Songmaster

MIKAL

1

Susquehanna was not the largest city on Earth; there were a hundred cities larger. Perhaps more. But Susquehanna was certainly the most important city. It was Mikal's city, built by him at the confluence of the Susquehanna and West Susquehanna rivers. It consisted of the palace and its grounds, the homes of all the people who worked at the palace, and the facilities for handling the millions of guests every year who came to the palace. No more than a hundred thousand permanent residents.

Most government offices were located elsewhere, all over Earth, so that no one spot would be the center of the planet more than any other. With instant communications, no one needed to be any closer. And so Susquehanna looked more like a normal suburban community-a bit richer than most, a bit better landscaped, better paved, better lit, perhaps, with no industrial wastes whatsoever and utterly no poverty or signs of poverty or even, for that matter, decay.

It was only the third large city Ansset had ever seen in his life. It lacked the violent, heady excitement of Bog, but neither was it weary, as Step had been. And the vegetation was a deeper green than any on Tew, so that while the forests did not tower, and the mountains were sleepy and low, the impression was of lushness. As if the world that had spawned mankind were eager to prove that she was still fecund, that life still oozed out of her with plenty to spare, that mankind was not her only surprise, her only trick to play on the universe.

It's a proud place, Ansset said.

What, Earth? Riktors Ashen asked.

What have I seen of Earth?

The whole planet's like this. Mikal didn't design this city, you know: It was a gift to him.

The whole planet's like this? Beautiful?

No. Trimmed. With its nose in the air. People on Earth are very proud of their place as the 'heart of humanity.' Heart, hell. On the fringe, that's all they are, an Insane fringe, too, if you ask me. They cling to their petty national identities as if they were religions. Which they are, I think. Terrible place for a capital-this planet is more fragmented than the rest of the galaxy. There are even independence movements.

From what?

From Mikal. His capital planet, and they think that just a piece of a planet should be free of him. Riktors laughed.

Ansset was genuinely puzzled. But how can they divide it up? Can they lift a piece of the world up and put it in space? How can they be independent?

Out of the mouths of babes.

They rode in a flesket, of course, all transparent except for the view of the road beneath their feet, which would have made them sick to see. It was an hour from the port to the city, but now the palace was in view, a jumble of what seemed to be stone in an odd, intricate style that looked lacy and delicate and solid as the planet itself.

Most of it's underground, of course, Riktors said.

Ansset watched the building approach, saying nothing. It occurred to Riktors that perhaps the boy was nervous, afraid of the coming meeting. Do you want to know what he's like?

Ansset nodded.

Old. Few men in Mikal's business live to be old. There have been more than eight thousand plots against the emperor's life. Since he got here to Earth.

Ansset did not register emotion until a moment later,

and then he did it in a song, a short wordless song of amazement. Then he said, so Riktors could understand, A man that so many people want to die-he must be a monster!

Or a saint.

Eight thousand.

Fifty of them actually came close. Two of them succeeded in injuring the emperor. You'll understand the security arrangements that always surround him. People go to great lengths to try to kill him. Therefore we must go to great lengths to try to protect him.

How, Ansset asked, did such a man ever earn the right to have a Songbird?

The question surprised Riktors. Did Ansset really understand his own uniqueness in the universe right now? Was he so vain about being a Songbird that he marveled that the emperor should have one? No, Riktors decided. The boy was only just made a Songbird at the beginning of the flight that brought him here. He still thinks of Songbirds as other, as outside himself. Or does he?

Earn the right? Riktors repeated thoughtfully. He came to the Songhouse years and years ago, and asked. According to the story I heard, he asked for anything-a Songbird, a singer, anything at all. Because he had heard a Songbird once and couldn't live without the beauty of such music. And he talked to the old Songmaster, Nniv. And the new one, Esste. And they promised him a Songbird.

I wonder why.

He'd already done most of his killing. His reputation preceded him. I doubt that they were fooled about that. Perhaps they just saw something in him.

Of course they did, Ansset said, and his voice chided gently so that suddenly Riktors felt young and vaguely patronized by the child beside him. Esste wouldn't make a mistake.

Wouldn't she? Devil's advocate, Riktors thought. Why do I always play such opposite roles? There's more than a little grumbling throughout the empire, you know. That the Songhouse has been sold out, sending you to Mikal.

Sold out? For what price? Ansset asked mildly. And Riktors resented the scorn in the question.

Everything has a price. Mikal's paying more for you than for dozens of ships of the fleet. You came for a high price.

I came to sing, Ansset said. And if Mikal had been poor, but the Songhouse had decided he should have a Songbird, they would have paid him to take me.

Riktors raised an eyebrow.

It has happened, Ansset said.

Aren't you a bit young to know history? Riktors asked, amused.

What family doesn't know its own past?

For the first time Riktors realized that the Songhouse's isolation was not just a technique or a facade to raise respect. Ansset, and by extension all the singers, didn't really feel a. kinship with the rest of humanity. At least not a close kinship. They're everything to you, aren't they? Riktors asked.

Who? Ansset answered, and they arrived. It was just as well. Ansset's who was frigid and Riktors could not have pursued the questioning had he wanted to. The child was beautiful, especially now that the scars and bruises had healed completely. But he was not normal. He could not be touched as other children could be touched. Riktors had prided himself on being able to make friends with children easily. But Ansset, he decided, was not a child. Days together on the flight, and the only thing their relationship had disclosed to Riktors was the fact that they had no relationship. Riktors had seen Ansset with Esste, had seen love as loud as the roar of engines in atmosphere. But apparently the love had to be earned. Riktors had not earned it.

Riktors had been hated by many people. It had never bothered him before. But he knew that, more than any other thing, he wanted this boy to love him. As he had loved Esste.

Impossible. What am I wishing for? Riktors asked himself. But even as he asked himself, Ansset took his hand and they walked off the flesket together, walked into the gate, and Riktors felt what little closeness they had had slipping away from him. He might as well still be on Tew, Riktors decided. He's lightyears away, even holding my hand. The Songhouse has a hold on him that will never let go.

Why the hell am I jealous?

And Riktors shook himself inwardly, and condemned himself for having let the Songhouse and this Songbird weave their spells around him. The Songbird is trained to win love. Therefore, I will not love him. And, once decided, it became very nearly true.

2

The Chamberlain was a busy man. It was the most noticeable thing about him. He bounced slightly on the balls of his feet when he stood; he leaned forward as he walked; so anxious was he to reach his destination that even his feet could not keep up with him. And while he was graceful and interminably slow during ceremonies, his normal conversation was quick, the words tumbling out so that you dared not let your attention flag for a moment or you would miss something, and to ask him to repeat himself-ah, he would fly into a rage and there would be your promotion for the year, utterly lost.

So the Chamberlain's men were quick, too. Or rather, seemed to be quick. For it did not take long for those who worked for the Chamberlain to realize that his quickness was an illusion. His words were rapid, but his thoughts were slow, and he took five or six conversations to finally, get to a point that might have been said in a sentence. It was maddening, infuriating, so that his underlings went to infinite pains to avoid speaking to him.

Which was precisely what he wanted.

I am the Chamberlain, he said to Ansset, as soon as they were alone.

Ansset looked at him blankly. It took the Chamberlain a bit by surprise. There was usually some flicker of recognition, some half-smile that betrayed nervous awareness of his power and position. From the boy? Nothing.

You are aware, he went on without waiting any longer for a response, that I am administrator of this palace, and, by extension, this city. Nothing more. My authority does not extend any farther. Yet that authority includes you. Completely, utterly, without exception. You will do what I say.

Ansset looked at him unblinkingly.

Damn, but I hate dealing with children, the Chamberlain thought. They aren't even the same species.

You're a Songbird. You're incredibly valuable. Therefore you will not go outside without permission. My permission. You will be accompanied by two of my men at all times. You will follow the schedule prepared for you, which will include ample opportunity for recreation. I cannot have you out of my ken at any time. For the price paid for you, we could build another palace like this one and have room lefft over to outfit an army.

Nothing. No emotion at all.

Have you nothing to say?

Ansset smiled slightly. Chamberlain, I have my own schedules. Those are the ones I will keep. Or I cannot sing.

It was unheard of. The Chamberlain could say nothing, nothing at all as the boy smiled at him.

And as to your authority, Riktors Ashen already explained everything.

Did he? What did he explain?

You don't control everything, Chamberlain. You don't control the palace guard, which has its own Captain appointed by Mikal. You don't control any aspect of imperial government except palace administration and protocol. And no one, Chamberlain, controls me. Except me.

He had expected many things. But not to have a nine-year-old boy, however beautiful, speak with more command than an admiral of the fleet. Yet the boy's voice was an admirable lesson in strength. The Chamberlain, who was never confused, was thrown into confusion.

The Songhouse said nothing of this.

The Songhouse doesn't speak, Chamberlain. I must live in certain ways to be able to sing. If I can't live as I must, then I will go home.

This is impossible! There are schedules that must be followed!

Ansset ignored him. When do I meet Mikal?

When the schedule says so!

And when will that be?

When I say so. I make the schedule. I give access to Mikal or I deny access to Mikal!

Ansset only smiled and hummed soothingly. The Chamberlain felt very much relieved. Later he tried to think why, but couldn't.

That's better, the Chamberlain said. He was so relieved, in fact, that he sat down, the furniture flowing to fit him perfectly. Ansset, you have no idea what an incredible burden the office of Chamberlain is.

You have a lot to do. Riktors told me.

The Chamberlain had very good self-control. He prided himself on it. He would have been distressed to know that Ansset read the flickers of emotion in his voice and knew that the Chamberlain had little love for Riktors Ashen.

I wonder, the Chamberlain said. I wonder if perhaps you might just sing something now. Music soothes the savage breast, you know.

I would love to sing for you, Ansset said.

The Chamberlain waited a moment, then gazed questioningly at Ansset.

But, Chamberlain, said Ansset, I'm Mikal's Songbird. I can't sing for anyone until I've met him and he's given his consent.

There was just enough of mockery in the Songbird's voice that the Chamberlain went hot inside, embarrassed, as if he had tried to sleep with his master's wife and found that she was merely amused at him. The child was going to be a horror.

I'll speak to Mikal about you.

He knows I'm here. He was quite impatient to have me come, I heard.

I said that I would speak to Mikal!

The Chamberlain whirled and left, a quick, dramatic exit; but the drama was spoiled when Ansset's voice came gently after him, gently and yet exactly loud enough that it could have been whispering in his ear: Thank you. And the thank you was full of respect and gratitude so that the Chamberlain couldn't be angry, indeed could think of no reason for anger. The boy was obviously going to be compliant. Obviously.

The Chamberlain went straight to Mikal, something that only a few were allowed to do, and told him that the Songbird was there and eager to meet him, and was definitely a charming boy, if a bit stubborn, and Mikal said, Tonight at twenty-two, and the Chamberlain left and told his men what to do and when to do it and adjusted the schedules to fit that appointment and then realized:

He had done exactly what the boy had wanted. He had changed everything to fit the boy.

I have been outclassed, said the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

I hate the little bastard, said the hot flush in his cheeks a moment later.

The contract said he'd be here for six years. The Chamberlain thought of six years and they were long. Terribly, terribly long.

3

The palace had no music. Ansset finally realized it with relief. Something had been nagging him since he arrived. It was not the impersonal search by the security guards or the casual way that he seemed to be fit into a machine and processed. He expected things to be different, and since everything was strange compared to life in the Songhouse, none of it should have felt wrong. He had a far from cosmopolitan outlook, but the Songhouse had never allowed him to think that the Songhouse way was right and all other ways were not. Rather the Songhouse was home, and this was merely a different place.

But the lack of music. Even Bog had had music, even lazy Step had its own songs. Here the artificial stone that was harder than steel carried little sound; the furniture was silent as it flowed to fit bodies; the servants went silently about their business, as did the guards; the only sounds were of machines, and even they were invariably muffled.

On his visit to Step and Bog, he had had Esste with him. Someone to whom he could sing and who would know the meanings of his songs. Someone whose voice was full of inflection carefully controlled. Here everyone was so coarse, so unrefined, so careless.

And Ansset felt homesick as he ran his fingers along the warm stone that was so unlike the cold rock of the walls of the Songhouse. He hummed in his throat, but these walls absorbed the sound, reflected nothing. Also, he was hot. That was wrong. He had been raised in a slightly chilly building since he was three. This place was warm enough that he could cast away his clothing and still be a little too warm. How can they be comfortable?

His unease was not helped by the fact that he had been alone ever since the obsequious servant had led him to a room and said, This is yours. No window, and the door had no device that Ansset could see for opening. So he waited and did not sing because he was not sure someone would not be listening-that much Riktors Ashen had warned him of. He sat alone in silence and listened to the utter lack of music in the palace, unwilling to make any of his own until he had met Mikal, and not knowing when that would be, or if it would happen at all, or if he would be left forever in a place where he might as well be deaf.

No.

That is also wrong.

There is music here, Ansset realized. But it was cacophony, not harmony, and so he had not recognized it. In Step and Bog the moods of the cities had been uniform. While individuals had had their own songs, they were only variations on a theme, and all had worked together to give the city a feeling of its own. Here there was no such harmony. Only fear and mistrust to such a degree that no two voices worked together. As if the very melding of speech patterns and thought patterns and ease of expression might somehow compromise a person dangerously, bring him close to death or darker terrors. That was the music, if he could call it music, of the palace.

What a dark place Mikal has made for himself. How can anyone live in such deafening silence and pain?

But perhaps it is not pain to them, Ansset thought. Perhaps this is the way of all the worlds. Perhaps only on Tew, which has the Songhouse, have voices learned to meet and mix harmoniously.

He thought of the billions of pinpoint stars, each with its planets and each of those with their people, and none of them knew how to sing or hear anyone else's song.

It was a nightmare. He refused to think of it. Instead he thought of Esste, and at the thought of her felt again the wonder of what he held inside himself that she had finally compelled him to find. Remembering her, he could not really see her face-he had left her too recently to be able to conjure her like a ghost. Instead he heard her voice, heard the huskiness of her morning speech, the force in her normal expression. She would not have been made uneasy. She wouldn't have let the silly Chamberlain force her into saying more than she ought. And if she were here, he thought, I would not feel so--

If she were here, she would not let herself feel any of these things. Some Songbirds had had difficult assignments before. Esste, whom he loved and trusted, had put him here. Therefore this was where he belonged. And so he would look for ways to survive, to put the palace to use in his songs, instead of wishing that he were in the Song-house instead. For this he had been trained. He would give his service and then, when they came for him, he would return.

The door slid open and four security guards came in. They were in different uniforms from those men who had searched him before. They said little, only enough to direct Ansset to take off his clothing. Why? Ansset asked, but they only waited and waited until at last he turned his back and stripped. It was one thing to be naked among the other children in the toilets and showers, and something else again to be nude in front of adult men, all there for no other purpose than to watch. They searched every crevice of his body, and the search, while not overly rough, was also not pleasant. They were intimate with him as no one had ever been intimate before, and the man who fondled his genitals, searching for unfathomably arcane items-Ansset could think of nothing that could be hidden there-held and touched a little too long, a little too gently. He did not know what it meant, but knew that it was not good. The man's face was outwardly calm, but as he spoke to the others, Ansset detected the trembling, the faint passion suppressed in the interstices of his brusque speech, and it made him afraid.

But the moment passed, and the guards gave him back his clothes, and they led him out of the room. They were tall; they towered over him, and he felt awkward, unable to keep step with them and afraid of somehow getting under their feet, between their legs. The danger was more their anger if he tripped them up than any damage their legs might do to him. Ansset was still too hot, hotter now because he was moving fast and because he was tense. In the Songhouse his Control had been unshakable, except to Esste. But there he had been familiar with everything, able to cope with changes because everything but the change was everything he had known all his life. Here he began to realize that people acted for different reasons, that they followed different patterns or no patterns at all; and yet.

He had been able to control the Chamberlain. It had been crude, but it had worked. Human beings were still human beings. Even if they were large soldiers who trembled when they touched a naked little boy.

The guards touched the sides of doors, and the doors opened. Ansset wondered if his fingers, too, could open doors by touching them. Then the guards reached a door they could not open, or at least didn't try to open. Was Mikal on the other side?

No. The Chamberlain was, and the Captain of the guard, and a few other people, none of whom looked imperial. Not that Ansset had any clear idea of what an emperor would look like, but he knew almost immediately that none of these people was sure of power or enough in control of himself to rule on the strength of his own authority. In fact, Ansset had only met or seen one outsider who could-Riktors Ashen. And that was probably because Riktors was a starfleet commander who had bloodlessly quelled a rebellion. He knew what he could do. These palace-bound people did not know anything about themselves.

They asked questions. Seemingly random questions. About his training at the Songhouse, his upbringing before he got to Tew, and dozens of questions that Ansset could not begin to understand, let alone answer.

How do you feel about the four freedoms?

Did they teach you in the Songhouse about the Discipline of Frey?

What about the heroes of Seawatch? The League of Cities of the Sea?

And, finally: Didn't they teach you anything at the Songhouse?

They taught me, Ansset said, how to sing.

The questioners looked at each other. The Captain of the guard finally shrugged. Hell, he's a nine-year-old kid.

How many nine-year-old kids know anything about history? How many of them have any political views?

It's the Songhouse I'm worried about, said a man whose voice sang death to Ansset.

Maybe, just maybe, said the Captain, and his voice was oiled with sarcasm, the Songhouse is as apolitical as they claim.

Nobody's apolitical.

They gave Mikal a Songbird, the Captain pointed out. It was a very unpopular thing to do, in the empire at large. I heard that some pompous ass on Prowk is returning his singer to them as a protest.

The Chamberlain raised a finger. They did not give Mikal a Songbird. They charged a great deal.

Which they didn't need, said the man whose voice sang death. They have more money than any other institution in the empire except the empire itself. So the question remains-why did they send this boy to Mikal? I don't trust them. It's a plot.

A quiet man with large, heavy eyes left the edges of the room and touched the Chamberlain on the shoulder. Mikal is waiting, he said softly, but his message seemed to settle gloom on everyone.

I had begun to hope the Songhouse would actually delay long enough that--

That what? asked the Captain of the guard, belligerently daring the Chamberlain to speak treason.

That we wouldn't have to put up with all this fuss.

The man whose voice sang death came over to Ansset, who sat with a blank face, watching him. He looked Ansset coldly in the eyes. I suppose, he finally said, you might just be what you seem to be.

What do I seem to be? Ansset asked innocently.

The man paused before answering.

Beautiful, he finally said, and there were tremolos of regret in his voice. He turned away, turned away and left the room through the door Ansset had entered by. Everyone seemed to be relieved. Well, that's that, said the Chamberlain, and the Captain of the guard visibly relaxed.

I'm supposed to command every starship in the fleet, and I spend an hour trying to get inside a child's head. He laughed.

Who was that man who left? asked Ansset.

The Chamberlain glanced at the Captain before answering. He's called Ferret. He's an outside expert.

Outside of what?

The palace, answered the Captain.

Why were you all so glad to have him leave?

Enough questions, said the large-eyed man, his voice gentle and trustworthy. Mikal is ready for you.

So Ansset followed him to a door, which led to a small room where guards passed wands over their bodies and took samples of blood, then to another door which led to a small waiting room. And at last an old, gritty voice came over a speaker and said, Now.

A door slid upward in what looked like a section of wall, and they passed from the false stone to a room of real wood. Ansset did not yet know that this, of all things, was a mark of Mikal's wealth and power. On Tew, forests were everywhere and wood was easy to get. On Earth, there was a law, punishable by death, against poaching wood from the forests, a law which had been made perhaps twenty thousand years before, when the forests had almost died. Only the poorest exempt peasants in Siberia could cut wood-and Mikal. Mikal could have wood. Mikal could have anything he wanted.

Even a Songbird.

There was a fire (burning wood!) in a fireplace at one end of the room. By it, on the floor, lay Mikal. He was old, but his body was lithe. His face was sagging but his arms were firm, bare to the shoulder with no hint of the loss of muscle.

The eyes were deep, and they regarded Ansset steadily. The servant led Ansset partway into the room, and then left.

Ansset, said the emperor.

Ansset lowered his head in a gesture of respect.

Mikal rose from his lying position to sit on the floor. There was furniture in the room, but it was far back at the walls, and the floor was bare by the fire. Come, Mikal said.

Ansset walked toward him, stopped and stood still when he was only a meter or so away. The fire was warm. But, Ansset noticed, the room was otherwise cool. Mikal had said only two words, and Ansset did not know his songs, not from that little bit. Yet there had been kindness, and a feeling of awe. Awe, from the emperor of mankind toward a boy.

Would you like to sit? Mikal asked.

Ansset sat. The floor, which had felt rigid to his feet, softened when his weight was distributed over a larger area, and the floor was comfortable. Too comfortable- Ansset was not used to softness.

Have you been treated well?

For a moment Ansset did not answer. He was listening to Mikal's songs, and did not realize that a question had been asked, not until he had begun to understand a little of the reason a Songbird had been sent to a man who had killed so many millions of human beings.

Are you afraid to answer? Mikal asked. I assure you, if you've been mistreated in any way--

I don't know, Ansset said. I don't know what passes for good treatment here.

Mikal was amused, but showed it only warily. Ansset admired his control. Not Control, of course, but something akin to it, something that made him hard to hear. What passes for good treatment in the Songhouse?

No one ever searched me in the Songhouse, Ansset said. No one ever held my penis as if he wanted to own it,

Mikal did not answer for a moment, though the pause was the only sign of emotion Mikal let himself show. Who was it? Mikal asked calmly.

It was the tall one, with the silver stripe. Ansset felt a strange excitement in being able to name the man. What would Mikal do?

The emperor turned to a low table, and pressed a place on it. There was a tall guard, a sergeant, among those who searched the boy.

A moment of silence, and then a soft voice answering- the Captain's voice, Ansset realized, but muted somehow, all harshness sifted out and softened. Was it the machinery? Or did the Captain speak this tenderly to Mikal? Callowick, said the Captain. What did he do?

He found the boy tempting, Mikal said. Break him and get him off planet somewhere. Mikal took his hand from the table.

For a moment Ansset felt a thrill of delight. He did not really understand what the guard had done, this Callowick, except that he had not liked it. But Mikal refused to let it happen again, Mikal would punish those who offended him, Mikal would keep him as safe as he had been in the Songhouse. Safer, for in the Songhouse Ansset had been hurt, and here no one would dare hurt him for Mikal's sake. It was Ansset's first taste of the power of life and death, and it was delicious.

You have power, Ansset said aloud.

Do I? asked Mikal, looking at him intently.

Everyone knows that.

And do you? Mikal asked.

A kind of power, Ansset said, but there had been something in Mikal's question. Something else, a sort of plea, and Ansset searched in His memory of this new, strange voice, to hear what the question was really asking. A kind of power, but you see the end of it. It makes you afraid.

Mikal said nothing now. Just looked carefully at Ansset's face. Ansset was afraid for a moment. Surely this was not what Esste had urged him to do. You must make friends, she had said, because you understand so much more. Do I? Ansset wondered now. I understand some things, but this man has hidden places. This man is dangerous, too; he is not just my protector.

You have to say something now, Ansset said, outwardly calm. I can't know you if I don't hear your voice.

Mikal smiled, but his eyes were wary, and so was his voice. Then perhaps I would be wise to be silent.

It was enough of Mikal's voice, and held enough of the emperor's emotion that Ansset could reach a little further. I don't think it's the loss of your power that you fear, Ansset said. I think-I think-- And then words failed him, because he did not understand what he saw and heard in Mikal, not in a way he could express in words. So he sang. With some words, here and there, but the rest melodies and rhythms that spoke of Mikal's love of power. You don't love power like a hungry man loves food, the song seemed to say. You love power like a father loves his son. Ansset sang of power that was created, not found; created and increased until it filled the universe. And then Ansset sang of the room where Mikal lived, filled it to the wooden walls with his voice, and let the sound reverberate in the wood, let it dance and become lively and, though it distorted his tone, come back to add depth to the song.

And as he sang the songs he had just learned from Mikal, Ansset became more daring, and sang the hope of friendship, the offer of trust. He sang the love song.

And when he had finished, Mikal regarded him with his careful eyes. For a moment Ansset wondered if the song had had any effect. Then Mikal reached out a hand, and it trembled, and the trembling was not from age. Reached out a hand, and Ansset also held out a hand, and laid it in the old man's palm. Mikal's hand was large and strong, and Ansset felt that he could be swallowed up, seized and gathered into Mikal's fist and never be found. Yet when Mikal closed his thumb over Ansset's hand, the touch was gentle, the grip firm yet kind, and Mikal's voice was heavy with emotion when he said, You are. What I had hoped for.

Ansset leaned forward. Please don't be too satisfied yet, he said. Your songs are hard to sing, and I haven't learned them all yet.

My songs? I have no songs.

Yes you have. I sang them to you.

Mikal looked disturbed. Where did you get the idea that they were--

I heard them in your voice.

The idea surprised Mikal, took him off guard. But there was so much beauty in what you sang--

Sometimes, Ansset answered.

Yes. And so much-what, I don't know. Perhaps. Perhaps you found such songs in me. He looked doubtful. He sounded disappointed. Is this a trick you play? Is this all?

A trick?

To hear what's going on in your patron's voice and sing it back to him? No wonder I liked the song. But don't you have any songs of yourself?

Now it was Ansset's turn to be surprised. But what am I?

A good question, Mikal said. A beautiful nine-year-old boy. Is that what they were waiting for? A body that would make a polygamist regret ever having loved women, a face that mothers and fathers would follow for miles, coveting for their children. Did I want a catamite? I think not. Did I want a mirror? Perhaps when I met the Songmaster so many years ago he was not so wise as I thought. Or perhaps I've changed since then.

I'm sorry I disappointed you. Ansset let his real fear show in his voice. Again, it was what Esste had told him: Hide nothing from your patron. It had been easy, after the ordeal in the High Room, to open his heart to Esste. But here, now, with this strange man who had not liked the song even though it had moved him deeply-it took real effort to keep the walls down. Ansset felt as vulnerable as when the soldier had fondled him, and as ignorant of what it was he feared. Yet he showed the fear, because that was what Esste had told him to do, and he knew she would not be wrong.

Mikal's face set hard. Of course you didn't disappoint me. I told you. That song was what I hoped for. But I want to hear a song of yourself. Surely you have songs of your own.

I have, Ansset answered.

Will you sing them to me?

I will, said Ansset.

And so he sang, beginning timidly because he had never sung these songs except to people who already loved him, people who were also creatures of the Songhouse and so needed no explanation. But Mikal knew nothing of the Songhouse, and so Ansset groped backward with his melody, trying to find a way to tell Mikal who he was, and finally realizing that he could not, that all he could tell him was the meaning of the Songhouse, was the feel of the cold stone under his fingers, was the kindness of Rruk when he had wept in fear and uncertainty and she had sung confidence to him, though she herself was only a child.

I am a child, said Ansset's song, as weak as a leaf in the wind, and yet, along with a thousand other leaves I have roots that go deep into rock, the cold, living rocks of the Songhouse. I am a child, and my fathers are a thousand other children, and my mother is a woman who broke me open and brought me out and warmed me in the cold storm where I was suddenly naked and suddenly not alone. I am a gift, fashioned by my own hands to be given to you by others, and I don't know it I am acceptable.

And as he sang, he found himself inexorably heading toward the one song he would never have thought to sing. The song of the days in the High Room. The song of his birth. I can't, he thought as the melodies swept into his throat and out of his teeth. I can't bear it, he cried to himself as the emotions came, not in tears, but in passionate tones that came from the most tender places in him. I can't bear to stop, he thought as he sang of Esste's love for him and his terror at leaving her so soon after having learned to lean on her.

And in his song, too, he heard something that surprised him. He heard, through all the emotion of his memories, a thread of dissonance, a thread that spoke of hidden darkness in him. He searched for that note and lost it. And gradually the search for the strangeness in his own song took him out of the song, and brought him to himself again. He sang, and the fire died, and his song at last died, too.

And it was then that he realized that Mikal lay curled around him, his arm embracing Ansset, the other arm covering his face, where he wept, where he sobbed silently. With the song over, the sparks were the only music in the room as the last fusses of flame kept trying to revive the fire.

Oh, what have I done? Ansset cried to himself as he watched the emperor of mankind, Mikal the Terrible, weeping into his hand.

Oh, Ansset, said Mikal, what have you done?

And then, after a moment, Mikal stopped crying and rolled over onto his back and said, Oh, God, it's too kind, it's too cruel. I'm a hundred and twenty-one years old and death lurks in the walls and floor, waiting to catch me unawares. Why couldn't you have come to me when I was forty?

Ansset did not know if an answer was expected. I wasn't born then, he finally said, and Mikal laughed.

That's right. You weren't born yet. Nine years old. What do they do to you in the Songhouse, Ansset? What terrible squeezing they must do, to wring such songs out of you.

Did you like my song this time?

Like? Mikal asked, wondering if the boy was joking. Like? And he laughed a long time, and laid his head on Ansset's lap. The two of them slept there that night, and from then on there were no more searches, no more questions. Ansset was free to come to Mikal, because there was no time when Mikal did not long to have him there.

4

You're in luck, their guide told them, and Kya-Kya sighed. She had been hoping that they would be lucky enough to get out of Susquehanna after only the normal five-hour tour. But she was sure that was not what the guide had in mind. The emperor, said the guide, has asked to meet with you. This is a very great honor. But, as the Chamberlain told me just a few moments ago, you students from the Princeton Government Institute are the future administrators of this great empire. It is only just that Mikal should meet with his future aides and helpers.

Aides and helpers, hell, Kya-Kya thought. The old man will die before I graduate, and then we'll be aiding and helping somebody else-probably the bastard who killed him.

She had work to do. Some of the trips and tours were worthwhile-the four days they spent at the computer center in Tegucigalpa, the week observing the operation of a welfare services outlet in Rouen. But here at Susquehanna they were shown nothing of any importance, just as a matter of form. The city existed to keep Mikal alive and safe-the real government work went on elsewhere. Worse, the palace had been designed by a madman (probably Mikal himself, she thought) and the corridors were a maze that doubled back constantly, that rose and fell through meaningless ramps and stairways. The building seemed to be one vast barrier, and her legs ached from the long walk between one exhibit and another. Several times she could have sworn that they walked up one corridor, lined with doors on the left, and then turned 180 degrees and walked down a parallel corridor with doors on the left that led only to the corridor they had just traveled. Maddening. Wearying.

And what's more, said the guide, the Chamberlain even hinted that you might get a chance usually granted only to distinguished offworld visitors. You may get to hear Mikal's Songbird.

There was a buzz of interest among the students. Of course they had all heard of Mikal's Songbird, at first the scandalous news that Mikal had forced even the Song-house to bend to his will, and then the spreading word from those privileged few who had heard the boy sing: that Mikal's Songbird was the greatest Songbird ever, that no human voice had ever done what he could do.

Kya-Kya felt something entirely different, however. None of her fellow students knew she was from the Song-house, or even from Tew. She had been discreet to the point of aloofness. And she did not long to see Ansset again, not the boy who had been Esste's favorite, not the boy who was the opposite of her.

But there was no escape from the group. Kya-Kya was systematically being a model student-creative but compliant. Sometimes it nearly killed her, she thought, but she made sure there would be glowing recommendations from every professor, a perfect record of achievement. It was hard for a woman to get a job in government at all. And the kind of job she wanted usually came to a woman only as the climax of her career, not at the beginning.

So Kya-Kya said nothing, as they filed into the seats that formed a horseshoe whose open end framed Mikal's throne. Kya-Kya took a seat near one end, so that she would be looking at Mikal's profile-she preferred to study someone without direct eye contact Eye contact allowed them to lie.

You should stand, said the guide deferentially, and of course they all took the suggestion and stood. A dozen uniformed guards entered the hall and fanned out to positions along the walls. Then the Chamberlain entered and announced in slow, ceremonial tones, Mikal Imperator has come to you. And Mikal came in.

The man was old, the face lined and creased and sagging, but his step was bright and quick and his smile seemed to come from a light heart. Kya-Kya of course rejected that first impression, for it was obviously the public relations face that Mikal wore to impress visitors. Yet he seemed to be in undeniably good health.

Mikal came to the throne and sat, and it was then that Kya-Kya realized that Ansset had come into the room with him. Mikal's presence was so overpowering that even the beautiful Songbird had not been able to distract. Now, however, Mikal took the boy's hand and gently pulled him forward, sent him a few steps ahead of the throne, where he stood alone and looked at everyone in the small audience.

Kya-Kya did not watch Ansset, however. She watched the other students watching him. They all wondered, of course, if a boy of such great beauty had found his way into Mikal's bed. Kya-Kya knew better. The Songhouse would never tolerate it. They would never send a Songbird to someone who would try such a thing.

Ansset turned all the way to look at the end of the row of chairs, and his eyes met Kya-Kya's. If he recognized her, he gave no sign. But Kya-Kya knew enough about Control know that he could well have recognized her- in fact, probably had.

And then he sang. The song was powerful. It was all the hopes and finest ambitions of the students there, a song of serving mankind and being honored for it. The words were simple, but the melody made all of them want to shout for the excitement of their own futures. All except Kya-Kya, who remembered gatherings in the great hall of the Songhouse. Remembered hearing others sing .there, and how she had felt at the first gathering after she had been declared Deaf. There was no hope in the song for her. And in a way her own bitterness at Ansset's song was a pleasure. He obviously was singing what the students most wanted to hear, trying to touch everyone in the audience. But he would never touch her.

When Ansset finished, the students did stand, did clap and cheer. Ansset bowed shyly, then walked from the place in front of Mikal's throne and came to stand near the wall. Not two meters from Kya-Kya. She glanced at him when he came. It hurt her to see up close how beautiful he was, how kind and happy his face seemed in repose. He did not seem to look at her, so she looked away.

Mikal began to speak then, the usual things about how important it was for them to study hard and learn how to cope with all the known problems, yet develop themselves so that they had the deep inner resources to cope with the unexpected. And so on, thought Kya-Kya, and on and on and on and on.

Listen, said a voice in Kya-Kya's ear. She whirled and saw only Ansset, still a couple of meters off, still not looking at her. But she had been forced out of her reverie; she heard Mikal.

You will naturally rise quickly to important positions, with many people under you. Often you'll become impatient with the sluggish people under you. The petty bureaucrats who seem to love to own every piece of paper that crosses their desks for as long as they possibly can before passing it on. They seem to have tiny minds, no ambitions, no vision of what the government ought to be doing. You'll long to take a heavy broom and sweep the bastards out. God knows I've wanted to often enough.

The students laughed, not because of what he said, but because they were immensely flattered that Mikal Imperator would speak so casually, so openly to them.

But don't do it. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to. The bureaucrats are our treasures, the most valuable part of the government. You who have great ability, you'll rise, you'll change, you'll get bored, you'll move from job to job. If you had a different kind of emperor, some of you would get removed from time to time and sent to- Well, I haven't the kind of imagination to conjure up the sort of places offensive administrators might get sent. Again a laugh. Kya-Kya was disgusted.

Listen, said the voice again, and this time when Kya-Kya turned, Ansset was looking at her.

I know it's treason to speak of it, but I doubt that any of you have failed to notice that I'm old. I've ruled a long time. I'm past a man's normal life expectancy. Someday, I have reason to believe, I will die.

The students sat stiffly, unsure of what this had to do with them, but certain that they wished they were not hearing such things.

When that happens, someone else will take my place. I don't come from a particularly long dynasty, and there may be some question as to who is my legitimate heir. There may even be some nastiness over the question. Some of you will be tempted to take sides. And those who choose the wrong side will pay for your mistake. But while all the storms rage, those paper-pushing bureaucrats will go on in their stodgy, incompetent way, running the government. Already they have such inertia that I couldn't possibly change them even if I wanted to. Here and there, a few changes. Here and there an improvement, or a brilliant bureaucrat who deserves and damn well better get a promotion. But most of them will go on doing things in the same infinitely slow way, and that, my young friends, will be the salvation and the preservation of this empire. Rely on the bureaucracy. Depend on the bureaucracy. Keep it, if you can, under control. But never weaken it. It will save mankind when every visionary has failed, when every Utopia has crumbled. Bureaucracy is the one eternal thing mankind has created.

And then Mikal smiled, and all the students laughed again, because they realized that he knew he was exaggerating. But they also knew that he meant much of what he said, and they understood his vision of the future. That it didn't matter who was at the helm, as long as the crew knew how to run the ship.

But no one understood him so well as Kya-Kya. There was no time-honored system of succession to the throne, as there had been in the Songhouse, where the choice of the Songmaster of the High Room had been left up to a Deaf and no one had even protested her choice. Instead, the rule of the empire would pass to whoever was strong-i est and most determined at the time of Mikal's death. In history, far too many sovereigns had destroyed their empires by trying to promote a favorite or a relative as successor. Mikal had no such intention. He was announcing to the students from the Princeton Government Institute that he was going to leave the succession up to the law of natural selection, while trying to build institutions that would survive the turmoil.

The first few years after Mikal's death will be interesting, Kya-Kya decided, and wondered why, when those years were bound to be miserable and full of slaughter, she was so glad to know she would be alive and working in government during them.

Mikal stood, and so everyone stood, and when he had gone they erupted into dozens of different conversations. Kya-Kya was amused at how effectively Mikal had taken everyone in with his warmth and casualness. Had they forgotten that this man had killed billions of people on burned-over worlds, that only brute force and utter callousness had brought him to power? And yet she also had to admire the fact that after a life like the one Mikal had led, he was able to so conceal his viciousness that everyone In the room but her-no, be honest, everyone in the room-now thought of him as grandfatherly. Kind. A gentleman and gentle man. And wise.

Well, give the old bastard that. He was smart enough to stay alive as the number one target in the galaxy. He'd probably die in bed.

Contempt is so easy, said Ansset's voice beside her.

She spun to face him. I thought you were gone. What did you mean, telling me to listen? She was surprised that she spoke angrily to him.

Because you weren't, The boy's voice was gentle, but she heard the undertones of songtalk.

Don't try it with me. I can't be fooled.

Only a fool can't be fooled, Ansset answered. He had grown, she noticed. You pretend not to like Mikal. But of all the people here, you're the one most like him.

What did he mean? She was infuriated. She was flattered. Do I look like the killer type? she asked.

You'll get what you want, Ansset answered. And you'll kill to get it, if you have to.

Not just songs but psychology, too. How far-reaching your training must have been.

I know your songs, Kya-Kya, Ansset said. I heard your singing when you came to Esste in my stall that day.

I never sang.

No, Kya-Kya. You always sang. You just never heard the song.

Ansset started to turn away. But his air of confidence, of superiority, angered Kya-Kya. Ansset! she called, and he stopped and faced her. They're using you, she said. You think they care about you, but they're only using you. A tool. A foolish, ignorant tool! She had not spoken loudly, but when she turned she realized that many of the other students were looking back and forth between her and Ansset. She walked away from the boy and threaded her way through the students, who knew enough not to say anything, but who no doubt wondered how she had gotten into a conversation with Mikal's Songbird, and no doubt marveled that she had been able to bring herself to be angry at him.

That had been enough to keep the students gossiping for days. But before she reached the door, she heard all the conversations fall silent, and Ansset's voice rose above the fading chatter to sing a wordless song that she, alone of all the students, knew was a song of hope and friendship and honest good wishes. She closed her mind to the boy's Songhouse tricks and left the room, where she could wait outside in silence with the guards until the guide came to lead them all away.

The buses, all fleskets from the Institute, took them home to Princeton with only one stop, in the ancient city of Philadelphia, where one of the older men students was kidnapped and found, mutilated terribly, near the Delaware River. He was the fifteenth in a wave of kidnap murders that had terrorized Philadelphia and many other cities in the area. The rest of the students returned in utter gloom to Princeton and resumed their studies. But Kya-Kya did not forget Ansset. Could not forget him. Death was in the air, and while Mikal could not be responsible for the mad killings in Philadelphia, she could not help but believe that he, too, would die mutilated. But the mutilation had been going on for years, and she thought of Ansset, and how he, too, might be twisted and deformed, and for all that she cared nothing for the Songhouse and even less for Mikal's Songbird, she could not help but hope that somehow the beautiful boy who had remembered her after all these years could emerge unsullied from Susquehanna and go home to the Songhouse clean.

And she fretted, because she was in school and the world was passing on quickly toward great events that she would not be part of unless she hurried or the world waited just a little bit for her. She was twenty years old and brilliant and impatient and frustrated as hell. She cried for the Songhouse one night when she went to bed especially tired.

5

Ansset walked m the garden by the river. In the Songhouse, the garden had been a patch of flowers in the courtyard, or the vegetables in the farmland behind the last chamber. Here, the garden was a vast stretch of grass and shrubs and tall trees that stretched along the two forks of the Susquehanna to where they joined. On the other side of both rivers was dense, lush forest, and the birds and animals often emerged from the trees to drink or eat from the river. The Chamberlain had pleaded with Ansset not to wander in the garden. The space was too large, kilometers in every direction, and the wilderness too dense to do any decent patrolling.

But in the two years he had lived in Mikal's palace, Ansset had tested the limits of his life and found they were broader than the Chamberlain would have liked. There were things Ansset could not do, not because of rules and schedules but because it would displease Mikal, and displeasing Mikal was never something Ansset desired. He could not follow Mikal into meetings unless he was specifically invited. There were times when Mikal needed to be alone-Ansset never had to be told, he noticed the mood come over Mikal and left him.

There were other things, however, that Ansset had learned he could do. He could enter Mikal's private room without asking permission. He discovered, by trial and error, that only a few doors in the palace would not open to his fingers. He had wandered the labyrinth of the palace and knew it better than anyone; it was a way he often amused himself, to stand near a messenger when he was being sent on an errand, and then plan a route that would get him to the destination long before the messengers. It unnerved them, of course, but soon they got into the spirit of the game and raced him, occasionally reaching the end before Ansset.

And Ansset could walk in the garden when he wanted to. The Chamberlain had argued over it with Mikal, but Mikal had looked Ansset in the eye and asked, Does it matter to you, to walk in the garden?

It does, Father Mikal.

And you have to walk alone?

If I can.

Then you will. And that was the end of the argument. Of course, the Chamberlain had men watching from a distance, and occasionally a flit passed overhead, but usually Ansset had the feeling of being alone.

Except for the animals. It was something he hadn't had that much experience with at the Songhouse. Occasional trips to the open country, to the lake, to the desert. But there had not been so many creatures, and there had not been so many songs. The chatter of squirrels, the cries of geese and jays and crows, the splash of leaping fish. How could men have borne to leave this world? Ansset could not fathom the impulse that would have forced his ancient ancestors into the cold ships and out to planets that, as often as not, killed them. In the peace of birdsong and rushing water it was impossible to imagine wanting to leave this place, if it was your home.

But it was not Ansset's home. Though he loved Mikal as he had loved no one but Esste, and though he understood the reasons why he had been sent to be Mikal's Songbird, he nevertheless turned his back on the river and looked at the palace with its dead false stone and longed to be home again.

And as he faced the palace, he heard a sound in the river behind him, and the sound chilled him like a cold wind, and he would have turned to face the danger except that the gas reached him first, and he fell, and remembered nothing of the kidnapping.

6

There were no recriminations. The Chamberlain didn't dare say I told you so, and Mikal, though he hid his grief well, was too grieved and worried to bother with blaming anyone except himself.

Find .him, he said. And that was all. Said it to the Captain of the guard, to the Chamberlain, and to the man with death in his voice who was Mikal's ferret. Find him.

And they searched. The news spread quickly, of course, that Mikal's Songbird had been kidnapped, and the people who read and cared at all about the court worried also that the beautiful Songbird might have been a victim of the mutilator who still went uncaught in Philadelphia and Manam and Hisper. Yet the mutilator's victims were found every day with their bodies torn to pieces, and never was one of the bodies Ansset's.

All the ports were closed, and the fleet circled Earth with orders to take any ship that tried to leave the planet and stop any ship that tried to land. Travel between districts and precincts was forbidden on Earth, and thousands of flits and flecks and fleskets were stopped and searched. But there was no sign of Ansset. And while Mikal went about his business, there was no hiding the circles under his eyes and the way he bent a little as he walked and the fact that the spring was gone from his step. Some thought that Ansset had been stolen for profit, or had been kidnapped by the mutilator and the body simply had not been found. But those who saw what the kidnapping did to Mikal knew that if someone had wanted to weaken Mikal, hurt him as deeply as he could be hurt, there could have been no better way than to take the Songbird.

7

The doorknob turned. That would be dinner.

Ansset rolled over on the hard bed, his muscles aching. As always, he tried to ignore the burning feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach. As always, he tried to remember what had happened during the day, for the last heat of day always gave way to the chill of night soon after he awoke. And, as always, he could neither explain the guilt nor remember the day.

It was not Husk with food on a tray. This time it was the man called Master, though Ansset believed that was not his name. Master was always near anger and fearsomely strong, one of the few men Ansset had met in his life who could make him feel as helpless as the eleven-year-old child his body said he was.

Get up, Songbird.

Ansset slowly stood. They kept him naked in prison, and only his pride kept him from turning away from the harsh eyes that looked him up and down. Only his Control kept his cheeks from burning with shame.

It's a good-bye feast we're having for you, Chirp, and ye're going to twitter for us.

Ansset shook his head.

If ye can sing for the bastard Mikal, ye can sing for honest freemen.

Ansset let his eyes blaze. His voice was on fire as he said, Be careful how you speak of him, traitor!

Master advanced a step, raising his hand angrily. My orders was not to mark you, Chirp, but I can give you pain that doesn't leave a scar if ye don't mind how ye talk to a freeman. Now ye'll sing.

Ansset had never been struck a blow in his life. But it was more the fury in the man's voice than the threat of violence that made Ansset nod. But he still hung back. Can you please give me my clothing? It an't cold where we're going, Master said. I've never sung like this, Ansset said. I've never performed without clothing.

Master leered. What is it then that you do without clothing? Mikal's catamite has naw secrets we can't see. Ansset didn't understand the word, but he understood the leer, and he followed Master out the door and down a dark corridor with his heart even more darkly filled with shame. He wondered why they were having a goodbye feast for him. Was he to be set free? Had Mikal paid some unimaginable ransom for him? Or was he to be killed?

Ansset thought of Mikal, wondered what he was going through. It was not vanity but recognition of the truth when Ansset concluded for the hundredth time that Mikal would be frantic, yet bound by pride and the necessities of government to show nothing at all. Surely, though, surely Mikal would spare no effort hunting for him. Surely Mikal would come and take him back.

The floor rocked gently as they walked down the wooden corridor. Ansset had long since decided he was imprisoned on a ship, though he had never been on a boat larger than the canoe he had learned to row on the pond near the palace. The amount of real wood used in it would have seemed gaudy and pretentious in a rich man's home. Here, however, it seemed only shabby. Peasant rights and nothing more.

Far above he could hear the distant cry of a bird, and a steady singing sound that he imagined to be wind whipping through ropes and cables. He had sung the melody to himself sometimes, and often harmonized to it.

And then Master opened the door and with a mocking bow indicated that Ansset should enter first. The boy stopped in the doorframe. Gathered around a long table were twenty or so men, some of whom he had seen before, all of them dressed in one of the strange national costumes of the past-worshipping people of Earth. Ansset couldn't help remembering how Mikal mocked such people when they came to court to present demands or ask for favors. All these ancient costumes, Mikal would say as he lay with Ansset on the floor, staring into the fire. All these ancient costumes mean nothing. Their ancestors weren't peasants, most of them. Their ancestors were the wealthy and effete from boring worlds who came back to Earth hunting for some meaning. They stole the few peasant customs that remained, and did shoddy research to discover some more, and thought that they had found truth, As if shitting in the grass is somehow nobler than doing it into a converter.

The great civilizations such people claimed to belong to were petty and insignificant to those who had come to think on a galactic scale. But here, where Ansset looked closely into their rough faces and unsmiling eyes, he realized that whatever these people's ancestors might have been, they had acquired the strength of primitiveness, and they reminded him of the vigor of the Songhouse. Except that their muscles were massive with labor that would have astonished a singer. And Ansset stood before them soft and white and beautiful and vulnerable and, despite his Control, was afraid.

They looked at him with the same curious, knowing, lustful look that Master had given him. Ansset knew that if he allowed the slightest hint of cringing into his manner, they would be encouraged. So he stepped farther into the room, and nothing about his movement showed any sign of the embarrassment and fear that he felt. He seemed unconcerned, his face as blank as if he had never felt any emotion in his life.

Up on the table! roared Master behind him, and hands lifted him onto the wood smeared with spilled wine and rough with crumbs and fragments of food. Now sing, ye little bastard.

And so he closed his eyes and shaped the ribs around his lungs, and let a low tone pass through his throat. For two years he had not sung except at Mikal's request. Now he sang for Mikal's enemies, and perhaps should have torn at them with his voice, made them cringe before his hatred. But hatred had not been born in Ansset, nor had his life bred it into him, and so he sang something else entirely. Sang softly without words, holding back the tone so that it barely reached their ears.

Louder, someone said, but Ansset ignored him, and soon the jokes and laughter died down as the men strained to hear.

The melody was a wandering one, passing through tones and quartertones easily, gracefully, still low in pitch, but rising and falling rhythmically. Unconsciously Ansset moved his hands in the strange gestures that had accompanied all his songs since he had opened his heart to Esste in the High Room. He was never aware of the movements -In fact, he had been puzzled by a notice in a Philadelphia newspaper that he had read in the palace library: To hear Mikal's Songbird is heavenly, but to watch his hands dance as he sings is nirvana. It was a prudent thing to write in the capital of Eastamerica, not two hundred kilometers from Mikal's palace. But it was the vision of Mikal's Songbird held by all those who thought of him at all, and Ansset did not understand, could not picture what they saw.

He only knew what he sang, and now he began to sing words. They were not words of recrimination, but rather the words of his captivity, and the melody became high, in the soft upper notes that opened his throat and tightened the muscles at the back of his head and tensed the muscles along the front of his thighs. The notes pierced, and as he slid up and down through haunting thirdtones, his words spoke of the dark, mysterious guilt he felt in the evenings in his dirty, shabby prison. His words spoke of his longing for Father Mikal (though he never spoke his name, not in front of these men), of dreams of the gardens along the Susquehanna River, and of lost, forgotten days that vanished from his memory before he awoke.

Most of all, though, he sang of his guilt.

At last he became tired, and the song drifted off into a whispered dorian scale that ended on the wrong note, on a dissonant note that faded into silence that sounded like part of the song.

Finally Ansset opened his eyes. Even when he sang for an audience he neither liked nor wanted to sing for, he could not help but give them what they wanted. All the men who were not weeping were watching him. None seemed willing to break the mood, until a youngish man down the table said in a thick accent, Ah but thet were better than hame and mitherma. His comment was greeted by sighs and chuckles of agreement, and the looks that met Ansset's eyes were no longer leering and lustful, but rather soft and kind. Ansset had never thought to see such looks in those coarse faces.

Will ye have some wine, boy? asked Master's voice behind him, and Husk poured. Ansset sipped the wine, and dipped a finger in it to cast a drop into the air in the graceful gesture he had learned in the palace. Thank you, he said, handing back the metal cup with the same grace he would have used with a goblet at court. He lowered his head, though it hurt him to use that gesture of respect to such men, and asked, May I leave now?

Do you have to? Can't you sing again? It was as if the men around the table had forgotten that Ansset was their prisoner. And he, in turn, refused them as if he were free to choose. I can't do it twice. I can never do it twice. Not for them, anyway. And for Mikal, all songs were different, and every one was new.

They lifted him off the table then, and Master's strong arms carried him back to his room. Ansset lay on the bed after the door locked shut, his Control easing, letting his body tremble. The last song he had sung before this had been for Mikal. A light and happy song, and Mikal had smiled the soft, melancholy smile that only touched his face when he was alone with his Songbird. And Ansset had touched Mikal's hand, and Mikal had touched Ansset's face, and then Ansset had left to walk along the river.

Ansset drifted off to sleep thinking of the songs in Mikal's gray eyes, humming of the firm hands that ruled an empire and yet could still stroke the forehead of a beautiful child and weep at a sorrowful song. Ah, sang Ansset in his mind, ah, the weeping of Mikal's sorrowful hands.

8

Ansset awoke walking down a street.

Out of the way, ya chark! shouted a harsh accent behind him, and Ansset dodged to the left as a cart zipped passed his right arm. Sausages, shouted a sign on the case behind the driver.

Then Ansset was seized by a terrible vertigo as he realized that he was not in the cell of his captivity, that he was fully dressed, though not in the clothing of the Songhouse. He was alive and free of his captors and the quick joy that realization brought was immediately soured by a rush of the old guilt, and the conflicting emotions and the suddenness of his liberation were too much for him, and for a moment too long he forgot to breathe, and the darkening ground slid sideways, tipped up, hit him-- Hey, boy, are you all right? Did the chark slam you, boy? I got the number of the cart. We can get him! He's comin' around and to. Ansset opened his eyes. Where is this place? he asked softly.

Why, this is Northet, they said.

How far is the palace? Ansset asked, vaguely remembering that he had heard of Northet as a suburb of Hisper.

The palace? What palace?

Mikal's palace-I must go to Mikal- Ansset tried to get up, but his head spun and he staggered. Hands held him up.

The kit's kinky, that's what. Mikal's palace. It's only sixty kilometer, boy, should I have 'em hold supper for you? The joke brought a burst of laughter, but Ansset had regained Control and he pulled away from the hands holding him and stood alone. Whatever drug had kept him unconscious was now nearly worked out of his system. Find me a policeman, Ansset said. Mikal will want to see me immediately.

Some still laughed, but others looked carefully at Ansset, perhaps noticing that he spoke without an Eastamerican accent, that his bearing was not that of a streetchild. Who are you, boy? one asked.

I'm Ansset, Mikal's Songbird.

They looked, realized that the face was the one pictured in the papers; half of them ran off to find authorities who could handle the situation, while the other half stayed to look at his face, to realize how beautiful his eyes were, to hold the moment so they could tell about it to their children and grandchildren. I saw Ansset himself, Mikal's Songbird, they would say, and when their children asked , What was Mikal's Songbird? they would answer, ah, he was beautiful, he was the most valuable of all the treasures of Mikal the Terrible, the sweetest face you ever saw, and songs that could bring rain out of the sky or a flower from the deep of the snow.

They reached out, and he touched their hands, and smiled at them, and wondered how they wanted him to act-embarrassed at their awe, or accustomed to it? He read the songs in their voices as they murmured, Songbird, and Thank you, and Lovely. And decided that they wanted him to be poised, to be beautiful and gracious and distant so their worship would be uninterrupted. Thank you, Ansset said, thank you. You've all helped me. Thank you.

The policemen came, apologizing effusively for how dirty their flesket was, that it was the only one in the station, and please take a seat. They did not take him to the station; rather they took him to a pad where a flit from the palace waited. The Chamberlain got out. Yes, it's him, he said to the police, and then reached for Ansset's hand. Are you all right? he asked.

I think so, Ansset said, suddenly aware that something might be wrong with him. He was inside the flit; the doors closed; the ground seemed to push up on him and he was airborne, heading for the palace. For Mikal.

9

The child is becoming impatient, said the Captain, I really don't give a damn, said the Chamberlain. And Mikal is also impatient. The Chamberlain said nothing, Just stared back at the Captain.

All I'm saying, Chamberlain, is that we have to hurry. The Chamberlain sighed. I know. But the child's a monster. I was married once, you know.

The Captain hadn't known, but did not care. He shrugged.

I had a boy. When he was eleven he was mischievous, a little devil, but so transparent you could see through him no matter how he tried to deceive. Even when he tried to conceal his feelings, you could tell exactly what he was trying to conceal. But this boy.

They train them to school their emotions in the Song-house, the Captain said.

Yes, the Songhouse. I marvel at their teaching. The child can hide any emotion he wants to. Even his impatience-he chooses to show it, and then shows nothing else.

But you have hypnotized him.

Only with the aid of drugs. And when I start mucking around in his mind, Captain, what do I find?

Walls.

Walls. Someone has built blocks in his mind that I can't get through. The Captain smiled. And you insisted on conducting the interrogation yourself.

The Chamberlain glared. To be frank, Captain, I didn't trust your men. It was your men who were supposed to be guarding him that day.

It was the Captain's turn to get angry. And you know who ordered them to keep completely out of sight! They watched the whole thing through ops and couldn't get there before they had taken him off underwater. The whole search was just a second too late all the way!

That's the problem, the Chamberlain said. A second too late.

You've failed at the interrogation! Mikal wants his Songbird back! I will interrogate the boy!

The Chamberlain glowered a moment, then turned away, All right. And much as it pains me to say so, I honestly hope you succeed.

The Captain found Ansset sitting on the edge of a couch that flowed aimlessly around him. The boy looked up at him without interest.

Again, the Captain said.

I know, Ansset said. The Captain had brought a tray of syringes and slaps. As he prepared the first slap, he talked to Ansset. Trying, he supposed, to put the boy at ease, though whether the boy was nervous or not was impossible to tell.

You know that Mikal wants to see you.

And I want to see him, Ansset said.

But you were held for five months by someone who was probably not a friend of the emperor.

I've told you everything I know.

I know it. We have recordings, I think we know everything about what you did in the evenings. Every word the crew of the boat spoke to you. You're a marvelous mimic. Our experts are studying the accent of the crew right now. Your memory of the faces has our artists busy reconstructing them. Everything you've told us has been in perfect detail. You're an ideal witness.

Ansset showed no emotion, not even a sigh. Yet we go through this again.

The trouble is, Ansset, what went on during the days. You have blocks-

The Chamberlain's told me. I knew it already.

And we must get behind them.

I want you to. You have to believe me, Ansset said. I want to know. I don't want to be a threat to Mikal, I'd rather die than harm him. But I'd also rather die than leave him.

The words were strong. The voice was flat and empty. Not even a song in it, Is that because of a commitment from the Songhouse? I'm sure they'd understand.

Ansset looked at him. Captain. The Songhouse would accept me back at any time.

Ansset, one of the reasons we can't get through the blocks in your mind is because you aren't helping.

I'm trying to.

Ansset, I don't know how to say this. Most of the time your voice is natural and human and you react like any other person might. But now, when we need to communicate with you more than ever before, you are frozen. You're completely unreachable. You haven't shown an emotion since I came in here.

Ansset looked surprised. The very fact of even that mild reaction made the Captain's breath quicken in excitement. Captain, aren't you using drugs?

The drugs are the last resort, Ansset, and you can still resist them. Perhaps whoever put the blocks in your mind gave you help in resisting them. The drugs can only get us partway into you. And then you resist us every step of the way.

Ansset regarded him a little more, as if digesting the information. Then he turned away, and his voice was husky as he said, What you're asking me to do is lose Control.

The Captain knew nothing of Control. He only heard control, and did not understand the difficulty of what he was asking,

That's right.

And it's the only way to find out what's been hidden in my mind?

Yes, said the Captain.

Ansset was silent a moment more. Am I really a danger to Mikal?

I don't know. Perhaps whoever took you found you as hard to cope with as we have. Perhaps there's nothing hidden in your mind, except a memory of who the kidnappers were. Perhaps they had meant to hold you for ransom, then realized they'd never get away with it alive and spent the rest of the time trying to conceal who they were. I don't know. But perhaps behind those blocks are instructions for you to kill Mikal. If they wanted to pick a perfect assassin, they couldn't do better than you. No one but you sees Mikal every day in intimate circumstances. No one has his trust. The very fact that he pleads with us to bring you to him, to hurry the interrogation and let him see you- You can see what a danger you might be to him.

For Mikal's sake, then, Ansset said. And the Captain was astounded by how quickly Ansset's Control broke. Tell Mikal, said Ansset, as his face twisted with emotion and tears began to flow, that I'll do anything for him. Even this. And Ansset wept, great sobs wracking his body, weeping for the months of fear and guilt and solitude. Weeping at the knowledge that he might never see Mikal again. The Captain watched, incredulous, as for an hour Ansset could not communicate at all, just lay on the couch like a little child, babbling and rubbing his eyes. He knew that from the observation stations the other interrogators would be watching in awe at how quickly the Captain had broken through barriers that even drugs had not been able to breach. The Captain felt a delicious hope that the Chamberlain had been watching, too.

And then Ansset became relatively calm, and the Captain began the questioning, using every clever trick he could think of to get behind the barriers. He tried every indirection he had ever heard of. He tried all the dazzling thrusts that had shattered walls before. But even now, with Ansset cooperating fully, nothing could be done at all. Not even in the deepest trance was Ansset able to speak what had been hidden in his mind. The Captain learned only one thing. He asked, while questioning around the skirts of one block, Who placed this barrier here?

And Ansset, so deep in the trance that he could hardly speak, said, Esste.

The name meant nothing to the Captain at the time. But that name was all he got. An hour later he and the Chamberlain stood before Mikal.

Esste, Mikal said.

That's what he said.

Esste, Mikal said, is the name of the Songmaster of the High Room. His teacher in the Songhouse.

Oh.

These blocks you have so lovingly spent four days trying to break were placed there years ago by his teachers! Not by kidnappers only in the last few months!

We had to be sure.

Yes, Mikal said. You had to be sure. And we're not sure now, of course. If the barriers were placed in his mind by his teacher, why can't he remember how he spent his days daring his captivity? We can only conclude that some blocks come from the Songhouse, and some blocks from his captors. But what can we do about it?

Send the boy back to the Songhouse, said the Chamberlain.

Mikal's face was terrible. It was as if he wanted to shout, but dared not say what he would say if he surrendered himself to passion that much. So he did not shout, but after a moment of struggle said, Chamberlain, that's a suggestion I will not hear again. I know it may be necessary. But as for now, I will have my Songbird with me.

My Lord, the Captain said, you've stayed alive all these years by not taking such chances.

Until Ansset came, Mikal answered painfully, I did not know what I was staying alive for.

The Captain bowed his head. The Chamberlain thought of another argument, almost said something, and then thought better of it

Bring him to me, said Mikal, in open court, so that everyone can watch me accept my Songbird again. I'll have no taint on him. In two hours.

They left, and Mikal sat alone on the floor in front of his fireplace, resting his chin on his hands. He was getting old, and his back hurt, and he tried to hum a tune the Songbird had often sung. The voice was old and creaky, and he couldn't do it. The fire spat at him, and he wondered what it would be like to have beautiful Ansset hold a laser and aim it at his heart. He would not know what he was doing, Mikal reminded himself. He would be innocent in his heart. But I would still be dead when he was through.

10

The Captain and Chamberlain came together to take Ansset from the cell where he had spent the last four days.

He wants you to come.

Ansset had Control again. He showed little emotion as he asked, Am I ready?

They said nothing for a moment, which was answer enough.

Then I won't go, Ansset said.

He commands it, the Chamberlain said.

Not if we don't know what's been hidden in my head.

The Captain patted Ansset's shoulder. A loyal attitude. But the only thing we could find was that at least some of the blocks were laid by your teacher.

Esste?

Yes.

Ansset smiled, and suddenly his voice radiated confidence. Then it's all right. She wishes nothing but good for Mikal!

Only some of the blocks.

And the smile left Ansset's face.

But you will come. He's expecting you in court in less than two hours.

Can't we try again?

Trying again would be pointless. Whoever laid the blocks in your mind laid them well, Ansset, And Mikal won't be put off any longer. You have no choice. Please come with us now. And the Captain stood. He expected to be obeyed, and Ansset followed. They wound their way through the palace to the security rooms at the entrances to the court. There Ansset insisted on their most thorough search, every possible poison and weapon checked for.

And tie my hands, Ansset said.

Mikal wouldn't stand for it, the Captain said, but the Chamberlain nodded and said, The boy's right. So they clamped manacles onto Ansset's forearms. The manacles quickly fit snugly from elbow to wrist. They were held by metal bars exactly twenty centimeters apart behind his back, which was uncomfortable at first and steadily more uncomfortable the longer he had to Hold the position. They also hobbled his legs.

And keep guards with lasers far enough from me that there's no chance of my taking a weapon.

You know, said the Captain, that we might still find your kidnappers. We've identified the accent now. Eire.

I've never heard of the planet, said the Chamberlain.

It's an island. Here on Earth.

Another group of freedom fighters? asked the Chamberlain, scornfully.

With more gall than most.

An accent isn't much to go on.

But we're going on it, the Captain said, with finality.

It's time, said a servant at the door.

They left the security room and passed through the ordinary security system, detectors that scanned for metal and the more ordinary poisons, guards who frisked everyone, including Ansset, because they had been told to make no exceptions.

And then Ansset passed between the doors and walked into the great hall. When the students had visited, most of the hall had been empty, their chairs gathered up near the throne. Now the full court was in session, with visitors from dozens of planets waiting along the edges of the room to present their petitions or make gifts or complain about some government policy or official. Mikal sat on his throne at the end of the room. He needed nothing more than a simple if elegant chair-no raised platform, no steps, nothing but his own bearing and dignity to raise him above the level of everyone around him. Ansset had never approached the throne from this end of the room. He had always stood beside Mikal, had always entered from the back, and now he knew why so many who walked up this long space were trembling when they reached the end. Every eye was upon him as he passed, and Mikal watched him gravely from the throne. Ansset wanted to run to him, embrace him, sing songs, and find comfort in Mikal's acceptance. Yet he knew that in his mind might hide instructions to kill the old man on the throne.

He came within a dozen meters of the throne and knelt, bowing his head.

Mikal raised his hand in the ritual of recognition. Ansset had heard Mikal laugh at the rituals when they were alone together, but now the majesty of set forms helped Ansset maintain his calm.

My Lord, said Ansset in clear, bell-like tones that filled the room and stopped all the whispered conversations around the walls. I am Ansset, and I have come to ask for my life. In the old days, Mikal had once explained to Ansset, this was the ritual for rulers of hundreds of worlds, and it had meant something. Many a rebel lord or soldier had died on the spot, when the sovereign denied the petition. And even Mikal took the pro forma surrender of life seriously. It was one of many constant reminders he used to help his subjects remember that he had power over them.

Why should I spare you? Mikal asked, his voice old but firm. To anyone else, he would have seemed a model of poise. But Ansset knew the voice, and heard the quaver of eagerness, of fear and gentle trembling on the edges of the tones.

The ritual required Ansset to simply state his accomplishments, something modest yet impressive. But Ansset left the ritual here, and fervently sang to Mikal, Father Mikal, you should not!

The crowd around the walls began whispering again. The sight of the Songbird in manacles and hobbled was shocking enough. But for the Songbird to plead for his own death-

Why not? Mikal asked, seeming impassive (but Ansset knew that he was warning him, saying, Don't push, don't force me ).

Because, my Lord Mikal Imperator, things were done to me that are now locked in my mind so that neither I nor anyone can find them. I therefore have secrets from you. I'm a danger to you, Father Mikal! Ansset deliberately broke with formality in his last sentence, and the threat in his voice struck fear in everyone in the room.

None of that, Mikal said. You think you're acting for my good, but you don't know my good. Don't try to teach me to fear you, because I will not. He raised his hand. I grant you your life.

And Ansset, despite the strain it caused on his bound arms, leaned down and kissed the floor to express his gratitude for Mikal's clemency. It was a gesture that only pardoned traitors used.

Why are you bound? asked Mikal.

For your safety.

Unbind him, Mikal said. But Ansset noticed with relief that the Captain of the guard disarmed the men who came out to untie the hobble and break open the manacles. When they were removed, Ansset stood. He raised his now-free arms over his head, lifted his gaze to the great vaults of the ceiling, and sang his love for Mikal. But the song was full of warning, though there were no direct words, and the song also sang of Ansset's regret that because of Mikal's wisdom and for the sake of the empire Ansset would now be sent away.

No! cried Mikal, interrupting the song. No! My Son Ansset, I won't send you away! I would rather meet death at your hands than receive gifts from any other's? Your life is more valuable to me than my own. And Mikal reached out his arms.

Ansset came to him, and embraced him before the throne, and together they left the hall, with legend already growing behind them. In a week all the empire would know that Mikal had called his Songbird My Son Ansset; the embrace would be pictured in every newspaper; storytellers would repeat over and over again the words, Your life is more valuable to me than my own.

11

The door to Mikal's private room closed, and Ansset stood only a few steps into the room. Mikal was ahead of him, stopped, looking at nothing, his back to Ansset.

Never again, Mikal said.

The voice was husky with emotion, and the back was bent. Mikal turned around and faced Ansset, and it shocked the boy how old Mikal's face had become. The creases were deeper, and the mouth turned more sharply down, and the eyes were deep with pain. They lay in the sunken sockets like jewels in dark velvet, and Ansset suddenly realized that Mikal might someday die.

Never again, Mikal said. This can never happen again. When you pleaded with me for freedom from guards and rules and schedules, I said, 'That's right, you can go, a Songbird can't be caged.' To me, to my friends, you're a beautiful melody in the air. To my enemies, who far outnumber my friends, you're a tool. The very taking of you might have killed me, Ansset. I'm not young, I can't take such things.

I'm sorry.

Sorry. How could you have known? Raised in that damnable Songhouse with no exposure to life at all, how could you have known what kind of hate propels the animals who walk on two legs claiming to be intelligent? I knew. But ever since you came, I've been a fool. I've lived for it feels like a thousand years, a million years, and never made so many mistakes as I have since you came.

Then send me away. Please.

Mikal looked at him closely. Do you want to go?

Ansset wanted to lie to him, to say yes, I must go, send me home to the Songhouse. But he couldn't lie to Mikal. No, he finally said.

Then there we are. But from now on, you'll be guarded. It's too damned late, but we'll watch you and you'll let me and my men protect you.

Yes.

Sing to me, dammit! Sing to me! And Mikal strode across the floor, lifted the eleven-year-old boy in his arms, carried him to the fire, and held him as Ansset began to sing. It was a soft song, and it was short, but at the end of it Mikal was lying on his back looking at the ceiling. Tears streamed out from his eyes.

I didn't mean the song to be sad. I was rejoicing, Ansset said.

So am I.

Mikal's hand reached out and gripped Ansset's. How was I to know, Ansset, how was I to know that now, in my dotage, I'd do the foolish thing I've avoided all my life? Oh, I've loved like I've done every other passionate thing, but when they took you I discovered, my Son, that I need you. Mikal rolled over and looked at Ansset, who was gazing at the old man adoringly. Don't worship me, boy, Mikal said. I'm an old bastard who'd kill his mother if one of my enemies hadn't already done it.

You'd never harm me.

I harm everything I love. His face relaxed from bitterness into the memory of fear. We were afraid for you. At first we were afraid you were another victim of this madman who's been terrorizing the citizens. The audacity of it was incredible. I expected to learn they'd found your body torn to pieces-- His voice broke. But then we didn't, and we didn't, and we kept finding more and more bodies, but none of them was yours. We even had to fingerprint some, or use their teeth, but none of them was you and we realized that whoever had taken you had picked his time well. We had wasted weeks trying to fit you in with the other kidnappings, and by the time we realized that was all wrong, the trail was cold. There were no ransom notes. Nothing. I lay awake at night, hours on end, wondering what they were doing to you.

I'm all right.

You're still afraid of them.

Not of them, Ansset said. Of me.

Mikal sighed and turned away. I've let myself need you, and now the worst thing anyone can do to me is take you away. I've grown weak.

And so Ansset sang to him of weakness, but in his song that weakness was the greatest strength of all.

Late in the night, when Ansset had thought Mikal was drifting off to sleep, the old emperor flung out his hand and cried in fury, I'm losing it!

What? asked Ansset.

My empire. Did I build it to fall? Did I burn over a dozen worlds and ravage a hundred others just to have the whole thing fall in chaos when I die? He leaned close to Ansset and whispered to him, their eyes only centimeters apart, They call me Mikal the Terrible, but I built it all so it would stand like an umbrella over the galaxy. They have it now: peace and prosperity and as much freedom as their little minds can cope with. But when I die they'll throw it all away.

Ansset tried to sing to him of hope.

There's no hope. I have fifty sons, three of them legitimate, all of them fools who try to flatter me. They couldn't keep the empire for a week, not all of them, not any of them. There's not a man I've met in all my life who could control what I've built in my lifetime. When I die, it all dies with me. And Mikal sank to the floor wearily.

For once Ansset did not sing. He reached out to touch Mikal, rested his hand on the old man's knee, said, For you, Father Mikal, I'll grow up to be strong. Your empire will not fall! He spoke so intensely that both he and Mikal, after a moment's surprise, had to laugh.

It's true, though, Mikal said, tousling Ansset's hair. For you I'd do it, I'd give you the empire, except they'd kill you. And even if I lived long enough to train you to be a ruler of men, to put you on the throne and force them to accept you, I wouldn't do it. The man who will be my heir must be cruel and vicious and sly and wise, completely selfish and ambitious, contemptuous of all other people, brilliant in battle, able to outguess and out-maneuver every enemy, and strong enough inside himself to live utterly alone all his life. Mikal smiled. Even I don't fit my list of qualifications, because now I'm not alone.

Neither, said Ansset, am I. And he sang Father Mikal to sleep.

And as he lay in the darkness, Ansset wondered what it would be like to be emperor, to speak and have his words obeyed, not just by those close enough to hear, but by billions of people all over the universe. He imagined great crowds of people moving to his song, and worlds moving in their paths around their suns according to his word, and the very stars moving left or right, near or far as he wished it. His imaginings became dreams as he drifted off to sleep, and he felt the exhilaration of power as if he were flying, the whole of Susquehanna spread below him, but at night, with the lights shining like stars.

Beside him someone else was flying. The face was familiar, but he did not remember why. The man was tall, and in a sergeant's uniform. He looked at Ansset placidly, but then reached out and touched Ansset, and suddenly Ansset was naked and alone and afraid, and the man was fondling his crotch, and Ansset didn't like it and struck out at the man, struck out with all the power of an emperor, and the sergeant fell from the air with a look of terror, fell and was smashed on one of the towers of the palace. Ansset stared at the broken body, the crumpled, bleeding body, and he suddenly felt the terrible weight of responsibility. He looked up, and all the stars were falling, all the worlds were plunging into their suns, all the crowds were marching over a huge and terrible cliff, and however much he wept and cried out for them to stop, they would not listen; until his own screaming woke him up, and he saw Mikal's kind face looking at him with concern.

A dream, Ansset said, not really awake. I don't want to be emperor.

Don't be, Mikal answered, Don't ever be. It was dark, and Ansset slept again quickly.

12

If the Freemen of Eire had not been guilty, would they have fired on the first imperial troops to come questioning them at their supposedly secret base in Antrim? Some said not. But the Chamberlain said, It's too stupid to believe.

The Captain of the guard held his temper. It all fit. The accent pinpointed them to Antrim. Seventeen members of the group had been in Eastamerica for one reason or another during most or all of the time Ansset was kidnapped. And they opened fire the moment they saw the troops.

'There isn't a nationalist group that wouldn't have opened fire.

There are many nationalist groups that haven't.

Too convenient, I think, the Chamberlain insisted, not looking at Mikal because he had long since learned that looking at Mikal did not help at all to persuade him. Every damn one of the Freemen of Eire were killed. Every one!

They started killing themselves, when they saw they would lose.

And I think that Ansset is still a danger to Mikal!

I've found the conspiracy and destroyed it!

And then silence, as Mikal considered. Has Ansset been able to recognize any of the men you killed?

The Captain turned a little red in the face. There was a fire. Few of the bodies were recognizable. I showed him pictures, and he thinks that two or three might have been--

Might have been, scoffed the Chamberlain.

Might very well have been members of the crew on the ship. I did the best I could. I command fleets, dammit, not small mop-up crews!

Mikal looked at him coldly. Then, Captain, you should have let someone command who knew what he was doing.

I wanted to make-to make sure there weren't any mistakes.

Neither Mikal nor the Chamberlain needed to say anything to that. What's done is done, said the Chamberlain. But I don't think we ought to get complacent. The enemy was clever enough to get Ansset in the first place and keep him for five months where we couldn't find him. I suspect that even if some or all of the crew were Freemen of Eire, the conspiracy didn't originate with them. They were too easy to find. From the accent. Remember, the kidnapper was able to hide every single day from Ansset's memory and our best probing. If he hadn't wanted us to find the Freemen, he would have blocked those memories, too.

The Captain was not one to cling to defeated arguments. You're exactly right. I was taken in.

So were we all, at one time or another, Mikal said, which did much to ease the Captain's discomfort. You may leave, Mikal told him, and the Captain bowed his head and got up and left. The Chamberlain was alone with Mikal in the meeting room, except for the three trusted guards who watched every movement.

I'm concerned, said Mikal.

And so am I.

No doubt. I'm worried because the Captain is not a stupid man, and he has been behaving stupidly. I assume you've been having men follow him ever since he was appointed.

The Chamberlain tried to protest.

If you haven't been following him, you haven't been doing a very good job.

I've been having him followed.

Get the records and correlate them with Ansset's kidnapping. See what you find.

The Chamberlain nodded. Waited a moment, and then, when Mikal seemed to have lost interest in him, got up and left.

When Mikal was alone (except for the guards, but he had learned to dismiss them from his mind, except for the constant watch against an unwary word), he sighed, stretched his arms, heard his joints pop. His joints had never popped until he was over a hundred years old. Where's Ansset? he asked, and one of the guards answered, I'll get him.

Don't get him. Tell me where he is.

And the guard cocked his head, listening to the constant stream of reports coming into his ear implant. In the garden. With three guards. Near the river.

Take me to him.

The guards tried not to betray their surprise. Mikal hadn't gone outside the palace in years. But they moved efficiently, and with five guards and an unseen hundred more patrolling the garden, Mikal left the palace and walked to where Ansset sat on the riverbank. Ansset arose when he saw Mikal coming, and they sat together, the guards many meters off, watching carefully, as imperial flits passed overhead.

I feel like an invader, Mikal said. I have to take two guards with me when I take a shit.

The birds of Earth sing beautiful songs, Ansset answered. Listen.

Mikal listened for a while, but his ear was not so finely tuned as Ansset's, and he grew impatient.

There are plots within plots, Mikal said. Sing to me of the plans and plots of foolish men.

So Ansset sang to him a story he had heard only a few days before from a biochemist working in poison control. It was about an ancient researcher who had finally succeeded in crossing a pig with a chicken, so that the creature could lay ham and eggs together, saving a great deal of time at breakfast. The animals lay plenty of eggs, and they were all the researcher had hoped they'd be. The trouble was, the eggs didn't hatch, so the animal couldn't reproduce. The blunt-snouted pickens (or chigs?) couldn't break the eggs, and so the experiment failed. Mikal was amused, and felt much better. But you know, Ansset, there was a solution. He should have taught them to screw out with their tails.

But Mikal's face soon grew sour again, and he said, My days are numbered, Ansset. Sing to me of numbered days. For all his attempts, Ansset had never understood mortality in the way the old understand it. So he had to sing Mikal's own feelings on the matter back to him. They were no comfort at all. But at least Mikal knew that he was understood, and he felt better as he lay in the grass, watching the Susquehanna rush by.

13

We have to take Ansset along. He's the only one who might recognize anyone.

I won't have any chance of Ansset being taken away from me again.

The Chamberlain was stubborn on this point. I don't want to leave it to chance. There are too many ways evidence can be destroyed.

Mikal was angry. I won't have the boy caught up in any more of this. He came to Earth to sing, dammit!

Then I refuse to try anything more, the Chamberlain said. I can't accomplish the tasks you set for me if you tie my hands!

Take him, then. But you'll have to take me, too.

You?

Me.

But the security arrangements--

Damn the security arrangements. Nobody expects me to be along on something like this. Surprise is the best security of all.

But, my Lord, you'd be risking your life--

Chamberlain! Before you were born I Had risked my life in far more dangerous circumstances than these! I bet my own life that I could build an empire and I damn near lost the bet a hundred times. We're leaving in fifteen minutes.

Yes, my Lord, said the Chamberlain. He left quickly, to get everything ready, but as he walked out of Mikal's room, he was trembling. He had never dared argue with the emperor that way before. What had he been thinking of? And now the emperor was going with him. If anything happened to Mikal while he was in the Chamberlain's care, the Chamberlain was doomed. No one would agree on anything after Mikal's death except that the Chamberlain must die.

Mikal and Ansset came to the troop flesket together. The soldiers were petrified about going on an operation with the emperor himself. But the Chamberlain noticed that Mikal was buoyant, excited. Probably remembering the glories of past days, the Chamberlain supposed, when he had conquered everybody. Well, he's not much of a conqueror now, and I wish to hell he had let me handle this. One of the dangers of being so close to the center of power-one had to accept the whims of the powerful.

The child, however, seemed to fee! nothing at all. It wasn't the first time the Chamberlain bad envied Ansset his iron self-control. The ability to hide every feeling from one's enemies and friends-they were often indistinguishable-would be a greater weapon than any number of lasers.

The flesket went down the Susquehanna River at an unusually high speed, which took it over the normal river traffic. They reached Hisper in an hour, then went another hour beyond, left the river, and crossed farmland and marshes until they reached a much broader river. The Delaware, the Chamberlain whispered to Mikal and Ansset. Mikal nodded, but said, Keep your esoterica to yourself. He sounded irritable, which meant he was enjoying himself immensely.

It wasn't long before the Chamberlain had the lieutenant pull the flasket to the shore. There's a path here that leads where we want to go. The ground was soggy and two soldiers led the column along the path, finding firm ground. It was a long walk, but Mikal did not ask them to go slowly. The Chamberlain wanted to stop and rest, but did not dare ask the column to halt. It would be too much of a victory for Mikal. If the old man can keep it up, thought the Chamberlain, so can I.

The path led to a fenced field, and beyond the field was a group of farmhouses. The nearest house was a colonial revival, which made it about a hundred years old. Only a hundred meters off was the river, and moored to a pile there was a flatboat rocking gently with the currents.

That's the house, said the Chamberlain, and that's the boat.

The field between them and the house was not large, and it was overgrown with bushes, so that they were able to reach the house without being too easily noticeable. But the house was empty, and when they rushed the flatboat the only man on board aimed a laser at his own face and blasted it to a cinder. Not before Ansset had recognized him, though.

That was Husk, Ansset said, looking at the body without any sign of feeling. He's the man who fed me.

Then Mikal and the Chamberlain followed Ansset through the boat. It's not the same, Ansset said.

Of course not, said Chamberlain. They've been trying to disguise it. The paint is fresh. And there's a smell of new wood. They've been remodeling. But is there anything familiar?

There was. Ansset found a tiny room that could have been his cell, though now it was painted bright yellow and a new window let sunlight flood into the room. Mikal examined the window frame. New, the emperor pronounced. And by trying to imagine the interior of the flatboat as it might have been unpainted, Ansset was able to find the large room where he had sung on his last evening in captivity. There was no table. But the room seemed the same size, and Ansset agreed that this could very well have been the place he was held.

Down in Ansset's cell they heard the laughter of children and a flesket passing on the river, full of revelers singing. Quite a populated area, Mikal said to the Chamberlain.

That's why I had us come in through the woods. So we wouldn't be noticed.

If you wanted to avoid being noticed, Mikal said, it would have been better to come in on a civilian bus. Nothing's more conspicuous than soldiers hiding in the woods.

The Chamberlain felt Mikal's criticism like a blow. I'm not a tactician, he said.

Tactician enough, said Mikal, letting the Chamberlain relax a bit. We'll go back to the palace now. Do you have anyone you can trust to make the arrest?

Yes, the Chamberlain said. They're already warned not to let him leave the palace.

Who? Ansset asked. Who are you arresting?

For a moment they seemed reluctant to answer. Finally Mikal said, The Captain of the guard.

He was behind the kidnapping?

"Apparently so, said the Chamberlain.

I don't believe it, Ansset said, for he had thought he knew the Captain's voice, and hadn't heard any songs except loyalty in it. But the Chamberlain wouldn't understand that. It wasn't evidence. And this was the boat, which seemed to prove something to them. So Ansset said nothing more about the Captain until it was too late.

14

As prisons went, there had been worse. It was just a cell without a door-at least on the inside. And while there was no furniture, the floor yielded as comfortably as the floor in Mikal's private room.

It was hard not to be bitter, however. The Captain sat leaning on a wall, naked so that he couldn't harm himself with his clothing. He was more than sixty years old, and for four years had been in charge of all the emperor's fleets, coordinating thousands of ships across the galaxy. And then to get caught up in this silly palace intrigue, to be the scapegoat-

The Chamberlain had plotted it, of course. Always the Chamberlain. But how could he prove his innocence without undergoing hypnosis; and who would conduct that operation, if not the Chamberlain? Besides, the Captain knew what no one else alive did-that while a serious probe into his mind would not prove that he was at all involved in kidnapping Ansset, it would uncover other things, earlier things, any one of which could destroy his reputation, all of which together would result in his death as surely as if he had captured Ansset himself.

Forty years of unshakable loyalty, and now, when I'm innocent, my old crimes stop me from forcing the issue. He ran his hands along his aging thighs as he sat leaning against a wall. The muscles were still there, but his legs felt as if the skin were coming loose, sagging away. A man should live to be a hundred and twenty in this world, he thought. I won't have had much more than half that.

What had prompted them to imprison him? What had he done that was suspicious? Or had there been anything at all?

There must have been something. Mikal was not a tyrant; he ruled by law, even if he was all powerful. Had he talked to the wrong people too often? Had he been in the wrong cities at the wrong time? Whoever the real traitors were, he was sure the case they had set up against him looked plausible.

Abruptly the lights dimmed to half strength. He knew enough about the prison from the other end of things to know that meant darkness in about ten minutes. Night, then, and sleep, if he could sleep.

He lay down, rested his arm across his eyes, and knew that the fluttering in his stomach would be irresistible. He wouldn't sleep tonight. He kept thinking-morbidly let himself think, because he had too much courage to hide from his own imagination-kept thinking about the way he would die. Mikal was a great man, but he was not kind to traitors. They were taken apart, piece by piece, as the holos recorded the death agony to be broadcast on every planet. Or perhaps they would only claim he was peripherally involved, in which case his agony could be more private, and less prolonged. But it wasn't the pain that frightened him-he had lost his left arm twice, not two years apart, and knew that he could bear pain reasonably well. It was knowing that all the men he had ever commanded would think of him from then on as a traitor, dying in utter disgrace.

That was what he could not bear. Mikal's empire had been created by soldiers with fanatic loyalty and love of honor, and that tradition continued. He remembered the first time he had been in command of a ship. It was at the rebellion of Quenzee, and his cruiser had been surprised on the planet. He had had the agonizing choice of lifting the cruiser immediately, before it could be damaged, or waiting to try to save some of his detachment of men. He opted for the cruiser, because if he waited, it would mean nothing at all would be saved for the empire. But the panicked cries of Wait, Wait rang in his ears long after the radio was too far to hear them. He had been commended, though they didn't give him the medal for months because he would have found a way to kill himself with it.

I thought so easily of suicide then, he remembered. Now, when it would really be useful, it is forever out of reach.

I will only be paying for my crimes. They don't realize it, but even though they think they're setting up an innocent man, I deserve exactly the penalty I'm getting.

He remembered-

And the lights went out-

He tried to sleep and dream, but still he remembered. And remembered. And in every dream saw her face. No name; He had never known her name-it was part of their protection, because if a name was never known, it could never be found by the cleverest probe, no matter how hard he tried. But her face-blacker than his own, as if she had pure blood descending from the most isolated part of Africa, and her smile, though rare, so bright that the very memory brought tears to his eyes and made his head swim. She was supposed to be the real assassin. And the night before they had planned to kill the prefect, she had brought him to her house. Her parents, who knew nothing, were asleep in the back; she had given herself to him twice before he finally realized that this was more than just release of tension before a difficult mission. She really loved him, he was sure of it, and so he whispered his name into her ear.

What was that? she asked.

My name, he answered, and her face looked as if she was in great pain.

Why did you tell me?

Because, he had whispered as she ran her fingers up his back, I trust you. She had groaned under the burden of that trust-or perhaps in the last throes of sexual ecstasy. Whatever. He would never know. As he left, she whispered to him at the door, Meet me at nine o'clock in the morning, meet me by the statue of Horus in Flant Fisway.

And he had waited by the statue for two hours, then went looking for her and found her house surrounded by police. And the houses of two other conspirator and he knew that they had been betrayed. At first he thought, had let himself think that perhaps she had betrayed them, and it was to save his life that she asked him to meet her at the time she knew the police would come. Either way, though, even if she was innocent, he read in the papers that she had killed herself as the police came into her house, had blasted her head off with an old-fashioned bullet pistol right in front of her parents as they sat in the living room wondering why the police were coming to the door. Even if she had betrayed the group, she had refused to betray him-knowing his name, she had preferred death to the possibility of being forced to reveal it.

Scant comfort. He had killed the prefect himself, then left the planet he had been born on and never returned. Spent a few years, until he was twenty, trying to join rebellions or foment rebellions or even uncover some serious discontent somewhere in Mikal's not-very-old empire. But gradually he had come to realize that not that many people longed for independence. Life under Mikal was better than life had ever been before. And as he learned that, he began to understand what it was that Mikal had achieved.

And he enlisted, and used his talents to rise in the military until he was Mikal's most trusted lieutenant, Captain of the guard. All for nothing. All for nothing because of an ambitious civil servant who was having him die, not with honor, as he had dreamed, but in terrible disgrace.

I deserve that, too, he thought. Because I told her my name. All my fault, because I told her my name.

He had been dozing, because the sudden draft of cooler air startled him into wakefulness. Had they come for him? But no-they would have turned on a light. And there was no light, not even in the hall, if his impression was right and the door was open.

Who is it? he asked.

Shhh, came the answer. Captain?

Yes. The Captain struggled to remember the voice. Who are you?

You don't know me. I'm just a soldier. You don't know me. But I know you, Captain. I brought you something. And the Captain felt a hand grope along his body until it found his arm, his hand, and pressed into it a slap with a syringe mounted on it.

What is it?

Honor, said the soldier. The voice was very young.

Why?

You couldn't have betrayed Mikal. But they'll get you, I know it. And make you die-as a traitor. So if you want it-honor.

And then the touch of wind as the soldier left in the darkness; the gathering heat as the door closed and the breeze stopped. The Captain held death in his hand. But he hadn't much time. The soldier was brave and clever, but the prison security system would soon alert the guards -had probably already alerted them-that someone had broken in. Perhaps they were already coming for him.

What if I actually do prove my innocence, he wondered. Why die now, when I might be exonerated and live the rest of my life?

But he remembered what the Chamberlain's drugs and questions would uncover, and he could see only her black, black face in his mind as he slapped the stick on his stomach, hard, and the impact broke the seal and allowed the chemicals to open his skin to the poison in the syringe. Normally he would have been counting seconds, to take away the drug when the proper dose had been achieved, but this time the only proper dose was everything the syringe might contain.

He was still holding the slap to his stomach when the lights dazzled on and the door opened and guards rushed in, pulled the syringe off his stomach and out of his hand, and started picking him up to rush him out of the cell. Too late, he said weakly, but they carried him just the same, half-dragged him down a corridor. The Captain's limbs were completely dead; he recognized the poison and knew that this was a sign that death could not be delayed, no matter what the treatment. They passed through another door, and there he saw the back of a young soldier being forced by three others into an examination room. Thank you, the Captain tried to say to the boy, but he could not make enough sound to be heard over the footfalls and the rushing of uniforms through the halls.

They laid him on a table and the doctor leaned over him, shook his head, said it was too late.

Try anyway! cried a voice that the Captain dimly recognized as the Chamberlain's.

Chamberlain, the Captain whispered.

Yes, you bastard! said the Chamberlain, his voice a study in anguish.

Tell Mikal that my death frees more plotters than it kills.

Do you think he doesn't know it?

And tell him-tell him--

The Chamberlain leaned closer, but the Captain died not knowing if he had been able to give his last message to Mikal before he was silenced forever.

15

Ansset watched as Mikal raged at the Chamberlain. Ansset knew Mikal's voice well enough to know that he was lying somehow, that the rage was, at least partly, a sham. Did the Chamberlain know it? Ansset suspected that he did.

Only a fool would have killed that soldier! cried Mikal.

The Chamberlain, acting frightened, said, I tried everything-drugs, hypnosis, but he was blocked, he was too well blocked--

So you resorted to old-fashioned torture!

It was one of the penalties for treason. I thought that if I began it he'd confess to the rest of the conspiracy--

And so he died and now we have no hope of discovering--

He was blocked, I tell you, what could I do?

What could you do! Mikal turned away. Ansset heard a hint of pleasure in his voice. At what? It was a grim pleasure, certainly, nothing that Mikal could let himself openly rejoice about.

So he got poison to the Captain despite our best efforts.

At least it proves the Captain's guilt, the Chamberlain said.

At least it proves nothing! Mikal snarled, turning back to face down the Chamberlain's attempt at brightening the prospects. You betrayed my trust and failed your duty!

It was the start of a ritual. The Chamberlain obediently began the next step. My Lord Imperator, I was a fool. I deserve to die. I resign my position and ask you to have me killed.

Mikal followed the ritual, but angrily, gracelessly, as if to make sure the Chamberlain knew that he was pardoned but not forgiven. Damn right you're a fool. I grant you your life because of your infinitely valuable services to me in apprehending the traitor in the first place. Mikal cocked his head to one side. So, Chamberlain, who do you think I should make the next Captain of the guard?

Ansset was even more confused. The Chamberlain and Mikal were lying about something, withholding something from each other-and now Mikal was asking the Chamberlain for advice on a subject that was absolutely none of his business. And the Chamberlain was actually going to answer.

Riktors Ashen, of course, my Lord.

Of course? The attitude was impertinent, the very fact of giving advice downright dangerous. The Chamberlain did not do dangerous things. A safe answer would have been to say that he had never given the matter any thought and wouldn't presume to advise the emperor on such a vital matter. And here he had said of course.

Ordinarily, Ansset would have expected Mikal to grow cold, to dismiss the Chamberlain, to refuse to see him for days. But Mikal defied everything Ansset thought he knew about him and simply answered, with a smile, Why of course. Riktors Ashen is the obvious choice. Tell him in my name that he's appointed.

Even the Chamberlain, who had mastered the art of blandness at will, looked surprised for a moment. And the Chamberlain's surprise made the connection in Ansset's mind. The Chamberlain had named the one man he definitely did not want as Captain of the guard, sure that Mikal would immediately reject any man the Chamberlain suggested. Instead, Mikal had chosen him, knowing the man would be the one most independent of the Chamberlain's influence.

And Ansset couldn't help but be pleased. Riktors Ashen was a good choice-the fleet would approve, of course, because Riktors Ashen's reputation as a fighter was the best in years. And the empire would approve because Riktors Ashen had proved in the rebellion of Mantrynn that he could deal mercifully with people. Instead of retribution and destruction, Riktors had investigated the people's complaints against their rapacious planet manager, tried the fellow, and executed him. Along with the leaders of the rebellion, of course, but he had governed the planet himself for several months, rooting out corruption in the upper levels of the government and installing local people in high positions to continue the work after he was gone. There was not a more loyal planet in the galaxy than Mantrynn, and no name in the fleet better loved by the common people than that of Riktors Ashen.

But more than any of those good reasons for the appointment, Ansset was glad because he knew the man and liked him and trusted him. Esste herself had told him that Riktors Ashen was the man most like Mikal in the universe. And now that Ansset knew Mikal and loved him, that was the highest praise he could think of.

While Ansset had reflected on the appointment, the Chamberlain had left, and Ansset was startled out of his reverie by Mikal's voice. Do you know what his last words to me were?

Ansset knew without being told that Mikal was talking about the Captain.

He said, 'Tell Mikal that my death frees more plotters than it kills.' And then-and then he said he loved me. Mikal's voice broke. There were tears in his eyes. Imagine, that cagey old bastard saying he loved me. Did you know that forty years ago he was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow my government? A pathetic thing-his lover betrayed the conspiracy and eventually he grew out of it. He never knew that I knew it. But maybe he wasn't lying. Maybe he did love me, after a fashion.

Did you love him?

I damn well never trusted him, that's for sure. I never trust anybody. Except you. Mikal smiled at Ansset, roughed his hair. His tone was flippant, but Ansset knew the sorrow that lay behind it. But love him? Who can say. I know I feel like hell knowing he's dead. Loves me. Loved me. Yes, as much as I could love anybody I suppose I loved him. At least I'm glad he found a way to die with honor. Mikal laughed. Sounds odd, doesn't it? His death leaves the conspiracy covered, and yet I'm glad of it. Since you came here, Ansset, I've forgotten my dedication to my own self-interest.

Then I should leave.

Mikal sighed. La la la. One of your most boring songs, Ansset, forever singing the same note.

Mikal settled deeply into the chair. It flowed to support his shift of weight. But his face also sagged into a morose expression.

What's wrong? Ansset asked.

Nothing, Mikal said. Oh, it does no good to lie to you. Let's just say I'm tired and affairs of state get heavier the older I become.

Why, Ansset asked, to change the subject-and to satisfy his own curiosity, he was willing to admit to himself, why was the Captain arrested? How did you know?

Oh, that. The Chamberlain's men had been watching the Captain. He visited that place regularly. He claimed to his friends that he was seeing a woman who lived there. But the neighbors all testified under drugs that a woman never lived there. And the Captain was a master at establishing mental blocks. Still, it all would have been circumstantial, even the ship being similar, if you hadn't identified that man who killed himself there. Husk?

Husk. Ansset looked down. I don't like knowing I affirmed the Captain's destruction.

It wasn't pleasant for anybody.

At least the conspiracy is broken, Ansset said, glad for the relief it would bring him from the constant surveillance of the guards.

Broken? Mikal asked. The conspiracy is barely dented. The soldier was able to get poison to the Captain. Therefore there are still plotters within the palace. And therefore I'll instruct Riktors Ashen to keep a close watch on you.

Ansset did not try to hide his disappointment from Mikal.

I know, Mikal said wearily. I know how it grates on you. But the secrets are still locked in your mind, Ansset, and until they come out, what else can I do?

16

The secrets came out the next day.

Mikal held court in the great hall, and at his request Ansset stood with the Chamberlain not far from the throne. Sometime in the afternoon Mikal would have Ansset sing. The rest of the time Ansset resigned himself to watching the boring procession of dignitaries paying their respects to the emperor. They would all be ritually respectful and solicitous and swear their undying love and loyalty to Mikal. Then they would all go home and report how soon they thought Mikal the Terrible would die, and who might succeed him, and what the chances were for grabbing a piece of the empire.

The order of the dignitaries had been carefully worked out to honor loyal friends and humiliate upstarts whose inflated dignity needed puncturing. A minor official from a distant star cluster whose innovations in welfare management had been adopted throughout the empire was officially honored, the first business of the day, and then the real boredom set in. Princes and presidents and satraps and managers, depending on what title had survived the conquest seventy or eighty or ninety years before, all proceeded forward with their retinue, bowing (and their bows showed how afraid they were of Mikal, or how much they wanted to flatter him, or how proud and independent they wanted to seem), uttering a few words asking for a private audience or a special favor, and then backing away to wait along the walls as Mikal put them off with a kind or a curt word.

To particularly humiliate the satrap from Sununuway, he was preceded by a delegation of Black Kinshasans attired in their bizarre ancient Earth costumes. Kinshasa insisted, ridiculously, that it was a sovereign nation, though the Chamberlain whispered in Ansset's ear that they hadn't even got their country in the right place, that ancient Kinshasa had been in the Congo River Valley, while these benighted peasants lived at the southern tip of Africa. Still they thumbed their nose at Mikal, calling their representative an ambassador, and they were so ridiculous that giving them precedence over anyone was a gross insult.

Those toads from Sununuway, said the Chamberlain, "will be madder than hell. He chuckled.

They were picturesque, after a fashion, their hair piled high with bones and decorations holding it all in place, vast piles of beads across their chests and only the tiniest of loincloths keeping them decent. But picturesque or not, Mikal was bored with them already and signaled for wine.

The Chamberlain poured, tasted it, as was the custom, and then took a step toward Mikal's throne. Then he stopped, beckoned to Ansset. Surprised at the summons, Ansset came to him.

Why don't you take the wine to Mikal, Sweet Songbird? the Chamberlain said. The surprise fell away from Ansset's eyes, and he took the wine and headed purposefully toward Mikal's throne.

At that moment, however, pandemonium broke loose.

The Kinshasan envoys reached into their elaborate headdresses and withdrew wooden knives-which had passed the metal detectors and the frisking-and rushed toward the throne. The guards fired quickly, their lasers dropping five of the Kinshasans, but all had aimed at the foremost assassins, and three continued unharmed. They raced on toward the throne, arms extended so the knives were already aimed directly at Mikal's heart. There were shouts and screams. A guard managed to shift his aim and get off a shot, but it was wild, and the others had exhausted their charges on the first shot. They were struggling to recharge their lasers, but knew even as they tried that they would be too late, that nothing would be fast enough to stop the wooden knives from reaching Mikal.

Mikal looked death in the eye and did not seem disappointed.

But at that moment Ansset threw the wine goblet at one of the attackers and then leaped out in front of the emperor. He jumped easily into the air and kicked the jaw of the first of the attackers. The angle of the kick was perfect, the force sharp and incredibly hard, and the Kinshasan's head flew fifty feet away into the crowd, as his body slid forward until the wooden knife still clutched in his hand touched Mikal's foot. Ansset came down from the jump in time to bring his hand upward into the abdomen of another attacker so sharply that his arm was buried to the elbow in bowels, and his fingers crushed the man's heart.

The third attacker paused just a moment, thrown from his relentless charge by the sudden onslaught from the child who had stood so harmlessly by the emperor's - throne. That pause was long enough for recharged lasers to be aimed, to flash, and the last Kinshasan assassin fell, dropping ashes as he collapsed, flaming slightly.

The whole thing, from the appearance of the wooden knives to the fall of the last attacker, had taken five seconds.

Ansset stood still in the middle of the hall, gore on his arm, blood splashed all over his body. He looked at the gory hand, at the body he had pulled it out of. A rush of long-blocked memories came back, and he remembered other such bodies, other heads kicked from torsos, other men who had died as Ansset learned the skill of killing with his hands. The guilt that had troubled him when he awakened in the evenings on the boat swept through him now with greater force than ever, for now he knew why he felt it, what the guilt was for.

The searches had all been in vain. The precautions were meaningless. Ansset could not have used a weapon, did not need a weapon-Ansset was the weapon that was to have been used against Father Mikal.

The smell of blood and broken intestines combined with the emotions sweeping his body. He would have vomited. Longed to vomit. But Control asserted itself-it had been instilled in him for such unbearable moments as this. And he stood, his face an impassive mask, waiting.

The guards approached him carefully, unsure what they should do.

But the Chamberlain was sure. Ansset heard the voice, trembling with fear at how close the assassination had come and how close Mikal had been to assassination ever since Ansset had been restored to him, as the Chamberlain shouted, Keep him under guard. Wash him. Never let him be out of a laser's aim for a moment. Then bring him to the council chamber in an hour.

The guards looked toward Mikal, white-faced and shaken on the throne, and he nodded to them.

17

Mikal sat staring into the fire, remembering the first man he had ever killed. Mikal had been a mere child, only ten, younger than Ansset-no. Mustn't think of Ansset.

Only ten, and upstairs asleep. It was in the years of terror on the worlds of the Helping Walk, and that night it was their turn. There was no knock on the door, no sound outside, just the crash of the door blowing in, the scream of Mikal's mother, who had not yet gone to bed, the shriek of Mikal's sister as she awakened across the small room from him. Mikal had not had to wonder what it was. He was only ten, but such things could not be kept from children in those years, and he had seen the women's corpses, taken apart and strewn along the street; had seen the male genitals nailed to the walls as the corpse of the man who had owned them leaned below them, leering madly at the fire that had turned his bowels to ashes.

The marauders traveled in small groups, and were said to be irresistible, but Mikal knew where the hunting gun was kept and how to aim it true. He found it in his parents' room, loaded it carefully while his mother kept on screaming downstairs, and then waited patiently while two sets of footsteps came up the stairs. He would have only one shot, but if he chose the right moment, it would be enough-the gun was strong enough to shove a charge through one man and kill another behind him.

The men loomed at the top of the stairs. Mikal had no angst at the thought of killing. He fired. The recoil of the gun knocked him down. When he got up, the two men were gone, having tumbled down the stairs. Still his poise did not leave him. He loaded again, then walked carefully to the top of the stairs. At the bottom, two men knelt over the corpses, then looked up. If Mikal had hesitated, they would have killed him-lasers are quicker than any projectile, and these men knew how to use them. But Mikal did not hesitate. He fired again, and this time held his ground against the recoil, watching as the two men dropped from the explosion as the shell hit one man in the head. It was a lucky shot-Mikal had been aiming for the other man's belly. It made no difference. Both were dead.

Mikal did not know how he would get down the stairs under fire to finish off the rest, but he intended to try. It turned out that he didn't need to. His father was being held, forced to watch as the second man began raping his wife. When four of the marauders were suddenly dead, Mikal's father didn't hesitate to tell the other three, You haven't got a chance. There are four of them upstairs and another dozen outside.

They believed him; but they were marauders, and so they slit his throat to the bone, and stabbed Mikal's mother eight times, and only then did they turn their lasers on themselves, knowing that there would be no mercy if they surrendered, not even a trial, just the brief ceremony of tearing them to pieces. Mikal's father died even as they did. But Mikal's mother lived. And at the age of ten Mikal became something of a hero. He organized the villages into a strong resisting force, and when the word spread that no marauders could get into that village, other villages pleaded with Mikal to lead them, too, though he was just a child. By the age of fifteen, he had forced the marauders to accept a treaty that, in essence, kept them from landing on Mikal's planet, and over the next few years Mikal taught them that he had the power and the will to enforce it.

Yet in the moments when he first came downstairs and saw the four men he had killed, saw his father gouting blood through the gaping smile in his throat, saw three charred corpses already stinking of half-cooked meat, saw his mother lying naked on the floor with a knife in her breast, he had felt an agony that powered all his actions ever since. Even remembering that night left him sweating, more than a century later. And at first it had been hate that propelled him, forced him to take a fleet out to the marauders' own worlds and subdue them, brought him to the head of a strong, tough group of men all older than him and willing to follow him to hell.

But somewhere along the way the hate had left him. Not until after they had finally succeeded in killing his mother with poison, decades after she had survived the knives-he had hated then, surely. Perhaps it was gradual, as the night of death faded into memory and he began to feel the responsibility of caring for the billions of people who depended on him for law, for peace, for protection. Somewhere along the way his goals had changed. He was no longer out to punish the wicked, as he had once thought his mission in life to be. Now he was out to establish peace throughout the galaxy, to protect mankind from mankind, even though it meant more bloody war to force the quarreling worlds and nations and leagues of worlds to accept what they all claimed to want. An end to death in battle.

I did it, Mikal told himself, staring into the flames. I did it.

And yet not well enough. Because after all of this a boy had to stand there tonight with blood on his hands, looking at the corpses of the men he had killed. I started all this so that no boy would ever have to do that again.

Mikal felt a pain inside himself that he could not bear. He put his hand into the fire until the pain of his body forced the pain of his heart to recede. Then he wrapped the hand, salved it, and wondered why inward wounds could not be so easily healed.

18

Songbird, Riktors Ashen said, it seems that someone has taught you new songs.

Ansset stood among the guards, who all held lasers trained on him. Control kept him from showing any emotion at all, though he longed to cry out with the agony that tore at him inside. My walls are deep, but can they hold this? he wondered, and inside his head he heard, faintly, a voice singing to him. It was Esste's voice, and she sang the love song, and that was what allowed him to contain the guilt and the grief and the fear and keep Control.

You must have studied under a master, Riktors said.

I never, Ansset started, and then realized that he could not keep on speaking, not and keep Control.

Don't torture the boy, Captain, said Mikal from where he sat in a corner of the council room.

The Chamberlain launched into his pro forma resignation. I should have examined the boy's muscle structure and realized what new skills he had been given. I submit my resignation. I beg you to take my life.

The Chamberlain must be even more worried than usual, Ansset realized, for he had prostrated himself in front of the emperor.

Shut up and get up, Mikal said. The Chamberlain arose with his face gray. Mikal had not followed the ritual. The Chamberlain's life was still on the line.

Apparently, Mikal said, we've broken through some of the barriers laid in my Songbird's mind. Let's see how many.

Ansset stood watching as Riktors took a packet off the table and spread pictures for Ansset to look at. Ansset looked at the first one and felt sick. He did not know why they were making him look until he saw the third one and gasped, despite Control.

You know this one, Riktors said.

Ansset nodded dumbly.

Point to the ones you know.

So Ansset pointed to nearly half of them, and Riktors checked them against a list he held in his hands, and when Ansset was through and turned away (slowly, slowly, because the guards with the lasers were nervous), Riktors smiled grimly at Mikal.

He picked every single one kidnapped and murdered after he himself was kidnapped. There was a connection after all.

I killed them, Ansset said, and his voice was not calm. It shook as no one in the palace had ever heard it shake before. Mikal looked at him, but said-nothing, gave no sign of sympathy. They had me practice on them, Ansset finished.

Who had you practice? Riktors demanded.

They! The voices-from the box. Ansset struggled to hold onto the memory that had been hidden from him by the block. Now he knew why the block had been so strong-he could not have borne knowing what was hidden in his mind. But now it was in the open, and he had to bear it, at least long enough to tell. He had to tell, though he longed to let the block slide back to hide these memories forever.

What box? Riktors would not let up.

The box. A wooden box. Maybe a receiver, maybe a recording. I don't know.

Did you know the voice?

Voices. Never the same. Not even for the same sentence. The voices changed for every word. I could never find any songs in them.

Ansset kept seeing the faces of the bound men he was told to maim and then kill. He remembered that though he cried out against it, he could not resist, could not stop himself.

How did they force you to do it? Riktors asked, and though his voice was soft, the questions were insistent, had to be answered.

I don't know. I don't know. There were words, and then I had to.

What words?

I don't know! I never knew! And Ansset began to cry.

Mikal spoke softly. Who taught you to kill that way?

A man. I never knew his name. On the last day he was tied where the others had been. The voices made me kill him. Ansset struggled with the words, the struggle made harder by the realization that this time, when he had killed his teacher, he had not had to be forced. He had killed because he hated the man. I murdered him.

Nonsense, the Chamberlain said, trying to sound sympathetic. You were a tool.

I told you to shut up, Mikal said curtly. Can you remember anything else, my Son?

Ansset nodded, took a breath, knowing that though he had lost the illusion of Control, still it was the walls of Control that kept him from screaming, from charging a guard and dying in the welcome flame of a laser. I killed Master, and all of the crew that was there. Some were missing. The ones I recognized from the pictures from Eire. And Husk. But I killed all the rest, they were all there in the room with the table, and all alone I killed them. They fought me as hard as they could, all except Master, who just stood there like he couldn't believe that I could be doing what he saw me do. Maybe they never knew what it was I was learning to do on deck.

And then?

And then when they were all dead I heard footsteps above me on the deck.

Who?

I don't know. The box told me to lie down on my stomach, and I did, and the box told me to close my eyes, and I did, and I couldn't open them. Then footsteps down the stairs and a slap on my arm and I woke up walking down a street.

Everyone was silent then, for a few moments. It was the Chamberlain who finally spoke first. My Lord, it must have been the Songbird's great love for you that broke through the barriers despite the fact that the Captain was already dead--

Chamberlain! Mikal interrupted. Your life is over if you speak again before I address you." He turned to Riktors Ashen. Captain, I want to know how those Kinshasans got past your guard.

Riktors Ashen made no attempt to excuse himself. The guards at the door were my men, and they gave them a routine check, without any effort to investigate the possibility of unusual weapons in those unusual headdresses. They've been replaced with more careful men, and the ones who let them by are in prison, waiting for your pleasure.

My pleasure, said Mikal, will be a long time coming.

Ansset was regaining Control. He listened to the songs in Riktors Ashen's voice and marveled at the man's confidence. It was as if none of this could touch Riktors Ashen. He knew he was not at fault, knew that he would not be punished, knew that all would turn out well. His confidence was infectious, and Ansset felt just a little better.

Mikal gave clear orders to his Captain. There will be a rigorous investigation of Kinshasa. Find any and every link between the Kinshasan assassination attempt and the manipulation of Ansset. Every member of the conspiracy is to be treated as a traitor. All the rest of the Kinshasans are to be deported to a world with an unpleasant climate, and every building in Kinshasa is to be destroyed and removed and every field and orchard and animal is to be stripped. I want every bit of it on holo, to be distributed throughout the empire.

Riktors bowed his head.

Then Mikal turned to the Chamberlain, who looked petrified with fear, though he still clung to his dignity.

Chamberlain, what would you recommend that I do with my Songbird?

The Chamberlain was back to being careful. My Lord, it is not a matter to which I have given thought. The disposition of your Songbird is not a matter on which I feel it proper to advise you.

Very carefully said, my dear Chamberlain.

Ansset struggled to keep Control as he listened to their discussion of what should be done with him. Mikal raised his hand in the gesture that, by ritual, spared the Chamberlain's life. The Chamberlain's relief was visible, and at another time Ansset would have laughed; but now there was no laughter in him, and he knew that his own relief would not come so easily as it had come to the Chamberlain.

My Lord, Ansset said, when the conversation paused. I beg you to put me to death.

Dammit, Ansset, I'm sick of rituals, Mikal said.

This is no ritual, Ansset said, his voice tired and husky from misuse. And this is no song, Father Mikal. I'm a danger to you.

I noticed, Mikal said dryly. Then he turned back to the Chamberlain, Have Ansset's possessions put together and ready for travel.

I have no possessions, Ansset said.

Mikal looked at him in surprise.

I've never owned anything, Ansset said.

Mikal shrugged, spoke again to the Chamberlain. Inform the Songhouse that Ansset is returning. Tell them that he has performed beautifully, and I have marred him by bringing him to my court. Tell them that they will be paid four times what we agreed to before, and that it doesn't begin to compensate them for the beauty of their gift to me or to the damage that I did to it. See to it See to it all.

Then Mikal turned to go. Ansset could not bear to see Mikal leave like that, turning his back and walking out without so much as a farewell. Father Mikal, Ansset called out. Or rather, he meant to call out. But the words came out softly. They were a song, and Ansset realized that he had sung the first notes of the love song. It was all the good-bye he'd be able to give.

Mikal left without giving any sign that he heard.

19

They told me you're not a prisoner, the guard said. But I'm supposed to watch you, me and the others, and not let you do anything dangerous or try to get away. Sounds like a prisoner to me, but I guess they mean I'm supposed to be nice about it.

Thanks, Ansset said, managing a smile. Does that mean I can go where I want?

Depends on where you want.

The garden, Ansset said, and the guard nodded, and he and his companions followed Ansset out of the palace and across the broad lawns to the banks of the Susquehanna. All the way there his Control returned. He remembered the words of his first teacher. When you want to weep, let the tears come through your throat. Let pain come from the pressure in your thighs. Let sorrow rise and resonate through your head. Everything was a song and, as a song, could be controlled by the singer.

Walking by the Susquehanna as the lawns turned cold in the afternoon shade, Ansset sang his grief. He sang softly, but the guards heard his song, and could not help but weep for him, too.

He stopped at a place where the water looked cold and clear, and began to strip off his tunic, preparing to swim. A guard reached out a hand and stopped him. Ansset noticed the laser pointed at his foot. I can't let you do that, Mikal gave orders you were not to be allowed to take your own life.

I only want to swim, Ansset answered, his voice heady with trustworthiness.

I'd be killed if any harm came to you, the guard said.

I give you my oath that I will only swim. I'm a good swimmer. And I won't try to get away.

The guards considered among themselves, and the confidence in Ansset's voice won. out, Don't go too far, the leader told him.

Ansset took off his underwear and dove into the water. It was icy cold, with the chill of autumn on it, and it stung at first. He swam in broad strokes upstream, knowing that to the guards on the bank he would already seem like only a speck on the surface of the water. Then he dove and swam under the water, holding his breath as only a singer or a pearldiver can, and swam across the current toward the near shore, where the guards were waiting. He could hear, though muffled by the water, the cries of the guards. He surfaced, laughing. God, he could laugh again.

Two of the guards had already thrown off their boots and were up to their waists in water, preparing to try to catch Ansset's body as it swept by. But Ansset kept laughing at them, and they turned at him angrily.

Why did you worry? Ansset said. I gave my word.

Then the guards relaxed, and Ansset didn't play any more games with them, just swam and floated and rested on the bank. The chill autumn air was like the perpetual chill of the Songhouse, and though he was cold, he was, not comfortable, but comforted.

And from time to time he swam underwater for a while, listening to the different sound the guards' quarreling and laughing made when Ansset was distanced from them by the water. They played at polys, and the leader was losing heavily, though he was a good sport about it. And sometimes, in a lull in their game, Ansset could hear the cry of a bird in the distance, made sharper and yet more ambiguous by the roar of the current in his ears.

It was like the muffling of the birdcalls when Ansset had been in his cell on the flatboat. The birds had been Ansset's only sign that there was a world outside his prison, that even though he was caught up for a time in madness, something still lived that was untouched by it

And then Ansset made a connection in his mind and realized he had been terribly, terribly wrong. He had been wrong and Mikal had to know about it immediately, had to know about it before something terrible happened, something worse than anything that had gone before- Mikal's death.

Ansset swam quickly to shore, splashed out of the water, and without any attempt to dry off put on his underwear and his tunic and started off toward the palace. The guards called out, broke up the game, and chased after him. Let them chase, Ansset thought.

Stop! cried the guards, but Ansset did not stop. He was only walking. Let them run and catch up.

Where are you going! demanded the first one to reach him. The guard caught at his shoulder, tried to stop him, but Ansset pulled easily away and sped up.

To the palace, Ansset said. I have to get to the palace!

The guards were gathered around him now, and some stepped in front of him to try to head him off.

You were told I could go where I wanted.

With limits, the leader reminded him.

Am I allowed to go to the palace?

A moment's pause. Of course.

I'm going to the palace,

So they followed him, some of them with lasers drawn, as he entered the palace and began to lead them through the labyrinth. The doors had not been changed-he could open any that he had ever been able to open. And as the guards accompanied him through the labyrinth of the palace, they grew more and more confused. Where are we going?

Don't you know? Ansset asked innocently.

I didn't know this corridor existed, how could I know where it leads!

And some of them speculated on whether they would ever be able to find their way out alone. Ansset did not smile, but he wanted to. They were passing close to the kitchens, the mess hall, the guard rooms, the places in the palace most familiar to them. But Ansset was more familiar, and left them utterly confused.

There was no confusion, however, when they emerged in the security rooms just outside Mikal's private room. The leader of the guards instantly recognized it, and in fury planted himself in front of Ansset, his laser drawn. The one place you can't go is here, he said. Now move, the other way!

I'm here to see Mikal. I have to see Mikal! Ansset raised his voice so it could be heard in the room, in the corridor outside, in any other security room. And sure enough one of the doorservants came to them and asked, in his quiet, unobtrusive way, if he could be of service.

No, said the guard.

"I have to see Mikal! Ansset cried, his voice a song of anguish, a plea for pity. Ansset's pleas were irresistible. But the servant had no intention of resisting. He merely looked puzzled and asked the guards, Didn't you bring him here? Mikal is looking for him.

Looking? the guard asked.

Mikal wants him in his room immediately. And not under guard.

The leader of the guards lowered his laser. So did the others.

That's right, the doorservant said. Come this way, Songbird.

Ansset nodded to the guard, who shrugged and looked away in embarrassment. Then, as the doorservant had suggested, Ansset came that way.

20

Ansset fit right into the madness, his hair still wet, his tunic clinging to his damp body. But he wasn't prepared for Mikal and the Chamberlain and Riktors Ashen, the only others in the room. Mikal was oozing joviality. He greeted Ansset with a handshake, something he had never done before. And he sounded incredibly cheerful as he said, Ansset, my Son, it's fine now. We were so foolish to think we needed to send you away. The Captain was the only one in the plot close enough to have given you the signal. When he died, I immediately became safe. In fact, as you proved today, my boy, you're the best bodyguard I could possibly have! Mikal laughed, and the Chamberlain and Riktors Ashen joined in as if they hadn't a care in the world, as if they couldn't possibly be more delighted with the turn of events. But it was all unbelievable. Ansset knew Mikal's voice too well. Warnings laced through everything he said and did. Something was wrong.

Well, something was wrong, and Ansset immediately told Mikal what he had realized. Mikal, when I was imprisoned on the flatboat I could hear birds outside. Birds, and that's all. Nothing else. But when we went down in that boat on the Delaware we heard children laughing on the road and a flesket pass by on the river! I was never kept there! It was a fraud, and the Captain died for it! But Mikal only shook his head and laughed. The laugh was maddening. Ansset wanted to leap at him, warn him that whoever had made this plot was more clever than they had thought, was still at large-

But the Chamberlain came to him with a bottle of wine in his hand, laughing just as Mikal was, with songs of treachery in his voice. Never mind that kind of thing, the Chamberlain said. It's a time for celebration. You saved Mikal's life, my boy! I brought some wine. Ansset, why don't you pour it?

Ansset shuddered with memories he couldn't quite grasp.

I? Ansset asked, surprised, and then not surprised at all. The Chamberlain held out the full bottle and the empty goblet.

For the Lord Mikal, the Chamberlain said.

Ansset shouted and dashed the bottle to the floor. Make him keep silent!

The suddenness of Ansset's violent action brought Riktors's laser out of his belt and into his hand. Riktors had come armed into Mikal's private room, Ansset realized with relief. Don't let the Chamberlain speak, Ansset cried.

Why not? Mikal asked innocently, and the laser sank in Riktors's grasp; but Ansset knew there was no innocence behind the words. Mikal was pretending not to understand. Ansset wanted to fly through the ceiling and escape.

But the Chamberlain had not stopped. He said quickly, almost urgently, Why did you do that? I have another bottle. Sweet Songbird, let Mikal drink deeply!

The words hammered into Ansset's brain, and by reflex he whirled and faced Mikal. He knew what was happening, knew and screamed against it in his mind. But his hands came up against his will, his legs bent, he compressed to spring, all so quickly that he couldn't stop himself. He knew that in less than a second his hand would be buried in Mikal's face, Mikal's beloved face, Mikal's smiling face-

Mikal was smiling at him, kindly and without fear. For years Control had come to Ansset to contain emotion. Now it came to express it. He could not, could not, could not hurt Mikal, and yet he was driven to it, he leaped, his hand struck out-

But it did not sink into Mikal's face. Instead it plunged into the floor, breaking the surface and becoming immersed in the gel that erupted from the floor. The impact broke the skin in Ansset's arm; the gel made the pain agonizing; the bone ached with the force of the blow. But Ansset did not feel that pain. All he felt was the pain in his mind as he struggled against the compulsion that still drove at him, to kill Mikal, to kill Mikal.

His body heaved upward, his hand flew through the air, and the back of Mikal's chair shattered and splashed at the impact. The chair shuddered, then sealed itself. But Ansset's hand was bleeding; the blood spurted and splashed and skitted across the surface of the gel spreading across the now-lax floor. But it was his own blood, not Mikal's, and Ansset cried out in joy. It sounded like a scream of agony.

In the distance he heard Mikal's voice saying, Don't shoot him. And, as suddenly as it had come, the compulsion ceased. His mind spun as he heard the Chamberlain's words fading away: Songbird, what have you done! Those were the words that had set him free. Exhausted and bleeding, Ansset lay on the floor, his right arm covered with blood. The pain reached him now, and he groaned, though his song was as much a song of triumph as of pain. Somehow Ansset had had strength enough, had withstood it long enough that he had not killed Father Mikal.

Finally he rolled over and sat up, nursing his arm. The bleeding had settled to a slow trickle.

Mikal was still sitting in the chair, which had healed itself. The Chamberlain stood where he had stood ten seconds before, at the beginning of Ansset's ordeal, the goblet looking ridiculous in his hand. Riktors's laser was aimed at the Chamberlain.

Call the guards, Captain, Mikal said. I already have, Riktors answered. The button on his belt was glowing. Guards came quickly into the room. Take the Chamberlain to a cell, Riktors ordered them. If any harm comes to him, all of you will die, and your families, too. Do you understand? The guards understood. They were Riktors's men, not the Chamberlain's. There was no love there.

Ansset held his arm. Mikal and Riktors Ashen waited while a doctor came and treated it. The pain subsided. The doctor left.

Riktors spoke first, Of course you knew it was the Chamberlain, my Lord. Mikal smiled faintly.

That was why you let him persuade you to call Ansset back here. To let him show his hand. Mikal's smile grew broader.

But, my Lord, only you could have known that the Songbird would be strong enough to resist a compulsion that was five months in the making.

Mikal laughed. And this time Ansset heard real mirth in the laughter.

Riktors Ashen, Mikal said. Will they call you Riktors the Great? Or Riktors the Usurper?

It took Riktors a moment to realize what had been said. Only a moment. But before his hand could reach his laser, which was back in his belt, Mikal's hand held a laser that was pointed at Riktors's heart.

Ansset, my Son, will you take the Captain's laser from him?

Ansset got up and took the Captain's laser from him, He could hear the song of triumph in Mikal's voice. But Ansset did not understand. What had Riktors done? This was the man that Esste had told him was as much like Mikal as any man alive-

And Mikal had conquered the galaxy. Oh, Esste had warned him, and he had taken only reassurance from it! Only one mistake, Riktors Ashen, Mikal said. Otherwise brilliantly done. And I really don't see how you could have avoided that mistake either.

You mean Ansset's strength? Riktors asked, his voice still trying to be calm and succeeding amazingly well.

Not even I counted on that. I was prepared to kill him, if I needed to. The words did not hurt Ansset, He would rather have died than hurt Mikal, and he knew that Mikal knew that.

Then I made no mistakes, Riktors said. How did you know?

Because my Chamberlain, unless he were under some sort of compulsion, would never have had the courage to argue with me, to insist on taking Ansset on his stupid military expedition, to dare to suggest your name when I asked him who ought to become the new Captain of the guard. But you had to have him suggest you, didn't you, because unless you were Captain you wouldn't have been in a position to take control when I was dead. The Chamberlain would be the obvious guilty one, while you would be the hero who stepped in and held the empire together. The best possible start to your reign. No taint of assassination would have touched you. Of course, half the empire would have rebelled immediately. But you're a good tactician and a better strategist and you're popular with the fleet and a lot of citizens. I'd have given you one chance in four of making it. And that's better odds than any other man in the empire.

I gave myself even odds, Riktors said, but now Ansset could clearly hear the fear singing through the back of his brave words. Well, why not? Death was certain now, and Ansset knew of no one, except perhaps an old man like Mikal, who could look at death, especially death that also meant failure, without some fear.

But Mikal did not push the button on the laser. Nor did he summon the guards.

Kill me now and finish it, Riktors said, pleading for an honorable death, though he knew he did not deserve it.

Mikal tossed the laser away. With this? It has no charge. The Chamberlain installed a charge detector at every door to my chambers over fifteen years ago. He would have known if I was armed.

Immediately Riktors took a step forward, the beginning of a rush toward the emperor. Just as quickly Ansset was on his feet, despite the bandaged arm, ready to kill with the other hand, with his feet, with his teeth. Riktors stopped cold.

Ah, Mikal said. You never had time to learn from the man who taught Ansset? What a bodyguard you gave me, Riktors.

Ansset hardly heard him. All he heard was Mikal's voice saying, It has no charge." Mikal had trusted him. Mikal had staked his life on Ansset's ability to resist .the compulsion. Ansset wanted to weep in gratitude for such trust, in fear at such terrible danger only barely averted. Instead he stood still with iron Control and watched Riktors for any sign of movement,

Riktors, Mikal went on, your mistakes were very slight. I hope you've learned from them. So that when an assassin as bright as you are tries to take your life, you'll know all the enemies you have and all the allies you can call on and exactly what you can expect from each.

Ansset looked at Riktors's face and remembered how glad he had been when the tall soldier had been made Captain. Let me kill him now, Ansset said.

Mikal sighed. Don't kill for pleasure, my Son. If you ever kill for pleasure, you'll come to hate yourself. Besides, weren't you listening? I'm going to adopt Riktors Ashen as my heir.

I don't believe you, Riktors said, but Ansset heard hope in his voice.

I'll call in my sons-they stay around court, hoping to be closest to the palace when I die, Mikal said. Ill make them sign an oath to respect you as my heir. Of course they'll sign it, and of course they'll all break it, and of course you'll have them all killed the first moment you can after you take the throne. If any of them is smart at all, he'll be at the other end of the galaxy by then. But I doubt there'll be any that bright. When shall we have you crowned? Three weeks from tomorrow is enough time to wait. I'll abdicate in your favor, sign all the papers, it'll make the headlines on the newspapers for days. I can just see all the potential rebels tearing their hair with rage. It's a pleasant picture to retire on.

Ansset didn't understand. Why? He tried to kill you.

Mikal only laughed. It was Riktors who answered. He thinks I can hold his empire together. But I want to know the price.

Price? What could you give me, Riktors, that you wouldn't take as a gift for you yourself anyway? I've waited for you for sixty years. Seventy years, Riktors. I kept thinking, surely there's someone out there who covets my power and has guts and brains enough to come get it. And at last you came. You'll see to it that I didn't build for nothing. That the wind won't tear away everything the moment I'm not there to hold it up. All I want after you take the throne is a house for myself and my Songbird until I die. On Earth, so you can keep an eye on me, of course. And with a different name, so that I won't be plagued by all the bastards who'll try to get my help to throw you out. And when I'm dead, send Ansset home. Simple enough?

I agree, Riktors said.

How prudent. And Mikal laughed again.

21

The vows were made, the abdication and the coronation took place with a great deal of pomp, and Susquehanna's caterers and hotelkeepers became wealthier than they had ever dreamed. All the contenders and pretenders were slaughtered, and Riktors spent a year going from system to system to quell all the rebellions with his own mixture of brutality and sympathy. After the first few planets were at peace, the populace happy and the rebels butchered, most of the other rebellions quelled themselves.

It was only the day after the papers announced that Riktors Ashen was coming home when the soldiers appeared at the door of the little house in Brazil where Mikal and Ansset lived.

How can he! Ansset cried out in anguish when he saw the soldiers outside. He gave his word!

Open the door for them, my Son, Mikal said.

They're here to kill you!

A year was more than I hoped for. I've had that year. Did you really expect Riktors to keep his word? There isn't room in the galaxy for two heads that know the feel of the imperial crown.

I can kill most of them before they could come near. If you hide, perhaps--

Don't kill anyone, Ansset. That's not your song. The dance of your hands is ugly without the song of your voice, Songbird.

The soldiers began to beat on the door, which, because it was steel, did not give way easily. They'll blow it open in a minute, Mikal said. Promise me you won't kill anyone. No matter who. Please. Don't avenge me.

I will.

Don't avenge me. Promise. On your life. On your love for me.

Ansset promised. The door blew open. The soldiers killed Mikal with a flash of lasers that turned his skin to ashes. They kept firing until nothing but ashes was left. Then they gathered them up. Ansset watched, keeping his promise but wishing with all his heart that somewhere in his mind there was a wall he could hide behind. Unfortunately, he was too sane.

22

They took twelve-year-old Ansset and the ashes of the emperor to Susquehanna. The ashes were placed in a huge urn and displayed with state honors. Everyone was told that Mikal had died of old age, and no one admitted to suspecting otherwise.

They brought Ansset to the funeral feast under heavy guard, for fear of what his hands might do.

After the meal, at which everyone pretended to be somber, Riktors called Ansset to him. The guards followed, but Riktors waved them away. The crown rested lightly on his hair.

I know I'm safe from you, Riktors said.

You're a lying bastard, Ansset said softly, so that only Riktors could hear, and if I hadn't given my word to a better man than you, I'd tear you end to end.

If I weren't a lying bastard, Riktors answered with a smile, Mikal would never have given the empire to me.

Then Riktors stood. My friends, he said, and the dignitaries present gave a cheer. From now on I am not to be known as Riktors Ashen, but as Riktors Mikal The name Mikal shall pass to all my successors on the throne, in honor of the man who built this empire and brought peace to all mankind. Riktors sat amid the applause and cheers, which sounded like some of the people might have been sincere. It was a nice speech, as impromptu speeches went.

Then Riktors asked Ansset to sing.

I'd rather die, Ansset said.

You will, when the time comes. Now sing-the song Mikal would want sung at his funeral.

Ansset sang then, standing on the table so that everyone could see him, just as he had stood to sing to an audience he hated on his last night of captivity in the ship. His song was wordless, for all the words he might have said were treason, and would have stirred the audience to destroy Riktors on the spot. Instead Ansset sang a melody, flying unaccompanied from mode to mode, each note torn from his throat in pain, each note bringing a sweeter pain to the ears that heard it.

The song broke up the banquet as the grief they had all pretended to feel now burned within them. Many went home weeping; all felt the great loss of the man whose ashes dusted the bottom of the urn.

Only Riktors stayed at the table after Ansset's song was over.

Now, Ansset said, they'll never forget Father Mikal.

Or Mikal's Songbird, Riktors said. But I am Mikal now, as much of him as could survive. A name and an empire.

There's nothing of Father Mikal in you, Ansset said coldly.

Is there not? Riktors said softly. Were you fooled by Mikal's public cruelty? No, Songbird. And in his voice Ansset heard the hints of pain that lay behind the harsh and unmerciful emperor.

Stay and sing for me, Songbird, Riktors said. Pleading played around the edges of his voice.

I was placed with Mikal, not with you Ansset said. I must go home now.

No, Riktors said, and he reached into his clothing and pulled out a letter. Ansset read it. It was in Esste's handwriting, and it told him that if he was willing, the Songhouse would place him with Riktors. Ansset did not understand. But the message was clear, the language unmistakably Esste's own. He had trusted Esste when she told him to love Mikal. He would trust her now.

Ansset reached out his hand and touched the urn of ashes that rested on the table. I'll never love you, he said, meaning the words to hurt.

Nor I you, Riktors answered. But we may, nonetheless, feed each other something that we hunger for. Did Mikal sleep with you?

He never wanted to. I never offered.

Neither will I, Riktors said. I only want to hear your songs.

There was no voice in Ansset for the word he decided to say. He could only nod. Riktors had the grace not to smile. He just nodded in return and left the table. Before he reached the doors, Ansset spoke to him.

What will you do with this?

Riktors looked at the urn where Ansset rested his hand. The relics are yours. Do what you want. Then Riktors Mikal was gone.

Ansset took the urn of ashes into the chamber where he and Father Mikal had sung so many songs to each other. Ansset stood for a long time before the fire, humming the memories to himself. He gave all the songs back to Father Mikal, and with love he reached out and emptied the urn on the blazing fire.

The ashes put the fire out.

23

The transition is complete, Songmaster Onn said to Songmaster Esste as soon as the door to the High Room was closed.

I was afraid, Esste confided in a low melody that trembled. Riktors Ashen is not unwise. But Ansset's songs are stronger than wisdom.

They sat together in the cold sunlight that filtered through the shutters of the High Room. Ah, sang Song-master Onn, and the melody was of love for Songmaster Esste.

Don't praise me. The gift and the power were Ansset's.

But the teacher was Esste. In other hands Ansset might have been used as a tool for power, for wealth. Or worse, he might have been wasted. But in your hands--

No, Brother Onn. Ansset himself is too much made of love and loyalty. He makes others desire what he himself already is. He is a tool that cannot be used for evil.

Will he ever know?

Perhaps; I do not think he yet suspects the power of his gift. It would be better if he never found out how little like other Songbirds he is. And as for the last block in his mind-we laid that well. He will never find his way around it, and so he will never learn or even search for the truth about who controlled the transfer of the crown.

Songmaster Onn sang tremulously of the delicate plots woven in the mind of a child of five, of six, of nine; plots that could have unwoven at any time. But the weaver was wise, and the cloth has held.

Mikal the Conqueror, said Esste, learned to love peace more than he loved himself. So will Riktors Mikal. That is enough. We have done our duty for mankind. Now we must teach other little singers.

Only the old songs, sighed Songmaster Onn.

No, answered Songmaster Esste, with a smile. We will teach them to sing of Mikal's Songbird.

Ansset has already sung that song, better than we could hope to.

They walked slowly out of the High Room as Song-master Esste whispered, Then we will harmonize! Their laughter was music down the stairs.