"Meaning our seniors might," dunKharec said.

Mikhyel just lifted an eyebrow.

DunKharec laughed. "You're absolutely correct in .that assessment, dunMheric. We'll get you those signatures.

Would that you'd been Anhehaa's adviser when the first Khoratum contracts were signed."

"I've no argument there, madam. But these new agreements should clear some long-muddied waters. The main thing is, we must look to the future, near as well as far. We cannot afford to be operating at cross-purposes for personal gain. The Rhomandi fortune is now dedicated to the security of the web, but beggaring the Rhomandi will not ensure that end. If I can rely on you all to keep me apprised of the situation here in Shatum"

"You are as naive as your brother, sir."

"On the contrary, I hope for integrity on the part of those I deal with. I hope that problems will be dealt with as they arise, not after the fact. If those I expect to deal with me honestly fail to do so, I have, as you may well imagine, other sources of information."

"As have we, dunMheric."

"I would be disappointed if it were otherwise."

Mikhyel smiled, nodded, and left the small room. Outside the door. Ringmaster Pasingarim's second awaited him.

~ ~ fgt Mikhyel was missing the party.

Even as he smiled and chatted with the various dignitar- ies and their families, Deymorin searched the edges of the great hall for signs of the true guest of honor.

He'd last seen his brother following the meeting, and parted from him on the understanding that they would meet here. Mikhyel was awake and nearand wellthe inner sense assured him of that much, but little else. And now, the bulk of the organized festivities were over, and the attendees were settling into serious debauchery.

"So, Rhomandi, did you ever get your sea voyage?"

"Kharl!" Deymorin rose from the low couch to greet the Varishmondi with something approaching real enthusiasm.

"Please, sit down." And as they settled opposite one an- other, on the u-shaped couch: "No, more's the pity. Lake sailing is the best I've ever managed."

"Well, still plenty of time." The big man leaned forward to help himself from the common trays on the low round table between them.

The odd couches had been set in a rather freeform pat- tern around three sides of the room, leaving the center clear for the various performers who had come and gone all evening. The food trays presented a constantly changing array of choices, and the wine never stopped flowing.

Ten 3?ears ago, he'd have been in real trouble; many of the guests tonight hadn't yet learned their lesson.

But Kibarl had. Kharl was quite sober.

"I'm relieved you're speaking to me," Deymorin said, by way of opening.

"And why wouldn't I speak with the son of my old friend, Mheric?"

"From the way you looked this afternoon. I'd have judged the friendship died along with my father. We haven't seen much of you in Rhomatum these past years."

"I'd not been invited."

"I wasn't aware my father ever extended an invitation."

"Our understanding was an old one. I had no reason to believe Anheliaa's nephews would welcome my presence."

"Anheliaa's nephews. Ah, we have created a false image.

My apologies, Lord Varishmondi. Let me extend, here and now, a standing invitationto Rhomatum or Darhaven."

The Varishmondi dipped his head in easy acknowledg- ment. "My thanks, Rhomandi. And I extend the same to you." A sip of wine, a casual, "False image, you said. And your brother, this afternoon, implied similar internal fric- tion. Am I to understand that the two of you are not of her expansionist tendencies?"

Deymorin gave a short laugh. "I should think my stand on that was made clear years ago. I disapproved of the Khoratum expansion."

"Ah, yes. For the sake of the farmers who lost their land with the expanding umbrella, as I recall."

"That, mainly, yes. But Khoratum is done now, an ac- complished fact. I think we must protect what we have, get it running smoothly, and discuss the future when the past is secure."

"And your brothers are of similar opinion?"

"Definitely."

"Your brother, Mikhyel, is not here."

"I expected him to be. It's possible he's not feeling well.

He's been on the road now for several days."

"He did seem rather . . . shaken at times this afternoon."

Deymorin answered cautiously, "He's been ill. The ley- portation that your ringmaster so blithely inquired about puts an . . . unusual strain on the body. And since his ordeal, there's been the Collapse, and Anheliaa's death . . .

he's had no real time to rest."

"And yet, you have been under similar strain . ' . ?"

"Mikhyel is not, as you can see, the most robusf'of men.

That he is still on his feet is, at times, a marvel to iqe. And I stand in awe of his abilities to handle a meeting such as he faced this afternoon."

"He always has . . . spoken well. You've both grown up quite effectively."

The joys of dealing with one's father's old friends. Dey- morin felt the smile on his face grow rigid, and he reached for the wine carafe to refill both their goblets.

8 ~ ~.

With Ringmaster Pasingarim's cautiously worded advise- ment to his fellow ringmasters safely pressed in his pocket, Mikhyel made his way at last to the banquet hall.

While he'd been reluctant to begin this tour, sessions such as the meeting just concluded increasingly reconciled him to his fate. The intricate maneuverings, the second- guessing of his opponents . . . he'd spent a lifetime prepar- ing for this night and he now reveled in his sense of achievement.

He paused in the shadows, reluctant to enter a room where music and swirling skirts and strongly-spiced food overloaded a sober man's senses.

Deymorin was sprawled on one of the low Shatumin din- ner couches, opposite (Darius save them all) Kharl Varishmandi.

"They're talking about you. Suds," Ganfrion's voice, pitched for his ears only, arose out of even deeper shadows.

"Tell me something I don't know," Mikhyel muttered, without looking back.

"How about, they're wondering who's been running Rhomatum all these years."

"Who's wondering?"

"Take your pick. Kitchen. Stables. Board rooms. Word is you lost it today. Word is you recite from a script. Word is, big brother's here because baby Mikhyel needs him.

Word is, baby Miwayel nearly lost it this afternoon. Word is, the two of you together still don't match Anheliaa. Word is, you were Anheliaa's parrot, not a brain."

He closed his eyes on the dizzying swirl, realized, when that didn't stop the images, that his discomfiture came from his brother's wine-scewed vision, and cursed.

"You-might say that," Ganfrion murmured. "DunHaul- pin used to say Mheric's brat was the best trained monkey he'd ever seen."

In the four years between his mother's death and Mher- ic's, Mikhyel had served many functions for his father: ser- vant to romPetikh's fancy teas, performer (sometimes complete to having strings attached to his limbs so that Mheric could manipulate him like a puppet) ...

"DunHaulpin used to say you couldn't possibly under- stand what you were saying."

Orator for dunBisin's overwritten plays. He'd been good with words. Mheric and his friends had thought it amusing to hear a child spout rhetoric he couldn't possibly comprehend.

But he had understood. He'd understood the words he used, and he'd understood the words underlying the laugh- ter of the men and women watching. And he'd used that knowledge to his own advantage after Mheric's death, just as he'd later used the oratory skills addressing the Syndi- cate and the Council.

"Have to wonder who all dunHaulpin talked to."

Nothing new in that. As he'd told Deymorin, he'd fought those rumors his entire career. But perhaps he was only now facing them for truth. Varishmondi had been his fa- ther's friend. Varishmondi had seen the puppet spout those ill-written lines and make them convincing.

"You convinced dunHaulpin differently," Ganfrion's maddening voice continued. "How're you going to convince this lot, eh?"

"Go tap your kitchen maids," Mikhyel muttered back, slipping into the room.

Deymorin caught sight of him immediately and waved him over to his side. As he approached, Deymorin laughed and swung upright to give him sitting space on his couch.

"Kharl, this is my brother, Mikhyel," Deymorin said, wrapping an arm around Mikhyel's shoulders. "Fry, this is Kharl. He's taking us sailing tomorrow, so be nice."

Khari Varishmandi was not drunk. Kharl Varishmandi was looking at him, wondering what kind of man would put up with such treatment in public.

Mikhyel stiffened, humiliated, tempted to tell Deymorin exactly what he thought of his behavior. But to challenge him openly would solve nothing and might possi~jQjr under- mine the good he'd accomplished in the past few hours.

Deymorin's mind was hazed with drinkexactly as he'd feared would happen. He'd seen it often enough in the past.

He'd thought Deymorin had outgrown such behavior.

Obviously, he'd thought wrong.

But to chastise Deymorin now would gain him nothing, and would almost certainly hurt their cause. The men and women in the hall, most of them at least as drunk as Dey- morin, were not likely to remember anything clearly in the morning, so rather than cause a scene, he smiled, and greeted the Varishmandi patriarch and said he would be delighted to join him on a tour of the lake tomorrow.

"Did you see that creature at table five?"

A rude sound responded out of the darkness that was Thyerri's new bedroom.

"She elbowed m' privates ever' time I had f squeeze past 'er!" Shtolis' youngish voice continued. "Pinched me comin' an' goin', I tell ye. Had me soundin' like Mishthi by th' time she left!"

"She wanted you, Shtolis," someone said, in a low, sug- gestive voice. "She needed your hot, young"

Another rude sound. A loud pretense of someone being sick. A laughing comment about faces and being flat as a cold balloon.

Thyerri tried to ignore them all.

The new sleeping room was one of the smaller halls in Bharlori's newest investment. True to his promise, Bharlo had expanded into a neighboring building. His new room- mates were the five hillers Bharlori had hired to wait tables.

The girls had their own quarters.

Thyerri wasn't certain he liked the arrangement, he'd grown rather fond of Mishthi's silly chatter. And the easy sharing of warmth to which he'd become accustomed was out of the question with the strangers who now shared his nights.

Male strangers who filled the room, in the dark moments before sleep, with coarse language and coarser imagery.

"Wha~t;ss your problem, boy?" The low voice againFri- vori, Thyerri thoughtand mocking. "Her money's as good as any beauty's. Better, likely, 'cuz there'll be more of it.

And they're all the same in the dark."

Loud protests interrupted, and Thyerri pulled his pillow over his head, trying to block out the sounds.

His new roommates only served to remind him of the distance between himself and those who should be his peers. As a child not much younger than Shtolis he'd roamed the mountain meadows, more wild than the goats and sheep he chased. He'd watched them mate, seen count- less births, but never equated those natural acts to his own life.

Radical dancers never spoke among themselves of love or lust or children. It was bad luck and stupid. One thought only of the dance, rarely even of one's physical differences, except to compare the relative value of muscle and bulk, and to wish for that person's wrists, or another's flexibility.

Waiting tables, he heard the talk of the men and women he served, and he learned to avoid the inevitable bids for his attention. But he never thought beyond the sheer logis- tics of avoiding probing, clutching fingers while balancing a tray and without antagonizing the customer.

He knew, in a distant way, the effect his dancing had on the viewers, and why it had become so popular in the late hours of the evening here, and why he'd become so signifi- cant to Bharlori that the owner had posted signs warning against groping the dancers.

But it had all been a distant, detached knowledge, for all his new roommates believed otherwise, and for all they grumbled about bedroom favorites when Bharlori failed to chastise him when he was clearly in the wrong.

Fortunately, there had always been work enough to ex- haust the strongest body until the need for sleep could muf- fle the most raucous laughter.

Until recently. Until that damnable poster appeared out- side the tavern. These nights, in those dim moments before sleep, with the poster and the upcoming competition re- minding him of all that could never be, and his own recon- ciliation with his present life asking why he persisted with impossible dreams of the past, those other images, images with Tamshi eyes, seeped inexorably past the newly redis- covered mountain music, striking chords of an altogether different melody within his body.

~ d ~ Music echoed in Mikhyel's ears as he fell into the groom- ing chair, exhausted. Evidently Deymorin hadn't gone to bed as he'd said were his intentions.

Mikhyel groaned and tried to blank his mind of every- thing except the rhythmic stroking of Raulind's brushes through his hair.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Raulind asked.

"It's Deymio."

"You feel him now?"