Yesugei knelt on the thick pelts at the foot of the royal platform and dropped his head to his knees. When he had performed his obeisance, he lifted his head but did not rise to his feet. Sinking back on his heels, his eyes on the mother of the khan, he answered her command. "I bring you the healer Carina, who is a friend to this ulus. With her travel four princes of the Cloud Country with their servants and a small guard suited for the journey."

The chieftain had cleverly shifted the blame for the armed trespassers to a known and welcome guest. Bortu nodded her appreciation of the tactic, giving permission for Yesugei to introduce the unwelcome but foreseen visitors. "Prince Shokar-" he waited until Shokar completed a deep bow, and then went on, in descending order by age, "Prince Lluka, a younger prince of the house of Thebin, and Balar, his brother, who have resided with the dream readers of Ahkenbad since the fall of Kungol."

Lluka gave a tight incline of his head suitable for one of superior rank to give a ruler of lesser station. Bortu narrowed her eyes, but the khan made no immediate demand for a greater show of respect. Balar seemed unable to decide which brother's example to follow until Llesho kicked him in the shin and glared ominously at him. That was enough to decide Balar, who made his bow even deeper than Shokar's. The khan gave a bland and welcoming smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Prince Llesho," Yesugei finished the formal introductions. Llesho bowed as deeply as Balar, but no more so. He didn't want to look ridiculous, after all, and bending any farther might land him on his head. Together, the princes and the chieftain straightened and waited for an acknowledgment of the visitors.

"Boy." The khan addressed Llesho with an edge of icy condescension that brought his chin up at an arrogant tilt he had never quite learned to control.

Before Llesho could speak, however, Lluka put himself between the combatants. "Leave him alone."

Chimbai-Khan shifted his focus to Lluka, taking him in with a cold, distant gaze. "Who is King of the Theb-ins?" he asked, but he wasn't talking to Lluka. Everyone in the tent, including Llesho, could see that he didn't care at all about the angry prince in front of him.

Another damned test, Llesho figured. All right, he'd give him the answer he was looking for. "Kaydu," he said, and flicked a finger, barely, in the direction of his brother.

She needed nothing else. With a move swift as a pouncing tiger, the first of his captains stepped up behind Lluka and landed a chopping blow between his shoulder and his neck. Lluka fell like a stone. Balar stared from one brother to the other in horror, but said nothing. With vague distaste curling his lip, Shokar looked down at his unconscious brother. He, too, spoke not a word, but turned to Llesho a look of cool contemplation, as if he had witnessed something strange that didn't exactly displease him.

For himself, Llesho gave the felled prince a brief glance just to make sure that he would stay down until Llesho had finished what he had to do. With another slight dip of his head, he signaled Kaydu to step back again.

"I am King of the Thebins." he said. "And I beg the assistance of the khan in defeating the dreadful power that has seized the healer-prince, my brother Adar." He didn't think this cold-eyed warrior cared much for the lives of his guards, so he didn't mention Lling or Hmishi.

"I see." The khan saw entirely too much, and so did his entire court, it seemed. None of the guardsmen had reached for a weapon or moved from their places, but the nobles and chieftains began to stir at his pronouncement. At a gesture from the khan, they rose in muttering groups and thoughtful pairs and headed for the open door. Apparently he had performed according to plan.

A snicker drew Llesho's attention from the departing chieftains. Damn! At the foot of the khan's raised platform, Bolghai slapped Dognut on the back with a triumphant grin. Well, he'd thought he'd left the dwarf behind, just as Yesugei had anticipated no entertainment.

"A day ends, a new day dawns in fire," the shaman said and picked up a silver flute from among the instruments that the dwarf had laid out before him.

Dognut shook his head. "But at what cost?" he asked, and Llesho understood the riddle to mean, "He'll do."

"The usual, if he truly is the one," the khan answered. Dognut didn't look happy, but like the khan and Lady Bortu at his back, he watched the tent flap, waiting for something.

And damn, again. The young rider Master Den had unhorsed burst in and strode down the center of the tent as if he owned it.

The younger of the two women on the platform let her lips shape a forced smile. "I see you have survived, my son," she said, and he gave her a flourishing bow from the waist.

"I have, Lady Chaiujin."

"And will you not call me mother as I have requested?" she asked him, with a simper in her smile and a predatory gleam in her eye.

The young warrior bowed again. "As you will, Lady Mother." Addressing the khan, he added, "I stand before you with all but my pride intact. That hulking great servant of his put me in the dirt with a move I have never seen but sorely wish to learn."

"Sorely indeed." The khan gave him a quick laugh, but grew serious again as quickly. "He offered no threat or harm?"

More tests. If Llesho didn't need the khan's goodwill, or at least his free passage through the northern grasslands, he would end these games right now. The khan's thousands were an impassable obstacle against him, however, and an equally valuable resource as allies. So he schooled his face to a bland coolness that showed none of his feelings.

"To the contrary," the young prince of the Ham smothered a grin that made his face a mirror of his father's. "The Thebin hides nothing-his eyes showed every calculation as he considered his options and the consequences of acting on any of them."

"We had noticed," Lady Bortu agreed, and Llesho winced. He thought thought he'd been getting better at keeping his thoughts hidden. he'd been getting better at keeping his thoughts hidden.

"The servant is nothing of the sort, of course," the Har-nish prince continued. "No thought came between the impulse and the action-he perceived me as an annoyance but no great threat, lifted me by the scruff of my neck as if I were a cub, and dumped me with no ceremony and less injury at the feet of my companions. And this one-" he pointed at Kaydu, "-Attacked me with a wicked creature who scolded me as if he were my own old Bortu. I am not sure who deserves my vengeance more-the captain who carries this secret weapon, or my saddle-mates, who will pay, I vow, for their laughter."

His father cuffed him affectionately on the side of his head. "I'm sure you will devise properly horrible punishments over your cups, and forget them again when your head clears," he said.

"Mare's milk lubricates the imagination," the young rider retorted, and flung himself at his father's feet.

"You ought to see the monkey, Father," the boy continued with a jerk of his shoulder to indicate the sling at Kaydu's back. "He's better than a dancing bear!"

That wasn't exactly true. Llesho wasn't ready to share the story of his travels with Lleck or the bear cub's death defending him, so he kept quiet on that point. Kaydu was craning her neck to see over her shoulder, however, and she gave a little shrug. "He's sleeping," she said. "Discipline is hard work for a monkey. Perhaps later, when he is rested, Your Excellence."

The khan accepted this answer, though Llesho could see that the monkey was very much awake. He crouched down in his sling, peering with nervous fixity over his mistress' shoulder. His wide monkey eyes never left the khan's wife, who in her turn, eyed her son with something like calculation.

"Come, Father, I've done my deed for the day, and I've seen a wonder before breakfast. Don't you think it's time I had my reward?"

The khan responded to his son's plea with a clap of his hands, and an invitation: "Princes, join us for breakfast- someone should wake the officious one-and let your captains dine with my guards."

"Hold off a moment more, my father. This one-" the Harnish prince pointed at Bixei, "-bears a name and a face out of the South."

At a gesture from the khan, Yesugei dropped a hand on Bixei's shoulder and pushed him forward a step. Chimbai-Khan examined him from top to toe, as if he were a horse he was deciding to buy. "Looks a bit like a Southerner," he agree. "Tell us your name, boy."

"Bixei, Your Excellence," he repeated the honorific he had heard, and bowed as low as the princes had to show his respect.

"And where did you come by such a name?" the khan asked.

"I don't know, Your Excellence. I was born a slave in Farshore Province and sold to Pearl Island for the arena. Until Master Markko started his war against Llesho, I had never been outside of the two provinces, though Llesho has noted a passing resemblance to his enemies in the South. For myself, however, I have no knowledge of the grasslands and don't know how that could be."

Bolghai interrupted then with a shrill note from one of Dognut's whistles. Putting it down again with a guilty start, he used the attention he had gained to suggest, "He must be one of the lost tribe."

"What lost tribe?" Llesho asked, since a guardsman didn't have the right to question a khan.

"Ages past, before the Shan Empire existed, the Harn wandered all the world, from the Pearl Bay to the Manner Sea, to the foot of the Cloud Country itself." Bolghai related the tale in the singsong voice of a lore-master. "During the barbarian wars the Harn withdrew to the grasslands and left the Northern clans of Shan to build their walled cities. Some tales say that a clan of hunters settled between the mountains and the sea, that they remained in the barbarian lands and survived as outcasts, cut off from their brothers and lost to their own heritage. This boy may be one of them."

"I don't know," Bixei admitted, "Even slaves tell stories, but I never heard any about lost clans of Harnishmen."

"And who," asked the khan, "set a boy from Farshore with a name out of the grasslands to guard the princes of the Cloud Country, across thousands of pais and several hands of adventures, to fetch up at my door?"

"Not princes, Your Excellence, but Prince Llesho only, if I may beg your pardon," Bixei answered, while Llesho reminded himself to find out how far a pais was compared to a li. "We found the brother-princes along the way. The Lady SienMa formed a squad of guardsmen around Prince Llesho. I am one, and Kaydu is our captain. Among the prisoners we hope to rescue are two of our companions."

"You travel with the names of legends on your lips." The khan studied Bixei with a troubled frown. "The lady of whom you speak would demand the safety of your prince above all your party. She knows that the personal guards of a great prince must gladly give their lives in defense of their charge."

Bixei hitched his shoulder in a little shrug. "Convincing me isn't the problem. The witch-finder has Llesho's brother, Prince Adar, as well as the mates of his cadre."

"I can see the difficulty," the khan agreed gravely, although Llesho felt he was being mocked behind the solemn nod. "Very well. I can see that you have earned your breakfast and then some with your tale. But take this with you, that your face is your passport here. The Harn never turn away one of their own."

"Your Excellence." Bixei studied the khan's face with a wonder that raised the hackles on Llesho's neck. "Yes, Your Excellence." Bowing very deeply again, he followed his companions to a place nearer the door to share breakfast with the Harnish guards. Just breakfast, Just breakfast, Llesho wanted to tell him. His companions would have a home in Kungol; this stranger had no business trying to lure a favored guardsman-his friend-away with the one thing Llesho couldn't give him: people who wore faces that whispered of his own. Llesho wanted to tell him. His companions would have a home in Kungol; this stranger had no business trying to lure a favored guardsman-his friend-away with the one thing Llesho couldn't give him: people who wore faces that whispered of his own.

The Chimbai-Khan watched him thoughtfully, but said nothing when Llesho's chin came up the way it always did when he felt embattled. Instead he turned to the guard who had challenged them at the door.

"I have missed you by my side, brother. Come, and you, Prince Llesho, who would be King of Thebin, sit by my side. My seers have kept me abreast of your journeys, but I want to hear it from your own lips."

The guardsman bowed and did as he was told, curling in the Harnish style at his brother's back. When he had settled, and the princes of Thebin had likewise found places on the step below the royal platform, the khan turned to a child carrying a tray with a single soup bowl filled with thick, rich broth and fat grains of toasted millet.

"Food," he said, and waited while his guardsman took the first sip. After sighing contentedly and smacking his lips to express his satisfaction with the fare, the man offered the bowl to the khan, who took it and drank. With that, more children appeared with bowls of soup for all, and mutton fat pies to follow.

Shokar gave the khan's guardsman a thoughtful look, then, plucking a pie from Llesho's fingers, took the first bite and chewed. "Good," he agreed on a swallow, and returned the pie to his brother.

In his own court, where his cooks were both loyal and watched, tasting the king's food had the value of ritual and courtesy. But in the camp of a potential enemy Llesho wished that no one would risk themselves on his food. He was, as Master Markko had often reminded him, an expert at handling poisons as his brother was not. Shokar suffered no immediate harm, however, and Llesho took the second bite with as much grace as he could manage. He couldn't rebuke his brother without looking foolish in front of the khan, and it wouldn't do any good anyway. Shokar would do whatever he thought necessary to protect him.

"Second son," the old woman said during a pause between bites of her own pie, "our guests must wonder what we are."

The guardsman looked to Chimbai-Khan for permission to answer and, receiving it, made a bow to each as he introduced them.

"Bortu, mother of our khan."

He'd guessed as much. The old woman measured Llesho with her stare and did not give away her conclusions.

"Chaiujin, beloved second wife of the great Chimbai-Khan."

"First wife now," the woman dressed all in green reminded him with a tragic sigh. She dropped her gaze in a polite display of respect for her guests, but not before Llesho caught again the hard and empty stare like an echo of the white cobra in his dreams. Not the Lady SienMa, he knew. But a whisper in the back of his mind warned him, something very like. Was she the khan's creature? At her correction the khan's mouth had tightened, as if a knife had opened a poorly healing wound. If not his, then whose?

The guardsman had continued with his introductions, however. "Tayyichiut, eldest son of the great khan," he announced.

The young warrior had been shoveling meat pies into his mouth with the steady determination of one who had approached starvation too closely or, perhaps, like a young man who had grown four inches in the night. He acknowledged the introduction with a nod that lost much of its courtly manner when he stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked the meat juices from it. Cleaning his fingers each in this way, the Harnish prince turned his lively eyes on Llesho. "Everywhere in the camp they are saying you are on a quest to kill the magician of the South."

"We go south." Llesho hesitated to say more about his plans, and was saved from rudeness by the guardsman who sniffed to signal his displeasure at the interruption.

"Mergen," he said, with a hand at his breast to indicate himself, "beloved brother to our khan, trusted general and most humble servant." The way he lounged in his lord's presence, nibbling bits of broken pie from his plate, gave the lie to the last.

As if to emphasize whatever Mergen's actions meant to say, the khan dropped a hand on his brother's head and stroked it as he would a loyal hound. Llesho tried to imagine stroking Shokar's hair in that way, and trembled at the thought. His brother would drop him on his chin. Still, that must be part of the lesson, for both the khan and his brother were watching for his reaction. Not knowing what else to do, he bowed his head over his upright knee and let his gaze wander to the Lady Bortu, who demanded of Carina, "What have you learned of these men who would be princes of the clouds?"

"These two, Princes Balar and Lluka, I know very little about, except that they kidnapped their brother Llesho while abandoning their brother Adar to the raiders." She glared at the brothers, each of whom met her accusation in predictable fashion.

"We meant no harm." Balar had twisted his legs in a semblance of the Harnish style, but could not work out how to bow politely in this position, and rolled off the step in his attempt. Lluka sat in the Thebin style, legs crossed and with the feet tucked into the crooks of his knees. He managed to express his disdain even while he performed a perfect seated bow. The khan returned it with a measured tilt of his head, but his lips fought to control a smile while he waited for Balar to right himself. It seemed a perfect demonstration of their dilemma, Llesho thought. The brother with the power to balance the universe could not even keep to his own seat, while Lluka, the brother who should see all futures, showed no understanding of his own actions. He sighed, wrapping his arms easily around his knee in the Harnish manner learned on the Long March. The memories worried at his composure, but his body didn't care about that.

The gesture, small as it was, drew Carina's eye to him. "As for Prince Llesho, I have treated his wounds and traveled in his company from the imperial city to the very borders of the Shan Empire, and yet I cannot say that I know him. It's true what Bixei says, though. The magician makes war against him, and those who stand between them die, or worse."

Worse, Llesho knew she meant, like the Emperor Shou. But the Long March had taught him better than that. "The living can be healed, the dead must try again," he reminded her, and Carina dropped her eyes, acknowledging the rebuke.

"But is he ?" The khan had put aside the dregs of his breakfast, and he leaned forward to study Llesho more closely, raising his hand for Carina to continue.

Logically, Llesho knew that the ruler of the gathered clans of the grasslands had no intention of striking one of his guests down over breakfast. Logic didn't enter into the automatic response to the hand of a Harnishman raised over his bent body-he ducked his head in the Harnish mark of submission, the flinch as automatic as the way he adjusted his weight to keep his balance. No one who remained in the ger-tent of the khan could mistake the gesture; it seemed as if those closest to him held their breath, the distress at their center working its way out to the guardsmen in a ripple of reaction brought quickly under control. There was an enemy here who needed defeating, only they couldn't tell who it was or where they were supposed to strike.

"I'm impressed that you can sit so calmly among us, Prince Llesho."

Llesho straightened his neck, surprised by the gentle voice into meeting the khan's eyes. He wished he hadn't. The pain in them reminded him of his father when Lles-ho'd been sick or cut himself in weapons practice-as if he would take the pain into himself rather than see his child suffer. But Llesho wasn't the khan's child, his own father was dead at the hands of Harnish raiders, and he didn't want this man's compassion. No, not at all, and he especially didn't want to be caught with tears on his cheeks, which would happen at any moment- Chimbai-Khan read all of that in his eyes and let his gaze drift away, cool again and as remote as the mountains, but with his question unanswered. "And this one?" he said, looking Shokar up and down.

"I like him," Carina gave her opinion with a shake of her hair and a sly smile, shifting the mood among the guards who had responded to their leader's distress with tense confusion. "He is the eldest of the seven princes of Thebin."

"But not its king?"

"I have no gifts, Your Excellence." Shokar, who sat sideways with his legs hanging down as if the step were a chair, twisted himself still further to give the khan a bow. He didn't see the quick glance at the corner where Master Den took his ease at Carina's side, with Bolghai the shaman and Dognut with his flutes, but Llesho did. The four sat companionably together, as different as people could be. But a common wisdom beyond race or sex or costume bound the two shamanic healers. And something he could not name, beyond stature or the color of their flesh, told him that Master Den and the dwarf shared more in kind than a baggage cart on the march. He knew what Master Den was; now, he began to wonder what Dognut was as well.

"He does, of course," Bolghai answered his khan, face wrinkled up like a stoat sniffing the air. "Have gifts. Loyalty is but one of them; he serves his master well."

Llesho bristled at the description of his brother. "Prince Shokar is servant to no one, least of all to me." '

Mergen, the brother of the khan, asked with a look for permission to speak and received it in a glance.

"The brother of a king, or a khan, must be his most loyal servant. To whom else will lesser folk look for their j lessons in devotion?" He frowned his disapproval at Lluka, the faithful brother of the khan to a brother he clearly thought took too much upon himself.

The priests will show the way, Llesho would have suggested, thinking of Kungol and the Temple of the Moon. Then he looked at Bolghai hunkered in the corner with juice from the meat pie dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and he changed his mind. Still, it troubled him to think of his brothers serving him, not least because he wanted to be the one looking for comfort, not giving it. Llesho would have suggested, thinking of Kungol and the Temple of the Moon. Then he looked at Bolghai hunkered in the corner with juice from the meat pie dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and he changed his mind. Still, it troubled him to think of his brothers serving him, not least because he wanted to be the one looking for comfort, not giving it.

He found himself watching the khan's son, who met his gaze with a level one of his own. "It's true," that look seemed to say, and Llesho wondered where his brothers were. But mischief lurked in Tayyichiut's eyes.

"We are of an age," he noted, wiping a greasy hand on his backside. "Do you play jidu?"

"I don't know that game," Llesho admitted. Wisely he did not add that his Harnish captors did not teach slaves the games of their own children when they took them to be sold at market.

"You know how to use that?" Tayyichiut pointed to the short spear at Llesho's back. His tone had just enough doubt in it to prick at Llesho's already frayed nerves.

"Only a fool caries a weapon he can't use."

"Then we'll see if you can ride." With a laugh, the khan's son snatched Llesho's spear and ran, leaving his own behind in the rugs.

Temper flared. Llesho jumped to his feet to pursue him with fire in his eyes.

"Gently, young prince," the khan advised him levelly, but with a hard hand grasping his shoulder. When the rage cleared from his vision, Llesho saw that the guards who lined the ger-tent had every one of them drawn their swords. More frightening, however, Master Den had moved between Llesho and the closest line of attack, his muscles relaxed in the loose readiness that preceded violent action. And Dognut had turned very pale.

"It's a game, not a killing match. Reclaim your weapon, but let there be no blood shed here." Chimbai-Khan gave him a little shake and let him go. "Here-" he held out Tayyichiut's abandoned spear. "In the game you throw the weapon, and your opponent has to catch it. In that way, weapons will be exchanged again-he never meant to keep it. But remember, the goal is to catch the weapon in the hand, not in some vital organ."

The khan's reassuring smile faltered under the dismay of his visitors. "That may not be possible," Llesho explained. "The weapon is cursed, and it wants me dead."

"It can't be!" Slowly the realization leached the color from his face. Holding out his son's less dangerous weapon, he repeated his exclamation, but this time as an order. "It can't happen. Do what you must to stop it."

Llesho took the spear and weighed the heft of it in his hand. "I won't kill him." It was in his mind to say, "He's just a boy," but he held the words back.

The khan read it in his eyes anyway, and accepted the cost of his son's impetuousness. "There can be no shame in saving the world, even at the cost of a foolish boy's life."

"You can't save the world by killing children." Llesho was very clear on this. He'd been there, seen it before, and had taken the measure of evil on the Long March across these very grasslands. "All you do that way is exchange the tyrant you fight for the one you've become."

"I'm not sure a king can survive such fine sentiments," the khan admitted, "but I would not have your death on Harnish hands."

There was nothing to say to that. Llesho gave a tight nod of the head, as much of a courtly leave-taking as he could manage, and wheeled on the ball of one foot to find the guardsmen of the khan massed between him and the door. Where were his captains? He didn't see any of them in the ger-tent. Master Den was watching, not with the dismay that Llesho expected but as if he'd anticipated this very thing and awaited an outcome long ordained. There would be no help from that quarter. Once again Llesho was reminded of the danger in placing his faith in a trickster god.

"You defy your khan?" he asked of the warriors who surrounded him, and balefuUy stared through their leader until the man let his shoulders fall and parted a narrow path between them. Neither side offered challenge, by weapon or word, but Llesho felt their unhappy eyes on him until he stepped over the threshold.