The damage to the carriage wasthe captain assured Mikhyel, as Raulind helped him into the welcoming warmth of heavy woolrepairable, and would m'lord care to wait in another coach?

"Thank you. Captain On, but I think I'll walk a bit."

Leaving Raulind to stand by, lest any overlooked papers find their way out of the coach while the repairs were in progress, he wandered along the steep bank until he found a spot where the slope eased, giving a less hazardous access to the river's rocky shore.

He could, if he cared to, believe himself utterly alone here. The rush of water obscured all sounds of his party, as the roll and dip of land, the shrubbery, even a small copse of trees, hid them from sight. And he found that isolation surprisingly appealing.

He might have hesitated, were he completely alonehe wasn't a foolbut he wasn't alone, for all he saw no one following him. Ori would send at least one, if not two men to guard his precious self.

But not the man he'd hired for that express purpose.

Annoying, to have Ganfrion disappear just as fate was about to give him this opportunistic break in routine. This impartial setting would have made an ideal conference hall.

Ganfrion was from the Khoramaliat least, that's what he'd said in that one interviewhad indicated links with the Northern Crescent that might have proven . . .

interesting.

But Ganfrion wasn't here, and Mikhyel would just have to count on Nikki's research, which had, thus far, proven meticulously accurate and complete, if a bit academic.

He ran his hand over the rough bark of one of the small trees, the sensation, like so much else Outside, resonating with his deepest memories of childhood, of the time before his mother's death, before Nikki.

Unusual, to his understanding, that sizable plants should grow this close to a leyroad. Small and twisted, but trees nonetheless. The major leyroads out of Rhomatum had a barren strip a good half-mile wide. But Barsitum was a small node, all its lines, save for its link to Rhomatum, undeveloped buds. He supposed the ground-sterilizing ef- fects of the ley might correlate with that fact.

He also supposed that Anheliaa had known, but it was one of those questions he'd never thought to ask.

A prudent man had to wonder how much Anheliaa had known, and how much had been lost because she took so long to acknowledge her own mortality and begin training an heir.

Anheliaa hadn't presented Lidye to the Rhomatumin creature, but it was possible that Anheliaa herself had never been introduced.

That Anheliaa had known something of the mind- manipulating possibilities was obvious: he'd seen her use them for years. She'd used such pressures against all of them at one time or another.

It was evidence of her awesome presence that they'd never compared their own strange link to Anheliaa's ac- tions against them, and yet he himself according to Dey- morin, prevented his brothers from speaking simply by willing it so.

To have the ability was disturbing, but he was more con- cerned at his own lack of guilt regarding his use of that talent. And he still felt his actions had been justified. Had those abilities been under his conscious control, he might well have done the samewould do the same tomorrow.

Could anyone be so certain of his own principles, his own purpose, that he should overpower another's right to be heardjust because he could?

It was a disturbing thought. He had to wonder how often Anheliaa had questioned her own actionsand more importantly, when she had ceased to question.

His wandering had brought him to a wider point in the river. The water was quieter, the white-frothed rapids flat- tened into swiftly running water. Mikhyel picked up a hand- ful of pebbles, and cast them, one at a time, into that rapid flow.

The action tweaked some far-off memory, of two boys, standing beside a deep, reflective pool, trying to hit a single pink water lily, it being the only distinguishable target in a sea of white and green.

Deymorin had always had the stronger arm, he, the bet- ter aim, as he'd reminded Deymorin during that game of Dancers in the Maze played on a prison floor. But the years, he discovered, trying for a jagged-topped rock rising above the rushing water, had taken their toll.

The first attempt fell short. Far short. The second and third were better as he regained some modicum of coordi- nation, but miserably far off the mark. Too much thinking, he could almost hear Deymorin say, and concentrated on his throw, hearing child-Deymorin's laughter and child- Deymorin's advice: hold your arm so, use your shoulder . . .

elbow . .K-.wrist . . .

With each throw, his aim and his confidence grew. Then his fingers encircled and recognized the perfect stone. With- out looking at it, he fit his fingertips into place, reared back, and let fly.

Arrow-straight, right on target.

An instant before it struck, a second stone, a sunlit flash, struck it aside, deflecting his rock into the water, itself into the jagged rock.

"Dammit, Deymio" he shouted, caught between now and then, and whirled to face a Deymorin-massive silhou- ette, realizing even as he turned that Deymorin couldn't be responsible. Deymorin wasn't here. And if it were Dey- morin, he'd have known without ever looking.

Besides, Deymorin should be almost as out of practice at rock-tossing as he.

"Not bad. Suds," the shadow said, and sauntered for- ward, booted feet finding purchase in the steep bank. With- out pausing, Ganfrion flipped another stone across the water, clipping the topmost spike of that rock, and another, a side-armed snap of a flat stone that skipped three times before disappearing.

"You came back," Mikhyel said. Stupidly.

Ganfrion laughed.

"Brilliant, Suds. Come, you can do better."

"Better?"

A double-footed hop carried Ganfrion the final stage.

His cloak flipped up and snapped down behind him.

"Like: where the hell have you been, you double-dealing bucket of pond slime?"

Mikhyel turned back to the water, tossing the rest of the pebbles at random into the shimmering flow.

"Well?" he said, staring into the sparkling liquid that ate the stones without a ripple, so different from that mirror- like pond of memory.

"Did better this time. Suds."

"Better?"

"Not real vocabularic, are you? Understood you did pretty well with the good brothers of Barsitum."

Ganfrion was baiting him, and he wasn't prepared, with memories of childhood foremost in his mind, to deal with Ganfrion's well-honed tongue. Ganfrion had been off play- ing and run out of money, that was obvious. He came back now to challenge his spineless employer to fire him.

He picked up another handful of stones. Began tossing them idly.

"Shit. Forget it. Suds." Ganfrion set foot to the bank, and the haze of the past suddenly lifted.

"Stop right there."

The man stopped, looking down on him, in every sense, and at a greater vantage than usual, being several steps uphill. But Mikhyel was accustomed to men of greater stat- ure trying to use that advantage to intimidate him. Had grown accustomed long before his own body ceased striving to catch up.

Deymorin wasn't in the way now. His own acts had caused whatever rift might exist between himself and Gan- frion, and if ever he was to make use of Ganfrion's past, he had to take control now.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Too late."

"Where?"

Shaggy brows lifted. "Shatum."

"Why?"

"Heard talk."

"What kind of"

"What kind do you think?"

"I asked"

"Something damnwell significant enough to kill one horse going and founder a second getting back!"

A horse or two wasn't all Ganfrion had overtaxed. The man was dead on his feet, swaying as he stood, so deter- mined not to show weakness, he had to take the most diffi- cult route up the bank.

How like Deymorin.

And they were yelling at each other. Just as he and Deymorin would. Clever of himget rid of one older brother, just to saddle himself with another. But Ganfrion was his man, under his pay.

And Ganfrion had been a soldier.

"Report," he said sharply, and Ganfrion jerked as if he'd been struck with a lash. He stepped down even again with Mikhyel.

"Heard two men talking in the pools."

Mikhyel nodded, a single dip of his chin. "And?"

"Varishmandi men."

"The Varishmandi?"

"The .old sailor himself. Varishmandi's not pleased.

Seems the bottom's about to fall out of the shipping market."

"Why?"

"Seems Auntie Liia was making deals on the side, Suds.

Seems in order to cap Khoratum, Anheliaa promised to cap some big-ass node down in Kirish'lani land, on the far side of one of Shatum's little babes. Seems the trade's all coming overland, real soon now. Seems Shatum's gonna rule the world, but not via the sea routes."

The hidden promise.

"Heard about a little meeting down Shatum-way, a few of the locals and some Kirish'lan reps, and thought I should check it out. Got down there, just in time, invited myself in, and, funny thing, they seem to figure that, even though Anheliaa reneged, well, they've got Papa Fericci's little Miss Lidye in there, and she'll do the deed and within a generation, Shatum will be the biggest damn trade-dump in the world. That Rhomatum will have to dance to her tune or starve."

"Meeting with the locals. Who?"

"GorTarim, among other, lesser souls."

GorTarim. Lidye's father's most trusted man. And Tarim owned ruling stock in Shatum Tower.

"That's what you wanted to tell me, that night in Barsi- tum, isn't it? That you were leaving?"

Ganfrion shrugged.

Damned if he'd apologize, still . . . "I learn from my mistakes."

Another shrug. "Better you than farmboy."

"Deymorin knows what he's doing."

"I'll reserve judgment on your improving self. Deymio's an overeager puppy."

"Deymorin's not a child!" he objected, then cursed si- lently. He was snapping at Ganfrion's bait exactly as he snapped at Deymorin's.

A snort of disbelief, a raised lip that might be disdain, and might just be the scar that twisted the ex-convict's mouth. "No? He'swhat? Thirty-six? -seven? And still running races on the way to war."

"Thirty," Mikhyel admitted reluctantly.

"Really?" Ganfrion's voice hinted at some surprise.

"And yet, he spoke of the Gerinandum Uprising.gs if he'd been there."

"Possible." Mikhyel searched his memory for the event.

"That was some disagreement between Governor Ashriini of Gerinandum and an Outsider . . . taxes, wasn't it? Ten, twelve years ago? Deymorin would have been a senior cadet. I believe he did serve as aide to Erinal."

"A disagreement over taxes," Ganfrion repeated, the sneer profound and indisputable. He shook his head and started again to leave, this time along Mikhyel's easier route. But as he brushed past, Mikhyel caught a muttered: "Rhomatumin khysswi."

"Hold!" Mikhyel barked, and the man turned a sullen eye toward him. "Explain yourself!"

Ganfrion shrugged. "Khysswi. It's a little lizard, m'lord Rhomandi. When the world displeases it, it burrows into the sand. Only once its front is buried, it deems itself safe and ceases to burrow, leaving its ass high and dry for the next passing predator's lunch."

"And my ass is similarly at risk?"

Ganfrion leaned back as if to check that appropriate ana- tomical component. "Possibly. If not, you'd be a decided anomaly among Insider Rhomatumin, now wouldn't you?"

"Would I?"

"Mauritum isn't the first threat to your borders, Rhoma- tumin Khysswi. Every time the storms cycle into dormancy, the Panidori threaten Orenum in the north, Kirish'lan pushes the entire south. Auntie Liia capped Khoratum, and all of a sudden, the storms stopped and all hell broke loose on the borderlands. There in your valley, surrounded by your satellites, you ignore everything. You treat such activ- ity as 'disagreements.' Where do you think men like me come from? Who do you think your brother's hiring to buttress that coastline? What does he think he's going to be leading?"

All the while he talked, Ganfrion scowled and slapped his palm with his riding crop. Suddenly, that crop snapped to a quivering halt, gloved fingers curling around it.

"Wasting my time. Suds," he said, and the passion faded from his voice and his face, leaving only the face of a man weary in every sense of the word. "More comfortable living in your fantasy world. And that fantasy will probably sur- vive your lifetime, though ignorance may well shorten the lifetime."