Starsong In Glory
                         Prologue
         1113, Age of Ascent, First Day of Autumn
    "I am surprised to see you here."
    Herran paused at the voice that came to him, and 
turned slowly to nod to someone he had not seen standing 
in the shadow of the pale oak he had just passed. "I might 
say the same of you."
    The other chuckled lightly and stepped out. "Yes, but 
at least I pay token lip service to Her, while you oppose 
Her fervently and openly. Therefore, I might claim the 
greater share of surprise to see you here in the gardens 
of the Temple."
    Herran Turnlong, until eight days ago- almost nine 
now- Councilmaster of Rowan, studied the man who stood 
before him carefully. Quirrin had so far taken his 
rejection of the power that the master torturer had long 
ago forced on him in good part. There had been no threats, 
veiled or otherwise. He had not sent assassins or 
messengers. There had been no summons to the Prison, no 
sudden discovery of a crime that Quirrin had ignored out 
of convenience and had now decided could be used to force 
Herran to do what he wanted. Nothing of that kind at all. 
Herran had almost decided that the justice master accepted 
this as justice and would not touch him.
    Now this.
    "What do you want?" he said quietly, at last. He felt 
as if his breath should have been frosting in front of 
him, though that coldness would not come for another three 
dances at the least. Such was the coldness of the hatred 
that beat from him- and from Quirrin too, though he 
doubted that the man was honest enough to admit to it. 
    "I think you know."
    "I will not give it to you."
    "I know. I will not compel you to it. That does not 
change the fact that I would be happiest seeing you back 
in the seat that you abandoned."
    Herran eyed the shadows, and could see shapes moving 
there. Running away or attacking would not buy him a 
chance, especially as he no longer had the dozens of 
unseen guardians and wards linked to the Councilmaster 
that he had had while in power. "I am listening," he said, 
folding his arms and staring at Quirrin.
    "You must return to the seat of power of your own free 
will-"
    Herran snorted with laughter before he could help it, 
and knew that trying to turn it into a cough would not 
help. Quirrin could read emotions as well as he could. The 
silver eyes turned the color of rain, though, not the 
color of molten metal, and that intrigued Herran enough 
that he stopped laughing to listen.
    "I know that you do not want to," said Quirrin in a 
whisper, with that compassion Herran always managed to 
persuade himself was false, until he heard it again. The 
master torturer was the most complex man he had ever 
known, and part of that complexity was visible now, 
shining in his face as a welter of tormented emotions. "I 
know that you think you nearly died of the power."
    "You know I did." Herran's voice shook a little. Even 
now, he could not regard his narrow escape without 
shuddering.
    Or regard the man who had put him in that situation, 
denied his being for so long, without hatred. He forced 
back the anger that would have normally accompanied it, 
though. Quirrin had not come here to fight.
    "I know," said Quirrin, lowering his eyes and staring 
at nothing. "You cannot know- how deeply sorry-"
    "Save it."
    The silver eyes rose back to him, and bubbled for a 
moment before they calmed. There was anger somewhere under 
the surface, then. Herran held still and did not look at 
the shadows. 
    "I deserve that," said Quirrin, and then his eyes 
snapped like crossing blades. "But the city does not 
deserve what will happen to her if you abandon her."
    "She is in capable hands."
    "You know what Aereri is, and yet you can say that?"
    "I know what he is, and yet I chose him to follow me," 
Herran reminded him. "I have broken free of the chains of 
guilt at last, Quirrin. I will not be dragged back to 
them. You bound me long enough- the city bound me long 
enough- with that plea of need. Only after I saw the 
Goddess did my eyes open. I realized that they took me for 
granted, that they did not need the help I offered, that 
they did not need me."
    "They do."
    "But they did not appreciate me." The words came out 
of him grudgingly, like blood from a wound long since 
scabbed over. And it was. He had been working to destroy 
the anger and hurt in himself, so determined was he to 
leave that part of his life behind and begin anew as he 
had promised Tandra he would.
    "Do you need appreciation to be a leader?" Quirrin 
asked with scorn in his voice. He played the Game well, 
Herran thought with a tinge of admiration.
    "No. Not every Elwen does. But I am not every Elwen. I 
am weaker than most, not stronger than most as you 
assumed. And no other Elwen leader has ever led for so 
long without winning the hearts of his or her people. It 
was time for me to leave."
    "You led for three centuries without praise. You bore 
up under it. Why did you stop now?"
    Herran brushed a hand through his hair. There were 
many answers- that he had no chance of seeing his dreams 
achieved, that the sheer hypocrisy of his people was 
grating on him, that he wanted to be free- but Quirrin 
would not understand any of them. Quirrin, dwelling in 
power for more millennia than Herran had ever nightmared 
of doing, only understood some things.
    "For Tandra."
    Quirrin paused, and his eyes shifted, shadows that 
Herran could not understand brushing across the surface 
like the wings of butterflies across the face of the 
stars. "I see."
    "Harm her, and I will-"
    "Peace," said Quirrin, raising a hand. "I swore an 
oath long ago never to harm her. You should know that I 
will keep that oath."
    Herran relaxed fractionally and nodded. "I know." His 
daughters were safe for another year as well. "But I told 
you the truth, and I know how you deal with truths that 
you do not like to hear."
    "How?" Quirrin seemed interested in the answer, as he 
could seem interested in anything and everything. Herran 
wondered if that was a pose learned as part of the Game, 
or if his attentiveness came from the need to listen to a 
prisoner's gasping confessions, to note slight signals of 
readiness to tell in between the twitches and the 
flinches.
    He shook such thoughts away. They were no longer his 
concern. Aereri, with his virulent hatred for the man, 
would keep Quirrin in check.
    "Badly."
    Quirrin chuckled again. "I have never noticed this 
about myself."
    "Look at you. You are here trying to persuade me to 
come back to a Councilmastery I never wanted in the first 
place. Instead of hearing my objections, instead of 
knowing from the first that it would not work, you try and 
tell me that I must come back."
    "I am carrying a warning, not a threat." Quirrin 
seemed surprised that Herran could have so mistaken him, 
shifting his head to stare at the other man in concern. 
    "Really." Herran did not let his tone promise much in 
the way of hope. "What?"
    "That one day you will want to come back to the 
Councilmastery of your own free will, and that if you feel 
such stirrings, the last thing you should do is crush 
them."
    "To your advantage, of course."
    "No. I watched you be unhappy for too many years. Now 
that you have a chance to be happy, I want you to take it. 
But when only being part of the Game one more will make 
you happy, then I want you to return, not stay away 
because of a promise to Tandra."
    Herran stared at the man. Infuriating as it was, he 
appeared sincere.
    And there was no trace of the spell that he could use 
to prevent Herran from detecting his lies.
    "Why are you-"
    "I care for you."
    And he was gone again into the shadows, to the Game.




                        Chapter 1
               By Heritage And Birth-Right
            1113, Age of Ascent, Early Autumn
    "By these signs may you know him; the green of soul,
     The fire that is his by heritage and birth-right,
     Child of the stars, lord of the heart-multitudes,
     And champion of a cause undimmed since Maruss's day."
    -Verse from The Prophecy of the Starborn, a song of 
the sonorquia or star Elwens.

    Herran tapped his fingers on the book's cover and 
glanced over his shoulder. The Esar was watching him, of 
course. Not openly, but not covertly, either. The man 
would be in the pay of one or more of the Council members, 
to watch him go, to see what he did. 
    To see what he read.
    Herran felt his lips quirk, and he deliberately slid 
his hand away from the book he had been holding, and to 
another. This one was written in Melli, and would give 
them something to lose sleep over. They would be sure that 
he was renewing his alliance with the curalli, the 
shadowed Elwens, if he was reading something written in 
their language.
    They did not know that the alliance was already back 
in place, as a purely personal one this time, and that 
Herran could speak Melli perfectly already and had enough 
practice that he did not need to practice by reading it. 
But that would not matter. They would worry and tear at 
things, especially when they found out that the book was 
one on how to construct wards. Never mind that there were 
no secret shadowed Elwen wards in there, only land Elwen 
ones. That would not matter to them. Outward substance was 
always more important than inwards.
    So they thought.
    Smiling, coming close to laughing aloud- but he didn't 
want them to catch on- he settled at one of the tables and 
opened the book to read.
    It was quiet in the Archives at most any time, but 
especially this time of day and year. Goldentime, the 
festival that would last all month to some extent and 
celebrated the first day of autumn, occupied most of the 
students and even the servants who would normally be 
inside, cleaning the books and dusting the shelves and 
making sure that the scrolls or books that were in any way 
unusual were returned to their places. The Esar was almost 
alone here now.
    And he had dedicated himself to following Herran 
about, staring at him, quietly and warningly. To make sure 
the former Lord of Rowan understood that he did not have 
the rank he had held, that he had to use the Archives as 
an ordinary Elwen would now.
    Herran looked again at the man. A tall Elwen with 
bright red hair and violet eyes, he was pretending to read 
a book at the moment.
    He could not resist.
    Herran sat back and yawned loudly. The Esar's 
attention was on him at once, and Herran pretended not to 
notice it, as determinedly as the Esar had been pretending 
not to notice him only a moment before. He stared at the 
book for a long moment, though the section on wards was 
small and he had what he needed. Then he picked it up and 
headed back to the shelf, standing so that the Esar could 
not see him put the book back. Then he put his hand under 
his tunic and began walking out, a little more rapidly 
than he should have.
    "My lord?"
    Herran turned. Stars, it grated on the man's tongue to 
call him that.
    "Yes?"
    "I am sorry." The Esar already had his hand extended, 
and his eyes showed a trace of the pleasure that Quirrin's 
did when he had a new criminal to torture. It was his idea 
of leisure to catch someone in the act. "No books can be 
taken out of the Archives, save by Council members-" His 
voice sharpened for just a moment, then dropped again. "Or 
those specially trained to take care of them. I need the 
book you took back," he said more pointedly, when Herran 
stared at him stupidly.
    "What book?"
    "That one-" The Esar nodded impatiently towards 
Herran's chest, only to fall silent when Herran took out 
his empty palm.
    "What book?" Herran repeated, his voice quiet and his 
face far more serious than he felt. He had forgotten how 
wonderful it felt to play jokes like this. "Did you think 
that I stole the one I was reading?"
    "I-"
    "You did." Herran kept his face as stern and 
judgmental as possible, the way that the more provincial 
farmers of Rowan thought the Councilmaster looked at all 
times. "You misjudged me. Do you have any idea of how 
dangerous that is?" He shook his head slowly back and 
forth.
    "My lord, you are no longer the Councilmaster."
    Herran's lips twitched again. This man was more clever 
and brave than the others he had played tricks on 
recently. "Very perceptive," he said calmly, in his normal 
voice, and saw the Esar blink. Those not used to reading 
emotions often did not know when one was being faked, and 
were susceptible to such tricks. "But because I am no 
longer Councilmaster does not mean that I have acquired 
criminal instincts or lost my wits. I would like you to 
remember that."
    "I... I did not mean to..."
    "I have never stolen anything from the Archives, and I 
would not now." Herran let his eyes narrow, and a bit of 
true anger creep into them. "I understand that you resent 
me. But I resent you using that disgust as an excuse for 
rudeness."
    "You have to understand what we feel. You abandoned 
us, and for no better cause than your own freedom-" the 
Esar began, the diatribe that Herran had sensed in him 
every day for the past dance bubbling and rising and 
spilling past his lips.
    "And you derided me for no better cause than your own 
moral convictions."
    The Esar stared at him.
    "I do not need to understand you," said Herran. "Not 
any more. I am free. If you wish to be as rude to me as 
you would to an ordinary Elwen, so be it. But you will not 
be more rude."
    "You are commanding me."
    "I can challenge you to a duel. Would you prefer 
that?"
    "Given that you do not honor the ancient traditions 
when you are fighting?" The man shook his head vehemently. 
"I would not trust you any more than I could kill you in 
such a contest."
    "Good, because I could kill you and I do not want to. 
Now, I have not stolen a book, and I found the information 
I came here to find. If I could leave now?"
    It was not really a request, and Herran knew it. The 
Esar knew it, as well. He stepped aside and stared after 
him in silent hatred until the former Council member had 
climbed the stairs and rounded the first corner.
    Then he took a deep breath and laid his head against 
stone and silver for a moment.
    He had played the Game down there, using insults and 
threats to earn what he wanted. That was not the way that 
ordinary Elwens lived. He would have to learn how to do 
things as anyone else would do them again, and he did not 
care how much of a struggle it was. He would do this, or 
he would not be able to do anything at all.
    He would...
    He shook his head very slightly and straightened up. 
It would not do for anyone to come along and find him 
there. Though he was planning to become the man he should 
have been all along as soon as he could, he did not think 
that anyone would be excused weeping in a stairwell, 
especially not someone who had made the abrupt transition 
from what he had been to what he was.
    He passed several Elwens on the stairs, but they 
turned their backs or averted their eyes, as though he 
carried some plague that would weaken their sight. He did 
not care. He walked with his back as straight and firm as 
ever, his head high, and exuded exactly as much pride and 
confidence as they did, and no more.
    It felt as though he were trying to become a tree in 
the middle of a forest.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Herran sighed, and stared at the shimmering line of 
the ward in front of him. No, he could no longer draw on 
the city's power to fuel any magic that he wanted to use. 
But not even that loss should have crippled him like this. 
It had to be something else.
    He was just not seeing what at the moment.
    He tried again to construct the ward in a straight 
line, whose every tiny adjustment of angle, its placement 
in relation to sun and moons, and a dozen other things 
would make it the kind of ward he wanted. It refused to 
cooperate. As it was, it would only be good for alerting 
him if someone approached the house, just like the 
hundreds of other wards he had about the Turnlong estates. 
He had wanted something more.
    "Father?"
    Herran opened his eyes and blinked twice, dealing with 
the stunning effort of yanking his concentration away from 
this to look at something else. "What is it?" he said at 
last, seeing Teffulia standing in front of him and staring 
at him worriedly.
    "I- thought you should know." Teffulia held out a 
message to him, but she never took her eyes from his face. 
"Father, you're pale, and the net of magic that runs all 
about you is twisted. Is something wrong?"
    Herran shook his head, staring at the message. On it 
was the seal of the dragon and the rowan tree, the seal of 
the Council, the seal that had been for so many years his 
own. "Nothing, Teffulia."
    She stared at him for a long moment more, looked as 
though she was considering calling on her mother or 
Sahsraiinar, and at last nodded and managed a small smile. 
"All right," she said, and he knew that she would let it 
be for now. "But if you are sane and want to talk with me, 
Father, there is something I think it would be wise to 
discuss with you at once."
    Herran looked at her in reciprocal concern. His 
daughter was on the verge of turning twenty-four, and as 
she breathed shallowly in and out of her mouth, he could 
see that youth in her face. Her pale blue eyes shone with 
something that was not starlight or reflected joy, and she 
shivered and bent with her arms wrapped around herself 
when he stared too long. At once he laid the message on 
the table and moved over to her side, giving her a 
reassuring hug as he murmured in her ear.
    "Talag." He used the affectionate name for daughter in 
the Primal Tongue, something he rarely did, hoping that it 
might help to bring her back to him. Stars, her skin was 
like ice in feel as well as color. "What is the matter? 
You can tell me, no matter what it is." Continuing to 
croon, he helped her into the chair and asked her, "Do you 
want something to drink?"
    "I- no." She looked up at him then, and something in 
her eyes made his heart burn and freeze at once. He longed 
to kill the source of the pain she felt, and at the same 
time, he knew there was nothing whatsoever he could do 
about it. "I thought I was ready to speak with you, 
Father, but it seems I am not. Please, will you wait for 
me and let me pick another time?"
    Feeling immense compassion, and seeing her need for 
solitude, Herran stood aside. "Of course. Come to me when 
you feel ready, and not before."
    She gave a jerky nod, then rose and fled the room with 
graceless movements. Herran continued staring after her 
until he realized he was staring less out of concern than 
as a way to avoid the letter.
    The letter.
    He sighed and glared at the message. Aereri could have 
spoken to him telepathically if it was truly urgent. That 
meant that it wasn't, and that he wanted to openly tame 
the man he had planned to keep as a kind of tame raven, 
squawking the wisdom of the Goddess while its wings were 
clipped to keep it from flying away.
    Shaking his head at the comparison that he himself had 
made, and trying to cast the Game from his thoughts once 
and for all, Herran slit the seal and dragged the letter 
into the light.
    It was not, as he had thought it would be, a summons 
to stand before the Council- at least, not at first 
glance. It was much more florid than that, and rambled on 
for some time. He glanced through the words until he found 
what he was looking for, then looked back up and went over 
the whole thing once more, more slowly.
    My Lord Herran Turnlong, lord of the high blood of 
Turnlong, former Councilmaster of Rowan, mage and 
swordsman, once Guard and captain of a patrol, and husband 
of the Lady Tandra, she who is Captain of the Guards of 
the city of Rowan:
    Your recent giving up of the power of the Council 
inspired in all who saw it shining tears and hopes and 
fears like the moons, as bright as they are. They saw what 
we could be, and what we could never be. You took the 
burden of guilt on yourself to spare your people, and 
there is no more noble act. You acted as a true leader of 
Rowan that day, and the only regret we have is that you 
did not see fit to continue in the position in some 
capacity. Though you gave up the highest seat, there was 
one waiting for you. We would have welcomed your sound 
counsel and advice, your calmness, your steadiness, your 
guiding hand on the elbow of the Council, if you had 
stayed in that seat.
    In accordance with the principles that you have 
expressed, principles entirely in accord with the will of 
the Council and the shining hearts of the people of Rowan, 
we wish you to know that we consider the Mienkayo Lona 
that you performed, the Ritual of Surrender, only one of 
the many things you could have done. The sky as you did it 
was beautiful, the burning edges of orange and sapphire 
just showing beyond the bluffs. You made it in the proper  
manner, in the presence of a Starseeker and several, not 
only one, Elwens of temporal power. The Goddess did not 
reach out to stop you, and She was the only one who could. 
We understand all your reasons for doing this, and agree 
with them; we too know what it is to love husbands and 
wives and to feel the torment of power and willing to do 
anything to escape that. 
    But we do not wish you to consider the Ritual the last 
words, for all its sunlit beauty and legitimacy, if you 
change your mind. There will always be a seat on the 
Council for you in the next Choosing. This is not a 
compulsion, but a standing invitation. You are welcome to 
respond if you wish to gaze into the sapphire, as you 
gazed into the sapphire of the sunset, a second time. We 
wish you to know this.
    Aereri Sulonin, lord of the high blood of Sulonin, 
Councilmaster of the city of Rowan, and the Council of 
Rowan, under the dragon and rowan tree, on this tenth day 
of Gleltri, in the eleven hundred and thirteenth year of 
the Age of Ascent.
    Herran wondered if Aereri had actually written this 
mess, or had someone else do it. A possible explanation 
might be a servant with too much time on his hands who had 
always wanted to do something like this for the Council, 
and had failed ambitions to write poetry.
    He glanced down at the description of the sunset's 
beauty again.
    Yes, most definitely failed ambitions to write poetry. 
That was an important qualifier. As far as he knew, Aereri 
had no such ambitions, and therefore could not have 
written the letter.
    It was gratifying to think that the man he had chosen 
to succeed him was not a complete idiot, and yet at the 
same time he had to wonder if he was only seeing what he 
wanted to see, if in truth...
    No. He had all the truth he needed. There was no 
demand in this letter. Only a back door that Aereri had 
left standing open.
    Or the servant.
    But any of Quirrin's servants on the Council- and they 
were the only ones he could think of with a true reason 
for wanting to pull him back into the Game- would have to 
know that such an obvious ploy would not work, that one 
question put to Aereri would resolve the matter if it were 
not true, and no one would tip his hand so easily.
    Not among his enemies, at least.
    Among the Council, it was possible.
    Herran stretched out a hand and summoned fire. With 
his anger, it was not hard. He burned the letter to a 
crisp, ignoring the way that the dragon's head seemed to 
stare at him out of the heart of the flame, not melting 
until last, and singing to him in a silent voice, calling 
him back.
    No. Damn it, no. Delusions, that was all it was, no 
more, and a small part of him convinced it had all been 
glory and unable to accept the loss.
    He went back to his ward.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Herran lay still with his eyes closed until Tandra's 
breathing had slowed again and there was no sense of 
concern or fear from her, only the gentler emotions of 
dreams and the happiness that came from having him in her 
arms, here and safe.
    Safe.
    Herran opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, 
though not for long. Whether through the love they shared 
or not, she could always tell when he did it for more than 
a few minutes, and would wake and ask him, as she had done 
just now, what was wrong.
    He shivered and curled a little deeper into himself. 
He knew what was wrong, even though he did not want to 
admit it and would not. Not to her. Not to the Goddess. 
Not to Kerlinde or Kuolema Deathwield or Aereri or 
Irrlosta or anyone else who might think he or she would 
understand, because he knew they would not. It was to be 
expected, after all. He had expected it.
    But still...
    Nightmares.
    Stars.
    They rushed in upon him, drowning him in darkness, 
hitting him with great black wings until he felt as if he 
were caught in a flood of ravens. He burned and shivered 
with the plague, over and over again, felt the itching 
crawl through his blood and out the other side of his 
skin, and felt the growths like fungal shelves burst forth 
from him, shedding dust that drifted through the air like 
falls of snow. He felt the humans and curalli dying and 
screamed and writhed in helpless empathy.
    Luckily, his movements in the dreams were not mirrored 
in his physical body. He twisted only in his mind, and 
what woke Tandra, most often, were the dark waves of 
terror and pain that beat out from him. That, and the 
guilt he had not yet mastered.
    He looked at her gravely and sadly and stroked her 
hair. The color of the sunset that the Council's letter- 
writer had seen so fit to praise, it foamed around his 
fingers, as soft as her eyes when she soothed him from 
another nightmare into stillness. She murmured and 
snuggled a little closer to him.  
    He could understand why she made him happy, why he 
loved her, but it left him at a loss, most of the time, 
why she loved him, what comfort he could possibly bring 
her. He stroked her hair one more time and drew his hand 
back from her face.
    Yet when she had clucked to him after the nightmare, 
holding him close and telling him that the men were dead, 
that he had caused their deaths for a good reason, and 
that nothing he could suffer now would bring them back, he 
had seen part of the reason in her eyes, he thought. She 
was glad that he was not what he had been, as happy or 
happier than he was. She was glad that she could do 
something to protect him, when trying to do so for so many 
years had only gotten her Guards killed.
    He was happy that she had cause to feel this way, that 
now she could be happy.
    He was.
    He kissed her brow, the lightest brushing of his lips 
he could possibly manage, and then rolled away, to leave 
her in peace, folding his arms behind his head and staring 
at the ceiling and its carved pictures again until she 
began to stir restlessly. Then he could stand it no 
longer, and slipped out of the bed.
    He dragged his tunic and hosen on, thinking that it 
was a bother he no longer slept fully clothed. But then, 
there were few emergencies that would come to wake a lord 
of the high blood in the middle of the night. A killing on 
one of his farms, yes, but that had not happened for 
years.
    Almost the exact opposite was true for a 
Councilmaster.
    He slowly descended the stairs, stopping to look out 
the window at the moons and stars as he did so. They were 
bright, and that might have been another reason he could 
not sleep. Though he did not believe in the old 
superstition that walking in or watching the light of the 
golden moon, Lureth, could cause insanity, he was happiest 
when he did not have to see her.
    He slipped into the room where he had been working on 
the ward, and paused, lifting his eyebrows. It seemed that 
Irrlosta had decided leaving his materials where she had 
found them would tempt Sahsraiinar and Teffulia too much. 
They were neatly packed away, even the harmless white dust 
he had been using for patterns.
    Oh, well.
    He settled into the chair at the table anyway and 
closed his eyes. The pattern was there, rearing tangled in 
his mind's eye, and carefully he studied it, holding at 
bay the frustration that wanted to overwhelm him. There 
was no reason for anger over this. It was a simple ward, 
and if he could not use it to defend his home and family, 
he could find another one that would work just as well.
    That was right.
    It was a simple ward.
    He saw what he had been missing, and chuckled under 
his breath, shaking his head. Strange that he should not 
have seen it before, but anger, especially anger as strong 
as his when magic flooded him, could have blinded him. He 
reached out and made a minute adjustment to the pattern, 
with magic as well as in his mind; the moment he had begun 
to concentrate upon it, the pattern had become inscribed 
on the air to a certain extent, and now he could see the 
place where he needed to fill in a straight line with a 
straight line instead of a knot or loop. There was no room 
for overwhelming complexity in this ward. The tricks of 
his enemies and their attempts to get past it would slide 
past as water did past a shark. The thing would circle and 
attack them.
    Like so-
    It was done, and a shimmering, chiming note flooded 
the room. Herran opened his eyes. The ward shimmered 
before him as the note had, strong and perfect, an ordered 
line of blue light, one of the most powerful and yet one 
of the most simple wards he had ever stumbled across in 
any of his reading.
    He touched the thing, and felt an instant sense of 
repulsion that nearly pushed him from his chair. The 
effect was simple as well. The ward would act like an 
invisible fence about the house, shoving those who did not 
belong there away from it. Not the fancy cutting tricks 
that most of them employed, and that would insure that his 
enemies were unready to face it in yet another way.
    He rose, his eyes on the ward, and turned to find an 
appropriate place for it.
    He found Sahsraiinar standing in the doorway.
    "What is the matter?" he asked his elder daughter 
gently. "Couldn't you sleep?"
    She shook her head, eyes on the ward, and then turned 
to look accusingly at him for a moment. "How could I, with 
that kind of magic singing in my room? Do you know how 
powerful this is?"
    Herran did have some idea, but kept silent and 
shrugged, letting his daughter, who was an expert on wards 
and loved to lecture- a habit learned from irrlosta- speak 
as she so obviously wanted to.
    "Very," said Sahsraiinar, in the simple words that she 
used only for emphasis. She slipped into the room and 
walked over, staring at the ward pattern. "The angles for 
the sun and moon are all wrong; the alignment with the 
stars is not one I have seen before. What constellation 
does it follow?"
    "The Net."
    "A wrap-ward?"
    Herran nodded.
    "Why would anyone need one so powerful?"
    "I expect enemy attacks," Herran confessed with a 
sigh. "This will help to fend them off. I plan to lay as 
many traps, as much protection, as I can about the house 
before the final year of peace that Quirrin has given us 
is up and he starts trying to find a way to get me to do 
his bidding once more."
    "This thing... he could not command it, turn it 
against you?"
    Herran shook his head. "He does not think in the right 
way. It takes certain channels in the mind to command the 
ward, to think of the Net and the ward at the same time, 
and to think of using such power for a purely defensive 
force that will endure for years. Quirrin thinks in terms 
of attack and defense, of slice and cut, or of 
transportation. A ward like this will puzzle him for long 
enough that it can alert me, and I will know that someone 
is trying to tamper with it."
    "Can I come with you to hang it?"
    Herran glanced by habit out the window. No signs of a 
storm; still clear, almost preternaturally clear. 
Lightning from a magestorm could affect his daughter 
magic, make it erratic. "I think it would be all right," 
he allowed.
    She sighed at him, eyes darkening almost to the shade 
of cobalt as she walked beside him, the ward trailing 
behind, an unfolding banner of blue light. "I am not a 
child anymore, Father. I have not been one for almost nine 
years. I can care for myself."
    "I know," said Herran, smiling at her. "That is one 
reason I do not fear for you or for Teffulia when the year 
of peace that we have left is over, and you might become 
targets for Quirrin's anger. But there is no sense in 
taking stupid chances, is there?"
    "Are you saying that I do?"
    Herran did not bother to answer that. They both knew 
that she did. More talented than her sister in some ways, 
but also far more reckless, Sahsraiinar attacked what 
should be left well enough alone and sometimes pushed in 
ways that the wise did not push.
    She sighed, and said nothing else until they were out 
in the light of the stars, which gleamed like her hair. 
Herran gave the golden moon an uneasy glance, and followed 
the ward over to the place where he would hang it, it 
tugging ahead of him now as it sensed, by its own power, 
its rightful place.
    "Why are you not walking in the golden moonlight, 
Father?" Sahsraiinar asked as she trailed after him, her 
tone a strange combination of a child's curiosity, and an 
adult's tolerance for the foolishness of someone else 
close.
    Herran glanced at her and had to shrug at the 
amusement in her eyes.
    "That old superstition?" Sahsraiinar snorted and 
stepped into a patch of golden moonlight. "It does not 
matter, Father. I swear to you that it has never done 
anything to my magic, and you know how sensitive it is. If 
you want to hang the ward, you'll have to go through a few 
of them."
    The ward was still unwinding before his eyes, drifting 
to the far side of the building, and Herran saw that she 
was right. Sighing, he stepped back, and tried to see a 
way around it. There was none, and the ward passed through 
the moonlight without mishap.
    "Why, Father?" Sahsraiinar was saying, staring at him 
with real concern now, her eyes sharp as blades with it. 
"Is there something wrong?" She looked nervously over one 
shoulder. Never mind that she considered herself more 
magically powerful than he was, and in some ways acted 
much older than her age; she knew that he had more 
experience in dealing with danger.
    "No, I..."
    Herran's voice trailed off. This was ridiculous. There 
was no reason to stand here and stare at the shining 
patches on the ground as though they were scales shed from 
some great snake, evidence of its passage. Stars, it was 
worse than that. He was reacting as if he had seen the 
snake and it was about to return and eat him.
    He took a nervous breath and moved forward a foot, to 
the edge of a patch.
    And stopped.
    He could not force himself to go forward, no more than 
he could have forced himself to jump off a cliff without 
some kind of outside impetus, such as Tandra's voice 
calling his name. He lacked the impulse for suicide, and 
something was screaming at him that it would be suicide if 
he jumped off the cliff, or stepped into the patch of 
moonlight now.
    But if he did not...
    "Father?"
    Herran lifted his eyes to meet hers. Had he been 
alone, he would have left the ward until morning. But he 
was not, and he did not want Irrlosta and his daughters 
thinking that he was suffering from some malady that he 
was not. They had the heart to confine him to bed, even if 
Tandra did not.
    Shrugging and smiling at her, and having found the 
outside impetus, he stepped into the golden moonlight.
    And staggered, crying out sharply, as something hit 
him hard in the gut.
    "Father!"
    Wildness raged around him, a glowing, blowing wave of 
it, curling around it and sending bright spume high and 
into his face. He could actually feel something hitting 
him, bright fireflies of magic coming towards him, 
attracted by his greater brilliance. He felt as though he 
looked down on the world from the perspective of the moon, 
and he could see it all: darkened valleys and hills 
glowing with golden light, forests that drank the light, 
and slopes that rolled over it and drowned it in the 
rivers...
    Then he was free of it, and panting on the ground, 
with Sahsraiinar's hands firmly clutching his shoulders, 
and her ashen face only a few inches away from his. He 
rolled away and knelt on the ground, shaking, unable to 
look at her.
    "What happened?" she asked in a voice that sounded 
very small.
    "I don't know," said Herran, but so softly that she 
did not hear it, and would not hear, therefore, that it 
was a lie.
    "I- Father, I'm so sorry."
    "It wasn't your fault," he said, scrambling to his 
feet and making sure that the world looked sane again. He 
looked at Sahsraiinar, surrounded by glowing threads of 
magic, and smiled reassuringly. "It's all right, my 
daughter. I had to dare myself, and this is the result, 
what might happen if you are not caring about yourself."
    "What did happen?"
    "Wild magic," said Herran simply, having decided that 
it was an explanation that he could give her, one that was 
safe. Hearing a voice that needed help let him pull 
himself back, and stay in this world. The world he had 
chosen long ago, he reminded the magic that wanted to curl 
over him strongly. "The moon... carries something in her 
beams, at times. A reminder of an older world. She is a 
goddess, after all." He looked up at the full golden moon, 
turning the night almost as bright as day. "It is to be 
expected that at times a goddess's thoughts come to earth, 
and catch the unsuspecting in them."
    "I never thought that there was any truth in that 
legend, and I have been maligning it for years." 
Sahsraiinar looked badly shaken. "Forgive me, Father. I 
should not have dared you."
    Herran shook his head. "I dared myself. I am certain 
of that. No blame attached." He looked up at the radiant 
orb and hoped that he could stay out of her light for the 
time it took to hang the ward.
----------------------------------------------------------
    ^My lord.^
    Herran stopped, and felt a smile spreading across his 
lips. ^Gercom!^ he said happily, opening fully to the 
telepathic link that had been established, and setting 
down the harp he had been idly tuning. ^It is months since 
last we spoke. What has happened? Has Sakrall recovered 
from the human attack?^
    ^Yes, thanks to you. But now...^ There was a long 
pause, and Herran found himself wondering what the curalli 
had in mind, then scolding himself for thinking in terms 
of the Game.
    ^Yes?^
    ^There is something I must speak to you about, and I 
would like your permission to come to Rowan to do it. May 
I come?^
    ^You do not need my permission-^
    ^Your protection. I would imagine that attacks on 
shadowed Elwens within the bounds of Rowan have been 
rather frequent of late.^
    ^Yes, they have been,^ Herran said with a sigh. ^I am 
sorry.^
    ^Why? You were not the cause. The treachery of my own 
people was. I need only one thing from you, though, and 
that should be a meeting at the Gate. Meet me in front of 
the Guards, and they will see that my business is 
legitimate, and not try to attack me.^
    ^Of course. I should have thought of that. Have you 
anything that you must bring with you?^
    ^No- yes, there is something that I should bring.^
    ^Then let me bring you a horse.^ Herran ignored the 
regret in his friend's voice, telling himself it meant 
nothing, that emotions could be conveyed over the mental 
conversation that the speaker had never meant to convey, 
ignoring the often-cited truth that those emotions usually 
did have something to do with the conversation even if the 
speaker did not know what. ^It will ease the burden and 
make it appear more legitimate than ever to the Guards.^ 
    ^Bring the horse to Sakrall, you mean? There is no 
need for that.^ Gercom was somewhere, Herran thought, 
between scandalized and amused.
    ^Yes, there is. If you are sure that you do not want 
to speak of this in Sakrall-^
    ^No.^
    ^Then I will bring you the horse, and this can serve 
as a show to the land Elwens on the farm that curalli are 
to be treated as well as ever on all my lands, or I will 
hear of it.^
    Gercom laughed. ^Clever, my lord. If you are sure it 
will not weaken you own position?^
    ^You forget what happened the night humans attacked 
Sakrall. I might weaken my position in the eyes of my own 
people, but never with the only judge that truly counts, 
the land. I cannot unbind myself from the land or give it 
to anyone else while I live.^
    ^Never, my lord,^ said Gercom softly, and then 
clarified when he felt Herran's gentle inquiry. ^I would 
never forget that night.^
    Herran let it lie between them for a moment, and then 
sent a sharp mental nod. ^Then I will come. Let me have a 
few hours to gather the horses, and then I should arrive 
as soon as I can, taking the roads that I am now permitted 
to take.^ He let Gercom hear the sly delight in his voice, 
sure the curalli would enjoy it.
    There was a moment when it seemed that Gercom would 
say something, and then he cut it off. ^My lord, if you 
really wish to come all this way-^
    ^All this way? It is no farther than you would have 
come on foot.^
    ^It seems degrading to you.^
    ^You should worry more about the dignity and the ways 
of curalli, and less about land Elwens,^ said Herran, 
laughing gently. ^Were you, my friend, born with silver 
blood?^ 
    ^No.^ Gercom gave the necessary riposte. ^And I thank 
all the stars that oversaw my birth for that.^ 
    Herran laughed, and said, ^I should be there by noon. 
I will go now to gather the supplies for a leisurely meal 
as well. I don't think that you've eaten.^
    ^I- no.^
    Herran ignored the curalli's silent question about how 
he could have felt that over a mental link. ^Then I'll 
come with food.^
    He cut the link, and stood, stretching extravagantly 
before he fetched the harp and went to put it away. It 
would feel good to be out of the city. He had not been for 
nearly a dance, ever since he had ridden out to watch the 
sun rise alone on the first day of autumn, another of the 
things he had known he should do, like not stepping into 
the golden moonlight.
    He frowned, closed his eyes, and consciously banished 
the memory that was doing its steady best to overwhelm 
him. Then he went to the stables and regarded the gray 
mare that the Guards had given him as a gift. He would 
have to stop in their stables to rent a second, though, 
and his daughters or Irrlosta, upon seeing the mare gone, 
would know in a second that he was gone as well.
    But that did not matter.
    It should not, at least.
    He shrugged and went into the house, to fetch some 
bread and meat and fresh fruit for Gercom. He rationed the 
fruit carefully, knowing that there would not be more 
until harvest some dances away, and then only dried fruit 
in the winter. 
    Stars, how he hated winter. His soul weakened and wept 
with the land, and he could not keep his eyes open for 
more than a few hours at a time in the worst times. He 
felt as though he were caught in an endless, frozen 
moment, much like the trees who slept under the snow. Only 
the wakening in spring mattered.
    He drew in a sharp breath and stopped, staring at his 
hands, as an idea occurred to him and attached itself to 
his soul with sharp hooks.
    "What are you doing, my lord?"
    This time it was Irrlosta. Herran wondered if Tandra 
would be the next one to interrupt him. This musing he did 
not really mind having interrupted, though. "Gathering 
food," he answered, making it true by dropping the things 
he had accumulated into a series of pouches that he then 
hung at his waist. "Gercom spoke to me and wants me to 
ride out to Sakrall."
    "Is that a good idea?"
    "Why wouldn't it be?"
    "I do not think that Tandra has assigned any Guards to 
watch you as yet-"
    "She doesn't need to," said Herran, with a smile as he 
reveled once again in the freedom that he tended to 
forget, every now and then. "Remember? I am no longer 
Councilmaster, and no one would have any political reason 
to harm me."
    "No political one, but a good many personal ones. 
Sahsraiinar told me that you were hanging a wrap-ward last 
night, and I could feel it on the house this morning."
    Herran shrugged. "I did what I had to. Quirrin will 
not leave us in peace forever. It makes sense to defend 
the house. It makes no sense to defend my person when I am 
not Councilmaster, and not in need of it."
    "You never thought you needed it when you were 
Councilmaster," said Irrlosta in a grumble, but she was 
smiling as she said it, and she stepped back, letting 
Herran do what he wished. 
    "No," Herran agreed. "But that should mean that I need 
it even less now, don't you agree?" He snapped a smile at 
her and hurried down the ladder before she had time to 
change her mind.
    Not that he thought she would. She was the girls' 
teacher and the friend and confidant of Tandra, but he was 
her employer, and no more. Any friendliness that she 
showed to him was out of care for his wife and children, 
he was sure.
    He was going to see his wife in a few minutes.
    He closed his eyes and arranged his thoughts as 
carefully as some other Elwens arranged their clothes. 
Then he swung onto the gray mare's back, without bothering 
to saddle or bridle her, made sure that yet another pouch 
he carried held enough silver coins, and urged the mare 
forward with a tap of his heels on her sides. She 
responded at once, better-trained than he had thought, 
flowing up the street like a cloud of smoke.
    Not that he did not miss the sorrel mare killed in 
action against the humans, or even the dark curalli 
gelding who had thrown him on battle-orders when he rode 
in the Battle of Hyall's Hill. This horse would take some 
getting used to. But the period of adjustment might not be 
as long as he had thought or feared.
    Content, he patted her neck, and leaned back, closing 
his eyes, as she picked her way to the Guards' compound, 
the way he had asked her to do in her mind. The sunlight, 
still fairly warm even with the growing advance of autumn, 
signified by the golden sky overhead, lulled him almost to 
sleep before the softer thump of the mare's hooves and the 
accumulation of emotions told him they had arrived in the 
Guards' compound.
    He could feel their stares without opening his eyes. 
Before this, he had come to the compound as a mostly 
unwelcome visitor, his presence always meaning that their 
Captain would have to do something else that meant she 
might die. Now they only wondered what he wanted, as they 
would with any ordinary Elwen.
    It was a wonderful feeling.
    Then her voice called out to him, and it was open his 
eyes or fall from the horse as he forgot where he was in 
his joy.
    "Herran!"
    He turned the horse towards her, holding the mare firm 
in the midst of her smiling rush, and dismounted quickly 
and roughly to hug her. For a moment, they stood there, 
not caring who watched, who murmured, who stared with 
something that might have been envy.
    "I did not think that you would come," she whispered.
    Herran tensed a little in her arms, but calmed himself 
so quickly that she could not feel it. "I am here," he 
said, smiling at her, seeing the light in her black eyes 
and the tilt of her head that meant something missing from 
the day had been restored, the look that could add color 
even to sunlight. "I promised that I would be, didn't I?"
    In truth, he had forgotten all about the promise, but 
she could hear no lie in his words, and accepted them with 
a nod.
    "Yes, you did," she said, pulling him after him as she 
walked over to meet a young woman with dark hair and eyes, 
boredly and coolly waiting just outside the stables. "I 
know that you keep your promises, Herran, no matter how it 
costs you." The look that she gave him then was warm, 
sympathetic, understanding.
    Herran nodded. He had promised her last night, just 
before she stopped soothing away his nightmares and fell 
asleep, that he would come and watch her duel Nyenna, a 
young recruit to the Guards whose tricks and affected 
manners had finally annoyed her Captain past all bearing. 
Though Tandra had the right to exile the woman from the 
Guards this way if she wanted to, she knew that Nyenna had 
made some friends and it would not be a popular decision 
at first. With Herran at her back, she would feel more as 
if she were doing the right thing.
    Herran, who had watched her uneasiness over the other 
woman grow for months, thought she should have been exiled 
long dances before this. But he was not the leader of the 
Guards, and it was not his decision to make. He leaned 
against the stables and watched quietly, glancing at the 
sun only once. He had said that he would be at Sakrall by 
noon. There were still two hours left until then, and the 
ride to Sakrall would take only a little more than an 
hour. He could make it.
    Tandra stood with her hand on his arm for a moment, 
head bowed, and Herran started from his self-absorbed 
musings and remembered her. He stroked her orange hair 
once and murmured, "Remember that no one has ever equaled 
you, Tandra-"
    "In your eyes and heart, you mean." Her voice was 
snappish, but he could understand. He had felt the same 
way himself when confronted with a possible rebellion, a 
division in the ranks of those he led, that he could not 
afford.
    "In any way," he said. "There are others who handle 
the sword well, or even better, as with Keesa Firehair. 
But you are the true leader of the Guards. You told me how 
hard it was to see in someone else what Vindia saw in you, 
what made her choose you. That quality, that character, 
Nyenna does not have. That means that she cannot defeat 
you."
    "Even her defeat might sour my reputation in the 
Guards, and hurt it a little."
    "Nothing is less important," said Herran calmly. "You 
will win them back, as you have always done. They are 
devoted to you because they know that you are devoted to 
them, beloved. No one could lead them as you do."
    "And Nyenna does not have that loyalty." She looked up 
fiercely, eyes burning now. "I do."
    "Yes." He stooped to kiss her brow, between the eyes, 
less a gesture of tenderness than a wish of good luck in 
the upcoming battle, though the next words he spoke were 
all of love. "Remember, karai, if nothing else, you must 
come out of the battle alive and with your reputation 
intact so that you can have the happiness you deserve. 
It's only been two dances that you have been able to sleep 
without worrying about me. You deserve more time to sleep 
peacefully than that."
    She flashed a smile at him. "That is true. How do you 
know what to say, Herran?"
    "A gift. One of the four in my life that has meant 
something to me."
    She did not have to ask what the other three were; the 
smile raced across her face. She kissed him lightly and 
ducked out of the embrace he had her half in, walking 
towards Nyenna and saying something that Herran did not 
let himself hear. The young woman blinked, and the smug 
look faded from her eyes. She stared at Tandra, hard, then 
shrugged and nodded once.
    "Very well," said Tandra, loud enough for Herran to 
hear this time, and turned away with a flourish that made 
Nyenna narrow her eyes and study the other swordswoman's 
movements carefully. "If you will gather around us in the 
circle, then we can begin."
    Herran drew in a satisfied breath as he joined the 
circle. This traditional means of fighting- those watching 
the combat forming a circle so that neither combatant 
could escape and so that any cheating could be noted, any 
deception or trickery- belonged to the Guards alone. It 
would emphasize that Tandra was drawing upon tradition, 
upon the fact that she had been the Captain of the Guards 
for almost three centuries and had been a Guard herself 
for longer than that. It would also make it seem as if 
Nyenna were challenging her for the Captaincy. It would 
rouse the sympathies of the Guards and attach them firmly 
to the person they rightfully belonged to.
    Their leader.
    Nyenna's eyes, almost the color of Tandra's but 
neither so rich nor so deep, blazed as she figured it out, 
but she did not betray any fear as she walked towards her 
opponent, sword half-drawn. Tandra turned to meet her with 
a small nod, bringing up her own blade and falling into a 
comfortable half-crouch. It was a routine position, but it 
made Nyenna stop and study her opponent yet again.
    Herran his smile, but the young woman felt the emotion 
and glanced over at him, gaze narrow and tight with 
displeasure.
    Herran looked as innocent as he could; he had not had 
much practice in either hiding his emotions nor 
maintaining that particular expression. After a moment, 
she snorted and turned back again, not staying still as 
Tandra was but beginning to sway back and forth, like a 
snake coiling to strike.
    Herran blinked, thinking he saw no woman but a serpent 
there for a moment, and then chided himself for an 
overactive imagination and watched quietly as the two 
women prepared to spar, the Guards drawing the circle 
closer and tighter about them, murmuring to each other 
with excitement but not about to disturb the combat.
    Herran kept a close eye on them in any case, even when 
the blades first crossed, just in case anyone did 
sympathize with Nyenna enough to want to make the contest 
a little more even.
    Nyenna struck first, a fast and perfect strike that 
reminded Herran of Keesa, though it was more polished and 
had something more of training than the instinctual nature 
the Lady of Firehair put into her strikes. The sword met 
Tandra's and glanced off. Tandra might not be quite as 
good, might not have the same fighting training as Nyenna, 
but she had fought opposite her for some months now and 
knew exactly what the woman she both despised and feared 
could do.
    And Nyenna did not know the full extent of what Tandra 
could do. No one did.
    The next moment, Tandra did unleash just a little of 
her brilliance. It was not commonly known that she could 
fight with two weapons. But when she drew a dagger and 
began to weave it around Nyenna's blade in intricate 
patterns that forced her into counters not quite as 
intricate, the girl began to understand. She backed and 
swung furiously, but the sword came through while she was 
watching the dagger. Blood began to slip free from a neat 
silver seam on her leg.
    She bent over, clutching at the wound and wincing, and 
cupping her hand-
    Herran shouted before he could stop himself, his anger 
great enough at anyone who tried to hurt Tandra to disrupt 
even this. "Tandra! She's using the dirt-"
    Nyenna flashed him a murderous glare and straightened, 
with the dirt dripping between her fingers. It was a 
curalli tactic, to throw dirt into an opponent's eyes and 
strike while she was blinded. Herran had seen it before, 
and he remembered that Tandra had told him the woman came 
from near the Forbge Forest and claimed to have experience 
fighting curalli.
    That did not mean she would have used the trick, as 
several mutters that sprang up behind him in the next 
moment were designed to remind him. But Tandra would not 
have seen her do it, shielded as the hand was by the 
natural gesture of clutching at a wound and the position 
of Nyenna's blade, and Herran wanted to be sure that she 
was warned.
    Tandra caught his eye and smiled, then whirled away to 
meet another assault from Nyenna. The young woman had a 
dagger in her opposite hand as well, but she fought in the 
curalli style, which Tandra knew well how to counter. She 
knew how to read the feints, the counters that were not 
counters but traps, and all the deceptions that the 
shadowed Elwens could teach, while Nyenna knew almost 
nothing of the land Elwen method, which relied more on 
quickness and tricks like the sunlight flashing off a 
blade.
    Nyenna was blinded by just such a flash, and Tandra's 
blade went in to carve another line across her shoulder. 
The sudden flash of the dagger prevented her from getting 
any deeper, made her retreat before Nyenna could open a 
similar cut on her cheek, but the damage was done. The 
cheering that arose from the Guards almost had Tandra's 
name solely in it now.
    Nyenna turned her head quickly and nudged the flush of 
cloth from her tunic over the wound, sticking it shut and 
making sure that the blood would not trickle to the ground 
beneath her and spoil her movements. That was a curalli 
trick as well, and though Herran did not doubt that she 
had fought them, he was beginning to wonder if she had 
fought only the ones who had tried to kill her, and not 
curalli just because they were curalli.
    That meant she might try something else. Such tricks 
came, after a while, as naturally as breathing.
    She feinted, and this time struck with the dagger so 
quickly that Tandra could not avoid it. She blocked it, 
but it scraped a small cut on the inside of her wrist. 
Herran stifled a growl under his breath and waited as 
patiently as he could, trusting that Tandra would fight as 
well as ever.
    She did, though with grimaces and flinches and 
intention to take the girl seriously now, Herran could 
see. She no longer tried to show off for her audience by 
flashing her blade when it did not need to be flashed. All 
the flourishes now were meant to hide a deception or send 
the sun into Nyenna's eyes. Though they circled, she 
always forced the girl to face east again as soon as she 
could, catching her with the mounting sun striking her 
full in the face.
    And Nyenna blinked at that, and did not do so well 
again until she had backed Tandra so that she was the one 
silhouetted by the sun.
    Possibly curalli blood, as well, Herran noted.
    The dark eyes locked to each other sparked and fired, 
both pairs, as the fight went on, but Herran could see 
that Nyenna and Tandra had at least one more difference 
between them than level of skill and level of temper 
control. Nyenna was glaring at the woman who fought her as 
if she wanted to kill her, as if this were no longer a 
contest of skill but something more personal. Tandra 
continued to look as though her main objective were 
driving Nyenna from the Guards by humiliating her and 
making the others see that her reputation as a fighter had 
not been well-earned or did not matter.
    Herran had seen curalli look much the same way before. 
They fought to kill, not maim, if they could. Always. As 
Kerlinde and Gercom and countless others had explained to 
him, it was the only way to be sure that your enemy did 
not follow you.
    And this pure hatred...
    Herran let the barriers down a little, the barriers he 
had kept up because he did not want Tandra to feel the 
depth of his worry for her and be insulted by it, and felt 
the hatred that pulsed and beat from Nyenna as if she were 
the sun. He winced and slammed the barriers up again, then 
continued to study the fight.
    Yes... 
    Something was wrong.
    She was going to do something.
    She cut with the dagger up, and Tandra jumped back and 
circled again, even though this meant she would not have 
her back to the sun any longer. Nyenna seemed to be 
growing stronger and quicker as the fight wore on, not at 
all troubled by the loss of blood from the minor wounds or 
the loss of support from the land Elwens watching her 
intently, and she was smiling now, a very faint smile that 
only someone sensitive to emotions- as most of the Guards 
had learned not to be- would have seen.
    Herran swallowed, and something that had not blossomed 
in him for nearly two dances woke up in the middle of his 
mind again.
    All about him was crystal. He could see what would 
happen as if someone had told him. A combination of magic, 
of logic, and his own experience of how the actions of one 
person could be manipulated or foretold, combined into a 
kind of mysterious knowledge that arrived whole in the 
middle of his mind.
    He was being told...
    And then the final clue, the flash of light from the 
tip of Nyenna's blade, not silver or white, but green. And 
then black. And the smell, very faint, as faint as the 
smile she wore, lost under the press of sweat from the two 
women and the dust they kicked up.
    Herran swallowed again, and stared hard. Stars, he 
would not interfere if he did not have to- he knew how 
serious this contest was, and how important to Tandra- but 
let her sense the truth soon. If she did not...
    He would enter the game. He cared more about her life, 
ultimately, than about what the Guards would think of him 
for disrupting the contest.
    Nyenna struck again, a rapid pattern that cost her; 
Tandra's dagger scored a line on her cheek that almost 
took her eye. But she ducked and writhed out of the way at 
the last moment, her eyes strongly and grimly triumphant, 
and then rushed away in the direction of the circle, 
dagger lifted high as though she were frustrated enough to 
hurl it at one of the Guards. Tandra followed her, not 
seeing the eyes or the face with her opponent's back 
turned, and not feeling the emotions- too caught up in the 
pounding press of her own rage to feel them.
    Herran shouted.
    No one heard him, because of the ringing cry that 
erupted from Nyenna's throat as she turned to hurl the 
poisoned dagger at the woman who had humiliated her in 
front of the Elwens she had worked so hard to win. Tandra 
brought up a blade to deflect it, but even Herran could 
see that it would cut into her wrist, as before. But this 
time it would not be the minor wound that Tandra expected 
to have from such a thing.
    It would be fatal.
    Stars!
    He was too far away to hurl himself between Tandra and 
the dagger, and he could not call a ward as he might have 
done while still Councilmaster. He seized the flying 
object with his telekinesis and wrenched it out of the 
trajectory, sending it flying in a different direction. He 
tried to retain control, but it jerked and slipped out of 
his mental hands as the same force that had attacked him 
last night, magic gone mad, reared and lashed his mind and 
soul.
    Stars!
    It hit someone else.
    Herran could not pay attention to the victim, though 
the man's screams rent the air. He dropped to his knees, 
gasping and choking and feeling as though he were dying. 
The magic within him tormented him for using it so 
suddenly, without warning, and-
    And then, he did die.
    He felt the man die. He had not gown if his connection 
to the web of Rowanian lives that he had felt as 
Councilmaster would remain, but now he had his answer. The 
man was one of his people, and the connection was 
stronger, standing so close. He felt him collapse and die, 
the poison taking his heart.
    He screamed again then, but for a very different 
reason, and felt a hand on his shoulder in the moment 
before the spiraling magic of two different kinds sent him 
completely into darkness.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Herran? Hear me now."
    He moved his head restlessly, then opened his eyes. He 
expected to see Tandra standing above him, pale as death 
as she told him about the death of one of the Guards in 
the trap planned for her, or to see the face of a healer. 
But there was something else entirely waiting for him.
    He could see the face of a woman he had never expected 
to see again, a woman who had told him that he would not 
see her again.
    "Visions?"
    The woman nodded gently, though not as if she wished 
to comfort him. As if she understood that harshness would 
send him into another darkness, this one borne of guilt. 
Her starry eyes, black with silver flecks, glittered 
harshly, though, as she stared at him. "You should have 
come to us while you had the chance."
    "I don't-"
    "You do. You would have been able to prevent the 
Guard's death if you had stepped in earlier, or if you had 
come to us."
    "If I had come to you, Amara," said Herran, finally 
speaking the name of the woman who had once been his 
comrade-in-arms and fighting on the same side, but was now 
no more than a ghost in his world, "then I would not have 
been there to see it happen."
    "True," she said. "But we could have trained you, not 
taken you completely into our world. We could have trained 
you to contain and control the magic that you hold."
    "You never offered that. It was leaving the world that 
I knew and loved or nothing."
    "You never asked."
    Herran drew a deep breath and managed to sit up. That 
was when he realized that he did not lie on a bed. He was 
fully in the vision, not only seeing her. He looked about 
cautiously, and caught his breath.
    He lay on deep green grass tinged with silver, as if 
hidden stars were shining somewhere, surrounded by tall 
trees that looked like aspens, perfect combinations of 
silver and green in a different way than the grasses were. 
"I..." he said, and trailed off, as he lifted his head to 
regard a perfect night sky.
    "This is no more than the merest glimpse of our 
world," said Amara, with a slight dry tone in her voice. 
Then the tone modulated into an accusation. It was more of 
an emotion than he had seen her show, save once, when she 
was among Elwens. "This is what you could have had, had 
you chosen to come with us."
    "I did not so choose. And you said that you would not 
force me. The alfari, whom I know for more powerful than 
you, said they could force me, but they did not choose 
to."
    "They should have."
    "I chose-"
    "Because you were Councilmaster!" She bounced to her 
feet and stalked back and forth. Her harshness now was at 
sharp odds with the beauty of the serene place. Herran was 
more intent on drawing the sweet air into his lungs and 
wondering where he had smelled the delicate scent that 
pervaded it before than he was on answering her. "That 
impetus is now removed. That means that I have been given 
permission to ask you again."
    "The answer is the same," Herran said coolly, looking 
up at her.
    "Even though you have now been responsible for the 
death of an Elwen?"
    "I felt a far greater guilt less than two dances ago. 
I have what I want and what I love, and those are two 
thing that you cannot provide me."
    "And if you will destroy everything that you want and 
love by remaining in that world?"
    Herran smiled at her. "You should know better than to 
try rhetorical tricks like that on someone who lives in 
the Game."
    "That is the point that I am trying to make, and that 
you are afraid to let me make," she said swiftly. "If you 
will destroy even one thing that you love by remaining in 
the world, is it worth it?"
    Herran held her gaze squarely. "I know that I am not 
capable of harming Tandra or my girls."
    "But if you might? If the magic that lives within you 
is capable of such a thing?"
    "I will not-"
    "You could," said Amara. "Seizing the dagger in flight 
might have been difficult for someone else. It should not 
have been difficult for you. Instead, it twisted and went 
flying. How can you explain that? How can you wake up in 
the morning and say to yourself that you will only use 
your magic to do this thing and this thing today, when you 
have seen that it no longer obeys you?"
    "I need not use magic as much, now that I am not 
Councilmaster-"
    "But it will use you," said Amara. "I know you are 
well aware of the theory that says the magic rising in 
you, as it is separate from you for the first time since 
your childhood, has the independent will that it had then 
back again. That happens to be true. It is something with 
another will living inside you, like an intelligent 
disease. If it decides that your interests will be best 
served by killing someone you love, it will do that. You 
must tame it."
    "How?"
    Amara was at once the cool woman he had known again, 
though gentler than she had ever been. She lowered herself 
to the ground beside him and smiled sympathetically into 
his eyes. "It was hard for me, too, at first," she said 
softly. "I convinced myself that I could tame the magic on 
my own, and that I did not need to react to the constant 
provocations that appeared in front of me. But even I, 
with all my training, could not do it. And though life in 
the world I now inhabit was unimaginable to me when I was 
a mortal Elwen, now I find it beautiful and rich beyond 
all compare."
    "Is that because you really love it, or because you 
have lost all basis of comparison with the memories of 
your former life, and you now think of what you have, the 
way you live, as the norm?"
    Amara's face flushed, and she backed away from him a 
little, watching him as though he might suddenly lunge at 
her. "You do not need to- I remember the friendship that 
we shared."
    "It was not a friendship, it was a comradeship. I 
never really knew you. We fought in the same patrol and on 
the same side in the Rebellion. Do you even remember that, 
or is that something else to you now, as this world is 
something else to me?"
    "I- you must come, Herran," she said, and now she was 
the one who was afraid of what he was trying to say. 
"There is no choice. The powers that control this world 
have watched you for a long time and grieved for your 
suffering. I know that Tandra thinks she can help you, but 
she cannot. They want to help you, so that you never have 
to suffer more."
    Already, the flush was gone from her cheeks, and 
normality had returned to her starry eyes, which pinned 
him again. The stare was so direct as to try and compel 
belief.
    They did not succeed. "I did what I did to make Tandra 
happy," said Herran quietly, staring at her. "But also to 
make myself happy. I will not involve my wife in this, or 
anyone else."
    "You think that you can control your magic with only 
the help of a mage of your own world-"
    "No. I will control it on my own, or else I deserve 
all that happens to me."
    There was a pause, and then Amara said gently, 
"Herran, I think that you have been telling lies so long- 
living in deception out of necessity- that you have begun 
to lie to yourself, or believe some of the lies. You knew, 
until only a few days ago, that you were not that strong. 
What has happened to change your mind? What makes you 
think that you can survive this now, where only a short 
time ago you were not sure?"
    "I am determined to survive on my own," said Herran. 
"That is the difference." He felt amazingly at peace, as 
if even the storm that his magic could lash up in him had 
fallen silent. "I know that I cannot involve anyone else. 
Tandra has her own life, her happiness, her duties. I am a 
part of all of them, but not the whole part. Neither 
should see be the whole part of mine."
    "You cannot honestly think that she will accept being 
shut out of this?"
    "She will. She loves me too much, trusts me too much, 
not to let me do what I have to do if I tell her my 
reasons."
    "And she will not understand your reasons. Stars, I do 
not understand your reasons." Amara folded her arms. "And 
I have lived through much and done much that your wife 
never will. Do you think to run this road without our 
help? To somehow arrive in our world without any kind of 
extended invitation?"
    "No."
    "Then what?" There was fear gleaming behind the stars 
in her eyes, and Herran wondered if she had been assigned 
to recruit him or else. A sort of task or duty?
    And she thought that the world she lived in now was 
better than the one she had left behind, Herran thought 
with a wash of pity.
    "I will arrive in my own world, at my own place," said 
Herran, with quiet insistence. "I swear to you that I 
will. I have the birthright of every Elwen, the 
independence and the pride and the stubbornness. If I do 
not use them, then yes, I deserve all that I have 
suffered. I deserve to be named no true child of the stars 
and cast out of Elwen creation."
    "You- you frighten me."
    "You often did the same to me when you were among us, 
but I never hated you," said Herran easily. "Why do you 
look as though you want to hate me?"
    Amara shut her eyes, an Elwen look of sorrow settling 
over her face. "I have seen too many die," she whispered. 
"And it seems to be, always, the ones that I want to save, 
the ones that I try to help. Of course, those are the only 
ones of our kind that I see, but... too many of them. I do 
not want you to become another one, especially when you 
could create so much that is good and gain back a few of 
the lost things with your magic under control."
    "But what I love most is freedom, and I would never 
have that if you took my control and gave it back to me. I 
want to do it on my own."
    "You do sound like a child."
    "That is the way it will be."
    "And again."
    "That is the way it will be," said Herran firmly, 
again. "I cast your invitation out of heart and mind, 
Amara. Anything else that you might try to do will not be 
appreciated, I assure you."
    She held his eyes, and then nodded slowly. Then the 
vision of the clearing began to break up all about him, 
the starlight and the grass and the trees sliding into the 
middle of a dark green blankness. His head sagged, and he 
thought he could feel a hand gripping his shoulder. Above 
him, the stars in Amara's eyes faded like the starlight 
had done, and then they were Tandra's black eyes, and the 
hair around her shoulders brilliant orange instead of soft 
brown. She was shaking him, her eyes wide and her face 
incredulous.
    "Herran?"
    "Yes," he breathed, but he was still half in that 
other world, with the images of what he could have had. 
And they were calling him, damn it, in high and breathless 
voices, and he could feel them seeping about him and 
trying to pull him back...
    "Alenn!"
    His head snapped up, and he smiled gratefully at 
Tandra. She had done the best thing she could have, given 
that no one else was in the room. She had called him by 
the true name of his soul, and there was nothing so linked 
to what he was in this world, nothing that would have 
pulled him back more quickly.
    "Thank you," he said, squeezing her hand. "I love 
you."
    She returned the smile, but he could almost see her 
mind wandering in another direction, and he leaned back 
against the pillows of the bed as he waited for the 
infallible question.
    "What happened to you?"
    Herran nodded slightly. "I seized the dagger to keep 
from hitting you, and then the blade spun out of control. 
No, my magic did," he clarified, seeing her skeptical 
expression. "I felt it fly, and then-" He sighed, guilt 
creeping back into all the familiar places it had 
established in his soul. "I am so sorry. I felt him die."
    "You could not have helped it." Tandra's voice was 
amazingly soft, the voice that she had used to sing 
lullabies when the girls were younger. "Oh, Herran. I did 
not know. Can you ever forgive me for not knowing and 
helping you?"
    "Of course." He reached up to kiss the hand that she 
held out to him, even though he thought she had only meant 
for him to clasp it. "How could you have known? I told no 
one, least of all you."
    "How long has this been happening?" Tandra asked, her 
face slowly hardening and freezing, like a sea caught in 
the middle of winter.
    Herran sighed. "I have suspected it for time. Last 
night was the first time that anything happened, truly. I 
stepped into the golden moonlight, and the magic within me 
responded to the call of the moon. I thought it would 
drive me mad." He did not want to confess that last, but 
the way she was glaring at him...
    "Oh, Herran." Gentleness again. She smoothed his brow. 
"And this... you could not have known, not have 
controlled... Sahsraiinar has confessed wheat she saw last 
night, and she and Irrlosta would be happy to tell you how 
to get rid of it."
    And so it seemed that she would not understand so 
easily after all. But then again, he had not explained 
himself as of yet.
    "I don't think so."
    "What?" Tandra, on the track of a thought of her own, 
blinked at him.
    "I don't need their help, and they should not have to 
give it to me."
    "Herran, they want to-"
    "I know." He sighed noiselessly, wondering how to 
explain, and finally had to use the words that he had used 
for Amara. "But I must do it on my own. I quit the 
Councilmastery to have freedom, and if that freedom means 
freedom of any kind for my magic as well as my mind and 
soul, then so be it. I have to have it, beloved, do you 
understand?" he went on, seeing her face freezing again. 
"Rallmaruss. Please."
    Tandra stepped back from him and glared hard. "I 
thought you were finally going to let me defend you as I 
have wanted so long to do." Herran ducked his head a 
little and looked away, but let the words continue flowing 
against his ears. "I thought that at last you would accept 
my help, now that you did not have to appear as strong as 
you were not."
    "I am starting to think that not all the things 
Quirrin told me were lies," said Herran, but well under 
his breath.
    "What?"
    Herran shook his head and opened his eyes to fix them 
on her. "I mean, Tandra, that I did not quit the seat to 
let you protect me. I did it to make you happy, yes. But I 
really stopped putting myself into danger, not so that 
your Guards could defend me without fear of some clever 
enemy slipping past them, but so that there would be no 
need to protect me."
    "This is-" Her eyes were filled with tears, but he 
could not reach out to her, could not let them affect him. 
He knew they were tears of rage, and that she did not 
understand. Not yet, his eternally hopeful heart revised 
in his mind. "Herran. Please, listen to me." She sank to 
her knees beside his bed and reached out to him, resting a 
hand gently on his chest. "I know that you think that you 
must remain strong for the sake of everyone, that I am 
nearly broken by just losing you. But I promise you that 
you can collapse if you want to. It is all right. I will 
be here, just as you have always been here for me."
    "And if I told you that I did not want to collapse, 
that I did not feel like collapsing?" he said softly, 
holding her eyes and feeling her face change yet again. 
"That I am as strong as Quirrin proclaimed me, or that I 
should be?"
    "It can't be true, Herran."
    "Why? You just told me that I have always supported 
you. For that to be true, I would need a reservoir of 
strength to draw on."
    "Don't do this to yourself. Do not think that you must 
continue sacrificing yourself for the good of everyone 
else."
    "I am not." He felt as though a light were shining 
though him. Not the crystal mind, this. He could not know 
what he was going to say, what she would say, before they 
said it. But he could see the truth, for the first time in 
what felt like a long time, though it had been only two 
dances. "I am sacrificing myself for my own freedom and 
happiness, Tandra. And if that is true, then how can one 
call it a sacrifice?"
    "No Elwen is that strong, to endure what you have and 
survive unscarred."
    "I am not unscarred," said Herran, with a faint smile 
that she echoed. She knew as well as he did the twining 
scars of curalli torture on his back, from long ago when 
he had still been a patrol leader. But her face quickly 
became serious again.
    "You need me, Herran."
    "Yes. But not for this."
    She recoiled as though she had been slapped, her eyes 
wide and aching and still.
    "It is no more than you have ever asked of me," he 
said quietly, eyes intent on her. "You know that you must 
do some things alone. This is one of the things that I 
must do alone."
    Tandra shook her head. "I knew that I had the strength 
for the things that I had to do, and you knew it as well. 
This is-"
    "Not always."
    "What?" He could see that she was trying desperately 
to think that he did not mean what he meant.
    "I mean that I didn't always know you had the 
strength," said Herran quietly. "I let you do those things 
because I trusted you, and it would have been a betrayal 
of you to do anything else. Not because I knew in my heart 
that you had the strength. It was a matter of trust, and 
not one of blind faith."
    "Then you can understand how hard it is for me to let 
you do this."
    "Yes. But if you stand in the way, then I will never 
understand how it is that I could trust and love you 
enough to let you do it, but you could never trust and 
love me enough to let me do the same."
    Their eyes locked, and for a long moment, Herran did 
not think that either of them breathed. Then Tandra tossed 
her head back and said, "I will let you do what you can 
alone. When you falter, know that I will be there to step 
in, and do not fear." Her smile was a mixture of 
compassion, hope, and relief.
    Herran ignored the compassion to focus on the other 
parts of it. Perhaps it had been foolish for him to expect 
that she would let him go as readily as he had done with 
her. They were different Elwens. "Thank you," he said 
quietly. "Will you tell me the name of the Guard I 
killed?"
    "The Guard who was killed."
    Herran sighed. "I know where blame lies."
    "So does Gernon's family. They have promised that they 
will not accept any payment from you, nor will they 
declare blood feud of any kind. The only payment they want 
is Nyenna captured."
    "She escaped?"
    "Yes," said Tandra, with a sigh of both relief and 
irritation. "If we had captured her, I could not be here. 
I would be presiding at her trial."
    "It has not been long, then?"
    "An hour at the most."
    Herran nodded, dropped his head, and gathered his 
strength. "Then I must leave as soon as possible. Gercom 
was waiting for me at Sakrall with a message of some 
urgency. I had our dawnmeal in the bags on my mare. I 
wanted to gather in another horse for him."
    Tandra restrained him gently. "Are you sure that this 
is wise?"
    "Much as I might think that someone else would be 
better at holding the position of High Lord of Turnlong, 
for now at least, my tenants do not agree with me," said 
Herran quietly. "I need to be there, Tandra. To talk with 
them, to listen to them, to help them. To judge. That is 
my duty."
    She continued to hold him down, and he spoke with his 
eyes, asking her to remember what she had just promised. 
Her hand fell limp at once, and she turned away, not even 
trying to hide her disappointment.
    Herran knew how she felt- he had felt the same way 
many times- but he could not bring himself to care. He did 
have a duty, and he had wasted too much time already. He 
would have to speak to Gercom on the way as it was and 
tell him what had happened. And he had let Tandra ride off 
to fight on her own before even when he thought it was not 
the wisest course. This would be less dangerous. She 
should let him do it.
    But when he met her eyes again, he saw there the kind 
of logic the mind does not accept. She thought of him as 
in danger, and that he would falter if she was not there 
to protect him.
    His heart melting again from stone and ice, he gave 
her a soft kiss and embrace. "I know," he said quietly. 
"But I will be back in a few hours, no later than sunset, 
certainly. And as Gercom wanted to return here to talk to 
me, it will probably only take two hours- one to ride 
there, one to ride back."
    She still looked fearful and uncertain, but she let 
him go after one more squeeze of his shoulders and 
searching gaze into his face.
    Only when he was cantering up the road to Sakrall, on 
the gray mare with a dark gelding in tow, did he realize 
that he had not told her about the dream- the vision- of 
Amara.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "Once again, Gercom, I am sorry for the time it took 
me to get here."
    "My lord, please do not be!" The curalli swung into 
the saddle of the horse he had provided, giving him one 
intensely sympathetic glance. "I would not have expected 
you to come at all, after a fright like that. I would not 
have thought the Lady Tandra would let you go," he added, 
with something like a chuckle and something like a 
question both in his voice at once.
    "I know," said Herran neutrally. "But I spoke to her, 
and she saw the way of it." He broke open the bag on the 
mare's saddle and offered Gercom the wrapped cheese and 
fruit. "I thought you would want me to continue and to 
speak to me, since it was so urgent."
    "Yes." Gercom's face went suddenly blank. "And unless 
you are sure that your home is secure, then it might even 
be best to speak of it on the ride, and reserve my stay in 
Rowan for more pleasant business."
    "You are sure that you can leave Stinarall for that 
long?" Herran asked.
    "Yes. The trees can well care for themselves in this 
season without me, and they are still choosing the ones I 
will take for lumber this year, anyway." Gercom cast a 
fond glance at the patch of black hylea and other dark 
trees that he Claimed and protected. "I will return as 
soon as I can, but a temporary absence should not distress 
them. And it is too long since I have been in Rowan, or 
spoken with you as one friend to another."
    "The time for that must wait a little while, and that 
grieves me," said Herran quietly, kicking the mare into 
motion once more. She snorted, but went faster after he 
gave her a little grin and patted her neck with a warning 
to be quiet.
    "Yes," said Gercom, and reached towards the sack he 
had brought on the gelding with him. From it he produced a 
rolled sheaf of papers that he offered to Herran with a 
small and grave bow.
    Herran took the papers and leafed through them, slowly 
at first, more quickly as he realized what they were. He 
looked up at last, and spoke quietly, confident that 
Gercom would hear him. They were trotting along a small 
trail beneath the turning leaves, and he did not have to 
raise his voice very far. "What did you think that you 
would accomplish in returning these to me?"
    "They belong to everyone who wants to look at them," 
Gercom retorted around a mouthful of bread and cheese, 
quoting the ancient law.
    "True." Herran squashed his anger. It would do him no 
good, nor Gercom. "But why did you think that I needed to 
see these now?"
    "You cannot have mistaken the pattern of inheritance."
    "I fail to see-"
    "Those with powerful earth magic have been the best 
lords and ladies of Turnlong," said Gercom quietly, 
staring at him without blinking.
    "That goes without saying. The earth can hear us 
better, and will grow better harvests and stay the safer 
from natural disasters, for the sense that it is Elwens 
who guard it, and not mere chance," said Herran, words he 
had repeated so often he knew them by rote now. "But why 
do you think-"
    "Look at the other indicators."