They had crossed over the outer ward now, and stood on the broad walk near the gatehouse that overlooked the Cyne's Market.

"All that," Taminy said, "in a week."

Colfre smiled at her. How sweet she was, how little she understood the dynamics of statesmanship. He directed her gaze over the parapet to the Market grounds below. There, people had seen them and stopped to stare and point. A small crowd began to cluster in the shadow of Mertuile.

"Look, Taminy. Already, people are drawn to gaze at you. Where you go, they will gather, because of what they've seen and heard. Your story has been spread far and wide, my dear. The people know of you. Soon they will come to care about you." I have seen to it, he wanted to add, but did not, preferring his own manipulations to be at least a little obscured.

Taminy leaned out over the wall, her long hair a streaming white-gold banner in the Sea breeze, her cheeks flushed to rose by its briskness. She raised a hand and waved to the people below. They, in turn, waved back, some removing hats and fanning them overhead.

Colfre stood back and watched, pleased, thinking that she began to understand his intention. "Tomorrow," he told her, "you will meet a rather important local Osraed. His name is Ladhar and he is the Abbod of Ochanshrine. More than that, he represents the Osraed in the Hall and on my Privy Council. He would be a formidable ally."

Taminy turned to look at him. "He will be shocked by me, Cyne Colfre."

He smiled, taken, again, by her beauty. "Not if you do nothing to shock him."

Eadmund reached Ochanshrine in the early evening. For the first time in his life, he crossed that sacred threshold and did not feel refreshed. The letter he carried weighed upon him, making his steps unsteady. He wanted to be rid of it more, almost, than he wanted anything else, but there was a ritual he must keep before he handed his burden over to Abbod Ladhar.

The Shrine was nearly empty at this time of day; the Cleirachs and Osraed were at their evening meal. One lone Aelder Prentice sat in the last row of low, padded benches in the circular amphitheater, staring soulfully down at the room's centerpiece. Eadmund smiled in a wash of empathy, turning his own eyes to the Thing around which Ochanshrine was built.

It sat upon a pedestal of fine, hard, dark wood. Gold filigree and sea shell was inlaid among cleverly carved sea motifs, suggesting an ocean treasure trove. If a paean could be sung in wood, that pedestal was it. If a benediction could be said in solid stone, the Osmaer Crystal was that benediction. Twice as large as a man's fist, it glittered beneath an evening shower of lightglobe radiance, its perfect facets presenting their flawless planes to the glow of manmade light and returning a rainbow to the unadorned beams. Colorless, it was, clear and pure, waiting for some attuned soul to call forth its Eibhilin colors.

Eadmund approached it hopefully, full of need, full of desire. He thought he heard someone call his name, but ignored them and gave the Osmaer his all. He was trembling by the time his feet trod upon the thick, verdant carpet that underlaid the pedestal.

It had been a decade since he had seen the Meri-since She had pressed burning lips to his brow and branded him to his very soul. This relic was as close as he could come, now, to meeting Her face to Face. He relived his Pilgrimage every time he came here, relived it and savored it and wished, with all his heart, that he had been assigned to Ochanshrine instead of Halig-liath. For Osraed Eadmund, in his own soul, valued devotion above justice, contemplation above administration. He did what he did at Halig-liath, served as he did both Council and Hall, because he had to, not because he desired it. He would gladly relinquish all temporal power to Ealad-hach or Faer-wald or Kynan, who seemed to delight in it. He would gladly have given the letter he carried into some zealot's hands or told Ealad-hach to deliver it himself. But he had been asked to carry it by an elder, by a member of the Triumvirate, by a Brother. It had become duty. Eadmund took duty seriously.

He turned to the Crystal for release, now. He supplicated the Force behind it for wisdom and steadfastness. He looked to the Stone of Ochan and the Stone answered.

A light. A very tiny light, at first, that blossomed to bathe the supplicant's face with warmth and radiance. Eadmund's eyes, wide, reflected that radiance in awe. He had not excited that response in the Crystal since the year of his Grand Tell. Tears started and the Crystal swam in them, warm, aglow.

"Osraed Eadmund!"

Startled, he straightened and glanced about. Across the circular Shrine, at the top of the shallow bowl formed by its terraced floors, Osraed Ladhar stood just inside the western doors, accompanied by a Cleirach of Eadmund's acquaintance.

While Eadmund stared stupidly, still in the thrall of the Stone, Ladhar dismissed his companion and trundled down the sloping aisle. "My God, Eadmund! What are you doing? You should have come to me immediately. What in the name of all things holy is happening in Nairne? I have heard nothing but wild rumor since the Body was called. Who is this girl Colfre has brought to Creiddylad? Is she really Wicke?"

Eadmund's eyes moved only momentarily to the Abbod's flushed face before going back to the Osmaer. Then he gasped in dismay; the Crystal's Eibhilin glow was fading. He puzzled, reaching out a hand as if to steady the light, but it did no good. By the time Ladhar reached him, Ochan's fantastic Crystal was no more than a beautiful rock, lit only from without.

The Abbod dropped a meaty hand to his shoulder and shook him. "Come, Eadmund! Are you ill?"

Eadmund managed to control his tongue. "No, merely weary. I ... I have a letter for you ... from Osraed Ealad-hach."

"Come, then-to my chambers. We can talk there." The elder Osraed prodded him into motion, leading him to his private chambers on the first floor of the Abbis.

"Tell me about Nairne," Ladhar said before Eadmund had even settled into a seat by the hearth. "What's happening at Halig-liath?"

Eadmund allowed his body to slump into the chair's padded depths. He wanted sleep suddenly, hungrily, but must be content to sit beside this fitful little fire and entertain questions he had no answers to. "What is happening at Halig-liath?" he repeated. "I can't begin to tell you ...There is a fork in our path, Abbod. A fork caused, I assume, by this Cusp. And somehow, this girl, Taminy, is forcing us to confront it."

"This girl ... the one the Cyne has brought to Creiddylad?"

Eadmund nodded. "And Bevol with her, since he was her sponsor and defender." He felt the letter, again, as a guilty weight, but was loathe to produce it. "The Cyne arrived at Halig-liath as the Osraed Body questioned her regarding a charge of heresy-"

"Yes, yes. I know that. Or at least I knew there was an inquiry. I thought it ... a local matter, easily handled by those closer at hand-"

"You've no need to defend your absence, Abbod. Your duties here are important. It was not, after all, a universal call."

"I was defending nothing," said Ladhar with some vinegar.

Eadmund blushed. "I meant no disrespect, Osraed. However, it is now more than a local matter. The Cyne felt ... feels ... that the Osraed Body over-stepped its bounds and that the girl was being unjustly accused and unfairly treated."

"That decision hardly rests with him."

"Of course not. Which is why he has brought her to Creiddylad to stand before the Hall."

Ladhar frowned, his broad brow becoming a field thick with furrows. "To what end, I wonder? To what purpose does he import Nairne's problems to Creiddylad when she has so many of her own?" His eyes moved sharply to Eadmund's face. "You said you had a letter."

"Ah, yes. I ... I do." He took it out reluctantly and gave it into Ladhar's hands. "Understand," he said, "that Ealad-hach is, himself, the girl's main accuser." A weak thing to say, he reflected, as he watched the Abbod's eyes devour the epistle.

Ealad-hach's attack on Taminy-a-Cuinn had been nearly single-handed ... in the beginning. But Eadmund could not bring himself to speak ill of his elder and, in truth, he understood little of what was happening. Perhaps Ealad-hach possessed insights denied the rest of them.

He glanced at Ladhar. The Abbod's face was mottled red, his expression, fierce enough to terrify. Eadmund decided the struggling fire was a preferable subject for his gaze and watched it play restlessly among the perfumed coals.

"You know the contents of this letter?" Ladhar had finished reading and raised his eyes to spear Eadmund to the back of his chair.

The younger man cleared his throat. "I do."

"And you are in agreement with it?"

Ladhar's scrutiny was more than he could stand. Eadmund got up and paced away across the room, trying to look ruminative while sweating inside. "I ... I am unable to arouse in myself the hatred our brother obviously feels toward this girl."

"Hatred or lack of it is not the issue, Osraed. The issue is the danger the girl poses to Caraid-land."

"I find it difficult to believe she is dangerous. She's a girl. A seventeen year old girl-"

"Who claims to be inextricably linked to the Meri. Who spouts unheard of doctrine; who performs acts of Craft-"

Eadmund's arms moved in a convulsive gesture of desperation. "Perhaps she is merely confused."

"Then she has done none of these things Ealad-hach writes of?"

"Yes. Yes, she has done those things. And, yes, she has made those claims, but-"

"But? Osraed Eadmund, this girl is obviously a heretic. The proof of that seems to have come unforced from her own mouth. Moreover, she is a heretic who apparently has a mastery of the Wickish Craft. A heretic who has drawn the attention-no, more than that, the support-of our Cyne. Ealad-hach suggests it was her will that brought Colfre to her defense at Halig-liath. If that is true, then she cannot fail to be a danger ... to all of Caraid-land."

"What if she tells the truth?"

"What?"

Eadmund stopped to watch the fire's unsteady crawl across the curved ceiling. "I said, what if she tells the truth?"

"That the Meri regenerates in this ... unimaginable fashion? Unthinkable!"

"So Osraed Ealad-hach found it."

Ladhar was silent. Eadmund's ears picked up the soft crackle of flame-like muted applause, far distant. It was a silly thought; there was nothing to applaud here.

"And you," the Abbod asked, "do not?"

"I am at a loss to know what to think. But what Ealad-hach proposes we should do-"

"May be entirely necessary. Osraed Eadmund ..." Ladhar's voice lost its sharp edge entirely. He leaned forward in this chair. "Eadmund, I recognize that you are a compassionate man. That is a quality we dare not belittle or undervalue. But you must realize what is at stake, here. The souls of untold thousands of people, of our Cyne, of-"

"I understand what is at stake," Eadmund murmured. "We are at stake. We Osraed."

"Precisely." Ladhar shuffled the pages of the letter and folded them back into their leather packet. "I am to hold an audience with this girl. Tomorrow morning. At the Cyne's request. I will decide, then, what is to be done."

Eadmund nodded. "I'm exhausted, Osraed Ladhar. Will there be a room for me in the Abbis?"

The Abbod rose, his gaze steady and solemn. "Dear Brother, there is always a room for you here."

It was a quiet room. She could hear no owls, no nightbirds, no chittering bats. But if she stood in the open doorway to the balcony, she could hear the pounding of the Sea far below Mertuile's perch. That comforted.

The night breeze carried laughter and song up from the outer ward. They arrived on Taminy's balcony as if thrown by the handful, like rose petals-sweet, unreachable. She could smell the roses, too; their perfume lifted from the Cyne's gardens and mingled with the scents of Sea and city.

She shivered because the breeze carried the chill of the Sea and because she was alone-cut off from Bevol and Skeet. She could sense them, below and away, separated from her by Mertuile's stony bulk. The distant laughter seasoned the aloneness, made its taste sharper, more pungent. Taminy left the balcony and closed the glass-paned doors. The laughter was gone, but she could still feel the rhythm of the Sea.

She went to the little trunk she had brought up from Halig-liath and took from it a carved and inlaid box. It was a small box, just big enough for Ileane to nestle in its velvet nest. Taminy took the crystal out and gazed at it, while it, like a pet intent on pleasing its mistress, displayed its Eibhilin finery and played with the light. Ileane was all she had of her past. All that was physical. Oh, well, there was this body, too, but the soul that animated it had changed considerably since it last walked and talked and felt.

The crystal shimmered, bathing her face in its glow, warming her palm with its vibration-a little stone dog, wagging its tail.

You don't need that, you know.

Joy. Sudden and complete, it washed over her. She was flooded with it, drowned in it. "I know," she said and took her eyes from the crystal. A cloud of golden light roiled in the center of the huge bedchamber. Formless, ever-moving, never-ending mist. A Mist like the Sun.

You were lonely.

"No longer."

And will be again.

"I know."

But there's much you don't know and would like to. Questions you want to ask, but won't.

Taminy smiled. "A conceit, I suppose, to say I am content with the Will of God ... and Yours."

Even the content may be curious.

"Yes ...What happens now?"

The Mist curled about itself in silence, shedding little bits of its splendor over the rich carpet, leaving gleaming trails to fade against the pale ceiling.

They speak of Cusps-the Cyne, the Osraed. Yet, so few understand the nature of a Cusp. In this time, as in no other, the entire Creation stands at a crossroads. Every soul has been called. Some have heard a Voice, others an inarticulate cry, others only an annoying whisper. They have been called to a peak, a forking of paths, a choosing. Some of these souls understand that, but even they may fail to see the nature of the choice, or who must make it. If it were My choice, it would be one thing. If it were yours, perhaps only a slight variation. But it is not My choice, or yours, Sister. Nor is it strictly the Cyne's nor his Durweard's nor his Cwen's. It lies not with the Council, or the Body, or the Hall. The Abbod Ladhar cannot make it, nor can the Osraed Bevol, nor any other single human being. For the Cusp is choices upon choices, woven through and into and over each other until a pattern emerges and a new fabric is created. I am the Weaver. And all these souls provide the thread. I add My own thread to the weaving, now, and I guide the shuttle, ever mindful of the patterns.

Taminy nodded. Patterns. She saw them and knew that the dominant pattern was Colfre's. At this moment.

Colfre will not succeed ... in the end. But I cannot promise he will not succeed in the beginning. The destiny of Caraid-land lies in a handful of threads. I will Weave Mine, also. We will Weave it, ever mindful of the Pattern.

The bright cloud faded then, leaving behind its after-image like an echo of sweet music. Taminy curled up upon the great bed, knees to chin, arms hugging her legs, and rocked to a Duan only she could hear. The pattern of Caraid-land was uncertain, but she was not. The Cyne's castle was a place devoid of contentment, but she was content. She was more than content; wrapped in the ghost-fragrance of the Meri's presence, she was happy.

She slept then, and in her dreams she stood before a great, world-filling Tapestry and in her hand she held a golden shuttle which she plied with a Weaver's care, ever mindful of the Pattern.

CHAPTER 16.

Light the lamp of affection in every gathering; delight every heart; cheer every soul. Care for the outlander as for your own and show the stranger the same compassion and tenderness you give to your beloved companions. If someone cause you pain, give him healing medicine. If he give you thorns, shower him with sweet herbs and roses.

- Utterances of Osraed Lealbhallain Haesel the Sweep worked the Merchants' Rows most mornings, coming out just at sunrise to make her rounds and collect her pocketful of coins. This morning she had plied her broom and brushes along the Cyne's Way because she had heard that, this morning, the Cyne's Wicke would go to Ochanshrine. The Cyne's Way merchants had heard it too, and wanted their shops gleaming and sootless for the Passing. Haesel could see the outer gates of Mertuile clearly from here, and would know the moment they opened. The royal entourage would pass this way, would turn at this corner to go north to the crossing of the Halig-tyne at Saltbridge. It would slow here and turn, and then ...

Haesel glanced over at the front stoop of the shop which walkway she now swept. Huddled against it was what might be taken as a pile of discarded clothing; it was not that, it was Losgann, her son. He was six years of age and had neither walked nor stood fully upright for half that time. But today the Cyne's Wicke would be abroad and Haesel would see to it that she stopped here. The Sweep would beg, she would grovel, she would throw herself before the carriage if she had to, but the Wicke would stop and the Wicke would see Losgann.

"Mama?" His voice was transparent as the dawn sky.

"Yes, Losgann?"

"Mama, I'm awful thirsty. Is there water?"

"I'll ask it of the shopkeep," she said and did, though the man docked her payment for it. She gave Losgann the whole cup, though she was thirsty herself, and went back to sweeping and waiting.

It was mid-morning, and Haesel was scrubbing the cobbled steps of another shop, when the gates of Mertuile opened and the Cyne's retinue exited. She straightened, muscles complaining, and stretched, watching the gleaming carriage with its hedge of mounted soldiers make its way through the Cyne's Market to the Cyne's Way. It was a sparse hedge today-only four men-and they rode behind the carriage as a rearguard. Even at this distance, Haesel could distinguish the Wicke; she was a spot of sunlight, golden amid the more sedate blues of royalty.

The Sweep returned to her work, one eye on Losgann, sitting, now, in the shadow of the steps where early patrons would not see him. He was wondering, she knew, why he was not in his classroom at Care House. She had tried to make it seem a grand outing.

"Oh, but you don't want to miss the passing of the Wicke!" she had told him when he pouted and said he would miss his friends. "Why, there'll be a festival on the Cyne's Way this morning-vendors and tricksters and musicians-you'll see."

And there were musicians. She could hear them now, and her street corner was beginning to fill with people; a couple wheeled out a cider trolly, a man had set up a brazier and laid out chunks of skewered meat on its blazing coals.

Losgann lifted his head, sniffing after the cooking meat, and Haesel felt in her pocket, counting the coins there. She palmed a pair of claefers and held them out to her son. "Here, Losgann, go buy yourself a nice bit of meat."