Kiyrstin smiled, and Beauvina smiled back, then leaned back against the wall, the letter pressed to her bosom. Her eyes grew dreamy, then drooped closed, and she slid slowly down onto her side on the cot. Kiyrstin chuckled, and spread a blanket over her.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the letter was the fact that the only person Nikki had had to confide his con- cerns to was a nearly illiterate prostitute he'd met only once.

Knowingly or not, Deymorin and Mikhyel had worked hard over the years to see that what Nikki wanted to be true, was, and Nikki had learned to act on the assumption that the world was the way he wanted it to be. He'd never really had to reach beyond his brothers because, overall, his world had made sense. Because his world was his broth- ers. When that structure collapsed, he was left without any alternate support, and he struggled now to keep that new world stable.

Interesting, she had to admit. She'd judged him based on other seventeen-year-olds she'd known. And, for the most part, her reservations still held: he was spoiled, and self- centered, and thoughtless.

He also wanted to be more than that. Someday, he might well become more.

If he lived long enough to grow up.

{Nikki . . . Nikki . . . Nikki? Nikki, keep} "Wake up, dunMheric! You're leaving."

{Calm, Nikki. It's all right, Nikki. Don't fight . . .} Fight? Why should he Fingers bit into Nikki's shoulder and hauled him upright.

Light flared in his face and he flinched, throwing an arm out to ward off his assailants. A club struck his wrist, driving it back toward his face.

His mind reeled with the images flooding it from a source other than his own light-blind eyes. Men in uniforms, some in Tower black, most in Fericci green and gold. None in City blue.

"Deymio?" he called to Deymorin with voices internal and external, and for a moment, he thought he had an answer, thenthe sound of flesh meeting flesh, a grunt, and a thud. "Deymorin!"

Hands jerked him to his feet and held him there as his balance wavered. When he could stand on his own, he strained to see past the guards to Deymorin's pile of straw.

It was empty. And he remembered Deymorin had left him, had said he hated him and then followed Mikhyel and not come back.

Fear surged.

"Deymorin!" he cried and: "Mikhyel!" And he reached

for both of them, wanting to hear them.

(Nikki, it's all right. . ..} (Devmio!l But

(Mikhyel,l filtered back, calm and remote. And he could

see now, into Mikhyel's dark corner, and Mikhyel himself, who was also flanked by men dressed in green and gold.

Deymorin was sprawled on the stone floor, facedown.

Limp.

Panic threatened, but {Unconscious,} invaded his head along with Mikhyel's engulfing calm. Panic died, overpow- ered by Mikhyel's cool detachment, even as logic chal- lenged how Mikhyel could possibly know.

"What's going on?" Nikki asked aloud.

"These men have come for you, Nikki," Mikhyel said, as if commenting on the weather. And underneath, clear and pointed: {To take you to the Tower.} The Tower. And Deymorin had been trying to stop them.

"Deymio!" Nikki broke free of his guards, and dropped down beside Deymorin.

Conscious of all eyes following his efforts, he rolled Deymorin over and lifted Deymorin's head and shoulders into his lap, an undertaking far simpler in theory than in practice, Deymorin being a large man and Nikki being sev- enteen and not yet to his adult strength.

Still, he managed despite their veiled derision, and when he had Deymorin braced on his arm and lap, he patted Deymorin's face lightly, calling his name, trying with all his might to feel his brother, to reach into his mind and draw him out of unconsciousness and the brink of death, the way Deymorin had once done for Mikhyel.

And wonder of wonders, there was a flicker in the darkness, and Deymorin's head grew lighter on his arm.

Deymorin cursed softly, and Nikki heard Mikhyel whis- pering to Deymorin, filling him in and heard Deymorin answeringconfused, disgustedhalf in his head, half outside.

{Deymorin!} Nikki screamed in his head, desperate that Deymorin hear. {They want to take me to the Tower. What should I do if she wants me for the Rhomandi, and to} {Dammit!} Deymorin's arm swung wildly about, sideswip- ing Nikki's jaw. Nikki dropped his hold, and Deymorin slid back to the floor.

Deymorin cursed again, and other curses answered him from the shadows beyond the guards' flickering torches.

Curses less soft and more articulate: inmates complaining at the light and the noise, yelling at the guards to get out and let condemned men sleep.

And the guards cursed back at the shadows, then cursed at Nikki and hauled him to his feet, impatient with his delays.

And Mikhyel's thoughts invaded his (Calm, Nikki.

Keep calm.} Voices in his head, voices in the shadow, voices and hands pulling at him, one way and another, one moment, a torch in his face, the next, black shadows.

{Get out!} he shouted inside. And aloud: "Wait!"

He shook himself free, staggering back to where he could see, dammit. And screamed into the shadows: "Shut up, damn you all!"

And amazingly, for a brief moment, there was respite.

He brushed his sleeves free of straw, shook the dust from his hair, taking a moment to pull the comb from his pocket and force it through the curls, and when he was composed, he asked, "What about my brothers?"

One of the guards said, "Our orders cited only you, if you are indeed Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric."

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

Mikhyel's protest rattled in his head. He ignored it. Stub- bornly not interested in Mikhyel's opinion. He wasn't arbi- trarily leaving with these men.

"Whose orders?" he demanded.

"The lady Lidye Fericci romNikaenor, Ringmaster of Rhomatum."

Lidyeringmaster? Suddenly, he was shaking. Surely he'd heard that wrong. The Tower was Anheliaa. That was the order of the universe, never mind he knew one day it wouldn't be true. But when he left, Lidye and Anheliaa were working together, but Lidye as ringmaster meant An- heliaa was dead.

And Sironi gorTarim had brought them here, where Mi- khyel had been pushed down the stairs and left to Those Men, and Deymorin lay senseless on the floor.

This time, there was no outside control for him his pain.

He'd thrust Mikhyel out, and couldn't get him back, no matter how much he wanted him to be there.

Lidye had married him, thinking she could control him.

Anheliaa had made him Princeps in Deymorin's place, thinking she could control him. But he'd left. He'd defied them both. And now he was being singled out, taken to the Tower. Under guard. Lidye's father's men.

Lidye's father, who owned controlling interest in the Sha- tum Rings. Tarim Fericci, who wanted a figurehead in Rho- matum. Tarim was out to rule the web, and he'd do it by controlling Nikaenor dunMheric. With the determination of the truly terrified, Nikki reached underneath for his broth- ers, stretching mental hands toward both. And it was as if hands clasped his, cool and sure.

(Go with them.} He could feel the relief in Mikhyel's thought as it burst into his head. (Get yourself out first. Free us later, if you can, but you're no good inside here.} But what if he couldn't free them? What if he tried to argue for that, and Lidye got mad and sent him through the rings to some unknown mountain lake as Anheliaa had done to Deymorin? He'd seen Mikhyel on the other side of that transition, and for him there'd be no Mother, no Kiyrstin, no magic potion, only pain and death and (Get control of yourself, boy!) Like a slap to the face, that chastisement rocked him out of his panic-driven fears. And another voice in his head: (Stop whining. If the bitch wanted you dead, there are easier ways. Don't play hero, just get out, keep safe, and keep alive.} {Deymorin!} he shouted inside, and felt it echo clear to his toes. But Deymorin's groan followed, and Deymorin's thought went all black and fuzzy.

{Deymorin?} {All right.} Mikhyel again. {Go, Nikki. Don't cause trou- ble. Get outside. Get safe.} Outside. Where they didn't have to worry about him. He could figure that much without Mikhyel's saying anything.

Stop whining, Deymorin had said. Well, he wasn't whining now. And if Mikhyel thought his input useless beyond keeping his own skin in one piece, well, Nikaenor Rho- mandi dunMheric, Princeps of Rhomatum, would prove them both wrong. He'd prove he had the right to his title, same as either of them. He'd go with these guards who belonged to his wife's father, and he'd free Mikhyel and Deymorin, and he'd have Lidye under control and supper waiting before they reached the Tower.

He lifted his head and preceded the guards up the stairs and out of Sparingate Crypt.

8 *" 9.

The door closed behind Nikki and the torches, casting the prison back into darkness. But no door could close Nikki off completely from Mikhyel.

Mikhyel wished his younger brother safe, continued sending advice though he could tell Nikki was ignoring him again by the feeling he got of beating his head against a noisy wall. Finally, he gave up the effort that gained him nothing and left him with a pounding, sickening headache.

He sank down to his knees, pressing his fingers against his temples, striving to maintain consciousness against the pain, that was his own, and the lure toward insensibility that was Deymorin.

Deymorin's mind was a velvety black that wasn't con- sciousness, or sleep, and wasn't death. Mikhyel could feel Deymorin breathing. Mikhyel knew Deymorin's heart was beating, because if he let it, his own heart strove to echo Deymorin's.

But the velvet gave Deymorin position and substance within the lightless room, and allowed Mikhyel to work his way over to his brother's prone body.

"Deymorin?" he whispered, and sought his brother's face with his fingertips. He brushed dirt and straw from Dey- morin's lax mouth, and, closing his eyes to eliminate the illusion of sight, searched by touch alone, finding a sticky- damp spot among the hair: blood.

He tried to straighten Deymorin's body, to get his head up, and to protect the rising lump from further mishap.

"And then there were two."

A whisper in the dark at his back.

"Well, Suds," the whisper continued, "your bodyguard is dwindling fast. Doesn't look too good, does it?" A hand touched his hair, fingertips that caught the strands and pulled them back from his face. "It'll be morning soon. The clock's spinning down. Why don't you just tell your boy- friend here to bow out gracefully?"

"I might," Mikhyel answered. "Unfortunately, he rarely listens to my advice."

"Oh, I doubt that. Have you told him, yet, what you did?"

"He knows."

"Does he, now?" An inexplicably savage tone laced the whisper. "And I'm still alive? Doesn't speak well for your champion, does it . . . Suds."

"He's not my champion. Therein lies the error of your logic."

"Saves that for blondie, does he?" The hatred increased.

"Grown too old for him, have you?"

Mikhyel said nothing. He told himself that Ganfrion was simply probing after information, hoping to goad him into revealing something useful.

"Or is it just that . . . hill-boys . . . are expendable?"

But in the process, the inmate revealed a curious animos- ity . . . toward Deymorin. It was an unexpected twist. He had anticipated his own discovery. The effect of Dey- morin's own personality on these men might prove a far greater complication.

The voice shifted to his other side. Drew closer. "And does he know the whole of it. Suds? Did you tell him how it was your idea? Your deal? Might change his opinion of his property. Might not be so eager to keep so willingly popular a commodity."

"I doubt it."

"Doubt. Which?"

"Take your choice."

"Ah. Perhaps I can convince him."

And the presence rustled at his side. Mikhyel leaned for- ward, intercepting Ganfrion's touch.

"Keep your hands off him."

"How sweet." Once again, the tone shifted. Became mocking. "And how do you intend to stop me, my skinny little friend?"

"We had an agreement."

"Ah, yes. Crypt honor, and all that. Until tomorrow, then." The hand he'd stopped slid along his shoulder, and lifted his hair to an audible sniff. "Mmmmmm, yes. Tomor- row. After that, I fear you'll smell like all the rest and I might well lose interest." The hand tightened and pulled, just enough to remind Mikhyel it could be worse, and when he spoke again, his voice had shed that assumed disinterest.

"I can protect you, Suds. Men like you burn out fast with- out a protector."

"Like me?" he repeated advisedly.

"Too skinny. Too clean. Too frail. The wolves love the weak ones, while they last."

"Wolves? Like you."

"Maybe. Then again, maybe not. But wouldn't you rather a lone wolf than a pack?"

"Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Looks can be decep- tive, wolf."

"You think you can handle that pack? You think you can handle me?"

"I think we had a deal, and I'd like to get some sleep."

The presence leaned close; a chuckle stirred the shorter hairs around his ear. "Sweet dreams. Suds."'

Interlude