Guidelines for himself.

Because Mikhyel was leavingsoonand Deymorin was leaving shortly after Mikhyel, and it was possible, Nikki realized one night as he stared into the darkness of his room, that Deymorin and Mikhyel might not return. It was the possibility of war they discussed, not romantic battles of the past. The world was in flux and history taught that when stability was threatened, wars fre- quently followed.

Deymorin might be killed on a battlefield that didn't yet exist. Mikhyel was headed into a world filled with angry and bitter people who might choose to blame Mikhyel per- sonally, or others who would seek power by taking Mikhyel dunMheric down.

Mikhyel had to be aware that while the Syndics might have been swept up into Mikhyel's words and Mikhyel's vision for the future, the nodes themselves might not be. And Nikki thought of that dark and scarred man in Sparingate, and the man who attacked him on his seventeenth birthday right on the supposedly safe streets of Rhomatum, and he realized that the guards Mikhyel interviewed were going along for more than carrying clothing trunks.

But even as that ominous shadow crossed his mind, Mi- khyel's thought, a reassuring wisp, fluttered through him, carrying with it a sense of Mikhyel, sitting in his own room, of silver leylight illuminating the notebook that he worked on late into the night, that being the only time left to him to record the day's revelations.

And with that comfortable image, Nikki slept.

8 Q 8.

"Thyerri," Bharlori intercepted him on the way to the kitchen. "Can we talk, lad?"

"O'course, sir. But I've a table"

"It'll wait, son." Which dereliction Bharlori never al- lowed, but Bharlori took his elbow and urged him toward the back room that served as his office. Thyerri resisted only long enough to pass the order for table seven on to Sakhithe before he forgot.

Bharlori waved toward a chair and Thyerri perched on the edge, hoping this wouldn't take long, hoping, desper- ately, that he wasn't about to get the sack.

It had been over a week since the dunKarlon incident, and Bharlori had never mentioned the fightat least to Thyerriand Thyerri had been working hard, hoping the owner would forget the whole thing. DunKarlon hadn't been back, and, except for customers asking him when he would dance again, everything had seemed to be settled.

"I haven't wanted to say anything," Bharlori began, and Thyerri swallowed hard. The embarrassed tone, Bharlori's patent efforts not to look at him, did not bode well for his future here.

And Bharlori had said to let his table wait.

"Iit's all right, sir," Thyerri said to the hands folded in his lap. "I1 understand. I'll leave tonight, after"

"Leave?" Bharlori swung about. "What makes you think I want you to leave?"

"Isn't that what this is all about, sir? My fighting with one of the customers?"

"Why would you think that?"

"He hasn't been back. His friends haven't. I've lost you business"

Relieved laughter interrupted him. "Damn right that son- of-a-goat hasn't been back! I told dunGythrii that if that rijhili bastard of his ever darkened my door again, his entire staff and household would be refused service."

"Th-then why . . ." Thyerri scratched his head. "What did you want to tell me?"

"I just wanted to ask you if you'd be willing to dance again."

Thyerri stared, dumbfounded.

And having begun, the words seemed to come to Bhar- lori in a gush. "The customers have been asking. They've told their friends, and they keep coming, hoping, even though I've promised nothing. I wanted to wait until you were quite recovered, you know. Sakhithe said she would, but doesn't think they'd like her alone, which I think is nonsense, but she"

"I'm not . . ."

"Whatever they give you, after the dance, I'll split, half-to."

"Sir, that's not necessary. I'm your employee. You . . .

you gave me a job . . . a place to live, when I didn't know anything. I'll do what you ask of me, but the frenzy, well, I'll try, but I don't think I can just, well, do it. A frenzy happens of its own accord."

Bharlori's face glowed.

"I understand that. I didn't mean the frenzy. I just meant for you to dance. And only when you feel like it, Thyerri.

Every night. Once a week. Whatever you want. Whenever you want."

"I" Thyerri took a moment, while the world settled around him. All he'd hoped for was to be forgiven for disrupting his work that once. To be asked to dance, under any circumstances . . . "What can I say, sir? It will be my pleasure."

"And, Thyerri," Bharlori said, and the owner looked quite fierce. "You don't have to worry about that dun- Karlon, or anyone like him, ever again."

Thyerri looked down at his feet, curled his bare toes back under his chair and shrugged.

"Thyerri, I promise you. Not while I live!"

Which sounded very like a challenge to fate . . . to Rak- shi. A chill rippled down Thyerri's back, and all at once Thyerri was frightened. Very, very frightened.

On the eighth day of the second week following their re- turn to Rhomatum, and with Mikhyel's departure less than three weeks away, Nikki was in his suite, sorting notes into stacks when, without so much as a pull on the bell-chain to announce her arrival, Lidye burst into his room.

"I told you I could find it!" she crowed triumphantly, waving a book through the air. "I just had a feeling where it would be."

Nikki stood courteously, uncomfortably aware of his half- buttoned shirt hanging loose outside his breeches.

"What is it?" He reached for the book. "What did you find?"

"Ah-ah-ah!" She whipped it out of reach and behind her back. "What will you give me for it?"

"I" He hesitated, more than a little taken aback, her coquettish actions unlike both her early childish posturing and her more recent steady composure. Until he suddenly realized . . . adult teasing, like Deymorin and Kiyrstin.

His breath quickened, an unexpected warmth grew within him. He fought both feelings down. Their relation- ship had been established, or so he believed, at partnership and nothing more. "What do you want?"

She relaxed, brought the book out of hiding and held it to her bosom between gracefully crossed hands.

"Just a smile, Nikaenor. A smile that's all for me, and maybea little, just a little, approval?"

There was a winsome quality to her tone. A hint of sad- ness. And Nikki wondered if perhaps she wasn't lonely.

She'd been in Rhomatum for the better part of a year now, and for all practical intents, confined to the Tower that entire time. She'd been forced to play a distasteful (he'd come to realize) part for him, and sought acceptance, now, for the woman she truly was.

He could understand that need, and with understanding, the smile she requested came effortlessly. He moved from behind the desk, held out his hand to receive the book, transferred it to the other hand, and reached again, this time for her fingers, drawing her over to a settee near the largest window, a divan deep with cushions, worn and comfortable.

His favorite reading spot.

She fingered a threadbare cushion, and he waited for the inevitable suggestion that it be recovered, but she only met his eyes, smiled a secret little knowing smile, and curled her petite slippered feet up beneath her, the way he would, sitting in that same spot with a favorite book in his lap.

Those excited little fingers flitted along his spine again, and he settled into the other end of the couch, facing her, and tucked up in similar casual comfort.

Only then did he transfer his attention to the book or, more properly speaking, journal. An old journal dedicated to the establishment of the first fourteen satellite nodes. A journal that might have been written with Mikhyel's mis- sion in mind, outlining, as it did, the events surrounding the capping and the backgrounds and philosophies of the founding fathers of the various cities.

His mouth was oddly dry. He closed it, swallowed, and opened it again. "Where did you find this?" he asked in what voice he could muster.

Lidye smiled gently. "Do you think it will be useful?"

"You know the answer to that. Where? Who. . . ?"

"Don't you recognize the hand?"

And then, of course, he did recognize it, from other journals.

"Darius," he said, and she nodded.

"It was in Anheliaa's suite. I knew I'd seen it somewhere.

There would be a companion work, a continuation"

"Not likely," Nikki interrupted. "Darius died before . . ."

He let the thought trail off as he realized: "He couldn't have written this. At least, not all of it. He died after the capping of Orenum, and that was only the sixth satellite capped."

And around the time of Orenum, the handwriting did shift, but it remained very similar, almost as if there had been a conscious attempt to copy Darius' style.

"His son, Darius II." She shifted to peer at the script upside down. "Amazingly similar, don't you think?"

"That's one way to describe it." He skimmed a few more lines, his familiarity with Darius' antiquated spellings and speech patterns making it easy to absorb. "You say there's more?"

"There certainly ought to be."

"In her suite?"

She nodded. "Bookshelves full of ancient journals, Ni- kaenor. By all the Ringmasters of Rhomatum."

"I'd no idea," he murmured, his mind filling with images of that forbidden landscape that was Anheliaa's apartment.

More sacrosanct than the Tower, he'd never entered it.

Perhaps these journals were the reason why no one else was allowed in.

But Lidye had seen them. Lidye had been chosen by Anheliaa to inherit those treasures. And Anheliaa had cho- sen Lidye for him, so perhaps . . .

"Do you suppose . . ." He looked up and met her eyes.

"I'd like to see them."

"Why not? It will be my suite soon enough. How could it be wrong to access it now, when so much depends upon the knowledge lying within it?"

"How, indeed," Nikki answered, and he bounced to his feet, holding his hands out to draw her up. "Let's go, shall we?"

It was a historical treasure trove, a tiny library without, at first glance, a commercially printed book on its shelves.

Some were the originals of books he recognized as pub- lished works, some were writings referenced in other works, but generally considered lost.

Of most current interest were the shelves of journals, the handwritten history of his family and their alliances by marriage; but there were other books, books with elegant bindings, leather covers with hand-stamped tilling that spoke of uncommon origin. Antique in style, but too ele- gant for the earliest Rhomatumin binderies.

Nikki drew one from the shelf, traced that impressed lettering with his fingertips, and opened the cover. Unlike the others, it was not handwritten, but the print was un- even, the stamp irregular, and of a style he'd seen only in histories of technology.

Old. Very old books. Illegal books. Pre-exodus, Mauri- tumin books. Some, from the titles, must have been taken from the Tower of Maurii itself.

Nikki's knees turned to water. He staggered, and caught himself against the shelves. A presence at his back steadied him, a slender, graceful hand reached around his shoulder and turned another page.

"I loved this one," Lidye whispered next to his ear, and she turned another page, and another, and he found he was no longer staring blindly, but scanning the words, following the text, absorbed in visuals, hand-tinted plates, images of caves and flowing iridescent water and nonhuman, magi- cal creatures.

Maurislan Tamshi tales.

Rhomatum had had similar stories, handed down by word of mouth, intermingled with hill-folk legends, but these were the originals. These were the stories Darius him- self must have heard as a child, pictures he must have looked at.

"Evi" His voice caught; he cleared his throat and tried again. "Evidently the laws didn't apply to Darius."

"Of course not," Lidye said, her tone echoing some of the reverence he was feeling. "Someone had to retain his- torical perspective. I imagine he saved all he could before ordering his people to destroy their Mauritumin memories."

He leaned away from her, seeking her eyes. "How many of these have you read?"

Her chin tucked shyly in an appealing half-shrug. "I've had a great deal of time since I came here."

"Rings," he whispered. The book was shaking; so were his hands. He closed the book and sought a nearby chair, then sat there, clutching the book, and gazing blindly about the room. Anheliaa's room. Anheliaa's suite. The suite every Rhomatumin Ringmaster since Darius had lived in.

"What other treasures must be kept here?"

Lidye sank down beside him, spreading her skirts side- wise in a graceful, single-handed sweep.

"We could," she began, then bit her lip diffidently.

"We could . . . what?"

"We could investigate the rooms together."

"We could do that."

Her long lashes biinked a single tear free.

"Is it not too late, then? Might we not find . . . something in common still? Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric is a mana husbandto be proud of. I want to be proud of us, sweet, sweet, Nikki."

"I" Somehow, the Lidye he'd first known seemed very far away. The past days flooded his thoughts as her perfume flooded his nostrils. Not the heavy scent he'd associated with her before, but a light, floral scent, like a hillside in spring. Like the Outside.

She'd evinced terror when he'd taken her driving two months ago; he wondered if this perfume perjured that im- pression, and if yes, what else she had hidden from Anhe- liaa and so from himself.