"And what will you tell the ringmasters? That a burning lump of leythium imparted the secrets of the universe to you?"

"I'll tell them it comes from Anheliaa."

"Anheliaa's ghost."

Mikhyel shrugged. "They don't need to know the se- quence of events. The point is to convince them to trust long enough to try. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else. But if it does, ;* my information is right and if I can get the ringmasters to agree to direct their energies simulta- neously toward Khoratum, we could have the web returned to full strength in a matter of days. That should surprise Mauritum and anyone else watching us and give you ample time to secure those borders."

"And if you're wrong?"

"It's all we've got to go on right now. If I'm wrong, if the web doesn't improve, at least we tried. We go then on what more we can learn."

"All right, Khyel, all right. I'll concede on that part of your plan. But this other notion"

"I don't know why you're complaining, Deymorin. It was your idea."

"My idea? To hire Ganfrion as your personal body- guard? Hardly."

"You said to get someone who understood the shadows of the cities to guard my back."

"Ganfrion isn't exactly what I had in mind!"

"No? Perhaps you should read his file. Might change your mind."

"I've better things to do with my time." Deymorin balled his shaking hands into fists. "Have you forgotten what that animal did to you in the Crypt?"

"Irrelevant."

"lr" Deymorin threw himself into the chair opposite Mikhyel's. "Nothing is more relevant."

"Circumstances being what they were"

"Circumstances be damned! It's your frame of mind today that's in question."

"I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Do you?" Deymorin tried to force all the caution and concern he was feeling into the front of his mind and down Mikhyel's mental throat. "And what about blackmail, dun- Mheric of Rhomatum Tower? What about simple, nasty rumor? Everything we hope to accomplish depends on your image."

"I've faced that particular specter for fifteen years, Deymorin. Mheric saw to that."

Deymorin leaned forward, elbows on knees, laced fingers hanging between. "I'm worried about you, Khy. You've been pushed so close to the edge"

"Several times, recently."

"Exactly. And you've changed"

"We all have. Deymorin, if you'd just look at his file"

"I don't give a damn about a Crypt-bait's resume. He's an assassin and a rapist, that's all I need to know."

"Actually, he's not an assassin."

"Not? You're the one who said"

"No, he said. He lifed. Read the file, Deymorin."

"I don't need to read a damned file. I saw him. I saw you with him. And now, you expect me to entrust your welfare to him?"

"No, not at all."

"Well, that's a relief."

"You've no part in the decision. Which has not yet been made, incidentally."

"He's not likely to turn you down."

"He's not yet been asked."

"Fine."

Deymorin shoved himself out of the chair, and headed for the door.

"Rhomandi!"

He stopped.

"Don't do it."

{What happened to my privacy?} Deymorin demanded silently and had the satisfaction of seeing his devious brother wince.

{Not where it intersects my interests.} Mikhyel's response came at a far more civilized volume, and Mikhyel continued aloud. "This is my decision, Deymorin. You keep away from him."

"You should never have told me, then."

"I should have left you with hearsay, perhaps? I wanted to know you knew, Deymorin. I didn't want you thinking I was keeping significant plans to myself. I hoped you would do me the courtesy of reading the filebefore ques- tioning my judgment."

Deymorin clenched his jaw on the retort that rose. Mi- khyel's detached expression didn't change, but he stood up and moved to Deymorin's abandoned spot by the window, gazed outward for a moment, and then turned, a shadow figure against sunlit marble. "I'm alive because of him."

"I doubt that."

"Everyone knew, after Brolucci's men came for you."

Mikhyel paused, as though expecting comment, and when Deymorin refused to oblige him: "He claimed first rights.

Made them exclusive rights."

"Damned if I want the details. I've reason enough with- out them to question your sanity in even contemplating in- cluding him in your entourage. If you want a man to warm your bed, we'll find you one. But"

{My bed is, and always will be, my own!} "Not this time, it's not. I've said nothing, Mikhyel. I be- lieved you when you said you weren't interested. I've blamed Mheric and I've blamed Anheliaa for turning you into a monk; I've mourned your lack of a relationship of the kind that has brought so much personal joy to me. But if you want someone like that, I've got to question your fitness for"

His voice froze. And Mikhyel's emphatic but formless objection, laced heavily with resentment and anger, pierced his head. Deymorin flared back, and Mikhyel's hold crumbled.

"All right!" Deymorin said through teeth clenched against the pain and frustration resonating between them.

"Make your point or let me go."

"He didn't touch me."

"Bullshit. You forget, I saw you, felt him with you when I picked you up. You were a bloody mess."

"I was alive. Three days after you got me out, Ganfrion nearly wasn't."

"And I'm to feel sorry for him? So he shat in his own lair, and his creatures turned. Has nothing to do with you.

You don't owe him, Khyel!"

"Owe him? No, I don't suppose I do. But I can use him."

Deymorin forced his hands to relax, moved a step closer, wishing he dared touch his brother, to get past all the per- sonal inhibitions. "What happened . . . after I left?"

A shrug. "I fought . . . well, resisted. You'd have been amused."

"I doubt it."

Another shrug. "They were. Ganfrion stepped in before it became anything more than mauling and shoving. He stopped it. Laid claimat some personal cost. It ended. He took me into his bolt hole, then left me alone."

"So he's got good survival instincts."

"If you believe that, you don't know the prisons as well as you thought."

"And you do."

"Even before I spent a night in the Crypt. I've sent men there, Deymorin. I knew. It was my job to know."

"So why'd he do it? Why protect you, of all people?"

"Why didn't he kUl you? He had the chance."

"That's what this interview is about, then?" Deymorin asked. "Scruples?"

Mikhyel tipped his head.

"And if his answers satisfy you, you'll hire him?"

"If he's physically able, yes. I was a bit late getting him out. I might just send him to Barsitum."

Deymorin, still far from convinced, probed underneath for enlightenment and met rebuff. He scowled, thinking he was going to do some investigating of his own into Gan- frion of Sparingate Crypt, but doubted he'd gain anything other than unwilling acceptance of the logic behind Mikhy- el's actions today.

He was learning slowly that Mikhyel never made arbi- trary decisions, even one as radical and grotesquely absurd as this one.

Mikhyel's mouth twitched, and acknowledgment warmed him from within. Deymorin resisted that warmth, sus- pectingbecause of that warmththe origin of the thought that inspired it.

"At times," he said slowly, "I can truly sympathize with Nikki. Getting too damned subtle, brother."

The warmth vanished, along with the twitch.

"Watch your backside, Mikhyel dunMheric," Deymorin said, and jerked the door open. "Rhomatum can't afford to lose you now."

d 8 ~ The door closed with a soft thud; Mikhyel sighed deeply and relaxed the fists he held clenched at his back.

He'd been expecting a bill for the glass.

If only Deymorin had taken the time to look at the file.

Certainly, Sparingate was a repository for the worst ele- ments in the webit was part of the price Rhomatum paid for being the capitalbut this particular villain had a most interesting background. Scholar, mercenary, assassin . . .

the details of the fate that had driven the man called Gan- frion ever deeper into the morass of human existence were only alluded to, but those specifics might make the differ- ence, might allow the man a . . . Mikhyel mentally reviewed the file, and decided it would be at least Ganfrion's ninth chance at an honest life.

But there had been no assassinations. No unwarranted evil deeds, for all Ganfrion would like him to believe other- wise. Deeds of dubious legality, without question, but with a common thread of equity, justice in the purest sense.

Ganfrion might be a man who believed in causes and fought for them. Mikhyel wasn't interested in altruism. He wasn't interested in blind obedience. He believed in his own cause. In a tower rife with Farricci guards and with remnants of Brolucci's interestsin a country wracked with civil rivalries, he wanted a man with one loyalty, and a home in no city.

He turned back to the window, leaning his shoulder on the side frame to look past the neighboring building and out across the rooftops of Rhomatum. It was a singularly beautiful viewat least, to him it was beautiful. He had no referent, had seen no other city. Another few months and he'd have seventeen referents, but even if there were other beautiful cities, their beauty couldn't detract from Rhomatum's.

"Well, well, well, Suds, a final audience with the prince before the beheading?" Bold tone, brash words, but the voice of a man nervous, uncertain, caught in a milieu not of his choosing.

Mikhyel turned from the window, slowly, deliberately, and faced the man he'd last viewed from the topmost stair in Sparingate Crypt. He'd not heard the door open, lost in his thoughts the way he'd been. Neither had he heard Paulis' announcement.

And even now, Paulis was not in the room, as he'd been ordered.

"Off after a glass of water. Suds."

He slid his attention from the door to Ganfrion, standing at his ease in the middle of the office.

"I was just . . . parched. I'd forgotten how . . . dry the surface air is."

"Dry," Mikhyel repeated, and when Ganfrion coughed obligingly: "Of course."

Came a frantic knocking at the door, and Mikhyel bade Paulis enter. The bespectacled clerk entered, flustered and angry.

"Did you find his water?" Mikhyel asked calmly, into Paulis' verbal stream of self-condemnation, which stopped the stream on a puzzled squeak.

"Water?" Mikhyel repeated.

Paulis snapped his mouth closed and went back out, to return immediately with a silver pitcher and goblet on a silver tray. Mikhyel raised his eyebrows, and Paulis blushed bright red.

"Sorry, sir. It was all I could find."

"No matter. You did well, Paulis. .Thank you. You may go now."