"You'd have loved it, Nikki," Deymorin said, chuckling.

"They cited every possible rumor, trying shake her story.

Syndic Marighi of Persitum asked about the wanton de- struction of one of Rhomatum's largest markets."

Kiyrstin swirled her wine delicately. "I didn't once ex- pose a certain ex-princeps' stupidity in leaving a poor igno- rant city-girl in charge of a team of wild horses. But I fear I maligned the characters of a flock of innocent chickens."

"Be that as it may," Deymorin said pompously, and lengthening his face into a caricature of some unknown (to Nikki) Syndic. "Is it the practice of well-born women of Mauritum to have, how should I put this, relations with the enemy?"

"Well, you see, gentlemen," Kiyrstin responded in kind, "I could hardly have known him for the enemy. The poor fellow had been dumped in a cold mountain shepherd's pond, as . . ." She blushed delicately and dipped her head behind a modestly raised hand. ". . . exposed as the day he was born."

"And yet," Deymorin continued, "you were attracted, in the physical sense, to this stranger. Does this not question your morals?"

Kiyrstin's eyes widened innocently. "Not if you've met my husband. Garetti had a wife for political favor and blackmail purposes. I've become something of a connois- seur over the years. I told you, he appeared before me quite as nature created him." Her eyes biinked twice, expressing amazement without the slightest hint of modesty. "Quite, quite impressive on the most reserved of women, and I am not, I fear, what one might term reserved. I would say, rather, that it is a judgment upon the quality of Rhoma- tumin leaders that, having encountered one of them, I find myself, despite my expectations, satisfied."

Deymorin gave a shout of laughter. "I tell you, Nikki, she had them by their collective hypocrisy. She neither con- demned Garetti for despicable actions they've every one of them at least considered in the past, nor begged their forgiveness for taking advantage of fate's benevolence."

"I'm sure it was wonderful," Nikki said, feeling com- pelled to say something, for all he thought Deymorin didn't really understand the Syndics, saying such cruel things about them. Of course they'd be shocked at Kiyrstin's cava- lier attitude.

But Nikki fought to keep his thoughts and emotions to himself, the way Deymorin insisted he could, keeping his mind on silly things, like his wineglass or the shape of his fork. So far he thought he'd done quite well. At least, Mi- khyel's cheerful triumph seemed overall undisturbed, ex- cept for the occasional puzzled look Mikhyel cast him.

"The old hypocrites want to see Zandy's machine,"

Deymorin said.

"Not here!" Lidye exclaimed, and Deymorin lifted a hand.

"Of course not, madam. I'm not a fool. They're choosing a delegation to go to Armayel."

Nikki concentrated on his fork's bent tine. He didn't want to think about Alizant of Mauritum, the boy who had come into the Rhomatum Valley with Kiyrstin. Zandy was Deymorin's other recent obsessionbesides Mikhyel and Kiyrstin and armies. A misunderstood, poorly used illiter- ate with a machine that controlled lightning.

"They want to know more about it," Deymorin was say- ing. "Want to know if it can safely coexist with the ley and if there's any true market value, and they're willing to go Outside to find out. Greed does wonders to offset prejudice."

"I doubt anything will make a Mauritumin peasant boy more palatable to them."

Nikki knew the moment he spoke he'd have been better off keeping silent. He stared at that bent tine, imagining it twisting, contorting into fantastical shapes. And he sensed, underneath, that Mikhyel and Deymorin were arguing about him.

For which disagreement he was sorry. And he was sorry to ruin the mood of the party, but if Zandy had been here, Zandy would have gone to that meeting with Mikhyel and Deymorin and Kiyrstin. Would have spoken to Council in all his illiterate glory. Zandy wouldn't have had to go driv- ing Outside to keep his thoughts from confusing Mikhyel.

Wouldn't have all the councillors wondering where Nikki was. Wouldn't have had to wonder and worry for hours and hours and hours "Nikki?" Mikhyel's voice interrupted his inner turmoil, and Nikki, schooling his face and mind into pleasant indif- ference, answered politely. "Yes?"

"I need your help, Nikki."

Nikki shrugged, refusing to show the relief that charged through him like a horse at a gallop. But Mikhyel must have sensed it, too, because the ghostly smile Mikhyel re- served just for him twitched the corners of Mikhyel's mouth.

"It's a major undertaking, Nikki, but one I think my history-loving brother will enjoy. It will mean a great deal of work. No short cuts. You'll have the help you need to gather information, I'll see you get access to whomever you deem material, but I want your take on the information.

Your evaluations, no one else's."

That didn't sound quite so exciting. "Evaluations? Of what?"

"The nodes. Each and every one of them. I need current statistics, population, geographic variablesyou know the sort of thing. I need details of their economy, past and present, politics, same. General history, primary factions past and present. Customs, that in particular. Everything a man might need to avoid insulting the locals."

Nikki shrugged. "I know all that now."

"Write it down for me? Cross-check all your references?

Especially of names and associates. Not that I don't trust your memory, but it's very important that I make no mistakes."

"Certainly." He tried to force enthusiasm into his voice.

"I'll do anything I can." It sounded like a lot of busy work, but it wasn't as if he had much else to do. "What's it for?"

"As part of their agreement, the Syndics have demanded that a Rhomandi make the rounds of the nodes to explain in person the situation in detail to their various rulers. They claim a discontent among the nodes that no Rhomandi has deigned personally to acknowledge their existence in two generations. It seemed reasonable, and I didn't argue, al- though I don't like leaving Rhomatum at the moment."

Nikki sat forward eagerly. "I could go, Khyel. I'd be happy to go!"

Mikhyel's face went blank. Deymorin and Kiyrstin looked at each other then down at their plates. But Lidye's hand clasped his, on the table, openly supportive.

"Of course he could," she said confidently. "In fact, should. He is the Rhomandi after all."

Mikhyel pushed aside his wineglass and leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers loosely interwoven, chin resting on his thumbs, and rubbed his too-smooth upper lip with a thoughtful forefinger.

"Likely he should. And everyone seated at this table knows he could. But the Syndics requested I go. Not Dey- morin, for all they still tend to think of him as the Rho- mandi, regardless of Anhehaa's meddling." He met Nikki's eyes squarely. "What do you think, Nikki? Why would they request my going rather than you or Deymorin?"

He knew what Mikhyel was doing. It was a game they'd played since he was a child, and Mikhyel not much beyond childhood in years, but very old in knowledge.

It was a game no one else at this table understood. Mi- khyel had rarely demanded things of him. Mikhyel would present the situation and ask: What would you do?

But it was different tonight. Tonight, everyone was star- ing at him, wondering what was going on. And Deymorin was frowning, not an angry frown, but curious, and Dey- morin would be listening to his answer.

Carefully.

And Deymorin already thought him a selfish child.

He scowled down at his own wineglass. Mikhyel was right, of course. Mikhyel was always right. The Syndics asked for Mikhyel because the situation demanded a glib tongue.

More fairly, the job required trust. No one had ever ques- tioned where Mikhyel's loyalties lay.

Deymorin had openly allied with the Outside farmers and miners and such, and he . . .

He was only seventeen. In Rhomatum, that made him a man. In other nodes, under other laws, even Mikhyel was barely considered an adult. In those nodes, he would be accorded the same respect as a five-year-old.

Besides, Mikhyel had been the recognized representative of House Rhomandi for ten years.

It wasn't Mikhyel trying to replace him, not Mikhyel try- ing to push Nikki back into boyhood. It was Mikhyel say- ing: this is the situation, Nikki, and the only adult answer is...

He drained his glass and met Mikhyel's expectant look.

A thread reached him then. A hint of Mikhyel's true feel- ings behind that look.

Mikhyel would love it if he could send Nikki. Mikhyel didn't want to leave the City again. Mikhyel had been, and still was, afraid of the Outside. The land that lay beyond the reach of the ley-energy held specters for Mikhyel that Nikki didn't pretend to understand.

But Mikhyel loved the Node Cities and the web, in a way Nikki began to suspect neither he nor Deymorin could match. Mikhyel's duty to the web was about to take him Outside again, the way duty to the Rhomandi estates had forced Mikhyel Outside when Deymorin disappeared last fall.

And like the last time, Mikhyel would be true to that duty, not because of his oath to the Council and the Syndi- cate, not because he was second in line to Deymorin, but because Mikhyel believed in what he was doing.

And damned if this brother would make that job any more difficult.

He chewed his lower lip, then asked, "Couldn't Dey- morin go for you?"

Which seemed to confuse Deymorin, but not Mikhyel, who sent gratitude on that tenuous thread of awareness.

"Deymorin's going to be busy," Mikhyel explained. "The Syndicate and the Council both have voted the necessary emergency funds to begin restoration of the border watch.

Between that and training camps, Deymorin will have his hands full."

Nikki nodded. He'd forgotten about that.

Mikhyel had worried for years about the deals Anheliaa had made with the other nodes. Maybe Mikhyel, away from Rhomatum and the shadow of Anheliaa, could find the an- swers to those questions. Someone needed to have the en- tire picture of the political affiliations within the web, and who better to attain that picture than Mikhyel?

"I also hope to get a chance to talk directly with the satellite ringmasters, while I'm there," Mikhyel continued.

"Why?" Lidye asked sharply, and Mikhyel cast her an enigmatic look.

"To see if they can help isolate and repair the precise points of damage within the web," was Mikhyel's cautious reply.

"That's not necessary! When Anheliaa dies"

"We can't wait that long, Lidye. Since Anheliaa keeps you from accessing the web, we must find other solutions.

Besides, I'm seeking consensus. I have developed a . . .

curiosity . . . about the web, and how those who use it perceive it."

"Your curiosity comes rather late in life, Mikhyel dunMheric."

Nikki eased his hand free of Lidye's, disliking her pa- tronizing tone.

"Events have triggered it, madam. And need. I want every Tower in the web on the alert for when Anheliaa finally dies. It seems only sensible."

Lidye made a sound of patent disbelief, and picked up her wineglass.

"Also," Mikhyel continued, ignoring her, "something must be done about the web. If we can consolidate ef- fortsboth in the boardrooms and the Towersand put the health of the web first, perhaps we can accelerate the healing."

And so, Nikki thought, Mikhyel had added yet one more concern to his already too-long list. So many different con- siderations, so many needs to balance. How had Mikhyel learned to see all the variables at once? When had he learned? Did he truly know? Or was he as uncertain as Nikki felt now?

(Sometimes, brother. But over the years, you learn that you can't always win. No matter how much you care, no matter how hard you try, sometimes the most minor over- sight brings you down. That's why you can't just dive in headfirst. Not because you can't do it, but because, if it goes wrong, you may drown. I don't want you to drown, Nikki.} Nikki met Mikhyel's eyes and was oddly content. He grinned without any effort at all, and asked, "So, when do you leave?"

d 8 ~ "Behind you, boy!"

Thyerri twisted, caught movement in the corner of his eye, and leaped into a high, twisting arc. He felt the shoosh of air beneath him, like the passage of a ring, and landed feet first, punched the ground with his toes, jumped straight up this time, beyond the reach of a second swing, touched ground, and rolled beneath the pike's backlash.

Zeiin cursed and whirled, swinging his pike across and down, but Thyerri wasn't there. Laughing, having at last the measure of the game they played, he spun away, a tumbling, twirling escape that ended atop the midden wall.

The morning sunlight slanted between Bharlori's and Gep, the shoemaker's, and all the haphazardly arranged surrounding buildings, making a shadowed patchwork of the alleyway.

Zeiin let his pike thud to the ground handle first, then leaned on it, panting.

"And just what, in the name of the Mother, was that?"

Thyerri set hands on hips and laughed again. "In the name of the Mother, that was an escape. Up and over the rooftops, and I'm free."

"And if you don't? If your first attempt fails, your oppo- nent knows you for a coward and knows your tricks?"

"I'll just have to make certain I don't fail, won't I?"

Thyerri jumped down into the cramped, spot among the sunbeams.

Zeiin just frowned at him as if he'd uncovered a strange new species of bug. And in his long silence, Thyerri began to worry that he'd seriously offended the older man. Sak- hithe had said that Zeiin was not only the local wrestling champion, but a warrior from beyond the Khoramali. Such a man, the warrior, would scoff at a coward's way out, at escape as a priority, and Thyerri Zeiin's pike lunged toward him, without warning.

Thyerri responded with exactly the same movements, but this time it was Zeiin's low-hunched back he sailed above, with the boost of an added punch of his hands to Zeiin's bowed shoulders. The first toe-tap sent him deeper into the shadows rather than straight up, and a side-roll brought him up on the far side of a fallen beam.

He came up, breathing a bit harder, but glowing in his victory, only to find Zeiin facedown in the dirt. Thyerri vaulted the beam and rushed to Zeiin's side.

"Z'lin?" he called softly. "Z'lin!" He rolled the bar- tender over, terrified that the blow to his back had done serious damage.

The body beneath him erupted into movement. Before he could blink, Thyerri was on his back with a dark mass between himself and the blue sky, and a knife at his throat.

"Still think you know it all, boy?"

Thyerri swallowed hard, wondering where the knife had come from, when he'd never seen Zeiin with anything more dangerous than the blunt practice pike, wondering why Zeiin looked suddenly so much darker and fiercer than he ever had before.

He felt the knife prick his skin, and grew frightened with- out knowing exactly why. His voice froze in his throat, his face felt cold and hard as if he were made of ice, his eyes wide open, frozen like the rest of him.

"Hold!" Zeiin shouted and raised a warding hand be- tween them. The forgotten knife clattered to the ground beside Thyerri's ear, Zeiin lurched away and staggered backward. Thyerri scrambled to his feet and came up hard against the shoemaker's rough-sided hut.

"Z'lin?" he whispered, and then, as his breath returned, "Zeiin, what's wrong?"

The hand eased downward and a suspicious peek seemed to reassure his instructor. "Boy, with those moves and those Tamshi eyes of yours, there's nothing more I can teach you."

"Please, Z'lin, please, don't stop now." Not under such strange circumstances. "I'm just beginning toto react rather than think. Isn't that what you've been asking me to do?"

"Instincts, boy, are everything, and yours arepeculiar."

"Oh." So he was . . . peculiar. Nothing new in that, except for the fact that now it seemed to matter to him.

Time was Thyerri had treasured his differences. Now those differences stood between himself and the only life left to him.