Quester
                         Prologue
           20,000, Age of Change, Early Spring
    Peranor could feel himself leaving his body, and 
wanted to resist.
    It was a perfectly lovely spring night, and there was 
no reason for anyone to go seeking anything else, he 
thought, as he lay on his back with his arms folded behind 
his head and stared at the stars. The stars blazed with a 
force and clarity that they normally had only on new moon 
nights, when the power of the Lords and the Lady was not 
in the sky to challenge them. Now, though, the three moons 
visible at this season- purple Rareth, aqua Takon, and 
golden Lureth- were shining in the sky without 
overclouding the stars. Of course, it helped that they 
were on the wax, not nearly full as yet.
    He could smell the thick scents of earth and grass 
from the Mezek Plains, beyond the small wall of stones 
that they had constructed. The wall wouldn't really 
prevent something from leaping over it or flying over it, 
but it would at least crumble and give them some warning 
in the form of noise, just as the fire would waver if 
something passed over it. That would give them a little 
edge, and on the Mezek Plains, every little edge was 
important.
    Irrinlirdi lay sleeping on the other side of the fire, 
her head cradled on her elbow and on the ground both, a 
position that looked uncomfortable but which she insisted 
had inspired prophetic dreams in her in the past. She had 
become more and more uncertain lately, wondering if she 
should turn back to Leecirna and try to bring about the 
changes she wanted in the city itself. In the end, so far, 
she had decided that she would go on to Esalo, and see 
what could be done to change the Defense and what she 
didn't like about it from within the heart of the Defense 
itself.
    So far.
    Peranor glanced over at her again, then sighed and 
closed his eyes. He could not deny that he would miss her 
if she went, but he would go onward- and not only because 
he had been commanded to Esalo by the Kaleina themselves. 
He would go on because there was nothing left for him in 
Leecirna anymore.
    Those kinds of thoughts were the ones trying to draw 
him away from his body.
    Stop it.
    As always, that command to the deeper parts of himself 
went ignored. There were some things that it seemed he was 
going to think about, no matter how much he might not want 
to think about them.
    This was one of them.
    He could see again the dead face of his friend Vremin, 
dead of a poison that Peranor had brought him on the 
mistaken assumption that it was a gift that would heal his 
spirit after the failure of his rebellion and the death or 
conversion of most of his followers. Peranor hadn't known 
it was poison, or that Vremin had reached a point where he 
would take poison willingly. But that didn't really excuse 
killing, did it?
    Nothing did.
    Peranor sighed and relaxed a little. He lived with 
these ghosts all the nights of his life, and perhaps it 
was fitting that they were coming back now, when they had 
almost passed out of the Mezek Plains, and a few more days 
would see them to the shores of the Sea of Cytheria. Once 
out of the Mezek, their hold would not be so strong, and 
he might forget, though that did not seem possible with 
the guilt that he was feeling now.
    He didn't want to forget, even more than he didn't 
want to remember.
    There was the meyflem who had died while Peranor 
defended the city. There was every life that he had felt 
stop beating during the rebellion. There was Nerian, she 
who had been Silverpather of Leecirna for such a short 
time, and then had taken the weapon that Vremin had 
fashioned to destroy the city into the midst of the 
Plains, hoping it would explode without destroying anyone. 
It had- except that it had taken her with it.
    And others that rushed through his mind until he could 
not stand it any longer, and turned away, back to the 
earth and his body.
    He opened his eyes again, and then frowned. He could 
not hear the crackle of the fire, nor Irrinlirdi's 
breathing or heartbeat. The only sound in this darkness 
was his own heartbeat, surging and singing and pounding 
with a sense of anguish.
    He levered himself up on one elbow and turned around.
    His breath hitched.
    It seemed that he would also have prophetic dreams 
this night.
    He was in the midst of a vast hall that spanned the 
stars, lines of crystal light arcing from the stars and 
from each other until they formed walls and floors and 
ceilings, though they had no doors. The windows looked out 
on the vastness of star-scattered space. He could almost 
smell the starlight that would be drifting through those 
windows.
    He would have thought that this was Tantelya, the 
great hall of the lords and ladies of creation, the stars 
who had fashioned his race- and all Elwen races- but the 
great diamond thrones, as well as the deep blue color of 
the Hall itself, were missing. He did not know where he 
was. He slowly rose to his feet, and stamped on the floor. 
Though it was only blackness cut into crystal bricks by 
silvery lines, it felt firm enough, and he dared to reach  
down and skate a hand over it. It quivered a little, but 
still held him. He walked a few paces forward, looking 
about him.
    Then the world around him exploded into light that was 
more than starlight or moonlight. Peranor flung a hand 
over his eyes to ward off the explosion, staring around 
the edges and trying to see anything at all against the 
intense, blinding glare.
    He couldn't see anything. If this was supposed to be a 
prophetic dream, it was short on visions.
    At last the light faded, but nothing replaced it. 
Peranor looked impatiently around, bored already. He did 
not like talk of destiny, being noticed by the gods, being 
made to do this or that. He had been inundated with it 
before he left.
    Really, the logic of destiny was circular. Everything 
was "fated" to happen. If this fate didn't happen to work 
in accordance with plans- as it had not worked in 
accordance with the rebels' plans in Leecirna, though they 
said their plan was heaven-inspired- then it meant 
something else, and it would just come together at some 
point in the future. Derella, a leader of the rebellion 
who had not given up the belief in fate, had said that the 
whole thing was a learning experience.
    Peranor snorted. Of course. The cosmos had killed off 
over three hundred people just to provide a "learning 
experience" for her. He didn't want to live in a world 
that functioned that way.
    He looked around one more time, but nothing happened, 
and he folded his arms and tilted his head.
    "I'd like to go back to my body now."
    Nothing happened.
    Peranor sighed, closed his eyes, and thought as hard 
as he could of the campfire, Irrinlirdi sprawled sleeping 
on the other side, the wall of stones, the earthly smells 
of grass and dirt...
    There was a bending and a wailing around him, as if 
the stars themselves were resisting his attempts to return 
to the world. Peranor ignored this and concentrated on the 
images, making them ever more real. His Art was illusion, 
and when he had become telepathic, he had been well-suited 
to forming things in his mind and then matching them to 
the reality of what he had just seen or even never seen.
    He could have formed a vision of the hall that would 
have made it real enough to hold him here, but he wasn't 
interested in that. He wasn't interested in forming a 
vision for himself, either. He had always practiced a 
certain distance from the world and his Art both, even as 
he longed to be more a part of the illusion. He had to 
remember what was real and what was not.
    This was only a dream.
    A final wail, and then he opened his eyes and sat up, 
to find Irrinlirdi starting out of sleep on the opposite 
side of the fire. "What did you dream about?" he asked.
    She shook her head. "Nothing. You?"
    Peranor snorted and stared into the fire. "Nothing, of 
course. What else would I dream of?"




                        Chapter 1
                       Silverclaws
    "It is almost universally known that no one survives a 
fight with a silverclaws. They are one of the more 
terrible breeds of beasts to come from the Change. The 
only accounts we have of them at all are derived from 
people they ignored as they attacked their victims. It is 
almost universally unknown why they take some victims 
while ignoring others standing only three or four feet 
away.
    "This book purports to explain some of the more 
obvious manifestations of the silverclaws myth, and the 
difference between truth and illusion..."
    -From Alustao Sonorkikesai, or The Truth of 
Silverclaws.

    Peranor shook his head. "I don't know much of anything 
about Teslin. Do you?"
    Irrinlirdi snorted gloomily and studied the town which 
loomed larger and larger- not a surprising thing given the 
rate of speed at which they flew, but very surprising 
given that it was supposed to be smaller than Leecirna. 
"Nothing," she said. "I haven't heard of anyone coming 
from there to Leecirna except for trading purposes. I know 
that it was supposedly hit hard by a drought a couple of 
years ago, but-"
    "So were we," Peranor completed for her. "And it 
didn't take us long to recover. So what does that mean for 
Teslin?"
    "Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing."
    "I think most likely nothing," said Peranor 
thoughtfully, studying the looming stone walls. "I think 
that, if they have anything like the same rulers and 
agricultural techniques that we do, then it will have 
survived unchanged."
    "That's what you want of everything."
    What? Peranor stared at her. "Where did that come 
from?"
    "That is what you want of everything," said 
Irrinlirdi, her voice the kind of tone that would have 
been appropriate when dealing with a murderer. Which they 
both were, really, internal honesty forced Peranor to 
admit. "You don't want to talk about the rebellion."
    "I have my own rituals of remembrance."
    "I do, as well! But-" And here the vicious tone 
altered, and she studied him as he had studied the city of 
Teslin. "I think that, while I am bent on accepting this 
and making it part of my life, letting it change me 
forever, you seem intent on wanting nothing to change, 
even though this means that you will have to have a vision 
of yourself as flawed forever."
    "It doesn't mean that I think of myself as flawed 
forever," he corrected her mildly. "Just flawed at this 
point in time, until I find some way to deal with this and 
accept this, as you said."
    "You refuse to accept this!"
    "No, I'm simply not accepting it in the same way that 
you're accepting it."
    Irrinlirdi tossed him a whipcrack glance and flew on 
ahead. Peranor shook his head at her back. The differences 
between them could have been rooted in anything- different 
personalities; different Arts, with her being a poet and 
him an illusionist; or simply the fact that she had been 
forced to kill many Elwens quickly and suddenly, while his 
had been splayed out over a period of time.
    He was betting on the fact that she wanted to find 
some way to change the Defense that would insure no one 
else would ever have to kill again, while he was committed 
to making sure that the Defense survived the current 
attacks. They were two goals that should not have been 
incompatible. Everyone attacking the Defense of late 
wanted to make war and change the law of life again, 
instead of the relatively changeless peace that had 
prevailed for the last twenty thousand years. But of late, 
they had been snapping at each other more and more.
    Or, one of them had been in the mood to argue and the 
other one hadn't. He had irritated her with his refusal to 
get angry; she had done the same thing to him on occasion, 
and the tentative friendship born of shared circumstance 
was disintegrating quickly.
    But it was only a temporary friendship, and if it 
broke apart in Teslin or elsewhere, he would say farewell 
to her with only temporary regret. He admired and 
respected her and, he thought, understood many of the 
things that she was trying to come to terms with; he did 
not pity her or grieve for her. He was too wound up in 
pity and grief for himself to do that.
    He shrugged his shoulders and sped his magical flight 
to catch up with her. She probably would not want to enter 
the city alone. She always believed that everyone could 
see the taint of murder that clung to her.
    She had slowed, indeed, but was hovering in the air, 
which she never did when waiting for him. She was staring 
intently at something on the ground. Peranor came up 
beside her and glanced at her. She gestured to the thing 
on the ground without removing her eyes from it, and he 
glanced down.
    And was almost sick.
    In the ground was scratched- carved, really, because 
it had been cut so deeply that no mere wind or shifting of 
dirt could obscure it- a depiction of a sword. It was 
filled with a dried gray liquid that might have fooled his 
eyes, but could not fool his nose. His people were blood- 
drinkers, and they knew blood when they smelled it.
    They especially knew vespel blood when they smelled 
it.
    "What do you think this means?" asked Irrinlirdi 
softly. She sounded nervous, and her eyes were flicking up 
to scan the horizons. Peranor did not blame her. He was 
nervous himself, but he could not remove his own gaze from 
that picture of the blood-filled sword.
    "We can't be sure," he said quietly. "Attack, 
invasion..." He sighed and spoke the word that her gaze 
speared him for not speaking at once. "Conquest."
    Irrinlirdi nodded. "We can't let what happened in 
Leecirna be repeated again."
    She took that as an article of faith, and Peranor did 
not. If nothing else, the Defense's preparing for war 
would insure that killing did happen again, in town after 
town.
    But this was still in the heart of Defense territory, 
in the land of vespels who would not make such a drawing 
and would never shed each other's blood. It had to have a 
deeper meaning than mere accident, as he had told her, but 
he had also told the truth when he said that he didn't 
know what the deeper meaning would be.
    Irrinlirdi had already decided. She was heading for 
the town of Teslin again, her eyes wide and dark and 
determined.
    Peranor flew close behind her. "Slow up a little."
    "Why? To give them the chance to kill more people?"
    "You don't know that. For all you know, the killing 
may be finished."
    "And it might not be." She glared at him. "If I can 
save one woman, one child, one man..."
    "And if you get killed yourself? What then? You have a 
chance to escape your self-hatred?"
    Her lips snapped apart, revealing the fangs, and 
Peranor had to force himself not to flinch back. He met 
her eyes and held them. She looked away after a moment and 
nodded shortly.
    "All right. We go in together."
    "Thank you."
----------------------------------------------------------
    The town of Teslin was too quiet, Peranor thought as 
they flew over it on a scouting run, but other than that 
he could not see any other way in which it was different 
than Leecirna.
    It had less temples, of course, and less grand 
buildings. Leecirna was a city in the truest sense of the 
word; Teslin was a town. The vespel rulers lived among the 
viaquia they ruled here, or at least Peranor thought since 
he could not see a Representatives' District. What they 
might do that was different or the same otherwise, he did 
not know.
    But all the buildings were neat, clean, white stone, 
the kind of stone that had once been common here until it 
was all quarried out. There were no blood-stains, and no 
more violent pictures. The streets were wide and open; 
even if they were not, flying above the city should tell 
them what was happening. Peranor could not see any 
indication that anyone was hiding. Doors and windows stood 
open to receive the spring wind from the east. He could 
not see anyone else leaning out of them, but it did not 
seem as if the inhabitants had been dragged out of their 
homes and slaughtered in the streets, even by invaders who 
cleaned up after themselves very carefully.
    It looked rather as if the people of the town had 
walked away with nothing but their clothes and some food 
to begin a life elsewhere.
    They swooped over the Pens, and could hear the low 
bellowing of hungry cattle.
    Peranor shook his head in bewilderment as he and 
Irrinlirdi separated by mutual unspoken accord, she flying 
to look at the temples while he went back for a lower 
flight over the houses. Something was wrong, he was sure 
of it; there was no reason for them to abandon their homes 
like this. But he could not find even one person, and that 
meant there had to be a reason.
    But he could not find the reason, either.
    He was circling the houses, and wondering what in the 
name of the stars he would do next, when the wind shifted 
and he caught a scent that made his stomach churn and his 
bowels shift.
    Blood.
    There was blood here after all, but he could not tell 
where it was.
    Peranor landed in a fairly broad street; despite all 
indications that no one was here but him and Irrinlirdi, 
he could not convince himself to stand in an alley and 
turn his back on a blank wall. He looked around again, and 
still saw nothing.
    He sniffed.
    The scent of blood was almost thick enough to satisfy 
the hunger he normally satisfied in the Pens.
    He shook his head to get that perverse thought out of 
his mind, and then looked around again. He found himself 
staring at the open window of one of the houses, toying 
with the idea of going inside.
    There might be traps...
    In a house? he asked himself then. Not all the world 
was at war, even if his own city had convinced itself that 
it was.
    There might be remnants of whatever had destroyed the 
people of the city, lying in wait to destroy him, another 
viaquia.
    And there might be someone hiding, some lone survivor 
of the massacre, someone terrified to come out, not 
knowing if he or she was the only person left on the face 
of the earth...
    He winced as he heard the cries of children and saw 
the crackle of flames in his memory.
    He rolled his eyes, winced and sighed, and stepped 
into the first house.
    It was empty, but neat and perfect. Someone had laid 
clothes out on a table, and there was a faint, sweet smell 
of magic such as was used to dry moisture in the air. He 
could see fruit sitting on plates, knives beside them. 
There was a loaf of bread not far away. He walked over and 
touched it.
    Not stale.
    That meant that this had not happened long ago, 
whatever it was.
    It also meant, he realized abruptly, given the food, 
that this was a vespel household. His people, besides 
blood, could only drink wine and milk and eat certain 
foods such as cheese. The bread, they might have made. The 
fruit, they would never have harvested.
    Peranor bowed his head. This had been the home of 
those who knew inner peace in their souls, who did not 
have to feast on blood to live, who lived so in tune with 
the world- though it was not theirs by birth or creation- 
that he could not imagine it...
    The crash of boots on the street outside kept him from 
sinking too far into melancholy.
    Reminding himself that he still did not know what had 
happened, and that he should not run towards the sounds of 
living beings screaming madly in joy, Peranor leaned 
against the wall and edged carefully towards the door.
    The steps grew louder and more heavily measured, and 
then they drew level with and passed the house that he hid 
in.
    They were land Elwens.
    Heartsick, Peranor watched them go. He had only ever 
seen one before, a man who had had command of terrible 
destructive magic and who had been half-mad, more than 
willing to kill him in the name of an ideal that Peranor 
did not even understand. And though he had grieved feeling 
that man die, he did not want to encounter land Elwens 
ever again if he could help it.
    And now...
    This.
    He closed his eyes and fought the temptation to burst 
out weeping. That would not help the citizens of Teslin, 
if any of them were still alive, which he was now 
beginning to doubt. He had to get out of here, convince 
Irrinlirdi that the two of them could not attack several 
thousand land Elwens, and then try to find out where the 
captives were kept, if at all.
    "Someone is here."
    The voice sounded from outside the door, and startled 
him into opening his eyes. They came from a land Elwen 
woman clad in a shimmering, silvery light that danced 
about her and seemed to center on the weapons- a sword on 
either hip- that she bore. She stood looking sharply about 
her.
    Her companions were arguing with her. "Nothing could 
have escaped," said the woman on her right, drawing a hand 
across her eyes. Peranor could see that her hand shook. 
Well, good. It should shake, if even a third of what 
Peranor was now beginning to suspect was true. "You know 
that. We made certain. We did as we were told. The Lady 
Estalchin's spell was perfect."
    The Lady Estalchin. Peranor had heard that name 
before, spoken in Leecirna. She had sold weapons to the 
rebels and encouraged them to rise up and kill the vespels 
and all Elwens who did not think as they did.
    "Listen," said the man on her left, staring at the 
silvery-lit woman as if he wanted to simply walk on 
without her but didn't quite dare. "We have other things 
to worry about. Cleaning up the rest of the buildings on 
the outskirts, for example. The Lady will be here on the 
morrow, and she said-"
    "Yes, yes, Toranan, I know!" snapped the swordswoman. 
"But something is wrong. We missed something." Her hand 
dropped to one of the glowing swords and drew it free of 
the sheath. The other woman and Toranan stepped back a 
little.
    "Be careful where you aim that thing, Kilma," said the 
other woman.
    "Shut up, Yelima." Kilma rotated the sword slowly, 
dark blue eyes narrowed and fixed on it. "She senses 
something," she said after a moment, and turned towards 
the house where Peranor was hiding. 
    Peranor backed a step, bearing his fangs in sheer 
unthinking defiance as he stared at the sword. He did not 
want to be on the receiving end of something that could 
scare soldiers as hardened as Yelima and Toranan looked to 
be, and he did not want...
    Then the belt that Kilma worse shifted, and he could 
see that she wore a white ring of small, fuzzy objects 
hanging about her waist. He stared at them, blinking, 
until he had identified them, and by then she had come 
closer to him, following the sword step by step, her eyes 
shut and her body tensed and quivering like that of a 
hound about to spring out on the track of her prey.
    They were parts of vespel spine-manes.
    That almost guaranteed that they were dead.
    Peranor did not let his grief make him less wary, or 
so he thought, but then Kilma came rushing at him, and 
there was no longer time to think.
    He sprang upwards, calling illusion on the way. It had 
been a long time since he had used his magic for anything 
other than flying, and it responded eagerly, foaming 
inside of him and then out as if it was the high tide of a 
sea called by the moons.
    He called the illusion of a mirror and placed it in 
Kilma's path. She halted, confused by it. That kind of 
thing would almost always make anyone hesitate, especially 
someone not expecting illusion. Though illusions depended 
on the caster's will and strength, not the target's belief 
as they once had, they could gain strength if whoever saw 
them believed in them.
    Kilma believed for only a moment. Then she swung the 
silvery sword.
    The illusion of the mirror shattered as if it had been 
the real thing, and in moments the tiny pieces of glass 
were disintegrating to smaller and then smaller pieces, 
scattering ever further apart from one another.
    Peranor shuddered. He still did not know what that 
sword did, but he was more determined than ever to come 
nowhere near it. He flew once around the room, in a 
circle, to try and get a look at the other sword. The 
vespels would want to know what the matched pair did, if 
it was a matched pair.
    Kilma gestured, and the other sword sprang into her 
hands. She crossed them.
    Peranor could hear an immediate howl, strong and deep- 
throated, like the howl of some beast that had been shaken 
awake from sleep and was not very happy about it. He could 
feel it shaking his bones. It was far away, but almost 
here at the same time.
    He did not wait to see it, and he did not want to see 
it.
    He swooped out the window, and circled above the city, 
calling Irrinlirdi in the tongue of his own people, which 
the land Elwens might not know, at the top of his lungs. 
The land Elwens had spoken in Vespelic. There was some 
hope they would not know Aharnahen.
    Irrinlirdi appeared, above the temples, staring at him 
inquiringly.
    Peranor rotated a hand in a circle, then pointed 
upwards. She nodded, and they both began to rise at speeds 
that they would have avoided as uncomfortable and even 
dangerous otherwise. Desperation and fear and the sheer 
need to survive made them forget such rules and almost 
speed to the moons and the stars and the setting sun, if 
that was what it would take.
    The setting sun.
    As they came out of the town and into the realm of the 
air, the light of the setting sun struck the sunset 
Elwens. Peranor cried out at the immediate burning 
sensation in his gut. It felt too much like being touched 
by the Sunset Lord, Dermand, and he had hated, and still 
hated, that feeling. He shook his head and tried to throw 
the purple and black specks dancing across his sight away 
from him.
    Irrinlirdi cried out in exaltation.
    She rose, and rose, and rose. Peranor could only watch 
her as she rose, and then soared, and then dipped and 
dived back to earth. She was going back into a situation 
that would almost certainly destroy her, part of him told 
the rest of him.
    He dived after her.
    The wind in his ears and his eyes was making him feel 
as if something was gripping the sides of his head and 
pressing down, and tears were streaming and flying from 
him, but he did not relax the pace. Irrinlirdi was still 
diving ahead of him, straight towards the place where 
Kilma stood with the swords crossed and raised in the 
middle of the street. She showed no sign of slackening, 
still howling with the insane power that the God had put 
into her.
    The land Elwen and the sunset Elwen women locked eyes 
with each other, and Peranor could almost feel the world 
chill and still around them. Kilma's companions were 
running towards her, but they would not get there fast 
enough to decide anything, as he himself would not arrive 
fast enough to help Irrinlirdi decide anything. The swords 
would destroy her, or-
    She destroyed Kilma.
    At the last moment, she flung out a hand, and a beam 
of purple light stabbed out and swept the swords aside. 
Kilma let out a cry and dropped them, the skin of her 
palms and fingertips smoking. She lowered her hands to 
stare at them.
    But that was a mistake, no matter how instinctive it 
was, because Irrinlirdi was still diving, and then she was 
there.
    Her weight knocked Kilma to the ground, as did her 
momentum, and then her head bent and her fangs locked in 
the other woman's throat. There was an immediate and messy 
spray of blood whose scent was much more present than the 
faint presence in the air. Peranor heard Toranan and 
Yelima cry out as if from very far away. His gaze was 
locked on Irrinlirdi.
    She was licking the silver blood from her lips with a 
blissful expression.
    Killing was one thing, horrible as it was. Drinking 
the blood of an Elwen was something else. Peranor was so 
horrified that for a moment he thought he would join the 
land Elwens in knocking her aside.
    But he did not. He swept over their heads, warning 
them off with a loud cry, and they recoiled. They had not 
even seen him diving, focused as they were on Irrinlirdi's 
drop and the way that she had slaughtered their companion 
like an animal.
    Peranor swept and swirled overhead, close and yet not 
close enough that they could throw a knife into him, not 
sure what to do. He could feel the burning of the God's 
power in him, begging to be used, and he did his best to 
ignore it. He would not use it. He was not going to drink 
blood, or kill anyone, or do anything that his people had 
been feared for in the ancient past.
    Not even if it might be the only way to survive. There 
were some things that no one could survive without 
becoming other than he was, and it looked as if Irrinlirdi 
had already touched one of those.
    She was on her feet and dancing back and forth between 
Kilma's body and the other land Elwens, her eyes alive 
with laughter. Her face ran with blood. She did not seem 
to feel the burning sting that it had to be giving her 
skin- Elwen blood ran hotter and faster than vespel blood- 
and she did not care about the fact that both Toranan and 
Yelima had swords out and leveled at her, while she was 
bare-handed. Her fangs and the God's wild power that 
flared about her like sunset itself in the western sky 
were all she needed. She laughed and gestured, and did not 
pay attention even to the returning stamp of many, many 
booted feet.
    Peranor heard it, and while not overly worried- he 
knew that they could escape by flying- he did not intend 
that he should have to face several thousand land Elwens, 
either. He looked down on the fight one more time, and saw 
the pair splitting to circle around Irrinlirdi, not, he 
thought, trying to pass her, but trying to make sure that 
she could not dash away on foot. She spun to face them and 
laughed again.
    Soon she would not be able to face both of them.
    Peranor dived down, wincing as he almost slammed into 
the street, and picked up the two swords that Kilma had 
dropped, handling them awkwardly, almost expecting the 
hilts to be hot in his hands.
    They were not, and the moment he touched them, the 
dull silvery glow that played about them flashed and then 
dimmed. Then it returned, pulsing in his head and hands 
like a second pulse, growing stronger with every moment, 
as if they fed off him.
    But whatever drove them, they could not gain full 
access to him, he thought. He could feel something 
reaching out, into his mind and almost into his heart, and 
then sliding off as though it had hit a glass wall. 
Perhaps it was a telepathic link, and his was not fully 
developed enough to accommodate it.
    Good.
    He yelled and crossed the swords, and the heavy 
footsteps and the sound of something coming towards them 
started up again.
    Yelima spun to face him, while Toranan continued to 
confront Irrinlirdi. Her eyes widened on seeing him, and 
she shouted in Vespelic, "Stop! Put them down!" She 
advanced towards him.
    Peranor did not want to wave the blades, and show her 
that he had no idea how to use a sword. He snarled at her 
instead. She stopped at the flash of fangs, a look of 
dread coming over her face.
    It did not help to know that even she found the 
thought of having someone else drink her blood horrible.
    "Listen to me," said Peranor, breathing lightly and 
easily. "You have until I count to nine to back away, and 
then I swear that I will try crossing them several times 
in succession." It was a wild guess, based on how steadily 
and carefully Kilma had held the pair, but it seemed that 
that would do something even more horrible. Yelima nodded 
and stepped hastily back.
    "Now call your companion off mine."
    Yelima looked over and called something in a language 
that Peranor had never heard before. Toranan hesitated, 
glancing back at her. Irrinlirdi let out a ringing call of 
triumph and darted in.
    "Irrinlirdi, no!"
    Because he was not paying attention, the power of the 
God escaped him after all, but he managed to control it 
well enough to drop a wall in front of Irrinlirdi instead 
of injuring Toranan. She snarled at him, and Peranor 
shuddered in spite of himself. There was almost nothing 
Elwen in her eyes. There was something of the bestial, and 
something even more divine, but nothing mortal.
    He kept his voice soothing. "We are leaving now." He 
lowered the swords and uncrossed them. Yelima watched him 
closely, but made no move to attack. She knew that he 
could cross them again at any time.
    "What is the meaning of this?"
    Peranor could hear more land Elwens entering the 
street behind him, but he did not turn his head to see, 
keeping his eyes on Yelima. "We are leaving now," he said, 
loudly enough for everyone to hear. "If anyone tries to 
stop us..."
    He gestured with the swords, and they backed away from 
him again. He could almost hear the breathing stop from 
behind him.
    "We can't allow you to do that," said the same voice, 
a man's voice. "I'm sorry, but we can't." It sounded 
almost helpless. "Your companion took the life of one of 
our soldiers. She has to pay for that."
    "How many did you kill here? And how long would they 
have gone unavenged if we had not come along?" Speaking 
such words was ugly and foreign to Peranor; he knew almost 
nothing about vengeance and blood-prices and all the other 
things that were part of the long-gone Age of Glory. But 
it won him a silence from the land Elwen behind him, and 
then a command.
    "Let them go."
    Peranor flew up at once, and after a moment of clawing 
at the wall, Irrinlirdi followed him. She kept staring at 
the ground as if she would have liked to go back, but 
Peranor circled below her and held himself in readiness to 
prevent that. She snarled at him again and then shot 
towards the stars, as if wanting the land Elwens to know 
that she could fly and they could not.
    Peranor looked down, once. The street and the city 
were full of land Elwens, almost all of them staring up 
and shaking their hands as if they could not believe what 
had happened. Peranor could not tell, either, but he did 
not know that he was not about to cross those swords 
again, and not about to leave them there, either. Such a 
powerful weapon- whatever it really did- should be in the 
hands of the vespels, and nowhere else. They would know 
what to do with it. They had taken charge of another 
powerful weapon that the land Elwens had created to 
destroy Leecirna, and they had promised that they would 
never use it.
    Peranor looked once towards the mess they had left 
behind, and saw Toranan kneeling beside Kilma with his 
face between his hands, Yelima behind him with her hands 
on his shoulders. The man he guessed had spoken to him 
stood near them, his arms folded and his purple eyes clear 
even from this distance. He had gold hair that gleamed in 
the light of the setting sun, as well. He looked like a 
reverse reflection of it, like a creature of the dawn, 
watching them go with large and solemn gaze.
    Peranor was almost sure that they would see that man 
again, and most likely the others as well.
    He turned his back and did his best not to think about 
it.
----------------------------------------------------------
    When the sun sank behind the horizon- a process that 
was taking it longer and longer with the advent of spring- 
Irrinlirdi finally returned to herself.
    She had been irrational for a period that might have 
been only an hour, but for Peranor was much longer, 
staring at him or the empty air with fierce eyes, now and 
then giggling madly to herself. Purple sparks danced about 
her, and now and then Peranor thought that he heard them 
singing in shrill voices. He kept his gaze on the fire and 
built it up during those times. He did not want to know 
what the sudden influx of the God's power might have done 
to her.
    Then the sun vanished, a last beam of purple light 
stroking her, and she blinked and looked at him and asked, 
"What happened?"
    "You don't remember?"
    She shook her head, then blinked again and lifted a 
hand to her face. "I feel- my mouth feels as if I drank 
blood," she said wonderingly.
    "You did." She looked at him again, and Peranor 
decided that he had no choice but to tell her. She would 
want him to, he thought. "You killed a land Elwen woman by 
tearing her throat out, and then you drank her blood to go 
with it."
    "Yes. I remember." Unlike the horrified expression 
that he had thought would overtake her, she looked dreamy 
at his words. "It was- strange. Wonderful and very 
strange. I could feel the God's power humming through me, 
and the word was different. I saw things as they fit 
within the large picture of the world. I knew what doing 
something would cause to happen, what would happen next. 
Almost an infinite pathway of choices, but not quite, 
because there are limits to everything. But now I know the 
numbers between infinity and mortality." She looked at him 
again. "Do you suppose that that is how the God- the gods- 
see the world?"
    "I wouldn't know." He broke off another stick and 
dropped it in the fire. This was almost fertile country 
now, unusual for the Mezek, and plants that had died over 
the winter were plentiful. "I didn't feel anything like 
that when the God touched me."
    "What did you feel?"
    "Nothing but a burning sensation, this time. Before, a 
sense of what immortality might be like. But not 
infinity," he said, wondering about what she had said. She 
could see all choices and their consequences, and yet she 
had chosen to kill the land Elwen woman anyway? Chosen to 
bite her throat out, to drink her blood, something his 
people had feared all their lives, at least in part 
because it was so possible, so close all the time?
    Well, perhaps what would have happened if she had not 
done so was worse.
    Perhaps.
    "I would like to feel that." Irrinlirdi stared to the 
west with a hungry expression. "Perhaps, the next time He 
touches me, He will let me feel what immortality is like."
    "I wouldn't ask, if I were you."
    "Why? Do you think that the God shows different things 
to different Elwens?"
    Peranor stopped in his task of crumbling up the wood 
and stared at her. "What do you mean? I was thinking more 
along the liens of not attracting His attention, or that 
of any of the other powers!"
    Irrinlirdi snorted. "That is your fear, not mine. That 
was the first time that I have ever been touched by divine 
power, and that was a wonderful experience."
    "Even though you had to kill?"
    "Yes," she said, serene and confident as she gazed at 
him across the fire. "I think of myself as almost a 
Bashisan now, someone who takes evil on herself so that 
the Defense can endure. I think that my transformation is 
complete. I have become what I was meant to be. Perhaps 
the God, or something else, sought out the proper way to 
make me into a Bashisan by having me kill. It was a harder 
road than it should have been, and I would certainly like 
to spare anyone else from traveling it. But it is done 
now."
    "Does that mean that you would kill again?"
    "Of course."
    "Willingly?"
    "If something that I cared about- the Defense, or 
another Elwen or vespel life- was being threatened. Of 
course. What did you expect me to say?" she added. A 
pause. "What would you say? Did you use the God's power at 
all in Teslin?"
    "To stop you."
    "Peranor!" Her voice was a mixture of chiding and 
laughter. "You could have used to do so much more. Why 
didn't you let it loose, let Him loose? I could feel so 
much in my communion with the sunlight. Not only the 
things that I told you, either. I could sense that this 
was our natural duty, our natural right."
    "To rip the throats out of other Elwens and glory in 
drinking their blood?"
    "It is right that we drink to survive," she said. "You 
must have made your peace with that, and long ago, or you 
would not have survived. From there, it is only a short 
step to using the gifts that the stars gave us- and the 
gift of divine power that Dermand grants us when His 
sunset touches the sky- to defend ourselves. What is so 
wrong with that?"
    "They are sentient. I can feel them suffer, and bleed, 
and die."
    "You can feel a cow, die. I don't see that that 
bothers you so much."
    Peranor glanced away in misery. He had no words to 
describe what he felt; he only knew that it was real and 
very true, and that he would never be comfortable with 
tearing the throat of another Elwen away to drink silvery 
blood, or dark purple.
    Or of a vespel.
    He lifted his eyes to meet Irrinlirdi's, which seemed 
to shine with starlight. "And the vespels? Do you think 
that they will encourage this, that they could accept an 
Elwen Bashisan?"
    Irrinlirdi smiled faintly. "They will have no choice. 
Peranor, you heard the Representatives before we left. 
They will go to war, and they will ask our people to fight 
in it. The whole Defense will be at war soon, and if our 
enemies are really coordinated and helping each other to 
acquire weapons- as the evidence during the rebellion 
suggested- then the Bashisani will not be enough. They are 
not numerous enough, for one thing, and the vespels have 
always distrusted them a little, thinking that a vespel 
who handles weapons is unnatural."
    "An Elwen handling weapons is unnatural."
    "No. They came and helped us to become peaceful 
because we go too far in the opposite direction. Believe 
me, Peranor. They will accept Elwen help, if only so they 
will have not to fight or spill blood themselves. They 
will have the peace they want at the expense of Elwen 
blood and gifts."
    "You sound unconcerned about that."
    "You keep making the point that we should not rebel 
against the vespels, since they have given us so much- 
peace, civilization, and Art on a level that Arcadia never 
knew before. Isn't it time that we did something to repay 
them? And what better way than by doing something that 
must be done, but which is repellent to the vespels 
themselves? We will settle the war, and then we can take 
our place among the Bashisani, and help to make sure that 
the rebellions cannot start again. Eventually, they might 
not have to train Bashisani at all. Imagine how happy that 
would make them!"
    Peranor closed his eyes. It was true that the 
Bashisani were tainted in the eyes of other vespels, and 
that the ending of Bashisani training would restore all 
vespels to the natural dignity and peaceful state they 
deserved. But he did not think that he could bring himself 
to kill, even for that reason.
    He had first-hand experience of the shattering that 
rebellion did, though. Perhaps he could advise.
    In the meantime...
    "I am going to hunt," he said, rising to his feet. "Do 
you want to come with me?"
    "No," she said, and lifted a hand to touch the dried 
silvery blood on her face. "I already ate."
    Peranor shuddered, and flew away into the darkness, 
leaving her to hum to herself and stare into the west as 
if silently worshiping the God.
----------------------------------------------------------
    He lay back and wiped the blood from his mouth, a 
little surprised at how easy it had been to catch his 
meal. The animals of the Plains were less wary than usual 
this night.
    He stared at the stars, but they were not as bright as 
they had been last night, and he doubted that they could 
have soothed him even if they had been. He was not in the 
mind to be soothed.
    What was the right thing to do?
    By the time that they reached Leecirna, he had no 
doubt that the land Elwens would already be there. The 
Representatives were preparing the people for war in any 
case, and they could use envisionings to look into the 
past for advice on war techniques, or they could ask 
Esalo. He thought that his city would meet and turn back 
the land Elwens without trouble.
    And given that they had tried once to take Leecirna 
with a rebellion and failed miserably, the land Elwens 
might think twice before they tried anything like that 
again.
    Peranor closed his eyes and did his best to let 
himself lapse into stillness, as much as an aid to memory 
as for any other reason. He did not that think that there 
were any other cities between them and the Sea of 
Cytheria, but he wanted to be sure.
    No. None.
    And as he could not communicate telepathically to any 
vespel save in the heat of the moment and in intense 
desperation and fear...
    There was no way to warn any other vespels of what was 
coming.
    He sighed, at last, and decided that what they had 
done would have to suffice. The land Elwens had again lost 
a powerful weapon, one that made even them fearful. They 
had been arguing among themselves over what to do. There 
was every sign that their Lady- the Lady that Peranor 
thought his people should fear because she was capable of 
inspiring loyalty that would make her people die for her- 
had not yet arrived. Perhaps it was safe to let it go for 
a little while, to make their way to the Sea of Cytheria 
as quickly as they could to report it to the authorities 
of Vespelstina.
    That decided, he allowed himself to wonder what had 
been done to the victims of Teslin.
    He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at the 
swords lying on the ground beside him. Uneasy as he was in 
their company, he was not about to leave them with 
Irrinlirdi, as odd as she was at the moment. She might 
well use them to do something, perhaps even call up 
something, that she would later regret. They were too 
dangerous to be entrusted to her care.
    But not his own?
    He didn't know. They were almost calling to him. He 
could almost feel it. They glowed still with their subdued 
silvery light, and their hilts seemed to twitch now and 
then, like the tails and legs of dogs caught in a restless 
dream. Peranor could not help but wonder what they were 
thinking about.
    Stop it, he told himself sternly. Swords can't think. 
And you have no reason to wonder about it. You will turn 
the swords over the moment that you reach Vespelstina, or 
throw them in the Sea if the vespels think them too 
dangerous to hold. And that is all that matters.
    He turned the other way, leaving the swords to 
exchange light with the stars.
    And that was when he heard it.
    The sounds of footfalls and breathing that he had 
heard when the swords were crossed, save that there were 
lower this time and more mortal in scale, were coming 
towards him.
    He sat up, and then came to his feet, ready to fly if 
he had to, though he had been flying all day and would 
much prefer to walk back to the camp. Nothing met his 
eyes, but he had more than half-expected that. The kind of 
predators that hunted on the Plains did not need to see 
themselves, and did not even need the right coloring to go 
unseen. Magic would do the trick.
    Because he had expected it did not make him like it 
the more, though, and he turned in a circle, biting his 
lip.
    The sounds, which had faded for a moment, surged and 
reasserted themselves again. Peranor's hands twitched, and 
he resisted the temptation to reach for the swords. They 
were probably what had brought this thing to him in the 
first place.
    Then, unusually, he did see it.
    Them, rather, for two shapes broke out of the long 
grass and in a leisurely trot towards him. He thought them 
bears for a moment, for they were about the same size, and 
caught between shadows and moonlight as they were, he 
could not see them clearly. But they moved fluidly, like 
great cats. He backed away a step, trying to get to a 
place where he could make them out.
    They took care of that themselves, stepping into a 
patch of Lureth's golden light and halting there as if 
posing.
    They had heavy, glinting silver-white coats; they did 
look rather like bears. Their legs were long and slender, 
though, looking almost as if they should not support their 
weight. They had heads with the broad foreheads and short 
muzzles of bears, but the ruffs around the thick necks and 
the glinting, intelligent eyes of wolves.
    Their eyes, their ruffs, and their teeth and claws 
when they bared and shot them simultaneously all shone 
with the furious color of molten silver.
    Peranor fought to control his fear. He was still not 
sure what they were, but he thought they might be 
silverclaws. If they had come for him, he did not stand a 
chance.
    And he did not know why. All the tales he had read had 
only described them a little and said that no one ever 
survived an attack. He did not know why no one ever 
survived an attack. He did not know what to do to defend 
himself, or if it truly was hopeless.
    They stared at him as if memorizing them- perhaps they 
told their children what their prey looked like- and then 
they came for him.
    It was not a fast run. It was almost a lope, casual 
but determined. There was a kind of horrible inevitability 
to it that said they would have him no matter what he did. 
Peranor backed away, all the horrible tales ringing in his 
mind.
    He forced himself not to think of them, and lifted 
from the ground. None of the stories had ever indicated 
that they could fly-
    They walked up off the ground, as if mounting 
invisible stairs that four legs would have no trouble 
straddling, marching steadily and tirelessly straight 
towards him. Their legs moved in tandem, and so did their 
heads, bobbing and swaying in tune with each other. They 
both bared their teeth at the same time, and something 
cold and ugly glinted in their silver eyes at the same 
time.
    Peranor swooped under them, since they did not seem 
inclined to vary their pace, and picked up the swords. He 
tossed them towards the silverclaws, thinking they might 
have come for them.
    Each silverclaws caught and crushed a blade in its 
teeth. They kept on walking towards him, metal spilling 
down their faces as blood had spilled down Irrinlirdi's. 
They were walking at an angle to the ground now, to follow 
him.
    This was ridiculous. Peranor refused to surrender 
hope. There had to be a way to get away from them. It was 
probably really very obvious, and he simply hadn't thought 
of it yet.
    He did call illusion, but the silverclaws walked 
through it as if they did not notice it. They probably 
didn't. They were still gazing at him, as they had been 
from the moment they appeared. Their silver eyes did not 
once blink or waver.
    Peranor felt the shiver of an idea spark to life in 
his mind, but before he could concentrate on it, one of 
the silverclaws- the one on the left; he could not tell if 
they were both of one sex or not- lifted its paw and 
scraped the air.
    He gasped as he felt pain and then a shallow wound 
erupt along his abdomen. The claws had caused far more 
pain than the depth of the slender slash he could feel 
when he dared to touch it should have caused. He winced as 
he felt the pull of a torn muscle, having a good idea of 
why they were named as nightmares in every tale he had 
ever heard of them.
    He lifted into the air, hurrying away from them, not 
back towards the camp. That would only lead them to 
Irrinlirdi, and she would almost certainly try to kill 
them. Filled with the God's power at sunset, she might 
have been able to do it.
    Not now, with the sun circling towards the other side 
of the world and dawn, the time when the sunset Elwens 
were weakest, nearer than the time when they were 
strongest.
    The silverclaws paced up after him, relentless, always 
the same distance behind him, even at the heights where 
his eyes streamed with tears from the wind and his lungs 
labored to provide him with air from the thin and cold 
stuff that they were finding. They gestured several times 
with their claws, and Peranor felt as if his shoulders and 
the skin along his ribs had been flayed, though the wounds 
were minor. It was horrible that they had the power to 
strike from a distance, but not even that was the truly 
terrible thing, he thought dimly.
    The terrible thing was the certainty of doom. A 
silverclaws would simply keep coming, no matter what 
someone might try to deter it.
    No. There was still one thing that he could try, a 
trick that had worked to great effect with a magical 
lightning bolt that used sight once before. He turned 
around and created two images of himself, speeding off in 
different directions.
    For a moment, the silverclaws hesitated, front paws 
hovering over the next invisible step. Just as he began to 
regain hope, however, they turned and started towards him 
once again.
    They could sense him, somehow, no matter what he did 
to throw them off.
    As he turned around and fled again, Peranor found 
himself vastly irritated that he did not know why they had 
come. It would not really make things so much better if he 
did know, of course. But he felt that if he was going to 
die, he should know the reason for it, better than simply 
as a result of silverclaws rage, and probably the swords 
that had called them.
    At least those swords would not be used to destroy 
another town.
    That was and was not comfort. Peranor felt almost as 
if he were in the midst of a dream, despite the burning in 
his eyes and muscles and the warning feeling of heaviness 
in his limbs and bones that meant he was overusing the 
magic. Being this close to the stars, and having his 
pursuers coming after him so slowly, probably had 
something to do with it.
    He looked back again, sweat streaming from his eyes, 
and saw that they had gained. They had not once varied 
their pace. Either something had changed, or he was losing 
his speed and strength.
    Even as he thought that, he began to fall.
    It was only for a moment, and then he caught himself. 
But it was terrifying, and he found himself breathing in 
deep pants as he surged up and towards the stars once 
more. How many more times would he be that lucky? How long 
before he simply fell?
    How long before he fell below them and they simply 
walked down from above and tore his head free from his 
shoulders?
    Peranor shuddered, and then winced as he felt the 
punishing scrape of omnipresent claws across his back and 
legs again. And then he began to fly lower, despite his 
best efforts, and he knew that he had reached the limit. 
His magic would not let him fall steeply, if it could help 
it, but he was not able to fly higher any more.
    He did try- a desperate move with his magic the way it 
was- to create an illusion of more silverclaws. Again his 
pursuers paused, but then they came on as if nothing had 
happened.
    If he could only figure out why they paused at images 
like that, then he might have a chance of saving himself. 
That he did not know was starting to make him desperate 
and frantic and all the more likely to spin down.
    Spin down he did, for another few terrifying seconds 
before regaining control of himself. Peranor shook his 
mind from its fascination with watching his own 
approaching death, and his lips curved in a sarcastic 
smile as he realized that he was over a small pool of 
water, rare on the Plains. At least his landing, if he had 
crashed, would have been softer than landing on bare grass 
and rock and earth.
    The silverclaws' path bent, and he raised his head 
warily. They were walking in a great circle around the 
water, and though their gazes were fixed on him as always, 
he had the impression that it was a kind of forced 
firmness. As though...
    As though they were determined not to look down and 
see something else.
    His tired mind flared to life again, and he turned and 
began to fly. He was coasting down, but he could make it a 
spiral, if he was careful; he still had that much control. 
He flew strongly to the west, towards the "road" that he 
and Irrinlirdi had been following, though not directly. It 
was too dangerous for that. 
    The silverclaws followed behind him.
    Whether it was water they did not like, or mirrors, 
Peranor was fleeing towards a place that he thought would 
protect him. The Mei Stream flowed through the Mezek 
Plains, magical in and of itself, and gathering magic from 
the earth it touched. It was so dangerous that sometimes, 
things plunging into it died instantly, and at other times 
they were changed almost beyond recognition.
    But it was a chance, slim as it might be, and right 
now, that was more than the silverclaws were offering him. 
Peranor glanced over his shoulder now and then to see if 
that might change, but they were not worried, if they had 
figured out what he was doing. They did not circle ahead 
to cut him off.
    Peranor grimaced, and forced himself to concentrate on 
his own flying instead of the possible, worrisome little 
fact that they were not worried at all. He had to 
concentrate. He was spinning erratically, bound for the 
earth in a long, circling spiral that now and then almost 
threw him from the sky.
    He bent his mind to the winds, to the wild magic, and 
did not let himself think about what might happen at the 
end of his flight.
    He heard the roaring of the water long before he saw 
it. Though it was not really fast enough, in the flat 
country of the Plains, to run with rapids, and the land 
itself prevented waterfalls, it liked to roar. Peranor did 
not believe in trying to understand why. Who was he to 
challenge the will of a magical, intelligent stream full 
of magical, intelligent waters?
    Down, down, faster and faster...
    He knew, as if someone had spoken in his ear to tell 
him, that he could not keep on doing this. He had to be on 
the ground, soon, or his body's attempt to draw magic from 
reserves that were not there would send him into a coma or 
drive him insane.
    Or worse.
    He noted without surprise as he crashed into the 
ground on hands and knees and rolled to absorb the 
momentum that he was hungry again.
    He came back up, panting and aching and stumbling as 
he tried to run. He was almost there, though, and whether 
the silverclaws were worried or not, their lack of speed 
would cost them dearly. If he could only get to the Mei 
Stream before they did...
    He would show them a thing or two, he thought, and 
half-grinned at the fierce and challenging nature of the 
thought. Hope was a strong and almost painful thing in his 
heart and his chest, but perhaps not every aspect need be 
painful.
    He stumbled on, and heard the footfalls as the 
silverclaws came to earth again. He had no idea why he 
should be able to hear them so well on the grass that 
should muffle almost any sound. He did not waste time 
worrying about it.
    He darted forward, and flung himself into headlong, 
desperate flight for a moment, his remaining magic sighing 
and hissing through him like whipcrack. That was the last, 
absolutely the last, effort that he could muster to fly. 
If he had not judged right...
    He had.
    Even as he struggled to regain his balance, Peranor 
crashed headfirst into the fast and cold current of the 
Mei Stream.
    He felt the water crash mercilessly around him, and he 
yelped as his wounds stung in the water. But nothing else 
happened. He lifted himself from the water, shaking his 
wet hair back from his face and staring towards the 
silverclaws.
    They stood on the bank, staring at him unblinkingly. 
They did not radiate the same aura of serene confidence 
that they had before.
    Peranor grinned at them and flicked a few drops of 
water in their direction.
    The nearest one leapt back with a howl. The other one 
was not so quick and was hit by the water.
    The noise that it made was beyond description. The 
Plains and the whole of reality seemed to ripple on the 
edge of non-being with that horrible cry. Peranor, hands 
clasped to his ears, thought that he would gladly wish 
himself out of existence if it would stop the shriek in 
his ears.
    It went on and on.
    And then it stopped.
    Lifting his head, Peranor looked cautiously about. 
Both silverclaws were gone. He felt his shoulders 
cautiously, but there were no new cuts. The water had 
mostly washed the ones that were there. He did not know 
why he had managed to defeat them; he thought it might 
have had more to do with the magic and the will of the 
Stream than anything else. But they were gone.
    He slept for a few hours half in the embrace of the 
water, thinking they might return, but not wanting to be 
carried downstream while he dozed. He had no choice about 
resting. That last run had taken almost everything that he 
had.
    But it was past now, and he woke up to something that 
shifted and burned in him like fire. He identified it, at 
last, as pride. He was astonished. The last thing that he 
could remember being proud of was an illusion he had 
crafted in Leecirna, for a wedding that now would never 
be. He had not expected to feel pride in himself for 
simply surviving.
    But it was more than that, he thought, as he caught 
several of the strange creatures coming to the Stream to 
drink, animals too stupid to be afraid of a hungry 
viaquia. He had done it without killing the silverclaws, 
though he might have hurt one of them very badly with the 
water (for whatever reason). He had done it without doing 
something that would have bothered him more than the 
thought of dying had.
    Life was almost back to the way that he had known it 
again, he thought, as he ducked beneath the surface to 
wash his hair and the cuts again. He could do nothing 
about bandages, but they did seem to have stopped 
bleeding, and that was something.
    He raised his head, and saw another viaquia siting on 
the bank of the Stream. He thought at first that it must 
be Irrinlirdi, but then he realized that it was a man he 
did not know, sitting and regarding him quietly.
    "Fair-day!" he called out, exuberant though the sun 
was rising and he could feel the Dawn Lord's old curse 
creeping over him. "Are you a survivor of Teslin?" In this 
morning, full of peace and joy as he was, he could almost 
believe that someone might have escaped that massive 
slaughter.
    The man shook his head, smiling. "My name is Reth," he 
said. 
    "Oblivion?" The moment he said that, Peranor knew how 
rude it was, and gestured in apology. The name did mean 
that in Primal, but the man could not be blamed if he was 
the victim of his parents' odd sense of humor. Peranor's 
parents had called him after an obscure word that he 
thought meant "breaking wave," though he was not sure, and 
named his sister Toranda something that literally meant 
"joy of the forge."
    "It's all right," said Reth, smiling slowly, a curve 
of his lips that did not show his fangs. "I do not often 
use the name anymore. It is an honor to be called that by 
someone, when I have the chance."
    "What is your real name, then?"
    "That is my real name," said Reth, with a trace of 
sadness so old that Peranor thought his own was young in 
comparison. "But, as I said, I have another name that 
occupies most of my time now."
    Since he was so reluctant to talk about it, Peranor 
let it drop, and waded to the bank instead. He did not 
want to try flying until he was surer of his magic. "Why 
are you here?" he asked, as he climbed out of the water, 
still rubbing his hair dry. It had a highly annoying 
tendency to cling to his face and drip in his eyes that he 
had never managed to eradicate. His clothes were soaked as 
well, but it promised to be a brisk, warm day, just the 
kind that was right for drying them.
    "This used to be my home." Reth's fingers twitched as 
if he was touching the strings of a harp. "I left long 
ago, but I do like to come back and visit, every once in a 
while. To remember."
    Peranor, who relied on his own memory as a tool to 
sculpt illusions and to cheer himself up, if he could, 
when he felt guilt he could do nothing about, nodded. "Who 
were your people? Leecirna or Teslin?"
    The man blinked, looking disconcerted, and then 
smiled. "I- neither of them."
    Peranor shrugged and let the matter drop. If the man 
didn't want to talk, he didn't have to. He had made no 
move to attack Peranor, and Peranor would not believe that 
anyone he met- especially while still in Defense 
territory- was hostile. The man had no weapons. Indeed, 
the only thing that he carried was a great book that 
rested in a special pouch that looked as if it had been 
constructed to hold it, at his side.
    Peranor was tempted to ask about the book, but given 
that Reth had been less than forthcoming about other 
things, he decided to leave the man alone to look at what 
had been his home and remember. He dipped his head 
quietly, and turned to leave.
    "Wait."
    Peranor turned to look back at Reth, who was gazing at 
him with an odd expression. "Yes?"
    "Why did you risk diving into the waters of the Mei 
Stream like that?"
    Peranor grinned slightly. "Silverclaws were chasing 
me, and I wanted to live."
    "Silverclaws are frightened by water?" Reth's dark 
purple eyes went wide.
    "Or mirrors, or something about the Mei Stream." 
Peranor shrugged. "You may have heard the scream last 
night. That was one of them I managed to splash water on. 
I have no idea why it worked; I'm just grateful that it 
did."
    "Fascinating," Reth muttered, and pulled the book from 
his hip, flipping it open.
    "What's in there?"
    "Everything I want to write down," Reth said, and 
produced a pen from the pouch as well, noting something in 
what looked to be practiced script on one page. "I will 
want to note this, in case I'm ever being chased by 
silverclaws. That could be useful."
    "I hope that you're not," said Peranor. "It was sheer 
luck that I figured it out in time."
    Reth lowered the book to give him another odd look. 
"Not the will of the gods?"
    At the same moment, Irrinlirdi's voice rang out in 
gladness from above. "Peranor!"
    Tilting back his head and looking for her saved him 
from having to answer Reth's question. Peranor saw her and 
gave a soft sigh of relief. She had no wounds and few 
marks of strain in her face. No silverclaws, then, and 
probably no bad dreams.
    "I was searching for you," she said. "I was worried 
when I woke and found that you had not returned."
    "A small problem on the Plains, that is all," said 
Peranor with a shrug.
    "Good." Irrinlirdi looked at Reth, and then blinked 
and flew down for a closer look, without landing. Her 
cautious behavior made Peranor wonder if there was 
something about the other man that she could sense and he 
could not. "Who is this?"
    "My name is Reth," said the other man, rising to his 
feet and bowing his head. "I am honored to meet you, my 
lady. I know what you did in Teslin and in Leecirna during 
the rebellion."
    Irrinlirdi bowed her head in turn. "I thank you, but 
how did you know?"
    "The knowledge- and the fact that such actions are 
more heroic than your companion thinks them- are more 
widespread than you think." Peranor looked at Reth 
sharply, only to see the dark purple eyes laughing at him. 
"I hope that I will see you again. I am often in Esalo. It 
is the best place for a historian like myself." He patted 
the book that he had returned to its pouch. "I am pleased 
to have made your acquaintance. I can often feel history 
gathering around someone, and I can feel it doing that 
around you two as we speak."
    "How do you-"
    Peranor stopped. Reth was gone. There was no flash, no 
bright and brilliant exit such as the wild magic was prone 
to causing simply because it loved showy effects. There 
was nothing to show that he had ever existed.
    Perhaps he hadn't. Perhaps he had been simply a 
manifestation of the wild magic. The magic had made it 
clear in the past that it liked Peranor. It could have 
sent this to-
    What? There seemed no purpose. But the wild magic was 
like that.
    "Who was he?" said Irrinlirdi, with something in her 
voice that might have been wonder and might have been 
wariness. Peranor hoped that it was not wonder. That would 
only encourage the wild magic. He turned and gave her a 
stern look.
    "I think that we are better off if we ask what he 
was."
    Her face snapped into wariness, and she looked around 
the Plains with the expression of a hunted animal. "You're 
right. The officials in Vespelstina need to know about 
Teslin as soon as possible, anyway." She made a move to 
spring upward.
    "Don't move."
    The voice was low, pleasant, female, and Elwen, but it 
was not viaquia. It came from almost directly in front of 
them, and the grass did not seem so much to part as melt 
aside as a land Elwen woman in the colors of the Plains 
came out from it. She fixed her polite, determined golden 
gaze on Peranor and held out her hand.
    "I am the Lady Estalchin Lafoxbane. I have come for 
the swords that you stole from me."




                        Chapter 2
                        Estalchin
    "When you encounter something new, one should try to 
study it and learn about it- unless the new thing is a 
land Elwen fighter. Then one should merely concentrate on 
running away as quickly as possible."
    -From Serious and Semi-serious Advice for the Vespel 
Student, second edition.

    Peranor met her gaze as calmly as he could. "I'm 
afraid that I don't have them any more."
    "Why not?"
    "Two silverclaws took them and devoured them. I think 
that they came after me in the first place because they 
were in my possession."
    "Oh." Estalchin looked briefly disconcerted, then 
shook her head and glanced at Irrinlirdi, who was trying 
to rise into the air and be subtle about it at the same 
time. "What are you doing? It would do you good to take a 
lesson from your friend here and stand as quietly as you 
can."
    "I won't." Peranor winced at the amount of rage in her 
voice. Any rage at all right now- or at least, showing it- 
was not conducive to their survival. "I know what you did 
in Teslin."
    "I very much doubt that you do, unless you have a good 
grounding in complex magical theory." Estalchin shook her 
head. "I know that you want to tell the vespels what we 
did; it is a noble goal, and one that I would normally let 
you go ahead with. But we have unfinished business- and I 
have archers with arrows trained on you. Try to fly any 
further, and there will be more arrows in you than scales 
on a snake."
    Irrinlirdi, who had let her feet leave the ground, 
scowled and settled again. Peranor was just as relieved. 
She would have had to fly away without him. Now that he 
tested it, he did not think that his magic was recovered 
enough to let him get off the ground yet. 
    "What are you going to do with us?" he asked the land 
Elwen woman, his mind working furiously. This was the 
woman who had been most directly responsible for the 
slaying at Teslin, the selling of weapons to Leecirna, and 
probably many other things that he did not know about. It 
stood to reason that the vespels would want to know that 
she was this close to the viaquia cities, instead of 
somewhere in the wild territory outside the Defense. But 
it would do him no good to try and do anything unless he 
could be sure that she would not simply kill them.
    He needed to get word to Vespelstina, but he also 
needed to be alive to do it.
    "I hadn't decided," said Estalchin, frowning at him 
thoughtfully. "I had thought to take back the swords, and 
then give you a little demonstration of how they worked. 
But since you don't have them... something else will have 
to suffice." She sighed and looked at Irrinlirdi. "You 
killed one of my soldiers, you know. Kilma Sunspring. We 
can't really encourage that kind of thing." She looked at 
Peranor. "And you stole from us. But I would like to have 
your names before we kill you."
    "Irrinlirdi," said the woman at his side, standing 
proud and straight. Peranor was awed at her strength, even 
though he didn't think that it came from determination to 
escape no matter what the cost to herself. He thought it 
came more from willingness to kill if she had to.
    "That's it?" said Estalchin. "No more? No surname, no 
attempt to make me respect you more than I already do for 
your fighting skills? No title?"
    Irrinlirdi smiled tightly, and flashed her fangs. 
"These weapons are all the title that I need."
    Peranor tried unsuccessfully to keep from snorting. 
Estalchin glanced at him. "You might do better, if I let 
you speak. What is your name?"
    "Peranor Lightfoot."
    Her voice altered at once. "You were the one who 
killed Escoar."
    "I was present at his death," Peranor corrected at 
once. "I did not kill him. That honor belonged to someone 
else."
    "Reports coming out of Leecirna said that you killed 
him."
    "They probably didn't know any better. They saw him 
chasing me, and then I was going on alone and he was dead. 
But I did not kill him." He had enough guilt haunting him 
already. He was not about to accept blame that was not his 
to accept.
    "Reports coming out of Leecirna also said that you 
were to blame for the failure of the rebellion that we had 
so cleverly engineered there." Her face was calm, but her 
golden eyes were blazing.
    "I wasn't," said Peranor with calm certainty. "I 
managed to seize the weapon that you created to end that 
war in your favor. That was all."
    "The spies that we have in Leecirna said that there 
was more than that."
    "You heard wrong."
    Her eyes on him, Estalchin held out a hand. A sword 
dropped out of midair and into her palm. "I propose a 
duel, then, to resolve this matter of honor."
    And this time he was unable to keep from rolling his 
eyes. Did people still do this, still believe in these 
things, in this day and Age? He had not know that. "No, he 
said. "My lady, I am no good with a sword, and I don't 
have one, in any case, as you can see. It would be a 
little unfair to duel me, don't you think?"
    "No."
    Peranor shrugged his shoulders. "Then let my companion 
fly word to Vespelstina of your presence here. That is all 
I ask. That is what you wanted in the first place." His 
eyes did not leave Estalchin's, even as he felt Irrinlirdi 
stir beside him. "You can't take both of us, if we decide 
to fight. If we nod to your notions of honor, you should 
obey ours. Do you agree?"
    "I won't go," said Irrinlirdi.
    "I can't let her go," said Estalchin. "Those who 
fought with Kilma demand satisfaction- especially Toranan, 
her betrothed."
    Peranor sighed. "I did not know that the woman who 
died had a betrothed. War causes irretrievable loss no 
matter what happens, it seems. I am sorry."
    "What kind of Elwen are you?"
    "One who does not believe in war," said Peranor 
quickly. "My lady, do you agree? Will you let one of us 
go, or do you propose to kill both of us?"
    "You both have to die. You owe the land Elwens too 
great a blood debt."
    "Very well," said Peranor, and used some of his 
returning magic to cast the illusion of a black widow 
spider onto her shoulder, making a little tossing motion 
of his hand as if he had tossed the thing onto her, 
praying that the reports from Leecirna had not emphasized 
how good he was with illusion.
    She looked down, and then stopped moving and stood 
very quietly.
    "Good," said Peranor, not letting his voice shake from 
fatigue even though it wanted to. "She will bite you if I 
command it so." If he had to, he could concentrate his 
power into one small area and make it seem as if the 
spider had bitten her. He could not simulate the poison, 
but he could simulate the pain. With luck, she would think 
that the spider was real and that it had bitten her, at 
least for a little while. "Now, will you let at least 
Irrinlirdi go, or not?"
    "You aren't going to ask for passage for the both of 
you?"
    Peranor rolled his eyes. "You are determined to claim 
the blood debt from one of us. Irrinlirdi is the one who 
might be able to claim a debt back from you some day in 
the future." He was surprised to find that that mattered 
to him. At least, it mattered to him that Irrinlirdi have 
the chance. It would be important to him, even if his 
spirit never felt the avenging act.
    He was changing every day.
    "Just where are you going?" the Lady Estalchin asked, 
her eyes still on him.
    "Esalo."
    "Peranor!"
    Peranor glanced at Irrinlirdi. "What? I'm no good at 
guile, or the kinds of machinations that she is probably 
expecting from me. And since she's expecting them from me, 
I don't want to offer them." He turned back again. "This 
seems simple to me. You take the blood of the one who has 
done you the most harm, and then you let her go. If you 
don't, she will cause you more harm and pain before you 
put both of us down, and no momentary satisfaction will 
make up for the lives that you lose. If you let both of us 
go, you will probably feel the sting of the mercy at a 
later date and come after us."
    "Have you ever met someone named Kildestian?"
    Peranor blinked at the unexpected question. "No. Do I 
remind you of him?"
    "Not so much that as- I wanted to know." Estalchin 
shrugged and glanced at Irrinlirdi. "And you?"
    "No," said Irrinlirdi, her eyes still blank and 
furious. Peranor could feel that, though he could not feel 
whom she was looking at: himself or Estalchin. Quite 
possibly both.
    "Then I think I shall accept your kind offer," said 
Estalchin, nodding to him without disturbing the spider on 
her shoulder. Peranor let it move a little anyway, and she 
stilled again at once, speaking to the archers that still 
hid in the tall grass carefully. "Let the woman go, and 
leave me to deal with the man."
    Grumbles, as he had known there would be. 
    "It does make sense," said Estalchin, her eyes going 
back to Peranor. "And I want the vespels to know about us. 
I want them to fear. It makes sense to leave someone alive 
to go to them and make them fear. I think the woman knows 
better what we represent, and she will give the more 
accurate report. Let her go, let her fly, and leave this 
one to me."
    Peranor could hear the smile in her voice. He had no 
idea what she meant to do with him, but it would probably 
be unpleasant.
    He shrugged to himself. He did not dare shrug 
outwardly, for fear that one of the nervous and unhappy 
archers would shoot him, or that he would lose 
concentration and let the spider illusion fade from her 
shoulder. He would do what he had to do; he would die to 
serve the Defense if he had to.
    Stars knew that he had been cheated enough times in 
the past.
    He smiled, holding Estalchin's eyes, and nodded.
    "Peranor-"
    "Go," said Peranor, still without looking away from 
the land Elwen woman. "You have the better chance of 
making them understand the danger that we face." He turned 
at last to her, feeling her eyes plead with him, full of a 
weary lack of understanding. "I'm sorry, but this is the 
way that it happened. Always remember that you did all you 
could, and that you are a braver Elwen than most. It has 
been a pleasure to know you."
    She stared at him for a long time, and he could almost 
see the person she had become fighting with the person 
whom she had been. She had told him once that she was very 
like him before the killing had begun to work its dark 
magic upon her, and he would never have left someone to 
die like this.
    But when it was him in the situation, it was 
different, somehow. This was not because he wanted to die. 
This was because the Defense would not be served unless 
one of them escaped, and this was the compromise that the 
land Elwens had agreed upon.
    They would regret it, in the end. They were forging 
their own bane.
    She dropped her eyes at last and nodded. She reached 
out a hand to him, ignoring the thrum of tightening 
bowstrings. 
    "Thank you for my name, again," she said quietly. "I 
think that I will try to live up to it from now on, and 
remember that killing is not the whole of the world."
    "Good," said Peranor gently, a little surprised that 
the land Elwens did not interrupt, but pleased. They 
understood what it was like to lose a comrade to the 
fortunes of war, perhaps. "Farewell, and may the stars go 
with you."
    Irrinlirdi looked at him, nodded, and then turned to 
face Estalchin. "Will you really let me go, or are you 
going to tell them to shoot me the moment I rise?"
    Estalchin snapped her fingers. The sound of bows 
relaxing came almost at once. She glared into the grass 
and snapped her fingers again, and then the last of them 
gave up the attempt to deny her and lowered their weapons, 
stepping into view so that she could see that they had. 
    Irrinlirdi flung herself into the sky, flying south 
and bearing slightly west. Peranor could see fierce tears 
in her eyes as she looked back and down for a moment, and 
then she was gone.
    He faced Estalchin, who had sent her sword back to 
wherever it had come from and was studying him 
thoughtfully.
    "Do you think that you can convince me to let you go?" 
she asked.
    "I am sure that you have dealt with that before."
    "Yes, regularly. Almost everyone seems to think that 
they can bluff me, break me, or outsmart me. It gets 
boring in the long run."
    "Did the inhabitants of Teslin try to do that to you?"
    Estalchin's face smoothed, and she shook her head. "My 
reasons for doing what I did there are my own. I may tell 
them, if I like, and it may become necessary. But it was 
not because they tried to bluff me."
    "Then you had no reason for trying to kill them."
    "I did not say that they had done nothing to ignite my 
temper."
    "It must have been something great indeed, for the 
swords to destroy them by making their blood explode out 
of their bodies."
    Her face changed again, this time to something that 
might have been pleasure. Peranor did not like to think 
about the sources of that too much. "I thought that you 
would sense what happened. The reports from Leecirna 
describe you as someone interested in and curious about 
the nature of magic."
    "I am very curious as to why you would have received 
so many reports about me."
    "I was interested in hearing of the one who stopped 
the rebellion I took time and effort to create." Her voice 
was steady, her eyes burning, and her face calm, but 
Peranor could almost feel the rage burning in her like a 
wildfire, nearing as if it was sweeping across the dry 
grass of the Plains.
    "I told you, I didn't-"
    "Is it a lie that the Lord Vremin Violetsong died by 
your hands?"
    He stopped talking and lowered his eyes. "No," he 
said. "That is a crime that I would be more than happy to 
accept the punishment of death for."
    Estalchin snorted and turned her back on him. "You 
have no idea why I destroyed Teslin. You have no idea why 
I received reports- and do even now- from spies in 
Leecirna. You have no idea why I let your companion go, or 
tried to start a rebellion in your own city in the first 
place. Until you do, you will be of no use to me."
    "Why should you want to make use of me?"
    "Did you think that I would really kill you?" She 
looked back at him with a faint smile. "I could tell what 
you were trying to do- gain a quick death by annoying me 
until I wouldn't want to keep you alive anymore. That 
one's been tried on me, before, too."
    Peranor shrugged. "You told me that death would be 
coming. I did not want to prolong it."
    "It will be prolonged, until the moment that I no 
longer have a use for you." The Lady nodded to the archers 
and other Elwens who stood patiently waiting for her 
instructions. "Make sure that he does not have any 
weapons, and then bring him along."
    She strode away.
    The land Elwens who searched him were not gentle, but 
Peranor did not have the power to protest. A few of his 
wounds had opened again- during the rough handling or not, 
he was not sure- and the blood slowly draining from him 
occupied his attention, as did the magic fatigue that 
still stalked him. He stumbled as they, satisfied at last, 
began to lead him after their Lady.
    "What is the matter with you?" snapped the woman on 
his left, hauling him up again. It was Yelima, as he saw 
with a glance at her. "You heard her. She wants you there 
as soon as possible."
    "Where is 'there?'"
    Yelima went silent at once, and dropped back from 
walking beside him to walking behind him, pushing him 
along. Peranor rolled his eyes at the paranoia of Elwens 
who held him captive, and waited patiently for someone to 
notice-
    "He's bleeding."
    Ah, yes, there it was.
    He kept his face and voice mild when they turned to 
look at him, so that no one would be able to accuse him of 
being sarcastic. "I was wounded in my flight from the 
silverclaws. I would appreciate it if you would give me 
some bandages and healingbloom."
    "You might use them to commit suicide."
    Peranor stared at Yelima. "How?" he said at last. 
There were some things that he had to hear, even though 
she was looking at him as if she would like to murder him.
    "Stuffing the bandages down your throat, using them to 
hang yourself-"
    Someone else nudged Yelima to shut her up. "Never 
mind," said that land Elwen to Peranor. He thought it was 
the man he had seen standing in the street and staring 
after them with clear and deadly violet eyes, but he could 
not be sure. "Your wounds will be bandaged and treated, 
but for once, you will not have to do it. We will do that 
for you."
    "Why?"
    "Because if we are going to take prisoners, they 
should be well cared for."
    "You don't approve of taking prisoners, do you?" asked 
Peranor.
    "I did not say that."
    "You implied it. Is killing them better? Making them 
explode in blood and filling the air of the city they used 
to live in with bits of them that are too small to see? Is 
that better?"
    "You are speaking out of turn, my Lord Lightfoot. Your 
wounds will be treated. That is all that you should care 
about."
    "Why?"
    The man made an exasperated noise in the back of his 
throat, and pushed him forward. Peranor hissed as the hand 
landed on top of a slash on his lower back. He thought it 
was the first wound that the silverclaws had given him, 
though his back was a mass of pain by now, and he could 
not be sure.
    "I'm sorry," said the man at once. "I did not mean to 
injure you further, my lord."
    "You might as well call me by name and not by title. 
There's no need to offer me dignity when you won't-"