"You're lying," he stated firmly. "I sentence no one arbi- trarily, I would remember"

He swallowed the rest as Ganfrion's hand slipped the first button on his breeches.

"Auntie got the charges changed. Suds. She kept her promise at least that far. And since an attempt on the Princeps of Rhomatum would have been a death sentence, I suppose I should thank her for that."

That still didn't explain why "You didn't recognize him."

"Didn't I?"

The hand slipped the last button and invaded his cloth- ing; Mikhyel fought to keep Deymorin out of his head and seated on the stairs.

"But I had to wonder. Suds, when you three showed up.

Did she intend me to finish the job? Do you suppose after they took your bodies from here, I'd be free? Or dead?"

He said nothing.

"I heard baby brother and big brother arguing last night.

Appears you lads have a problem."

"Nothing we can't work out."

"No? I suppose not. You and big brother Deymio can work out everything, can't you? Brother Nikki. Who runs the city. Who fucks brother Khyel . . ."

Mikhyel's heart beat loudly in his ears. Ganfrion's hand rested quietly on his flank, a tactic as unexpected as it was, considering the alternatives, welcome. But Mikhyel didn't trust that restraint, and he wondered when the pretense both physical and verbalwould drop.

"Why am I still alive . . . Barrister? What kind of brother is he? Is he a true brother at all? Or just Mheric's son?

Does he enjoy seeing you humiliated, too?"

Mikhyel closed his eyes and calmed his breathing, con- centrating on Deymorin and stairs, not the fantasies of a man who couldn't begin to know the truth of his outland- ish accusations.

"Perhaps the whore would like to see the unfriend humil- iated"

"Touch him, and you'll regret it."

"Really? Such loyalty. And toward someone who sat on the stairs while you . . . well, we won't talk about that any more, will we? And what will you do, little hill-boy whore?

You'll get no sympathy from anyone here. The lads will laugh while they're fucking you to death."

"You seem to take your own death very lightly. Because when this is all straightened out, if I'm dead, if Deymorin is, Nikki is capable of having the lot of you executed. And there are those in the Council who will support that."

"Ah, yes. Death. That's a powerful card, lawyer-man."

Its passivity at an end, the hand began to inch its way randomly along his skin. "And Nikki-boy is gone, now.

Green and gold took him, along with the Tower black. A man interested in living would have to wonder what that means. Tarim in control? Would Tarim want his daughter's husband's competition taken out? Or would he fear the Lord Justice more? What do you think. Suds? Which would you choose?"

"Deymorin's never wanted Rhomatum," Mikhyel an- swered, without hesitation. "He'd pose no competition to Nikki's position."

The hand paused.

"So you would eliminate the Lord Justice? If you were I?".

"If my goal was to curry favor with Tarim. Yes."

"Curious. On the other hand . . . perhaps I don't have to choose. Perhaps if both of you"

Temper flared, without warning.

"Damn you!" he hissed into the stone, then realized the temper for Deymorin's, and shut them both down.

"You presume too soon. Suds. Tarim's is not the only game. Anheliaa's isn't. What if I leave youand your brotheralone? What if I keep the others off you? You might be out of here before nightfall. Or perhaps tomor- row. Perhaps a week, but you will be free, won't you? If you're alive. Your kind, you slick and powerful scum, never stay, regardless of your crimes, regardless of the Family's current little power games."

Temper flared again. Deymorin's, perhaps, or his own at this indictment against the system in which he took great personal pride.

"If I take care of you, one day, you'll be here, the next, you'll be back in your courtroom sending men to this hell- hole. And pardoning them."

Mikhyel set his jaw against the retort that rose to his lips. Deymorin, he told himself firmly. It was Deymorin's anger, not his.

"If I were you, dunMheric, I'd remember this day. Re- member this very moment. Remember what I know about you. Remember I could have made your life a living hell and didn't. Remember I kept these animals away from you, and that I didn't press your brother for the fight that would kill him with no questions asked. You owe me, dunMheric, and you'll either pay that debt, or the worldand your brotherwill know how you survived last night. Do you understand me?"

He should say somethinghe was supposed to be so cleverbut his mind was blank.

"Do you?"

"I'm not" His breath exploded as once again Ganfrion leaned full against him.

Yet another inmate had entered the latrine, this time with some rude comment about needing more time than a woman, and Ganfrion's hand was again moving, never minding the other inmate's presence.

Or, perhaps, because of it. The touch was almost clinical in its examination of his unnaturally smooth flesh.

A grunt, of surpriseor perhaps, of confirmation. Either was possible. But when those callused fingers surrounded him, Mikhyel felt that inner wall that kept him separate from Deymorin fracture.

"Do you hear, little man?" The words were a breath in his ear.

He fought the wall furiously back into solidarity and whispered: "I hear you, Ganfrion."

The hand squeezed. "And you owe me, word of a Rhomandi."

"Damn y"

"Your word, Rhomandi."

"Iowe you."

"Good." With a final, almost tender, caress, Ganfrion released him and walked away, nodding casually at the man who'd settled indifferently on the stone seat.

Forcing his shaking knees to support him, Mikhyel pushed himself free of the stained wall, stumbled to one of the inlets, and held his wrists under the chilly stream, wait- ing for his head to clear, disgusted at himself for letting Ganfrion's tactics affect him.

It was a reasonable enough negotiation, if somewhat un- orthodox in its delivery. Not a stupid man, Ganfrion. Re- venge and a way out, all in one controlled act.

But it was over. The deal made. ** Deymorin would con- trol himself.

Always, if Deymorin would control himself.

When his breath had steadied to his satisfaction, he checked and reinforced that inner wall for which he had no rational explanation or description, secured his clothing, and left the latrine.

~ 8 8.

"I thought I told you not to fall in," Deymorin said, trying to hide his relief at Mikhyel's reappearance.

Mikhyel stopped short, a startled look on his face.

Forcing a grin, Deymorin pointed at his brother's damp boots, endeavoring not to notice the other stains on Mikhy- el's clothing. "Miss the drain, did you?"

Mikhyel glanced down, biinked, then laughed and sank into Nikki's pile of straw, his booted feet thrust out in front of him. "Apparently. Looks as if you'd better come along next time. Teach the baby to aim."

"That should be the cheapest entertainment I've had in years." He regretted the words the moment he said them.

Trying too hard, just like Nikki. Trying not to invade his brother's pride, and failing miserably. "Khyel, I'm sorry."

Eyes that had gone unfocused, flickered up to him.

"Why? Oh, that." A faint shake of the head. "You worry too much, JD. Say what you like. I know what you mean."

Perhaps that was true. But there was a lifetime of words said that shouldn't have been, and nothing could erase those years, just as nothing could wipe from Deymorin's mind the knowledge of who had disappeared toward the latrine right after Mikhyel left.

And nothing could wipe from his mind the knowledge that only Mikhyel's wishes and Mikhyel's blood-chilling thoughts had kept him from joining the pissing party. He'd been sickened by the forced inaction, and resented Mikhy- el's passive acceptance of the situation that hampered any- thing he might do to stop it.

Mikhyel's shadow-smile faded. He rubbed his arms as if chilled, but made no move to join Deymorin. His hair was loose again; he pulled the strands forward and separated it into sections. "What do you suppose is happening to him?"

"Nikki?" Deymorin asked, and Mikhyel's head dipped.

"Do you really want to speculate?"

"I suppose not. It's just . . . I stopped feeling him when he entered the Tower, and"

"The Tower? Rings, Khyel, just how much do you get from us?"

"I" Shaking hands fouled the braid. Mikhyel cursed softly and finger-combed it free to begin again. What had begun as necessity was rapidly devolving to a nervous tic.

"I think this is the first time I've completely lost touch of him since his wedding night. Before that"

"Before?" Deymorin repeated. "You mean, his birth- day? When Anheliaa threw me out? That's the first time I noticed anything. I didn't understand at the time, of course, but in retrospect, that's what I think of as the real beginning."

Mikhyel frowned. "There was that, yes. But I'm begin- ning to think this ability has been with us a very long time.

What you said last night, about Nikki and the closet, has had me wondering whether or not it's always been there.

Maybe we just never needed it enough."

"Or, at least, not since Mheric died. Is that what you're saying?"

Mikhyel nodded, his eyes fixed on some spot just beyond his boots. "When we were children and Mheric would come after me, no matter where Nikki was, he'd end up in the closet, right where I wanted him to be. I remember yelling at him to go there, but it was all in my head. Mheric would have killed me if I'd screamed. I'd wish Nikki there in the closet, safe. And he always was. My consciousness of him is clearer now, more constant, but I don't think it's entirely new. Any of it."

"Your consciousness of him," Deymorin repeated. "And of me?"

There was a long pause, containing Mikhyel's silent ex- amination of his hands and the repair of a ragged nail.

"Who knows? We've been at odds for so long, have gone to such great lengths to misunderstand each other, to think the worst. For all I know, half the problem I had was be- lieving one thing about you based on apparent facts and knowing underneath, that I was wrong."

"Says the man who deals daily with politicians."

Gray eyes flickered up at him. "You were my brother, not a Syndic."

"Point, Khyel."

"When we were youngperhaps, though I can't remem- ber. The need wasn't there. Except"

"Except the time I reset the rings?" Deymorin followed that train of thought, and Mikhyel nodded.

"Terror has been known to work miracles," Deymorin said with a grin.

"True. But the Talent had to be there in order for you to tap it. We snuck into the Tower together. * touched them and disrupted their orbits, but I could never have reset them." His eyes dropped. "The rings themselves know, I've tried often enough since. As for the rest of what we have experienced, I can barely recall what my mind was like two months ago. Besides, how can we know what 'nor- mal' is? I'd assumed, because the change was so obvious following Nikki's wedding night, that that was the true be- ginning. But after last night . . . I just don't know any more."

Mikhyel occupied himself again with his fine, slippery hair. Thinking he needed something to keep the end tied, Deymorin pulled Mikhyel's stained cloak into his lap and began plucking at the threads holding the decorative gold braid in place.

Mikhyel's hands slowed, his head tipped, his brows puck- ered. In someone else, Deymorin would interpret the look as confusion.

"And now?" Deymorin asked. "How much do you get from me these days?"

"I . . ." Mikhyel's gaze flickered and fell away. "Right now? Not much. Other times . . . a great deal, Deymio.

Words, when we all seem to want it, but mostly, just . . .

things. Things I'd rather not know, things I've no right to know. I try not to hear, but . . . sometimes I can't stop it.

Sometimes, I . . ."

Mikhyel's voice faded, and his expression grew puzzled, watching Deymorin's hands.

Mikhyel got "things" from Deymorin that he'd rather not know, but evidently not so mundane a thought as why Deymorin was pulling the braid free, one stitch at a time.

Only emotionally charged things bridged spontaneously between them, things a man would most want to keep pri- vate. Perhaps the type of impressions he got from Mikhyel on occasionor the flood he got from Nikki. A wave of resentment flowed through him, a sense of violation.

The look Mikhyel cast across the room to him was pained, uncertain, mirroring the fact that Mikhyel was, to some unknown extent, following his thoughts, his reasoning.