Master Den shook his head. "You haven't even begun, child."

"Why does it have to be that way? You're a god. Why can't you help them?"

"Them?" he let the persona of the washerman fall away and asked the question as ChiChu, the trickster god. "By 'them' do you mean the healer-prince, Adar? Or your sworn fighters Lling and Hmishi? If you could choose, who would you have me save?"

"Can't you save them all?"

"The gods who find you interesting aren't in the saving business. The best you can hope is that they'll keep an eye on you as long as your quest amuses them."

"A little harsh, don't you think?" Dognut muttered under his breath, but he subsided into silence at the trickster's raised eyebrows.

But Dognut was right-ChiChu's words did not ring true. Lady SienMa had suffered losses of her own, and she had not seemed amused. Heaven itself lay under siege: sometimes, in his dreams, Llesho thought he heard the Great Goddess weep.

"I don't know why, but you're lying. Nothing about this, from the moment I walked away from the pearl beds, has been that simple." What part his own struggle played in the battles waged above his head he didn't comprehend yet, but he knew he did more than prance and caper fonthe entertainment of the gods.

"Maybe." Master Den gave a nod to concede the point, but he smiled, satisfied, with it. "That's what a trickster god does best."

"I hope that's not the best ChiChu can do. A simple pearl diver has seen through the lie, after all."

"No more a simple slave than a simple lie," ChiChu returned the challenge. "Perhaps a trickster would hide a lie within truth with the appearance of a lie. Beautiful sky, isn't it?"

That, at least, was a truth, though not the one Llesho wanted to hear. Master Den shut his eyes, letting his grip on the bridle of Llesho's horse guide him as he turned his face into the sunlight. Llesho trailed his fingertips across the silver chain at his throat but passed it by to close his hand around the pearls that hung on a plain cord around his neck. The trickster god had ended the conversation, but maybe Pig could be made to talk, in the interest of his mistress.

Until he figured out how to summon the Jinn into the waking world, however, he would have to puzzle out his fate alone. Like what had drawn the mortal goddess of war and the trickster god ChiChu to his cause? Why of all the pantheon of gods mortal and immortal, these two? Why, of all the magical creatures in heaven and earth, had he drawn the attention of dragons? Out of all the pantheon of deities, he could have done better for his cause.

But maybe not. Lacking the strength of great armies, he needed cunning and the ruthlessness to prevail. If he won, he might call on Mercy, Peace, and Justice to teach him to be a wise ruler, but they would be no use to him now. That wasn't true, of course, if he were judging honesty here.

"In spite of everything, I trust you," he admitted to himself and his teacher.

"Then I haven't taught you very well." Master Den's eyes opened with a sly smile that rearranged his features into something that harbored deep secrets a washerman never could have kept.

"You will teach me how to perform the duties of a king in an age of magic and war, as you taught Shou and his father before him."

"Hope I do a better job at it," Master Den muttered under his breath. They both remembered the way Shou had looked when last they'd seen him. Devastated, his soul a barren land swept by scouring winds, Shou's ordeal had left him too empty even for remorse. Llesho knew the strength of the emperor, however, as well as he had come to recognize the mistakes he made. He had, after all, survived his captivity, and he would do what he must to hold the empire together, even knowing that nothing would remain of him when the task was done.

"Like Shou, I won't thank you for what you've done," he confessed. Like Shou, he knew that he would pay dearly for the favors of the gods. "But I'll use you when I must, to save my people and the Great Goddess who weeps in my dreams."

"I take it back." The god gave him a little bow. "I'm not the only one who has taught you well."

An image cleared in the mist of Llesho's mind. He saw himself stretched at the feet of the Great Goddess, an offering, not quite alive, not truly dead, but emptied of the world.

"What did you see?" his master asked; sharp eyes had marked the moment when Llesho left him for that other world, and gauged the slow drift of his return.

"I don't know." Llesho shook his head, and repeated, when a worried frown escaped Kaydu, "I don't know what it was."

Both would have had more from him, but this time he ended the discussion himself. Out of the uneasy silence that descended, Dognut skittered a song, "Merciful Wisdom," softly across a tiny flute. He knew the tune, and thought he could use more of what the song promised on this quest. For now, he'd make do with what he had and appreciate the sunshine.

Master Den had been right about the day. If he could not enjoy it, exactly, he could at least steal an hour for peace and beauty. Perhaps that was mercy enough, for now. After a long moment, Kaydu released him from her sharp scrutiny. Master Den seemed himself again, but Llesho knew better than to believe in appearances. Neither of them would forget, but for a while they rode on with nothing to disturb the silence but the call of the birds overhead.

"Riders on our flank!" The voice from the ranks drew them to a halt. Llesho wheeled his horse around and located the blur of riders still far in the distance. The Harnishmen had likewise seen Llesho's party; he could tell by the blur of their dust that they now closed the distance at a gallop. With a quick kick of his heels, he urged his own horse to speed, leaving behind the voices calling for him to wait until it became clear he would not stay his course. Then he heard powerful wings beating the air, and a great hunting bird passed overhead. Kaydu, in the shape of an eagle, caught a thermal and spiraled high above them before streaking away to scout the strangers. The sounded of drumming hooves followed. He looked back, found Harlol and Bixei gaining on him, and he let them.

"Wait!" Bixei made a grab for Llesho's horse, to keep him there. "Let Kaydu find out if we are facing peaceful herdsmen or Master Markko's raiders."

Harlol watched him, wondering, it seemed, if his Dinha had mistaken this quest and cast her Wastrels at the feet of a madman. But Bixei eyed him with real fear for a headstrong prince.

"I don't want to die," Llesho reassured his companion of too many battles. "That's not what I was trying to do-"

Bixei didn't look reassured. "Then why did you ride out alone to meet the thing that tortured the emperor of Shan to madness?"

Shou was, for both of them, the model of a heroic king, a warrior prince. That he could be so brought down in heart and soul boded ill for all of them, but most of all for Llesho, who was the magician's special prey.

"Master Markko isn't out there. I feel it when he's near, when he sees me. And right now, he doesn't."

He couldn't explain it, but Harlol seemed relieved by the words anyway. He nodded to confirm Llesho's observation. "When Ahkenbad turned the evil magician away, Prince Llesho knew. Later, when Habiba brought an army to his rescue, the prince felt the approach of his allies from afar."

"So much for no special powers," Bixei noted, then asked the practical question. "If not Tsu-tan, or Master Markko himself, who are they?"

Llesho shrugged. "I don't know." He almost laughed with relief and Bixei gave him a nervous look. "But they don't know me either."

They rode through a land of evil memories, into danger with yet more terrible danger beyond, but the thin air blew constant breezes on the great grassy plateau, reminding him of home. Their desert clothes rippled and snapped smartly, like banners in the sun. A smile sneaked back onto Llesho's lips His mount had wisely ignored the debate for the joys of the juicy grass and the wildflowers that nodded everywhere. Llesho could take a hint even from a horse.

"Does that mean we can wait for our side to catch up with us?" Harlol squinted into the distance, watching the advancing shadow that would resolve itself into riders soon enough.

With a reassuring slap on his horse's neck, Llesho slipped from the saddle. "We wait," he agreed.

He faced into the press of the wind and imagined the cool hand of the goddess wiping the sweat from his brow. Hunger growled in his belly, a simpler demand than any emotion, and he dug a roll of Tashek fruit leather out of his pack. Tearing off bits with his teeth, he chewed energetically, enjoying the tastes of dates and figs and apricots blended into the pounded fruit paste that the Tashek dried in thick, nutritious strips for the road. Bixei tossed him a salty round of flatbread and by unspoken agreement they threw themselves down to enjoy the fragrant carpet of grasses beneath them and the flavors that rewarded diligent chewing. And if his companions thought about them, they did not mention the names of their missing comrades or the prince held hostage by a power-mad magician.

Without realizing he was fading, Llesho drifted into sleep.

On your feet, young prince. Who taught you to greet a messenger from heaven on your back?"

Llesho cracked open an eyelid and peered up at the Jinn who nudged at his side with one clovenhoofed foot. "Where have you been?"

"In a sack hanging from your neck. It would help if you would put me on that silver chain the dream readers gave you, by the way. I could give you a jab with my elbow when I want to get your attention."

When Llesho was awake, the pearl that Pig had become didn't have elbows, but he resolved to do as he was asked at the next opportunity. Who knew what the Jinn could do, given the chance? With a wave of his front hoof, Pig dismissed the discussion. "I want to introduce you to someone you will soon meet in the waking world."

A stoat looked up at him out of paralyzingly still eyes. It bared its sharp, small teeth to chatter something at him in stoat language, and reached a too-human paw to touch Llesho's foot. He let the creature do what it wanted, though it took an effort of will to resist the urge to jump back. Pig gave him an approving nod, and answered the stoat in Pig language, which the shrewd little animal listened to carefully, with appropriate nods of its own. The creature patted Llesho on the ankle, a gesture he would have taken for comfort if the stoat had been human. In a beast, especially in a species so sly, he half expected to find his socks were gone when he looked down again.

After a moment more of conference between them, Pig bid his friend farewell, and the stoat turned and vanished, running through the grass.

"More company," Pig said, and vanished just as a human hand grabbed Llesho's shoulder and shook it.

"What?"

"Who were you talking to?" Bixei released his shoulder, but didn't move away. He looked worried.

"No one. It was a dream." He reached inside his shirt, the familiar gesture to reassure himself that the pearls still rested there, and found that, on his own, Pig had somehow found his way onto the silver chain Llesho had worn since Ahkenbad. There were, however, no feet or elbows jutting from the nacreous jewel.

Bixei didn't look happy with him, but he wisely kept his peace. The sun had crested and begun its slow fall into night while he slept. Their small army had rejoined them, scattered in resting groups in a guarding circle around the place where Llesho had fallen asleep. Master Den snored softly nearby while Dognut reclined at the side of his camel, trying to teach Little Brother how to play on a reed flute. The monkey didn't seem to get the idea, preferring to brandish the flute wildly about him like a battle baton while he encouraged himself with hops and leaps and wordless chatter.

Within the circle, Shokar stood nearby with Lluka and Balar, watching him with lines of concern carved in his face. Worry had aged him even since Llesho had seen him last in the imperial city. He trusted Shokar with his life, had from the moment he set eyes on him in the slave market of Shan. But he wasn't sure if he could trust any of his brothers with his truth. Wasn't even sure he knew what that was yet. Kaydu, though, he thought would understand, when she truly gave her loyalty. Until she threw her heart into her choice, however, he could only trust her head so far.

She had returned from her reconnaissance and watched him from Harlol's side, her head bent to accept the comfort of Harlol's fingers on her hair. She noticed Llesho's gaze on her, and gave herself a shake all over as if settling feathers or scales, though she wore her human form again. He remembered feeling jealous of her attention, and wondered that her interest in the Wastrel had ceased to matter to him.

"It's a small band of herders, armed to drive off wolves, but not for battle," she reported. "They have come ahead of their herds to challenge our presence here, but something has slowed their pace. Perhaps there are more of us than they had realized, or perhaps their own scouts have returned, and only now they learn that we are prepared for combat."

Llesho considered his options. The grass smelled sweet, the fading sunlight fell like a caress on his face, and even the horses' satisfied whickers signaled their contentment with the afternoon. He'd give the herdsmen any ransom they asked if it meant they would not soak this ground in blood before the day was out.

"I don't want a fight if I can help it." He hoped the clan chief felt the same.

Bixei stared out beyond the circle of their defenses to the small band in the distance. He calculated something that didn't take the land into account, but his answers brought him no more joy than Llesho's did. "It wouldn't be a fight."

A massacre, he meant. Fighting, once started between two such unequal forces, could only end one way.

"No way to begin a holy war." Llesho had already decided. Now he needed the herdsmen to know it, too. "They will see we mean them no harm if I go out to meet them alone."

"No!" Balar stepped up to stop him. "Your life is too valuable to throw away on a rash gesture."

"I'll go with you," Shokar volunteered, his features set and grim.

"Yes," said Harlol, who understood, as a Wastrel must, that battle might be waged in numbers, but reaching out must be done one hand to one hand.

"I'm with you," Bixei would hear no objection. He still felt guilty for the disaster at Durnhag that had put their comrades at risk.

Llesho nodded, accepting Bixei's determination to clear his conscience of something for which no one blamed him but himself. "Bixei will come with me. How much threat can two men be?"

Harlol snickered. Yes, that much. If the herdsmen were what they seemed, they two could probably account for all of them before their chieftain knew they had been attacked. Llesho left his unstrung bow in Balar's hands, and mounted his horse. Small white clouds bloomed overhead like silk cocoons, and Llesho felt like he was one of them, moving with the wind across the flat plain of the high plateau. Who could fear a cloud? The short spear at his back reminded him that to be fearless meant to be foolish.

"You can die out here," it whispered. "You will die out here." He would have given it to Shokar to keep for him, but it had burned Adar-not that prince, but this one-it had found its true owner. Even if his brother could hold it, he didn't trust the spear itself enough to leave it behind.

Seeking a safe haven, he found that his hand reached automatically to the pearl that now hung on its own chain around his neck. Pig seemed an unlikely protector, but Llesho realized the Jinn was the only one with the will and the ability to do it, at least in the land of dreams. ChiChu, the trickster god, had the ability, of course, but always one had to question his intentions.

His troops parted for him, watching silently as Llesho left their circle. Bixei, at his side, was equally quiet so that the sound of hooves seemed to come out of a different world.

"I'm coming, too," Harlol announced. "It will be just like old times."

"Would that be the time you kidnapped Llesho and dragged him halfway across the desert?" Bixei wanted to know.

Harlol laughed. "That, too. But I stood at the Prince's right hand when he waited outside the protections of Ahkenbad to lead the army of the magician Habiba to the Dinha. Once was a task, twice is a tradition!"

Before Bixei could answer the way his frown promised, Llesho raised his hand for peace. "A mercenary from Farshore, a Wastrel from Ahkenbad, and a prince from Thebin riding together will, at the least, confuse them enough to give us time to explain," he said.

"You're succeeding on the confusion part," Bixei confirmed with annoyance. "You've already confused me." But he subsided into his saddle with no further challenges to the Wastrel. Which was just as well, because the herdsmen had kicked their horses to speed to meet them. Llesho kept to a leisurely pace, to show that he posed no threat. When they had ridden close enough to see the glint on the herdsmen's rough weapons, he stopped and waited for the men who belonged to this land to draw near. Their horses scarcely startled at all when an eagle circled overhead, and swooped down on them. Harlol held out his arm, and Kaydu settled on it, rustling her feathers into order. Together they watched the riders approach.

The leader of the Harnish riders seemed about middle-aged, his hair a mix of gray and black that he had straightened with the fat of a sheep and twisted into one flat braid falling from his nape to the middle of his back. He was almost as tall as Bixei, but broad in the chest with thick arms showing below the short sleeves of his woolen tunic. Dark eyes narrowed over high cheekbones jutting sharply in a broad, flat face. His hands crossed at the wrists over the horn of his saddle to show that he harbored no hostile intent, but he returned Llesho's study with a sweep of coarse lashes lowered to a brooding thoughtfulness.

"Yesugei," he finally introduced himself, "A chief of the Qubal clans, who graze this land." The Harnish language rolled low and guttural from the chieftain's throat.

Llesho understood little of what he heard: the word for land, which sounded like a badly formed version of the same word in Thebin, and the names by the man's inflection. The challenge in the glance and tone stirred an answering aggression in Llesho's bones, however. He straightening his spine in the saddle, tilting his chin at a regal angle, but he couldn't debate the man in the little Harnish he knew, not when the outcome would decide whether they left the field as allies or corpses. So he answered in Thebin. When Yesugei showed no sign of comprehension, he tried again in Shannish: "Llesho, Prince of Thebin, asking your leave to pass this way in peace."

The chieftain's eyes widened briefly. "Dreams spring to life and move among us," he muttered under his breath, but in Shannish. Clearly he wanted no misunderstanding that might lead to bloodshed. Casting a glance at the mercenary and Wastrel at Llesho's side, Yesugei said aloud, "You travel in strange company, Prince of Thebin. But be at ease, we mean you no harm. Your guide has simply lost his way. The season forbids a return to the Wastes, but my clansmen will lead you safely to the Guynm Road."

Harlol bristled at the slight, but Llesho cut the air with the blade of bis hand, warning him to silence. If it came to a fight now, they had no chance of winning. They might delay a battle with talk until their troops arrived, but he didn't-know what forces might be riding to join Yesugei as they spoke.

"We mean you no harm, honored chief, and ask that you grant us safe passage." Llesho answered with a formulaic plea for hospitality that he hoped would cool tempers growing chancy. "We will respect your herds and travel lightly across your land." The horses would graze the clan's pasture land as they passed, he meant, but Llesho promised they wouldn't steal any horses or inflict any deliberate damage on the clan or its land on their way through.

Yesugei shook his head. "Impossible."

Llesho waited until the chieftain had given him his full attention again, and locked gazes. Yesugei frowned and drew a speaking breath, but Llesho didn't let him continue.

"I follow raiders who would deliver my brother, a blessed healer, and my own sworn guardsmen to the tortures of an evil magician who has fled into the South.

Not all the forces the Harn may bring against us will move me from my course."

"My ulus does not treat with the South," Yesugei said.

Llesho didn't know what an ulus was. He read the distaste on the chieftain's face well enough to judge he might find any ally here, against a common enemy if in nothing else. But he had to convince Yesugei to trust him. Slowly, he opened his own soul to the Harnish rider's gaze, with all the turmoil and the strength of his dawning power.

Yesugei gasped, as if he'd been struck. "Truly," he muttered, drawing himself together, "dreams walk in the waking day."

"Then we may pass?"

"I don't have that authority." The chieftain's eyes slanted away from him when he said it, but not before Llesho caught the sly calculation there. Yesugei lied. What did he want to hide?

"I'll take you to the khan of my ulus. You can present your petition to him."

"The clans elect a chief of chiefs among those who share a common range," Harlol explained. "He is called 'khan.' The clans of such a leader among leaders are together called his 'ulus' and may petition the khan to settle disputes. Each chieftain pays a tax in horses and young men who serve in the khan's army."

There seemed to be a lot of that in the world-even the religious Tashek of Ahkenbad cast their extra young men out into the world to explore or fight or die, as long as they didn't disrupt the peaceful order of the homes that would never be theirs. Llesho wished for the bite of Master Den's trickster wisdom to draw him out of the shadows of his thoughts.

"It's not exactly the Shan Empire," Harlol continued, "but it seems to work for the clans most of the time."

"You know a lot about us, Tashek spy," Yesugei commented, deep suspicion etched in the dryness of his drawl.

"No spy." Harlol shrugged, at a loss to explain to an outsider what seemed obvious to him. "Just a wanderer with eyes."

Llesho nodded agreement to Yesugei's condition. "We'll present our case to the khan, then," he said, and hastened to make clear the urgency of his mission. "I would honor your khan and beg his indulgence. I urge speed, however. Each moment that we delay takes my brother, and my sworn guards, a step closer to horrible death."

He couldn't stop the shudder that passed through him as memories of Master Markko's poisons racked his body.

Yesugei shivered in his saddle, as if he, too, felt the clench of dying muscles in his gut. "A messenger can take your word to your forces, instructing them to follow."

"No need," Llesho gave Harlol a nod, and the Wastrel flung his arm upward, casting the hunting bird skyward. Kaydu pumped her wings with a harsh cry, wheeled to gain altitude, and flew back the way they had come.

The Harnish chieftain watched her pass out of sight. He said nothing, but his face seemed to close up against the wonders that moved unseen around him. Llesho read the set of his shoulders and the lines of his forehead: not angry or frightened, but very thoughtful. Not at all like the raiders who had laid waste to Kungol. He reminded himself not to underestimate the man. This Yesugei might not be an enemy, but no Harnishman could be considered a friend.

"This way," Yesugei said, and raised his arm in a signal to his followers. "The settlement of the ulus is only a double hand of pais from where we stand." He turned his horse with the pressure of his knees on the animal's flanks, but Llesho wasn't finished yet.