"That's what I'd like to know," I grumbled, going to the gray, fur-covered settle and sitting. "I made sticks for both of us to use, proper challenge sticks in every respect, but he refused to pick his up even when I hit him with mine. All he did was dive at me and knock me down, then take away my stick. I suppose 1 shouldn't have tried fighting with him when 1 was that drained and tired. For a minute it felt as though he had three times my strength."

Kadrim just stood where he had been and stared at me, his smooth-cheeked face running through the oddest gamut of emotions, all of them ranging between upset and laugh- ter. 1 couldn't imagine what was doing that to him, but before I could ask he settled on partially buried amuse- ment, took his swordbelt off and put it on a table, then came over to sit beside me.

"Laciel, girl, you must not do such a thing a second time," he said, sounding for ail the world like a patiently amused but faintly disapproving old man. "Had I thought upon it I would have seen that you would choose to face a challenge without magic, yet must you not do so again, most especially not with Rik. He is a full grown man with strength and vigor, and you no more than a girl. He clearly has no wish to do you harm, yet might an accident occur, should you persist in provoking him."

"But of course I'm going to persist in provoking him,"

1 said with a snort, kicking my short gold boots off before

I?I.

bringing my feet up to the settle and folding them to the left, away from Kadrim. "If I keep at him he'll have to answer my challenge, and with my choice of weapons, or he'll lose the respect of everyone on the expedition. He gave me that idea himself, and next time he'll be in for a surprise. I've fixed it so that I'll never be that tired and drained again no matter what we go through, and that will take care of the question of strength."

"How are you able to believe that your strength will ever be a match to his?" he demanded, those hard blue eyes beginning to look annoyed. "You are slender, and a girl, and he a man nearly a full head larger than you!"

"I was always stronger and a better fighter than the boys in the pack, even if they were a little taller than me, which most weren't," I explained, smiling at how in- censed he was. "They didn't care for the idea either, but that didn't keep it from happening. I'm also stronger than the men I know, and more powerful than all of them except for the wizards. Don't worry about me, Kadrim, I know what I'm doing."

"That simply cannot be so," he said, still annoyed, his sharp shifting on the very comfortable settle more than showing it. "It seems as though you have been sheltered too far since your time in the streets, yet I know not for what reason such a thing would be done. Do you believe your strength would also find it possible to best mine?"

"Now don't start taking this personally," 1 tried to soothe him, only then remembering how touchy boys were when they decided it was time to be called men. "You and I are friends, and the one thing friends don't do together is see who's better. When you're older you'll understand what I'm talking about."

"Clearly, the time has now arrived to speak of what I wished to speak of," he said, putting aside most of his annoyance as he half turned to face me, those blue eyes having grown somewhat stem. "I had meant to inform you first that never had I found interest in a woman who was not of an age with me, yet does it seem that the doings of the wizard have altered even this preference. As / have become, so have my interests followed."

"Are you saying that you now like older women?" I

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asked, feeling somewhat uncomfortable-not to mention ridiculous. Being an "older woman" at twenty-two just didn't seem right. "If you are, then I really think you ought to know ..."

"Allow me to finish," he interrupted, still with mat odd look of sternness, one big hand held up before him. "As I said 1 had meant to say no more than that, yet does it now seem that I also feel with the weight of my years. Each of my daughters has attained a greater age than you, and now do I speak to you as I would speak to them."

"Your daughters," I echoed, looking at his smooth, young face, the cheeks that seemed never to have been shaved, the broad shoulders that had the straightness and arrogance of extreme youth. "You have daughters older than me, so you're going to speak to me like a father."

"To doubt my sanity is also to doubt the power of the great wizard," he told me with a very amused grin, obvi- ously enjoying my reaction to what he'd said. "When the wizard intervened I was in the midst of taking my own life, for it had grown to be a burden 1 could no longer endure. I was old, you see, and although still a king. no longer the warrior I had been. To give my pledge to strive upon this quest in return for my youth was a thing 1 did gladly, though I knew not then how great an amount of that youth would be restored. I am not a boy but a man, Laciel, and look upon you with the eyes of a man. I am far, far older than you, and previously would have merely enjoyed the sight of you, yet now . . . You are a flower of youth given to me with the return of my own."

He was so serious, and those blue eyes were so direct and disconcerting, that looking down from them didn't help at all. So that was why Graythor had treated him as though he was much older, why he was usually able to stay so calm and unruffled. The doubts and uncertainties of youth were a long way behind him, and he felt he had a right to look at me the way he was doing. . . .

"And so you see, though I seem to lack a proper seasoning, I am not truly without it," he went on very gently, putting one hand under my chin to raise my face to him again. "I will speak of my deeper feelings a bit later.

yet now must we conclude the discussion earlier begun.

THE PAR SIDE OF FOREVER.

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You must not pit yourself against Rik, for without magic you shall not find it possible to equal him. He is a man and you are not."

"What makes you think being a man is so special?" I asked, taking my face out of his hand with a part of the annoyance 1 was feeling again. "I'm sure from your point of view it's the most important thing there is, but most of the men / know don't stand a chance against me. What makes you think Rikkan Addis is any different."

"I feel it safe to a.s.sume that 1 have known far more men than you," he said, the gentleness fading as he again found annoyance of his own. "Also am I surely far more familiar with women, and rarely does one find a woman with greater strength than a man. Of those tike you, large women with more strength than most, victories would come over men who have pursued objectives other than those of a warrior. Too often, men expand their minds at the expense of their bodies. Our leader is not one such as that."

"Your leader, maybe," I said in a mutter, putting my feet down flat on the floor and folding my arms as 1 looked away from him. "The rest of you may be afraid of him, but I'm not." ^

"There is a vast difference between respect and fear," I was told, the tone of voice working its way back to calm and cool. "You dislike the man, therefore do you underes- timate him; often is it difficult for us to see those we dislike as superior to us. Your feelings are far from unnat- ural, girl, yet are they also far from wise In serious battle, to underestimate your enemy is to likely give him your life. Would you have me prove the truth of my words?"

"You think you can prove an opinion?" 1 asked, not as forcefully as I would have a moment earlier. Graythor had also said something about underestimating the enemy, an att.i.tude I already knew was stupid; was 1 seeing it as stupid only when someone else applied it to me, and not when 1 indulged in it myself? Could 1 really be missing that important a point?

"Some opinions are easily proven," he said, a shadow of amus.e.m.e.nt creeping back in his voice. "You must know I am well aware of what strength I possess, for that

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strength has ever been considerable-yet would I ponder the matter carefully before setting myself in opposition to Rik. With weapons I am certainly his superior, yet bare- handed? Perhaps, and yet perhaps not. In any event you, a slender girl, are certainly not, an-opinion-of mine which may be disproven only should your strength best mine.

Would you care to make the attempt?"

I turned my head to see the way he was looking at me, with confidence and laughter clear in his eyes, and sud- denly that no longer seemed such a bad idea. He wasn't, after all, a young boy whose emerging masculine ego had to be protected, and when 1 beat him he would probably change his mind over the way he felt about me. It was almost impossible thinking of him as an old man rather than a very young one, but whichever he was I preferred having him as a friend rather than as an unwanted complication.

"If you want to fight, I'm willing," I said with a shrug, trying to make it clear that I wasn't angry or insulted or anything. "if,I happen to hurt you, just tell me and I'll stop. Now, how do you want it? Linked with a silk scarf in the middle of the tent? Both hands free and anything goes?

Clearing the furniture won't take more than a minute, and then ..."

"No, no, wait," he said, this time raising both hands in protest. "You are familiar with scarf battle? Where each partic.i.p.ant holds to the scarf with his left hand, and the one first made to loose his hold is considered bested? I had not thought you would know such a thing."

"We used a linen rag instead of a silk scarf, but we still called it silk-scarf battle," 1 answered with another shrug- "1 suppose most people do no matter what they use. Is that the way you want to fight?"

"I-ah-think not," he said. shaking his head slowly and trying to took very solemn. "It has been many years since 1 last engaged in scarf battle, and I-ah-would not care to-urn-put myself at such risk. Perhaps you would consent to no battle at all, merely a contest of strength against strength. Such a contest was what I had in mind, you see, rather than even mock battle."

"But that's awfully limited, isn't it?" I said with a

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frown, understanding why he didn't want to get hurt, but still having trouble picturing his suggestion. "Arm wres- tling is more a matter of balance and body-use than strength, so it isn't likely to prove anything. How else would we do it?"

"Like so," he answered, reaching over and lifting me into his lap even before I could unfold my arms. "As you say, arm-wrestling would not suffice, therefore must we find another method. This, I think, will most easily settle the matter."

"This" was his hands closing around my wrists, his right arm circling my back so that he could reach, my left arm up against his chest. Somehow my wrists looked swallowed up in his hands, and I didn't understand what was happening.

"You now have only to escape me," he told my confu- sion, looking down into my eyes. "Force me, with strength, to release my hold on you, and I wili admit my error concerning your ability to face Rik. You told me, did you not, that he refused to allow the use of weapons? This, then, is the manner in which you will likely need to face him, should you prove yourself able. You may proceed with making the attempt." ..

"This is stupid." 1 muttered, looking back at my wrists and moving them in his grip-or, at least, trying to. He wasn't holding me tight enough for it to hurt, but there also wasn't any slack in his grip. I reached for his left wrist with my right hand, thinking to hold it still while freeing myself from the hand, but I couldn't make his right arm move. It was ridiculous-not to mention upsetting- but I couldn't seem to do anything at all!

"To a certain age, boy children and girl children are much the same in strength," I was casually told, the words seeming to have taken no notice at all of my efforts.

"When once that age has pa.s.sed, however, boy children have a far greater advantage, for their bodies are made to develop far greater strength. Time and again I saw this among my own children, just as I learned the thing person- ally when I was their age. How is it you have grown to the size you arc, and have not learned the same?"