"According to Rhyys' hand-picked tutors." He finished, and she laughed, though the sound had a bitter edge. "I begin to understand. And when did you discover the dis- crepancies?"

"The first time I opened my mouth to one of his culti- vated rijhili friends. But I didn't care, not really. None of us did. We hadn't come to Khoratum Tower to learn about Venitum's casting methods or Shatumin imports or Ore- num's lumber and paper output. We were there to dance."

And they allowed Rhyys to control those other, insig- nificant aspects of their lives because in return, Rhyys al- lowed them to dance.

. . . nothing stands between a dancer and the dance . . .

And what, Temorii, does Rhyys control now? he longed to ask, but instead asked, "And Kashiri?"

"Kashiri, my dear Khyel, was a Rakshi dancer long be- fore he ever mounted the rings."

"I thought the Rakshi dance was outlawed centuries ago."

"Outlawed. And the dancers were hunted down like ani- mals by their own neighbors, those who had once cheered them to glory. But the dance would not die, Mikhyel dun- Mheric. Rakshi's spirit cannot be destroyed."

"Are you . . ."

Her laughter filled the small niche. "Oh, no, my Khy, don't worry about that. No, the spirit of Rakshi fills me, but the old dance . . . no, I don't. I've never met one who has. But their secrets . . . those came down to us from Kashiri."

"That's why you considered it a given that you should believe in Rakshi," he said, mostly to himself.

"You believe, or the dance is only . . . movement. But Rakshi . . . Rakshi touches only a few."

"And Kashiri was one of those few?"

She nodded. "I saw him dance. I saw him die. And I knew I had to dance the rings."

"Rakshi touched you that day, didn't he?" Mikhyel asked gently and her eyes dropped.

She slumped back next to him, her eyes creeping back to the view.

"I would sneak over the walleasier in those days than it is today, and I didn't know about the tunnelsand watch from the shadows. A young woman, about my age, found me. I was afraid she would say something, bring the wrath of Rhyys down on my head, but she was very kind, and when she discovered I'd come into Khoratum just to watch, asked me if I'd like to try it. We were much of a size, and she had hair about" Temorii searched a strand of her own hair for a spot near the longest end. "About that color, which my ends were then, so once the helmet and harness were on, the instructor didn't pay much attention."

She settled on her back nearpractically underneath him and shut her eyes, a look of sheer ecstasy on her face.

And after a moment, her head began a slow, side-to-side sway.

"It was just like in my dreams. I swooped and twirled among the rings . . . well . . ." A soft chuckle. "Not quite.

If it hadn't been for the harness, I'd have died a thousand times over that first time. The instructor, thinking I was the young woman, believed I'd gone berserk. I found out later that she hated the rings, and had seen me as one more means of dodging practice. When I rather fearlessly risked life and limb, the instructors were certain they'd pushed her too far and too hard. But they soon figured out our deception and invited me back. Eventually, they put me into training for the real thing. I lived in the Tower, ate at Rhyys' tableeverything. Just like a real student. That was when Rhyys found out ..."

Mikhyel was barely listening. His heart was beating hard again, and not from the climb. "What" He forced his mind to logical processing. "What did Rhyys mean when he said you were a distant relative? Is that why he hates you?"

"Hates me? I suppose he does. That was the story the girl gave him. I don't know if it was true. I . . . didn't really care."

She stretched again, and put her hands behind her head.

He looked out, down the hill, then closed his eyes, trying to shut out all awareness of her. But closing his eyes didn't lock out the scent of raspberries and cinnamon.

He bit his lip and wished to her Rakshi and any other god that was near to take his mind off that body lying so close to his.

A tug on his hair: her fingers working the braid loose, spreading the strands. She seemed fascinated by it, had claimed the nightly brushing as her own. He didn't argue, taking it as his only real concession to his personal obsession.

He pretended not to notice that every tug vibrated him to his fingertips. Instead, he chewed the inside of his lip, and stared down the hill at those rings that had claimed Temorii's soul long before he ever met her.

"Poor Khy," she whispered softly, and smoothed his hair back from his face before she squirmed out of the hidey- hole to begin one of her routines, slowly, in deference to a skull that must still be throbbing.

He followed her out, but had no inclination this morning to do more than watch.

"What happened to her?" he asked, when she paused for breath. "The girl whose place you took."

Temorii stared down at Khoratum, then said, with puz- zlement in her voice: "I don't know. I haven't seen her for at least two years.

Since I became"

She broke off abruptly and rolled up onto her hands, drawing her legs about in an arc to extend them above her head. Three times, she dipped down and pressed back up, but on the fourth, her balance wavered, her right wrist overflexed, and she tumbled down into a heap.

And she lay there, curled around her wrist, panting. And cursing. And crying. Not, he suspected because of the wrist.

"Tern?" Mikhyel crouched beside her, and rested a hand - on her shoulder.

Her head came up, and her expression was a confusion of anger, and pain, and betrayal. "Why? Why did you lie to me, Khy?"

"I didn't. I tried to explain, but you ran away."

"That's a locked and guarded underground passage that takes us in. You can't get me in without anyone seeing."

"No? And how do you think I got into Khoratum in the first place?"

"The public coach," her tear-heavy voice answered.

"Walked. Drove. How should I know?"

Easiest just to call Mother herself, and hope Mother answered.

Mikhyel rested his forehead against Temorii's bowed shoulder and called, as clearly and as imperatively as he could: {Mother?} Temorii jumped as if stung. And he recalled their first meeting, and last night, and all those other times she'd seemed to hear. He gave her a light hug and murmured reassurances, then called, more gently: (Sweet Mother of Khoratum, if you can hear me, I need you. I need you badly.) Temorii pulled free, staring at him. Disbelieving.

"She put you into Khoratum? She called to you ?"

Mikhyel was speechless. They were accusations she threw at him, not questions.

"She welcomed you? Why?" Temorii scrambled to her feet and screamed: {Why, Mother? Damn you to the high- est, most lightning-blasted hells, Mother, whyl] She paused, eyes wide with anger. Then: (I know you can hear me, Mother. Why? Why? Why? Why? Wh ]

{Oh, hush, brat. You don't need to shout.} And Mother was there, even more exotic in contrast to the rocks and the grasses. She stretched her arms toward the sky, arms that grew abnormally long and tenuous, as if she were reaching for the clouds, then she shrugged, and shook out . . . hair. Long, shimmering hair. As she was otherwise more humanlike than before. But that it was Mother, Mi- khyel had no doubt.

"Ah, my children, it's been too . . . long . . ."

Anger. Betrayal. The air reeked with it, and that under- neath sense was all raspberries and cinnamonTemorii.

"I came," Temorii hissed aloud. "I calledso, so often, Mother, and you never came! You never even answered me. Why?"

Mother shrugged. "I was sleeping."

"You were ignoring me."

"Ignoring? No, child. Sleeping." Mother frowned when the anger flared brighter, and her head tipped as if in confu- sion. Then, she shrugged and opened her arms. "I'm here now, child."

"That's not good enough. Mother. Not this time! It's too late! It's toodamn"

Temorii turned and ran.

Mikhyel started after her, but Mother was therejust therebefore Temorii, with her arms wide.

Temorii staggered backward, improbably fast, impossibly agile in that avoidance.

{Child, the web was shriveled*broken*fractured. I was asleep. And deaf. For a very long time, child. Your Khy helped me awaken.} And with a sudden relaxation, a twist of her brow that in a human might indicate contrition, sor- row: {Please, child. This is my first time to the surface since . . . since the last time.} Bitter, reluctant laughter. "Of course it is."

Mother biinked. "Please, child. I've . . . missed you."

"M-missed?" Temorii held a hand to her mouth, trying to stem the incipient tears. "You don't even know what that means."

"Oh, child, but I do. You've taught me the word's mean- ing. Please. Come?"

With a sob, Temorii fell into that embrace, and the ley- thium folds enveloped her like a shroud.

The embrace of the Mother she'd despaired of going home to. Bits and pieces began to make some sense. Real- ization that at once made Mikhyel's task easier, while mak- ing him wonder just how much a pawn he'd been.

A pawn not in Rhyys' game, but Mother's.

He wasn't altogether certain he considered that an improvement.

Mother gestured to him. He backed a step, but she was there, and Temorii was, and Mother's sleeve swallowed them both before he could so much as blink.

->._. When the sleeve dropped . . . or melted, or faded away, any or all of which were possible, they were in Mother's leythium cavern beneath Khoratum.

And as before, his clothes, and Temorii's, had somehow failed to make the transition. He suspected humor.

Mikhyel turned away, embarrassed, and Temorii crouched on the floor, hiding herself. Mother clucked gently and knelt beside her.

{Have you, then, grown so ashamed of your beauty, child?) {Please, Mother, not now . . .) Mother placed her hands on Temorii's face, the way she had on Mikhyel's, when she'd shared his memories, and Mikhyel received a rapidly shifting montage of images: Temorii's life, since last Mother had seen her, he would guess. And remembering his own desire to keep certain of his memories inviolate from Deymorin, he tried to shut those images out, tried not to know what Temorii had suffered.

Such secrets were hers to tell, when she chose. If she chose.

Eventually, the images fluttered to a close, to images im- possible to ignore. Images of himself, standing nude here in Mother's cavern, his hair drifting in the air, almost as it would in water.

{The hair, child.} Mother's hand stroked Temorii's rag- ged, shaded locks. {Why?) Temorii's answer was to bury her face in Mother's shoul- der. Mother continued stroking the shaded hair, strokes that took longer and longer to reach ends increasingly less ragged. Mikhyel watched, unable to turn away, as that hair grew to what it must have been before Temorii felt com- pelled to cut it: long, shaded from the same sable brown at the roots to nearly white on ends that would brush Temo- rii's hips when she stood again.

And as the hair extended to cover her shoulders, hair- fine tendrils of leythium flowed up her legs and intermin- gled with one another so that when Mother raised Temorii to her feet and stepped aside to view her handiwork, she left Temorii draped in that luxurious hair and shimmering folds of leythium lace, a heart-stoppingly beautiful sight that made a man trying very hard to convince himself he wasn't in love even more conscious of his now singular state of undress.

Fortunately, Temorii, enthralled with her renewed hair, hadn't yet noticed.

(Mother...} Laughter rippled in his head and through the leythium drapery above. Mother flung a casual gesture in his direc- tion, and a heavy robe of deepest black covered him, neck to toe, a robe of living fabric, that caressed his skin with soothing warmth and velvet's deep cushioning.

"Thank you."

{I liked you better the other way.) "In that case, I thank you doubly."

"Such a well-mannered child you are," she said aloud.

"I'm not a child. Mother."

"But of course you are. All my children are childs. How can they possibly be anything else when I am so much older and wiser?"

"Are you?" he asked, and realized Temorii was following every word, a slow smile beginning to light her face at last.

(I'm} A sense of utterly unfathomable age entered him, and Mikhyel staggered under the impact.

{You are, what, human? Twenty-and-bits sun-circuits old?

Child, I say.) "Granted. But are you wiser?"

"Of course. Did you bring your Mother a chicken?"

"No. And you are trying to distract me. Was as it wise to put Temorii through such misery? Is she better for it?"

"Khy, wait," Temorii protested at last, but Mother asked him: "Are youT'

"Mother, please'."

"That hardly matters," Mikhyel said firmly.

"No? Is Mikhyel-child's happiness not important?"

"No," Mikhyel said, and, "Yes," from Temorii.

Mother shook her head.

"Why do you divide your pattern?"

"I don't understand," Mikhyel said.

"You think by destroying one part of you, you can en- hance another? I will never understand you silly humans."

"We're not parts of a whole. Mother," Mikhyel said.

"But of course you are. Parts of a pattern. Tell him, child."

"Mother, please. It's too much . . . too soon."