"You're not putting more of your bugs in my blood." He grimaced. "Those b.l.o.o.d.y things never die."

"Nanomeds aren't bugs. And meds designed to flush out alcohol do 'die.' They dissolve after a few"

"No," he said.

She scowled at him. "If I alter your body so you can live on this planet unaided, you'll need even more self-replicating meds than the ones you carry now for health maintenance."

"Fine." With no warning, he spun around and strode up the hall, straight toward Kamoj. His sudden attention caught her off guard. She hadn't even realized he knew she was there.

A farmhand must have given him the clothes he was wearing, an old white shirt, soft and worn with washings, and rough pants tucked into scuffed boots. Although Maxard wore old clothes when he worked the farm, it was still the garb of a highborn man. It startled her to see the wealthiest man in the Northern Lands, possibly on all Balumil, dressed like the poorest farmer.

Before she could react or retreat, he reached her. He didn't even stop, just slid his arm around her waist and swung her around, then pulled her with him as he headed back down the hall. His longs legs covered ground so fast she had to run to keep up with him.

He stopped in front of Dazza. "My wife and I are going riding." Propelling Kamoj ahead of him, he stalked into the entrance foyer. He left her in the middle of the chamber while he went to where his cloak hung on the wall like a patch of evening sky.

Kamoj pushed her hand through her hair. What if she refused to go with him?

Perhaps she was naive, but she didn't believe he would do anything more than leave her behind. The idea of his going alone bothered her more. Could he safely ride, as drunk as he seemed right now? Suppose he fell from his stag and broke a limb? Or worse? She didn't know how it worked with his people, but among her own, a man thrown from a greengla.s.s could die alone in the forest before anyone found him.

Vyrl smacked his palm on the wall, and a block of stone slid to the side, revealing a cubical cavity. He pulled out his silver mask. Crumpling it in his hand, he swung around and looked at someone behind her. "Bring Greypoint out front," he said.

Turning, Kamoj saw Azander by the great double doors of the entrance. A bruise purpled the stagman's chin where Vyrl had hit him last night. Azander pulled back the heavy bolts on the doors and leaned his weight into the left one until it swung open, letting blue-tinged sunlight pour into the foyer. Then he walked through the shimmer curtain, out into the autumn day.

Dazza spoke from the foyer's inner archway. "Vyrl, at least let Kamoj ride her own stag. She'll be safer that way."

"Safe from what?" Vyrl swung his cloak over his shoulders, the blue cloth swirling through the air like a swath of midnight-blue sky. "Military witch- doctors who want to fill my blood with bugs to stop me from enjoying a drink, but who refuse to fix my body so I can G.o.dd.a.m.n breathe?"

"Don't go riding," Dazza said. "Wait until you're sober."

Bi-hooves clattered on the flagstones outside. Vyrl came over to Kamoj and took her arm. Pulling her with him, he strode through the shimmer curtain, out into the sunlit courtyard.

Dazza called from behind them. "Vyrl!"

When he turned to the colonel, Kamoj's hope jumped. Would he change his mind and go back?

Dazza was standing in the palace entrance now, behind the shimmer curtain.

"Your respirator," she said.

He watched her, the mask still crumpled in his fist. Then he spun around and drew Kamoj over to where Azander held a stag ready. The animal was huge and muscled, with gigantic greengla.s.s antlers that shaded from emerald at their base into silver tips. Despite the stag's great height, Vyrl swung up onto its back with mesmerizing grace. Greypoint pranced sideways, shook his head, and stamped his four front legs. Then he stilled, becoming a statue as he looked down at Kamoj. His eyes, huge and green, with vertical pupil slits, stared at her with unsettling intelligence.

When Vyrl motioned, Azander put his hands on Kamoj's waist and lifted. At the same time, Vyrl reached down and grabbed her. He hauled Kamoj up in front of him so she straddled the stag, her flared skirt foaming over her thighs and knees. It happened so fast it made her dizzy. Or maybe it was the air, so thin after the palace. Vyrl held her around the waist with one arm, his mask clutched in his fist, while Greypoint danced under them, agitated with Kamoj's unfamiliar weight.

Suddenly the greengla.s.s reared on his back legs, rising up, up, and up to his full height, his front four legs pawing the air, their scales splintering the light.

Clangs filled the courtyard as he crashed his bi-hooves together. He threw back his head and bared his fangs, the opaline teeth glittering like daggers.

And he screamed at the sky.

For one frozen instant Kamoj couldn't move, terrified she would fly off the greengla.s.s. From this height the fall could break her neck. Then she grabbed its antlers, their velvety green scales slippery in her hold.

"d.a.m.n it!" Dazza shouted. "Vyrl, don't do this!"

The greengla.s.s came down, jerking his head until Kamoj released his antlers.

Vyrl's labored breaths rasped behind her. Kamoj twisted around to see him staring at Dazza, his face flushed. As Greypoint danced beneath them, on the verge of rearing again, Vyrl yanked a narrow slab out from his cloak, a rectangle covered with lines and symbols. Extending his arm, he pointed the slab at Dazza. "You can forget about having your orbital monitors track me, Colonel. I'm setting up a jamming field" He pressed a blue light on the slab.

"now."

Dazza paled. "We want you here, Vyrl. What if something happens and we can't locate you?"

"Is that all any of you think about?" he rasped. "What you want?" He thrust the slab back in his cloak and grabbed Kamoj's shoulders. "Look at this. My wife. A farm girl like a virginal s.e.x G.o.ddess out of an erotic holomovie, and all she asks is a simple life, a husband who doesn't beat her, and the freedom to walk in the woods. Did it ever occur to all your generals, politicians, and strategists that maybe that's all I want? That what I want might actually matter? Or are you all too busy plotting how to use your oh-so-valuable prince to give a flaming d.a.m.n what I think?"

He jabbed the stag with his heels and Greypoint leapt forward, racing for the forest. Vyrl held the reins with both hands now, his arms around Kamoj. He was gasping, choking as if every breath hurt.

"Vyrl!" she shouted. "Put your mask on!" The wind carried away her voice.

Desperate, she shouted in her mind. Vyrl! Your mask!

His arm moved and his breathing stopped. Dismayed, she twisted around and stared into a face of silver scales. Jerking at the sight, she lost her balance. Vyrl caught her as she fell, but he misjudged his strength and almost shoved her off Greypoint in the other direction. She turned around and hung onto the stag's neck while they raced through the iridescent trees.

The dirt path they followed sloped upward, trees towering on either side, branches meeting overhead. Despite the cloudless day, thunder rumbled above the forest. Kamoj stiffened, wondering what other "marvels" Vyrl's outburst would call up.

"It's just a shuttle engine," he muttered against her ear. He slowed Greypoint to a walk and prodded him off the path, into the woods. The stag had calmed, his fire eased by the race. He trotted between the widely-s.p.a.ced trees, his six legs moving with such smooth coordination that Kamoj barely felt the b.u.mpiness of his bi-hooves. .h.i.tting the ground. His muscular, long-legged grace reminded her of Vyrl.

They went deep into the mountains, always headed upward. Every now and then an "engine" grumbled overhead. Each time the sound came, Vyrl tensed, and each time it faded he relaxed again.

Eventually Kamoj said, "Where are we going?"

"Away. Until they find me." He sounded tired. "Actually, they always know where I am. But usually they let me come back on my own." He paused.

"Except today I took the jammer. They'll have more trouble this time."

"Jammer?"

"What I pointed at Dazza," he said. "It works best against electromagnetic sensors."

"Lector's senses?"

"It confuses the things they use to find me." His voice slurred. "Neutrinos are harder to fool, though. They go through anything. But this jammer is a real beaut. It can create false shadows to throw off even neutrino sensors."

"Oh." Kamoj wondered if the rum made him babble, or if his words had some actual sense.

"What do you think is this Current you all worship?" Vyrl asked.

"Electromagnetic radiation. Light. Those threads in your light panels are just optical fibers."

That gave her pause. In Iotaca, Optical Fiber was the full name of Lyode's husband, Opter Sunsmith. If their line ran true, their children would inherit the sunsmith talents. Opter's brother Gallium Phosphide Sunsmith worked in the sunshop with him. Other provinces had other gifts, such as the Amperman and Ohmston lines in Ironbridge. The Argali temple was dedicated to sun spirits, like the Glories and Airy Rainbows, but Kamoj had always seen them as guardians or even servants of the Sunsmith line, rather than deities.

"Why do you think we worship the Current?" she asked.

"Don't you?"

"The Current just is. Like rain, clouds, and sun."

"Not like the sun," Vyrl said. "It is the sun. Well, not just the sun. But light."

"Of course, Prince Havyrl."

"Don't call me that."

"That?"

"Prince Whatsit. You're my wife. Call me Vyrl."

"Yes, Vyrl."

"Why are you so formal? Last night, I even thought you were afraid"

Suddenly he stopped. "Saints almighty. I am an idiot."

Kamoj blinked, again caught off guard. Never, in a hundred Long Years, would Jax have ever said such a thing about himself.

"You had no choice, did you?" Vyrl said.

"Choice?"

"About the marriage. b.l.o.o.d.y flaming h.e.l.l. I should have seen it before. That wasn't a dowry. It was a purchase order." He pulled Greypoint to a halt and dismounted, swinging his leg over the stag's back and landing on the ground with leonine grace. Greypoint danced sideways, and Kamoj had to grab the bridle to keep from falling.

Standing with his back to her, Vyrl looked normal, a man with a mane of tawny hair. Then he turned and she saw the silver mask on his face. She tensed, almost as unsettled now by that blank expanse of metal as the first time she had seen it.

He peeled off the mask. "I hate this thing."

"Vyrl, no. You need to breathe."

"You must hate me."

"I don't hate you." Every time she thought she began to understand him, he went off on a rant again.

He crumpled the mask. "You think you have to say that."

Although she meant what she said, his words gave her pause. Had Jax asked if she hated him, certainly she would have denied it. Otherwise he would have hit her.

Vyrl was concentrating as if she were a tangle of threads he was trying to unravel. "I'm not going to beat you. G.o.ds, Kamoj, I would never do such a thing."

Her face gentled. "I like being with you. It's just . . ."

"Yes?"

"I don't understand you."

Vyrl gave her a rueful smile. "That makes two of us." He pressed the mask onto his face, then came over and reached for her. As he helped her off the stag, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her with her feet dangling in the air while he pressed his lips against her hair.

"I have a place out here where I go to be alone," he said. Then he set her down on the ground and took her hand.

They went to an outcropping of moss-covered slabs half-buried in the ground.

Bridle bells clinked as Greypoint followed them. Vyrl stopped and rubbed his mount's neck, pressing on the scales in that way greengla.s.s stags liked.

Greypoint stood quietly, patient while Vyrl removed the bridle and tended him. The stag pushed his long snout against Vyrl's palm, nipping at his fingers with fangs that could have torn Vyrl to pieces, had Greypoint wanted. Then the greengla.s.s took off, running in a graceful six-legged lope among the trees.

Vyrl glanced at Kamoj. "Don't worry. He'll come back."

She spoke softly. "I know." Greypoint's behavior told her far more than Vyrl realized. After working all her life in the gla.s.shouses stables at Argali, she knew greengla.s.s stags. Greypoint was wild, never broken or tamed. A gifted stagman might attract the interest of a wild stag, but never one as high-strung and powerful as Greypoint. That the animal freely chose to follow Vyrl impressed her more than all Vyrl's wealth, t.i.tles, and palace repairs.

Vyrl led her through an opening in the rocks into a small cave. It had a roof half again as tall as Vyrl and a floor of packed dirt, with boulders jutting out here and there. He knelt at a platform beside the entrance and ran his fingers over its dark surface. Despite all the wonders Kamoj had seen here, it still stunned her when lights appeared within the platform, glowing and winking.

A hum began, and a shimmer curtain appeared in the entrance of the cave, blending into the rocks on either side.

Vyrl sat back on his heels. "The generator will bring the atmosphere to normal. Normal for me, that is."

She stood just inside the entrance. "Why can't you breathe the air?"

"A lot of reasons. Too much carbon dioxide. Too little oxygen. All the scale dust in it." He seemed distracted, either tired or depressed. "The irradiation from your sun is lower than the human standard. That means it doesn't give Balumil as much light. The extra carbon dioxide helps keeps the temperature up." He touched the mask on his face. "This concentrates oxygen and filters out CO2. It also filters out impurities that gives gamma humanoids a severe form of asthma. Fatal, in fact, if we breathe it too long."

"Gamma humanoid?"

"Like me." He pressed his palm against his chest. "I can tolerate the air here for a short time, but some people can't bear it even for a few seconds."

"It doesn't bother me at all."

Vyrl smiled. "You're a theta." He took off his mask and dropped it on the console. "Your lungs have filters that mine lack. Your people's hemoglobin was redesigned and your circulatory system responds to different partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide." He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "This world is almost uninhabitable for those of us without your modifications, especially during winter and summer.

That's why your ancestors wore s.p.a.ce suits."

"s.p.a.ce suits?"

"You know those pictures of ancient stagmen in full-body diskmail?" When she nodded, he said, "Those are s.p.a.ce suits."

She poked her finger into the shimmer curtain. "And this?"

"It's an airlock. It surrounds the cave." He paused. "I'm not sure how to describe it in a way that would make sense to you."

"Tell me in your own words then. I like to hear them." Now that she knew he wasn't mocking her ignorance, she found a beauty in his words, the promise of knowledge and wonders.

"The curtain is a membrane," he said. "A modified lipid bilayer." He tapped the platform. "This applies an electric potential to it. There are enzymes in the membrane, like keys, but so tiny you can't see them. They fit certain receptor molecules. Certain locks. Different potentials activate different keys. When a key opens a lock, it changes the permeability of the membrane." He paused, lines of fatigue deep on his face.

"Are you all right?" Kamoj asked.