The door thudded open. Footsteps clattered down the stairs.

"DunMheric!" The name echoed through the mazelike vastness. Murmurs and rude laughter and ruder remarks answered from the dark crannies.

Deymorin's mouth twitched, and he murmured, "Wonder which dunMheric they want?"

Mikhyel just looked at him, then stepped free of their drafty spot beneath the stairs. Regardless who they called, if it was only one dunMheric they wanted, the other would be left down here with no possibly anonymity left.

Deymorin's hand landed firmly on Mikhyel's shoulder.

(I want to hear you, fry.} He understood then, and didn't flinch away. But he thought of Ganfrion, and the need to keep a cool head, and begged Deymorin not to get himself killed before they could get him out.

(Don't worry about me,} was Deymorin's thought.

{Who's the one laid out cold the last time they were here?} Amusement. Confidence. Enough of both he longed to grab his brother and shake sense into him.

{I shall endeavor to behave.) {See that you do, Rhomandi.} The guards had seen them, and moved to surround them.

They were all in Tower black and this time, Mikhyel recog- nized them all. Anheliaa's men.

Fear flooded him, though he kept his face impassive. An- heliaa was alive. Anheliaa wanted him. Wanted to warp his mind and force him to her bidding. Perhaps even to make him order Deymorin's death.

A wave of near hysteria washed through him as he recog- nized his own thoughts echoing Nikki's panic, when they'd come after him. He fought the fear down, forced rational thinking to the surface.

{Just yell, brat,} Deymorin's thought came through on a surge of confidence. {We stopped her before. We'll do it again.} "DunMheric?" asked the guard in the lead.

"Yes," he and Deymorin said, as one.

The leader, Hodan, looked momentarily taken aback, then: "Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric, former Princeps of Rhomatum?"

The panic in the link this time was Deymorin's. Dey- morin had been certain they'd come for Mikhyel. Deymorin had been prepared to stay here alone; he wasn't ready to leave Mikhyel in a similar state.

{Hypocrite,} Mikhyel sent down Deymorin's touch, and Deymorin sent back an image of himself, in a circle of men, on his knees before Ganfrion.

{I can't leave you here, Khy!} He sent back the same image, from ground level, and laced it with details of the encounter in the latrineand his own indifference.

The guard took Deymorin by the elbow and pulled him around, jerking his hand from Mikhyel's shoulder.

"Secure him." Came the order.

"Dammit, no'." Deymorin said and resisted the guards'

attempts to force his hands behind his back. "I'll not go through the streets bound like a common criminal!"

{Temper, brother.} Mikhyel touched his arm to be certain

he heard. {Don't be a fool.}

{And if Ganfrion decides to favor Anheliaa?} {He won't.) (I never took you for a fool, Mikhyel.l

{Just behave yourself and get me out of here as soon as

you can.} "Deymorin!"

Kiyrstin's voice, from above them.

"Kiyrsti?" Deymorin answered and threw his head back, searching for the door. "Kiyrstin, are you all right?"

"Fine, JD. Just quit giving these fellows trouble and get your rear up here, will you?"

{Smart lady.} {Damn right. But, Khyel, if they're taking her as well) Mikhyel gave Deymorin a shove toward the foot of the stairway, getting him out of any possible physical reach.

That might cut his thoughts off from Deymorm, but Dey- morin, despite his valiant efforts to the contrary, continued to radiate concern along with those damnable images.

Deymorin should never have seen that. He had and would continue to put far too great an import upon it.

Worry too much, waste too much energy.

Yet as he watched Deymorin mount those stairs, watched him greet Kiyrstin much as he'd parted from her, for all his arms were secured behind his back, Mikhyel felt his calm waver.

They knew, now, who he was. Every man he'd consigned to this pit. And accidental death happened so easily here.

Deymorin looked down at him one last time and he forced himself to nod confidently.

The door closed.

And a presence behind him whispered, "And then there was one."

~ 8