"Nagarian?" echoed Skar. "Is this the Azhkendi lord? The one who tried to kill the Emperor and his daughter?"

"You didn't hear that!" snapped Baltzar. In his desperation to elicit a response from the patient, he had committed an unpardonable breach of confidentiality. "Remember the contract you signed? Everything you witness within these four walls is to be treated with the utmost discretion."

"Understood." Skar nodded. "But, Director, do you think the operation may have damaged him? By now, they usually show some sign of consciousness."

"Are you impugning my methods, Skar?" demanded Baltzar. "I hardly think it's your place, as my assistant, to question my clinical-"

"Director." Skar pointed at Twenty-One. "Look."

A single tear rolled slowly down the patient's immobile face.

"He's crying."

Andrei waded back through the shallows, the cold, brackish tide lapping against his sea boots until he stood on the bleak pebbled shore, gazing after Kuzko's boat, the Swallow, Swallow, bobbing its way out across the choppy waters of the Iron Sea. bobbing its way out across the choppy waters of the Iron Sea.

This was where it had happened. This was the place the lightning bolt from the rolling stormclouds had struck him.

That sizzling flash of blue fire had restored his powers of speech but scoured his memory clean of all except his first name. He could have a wife and children mourning him, yet he had no recollection of anyone but Kuzko and Irina.

"Why can't I remember?" Andrei yelled to the distant horizon. "Who-am-I?" "Who-am-I?"

A bolt of lightning suddenly scored through his mind.

"Ahh . . ." Dizzy, he staggered back up the beach, one halting step at a time, until he fell to his knees, panting, clutching at his head.

It was as if something within him was struggling to escape.

Irina hummed to herself as she pegged her wet washing to the line. There was a good drying breeze today, not so fierce it would tug the clean clothes from the line. The breeze would set Kuzko and the Swallow Swallow on a fair course for Yamkha-and the sooner he was gone, the sooner he would return with the much-needed supplies. on a fair course for Yamkha-and the sooner he was gone, the sooner he would return with the much-needed supplies.

A man's voice cried out from the shore.

Above the wet sheets and shirts she caught sight of Andrei coming back up the beach, saw him stumble and fall.

Poor lad. He'd made such good progress, but he still needed more time to regain his strength. The sheet she was pegging up was left dangling as she set out to help him. Then a sudden sea mist, grey as smoke, gusted across the narrow spar of land. Bewildered, she blinked, trying to peer through the billowing fog. Andrei was still lying sprawled on the sand.

"Andrei!" she called, her voice shrill with alarm. He made no reply.

Her heart started to thud. Why must the lad have a relapse now that Kuzko was gone? She hadn't the strength to drag him back to the hut all on her own.

The sea mist swirled about her, yet not so thickly that she could avoid seeing Andrei start to twitch and writhe.

"Another fit?" The lad needed her; that was all that mattered. She gathered up her heavy worsted skirts and hurried down the shore toward him.

Andrei lay helpless on the sands, unable to move.

"When I found you, you were damaged almost beyond repair. And so was I, cast out from my rightful lord . . ."

Patterns of light pulsed across his sight. "But I read in your blood the trace of Artamon's seed. It called to me. It revived me. So I have remade you, refashioned you as best I could. Yet you still resist me. Don't fight me, Andrei, let me help you." "But I read in your blood the trace of Artamon's seed. It called to me. It revived me. So I have remade you, refashioned you as best I could. Yet you still resist me. Don't fight me, Andrei, let me help you."

Was this some kind of island spirit? It spoke of healing. What did it want of him? All he wanted was to remember who he was. Words formed in his mind-slow, clumsy words.

"Why-can't I-remember? Tell me-who I am."

"Andrei?" called a quavering voice.

Andrei opened his eyes to see the wrinkled face of an old woman bending over him.

"There now," she said as if she were soothing a child. "You were having a bad dream."

Kuzko had been gone for five days now, Andrei reckoned. Irina seemed unconcerned, busying herself feeding her chickens and working at her sewing.

"He'll have met friends. He'll be back when he's ready. Gives me a chance to clean up after him, the old curmudgeon. . . ."

Sometimes she forgot herself and called Andrei "Tikhon," the name of her drowned son. He never corrected her. It was such a solitary life for her here at land's end. The nearest neighbors were over a two-mile's walk away across the dunes.

A sudden shiver of restlessness went through Andrei. He set out from the cottage and walked up through the reeds into the dunes. A glimmer of pale, high cloud hid the spring sun. Beyond the calm, lapping green of the empty sea, the horizon was hazy with mist. The air felt softer today, milder. High overhead flew a skein of wild geese, honking exuberantly as they set out for their spring feeding grounds.

Two weeks ago, walking at this speed would have exhausted him. Today he felt exhilarated, hardly noticing the last, lingering stiffness in his mended legs.

"Ahoy there, Andrei!"

He spotted Kuzko's little boat and hurried down the shingle to help Kuzko pull it out of the shallows up and onto the beach.

"Thanks, Andrei," said Kuzko, clapping him on the shoulder and gazing intently into his face. "Andrei, lad-" he began, as though about to ask a question.

"And about time too, Kuzko!" called out Irina. Kuzko let his hand drop away, turning to face his wife as she hurried down from the hut to greet him.

Andrei was eager, desperately eager to ask Kuzko what news he had gathered in Yamkha, but there were sacks of provisions to be unloaded first and a little keg that smelled strongly of spirits.

"Careful with that keg," Kuzko warned with a wink.

"Did you remember my thread and needles?" Irina fussed around them. "And the beeswax for polishing? And-"

"All in good time, woman," growled Kuzko. "You can brew us up some tea." He tossed her a bag. She caught it and sniffed it, a broad smile slowly lighting her worn face.

"Real tea!" She hugged Kuzko to her and planted a kiss on his mouth.

"Cost me a small fortune, that did. Don't waste it, now!"

Kuzko's weather-wrinkled cheeks were red with a glow that spoke of hours whiled away in the tavern, and his eyes were bloodshot. Irina drew away from him, tutting.

"We don't have a small fortune. So how exactly did you pay, Kuzko?"

Kuzko shuffled from foot to foot, suddenly embarrassed.

"A little favor I agreed to do," he muttered. "For an old friend."

"Favor?" Irina repeated loudly.

"You remember Baklan?"

"Baklan, the smuggler? Oh, Kuzko, you promised me you wouldn't risk it again. You're too old."

"It's only a little consignment to be delivered to Gadko's. Andrei'll give me a hand, won't you, lad?"

Andrei nodded, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to.

"And if you get caught?" Irina was still cross; her foot tapped against the earth floor.

"A few barrels of aquavit in an old fishing smack? Who's going to pay attention? There's greater concerns out there, Rina."

Later when the provisions had been stored safely away in stone crocks and jars, they sat down around the fire with mugs of strong, black tea sweetened with Irina's apple jam.

"So," Irina said, "what's the news in Yamkha?"

"Big news!" Kuzko rolled his eyes. "Seems old Duke Aleksei's been deposed. There was a riot in Mirom and half the city burned to the ground. Some are saying the rioters collaborated with the Tielens, others that the Tielens sailed down the Nieva and bombarded the city."

"Mercy on us," Irina said, setting down her tea. "The Tielens?"

"They're in charge now." Kuzko noisily drained his tea to the dregs and wiped the last drops from his mustache with his sleeve. "We have an emperor. Emperor Eugene."

"What does that matter to us out here?"

"Could mean more taxes. Customs duties. And there's talk of a census. I saw Tielen soldiers-only a handful, mind you-at the harbor."

"And what did Duke Aleksei ever do for us?" Irina said with a shrug. "What did the Orlovs care for us, the little people? They spent all Muscobar's money doing up their fine palaces. We're well rid of them, I say."

"Oh we're not quite rid of them yet, Rina my love. Eugene's made Aleksei's daughter his empress. Empress Astasia."

Andrei listened, the mug of tea going cold between his fingers. The names, the names . . .

"Didn't old Aleksei have a son too?" Irina asked.

"Young Andrei? The night of that terrible storm in the Straits, his ship, the flagship, went down, all hands lost." As Kuzko was speaking, Andrei realized he was looking searchingly at him again as he had earlier on the shore. "They say she had too many cannons and the weight sank the ship. Truth is-nobody knows because it seems nobody survived."

"Terrible," whispered Irina, staring into her tea mug. "What a waste . . ."

Aleksei . . . Astasia . . . Orlov . . .

"Where did the ship go down?" Andrei demanded. "Was it far from here? And what was she called?"

"The Sirin Sirin."

A shiver ran through Andrei's body. "I know that name," he said slowly.

"Andrei," began Kuzko awkwardly, "I've been thinking. They say nobody survived. They say all the crew drowned. But-"

"You think I'm I'm Duke Aleksei's lost son?" Andrei got up, knocking over his stool. He clutched his head, as if he could wrest the memories from his locked brain. Duke Aleksei's lost son?" Andrei got up, knocking over his stool. He clutched his head, as if he could wrest the memories from his locked brain.

"Stands to reason, lad. The storm that night washed you up here, on this very beach."

"Then why-why can't I I remember anything?" And Andrei, overcome with bitter frustration, flung open the hut door and went out into the darkness. remember anything?" And Andrei, overcome with bitter frustration, flung open the hut door and went out into the darkness.

The night was as dark as the foul-smelling pitch Kuzko used to caulk the hull of his little boat. Andrei stumbled, unseeing, along the shingle, blind, deaf to the mean blast of the wind off the lightless sea, or the menacing rattle of the incoming tide fast clawing its way up the pebbled beach.

"Why!" he yelled at the black sea, straining his throat until it was raw. He dropped to his knees on the damp stones, sobbing with frustration. "Why can't I remember?" can't I remember?"

"Why do you need to know?"

The voice was softer than the whisper of the tide.

"Who's there?" Andrei jerked around. "Come out! Show yourself!"

"I am the one who healed you."

It was that voice again, the one that had haunted his fevered dreams when he was hovering between life and death.

"I'm going mad. Hallucinating."

"Think of me as your spirit-guardian . . . if it helps."

"I don't believe in spirits. Angels or daemons."

"I can help you unlock your memory. But only when you are ready."

"Do it. Do it now!"

The voice fell silent and all he could hear was the chitter of stones swirled around by the encroaching tide.

And then the fog in his mind melted away and a flood of memories rushed in.

Faces flickered before him in the dark like phantasms: Astasia, his sister; his father Aleksei, careworn with affairs of state; his mistress Olga, with her bewitching smile . . .

He stood on the quay on a grey, windswept morning. His royal-blue naval uniform glittered with golden buttons and epaulettes, but the collar was damnably tight.

His mother and father were there, shivering in the fierce wind off the River Nieva. And his beloved sister, dark-eyed Astasia, came running forward, flinging her arms about his neck to hug him as if she would never let go. . . .