The heart seemed to go out of Iome's father. Raj Ahten was right. No one could lead the Northern kings. There were too many political divisions, too many moral strifes, too many petty jealousies and ancient rivalries. If Orden led an army south, someone would stay to attack his weakened cities.

Least of all would anyone trust Raj Ahten, the Wolf Lord. For hundreds of years, the Runelords had attacked any leader who sought too much power, who grasped too far. In ancient times, certain robbers, greedy for any power they could get, would use the forcibles to take endowments from wolves, and thus became known as Wolf Lords.

Men who desired an uncanny sense of smell or hearing often took endowments from pups, for dogs gave them willingly and required little in the way of support thereafter. Even stamina or brawn were taken from mastiffs, bred for just that purpose.

Yet men who took endowments from dogs became subhuman, part animal themselves. Thus the euphemism Wolf Lord became a term of derision used for any man of low morals, including men like Raj Ahten, who might never have taken an endowment from a dog.

No king of the North would follow Raj Ahten. Men who earned the title Wolf Lord became outcasts. Honorable lords were duty bound to fund the Knights Equitable in their wars and assassinations. Like wolves caught in the sheep fold, Wolf Lords were accorded no mercy.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Sylvarresta said. "There are other ways to prosecute this war. A tithe of knights from each kingdom..."

"It does have to be this way," Raj Ahten corrected. "Would you dare dispute me on this point? I have a thousand endowments of wit, to your..." He gazed into King Sylvarresta's eyes a flickering second, studying the intelligence there.

"...two."

It could have been a guess, Iome thought, but she knew better. There was a saying: "A wise king does not garner all wit, instead he also allows his counselors to be wise." In the North, it was considered wasteful to take more than four endowments of wit. A lord who did so remembered everything he ever heard, all he ever saw or thought or felt. Sylvarresta would not have taken more than four. Yet how had Raj Ahten recognized that Iome's father had but two endowments active?

Raj Ahten's declaration, that he'd taken wit from a thousand, took the breath from Iome. She could not comprehend such a thing. Some lords swore that a few more endowments of wit granted a Runelord some benefit--extra creativity, deeper wisdom.

Raj Ahten folded his hands. "I've studied the reavers--how they are spreading into our kingdoms in tiny pockets, each with a new queen. The infestation is wide.

"Now, Sylvarresta, despite your peaceable assurances, I require more from you. Lay bare your flesh."

Clumsy from nervousness, with all the grace of a trained bear, King Sylvarresta untied the sash of his robe, shrugged off the midnight blue silk, till his hairy chest lay bare. The red scars of forcibles showed beneath his right nipple, like the mark of a lover's teeth. Raj Ahten read Sylvarresta's strengths in a glance.

"Your wit, Sylvarresta. I will have your wit."

Iome's father seemed to cave in on himself, dropped to both knees. He knew what it would be like, to pee his own pants, not knowing his name, not recognizing his wife or children, his dearest friends. In the past day he'd already felt keen pain as memories were lost to him. He shook his head.

"Do you mean you will not give it, or cannot?" Raj Ahten asked.

Lord Sylvarresta spread both hands wide, shaking his head, unable to speak.

"Will not? But you must--" Raj Ahten said.

"I can't!" Iome's father cried. "Take my life instead."

"I don't want your death," Raj Ahten said. "What value is that to me? But your wit!"

"I can't!" Sylvarresta said.

To give an enemy an endowment was one thing, but Raj Ahten would take more than just Sylvarresta's wit. Because Sylvarresta was already endowed, Raj Ahten would make King Sylvarresta his vector.

A man could only grant one endowment in his life, and when that endowment was granted, it created a magic channel, a bond between lord and vassal that could only be broken by death. If the lord died, the endowment returned to its giver. If the vassal died, the lord lost the attributes he had gained.

But if a man like Sylvarresta granted his wit to Raj Ahten, he would give not only his own wit, but also all the wit he received from his Dedicates, plus all wit he might ever receive in the future. As a vector, Sylvarresta became a living conduit.

He would give Raj Ahten the wit he had taken, and might even be used to channel the wit of hundreds to Raj Ahten.

"You can give it me, with the proper incentive," Raj Ahten assured him. "What of your people? You care for them, don't you. You have trusted friends, servants, among your Dedicates? Your sacrifice could save them. If I have to kill you, I won't leave your Dedicates alive--men and women who can no longer offer endowments, men and women who might seek vengeance against me."

"I can't!" Sylvarresta said.

"Not even to buy the lives of a hundred vassals, a thousand?"

Iome hated this, hated the pregnant silence that followed. Raj Ahten had to get the endowment willingly. Some lords sought to assure the necessary degree of longing through love, others by offering lucre. Raj Ahten used blackmail.

"What of your beautiful wife--my cousin?" Raj Ahten asked. "What of her life? Would you give the endowment to buy her life? To buy her sanity. You would not want to see such a lovely thing ill-used."

"Don't do it!" Iome's mother said. "He can't break me!"

"You could save her life. Not only would she keep it, but she would remain on the throne, ruling as regent in my stead. The53 throne she loves so much."

King Sylvarresta turned to his queen, jaw quivering. He nodded, hesitantly.

"No!" Venetta Sylvarresta cried. In that moment, she spun and ran. Iome thought she would hit the wall, but realized too late that she'd not headed for the wall, but for the full-length windows behind the Days.

Suddenly, faster than sight could account, Raj Ahten was at her side, holding her right wrist. Venetta struggled in his grasp.

She turned to him, grimacing. "Please!" she said, grasping Raj Ahten's own wrist.

Then, suddenly, she squeezed, digging her nails into the Wolf Lord's wrist until blood flowed. With a victorious cry, she looked Raj Ahten in the eyes.

Venetta shouted to her husband, "Now you see how to kill a Wolf Lord, my sweet!"

Iome suddenly remembered the clear lacquer on the nails, and she understood--the Queen's distress had been a ruse, a plot to get Raj Ahten near so that she could plunge her poisoned fingernails into his flesh.

Venetta stepped back, holding her bloodied nails high, as if to display them for Raj Ahten before he collapsed.

Raj Ahten raised his right arm, stared at the wrist in dismay. The blood in it blackened, and the wrist began to swell horribly.

He held it up, as if in defiance, and gazed into Venetta's eyes for a long moment, several heartbeats, until Venetta paled with fear.

Iome glanced at the arm. The bloody cuts in Raj Ahten's wrist had healed seamlessly in a matter of seconds, and now the blackened arm began to regain its natural color.

How many endowments of stamina did the Wolf Lord have? How many of metabolism? Iome had never seen such healing power, had heard of it only in legend.

Raj Ahten smiled, a terrifying, predatory smile.

"Ah, so I cannot trust you, Venetta," he whispered. "I am a sentimental man. I had hoped family could be spared."

He slapped her with the back of his fist, the slap of Runelord. The side of Venetta's face caved in under the force of the blow, splattering blood through the air, and her neck snapped. The blow knocked her back a dozen feet, so that she hit the glass of the oriel.

She crashed through, the weight of her dead body pulling at the long red drapes as she did, and for half a second she seemed to stand still in the night air, before she plummeted the five stories.

Her body splatted against the broad paving stones in the courtyard below.

Iome stood in shock.

Her father cried out, and Raj Ahten stared at the splintered panes of colored glass, the red drapes waving in the stiffening breeze, annoyed.

Raj Ahten said, "My condolences, Sylvarresta. You see that I had no other choice. Of course, there are always those who think it easier to kill or die, than to live in service. And they are correct. Death requires no effort."

Iome felt as if a hole had ripped in her heart. Her father only sat on bended knees, shaking. "Now," Raj Ahten continued, "we were about to conclude a bargain. I want your wit. A few more endowments of it benefits me little. But it gains much for you. Give me your wit, and your daughter, Iome, will rule in your stead, as regent. Agreed?"

Iome's father sobbed, nodded dumbly, "Bring your forcibles then. Let me forget this day, my loss, and become as a child."

He would give the endowment to keep his daughter alive.

In that moment, Iome knelt again, terrified. She could not think, could not think what to do. "Remember who you are" her mother had said. But what did that mean? I am a princess, a servant of my people, she thought. Should I strike at Raj Ahten, follow my mother through the window? What does that buy?

As regent she would have some power. She could still fight Raj Ahten subtly, so long as she lived. She could give her people some measure of happiness, of freedom.

Certainly, that was why her father still lived, why he didn't choose to fight to the death, as her mother had.

Iome's heart hammered, and she could think of nothing to do, could formulate no worthwhile plan, but remembered Gaborn's face earlier in the day. The promise on his lips. "I am your Protector. I will return for you.

But what could Gaborn do? He couldn't fight Raj Ahten.

Yet Iome had to hope.

Raj Ahten nodded to a guard. "Call the facilitators."

In moments, Raj Ahten's facilitators entered the room, cruel little men in saffron robes. One bore a forcible on a satin pillow.

Raj Ahten's facilitators were well practiced, masters of their craft. One began the incantation, and the other held King Sylvarresta, coached him through it. "Watch your daughter, sirrah," he said in a thick Kartish accent. "This you do for her. Do for her. She everything. She the one you love. You do for her."

Iome stood before him, dazed, listened to her father's cries as the forcible heated. She daubed the sweat from his brow as the metal suddenly twisted like something alive. She gazed into his clear gray eyes as the forcible drew away the endowment, sucked the intelligence from him, until she could tell that he no longer remembered her name, but only cried in stupid agony.

She sobbed herself when he gave his final scream of pain, and collapsed at her feet.

Then the facilitator went to Raj Ahten, bearing the white-hot forcible trailing a ribbon of light, and Raj Ahten pulled off his helm, so that his long dark hair fell around his shoulders, then pulled off his scale mail, opened his leather jerkin to expose his muscular chest. It was a mass of scars, so marked by forcibles that Iome could see only a few faint traces of unmarked flesh.

As he took the endowment, Raj Ahten sat back on the throne, eyes glazed in satisfaction, watching Iome narrowly.

She wanted to rage against him, to pummel him with her fists, but dared do nothing but sit at her father's head, smoothing back his hair, trying to comfort him.

The King opened his eyes, regaining consciousness for half a second, and he stared up at Iome, his mouth open, as if wondering what strange and beautiful creature he beheld. "Gaaagh," he bawled; then a pool of urine began to spread on the red carpets beneath him.

"Father, Father," Iome whispered softly, kissing him, hoping that in time he would at least learn that she loved him.54 Finished with their incantations, the facilitators left. Raj Ahten reached over to his sword, pulled it from the Queen's throne.

"Come, take your place beside me," he said. Once again, she saw that undisguised lust in his face, and did not know if he lusted for her body or for her endowments.

Iome found herself halfway to the throne before she realized that he'd used his Voice to order her. To be manipulated this way angered her.

She sat on the throne, tried not to look at Raj Ahten's face, at his incredibly handsome face.

"You understand why I must do this, don't you?" he asked.

Iome didn't answer.

"Someday you will thank me." Raj Ahten studied her frankly. "Have you studied in the House of Understanding, or have you read the chronicles?"

Iome nodded. She'd read the chronicles--at least selected passages.

"Have you heard the name of Daylan Hammer?"

Iome had. "The warrior?"

"The chroniclers called him 'the Sum of All Men.' Sixteen hundred and eighty-eight years ago, he defeated the Toth invaders and their magicians, here on Rofehavan's own shores. He defeated them almost single-handedly. He had so many endowments of stamina that when a sword passed through his heart, it would heal up again as the blade exited. Do you know how many endowments that takes?"

Iome shook her head.

"I do," Raj Ahten said, pulling back his shirt. "Try it, if you like."

Iome had her poniard strapped under her skirts. She hesitated just a moment. It seemed ghoulish, yet she might never have another chance to stab the man.

She pulled it, looked into his eyes. Raj Ahten watched her, confident, Iome plunged the dagger up between his ribs, saw the pain in his eyes, heard him give a startled gasp. She twisted the blade, yet no blood flowed down the runnel. Only a slight red film oozed where the blade met flesh. She pulled the blade free.

The wound closed as the bloody blade exited.

"You see?" Raj Ahten asked. "Neither your mother's poison nor your own dagger can hurt me. Among Runelords, there has never been another of Daylan's equal. Until now.

"It is said in my country that when he'd received enough endowments, he no longer needed to take them. The love of his people supported him, it flowed to him. When his Dedicates died, his powers remained, undiminished."

She'd never read that. It defied her understanding of the art of the Runelords. Yet she hoped it was true. She hoped that such a thing could be, that Raj Ahten would someday quit draining people like her father.

"I think," Raj Ahten said softly, "that I am nearly there. I think I shall be his equal, and that I shall defeat the reavers without the loss of fifty million human lives, as would happen under any other plan."

Iome looked into his eyes, wanting to hate him for what he'd done. Her father lay in his own urine on the floor at her feet.

Her mother was dead on the paving stones outside the keep. Yet Iome looked into Raj Ahten's face, and she could not hate him. He seemed...so sincere. So beautiful.

He reached out, stroked her hand, and she dared not pull away. She wondered if he would try to seduce her. She wondered if she'd have the strength to fight him if he did.

"So sweet. If you were not my kin, I'd take you as a wife. But I'm afraid propriety forbids it. Now, Iome, you too must do your part to help me defeat the reavers. You will give me your glamour."

Iome's heart pounded. She imagined how it would be, with skin as rough as leather, the cobwebs of her hair falling from her head, the way the veins would stick out on her legs. The dry smell of her breath. To look, to smell, to be repulsive.

Yet that was not half the horror of it. Glamour was more than beauty, more than physical loveliness. It could be recognized partly as form, but just as much was manifest in the color of one's skin, the glossiness of one's hair, the light that shone in one's eyes. It could be seen in posture, in poise, in determination. The heart of it often lay somewhere in a person's confidence in and love of self.

So, depending on the ruthlessness of the facilitator involved, all these could be drawn away, leaving the new Dedicate both ugly and filled with self-loathing.

Iome shook her head. She had to fight him, had to fight Raj Ahten any way she could. Yet she could think of nothing, no way to strike back.

"Come, child," Raj Ahten said smoothly. "What would you do with all your beauty, if I left it to you? Lure some prince to your bed? What a petty desire. You could do it. But afterward you would only spend your life in regret. You've seen how men look at you with lust in their eyes. You've seen how they stare, always wanting you. Certainly you must tire of it."

When he put it that way, in such a silky voice, Iome felt wretched. It seemed vile and selfish to want to be beautiful.