Westfire Prologue 7823, Age of Dawn, Early Spring From The Private Journal of Clor Adamantine I was fairly sure that she was mad, but, of course, politeness precluded me from saying that. "Taka?" I repeated, just to be sure that I had heard her correctly. "I'm calling in your debt, Clor." She stood with her back turned to me. It was almost as if part of her knew how ridiculous she was being, and she didn't want to have to look into my eyes and see the scorn that of course her insanity would inspire. "You promised me once that you would do anything I wanted to pay off the debt." "I believe the phrase was 'almost anything you wanted,'" I murmured. "Damn it, do you ever forget anything?" I didn't reply. The question was hardly worthy of an answer, as she would have sensed if she had been anywhere near her usual strength. "No," Taka continued, answering her own question, "of course you don't." She turned to me, and her eyes shone with something that made me stare. "And that is part of the problem with what I'm asking, isn't it? You can't forget for one moment that you're curalli." "What is the matter with your eyes?" "I'm weeping," she snapped, dragging a hand across her face. Good; at least part of her remained curalli enough to want to hide it. "Surely you have seen tears before?" "Yes." I left the rest unspoken, sure that she could guess it. "But what, Clor?" "Just never in the eyes of anyone alive." Taka's eyes softened, and she reached a hand for my elbow. I had a knife out in seconds, of course, and aimed at her elbow joint. A flimsy robe covered it, not nearly enough cloth to stop a blade honed as sharp as the tooth of Shimbelon. "What the hell are you doing?" Taka asked, her hand inches away from mine, her face frozen somewhere between anger and fear. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, so exasperated with her that I almost forgot to listen behind me in case someone was approaching to close the trap. She had insisted that we meet in a small alley far from my home, in the territory of another gang, and I didn't want to meet any of them. "You don't reach for someone like that, not without warning him first." "I only meant to offer comfort." I would forget something for once, politeness. "You are mad, then." Taka pulled her arm back and sighed. "I didn't think I would have to convince you of this, but I see that I must." She tugging at the throat of her robe, and I shook my head. What the hell was she doing? I thought yet again. Making her neck a target that anyone sane enough to survive in this city could hit from a hundred paces away? "What are you-" My breath caught in my throat. Something I had never seen before hung in the hollow of her throat, a pendant that was made of a soft yellow metal. Gold, I decided after a sniff. It wasn't often seen in Kalurata. There was no practical use for it, and most coins weren't made of it. So distracted was I by the color of the pendant that it took me a moment to see what it symbolized. A sun. It was shaped like a sun, like the pendants of the alalori priests that came into our city sometimes to preach with a smile on their faces and blood on their throats before they spoke more than three words. "You follow Sarastaa?" It was difficult for me to speak the words, as my voice couldn't decide whether to laugh or sob. Taka let the throat of her robe fall closed and frowned at me as if I had offended her. As if she hadn't just offended the collective wisdom of all curallikind, I thought. "No. Of course not. Surely you must have heard about those curalli who follow the path of Light, who are seeking a way to return to what we were when we were born, and rejoin the other Elwen races?" "The Misguided." Taka didn't get angry at what I said, for almost the first time since I had arrived. Instead, she smiled. "Call us the Sunsworn." "Why?" Another frown. Ah, good to see that we were back on familiar ground. "Because we are sworn to goodness," she said stuffily, as of course she would. "We are sworn to follow the Sun." "The sun doesn't shine here," I said, with a wave of my hand at the thick cover of magical darkness over the city. Yes, definitely laugh. Whom did she think she was preaching to? Sarastaa-follower or not, she was certainly acting more like a dawn Elwen than a shadowed Elwen. "It isn't literal." "Then why are you speaking as if it is?" She had used the word for sun, goroth, that meant the thing shining in the sky. "Will you shut up, Clor?" I couldn't help it; I laughed. Taka frowned more fiercely than ever. I managed to contain my laughter, hoping she would go away and stop demanding my help on this insane venture. She only stared at me, and appeared inclined to stand there until I said something one way or the other. "Let me repeat this," I said at last. "Just to make certain that I understand you." "Please do." I ignored her cold tone. It didn't even compare to the ice on the walls around us or what I heard in my dreams at night, let alone the tone of a curalli in full cry of vengeance. Part of Taka was gone to the Sun already, it seemed. Part of me wanted to grieve that, but then again, it was her own damn fault. "You want me to help you gather the children that run the streets of Kalurata, feed them, train them in the things that you think they should know, teach them other languages, defend them, and in the end send them from the city into the sunlight?" "Yes. I don't understand what's difficult about that, Clor, particularly for someone with your level of comprehension." Taka looked honestly bewildered. "You are aware that most of those children would kill you as soon as take food from you, and the rest of them would torture you until you told them where the rest of the food was?" "Yes." "Just wanted to make sure that you were aware of that." I waved a hand. "We live day to day feeding ourselves. What makes you think that we can feed others? So many, for that matter?" Not that I thought anyone had ever counted, but based on conservative estimates, there had to be at least three thousand streetrunner children in Kalurata. She couldn't do anything for a tenth of that number, let alone all of them. "We will find food." "Why?" Taka's eyes shone with faith; I only recognized it because I had seen an alalori's eyes shining with it, once, before I had a little bit of fun with her. "We will be fighting for something greater than ourselves. We will find food-" I snorted. "Taka, the gangs are fighting for something greater than the survival of just one person. They still don't always find food." "The gangs are ultimately self-destructive, not the way that true curalli should live." I rolled my eyes. "You're sure that you haven't been talking to a priest?" Taka ignored me. "We would find food. On to your other objections." Well, at least she knew that I would make them. "How could we teach them?" "You know other languages, Clor, and the way to survive outside the city. Don't tell me that you don't know that." "Oh, of course I do." "Then you should teach others." Taka made a move as if she would catch my hands; I moved my knife, still casually out, and she stepped back with a strained smile on her face. "What good is knowledge if you simply let it collect in your head?" I kept my start firmly under wraps. I wasn't about to let her see what I thought of that. "It can be used for survival." "Clor!" The outraged and disgusted tone in her voice let me do a little more than smile at her, this time; it let me breathe a little more easily. As long as she thought it was just that... "You should teach others." "Why?" "It's a moral imperative!" I tilted my head. "You can afford moral imperatives when you have enough food. Not before that." "Who said that?" "I don't remember," I said. "It was a lot of reading ago." She narrowed her eyes, but let it pass. "Clor, you should see that-" "That what?" "You're an intelligent Elwen." She wouldn't quite meet my eyes, probably so that she wouldn't have to see the triumphant smile beaming at her out of them. "You should see that the way of the curalli is ultimately self- destructive, that it will turn on itself, that the cities will collapse in chaos someday." "They haven't yet." "We've only been this way for two thousand years," she snapped, her voice thinning. "Give us time." I yawned. "Tell me all you want, Taka, and argue with me endlessly about whether or not I should teach, whether or not I should hunt food for children, whether or not I should deal with the little bastards when most of them are already cats. But one thing you won't be able to do, no matter how hard you try." "What is that?" "Convince me to help you." "You said-" "I said 'almost anything.' I would have been willing to save your life, or help you with an enemy that threatened it, or hunt food for you, or do almost anything else. But not this." "Because it endangers your life?" I snorted. "How little you know of me. No. Because it goes against common sense." "This horrible and evil way of life is only common sense within the walls of a curalli city, Clor." She said that as if she believed it, her eyes wild with faith. Who had gotten to her? And how could I avoid or kill her? "That's where we are." "Shut up, Clor." I laughed again. "Is that going to be your reply whenever I'm right?" "You understand nothing," said Taka. "Neither of us is in any immediate danger of dying." "Perhaps not," I allowed. "Since your enemies would pause to be sure that whatever disease you have didn't spread to them when they killed you." "Clor!" I grinned at her. "This is madness, Taka. What satisfaction are you going to have when one of the children you're trying to help stabs you through the heart, other than that of 'dying for your cause?'" I rolled my eyes. "Very noble, but nobility alone never helped to save anyone's life or feed a child." "I know that," said Taka, her voice soft again. "I've argued with myself for a long time, Clor, trying to find some way out of this. I thought I could be Sunsworn in my heart alone, but that won't work anymore. I have to be one in deed, too. And that means helping those who might still be saved." "The children." "Yes." I wanted to ask if she had thought of that on her own or read some of the more influential life-studiers, but it was almost sunset. "I can't help you, Taka. I'm curalli in my heart, and in my deeds, and in my mind, and in anything else that you care to name. I'm just not ready to make the kinds of sacrifices that you're asking me to make." "Will you ever be ready?" "Not in the foreseeable future." Taka's face cooled and turned as ugly as solid iron is, compared to the molten white glow it has when it's poured. "You have to do something, Clor," she said coldly. "You have to be ready to give something back to the children when called." "I won't be." "I will make sure that you are." I arched my brows, simply looking at her. She glared back at me, her eyes reflecting nothing but (ugly) determination. I shook my head slowly. "I've been tortured before, Taka, and it hasn't worked. If you kill me, I won't be able to help you. If you somehow did manage to break my mind, I would likewise be useless. I don't think there's anything you can do that will make me help you." "Not just make you help me," she said, face still twisted. "Make you regret this decision." I laughed. "Hardly fitting to the heart of a Sunsworn, is it, your desire for vengeance?" "Go away, Clor." Ugly, intense, low. "Gladly." I turned and trotted away, aiming for the outer walls as I shook my head. Sweet stars shining above, she had a bad case of conversion. Then I sped my pace. I never miss a sunset. Chapter 1 What Falls "Like lovers fine, our arms entwine..." -First line of a poem entitled Onilda (Love), found in the manuscripts of the Fallen One. From The Private Journal of Clor Adamantine I backed up, my eyes on the knife being waved in front of my face. "Thought that you could escape us, Clor?" asked the wielder of the blade. "No," I admitted. The woman behind the man, the gang leader of the Webdancers, snorted at my words. "He ran into the alley trying to get away from us," she said. "Too bad he didn't know it ended at this wall." Said wall was the one I had my back pressed firmly against. I looked up at her and arched my eyebrows, waiting to see if I should fear. "Why are you chasing me?" "You know." "Perhaps, but I would like to hear your answer." She actually looked flattered at that. I permitted myself a moment of smugness. I could play them as Terlin Deerfriend played a harp. "You engineered a trap that brought down the rest of the Webdancers," she said, anger moving across her face like the shadow of grief. I was sure that she had grieved when she had found her dead gang members. "We got your name from the man who hired you." "How?" "Don't worry about it," she said airily. "We made sure that he won't be telling anyone else again." I almost toyed with the idea of letting them kill me then, just so that they would survive to face the vengeance that would fall upon them for killing a School Master. But no, unfortunately, my spirit probably wouldn't be close enough to enjoy the spectacle. "Very well," I said. "And how did you find the man who hired me? I would have thought that would be more difficult than finding me, actually." Again, that beaming smile of self-congratulations. I kept the roll of my eyes on the inside, luckily, or she probably would have killed me then and there. What was it about people like this that made them so susceptible to flattery? And why the hell wasn't my own race, who should have known better, immune to it? "We asked about," she said. "We asked the right questions. They led us to Master Eviron, and he directed us, with his dying breath, to you." "I suppose now that you will slay me in retribution for the slaying of your gang." I spoke as if bored, one hand clenching at my side in what could be taken as a natural gesture of defiance. It wasn't that, of course, but how could they be expected to know that? The woman's eyes narrowed. "No. We are going to torture you first, long and slow." I let my face light up. "Can you do it like this?" I turned, tugging up my tunic and baring my spine to them. The man holding the blade on me shifted uneasily, but went still at the command of his leader. I looked earnestly over my shoulder at them, while moving my hand out a little further. "Do you see the way that they made the scars on me?" The Webdancer leader drew in her breath in a long, shivering sigh; I wasn't sure if it expressed more trepidation or appreciation. "Who did those to you?" "The leader of the Knifesingers, after he caught me in his territory. He decided he admired the scars he had made too much to kill me." The woman frowned. "That must have been some time ago. Wasn't the Knifesinger territory parceled out over five decades gone?" I nodded, almost hoping she would run away. If she was intelligent enough to figure out what that meant, then I would let her go. She wasn't. "I shall endeavor to do my best," she said, and nodded to the man with the knife. He advanced on me. I cast the bottle I had been holding to the ground, and stamped on it sharply. It was made of ice, and shattered. I turned, and spat on the small crystals that the ice revealed. Then I leaned back, and held my breath. The man and the woman alike were already leaping for me. Both of them were caught in the initial burst of the gas that the wet crystals sent swirling up. Both of them gagged and coughed, breathing it in even as their lungs tried to reject it. Their faces turned black, their feet stamped, and their spines arched. I heard the sound of breaking bone as their bodies spasmed so harshly that their skeletons refused to take it. I watched in interest, knowing that I didn't have much time to observe before I would have to leave. The gas wasn't immediately fatal if it came into contact with one's skin, but it could be, given time. I counted the minutes, watching as they rolled on the ground, dying in agony. Then I sprang to the top of the wall and began to run. The minutes sang in my head. I leaped from walltop to walltop, from roof to roof, all the way aiming steadily for the outer walls. Two minutes. I scrambled down the last walltop, and then flung myself into the air. Below ran the cold waters of the Gleviay River. I cast myself into it, deep into it, sighing as the bits of ice scrubbed my skin and the cold, harsh air cleared my throat. When I was sure, I came back up, inhaling deeply, and began to scrub my skin. The minutes passed. Nothing happened. I smiled, leaned back in the water, and reminded myself to tell Anisuru, who had been so interested in the effects of the crystals, that they worked just as she had told me they would. ---------------------------------------------------------- "The expressions on their faces?" "As if they had bitten into rancid meat, seen one of their close friends die, and seen Death come towards them as the elves say he does, all at once," I replied a bit smugly. Anisuru leaned back in her chair and laughed, loud, long, and deep. "You have the best ways about you, Clor," she said, saluting me with the cup she held. "You can describe something so vividly it almost seems as if I'm there." I looked at her curiously, taking a sip of my own drink. It wasn't the same as hers was, of course; I didn't think that anyone in the city drank what Anisuru did, except on accident. "I've never understand why you rely on me and the others for reports like that, when you could easily make the tests yourself." Anisuru shook her head. "I am more interested in writing down what I see when I test my inventions than remembering what I see, I'm afraid. I would immediately go to write down half of their expressions, and, by the time I looked up, they would have finished dying." I smiled. "At least with most of your inventions, yes. Those drosorth crystals that you manufactured..." Anisuru blinked at me with injured eyes. "I couldn't have known that they would have the effect they did." I snorted. "Of course not. You told me that they would either kill the enemy or not work at all. You didn't say anything about them acting like wine on the brain, and making me giddy and celebrating among them for three hours." I shuddered. I was lucky that I had come out of the daze when I had and managed to run, or they would certainly have killed me. "The once," Anisuru conceded, turning her head to the side. She had a fire lit, not for warmth- no curalli needs that, what with our love of cold- but so that she could warm her blood, and so that it could sparkle on her dark silver skin, almost the color of pewter, and in her deep red hair and black eyes. I admired her idly as I sipped at the rest of the water in my cup. "The once, my inventions didn't work. But they've saved your lives at other times, haven't they?" "The once," I said. "What?" I laughed. "I venture into dangerous situations to test the things you give me, Ani, but I would never trust my life to just that. The one time I had to rely on one of them as my weapon of last rather than first resort, yes, it saved me." "Well, then." Ani clasped her fingers around the cup, as if the warmth it had gained from the fire would infuse her as well. "You don't really think that the failure of the drosorth is of more importance than that, then, do you?" I smiled. "I suppose not." "Well, then," Ani repeated, and let her smile fade, staring at me with intense eyes. I sighed, and sipped again from the cup, stealing myself for a lecture I knew by heart. "Clor..." That was always the start of it, my name said in that irritating well-meaning tone. "Yes?" I asked, even though I knew I wasn't meant to respond. Ani frowned at me just slightly before continuing. "I don't understand why you risk a mind and reputation like yours out in the streets. You would be much safer behind the walls of the School." "Perhaps. But you can't deny that I perform useful services for you on the streets, testing your inventions and so on." "I have others doing that." "Yes, but none of them are as skilled as I am at surviving and bringing back information." I knew I shouldn't be arguing with her, knew it would only prolong the lecture, but, damn it, I also hated to see a fine mind wasted. Ani was intelligent enough that she should know I wouldn't submit to what she was saying, and why. If I could just open her eyes... "And do you know what makes me that way? The streets." "They'll kill you someday." "Yes, maybe." I sipped the water again, smiling at her. "I told you before that I would be willing to loan some of my books to the School, if you think that would keep them safer." "It's not 'runners breaking into your sanctuary and burning the books I'm worried about," said Ani sharply. "It's one of them splitting your head open and spilling your brains in the gutter, or splattering them on the wall, or tearing them out of your skull and forcing them back down your throat." I let my eyes widen. "Is that possible?" Ani blinked. "I don't know. I just assumed that it was. I should make a note-" She stopped. I smiled at her over the rim of my cup. "You bastard, you," she said, but without any malice in her voice. We competed in different ways than most of our kind did. It was a contest of wills and minds, rather than blades and wits, with us. "I can see that I won't turn you away from the subject, even though it's closed as far as I'm concerned," I said. "But really, Ani, I've survived the streets for two centuries." "I know," she said. "And I'm still amazed that you have, with the chances that you take." I raised my eyebrows. "I never really take chances, you know that. I have everything planned out in advance." "That doesn't mean that you won't meet someone smarter than you are someday, someone who can detect your traps or reverse them on you." "I would be happy to die at the hand of someone like that." "I really think you mean it." I said nothing. What was there to say? Of course I meant that. "We don't want to lose you, Clor." Anisuru leaned forward, her face earnest, ignoring my start at the plural. "Please, stay with us. Stay inside the walls of the School. We know you're intelligent enough to succeed and survive here." "I have no taste for politics." For the first time, she frowned. "I don't know what you mean by that." "School Master politics." Anisuru frowned, shaking her head again. "I still don't know what you mean." I raised one hand and folded down the fingers. "Eviron, Shaela, Ferentis, Rolirron, Reno. The School Masters who've asked me to do something to the streetrunners in the last month, or to another School Master. I've refused the ones who want me to do something to another School Master." "And you're still breathing?" "You know the reason as well as I do." "They're afraid of you." I nodded my acknowledgment. "And I don't want to be in the walls of a place I don't know as well as I know my streets, with many who hate and fear me, and few- forgive me, Ani- who are my intellectual equals." "You find few of those on the streets." "Ah." I smiled. "But there I can test myself in another kind of competition, one that you know almost nothing about. There, it's wits that matter, and sometimes the least intelligent curalli, at least as you would understand it, are the ones who think the fastest. There, I'm training a different place in my mind. I want to have a taste of everything, both your world and that one." "I think you like that one better." I smiled. "Perhaps." Ani sighed, fingers tapping against her knee. "They discussed forcing you to come to the School, Eviron and some of the others." I knew that she was only telling me Eviron's name since he was dead already, and thus beyond my vengeance. "I told them that the School wouldn't be standing when you were through, if they did something like that." I shrugged. "I can't deny that I have my talents. Destruction is one of them." "I only fear that one day it will carry you too far, into something you are unable to survive." I smiled tolerantly. "And then you will lose someone who tests your inventions. I understand your concern, Anisuru, but I assure you, I will live at least a few more days. Besides, there are others who test your inventions who can do it as well as I can." Anisuru muttered something, staring into her cup. "What?" She looked up at me, and her eyes were wide and sorrowful, though not actually glinting with tears, I was glad to see. That would have been a little bit much. "I said, no one will test them as well as you." My worry over her worry vanished, and I was able to smile again. "I can train others in my place, if you are that concerned about it." "No, Clor," she said, with a sigh. "If you are determined to pursue your own self-interested and crazy course, I cannot stop you." "Damn right." ---------------------------------------------------------- I sighed and stepped over the place, still smelling of the elwenfire the stars send to claim our bodies when we die, where some unfortunate had tried my traps and paid the price. He would be welcome among the stars, I hoped, and venerated by any who had known him as he deserved. He had gotten past the first two traps. They were rearmed already, and so my time was my own, I thought as I stepped past the other tripwires, triggers, and wards that guarded my home. I could catch up on my sleep, if I truly wanted to- I had missed it for the last dance or so in preparing the trap for the Webdancers that Master Eviron had asked of me- but that wasn't what I wanted to do. I stepped through the door of my sanctuary, shutting it firmly behind me. No one save I could open it again, and even then the wards would refuse to obey if I wasn't speaking in a perfectly normal and calm tone of voice. I certainly didn't want anyone escaping, or coming in for the matter, if they had me under some kind of duress. The moment the door shut and the wards locked into place, my home sprang into place around me. It resembled an ordinary room more than anything else, though one set back into the sivleth of the wall it masqueraded as, with dark silver walls and floor and ceiling, all of them covered with tapestries I had purchased from land Elwens from Sonorhela. So I had a taste for the art of my people's deadliest enemies, an idea that revolted most of the curalli I knew. So kill me, and then they could do whatever they wanted with the tapestries. They were extremely unlikely to find them even if they did kill me, of course. I walked slowly over the tapestry that covered the south part of the floor, one that depicted a stag fleeing from hounds as red as elven blood, while a golden crescent moon shone overhead in a sky as dark as the cloud over Kalurata. I enjoyed the softness of it brushing against my feet. After all day in boots almost as hard as the stone and dark silver I walked across, to protect against caltrops if nothing else, it was pleasant to feel something almost like the grass that most of the books said existed beyond the Euras Ataar. I settled into one of the chairs that I had imported from Sonorhela. It was wood, hylea wood, gold-white, sweet-smelling, and hideously expensive. I hadn't minded. It was curved just so to support my back, and I gathered up the book that I had left lying on a shelf nearby and began to read. I was deep into a story of the starborn, or rather, speculations on how the stars and the gods might have created Elwens together, when a sound distracted me. I looked up, eyebrows cocked, towards the ringing ward, a small crystal bell vibrating as if to itself in a seldom- used corner of my room. Someone was tripping the aerial wards. Interesting, that. Curalli rarely thought to come down the walls when they didn't see that my house was there from that direction, and they didn't often hire flying mercenaries or thieves, either. I rose silently to my feet and went over, stilling the bell with a touch of my hand. I listened with my head tilted to the side, wondering what would happen if I simply allowed the intruder to enter. I would have to kill him, of course. With a little sigh for the annoyances of life, I touched the bell a second time, tapping out a pattern that made shades of purple and gold race about the clear surface. The wards linked to the bell quivered in a pattern that echoed the tapping, and then quivers raced away down them in the direction of the roof. I turned to my chair and resumed reading. One of the wards, with a clear, ringing sound I had deliberately designed to mimic that of the bell, snapped. I looked up again, and touched the sword that hung at my side. I might have to do something about this intruder personally after all. Then the other two wards shone in the air, briefly giving me a glimpse of the intruder before they killed him. I stared back, confused and mildly entertained. A child who couldn't have been more than nine years old, though with the gleam in his dark eyes that spoke of his already being a cat rather than a rat, clung to the walls that supposedly marked the roof of my home and struck at the wards around him with a brilliantly glowing dagger. The wards were not deterred, of course; he must have used extraordinary luck or skill to break the first one. They closed in like hungry snakes, and then the vision faded from my sight. I shook my head. I had no enemies among the few children's gangs that roamed the city. I kept an eye on them, of course, in case someone else should ask for information or in case they should decide to come after me, but generally they were entirely focused on finding food. If someone had been spreading rumors that my sanctuary contained large amounts of food, again... I sighed and closed the book. The oddness of the intruder and my own need to sleep were impairing my concentration. I would rest better if I slept a few hours, though not too deeply, of course. I wouldn't want to miss the alarm of a ward. ---------------------------------------------------------- One did snap me out of my sleep, and I frowned as the vision showed me yet another child, this one a girl but of about the same age, trying to enter through the roof. What was about it my life and my room that had suddenly become so fascinating? I stopped the wards by speaking to them before they could kill her. "Stop. Hold her still, but do not harm her otherwise. I would like to question her." The wards chimed, and one of them, the third and most powerful, spoke in my own voice, a recording I had prepared in the unlikely event that I would ever make a decision like this. "Are you sure about what you're doing? They could well have been sent by some enemy to kill you, distinctly, and getting close to them could be just what your enemy wants." "I know that," I said, smiling at the ward as recited the evidence of my good sense back to me. "But in this case, I will stay well back and take weapons with me. I don't think that they will be able to harm me." Just in case, of course, I sealed the door with a touch behind me. They might kill me, but they still wouldn't be able to touch the books and the other treasures the room contained. I vaulted from the "door" of my sanctuary back into the street, placing my feet just so to avoid the trap that lurked right in front of the entrance, and then turned to look up at the child on the walltop. She crouched there, panting in fury and staring at the shimmering silver and gold manifestations of the wards before her as if there were something she could use to harm them. "Fair-night," I called up to her, just to see how she would respond. "Mouth-close. Runner for gobble, rat-killer, day- refuser, no toy," said the girl in rapid Shoonkyant. I rolled my eyes. The slang changed often enough that I didn't recognize all her terms, though certainly the first was clear enough. "I won't close my mouth," I told her. "And I have no money with me, just as you have none. And I won't give you any food." I paused. "But you will give me the information that you have locked up in your little head." "Dagger-poke, julaz!" I shook my head. That part I recognized; I didn't think that it had changed since my own days as a rat. "I will not rape myself with my own dagger," I told her, and then vaulted up onto the walltop beside her. She shrank away, tense, eyes watching. "I would prefer that you just tell me the 'runner,' as I believe you called the information I want. Who hired you?" "Gobble!" "I don't have any food." "Toy!" "Nor money, either," I said, with all the patience I could muster. "Now. I would prefer not to have to cause you pain, or kill you, for that matter. All that you must do is answer one simple question to avoid pain or death. Who sent you?" "Pack-rat, mouth-closed, still-ever." She was loyal to her own pack of rats and wouldn't tell me. "Very well," I said, with a little sigh, and made a motion with my hand. She screamed in pain as the first ward coiled about her. It simply broke the first bone in her left arm, a rather crude effect, and one that I had considered replacing before now, as most of its victims would have suffered worse pain than that by the time they encountered it. But, apparently, this girl hadn't. She shook all over, then began to cry. I sighed and rolled my eyes again. "What is your name?" I tried, hoping that she would at least be willing to tell me that. She only wept the harder. Angrily, I grabbed the broken arm and held it still, putting pressure on it until the two broken halves of the bone ground together. She stopped crying with a gasp and looked at me, her eyes still bright with tears, in a way that reminded me of Taka a dance or so ago. "What is it?" I said plainly. "Tell me why you came, or I will kill you now." "My name is Shariza." I nodded. At least she could speak something like normal Melli when she tried, then. "And your purpose?" "Mouth-closed on that!" I sighed. "If you don't tell me, Shariza, then I will be forced to hurt you again." I tightened my grip on the bone suggestively, and she winced away from me, her eyes wide, gasping in pain. At least she didn't start weeping again; I think that I would have killed her out of pure exasperation then. "I don't think that either of us wants that. Tell me who sent you." "The Lady." Not that that was informative. "Who is the Lady? Does she have a name?" "Not one that you would know, she said." I narrowed my eyes. Shariza had that look on her face that almost all rats get when they're trying to be clever, and particularly when they're dancing furiously around the truth in hope that the cat who has them won't discover it: a kind of smugness mixed with fear, and breathless anticipation as they waited to see if the trick would work. "I think that you don't mean that literally." She stared up at me with big, dark green eyes, just a few shades lighter than my own. "She said you might guess," she admitted at last. "Who is she?" "Julaz a kick-beast, birthing pulling!" Even I was impressed when I managed to translate that. "Unfortunately, my mother's dead, or I might be tempted to try that," I said, hoping that my amusement didn't show too openly on my face. She might well attack if it did. Rats had their pride. "Tell me where this Lady is hiding, and why she sends rats to do the work of a cat." That stung her. "The Lady Taka told me to go and break into your room, and then draw you out here," Shariza said. "She didn't say why." "And you blindly did it?" Taka, I thought, you idiot. Why send rats? "She's our Lady!" "Of what? Blindness?" I snorted and gestured. The wards holding Shariza released her. She looked up at me while pushing herself back from me along the walltop, carefully avoiding the patches of ice that might have sent her tumbling. I was impressed; she had taken the time to scout for that before she came up, and she remembered the positions of each ice patch. "Tell Taka I want no part of whatever it is that she wants me to do this time. If she comes and talks to me herself, then it's possible I might be more receptive." Shariza looked at me with uncomprehending eyes. Of course. If Taka had given her the impression that she could get through my wards, there was probably much else she hadn't told her. I paused for a moment, then spoke in what I hoped was current Shoonkyant. "Yap to Lady," I suggested. "No gobble, no toy here for her, no arm or dagger-aid. Bare teeth if she leap, turn back if she turn back." I had, I hoped, just told Shariza to tell Taka that I wouldn't help her, would attack if she attacked, would leave her alone if she left me alone. Shariza seemed to understand, but she lingered for a moment, staring at me with huge eyes. Her dark hair hung around her face, close-cut so that someone's hand reaching from an alley couldn't snag it, and for a moment it gave her an almost waifish look. Of course, that was only what someone soft in the heart like Taka, or someone like me, who could afford it, would think. Any land Elwen or alalori thinking this was a poor, innocent little child and holding out a hand would immediately get that hand bitten, in some cases off. "Will yap," she said at last. "Can't firm-talk will firm-hold." She couldn't promise she would convince her. I merely nodded. "Tell her." Shariza gave one more glance at me, as if that would tell her something that the glimpses she had had of me so far couldn't, and then turned and scuttled away into the thick darkness. I waited until I was sure that she was gone, then leaped to the ground. I would have to concern myself with repairing the trapped ward first. I was hopeful that it could be done quickly. Then I would repair outside the walls. It was almost sunset. ---------------------------------------------------------- And now it was sunset. I smiled up at the glittering washes of flame riding the western sky as I stepped out of the gates of Kalurata. It was a particularly spectacular one tonight, flushed with red and orange pride, though we hadn't had any rain that day. I took out the small book that I carry most places and noted down the colors and what they reminded me of, glancing up every now and then to watch the changing shapes of the swathes, the drifting of the clouds, the positioning of the beams. Slowly, slowly, the sun drifted beneath the earth. I closed the book and placed it in my pocket and sat on the small hummock of ice I had made my usual observation post, banging my heels on the ice and humming a tune I was composing beneath my breath, awaiting the arising of the first star. There it was. I stood up, tilted my head back, and then began to sing, keeping my voice soft and reverent. The stars, silver and black, crowded the sky as I continued to voice the beauty of my race's spirit, the highest tribute that all Elwens could give their creators. My voice rose and joined but a handful of others going forth from Kalurata. Most curalli stayed under the shielding covers of darkness and thus didn't look upon the stars, or feel the nearly irresistible compulsion to sing that rose up in the soul at the sight of them. Too bad. The song finished, and I stretched and shook my head, wishing as always that it could have endured longer, knowing as always that going on could well have been dangerous to continued living. If I sang too long or loud, someone could track me by the music and do stars knew what, and what was a harmless eccentricity at the moment could get me killed. "Clor." I stiffened a little, then relaxed. It wasn't often that my contact chose to meet me here, but when he did, it was at his own discretion and was probably one of the few places where we would go genuinely unobserved. I turned, nodding. "Dalaran." The land Elwen came to meet me, his eyes darting in every direction and his hand never poised far from the visible daggers that he wore; I could smell at least five more on him, concealed in various pieces of clothing and various places about his body. He made most curalli look relaxed. Of course, most curalli had only the usual dangers of the city, such as starvation and their personal enemies, to worry about, not being hated and slain on sight by every shadowed Elwen they met. Well. Almost every shadowed Elwen. "I shall have to abandon that name soon," said Dalaran, as he reached me and lowered his hand from the dagger at last, to fumble in his clothing for the glass bottle I had ordered from him. I kept a quiet, alert watch on him as he fumbled, of course. I knew how many weapons could be hidden in glass. But the bottle he pulled forth was filled with the yellow powder that I had asked for and nothing more dangerous, and I smiled and passed over the coins he wanted. "Why?" I asked at last, when he had counted over the pyrite and put it safely in a pouch somewhere, so well- muffled that even I couldn't hear or smell the money when he had concealed it. He grinned tightly at me. "It's getting recognized. Whispered too loudly among the curalli and the land Elwens and the others who could destroy me." I nodded. "Do you have any idea who betrayed it?" Not once did I think it was his own fault. He was too quick for that, too clever. "Oh, yes." I waited, but he said nothing more. At last I prompted, "Who?" If it was someone we both knew, that person might easily know I was Dalaran's customer and give both of us away. "You know Kilora?" I blinked. Then I said something I hadn't said for almost a hundred years. "My friend, I am sorry." Dalaran shrugged. "Stars know I should never have trusted her. This is my proper punishment." I studied his face for signs of remorse, of grieving, and found none. He had accepted and known what she had done, probably from the moment she had decided to move against him, and he assigned the proper blame to himself, no more. Because of that, I was willing to ask, "Is there anything I can do to help?" Dalaran smiled tightly. "Of course. I can't return the money; I'll need it where I'm going. But there is something else I brought, something else that I can give you if you will accept it." I nodded. "I'll have to see it first, of course." There was almost always a chance that I could sell the particular thing he had brought me if I couldn't use it, but that didn't mean that I was willing to take that slim chance. "Of course." He took a step back from me, reached into his clothing again, and then quickly tossed the small item within his hand to me. I caught it, turning it over, gasping a little as I recognized the sunburst symbol stamped into the metal of the little circle. "Dalaran-" "Yes. I know." I met his eyes. "This is more than ample payment for anything I could do to help you." Dalaran gave the first natural smile I had ever seen him deliver, the first, I thought, that I had ever seen on any paleskin's face. It made his blue eyes light up and his face flush with silver blood, and for just a moment I could see what he must have looked like with Kilora. It only made me all the more determined to destroy her. "I want you to do something very specific," he said quietly. "Something that I think you might well have objections to." "There's little I have-" "This you will." "Tell me." He did, and when he finished, I sighed. "Now tell me what she did to you." He did, and by the end of it I was shaking with rage and fury. "Don't worry," I said. "I know just the way to go about it." "Thank you." "Thanks are not necessary. I am only doing this because she could endanger me, too." He looked at me with his eyebrows raised. Silently, I cursed the ability of the land Elwen race to read the true emotions of the other Elwens around them. But, thankfully, all he said was, "If you say so. And thank you, my friend." I inclined my head, and then added, "How shall I reach you with word of the deed when I have finished?" "I have other contacts in place, watching." Dalaran laughed a little at the look on my face. "Did you think that you would spot them if I told them what you were like, that you were careful and cautious as you are?" "No. I'm surprised that you had the forethought to hire them in the first place." Dalaran tipped his head, accepting the insult with good grace. "As you will, my lord," he said. "But they will watch, and tell me when the deed is done, and what the consequences are." He paused. "If it is a particularly good one, then I might ask one of them to leave you an address where you can contact me." I smiled. "I think that you will want to leave me the address at once." "Not until you've proven yourself." I met his eyes and nodded, acknowledging the second level of protection- and the second motive he had just given me. I wanted to do it right now, to encourage him to give me an address where I could send a detailed description of the killing. Because it wouldn't be just a killing. Oh, no, indeed. ---------------------------------------------------------- The ringing of yet another ward awakened me that night when I did try to sleep. Sighing, I set up and walked to the crystal bell, touching it and closing my hand around the surface. The vision that the wards would normally only give me when they had someone in their power came to life on the backs of my eyes. I caught my breath and shook my head. She had come herself, this time, instead of sending children to do her work. I watched in silence as Taka crouched on the walltop, the silly robes that she had taken to wearing of late swirling around her as she sawed at the dark silver with a blade of what was probably diamond. A chunk came off in her hand, and she examined it for a long hopeful moment before snorting and flinging it aside. Well, of course she wasn't going to find my home that way. I could have told her that it wasn't that easy. My home didn't precisely exist in Arcadia, with Kalurata and the rest of the world. She cut, scraped, tapped, listened, and cleverly avoided the two best places for triggering the wards. Shariza must have informed her where she had stepped to do that. But nothing happened, and at last she sheathed the diamond blade and stood on the wall, clenching her fists and shouting my name. While to a certain extent I admired the madness that led her to be unafraid in this part of the city, I couldn't let her reveal my hiding place. There would be too many enemies of mine who would happily follow the shout, who probably had ears cocked and waiting for just such an opportunity. I spoke to the door and stepped through, shutting it tightly behind me. I might well have to stay out here for a long time arguing with her, and I wanted to make sure that no one could simply enter and make off with my books and treasures. "I'm here, Taka. Stop shouting." She did, at once, and dropped off the wall. I nudged her out of the way when she would have triggered a tripwire, and looked at her with my eyebrows raised, waiting, one hand on the knife poisoned with cerinya that I always kept behind my belt. I had never seen her this wild. Ten days had wrought changes in her, and not for the better. Her hair flowed uncombed and unwashed around her head, the scent it shed so thick that it could probably lead an enemy right to her; I wrinkled my nose. Her eyes stared straight at me, and yet somehow through, as if I had less existence and less importance than whatever occupied her mind at the moment; I was offended. She spasmed as if she would reach out and snatch me; I kept an eye on her hands, and my hand reassuringly on the hilt of my dagger. "Well?" "How dare you hurt Shariza like that?" I rolled my eyes. "She was trying to invade my sanctuary, and she wouldn't tell me, at least at first, that she worked for you. She wouldn't even tell me her name. She kept on babbling in Shoonkyant even though it was obvious that she understood a civilized tongue. What else could I do?" "Tell me, which of those 'crimes' was payment enough for breaking a child's arm?" I blinked. "Taka," I said at last, "did you leave the city for a year and not tell me? Ten worse things than that have happened in the last two days. Ask me, if you like. I'll be happy to tell you about them, free of charge." She laughed, bitter as her name. "Why would you do anything without payment?" "To save your life," I said bluntly. "I don't think that you'll survive much longer if you don't open your eyes to the world you live in." She laughed again, wilder but still bitter, and then calmed, staring at me. "I told you that I would make you aid me, no matter what it cost me." "I remember that." "You would." Taka said it as an accusation. "You have to help me aid the children, Clor," she said. "Our own souls- they're gone, they're lost beyond redemption, but we can still try things that might save the children of this hell we've unwittingly borne them into. We can defend them, feed them, teach them that there are other things in life besides food and survival." "Why teach them things that are false in the only world they'll ever know?" I shook my head. "You told me that I was skilled at surviving in the world beyond Kalurata, Taka, that I would survive no matter what happened. Well, that's true. And at least part of that expertise comes of realizing that the land Elwens and those beyond our walls want nothing to do with us. They'll kill curalli on sight, and those of their own races who might venture to trade with us on a breath of suspicion." I thought again of Dalaran, betrayed by the woman he had loved, and the entirely pleasant venture that I would soon undertake to punish that betrayal as he could not. Taka snarled at me as if she didn't, or, more likely, couldn't believe me. "How dare you say such things! How dare you imply that the other races would slay us out of hand, that they would turn on us when we have proven ourselves worthy to join them!" I lifted my eyebrows, and thought of Dalaran and the revenge I would take vanished like smoke. "What are you telling me, Taka? That you can't believe your precious refuge might be just as tainted and dangerous as the city we live in?" "You can't say things like that." "Who makes the decree that I can't?" "I do." Taka drew herself up. "You may not realize it, Clor, but things have changed." I looked at her with my head on one side. "Do you mean to sound stupid, Taka, or does it just come out that way?" As she stared at me, confused, I continued, "I have heard others say the same thing to me. All of them meant it. All of them are dead." "This time, things have changed," Taka promised me, her face grim. "How?" Taka motioned, and Shariza came around the corner. Her eyes were wide, and no wonder, considering that I had broken her arm only the night before. She had the arm tightly bound to her side, and she walked with a faltering step, but she came and stood before me, beside Taka. "How does she change things?" I asked, only mildly interested. "She was here once before, and nothing happened then." "Show him, Shariza," said Taka, her eyes fixed on me as if she thought that I would cower in fear at something a little girl might have on her person. Actually, there were things that would have made me cower in fear that a little girl could carry. But I also had wards set up to detect anything of that nature, and nothing like them had passed them. I therefore watched calmly as Shariza held a fist towards me and then opened it, showing me what rested on her palm. It was a small crystal; at first I thought it was an eye. Then I realized that it was only carved, with extreme realism, to look like an eye. "Yes?" I asked politely, after looking at the carving for a moment or two. "Pick it up." I glanced at Taka from a corner of my eye. "You must be joking." "Don't you want to?" Taka coaxed, as if she fancied herself a rynir, one of the breakers, who could shatter the will of his victim with words alone. As I stared at her in disbelief, she continued in a voice that I think she deliberately made breathy. "It is lovely, shining. You cannot resist it." "Yes, I can." Several moments passed. Shariza stood there holding the crystal towards me. I stood with my arms folded in front of me. Taka stared at me as if she could force me with her gaze into touching the crystal. "No," I said at last. "No, what?" asked Taka. "No, I don't want to pick it up. You looked as if you were waiting for an answer to a question. Was that the right one? Can I go now?" I glanced longingly towards the hidden door of my sanctuary. I had books that required reading, songs to be composed, and problems just waiting to be untangled by the wisdom of a trained mind. I didn't think that I wanted to stand here and wait while they stared at me. Taka clenched her fists and screamed at the top of her lungs. I frowned. As with her earlier shouting of my name, there were things her antics would attract that I would prefer not to deal with. "Stop screaming, please." "You were supposed to touch it!" she cried. "You were supposed to be affected by it." I shook my head slowly. "I'm sorry, Taka. I'm not. Why did you want to affect me in the first place? Could I ask that?" "For vengeance's sake," said Taka, spitting the words. "We must do something for the children, Clor. You have stolen enough young lives to live, and the ones that still remain demand the debt." "No," I said. "You do, and you've deluded yourself into thinking that they desire the same the thing you do- indeed, that they have desires at all." I yawned. "My dear one, you must realize that this has been mildly interesting, and you did save my life once, and those are the reasons I haven't killed you. But I'm hardly interested in remaining here while you hurl accusations at me that you match as well as I do." "How dare you!" I sighed. "Becoming part of the Sun, or whatever you wish to call it, Taka, has stolen your wit. I shall mourn the loss of that, if nothing else." I glanced at Shariza, who still clutched the crystal as if it would guard her from anything I could do. "You might as well put it away, littling. I shall be doing nothing that your mistress wants me to do." "She said that you could help us," said Shariza, her gaze never wavering. I was impressed, though of course I didn't show that. "She said that you knew things that could help us survive beyond the walls." I lifted my eyebrows. "Are you that willing to leave the embrace of your people?" "They will kill us if we stay here." "Not if you are cunning and strong enough to survive." Not if you deserve to live, I added silently to myself. Yes, at my age there might be things that could destroy even the deserving- such as myself- but at her age, it was strength of will more than almost anything else that made the difference. The weak and lazy died, or fled and died. It was that simple. For a moment, Shariza looked as if she might be tempted to believe me, but then she shook her head, her little mouth firmly set. "No. The Lady explained it to me. You can help us, and we can have a better life in the outer world than we can here." "Have you ever seen the outer world?" I took a step towards her, lowering my voice. "Have you ever been beyond the walls?" "I've looked-" "Not the same thing, Shariza." She flinched, as if my using her name somehow made the threat that I embodied the more real or strong somehow. "You walk in the sun, when you walk in the outer world, and it's not the shining thing, the source of light, that your lady imagines it. It's also the source of heat, uncomfortable heat, and stinging pain. Until you train to go into the sun, as I have, it will make your eyes bleed black, your veins explode, your head fill with an aching so fierce that being hit by the claws of an atacor is better. Curalli were meant to stay in the darkness, and we know that when we walk into the sun. "And then there are the others, the land Elwens and all the other horrible people who will kill you just for having dark silver skin. They will torture you. They will flay your skin an inch at a time, or set diseases in you that will weaken your body but leave your mind fully intact. Can you imagine a greater horror than to be trapped in your body, unable to move, unable to control even when you relieve yourself, but knowing everything that is happening to you?" Shariza shivered, clutching her arms as if she could feel the tremors I had spoken of racking her, but she said, "Yes, I can imagine something worse." "What?" "Staying here in the city for the rest of my life, and dying for reasons that have nothing to do with the Sun's hatred of us." Then she darted forward. I had come too close to her, lowering my voice to tell her the story as I did so, and now she planted the carven crystal in my flesh with a dull smacking sound. I felt a sharpness, a stinging pain, as if from the sun in my eyes. I heard Taka cry out, and then she grabbed Shariza and stepped back with her. The little girl let herself be held, all the while gazing at me with those big green eyes in which more than a hint of triumph now lingered. I looked back defiantly at them. Contact poison or some kind of crippling disease, I would die looking them in the face, and I would not scream- I screamed. The thing was not attacking my body, or my heart, for that matter. It was hammering at the walls of my mind, and pain like none I had ever imagined was flowing so fast through my body that I had no chance to do anything to counteract it. I rode it out, my face bleeding with tears, thinking it would stop in a moment. It didn't. It grew worse, and worse. Then it swelled into a ripping tide, and launched a blow I could not withstand straight at the tender heart of what I most valued. It thrust itself into my mind, rested there for a moment while I screamed, cutting my thoughts worse than a thousand blades could count my flesh. Memories whirled past my eyes, and other random things that I hadn't worried about in years suddenly touched me. The thing was digging through my mind, finding what it wanted and taking it for itself. I thought I understood, now, what it was like to be raped. I hadn't the first idea how to fight this thing. I hadn't the first idea how even to resist the crawling feeling of shame and violation creeping over me. I had the dim sense that the pain, the thing, the living weapon, was withdrawing from my mind, reaching for something else, but I didn't really care where it was going or what it was doing. Even if it was leaving, I was going to bear the marks of my shame for a long time. I wondered if I would ever fully recover. Then I heard a silent cry of triumph that echoed nowhere but in my mind, telepathically, and ideas, memories, dreams, emotions, that were not my own fell across the landscape of my mind like shooting stars. Shariza, I knew in a moment, without even knowing how. The crystal had bound me to the girl somehow. I looked up and found her still watching me, though her smile was fading by the moment. She was slowly stiffening in Taka's arms, crawling at the woman's flesh, and I could only hope that the sudden link was causing her as much pain as it was me. Then I was gone. The whole swirling mess of another personality, another soul, another curalli where there had been only one drowned me. Things that were not my own and I had no idea how to control or subdue leaped about me. I was in a battle for my sanity. Chapter 2 On Strange Battlefields "Our souls to each other go..." -Second line of a poem entitled Onilda (Love), found in the manuscripts of the Fallen One. From The Private Journal Of Clor Adamantine I am... Two such simple words. I don't think that I can- Done it! The Lady- I am not thinking that. I refuse to think like that. If I can only fight some way back- -be proud me of somehow still. I think that I can- Unnecessary. This is all so- Unnecessary, if I can just gain some control back, semblance of. If I can just follow the thoughts that are mine and- Pursue them to the ground, then I think that I will hunt them- With the Lady's favor. No, it damn! I don't want to think- Like that. I shouldn't have to think like that. No, wait. Doing I am what? The Lady wanted this bond between the Evil One and myself, and I think that I will- Go mad soon if this continues. No! No going mad. There is a way to control this. I know there is. I don't think that I- Can do- No! No. I will not yield. I will not surrender. Surrendering no more forever is unlike an eft, because it does not gambol- It doesn't? That's interesting. I never realized that that happened. No! I will not share my mind with her- Him- It- Us- Them- We will share. We must- No! I refuse to do anything so disgusting. I refuse to consider that I might- Separate out again into distinct beings. I may not really understand this place where we are now, but I think that- I can escape if I just concentrate, and warp the words into the semblance of a ward that must be hung by the moons- I remember the house where I was born. I remember the smell of the apple wood that burned on the fire, and the smell of the nurse as she caught me up. That's all that I really remember, smells. Not much else. Clean, warm smell. Safe. If I think- Like that, I think that I'll- Stay sane and safe. Part of me is Clor, and the other part is Shariza. If I can just keep them- I will not think of her! The memories are swirling about them. Do I remember when we slew the curalli that threatened us? And the leader- Of the Knifesingers? He scarred our backs. He threatened us. He would have killed us. If I hadn't poisoned him when I did- And then killed his gang when they came after me- That's disgusting! I can't believe that I'm capable of such things. Did she really think when she- Condemned me to this? Does she have any idea what I'm going through? Does she think that I- Really like being bound to someone like this? I need to be separate- No, I'm doing this for the Lady, and our chance of entering the Sunlight and dancing with the other Elwen folk. If I must learn how to do that from someone as foul and disgusting as this, then I suppose that that- Is just the price that I have to pay for having this intruder in my head. If I can think my way through it and into me- Them- You- Us- You- If I can only- ---------------------------------------------------------- I opened my eyes, gasping, and promptly tried to bolt from the bed they had me in. "Easy, Clor." I turned my head, my body firing with hatred at the sound of her voice. Then I winced and bowed my head. A pain beat just behind my brow that was actually worse than the pain I had told Shariza about, the pain that the sun would cause to the eyes and the body of an untrained shadowed Elwen. Shariza. Myself. I was remembering my own memories again, and I could distinguish myself from the girl. Though I thought that I also remembered, dimly, a time when I was not myself, and struggled for control with her thoughts flowing through me, the recollection remained dim. Hopefully, it would stay that way. "Where am I, Taka?" I asked at last, wincing as speaking made my head ache a little more fiercely. Still, anything was better than the nightmare that I was becoming more and more convinced was real. The pain was almost a blessing after that, in fact, as was being conscious of my own head to feel it. I rubbed absently at my left arm. "In the Temple of the Children of the Sun." I stared at her. "I thought you said that you would need my help to construct a fortress that would keep the children safe." I rubbed my arm again. It seemed to be aching a little more fiercely now. "I did," said Taka, smiling widely. She was clad in another of the impractical robes that I had first seen her in eleven days ago. This one was brilliant scarlet, a color that would reveal her coming ten streets away. "Shariza learned what I needed to know of the way that you hide your own sanctuary, and recited it to me while you lay unconscious." I snarled. "How long have I been unconscious?" I asked, ignoring the horrifying idea that Shariza could read my mind and tell Taka anything that she wanted to know. The idea wasn't something I could grasp right now, not with my head pounding all the more fiercely. I found myself squinting as if against strong light, something I hadn't done since training myself to face the sun in my tenth year of life. Which was definitely my tenth year of life, and not Shariza's; she was nine, and not ten. My pleasure at knowing that was mingled with annoyance at how I had known she was nine. "Over four days." I stared at her. "It couldn't have been that long. I would be weaker." Taka smiled at me. I would have called it a genuine smile, save that it was tinged with the condescension that she seemed to feel free to direct at me. "Ah, Clor. You would think so. You would be right to believe so, if things were still as they were when you went to sleep. I told you that things had changed, and that you merely didn't know it yet. That is as true now as- truer than- it was when I said it. You are now bound to Shariza." "That I guessed. It doesn't explain why I'm not weaker after four days of bed rest." But I was beginning to suspect the truth. Taka's smile twisted. "I can hear Shariza too, Clor, and she tells me that you're lying, that you do know, that you have heard of something like this. It's not part of the Code of the Sun to lie." She looked up into the air, at something I couldn't lie, and nodded. I screamed as pain flowered in my left arm, less because it hurt than because it was so unexpected. I had faced enemies armed with weapons of more power and not screamed, not wanting to give them the satisfaction. But with them, I had always had some sign that it was coming, some time to prepare. I nearly passed out, slumping forward, but just then the pain ended, subsiding to a dull ache again. "What was that?" I asked, drawing in breath at last when I thought that I would speak with it and not simply scream again. "You know." Taka's glare was stern, as much as asking me if I wanted that to happen again. "I suspect," I said grudgingly. "I'm feeling the pain from Shariza's broken arm." "Yes." "And she's sharing out the weakness that I would feel, so that I'm not as weak as I should be after resting in bed for four days." "Yes." "And she is in full control of the process," I said, narrowing my eyes. Taka smiled. "She tells me that you don't completely believe that. But it is the truth, Clor. In effect, you are the slave and she is the master. She can cause you pain or knock you unconscious at a moment's notice. She can take anything she wishes from your mind- knowledge, memories, or emotions- and tell me in an instant what you are thinking." Once again, I chose not to think about that; I didn't believe I was capable of understanding the full implications of it. "What are you going to do with this marvelous slavery?" Taka smiled and held out a hand to me. I merely stared at her, unbelieving, and braced for Shariza to send pain through my body again. Did she really think I was going to fall for that? Taka only chuckled. "Oh, you don't need to believe my good intentions if you don't want to, Clor. But they're the truth." She turned her back and walked towards the door of the small room, which was bare save for the bed and the chair, glancing over her shoulder at me. "Now that you're ours, you're going to help and serve us, and we'll teach you of the Code of the Sun. You're one of us unwilling, true, but you're still curalli and in need of guidance, and that means that we'll help you." I stared at her. Several responses occurred to me, but only one really seemed appropriate. "I think that you're mad." She laughed softly, shaking back her long dark hair. "Oh, Clor, you would think that, coming from a world as mad as ours. But, in truth, I am the first sane person that you have ever met." She vanished out the door then, adding something that disturbed me more than anything else she had said. "Welcome to your new life." ---------------------------------------------------------- I lay in the bed for a while, thinking I wouldn't follow her out of sheer stubbornness. But eventually a warning twinge in my arm, as well as hunger in my belly and the pain in my head, forced me to get out and walk in her footsteps. I saw several more adults as I paced the corridors they had created- really, that I had created- out of dark silver. All of them wore robes as Taka did, and a few of them wore golden sunbursts around their necks. They stopped speaking when they saw me, but they nodded greetings. Few of them had actively hostile looks on their faces, even as they watched me pass out of sight. They really believed in what they were doing. They really believed that I was going to be one of them. I wanted so badly to turn and leave. I knew the ways out. But I knew that Shariza was watching my thoughts, and would only overpower me once again. I don't like pain. And besides, it's not the most intelligent thing in the world to resist in a way that will cause you pain, when you might seem to give in for now, and plot and plan to escape at a later time. ^How are you going to do that, Clor? I can see your every thought.^ I flinched. Every telepathic word rang in my still- echoing head like the beat of an enormous gong. ^It's little enough return for the pain that you have caused the world.^ Shariza's voice was deep and rich with adult loathing. I could only guess that Taka must have given it to her; it wasn't something a child would have learned on her own, not in the world that she had lived in for most of her life. ^Do you know how many people you have killed, Clor? How very steeped in evil your mind is? It's painful for me to touch it.^ ^Then don't.^ Her voice grew smug again at once. ^Oh, no. That's just what you want me to do.^ I didn't respond. Of course it was what I wanted her to do. I didn't want to be a slave. ^You're not a slave.^ ^Yes, I am. Even Taka called me that.^ ^You're a servant of the Sun and the Code,^ said Shariza firmly. ^She was mistaken. I'll speak to her about it.^ ^Who are you?^ There was a pause, and then a soft laugh. ^I don't think I'll tell you. Not yet. You can learn it on your own. You are very intelligent, after all.^ Then the voice was gone. I shook my head. No, she wasn't a curalli child, though she might well be curalli. No one could be as strong-willed and clever as she was at that age. Even I hadn't been. Damn it. I frowned. Memories were still dancing through my thoughts where they didn't belong, stirring up associations that I didn't want and touching on parts of my mind that they had no business touching upon. I would have to do something to heal that as soon as I could. Assuming that my master would let me, of course. It really struck me then for the first time, I think, as I walked along that quiet hall towards the room from which the smells of food came. I had a master. Someone who could see into my thoughts at all time. Someone who could control me through pain, if she desired it, and would probably work to temper and change what she saw as evil in me. I began to shake. I sank to the ground and wrapped my arms around myself. A few tears ran through my face, but I did not sob or scream aloud, though stars know I wanted to do. She could make me do things, yes. But giving in and doing them without coercion would mark a level of surrender I wasn't ready to give her yet. "Here, brother. Let me assist you." I snarled and tried to spurn the hands that rested on my shoulders, but the agony flared in my left arm once more, and so I forced myself to nod and smile and lean on the shoulder of the young curalli who gazed at me with trusting eyes. "I don't recognize you," she said, her voice low and musical. "Who are you?" "Clor Adamantine." This much I could snatch from my master, revealing the surname I had chosen for myself before Shariza or Taka could do it. A smile of recognition lit her face. "Oh, yes. They brought you in the other day. My name is Mhela." I nodded to her. The name fit her. Her eyes were as blue as the mountain lake that the Primal word meant. "Dark stars smile on you." Mhela smiled. It was a sweet smile, but tinged with the same condescensions that Taka had shown me. "You are new. We don't refer to the black stars here. The Sun is the only light we acknowledge." "Not the only one I acknowledge." Mhela only smiled the more broadly, as if to say that she knew better. Still holding my arm, forcing me to walk in tandem with her, she steered me towards the dining hall. "The Lady Taka said that you were to help us with training and teaching the children," she said. "Yes." "I do the same. I hope that we will work together for the good of the children." "Oh, yes," I said miserably. Rezt. Placed in a room with a pack of rats and forced to instruct them, without even the fearsome reputation of a School Master to awe them into submission. "Of course. I think we will work together." "You don't sound that excited about our Great Work." Mhela studied me out of the corner of her eye as if trying to find out what was wrong with me. "I don't know that much about it," I said, to evade both the searching look and the growing pressure of the pain in my arm. Mhela smiled. "Oh, why did you not tell me? I can tell you anything that you would like to know." She pulled me through a final door and we halted in the middle of a room, vaster than anything I had ever sought to create. I frowned. This was probably straining the walls where they had built it. The pain in my arm flared again. I ignored it. It didn't matter what Shariza, or whoever was really behind my enslavement, thought about my voicing this opinion. If they strained the walls, then their precious sanctuary would collapse, and they would be left out in the streets for any curalli who wanted to kill them to do so. Hmmmm. That was actually tempting. But, unfortunately, for now, my fate depended on theirs, and I would only be as safe as they were, or as they could make their hiding place. "Do you know, my lady," I said, interrupting the speech that Mhela was about to give, "I think that the walls are in danger of breaking here." Mhela looked at me with innocent eyes that told me immediately she had had nothing to do with the construction of the temple. "What do you mean?" "This magic- the hall you've created is too large." Mhela looked at me with her eyebrows rising. "It has to be large. We gain more converts of the Sunsworn and more children to protect every day." "But if it gets too large, it will sunder the walls and open you up to the streets." I shook my head. "Is there some way I could find the Lady Taka or someone else who knows about this, so that I could tell her she has to do something?" "Tell me, and I will take her the message." "You've already said that you don't understand," I snapped, sickened by her stupidity. "What good would it do giving you a message that you don't understand?" Mhela blinked at me, then said, as if she couldn't believe it, "That was rude." "Of course it was. As unintelligent as you are, you deserve worse. But my safety depends on yours for the moment, and I want to make sure that all of us are secure. Where is the Lady Taka?" "Praying." Mhela crossed her arms. "You can't interrupt her, not for any reason." I gritted my teeth. "Is there someone who could be told, who isn't involved in a vital activity at the moment?" My sarcasm tightened the agony in my arm, but not Mhela's voice; I decided it was more than likely she didn't understand what I'd said. "Yes. The Lady Alvital." "Please tell me that is not her birth name," I said, shuddering. That meant "daughter of the sun" in Primal. Of a parent had given a child a name like that in Kalurata, she was lucky that she had survived this long without dying. "Of course not," said Mhela. "Almost none of us here bear our birth names, save the Lady Taka and the children." "What was your birth name?" Her face hardened. "You ask too many questions. I will take you to see the Lady Alvital when we've eaten something, and I've told you a little about the Sunsworn." She steered towards me the tables again, so hard that I stumbled. I recovered my balance, and my dropped jaw. "We don't have time for this right now!" I growled. "Can't you see that? The Lady Alvital, or whoever the hell will listen to me, has to be told now." "It can wait," said Mhela, her voice utterly tranquil. "It's rude to think of such things during the last meal of the day, when one should be thinking of calm things so that one can digest the food in peace and then sleep well at night." I shook my head at the stupidity of some of the tenets of this new religion, if religion it was- ^How dare you doubt that?^ -and decided that I might as well take matters into my own hands. Cupping my palms around my mouth, I shouted, "I need to speak to someone who can do something about the walls immediately! You're straining them, and they're probably going to collapse on top of you before you finish the meal." The change in the hall was remarkable. Where there had been peaceful conversation and the restrained sound of eating, now there was budding panic and anger. They were still curalli, I realized then, for all their conversion. They were more ready to believe the truth about danger than rumors of peace. Perhaps there was some hope that I might trick them and escape after all. "What are you doing?" Mhela's grip on my arm, combined with the pain that the angry Shariza was trying to cause, hurt. I shook off the young woman's hand and turned to face the cadre of adults striding towards me. Most of the others were in the back of the room trying to round up the children, and keep them from running out of the doors in panic, but these three were apparently more concerned about the threat that they thought I represented. Well, good. Though I could have told them that they were more of a threat to themselves, as long as they let me go eventually. I studied them. One of them, the foremost woman, was obviously a Barak-ugh native; her eyes were a pale silver, though her hair as dark as a normal curalli's. She looked the most shocked at what I had done, and kept shaking her head as if that would remove the echoes of the truth from her ears. The woman behind her had burning blue eyes that might be natural, and white hair that was quite obviously not. She clenched her fists as if she would like to leap at me, and only the presence of her fellows- or possibly only the flimsy robe she wore, which would impede the speed of her attacks- prevented her from doing so. The third one was a man, dark-haired and dark-eyed in a way that would have made him indistinguishable from the normal curalli on the streets, if not for his self- righteous expression. I knew many who would have killed him for that alone. Hell, I might have myself. The man spoke first. "What is the meaning of this?" The silver-eyed woman spoke after him. "How dare you do this?" The other woman only shook her head, as if she didn't really trust herself to speak or act rationally around me. "I was telling the truth," I said blandly. "I created the magic that you used to build this hall. You can't just increase the size of the rooms forever and expect them to hold. It won't work. The rooms will collapse inward on you, and from the look of the walls, I would say this one will fall soon." The man looked up nervously. Good, At least he had a little sense, then. The silver-eyed woman repeated, "How dare-" I sighed. "That question is so common that I am surprised at times that you can ask anything else. How dare I? I dare because I am your prisoner here, and I will die if the walls fall on you just as you will. I'm sorry if it doesn't suit your customs, your traditions, or your sense of what's proper. But without the warnings of those like me, you would never survive to practice your customs and your sense of what's proper." Applause interrupted the next things the woman might have said. I turned to look at Mhela, wondering why she was even pretending to champion me in front of her superiors. Surely it wouldn't really gain her that much favor from them. But Mhela's eyes regarded me warmly, and I realized in a moment that her support wasn't pretended. I shook my head. I had to wonder if I would ever understand the Sunsworn. "My Lord Clor is right," she told the other Sunsworn, who stood staring at her with open hostility. "I don't think we can tell him to be quiet when we did take the magic that built these walls and raised our temple from him." "But he doesn't have to say it that way," muttered the silver-eyed woman. "When you won't listen any other way-" I began in a mild tone.