"And seeing Anheliaa for yourself is, of course, of para- mount importance."

He met Raul's eyes in the mirror.

"Yes, Raul, it is."

"Very good, sir. I'll lay out your clothes."

There were guards outside his door. Guards dressed in Fericci green and gold.

Raulind had explained, and Deymorin had confirmed that the guards were precautionary only. That they were Lidye's means of monitoring their activities until she was assured of their common goals.

Which sounded to him like amazing good sense from someone he'd thought lacking in the most basic instincts.

He wondered if it were her idea . . . or Tarim's.

But then, for all they were Tarim's men, Tarim himself was housed elsewhere on the Hill. As Sironi was. And Lidye was the woman who, rather than openly declare An- heliaa incapacitated and herself in charge, had had the un- common sense to pretend to be Anheliaa, as a stop-gap, solidarity measure.

For all Nikki had sought to excuse his wife's subterfuge to him, Mikhyel could appreciate the motives for the decep- tion, particularly considering the fact she'd readily admitted her counterfeit to Nikki at the first challenge.

Understanding did not, however, mean he considered the present situation acceptable. He would not be a prisoner within his homeor anywhere within his City, for that matter.

At the Tower lift, Lidye's green and golds stepped aside and Anheliaa's guard, in somber black and with far more ominous expression, replaced them at his back.

Over the years, he'd occasionally wondered if Anheliaa had purposefully chosen guards who were a head taller than he. He'd further wondered, if it was a conscious choice, if she'd thought to intimidate him, or to teach him not to care.

One never knew. Not with Anheliaa.

Inside the lift, Anheliaa's presence surrounded him like the folds of a too-heavy cloak. While it wasn't the black malignancy of three days ago, her ambition and purpose filled the air like the heavy perfume she favored.

Likely Raulind was correct, and he was a fool to come here. But sometimes a man had to be a fool, if he was going to live with himself. He was awake now, and clear- headed, and as he would not live surrounded by Lidye's guards, neither would he live in terror of what dwelt overhead.

The lift reached the top floor, the ringchamber itself, and the guard beside the controls brought it to a smooth halt.

The grillwork slid back, and he stepped out into the chamber.

Anheliaa lay still as death on a linen-draped bier. Light from the Tower's beveled-glass windows cast bands of un- natural color across the unnatural color of her withered, painted features. Flickering shadows from the rotating rings that dominated the room added an equally unnatural sense of movement to her massive form.

She was grotesque.

Mikhyel wondered why, in all the years of forced associa- tion he'd never realized that simple fact. Perhaps, in fair- ness to his own perceptions, he was only nowas an adult and seeing her for the first time with her autocratic person- ality laid lowable to acknowledge that which he'd al- ways known.

He stood beside her, knowing better than to touch, feel- ing no inclination to do so. That it was the rings keeping her alive was beyond doubt. Anheliaa neither ate nor drank, yet her physical status had remained unchanged ever since Lidye had reset the rings.

Twice before, following the capping of Khoratum and again only a few weeks ago, Anheliaa had used the rings to regenerate a nearly destroyed body. Mikhyel hadn't seen her those other times, but Anheliaa's own physician, Di- orak, insisted the same process was in operation this time.

And yet, her comatose state had never lasted so long, the draw on the ley had never been so great, and even Diorak was beginning to lose hope of her recovery.

Hope. He supposed the possibility existed that someone other than Diorak hoped she would survive. Likely Bro- lucci, captain of Anheliaa's guard, hoped she would. If he did not, he was a fool.

Deymorin had met with Brolucci to challenge their incar- ceration. The captain insisted he had been operating under a standing order from Anheliaa, and as long as Anheliaa lived, Brolucci was immune to investigation and prosecu- tion. Once Anheliaa died, unless Lidye took him as her captain, his immunity ended.

And Lidye assured them all she had no interest in keep- ing Brolucci in any sense.

If Mikhyel were the captain, he'd be sincerely hopeful of Anheliaa's recovery.

HimselfMikhyel dunMheric would believe Anheliaa's damnable existence was over when he set her adrift in the Rhomandi hypogeum, and not a moment sooner.

Perhaps not even then.

A hand touched his arm for attention. Its partner held a mug of fresh tea before him. He accepted the tea and for the first time met the gaze of Anheliaa's wraithlike personal servant. Mirym pressed his handsilently, as she did every- thing without wordsthen returned to her needlework stand on the far side of Anheliaa's bed.

Mikhyel cradled the tea in both hands, hardly knowing where to look. His eyes caught Mirym's and she smiled easily, as if it were just one more morning visit to Anhel- iaa's ringchamber.

They'd seen one another often enough since Mirym came to live and work in Rhomandi House almost three years ago. He'd come to the ringchamber every morning, and every morning, she'd be at Anheliaa's side. Silent. Atten- tive. But their relationship now was far different than it had been the last time Mikhyel had paid his regular morn- ing visit.

While Mikhyel's memories of the days surrounding the firestorm were hazy, the handful of hours surrounding Nikki's wedding were ruthlessly clear, and those memories involved this young woman in ways necessarily awkward to them both now.

When the rings had chosen Lidye dunTarim of Shatum Node as the appropriate spouse for Nikki, Anheliaa claimed they'd chosen, not their new master, but a stopgap, that Lidye was primarily an incubator for the next true master. Anheliaa had refused to leave the web in the hands of a second-rank spinner, and with typical Rhomandi arro- gance, she had refused to believe that anyone outside the Rhomandi line could be anything but second rank.

But Nikki had set the price of his marriage high: the rings' help in locating Deymorin, and leave to depart from Rhomatum the day following his marriage to find and res- cue his brother. A quest from which, Anheliaa would have been forced to acknowledge the possibility, Nikki might never have returneda circumstance that would have put her Darian child's inception at some risk.

That night, when Nikki's passion for his new bride proved less than adequate, Anheliaa had stepped in with her mind-bending rings to resolve the biological deficit. Her efforts had proven rather more effective than even she had supposed. Through Nikki's erstwhile tentative connection with his brothers, Anheliaa had driven them all into a breeding madness. Nikki and Lidye, by agreement, Deym- orin and Kiyrstin, who had been nearly to that point al- ready, himself and . . . Mirym, whose only crime had been attending his sickbed at the wrong moment.

Mirym's reproachless presence recalled that night with brutal clarity. Nikki's cry of protest ringing in his mind, the sense of easing into Nikki's skin as he would into a too- hot bath. There'd been a startled moment as he realized the sheer unadulterated power of his younger brother's body, the vigor, and the intoxicating rush of energy the like of which he'd never before experienced.

And the utterly foreign sensation of a body primed and ready for sex.

Sensations that had surged anew as Nikki looked out through his eyes and saw sweet, gentle Mirym . . . framed by Mikhyel's black-edged sheets.

And then Mikhyel frowned, disgusted, and gulped tea that burned his mouth with satisfying real pain. He did not envy his brother his new wife. What he had seen in Lidye's face that night had been all too reminiscent of Anheliaa at her worst.

And when Anheliaa was finally gone from his life, he wanted her gone . . . forever.

To his knowledge, Mirym had revealed nothing to any- one about that night. Certainly she hadn't made the allega- tions against him the situation would justify. She seemed to be inclined to forget his behavior that night.

But for all the ease she radiated in his presence now, he couldn't forget. Whatever outside force had prompted his actions, those actions had been beyond all bounds of pro- priety and human decency, and he couldn't shake the feel- ing that he should have been capable of stopping himself.

Worst of all, he couldn't throw off the sense that he'd been a performer for the grotesque lump lying silent as death before him. He'd seen the images Anheliaa had been able to pull up on the central viewing sphere of the Rhoma- tum Rings; he didn't appreciate being included in her reper- toire of dupes.

And he had to wonder what was going on within her mind now, as her body lay immobile. Did she even need the viewing sphere? Or could she send her mind out along the lines? Could she see the weaknesses? Could she look into his bedroom, or Deymorin's or some poor Councillor who had dared deny her proper homage?

He clenched his hands on the mug and sipped again, schooling the bitterness and the anger.

Difficult to say what he'd hoped to find, here in the Tower. Perhaps a replaying of the night of his arrival, end- ing, perhaps, with Anheliaa's melodramatic death, and an end to the suspense. Or perhaps he'd hoped she would rouse while he stood here beside her, to return his world, at least in that sense, to what it had been all his life.

Pure logic advised it would be best if she rallied long enough and well enough to make a smooth generational transition within the Tower. But such a transition would never take place. Anheliaa would never admit she was dying, for all she'd bemoaned her lack of an heir daily for the past twenty years. Anheliaa would never make those final adjustments, never reveal those final secrets to the person who could then replace her.

Even so, a part of him wished, desperately, that she would rouse enough at least to explain what was happening in the web. Was it the Khoratum line alone? Was the node itself failing? Was it Khoratum at all? The web was suffer- ing, depleted and unreliable, and the Council wanted ans {Don't . . . worry . . .} A vague awareness: a light touch on his arm.

(... all . . . right . . .} {She's dying!} He answered reflexively, then jolted back to the present. A present where his brothers were far away, the faintest shadow in his mind. Here in the Tower, there were only the guards . . . and Anheliaa's supposedly mute servant.

Mirym was at his side again, her hand on his arm. He stepped away from her, confused, uncertain whether that voice in his head had been real or imagined. Mirym pur- sued him, reached again, this time for his bare hand, lacing their fingers, palm to palm.

{You . . . hear . . . don't you?} He hesitated, sensing unknown hazard in any admission to a skill he'd never imagined a month ago, and with which this young woman seemed uncomfortably familiar.

{Some.} Amusement came through, and a hint of condescension.

{Thought so. I'll think more slowly. Better?) He didn't answer, aware of the guards staring at them; guards who might report to Lidye the strange behavior of Mikhyel dunMheric with Anheliaa's servant. Wondering on a different score if Nikki still coveted tender feelings for Mirym, and whether Lidye might not use the guards' re- ports to rouse Nikki against him.

And confounding it all, the memory of this young woman lying warm and pleasant in his arms, in the aftermath of Nikki's wedding.

More silent amusement, that contrasted sharply with an outward appearance that now involved trembling lips, and incipient tears. It was a contradiction which endorsed his own limited experience with women in general, but which jarred, somehow, with his experience of this woman in particular.

{Can't you see I'm in terrible need of comfort, you silly man?) Without conscious thought, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and murmured encouraging words to her.

{Better.} A touch of surprise, and an image of himself: a proud, distant man, seated in this chamber, facing Anhe- liaa's atrocities with cool detachment.

Not the sort a woman would naturally turn to, he supposed.

{How little you know of women, Mikhyel dunMheric.

Remember, I knew her as well. Of course, she's dying. But the rings will not go down with her. Lidye, the monitors below, I1 Her thought-words garbled. Conveniently so, he thought, behind what he hoped was an equally effective mental shield.

{You?} He pressed the issue. {Can you control the rings, Mirym?} {I make no such claims, but I'm not indifferent to what occurs within this chamber. I know that at the moment Anheliaa is drawing heavily on the ley, attempting a resur- rection. It's a battle she's losing. Soon, she'll be gone and the web will be free to rejuvenate itself rather than Anhe- liaa dunMoren.} Then perhaps they should take Anheliaa out of here. If Mirym was correct {Safest to leave her for now. In her desperation, she might destroy the rings, possibly even the source itself. Let her linger as she can. She will go. Time is on our side.} He found her response to thoughts he had believed se- cure disturbing, and he wondered how much else she was picking up.

Silent laughter told him nothing.

Time is on our side. . . . But how long did they really have? The Syndicate was angry, restless. Dissolution threatened.

{Time,) her thought responded. {We are obsessed with it, aren't we? A day, a year, a decade . . . those are moments in the life of the ley. It could take time, a long time, for the web to rejuvenate. We must be patient.} Source? Rejuvenate?

The Syndicate's mood was suddenly far from his mind as out of this formerly silent woman's mind came a seemingly vast knowledge, confidently expressed in terms he'd never heard, not from Anheliaa, not from the experts who studied the ley and its patterns and behavior.

{How do you know?} he sent the question deliberately, along with his own view of her: small, pale-haired servant to Anheliaa, always with her needlework, ever silent. In all, the very model of a relation to one of the house servants come to Rhomandi House to better her situation, perhaps to find a husband among the other well-paid servants.

{Husband?} Indignation and an image so overwhelmingly powerful, so beautiful, so enthralling, that for a moment, the ringchamber vanished altogether from his senses. Ley- thium crystal: draped in shimmering, shifting curtains, hang- ing in immense, incandescent chandeliers; pools of liquid leythium, more viscous than water, oozing, bubbling, grow- ing and shifting into towering organic shapes.

And color. In places, soft, subtle shades of white, in oth- ers, a brilliance so pure, there was no human term, no earthly paradigm to describe it. The image faded, leaving him with eyes tearing for want of blinking.

Beyond that tear-distortion, Mirym was staring at him.

{What need * of a husband?} And with such an imagination, perhaps {Imagination? How dare you, Mikhyel dunMheric? I know because I've seen them!} She jerked away.

But how could he believe her? How could she know things no one else - - .

Unless Anheliaa knew. Unless Anheliaa, with some hid- den agenda had gone wherever that care was, and taken Mirym with her.

There were dangerous gaps in his knowledge of this young woman, who had so quietly infiltrated his home. An- heliaa had brought her in as she had all the other Tower servants before her. He'd believed her enforced silence was part of Anheliaa's satisfaction with her. Now, he had to wonder what other uses Anheliaa had had for her.

Nikki and Mirym. The haze dissipated from certain areas of his memory, and he recalled watching them once and marveling at Nikki's ability to interpret the mute girl's hand gestures. That memory in turn led him to wonder if Nikki's entrancement with Mirym was, in part, her ability tOv com- municate this way.

And on the heels of those memories came details of an- other night in the Tower. A night he'd awakened, filled with nightmares, to be given a draughta potent sleeping potionfrom this girl's hands. When next he'd awakened, it had been for the sole purpose of being dragged, still groggy from that drug, to Anheliaa's ringchamber for questioning.

And from therehis mind veered away from the light- ning and the flame.

{I did what I had to do,} came her silent answer, with the force to carry it between them without benefit of touch.

{For my own safety, and that of my family. My node. My source.} He held out his left hand, and when she returned hers

to it, covered it with his right and asked, {Who are you?}

Mirym.} Where are you from? What node?} Does it matter?} Ye

1.. x I

Suddenly, a hand clutched his wrist. A hand that was not Mirym's. Enameled nails, filed to talons, cut deep. A life- time of training kept him from flinching, kept his eyes di- rected at Mirym even as he felt the blood seep along the palm of his hand.

{Say you love me, boy!} It was a familiar hiss that echoed in his mind, though Anheliaa had never before spoken to him thus. He closed his eyes on a world that tended to swim.

{Say it!} The thorny grip tightened, and his view of the chamber shifted, taking in himself, Mirym, and Anheliaa . . . as if the image came from the rings.

I . . . love you. Aunt Liaa.) And I'll miss you. Aunt Liaa.} The web!) he battled his thoughts into coherency, recall- ing the upcoming meeting, the desperate need to know: {Anheliaa, what's wrong with it? Show) {Say it!} The thought drove into his mind with the strength to stagger him. He forced his eyes open, insisted they see the room as he did, not as Anheliaa did. His jaw ached around clenched teeth. He wanted to damn her to the eighteen, lightning-blasted hells above Rhomatum, wanted to put his hands around her neck and squeeze what life remained into whatever void of hereafter she endorsed, and take his chances with the future.

Laughter in his mind, shrill and mocking. But desperate as well. Pleading. It was an old demand, one she'd first pressed upon him almost fourteen years ago, when he'd been brought to her following Mheric's death. Anheliaa needed to be remembered, not in records and in history books, but in living minds. Anheliaa wanted to be certain that even when she was gone, she'd control him.

Mirym's eyes gleamed across at him, deep with under- standing, but without pity. * did what I had to do . . .

And he knew then he dared not give way to that dark fury seething within him. That, as he had in the past, for the sake of Rhomatum and the life and responsibilities that were his by accident of birth, he must bend.

{I'll . . . miss you, Aunt Liaa.) Triumph flared, then dissolved into indifference.

{Anheliaa! The web...( The talons released his wrist, and Anheliaa's hand dropped the short distance to her side, as motionless as before. Humiliated, cheated, fighting to hide his revulsion, he stepped away, avoiding the guards' looks, avoiding Mirym's.

But as the lift carried him downward, a lingering image, a scent of roses in the morning sun permeated his being.

Roses with a gentle hint of raspberries. And a touch, clean and honest, surrounded his congealing wrist and took away the sting.

"Inhale," Zeiin ordered. And Thyerri drew a deep breath.