CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

LESHO squinted in the light of Great Sun, bright after the dim interior of the khan's ger-tent, but he didn't see the Harnish prince. Nearby, his sturdy little warhorse pawed the beaten grass in the care of Danel, one of Harlol's Wastrels. The khan's taller mount, a roan with a bristly blond mane and elaborately decorated saddlecloths dripping gold beneath the tall saddle, tugged impatiently at the reins held by two grinning youths. This must seem like a joke to them, Llesho figured. He might agree if so many lives didn't hang on the outcome of the prank.

"Where are my captains?" Llesho grabbed his own reins from the nervous Danel. His one slim hope-to survive without killing Tayyichiut in the process-was looking more remote by the minute. He didn't even know how to play the stupid game, and- "There, Prince Llesho." Danel gave a Tashek gesture, a tilt of his chin at the playing field. Two hundred riders all Llesho's age or younger made up two long columns shouting taunts and laughing curses at each other across the expanse of churned turf that separated them.

"Captain Kaydu rides to warn the Harnish princeling of his danger," Danel reported, "I don't think your other captains have considered their actions as thoroughly as they might."

That was an understatement. Kaydu had found a mount and galloped toward the contending columns as fast as her horse would go. Bixei and Harlol ran after her on foot, gesturing as wildly as madmen at the riders.

"Come out, Prince of Clouds! Prove your mettle against real warriors!" Tayyichiut seemed to take the advancing captains as a grand addition to his prank. Brandishing Llesho's short spear, he laughed at the strange visitors and set his own horse in motion, escaping among the assembled riders.

Already the first of the columns had turned and thundered away from their opponents, who jeered at their flight. Lifting himself into his saddle, Llesho tried to make sense of the fleeing youths, but a shake at the bridle under his hands drew his attention from the playing field. Not Master Den, as he'd assumed from his position, but Mergen. The khan's brother had come up beside him; worry carved his face, but no blame for bringing so deadly a threat into the home of the khan. The man hadn't come out to kill him then, in defense of his impetuous nephew.

"Note the markers on the field," Mergen instructed him in quick, clipped sentences, pointing out first one, then another of the three yellow stakes that had been pounded into the dusty ground. "The first marks the starting line. When the fleeing column reaches the second stake, the pursuit column takes chase. At the third stake, the fleeing column turns and the pursuit column throws its short spears at them.

"It's a contest of skill played in pairs. Each rider has but a single opponent, his teammate, so you needn't concern yourself with anyone but Prince Tayyichiut. The goal is to find the hand of your partner, who plucks the spear out of the air before it can overshoot its mark. It's a game, remember, not war. The teams practice their throws and catches for months before joining the game in earnest.

You won't have the advantage of long practice to help you, but Tayy is skilled at hitting-or not hitting-his target. He'll aim at your hand, not your heart."

Llesho wouldn't have to defend against a flurry, then. But the spear had its own sense of direction. It would find his heart if he let it.

"It is a mark of humiliation if a player lets his partner's spear overshoot him without making the catch," Mergen gave him a meaningful look, though Llesho wasn't sure what he was supposed to make of that bit of information. "He must dismount and retrieve the spear, taking the team out of the game and suffering the insults of his friends."

Ah. A way out. Llesho got the message. How many times had Bixei dumped him on his backside in hand-to-hand training? He could do humiliation. Easy, if the spear gave him the chance.

"Some foolish youths put their bodies in the way of the spear rather than lose their seat," Mergen cautioned, "I can trust the prince of the Cloud Country not to be foolish?"

Master Den would doubtless have had words to say about Llesho and foolishness if he'd been a part of the conversation. Fortunately, he wasn't. And on this point, Llesho didn't have any doubts.

"I would guess that even a Harnish youth would only try that once," Llesho answered, and casually nudged his coats aside to show the scar where an arrow had embedded itself in his breast. Mergen's suggestion-to miss the catch and trade his pride for the safety of all-made much more sense.

It wouldn't be that easy, of course. Mergen didn't take into consideration the spear's own desire for his death. The khan's brother nodded acceptance of the tacit agreement between them, however, a little pride for a little peace.

"It's a teaching game," Mergen explained, "None who have been blooded in battle play."

Llesho's heart turned over. They really were just boys.

The game trained them for war, but he didn't want to be the one to put that training into action. "I have seen an ocean of blood, and will swim in it up to my eyes again before I am done. But I won't add any more to it over a joke."

It was a warning of some sort, but a promise as well. Kaydu would be bound by his promise not to start a war if the spear killed him. He refused to think about the ache that pulled at old wounds as he gave himself up to the possibility of death, nor would he wonder at the pain quickly suppressed in Mergen's eyes.

Chimbai-Khan had reached his mount and watched from the saddle while his brother negotiated for the life of his son. Glimpsing the impassively controlled features, Llesho felt a surge of rage so overpowering that it nearly took him from his horse. A Harnishman had killed his father, his mother, his sister, and he wanted this man to suffer as he had suffered, to feel the loss of love and security that he'd lost when just a child. But he wasn't a child anymore. Hurting the khan would serve no useful purpose and cause more deaths down a path as dark as any Llesho had yet ridden. So he gave a quick nod to seal his unspoken oath and heeled his horse to a gallop in pursuit of the spear that had been the bane of his life since the Lady SienMa had put it in his hand.

The open ground fell behind with the drumming of his horse's hooves. Llesho passed Bixei and Harlol, who had shifted course and now ran back along the great avenue toward the cook tent where his soldiers watched the contest, unaware of the danger the Harnish prince had set in motion. Kaydu had been forced into the line of riders when the column had turned and couldn't reach him. So Llesho did the only thing he could. Letting go a high, ululating battle cry, he flung his steed into the ranks of the fleeing column, standing high over his stirrups as the Harnish riders did.

Through the dust and the galloping bodies and the flash of sunlight on the sharp metal blades of upraised spears, Tayyichiut saw him and joined the pursuit, brandishing the short spear high over his head. Kaydu was among the pursuers now, and she pulled out of the column, cutting behind the charging horses and pressing her fine gray steed to bring her close to the prince. She was going to try and bump the boy's horse, Llesho saw; if she could unseat him, she could disarm him, no question.

Catching him was going to be impossible, though. The start peg was there, in front of him; Llesho's column turned to meet the pursuit. Laughing, Tayyichiut raised up in his stirrups, and Llesho braced himself to follow Mergen's advice. Just let the spear fly past and take himself out of the contest. It would teach the Harnish prince a lesson if he had to hunt for the weapon in the grass with the less skilled of the Harnish boys. Give the warriors-in-training a joke to tell about the king of Thebin for the rest of their warring lives. It would be worth it to get them all out of here alive.

But the spear had other plans. He could feel its malevolence reaching for him across the wide playing field. It would kill him, turn the innocent prince into a murderer, and in spite of all his protests to the contrary, would start a battle on this field that would very likely wipe out the royal house of Thebin.

He couldn't let that happen, so Llesho turned with the rest and steadied his knees against the back of his horse. All along the advancing column, young warriors threw to the hand of their carefully schooled opponents, who caught or missed the catch as their skill and familiarity dictated.

As Tayyichiut took aim, however, the short spear seemed to come alive in his hand. Liquid fire ran the length of it like lightning caught in his palm. Something terrible twisted his face into a mask of hate and hunger. Llesho remembered the sick longing for murder that lay behind the snarl and the fiery eyes; he'd felt it himself, had fought it and the spear for control in a way that the young warrior was only just beginning to comprehend. With a terrible scream like the vaults of hell screeching open, Tayyichiut let fly the short spear on its deadly course, straight for Llesho's heart. He knew it, felt the weapon looking for him in the chaos of the game.

Control. It was all about control. "Come to me," Llesho murmured soothingly. "And be still."

The sound of the contest faded from his hearing in a frozen, eternal moment. Then he opened his hand, stretched out his arm, and reached with his soul to take the weapon back as it hissed through the air, seeking his heart.

-And snap, he wrapped his fingers around the shaft and held on tight as the spear pulled him up, out of his saddle and into the tumult of a mock battle gone horribly wrong. Falling, rolling to absorb the shock of the fall on one shoulder, he used all the force of his tumbling momentum to plunge the head of the spear deep into the matted grass and deeper, into the loamy earth beneath. And then there was nothing he could do but flatten himself in the grass with his free hand covering his head while the ground shook and horses reared and threw their riders, running in all directions.

Fire spat from the wounded earth like firecrackers going off. Or like a spoiled and dangerous child in a fit of temper. Llesho was sick and tired of carting around an ill-tempered weapon so set on his death that he could trust it neither at his back nor out of his hands. He'd had enough of the whole stupid curse.

"You're mine." And he staggered to his feet.

"You go where you're aimed." And he set both hands on the shaft.

"You don't get a say." And he drew the blade out of the earth. It gleamed dully, pale sparks fading all along its length.

"And you-"

Prince Tayyichiut had dismounted, whether in the usual way or thrown from his horse when the earth moved, Llesho couldn't tell. Either way, he was trembling on his knees, pale as the mane on his father's horse. His arms curled around his belly, he tucked his hands up in their crooks as if it were midwinter instead of late summer.

"I saw saw things," he said, with loathing in his voice. "It made me feel-I hated you. I tried to kill you." things," he said, with loathing in his voice. "It made me feel-I hated you. I tried to kill you."

Llesho wondered if he'd ever felt that bewildered innocence. Master Jaks would have said so, he figured, and Master Den probably thought he wasn't much better even yet. With a sigh that was part exasperation with Tayyichiut and part surrender to the truth that he wasn't more than a turning of a season or two from where the Harnish prince now sat, he dragged himself to his feet. Some lessons were best learned all the way- Willing the short spear to spark just a little to make his point, Llesho glowered at the horrified boy. "Don't ever touch another man's weapons without an invitation. You don't don't know what magics he may carry, or what grudges those magics may hold. You're lucky the damned thing didn't kill us both." know what magics he may carry, or what grudges those magics may hold. You're lucky the damned thing didn't kill us both."

"I know, lord prince." Tayyichiut bowed his head, still uncertain of his composure. He was young, though, and more resilient than Llesho could remember being. After a moment more he lifted his head, already recovered sufficiently to let out the reins on his curiosity.

"What manner of weapon is that?"

Llesho considered his answer while he willed the fire of the blade to dim. The last blade to come to stormy life in his hands like that had been drawn from the stores at the governor's palace at Farshore Province, when he'd fought Master Markko in a rage that had overpowered wisdom and fear both. He had to wonder if the hatred lived in the blade or in the lives of the soul that breathed within him.

"It's just a spear," he said at last. "The magic is always in ourselves."

Tayyichiut didn't understand, but that was just as well. He allowed his attention to drift to the circle of people who surrounded them. Kaydu and Bixei and Harlol, each looking guilty for not having stopped either of the princes. Half a dozen Harnish youths as shaken as Tayyichiut. Llesho's brothers, their horror still pressed into the clay of their faces, mostly for what might have happened but some for what Llesho had revealed of himself in the contest. The khan, eyes dark with the knowledge of disaster averted by a hair's breadth, bowed his head in gratitude while his brother Mergen studied Llesho with sharp, fierce curiosity so like his nephew's that for a moment-but such a thought dishonored him and he quickly set it aside before facing the mother of the Harnish prince.

"Thank you for sparing the life of my child." She bowed deeply with all show of submission. Her eyes were cold as agates in a face as still as death and Llesho wondered if she had hoped for a different outcome, and why.

The boy's grandmother said nothing. She alone seemed unsurprised, save the god and healers who stood a little apart, watching with varying degrees of satisfaction in their smiles.

"I told you he'd do," Dognut reminded the company with a smug sniff. Out of a flat pocket that would seem to have had no room for it, he drew a pipe shaped like a sweet potato and played a riff of notes on it. Carina's smile seemed to agree, though Master Den reserved his opinion, waiting, it seemed, for something more to happen. Sorry to disappoint, Sorry to disappoint, Llesho thought, Llesho thought, but I am all out of tricks today. but I am all out of tricks today.

"Well," Bolghai announced, "I think we can begin now. I'll need him for four days."

That bore thought for a variety of reasons. Why had the shaman given up speaking in riddles? But, of course, he hadn't. While his remarks seemed straightforward on the surface, they left only questions in his mind: Begin what? Four days for what?

"We don't have four days to spare," Llesho objected, just as Master Den answered, "Yes," with a slow inclination of his head. He seemed to be thinking hard. Not uncertain of Bolghai, rather he calculated the consequences of their actions like so many points on a line. "But only four. The boy is right. We're running out of time."

Bolghai took his arm to lead him away, but Lluka stopped them with a sneer: "And so the fate of Thebin will be decided?" Lluka snarled, "You trust a trickster and his Harnish madman above your own brothers?"

"Enough," Llesho interrupted before Lluka could say more, cutting off the insult with a sharp gesture. He'd almost forgotten that he held the damned spear in his free hand until his brother's eyes widened in what looked like fear. More than boys were parading their foolishness today. Perhaps he could make use of that fear to make his point. . . .

Slitting his eyes, Llesho willed the short spear to life. Unearthly fire gleamed in sullen menace under his hand. "We need to make new alliances here, not break the ones we already have."

Torn between his fear and his objections, Lluka said nothing. Llesho turned away, letting the arcs of light dim and go out as they flickered the length of the short spear.

"Good," Bolghai approved with a mysterious smile. "Now we find out who you are."

Llesho would have told him that he already knew that, that he had ever since Minister Lleck had appeared to him as a ghost at the bottom of Pearl Bay, but that wasn't what the shaman meant. He knew a little more about what he could do, but he didn't think Bolghai meant that either. Riddles and more riddles. The shaman's smile promised he'd find out soon, however.

The spear dulled to its usual appearance; no sign of its magical properties remained to warn the unwary of its danger. Absently wiping dirt from its flat blade on the skirts of his coat, Llesho followed the shaman off the playing field.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

"WHERE are we going?" Llesho asked.

"This way," Bolghai answered uninformatively.

The deadly game of jidu had ended as the sun reached its zenith, with no lives lost though Lluka had made it a near thing. Llesho was hungry even before the shaman had taken him by the arm and led him away from the tent city of the khan. He was used to coping with privations during battles, but only Shou, he decided, could equal the Harn for turning diplomacy into survival training.

At least Bolghai had abandoned the annoying habit of speaking only in formulaic riddles. "Clients seek out a shaman for the healing lore," he explained with a shrug, "but they pay for the mystery."

That made a certain amount of sense, but Llesho didn't understand the shaman any better in plain Shan-nish than he did in riddles. When speaking with Llesho, the shaman included more words of Harnish than the khan or his court had done, which didn't make understanding him any easier. Gradually, however, Llesho began to get a sense of meaning as a rhythm rather than as a logical explanation.

Bolghai had led him around the khan's great palace of a ger-tent, where the wagons began, ranged in a wide circle around the huge tent city. Long ropes joined the wagons together and served as a tethering place for the beasts that had taken injuries in the chaos of the game. The young Harnish warriors in training picked their way among them, looking for food for their animals and caring for their wounds. The camp was so vast, however, and the wagons so numerous, that the young combatants seemed hardly to trouble the sense of abandonment that ruled beyond the tents.

When they had passed outside the ring of wagons, Llesho saw why the khan had chosen this place for their meeting.

"The Onga," Bolghai said, addressing his comment to the river that flowed nearby. The ground was flat and dry almost to its bank on the side of the camp, but across the river a broken landscape began. A forest of trees slim as wands grew between tumbled boulders and out of the cracks in the rocks themselves.

"How do we get across?" Llesho asked.

"We fly," the shaman answered him, and smiled when Llesho's eyebrows pulled up in disbelief. "In the meantime, we'll walk on this side for a while, and begin your lessons when you are ready.

"Master Den said you only have four days."

"The question you have to ask yourself is, 'What does "four days" mean to a trickster god?'"

"He wouldn't hurt me."

Bolghai cast him a pitying glance. "The sad thing is you actually believe that. You've already been hurt in countless ways, large and small, since you met him."

"That's Markko's fault. If it weren't for Master Den, I'd be dead now, or insane."

The shaman gave him another one of those looks, as if he was missing the obvious, but made no comment. Llesho stumbled on, his mind leaving questions of politics for the concerns of his stomach as day faded into dusk. Han and Chen, the brother moons, chased Great Sun out of the sky in the nightly ritual that painted red and purple on the horizon, and still they had not stopped to eat or drink. Then suddenly, out of the silence, sullen on Llesho's part, Bolghai spoke up.

"Come inside for some tea, then we can begin."

"Are you reading my mind?" Llesho asked suspiciously.

"Not your mind, no. Your stomach, maybe."

On cue, his stomach growled angrily. No point in denying that he'd eat a whole sheep, on the hoof, given the chance. He could see no tent or other habitation on the increasingly rocky and scrub-infested landscape, however. It made him wonder how sane he actually was, to follow a Harnish madman into the wilderness, until he stumbled over the umbrella roof of a Harnish tent sitting close to the ground. Shaking his head as if despairing of his new pupil, Bolghai circled the tent roof and gave a tug on the rope that lifted the felt covering from the fire hole. Then he disappeared.

"Where-?"

There. As he traced the footsteps of the shaman, Llesho saw the path cutting down into the earth like a burrow. He followed it to a door covered in a tent flap, and went in.

Inside, the fire hole at the center of the roof let in the last light of day, sparkling in a lazy dance of dust motes. The burrow seemed to have the same construction as the great ger-tent of the khan, but was a tiny fraction of its size and sunk into the earth. Felt batting wrapped the lattice of crossed branches that framed the sunken tent and gave some protection against the damp ground. Around the firebox were the skins of small animals sewn together to make soft rugs. Richly furred pelts of stoats hung on the lattice walls between the rattles and drums and an instrument that looked like a fiddle. From the frame of the roof hung bunches of herbs and an assortment of brooms, and on the one narrow chest at the back of the tiny burrow were heaped the skulls of rodents and other small creatures of the plains. Not all the skulls were entirely cleaned of flesh, and the buried tent smelled of their rot. Although he didn't fear the shaman, exactly, the decorations of his house made Llesho shiver. He didn't touch any of them on purpose, but in passing bumped into a broom made of sticks bound to a long polished handle that hung from the roof.

Bolghai noted the small accident with lively interest. "Come, have tea." he said, and swept half the tiny skulls onto the floor to make room on the chest for two cracked cups. From a kettle that sat warming on the banked fire he poured the tea, and then added salt and a tiny pat of butter to each. "Fortify yourself. You have much to learn before you sleep."

"I'm ready to sleep now," Llesho admitted, falling gracelessly to sit by the fire. He didn't like the shaman's smile at all.

"No sleep today, young king, or tomorrow either." Bolghai handed him a cup, and drank from his own. "We have four days to find your spirit and teach it to dance. So drink up-the faster begun, the faster done."

The tea tasted like old underwear. He grimaced but finished as good manners dictated. "My spirit is much happier on a full stomach and a night's sleep," Llesho protested, but his plight brought him no sympathy.

"If you give it comforts and demand nothing in return, your spirit will have no reason to reveal itself. We must call it forth instead with dancing, and command it to reveal itself before we give it food or rest. Are you done?"

Llesho handed him the cup. Given the tea, he was pretty sure he didn't want to share the shaman's supper. The confined burrow was already making him nervous. The damp ached in the scars of his old wounds reminding him of the dangers of consorting with magicians.

"What do I have to do to get out of here?" he asked, meaning more than the buried tent.

Bolghai gave him a little shrug and handed him the broom he had bumped on entering the burrow. "Cross the river. Then we'll see."

There were no boats, of course. Llesho could swim like a sea-dragon, and he could probably hold his breath long enough to walk across the bottom if he had to. Against the swiftly flowing current that rippled down the center of the stream, however, even the skills he had learned as a pearl diver didn't give him a chance. With a put-upon sigh, he went outside to sweep the path in front of the shaman's burrow.

"One thing I'm sure of already," he muttered to himself. "My spirit doesn't live in a hole in the ground."

What are you doing!" Bolghai followed him outside, still brushing the crumbs of some hasty supper from his mustaches.

"I'm sweeping. If you want me to do something else with a broom, you'll have to be more specific!" Llesho stopped, leaning on the broom handle, and glared at the shaman who glared back at him, one hand carrying the fiddle and the other planted on his hip.

"It's your partner! You were supposed to get to know each other!"

Bolghai took the broom out of his hands and flipped it around, so that the twigs were on top, and the handle pointed at the ground.

This was one madness too many. Llesho dug in his heels and refused to budge. "I trusted you!" he yelled in frustration, "I left my brothers and my guards and I followed you until my feet were ready to fall off. I drank your tea even though it smelled like you'd been doing your washing in it, if you ever do do washing, which I doubt, since your burrow smells like a slit trench in the rain. I have tried to be patient and polite until my teeth hurt from clamping my mouth shut. But I will . . . not . . . get to know a broom!" washing, which I doubt, since your burrow smells like a slit trench in the rain. I have tried to be patient and polite until my teeth hurt from clamping my mouth shut. But I will . . . not . . . get to know a broom!"