"Oh." She looked up to meet his eyes, then sighed and rested her wounded hand on his other shoulder. "Why do you think you would have won if we had fought, my lord?"

"I do not think. I know."

"You, irritating ... Oh, now I've got you. You were so angry with me before for acting because I felt something was not right, without mentioning "thinking." And how can you know now, without thinking first?"

He smiled, the first teasing smile she had seen from him in a long time. "Did I say that I had not thought, earlier? I said that do not, now. Listen carefully, my lady."

"All right, my lord." She smiled back. "Now you've got me. Anyway, we cannot know who would have won, but that does not matter. Wondering about it only diminishes the point of choosing to not fight." You wanted to fight me, too, didn't you?"

"This is a part of what I wanted, yes." She took a quick, shallow breath as his thumb brushed a lock of hair away from her throat. Then his eyes narrowed again. "Linde, who did this to you?"

"What?" She touched her throat herself, but felt nothing unusual.

"You are bruised."

"The Mentor two days ago ..."

"I know about him." If voice could kill, the Mentor must die now. "This is new."

"It must be me doing it to myself, then. In the Inner Sanctum, clutching my throat while I could not breathe. The Aetarx dida"Oh, wretch it!" She shook her head hard. "Stupid, stupid, how can I be so stupid! It did nothing! I did everything to myself. And I did some things to you, too. The Aetarx cannot do anything. It can make images, but they are empty by themselves. I thought I had found the tricka"I thought I could protect myselfa"but in the end, it almost got me. Why, I made a wretched sword!"

"Calm down." The arm around her waist tightened. "You are trembling again."

"I deserve to be trembling. I should slap myself."

"If all got what they deserved, the world would be an interesting place. Calm down now. Then tell me."

She leaned to pick the folder Rianor had given her before from the floor, then took his hand in hers and walked back to the sofa. "I will, but let me show you something first." She put the folder beside the bread, then looked around, confused. "Where is my notebook?"

"What notebook? The one you had in the Inner Sanctum?"

"So I left it there." She clenched a fist in irritation. "Any other stupidity that I must have done tonight?"

He took her fist in his hand and unclenched it. "Stop distressing yourself, will you? I will bring it back to you later."

"Rianor, no." She placed her unclenched fingers on his wrist. "Please. I don't want you to go there."

He sighed. "Linde, I have been going there forevera"since I became the High Lord at thirteen, so it has been ten years now. I am still alive and relatively sane. I know how to deal with it."

"Since you were thirteen?" She shuddered. His parents dead and the Aetarx on top of that. "I am sorry. It must have all been terrible."

"It was not the most pleasurable time of my life, but this is a whole different story. I am more interested in your Aetarx story right now."

"My story ... Yes, "story" is a good term to use for what seems to happen there. Or, rather, stories. This is where I got the sword froma"stories."

She told him then, about the tree-tied witch and merchant Pierre's labels; about images that meant little in themselves but meant too much when the mind wove a web of fears, thoughts, and dreams around them.

"My mind made stories about the women I sawa"the women I imagined myself to bea"horrible stories that I in no way wanted it to make, but it did. A mind with a mind of its own, you can say, but I thought that I had prevailed upon it. I made another story about the witch, and I would have made another one about the lord ..." She felt herself flushing; she had not told him about that one. "Anyway, the Aetarx reacted to my writing; I started seeing light and perhaps would have seen the door and ran away, but then you came and did what you did, and I lost control."

She took his folder and propped it on her knees, absentmindedly tracing the engraved crest with her finger. She did not yet dare open it.

"And when I lost controla"what did I do? I made yet another story. With swords in it. I have read and heard countless stories about the old times, about power conquered by the sword, and about the one and only ruler of a House or a village. You know, those stories that old people whisper to children, that books clearly label as "unreal," and Mentors hate? Perhaps Mentors do have a reason to hate them."

She sighed. "Who would have thought that I might ever agree with Mentors, about anything. But, a sword I got. Even though"a"she raised her eyes to his againa""I never liked those stories. I did not like the Ber tale about the first High Lords and Ladies, who became such because they were the only ones who could slay Lost Ones, with swords of fire bestowed to them by the Master. Or the whispered, Ber-disapproved tale about the new ruler of some House who sword-murdered the old ruler first and all other possible rulers second. I hated the fairytales where some boy or girl became a village chief because it butchered the poor old zmay whose only fault was that it drank a little water from the village's waterwell. Or the story where someone killed the old so-called witch only because she had no teeth and smelled funny. Cruel stories about merciless, power-hungry people with whom I like to think I have nothing in common. Yet, when I found myself in a trial, I turned to those stories myself.

"However"a"she opened the folder now, her eyes taking in the first yellow, brittle pagea""the 'it needs not be you' part and attacking myself was a surprise of its own." She gave a small laugh. "As if the stories fought me back. And this is all. I haven't even had the time to ask myselfa"or youa"how on Mierenthia the swords became physical. Or how the Aetarx does what it does with the images. Or why I could enter the Inner Sanctum, when only the High Ruler or an especially successful enemy is supposed to be able to. I don't want to be an evil, stupid, power-mad High Ruler."

The High Ruler laughed.

"Oh, don't laugh at me, Rianor, you know I do not mean you. You at least did not scrabble for this position; you were born to it." She was confused even before she had finished saying this. She despised rights and privileges based on naught but birth, usually. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "I don't know what I am talking about any longer. But I do know that I want to control my own story and I don't want any wretched swords in it."

"Then it is you, me, and old Audric the Insane."

Linden laughed again. It was strange, the way they had both started laughing. She had been so sad before, and he had not been happy, either. Was she happy now, after all that had happened? Or was it sleep deprivation and the aftermath of shock? Still, she laughed. "So you, too, don't know what you are talking about, my lord? And old Audric as well?"

He smiled. "Perhaps that, too, my irritating lady. Do look at the page you are holding."

Small, smoothly-shaped letters in faded blue ink were spread thickly over the ancient piece of paper, interspersed here and there with bolder, sharper, skewed letters in black.

Today, Day 88 of the First Quarter of Year 116 of our Blessed Master, the Powers That Be took my beloved older brother Ayden to the Eternal Place. I, Darion, am now High Lord.

This was old. The oldest writing Linden had ever seen, perhaps one of the oldest writings at all, for teachers and librarians claimed history had left little or no trace of the first hundred years after the coming of the Master. Of course, teachers and librarians never explained why, and they did not know what traces might still lie beyond the thick walls of n.o.ble Houses and Ber towers. Still ... It was so old. Hands trembling slightly, Linden touched it, and her finger tingled. Linden's lack of sleep and imagination? History itself? She read on.

The Aetarx is singing in my name. Niamh, who was Ayden's betrothed, is now my beloved wife, and the child she carries will be my son. ( : Or daughter, my great-grandpa, you blessed stinking moronic usurper.) The words prefixed with the Qynnsent symbol were written in sharper black letters, squeezed in between the paragraphs and in the margins.

"Audric?" Linden pointed at the black text. "That is his, isn't it? I think I am starting to know the man."

"Oh, yes." Rianor smiled. "The only one daring to write the symbol in his own hand, as far as I know. He has, for lack of a better word, commented every single doc.u.ment in this folder that was written before him."

Today, Day 63 of the Third Quarter of Year 116 of our Blessed Master, I have sought refuge in the Inner Sanctum. For 157 days now, I have been the High Lord, and today is the glorious day my wife gave me a daughter.

But she cries. Oh, how she cries! She is little and wrinkled and red, but her eyes are as bright as the steel of a sword, and her voice is no less strong than the voice of a grown man who is falling. I can hear her. I can hear him. Even here ... ( : Here! And there! At your trousers' dense behind, where the Sun will never shine ... Listen! ) Oh, the voices in my head! Oh, the sorrow! The Aetarx tells me I should give my wife back to Ayden. This is how all voices but the hallowed ( : hollowed! ) voice of the Aetarx will become quiet. And I knowa"I know that deep in her traitorous heart Niamh still doubts. Yes, I will listen to the Aetarx again. Yes ... I will send Niamh to the Eternal Place. ( : bye, bye, Grandma, you dumbbell ) Here the words ended, the next sheet of paper covered with someone else's sprawling handwriting, once again interspersed with Audric's observations.

Linden rubbed her eyes, as if that would erase the images of the words she had just read. "This is as bad as a fairytale."

"Not a fairytale." Rianor sighed. "Only the greatest House of Mierenthia's most glorious history. The part that is not in the public records. Pay attention to the att.i.tude towards the Aetarx. This man blamed everything on it, as if he himself had no willpower ... What is it now, Linde?"

"Nothing, just ..." She blinked fast. "It was so long ago, and yet ... Darion killed the man she loved and made her marry him. Can you imagine? Ayden dead and this man in her bed. In her life. He claimed Ayden's child as his so that he could become the High Lord, for otherwise the infant would have succeeded her father. It is always the High Ruler's first child who becomes the new High Ruler, correct? Even a girl-child so long ago, when most women had no power?" She blinked again, furiously. "Women like poor, broken-hearted Niamh!"

"Linde, my sweet romantic." Rianor put an arm around her. "My naive romantic. If I had known this would affect you so, I would not have shown it to you. I wish you'd focus on the Aetarx madness in this writinga"on the important thing. Poor, broken-hearted Niamh, you say. How do you know? This page is all the information I have about them, but for records listing names and dates. The child might have been truly Darion's; the lady might have had an affair with Darion and helped her lover kill Ayden. Or not. Either way, this text will work."

She flipped the page, staring at the next one without truly seeing it. "You are right."

"Of course, my lady. I always am."

She did smile at that. "I will refrain from commenting on your last statement, my lord. But you are right this time. The 'naive romantic' made a story again. Why, oh why, am I so often slipping into the worst stories when I am not consciously thinking about it? Why are you? We have a page of text and a couple of names and dates, and we call this history and believe it. It was almost six hundred years ago! Or is supposed to have been. It could be fake, it could be meaningless."

"Why, indeed?" He stared at the page, and then stared out the window. She read on.

I have washed the sword again. My hands have become red and puffed, covered with blisters like those of a lowly laundry girl ( : Or of a highly lady churl: ha! ), but the blood will not come off the sword if it is not me washing it. I have washed it five times, but still it bleeds. Not here, in my rooms, where the blade is shiny and sharp and clean, where others see only the great High Lady's sword and not the High Lord of Waltraud's blood dripping from it ( : Yeah! Why open your peeper-holes, my sweetchums? ). It bleeds in the Inner Sanctum, where I go alone. I wonder if the new Waltraud lord's sword bleeds with the blood of my father.( : Wonder, wander, little girl, to the forest, to the world. Empty head is what you'll need, [ink blot] is what you'll meet. ) The Inner Sanctum is a lonely place. I wish I could take my lords and ladies or my servants there, like my father could, but now that the war is over, the Bers, our Blessed Stewards of the Master, have divined that the peril of that is too great. They have taken measures. Only a High Lady or a High Lord of a House may now enter the Inner Sanctum to receive the Aetarx's guidance.

Oh, how clean the sword isa"here in my rooms! My precious, beautiful sword bestowed to me by the Aetarx, which has won me half of Waltraud's Balkaene villages. To think that I did not want to fight this wara"how foolish I must have been. The Aetarx was right, as usual. I only wish it were not making me bring the sword with me to the Inner Sanctum.

This time Audric's writing was large, sprawled over the last two paragraphs. It said, " : Bull bull BULL BULLs.h.i.t."

Stories, stories, stories yet again ... Something was amiss, something at the very edge of Linden's mind. She stood, despite her tired and trembling feet, and walked to the window to stare at Mierber's lights. There were few of them now, perhaps the lights of rich people; the Sun was too bright for the rest to afford wasting fire. Rianor stayed on the sofa, watching her, and then watching the text again, his fingers stroking the last page she had held. Did he at all realize what he was doing? Linden resisted a shiver as she turned to the window again. He, like those who had left their words on those pages, was a Qynnsent High Ruler.

But he is not like them. She resisted another shiver, despite the suite's warmth. It had been warm before, too, she realized belatedlya"in Rianor's suite, and in her own, even in the corridorsa"despite the night, winter, and her thin dress. It was never warm in a commoner's house during a winter night. Livable, yes, if you were snug beneath blankets. Cool, almost cold, if you woke up to use the bathroom. Dark, too, but for a tiny sleep candle, while in Rianor's suite real candles and lanterns had glowed in the night. She had not truly noticed, as absorbed as she had been in other things. So much fire. So much waste, whereas down there people were even now dying from cold. Linden clung to that thought, for it was almost a mundane thought, a thought easier to have than many others clamoring inside her.

But all was not so simple. Who knew how much fire something like the Aetarx would need? Or what it would do if it did not get it. She knew next to nothing about n.o.ble Houses. Qynnsent was not just a larger, richer, more beautiful commoner's house with a garden and nice furniture. It might as well be a different world.

Wonder, wander, little girl, to the forest, to the world ...

Linden had wandered, to that Forbidden Hill beside the forest long ago, and now she had wandered up the hilla"and worlda"upon which Qynnsent stood. Were Audric's writings not sad, they might have been funny. He had written these words for that long-ago woman, but he might have as well written it for her.

And why not? The thought on the edge of her mind dove inside it, clicked into place. Audric might have written it for whoever could reada"and understanda"his words.

"Wonder, wander," Linden whispered, and jumped as Rianor's voice sounded beside her, "Open your peeper-holes, my sweetchums." She had not heard him approach.

"Lost in thought, my lady?" He smiled grimly at her. "Your thoughts are similar to mine, it would seem. I just examined the banner in this room. It took some position-adjusting and eye-squinting, but the changed animal is there, just as you described it to me. It is a wolf, by the way, not a dog. This is a wild animal that you have probably not seen. Anda"you did not seem too shocked, so perhaps common-born people are not taught thisa"a picture, especially a n.o.ble House's crest, should never change. Each n.o.ble crest shows a piece of the truth about the world. This is what Bers say and n.o.bles believe, and both are vehement that there is only one truth."

He steered Linden back to the center of the room. "Come sit, you look too tired to keep standing. The window won't escape, and Mierber can go without us staring at it for a while. It seems I am always looking too d.a.m.n far, while there are things right beneath my nose that I am missing."

Mierber was not far for me two days ago; it was too d.a.m.n close, Linden wanted to reply, but chose not to, and she chose to ignore how he had not asked if she wanted to leave her place by the window, almost dragging her instead. She chose so, because his real aggression was not directed at her.

"Linde, I have to see the map you drew, as well as draw my own, to make sure about the other banners." His voice was calmer now that she was seated beside him. "But I do know that the banners in both my suite and yours were weaved during Audric's time. That was one of his many weird notions, to replace many of the House banners with others, crafted by one particular Mistress Weaver. Like other notions of Audric's, this one is usually dismissed; it is thought that he was in love with the woman but did not marry her because of her common origin, for example. As if he would have cared about such a stupid thing ..."

Rianor looked into Linden's eyes. "For years, I have been ignoring Audric's comments on the doc.u.ments that I gave you to read, like my father had before me, like his mother had before him. I was too used to Audric, and taught to dismiss him since a tender age because of how everyone laughed at him. Yet, it was Audric's ramblings on my handkerchief that might have saved our lives in the Healer's Pa.s.sage."

Linden smiled at him, and wondered if a bit of his eyes' hardness faded at that. "So you think what I think, my lord. Audric left a message."

Rianor smiled back. "Yes, my lady. The question is, can we read it?"

Chapter 8: Council.

Excerpt from More On Our Mierenthia by Eliss Librarian, Year of the Master 394: There are Edges that even we, non-Bers, know about. These are the ends of the world where humans can't go. These are the places where, no matter how long you walk, you stay in the same placea"or walk into the land of the Lost Ones and become lost yourself. The Master is kind, so he has made the land harsh between our dwellings and those Edges. Most often a human cannot reach an Edge, cannot even reach the Ber Station that guards us from it. No one can climb the High Mountains, Rillea and Pirin, for their slopes are steep and unrelenting; the Sun would burn trespa.s.sers in summer, and in winter wild winds would blast them and deep snow would engulf them. Most cannot climb the Long Mountains, Balkaene in Mierenthia's North and Sredna in Mierenthia's South, either, for their slopes might be gentler but are covered with dark and dense forests.

Some might try to go between the mountainsa"but the deep chasms where Rillea meets Balkaene do not forgive the reckless and aberrant, and the Maeron River between Rillea and Pirin and the Dobria River between Pirin and Sredna forgive even less.

Yet, there is one Edge that a wanderer can reach, the one at the southeast end of Balkaene Province, where the Balkaene and Sredna Mountains start to come together again. There are valleys there, amongst the dark forests, and there is a river that flows into the land of the Lost Ones itself. The place looks not like an Edgea"and yet an Edge it is, and the most perilous of them all.

THE Edge we call it, these days.

Rianor

Day 79 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705 Rianor slept a little longer than the two hours he had gotten last time. However, when the setting Sun blazed in his western window and forced him to open his eyes, he felt as if he had not slept for years. His hand hurt, and so did his face. The whip cut should be getting better, but given yesterday's and last night's events, it might as well not.

The bathroom mirror revealed bloodshots in his eyes, too. He forwent a hot shower and let cold water pour over his head, staying there until his skin attained a blue tint and his teeth started clattering. At some point his exhausted mind finally started getting access to his thoughts, but before it had fully succeededa"with Rianor's eyes still half-closed and his thoughts distant and slowa"he saw the banner over the door transform.

Linden's animal changeling again. It almost woke him fully. He stepped slightly away from the shower, raising his head to change the angle between the banner and his eyesa"and then his eyes perceived the shower itself.

His good hand shot towards it a moment later, wrenching its head away. A thinner and stronger, possibly painful, spurt of water shot towards him as a result, but he avoided it easily. His reflexes were fully awake now and were even sharper than normal. Rianor stared at the seemingly innocent peace of metal in his hand. His fury, too, had awakened.

Nan felt something was wrong when she came to change his bandages ten minutes later, but said nothing, except for a "Yes, my boy" when he asked her to gather the Council in an hour's time. People usually knew to be silent around Rianor when he was in such a mood. Blake, whom Nan had brought and left with him, whimpered at him, on the other hand. Rianor patted his head, but still he whimpered, even bit Rianor's trousers, trying to distract him. Blake did not share the restraints of humans.

Rianor took a small cloth ball from the reclining chair and threw it in the corner of the room. Blake did bring it back to him, but still did not seem happy. Somehow he knew that Rianor presently had no enthusiasm for the game. He pushed Rianor's knee with his muzzle, in his doggy version of a hug. Rianor scratched his ears.

He would pay proper attention to the puppy later. If anyone deserved attention, it was Blake. But now he had to take care of other things. "Come on, friend, let's go get our new lady." Blake perked his ears and barked, then trotted alongside him.

A minute later Blake, who was still a puppy in mind but a very large dog in body, jumped over their new lady in an attempt to lick her face.

"You are heavier than her, don't do that." Rianor reached out to grab Blake's fur, just as Linden wrapped her arms around Blake's neck, swaying under the dog's weight against the frame of the door she had just opened for them.

"Back off, Blakea""

"No, Rianor, don't worry, I am fine." She kissed Blake's muzzle, while Blake madly dashed his tail back and forth in delight. Well, who would not be delighted at that.

Rianor closed the door behind himself, then looked at her. "My lady, did you just make my dog disobey me and then reward him with a kiss?"

She looked back at him. "Did I, my lord? I did not intend to."

"So? Intention and action are two different things. Which one do you think matters more?"

She blinked, still hugging Blake. "Depends on the circ.u.mstances. A rule can't be abstracted."

"It can't, or you won't?"

She caressed Blake's head, then let go of him and stood before Rianor, looking suddenly much smaller without a giant furball attached to her. "Will anything I reply make a difference to you right now? What is it, my lord? Did I anger you so much? Now, or are you having qualms about last night?"

So she, too, had detected his mood, even though he had not intended to take it out on her. Well, d.a.m.n both intentions and actions. Anger was so much more difficult to control when he was deprived of sleep. He should be careful. At moments like this, it was too easy to make the wrong choices and do the wrong deeds.

She was still looking at him, and for the first time he noticed that her beautiful amber eyes were, like his, blood-shot and surrounded by shadows. Her skin was pale and sallow, unconcealed even by the make-up she or her maids had applied over it, and she looked thinner somehow, brittle. She seemed to need support standing, now that Blake was not functioning as such. Rianor hesitated briefly, then slipped an arm around her waist.