The Horns Of Morning
                         Prologue
              2639, Age of Song, Late Spring
    One part of him, when he heard the scream, was tempted 
to keep walking and ignore it. After all, he was supposed 
to be alone, walking in this single-Elwen procession from 
the vigil chapel to the place of his Confirmation 
ceremony. If someone decided to follow out of curiosity 
and was attacked for his trouble by someone who took the 
ceremonies and the ceremonial obligations more seriously, 
that was not Dorren's fault.
    But he was to become Heir of Goatleap, and he found 
that he couldn't turn his back on it. It had been someone 
from their lands, he was fairly certain, curious to see 
the man who would one day rule his village or farm as 
Lord. He had been coming along behind as quietly as he 
could, aware that at the Confirmation ceremony itself he 
would be standing, quite far back. He must have been so 
consumed in studying a man who, at the age of just over 
fifteen hundred years, was being made Heir very late, that 
he had forgotten to pay attention to his surroundings.
    And no one should be attacked in this part of the 
city. And, furthermore, Dorren Goatleap did not like his 
ceremony being used as an excuse for assault.
    He turned and strode down the side street from which 
the scream had come.
    This was a lightly traveled street, as advertised by 
the way the branches of the trees lining it hung down over 
the silvery cobbles. Dorren forced his way between the 
branches, half-expecting to see that the women and men 
crouched ahead of him over someone babbling on the ground 
wore the deep green and silver of his family's sworn 
protectors. 
    But they didn't, he saw as they turned to stare at 
him. They wore white robes, and, around their necks, 
pendants of white owls and oak trees.
    Dorren stopped, his hands clenched at his side and his 
eyes narrowed. They might be Oak sympathizers, of course; 
some in Rowan thought that the war between the two cities 
should end with Rowan just strengthening the worship of 
the Goddess Suulta as the Oakians had asked for in the 
first place. But they held knives, and they looked 
determined and grim...
    One of them lunged for him.
    That settled it. No one in Rowan would try to attack 
him, a scion of the high blood- even if it was the 
youngest family- and anyone who did would have used magic 
or something else deadly, not a little steel knife that 
Dorren could turn aside with a simple wrist block, and 
did.
    He then spun on one heel, hearing more of them behind 
him, and flung his hands wide. The anger blazing up in him 
ran to the ends of his fingertips and ignited. Lightning 
came snarling out and down and around them in a glittering 
net that stabbed and shone, shocking most of them into 
unconsciousness but a few into death.
    Breathing hard, Dorren turned and went over to crouch 
beside the man who lay on the ground. One look, and he 
could feel himself turn pale. The man was from the 
Goatleap lands, a Speaker of one of the villages, which 
explained why he had wanted to come himself and taken such 
a personal interest in the proceedings. And he had cut 
after cut along his ribs and chest, across the soles of 
his feet, and one that had almost slit his throat. The 
Oakians had done incredible damage in such a short time.
    Dorren did not dare run for a healer. By the time he 
did, the man would be dead from blood loss. The only thing 
he could do was try to reassure him, and ease his pain a 
little as he died. Comforting the dead was a more sacred 
obligation than trying to fetch useless help.
    The man turned his head. "My lord?"
    "Hush," said Dorren gently, taking his hand and 
squeezing it. The man couldn't or wouldn't open his eyes, 
and so left Dorren with only his voice as a tool of 
comfort. Well, he must wield it as well as possible, then. 
"I'm here. I'm unhurt."
    "I was bait," the Speaker whispered bitterly.
    "You were, but it didn't work," Dorren whispered. "I 
told you, I am unhurt, and when I can summon my father, 
and when I tell the Lady Eleriad, you will have all the 
revenge you could desire." It was poor comfort that he 
could offer someone dying in his place, but it was all 
that he could do. He was no healer himself, and the man 
was fading too fast to take comfort in anything but words.
    "Wish I could live," the man sighed.
    Dorren swallowed, closing his eyes. This was far from 
the first death that he had ever seen- he had seen death 
from the time he was three, thanks to being part of a high 
blood family in war-torn Rowan- but it was the first time 
he had ever known that someone had died in his place, 
without the ignorance of youth or duty to shield him. "I'm 
sorry," he whispered.
    "Not your fault. I should have paid attention to where 
I was going."
    Dorren sighed softly, reached out, and put his hands 
on the man's forehead. "Go in peace," he whispered. "Stars 
know that you deserve it, innocent as you are, as well as 
you have served. I will sing the Starlight Song for you 
when you are gone, and remember-"
    His breath caught. For a moment, he thought that the 
man's blood had borne some poison that had caught him. He 
felt faint and dizzy and as if strength was flooding out 
of him at a rapid rate.
    Strength was.
    It was going into the dying Speaker.
    Dorren opened his eyes as well as he could and stared 
down into the Speaker's face. His eyes were open, a 
little, and his face more peaceful. Golden light, as wild 
and fierce as the lightning but far more gentle, was 
dancing over the blood, swarming it in determination and 
closing the cuts, one after the other. The blood stopped 
flowing, and Dorren could feel the muscles and the flesh 
knitting together underneath that.
    How? He was no healer.
    Part of the answer came a moment later, in a wave of 
pain that almost tossed him into unconsciousness. He could 
feel the blades slashing into his skin as the Speaker 
might have felt them, could smell the stink of his own 
fear, could feel the despair at knowing that he was being 
used to lure the young Lord of Goatleap into following him 
and falling into the trap-
    Dorren kept his head enough to realize what was 
happening, and sublimated the despair and pain as best he 
could, returning knowledge that the man had done well and 
that Dorren was healing him to comfort him. The Speaker 
hovered between hope and fear.
    Believe, Dorren whispered in his mind. He couldn't 
keep this going much longer. He would have to have the 
man's help; feeding the Speaker from his wounded spirit 
with no help being returned would kill him sooner or 
later. Believe that I am here, healing you and not hurting 
you. Believe that your tormentors are dead or gone. 
Believe that I am what I am-
    What are you?
    A spirit-giver.
    With those simple words, the man believed, and the 
strength of his spirit came behind Dorren's and joined him 
in pushing. They firmed the link, pain flowing from the 
Speaker's wounds to Dorren, who took it into himself and 
then used his own strength to return joy and comfort and 
the easing of pain.
    It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, 
even counting saving the Lady Eleriad's life from an 
assassination attempt the day before yesterday, and the 
most exhilarating.
    He sat back at last, and opened his eyes. He felt 
weary, drained, and still shaking with the memory of fear, 
but that would pass. He knew, from other kinds of magic, 
that the spirit was more easily replenished than body or 
mind. He looked anxiously at his patient.
    The Speaker was sitting up, feeling his ragged, blood- 
stiffened tunic and staring at the silver blood that had 
spilled on the cobbles in amazement. Then he looked up at 
Dorren and said, "Will you accept my oath, my lord?"
    "I am not yet Lord of Goatleap-"
    "That does not matter."
    After making sure all the Oakians were gone, Dorren 
nodded and held out his hands. The Speaker placed his 
between them, and began.
    "I swear myself to you, my lord. I swear to you my 
sword. I swear to you my body, my heart, my mind, my 
magic, all save my soul alone..."




                        Chapter 1
               Visions of a Future Present
    "That which mages see in crystals, the prophetic in 
dreams, and the young in wine invariably comes true."
    -Land Elwen Proverb.

    He paused at the top of the small dell where the 
ceremony would be held, letting all who stood in 
attendance below see him.
    Faces craned up, pale blurs among the softly glowing 
starlamps lit as the day began to darken. Spring had 
almost reached the summer, the time of longest light, but 
wasn't there yet. He could hear the murmurs that ran among 
them as they realized that the silver on his tunic wasn't 
only the bits of it hanging from his tunic waist and 
sleeves, or the tiny bells braided in his jade-green hair. 
He ignored the murmuring, focusing his eyes on the inner 
circle of eight who stood surrounding a ninth.
    The circle he would aspire to join.
    He made his way slowly down the steps cut into the 
sides of the dell; the place had been used for centuries 
for ceremonies like this, Confirmations and weddings and 
Mournings and Namings alike. The Goatleap family didn't 
have the extensive record of some of the other high blood 
families, but it still had existed for more than twelve 
thousand years. Watching the faces turned to him now, and 
feeling the steps slip like glass under his feet, so 
pounded was the grass, Dorren was acutely reminded of 
that.
    He shrugged off the reminder. He had known what he was 
from the time his father could teach him, and he didn't 
mind or care if they looked at him as if judging him. He 
knew what he was, knew his own worth.
    Although not quite so well as he had thought.
    He shrugged off the thought of the spirit-giving, as 
well. It didn't belong here. Only one thing did.
    He lifted his head and stepped off the last stair.
    The dell was crowded in the back, but a long sweep of 
thick and luxuriant grass lay empty in front of him. 
Dorren could feel it complain at being trod on by people 
other than the Elwens who usually lived here. It calmed as 
it sensed him, though, and a few blades rose up to clasp 
and twine his boots. As he strode towards his father, it 
crushed under his steps with a deep and sweet scent that 
he thought of as the land's blessing on the proceedings.
    Yael Goatleap, his father and current Lord of 
Goatleap, stood waiting in the center of the circle, 
shifting from foot to foot. His hair was as jade-green as 
Dorren's own, but his eyes were gold to Dorren's silver. 
Though he tried not to show it, Dorren knew that it 
disturbed his father that his son was audena, showing the 
colors of his family line in his eyes and hair, something 
that hadn't happened since the Goatleap line began. It 
should have happened to him, Yael's posture said, if it 
was going to happen at all.
    Dorren halted in front of him and bowed his head a 
little. His tunic rustled around him, soft and deep green, 
because he had performed the duty that showed him fit to 
become Heir during the day. The silver on his tunic 
represented the stars that had created Elwens- and the 
blood they spilled to keep those lands, Dorren thought, as 
his folding arms crossed over the stains that made his 
tunic stiff.
    His father stared at them for a moment as if he didn't 
think the same, then shrugged and lifted his eyes to 
Dorren's, holding out his hand. "My son, who will be my 
Heir," he said, beginning the ritual, "receive now from my 
hand this gift that will help to Confirm you."
    Dorren could feel the air grow thick and tense, what 
high blood magic felt like to him. He nodded and accepted 
the armband that his father held out, taking a moment to 
admire it before he clasped it around his flesh.
    It was silver, of course, the sacred metal whose color 
was both starlight and blood. It bore a pattern that 
devolved ultimately into circles, though Dorren realized  
they were serpents and wheels of stars and snowflakes on 
the surface. He bowed to his father and clasped the 
bracelet on.
    The world changed.
    He could see shimmering lines of color radiating from 
the other men and women in the circle, reaching outwards 
from them to their own lands. Short green and silver 
threads bound his father to the earth that they stood 
upon- and him, he saw with numb wonder. The magic that 
filled his ears was no longer merely a dumb pressure, but 
a roaring song, one that he could be swept away listening 
to if he wasn't careful. The scent in his nostrils was as 
thick as the wine of dreams.
    He had been brought into the world of the high blood.
    Fighting the urge to close his eyes and inhale, he 
looked up at his father. This was the time during which he 
could say what he liked, and Yael could say what he liked, 
unbound by ritual, a little space of freedom in the middle 
of a carefully constructed ceremony over five billion 
years old.
    "It suits you," said Yael, in a murmur so no one else 
could hear, a strange light in his eyes.
    "What does?"
    "The Lordship of Goatleap."
    Dorren cocked his head. "I do not wear that mantle 
yet, my lord father.
    Yael blinked as if waking from a dream, and then shook 
his head. "Of course you don't," he said, and then, 
pausing: "I do."
    "I know."
    For a moment, they stared at each other, and Dorren 
had the obscure sense that he had disappointed his father, 
as always. He shrugged, to himself this time. He never 
knew what to say, and particularly not in a conversation 
this strange and strained.
    And then the moment was past, and he was turning to 
the first side of the high blood circle, the lady of the 
high blood who awaited him with silver eyes that did not 
quite convey the air of serene detachment she was trying 
to cultivate.
    The Lady Eleriad Deerfriend, Lady of the oldest and 
richest and most powerful high blood family as well as 
Councilmaster of Rowan, looked almost too young for both 
her duties, and was, if all the laws were applicable. But 
both her parents had been killed suddenly three years 
after she was Confirmed, and there had been no one left to 
take up the duties. And as for the Councilmastery, which 
made its choice on the basis of merit and not blood...
    There had been no one else for the position, Dorren 
believed firmly, and still believed. Whatever her youth, 
whatever the fact that she still broke down and cried when 
someone tried to kill her, whatever the difficulties 
involved in being lady of her lands and Lady of Rowan at 
the same time, she had to bear them. She was the right 
Elwen for the task.
    "My lady," he asked, inclining his head to her, "have 
you come to greet me?"
    "Yes," she said clearly, her voice strong and musical, 
more than matching in purity the sounds of the bells in 
her hair as she appeared to conjure out of thin air the 
bracelet of silver chased with white steel that was the 
Deerfriends' traditional gift. Her long white hair flowed 
smoothly down her back, and her silver eyes did not blink 
as she offered the bracelet to him from a hand clothed in 
white and silver; she was another one of the audenae. "To 
welcome you and greet you as you deserve. In the name of 
Nerlk Deerfriend, who founded my line at the command of 
the goddess Nystze; in the name of Terlin Deerfriend, who 
wrote the Starlight Song; and-" For a moment she faltered, 
and then her shoulders straightened. "In the name of Yubro 
Deerfriend, who created horses and flame elves and others, 
I welcome you."
    A murmur traveled around the circle at that, and a 
kind of soft hissing from the people beyond. The Lord 
Yubro had been Councilmaster of Rowan in his time, and had 
discovered the secret of creating life. He had created 
horses, and flame elves, and five other intelligent races, 
and then destroyed the secret behind him when he died, so 
that no one else could use or misuse it. He had brought a 
period of great peace to Rowan, and then loss of 
prosperity and devastation, and begun and ended the Age of 
Creation. His stain on the Deerfriend name was one reason 
that Eleriad had had such a difficult time getting 
accepted to the post of Councilmaster. It was a daring 
political move for her to even mention him.
    But Dorren knew it was the right one. Already rumors 
were going around that she sought to change too much, or 
not enough; that she should end the war with Oak, or do 
nothing; that she was too young, or just too stupid, to 
realize what she was doing.
    Not true! Dorren thought, holding her eyes in fierce 
pride as he clasped the armband around his other arm. Not 
true, my lady! You do know what you are doing, and need to 
keep on just as you are.
    Her eyes widened. Land Elwens could read emotions, and 
though most of them kept their emotions at least a little 
damped on a public occasion such as this, he was close 
enough and feeling strongly enough that she knew what he 
was thinking. She gave him a shaky smile that no one else 
could see, as he was standing directly in front of her.
    "Welcome to the high blood of our people," she almost 
whispered, "the greatest legacy there is." Her eyes were 
narrowed with speculation.
    Dorren nodded slightly, hoping that would give her all 
the answers she needed for the moment. "Thank you, my 
lady," he said softly. "I shall endeavor to be worthy of 
it." Then he bowed to her, clasped his hand over the 
armband, and moved on to the next pair.
    And yes, they were a pair this time, the Lady of 
Leaflaughter and her Lord Heir, her son. Fipel 
Leaflaughter stood proudly, green eyes dulled with a gloss 
that Dorren had seen in them every day of his life, and 
was not sure he knew the source of. She had been Captain 
of the City Guards of Rowan once, had been challenged for 
the position, and had lost. And too, there was some gossip 
that she had been in love with the Lord Yubro and never 
recovered from his death- but that was gossip, and Dorren 
liked facts.
    Unfortunately, he could see too many facts in the gaze 
of the young Sydordan Leaflaughter, who watched him with 
bright, eager gray eyes that held more than twice his own 
fire, as if he had been drinking the life that his mother 
should have held. He held out their Confirmation gift, a 
dagger, before Dorren had finished speaking the ritual 
words.
    "We welcome you, and greet you as you deserve," he 
blurted. "In the name of Vindia Leaflaughter, who held a 
pass against a curalli army for three days by herself; in 
the name of Toria Leaflaughter, who made allies of the 
alfari for long enough to save Rowan in the Dark 
Domination; in the name of Kirin Leaflaughter, who fought 
beside Maruss Freewind in the War of the Falling-"
    "We welcome you and greet you as you deserve," said 
his mother, glaring at him. Sydordan turned his head and 
stared at her in puzzlement as Dorren took the dagger, and 
she shook her head and looked away from him, continuing in 
an almost bored tone. "Welcome to the high blood of Rowan, 
the greatest legacy there is."
    Dorren nodded, accepted the dagger, and lightly cut 
his left wrist so that blood flowed over the white steel 
of the bracelet that Eleriad had given him. "My lady, my 
lord," he said.
    Then it was on to the Lord of Turnlong, third of the 
high blood families. The Lord Haasinon had no Heir either, 
though he was much older than Eleriad, nor even any wife. 
He didn't seem to mind it at all, and kept blandly 
insisting that he would find the right one when it was 
time for him to find her. He pressed a piece of silver 
delicately carved into a leaping mountain goat into 
Dorren's hands. Dorren thanked him, hung it from his neck 
on a chain that wound from its horns down its body, and 
turned to face the second side of the circle.
    And there were the scions of the fourth high blood 
family, the Durillos, the Lord Westgaze's eyes as distant 
and sad as Fipel's. In his case, though, the death of his 
wife had caused it. She had passed from the world of 
disease on their wedding night, with no enemies for him to 
even take vengeance on. He had refused to marry or have 
any children, and so had been forced to take his Heir from 
among his sister's children.
    His Lady Heir was his niece, Brincillay, and she 
studied Dorren coolly as she gave a sharpstone for his 
sword into his hand. Her eyes were bright and wide and 
direct, molten and burning blue. Her hair was a mixture of 
red and gold like the best of firegold. Dorren returned 
her stare steadily as he accepted the sharpstone, as he 
was never sure what to make of Brincillay. She laughed 
when she killed, and drank blood like a curalli. And yet 
she was the one who would have been Councilmaster if 
Eleriad had not existed.
    "Welcome to the high blood of our people," said 
Brincillay loudly, "the greatest legacy there is." And 
then she lowered her voice and said, "Do you suppose that 
you might speak with me later, when the ceremony is done 
and you are Confirmed, my Lord Dorren?"
    Westgaze turned his head slightly, briefly, to frown 
at his niece. The breaking of ritual was one of the few 
things that could still wake him up from his torpor, 
Dorren thought. "You're not supposed to say anything but 
the ritual words, Brincillay," he hissed.
    "You just did," she said, smiling up into his eyes 
while her own eyes held murder. "That makes us at least 
even in disgrace."
    Dorren thanked them and left them arguing, hanging the 
sharpstone from his belt, as he turned to confront the 
last pair, the Lady and Lady Heir of Lafoxbane.
    Ardovris bowed from the waist, and so did Linay, her 
daughter and Heir. Ardovris frowned at Linay as if she had 
committed some sin, though Dorren couldn't tell what, and 
then straightened and held out a raven pendant. 
    "In the name of the Lady Larelina Lafoxbane, founder 
of our line and first to name the Goddess," she said, her 
voice the sermon-trained one that carried to every corner 
of the vast dell, "in the name of Alonema, who first chose 
the gold and black as our colors, and in the name of 
Coridina, who became the avatar of Tirosina for a short 
time in order to emerge triumphant, we welcome you. 
Welcome to the high blood of our people, the greatest 
legacy there is."
    Linay looked bored, probably the greatest sin she had 
committed all evening. Her black gown, showing off the 
golden hair that she wore coiled about her head, was 
perfectly and properly cut; she nodded at Dorren in a way 
that conveyed respect and yet made it clear that she knew 
her place in the hierarchy, that she was of a high blood 
that was older than his was, if only barely. She almost 
seemed to be in rebellion, but she had no rebellion to run 
to; probably only because she didn't worship her mother's 
Goddess, Tirosina, the Lady of Torture and Pain, did 
Ardovris find fault with her.
    Dorren accepted the raven pendant, but did not put it 
on. That was a statement that said as much, in its way, as 
Eleriad's choosing to mention the Lord Yubro's name here. 
Ardovris's mouth tightened, but she bowed and said 
nothing.
    Message sent. Gesture understood. No need for more. 
Dorren wondered again why Oak wanted to destroy a society 
so restrained, so elegant, as that of the high blood of 
Rowan. Suulta, the Lady of Land Elwens and Calm and 
Dispassion, should surely be served better by such a thing 
than the war that the Oakians made.
    But that, thought Dorren wryly as he turned back to 
his father for what was the penultimate part of the 
ceremony, would be rational, and almost ten years of 
warfare had shown the High Priestess of Oak and her 
followers to be anything but that.
    His father held out a carved wooden box, opening the 
lid to show that it was full of dirt. Dorren bowed a 
little and took a step towards him, eyes narrowed, the 
threads of color blazing across his sight guiding him.
    The trick was to find the one grain of dirt mixed in 
with the others that had come from the Goatleap lands. 
That would show him bound to the earth, and able to 
recognize foreign elements, such as intruders, the instant 
he found them. Part of a high blood lord or lady's 
obligation was to guard the lands.
    Dorren's mind went back to the spirit-giving he had 
done in the side street. He wasn't sure what his father 
would call that. Necessary, of course, but he would say 
that Dorren shouldn't risk something like the safety of 
his people on miracles and accidents.
    Dorren's eyes went up and sought out his father's 
face. Yael stood, almost swaying on his feet, eyes dark 
with circles, mouth slack and trembling a little as if he 
was about to drool.
    Firmly, Dorren clamped down on his worry over the 
attempted assassination and put it away. Yael had enough 
to worry about without him mentioning that. He would bring 
up his healing gift if it became useful, of course, but 
without it...
    Yael would only worry that his Heir, finally Confirmed 
and able to begin training at last, suffered from wild 
magic. No more worries, Father, Dorren whispered in his 
mind. This, at least, I can spare you.
    After all, it wasn't as if the Speaker had died. He 
had lived, and the Oakians had scattered. It was a shame 
that they had managed to get inside the city in the first 
place, of course, but he would merely suggest that the 
Lady of Rowan tighten her attempts to secure the walls. 
After his support of her- so intense she could literally 
feel it- and his saving of her life two days ago, he felt 
sure that she would just take it as a good suggestion and 
not question him.
    He was close enough to Yael now to look into the box. 
He looked down to avoid the doubt in his father's golden 
eyes, even though he didn't need eyes to see the grain 
that belonged to him blazing like a star. He didn't want 
to see the doubt. So many tests, so many years spent to 
get to this moment, and still Yael doubted and hesitated 
and wasn't sure his son could do this.
    Prove him wrong, Dorren. Prove them all wrong- the 
people who doubt your fitness to be Heir, who doubt 
Rowan's need to continue the war, who doubt the Lady 
Eleriad as Councilmaster, who doubted the Goatleaps as a 
high blood family. Prove it. I dare you.
    His hand plunged into the box, drew out the dirt 
gently, and came up with the grain.
    Yael could feel it; his mouth did sag open this time, 
in pure relief. The others clapped and began to laugh at 
the expression on the Lord of Goatleap's face; he would 
have worn one of two, almost certainly, and this one meant 
all was well.
    Not quite done yet, though, and for a moment Dorren 
shared his father's doubt. Not done yet, and this last 
part the most important...
    A soft neigh reassured him, almost rebuked him. Heart 
singing, thumping so hard he felt weak, he turned slowly 
around.
    There it stood, delicate and lovely, a silvery horse 
with black eyes and a long curved neck like a swan's, a 
tail like a flag and a mane like a banner, stepping among 
the starlamps as if born of them. A star-horse. It stared 
at him as if it could read his destiny in his eyes.
    Maybe it could.
    Dorren put out a hand, and the star-horse came to him 
and nuzzled his palm a moment. Then it turned and knelt 
for him to mount.
    A murmur rose and fell like a wave cresting on the 
shore, rose and fell and then was still.
    Dorren smiled to himself, half fascinated and half 
terrorized. Star-horses weren't supposed to do that; 
everyone knew that. They were the sign of the favor of the 
stars, the last element in being chosen an Heir of the 
high blood, and they honored Elwens with their presence, 
not the other way around.
    The star-horse twisted its neck to glance back at him 
over its shoulders, its dark eyes impatient.
    On the other hand, the horse was hardly likely to 
consider it an honor if he was too nervous or intimidated 
to get on.
    He walked over and slid onto the silvery back. It 
stood up at once, and began to move so smoothly that he 
couldn't even feel the transition from one hoof to the 
other, something that he had felt with horses from the 
time he was a child. He twined his hands in the mane, the 
only kind of reins that someone would ever suggest putting 
on a star-horse.
    The star-horse reached the edge of the dell and 
turned, prancing slightly as if to show off its mane and 
tail as well as its rider. Dorren waited patiently, and so 
did everyone in the dell. They knew what was supposed to 
happen now. The star-horse would speed up, galloping in a 
tight circle, and then almost throw him off. When it 
stopped, it would be a sign that it had accepted him as 
Heir.
    But it didn't speed up.
    It continued to walk, steps rising and falling as 
lightly as bells. Dorren could hear the steps now, though 
he still couldn't feel them, and hoped that was a sign 
that they were walking slightly faster. It might take the 
horse some time to accept him as Heir. That would be all 
right, as long as it wound up accepting him in the end. 
After all, it had taken him more than fifteen hundred 
years to be Confirmed. It was reasonable that the stars 
would have some slight hesitation to Confirm him.
    When his father, and the land, and the people he would 
rule, and the rest of the high blood- the other elements 
that had to agree he was fit to rule- hadn't?
    A coldness began to grow in his belly, only amplified 
when his eyes fell by chance on his father's face. Yael 
was staring at him as if he wanted to turn away and didn't 
quite dare to do so, his eyes staring and staring, 
questioning, Dorren knew, the wisdom of ever doing 
something like this in the first place.
    Dorren squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. He was 
going to fail, he-
    The star-horse let out a long, soft cry like the song 
of the swan it so resembled, and rose on its hind legs, 
hooves cleaving the air.
    A shaft of starlight shot like an arrow down from the 
heart of the darkening sky- understandable, save that it 
was so fast, and so bright, and none of the stars were 
visible yet, not even Laerfren, Lord of Light and the 
brightest. The shaft struck Dorren in the heart, again 
like an arrow.
    He almost fainted.
    The world around him turned bright silver, the color 
of foam falling on diamonds with a sun hidden by clouds in 
the background. He could hear voices, voices that sounded 
almost Elwen, but singing with a high and unearthly music 
that he thought couldn't be Elwen. Just a little, and he 
hungered to hear more. 
    He had to hear more.
    The singing faded, though, and he was on the verge of 
weeping when he felt something touch his forehead. He 
opened his eyes to see a woman clad in a long silver-white 
robe, with dark eyes and long silver hair, standing in 
front of him. Her hand was stretched out, resting on his 
brow, and her eyes stared straight at him. She looked as 
if she was about to weep herself, and yet there was a 
pride in her gaze that filled the hole he had hardly 
realized his father had caused by withholding his approval 
from Dorren.
    "Oh," she whispered. "I didn't agree with this, but it 
had to be done. You will be careful, won't you? You won't 
do anything ridiculous?"
    "What- do you mean?" His tongue, his senses, were 
failing him. This had to be one of the starfolk, the 
people who had created Elwens. But what in the name of the 
stars- in the name of the gods would she be doing here?
    "You-" she started, and then glanced back over her 
shoulder as someone called out a long and complex string 
of musical notes. Her lips tightened, and she stood. "I 
have to leave."
    "No! Please, don't!"
    For a moment, she stared at him as if wondering what 
he meant, and then said, with a little shake of her head, 
"You're not dead. You're Confirmed. Isn't that what you 
most wanted?"
    For a moment, she lingered, face saddening. "I would 
have brought you into the star-halls- I wanted to- but 
they wouldn't permit it. They said that you have to stay 
in mortal form for a few years longer." Again, her hand 
caressed his forehead, as cool as the touch of the silvery 
fur of the star-horse. "I hope that you can bear it."
    "I'm- Confirmed?"
    "Yes, of course you are. Soul and blood are all we 
look at, and you have both."
    "But why did you wait so long to Confirm me? Why 
didn't the star-horse gallop?"
    "Did you think that all Confirmations had to be the 
same?" she asked, dark eyes widening. "I did think that 
you were more intelligent than that."
    Dorren was about to say that yes, of course all of 
them had to be the same, that was the point, but someone 
behind her again sang, and this time the star-woman did 
turn and hurry away.
    She called, from a great distance, "You chose this, 
you know, and we would never have let you come back, or 
Confirmed you, if we thought that you couldn't measure up 
to the task." Her voice held a loving undercurrent of 
worried pride, though. "And will you remember that they 
don't all have to be the same?"
    He started to answer, but the light and the singing 
were gone, and his mind, in trying to flee after them, met 
only darkness.
----------------------------------------------------------
    He opened his eyes slowly, and then scrambled 
backwards, breathing hard.
    Above him hung the face of a madman. Drool broke from 
the lips. The golden eyes were far too wide. He could see 
the bleeding gums, the teeth that were poised to bite him, 
the insanity that blazed and bled from every invisible 
wound in the soul-
    "Dorren!"
    Dorren blinked. That- vision- was only some weird 
contrast at seeing an Elwen face where he had expected a 
starfolk one. He didn't think that anything would ever 
appear quite right or lovely to him again, after that, but 
he could live with it. It had only been his father's face 
in the throes of shock that he had seen, not a monster's 
or a madman's.
    "I'm all right," he breathed, reaching out a hand to 
Yael. "Alive. Breathing." Confirmed? he thought, but 
didn't dare to ask.
    His father reached out, after a moment in which Dorren 
could almost see him struggling not to leave his son's 
hand hanging in the air, and clasped Dorren's fingers, 
hauling him to his feet.
    "What happened?" Dorren added, seeing that everyone in 
the high blood was standing around him, and keeping the 
curious out with the pressure of their bodies and stares 
alone. "Did I fall off the star-horse?"
    "It vanished under you," said Yael, breathing as hard 
as his son had been a few moments before, and then burst 
out, "What in the name of the stars did you think you were 
doing? We discussed this, Dorren. No tricks, no stunts, no 
attempts to make yourself look good. Just because you came 
to the Heirship late-"
    "I didn't, Father."
    Yael grunted, lips peeling back. Dorren knew that his 
father often wished he would scream and storm and fight 
just to scream and storm and fight. But that wasn't the 
way Dorren fought. 
    And right in the middle of his Confirmation ceremony 
wasn't the place for it.
    "Where's Mother?" he asked, looking around.
    That reminder of the proprieties snapped Yael's mask 
back into place. He took a step back, breathing hard 
still, and then inclined his head behind Dorren. Dorren 
turned and saw her.
    Sinonael Goatleap, who had changed her name on 
marrying into the Goatleap line because all her family had 
told her not to, stood not far away, holding a simple 
silver band in her right hand. There was an odd expression 
on her face as she stared at her son, and then she glanced 
at Yael for reassurance, something she almost never did. 
But then, she wasn't high blood by birth, Dorren realized, 
and wouldn't be as easy among them as Yael would be, being 
one of them.
    Yael nodded.
    Sinonael's poise also came back with a snap. Dorren 
wondered if they did as he did, concealing riotous and 
swift thoughts behind a calm mask, but they couldn't, he 
thought a moment later. He had seen all their masks, more 
than once, and the ones like Brincillay and Linay, who 
actually thought things, had a gleam of hidden brightness 
in their eyes that Dorren shared. He had been searching 
for it in his parents' eyes since he had learned to define 
it.
    He had never found it.
    He again sent the thoughts down into oblivion, 
matching inner mask to outer, as he faced his mother and 
bent his head a little. She put the silver collar around 
his neck, clasping it with just a small touch on his skin. 
Dorren cocked his head, looking to see what it meant to 
her, but she had her head bowed and her emotional barriers 
up, strong and thick as tar.
    She stepped back and looked up at him. "My son is Heir 
of Goatleap," she said.
    No emotion there, only the pride that would have been 
expected of her.
    Dorren bowed his head to her in turn and looked away, 
trying to decide why he was so disappointed. Except for 
the things that had almost gone wrong, this day was just 
as he had envisioned it.
    A cheer rose up and rang through those watching. The 
Confirmation was over, he realized dimly. He could move 
now, and speak words not restricted by ritual.
    He had to go back into the world.
    Sinonael turned her back on him and swept into the 
crowd coming towards her, with smile firmly in place, head 
high, and poise perfect. Dorren was the real target of the 
well-wishers, though, and he handled them in his own way, 
with deferent courtesy and all the forms that had been 
part of the high blood ceremonies for centuries beyond 
countless years.
    "My lord, thank you for the Confirmation gift..."
    "My lady of Firehair, thank you for coming..."
    "My lady of Summereyes, how pleasant to see you."
    That last had some real warmth behind it, and the 
woman he addressed, Gyra Summereyes, Captain of the City 
Guards, smiled up at him, hearing it. She didn't have the 
usual blue eyes of her family, with one blue and one gold- 
streaked amber, but she had never let that matter to her. 
She had almost ignored her high blood altogether, since 
she was not the Heir, and was of a minor high blood family 
in any case, but she wasn't averse to it on occasions like 
this, Dorren thought, with his first real amusement of the 
evening.
    "My dear Lord of Goatleap." She bowed over the hand 
that he held out to her, not shaking it but simply taking 
and then releasing it. "Or ought I not to call you that 
until your father is dead?"
    "You know very well, Captain."
    She nodded, still smiling, and then dropped the smile 
and the teasing manner as suddenly as they both had come. 
Her hand brushed the hilt of her sword. "You know, I made 
a life for myself beyond my family," she said, picking 
each word like a deer picking her way through the garden- 
wards. "You could do the same thing."
    "I could."
    Gyra tilted her head. "Then why don't you?"
    "I want to be the Lord of Goatleap."
    It was the first time that he had ever said that sort 
of thing to her, and she blinked and put a hand to her 
head. "Pardon me for feeling faint, my lord, but what 
brought this on?" she asked.
    Dorren shrugged, thinking of the Speaker's face in the 
side street as he lay dying, and then thinking of the same 
man's face as he put his hands between Dorren's and swore 
his oath. "It's complicated."
    Gyra studied him for a moment more, as if she would 
have liked to have known the story, but Brincillay Durillo 
stood behind her, and had her arms crossed. The Guard 
Captain bowed to him. "Another time, my lord. I would 
dearly like to know."
    Dorren smiled, and allowed himself an honest teasing 
comment. One could be made, he was sure, and if an excuse 
had to be made as well... well, Yael knew Gyra. Dorren 
could always say that her manner was contagious. "Another 
time, my lady. But surely you should know that, if I chose 
to follow my skills with a sword, I would become a 
mercenary, and not a Guard."
    Gyra's jaw fell open. "What?"
    "Yes," said Dorren, with a shrug that would look 
careless to anyone watching. "Why not? If I am going to 
escape, then I should want to escape everything about 
Rowan. You might as well be the city, Gyra, the way that 
you drill your soldiers."
    "Whoever told you I was a harsh taskmaster-"
    "Was completely right."
    "Tell me her name?"
    "His," Dorren corrected. "And even if I told you, you 
wouldn't be able to kill him."
    "It was Aral, wasn't it? I'll kill him, I swear it!" 
Gyra's face was now almost completely silver from the rush 
of blood. From the corner of his eye, Dorren had seen 
Brincillay drop her arms and start watching in sheerest 
fascination. He smiled even more widely and kept up his 
pursuit of the matter.
    "Kill your own brother? Surely not, my lady."
    "He was insubordinate."
    "He's your brother. He pulled your hair when you were 
children together. When you asked him to fight someone you 
knew he would lose to, you should have known that he would 
see it as revenge for all the childhood insults instead of 
a just punishment."
    "No one forced him to become a Guard."
    "No one will force me, either."
    He saw Gyra catch the message, saw her briefly blink 
and then grin as she saw the way that he had outsmarted 
her. She bowed- a bow that wasn't for the sake of ceremony 
this time- and then turned and was gone in the general 
direction of the soft silvery glow that marked the food 
tables, lit by starlamps.
    He turned back to Brincillay with a little nod. "My 
lady, you said that you wished to speak to me when the 
ceremony was done?"
    "Not here," said Brincillay, glancing about as if she 
thought the shadows hid curalli.
    "Where, then?" Dorren let himself be led by the elbow. 
Brincillay had wisely waited to approach him until all the 
remaining well-wishers were either acquaintances of hers, 
or of minor high blood families considerably lower in rank 
than the Durillos. All of them looked a little 
disgruntled, but they would either yield to her superior 
reputation as a duelist or to her superior rank.
    "Here." The Durillo Heir planted them under a tree 
that stood near the stairs Dorren had descended earlier 
that night. She folded her arms, threw back her head with 
a gulp of air, and then rocked a little on her heels, as 
if she was planting herself for a charge. Dorren, watching 
in fascination, thought she looked as if she should be 
moving even when standing still. A soul-painter would have 
used the blue of lightning for her, trying in vain to 
capture the caged motion.
    "Why here?" asked Dorren before she could continue. 
"Anyone listening can hear us just as well here as more 
out in the open."
    "Yes, but my uncle would have come up to you in a 
moment," she said.
    Dorren hissed. In the past, he had been wary of her, 
and not only because of her family's greater power over 
his; she was Confirmed Heir, and he was not. But if she 
was going to treat him like an equal, and discuss 
something she should have known he had no interest it, he 
was going to treat her like the idiot she was. 
"Brincillay, shelve the rebellion. I'm not going to join 
you in it, and you shouldn't be doing it in any case."
    Unfortunately, what he had thought would discourage 
her only made her cock her head and smile a little, as if 
she was slightly discouraged but determined to ignore her 
own emotions.
    "Oh, Dorren," she said. "If you wanted me to not 
listen to you, you should have put the second reason 
first."
    "I mean them both as strongly," insisted Dorren, even 
though he winced, knowing she was right. Brincillay had no 
patience at all with protocol and propriety and all the 
rest of what she called "boredom enough to strangle an 
elf," never mind that it was part of what defined the high 
blood and set them apart. She wouldn't have talked to him 
if he had said, first thing, that she shouldn't be doing 
this. "You have no idea how good your life is, how 
wonderful. You're the Confirmed Heir of your uncle, with 
no doubt as to his choice. You're strong and determined, 
and everyone knows that you'll make a good Lady. You have 
all the advantages-"
    "Flattery?" Her hand was on the hilt of her sword, and 
not in the casual, attention-getting brush that Gyra had 
used, either. She looked almost ready to snarl at him, as 
she would, he knew. Brincillay Durillo killed as readily 
for flattery as well as for insult.
    "No," he snapped. "You should know me better than 
that. Stars!" His palms began to smoke with the force of 
his anger, rage transmuted to magic rising to the surface, 
and he had to stop and take a deep breath. If he attacked 
another Heir in the aftermath of his own Confirmation 
ceremony, his father would likely die of shame. "I have no 
wish to flatter you, or insult you either. I just don't 
want to hear it. It's boring."
    Her smile was sharp as the blade would have been, but 
at least she took her hand from the sword. Whatever she 
was going to say could not possibly be as bad as her 
drawing on him, Dorren thought.
    He would have to remind himself later that he didn't 
have futuresight.
    "Not one quarter as boring as waiting around for the 
incompetent ruler in line ahead of you, the one who holds 
the lands and the power and never does anything with them, 
to die."
    Dorren gaped at her, the chill that had come with the 
slow walk of the star-horse blooming in his belly again. 
No, this was worse. Brincillay stood there and looked at 
him as if expecting him to understand. 
    Anyone near enough to feel her rage and see that look, 
and not feel his own fear, would think...
    That woke rage, at last, the kind of rage that a 
breach of the proprieties never would in him, despite his 
father's hours of training. She was using him, just as the 
assassins had tried to use the Speaker to lure Dorren in 
to his death. This couldn't be borne.
    His hand went out, and snapped open, fingers crooked 
like the petals of a sunswallower. Brincillay looked from 
his eyes to his hand, and her face went pale, silver blood 
draining from her cheeks and removing the faint flush of 
life and power.
    Dorren snarled in his throat, a sound without words, a 
threat made all the more powerful by their absence. His 
fingers twitched, and small coils of lightning and smoke 
rose and raced around his wrist. Brincillay stared as 
though hypnotized. No one would deny that she was the best 
duelist in Rowan, at least among those who regularly 
fought duels- but Dorren was more powerful than she was in 
magic. It was a dominance that he didn't usually bother to 
exert. She knew it, he knew it, and why press it? But 
now...
    Well, ritual might not always have power, especially 
to those who had been forced to live with it most of their 
lives, like him and Brincillay. But that didn't mean that 
gestures didn't have their use.
    "Hear me." His voice ground. His fingers started to 
grind inward with the deepening of the words. "If you ever 
suggest that I would like to see my father die, that I 
would like to be Lord of Goatleap, that I should 
understand because you are impatient for the Lord Westgaze 
to die after a mere three hundred years of the 
Heirship..." His fingers had met his palm now, and he 
closed them convulsively. His nails pierced the skin, and 
silver blood ran down in slow, shining rills that burned 
him. He didn't care. Brincillay's eyes were fixed in sick 
fascination on the glinting trails and his closed fist, as 
he had wanted.
    "Do you understand me?" he whispered.
    She looked up at him, and damn it, there was a light 
in his eyes that said she only really understood how 
strong he was, and so how much she wanted to have him for 
an ally. But she gave a spasmodic nod under the influence 
of the light in his eyes.
    Dorren turned his back, and stalked away. To think 
that he had come within an inch of attacking her, to think 
that she would have made him attack her, to think that she 
believed him capable of attacking his father, all made him 
want to scream in sick, bewildered frustration. He had 
done something to encourage her, to make her believe this, 
guilt accused him. She never would have come to this 
conclusion on her own.
    Except that he knew she was all too capable of coming 
to this conclusion on her own.
    He closed his eyes and stopped for a moment, hoping no 
one would come up to him until he had the rage under 
control. He might lash out in the state he was in, and 
that wouldn't be a good thing.
    "My lord?"
    Of course, the other course was just to startle him so 
much that he didn't have the time to think of striking 
out. His breath blew out in a snort, and he looked up to 
see the cool, quiet silver eyes of the Lady of Deerfriend 
watching him. 
    She reached out and turned up his left palm, the one 
he had clenched his fingers into in an effort to make 
Brincillay understand. "You were rather clumsy with the 
dagger that the Leaflaughters gave you," she said with 
quiet curiosity.
    Dorren drew his breath in relief. She knew it wasn't 
true, but she was giving him an out. He started to reply, 
continuing the lie-
    And felt, more than saw, her eyes upon him.
    He let his breath out in shame. It was a test, and he 
had almost failed it. He closed his eyes and did his best 
to breathe normally.
    "My Lord Dorren?"
    She was the mildest and best of ladies, the best 
Councilmaster that Rowan could have. She almost never 
threw her power around obviously. But she never ceased 
testing, either. She wanted the best around her, and the 
only way to make sure that she had them was to constantly 
challenge those who might have thought they had already 
proved themselves to her.
    "Yes, my lady?" he whispered, when he couldn't think 
of anything to say.
    "Tell me how you cut your hand."
    She was still holding his wrist. Another test. Dorren 
mastered the nervousness he felt at such an intimate 
gesture from a woman younger than himself, and opened his 
eyes to smile at her.
    "A... demonstration... to the Lady Brincillay. We had 
a disagreement."
    "Really."
    "Yes. Over a change of title."
    Eleriad tilted her head, and nodded, eyes grave and 
attentive. "I have had those in my time." Dorren nodded; 
there had been an uproar when she became the Lady of 
Deerfriend so young, and then twice that when she became 
Councilmaster, both because of her youth and because the 
Council had all but sworn that no Deerfriend would hold 
the seat again, after Yubro. "What or whose was this one 
about, then?"
    "Hers. Mine. Hers in truth, but with her wanting the 
problem to become mine." Dorren closed his eyes and 
released the last of his anger in a quiet, pent-up sigh.
    "She wanted the conflict to spread to you?"
    Dorren nodded. He was a little surprised that she was 
so quick, but then, she was the Lady of the Council of the 
High Blood as well, insofar as that was possible when they 
were all supposed to be equals, and would know about such 
things at least as well as she knew the strengths and 
failings of the Council guards. "I declined the 
invitation, my lady."
    "Yes. With blood," she said, staring at his hand. Then 
she reached into a pocket of the formal gown she wore and 
pulled out a small packet of purple petals bound with 
silver sap. "Put this on your hand."
    "My lady! Your own healingbloom?"
    She looked up at him as she pressed the flowers into 
his hand, saying, "Think of it as the healingbloom that I 
don't need, since the wounds that might have been bound 
with it ceased to exist before they could be born."
    He knew that she was speaking about his saving of her 
life, the duty that had proved him fit to be Heir. He 
bowed to her, and held the bow for a long moment as he 
fitted the leaves to his left hand with his right. The sap 
sank into the blood, cooling the open, fiery ache of the 
wound, and he sighed in relief.
    "Tell me, my Lord Dorren," said Eleriad, taking his 
arm and turning him towards the food tables. A few other 
people saw him and started to come towards him, then 
backed off with bows that were not all in deference to 
him. They wouldn't approach him while he was with Eleriad 
any more than they would for Brincillay, though for 
different reasons. "Would you have fetched healingbloom 
for the wound at some point tonight, before the pain grew 
unbearable?"
    "Blood clots before pain grows unbearable, my lady. At 
least, it has always been so for me."
    "That is- a strange attitude, my lord."
    Her voice was cool, giving no clues, no hints, to 
behavior, and he knew that she had perfected her emotional 
barriers before she became Councilmaster. He didn't know 
if she would approve of his attitude because of the 
strength it indicated, or if she would think of it as 
stupidity. It would depend on her, and he didn't know her 
thoughts on the matter. He could only respond as Dorren, 
Heir of Goatleap, would.
    "It is, my lady. I suppose that I wasn't thinking. I 
would have done something about the pain in battle, but 
here..." He shrugged. "What could threaten me here? And it 
seemed like just punishment for losing my temper."
    "Did you think of all this while you were leaving the 
wound open?"
    "No. After."
    She swung to look at him, her laugh low and delighted. 
He could see people start at the sound and turn their 
heads to seek the source. It was so rare that they didn't 
recognize it, and so sweet that they were compelled to 
try. He himself had heard her laugh like that only once 
before this, just after he had shoved her out of the path 
of the Oakian's blade and she had looked down into his 
face and seen who had done it. 
    "My lord," she said, "you were wrong about one thing."
    "Which was?"
    "Something can threaten you here." She tilted her head 
to his hand. "Something did. It is worth considering what 
gave you the pain in the first place, not only why the 
pain is trivial."
    She was giving him a valuable lesson, and he knew it. 
But for all that, he could see the gleam in her eyes, and 
knew that she was still delighted with him. 
    Why?
    It was her duty (self-appointed, he thought at times) 
to watch over the high blood and see hope for the future 
where it sprang, of course. Hope for the future, she spoke 
of almost constantly in her speeches to the Council. But 
to see her looking at him as if she had found some of that 
hope in him...
    It was odd. He hoped that it didn't spring just from 
his having saved her life, both for her sake and his own. 
He wanted to be a source of help and hope for Rowan's 
future, but if he wasn't, and she continued to see him so, 
then she was only blinding herself with emotion that 
shouldn't last.
    "My lady?" he said.
    "Yes?" Her head was still tilted, her eyes studying 
him, her mouth bearing a smile tugging at the corner.
    "Someone comes to meet you." It was clumsy, yes, not 
at all what his father would expect of him, but he had to 
do- something. The stare was too open. Any moment now 
someone would begin to think that it wasn't political 
estimation at all, but estimation of a more personal kind. 
And that would be disastrous, for her and him and the 
whole of Rowan.
    Eleriad turned, and a look of annoyance flashed across 
her face more openly than he had ever seen it do. "I did 
hope that he might stay away."
    "My lady?" Dorren almost choked, desperate to remind 
her that he was here. He shouldn't be privy to the kinds 
of things that she was so freely showing him. He was too 
low in the hierarchy of- everything- magic, and blood, and 
personal reputation, and position, and age- for her to be 
doing this. And the only other reason that she might have 
had for revealing this to him, that of intimacy, was never 
going to happen, either.
    "I see him the rest of the day," said Eleriad, 
blithely continuing the course that could get both of 
them, and Rowan, in trouble. Dorren had never known her to 
be so careless of her city before. He ran a hand through 
his hair and tried to control his breathing. The Lady 
glanced up at him in puzzlement. "What is it, my Lord? Are 
you feeling faint?"
    "The air on the heights is rarefied, my lady."
    She caught on, but all she did was narrow her eyes and 
turn to face the one bowing to her with a taut little 
twitch of her shoulders. "My lord," she said coolly. "I 
will greet you, but please have more sense than to expect 
me to be glad to see you."
    "I would not dream of it, my lady," said Isson 
Lafoxbane, as he bowed to her. He turned and included 
Dorren in the gesture. "My lord. You are to be 
congratulated. It is no small thing, to have achieved the 
Heirship of a family as distinguished as the Goatleaps."
    Dorren frowned. Now he had to try to figure out what 
that meant, given that Isson's family was above his in the 
hierarchy of the high blood.
    It could be mockery, because of that. Or it could be 
personal envy, because Ardovris, his sister, and not 
Isson, had become Heir and then ruler of the Lafoxbane 
lands. Or it could mean something else altogether. 
Sometimes Dorren thought that Isson's identities as 
Lafoxbane and Isson were, both of them, subordinate to his 
identity as Rowan's master torturer and justice master.
    Isson smiled blandly at him. For all Dorren knew, the 
man might have a psychic assaulter nearby, reading his 
thoughts and telling the justice master all his feelings 
right this moment.
    Good.
    Dorren heroically resisted the temptation to narrow 
his eyes and focus his thoughts to a concentrated blast, 
and listened instead to the conversation between Eleriad 
and Isson. Neither of them invited him to leave, and so he 
stayed. 
    It was a conversation that he thought could not have 
happened between Rowan's Councilmaster and painmaster, two 
legs of the tripod, along with Gyra, Captain of the 
Guards, who ruled the city. It didn't fit what he knew of 
them, as people or as posts.
    Isson started things off by smiling benevolently, but 
it was Eleriad who spoke first. "What do you want, Isson?" 
Her eyes were narrow enough to be delivering all sorts of 
thoughts, and Isson winced as if he was on the receiving 
end of them.
    "To speak with you about the evidence that I found 
today that-"
    "No."
    Isson rocked on his heels, blinking. Dorren stared at 
the Lady, who now looked the picture of a prideful woman 
of the high blood, determined to enjoy a ritual of their 
people for ritual's sake, and determined not to listen to 
all this sordid political talk that destroyed the beauty 
of the occasion. He was virtually sure that she had not 
stopped because he was there. She would have sent him 
away- could have done it with a look- if Isson's 
information was too sensitive to discuss.
    She just didn't want to listen to it.
    Isson's golden eyes were narrowed, calculating. His 
shimmering silvery hair glowed in the light of the 
starlamps with shifting shadows, the only sign that he was 
imperceptibly bracing himself. "My lady, you cannot give 
up being the Councilmaster of Rowan, not for a moment." 
The words were laden with something that only her position 
and his respect for her, Dorren thought, kept from being a 
threat.
    "Why not?" asked Eleriad, her silver eyes alight and 
cold, and her mouth half-curved in an enchanting smile 
that would have had people running to her even as it froze 
them. "Tonight, I am a lady of the high blood. Why can I 
not enjoy it?"
    It could have been a child's plaint. It wasn't. Again, 
Dorren felt the fierce surge of admiration and loyalty 
that he had when facing her in the Confirmation circle. 
You are the Lady of Rowan, he said in his mind. You are 
Rowan. Do it. Show them.
    "You are both, of course," said Isson, after a pause. 
"But you knew when you became Councilmaster that you would 
have to balance both souls. I understand that there are 
times when it is very difficult-"
    "How could you understand?"
    Isson's face went white to the lips. Dorren resisted 
the urge to shout aloud in laughter. Without even trying, 
she had hit his most vulnerable place. He was as sensitive 
about his loss of the Heirship as Fipel Leaflaughter was 
about the loss of her Guard Captaincy.
    And he couldn't complain about it, anymore than Fipel 
could complain about her ousting. The high blood magic had 
judged and rejected him.
    And Eleriad seemed to embody that magic just then, 
eying him with something not so much scorn as absolute 
certainty of her place in the world, and his place below 
her in all ways.
    Isson bowed, without taking his eyes off the Lady. "I 
am sorry to have troubled you, Lady of Deerfriend," he 
said, emphasizing the last words.
    Eleriad took the words without flinching, as if they 
weren't an insult- which she wouldn't see them as, Dorren 
realized, not if she had dared to mention Yubro's name 
tonight. "I pardon you, my lord. Go now."
    He went.
    Eleriad shook her head, and for a moment her eyes 
shimmered as if she was flickering between the women she 
was. When she turned and looked up at Dorren, the look of 
secret delight was in her eyes once more. "My lord, will 
you dine with me?"
    "Too great an honor-"
    "No, my lord, it's not," she said. "I want to 
monopolize your time now. They can have you when I'm done, 
I promise."
    He had meant it the other way around, but she wouldn't 
listen, pulling him after her on the way to the tables. On 
the way there, Dorren caught his father's eye, and flushed 
a little.
    Yes, two women of the high blood had towed him around 
tonight, one a Lady and one an Heir. There would be an 
accounting later.
    Eleriad arrived at the tables, and spent a moment 
staring as if in silent admiration. As she gently lifted a 
piece of fish to her mouth, she said out of the corner of 
said mouth to Dorren, "My lord, you do not aspire to 
replace your father?
    Dorren choked again. One of the reasons that he had 
spoken so convolutedly was the reason that any Elwen did 
so, so that the unpleasant things didn't have to be said 
aloud.
    And the way that she had phrased this...
    Another test, Dorren thought grimly. He was starting 
to wonder if he wanted to serve her after all. Rowan in 
the person of her, certainly, but he hadn't thought that 
she would heap this many tests on him all at once. He 
answered carefully.
    "I aspire to become the Lord of Goatleap, my lady."
    She turned to look at him, the piece of fish still in 
place in her mouth- just to see how he would react, he 
knew, and couldn't help staring anyway. She grinned smugly 
at him and closed her mouth for a moment to chew before 
saying, "Surely that would be the same thing as replacing 
your father."
    Dorren tried to number, in his mind, the people 
probably listening to this conversation right now, and 
couldn't even count. There would be people all over the 
lawn interested in it, from the Speaker sworn to him now 
on up. "I can't replace him, my lady. No one could ever 
replace Yael Goatleap. I hope that I may rule as well, in 
my time, but it will be differently. I couldn't hope to be 
the same."
    For a moment, Eleriad blinked, and then her eyes 
widened and she gave a low laugh. "My lord, you would make 
a very good diplomat."
    What? he thought, but he didn't say it. It was 
probably obvious from his face, anyway, for the way she 
smiled at him as she picked up yet another small, tender 
morsel of River fish.
    "Do you consider yourself-"
    "My lord. Forgive me, but I couldn't wait any longer."
    Dorren started, and turned his head. He hadn't felt or 
heard the man approach, though he should have, given that 
the Speaker was sworn to him. The Lady of Deerfriend 
tended to make one forget everything else, though.
    He told himself to remember that, and to remember it 
very carefully.
    The man bowed to Dorren, then to Eleriad. "My lady," 
he said, voice studied so that he wouldn't appear 
overawed. Dorren could see him debating the impulse to 
kneel, and deciding to content himself with bowing, which 
he did. "I would like to say something, and I would like 
to say it in your presence, as well as that of my lord."
    Eleriad blinked, face gone enigmatic again. "And what 
is your name?"
    "Torat," he said, and bowed again. He paused a moment, 
but when she said nothing about his lack of a surname and 
only nodded to him, he went on, staring Dorren in the eye. 
"My lord, there was another reason that I came to the 
city, beyond the- ceremony."
    "You wanted to judge my worthiness to rule you 
someday," said Dorren with a slight nod.
    Torat's eyes widened, and then he said, "Well, my 
lord- more even than that, really."
    "A moment," said Eleriad. "When you address Dorren as 
'my lord'- what do you mean by that?"
    "I am oathsworn to him."
    Eleriad's brows went up, and she glanced over to 
Dorren, who was hissing steadily under his breath. She 
would think that he was intent on climbing the ladder and 
taking the Lordship of Goatleap early after all, just as 
Brincillay would with the Heirship of Durillo if she 
wasn't stopped.
    Then you'll just have to show her that you aren't, he 
thought. You know you aren't. That will have to be enough. 
It should be enough, if she can see as clearly as she 
pretends to see- if she can see something that isn't the 
result of one of her tests.
    "Yes," he said. "Torat is oathsworn to me."
    The skeptical look melted back into the cool, judging 
stare again- and for whatever reason, he thought he saw 
more of the Councilmaster mixed into it, and less of the 
lady of the high blood.
    So be it. If she was politically interested in him, 
then his duty was to meet that interest and show her he 
was loyal.
    "What is it?" he asked the man gently, keeping his 
voice low but not so low that it would imply fear or 
hesitance to listen.
    Torat closed his eyes, and for a moment, Dorren saw 
tears glistening under the lids. He almost forgot Eleriad 
then. This was something different, he thought, something 
to do with the Goatleap lands that he was now partially 
responsible for. He knelt and took the Speaker's hands 
between his own.
    "Take your time," he whispered.
    "Thank you," Torat whispered back. After a moment, he 
opened determined green eyes and went on. "I longed to 
speak with your father about it, but when I arrived and 
saw him- well, forgive me, my lord, but I couldn't do it."
    Dorren felt ice in his belly for the third time that 
evening, and the third time on account of his father. He 
swallowed. "What has happened?"
    "Is happening, my lord."
    "Very well. What is happening?" Thoughts dashed 
through his head- crop failure, disease, wild animal 
attacks, Oakians on the Goatleap lands, a particularly 
difficult murder case. But Yael hadn't acted as if any of 
that was the case.
    "The Goatleap lands- at least the lands around my 
village- are dying, my lord."
    Dorren closed his eyes and swayed. Eleriad steadied 
him with a hand on his shoulder, and then knelt down 
beside him.
    "Dying," she said to Torat, the word it might have 
killed Dorren to speak just at the moment. "How are they 
dying, Torat?"
    Torat waited until Dorren opened his eyes. His own 
face looked ravaged and old, and Dorren could see tracks 
that hadn't been there on his last journey to Calinadon, 
Torat's village. It looked exactly as if some malicious 
animal had come up, scratched him, and then faded away 
again- save that the look in his eyes made it seem it was 
standing just out of sight, ready to do it again.
    "My lord," whispered the Speaker, still talking to 
Dorren even though it had been Eleriad who had spoken to 
him, "the grass withers. The trees sag as if they would 
wither where they stood, then come to life and coil 
branches around the necks of those trying to help them. 
They have already strangled three people, and nearly 
killed a dozen more. Sometimes the flowers weep a 
substance that looks like foam-"
    Dorren blinked, shook his head, and didn't hear the 
rest of the words. The voice was building a picture in his 
mind that wouldn't resolve into an image of dying land. It 
was, instead, resolving into the face of-
    Yael?
    "Torat," he said at last, interrupting, "are you sure 
that there is no natural cause for these disturbances?"
    "No!" the Speaker almost howled. "My lord, we can't be 
sure. We can feel the sickness in the land, but we can't 
feel its source. That- that is what I came to ask you to 
do." The anger was gone as suddenly as it had come, and he 
stared at Dorren, pleading, his eyes so weary that he 
might sleep for the rest of his life and never recover the 
rest he had lost. "Would you- come and look at the lands, 
and see if you can feel what is causing the sickness? 
Would you? It would be appreciated beyond the dreams of 
any Lord of Goatleap-"
    "I don't want gratitude." Dorren half-closed his eyes, 
feeling the world reassembling itself around him in a 
different pattern, one that he would have been seeing all 
the time if he had bothered to pay any attention at all. 
"I should have been doing my duty."
    Torat blinked at him. "My lord, I determined to ask 
because you were Confirmed at last, and I know that the 
Lord Yael cannot leave Rowan, consumed with all the cares 
of being Lord as he is."
    "He could leave to attend to a problem that is damn 
well his fault," Dorren whispered.
    Torat recoiled. "My lord, we have been trying to deal 
with this on our own, when we should have known to come 
for the Lord of Goatleap at once! You can hardly blame the 
Lord Yael. Only, if you would come and look at the lands 
yourself, to see-"
    "No rotting disease?" Dorren cut in crisply.
    "No. We are sure-"
    "No poison spread by enemies or wandering animals?"
    "No. Such things have come about in the past, and we 
know all the most common tricks. Our scouts haven't found 
streams fouled by any of the smells that would be released 
with poison-"
    "And no sign that the lands are turning against the 
Elwens who live on them, rejecting their attempts to tame 
the soil or raise animals?"
    "No!" said Torat, in the tone of, What do you think we 
are? His emotions swirled around him, bright and sharp and 
hot, blades that had been placed back in the forging fire 
for a little while. "My lord, we would know by now if that 
were the case, any of those things, but we don't. Yet we 
know something is wrong. That must mean that we need one 
of the Lords of Goatleap to come and look at it."
    Dorren smiled a little, grimly. For all Torat's 
seeming respect for and even love of Yael, he had thought, 
without even thinking about it, that there was more than 
one Lord of Goatleap, and it wasn't Yael he had come to, 
even though he would have had the right to, as well as, by 
now, the obligation.
    "My lord," he said, standing up himself and pulling 
Torat up along with him, "you are right to think that it 
is something dreadfully wrong."
    Torat's face relaxed in a brief smile, before it 
tensed again. "Thank you, my lord. But does that mean that 
you know what is wrong?"
    "Oh, yes," said Dorren quietly. "You saw my father 
when the forest fire came to Calinadon, I trust?" That had 
been before his birth, but Torat was one of the older 
Speakers; he should have seen Yael fighting the fire even 
if he hadn't been Speaker then.
    "Yes, of course! For every tree that burned a burn 
sprang up on his body." For a moment, Torat shuddered, his 
eyes distant and pained. "And he bore it so well. He flung 
himself back into the fire whenever the wind let the 
flames down for a moment."
    That time, Dorren thought, must have had something to 
do with the admiration that glowed in Torat's eyes when he 
spoke of his father. He hoped so. He was going to have to 
change that admiration into- something else, now, as he 
was changing his own obedience, and, selfishly, he wanted 
the company. "Then you know that a land Elwen lord or lady 
of the high blood suffers the wounds done to his or her 
land," he said. That was simplistic, but it would do for 
now.
    "Yes, of course," said Torat again.
    "Then did you also know that it also works the other 
way around? A scion of the high blood can also inflict 
suffering on the land when he or she suffers?"
    Torat opened his mouth, and stopped. "Surely not, my 
lord-" Horror flickered across his face, and not just the 
horror of someone facing an unpleasant proposition. This 
threatened the very foundation of what he had thought of 
as his life and world. "You don't think that Lord Yael is 
doing something to the lands to harm them?"
    "Do you?" asked Eleriad, delicate and low-voiced, at 
his side.
    "No, not on purpose-" Dorren drew a deep breath. Damn, 
this was going to be hard. It would seem, after he had 
tried so hard to deny it, that he wanted his father's 
power and position after all. But someone who let worries 
about what he would look like to others delay him from 
doing what was right didn't deserve to be called Elwen, 
let alone high blood.
    That he had from the lips of the Lord Yael Goatleap, 
himself.
    "I think that my Lord of Goatleap is sick, and the 
sickness is mental," said Dorren carefully. Careful, 
careful, he still had to be that, with the Speaker of one 
of the villages and a lady of the high blood listening. He 
couldn't just charge off and make his father explain 
himself, however fiercely he wanted to. He needed help, 
needed agreement. "Or emotional. And he doesn't realize 
what is happening. That would explain why he hasn't done 
anything, and hasn't sensed the land's sickness. He hasn't 
been able to sense anything past his own pain for some 
time, I would think."
    His vision of his father's face as it had been when he 
awakened flashed through his mind. He hadn't seen it as 
ugly and mad because he had just seen a starwoman of 
incomparable beauty, after all. He had seen it that way 
because Yael, on the brink of losing something that he had 
fought for most of his life, had let the mask slip and the 
real madman come out.
    Stars, what an ugly thing I saw!
    But he is still my father.
    "My lord," said Eleriad, standing back a little and 
folding her arms, "you do know what this sounds like? 
Heirs have made the same claims since before the War of 
the Falling. It is one thing if you are really worried, 
but to say that-"
    "My lady," he said, barely remembering the courtesy, 
"I don't care what it looks like to you. And it doesn't 
matter what someone thinks who 'just happens' to 'know' 
that this 'ploy' has been used before. My father is 
threatening the Goatleap lands. As Heir of Goatleap, that 
is something I am sworn to prevent."
    "What are you going to do?"
    "Challenge him. Take the rule."
    "You can't!" Their hands closed on him like vises, 
Torat's from the right and Eleriad's from the left, but 
Eleriad's voice overrode Torat's frightened babble. "Not 
without proof, without evidence-"
    "I am going to take it honorably, my lady. Working 
within the framework of the law," he promised, as she 
stared at him.
    "You can't," she said, her emotions glittering like 
water touched by sunlight. "Such a thing isn't possible. 
If you think that-"
    "Ah, my Lord Dorren."
    Dorren turned his head and met the eyes of Isson 
Lafoxbane, who bowed at him and turned his hands outwards 
in a small gesture of apology.
    "I couldn't help overhearing your thoughts. I'm sorry, 
but you must come with me now."
    "If this is some kind of revenge on him for 
overhearing our conversation-" Eleriad began, her fists 
clenching at her sides.
    Isson's eyes didn't even flicker to her. They stayed 
on Dorren. "Would it were, my lady," he murmured. "But 
that isn't it. I cannot have someone spreading rumors like 
this just now, when the political situation is so 
delicately balanced. Someone could get ideas." He made a 
little motion with his head.
    Dorren turned and marched away with them, mind clamped 
in a lock from one of the invisible psychic assaulters. 
Isson was as discreet with the arrest as he had been about 
approaching Dorren in the first place. There could be 
political implications to arresting an Heir at his 
Confirmation ceremony, after all.




                        Chapter 2
                      Set Immovable
    "With Elwens as with rock: You can only wear a hole in 
them with a long, steady, slow fall of water. Try to crack 
or drive through, and it takes an awful lot of force."
    -Attributed to Glorlinda Karesh, High Priestess of the 
Seamaiden for Toba Da To.

    Isson sat back in his chair, eyes half-closed as he 
rubbed his fingertips along the lines of his temples. "No. 
Try again."
    "I don't know what words could put it more plainly, my 
lord." Dorren, who sat chained and warded in a chair in 
front of the master torturer, stared at him and wondered 
what Isson wanted him to say. Dorren had confessed without 
torture. Was that it? he wondered. Was he spoiling the 
Lafoxbane lord's fun?
    "That is it!" Isson's hand smacked on the table in 
front of him, and then he winced; the table was metal, 
like most of the furnishings in the room. "Put it less 
plainly. Make it sound to someone reading your words, or 
your thoughts, that you aren't planning to go out and 
seize the Lordship of Goatleap."
    "I'm not."
    "Good-"
    "I am going to take it by fully legal and rational 
means, and retain it. As my father the Lord Yael is no 
longer competent to rule the people there, indeed, as his 
presence is actively polluting the crops, plants, and 
waters-"
    Isson's hand slammed down again; Dorren jumped as much 
as he could, and then cursed himself for being so easily 
startled. "No!" the justice master said, then brought his 
voice down again. He would trust the guards who stood at 
the doors, Dorren thought, but not that much. "You can't 
claim something like that."
    "I wouldn't be claiming it if it wasn't true, my 
lord," said Dorren.
    For a moment, Isson's eyes narrowed to wolf-slits of 
gold. "I believe you wouldn't, at that," he said, as if 
musing. Then he came back to himself and shook his head. 
"But that isn't the point. At this juncture, even claiming 
that you want to be Lord of Goatleap, that you won't be 
content to wait until the Lordship passes to you 
naturally, could be disastrous."
    "Why?"
    "Think, my lord!" Isson opened his mouth and showed 
his teeth as if he would like to lunge over the desk and 
tear Dorren's throat out. "The war, the instability among 
the Lords and Ladies and their Heirs-"
    "You've noticed that, too?"
    "Oh, yes." Isson's face lapsed into a brief and very 
sour smile. "I have two psychic assaulters watching 
Brincillay Durillo this moment, for the time when she 
finally does go mad and tries to take her Ladyship away 
from her uncle."
    "Good."
    The smile vanished, or at least soured, until it had 
no trace of humor left in it. Isson stared hard at him. 
"You would say that, when her situation has so many 
parallels to your own?"
    "Are the Durillo lands dying, my lord?"
    "No."
    "Good." Dorren relaxed. He would have hated to reverse 
himself and support Brincillay in her bid for the 
rulership of Durillo as well as himself in his own 
challenge. For one thing, she would have crowed about the 
apology he was forced to make for dances. "The Goatleap 
lands are. One weakness in one high blood family is quite 
enough, given that we are at war and our enemy must try to 
exploit any holes he can find."
    "You would only tear open more holes by rising in 
rebellion against your father, now." Isson leaned 
earnestly forward across the desk.
    "How?"
    Isson closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "Too 
many ways to explain. Eleriad's power war, the balance in 
the high blood, the complaints that my sis- the Lady 
Lafoxbane has made to me about religion..." He stared into 
space as he contemplated.
    "I let you and the Lady Eleriad and the Lady Gyra rule 
the city," said Dorren. "My task is to rule the Goatleap 
part of the city."
    "You won't rule the Goatleap part of the city until 
your father is dead," Isson said.
    "Or until the power has passed."
    "That's never happened."
    Dorren smiled. The starwoman's words echoed in his 
head. And will you remember that they don't all have to be 
the same? He had a better idea of what she had meant, now.
    "Very few ruling lords or ladies have ever sickened 
mentally or emotionally before, either," he said.
    Isson stared at him a moment more, then closed his 
eyes and shook his head, standing. "I'm going to put you 
in a cell for the night," he said.
    "What are the charges against me?" asked Dorren, as 
the wards floated him to his feet without guards being 
needed and without the chains needing to be removed. 
    "Power-seeking, stated intent. That's why it's only 
one night in the Prison."
    "If you're really going to call an attempt to protect 
my lands and people that, my Lord, you should keep me 
here." Dorren smiled at Isson again. "It will happen 
again, I assure you, and more than merely the stated 
intent of power-seeking."
    Isson bared his teeth. "It will not happen, my Lord 
Dorren," he said.
    "Why not?"
    "Your parents don't know you are here. My psychic 
assaulters are working very hard to keep it that way. If 
it does get out that you're here..." He shrugged. "I might 
be forced to reveal it."
    "You think that worries me?"
    "You were Confirmed just recently. You can be 
disinherited just as easily."
    How can anyone in the high blood misunderstand so 
completely-? Oh, yes.
    Isson wasn't in the high blood, not really. Not if all 
the rules were thought through.
    "Not only my parents Confirmed me. There was the land, 
the stars, the high blood, the people I rule- that would 
be quite a list to defeat."
    Isson stared at him again, then said, "Think about it. 
Just think about it. That's what this night in the cell is 
for."
    "I'm not going to change my mind."
    Isson gave him the smile of a man who knows that he's 
going to win because his will has never really been 
challenged, and then turned away.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Dorren curled up and put his head between his knees, 
on the off chance that it would make him too small to 
bother with. Probably not, of course, but nothing else he 
had tried had worked...
    Isson must be more angry about Dorren's intent to 
challenge his father than Dorren had thought.
    The cell he had put him in wasn't just a small room in 
the sonor flanks of the Prison, which was shaped like a 
great bear rearing on its hind legs, though it was 
certainly that. It was also a room that had been used for 
caging prisoners who had been tortured, or were about to 
be tortured, or were otherwise in honest fear for their 
lives. The stink of fear and hatred and despair clung to 
the walls, leaked out of the metal and into his shivering 
body, and seemed to earth itself in his bones. He could 
feel every whipping that had fallen here, every knife that 
had peeled skin, every drop of acid and inch of heated 
metal used, if he really wanted to.
    He didn't want to.
    I thought he wouldn't torture me, because I'm a scion 
of the high blood, and he would end up creating the same 
kind of situation that he wants to avoid, Dorren's mind 
rasped dizzily. Oh, he would torture me, that's what he 
does, his duty. Just not the way that I thought he would, 
just not in a way that's going to leave any marks so that 
anyone will get angry about it. 
    He couldn't imagine his father or his mother getting 
angry about anything involving him, now, unless he 
breached propriety in some way.
    Because there was nothing else he could do, he sank 
within himself and gave his mind something to play with, 
leaving an emotional shell to take the emotional beating 
that Isson was so intent on giving him. His thoughts 
wandered in circles, in squares, and then down straight 
paths. Would he let his father's disapproval stop him?
    No. Dorren wasn't sure when the change had begun, but 
he was fairly sure, by now, that Yael was no longer the 
man he had been for years, the Lord of Goatleap whom 
everyone had admired for his compassion and his devotion 
to duty. He was the drooling thing that Dorren had first 
seen on awakening, the only emotion that moved him now 
fear that his goals might not be achieved.
    What had happened to him? Dorren frowned 
introspectively to himself. It would be pleasant to know, 
as it would be to know approximately when the change had 
begun, even if he couldn't pinpoint the exact time. It 
would be pleasant to know, so that it didn't happen to 
him. 
    A whip falls on me, carrying poison on the end that 
will make me confess to-
    Dorren jerked himself back, breathing hard. No. He had 
never been that good at reading death-impressions. He 
wasn't going to read pain-impressions, either. He wasn't 
going to listen. He could just ignore them, and they would 
go away.
    Did you know that skin flaking away, being pulled 
away, feels like a scab being pulled away, after a while? 
Nothing you can do to stop it, so you come to think of it 
as a covering over a wound that's healed now, a covering 
you don't need anymore, so would they remove it now, 
please. You start waiting for them to come in with the 
knives. Anything, anything, to take the scab that clings 
to you, covers you-
    Taste of bile in his throat. That was what brought him 
back, the incipient fear that he would vomit and look weak 
to the guard watching him. He couldn't see the guard 
watching him, of course, but there would be one. Isson 
never left anyone alone.
    These people had died or been freed long ago, and they 
couldn't hurt him. He just had to remember that.
    But-
    I loved the pain, after a little while. I came to like 
it. I came to think of the torturer as my lover, and he 
would come to me, and I would join him in a union that no 
one else could understand, that they thought wasn't a 
union just because it was compounded and composed of pain 
and not ecstasy-
    But their emotions could.
    Dorren braced his hands on the floor, realizing at 
last that he had folded out of his crouch, and glared at 
the walls. He could feel the skin around his eyes 
stretching and pulling taut with something. Fear? Nausea? 
Horror? Rage?
    Whatever, it didn't matter, as long as he remembered 
what was him and what wasn't.
    Though they tried, the emotions of the dead- and the 
more perverse fantasies of those who might still be alive- 
couldn't take him after that. He wrestled them all away, 
mainly by keeping in his mind the picture of Torat's 
ravaged face as he spoke of the damage done to the people 
and crops of Calinadon. That kind of personal pain was 
sharper, and more vivid and immediate, than any of the 
others, so he could tell in a moment when it tried to 
change into something else.
    After a while that might have been short or long, 
sounds began to penetrate his fierce concentration. He 
turned his head to the cell door, longing for someone or 
something to come in. It could be a torturer, and he 
wouldn't care. At least it would give him something new to 
concentrate on.
    The door opened, and Isson strode in. Dorren almost 
came to his feet and ran over to embrace him, but he 
remembered who had put him here. He sat with his arms 
wrapped around himself, glaring at the justice master.
    Isson looked at him in faint surprise, then shrugged. 
He nodded over his shoulder to two of his guards, who held 
a furiously struggling third. "Bring him here."
    They did, cursing as he tried to hit or kick or bite 
them, and Dorren stared at the man they held in utter 
bewilderment.
    "Sydordan?"
    Sydordan Leaflaughter glared up at him for a moment, 
and then let his face relax. "Dorren! I didn't know you 
were on this level, or I wouldn't have wasted the effort 
coming in the gates."
    "You came- in the gates?" No one had ever attacked the 
Prison. His kind could read lies. It was taken for granted 
that the master torturer's pronouncements were just-