He looked away for a moment, and it seemed to her as if he was studying the bust of his father, as if somehow trying to communicate with him. Then his gaze slid back to her.

"All right. I doubt that I would ask this of you if you were a Khagggun."

Her eyes opened wide. This was the last response she had expected. "I don't understand."

"It's simple, really. When it comes to love and s.e.x, it seems to me that Khagggun-most male V'ornn, actually-have an on-off switch. They tend not to see subtleties or nuances. All the grey areas are lost on them because in such things they are not complex. Frankly, if you were a male, I doubt you could do what we are asking you to do."

Leyytey was stunned. He might have been talking about Teww Dacce, which was how she knew that he was right. She could not believe he had that insight, and, despite her wariness, she felt a connection forming. But then the sun emerged from behind an attenuated fair-weather cloud and Hadinnn SaTrrynglittered in her eyes, and her skin grew clammy again.

"But you are different, is that it?" Too late, she realized how enraged she sounded.

"Leyytey, for your father's sake as well as for mine I want this to proceed as smoothly as possible.

Have I done something to offend you?"

"No, I-" Now it was her turn to look away. Tell him, a voice in her head whispered recklessly. For the love of N'Luuura, tell him! But she only shook her head and looked rueful. "Sorry, I have no excuse. You have done nothing but be extraordinarily kind to the Fleet-Admiral and to me."

" 'The Fleet-Admiral'?" He had a wry look on his face. "Is that how you refer to your father?"

"It is his wish," she said simply, though there was certainly nothing simple about the statement. It was loaded with so much emotional freight she could not bear to examine it.

As if sensing that, Sornnn said, "Relationships with parents are tricky. I was estranged from my mother for many years."

"But you're not anymore?"

"No. There was a misunderstanding. It arose because she and I failed to talk to one another."

"Why do you think that was?"

"We didn't know how to communicate."

"And now you do?" She seemed skeptical.

"I think we were afraid to say what had to be said, afraid that the other would-I don't know, that we would say something unforgivable."

Leyytey rose then and stood looking out into the garden. Her hands gripped the wrought-iron bal.u.s.trade so hard they turned white as her blouse. That we would say something unforgivable. That was just what she felt when her father was around-that she would say or do something unforgivable, that he would go away, withdraw even the unwitting verbal abuse to which he subjected her. Because she knew that that abuse was better than nothing, that she was still his little girl, that skill or competence or success had nothing to do with it, that she would always feel thus.

After a long time, she said; "When it comes to the Fleet-Admiral I have done something unforgivable."

She heard him get up and come to stand beside her. She could smell his clean, masculine scent. "What could you have done, Leyytey?"

"I was born a Tuskugggun."

He sighed. "I felt like that once."

"What happened?"

"I met a Tuskugggun. A very special Tuskugggun. But now she's dead, and for me everything died with her."

Soon thereafter, she went back to her atelier, and that night, when Teww Dacce came like a death moth to a flame, when she twined with him, when she whispered in his ear the things she was supposed to say, she saw Sornnn in her mind's eye and heard his words as clearly as if they were the tolling of a bell.

Blood was everywhere. Minnum and Giyan found patches of it on the forest floor, great, frightening gouts spurted onto tree boles, lichen-matted rock shoulders. The Khagggun Wing had pa.s.sed by after running down the two snow-lynx. They were magnificent animals, and Giyan wanted to save them, but to do so she would have exposed herself and Minnum. Hearing their death screams, she said a prayer for their spirits.

With the Khagggun's departure, the birds and small mammals had returned, though in their fluttering, their nervous foraging she could detect the patterns of fear.

"Over here!"

Minnum's excited whisper brought Giyan down to a narrow plateau on the slope. He was kneeling amid a tidal pool of mushrooms.

"Peganis harmela." Minnum brushed his hands across the bowed mushroom tops. "This is theharvest glade where I used to come."

But Giyan was walking right by him, through the sea of mushrooms to the far edge of the plateau.

Minnum looked up. To him, she had the appearance of a sleepwalker, and when he called her name, when she did not answer, he rose and hurried after her, afraid in his heart of what she saw, of what might be lurking in the dense forest. And he came up short with a gasp as she walked right into the muzzle of an ion cannon.

The Abbey of Floating White was deathly quiet after Lady Giyan left. Konara Inggres had not realized how much life and hope Giyan had brought to the abbey until she was no longer there.

Now the daylight hours were filled to the brim with cla.s.ses and curriculum and correcting the evil errors in gospel that had been fulminating through the sorcerous syllabus for decades. After a meager dinner-these days she was never very hungry-hours were spent counseling the leyna and younger shima in the wake of the trauma that had beset them. Late at night, almost insensate, she fell onto her cot and slept soundly, dreamlessly for two hours, possibly three. Then, without any transition, she started awake, her heart palpitating painfully in her breast. She lay in a sheen of sweat, listening to her blood rush.

Her mind was besieged by death-Perrnodt's death: abrupt, shocking, horrifying. She was haunted by the sight of those eyes, glued shut and rimed. She sat up and, reaching out in the darkness, emptied the small vitreous tray into her cupped palm. The shattered shards of Perrnodt's opal lay inert and ominous.

Their fire had been extinguished. She wondered whether that was an omen of what was to come.

Konara Inggres had risen to power not out of desire, but rather necessity. She had had greatness forced upon her, but still she had been more than up to the task. Her process was simple: she thought, she considered, she acted. She knew no other way to be.

Lady Giyan had departed abruptly, and no word from her all these long days. Where had she gone?

What had she found? As she stirred, the Ja-Gaar that slept with her rose and padded to her. Its lambent green eyes watched her, waiting for a direction to which her anxiety would point it.

There came a discreet knock on her door, and she rose soundlessly, drew on her robe, and lighted an oil lamp. She crossed to the door and stood aside for the Nawatir to enter. The Ja-Gaar made no move; like its brethren it loved the Nawatir and obeyed his every command.

He seemed to fill the room, seemed like a planet eclipsing the sun of the flame. His shadow ran along the stone floor, up the stone wall where it mimicked his stillness. She studied his face: the double curve of his full lips, the twin juts of his cheeks, his thick blond hair and beard. His startlingly pale eyes looked back at her enigmatically. Oh, what she would give to know what he was thinking!

"I have heard from Lady Giyan," he said, and the silence stretched on for so long that Konara Inggres ceased to breathe.

"The sauromicians are on the rise," he told her ominously. "We must immediately turn our efforts to protecting the abbey."

"Are we in imminent danger of attack?"

"That I do not know," he conceded. "But what is clear is that the sauromicians must not gain control of Floating White."

She nodded, terrified all over again. With the return of First Mother to the abbey where she had been trained, Konara Inggres had become more optimistic for the future. But now, just as they had defeated the daemonic threat, the sauromicians were rising to take their place. All at once, she was acutely conscious of the Nawatir's strong arm and keen mind. Of course she had the sorcerous Ja-Gaar to help her guard the abbey, but they were only beasts, ferocious and powerful enough to battle daemons as they were. They could give her no guidance, no rea.s.surance. She realized that, for the first time in many years, she felt safe with the Nawatir roaming the abbey grounds, standing spread-legged in the gardens, practicing with his miraculous sword. More than once, she had had to shoo away the younger leyna who, pa.s.sing on their way to cla.s.s or prayer, were transfixed at the sight of him. She always lingered, however,watching him in sunlight and shadow, mist and rain and moonslight.

He put his hand on her shoulder. His cool fire crept through her, and she felt a stirring and was instantly ashamed. She pushed herself away and kept her distance. But she could not keep her heart from racing or her pulse from pounding. She recited prayers while he spoke to her, his voice filling the chamber, clasping her as surely has had his hand.

"Konara Inggres," he said sharply, "are you listening to me?"

"Yes, Nawatir." Her cheeks were flaming. "I was thinking of my charges. They have been though so much already."

"Listen to me." He took a step toward her. "The red Dragon, the one who transformed me into the Nawatir, told me of this war. Be forewarned, he told me. Everything-everything you know or have ever believed true-will change."

"Mother of Miina." Konara Inggres shivered. "What does it mean?"

"Prepare yourself is what I am saying, for I fear that ere long we will all be called upon to do whatever it takes to safeguard the Dar Sala-at and Kundala."

Then he was gone, and she felt his absence like a wound that would not heal. She put her fist to her mouth and bit down, pain as punishment for what her body felt, what she knew she must not feel. Blood stained her teeth, ran along her lower lip, and she sucked at it, as if she could suck into herself her own feelings.

What he had told her-the implications-it was too much to absorb all at once.

Everything you know or have ever believed true will change.

Change-how will it change?

With a little moan, she turned her thoughts to Perrnodt, aware that the exercise was a salve as well as a necessity. She had considered the implications of Perrnodt's death, the interference with the opal casting, the fact Perrnodt was a Druuge and, therefore, very powerful. Still, an evil of great power had destroyed her. Something stronger, more clever, smarter. She had been working out how to protect the abbey from such a foe and had come to the conclusion that with the limited means at her disposal she could not. She had only just begun the process of determining which, if any, of the remaining Ramahan possessed the Gift that had been so long outlawed in the abbey. And even if every one of her charges proved Gifted, it would still take time to train them properly so that they could protect themselves from a concerted sorcerous attack. That left only her, the Nawatir, and the three Ja-Gaar. Now was the time to act. She could not put it off.

Dumping the shards on the floor, she rose and went to her cabinet. She required no light to find what she was looking for. She held the casting opal between the tips of her fingers, saw it as clearly as if she were standing in sunlight. She could feel its fire.

The danger inherent in what she was about to attempt was extreme. She had already considered that fact, had considered the implications for the abbey if she were to die. But the threat to all Ramahan-all Kundalan, in fact-was extreme. The sauromicians' push to return to power would mean the annihilation of what abbeys were left, and the abbey was the last vestige of life on Kundala as it had been centuries ago, of life as, Miina willing, it would be once again. First Mother and the Nawatir were right. The abbey had to be defended at all costs.

Her plan was simple. Communication between the abbeys, once free-flowing, had broken down at the first V'ornn a.s.sault. Early on, when attempts to contact the neighboring abbeys had failed, the communication process had been abandoned. Then, when it became known that the inhabitants of other abbeys such as Listening Bone in Axis Tyr, Warm Current outside Middle Seat and Glistening Drum outside Joining the Valleys had been either killed outright or dragged back to the capital to be interrogated and tortured, a strict regime of silence and isolation had been inst.i.tuted by Konara Mossa and then Konara Bartta. There had never been a concerted effort to communicate with other, more far-flung abbeys, and within decades even the names and locations of those abbeys pa.s.sed from current Ramahan consciousness.

But in the course of her clandestine studies she had come across a list. It was decades old and yellowed and frayed at the edges. Insects had eaten into it, making the reading of it more like decipheringa text a thousand years old. Using an inspired combination of cross-referencing and intuition, she was able to piece together the list. The one thing she could not be certain of was whether or not it was complete.

Now, standing in the center of her cell, she said a prayer to Miina and began the casting. Unlike Perrnodt, she was self-taught, because opal casting, like so many other traditions, had been abandoned, then banned outright by the previous administrations. She had learned her lessons in the dead of night, alone and unaided, from books secreted in the Library. Her clever and inventive mind had been her only guide as she mentored herself, and so inured to secrecy was she that no one, not even Lady Giyan, was aware of the full extent of her knowledge and abilities.

And yet. . .

And yet, they had never been fully tested. She did not even know whether to trust fully the texts she had ferreted out in the unvisited depths of the Library, dusty, damp, wormholed, water-damaged tomes with page edges of whole sections blackened, crisped, and crumbling as if they had survived some unimaginable war. Which, in a sense, they had. In her heart, where Miina dwelled, she trusted absolutely.

It was her mind, prey to doubts and fears and her own sense of inadequacy (how could she, a self-taught Ramahan, pretend to the power of Lady Giyan or, even, a Druuge!), that threatened to undermine her resolve.

Her palms were clammy. The darkness had taken on a viscous quality. She felt submerged, suffocated, as if she were swaddled in a shroud, and yet she felt certain that turning on a lamp would be a mistake. She had no idea where the notion came from, but years of living by her wits had trained her to listen to her intuition. It had saved her life more than once.

Let no evil see me. This was her watch phrase tonight.

Giyan stood very still. She was between the limbs of two kuello-firs. Not a breath of air stirred.

Minnum tried to swallow but could not.

The owner of the ion cannon was a young female Kundalan, Resistance obviously. So far as Giyan could tell, she was unharmed, not the wounded one who had left blood all over the forest above. But her haggard, desperate expression, her torn and filthy tunic made it equally obvious that she had been in a serious battle.

"Who are you?" the Resistance female, deep suspicion turning her voice into a throaty growl. "What are you doing here?"

Without moving a muscle or giving her the slightest cause for alarm, Giyan said, "Your compatriot. Is he dead or seriously wounded?"

The female's eyes narrowed to slits. "How do you know I have a compatriot?"

"There is blood all over the forest floor," Minnum said. "It is a wonder the Khagggun we saw did not find it."

"They were too busy looking for us," Giyan said. She smiled. "I am Giyan, and this is Minnum. We both have healing skills. Please, if your friend is still alive, take us to him."

The female saw that they were unarmed. Still, had her situation not been so desperate, Minnum judged, she might have chosen to disbelieve them. He could see it in her eyes, in the way they darted back and forth between him and Giyan.

All at once she nodded. "My name is Majja," she said. But she did not lower the muzzle of her weapon, and she watched them carefully as she walked beside them, guiding them down the slope. "I am afraid that Ba.s.se is near death. He was. .h.i.t by ion-cannon fire."

"Where?" Giyan said immediately.

"Abdomen," Majja replied.

Minnum had to admire Giyan. She appeared unperturbed by the V'ornn weapon trained on them. He himself did not feel quite so sanguine. A small beetle was crawling on his arm. He looked at it for a minute before flicking it into the underbrush. The V'ornn made him feel as if he was not more than aninsect crawling across their sleeve.

They moved through the forest, silent as wraiths. All at once, Giyan broke into a run. Majja swung her ion cannon around.

"Ba.s.se is dying," Minnum said, for he felt it, too, the cold creep of death, slithering through the trees like a damp mist. And he took off after Giyan, for once unmindful of the weapon's threat.

Ba.s.se lay on the ground, his life hanging by a thread. As Minnum came up, Giyan was already on her knees beside him. Opposite her, eyes opened wide, was a Tuskugggun dressed-or half-dressed, to be accurate-in standard Resistance issue.

"Now this is really interesting," Minnum said, staring at her.

"What is this?" Giyan's fingers were hovering over a suppurating poultice. She put her head down, then jerked it back up. "Hyoscy-amus." She stared at the Tuskugggun. "Where did you get this?" she said sharply.

Marethyn held up the stained pouch she had found in the death pit.

Giyan s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her. "Where did you-?"

"Ramahan are said to be healers," Marethyn began. "I took a handful, I just thought-"

"A handful! Merciful Miina!" Using a coating of matted needles, Giyan scooped the noisome poultice off Ba.s.se. Then she put her ear to his chest.

"They weren't healing herbs?" Majja said.

"Black hyoscyamus is used for many things, including healing," Giyan said. With a rhump-thump! she pounded on Ba.s.se's sternum. "It's all a matter of how much you use." Rhump-thump! "A little can heal the most grievous wound." Rhump-thump! "A middling amount will induce a trancelike state."

"What are you doing?" Majja said, alarmed.

Rhump-thump! "A large amount will induce seizures and, eventually, cause the heart to stop."

Rhump-thump! Rhump-thump! "The hyoscyamus was applied externally, not taken internally, so the symptoms take longer to go into effect." Rhump-thump! Giyan looked up. "I am not in time. There is nothing I can do. His heart has stopped."

"No!" Majja screamed. Throwing her weapon aside, she dropped to her knees, cradling Ba.s.se's head. "No!" But she could feel that he was not breathing.

Marethyn came and slid her arms around Majja's shoulders.

"Wait!" Minnum said, and, turning, scrambled up the slope to the sea of mushrooms. He looked this way and that, frantically searching for the largest mushroom. Considering Ba.s.se's state, he needed a fully mature specimen.

"Where are you?" he whispered. "Where are you, slippery fish?"

He found it at the northern edge of the patch, half-hidden by the exposed roots of a kuello-fir. Quick as a blink, he s.n.a.t.c.hed off the cap without disturbing the stem. Cradling it in the palm of his hand, he hurried back down the slope, half-sliding on the b.a.l.l.s of his behind because he could not afford to stumble and fall and risk damaging the mushroom cap.