Pulling away at last, Riane sank into the level where all energy flowed, to jihe, where she could reach out for Otherwhere. But she did not enter the Realm. Rather, she used her memory to walk through the pages of first Utmost Source and then The Book of Recantation until she found the minor spells described in each. Mother had shown her how to combine them, and she spoke the Old Tongue that she now knew was close to Venca. She fixed the banestone firmly in her mind, as if it were an actor takingcenter stage.

Syllables formed into words, words into phrases, phrases into the sentences, and the spell formed. A veil of sparkling lights illuminated the gloom of the storeroom, glittering and winking as they danced and spun. And presently they merged into a small sphere. At first wholly without color, the sphere's center slowly coalesced, moving through the spectrum until it became the deepest purple.

Into this darkness burst a scene, odd to Riane because it contained neither Kurgan nor the banestone.

Nevertheless, it was what the Spell of Forever showed her: A building loomed at the extreme western end of the Boulevard of Crooked Dreams. At that point in the city, the boulevard was scarcely wide enough to be considered a street, let alone a thoroughfare. Like much of the extreme western district, the building was in desperate need of repair. The street in front of it was cobbled with such a mismatched a.s.sortment of stone it was hard even on the hooves of water b.u.t.tren.

The building was dun-colored, dirty-looking, and therefore indistinguishable from its neighbors save for a small, smeared plaque much in need of repair itself. FIREFLY it said, or at any rate, it once had beneath the stains. Riane recognized it as a kashiggen, but judging by its look and location, it was a disreputable one. As she looked deep into the heart of the sphere, she could see Deirus skulking in and out. Annon had known, of course, that there were kashiggen that catered to Deirus, but he had never seen one before.

The scene, pa.s.sing as quickly as a dream, was flickering out. In that instant she glimpsed a shadowy figure, no more than a silhouette, high up inside the building. She was about to get a look at its face when the sphere broke apart, and one of the shards struck her. It was not, of course, a physical blow, but rather a mental one, and at once she was thrust into a vision of the future, a possible future, at any rate, one of many.

She saw Seelin, the Sacred Dragon of Transformation. She was encased within an octahedron formed by eight banestones, streaks of curved lambent orange connecting them, though it was difficult to see, everything smeared and dark, as with smoke and flames. They are going to burn Seelin alive] And then she saw something that turned her bones to ice. She saw herself, the ninth banestone in her hand, placing it so that it completed the Cage. Her mind recoiled. But that was impossible! She would do anything to keep the Cage from being completed, from allowing the death of Seelin, whom she loved, whom she needed to be complete.

And then, like a bubble bursting, the vision winked out, and she found herself staring at a neatly stacked pile of alloy crates. She felt sick and a little weak. Gradually, she became aware that Eleana was holding her.

"It's all right, love. I'm here. It's all right."

For a moment, she rested her damp forehead against Eleana's shoulder. The atmosphere was still charged with the dissipating spell.

"What is it?" Eleana said after a time. "What have you seen?"

"I know where the banestone is or soon will be. We have to go there immediately."

They rose and went out to where the others waited.

Thigpen, tugging at Riane's robe, pulled her aside. Riane reached out, and the Rappa leapt up into her strong arms.

"I know we must retrieve the banestone at all costs," she whispered, as Riane ruffled the fur between her ears. "But why risk Eleana again? Leave her here. She will be safe with the Deirus."

Riane raised an eyebrow. "Is that a change of heart I hear?"

"He has proved that he is not a worm to be ground underfoot," Thigpen said grudgingly.

"Well and good."

Eleana craned her neck. "What are you two whispering about? Not me, I trust." She said it lightly, but her furrowed brow betrayed her concern.

Riane shook her head and smiled. She lowered her voice even more when she spoke to Thigpen. "Of course you are right. However, we dare not leave her behind. The banestone has somehow sensitized itself to her aura. Eventually, it will find her wherever she is in Axis Tyr.""Then let's get her out of the city."

"No time. Will you take her?"

"And leave you to face Kurgan and the banestone alone? I think not." That was what Riane wanted to hear. "Then better by far that she remain with us."

Thigpen gave her a doubtful look, but all the same she leapt down onto the floor and led the way to the small door beyond which all of Axis Tyr lay in wait like a treacherous companion.

22

Kiss

It was you," Minnum said in a breathless voice. "It was you who sent me the vine." "I hope it was of some help," the Sarakkon female said.

"Are you serious?" Minnum stood very still, but he was conscious of quaking like a leaf in a stiff wind.

He could not stop staring at her- the whorls and spirals of her tattoos, the luscious braid of her hair.

Where had all his suspicion gone to? He seemed to be melting into her eyes. Part of her was already inside him. "Without it I never would have been able to kill the archon."

"You killed Varda?"

"You are confused, Sarakkon. The archon's name is Caligo."

"Mother of Yahe," Krystren said, "there are two of them!"

"Worse and worse," he muttered. "We had better tell First Mother."

"First Mother?"

He loved, too, the way she c.o.c.ked her head, the slight twist of her long, curved neck. "That is what we call Giyan." He stuck out a hairy paw. "My name is Minnum."

She did not hesitate to take it, as many would have. He saw in her eyes not the slightest judgment against his size.

"We are gratified to meet you, Minnum. Krystren, first daughter of Coirn, of the House of Oronel."

Krystren! He even liked the sound of her name. It seemed to reverberate inside him like the clear bronze tone of a bell. He led her at a run to where Giyan was crouched, her face furrowed in sorcerous concentration. The Eye of Ajbal was moving closer.

She looked up at them. "It cannot see us, at least for the moment. But the pressure of its searching is difficult to counteract."

He introduced Krystren, then went on a bit breathlessly. "She knows a kind of sorcery, she can see the Eye, can you believe it, First Mother? Anyway, she helped me kill the archon, Caligo."

"If the archon is dead, who is controlling the Eye?" Giyan asked.

"That's just it," Krystren said. "The raiding party contains two archons. We have been following them for many kilometers, but had not realized that. We only saw Varda."

"Raiding party?" Giyan's frown deepened. "Who is in this raiding party?"

"Besides the two archons, a Sarakkon with whom they have made a pact. They've come here to raid the Abbey of Five Pivots. The Sarakkon are helping them in this."

"Miina save us!" Giyan cried. "We must not let them inside. There are untold secrets-"

"We fear they have already been inside," Krystren said. "More than once, we will warrant."

Giyan and Minnum exchanged glances, but there was no time to contemplate the ramifications of this latest disaster.

"Listen closely. I must gain immediate entrance to the abbey." Giyan rose, glanced up at the questing Eye. "They will try to stop us. We will have to separate. I will go to the abbey. Minnum, you must stay here and do whatever you can."

"After Caligo's death, Varda will be on his guard."

"Harry him, distract him," Giyan said. "I need time inside the abbey to make preparations. There is a mechanism inside that will aid us."

"What about us?" Krystren asked. "We want to help."

Giyan smiled at her. "You are brave, my child, as well as something of a mystery. You are willing to work against your own kind.""To them we are an outlaw, the enemy," Krystren said.

Minnum, himself an outlaw to his own kind, liked her better and better.

She winced suddenly and put a hand to her head. "I cannot blind the Eye for much longer. It seems there are other sorceries at work here."

"It is the archon," Minnum said. "He is a full necromancer now."

"His victims make up the rest of the party," Krystren told them. "He kills them as he needs them."

Minnum nodded. "Eats their beating hearts and wraps their intestines around his wrist."

Giyan winced again. "All the more reason to make haste to Five Pivots. Krystren, it will be your job to deal with the Sarakkon. All right?"

The other two nodded.

"Good luck," she said. "If all goes well, we will meet in the central tower of the abbey within the hour."

Without another word, she was off, heading toward the abbey.

Above them, the great and fiery Eye of Ajbal began to swivel. "Look!" Minnum said. "It is turning in her direction!" "Quickly now!" Krystren was already sprinting toward the next stand of trees. "We must engage the enemy!"

Minnum squeezed with all his might in an attempt to dispel the image of Krystren from his mind. He ran ever faster, heading toward the whispering Marre pines, but try as he might he could not let go of her.

Much to his astonishment, he did not want to. Truly, he had never seen her like before. Had the Sarakkon ever brought their females to Za Hara-at? He racked his brains, but it was so long ago, and Mima had so made a mockery of his memory that all history had fled him. Often, he wept at the acc.u.mulation of knowledge and experience he had lost. He did not think it fair, but what in life was fair, especially for a sauromician. Of course, he was not like Caligo and Varda and the others. He was rehabilitated-the Druuge had seen to that.

Stern taskmasters, the Druuge. A thoroughly terrifying bunch, if truth be known. Who could say what went on inside their heads? Who could know what they wanted? The Dar Sala-at, possibly, but that was another matter entirely. One which she would have to discover all on her own. Still, he dreaded her that.

Who in their right mind wouldn't?

Which brought him back to Krystren. What was it about her? That she had saved him with her sorcerous vine? That she had eyes as deep as the sea itself? That he experienced a slight weakness when he looked at the whorls of her tattooed skull? He was disgusted with himself, really and truly. Here he was in a battle for his life-for all their lives- and he had a Sarakkon female stuck in his head. He tried to stamp down on the feeling-what was it, antic.i.p.ation, consternation, a pleasurable combination of both?-he felt when he had been near her. He tried to encapsulate it, hurl it into the darkest recesses of his mind. Inexplicably, it resisted all his attempts to rid himself of it.

In the green-shadowed woods now, he slowed. It had not been terribly difficult for him to locate Varda. It took an enormous amount of sorcerous energy to manipulate the Eye. The sorcery the Druuge had given back to him had made visible to his sixth sense the column of energy that linked the Eye with the archon. He sped onward into the first of the whispering Marre pines, his heart beating like a trip-hammer.

The closer he came to Varda the higher his anxiety level climbed. That was unsurprising. He had no illusions about himself. Despite whatever it was the Druuge saw in him, he knew himself to be a coward.

Not that being a coward was all bad. It was his cowardice, after all, that had kept him from partic.i.p.ating in the vilest deeds the sau-romicians had committed.

The thing that struck him most deeply now as he prowled through the forest, hunched over like a pack animal, was how familiar this sense of anxiety seemed. It was as if he had lived all his life in this state of dread, that any other was so unfamiliar he would not be able to recognize it when it appeared.

But of course that was untrue, for now he did recognize how different he felt standing next to her, and it seemed as if its very uniqueness was what had turned him on his head. Having caught a glimpse ofpleasure, having held it in his hands, so to speak, like a beautiful jewel, he wondered how it was possible that he had never been aware of it before. Life for him was misery. It always had been. All he asked now was to stand beside her again. That wasn't so much, surely.

He was so close to Varda he could hear the column of energy in the core of his being. The sound it made was like an animal being skinned alive. The column was all around him. The particles felt like a swarm of biting insects on his skin.

He was badly frightened. Caligo's power had been nothing as compared to Varda's. Varda possessed a capacity for malice that defied Min-num's understanding. In the old days, before Miina had taken away the bulk of their memory and, therefore, their power, he had seen Varda destroy a sauromician with his mind. He shuddered at the thought. He felt as if he were walking through quicksand. How to engage him?

He dared not send out a mind probe for fear it would alert the archon, and a full-frontal a.s.sault seemed beyond his capacity. He did not know what to do.

And then everything changed because in his mind he heard Krystren moaning.

The true strength in Krystren's training lay in stillness. She was adept, as she had shown on the island of Suspended Skull, at remaining un.o.bserved in the eye of the storm. In her stillness she became invisible.

Within the first few trees of the northernmost finger of forest, she stopped her body, then her mind.

She let the fear, anxiety, tension flow out of her into the springy ground upon which she stood. In its place, silence rose up-a silence as formidable in its way as the high walls that girt the Abbey of Five Pivots.

It was no ordinary silence that greeted the morning or hushed the twilight. It was a living thing that once invoked could be molded and used. Wrapped in her silence, she watched sunlight fall upon a leaf.

The leaf trembled with the pa.s.sage of air, and soon enough the shadow of Varda's ally, the Sintire Ardinal was thrown across the leaf. He paused, doubtless looking around for her, but though she stood not four meters away, he did not see her.

She watched him with the same scrutiny with which one examines one's own reflection, quietly a.s.sessing, seeking out flaws. There was an objectivity in this, a calculated coolness she found immensely comforting, as if she were an observer able to step outside of Time. It was true that for the most part she found emotions at best c.u.mbersome, at worst a detriment. Emotions could be crippling. Just look what they had done to poor Courion! When it came to Orujo, he had forgotten his Onnda training completely.

The Ardinal Guazu moved, advancing on her without being aware of it. She remained where she was.

Guazu's small size was deceptive. He was very strong, both physically and mentally. His smile was also deceptive, light and winning, without a hint of the maliciousness that lay on his soul like an unhealed scar.

Now he stopped, one foot in front of the other, in midstep. His head was turning, his glossy avian eyes moving until he was looking directly at her.

As the advent of sunlight in a room reveals dancing dust motes, so her silence caused her to feel a peculiar agitation in the atoms of the air as they began to cl.u.s.ter. Soon, he had formed a small sphere unseen by anyone but her. Guazu pursed his lips, inhaled until his cheeks belled outward. He exhaled, the resulting puff of air propelled the sphere directly at her.

She did not know what it was, nevertheless she could divine its purpose. It was meant to detect her, to catch her out despite her silence. She knew instinctively that when the sphere encountered the aura of her silence it would change speed or composition, something like that. By whatever means, it would give Guazu the information he needed. He would have found her.

His was not a Sintire skill, and she had to reconcile herself with the terrifying reality that not only were the sauromicians learning from the Ramahan archives in the Abbey of Five Pivots but the Ardinals were learning from the sauromicians. In the conversation she had overheard between Lujon and Haamadi there had been hints of this-the symbiosis they had spoken of-but she had not faced the implications. Now she saw just how big a mistake that had been.The sphere had begun to rotate, ever so slowly. It was causing a prismatic effect, the color hues shifting ever so subtly, sliding from cold to cool to warm to hot. She stood transfixed, mesmerized by the rotating sphere. It was quite as lovely as it was dangerous, but somehow the danger seemed to belong to another world far away, and it was not until she felt Guazu's powerful fingers around her throat that she understood the enormity of her miscalculation.

She gasped, the hallucinogenic sphere popped like a soap bubble, and with paralyzing strength, the Ardinal slammed her back into the trunk of a tree. She struggled, but he had pinned her, not just with his hand, but with his mind. How much had he drunk from the sauro-mician's sorcerous cup? She felt weak.

A curious lethargy ran through her veins, as if she had not slept in weeks. She wanted only to close her eyes, to drift off into his arms, to tell him whatever it was he wanted to know.

And so she began to offer herself up, her limbs going slack just as if she were acquiescing to her lover.

Guazu's head was so close to hers, his features blurred. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and her eyelids fluttered. He touched her between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, between her legs. His lips pressed against hers, and she opened her mouth to him. Dimly, she was aware of him inhaling, drawing out of her not only her breath but the secrets she held most closely and dear. In a moment, he would have everything; in a moment, she would be of no more interest to him than a husk he would trample underfoot. But at that moment, she was still valuable. The thought filled her with grat.i.tude. She loved him, she would do anything he asked of her. She . . .

The smallest sound made him detach himself, and she moaned. While she hung there, waiting for his return, he twisted his head this way and that, searching for the noise that was hardly more than the rustle a pack rat might make in its twilight foraging.

Wake up1.

She moaned again. Who was that disturbing her?

Wake up, Krystren!

She made a sound, as if she could blow away the annoying voice in her head.