Gabris closed his eyes for a heartbeat. What he had to say had to be said in such a way that it would not, could not, be interpreted as a threat. "Imperial Majesty, Karlene is a bard, powerful enough to finish the training of the young bards of the Empire soon to be returning from Shkoder."

Marshal Usef snorted. "I think this bard, however powerful, will be willing to be reasonable with a hundred swords at her throat."

Karlene Sang a grat.i.tude and hurried back to the road, kicking up little clouds of dust from the dry earth with every step. "They're no longer heading east," she called. "According to the kigh, they're following a river. It would have to be the Shae, unless they've pulled incredibly far ahead, which would mean they've turned off the road at Shaebridge."

"You know this part of the country well," Gyhard remarked as she took her reins from Vree and mounted.

"I'd better." She settled into the saddle and flipped her braid back over her shoulder. "In a very short time I'm supposed to be walking the new Imperial bards over it."

Vree fell in beside Karlene and noted how Gyhard moved to ride on her other flank, as far from the bard as possible. Their meeting in the innyard had obviously not gone well. Karlene had spent the day acting as though Gyhard were something she'd found on the bottom of her sandal.

"She's perceptive, I'll give her that."

"I want to know what he told her."

Bannon snorted. "Probably lies."

"I wasn't aware that the Empire had bards," Gyhard said quietly.

"It doesn't yet." Karlene's tone was anything but friendly. "Nine Imperial citizens

with the ability to Sing the kigh are nearly finished with their training in

Shkoder."

Vree scowled, confused. "It makes no sense for Shkoder to train Imperial bards.

You'll lose your advantage in battle."

"What battle?""Any battle between Shkoder and a country without bards." Vree waved an emphatic hand about. "Sending messages quickly over long distances is an advantage you shouldn't surrender. Not to mention having the air spirits scout for you."

"But what about the people in the Empire who are able to Sing the kigh but are

never trained?" Karlene asked.

"What about them?"

"Without training, they'll be condemned to live only half alive."

"So what."

Vree repeated Bannon's observation and added, "Untrained, they won't guide an army across the border to slit a few Shkodan throats."

"A bard would never do that. We take vows..."

Vree's fingers closed tightly around the reins and her horse danced sideways in reaction to her stiffening. "Vows can be broken; on purpose or by circ.u.mstance."

"It's hard to explain, Vree." Wiping sweat out of her eyes, Karlene watched a muscle jump in Vree's jaw and wondered what vows the younger woman had broken. "Once you're trained to Sing the kigh, you're changed. You know that you're a part of a greater whole and you can't do anything to damage that. It would be like cutting off your own arm."

"That she should understand," Gyhard murmured. "Have her tell you about a.s.sa.s.sin training some time."

Karlene didn't want to know about a.s.sa.s.sin training; didn't want to know how the Empire created an efficient, conscienceless killer out of a normal, intelligent, honorable, beautiful woman. She wondered what Vree would have been like without the training that had made her so easily accept the unacceptable. "She'll kill you if you get in her way."

"So there are no evil bards?" Vree asked, breaking into Karlene's train of thought. "No crazy bards?"

"No. No one knows why, but it doesn't happen that way. I'm not saying that we're all perfect; some of us are lazy, some of us are irritating, some of us are vain and complacent..." We should've stayed at that tavern. I should've sent for his guard. I should never have a.s.sumed I could get the prince safely back to the palace alone. She had to swallow the guilt before she could continue. "... but our ability to Sing the kigh makes it impossible for us to not realize the validity of another's viewpoint."

"So the bards of Shkoder send Imperial citizens back into the Empire trained to have more in common with the bards of Shkoder than with their own people," Vree said slowly, trying to make military sense out of it. "So that someday, when Shkoder has trained bards and sent them to every country, bards will run things."

For a long moment the only sound was the hollow clop of hooves on stone and the high-pitched hum of an insect in a distant tree. Then Gyhard chuckled. "Get out of that one," he challenged.

Karlene stiffened at the sound of his laughter. "Well, we're pretty nonpolitical..."

That was no kind of answer and they all knew it.

"What about the bard we're after?" Vree asked suddenly. "What about the old man? You said there were no crazy bards."

All of a sudden, Gyhard found the conversation less amusing. "He was made crazy because he was a bard. He didn't start out that way."

"Cemandians," Karlene sighed as though that should explain it.

Vree leaned forward, trying to get a look at Gyhard's face around the bard riding between them. "What happened to him?"

Gyhard rode in silence for a while before finally answering. "The Cemandians think that the kigh are outside the Circle..."

"What's he talking about?"

"I don't know."

"They think the kigh are demons," he amended, obviously realizing he'd lost half his audience. "And anyone who shows an ability to Sing the kigh is-I suppose torture isn't too extreme a word for it-is tortured to drive the demons out."

Karlene shook her head, the protest as much at the Cemandians as at what Gyhard had said. "They're not quite so extreme anymore. Over the last few years..."

"The last few years have nothing to do with Kars," he interrupted bitterly. "Torture was their preferred response when Kars was young. He escaped. Hid in the mountains."

So the old man had a name. "You found him hiding in the mountains?"

"Yes." Badly hurt but not insane. Not yet. It took love to push him over the edge that torture had taken him to.

There was such a complete lack of emotion in that single syllable that the pain it masked stood out in sharp relief.

Vree stared down at their shadows, stretching out on the road before them. It seemed her heart had begun to beat just a little faster. "The old man is the other one; the one before us that Gyhard told his past to."

"And it sounds like he drove him crazy, too."

"We're not crazy, Bannon."

"Not yet, sister-mine." He sounded almost smug.

Karlene chewed her lower lip while she thought, trying to piece together all she'd

learned over the last few days. Considering that neither of them wants to tell me anything, I don't think I've ever been with two people so desperate to talk about what's happening to them. She'd wanted to help Vree from the beginning, but now she began to wonder if she could possibly feel pity for Gyhard as well. As things were far too complicated for a horseback a.n.a.lysis, she finally sighed. "I wish I knew what was going on."

Gyhard shrugged. "I doubt you'd understand it."

The urge to smack that superior tone right out of his voice was intense, but uncertain of what might cause Vree to protect her brother's body, she managed to

resist. Instead, she recalled the map of the Third Province she carried in memory.

"They're-Kars is heading for the mountains."

"I suppose he feels safe there."

"You're sure of where he's going now, aren't you?"

"I know where he used to feel safe, years ago."

"It's a place to start."

"It's a place to finish," Gyhard corrected. He kicked his horse forward into a trot and then a canter, his final word hanging in the air behind him.

The cart had stopped. Otavas pushed himself up on one elbow and peered sleepily around. He was alone. He remembered thinking that with both the remaining dead pulling the cart he could easily overpower the old man and escape. Then the old man had begun to sing, a quavering lament for the loss of the cousins. They'd turned off the East Road at Shaebridge-he'd seen the city pa.s.s in the dusk like a torchlit memory from another life-and eventually, emotionally exhausted, he'd drifted into a fitful slumber.

But now the cart was stopped and he was alone.

He scrambled to his feet, eyes fighting to become accustomed to the night, and threw himself up and over the side. Landing awkwardly, palms flat against the dusty ground, he took a second to catch his breath and then leaped forward.

The pale oval of Wheyra's face materialized suddenly out of the darkness, too close for him to avoid crashing into her. His outthrust hands sank into the bundle she carried. He screamed and flung himself back.

When his spine slammed against the cart, it seemed more a refuge than a prison.

"Kait and I are going into the village for supplies, my heart," the old man crooned, stepping forward into the limited vision the night allowed. "Wheyra will stay here to keep you company."

"To keep me from running away!" the prince panted.

"No." The old man sadly shook his head, wisps of long gray hair floating in and out of sight. "You won't run away. Not this time."

Thunder grumbled in the distance and heat lightning turned the sky an angry orange as they made their way into the small village tucked between the packed dirt of the road and a bend in the river. The old man hummed as they walked, hoping for an answer.

A dog howled as they pa.s.sed the first of the buildings, but with that one exception it appeared the village slept.

It soon became apparent that there would be no answer.

The old man studied the collection of houses. Finally, he lifted the latch on a tiny dwelling so close to the river that spring floods had marked the walls. Taking a firm grip on his staff, he motioned Kait in before him.

On a pallet by the empty hearth, a man and a woman lay sleeping in each other's arms. He searched the shadows for signs of children as the sleeping couple began to stir, their dreams prodded by the nightmare standing and staring down at them. When he was certain that there would be no orphans left behind, he took a crude blade from its place on the wall and told Kait what to do with it.

The prince crouched against the high wheel of the cart. Wheyra crouched a few feet away, just close enough so he could neither forget nor ignore her. He had no idea how long the old man had been gone, but his shirt stuck to his back in great clammy patches and the near constant roll of thunder made him want to scream.

Instead, he drew in a long shuddering breath, dried his palms against his thighs, and said, "What's its name?"

Wheyra c.o.c.ked her head, the movement adding curiosity to a face no longer capable of expression.

Otavas wet his lips. "The more you know about something, the less terrifying it becomes. " He couldn't remember who'd told him that, but anything was better than just listening to the thunder. "The baby." He couldn't quite gesture at the decomposing bundle in her arms. "What's its name." He hadn't heard her speak, but Aver had been able to and Kait called the old man Father.

Wheyra looked down at the remains of her baby, then back up at the prince and, to his astonishment, smiled. Her face didn't move, couldn't move, but he would have sworn by any of the G.o.ds contained in his mother's Circle that she smiled. "Ty... am," she said.

The others knew they were dead. If Wheyra knew, she didn't care. Otavas locked his fingers together to keep them from trembling.

"Boot... ifoo."

"I don't understand."

The purple-gray tip of her tongue protruded as she tried again. "Boot... ifoo ba... ba."

He didn't know how he could hurt so much and not bleed. "Beautiful baby."

"Yesss." She smiled again, then her head jerked around to the right.

Otavas looked where she looked and sagged back against the cart, bone and muscles unable to hold him. There were four shadows approaching through the night. He should have realized the old man had gone to replace the cousins.

"I've brought us food," the old man said as he drew near. "Take it up into the cart with you. We still have a long way to go before we're home."

The prince numbly accepted the bulging oilskin bag and did as he was told. He couldn't run, and they'd touch him if he stayed where he was. Once in the cart he turned and peered over the edge.

A flash of lightning lit up the scene.

The man and the woman were neither young nor old nor long dead. The rough cotton tunics they wore glistened, wet, black stains spreading out from the center of their chests. Over the constant and familiar stench of rot, Otavas could smell the sharp, coppery scent of fresh blood.