"I been watchin' 'em since they was born. I don't want nothin' to happen to 'em, Yer Highness."

Gaborn met Groverman's eyes. The Duke smiled and nodded toward the boy.

"Then, Kaylin," Gaborn asked, "would you be willing to stay in the castle, and help care for them for me?"

The boy's mouth dropped in astonishment. As Myrrima had guessed, Groverman had not forewarned the child of the possibility.

Gaborn merely smiled pleasantly at the Duke. "How many of these pups can you provide me with?"

The Duke smiled. "I've been letting them breed at will now for four years. I smelled trouble brewing. Would a thousand suit Your Highness?"

Gaborn grinned. It was a princely wedding gift, in spite of the fact that Iome looked as if she were about to fly into a rage and tear out the Duke's hair.

"You think we could have that many by spring?" Gaborn asked. "It seems a large number."

"Far sooner than that," Groverman said. "Seven hundred pups are waiting outside in wagons. The others will be ready within a few weeks."

Autumn was not normally the best time of year to get pups, Myrrima knew. More births occurred in early spring and summer. These seven hundred had to have been born within the last sixteen weeks or so.

"My thanks," Gaborn said. He put his pup on the floor and returned to the breakfast table as Groverman left with. Kaylin in tow.

The King's pup came and worried at Myrrima's shoe for a moment, trying to drag her foot from her leg, until she gave it a sausage from her plate.

Iome seemed so upset by the presence of the pups that Myrrima offered to put them out with the others. When Iome agreed, Myrrima grabbed the pups and a plate of sausages. She went outside the keep, and found Kaylin on the green, looking somewhat forlornly at a wagon of pups.

Gaborn's new counselor, Jureem, who had served Raj Ahten until only recently, was standing next to the boy with his back turned to Myrrima, giving instructions to Kaylin. To be heard over the yapping of the creatures, Jureem spoke loudly.

"You will of course be tireless in your service," Jureem said. "The dogs will depend on you for food and water and shelter and bathing. You must keep them strong."

The boy Kaylin nodded vigorously. Myrrima stopped behind Jureem. She had seen Jureem instructing the household staff over the past few days, badgering a chambermaid here, a horse groom there. Now, she was curious to hear what this former slave from a far country had to say.

"A good servant gives his all to his lord," Jureem intoned with mock exaggeration in a thick Taifan accent. "He never lets himself tire, never shirks his duty. He must never become weary of performing his tasks well. He serves his lord in every thought and every deed, administering to his lord's needs before they are ever voiced. He gives up his own life--his dreams and pleasures--to serve his lord. Can you do that?"

"But," the boy said, "I just want to take care of the pups."

"When you serve them, you are serving your lord. That is the task he has chosen for you. But if he should choose a different task for you, then you must be prepared to fulfill his every command. Do you understand?"

"You mean he might take me away from the pups?" the boy whined.

"Someday, yes. If you do this job well, he will expand your duties. In addition to the kennels, he might place you in charge of his stables or ask you to train dogs for war. You might even be called upon to become a guard and bear arms for even the Dedicate dogs of the kennels might be a target for Raj Ahten's a.s.sa.s.sins.

"Watch the King. He works for his people tirelessly. Learn from his devotion. We all live in service to one another. A man is nothing without his lord. A lord is nothing without his servants." Jureem walked away, hurrying to fulfill some other obligation.

The boy seemed to consider the counselor's words, then looked up at Myrrima and caught his breath. He smiled at her in that hopeful way that men did ever since she'd been endowed with glamour.

She put both pups down by her feet, and stroked them as they wolfed their sausages. Until that moment, even Myrrima had not known what she would do.

But she knew that she must prepare, and Jureem's words convinced her that she had to begin doing so tirelessly, to antic.i.p.ate the threat before it arrived.

"The pups like you," Kaylin mused.

"You know the pups well?" Myrrima asked. "Do you know which dogs were born of which b.i.t.c.hes?"

Kaylin nodded soberly. Of course he did. That was the only reason that Groverman had sent the boy to serve young King Orden.

"I'll want four of them," Myrrima said softly, lest someone overhear. She was terribly conscious of the fact that she planned to take these pups from her own king without asking. But Kaylin would never know that she was stealing. Hadn't he just seen her dining with the King and Queen? The boy would a.s.sume that she was some lady who had a right to the pups. Myrrima hoped that if she worked hard, perhaps she could truly earn that right. "Two for stamina, one for scent, and one for metabolism. Can you pick out the best ones for me?"

Kaylin nodded vigorously.

After breakfast, Iome and Gaborn retired to their bedchamber for a moment, and closed the doors behind them, leaving their Days out in the alcove.

Iome could not feel perfectly at ease in this room. The huge bed, with its images of fools and lords carved into its posterns and the pineapples at its top, had been her mother and father's bed a week ago. Her mother's perfumes and cosmetics were in their case beside the oriel, where the morning light was best. Her father's clothes were still in the wardrobes; Gaborn had brought few of his own clothes from Mystarria, but her father's garments fit Gaborn well enough.

But more than the objects in this room, the scent of it reminded Iome of her parents. She could smell her mother's hair on her pillow, her body oils, her perfume.

Should I tell him? she wondered. Iome was carrying Gaborn's child, she felt certain. They'd been married for only four days, and Iome felt no nausea. She would not know for a few days yet whether she had even missed her time of month. But she did feel a strangeness to her body, and Myrrima had seen it today. She'd said that Iome was "glowing."

But was that proof enough? Iome doubted it. She dared not speak of her hopes to Gaborn.

Iome sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if Gaborn would want her, but he merely went to the oriel and stared south for a long time, deep in thought.

"Have you decided what to do yet?" she asked. Before the wedding, he'd been in constant turmoil, wondering how he could best fight Raj Ahten, wondering where Raj Ahten would strike next. As Earth King, he was the protector of mankind, and now Gaborn shuddered at the very thought of taking a human life, even the life of an enemy. This morning's news of Raj Ahten's attacks had left him deeply worried.

She'd encouraged him to go on the hunt, hoping that by having a few days away; slipping into some sort of routine, he might be able to clear his mind, while at the same time it would ease concerns among his people.

"Will you take endowments? Thousands have offered themselves as your Dedicates."

Gaborn bowed his head in thought. "I can't," he said. "Of that I am becoming more and more certain."

A week ago, both of their fathers had been slain. Afterward, Gaborn had wanted to take endowments, to take the strength of a thousand men and the grace of another thousand and to take the stamina of ten thousand and the metabolism of a hundred men and use it all to slay Raj Ahten.

Yet now that deed seemed beyond him. Taking a man's endowments was risky. A man might give them willingly enough, but there was always a danger. A man who gave brawn would find that his heart was suddenly too weak to beat, and might pa.s.s away within moments. A man who gave grace could not properly digest his food, or relax his lungs enough to let out a breath, so might fall prey to starvation or suffocation. A man who gave stamina to his lord could die from infection the next time an illness swept through the castle.

So a man who took another's endowments could soon find himself poisoned by guilt. Worse than that, since a powerful Runelord was so nearly Invincible, only a fool would attack him directly. Instead, the Runelord's Dedicates became the targets of his enemy's wrath. If one were to slay a lord's Dedicates, he would sever the magical link that raised the lord's attributes, and in doing so, he would make the lord himself more human, more vulnerable to attack.

Borenson had slain Iome's own Dedicates a week ago. The pain of it was astonishing. Good men and women had died. She'd wept bitterly about it night after night, for the Dedicates were often friends, people who had loved the kingdom and therefore sought to strengthen it so that they could better maintain her realm.

As Earth King, Gaborn sought to defend his people. He could lock his Dedicates in towers, guard them with his most powerful knights, provide the best physicians to care for them. Still it might not be enough.

Gaborn's arguments against taking endowments were morally sound. Yet Iome had to wonder. He was the Earth King, the hope of the World. But how great a king could he be, if he left himself open to attack?

"Last week," Iome said, "you swore to me that you would be an Oath-Bound Lord. Are you forsaking endowments completely? I can't imagine why. You are a good man. If you take endowments only from your Chosen, I know that you will use them wisely, and prudently. You will be a better king because of it. And because you are the Earth King, you will know when your Dedicates are in danger, and be better able to preserve them."

"Knowing that a man is in danger and rescuing him are entirely different matters," Gaborn said heavily. "Even with all of my powers, I may not be able to protect them."

"But what of Raj Ahten? What will happen when he does send his a.s.sa.s.sins? Surely he will!"

"If he sends a.s.sa.s.sins, then I will sense the danger, and we will flee." Gaborn said. "But I will not fight another man ever again, unless I have no choice."

Iome felt confused by such talk. She valued life, valued the lives of her people above all. But she couldn't just turn her back on Raj Ahten. She'd never be able to forgive him for what he'd done. Iome's mother and father were dead at his hands. Gaborn's mother and father, too. Gaborn should have been shouting for vengeance. Even now; Raj Ahten was marching on his homeland in Mystarria. All of Gaborn's counselors had agreed that Heredon's forces were too weak to pursue the Wolf Lord south. They lacked the warriors and force horses to do so. Raj Ahten's troops had stolen all of the good horses in Sylvarresta's stables when they fled. One of the first things that Gaborn did when he reached Castle Sylvarresta was to learn from the stablemasters the names of every horse that had been taken, and the names of their Dedicates. Then he'd sent the list to Duke Groverman, where the Dedicate horses were kept, and had the Dedicates slain.

It was a desperate effort to slow Raj Ahten in his flight toward Mystarria. Raj Ahten's knights would have been forced to ride common mounts. Perhaps because of this slaughter of Dedicate horses, hordes of Knights Equitable had been able to mount ambushes that took a toll against Raj Ahten's Invincibles.

Gaborn had bought Duke Paladane the time he'd need to set his defenses against the Wolf Lord, and might well have made it possible to run some of Raj Ahten's forces into the ground. Gaborn's home country of Mystarria was the largest and richest realm in all the kingdoms of Rofehavan. A full third of all the force soldiers in the north were under the command of Paladane the Huntsman.

But Iome doubted that Paladane could stop Raj Ahten's armies. She only hoped that Paladane could somehow hold the Wolf Lord at bay until the kings of the north could combine their armies. Gaborn had sent messengers all across Rofehavan, begging for aid.

Still, Gaborn had not sent men from Heredon to help Paladane.

"Why?" Iome asked. "Why won't you stop Raj Ahten? You don't have to do it yourself. Many are gathering here, lords from all over Heredon. You have men who could fight, the lords of Heredon are eager for revenge! I would fight! I hesitate to ask you this, but are you afraid of him?"

Gaborn shook his head, looked at her as if hoping she would understand. "I am not afraid of him," Gaborn said. "Yet something holds me back.

"There is something...I feel so profoundly...and I cannot express it well. Perhaps I cannot express it at all. But...I am the Earth King, and am charged with saving a seed of mankind through the dark season to come. I don't feel that the people of Indhopal are my enemies. I cannot harm them. I will not willingly destroy men and women. Not when I fear that the reavers are my true enemies."

"Raj Ahten is our enemy," Iome said. "He is as bad as any reaver."

"He is," Gaborn admitted, "but think of this: For each four hundred men and women alive, we have but one force soldier, one protector capable of stopping a reaver. And if that one protector dies, then it is probable that four hundred people will die because of that loss."

It was a terrifying thought, and Iome herself had worried about little else but logistics for the past seven days as she began to consider the enormity of the problem. How many warriors could Gaborn spend fighting Raj Ahten? Was even one warrior one too many?

Time and again Gaborn hinted that he thought so. With the forty thousand forcibles that Gaborn's father had captured at Longmot, Gaborn might equip four thousand force soldiers. It was a number ten times what Iome's father had had. Yet it would be a small force compared to what Raj Ahten could marshal.

And there was the Wolf Lord himself to contend with. Raj Ahten had thousands of endowments of his own. Gaborn had talked about using the forcibles to make himself Raj Ahten's equal, so that he could fight the Wolf Lord man to man.

But if Gaborn did so, if he drained endowments from even several hundred men, he worried that he Would be wasting resources. He did not know if he'd ever get another forcible again. Jureem had warned him that the blood-metal mines of Kartish were played out. These forty thousand forcibles were Gaborn's best weapons against the reavers.

But suddenly Iome understood something that had eluded her. "Wait, are you saying that you don't want to kill Raj Ahten?" Until this moment, she had thought that Gaborn would merely stay here in Heredon, hide behind the protective borders of the Dunnwood, and let the shades of his ancestors protect him from Raj Ahten. But Gaborn seemed nervous, and there was an intensity to him, a pleading demeanor, that made her realize that he needed to tell her something she would not want to hear.

Gaborn turned aside and looked at her from the corner of his eye, as if he could not bear to face her fully. "You have to understand my love: The people of Indhopal are not my enemies. The Earth has made me its king, and Indhopal is my realm also. I must save those I can. The people of Indhopal also need a defender."

"You can't go to Indhopal," Iome said. "You can't even be thinking such a thing. Raj Ahten's men will kill you. Besides, you'll be needed here."

"I agree," Gaborn said. "Yet Raj Ahten has the most powerful army in the world, and he is the most powerful Runelord of us all. If I fight him, we may all be destroyed. If I ignore him, I surely do so at my own peril. If I try to flee him, he will catch me. I can see only one alternative..."

"Are you saying that you would use your power to Choose him? After what he has done?" Iome could not hold back the shock and anger in her voice.

"I hope to arrange a truce," Gaborn admitted, and she knew from his tone that his decision was final. "I have discussed the possibility with Jureem."

"Raj Ahten will not grant you a truce," Iome said with certainty. "Not unless you return the forcibles your father won with his own life. And that would not be a truce, that would be surrender!"

Gaborn nodded, stared at her evenly.

"Don't you see it?" Iome said. "It wouldn't even be surrender with honor, for once you give the forcibles back, Raj Ahten would use them against you. I know my cousin. I know him. He will not leave you alone. The fact that Earth has given you dominion over mankind does not mean Raj Ahten will concede the honor."

Gaborn gritted his teeth, looked as if he would turn away. She could see the anguish in his features. She knew that he loved his people, that he sought to protect them as best he knew how, and that right now he could see no way to bring Raj Ahten down.

"Still, I must ask for a truce," Gaborn answered. "And if a truce cannot be won, then...I must ask for honorable conditions of surrender. Only if such conditions cannot be met, will I be forced to fight."

"There can be no surrender," Iome said. "My father surrendered, and once he did, Raj Ahten changed the terms to fit his whim. You cannot be Raj Ahten's Dedicate and the Earth King!"

"I fear you are right," Gaborn said with a heavy sigh, and he came and sat on the bed next to Iome, took her hand. But it was cold comfort.

"Why can't you just kill him and be done with it?" Iome asked.

"Raj Ahten has perhaps ten thousand force warriors in his service," Gaborn said. "Even if I defeated him roundly, and lost half as many men, would it be worth the price? Think of it, four and a half million children, women! Could I knowingly throw away the life of even one? And who is to say that it would stop there? With so many warriors lost, would it even be possible anymore to stop the reavers?"

Gaborn paused. After a moment, he held a finger up to his lips, motioning for Iome to keep quiet, and went over to King Sylvarresta's old writing table. He drew out a small book from the top drawer, and began pulling out papers hidden in its bindings.

He brought them to Iome and whispered, "In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Dreams, the Days are taught thus about the nature of good and evil," Gaborn said. This surprised Iome. The teachings of the Days were hidden from Runelords. Now she knew why he whispered. The Days were right outside their doorway.

Gaborn showed her a diagram he had scribed out on parchment.

"Every man sees himself as a lord," Gaborn said, "and he rules over three domains: the Domain Invisible, the Domain Communal, and the Domain Visible.

"Each domain can have many parts. A man's time, his body s.p.a.ce, his free will, are all part of his Domain Invisible, while all of the things he owns, all of the things he can easily see, are part of his Domain Visible.

"Now, whenever someone violates our domain, we call him evil: If he seeks to take our land or our spouse, if he seeks to destroy our community or our good name, if he abuses our time or tries to deny us our free will, we will hate him for it.

"But if another enlarges your domain, you call him good. If he praises you to others, enlarging your stature in the community, you love him for it. If he gives you money or honor, you love him for it.

"Iome, there is something I feel so deeply, and I can only express it this way: the lives of all men, their fates, are all here, a part of my domain!"

He pointed to the drawing, waving vaguely toward the Domain Communal and the Domain Invisible. Iome looked up into his eyes, and she thought she understood She'd been a Runelord all her life, had been entrusted in small ways with the affairs of state. She had accepted the hopes and dreams and fates of her people as part of her domain.

"I see," Iome whispered.

"I know you do, in part," Gaborn breathed, "but not in full. I feel...I feel the cataclysm approaching. The Earth is warning me. Danger is coming. Not just danger for you and for me, but for every man, woman, and child I've Chosen.

"I must do what I can to protect them--everything I can to protect them, even if I am doomed to failure.

"I must seek alliance with Raj Ahten."

Iome noted the vehemence in his demeanor, and knew that he was not just stating his resolution. He was soliciting her approval.

"And where do I fit in your circles?" Iome asked, waving to the drawing in Gaborn's lap.

"You are all of it," Gaborn said. "Don't you understand? This is not my bed or your bed. This is our bed." He waved at himself. "This is not my body or your body, it is our body. Your fate is my fate, and my fate is yours. Your hopes are my hopes, and my hopes need to be yours. I don't want walls or divisions between us. If there are any, then we are not truly married. We are not truly one."

Iome nodded. She understood. She'd seen couples before, seen how over time they'd shared so much, become so close, that they'd picked up even one another's oddest habits and notions.

Iome craved such union.

"You think you're so wise," she said, "quoting forbidden teachings. But I've heard something from the Room of Dreams, too.

"In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Dreams, it is said that a man is born crying. He cries to his mother for her breast. He cries to his mother when he falls. He cries for warmth and love. As he grows older, he learns to differentiate his wants. I want food! he cries. I want warmth. I want daylight to come. And when a mother soothes her child, her own words are but a lament: I want joy for you.'

"As we learn to speak, nearly all of our utterances are merely cries better defined. Listen to every word a man speaks to you and you can learn to hear the pleas embedded beneath every notion he expresses. I want love. I want comfort. I want freedom.'"