Bixei was next to his cot now as well. "He's been hurt. Get Carina-and Master Den!"

"Right."

Stipes was gone with a brush of cloth against cloth at the entrance to the tent. Llesho's tent, since Bixei said he was in his own bed. He wouldn't know for sure until he opened his eyes, which was proving harder to do than he'd expected. With a flutter and blink against the glow of the lantern, however, he managed it, and saw the roof of his own tent, blood-red in the lamplight, over his head.

"Don't try to move-" Bixei tailed off in confusion. "My prince, excellence, please. I think you've been poisoned. Master Den will know what to do."

"Stipes is saying that Llesho is . . ." Kaydu burst into the tent and fell silent as she spotted her quarry. ". . . back." When she spoke again, her voice had gone cold as ice. "What has that old witch done to him?"

"Poison," Bixei told her. "I've seen it before. So has Master Den. He'll fight it off on his own given time, or at least he always did on Pearl Island. But it isn't a pretty sight. I hope Carina can give him something to help- can you stay with him until she comes?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to kill the Harnish witch who did this to him," Bixei announced. "And after that, my fist may have a few words for Master Den himself, for letting the treacherous bastard take Llesho away without any of us to guard him. Why Llesho thought it was a good idea to follow the trickster god into enemy territory is a mystery I will never understand."

"Wait," Kaydu ordered. "We are fifty soldiers in a camp of thousands. Before we kill the local holy man, we need to know what happened."

Easy for her to say, Llesho thought. She hadn't been on Pearl Island when he was dying by inches from Markko's slow poisons. But Kaydu didn't entirely rule out murdering the Harnish shaman, even if it got them all killed in the process, which it would. She needed answers first, though, and this time, she was right. He couldn't let his people sacrifice their lives over a misplaced threat, so he roused himself to say, "Bolghai didn't do anything. It was Master Markko. In a dream."

"Markko. Again. This magic business has never done anything but harm," Bixei grumbled. He kept his voice down and his face averted so that Kaydu wouldn't hear him. Llesho could have told him he was wasting his effort. Before she could respond, however, they were joined by the healer, Carina, and his brothers. Master Den and the dwarf followed close behind her.

"Soldiers, out!" Carina flapped her hands in an imperious command. "You can keep guard better on the outside, and we need room to work in here."

Bixei shuffled out with more grumbling, but Kaydu held her ground at the entrance to the tent. "He needs more than spears and swords to protect him from this, Master."

Dognut gave her his most reassuring pat on the hand. "He has more, child." He spoke with compassion and authority. Some message passed between them, and Kaydu bowed her head and left the tent.

"Who are you?" Llesho asked. He might have been willingly blind to the musician's powers until now, but he couldn't ignore Kaydu's unnatural obedience to a lowly servant and player.

"Bright Morning, a dwarf."

Llesho tried to find answers in the dwarfs quiet countenance. When he looked into Dognut's eyes, however, all he found was sorrow, deeper than a mountain lake but much, much warmer. It seemed easier, in his weariness, for Llesho to let his questions go. He didn't object when Carina touched his energy points and his pulse; he let her press on his belly and examine his fingertips, but he knew the answer to her inquiries before she had begun.

"I can't help him," she said at last to his brothers, who stood over him with varied expressions of anger and concern. "These are old poisons, not newly swallowed but a part of him in bone and sinew. Something roused them from their sleep, and forces well beyond my skills have banished them again. I can give him something for the pain while he heals, but he will need time and rest to repair the damage they have done to his flesh."

"I'm awake, you can talk to me," Llesho reminded her. "Where is Bolghai?"

"With Chimbai-Khan. He has been desolate since he lost you in the dream world, and has argued that the khan must take up your quest as a spiritual duty to your lost soul. He was much pleased to hear of your return, but can't escape his duties to his khan just yet."

Llesho nodded his understanding not only of her words but of Bolghai's duty. "It wasn't his fault," he assured her. "I knew the dangers when I began." How could I not, How could I not, he thought, he thought, after seeing the destruction of Ahkenbad? after seeing the destruction of Ahkenbad?

"I'll give the khan your message," Carina promised. "Now take this-" she filled a cup with wine and, sorting among the talismans and amulets that hung from her shaman's dress, she reached into one of the many small purses. Out of it came a small silver vial from which she counted seven drops of a thick, dark fluid into the wine. "It will help you sleep," she explained to him, and touched the cup to his lips.

He flinched away from it, wishing only for the cool water of heaven. It was enough for Carina to see and understand his misgivings. When she withdrew the cup, he apologized.

"I trust you, but memory sometimes overrides common sense."

"And sometimes," she conceded, "memory rises to warn us of unseen dangers. I would help you rest, but perhaps the medicine would do more harm than good."

"Let me help," Dognut offered. "Music is no drug, but it has the power to give pain or take it away, depending on the song."

"Can we rely on you to play only the latter?" Shokar challenged him with a solemn bow.

Llesho thought the dwarf would grin and answer with a jest, but he gave an earnest courtesy instead, and promised, "Healing voices only from my flutes, good prince, kind shaman. I would cause the chosen consort of the Great Goddess no more pain."

Master Den cast a warning glance at the dwarf in the corner. For a change, however, Llesho didn't deny the allegation. Dognut settled himself into a corner and brought out a reed flute. Soon gentle notes were drifting lazily on the yellow lamplight.

His expression thoughtful, Master Den stroked a gentle hand over Llesho's eyes, "Sleep, young prince," he said, "and dream only peaceful dreams."

The trickster god's words had the power of a spell, and Llesho followed the soft music into the gentle dark.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

"LESHO! You're awake!" Shokar rose from where he sat in the corner listening to Dognut's soft playing. Balar had joined the music with a borrowed lute, but Lluka was nowhere to be seen. "Are you feeling better? I'll send a guard to fetch the healer."

"No need." Llesho raised himself on the bed and waited for his stomach to settle. The worst of the discomfort had passed while he slept; only the faintest traces of harmless images remained to tell him that he'd dreamed at all. If not entirely himself again, the thought that he might live came as a welcome relief instead of a curse. He owed that to the goddess herself. Silently he offered thanks, trusting the forces that guided him would carry his message to her ear.

At the tent flap, the point of a spear appeared, followed by Bixei, or half of him. With the tent flap pushed out of the way, Llesho saw not only Stipes standing guard outside, but half a dozen Wastrels and an equal number of trained Thebins.

"I thought I heard voices." Bixei cast a measuring eye over Llesho, and didn't seem to like his conclusions. "Carina will want to look at him, and he needs bread-goat milk will help as well, if we can get it. Food soaks up the poisons, or it did on Pearl Island."

"I'm fine-"

Ignoring Llesho's refusal of their attentions, Bixei sent guards in all directions: one to bring Carina, and one to inform Kaydu of the prince's condition, and another to look for food. When his messengers were well away, he returned to Llesho's side.

"What's been happening while I've been gone?" Llesho asked, and had a thought-"for that matter, how long was I away?"

"You went off with the Harnish witch three days ago. He returned two days later to report that some powerful force had plucked you out of the dreamscape and that he could find you in no realm of sleep or waking." Bixei dropped heavily to the floor at the foot of Llesho's bed, momentarily overwhelmed by the memory of the shaman's words. Though he would never admit his distress, Llesho had no trouble reading the grief in Bixei's drawn mouth.

"The Wastrels looked for you on the grasslands, and Bolghai and Carina both searched the underworld in the way of shaman. Kaydu looked for you from the air, but no one could find you. I kept the rest of your troops to our own camp, preparing to do battle against our host if it appeared that his shaman had banished you to a holy realm. We considered the possibility that the khan's son might have killed you for embarrassing him on the playing field, but he seemed to take your absence as a personal affront."

Madness, to cast their small force against the armies of the khan. But Kaydu was kin of the Dun Dragon, and Golden River Dragon had sired Carina, the healer. Chimbai-Khan might have cause to regret he ever welcomed such a band of monsters into his ulus if it came to battle between them. Fortunately, Llesho had returned before it came to a test, as Bixei reminded him.

"You returned before Great Moon Lun rose last night, and the sun is almost at its height now. I thought th< miserable old magician had taken you too far into deatl this time, but Carina said you had the mark of heaver on you, that you would recover with rest. She attend; Bolghai, who answers to the khan. Kaydu has accompanied your brother Lluka who, determining that you could not speak for yourself, insisted on negotiating with the khan in your name."

"I thought we'd already dealt with those pretensions," Llesho muttered. "Why didn't anybody stop him?"

Shokar stood at attention, braced for Llesho's wrath. "When you disappeared, and the old shaman couldn't find you, we discussed among ourselves who would take your place. I didn't want it-"

"Neither did I," Balar admitted from his corner. "And Lluka said that we'd already failed you when we let you go. He was the one who hadn't trusted the shaman from the start, and it looked like he was right after all." "It wasn't Bolghai's fault."

Shokar's shoulders lifted uncomfortably. "You say that now, but we had nothing else to go on. Master Markko entered the sleep of the dream readers and murdered them, but their bodies remained in Ahkenbad. You were just gone, vanished body and soul from the universe. We didn't think he had that power." "But Bolghai did?"

"Not on his own," Balar curled over his lute as if he would have disappeared himself rather than face his brother's questions. "Carina had explained that you were learning transforming magics and dream travel. We thought he tricked you into a trap."

Briefly, Llesho wondered if it were true. He was pretty sure that Master Markko couldn't have taken him that way unless he had already traveled the hard part- into the dream realm-on his own. Had Bolghai tricked him into Markko's reach? But it didn't feel right.

"Pig would have warned me," he decided. The goddess would not have returned him to the accomplice of his tormentor, he was sure of that, which meant that Bolghai hadn't been working with Master Markko. Tsu-tan, however, was the magician's puppet. It had been a mistake to go to the witch-finder's camp, but he'd needed to check that situation for himself.

"What's Lluka done while I was lost?" He didn't say, "that I'll have to undo," but his companions read it in his tone and posture. Oddly, Shokar smiled.

"Not much."

"The khan has declared himself indisposed to visitors," Bixei explained, "and so Prince Lluka has waited, while Bolghai and Carina sit in council in the ger-tent with Kaydu and Harlol as Carina's escort and Master Den, who comes and goes as he always does. Kaydu says that the khan takes Markko's attack on you as an insult to his hospitality, and he worries what such a powerful magician on his borders will mean to his ulus."

"It means desperate battle," Llesho agreed, "I have much to discuss with this khan who would be my friend."

Shokar had crossed his arms over his chest at this last declaration, and Bixei's chin jutted in the stubborn way he had.

"First food," Bixei insisted, just as Shokar said, "Not until Carina has declared you fit."

Llesho would have objected, but the smell of bread that wafted through the tent with the arrival of both healer and kitchen servant changed his mind. The khan would have to wait.

Not for long, however. Kaydu joined them soon after with an invitation to join the royal family-she emphasized the last part of the message: "as soon as you're well enough."

When Llesho refused to wait, she insisted that the full force of his honor guard accompany him to the khan. "It's time to comport yourself like a king, your royal holiness, instead of a boy on a lark. Kings treat with kings, after all; boys are taught lessons."

Bixei hung his head and refused to meet Llesho's eyes, but Harlol, as always, threw his allegiance with Kaydu. "Forgetting that might have cost your life, or that of the khan's son, on the playing field."

"I've already figured that out." He would need all the forces at his disposal- including the force of his own conviction in his position-to fight the evil that had taken his brother and his countrymen, that had enslaved his nation. That evil would grow more terrible still if he did not stop it on the grasslands of the South that were the source of its power. So he sent his brothers off to find their own princely clothes. Bixei and Stipes dressed him in the embroidered Thebin coat and breeches that always traveled in his baggage now, and set his sword and his knife at his belt. Llesho checked his knife by instinct, then placed at his back the spear that whispered in his ear of power and death.

Kaydu and Harlol had formed up his troops-who lingered suspiciously close to hand-into ranks of horse. Squads of Farshore mercenaries and Thebin recruits and Wastrels out of Ahkenbad, each in the dress uniform of his kind, blended into one disciplined square of allies. He didn't see Little Brother, and realized that he hadn't since he'd returned from the dream world. Asking about the monkey didn't seem very kingly at the moment, so he filed it away for later, another out of place fact to be accounted for.

When all was ready, Llesho accepted the salute of his forces and took his place at their head, his two brothers on either side, his captains right behind. Bright Morning the dwarf insisted on accompanying them to record the meeting for song and story, and Carina joined them to return to her teacher.

As they made their way with ceremonial gravity up the wide avenue of round white tents, they passed a scattering of riders. Some were going the other way and some just watched with the still focus of herders. Others-Llesho recognized some of the younger ones from Tayyichiut's first challenge-ghosted up next to them, never remaining more than a few moments, but never passing on until others had taken their places. Finally, when these unofficial representatives of the clans had had their chance to judge the newcomers in their stately panoply, Llesho's honor guard presented him at the silvered ger-tent of the khan.

The usual number of Harnish guards in their blue coats and cone-shaped hats were scattered on horseback nearby the royal residence. Others sat together in small groups, talking quietly and throwing the bones on a leather board. These latter stood when Llesho's party approached, but none moved to stop him or his honor guard of fifty. They might have scorned the small numbers of his retinue on his arrival, seeing no threat in so few. Since he had taken their own prince in a game of spears and traveled the hidden routes of the shaman in their camp, however, they attended him with wary respect.

At the door, half of Llesho's force broke off to stand mounted guard against dangers from outside the ger-tent of the khan. Senior guardsmen of the khan stepped up, one to each man Llesho left behind, while the juniormost of their members ran to gather the reins of his dismounting soldiers.

"Your guard can't watch the horses and their king," their captain offered.

Kaydu allowed it, except that Llesho's own horse she put in the care of the Wastrels Zepor and Danel. When the horses had been arranged, the captain stepped aside, permitting them to enter.

Llesho swept into the vast palace-tent of the khan, his head at its most regal tilt, his stride confident and with none of the boastful swagger of a boy. That took some effort, since he hadn't entirely regained his strength after his meeting with Master Markko. He had come to understand the value of theater in dealing with kings, however, and produced a carefully calculated frown when he found Lluka sitting in the lowest place, by the door.

"That is no way to treat a husband of the goddess," he said, and with a jerk of his chin, directed his brother to his side. Having delivered a message about the source and limits of his brother's status to both Lluka and the khan, he bore down on the dais where the royal family waited. Kaydu would have found out how to do the honor guard part correctly according to Harnish custom, so he left her to it, neither looking back nor giving any sign to acknowledge those who followed him.

At first the ger-tent had seemed almost empty, with just small clusters of young warriors who appeared to be randomly scattered, but who left no part of the vast room unwatched. As Llesho neared the raised platform where the royal family waited, he noticed to one side a group of men whose serious intent they made no effort to conceal. Each wore the long braid and curved knife that marked the chieftains of the clan. Among them, Yesugei kept his face averted with studied indifference, though Llesho saw his attention locked to a mirror hanging on the latticed wall. More than kings understood the theater of politics.

Nearer to the dais, a group of men and women, richly dressed and with headdresses crusted in jewels and colorful stones, rested on thick carpets of furs. The khan's brother, Mergen, sat among them, as did Bolghai the shaman. Advisers, he guessed; Carina left his party to join them.

Master Den was nowhere in sight. "Lord Chimbai-Khan." Llesho presented himself at the foot of the dais with a nod suitable for greetings between equals rather than between supplicant and benefactor.

"Princeling," the khan answered with a condescending smile.

Twenty-five hands went to twenty-five swords to demand payment in blood for the insult. The khan's guardsmen answered in like manner, but halted when he gave the signal to stand down.

"Welcome, Holy King of Thebin," Chimbai-Khan amended his greeting with a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. "Join my family, and accept our congratulations on your coming-of-age."

As compliments went, it still sounded like an insult. That would have rankled more a day ago. But all tests weren't the same; he'd figured that out lying in his own filth on Master Markko's floor. He'd never given the magician the right to ask anything of him, but the Chimbai-Khan was another matter. A glance at Kaydu gave all the instruction she needed. With a wary glance at Llesho, she unhanded her sword as a sign that his guard should do likewise.

When the swords had vanished into their sheaths again, Chimbai-Khan continued. "Your advisers may sit with mine, and your captains join my chieftains. As for your guardsmen, be at rest. You will find no hand raised against you in this ulus."

Llesho gave an affirmative nod, directing his brothers to the gathering of advisers and his captains to the chieftains. Yesugei, he noticed, watched with cautious interest. As one who had brought to the fire a small box that unfolded unexpectedly like a puzzle, the chieftain seemed to be trying to decide what threat that puzzle might reveal.

I am no threat, Llesho thought. He knew Yesugei couldn't hear it, just as he knew it wasn't true. He bore disaster on his shoulders like a heavy cloak, but for the time being, he'd take the Khan's questionable apology in trade for the certain danger he brought to the ulus of the Qubal clans. Llesho thought. He knew Yesugei couldn't hear it, just as he knew it wasn't true. He bore disaster on his shoulders like a heavy cloak, but for the time being, he'd take the Khan's questionable apology in trade for the certain danger he brought to the ulus of the Qubal clans.

On the dais, with a wide-eyed Little Brother in the crook of his arm, Tayyichiut waited with impatient excitement for Llesho to speak, as he might listen to Dog-nut's songs, or Master Den's stories. I am only too real, I am only too real, Llesho thought, Llesho thought, and I would trade places with you in a heartbeat and I would trade places with you in a heartbeat-all the adventures for my parents alive, my home intact. The Harnish prince must have recognized some of these bleak musings in his complicated frown, for his eagerness turned into confusion and embarrassment. The Harnish prince must have recognized some of these bleak musings in his complicated frown, for his eagerness turned into confusion and embarrassment.

A little shrug of apology seemed only to confuse the boy further. The singers and the storytellers never get it right, Llesho would have told him. Bravery is just an instinctive response to desperation. Some flee and some turn and bare their teeth. Your life is better served if you never have to do either. Tayyichiut would never believe that, of course; he'd been shaped by the stories as much as by his training. The prince would go into battle with the war cries of legendary heroes in his head, just like Llesho had.

Bortu focused her dark, sharp eyes on him, looking deeper than his skin. Llesho wondered what the khan's mother saw. Did she know what he was thinking? Did it condemn or acquit him? She said nothing, however, and showed nothing on her face to tell him her thoughts. Taking a hint from the old woman, he schooled his own features to uncompromising sternness.

In the face of this sudden, cold reserve, Prince Tayyichiut darted a quick glance from Llesho to Little Brother, as if he'd made himself foolish in the eyes of all the gathered company. Kaydu, seeing his dismay, stepped up with a formal bow and relieved him of the creature. Llesho silently thanked her for the distraction, which had drawn the attention of their audience to the monkey and away from both Thebin king and Harnish prince.

"You frighten me, Holy King of Thebin," Chimbai-Khan said. He hadn't been distracted after all.

A titter of laughter rose in the back of the ger-tent, from those who thought he jested with the foreign boy. The Khan silenced them with a hand upraised in warning.

"They are fools," he apologized, pondering the mystery of the boy king before him. "When first I met you, I said that you walked with wonders. Now I see that you are yourself one of those wonders. Come, look for yourself-"

As the khan rose to his feet, the Lady Chaiujin reached a hand to restrain her husband.

"Can I offer your guest refreshment, my khan?"

"Please, wife," he agreed, "but let our shaman advise your servants in the selection of delicacies suitable for a king lately suffering at the hands of his enemies."

No one said the word "poison," but it was in the mind and the eyes of the khan as he instructed his wife. Llesho wondered what plots exposed and hidden informed such a warning, but he had no time to consider the question. Chimbai- Khan left the dais and directed Llesho to follow. They stopped in front of a carved wooden chest suitable for storing clothes or blankets, where he gestured at the bust of a bronze head.

"My father." Llesho struggled to compose his features. Show nothing, Show nothing, he thought, he thought, give nothing away. give nothing away. "Where did you get this?" "Where did you get this?"

The raid on Kungol, it must have been. In spite of his own advice, Llesho's hand strayed to his knife. Enemies, after all.

All movement, all sound in the huge ger-tent stopped, as guardsmen of both kings held their breath, afraid even a stray puff of wind might cause the very disaster their charges wished to avoid.

It was a very near thing. Old instincts stirred in Llesho's heart: the shock itself was almost enough to bring his lethal training into play. The khan seemed to know something of this, however, and made no move that could be misread as attack.

"Not your father, unless he lived for a thousand turnings of the seasons after sitting for the head." He spoke with the gentleness he might use with a wounded creature dangerous in its pain.

"You will find in this ulus no loot from the South's raid on Kungol, young king. I didn't lie about that, though I can't say the same for wars fought between our peoples in ages past.