"No." She took it from him. "It was made for a smaller Khagggun, one less powerful than you. The balance is all wrong, for one thing."

"Change it," Pnin said. "Change whatever you have to. Make it mine."

Leyytey set the shock-sword down. "As you wish, Fleet-Admiral."

She was about to take her hand away when he put his over it. She looked up into his face, and he leaned in, lowering his voice.

"Not all I wish."

"Another weapon?"

He shook his head. "You must do something for me. Something extremely important." He drew her away, into a corner where the livid light from the ion forge could not reach them. "There is trouble brewing of a most serious nature."

She could not keep the flash of fear out of her eyes. "Fleet-Admiral-"

Pnin put his forefinger across her half-parted lips. "In due course the threat will be dealt with. This Iswear. But you must do as I tell you."

Leyytey's body vibrated as if it were a Kundalan bow from which an arrow had just been loosed.

"Whatever you ask of me I will do it. You know that." Her father had never asked anything of her.

His eyes raked her face. "It will require all of your discretion, as well as a great deal of guile."

Her eyes watched his carefully.

He drew her farther into the shadows. "It involves Pack-Commander Dacce."

There was an almost painful constriction in her chest. "Please continue."

"Are you certain?"

She nodded, for the moment not trusting herself to speak.

"Tell him you are going to work for the Prime Factor-"

She felt a stab of terror, as if a nightmare she had had as a child had finally come true, as if a stalker from her past had emerged from the shadows to grab her by the throat. "Why?" she said, rather wildly.

"Why the Prime Factor? Why, of all Bashkir, the SaTrryn?"

"Tell him in a manner he will not deem suspicious. Tell him that Sornnn SaTrryn has offered you a great deal of coins-more than he could ever imagine."

"A Bashkir hiring me? I doubt he would believe me."

"This story has about it the advantage of being absolutely true," Pnin said. "He knows the SaTrryn livelihood is wrapped up in the spice trade. The Five Tribes of the Korrush are on war footing. Dacce may or may not already know that, it does not matter, because he will find it easy to confirm. Dacce will understand that Sornnn SaTrryn needs to protect the Rasan Sul. The Khagggun will not step in, of course, so what is his other recourse? Arm them himself."

"Fleet-Admiral, how is this-?"

"Listen." Pnin's grip on his daughter tightened and his voice lowered to a harsh whisper. "Less you know the better."

"Doubtless you would tell Miirlin your plan, though he is only nine."

"N'Luuura take it, daughter, will you do it?"

She longed to tell him that she would do anything to help protect him, but she knew he would despise her for saying it, would despise her even more if he should ever learn . . . Her mind shied away from the dire consequences. No, he never would, she would see to that. Ever the good daughter, she said, "I hate Iin Mennus and all he stands for."

The ghost of a smile briefly played across Fleet-Admiral Pnin's lips. "Your filial devotion is noted."

Coc.o.o.ned within the jellified body of the Hagoshrin, Riane and Thig-pen were transported through the labyrinthine substructure of the regent's palace with almost frightening ease. Though the beast was immense, it had a facility for reshaping itself and squeezing insectlike around corners, through echoing air shafts and into musty utility ducts unknown even to most of the Ramahan who had previously inhabited Middle Palace.

"I like this not," Thigpen said testily.

What she didn't like, Riane thought, was that she had been unconscious during crucial moments and therefore useless.

As if to confirm this suspicion, she added, "I fear this Hagoshrin is as crazy as a sunstroked claiwen.

How do we know that it will not crush us on a whim."

"It could just as easily have killed you as rendered you unconscious," Riane pointed out, as the Hagoshrin whipped and slithered into the palace's living quarters. "And, for the record, it is not mad."

"How else would you describe something that insists The Pearl does not exist!"

"I showed you The Pearl."

Thigpen bared her very sharp teeth. "That wasn't The Pearl. I don't know what it was. The Pearl has been lost. Miina cast it out of the Storehouse."

When Riane did not answer, Thigpen said, "What is the matter with you? You will now take the wordof a beast who has been incarcerated for millennia? That would drive even a Rappa mad!"

"Giyan said that the Hagoshrin doesn't lie," Riane said sternly. "It is not mad, either."

Thigpen fidgeted for a bit "What's the point, then? Without the promise of The Pearl to save us we are doomed."

Riane who had been in despair ever since she had looked into The Pearl, felt overburdened. She could not take on the Rappa's despair also. She tried to keep in her mind the Hagoshrin's warning to hold fast to her belief that she was the one. But what was the point? Without The Pearl, all Kundalan were doomed. She would not, however, give vent to her pessimism.

"The point is life," she said, trying to convince herself as well as Thigpen. "The point is to go on, no matter what."

"But without The Pearl how will we ever defeat the V'ornn?"

I have no idea, Riane thought. And that is the problem.

"I can sense her," the Hagoshrin said, interrupting them. It had slowed to a crawl. "I can scent Eleana as I can scent you, Dar Sala-at, but even could I not, I would have been able to find her. There are three places in Middle Palace that Kurgan Stogggul uses for his private meetings. He confers with the Gyrgon in his weapons chamber, he takes his Looorm to what were the old wash chambers, and he goes by himself to the nightlily bedchamber. That is where he has taken Eleana."

"Is she all right?" Riane asked anxiously. "Can you tell if he has harmed her in any way?"

"I doubt that he has," the Hagoshrin said. It sniffed disdainfully. "He is not much of a regent, you know. Despises the daily tasks, leaves them to his underlings. He will come to ruin over that oversight, mark me."

"If you can foretell the future," Thigpen said rather nastily, "tell us what we will do without The Pearl."

They were tossed around by the Hagoshrin's chuckle. "Tell her, Dar Sala-at."

Riane related how, according to the Hagoshrin, no one could foretell the future.

"No?" Thigpen said with a fierce grin. "Then how do you explain the Ramahan seers?"

"They are like small boats tossed in high seas," the Hagoshrin said. "Once in a while, at the crest of a wave, they may get a glimpse of an onrushing storm. But which storm? There are many realities, many futures. Which one will come to pa.s.s? That is the question they cannot answer. Seeing all those futures, the chaos of possibilities, is what eventually drives them mad."

Thigpen clamped her jaws shut and growled deep in her throat. "All you Hagoshrin, you never liked the Dragons, were jealous of their rank and status, coveted their power. But then what else could you expect," she sneered, "from a creature that eats the bones of Kundalan?"

The Hagoshrin winced. "Why is that always thrown up in my face? Is it my fault? Who made me this way? Miina, the Great G.o.ddess. If I am a horror, it is She who must answer for it. I can no more change how I get my nourishment than you can."

"There is more than this one Hagoshrin?" Riane asked as much for her own curiosity as to put an end to their contentious colloquy.

"What made you think there was only one?" Thigpen said. "Have you ever heard of a race consisting of a single being?"

"Then where are the others?"

Both the Hagoshrin and the Rappa shook their heads mutely, and, in silence, they continued their snaking travels through the bowels of the palace.

The keening sounded like death. The ion mace made the eerie sound as Pack-Commander Teww Dacce swung it. The sound was peculiar to the ion-maces forged by Leyytey, owing to the composite construction of the ball. Other armorers had tried to copy her design; all had failed.

"I trust it is to your satisfaction," Leyytey said, coming up beside Dacce.

He did not look at her; he swung harder, the keening rising in pitch. Then he lashed out with his arm, and the ball struck the wall, splintering lathe, plaster, and brickwork."It will do," he said.

"I will have to charge Iin Mennus for the damage."

"I will pay for it," he said quickly. Mennus would not pay for it. He would dock Dacce the coinage, dress him down in public, and never let him forget it.

Leyytey peered at the extent of the damage. "You cannot afford it."

"I will pay it off over time," he said shortly.

She shrugged. "It does not matter, really. I am closing my business to the trade."

"What?"

For the first time he looked at her, and she felt a little shiver run down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He had always made her feel like that, from the moment they had first met. When he had abandoned her and Miir-lin she had been ill for a month. The first night, she had wanted to ram one of her own shock-swords through her gut. She might have, but for her son. It got better after that, but not much. Not a day went by that she did not miss him. When they were together she felt complete, competent, serene.

She had slept deeply and dreamlessly in the crook of his arm. Her empty bed howled at night.

"I have been offered an exclusive contract." She told him the story her father had given her.

"Work for the SaTrryn? For a Bashkir house? That is incredible."

"Only inevitable," she said.

"Inevitable? Why?"

Then she told him how much the SaTrryn was paying her and all the breath went out of him. It was interesting to see the change in him, and she exulted in the effect of her words. Maybe now he would pay more attention to her. Maybe now she could win him back.

Maybe she was right because he asked her to dinner.

It was a mixed blessing because he took her to Offworld, a restaurant on the third floor overlooking the Promenade and the Sea of Blood. It was one of the few places that had not been taken over from a Kun-dalan establishment. The building had once been a warehouse, but a Bashkir family had turned it into a club downstairs and a two-tiered restaurant upstairs. It was difficult to get into, but not for a ranking member of the new Star-Admiral's staff. It was also the restaurant where they had dined the night before he had walked out on her, so as with everything surrounding Teww Dacce it tasted bittersweet.

There were fresh wildflowers on the table and not a chronosteel chair or table in sight.

Lights along the Promenade glittered on the water, on the sleek hulls of Sarakkon ships. The Sarakkon themselves, tall, slender, their gleaming skin russet as a sunset in winter seemed like living art with their bejeweled beards and tattooed skulls. The calls of the fishers, the raucous sounds of the tavern patrons, the roars of the crowd out for blood at the nearby Kalllistotos ring wafted in waves like mist, mingling with the fragrant smoke from the restaurant's open-air grill.

Dacce wanted to know what she had been doing, and he was so attentive that for a time she could deceive herself into believing that things could change between them. But after a time, when it was clear that he was not going to ask her about Miirlin, she looked down at their fingers laced together and tried to accept the truth. It was the coinage she had come into to which he was drawn. She excused herself, stumbled through the low-lit restaurant to the washrooms, where she locked herself in a stall and wept so bitterly she thought her hearts would shatter. The worst part was that she still loved him, fiercely, deeply, sadly. It was as if the more he removed himself from her, the more she loved him. She banged her head against the stall door. How could she possibly be so perverse? But was it perverse to believe that love could conquer everything, that it could turn a seemingly shallow, self-interested Khagggun into a decent V'ornn? For the hope had not yet died that beneath his emotional armor beat the hearts of a male as capable as she was of kindness, love, and devotion. And she was sure that she and only she possessed the key to unlock that armor, to reveal the true Teww Dacce behind that alloy-hard reserve.

She returned to find that he had ordered them drinks, forgetting completely that she did not touch anything fermented. When she reminded him, he told her not to worry. He drank both, one after the other, so quickly it took her breath away. He had begun to drink like this in the weeks before he left her.

And that was how the evening went. She ate, and he drank. He seemed not to be interested in food at all, and he did not appreciate her trying to feed him. He complained bitterly about his position, about howIin Mennus did not appreciate his skills. He bemoaned his lack of coinage, and she patiently listened, hoping against hope that the conversation would move on. But it did not; and, with a sadness she could not express, she saw it happening all over again, the old dynamic between them returning, unchanged, like a rubber band that snaps back no matter how wide it is pulled. And at last she realized how it was going to be, that it did not matter whether or not he loved her-or even if he was capable of loving her-because eventually he would leave her again, as surely as night followed day.

How then he ended up in her bed, how she ended up crawling all over him, pouring out her need, her pain, her love she never quite understood. She only knew that after a feverish night of nonstop love-making that held her for hours quivering and ecstatic in its thrall, she awoke in the ash-grey light of predawn to find him gone.

She had risen from sleep to put her arms around him, found instead bedcovers stained with their mingled secretions. Grabbing handfuls, she had pressed them against her nose, inhaling the scent of him, the last of him, and could not bear to part with it. Tears welled up, unbidden, staining her cheeks even as she wondered how he could be so cruel, how he could have left, stealing away in the night, after what they had shared. What, after all, could it have meant to him?

And she exhaled a heartsrending sob. She gathered herself to hate him, but only wound up wanting him more.

There is a problem," the Hagoshrin said. They were jammed in an air duct clogged with soot, ash, and the smell of burnt flesh that seemed baked into the walls. How many Ra-mahan had died in the initial onrush of the Khagggun attack on Middle Palace? It seemed as if even the screams of the dying had been trapped there, distorting the echoes of their voices.

"You are Hagoshrin," Thigpen said shortly. "Fix it."

"Eleana is being guarded."

"How many Haaar-kyut?" Riane asked.

"The regent's guards would pose little problem, if there were any, which there aren't." The Hagoshrin's voice had taken on a dark, morose tone. "She is being guarded by a sigil of evil."

"And what would that be?" Thigpen said skeptically. Riane could tell she still thought the beast half-mad.

"Dar Sala-at, I do not know how better to say this, but it is a bane-stone."

"A banestone!" Thigpen cried so loudly that Riane admonished her to keep her voice down.

"How in Miina's name did a V'ornn come into possession of a banestonel" Thigpen was so agitated that her whiskers were twitching madly.

"How is meaningless," the Hagoshrin said. "What matters is that it has become attuned to Eleana."

"What does that mean?" Riane asked quietly and firmly. She had a specific mission to accomplish. She was starting to feel in control again.

"That we are already at risk," Thigpen said nervously.

"The Rappa is correct, Dar Sala-at." The Hagoshrin craned its neck, somehow managing to shove its head through the aperture. "Time is of the essence." Its voice came back to them as if from a distant dimension. "Rescuing Eleana has become secondary."

"What?" Riane could not believe what she was hearing.

"It is the ninth banestone, Dar Sala-at," the beast said. "The one that will complete the Cage, the one that will kill Seelin. We must gain control of it, destroy it if we have to."