I can't explain it. I told you that 
already. I've been Called. The ways of the Goddess aren't 
always knowable to mortals."
    "I asked you what you thought was best, Sinon, not 
what you thought the Goddess wanted."
    "My will is united to Hers now."
    "Sinon." Shey rose and came to kneel in front of him, 
her hands in his, her gaze calm and distant as the gaze of 
the Goddess images in the Temple. "Tell me what you want. 
You can't only want what She does."
    "Why not?"
    "It's not you!" She tore her hands from his suddenly 
and rose to pace. It came as a slight shock to him to 
realize that he didn't want to let her go. "Sinon, no one 
can change this suddenly. You're already suffering the 
consequences of doing so. Change back, or at least slow 
down. Allow yourself some time to decide if this is really 
what you want."
    "It isn't my decision."
    "Yes, it is."
    Melsinon sighed and closed his eyes. There it was. The 
clash of two wills, two rocks of equal hardness. He felt 
no desire now, nothing but weariness. "Leave, Shey. There 
is nothing you can do here."
    "I can't change your mind?"
    "No."
    She paced across the balcony, flung the door open, and 
stomped across the room, then down the stairs beyond. 
Melsinon put his head in his hands.
    Tezeran glided in, soft as a shadow, but the 
Councilmaster still heard him. "My lord? Would you like to 
come back to the Temple and sleep there, say your prayers 
with us this night and morrow?"
    "No." His throat and eyes burned. He forced himself to 
his feet. "I would like to be alone for a while, to 
contemplate the place the Goddess has for me in Her great 
design."
    "You won't forsake your plan of bringing Her back to 
the city?"
    Melsinon smiled bitterly, his face turned so that the 
aqua-eyed priest couldn't see it. There were some clerics 
of Suulta who cared more about his political power than 
his soul. In a way, it was a relief to know that not all 
the priests of Suulta were perfect, any more than he was.
    "No. I'm not." He started slowly down the steps from 
the balcony. "I'm not questioning that I have to do this, 
only why She chose me to do this."
    "My lord-"
    "Yes?" This sounded slightly more important, and he 
stopped and turned around.
    Tezeran gazed at him, eyes like full summer moons. His 
mouth worked as if he wanted to say something, passions 
that had been long tamed struggling under the surface 
again. "My lord," he said at last, "Goddess be with you. 
Lady guard you this night and guide you to a kind of 
peace, a kind of acceptance."
    Melsinon bowed to him, said quietly, "Lady bless you 
as well," and then turned and made his way down and into 
the night.
    Though he could no longer- or would no longer- permit 
himself to feel the surging moods, changes, shifts of the 
earth, it still comforted him to walk in the grove that 
had been planted near his home. It had been used for 
worship once, then for lumber, then for the beauty of the 
flowers the hylea trees bore. Now, though he couldn't 
reconsecrate it without the aid of trained and Found 
clerics, the Lady was as close to him here as She was in 
the Temple.
    The center of the ring of trees was a white stone 
fountain whose spring had long since dried up. Melsinon 
had knelt before it in the past and contemplated what it 
meant for mortals, mostly on assignment by Charlya. Now he 
wanted to sit on the stone bench beside it instead, an 
outburst of what he thought might be resurgent pride, but 
which he was too tired to care about.
    He dropped heavily on the bench and fixed his eyes on 
the fountain. The stone glimmered pallid in the darkness, 
cracks running through the basin and seaming the worn 
central figure. Melsinon thought it had been a gryphon 
once, though he wasn't sure why any ancestor of his would 
pay to have a creature that ate snakes, their symbol, 
carved. Now it was crumbled by wind and water and 
magestorms into a mass of stone from which only one two 
claws stuck out.
    Melsinon gazed at the statue until the feeling of 
hopelessness and desperation left him. Yes, Sheyerena was 
a stone, and no, he couldn't hope to defeat her so easily. 
But what battle was ever worth the winning that was won 
easily? he wondered.
    Platitudes, he would have said before his Call. But 
now they comforted him, soothed him, and he could see the 
truth that lay behind them, unobscured despite the tired 
way the words often sounded.
    He drew in his breath, let it out, and smiled at the 
fountain before beginning to rise to his feet.
    An arm grasped him across the throat, and he stood 
still, heart singing in his ears for the third time that 
day. He hadn't smelled or heard anyone coming up behind 
him, and that was reason enough for worry.