But the woman: there had been fear in her eyes when Dindrane had spoken of her unborn child. And the contemplative bleakness that was now a constant presence on her face was nothing that a man could ever understand.

Was he gone then, Manda's quest for justice all ended? Manda did not know. She curled herself against Wykla's soft, sleeping body and, pondering, tried to find in her lover's steady breathing some reassurance that the past was dead. But just as she was dropping off, she heard a sudden cry, and a sharp detonation, and at the other end of the corridor, a door was flung open with a crash.

Alouzon's voice rang out. "Everybody up! We've got trouble!"

Kyria did not wander the corridors of the King's House to look for magic or secrets. If she had put her desire into words, she would have said that she searched for an end to the persistent sense of entrapment that had shackled her since she had come to Gryylth.

Years ago, she had fought Solomon, and she had vowed that his kind would never possess her again. But she could not fight this utter transformation that had turned her body into that of a young woman and caused her to answer instinctively to a different name.

Her mind was, in fact, so profoundly alien that at times she had difficulty acknowledging it as her own.

But was it, in fact, so alien? Kyria-the real Kyria, the one who smiled softly at her out of her inward darkness-was by no means an intruder. Rather, she was a rebirth of old wants and needs, a revival of an age of innocence, of a time before forced abortion and wrathful divorce had tamped the last spadeful of soil down on the coffin of love and holiness.

Helen Addams looked out through Kyria's eyes now, fighting passionately against the very sense of wholeness that she had once embraced. Day by day she was falling back into the patterns that had once led her into powerlessness, and yet everything that she saw and did told her that she was not at all powerless, that the strengths that lay within her grasp were real. And against her will she was beginning to believe it.

The corridors of the King's House were as straight as the streets of the city, and without difficulty she found her way into the gardens that surrounded the temple precincts. The rose bushes were bare this early in the year, but the crocuses and hyacinths were up, and tulips seemed imminent.

The moon had not yet risen, but the darkness was alleviated by the multitude of stars and by the torches set along the colonnade that skirted the gardens. In the firelight, the flowers sparkled with early dew, and Kyria bent to touch a bloom, surprised that there could be such beauty and gentleness in land created by Solomon Braithwaite.

"Lady Kyria?" An attendant approached her, the golden threads of his livery glinting. "May I be of help?"

She had straightened instinctively at the name, and she cursed silently for her self-treachery. Kyria was not her name. It belonged to that gently smiling face within her. Her name was Helen: why should she answer to Kyria? "I'm just . . . nervous tonight," she said.

He nodded." 'Tis welcome you are to Lachrae, and to the King's gardens. Please wander as you wish." Soft-spoken, polite, strong and gentle both, he appeared to embody all the desirable qualities of manhood.

And they drop like flies when the Gray faces come . . .

The attendant bowed and turned to depart. "Wait a minute," Kyria said suddenly, and he stopped. "Are you watching me because you're afraid?"

"Afraid?" He was puzzled.

"I mean, after all, I nearly ..." Her action outside Daelin had shamed her: she would not speak the words willingly. She shrugged and shook her head.

He understood. "Errors are a part of growth-so the Goddess teaches us. Those who are wise have said that the Goddess herself has made mistakes, though we as men and women cannot ourselves perceive them as such. Nevertheless, She sorrows over them."

"Even Gods have to grow?"

"Indeed. Surely."

She felt like crying. Everything that she had ever wanted was here, but Solomon had created it only to destroy it, bit by bit, before her eyes. And she was too stubborn and took cynical to save it. "Am I allowed to see the temple?'' she said abruptly.

"Willing feet are never denied." He offered his hand and, after a moment, she took it. This was Vaylle. She was safe.

Accustomed to places of worship that possessed four walls and a roof, Kyria was at first taken aback when she was led to a ring of roughly dressed monoliths that reared up more than twenty feet from the thick grass. But her senses had been sharpened by sorcery, and she felt the sanctity of the place.

If there was Divinity in the universe, it had taken up residence here in Lachrae, and Kyria had to consciously shield herself from the energy that swirled invisibly about the stones, that reached out to her with gentle but omnipotent presence, threatening to sweep her into ecstasy, or oblivion, or both.

The attendant spoke in a whisper. "The temple. She is here. And so is He."

The Goddess and the God. That afternoon, Pellam had called them Suzanne and Solomon, and Alouzon had nearly fainted on the spot.

Like a miser breaking open a new roll of pennies, Kyria examined her suspicions. The God was Solomon. That was nothing that surprised her. Her ex-husband had obviously set himself up in what he considered to be his rightful place. But Suzanne? Suzanne Helling was as much a victim of Sol's arrogance as Helen Addams.

Or was she?

At the entrance to the ring of monoliths were two smaller stones that rose up to the height of a tall man. At such a distance from the colonnade, the light was faint and uncertain, but Kyria could see that the pair were carved with the life-sized figures of a man and a woman.

She sent the attendant away and, alone, she contemplated the images: Solomon, thin and lined, but with dignity in his face; Suzanne, plump and noble both, a sword in her hands.

Suzanne . . .

Victim? Or just another exploiter?

A scream broke through the holy silence as though a glass had been shattered, and a wave of light suddenly eclipsed the stars. A moment later came an explosion, and, horribly, the sound of a machine gun.

Kyria turned and ran for the colonnade, her staff searing the air with violet intensity. Sol, you bastard!

* CHAPTER 16 *

The King's House and the temple precincts occupied a low hill at the center of the city, and the sounds of explosives and automatic weapons' fire carried clearly to them. So did the screams of the families who lived at the west edge of town.

Alouzon pounded down the corridor, carrying her leathers and sword in one hand, dragging Dindrane after her with the other. ' 'How do we get outside?''

"And is it fighting you want?"

"Hell, yes!"

Dindrane dug in her heels at the first turning and brought Alouzon up short. "Why should I show you, then?"

Alouzon felt like slapping her. "Because your people are getting slaughtered out there, bitch."

The company had quickly assembled behind them. Manda was pulling the straps of Wykla's cuirass tight as the girl tied her hair back. Karthin was struggling into his armor, assisted by Marrget. Santhe and his men appeared never to have disarmed.

Alouzon glanced back. Helwych? Kyria? The sounds of modern warfare that carried across the city told her that a defense without magic would be suicidal.

Dindrane read her thoughts. "Can you do any better than we, Dragonmaster?"

A door opened at the end of the hall, and Helwych staggered out of his room, rubbing sleep from his eyes and gaping.

"Look," said Alouzon, "let us do what we can." Dindrane met her gaze levelly, her eyes showing not a trace of fear. "Come on: move!"

Reluctantly, the priestess led them down the corridor and through several rooms. At last she paused before a door of oak. "This is the western portal of the House," she said. "Straight across the plaza is the West Road. The Grayfaces-"

She stopped. Mixed into the tumult from the edge of the city, clearly audible through the wood and masonry, was the demented howling of a pack of hounds.

Alouzon jerked the door open. The night air spilled in. The howling and shots grew louder. ' 'Are you coming?''

Dindrane shook her head. "I will keep safe those whom I can. And I will find Baares, for there will be healing needed tonight." She looked them over for an instant, and her face turned pained when her eyes rested on Marrget. "Much healing. Go. Go if you must." She turned and, staff in hand, fled back into the House.

"Where is Kyria?" said Marrget.

"Dunno," said Alouzon. She fumbled with the buckles of her leathers. "We'll have to do without her."

Helwych drew himself up. In the torchlight, his dark eyes seemed filled with nothing save the emptiness of the night sky. "She will not be needed."

Alouzon found his inflections disturbing. "I hope you 're right, kiddo."

They ran. Their boots clattered on the pavement and echoed off the stone buildings. The moon sent their shadows racing ahead of them like streaks of black oil. The streets were deserted: breached yet again, Lach-rae had turned in upon itself-doors barred, windows shuttered-like a wounded animal curling up to sleep . . . or die.

When the flashes of tracers and exploding grenades came into view, Alouzon signaled a halt. Ahead, the screams continued, the hoarse, despairing cries of many voices blending into a hellish counterpoint of pain that was answered by the chatter of the guns and the baying of hounds.

"O, you nameless Gods," said Karthin softly.

Gods. Alouzon supposed that the term included her now. She grimaced.

"I suggest an indirect approach, Alouzon," said Marrget.

She floundered out of her thoughts. "Uh . . . yeah. Good. Helwych: can you ..." She examined him for a moment. Different. Quite different. And that hound south of Bandon had been playing with him. "Can you handle the hounds?"

"I can, indeed." He sounded almost smug.

After a minute's conference, the party broke into three teams. Alouzon, Manda, and Wykla would take a side street and work their way westward. Santhe and his men would circle to the north. Marrget, Karthin, and Helwych would do the same from the south. "I'll warn you all," said Alouzon. "The hounds may be the least of our problems. Remember what happened in Quay? The Grayfaces have weapons like that."

"We remember," said Santhe. He smiled thinly. Battle-and maybe death-lay ahead of him, but his humor flickered through nonetheless. "But we remember the Tree, too, and the Circle."

"Gods bless," said Alouzon. She felt strange uttering the words. Bettering her grip on the Dragonsword, she moved off into a narrow alley that paralleled the main thoroughfare. Manda and Wykla hugged for an instant, then followed.

Although the alley was unpaved, there was no rubbish or squalor: the Vayllens' taste for order and cleanliness extended even to their back streets. Barrels and boxes were stacked tightly together without any strays or leaks, and the three women made their way along the passage silently.

In a lull in the gunfire, Alouzon looked up at a bright window that splashed the alley with candlelight. A man's voice was murmuring: "Suzanne, be with us . . ."

Alouzon sagged against the marble wall, the Dra-gonsword heavy in her hand. "I'm just a dumb girl," she whispered. "Don't do this to me."

"...fold us in Your comforting embrace that, should this be the hour of our death, we may be led to Your lands by the hand of the God ..."

She could not afford hysteria now. Dragging a breath, she pushed on, fixing her eyes and her thoughts on what lay ahead.

The outlying sections of the city presented an increasingly rural appearance. As Alouzon, Manda, and Wykla continued on, the alley began opening out on one side or the other to reveal gardens and broad, grassy plazas. It finally terminated in a field dotted with trees and stands of high bushes.

Fifty yards away was a cluster of manor houses, their style reminiscent of the Romano-British villas that had once dotted southern England. To the eyes of Suzanne Helling, the student, they were a study in archaeology come to life, fifth-century timber and thatch modified only slightly to embrace marble and slate. To the eyes of the former war protester, they were a horror of anachronistic warfare, with tracer bullets pouring through shuttered windows and ricocheting off stone walls.

But to Alouzon Dragonmaster, they were a problem to be solved, a battle to be fought.

An embankment ringed the manors, its top surmounted by a hedge of crab apple and elder. There the Grayfaces had taken up their position, and the light of the waning moon slanted down on the gas-masked soldiers and on the hound-pack that swirled across the surrounding field in a surging mass of diseased phosphorescence.

A flash of violet burst out suddenly from a cluster of trees at the southern end of the field, sweeping toward the hounds like a searchlight beam. They wheeled away, but one was slow. The violet finger caught it squarely, transfixed it, and melted it into a steaming puddle as its howling turned first to whining and then to a full-throated animal scream of pain.

Detonations. One. Two. Three. Light burst from within the embankment, and a wall of the nearest manor crumbled. Roof slates tumbled to the ground, rooms were left gaping, floors collapsed, and those occupants who were not pitched to the ground were riddled by the spray of bullets from the M-60.

Forgetting the violet energy, hungry for food-or for souls-the hound pack yelped and dived over the embankment.

Crump. Crump.

Alouzon started. Mortars. The sound had come not from the Grayfaces nearest her, but from a part of the embankment farther to the south. How many enemies were they dealing with?

Helwych's lance of energy left the ground and darted skyward. The mortar rounds exploded harmlessly in the air. The young sorcerer was defending admirably, but if he were tied up with mortars, he could do nothing against the dogs.

Kyria, where the hell are you ?

Alouzon turned to the other women. "The dogs are busy for now," she said quickly. "It looks like there's enough cover to make it across the clearing to the bunch on this side. Our only hope is to grab one of those guns."

Manda glanced at Wykla, who shrugged. "We do not know the use of them, Dragonmaster," she said.

"I can figure it out." Alouzon started across the field. "I hope."

Trees and bushes provided concealment, but the moonlight was abominably clear and bright. As they dashed from cover to cover, Alouzon kept expecting a sudden burst of fire, tracers streaking like orange sparks, a cry from Wykla or Manda . . .

Another wall of the manor collapsed, and the hounds' baying turned into a frenzied slavering. Above the tumult rose the cry of a woman. "Please . . . please ..."

Alouzon rushed again, dived for a cluster of bushes, and found herself confronted with a Grayface soldier who had been staring off toward the south, fascinated by the play of Helwych's energy.

"Mercy . . . please . . . O Goddess, save mel"

The eyes behind the gas mask narrowed and the M-16 came up, but the Dragonsword was faster. Alouzon opened the man from belly to throat and grabbed his gun as he fell.

She looked up in time to see, to the south, Marrget dashing toward a ditch. Marrget was followed by Kar-thin, who was, in turn, followed by a line of tracers. At the last moment, Marrget threw herself into the ditch, reached up, and dragged Karthin in after her. The tracers streaked by, whipping the grass and soil into a pulverized cloud.

With Manda and Wykla beside her, Alouzon sheathed the Dragonsword and scrutinized the M-16. She assumed that the safety was off and that she had only to pull the trigger to fire it. She assumed. She had no idea what to do if that were not the case.

Another soldier ran toward them from the embankment, but Manda moved quickly. By the time he 'realized that conditions within the thicket had changed drastically, he was dead.

But Marrget and Karthin were pinned down in the ditch, and more mortar rounds were hurtling in Helwych's direction.

'' Dragonmaster?'' Manda was holding the other M-16 as though it were a snake. "This does not please me much."

"Nor me, Manda. Do you want to try that thing?"

"Nay, lady. I am not such a fool."

"OK." Alouzon took it from her and fumbled with the ammunition clip until it slid into her hand. She thrust it into her belt and tossed the extra rifle aside. "We're going in. There are some trees about twenty feet this side of the Grayfaces. We'll work our way across to them. When we go over the rim to hit the machine gun, we'll have to move fast."

Her companions did not hesitate to follow her. Alouzon wished heartily that she was as confident, but with the Dragonsword guiding her and the greasy, Fi-berglas stock of the M-16 under her arm, she assumed that she had bettered their odds at least a little.

The sky lit up as Helwych detonated another mortar round.

In two rushes, Alouzon and her companions had almost reached the last clump of trees, but then the machine gun roared into action, and the three found the ground at their feet peppered with 7.62 millimeter bullets. Without breaking stride, Manda pivoted on the spot and threw herself into Wykla, knocking her free of the kill zone. Alouzon back-pedaled furiously and tumbled beside them, behind the lip of a depression.

Manda's head was pressed against Wykla's. "What kind of monsters are these?"