Best, he told himself, to encourage that relationshipin both of them.

Either way, in an hour, they'd be on the coach to Ore- num and by tonight, (thanks to late night conversations with his brothers) a long-lost cousin would have met them and carried them off for a family reunion.

And hopefully, he thought as he pulled the door closed for a final time and followed a haughty Thyerri dunMatrii down the hallway, along with that family reunion would come a return of his old serenity of mind.

It was evening when the cart pulled into the camp.

Campfires dotted the darkness like a painting of the origi- nal Darian Exodus. Rather more numerous than Deymorin had led him to expect, those dots of light lay in orderly rows, along a black mass of hillside that, according to Deymorin's thought picture, should have caves where the men could shelter in the event of a lightning storm.

As the cart bumped and rattled to a halt near the central- most fire, Mikhyel slid off the open back amid a small cas- cade of straw. He turned and held his hands out to Temorii, but she harrumphed and jumped down alone, with a mut- tered: "You wouldn't help Thyerri, would you?"

In answer, he hoisted the valise from the cart bed and heaved it at her; she caught it with greater ease than he had thrown it, grinned, and set it down gently.

"Well, Rhomandi, I see you survived."

He swung around to face the owner of the distinctive, gritty voice. "Rhomandi?" he echoed, and before he could prevent it, an idiotic grin stretched his face. "I'm coming up in the world!"

Ganfrion's large paw surrounded his hand and he real- ized a ridiculous satisfaction when Ganfrion's other hand gripped his shoulder.

"* see you brought backup for your backup," he said, and waved his arm to indicate the campfires.

"Just in case, Khyel. Just in . . ."

Through that double hold, he sensed Ganfrion's sudden tension, and Ganfrion looked beyond him to where Thy- erriTemorii stood waiting. The lace-edged cravat hadn't endured beyond the last sight of the posting inn. Her coat hung free, her shirt lay open halfway to her cummerbund, her hair was straggling free of the queue and with her hip- cocked, hands-on-hips stance, she looked like a would-be rakehell-in-training a good half-year short of his first real shave.

"And who is this?" Ganfrion asked, in his most unwel- coming tone.

While Mikhyel hesitated, Temorii stepped boldly for- ward, into Ganfrion's fire-cast shadow, and held out her hand.

"Name's Thyerri," she announced cockily. "Thyerri dun- Matrii. And you?"

Ganfrion frowned and shifted, taking his shadow with him, casting Temorii into full firelight. Temorii shied back- ward, blinking, but then moved willingly enough into the light.

Ganfrion grunted and took her offered hand. "Call me Gan."

"Yessir!" Temorii snapped into a salute rather like the most pompous of the guards crowding Lesser Khoratum, then hefted Mikhyel's portmanteau to her shoulder. "And where should I take this, m'lord Khy?"

"Over here, lad," a cool voice answered her from the largest tent's open flap, and Mikhyel felt the last of his tension slip away, as he crossed the firelit camp to greet Raulind.

Temorii's attempted deception lasted no longer than Raulind's decision that "Thyer.ri" should share Mikhyel's tent rather than sleep outside with the men. Temorii watched Mikhyel like an eager puppy, waiting.

Mikhyel took Raulind inside the tent and explained, to Raul and to Ganfrion. Raulind said he'd suspected as much; Ganfrion said nothing.

And, in fact, over the course of the following days, Gan- frion proved less thrilled overall about the sudden addition to Mikhyel's personal entourage. The ex-inmate, ex-guard, ex-soldier said nothing overt, but the way he watched Tem- orii's every move left little doubt that his interest had noth- ing to do with her femininity, and everything to do with her city of origin and the circumstances under which she'd come into Mikhyel dunMheric's life.

Raulind, on the other hand, had obviously decided she was a much needed addition to Mikhyel's life. And since the last thing Mikhyel could claim was impartiality where Temorii was concerned, he tried very hard to listen more to Ganfrion's caution than to Raulind's smiles.

If he was a fool to trust her, he'd rather know that before entering Khoratum Tower than after.

They spent two weeks, there in the mountainside camp.

Eighteen days for the official announcement of his revised plans to arrive in Khoratum, and to allow for fictitious travel time from Rhomatum. Eighteen days for Mikhyel to answer the accumulated mail and paperworkand eighteen days for his beard to grow back, a surprisingly tedious task, lacking the influence of Rhomatum's leythium pool.

And he had time to acquaint himself with the additional men Ganfrion had brought. Ganfrion was not, he was re- lieved to discover, actually in charge of the small army.

Ganfrion wasby his own choice, according to Raulind fulfilling the exact function Mikhyel had hired him to per- form, taking independent forays, keeping track of Mikhyel's interests and Mikhyel's safety.

And in fact, during that time of waiting, Ganfrion twice disappeared, to return bringing updates on who was newly in Khoratum and with what agenda and what forces.

Temorii arose early, exercised, ate, exercised, ate, exer- cised and ate again. Mikhyel heard stories about her activi- ties, but he had work to do, and endeavored not to give in to her allure. Besides, he imagined the last thing she wanted was him for an audience, although that excuse might well be wish fulfillment on his part.

Halfway through the fourth day, however, his hand cramping with fatigue, he excused himself to Paulis, who, like Raulind, had come of his own will to assist Mikhyel, and escaped into the mountain sunshine. He stretched and inhaled the brisk air . . . and wondered if he dare comman- deer Raulind's hands for a rubdown in the middle of the morning.

But the stiff joints were merely the result of too much sitting. Even in Rhomatum, he'd spend much of the day walking, and in Khoratum, he'd grown accustomed to a great deal more activity. He had insisted Paulis take exer- cise with the men, but hadn't dared expose himself so closely to Temorii's presence.

That, he knew, was foolishness indeed. And so, this morning, rather than disturb Raulind, he wandered down a goat path widened and trampled by hundreds of human footsteps.

Somewhere the path met a river . . . or so he'd been told. The farthest he'd been from his tent was the offi- cer's latrine.

Some small creature darted across the path in front of him and he paused, watching it scamper up a tree. A breeze rustled down through the trees and tried to insinuate itself inside his coat, blowing strands of hair in his eyes. His attempts to lodge the strands back into the simple braid succeeded only in setting more strands free.

On a whim, he pulled the pin from his hair and let the braid slither free. The wind infiltrated the strands like the slenderest of fingers and lifted it from his scalp. It was a wild feeling. A feeling of freedom. A minor freedom, with- out doubt, but an accomplishment, even so.

He leaned his shoulder against a tree and closed his eyes, feeling the strain seep out of his body into the tree's sturdy bole, receiving, in his turn, a strength and vitality, almost as though from the earth itself.

Slowly, around the edges of the breeze, came a sound so like the wind and the birds in the trees that it took a mo- ment for him to realize it was man-made.

A flute.

Curious, he followed the sweet sound to its source and found a group of about a dozen trainees on their midday break. They were lounging about the edges of a clearing, where the torn and trampled ground, the practice weapons and padding stacked at one end of the grass indicated they'd spent the morning practicing.

The sound of the flute came from a slight figure dressed in hiller garb and sitting among the men. Farther down the hill, sheep dotted the grass.

In the center of the clearing ...

Mikhyel's heart stopped. His head grew light. He reached a hand to the nearest tree and braced himself against its solid mass, seeking, without success, that earlier stability.

Like a bird in flight, Temorii leaped and dived, swooped and twisted in and around the flute's light melody. She was everything of beauty he'd ever seen and like nothing he'd seen before.

He told himself firmly he'd seen dancers before, dancers of all varieties, and the best always had this ability to hold an audience breathless. And ringdancers, with their gym- nastic twisting flights among the rings were some of the most spectacular.

But none had ever made his heart soar with them.

And this ringdancer had no rings, only her slender body clothed in little more than a loincloth and one of his old shirtsand a rope. She carried a short length of rope that sometimes whippedlike a dance ringaround her as she soared through the air, and sometimes snaked around her body in undulating pathsthe way the radical streamer slithered among the Tower rings. And at times the rope floated high into the air, seemingly forgotten, until a toe caught it and returned it toJher waiting hand.

Like a childan impossibly skilled and beautiful child playing with a toy.

It was common knowledge that in Khoratum the radical dance was different from all other nodes, but he'd been led to believe, by the legal arguments, that it was the Khoratum dance rings with their sharpened edges that created that difference, not the dancers themselves.

For the last three years there had been ongoing debate over whether or not the Khoratumin radical dance should be outlawed. There were those who said the Khoratum rings with their sharpened leading edges were too danger- ous, and that the mystery surrounding the dance training held too much religious connotation.

No one ever mentioned the magic that lay within the dancers themselves. Seeing Temorii, he could well under- stand why others might fear the standard such a dancer might set.

Or perhaps it was only Temorii who could cast this par- ticular spell. And perhaps only Mikhyel dunMheric who could be so mesmerized.

(Oh, Tern . . .} he thought, and bit his lip to keep from saying her name aloud. Her head twisted up and around, and he thought, for a moment, she'd heard him, the way his brothers could. But her eyes flitted past his shadow, the flute shifted to a more sultry mood, and her dance flowed to a different pace.

He rested his head against the tree, unable to pull himself from the view. Only he, Deymorin would say, would fall in love with the one person he knew he couldn't have. And yet that inaccessibility was probably her greatest charm, his most cynical self pointed out. She was safe for Mikhyel dunMheric to love: she couldn't return his affection, and by her very birth, she was utterly unsuitable for a Rhomandi to wed.

He was (horrifying thought) as blindly, foolishly romantic as Nikki.

But here in the trees, he could indulge, just for a mo- ment, the sort of foolish dreams he'd never even thought to have before.

Cheers rang out. She'd finished. He was free.

While the lounging men thronged about her, laughing and exclaiming, and throwing "Thyerri" high in the air, Mikhyel pushed away from the tree and began walking back toward the camp. With half the distance yet to go, the men began to rush past him, running, laughing, chal- lenging one another to foot races.

Mikhyel stepped well off the path, moving slowly, sa- voring his fleeting images.

"Khy? Khy, wait!" The voice of his dream cried out. A voice that made a song of his name. "It came back today!

Khy, did you see? It was back!" And in the next moment, light footfalls ran up behind him, and a hand grabbed his arm. "Did you see, Khy? Did you?"

Her voice was breathless as she skipped along beside him, the smile on her face wide and bright.

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

The smile dimmed, a line appeared between her brows.

"Well?"

It was Thyerri's cheeky demand, and Temorii's uncertain plea all wrapped into one word.

He sought the control and the words, and neither came.

Temorii biinked and bit her lip. Then her face hardened, the lower lip pouted ever so slightly, and his little brother Thyerri said, "Never mind. I don't"

He stopped and caught her arm, interrupting her, forcing her to face him.

"I think" His voice came out in a hoarse rush.. "I think that you lied to me."

Her eyes went wide, her face blanched. "I"

"You said," he continued, "that you were the best damned radical to ever challenge the Khoratum rings."

"I am."

He shook his head. "If that" He tipped his head back toward the clearing. "is any indication, you're the best damned radical to ever challenge any rings."

Her mouth snapped shut. Her head tipped, and then sun- light again ruled her face. She laughed and grabbed his - hands and began swinging him about.

He-protested and pulled her to a stop. He was gasping.

She stood staring at him. His hair had wrapped fine ten- drils around their clasped hands as they whirled, keeping them close. Without looking down, she freed the strands, then twisted her fingers in and around them, absently play- ing with his hair as she'd played with the rope, slowly add- ing new strands to those she already held captive.

Breath came shallow and shaken. He opened his mouth, wanting to free himself of her, but, eyes still locked on his, she took a step uphill, away from the camp, and tugged gently on the hair bridge between them.

"Come with me?" she pleaded. "Just to walk."

He thought of Paulis, and the letters, and what Ganfrion would say about his going off alone . . . And then, he saw Ganfrion, standing deep in the shadows of the trees . . .

which meant, Ganfrion wanted him to see. Which also meant, Ganfrion would follow him.

And he could follow his . . . hand.

From that time on, it became a tacit agreement. Twice a day, dressed in simple clothing of Ganfrion's provision, he'd follow her up the mountain slopes. She teased him into run- ning, albeit for very short distances, and showed him exer- cises that had him finding muscles he'd never dreamed existed.

Finding, but not debilitating them, as Ganfrion (from the wicked jibes leveled at him across an evening fire) obvi- ously anticipated. Thanks to Raulind's nightly massage and healing oils, Ganfrion's anticipation was doomed to disappointment.

It wasn't as if he'd led a sedentary life. Every city dweller knew the dangers of growing too lazy. There was walking, swimming, even the occasional workout in the gymnasium with the Tower trainers. He wasn't Deymorin, who despite his leg could challenge the best horsemen and fencers in Rhomatum, and he certainly wasn't Nikki, whose youthful vigor and enthusiasm more than made up for any lack in talent or training. But he was healthy, in an average sort of way, his body sufficient for the tasks he'd set it.

Compared to Temorii, he was an unformed child.

Temorii danced, even without music. Or her movellRent was . . . visual music. Or she made any sound into music.

There were no words to describe that which the sight of her skipping and tumbling and spinning along a mountain trail created inside him. His greatest difficulty in following her instructions was the constant temptation simply to watch her move.

For himself, he considered it an accomplishment when, on the morning before they were scheduled to leave for Khoratum, he finally managed thirty pushups with some ease. Even as he congratulated himself, Temonii laughed and crawled onto his back, bugging him, and ordered ten more.

He struggled through two, collapsed, and cursed.

She laughed. "You're too easy on yourself, Khy."

"So why don't you try it?"

She poised on hands and toes; he stared at her.

"Climb aboard," she said.

"Tern, for"

She jerked her head toward her back. He knew, by now, better than to argue with her.

The first few she managed without noticeable strain. At seven, she struggled far more than he had at two, and by nine, she was shaking so badly he feared for her joints. But she refused to stop, and he dared not move. She'd taught him how vital balance was, and he wasn't confident enough of his own skill to get off without ruining one of those thin, straining wrists.

And she, who had taught him that precaution, straight- ened her arms for the tenth time, and lowered again, her body all the while tight as a drumhead beneath him.

"Now, Khy," she whispered, and he was off.