"Rumor implied it was Mheric's eldest, that of Mheric's sons only Deymorin Rhomandi would have the cold- blooded balls to stand up to dunHaulpin that way." Ganfri- on's lip lifted in a half-smile that held nothing of its former sneer. "Having met Mheric's sons, I decided that perhaps rumor had judged too soon."

A pause, for a swallow of wine, and head-tilted study of Mikhyel's face.

"Why did I step in? I honestly can't say for certain. Re- spect, perhaps, for the lad who got the best of dunHaulpin at last. Self-preservation, more likely. I don't think I'd want that cold-assed determination pitted directly against me in prison or out."

The details of Ganfrion's reasoning weren't important.

The end result was.

"Anheliaa is dead," Mikhyel said flatly.

"I don't think I want to hear this."

"I'm quite certain you do not. However, she is, you know; and it's worth your life if that information leaks out of this room."

The sneer returned. "Oh, you are your aunt's nephew."

"On the contrary. Anheliaa is dead. She's no longer a threat or a future for you. I want practical, self-serving men, not blindly loyal men who will lose their common sense the first time someone badmouths a Rhomandi."

"Your acumen surprises me."

"I'm not a fool, Ganfrion. I know the Rhomandi are not the most popular family in the web these days. I hope to change that general opinion, but that will take time. And it will take knowledge. I want more than a personal guard.

I want someone who can spot assassins, and can find out who those assassins work for and why they want me dead.

I want to know, on the streets, who wouldn't care if those assassins succeeded in their attempts."

"Why? To eliminate the problem?"

"At its sourceyes. And if that source is Rhomandi ig- norance, then the Rhomandi will become less so. You might be that man, if you choose. If you prefer otherwise, I shall simply have you isolated until such time as the infor- mation you hold is no longer inflammable, and then you'll serve out your sentence. In a different ward."

Ganfrion drained his glass and poured another, taking the decanter back to the chair with him.

"And your brother? How does he feel about this notion of yours? Where does he come into this gambit?"

"Deymorin isn't hiring you."

Narrow eyes assessed him above the glass rim, then dropped to stare into the wine.

"I was pulled a week ago," Ganfrion said. "Your doing?"

"I would have sooner, but I had no power."

"Soon enough." The sneer broke on a bark of laughter.

"Bastisti's balls, man, I'm still alive. What more do I need?" Then, with a dark glower, and a set jaw: "Why?"

"Your silence kept me alive in prison. Your common sense kept your hands to yourself at the last. I appreciate a healthy sense of self-preservation, I appreciate logic over passion. Revenge would have gained you nothing. Self- control . . . well, it might."

He paced the room slowly. "I'm about to embark on a fool's venture, man of no city. I'm going to visit every node in the web, to prepare the leaders for the news of Anhel- iaa's death, to unite the ringmasters, and to rouse the citi- zens to defend their borders against Mauritum."

"Mauritum?" the man repeated, intrigued for all his at- tempts to disguise the fact. If Mikhyel was correct in his assessment, Ganfrion had an active intelligence, too lively to handle the boredom of prison for long. "Why? . . . Of course. Anheliaa. No one to mind the store, Rhomandi?"

"As you say. I need men I can trust, men who can infil- trate areas of those cities that I cannot, who can hear and investigate those rumors and factions closed to me. The Rhomandi have grown out of touch"

"Grown? Man, they've never been in touch. All old Da- rius ever wanted was a node to call his own. Once the Rhomatum satellites were capped, he didn't care shit who sat on them or what they did with them. And his damned offspring have been no better."

"I want to change that. I can find out what their leaders think. I want to know how the . . ." He smiled to himself, thinking of that moment in the prison latrine and the thoughts he'd had. "How the man on the streets thinks about the web, Rhomatum, the Rhomandi."

"You'll never survive, Towerman."

"That's where you might prove useful. Convince me, Ganfrion of no node. Convince me you'd be useful to me."

Chapter One.

There was a new poster on prominent display on the post- ing wall outside Bharlori's Tavern. Even so, Thyerri very nearly missed it in his rush for the door.

He was late, very late; his fellow employees were not going to be happy with him. But it had been too longfar, far too longsince the goat trails and high meadows had called. When, early that morningfor the first time since the Collapsethe mountain winds had whispered in his ear, he'd chased that ancient enchantress deeper and deeper through the false dawn, into the rocky crevasses, farther and farther from the City and his growing responsibilities there.

He'd thought at first it was Mother calling him. Ever since the night the mountain had come back to life, he'd waited for her summons, but for all the mountain's in- creased vitality, Mother's voice had never echoed in his dreams.

As he'd chased the wind this morning, he'd called and called and calledto no effect. But his cries had been as much a song of joy as a plea for attention, a song to assure Mother that this child at least had found a home.

Not the home he'd dreamed of years ago when the rijhili first raised the dance rings, but a contentment that Thyerri would never have believed possible only a few short weeks ago.

Because Thyerri no longer merely survived; Thyerri danced now, whenever he felt the urge. And as word of his dance had filtered through the city, Bharlori's business had taken yet another forward surge as rijhili, hungry for entertainment, flocked to this newest diversion.

Sometimes he danced alone, sometimes with Sakhithe.

And sometimes he danced with other hiller dancers who, hearing of the coins being flung about, came to display their skills.

But those other dancers rarely returned. Sakhithe in- sisted it was because they couldn't stand the comparison, that once they saw Thyerri dance, they realized a level they could never achieve, and pride kept them from taking his leavings.

Thyerri didn't know, didn't really care. Thyerri cared that Bharlori, who had given him this job, was happy. Sakhithe was. And if Bharlo's new help were occasionally jealous, and if Sakhi had had to find a loose stone in the kitchen floor under which to hide his purse from those jealous eyes, it was a price worth paying.

Shifting shadows and warming air had warned him of a day more than half gone. His return to the city had been arrow-straight and breakneck, leaving scratches on his arms and legs where he'd chosen to leap into a tree's embrace rather than take the long route down a steep hill.

He darted past the sleepy guard on duty at Khrishim Gate, and dodged between the late afternoon bartering crowd along Farmer's Row South, waved at Zeiin, carrying baskets for Cook, and sprinted the final stretch to Bharlori's Only to find his passage blocked at the tavern entrance.

A small knot of men had gathered beside the posting board, and none were inclined to notice a dirty hiller want- ing past. Thyerri skidded to a halt, made a dart for the alley, only to find his way blocked by a second group.

"So, the cub has emerged from the lair at last," one valley voice said, and another: "And Rhyys is going to sharpen up the rings to cele- brate, eh?"

Rings?

Thyerri strained to see past the massive bodies, all dressed as if it were the dead of winter instead of a fresh spring day.

" 'Bout time we got to see this fancy-dance."

"Says here they're gonna pick a new radical. What hap- pened to the old one?"

"Dead," a grim and goulish voice declared. "On the rings when the web crashed. Sliced 'er right in half. Blood all over the sand."

Which wasn't the truth. Betania, the last radical dancer of Khoratum, had quit the dance when her sexual interests exceeded her desire to dance. The web had gone down in the middle of the last competition, before a new radical had been declared.

It had been Mavis who died on the rings the day of the collapse. But she had been a competitorjust like Thy- errinot the radical. "- "What's Rhyys plan to do? Kill another? We haven't got lights half the time. How can they trust the.dance rings?"

"Just adds that much more spice, Prillin," someone said.

"Half the appeal up here is the blood count at the end."

"Oh."

Thyerri wanted to say that it wasn't true, that no one went to the competition to see someone hurt, but in truth, he didn't know. He knew that "half the appeal" for the true competitors was laughing in death's face. But that was the thrill and the challenge of the dance itself. He couldn't imagine what the spectators derived from watching.

Himself, he hated to watch. Watching only made him jeal- ous, made his body writhe with the desire to flit among the rings in the dancer's stead.

"When's he due here?" someone asked.

"Threealmost four weeks. We're dead last, lads. Places us, doesn't it?"

Thyerri wondered who was coming and why, caught a glimpse of the schedule as bodies shifted. A list of seventeen nodes. Khoratum was at the bottom. Persitum wasn't listed at all.

Thyerri wondered whether that lack was oversight on the part of the printer, or deliberate exclusion, wondered whether that dire threat voiced in a private upstairs parlor had been carried out, wondered if Persitum was gone from the Rhomatum Web.

Considering the energy that had surged through the mountains that night two weeks ago, it certainly seemed possible that catastrophic changes had occurred in the web.

Perhaps Persitum's loss was the reason for this "cub's"

upcoming visita cub of such importance that Rhyys was willing to risk ringdancers' lives with problematic dance rings in order to impress him.

Thyerri himself would take that risk, if only Rhyys would let him compete.

But the renewed vitality within the mountain would seem to indicate a healthier web, not a diminished one.

Mother would know about the state of the web, of course, but Mother wasn't talking to him. As for the other, this visiting person of importance . . . for the first time since the Collapse, Thyerri longed to be back in Rhyys' court, where speculation would be rife.

The bodies between himself and the poster shifted again and painted eyes stared right at him. Gray eyes, rimmed with green. Eyes painfully familiar to the person Thyerri had once been. Eyes that reached between that past life and this one and gripped Thyerri's soul and refused to re- lease it.

Eyes of the sort that stared back at Thyerri from Sakhi's cracked mirror.

Zeiin's Tamshi eyes, for certain. Eyes that could enthrall, that could, according to Zeiin, capture a soul to their bid- ding. But the thin bearded face was that of a valley-man.

Middle-aged or older, grim-faced and crafty. Not the face he expected to see, certainly not the expression. A rijhili with Tamshi eyes was coming to Khoratum. Perhaps even to Bharlori's Tavern.

And then he saw the name: Mikhyel Rhomandi dun- mheric. Thyerri shivered, and forced his way past the men crowding up behind him, forced himself away from those eyes, no longer caring why that man was coming here, wanting only to be far away when he arrived.

~ d ~ In the distance, a floating sheep wilted and sank.

Elsewhere on the section of the Shatum Leyroad visible through the carriage window, other balloons, some crea- tures, some simple, brightly colored mushrooms bearing company logos, bobbed in the steady breeze.

Not so long ago, the sight of the cargo-hauler lift balloons had been a constant curiosity; now, five nodes into his trip, Mikhyel found himself in agreement with Deymorin: as eyesores, they were amazingly effective.

He had noted at least three shipping companies that he was considering prosecuting for patent misuse of ley-energy in a time of limited availability. The garish, elaborate con- structions had undoubtedly required as much, if not more, hot air to lift themselves than they ever supplied to the relief of the wagon axles.

An avarice you silk-sheep would undoubtedly protest.

He'd seen too much of that on this trip as well. Every time a registered balloon collapsed in transit, the web was liable. There were guarantees. Hauler permits were issued on the assumption of available power. When that power proved insufficient, and a leythium heater failed, someone had to cover the damages.

And right now, that someone's name was increasingly Rhomandi.

"Master Khyel" Raulind's voice drew him back to the interior of the coach. "Regarding your promise to the Ve- nitumin House of Lords, will you write your brother, or shall I?" '

Mikhyel winced. "I'd better write to him, Raul, though I appreciate the offer."

Raulind nodded, placing the note from yesterday's meet- ing on the stack of notes destined to consume Mikhyel's evening.

Venitum. Not the largest of the nodes they'd stopped at thus far, but the only one to provide him any real concern.

Not that Venitum hadn't had reason for their antagonism.

Venitum was a small node compared to Giephaetum or Shatum, but within its small umbrella, its dense leythium crystals glowed with unrivaled intensity.

Venitum was a city of metalworkers. The best weapons were made there; artists from all over the web sent their waxes and their plasters to the rather inaccessible mountain node for final casting. Wax and plaster entered the city, the finest jewelry and larger-than-life statues came out. Thanks to the failing web, their production and so their economy, had ground to a near halt in recent weeks.

And for a node that imported all their food and clothing, extended problems with the energy flow could well prove devastating.

When Mikhyel had explained the problem with the Khor- atum line, Juminari, the Venitum Ringmaster, had advo- cated dropping Khoratum altogether, had, in fact, expressed a real desire to return to the pre-Khoratum days when the lightning belt had kept the Kirish'lani raiders at bay. Only a promised visit from the Princeps of Rhomatum to discuss Venitum's special security needs had reconciled the master smiths who ruled in Venitum to the other Rho- mandi proposals.

Deymorin, who was, even as Mikhyel had made that promise, headed for the coastal holdings several days' jour- ney to the west of the Southern Kharatas and Venitum.

Deymorin was going to be so pleased.

"Ganfrion says some of the most seasoned fighters in the web are the farmers on the east side of the Khoramali,"

Raulind said in Raulind's most imperturbable voice.

"Ganfrion says?" Mikhyel echoed. "And since when have you been talking to Ganfrion?"

Raulind's calm demeanor didn't flicker. But then, Raulind's calm demeanor never flickered. "Frequently, m'lord Mikhyel. Ganfrion knows the Khoramali and sug- gests perhaps those farmers could be assets to the border patrol in this region."