"Leitha!" Andine exclaimed.

"Not that way, Andine," Leitha said fondly. "I love him in the same way that I love you-or Gher. I feel a bit differently about Bheid, but we can discuss that some other time. We're very much like a family, you know, and it's normal for people to love members of their own families. I encounter that all the time when I go browsing."

"Go just a little deeper, Leitha," Dweia suggested, "and make some noise so that Eliar knows you're there."

A sudden look of revulsion crossed Leitha's face. "You don't know what you're asking, Dweia!" she exclaimed. "I can't do that!"

"What's the problem, Leitha?" Bheid asked.

"You don't know what's involved, Bheid," she told him in a horrified tone.

"You're afraid of something, aren't you, Leitha?" Andine asked. "It can't be that awful, can it?"

"There must be some other way to do this, Dweia," the pale girl said.

"No," Dweia replied, "I'm afraid there isn't. It won't really be all that dreadful, Leitha. Eliar's a simple, uncomplicated young fellow, so you won't encounter anything you can't handle."

"But he's a man, Dweia."

"I noticed that, yes."

"Will somebody tell me what's going on here?" Eliar asked. "What is it that you want her to do, Emmy? And why's she so upset about it?"

"It's nothing really serious, Eliar," Dweia replied.

"I'll explain it to him, Dweia," Leitha declared. "Sometimes you're just a little evasive about certain things." Her voice was flat-even unfriendly.

"Are we keeping secrets here, Em?" Althalus asked.

"She's making a big fuss about nothing," Dweia said irritably.

"Nothing?" Leitha said. "You've got a very strange definition of the word 'nothing,' Dweia."

"I think we'd better get this out in the open, Em," Althalus said. "You're trying to do something sneaky, aren't you, little kitten?"

"That's a hateful thing to say, Althalus!" she hissed.

"You just gave yourself away, Em. Exactly what's the problem here, Leitha?"

"If I go as far below the surface of Eliar's mind as she wants me to, I'll never be able to get out again," Leitha replied with a shudder. "Our minds will cling to each other like frightened children, and Eliar and I'll never be truly separate again."

"So? We're all very close to each other anyway, aren't we?"

"Not that close, we aren't. Eliar's a man, and I'm a woman. You did know that there are differences between men and women, didn't you Althalus?"

"Be nice," he murmured. "Are you certain that there's no way you'll be able to untangle your mind from Eliar's?"

"Do you think you could untangle yours from Dweia's?"

"It goes that far?" Althalus was startled by that.

"Of course it does, Althalus. It's the same thing."

'Isn't there some other way we could do this, Em?' he asked silently.

'No, Althalus. The link between Leitha and Eliar has to be there, or this won't work. The senses are at the deepest level of awareness, so Leitha and Eliar have to be completely merged-in the same way that you and I are.'

'I see where the problem is now,' Althalus said. 'Then again, maybe it isn't such a problem, after all. It might even be very useful.'

'What are you up to now, Althalus?'

'Watch, Em: Watch and learn.'

'I'm getting just a little tired of that, Althalus.'

'I'm sure you'll get over it.' Althalus squinted at the others. "All right, children," he said to them, "mother's come up with an interesting sort of idea that we should consider before we go too much further."

"Mother?" Bheid asked, his face puzzled.

"Isn't she?" Althalus suggested. "You've all seen the way she behaves. She's like a swallow with a nest full of chicks."

"There's a certain truth to that, I suppose," Leitha conceded.

"I rather thought you might see it that way, Leitha," he said. "I'm sort of following up on something you said earlier. We are a family of sorts, and that means that Eliar's your brother, and you're his sister, doesn't it?"

"Well . . ." Leitha frowned slightly.

"As you go deeper into Eliar's mind, it will establish that link you mentioned, but isn't that link there already? Neither one of you talks about it, but it'd there all the same, isn't it? And isn't Andine also your sister? And there's a link there as well, isn't there?"

"I suppose there is," she admitted.

"Then why are you making such a fuss about something that's already in place? You're already locked to Eliar, and you have been ever since we all left Kweron. All you'll be doing now is bringing it out into the open. We might even want to expand that later and bring everybody into this family get-together. It might just be very useful. Love's a nice sort of thing, Leitha, so don't be afraid of it."

"I get the feeling that I'm being manipulated," Leitha said with a helpless little laugh. "What do you think about this, Eliar?"

"I always wondered what it'd be like to have brothers and sisters," he said, smiling a bit shyly. "I have a feeling we have to do this anyway, Leitha. You know how Emmy is, and I'd really like to be able to see again."

She gently touched his cheek with one lingering hand. "Why don't we see what we can do about that, brother?" she said fondly.

Leitha moved quite slowly, almost timidly, and several times both she and Eliar blushed furiously. "It's not really that significant, children," Dweia told them. "Those are just physical differences. They have very little to do with who you really are. All of us are aware of our physical bodies all the time, and that awareness shouldn't bother you." She paused, and Althalus could feel her rummaging around. "Let's start with taste and smell," she suggested. "They're a bit simpler. Go find a flower of some sort, Gher."

"Any old flower?" the boy asked.

"One with a fairly strong smell, if you can find one."

"I'll be right back," Gher promised, dashing from the tent.

'Get one of those greenberries, Althalus,' Dweia murmured. 'Don't say anything about it. Just get it and put it into Leitha's mouth.'

'I thought they were poisonous.'

'Not unless you eat a plateful of them.'

Althalus flickered one hand at Leitha to get her attention, and then he touched one finger to his lips.

She nodded.

Althalus went to the rough table and picked up one of the small greenberries. Then he went back to the bed, handed it to Leitha, and pointed at her mouth.

She nodded again and put the berry in her mouth. As her teeth crushed the berry, she winced and puckered her lips.

"That's awful!" Eliar exclaimed, contorting his face and trying to spit something out.

"Actually, it's the loveliest thing you've ever tasted, Eliar," Dweia told him. "This is coming along very well."

The small yellow flower Gher brought for Leitha to sniff made Eliar break into laughter. "Are you bleeding very much, Gher?" he asked the boy.

"Bleeding?" Gher asked, puzzled.

"That's the flower of the 'shrub from Hell,' isn't it? It's got a smell that's almost as sharp as the thorns."

'It's working, isn't it, Em?' Althalus said in silent exultation.

'It has so far. Now take Leitha aside and whisper something to her. Their noses and mouths seem to be linked. Let's try their ears now.'

After Eliar had repeated what Althalus had whispered to Leitha word for word, Dweia told Althalus to tickle Leitha's foot, and that made Eliar jerk his foot.

"Four out of four," Dweia said aloud. "Now we come to the really important one. I want you to lay your cheek against Eliar's cheek, Leitha. I want your eyes to be as close to his as possible. Don't think about anything in particular, and just look up at the roof of the tent instead of anyone's face. Let's find out if he can see light before we go on to more details."

Leitha nodded, went to the side of Eliar's bed, and knelt beside it. Then she gently put her face against his.

"I can see!" Eliar exclaimed. "It's not dark anymore!"

"Move your eyes slowly, Leitha," Dweia instructed. "He'll have to adjust to a few things here. Bring your eyes slowly down and look at Andine."

"All right," Leitha said.

"She looks different, for some reason," Eliar complained.

"Leitha doesn't see her exactly the way you do, Eliar," Dweia explained. "Women look at other women in a slightly different way than men do. I don't think we need to talk about that right now, though. Can you see her clearly?"

"She seems to be sort of off-center," Eliar said.

"What do you mean by that?" Andine demanded indignantly.

"He wasn't trying to be insulting, dear," Dweia said. "He's seeing you through Leitha's eyes, and her eyes aren't exactly where his are. It'll take a little while for him to get used to that, but we're past the difficult part now."

Dweia was speaking aloud through Althalus in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, but Althalus winced as her exultation began bouncing off the inside of his head.

"There's nothing there, Eliar," Leitha objected, turning back to the young man sitting on the edge of the cot.

"Please don't look at me, Leitha," he said, shuddering. "It makes my head swim to see myself from where you are."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, quickly looking away. "I still can't see anything that looks like a door, though."

Eliar reached out and patted the empty air between them. "But it's right here. Listen." He patted a little harder, and they could all hear the sound of his hand slapping against wood. Leitha reached out, feeling around the emptiness with her hand.

"You just stuck your arm right through the door!" Eliar exclaimed. "What's happening here, Emmy? That door's as solid as a brick wall, but Leitha just put her hand completely through it."

"The doors only exist for you, Eliar," she explained with Althalus' usurped voice. "They aren't there for anybody else-unless you lead them through. People are walking back and forth through those doors all the time, and they don't even realize it. The Knife's involved, and the Knife complicates things. Can you stand up?"

"I feel fine now, Emmy-except for this headache."

"Stand up slowly. Leitha and Andine can support you and make sure you don't fall. You're going to be using Leitha's eyes, so the door handle's not going to be exactly where your hand thinks it's going to be, so you'll have to feel around to find it. Once you get hold of the handle, open the door, and the three of you can come home."

"Leitha and Andine will be coming right back, won't they?" Bheid asked.

"No. They'll be staying here with Eliar and me."

"Wait a minute, Em," Althalus objected. "We need Leitha here. We've already lost the doors. If something should happen and we lose our ears as well, we're going to be in deep trouble."

"I'm going to need Leitha here much more than you need her there, pet. You can get along without her for a little while, and I can't. I'm not going to argue with you about it, Althalus; this is the way we're going to do it."

Leitha and Andine helped Eliar to his feet and supported him as he groped for the door handle that only he could see. Then his hand closed around something. "There it is," he said, and then the three of them stepped out of sight.

"How long will it be until Leitha comes back?" Sergeant Khalor asked in a worried voice.

"There's no way to tell for certain, Sergeant," Althalus replied. "It all depends on how badly Eliar's been injured. If it's just some bruising that needs to heal, it won't be very long. If it's really serious, it could be quite a bit longer. He has to use Leitha's eyes until his own are working again." Althalus kept his tone flat and matter-of-fact.

"I thought Dweia could stop time there in the House," Chief Albron objected.

"That involves the doors, too," Althalus told him. "I'm not sure just exactly what Emmy's going to have to do to him to make his eyes work again, so I imagine time might have to keep moving. It all gets a little complicated."

"Now I've lost my ears, too," Khalor said. "Without Leitha to do my eavesdropping for me, I have no way of knowing what the enemy's going to try next."

"We might have to pull Gebhel entirely out of the trenches, Sergeant," Chief Albron suggested. "He could fall back a few miles and dig in again."

"All that'd do is delay the inevitable, my Chief," Khalor pointed out. "Gelta would keep on charging his front and Pekhal's infantry would come out behind him through Khnom's doors."

"Can you think of any alternatives, Sergeant?" Althalus asked.

"There is a fairly gloomy one," Khalor replied bleakly.