I do not think so.

She had a difficult childbirth just a month ago.

No matter. She is a warrior. We are still very much fugitives from the regent and his Khagggun. As she said, I need her.

You are allowing your personal feelings to get in the way of- This has nothing to do with how I feel about her.

It isn't that I don't understand, mind you. You have spent many months apart, Teyjattt. And those months have been, up until now, the most perilous of your lives. It is natural for you to resist parting again so soon.

It is that you still do not trust her, isn't it?

One of your band will betray you, Dar Sala-at. This is certain. It is written in Prophecy.

I would trust my life to Eleana. She would never harm me.

Still, I fear for her, as I fear for you.

At least she is Kundalan. Rekkk is, at hearts, a V'ornn.

As are you, Teyjattt. But of all of the band of outsiders, it is Eleana who suspects your true ident.i.ty. It is useless to deny it. I see how she looks at you, as if you were still Annon Ashera. In that, her love makes her powerful. But if it should become known to even one of your many enemies that Annon Ashera is not, indeed, dead as they now believe, the danger to you, well, we are not yet ready to deal with such dire consequences.

And yet, if she does not go, who will get us safely through Axis Tyr?

Annan's memory should be sufficient Annon was the regent's son. He never knew the secret pa.s.sages made by the Resistance. Neither do you. Remember, without her knowledge we never would have gotten the Ring of Five Dragons to the Storehouse Door in time to save Kundala frombeing blown apart.

Giyan, still staring into her child's eyes, gave a curt nod, and addressed those a.s.sembled in clipped tones. "This is how it will be. Thig-pen will accompany the Dar Sala-at to protect her in Axis Tyr and in the caverns. Eleana, it will be your responsibility to get them safely through Axis Tyr."

A look of relief washed over Eleana's face. "Thank you, First Mother."

Giyan drew Eleana away from the others. "Beware, my child. Guide them to the caverns, but go no farther. I fear there are dangers awaiting you in Middle Palace."

3

The Black Finger

The bandy-legged sauromician named Minnum, face as round and hairy as a thistle, kind eyes and a kinder heart, was looking for his razor to cut a noxious wart off a h.o.a.ry knuckle when he discovered that the banestone was missing. He and Sornnn SaTrryn, working happily together at the vast archeological dig of Za Hara-at, had unearthed the banestone. It was twice as large as Sornnn's fist and astonishingly dense, causing Minnum to groan in unexpected strain when he had first picked it up. Not that he had used his bare hands. Cautioning Sornnn not to do so either, he fashioned a sling from an old hat he never wore and brought it up out of its deep hole as if it were a baby in its rocker.

It was shaped like the egg of some t.i.tanic reptile. Though its striated surface was smooth as obsidian, it absorbed light instead of reflecting it. The moment he lifted it he felt the agonizing echo of its power, and his blood ran cold. It was an evil omen; very evil, indeed.

He knew all too well the banestones' purpose for, like the legendary Pearl, they had been much coveted by the league of sauromicians.

Now it was gone. Frantic, he searched his quarters from top to bottom, then from bottom to top, and all the area around, using every method at his disposal, including spells. Alas, he could find no trace of it.

It had vanished as completely as if it had never existed. Truth to tell, part of him was relieved, for a single banestone, like a lone spotted wolf, could only cause evil, and often the consequence of an attempt to use one was nothing like what the user had intended. Only by linking all of them, as had long ago been done in Za Hara-at, could they be relied upon absolutely. Quite naturally, another part of him was terrified; for he knew that during the events of the past several weeks, long-buried Za Hara-at had begun to come alive again, and Miina only knew what was left behind when the daemon constructors were banished. Ancient beasts and wyr-goblins stirred in its darkling bowels.

And so he sat, brooding in his wind-blasted tent, while the ruddy Kundalan sun, gravid with its dark purple spot, plunged behind the b.l.o.o.d.y-toothed lower jaw of the Djenn Marre. The mouth of night stole in like a longed-for lover, exhaling constellations of stars across the great steppe sprawling 250 kilometers northeast of Axis Tyr. It was at this time, especially, when he heard the voice of Za Hara-at, still half-drowned in the red sandy soil of the Korrush. It was a voice of secrets, of ancient battles, the murmurous agitation of scarred legions led to their deaths, creaking through the warren of streets and boulevards, temples, storehouses, structures whose purpose was yet to be discovered or might never be.

So powerful had been the sorcery enacted there that its incandescent residue had leached into the very rock-work of the city. Even the rubble was precious, for it preserved in its dust a truth that transcended that which could be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard.

All this Minnum was aware of, dancing tantalizingly beyond his ken. Even the eventual appearance of his newfound friend, Sornnn SaTrryn, could not rouse his spirits from blackness.

"I would have been here sooner, but I ran into a Khagggun patrol." With a gust of gritty wind, Sornnn strode in with a round of traditional flatbread in one hand and a flask of wine in the other. He was quiet for a V'ornn, instilled with the solemnity and serenity of the Korrush, well schooled by his father as well as the Rasan Sul spice merchants with whom he did business. He had thoughtful eyes and a mind like a chron-osteel trap. "The Khagggun are supposed to be protecting the Mesa-gggun architects here to help rebuild Za Hara-at, not hara.s.s poor Bashkir like me." Minnum and Sornnn were both secretly members of the band of outsiders, consisting of both Kundalan and V'ornn, who had pledged themselves to the Dar Sala-at.

"And you the Prime Factor," Minnum grunted.

"It is because I am the arbitrator for all Bashkir disputes that they cannot understand why I wouldprefer to sleep in this tent rather than be tucked warm and cozy behind protective ion fields in the V'ornn compound half a kilometer away." Sornnn SaTrryn sat down beside the diminutive sauromician. He was handsome, tall, lean, well muscled. His hairless bronze skin was deeply burnished. "And it is because I am Prime Factor that I cannot remain here, though it would be my wish."

"You're not going to leave me here on my own?"

"My duties call me back to Axis Tyr. I have numerous disputes awaiting adjudication."

"Typical of my life!" Minnum tore off a hunk of flatbread. The dense jungle of wiry hair made a halo round his outsize, bearded head. "I don't care what anyone says. Those packs of Khagggun makes me uneasy."

Sornnn nodded. "I am all too familiar with the horrors they perpetrate." Though he was the head of the wealthy and powerful SaTrryn trading house, he had learned from his father to love the Kundalan.

Hadinnn SaTrryn had spent almost all his time on Kundala here in the Korrush, trading for spices. From a very early age, Sornnn had gone with him. He was fluent in the languages of all the Five Tribes of the Korrush, knew their customs better than any V'ornn. "I have seen the aftermath of firefights, when the only ones moving are the Deirus, there to administer to the dead and the dying."

"Deirus make me uneasy, too." Nervously, Minnum cast an eye toward Sornnn, who was searching through the trove of artifacts they had unearthed and cataloged.

Sornnn, confirming the sauromician's worst fears, said, "Minnum, what have you done with the banestone?"

"Best to forget the banestone, my friend."

Sornnn turned and, with hands on hips, faced him. Minnum could barely meet his gaze.

"Minnum, where is it?"

Wincing, he told Sornnn that the banestone had vanished. "The banestone was buried here for millennia," he added hurriedly. "Perhaps it is all for the best that it has been lost again."

"Is that what you believe?"

Minnum spread his arms. "What other possibility is there?"

"There were other sauromicians here just weeks ago."

"Speak not to me of them. I severed my ties with the Dark League years ago."

Sornnn threw him a look, dark and penetrating. "I think it is high time you told me about the sauromicians." He had about him the utter stillness Minnum knew well from the Korrush, that patient, watchful demeanor so atypical of his quick-tempered race. Sornnn also possessed a seemingly infinite capacity to absorb Kundalan lore.

While Sornnn settled himself on a carpet, Minnum sighed and took another swig of wine, extradeep this time, to prepare him for the tale. Wiping his red lips with the back of a hairy paw, he began.

"Once the sauromicians were Ramahan in the service of the Great G.o.ddess Miina. We were the male sorcerers, wholly integrated with the female priestesses. As you doubtless know, in those days well before the invasion, ours was a society where males and females were partners in everything. Then, one hundred and two years ago, a cabal of male Ramahan grew restive. I was one of them. We coveted The Pearl, from which all Kundala was born, from whose limitless power the future of our race would be fashioned. With force unknown before in the abbeys, we overthrew Mother, ripped from the Keeper's hands this Pearl. For our sins, Miina cast us down into darkness. In trying to escape her wrath we ran to the farthest ends of Kundala. But she found us all, and those who survived she marked with a sixth finger, black as night, even as she burned away parts of our memories."

"But you have no sixth finger, black or otherwise."

"The Druuge interceded for me when I agreed to become curator of the Museum of False Memory. I was on probation, you see, when I was enlisted to help the Dar Sala-at in her search for the Veil of a Thousand Tears."

"You were being tested."

Minnum nodded. "And then to protect the Dar Sala-at I killed a sauromician, right here in Za Hara-at.

And not just any sauromician. Talaasa, one of the Dark League's archons."

"There are others?""Indeed, yes." Minnum took another quick, nervous swig and gulped, nearly choking. "There are three. Always three." A dribble of wine crawled into the thicket of his beard. "Doubtless they will be looking for the perpetrator of Talaasa's death."

"What if the sauromicians did steal the banestone? What would they do with it?"

"I don't want to know." Minnum shivered and stared out at the ruins of Za Hara-at, lit by torches within and without by the eerie bluish light thrown off by the nearby V'ornn encampment of Mesagggun architects and their Khagggun bodyguards. The wind dug its claws into corners, screeching. His expression was bleak. "And believe me when I tell you that you don't want to know, either."

Receiving Spirit had once been a Kundalan hospice that the V'ornn had turned into a medical facility.

As such, it was run by the Gen-omatekk caste but, as in all things V'ornnish, it was directed in secret by the Gyrgon.

Kurgan felt a ripple of unexpected emotion run through him as he walked into the vast, high-ceilinged lobby. Though his younger brother Terrettt had been incarcerated there for many years, Kurgan had not once come to see him. That unsavory task he left to his sister Marethyn, who had taken on the role of Terrettt's nursemaid.

On the other hand, he owed his sister a debt of grat.i.tude (not that he would ever tell her), for it was through her persistent probing of the Deirus who took care of the mentally unstable Terrettt that she had discovered that Nith Batox.x.x had somehow managed to manipulate Terrettt's genes, doubtless causing his madness. Chillingly, he had discovered in Nith Batox.x.x's laboratory not only Terrettt's birth caul, but his own. Could this mean that the Gyrgon had manipulated his genes as well? And if so, why?

And so he had finally come to the ma.s.sive bone-white structure at the northern edge of Harborside, not so much to see Terrettt as to talk to the Deirus in charge of him to find out everything he knew.

Leaving his Haaar-kyut guards to terrorize those unlucky enough to be in the lobby, he went up the wide filigreed stairs, which in typically ornate Kundalan style were built in the shape of a spiral mollusk's sh.e.l.l.

He hoped he would not run into Marethyn. Ever since she had declared her independence, she had become an embarra.s.sment to the family. She was Tuskugggun, of a caste inferior to males, and yet she refused to acknowledge the order of things. Worse, she rebelled against it, declaring to all who would listen that Tuskugggun were the equal of males. He was still smarting at the way she had barged into their father's Rescendance ceremony, approaching him as if she were a Great Caste male, berating him for not allowing Terrettt to attend. As if he would ever have any intention of allowing Terrettt to make a public spectacle of himself. He had heard reports of his brother's violent outbursts, his spewing of insane ideas.

Perhaps his madness made him the popular painter he had become among the Bashkir and even several of the higher-echelon Khagggun, though Kurgan could see no talent there.

On the third floor, he asked to see the Deirus in charge of his brother's case. Not long after, a small, wiry individual appeared. He had the corpselike pallor of his clients. He introduced himself as Kirlll Qandda.

"I imagine you are here to see your brother," the Deirus said.

"My sister isn't here, is she?"

"Oh, dear, no," Kirlll Qandda said with a nervous laugh Kurgan found instantly annoying. "I haven't seen her for a number of days. Um, or is it weeks?"

"Well, which is it?" Kurgan said irritably. He had not liked this place the moment he stepped in, and each moment he was there was making him more uncomfortable.

"Well, to be honest, I am so wrapped up in my work-your brother's case, not to put too fine a point on it-I hardly know the time, let alone what week it is."

"You mean you are here day and night?"

"Often, yes." The Deirus gestured. "Please, regent, come this way. I will take you to see Terrettt."

He led Kurgan through a warren of corridors. As they went, Kurgan was careful to keep his distance from Kirlll Qandda. It was not that the Deirus cared for the dead. Someone had to do it and better themthan him. No, it was the fact that the Deirus consorted with their own gender that sickened him.

They entered another corridor and were thrust into a bustle of Deirus, going about their grisly ch.o.r.es.

Kurgan saw few Genomatekks now. From time to time, he heard small anxious murmurings and soft pitiable cries. The air held a fist of bitter medicinal scents.

They paused at the doorway to a small cubicle rife with holoscreens and data-decagons.

"My home," Kirlll Qandda said, rather pathetically. "Your brother's room is just over here."

"Perhaps it would be better to have this discussion in your office," Kurgan said, not moving a millimeter.

Kirlll Qandda frowned, then ducked his head. "As you wish, regent." He was more nervous now, and a loud crash ensued from his overeager attempt to clear a s.p.a.ce for the regent to sit. Kurgan was not interested in sitting anyway.

"I have heard," Kurgan said without preamble, "that my brother has been the subject of a Gyrgon experiment."

"I believe that is so"-Kirlll Qandda ducked his head again-"though I can tell you that I have spent months in a vain attempt to locate any records of it."

"You might as well stop trying," Kurgan said. "The experiments were performed by a particular Gyrgon, now deceased, who did not enter his work into the records of the Comradeship." However, that did not mean that he had kept no records. Kurgan was willing to wager heavy coin that those records existed somewhere in Nith Batox.x.x's laboratory. That was why he had tried to convince Nith Na.s.sam to allow him access.

Finding a niche of cleared s.p.a.ce, he leaned back against the wall. "What exactly was done to my brother?"

Kirlll Qandda turned to a holoscreen and tapped the photonic interface. A profile of a V'ornn head appeared. The Deirus tapped the interface again, and the flesh and bone vanished, revealing a cross section. "Here we have a typical V'ornn brain." His finger stabbed out. "You see? The nine main lobes, dual forebrains, four transverse lobes, two in each side, here and here, and beneath these six, the sylviat, where the senses are decoded, the sinerea, the central lobe where cor-tasyne and other chemicals are manufactured in larger amounts in the Khagggun, you know, fascinating, a subject for future study." His finger moved again. "For our purposes, however, it is the ativar, the primitive brain that is of interest. You see how small and compact it is, almost like an afterthought, a vestigial area without known function."

Kirlll Qandda brought up another image on a second holoscreen. "Terrettt's brain. In all ways, it appears normal." Finger jabbing out. "Save here. His ativar is three times the normal size. Notice how it has developed extensions that have twined themselves around the sinerea."

Kurgan peering at the holoimage with great concentration. "What does this mean?"

"Considering the curious admixture of chemicals he manufactures I would say that the retroset ativar is stimulating the sinerea in ways we cannot yet fathom."

"You said retroset."

Kirlll Qandda nodded. "As you know the central core databank was severely damaged and partially destroyed in the cataclysm that obliterated our homework! countless millennia ago. And you also know that much of the data that survived is unreliable and often false."

Kurgan waved a hand for the other to continue.

"Instinct drew me back to the surviving medical database. My research there has uncovered a fascinating fact."

The image on the first holoscreen vanished, and another appeared. Kurgan looked from one to another. "Is this another view of Terrettt's brain? The ativar on this one looks identical to his."

"You are looking at a cross section of the brain of a member of our species who lived hundreds of thousands of sidereal years ago."

Kurgan, enraged, shot erect. "What are you telling me?"

"If the ancient data can be believed, your brother's brain is like that of the V'ornn who first set out on our galactic quest."

Kurgan's mind was working overtime. What could Nith Batox.x.x have wanted? "What was the point?"The Deirus offered a wan smile. "Now you know why I have been working day and night. I do not know the point." He turned off the holoscreens. "But it may be that our own present-day ativar have atrophied. Who knows, it may be that Terrettt's brain is in some ways, at least, more normal than ours."

Kurgan frowning, disbelieving. "Then why the seizures, the violent episodes?"

Kirlll Qandda hesitated only an instant. "If I had to guess, I would say that whatever was done to him failed. It produced these unfortunate side effects."