A gust of cool air whipped fountain mist across his face.

He shivered.

The sound of heavy skirts displacing gravel swished above the music of the fountain. He glanced up and inter- cepted Mirym's doe-eyed gaze. She was alone.

He sought words, commonplace pleasantries, but what came out was, "Is it true, Mirym? Are you carrying my child?"

Her smile was tender but secretive. She pressed her hands to her stomach, than crossed them on her bosom and rocked gently. Touched his arm and shrugged.

"You're pregnant, just not certain it's mine?"

She nodded.

"You've been with so many men recently," he chided gently.

She looked generally skyward, her head tilting to one side and the other as she ticked off fingers. When, having used up both hands, she began a second round, he acknowl- edged defeat. Chuckling in spite of the gravity of the situa- tion, he grasped her hands to stop her.

(Truth, madam. Am I the father?} He thought the words as clearly and forcefully as possible, afraid she wouldn't hear, this far from the ringchamber.

She jumped and pulled her hands away, eyes wide with pain and indignation.

"Forgive me," he said, and reached again, this time to lay his hand lightly on hers, repeating his question, but with rather more civilized intensity.

Her answer was just vague acknowledgment of probability . . . and a reminder that Kiyrstin was also breeding.

"Rings," he whispered, and stood up, feeling a need to move. Three men, three women . . .

{And an old woman's obsessive desire for offspring.} Mir- ym's thought pursued him, acknowledging his line of thought, and Mirym herself was beside him, hand on his.

"Lidye was so certain, that very night . . ." he said.

{As was 1.} Which assurance defied all he understood about such things.

"I thought it took months to know"

(I knew.} Mirym's insistence left no room for skepticism.

(That night, I felt it quicken within me.} "Was it Anheliaa? Was it all her doing?"

{Anheliaa was very powerful in her desire. I suspect, yes.

But perhaps it was simply meant to be.} "I can't believe in coincidence that great."

{Did I say coincidence? The ley was involved, Mikhyel dunMheric.} "Leythium is a substance, Mirym. To deny coincidence implies motivation. Motivation implies self-awareness.

Cognizance."

{I said the ley, not leythium. There is a difference, as you well know, Mikhyel, son of Mheric, descendant of Darius.} "The ley is leythium. Crystal that glows and heats within the sphere of its parent node. Liquid that ingests animal flesh and waste and anything else that was once living. It requires the human mind and human-cast rings to direct it to do anything more."

{And was it nothing but light and heat that you experi- enced in the cavern of spirits? Was it light and heat that visited your room last night?} This time, it was he who retreated from that revelatory touch. "Who are you? Why How do you know all this?"

She reached, he pulled away; she frowned and held her hand out insistently. Conceding to necessity, he veiled all thought of the cavern and placed his palm with hers.

{I amwasAnheliaa's servant for two years, Mikhyel.

She taught, she tested, oh so many women, but she never asked me. I listened and I learned. I felt, and I extrapolated.} And this silent young woman had shunted power to Barsitum . . . and held the rings steady when Persitum fell and Anheliaa died.

{I will aid; I will not be Rhomatum's ringmaster.} Perhaps she'd plucked that thought from his mind before he was aware his thoughts were headed in that direction.

"I wasn't going to ask that. Would never, but . . ." His choices seemed suddenly confused. She carried his child.

He didn't, morally or legally, have to acknowledge it or assume responsibility for it, such was the advantage of his position. But he could no more leave her on her own than he could his own sister, had he one.

"Mirym, do you want me to marry you? I will, immedi- ately and without reservations, if that's what you wish. The contract with Nethaalye's parents would have to be renego- tiated, but she'd understand, and we might have to delay long enough . . . I don't believe she'd agree to being second, which is only fair, but . .."

Laughter, clear and golden in his head. Her hands clasped his this time, and her lips brushed his knuckles.

{Hush, before you explode your poor brain. My dear Mikhyel, thank you, no. I treasure my independence. But if I were you. I'd be careful, cautious about mending your way with Nethaalye. She deserves her own happiness.} Which insight he didn't need her to explain. He knew he was not the stuff of which a woman dreamed.

He'd never concerned himself about that before, had never cared whether a woman desired him or not. Desire had not been part of his life. Those erotic sensations Dey- morin and Nikki sought so eagerly had held only distasteful connotations for him.

Now, for the first time, he thought he might wish that were not the case.

Mirym's eyes crinkled with amusement, picking up his thoughts, or at least traces of them. He smiled back, brushed fine, curling strands back from her face, feeling an urge that, when examined, seemed all his own. A lovely feeling. A temptation he didn't recall having felt before.

He searched that inclination for any trace of his brothers.

It seemed important, somehow, that it be his own. He'd been Deymorin's proxy in the Council chambers, Nikki's proxy in bed, he'd acceded to Mheric's demands as a child, to Anheliaa's in his adolescence and to Ganfrion in the Crypt.

Just this once, he wanted this simple, uncomplicated human urge to be his alone.

But there was nothing of his brothers surrounding the urge, only himself and his affection for this strange young woman. Sensing only mutual interest through their clasped hands, he leaned forward, seeking her lips "Damn you, Mikhyel dunMheric!"

A hand grasped his shoulder and jerked him around.

Nikki.

"What's your problem now?" he asked, not the least in- clined after last night to tolerate Nikki's histrionics.

"Haven't you done enough?" Nikki asked, and his con- fused emotions flared through Mikhyel. He'd come here (embarrassment} to apologize to Mikhyel for yesterday, only to find his {shock} austere brother pawing Mirym, who {betrayal} had been his special friend, and {jealousy} she'd been kissing him back. And a final, unconfused montage of {disappointment} and {anger} and {lust}.

"Go away, Nikki, and duck your head in the fountain."

He reached for Mirym's hand.

"Can't keep your lecherous hands off her, can you?"

Nikki hissed, and an impact to Mikhyel's shoulder sent him staggering away from Mirym. He came up hard against a stone wall and pushed himself away, only to be slammed back.

His head snapped backward, struck hard, and his vision faded. He biinked his eyes, clearing them to Mheric's fury.

Nikki! his mind screamed insistently. But a deeper por- tion, a portion forged so early it saw beyond the blond hair and blue eyes that said mother to the black essence below, that said Mheric.

Nikki screamed something unintelligible, and struck him, a backhanded blow that blacked out his vision a second time. He flailed blindly, seeking a handhold to keep up- right, lost it when a battering ram in his gut doubled him over and turned his legs to water.

His fingers slid down that unseen brother, his knees shot with pain as they struck the ground.

Images flooded his mind of Ganfrion and the prison his own thoughts or Nikki'sand his hands curled into un- familiar shapes. Fists. He wasn't a child any longer. It wasn't Mheric. He could fight back.

Another portion of his mind screamed this was Nikki and still another recalled Nikki's birthday and Nikki sprawled unconscious on the floor, victim of his brother's hand. His hand.

And a vow he'd made that day. A vow that he would not end like Mheric.

And another portion stated coldly, as the blows landed and he raised his arms to protect his face, that he had not.

~ 8 8.

"Nikki wants to see him," Deymorin said softly to Kiyrs- tin, trying not to disturb Mikhyel, who was sleeping at last.

"Tell him to go to hell," was Kiyrstin's answer, and while she was probably right, it was not precisely the answer to set Nikki's mindon the far side of Mikhyel's bedroom doorat rest.

"He was upset, Kiyrstin," Deymorin said in reluctant support of that remote plea for understanding. "He didn't"

"Think? I rest my case."

"You're too hard on him, Kiyrsti," Mikhyel whispered, and Deymorin stifled a curse.

"I thought you were asleep," he said, and crossed the room to sit next to the bed.

"I was." Mikhyel pushed himself upright. He rubbed his jaw and winced.

"Rings, Khyel, I'm sorry. How's Nikki's jaw feel?"

"Like hell, thanks. Are you sure you didn't break it?"

"No, more's the pity." Deymorin's fists clenched again at the memory of Nikki's black anger flooding his mind, of Nikki himself standing over Mikhyel's senseless body. And then, it hadn't been Nikki, but Mheric, and for once he'd been there to stop his father's brutality. "I've never been so mad."

"Caught up in the past, Deymorin. We all were." Mi- khyel sighed and rubbed his jaw again. A jaw darkening with stubble for the first time in a month. A face amazingly untouched, though Mikhyel had, according to the physician, at least one cracked rib.

"Let it go, Mikhyel. You do him no favor."

Mikhyel's thin throat worked in a hard swallow. "I can't stop it, Deymorin. I've tried, but he wants so badly to for- get. For everything to be back . . . the way it used to be."

Kiyrstin muttered something under her breath, the gist of which they could both imagine.

"He doesn't realize what he's doing," Mikhyel said.

"He just wants to be the center of everyone's attention,"

Kiyrstin snapped, and Deymorin didn't argue. It needed to be verbally acknowledged, which neither he nor Mikhyel seemed able to do. "In the past week, Mikhyel has been currying him to take Mikhyel's place here in Rhomatum, a position he looks upon as necessary but overall rather bor- ing. Now, the ley itself speaks to Mikhyel? Calls Mikhyel to it? Mikhyel, the barrister? What could be more romantic, and who less deserving of the honor?"

Deymorin stifled an objection; Mikhyel's brow was fur- rowed in concentration and his presence beneath was im- penetrable stone.

"Nikki's spoiled," Kiyrstin continued, obviously devel- oping a theme held too long in reserve. "He's spoiled and his head is full of clouds. He needs a thump now and again to get his attention."

"I've 'thumped' him more than anyone deserves," Mi- khyel said, and Deymorin nearly choked on the self-con- demnation that flowed to him from Mikhyel.

"And always turned about and apologized and said how sorry and wrong you were, I'll wager."

"'Well, yes, of course I did. I"

"Did you ever just thump him because he'd been an ass, and tell him to straighten up or you'd thump him again?"

"No!" Mikhyel's voice was strengthening with each pass Kiyrstin made at him. "I'd never do that!"

Kiyrstin gave an exaggerated harrumph. "I rest my case. Councillor."

She cupped Mikhyel's face in both hands and kissed him lightly.

"You're his brother, Khyel, not his father. You've done your best. Nikki knows that, but he's using your own guilt against you now, whether he means to or not. He's feeling sorry for himself and he's dragging you both into his mid- den heap with him. He lives in a real world of high stakes risk and wants to solve its problems with Tamshi tales."

"Not his fault," Mikhyel said slowly, and his hand clasped Kiyrstin's, as if he was using her to keep his thoughts focused. "When Mheric would . . . When we were in the closet, I'd distract him, keep him quiet with promises of the Tamshi. We'd accredit every noise to a Tamshi in hiding."

"That's fine, for a child. And many children will seek magical answers. Adults know the answers lie in them- selves. That transition from one way of thinking to the other comes harder in some. You may have thumped Nikki a few timesmaybe even harder than you meant. And I wouldn't say you were right or wrong to do that. Can't. I wasn't there, now was I? But I see the result, and Nikki is far from cowed."

"I struck him in anger, Kiyrstin. Always in anger, always too hard."

"Maybe. And maybe not. How would you know? You didn't have much of an example, now did you?"

"Perhaps Mheric's father's example was worse even than the example he supplied us," Mikhyel answered, his tone gaining a healthy touch of humor. "By your reckoning, would that not absolve Mheric's actions?"

"Absolve?" Kiyrstin repeated, and seemed to turn that over in her own mind. "No, I don't think so. I don't absolve anyone's actions, Khyel. I just don't lump all situations into one category."

"Ah, but you're the woman who tried to kill her husband with a manicure knife. You would think all guilt is circum- stantially unique."

"I would. And I do. Besides, it was Deymorin who thumped him, not you."

"This time."

"Details. The important thing is, Nikki didn't run off this morning because he'd been physically hurt, as you'd realize, if you weren't so involved. He'd been a fool and a brute, and he didn't want to face that fact in company. Nothing unusual in that. I didn't know Mheric, but I do know his sons, one of whom is the most self-confident ragman I've ever met, one of whom carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and one of whom, raised by the other two, is a self-important seventeen-year-old, not all that different from other spoiled seventeen-year-olds I've known. That's all I really know about Mheric's skills as a father."

"Not much to go on, is it?"

"It's everything." Her look sobered. "The point I'm try- ing to make, Khyel, is that there comes a time when it's not the father, not the brother, but the basic substance of the individual. You want to feel sorry for someone, ask Zandy sometime about his father and masters. You don't catch him sniveling about his treatment. He wouldn't know how. Wouldn't think of it."

"Z-Zandy?" Mikhyel's voice stumbled and panic re- turned to that other sense.

"You remember Zandy, Mikhyel," Deymorin said, stem- ming his own rising alarm. "The boy Kiyrstin brought with her from Mauritum? We left him at Armayel with his static potentiator."