He sighed heavily and headed for the horse trough and water pump. "Thank you, sir, for trying."

A sigh, heavier even than his own had been, filled the air behind him. "Boywait."

He kept walking.

"I said wait." Sand and gravel struck his feet and bounced off his pant leg. "Wait, damn your eyes."

Thyerri stopped, since he was beside the trough anyway, and ducked his hands into the water, bringing it up to sluice his sweating face. Cold and clear, it washed some of the sting of the old master's words away along with the dirt.

More than likely, it was time to quit. Bharlori would be unlocking the back soon, and he had duties to perform before the tavern opened.

He grabbed his braid to keep it from falling in, drew a breath and ducked his head into the trough.

"Thyerri." Zeiin's deep voice rumbled through the water and the old man's hand gripped his shoulder drawing him up. "Thyerri, lad, listen to me. I can teach you a handful of tricks, but what you just did . . . that's far beyond me."

"What I did? What did I do? I jumped and rolled. I've done it a dozen times already today!"

Zeiin's brow puckered, and he scratched absently at his ribs. "I'm done anyway, if I'm to have anything left for work." He caught Thyerri's elbow. "Come, sit with me in the sun, lest an old man take a chill."

Without protest, Thyerri followed Zeiin to a neighbor's steps, shaking the water from his hands and head, and waited while Zeiin grunted and stretched, sitting only after the older man had settled where he pleased.

"You're a good lad, Thyerri," Zeiin said, which seemed to Thyerri utterly immaterial, especially considering Zeiin's expression and the fact that Zeiin leaned away from the most casual brush with Thyerri's sleeve.

"Give me your hand, boy," Zeiin commanded as he had that first day. This time, Thyerri obeyed without hesitation.

Also as he had that day, Zeiin turned his hand over, and set them palm to palm, as if to force comparison between Thyerri's narrow bones and his own bulk.

"You were a radical dancer," Zeiin said, and Thyerri looked away. "Apprentice, then. But you should have been."

"So would all the apprentices claim, were they the sole judge of the competition."

"Sakhithe says otherwise."

"Sakhi never saw me compete."

"Competition does not determine a true dancer, Thyerri.

You know that."

He shrugged. The conversation was painful and pointless.

Zeiin frowned.

"Tell me, Thyerri, how many of your competitors were of the old blood?"

"Most are hill-folk"

"Hill-folk, perhaps, but not dancer-blood."

"How could they be? The ringdance came with Darius and his followers."

"Ah, Thyerri." Zeiin shook his head. "So ignorant; like all your fellow Khoratumin. The Dance is very old. Much older than Darius."

"Rakshi's dance. The frenzy. Dozens of others, but not the rings."

"Even that. But unless you want to waste time ar- guing"

Thyerri shook his head.

"I thought not. Sakhithe told you that I come from be- yond the web's border."

Thyerri nodded.

"And that my folk and yours were once the same."

Thyerri shrugged. Some said everyone in the world had come from one child of the gods, a single human that split down the middle to become the first man and woman. By those criterion, they were all related.

It seemed a rather distant connection.

"Three hundred years ago, my folk left the Khoramali rather than allow Darius' folk to destroy their ways." Again he took Thyerri's hand and compared them, palm to palm.

"That's not just the difference between two men, Thyerri.

In my village, we had those like you. They were held apart, not in contempt, but in respect. We were two different peo- ples living in one village. The dancers bred true for hun- dreds of years before Darius invaded."

Thyerri bit his lip, finding in Zeiin's words a strange twist on an old, old story. He'd been raised in the hills more by the wind and the rain and the leymother than by any human hand; his understanding of his own people had been gleaned from observation and the historian in Rhyys' court, whose scholarship tended more toward fantasy than fact.

Thyerri's one true belief had been in Mother and her first dancer-child, Rakshi, whose spirit flitted capriciously from one radical dancer to the next.

Nothing else had mattered. Then. When his world was Mother and the Dance.

"I look at those in the hills now and see that Darius'

folk invaded more than the land. There are few of my dis- tant cousins left. Fewer still of the dancers." Zeiin enfolded Thyerri's hand in both of his. "Our legends would have it that the dancers were hunted, like beasts of the forest, when Darius' folk first came."

"By the invaders?" Thyerri asked, finding his voice at last.

But Zeiin shook his head. "I don't know. From what I've seen and heard. I'd be more inclined to suspect those hill- folk who welcomed Darius and his new order. Our legends would have my ancestors leaving to escape their neighbors, not Darius. When I came here to die, I never expected to find one such as you, Thyerri."

"Odd." Thyerri jerked to his feet, crossed in two strides to the building opposite, and leaned his shoulder against the corner post. He didn't want to hear any more. Didn't want this information that he might belong somewhere, but that the somewhere was far, far from here, and that, what- ever he was, the hill-folk he'd always considered his own would kill him for that difference. Unless they'd forgotten the past.

"Thyerri . . ." He jumped. He hadn't heard the old man's movement, wasn't prepared for the rough-skinned hand that cupped his chin and pulled his face around. He tried to avoid the older man's scrutiny, but in the end pride made him meet that gaze.

"Hmph. Normal enough now." He patted Thyerri's cheek and dropped his hand. "Not odd, boy. Special, per- haps, if you knew . . . But you don't. And I don't. Those who did know, are, to my knowledge, dead, despite their eyes. Or because of them. Who knows? Perhaps, in this case, ignorance is best."

"Dead?" Thyerri whispered, and his heart twisted for those kin he'd never known. "What happened? What do you mean, you came here to die? Know what? What about my eyes?"

Zeiin refused for a moment to look at him. Then slowly, as if the words were being torn from him, he said, "I was born, Thyerri, in a valley on the very edge of the storm- belt. I grew up there, fell in love, had a wife and five beauti- ful, loving children, three sons, two daughters. When An- heliaa capped Khoratum and the storms eased, the raids began."

"Why?" Thyerri asked, but Zeiin shrugged.

"Who can say? People we'd traded with for generations suddenly decided our homes and fields were more attrac- tive than our goods. Perhaps others were pushing them from their far side. Who knows? We tried to protect our- selves. We united under a rich neighbor, who had a huge estate and many horses to protect, and we drove those in- vaders back into the lowlands. But the enemy outnumbered us. My comrades died, one by one, and finally, those few remaining returned home, only to find our crops burned, and our families and neighbors dead or taken into slavery."

"Did you go after them?" Thyerri asked.

"To where? How? And once I found them, what good could I do for them?" Zeiin shook his head. "There was nothing left, except the dream."

"Dream?"

"Marini and I always wanted to come home to die."

"Home?" Thyerri repeated, confused.

"We always felt out of place, Thyerri. Pashahli Valley lies just across the Khoramali, but it was . . . different.

Fertile enough, but hot in the summer. Dry. The wind al- ways blew hard and straight across the wide flat plains to the east."

A faraway look came into Zeiin's lined face. "Three hun- dred years, and the villagers still talked of the mountains of home." His eyes flicked to meet Thyerri's. "I wanted to see those mountains before I died."

Thyerri thought of his mountains, of the feel of the meadow grass between his toes, and sun-warmed rock, all those sensations that once had welcomed him as no one and nothing had since, and biinked tears from his eyes. He could well understand so long-abiding a love, had known personally the heart-sick deprivation.

"Thyerri!" It was Bharlori, calling him to work. Thyerri waved to the owner and turned anxiously back to Zeiin.

"But the other, those skills you do know, you will still teach me that, won't you, Z'lin? Please?" When that an- swer didn't come immediately, he said, "Thank you," on a sigh, and headed toward Bhariori's.

"Thyerri, wait."

He swung around, hope springing.

"There's truly nothing more I can teach you."

He opened his mouth to protest.

"But if you want to meet me here each morningjust to work out . . ."

Thyerri grinned, and skip-danced all the way into Bharlori's.

It was a time of Family as Nikki had always dreamed Fam- ily could be. Dinner together every evening, followed by discussions about important, world-changing events, or sometimes just quiet reminiscences. Stories that told him more about his brothers than he'd ever known. Not big things. Little things. The important things.

They each had assumed a proper family role. Deymorin, as the Rhomandi (It was official now, or would be the day Anheliaa died.), and beside Deymorin, Kiyrstin, who was (Nikki had to admit) a proper, well-informed partner for the Rhomandi of Rhomatum. And her opinions, when they weren't aimed at destroying a younger brother's credibility, challenged Deymorin to think, to see other sides of an issue, and that, in general, was a good thing.

Mikhyel had returned to his familiar role of cool aesthete for whom such normal, human drives as hunger and sleep . . . and love . . . seemed somehow too commonplace, which was a great relief to Nikki, who had depended for- ever on Mikhyel for his sensible, distanced insights.

And for himself, Nikki had Lidye.

Lidye, who had asked for his understanding, not his brothers', who had defended his rights as Princeps, who shared his love of history, and laughed easily, and played the piano with a skill and pathos he'd never imagined her capable of feeling.

Lidye, who (true to her promise) never touched him, never approached his bed, but who, from their wedding night, nurtured his child in her womb.

Nikki had worried, briefly, when Mikhyel spent one en- tire afternoon closeted with Lidye, the day after his trium- phant hearing. But when they'd exited that meeting, exhausted but still speaking, and Mikhyel declared himself satisfied with her responses, Nikki's concerns had vanished.

And if, on occasion, it appeared that the acting Rhoma- tum Ringmaster neglected her Tower duties to practice the piano or to accompany Nikki on his trips to the library, Lidye insisted that her active presence in the Tower only aggravated Anheliaa into disrupting the rings' stable, if not particularly productive, revolutions. And since Mirym took care of all Anheliaa's physical needs, Lidye insisted her presence in the Tower was unnecessary, and so she might as well be helping him.

Mirym. Anheliaa's servant. The young woman he'd once thought he might love and now remembered only as a pleasant diversion. He felt guilty for that inconstancy some- times, when he went to the Tower and was faced with her quiet loyalty to Anheliaa's withering hulk, or intercepted Mirym's understanding nod or her reassuring smile. Every time he saw her now, she was washing Anheliaa's wasting body, or stitching her silken pictures, or weaving intricate patterns of lace.

Silently waiting for Anheliaa to die.

As were they all.

It was a time of waiting, a time of preparation.

And such preparations. The sense of purpose he'd sought for so long permeated Nikki's every waking moment, as he tracked down the details so vital to Mikhyel's upcoming trip.

Much of the information Mikhyel required truly was in his head, needing only references to verify the particulars.

In that, Lidye proved amazingly helpful. She threw her- self into his work, accompanying him to the library, stay- ing there and taking notes in a fine, exquisite hand while he went off with Mikhyel to meetings throughout the City.

And oh, those meetings. Mikhyel had never had any in- tention of ousting him from the important position into which Anheliaa had cast him, he knew that now beyond any doubt.

Using Nikki's information-gathering task as an opening, Mikhyel introduced him to Syndics, Councillors, City engineers . . . important people of every description. Influ- ential people, intimate meetings, one on one, with Mikhyel retiring deftly to the background, using that secret link be- tween them to guide his words, to suggest questions, to give him silent reinforcement and approbation when he acted on his own initiative.

Mikhyel used those meetings to show the Syndics that they were dealing with a Rhomandi in every sense of the word when they dealt with Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric, that Nikki, like his brothers, could be Princeps of Rhoma- tum and worthy of the title, should that need arise.

And he, in his turn, introduced the most elite of them to Lidye, at meetings in Rhomandi House designed to supple- ment his report for Mikhyel. He had the pleasure of watch- ing their reservations and suspicions wither under his endorsement and Lidye's own diplomacy. Certainly they were mistrustful of her at first, but no one could doubt her commitment to her new position.

She was, she would insist, present only as Nikki's secre- tary, taking notes on their conversation, but her subtle pres- ence, her obvious knowledge of their respective nodes, soon won them over.

True to her claims, Lidye knew her historybetter (though he quickly learned to mask the fact) than he. And while she said little at those meetings, it was obvious that no name, no historical event referenced, passed unnoticed.

In their private moments, she would lapse into entertain- ing anecdotesstories he'd never heardabout his own an- cestors, though they fit well enough into his understanding of those individuals and the times in which they lived, sto- ries she related with the ease and intimacy of a natural storyteller.

She was eager to accompany him everywhere, whether to the library, the market, even (in sharp contrast to her previous demeanor) on the Outside drives he took to clear his head and exercise his horses, and he found himself in- creasingly reconciled to a life with her at his side.

He rarely saw Deymorin, except at dinner and afterward.

Deymorin was gathering troops and equipment, calling in all those Outsiders he'd trained at facilities financed with his own funds. Men (and even some women) the City Council had once feared, thinking Deymorin was mounting an offensive against the City, and now welcomed as Rho- matum's hope against the Enemy.

Deymorin called those Councillors fickle and self-serving, but better that, he also said, than other options. At least those self-serving City-men were willing to provide the funds for provisioning the incipient troops.

Troops to man the old guard stations on Persitum Pass, troops for the coastal watchtowersrelegated in recent times to peaceful rescue and warning along shipping lanespreparing them again for their original martial use.

Manning the western coastline against Mauritum.

And those he gathered from the Rhomatumin jurisdic- tion were only the beginning. Messengers came and went daily, contacts with coastal landholders as well as nodes, large and small, messages from individuals Deymorin would be visiting while Mikhyel made the rounds of the primary satellite nodes.

Providing Mikhyel survived long enough to make the trip.

Mikhyel seemed to grow thinner with each passing day, the lines about his eyes deeper. If Mikhyel slept, Nikki didn't know when. He had meetings all day, and at night, after dinner, he reviewed pending and extant laws with Deymorin and himself, seeking consensus among them, forming, Nikki slowly realized, a basis for future reference, creating meticulous guidelines in a black-bound notebook that grew markedly thicker with each passing day.