Exuding desire . . .

He should be thankful, he supposed, that the fellow had also deigned to give him valuable insight into Temorii.

Such a simple explanation, though obviously, not simple to Temorii. Or the young man. The motherly maid, who was, it turned out, the proprietor's good wife, had listened to his embarrassed explanation, and confirmed the likely harmless nature of the stains (though how she could know was beyond his male comprehension). She'd clucked with understanding, called him a good laddy and told him not to worry about the Poor Young Thing, and lamented how many there were on the streets and in the alleys these days.

When the woman had left, he'd added her name to the list of Khoratumin business owners the Rhomandi intended to support in the future.

It was a very short list. One thing had become abun- dantly clear in his daily tours: Rhyys dunTarec did not de- serve to be in power in Khoratum. Neither did those who endorsed him. Rhyys had bullied his people into consider- ing him something like the old kings of Maurislan, but gave them nothing in return. The outside investors he'd lured in, Nethaalye's father included, were so obsessed with their own short-term gain, they'd willingly supported his despo- tism to the detriment of the natives.

From Nikki's reports, one would assume Khoratum pros- perous and developing right on track for a new node. How- ever those analyses were purely theoretical. There had been no nodes capped in recent history. The original satellites had all been similarly struggling and intersupportive in the first century after the Founding.

Not so Khoratum.

Khoratum was being raped by her elder siblings. Her mineral-rich mines were being stripped, her fur-trapping and sheep-herding natives were being robbed (he'd seen what their wool and furs brought elsewhere in the web particularly on the Shatumin export tables) and the money was going into the pockets of the Northern Crescent rich and Rhyys dunTareC in particular.

He'd learned enough to start asking more pointed ques- tions, and he no longer fooled himself that Rhyys' intents were defensive. If he understood correctly the gossip of the uniformed individuals crowding the streets, he'd learned yesterday that this petty demagogue was urging revolt against Rhomatumor at least, the Rhomandi.

But Rhyys, so the most vindictive claimed, needed to do something. Rhyys had ruled by virtue of Anheliaa's back- ing; and with Anheliaa gone, the guards maintained, Rhyys would be deposed within the year.

Mikhyel settled the scarf around his neck, and headed out the door.

Today, with luck, he'd learn the details of that revolt.

With a bit more luck, he'd find a certain, rather skinny native girl with a headache.

d ~ ~ "Now, where have I seen this before?"

The scarred hand stroked the heavy wool weighing Thy- erri's shoulders down, then jerked back the cloak's hood, grabbing a fistful of hair in the process, exposing Thyerri's anger-flushed cheeks to the chill of winter, that radiated still from the stone walls of the old fortress.

Scarface stepped back to Rhyys' side, a puzzled expres- sion twisting his already twisted features. Rhyys just looked bored, one leg propped on the prison-master's battered table.

As a dog lifted its leg to mark territory, was Thyerri's sullen thought.

Thyerri had spent the night in a cell as black as death and empty except for himself and the rats. He'd been taken there without explanation, and this morningat least he thought it was morninghe'd been brought to this place.

He was cold, he was tired, he was hungry . . , and he was scared.

Without giving Thyerri more than a cursory glance, Rhyys said, "This is a waste of time. Street-scut won't find us dunMheric. Besides, it can't be duuMheric. This dun- Kharin has been in Khoratum for at least four days; dun- Mheric was in Giephaetum seven days ago at most. There have been no private entries into Khoratum in two days, and the common coach takes at least six daysfrequently seven. It's so annoying the Syndicate hasn't financed that new road"

"Rule one of a ringmaster, dunTarec," Scarface inter- rupted. "Never base your sense of what is possible on the experiences of the masses."

And how, Thyerri wondered bitterly, did this Scarface know so much?

"The tavern owner claimed resemblance," Scarface con- tinued. "Captain Eelanghi heard this . . . charming young creature call him dunMheric, to which he responded. Think what you will, I believe your street scut might indeed help us follow his movements. Well, scut?"

Thyerri said, in the language of the hills: "May the ley- mother eat your flesh and piss it to the twelve winds."

Rhyys lurched upright and signaled Thyerri's guard, who struck Thyerri a backhanded blow that spun him to the stone floor.

Stupid, he thought, pushing himself up with arms whose elbows seemed to bend every way but normal, and he won- dered how the gods had ever allowed so great an idiot to survive as long as he had.

But Rhyys and Scarface roused hatred in him. Hatred and anger, the two emotions more destructive to a dancer's gift than lust. Emotions he'd been trained to control.

Further proof, as if he needed it, that the rings were lost to him forever.

Hands pulled him up and to his feet, and recognition dawned in Scarface's eyes, so close now to his. "You cut your hair." Those scarred fingers combed through the rag- ged tangle. "How sad. The fire perhaps? One does trust the flames damaged nothing essential."

Thyerri said nothing.

"I think, dunTarec, you've a valuable asset here. I sug- gest you don't waste it."

Rhyys approached him then, scanning him down the length of his prominent nose. Then he grabbed Thyerri's chin and held him for a different kind of examination. And suddenly, his eyes narrowed, his mouth hardened, and he turned abruptly away.

"Remove the cloak," he commanded the guard, who jerked the garment free, letting it drop to the floor. "And the rest."

"No!" Thyerri protested, but he had no real hope against the guards, and within moments, they had him stripped and spread on the floor, like a beast for gelding. Eyes closed, Rhyys knelt on one knee beside him, dragging a hand over his naked, chilling flesh. Face, neck, hands and arms . . . a dehumanizing, intimate examination that extended to his toes.

All without ever looking at what he touched.

It wasn't the first time Thyerri had been forced to endure this type of inspection. Rhyys claimed that after such a tour of their bodies, he would always know them. They all en- dured it once: it was one of the prices to pay for the dance.

They universally hated Rhyys.

Without a word, Rhyys rose to his feet and moved out of Thyerri's limited view. Someone threw the cloak across Thyerri's body, but the guards at his wrists and ankles still held him immobile.

"Are you quite finished?" Scarface drawled, and Rhyys returned to Thyerri's range of sight, wiping his hands deli- cately on an embroidered cloth.

"Do what you want," Rhyys said. "Make what promises you choose. It will avail you nothing. I've dealt with this person before."

He strode abruptly from the room.

"Leave us," Scarface said, and when the guards hesi- tated, "Now!"

Thyerri was free. He jerked upright, fighting stiffening limbs to grab his clothing. He was decent again before the door closed behind the final guard.

"Now," Scarface said, handing him the cloak, which he pulled on against the room's chill and Scarface's flagrant interest. "Let's talk."

Thyerri threw himself into a plain wooden chair, drew his bare feet up and huddled in the cloak's concealing folds.

"That was Mikhyel dunMheric in the alley with you, was it not?"

Thyerri refused to meet the scar-rimmed eyes. He knew.

He didn't need a street-scut's endorsement.

"And have you enchanted the middle Rhomandi the way you enchanted us? Is he keeping you?"

Thyerri shook his head, a brief, fierce denial.

"Ah. Then who did he follow into that alleyway, directly from his room?"

So, they'd been tailing dunMheric all along. They didn't need him at all.

A back-handed slap rocked his head to the side. "Who?"

"Temorii." If they'd been following dunMheric, they al- ready knew anyway.

"A young woman?"

Thyerri shrugged.

"How disappointing for you."

Thyerri jerked to his feet and paced the room. "Dun- Mheric's interests mean nothing to me. They mean disaster for Temorii."

"Because she would be a dancer?"

More insightful than Rhyys, this scarfaced man.

"Well. What is your name?"

"Thyerri," he answered sullenly, past a lip already swell- ing from his last insolence.

"Well, Thyerri," his name was clipped and ugly in this foreigner's speaking, "I think you would do well to encour- age this young woman to return to dunMheric, in whatever capacity he wants her."

Thyerri spun to face him. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, but I am. child. I think you will do this because I think you want, above all else, to live."

Before Thyerri could avoid him, Scarface reached out and clamped his long fingers around Thyerri's head, holding him in a flesh-and-bone vise. And it was as if those fingers grew right through his skull, sending tendrils throughout his body. A touch more horrifying and base than Rhyys'

crude methods could hope to match.

Worst of all, he couldn't move, couldn't escape that inva- sion, until the tendrils retreated, and the hands left him.

The moment he was able, he jerked away, toward the door, knowing, all the while, that escape was impossible. Ever.

"I do know you now, child," Scarface's velvet voice con- firmed his fears. "You can't hide anywhere within the web, that the Khoratum Rings can't find you."

"You're not Khoratum's master."

"No? Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are wrong. It's your life you wager. You are wanted for murder, child, and for arson. And for attempting to assassinate the Khora- tum Ringmaster."

Thyerri tried to conquer his shaking limbs, found his only safety in the wedge between floor and wall.

"Whwhat do you want of me?"

"Very good, Thyerri." That velvet approbation made his gut quiver in horrified objection. "It's quite simple, really.

I want to know where dunMheric goes and why he goes there. I want to know why he's living in squalor when he could be living in Khoratum Tower luxury, sampling Rhyys' hospitality."

"I All right. II'll try."

"Good child. And, I want a hold on him. Emotional, rational, whatever and as much as you can get. I want con- trol over him, sweet Thyerri, as I have control over you.

Do you understand?"

Thyerri did understand. All too well.

Chapter 5even.

"Aand then, Ringmaster loniia, sh-she began scream- ing." Though the rather lumpish Orenumin kept his voice to a near-whisper, nothing could hide the tremor com- pletely. "We could hear her even through those great thick doors, saying they were all crazy and dunTarec was going to land us all in Sparingate, if they didn't destroy the web and all the nodes in the process!"

Urichi dunRondri reached a shaking hand for his mug.

It was empty. Mikhyel caught the eye of the waiter, who brought replacements for both their mugs, for all Mikhyel's was untouched.

It maintained the illusion, for anyone sober enough to take note.

This was Mikhyel's third encounter with the assistant to the Orenum governor's legal advisor's secretary. The first, a chance meeting in a small inter-node bookstore in Greater Khoratum, had led to supper in this tavern rather farther downhill, during which they'd compared notes on Bernoi professors. (Mikhyel hadn't mentioned to the much older dunRondri that those same professors had been his private tutors.) By the close of their second shared meal in as many days, dunRondri had ceased to think of Korelli dunKharin as anything but a fellow traveler through the maze of a world grown too complex.

Tonight, the man was shaking with the ramifications of what his superiors were concocting in upper Khoratum's back rooms.

"It's enough to drive a man mad." Mikhyel kept his voice hushed, conspiratorial. "They treat us as if we're furniture.

As if we have no consciences. They say anything, do any- thing and we must live with tl)e knowing, the wondering when the powers will come down on our heads because theirs are so well-protected!"

DunRondri's head nodded mournfully.

Mikhyel dropped his voice to a near-whisper and dun- Rondri's head bent closer. "I used to work outside old Pen- eriiac's office. He'd be raging inside, saying things I knew I didn't want to know about, but if I left my desk, it would mean my job." He took a sip of his ale and set the mug down, letting it rattle a bit, then hid his hands beneath the table. "And the students who came to 'conference' . . .

rings, if I didn't care if I never worked again, I could tell the admin a thing or two about their favorites. But some- how, I doubt Peneriiac's neck would be the one cut."

A hand touched his sleeve under the cover of the table.

"And I'll bet it wasn't just students who bad to conference with old Pen, was it?"

He hadn't considered that interpretation of his comment, and wondered briefly, and in some irritation, what it was about him that inspired such notions. Careless of him, Gan- frion would say. Ganfrion would say of course he should have expected it, along with many other possibilities.

But he saw no reason to deny it. It wasn't as if he was maligning an innocent man's name. He flicked a glance up at the compassionate, round face, and lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug.