Ventus

1

The manor house of Salt Inspector Castor lay across the top of the hill like a sleeping cat. Its ivied walls had never been attacked; the towers that rose behind them had softened their edges over the centuries, and become home to lichen and birds' nests. Next to his parents, this place was the greatest constant in Jordan Mason's life, and his second-earliest memory was of sitting under its walls, watching his father work.

On a limpid morning in early autumn, he found himself eight meters above a reflecting pool, balanced precariously on the edge of a scaffold and staring through a hole in the curtain wall, that hadn't been there last week. Jordan traced a seam of mortar with his finger; it was dark and grainy, the same consistency as that used by an ancestor of his to repair the rectory after a lightning storm, two hundred years ago. If Tyler Mason was the last to have patched here, that meant this part of the wall was overdue for some work.

"It looks bad!" he shouted down to his men. Their faces were an arc of sunburnt ovals from this perspective. "But I think we've got enough for the job."

Jordan began to climb down to them. His heart was pounding, but not because of the height. Until a week ago, he had been the most junior member of the work gang. Any of the laborers could order him around, and they all did, often with curses and threats. That had all changed upon his seventeenth birthday. Jordan's father was the hereditary master mason of the estate, his title extending even to the family name. Jordan had spent his youth helping his father work, and now he was in charge.

For the first four days, Father had hung about, watching his son critically, but not interfering. Today, for the first time, he had stayed home. Jordan was on his own. He wasn't all together happy about that, because he hadn't slept well. Nightmares had prowled his mind.

"The stones around the breach are loose. We'll need to widen the hole before we can patch it. Ryman, Chester, move the scaffold over two meters and then haul a bag of tools up there. We'll start removing the stones around the hole."

"Yes sir, oh of course, mighty sir," exclaimed Ryman sarcastically. A week ago the bald and sunburnt laborer had been happy to order Jordan around. Now the tables were turned, but Ryman kept making it clear that he didn't approve. Jordan wasn't quite sure what he'd do if Ryman balked at something. One more thing to worry about.

The other men variously grinned, grunted or spat. They didn't care who gave them their orders. Jordan clambered back up the scaffold and started hammering at the mortar around the hole with a spike. It was flaky, as he'd suspected—but not flaky enough to account for the sudden outward collapse of stones on both sides of the wall. It was almost as if something had dug its way through here.

That raised dire possibilities. He flipped black hair back from his eyes and looked through the hole at the vista of treetops beyond. The mansion perched on the highest ground for miles around and butted right up against the forest. Jordan didn't like to spend too much time on the forest-side of the walls, preferring jobs as far as possible inside the yards. The forest was the home of monsters, morphs and other lesser Winds.

The inspector who built this place had been hoping his proximity to the wilderness would win him favor with the Winds. He used to stand on the forest-ward wall, sipping coffee and staring out at the treetops, waiting for a sign. Jordan had stood in the same spot and imagined he was the inspector, but he was never able to imagine how you would have to think to not be scared by those green shadowed mazeways. That old man must not have had bad dreams.

Bad dreams... Jordan was reminded of the strange nightmare he'd had last night. It had begun with something creeping in thorugh his window, dark and shapeless. Then, as morning drifted in, he had seemed to awake in a far distant hilltop, at dawn, to witness the beginning of a battle between two armies, which was cut short by a horror that had fallen from the sky, and leapt from the ground itself. It had been so vivid...

He shook himself and returned his attention to the moment. The others arrived and now began setting up. Jordan had scraped away the top layer of mortar around the stones he wanted cleared. Now he swung back along the edge of the scaffold, to let the brawnier men do their work. Below him the reflecting pool imaged puffy clouds and the white crescent of a distant vagabond moon. Ten minutes ago the moon had been on the eastern horizon; now it was in the south, and quickly receding.

He looked out over the courtyard. Behind him, dark forest strangled the landscape all the way to the horizon. Before him, past the courtyard, a line of trees ran along the three hilltops that lay between his village and the manor. To the right, the countryside had been cultivated in squares and rectangles. He could see the trapezoid shape of the Teoves's homestead, the long strip of Shandler's, and many more, and if he squinted could imagine the dividing line which separated these farms from those of the Neighbor.

All of this was familiar, and ultimately uninteresting. What he really wanted to look at—up close—was sitting right in the center of the courtyard, with a half-circle of nervous horses staring at it. It was a steam car.

The carriage sat in front, separated by a card-shaped wooden wall from the onion-shaped copper boiler. A smokestack angled off behind the boiler. The tall, thin-spoked wheels made it necessary to board the carriage from the front, and the gilded doors there had been painted with miniatures showing maids and plowsmen frolicking in some idealized pastoral setting.

When the thing ran it belched smoke and hissed like some fantastical beast. Its owner, Controller General of Books Turcaret, referred to it as a machine, which seemed pretty strange. It didn't look like any machine Jordan had ever heard about or seen. After all, if you weren't putting logs under the boiler it just sat there. And last year, on Turcaret's first visit, Jordan had watched the boiler being heated up. It had seemed to work just like any ordinary stove. Nothing mechal there; only when the driver began pulling levers was there any change.

"Uh oh, there he goes again," grunted Ryman. The other men laughed.

Jordan turned to find them all grinning at him. Willam, a scarred redhead in his thirties, laughed and reached to pull Jordan back from the edge of the platform. "Trying to figure out Master Turcaret's steam car again, are we?"

"Winds save us from Inventors," said Ryman darkly. "We should destroy that abomination, for safety's sake. ...And anyone who looks at it too much."

They all laughed. Jordan fumed, trying to think of a retort. Willam glanced at him, and shook his head. Jordan might have enyoyed a little verbal sparring before, when he was just one of the work gang. Now that he was leader, Willam was saying, he should no longer do that.

He took one more glance at the steam car. All the village kids had found excuses to be in the courtyard today; he could see boys he'd played with two weeks ago. He couldn't even acknowledge them now. He was an adult, they were children. It was an unbreachable gulf.

Behind him Chester swore colorfully, as he always did when things went well. The men began heaving stones onto the rickety scaffold. Jordan grabbed an upright; for a moment he felt dizzy, and remembered last night's dream—something about swirling leaves and dust kicking into the air under the wingbeats of ten thousand screaming birds.

A group of brightly dressed women swirled across the courtyard, giving the steam car a wide berth. His older sister was among them; she looked in Jordan's direction, shading her eyes, then waved.

Emmy seemed in better spirits than earlier this morning. When Jordan arrived at the manor she was already there, having been in the kitchens since before dawn. "There you are!" she'd said as he entered the courtyard. Jordan had debated whether to tell her about his nightmare, but before he could decide, she bent close. "Jordan," she said in a whisper. "Help me out, okay?"

"What do you want?"

She looked around herself in a melodramatic way. "He's here."

"He?"

"You know... the Controller General. See?" She stepped aside, revealing a view of the fountain, pool, and Turcaret's steam car.

Jordan remembered Emmy crying at some point during Turcaret's visit last summer. She had refused to say what made her cry, only that it had to do with the visiting Controller General. "I'll be all right," she'd said. "He'll go away soon, and I'll be fine."

Jordan still wasn't sure what that had been about. Turcaret was from a great family and also a government appointed official, and as father said constantly, the great families were better than common folk. He had assumed Emmy had done something to anger or upset Turcaret. Only recently had other possibilities occurred to him.

"Surely he won't remember you after all this time," he said now.

"How can you be so stupid!" she snapped. "It's just going to be worse!"

"Well, what are we going to do?" Turcaret was a powerful man. He could do what he liked.

"Why don't you find some excuse to get me out of the kitchens? He comes by there, ogling all the girls."

Jordan looked up past the scaffold at the angle of the sun. He wiped a skeen of sweat from his forehead. It was going to be a hot day; that gave him an idea.

He put his hand on Willam's shoulder. "I'm going to fetch us some water and bread," he said.

"Good idea," grunted Willam as he levered another stone out of the wall. "But don't dawdle."

Jordan swung out and down, smiling. He would get Emmy out here for the morning, and keep his men happy with a bucket or two of well water in the face. It was a good solution.

He was halfway down when a scream ripped the air overhead. Jordan let go reflexively and fell the last several meters, landing in a puff of dust next to the reflecting pool.

Surprisingly, Willam was lying next to him. "How did you—?" Jordan started to say; but Willam was grimacing and clutching his calf. There was huge and swelling bruise there, and the angle of the leg looked wrong.

Everybody was shouting. Flipping on his back, Jordan found the rest of his men plummeting to the ground all around him.

"—Thing in the wall," somebody yelled. And someone else said, "It took Ryman!"

Jordan stood up. The scaffold was shaking. The men were scattering for the four corners of the courtyard now. "What is it?" Jordan shouted in panic.

Then he saw, where the men had been working, a bright silver hand reach out to grab one of the scaffold's uprights. Another hand appeared, flailing blindly. Bright highlights of sunlight flashed off it.

"A stone mother," gasped Willam. "There's a stone mother in the wall. That's what made the hole."

Jordan swore. Stone mothers were rare, but he knew they weren't supernatural, like the Winds. They were mechal life, like stove beetles.

"Ryman reached into a hole and the silver stuff covered him," said Willam. "He'll smother."

The second hand found the upright and clutched it. Jordan caught a glimpse of Ryman's head, a perfect mirrored sphere.

Jordan knew what was happening. "It's trying to protect itself!" he shouted to the scattered men. "Ryman was sweating—it's trying to seal off the water!"

They stood there dumbly.

Ryman would be dead in seconds if somebody didn't do something. Jordan turned to look at the open doors of the manor, twenty meters away. Clouds floated passively in the rectangle of the reflecting pool.

Jordan decided. He reached down, splashed water from the pool over his head and shoulders, then started up the scaffold. He could hear shouting behind him; people were running out of the manor.

He pulled himself onto the planks next to Ryman. Jordan's heart was hammering. Ryman's head, arms, and upper torso were encased in a shimmering white liquid, like quicksilver. He was on his knees now, but his grip on the upright remained strong.

Ryman was stubborn and strong; Jordan knew he would never be able to break the man's grip. So he reached out a dripping hand and laid it on the oval brightness of the man's covered head.

With a hiss the liquid poured over Jordan's fingers and up his arm. He yelled and tried to pull back, but now the rest of the white stuff beaded up and leapt at him.

He had time to see Ryman's blue face emerge from beneath the cold liquid before it had swarmed up and over his own mouth, nose and eyes.

Jordan nearly lost his head; he flailed about blindly for a moment, feeling the coiling liquid metal trying to penetrate his ears and nostrils. Then his foot felt the edge of the platform.

He jumped. For a second there was nothing but darkness, free falling giddyness and the shudder of quicksilver against his eyelids. Then he hit a greater coldness, and soft clay.

Suddenly his mouth was full of water and his vision cleared, then clouded with muddy water. Jordan thrashed and sat up. He'd landed where he intended: in the reflecting pool. The silver stuff was fleeing off his body now. It formed a big flat oval on the water's surface, and skittered back and forth between the edges of the pool. When he caromed back in his direction, Jordan jumped without thinking straight out of the pool.

He heard laughter—then applause. Turning, Jordan found the whole manor, apparently, standing in the courtyard, shouting and pointing at him. Among them as a woman he had not seen before. She must be travelling with Turcaret. She was slim and striking, with a wreath of black hair framing an oval face and piercing eyes.

When he looked at her, she nodded slowly and gravely, and turned to go back inside.

Weird. He glanced up at the scaffold; Ryman was sitting up, a hand at his throat, still breathing heavily. He caught Jordan's eye, and raised a hand, nodding.

Then Chester and the others were around him, hoisting Jordan in the air. "Three cheers for the hero of the hour!" shouted Chester.

"Put me down, you oafs! Willam's broke his leg."

They lowered him, and all rushed over to Willam, who grinned weakly up at Jordan. "Get him to the surgeon," said Jordan. "Then we'll figure out what to do about the stone mother."

Emmy ran up, and hugged him. "That was very foolish! What was that thing?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "Stone mother. They live inside boulders and, and hills and such like. They're mecha, not monsters. That one was just trying to protect itself."

"What was that silver stuff? It looked alive!"

"Dad told me about that one time. The mothers protect themselves with it. He said the stuff goes towards whatever's wettest. He said he saw somebody get covered with it once; he died, but the stuff was still on him, so they got it off by dropping the body in a horse trough."

Emmy shuddered. "That was an awful chance. Don't do anything like that again, hear?"

The excitement was over, and the rest of the crowd began to disperse. "Come, let's get you cleaned up," she said, towing him in the direction of the kitchens.

As they were rounding the reflecting pool, Jordan heard the sudden thunder of hooves, saw the dust fountaining up from them. They were headed straight for him.

"Look out!" He whirled, pushing Emmy out of the way. She shrieked and fell in the pool.

The sound vanished; the dust blinked out of existence.

There were no horses. The courtyard was empty and still under the morning sun.

Several people had looked over at Jordan's cry, and were laughing again.

"What—?"

"How could you!" A hot smack on his cheek turned him around again. Emmy's dress was soaked, and now clung tightly to her hips and legs.

"I—I didn't mean to—"

"Oh, sure. What am I going to do now?" she wailed.

"Really—I heard horses. I thought—"

"Come on." She grabbed his arm ran for the nearby stables. Inside she crossly wrung out her skirt in a stall, cursing Jordan all the while.

He shook his head, terribly confused. "I really am sorry, Emmy. I didn't mean to do it. I really did hear horses. I swear."

"Your brain's addled, that's all."

"Well, maybe, I just..." He kicked the stall angrily. "Nothing's going right today."

"Did you hit your head when you landed?" The idea seemed to still her anger. She stepped out of the stall, still wet but not scowling at him any more.

"No, I don't think so, I just—" A bright flash of light in his eyes startled him. He caught a confused glimpse of sunlit grass and white clouds, where straw and wooden slats should be.

"Jordan?" His elbow hurt. Somehow, he was on the floor.

"Hey..." She knelt beside him, looking concerned. "Are you okay? You fell over."

"I did? It was that flash of light. I saw—" Now he wasn't sure what he'd seen.

Emmy gently felt his skull for bruises. "Nothing hurts here, does it?."

"I didn't hit myself, really." He brushed himself off and stood up.

"You looked really weird there for a second."

"I don't know. It's not anything." He felt scared suddenly, so to cover it, he said, "No, I was just joking. Come on, let's check on Willam. Then we'd better get back to work."

"Okay," she said uncertainly.

Willam and Ryman were still with the surgeon, and nobody knew what to do about the stone mother, so Jordan told the rest of the men to take an early lunch. He went to the kitchens and found a stool near Emmy. They wiled away some time near the warmness of the hearth.

Jordan had just decided to round up his men and get back to work, when he suddenly felt a horse under him, and saw grasslands sweeping by. A thunderous sound, as of many mounted men, filled his ears. This time, he was lost for what seemed a long time.

His hand gripped the reins tightly, only it was not his hand, but the sunburned hand of a mature man.

In an eye-blink the vision was gone, and he stood again in the kitchen. He hadn't fallen, and no one was looking at him. Jordan's heart began to pound as if he'd run a kilometer.

He waved at Emmy urgently. She was talking to one of the bakers, and ignored him until he started to walk over. Then she quickly intercepted him and whispered, "What?" in that particular tone of voice she used lately when her interrupted her talking to young men.

"It happened again."

"What happened?"

"Like in the stables. And outside. I saw something." Her skeptical look told him to be careful what he said. "I—I do think I'm sick," he said.

Her look softened. "You look awful, actually. What's wrong?"

"I keep seeing things. And hearing things."

"Voices? Like uncle Wilson?"

"No. Horses. Like in the dream I had last night."

"Dream? What are you talking about?

"The dream I had last night. I'm still having it."

"Tell me."

"Horses, and grasslands. There was a battle, and the Winds came. All last night, it was just like I was there. And it keeps happening today, too. I'm still seeing it."

Emmy shook her head. "You are sick. Come on, we'll go see the surgeon."

"No, I don't want to."

"Don't be a baby."

"Okay, okay. But I can go on my own. You don't have to come with me."

"All right," she said reluctantly. He felt her concerned gaze on him as he left.

The surgeon was busy with Willam's broken leg. Jordan stood around for a few minutes outside his door, but the sound of screaming coming from inside made him feel worse and worse, until finally he had to leave. He sat in the courtyard, unsure whether to go back to work or go home. Something was wrong, and he had no idea what to do about it.

He couldn't stay idle, though. If he went home, his father would treat him with contempt at dinner; Jordan always felt terribly guilty when he was sick, as if he was doing something bad.

He thought of the walk home, and that made him think of the forest. There was someone there who could help him—and maybe solve the problem of the stone mother too. It was a long walk, and he didn't like to be in the forest alone, but just now he didn't know what else to do. He stood up and left the manor, taking the path that led to the church, and the house of the priests.

The church lay several kilometers within the forest. Jordan relaxed as he walked, frightening as the forest was. Father Allegri would help him.

The path opened onto the church lands abruptly: Jordan came around a sharp bend where towering silver maple and oak trees closed in overhead, and there was the clearing, broad and level, skirted at its edges with low stone buildings where the ministers lived. In front of the church itself, a broad flagstone courtyard, unwalled, was kept bare and clean.

The priests' house stood off to one side, under overhanging oaks. It was a stout stone building, two stories high, with its own stable. Jordan had been inside many times, since his father helped in its upkeep.

With relief he saw that Allegri was outside, seated on the porch with his feet up, a news sheet in his hands. It must be something important he was reading. The priests received regular news about the Winds from all over the country.

Allegri looked up at Jordan's shout and quickly walked to meet him. Now that he was here, Jordan ran the last part, and appeared on the porch huffing and puffing.

"Jordan!" Allegri laughed in surprise. "What brings you here?"

Jordan grimaced; he didn't know where to start.

"Is something wrong? Shouldn't you be at work?"

"N-no, nothing's wrong," said Jordan. "We're taking a break."

Allegri frowned. Jordan shrugged, suddenly unsure of himself. He pointed to the paper Allegri held. "What's that?"

"Copy of a semaphore report. Just arrived." Allegri sent Jordan another piercing look, then sat, gesturing for Jordan to do the same. Jordan dropped on a bench nearby, feeling uncomfortable.

"It's fascinating stuff," said Allegri. He waved the paper. "It's about a battle that took place yesterday, between two very large forces, Ravenon and Seneschal."

Jordan looked up in interest. "Who won?"

"Well, there hangs the tale," said the minister. "It seems each side lined up, on the edges of a great field south of here, on the Ravenon border. They camped, and waited all night, and then in the morning they donned their armor, and took up their weapons, and marched against each other. Very deliberate. Very confident, both sides."

Jordan could picture it clearly; this sounded so similar to the nightmare he'd had last night. In his dream, the mounted horsemen had clashed in clouds of dust on the ends of the lines. Bracketed by the horror of dying men and screaming horses, stolid infantry marched up the center. In his dream, Jordan could tell from the angle of the sun that it was nine o'clock in the morning. He had stood on a hill above the battle, surrounded by flying pennants and impatient horses.

"What colors?" he asked.

Allegri raised an eyebrow. "Colors?"

"What were the colors of the pennants they were flying?"

"Well, if I recall correctly, Ravenon flies yellow pennants. Those are the royal colors, anyway. The enemy were the Senschals, so they'd be red," said Allegri. "Why?"

Jordan hesitated before speaking. To say this to Allegri would be to make it real. "Your semaphore... does it say that the Seneschals had these steam cannon hidden behind their infantry? Like fountains in a way, grey streams of gravel flying up and into the back ranks of the Ravenon footsoldiers."

"Yes." Allegri frowned. "How did you know? I just got this. We're relaying it on to Castor's place right now." He gestured to the far side of the clearing, where one of the brothers was yanking the pulleys on a tall semaphore tower.

"I dreamed this battle." There, he'd said it. Jordan looked down at his feet.

"Is this why you came to see me?" Allegri asked. "To tell me you'd dreamed today's news?"

Jordan nodded.

The priest opened his mouth, closed it, and said, "Where were you in this... dream?"

"On a hillside. Surrounded by important people. I think I was an important person too. People kept looking at me, and I said things."

"What things?" Allegri prompted.

It wasn't like remembering a dream. The more Jordan thought about it, the more like memory it became. "Orders," he said. "I was giving orders."

He closed his eyes, and recalled the scene. His own lines were wavering, and the infantry fell back even as his cavalry outflanked the Seneschals on the right. A group of his cavalry rode hard at the steam cannon, and cut down their operators, but some were lost in the last moments as the cannon were laboriously turned against them. Ravenon now had the Seneschal forces bent back like a bow, but their own lines were stretched thin. Jordan described this to Allegri.

Allegri shook his head, either in surprise or disbelief. "What happened then?" he asked. "The news just reached us—but it's unclear. Unbelievable. What do you know about it?"

Jordan squinted. He didn't want to remember this part; he could see bodies strewn across the grass below, some writhing, and in places where the line of battle had passed, women walked to and fro, cutting throats or administering first aid depending on the color of a helpless man's uniform. Jordan saw one man play dead and then leap up and run down a woman who had approached him with her knife drawn. Three others converged on him and cut him down in turn.

In the dream Jordan had looked away then, and spoke. "We deployed a new weapon," said Jordan now.

"Describe it." Allegri's hands twisted in the cloth of his robe. He sat hunched forward, eyes fixed on Jordan.

"We had the breeze to our advantage. My men set fire to some sort of long tubes filled with... sulphur, I think. They made a horrible reddish-yellow smoke." Jordan didn't want to talk about it any more, but once he had started it was hard to stop. And Allegri was staring at him as if he could force the story out of him by willpower alone. "The smoke went over the Seneschals. They started to fall down, they choked on it. The lines broke. We had time to regroup, we got ready to charge."

"And then?"

Jordan swallowed. "And then the Winds came."

From the hillsides all around the battle scene, a cloud rose as the birds, the bugs, the burrowing animals and the snakes, all rose and marched into the valley. The grass itself began to twist and come to life, and the earth trembled as great silvery boulders wrenched themselves out and sprouted legs. The men and horses around Jordan milled in panic. He could see they were screaming, but their voices were drowned by a tumbling, roaring, and shrieking mass of life descending on the battle lines.

"It was the sulphur," he said quietly. "They smelled the sulphur and became angry at us. It was okay as long as we were cutting each other up. Beating each other to death. But the smoke..." Jordan relived a feeling of terrible helplessnness, as he watched both armies dissolve under a tumult of fur, feather and scale. Only a few stragglers and quick horsemen escaped. The steam cannon exploded with ringing bangs, and mist and sulphur clouds hung low for many minutes until, drifting away, they revealed an encampment of the dead. The animals slunk away into the hills, shaking the bloody fur of their backs as they passed the stunned witnesses.

"It's okay, you're safe," Allegri was saying. Jordan came to himself to find the priest at his side, arm around his shoulder. He realized he was shaking. "It wasn't your fault."

"But I was the one on the hill. The one who gave the order!"

Allegri shook him gently. "What are you saying? That you got up in the middle of the night, grew some centimeters and an army, and commanded the battle yourself? It's more likely that you've been using that fantastic imagination of yours," laughed the priest. "Maybe you heard something last night, from Castor or his men. After all, he might have the news from some other source. Did you maybe sit on near some conversation last night, that you maybe didn't realize you were listening in on? Some word or phrase you caught, that came back to you as you were going to sleep?"

Jordan shook his head. "I went straight home." He wiped at his eyes.

Allegri stood up and started to pace. "The semaphore said there was a battle yesterday, near a town called Andorson. Everyone died, it said. We looked at that and didn't understand it. Everyone died? But who won? What you've just said clears it up. It could be this was a true vision you had."

"A vision?"

The priest chewed on a fingernail, ignoring Jordan. "A vision, for the son of a mason. Won't this upset the applecart. Do we tell Turcaret and Castor. No... no, that wouldn't do at all."

Jordan stood up and grabbed Allegri's arm. "What's going on? What's this about visions?"

Allegri scowled. He was more animated than Jordan had ever seen him. "You know some people can talk to the Winds. Turcaret claims the power; it runs in his family." Jordan nodded. The whole foundation of sensible government was men like Turcaret, who had a proven connection to the Winds, hence the authority to guide the hands of economics and bureaucracy. "The Winds often speak in visions," said Allegri. "Or dreams. But they rarely speak to someone of your class."

"What does that mean? Am I like Castor?" The thought was absurd; Castor was hereditary Salt Inspector for this province. His pedigree was ancient.

"I admit it's unusual, but most of the great families got their start with somebody like yourself, you know." Allegri pointed towards the church. "Let's talk in there."

"Why?" asked Jordan as he followed the rapidly walking priest.

Allegri shook his head, mumbling something. "It's a shame," he said as Jordan caught up with him.

"What do you mean, a shame? This means our family could get a government post, doesn't it?" Was that really the voice of some spirit that had entered his dreams last night? The idea was both exhilarating and terrifying. Jordan found himself laughing, a bit hysterically.

"Am I going to get my own manor house?" As he said it, he realized something: "But I don't want that!"

As they entered the church, Allegri frowned at Jordan. "Good," he said. "I had higher hopes for you—you've always been inquisitive. A lot of the ideas you've spoken to me about are like ones from the very books Turcaret bans. I'd hoped you would show an interest in the priesthood. After all, it's the one thing you could legally do besides being a mason."

They stood now in the pillared space of the church. Allegri gestured at the cross that hung between the tall windows at its far end.

"If Turcaret and his like had their way, this place would not exist," Allegri said, gesturing around.

"What do you mean?"

"Turcaret and his kind have power because they claim—claim, mind you, that's all—to know the will of the Winds who rule this world. All they know, really, is merely how far the Winds can be pushed before they push back. The Inspectors and Controllers use that knowledge to control the affairs of men. They claim to serve Man; really, they serve either the Winds, or themselves. And those who serve the Winds, do not serve God.

"Jordan, I hope you don't become such a one. Whatever the Winds tell you, you can choose how to use the knowledge. But beware of becoming their tool, like the Controller and his men."

Jordan looked around at the quiet space, remembering many evenings he had spent here with Mother. Father did not attend church; he was not a believer. Only about half the people at Castor's manor were. The rest adhered to one or another of the Wind cults.

"What should I do?" asked Jordan.

"I'll consult by semaphore with the church fathers. Meanwhile, tell no one. If these visions disrupt your day, claim sickness. I'll back you up. Hopefully we'll get some guidance in a day or so."

Jordan brought up the subject of the stone mother. Allegri called one of the brothers over and they consulted, returning after a few minutes with some suggestions for handling the mechal beast. Jordan thanked Allegri, and they made their farewells.

He felt as if a great weight had been lifted off him as he walked back to the manor. Whatever was happening to him, he had put it in Allegri's hands. The priests would know what to do.

The usual bustle of the hallways was muted today, out of deference to Turcaret, whom they needed to impress, if for no other reason than that Castor wanted not to seem too provincial to his rich visitor. The silent summer air weighed heavily in here, as outside, and when he had stopped puffing Jordan headed straight for the back stairs to the kitchen.

"She's quite a filly, eh?" That was Castor's voice, coming from behind the wood-inlaid door to the library. "Turn around for Turcaret, Emmy."

Jordan stopped walking. Emmy. He looked around, then put his ear against the door.

"A fine girl." Turcaret's dry, sardonic voice. "But hard to appreciate in all that get-up."

"Emmy, you hide your beauty too much," said Castor. Jordan heard a faint whisper of motion as someone walked across the room. "Turn around."

An appreciative noise from Turcaret. "Clasp your hands behind your neck, girl."

"Sir?"

"It's all right, Emmy," said Castor. "Do as the Controller General says. Stand up straight."

Something about the tone of the voices made Jordan uncomfortable. He put his hand on the doorknob, hesitated, took it away. He had no excuse to be entering the library.

"Emmy, whatever happened to that dress you had last summer? The off-the-shoulder one? That was quite pretty."

"I-I outgrew it, sir."

"Do you still have it? Hmm. Why don't you wear it tomorrow, then?"

Emmy said something Jordan didn't catch. Dry laughter from the men. Then she gave a little shriek: "Oh!"

"Here comes the lady," said Turcaret suddenly.

"All right, Emmy. That will be all," said Castor in a distracted tone. "Remember what I told you about tomorrow."

Jordan heard the door on the far side of the library open. Castor started to speak, but he was cut off by a strong female voice Jordan had never heard before. "All right, gentlemen, what about our agreement?"

Another door, this one around the corner of the same hallway Jordan was in, opened and closed. He left off eavesdropping and ran around to find his sister leaning against the wall underneath a watchful portrait of one of Castor's ancestors.

"Emmy!" She looked up, then away. To his surprise, she turned and started to walk away without even acknowledging him.

"Hey! What are you doing?" He caught up to her. He felt a fluttering uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. "I talked to Allegri—everything's all right. There's nothing wrong with me."

Emmy rounded on him, grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall. "Where were you when I needed you?" she shouted. "Everything is not all right. It's not!" She thrust herself away and ran off down the hallway. Jordan stayed leaning on the wall for a long moments. Then, still feeling the prints of her hands on his shoulders, he slouched back the way he had come. What had happened? It was as if last night some veil had been withdrawn from reality, showing behind it an ugly mechanism.

For just a second, he saw blue sky, clouds, heard the snorting of a horse. "Oh, stop," he murmured, squashing the palms of his hands against his eyes. "Just stop."

2

Jordan's mother ladled out a thick soup and revealed a spread of cheese, salad and fresh bread. She smiled around the supper table with proprietary kindness, while Jordan's father talked on about the stone mother and Jordan's bravery.

"Ryman can't say a bad word about the boy now. Ha! What a change. But the fact is, when it came to the moment, he panicked, and you didn't."

"Thanks." Jordan found himself squirming. All this sudden fame was strange, and tiring on top of everything else that had happened today. Despite his exhaustion, he was afraid of going to sleep tonight. The nightmare might return.

He wanted to tell his family about Allegri's idea that he'd been blessed by the Winds. He opened his mouth to speak, but a cold feeling deep in his stomach stopped him. Father kept printed broadsheets detailing the escapades of the inspectors and controllers; Jordan could see several tacked up by the door if turned his head. That was all Mother would allow as decoration, the rest being relegated to a chest on the porch. Father would would be thrilled and proud beyond description if he thought Jordan might be able to gain a government position. But it wasn't what Jordan himself wanted.

He had always assumed he would follow in his father's footsteps, and was content with that. Jordan's highest ambition was to have a comfortable home, a family, and to be considered a solid member of the community. What more could a man ask for?

So he said nothing. It was desperately necessary that the peace of the supper table not be disturbed. His mother's careful preparations, her cleanliness and little touches such as the chrysanthemums in the center of the spread, were talismans, protective as was his father's way of hovering about all problems without alighting his attention on any, and smoothing all troubled waters with belittling wit.

His father had said something more. "Hmm? What?" He blinked around the table.

"Where's your head?" His father's smile was puzzled, traced with a little sadness as it often was. "Have more potatoes, they're good for you," he said, but he looked like he wanted to say something else.

What he did add was, "I met a man today, a courier for the Ravenon forces named Chan. You know about the war they're having with the Seneschals?" Emmy nodded dutifully. Jordan sat up straight, his food forgotten.

"This fellow said there was a battle yesterday. On the border."

"Is the war coming here?" Emmy asked.

"No. I don't know if the war is going to continue. It seems the Winds intervened in the battle. Stopped it.

"The Winds are mighty," said their father. "That's the lesson; though truth to tell, this fellow Chan seemed more amused by the tale than anything." He shook his head. "Some people..."

He turned his attention to Emmy. "Your brother did well today, didn't he?" he asked.

"He did okay," she said in a monotone.

"Okay? Well, aren't you proud?" She said nothing. "Well, how about you?" he asked. "Did you get to see our master's guests? Did you meet Turcaret?"

Emmy glanced up; her eyes met Jordan's. He looked down, squirmed in his chair. "Yes," said Emmy.

"He's pretty grand, isn't he? I hear his house is twice the size of Castor's. Mind, that would be twice the work, I expect."

"I—I don't like Turcaret," blurted Emmy.

Their father reared back, raising his eyebrows. "What? That's a pretty definite opinion to have for somebody you've barely met, especially one of your superiors. What brought that on?"

Emmy didn't answer immediately, hunkering down over her meal. Finally she said, "He got Castor to make me wear my old dress tomorrow."

"What dress?" asked their mother.

"The canary one."

"But you've outgrown that dress, dear."

"I told them that."

There was a brief silence. Jordan felt a familiar tension, and the clamoring need to defuse it. He cast about for something

funny to say, but his father was faster. "You still have it? I thought you gave it to Jordan as a hand-me-down!"

Everybody laughed except Emmy. She looked a bit sick, actually, and Jordan's own laugh died in embarrassed silence.

"Well, after dinner we can try to let it out a bit," said mother.

Emmy looked at her aghast. Then she pushed away from the table and ran for the stairs.

"Emmy!" thundered their father, then more weakly, "come back."

They sat in silence for a few moments, then mother got up. "I'll talk to her," she said quietly, and padded up the stairs after Emmy.

Jordan and his father completed their meal in silence.

After dinner Jordan took a walk to the spot where he planned to build his own house. He was heartsick. He strolled the rutted, red tracks that joined the houses of the village, but it only took a few minutes to cover them all. He stopped to talk to a few people, family and friends who sat in the lazing sun and talked while their hands busied with spinning and mending. He was distracted, however, and soon resumed walking again. The Penners were fixing their roof, along with a mob of relatives. Jordan avoided them; they would just want his advice.

This village was his home, always and forever. Jordan enjoyed hearing tales of the outside world, and often dreamed of a life as an traveller. But outside the village waited the forest.

The forest appeared in the fading daylight as a ragged swath of green-black across the eastern horizon, exhaling its hostility across the reach of fields and air to Jordan. The forest was a domain of the Winds, and of the morphs that served them. Unlike the morphs, the true Winds had no form, but only a monstrous passion sufficient to animate dead moss and clay. They drove the wall of trees forward like a tidal wave, slowed to imperceptibility by some low cunning, but just as unstoppable. The previous summer, Jacob Walker had gone to the back of his fields to cull some of the young birch trees that had invaded his fields. His son had seen the morphs take him, and the way Jordan heard it, the trees themselves had moved at the morphs' command. Walker's farm was abandoned now, saplings spiking up here and there in the field, the crops turned to woodsage and fireweed, poison ivy and thistle. The Walker family now lived in another village, and did odd jobs.

Some things could not be avoided, or confronted. There must have been a time, Jordan felt, when he was unaware of the pressure of the sky on him, of the eyes of conscious nature watching from the underbrush. He vaguely remembered running carelessly through the woods when he was very young. But he was swiftly educated out of that. Once, too, he had run and laughed in the corridors of the manor, but he knew now that however familiar Castor might be, he was something different than Jordan and his people, hence in his own way a force of nature like the Winds. To be obeyed, his anger sidestepped if possible, else accommodated. Jordan could not become that.

Better not to think about it. His pace had increased as his thoughts drifted back to the manor, and the visiting Lord. Jordan slowed his pace, consciously unclenched his fists. From here, at the edge of the village, he could see the roof of his parents' house over those of the neighbors. Everything looked peaceful in the goldening glow of evening. He had come to a fence, past which a row of haystacks squatted, surfaces alive with attendant grasshoppers, wise blinking birds sitting on their peaks. He sat down on the stile, and propped his chin on his hands.

Across the road was a expanse of unruly brush, interspersed with trees. It was far from the forest. Jordan had decided when he was ten years old that he would build his house here. Although he had yet to buy the land, only just having begun to earn a wage, he felt the place was already his. Lately he had begun drawing up plans for the building. Father had laughed when he saw them. "That's a bit optimistic, isn't it?" he'd said. "Better start small."

Jordan had kept the plans as they were. His house would have a big workshop where he could do stonework. Why limit himself to repair work? People would need detailing for new buildings. He could do that. So he needed that extra space, regardless of what Father said.

Evening canted slowly over the village, lighting and deepening the roofs as planes and parallelograms of russet and amber. There came a time when there were shadows, and Jordan knew this was when he should go back. The hammering from the Penners' had stopped, and now only a few lazy laughs drifted in, mixed with the barking of dogs called on to herd the goats back home.

Jordan heard a sound behind him. It was only a blackbird taking off, but he realized it too late to stop a cold flush of adrenaline. He stood up, brushing dust off the backs of his pants, and glanced at the dark line of the forest. Yes, go back.

He did feel better now, his mind calmed of any bad thoughts. His father was sitting in the doorway of the cottage, whittling, as he did sometimes. Yawning, Jordan bade him good night; his father barely glanced up, only grunting acknowledgment. Jordan saw no sign of his mother or sister inside. He padded up to the attic and threw himself on his narrow bed.

As he drifted off, he saw and heard flashes reminiscent of his nightmare last night. Every one would jolt him awake again, a little pulse of fear setting him to roll over or hug the blankets tighter about himself. He imagined something creeping in through the little window and whispering in his ear. He was sure someone had touched his face while he slept last night, and that this had set the nightmares off. What if it had been a morph?

Jordan sat up, blinking in the total darkness. It had not been a Wind. It was a person, someone unfamiliar whom he had seen, sometime today. Turcaret? He couldn't remember.

He had been so absorbed in battling memory that he hadn't noticed the sounds coming from downstairs. Now Jordan could plainly hear his father and his sister arguing, it sounded like in the back room.

"I won't go back there," she said.

"What are you saying?" said their father. "What will you do instead? There is nothing else, nowhere else to go. Don't be silly."

"I won't."

"Emmy."

"He's an evil man, and he makes Castor evil whenever he comes. They were... they were looking at me. I won't wear this."

"Castor commanded it. He's our employer, Emmy. We owe everything we have to him. How can you be so ungrateful? If it weren't for him, where would we be? Huddling in the forest with the windlorn."

"You'd let him... you would..." She was in tears.

Father's voice became softer, placating. "Emmy, nothing is going to happen. We have to trust Castor. We have no choice."

"It is! It is going to happen! And you won't see! None of you!"

"Emmy—" Jordan heard the door slam open, and quick footsteps recede into the night. He leaped out of bed, and went to the window. A slim form raced away from the house, in the direction of the black forest. Jordan's scalp prickled as Emmy vanished in the shadow of the great oaks.

His father had heard the boards above his head creak. "Go back to bed, Jordan!"

He remained standing. Downstairs, his father and mother spoke together quietly; he couldn't hear what they were saying.

Jordan fell back on the bed, his heart pounding. The murmured conversation continued. Why weren't they following her? He listened, a tightness building in his chest as his parents' inaction continued. After a few minutes he realized they were praying.

There were morphs in the forest, and maybe worse things. Jordan felt a sudden certainty that Emmy was going to stumble into its arms. She must be trying to get to the church, but the path was difficult even in daylight. At night, the forest was so dark you couldn't see a tree trunk centimeters from your face, and, he knew, every sound was magnified so the approach of a field mouse sounded like a bear was coming.

Emmy had never feared the woods. He should have told her what had happened to him today. Jordan put his hands to his eyes and squinted back tears. At that moment, he felt terribly, awfully helpless, and abandoned because she was abandoned. Their parents were doing nothing!

And neither was he. He went to the window again.

"Jordan." His father's voice filled him with sudden loathing. His father was afraid of the forest. He wouldn't follow Emmy because he was scared of the dark, and he was sure inaction would cure whatever was wrong.

Jordan sat on the bed, seething with hatred for his parents. The tightness in his chest was growing, though. Do something, he commanded them silently. Sitting in the dark with his fists clenched, he tried to move his parents with sheer will power.

The tightness had him gasping. Finally, he admitted to himself that they would do nothing—not tonight, not tomorrow, or ever. Their desperate fear of any disturbance in their carefully ordered lives paralyzed them utterly—and it always had.

He hurriedly dressed, not caring how much noise he made, and thudded down the steps. Candles lit the kitchen, where his parents knelt on the gritty wooden floor. Both looked up as Jordan appeared.

His father opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He met Jordan's eye for only a moment, then looked down. His mother nervously fiddled with the bow of her night dress.

Some spell had lifted, and Jordan walked past them with no feeling of compulsion to stop, obey or even heed what they might say. He stepped into the cool August night, and turned toward the forest.

He took the lantern that always hung outside the door, fumbled for the matches that were stuffed in a crack nearby. Frowning, he lit the lantern as he walked. Behind him he heard a shout, but he ignored it. Somehow, the action of lighting the lantern, of picking the likely path his sister had taken, absorbed his attention and he felt no emotion as he walked. No emotion at all.

Once he was under the trees, the lantern seemed to create a miniature world for him. This little universe was made of leaf-outlines, upstanding lines of grass, and grey slabs of trunk, all stuck in the pitch of night. Without the light, he would be stuck here too. It was inconceivable that Emmy could go any distance in here; but he had to admit she knew the paths. He had once asked Allegri what he would do if he lost his light in here, and the priest had said, "It happens now and then. But the trees are cleared near the path, so if you look straight up, rather than ahead, and sweep your feet ahead of you as you walk, you can do it." It was like walking backward using a mirror. Emmy knew this.

But she could have fallen, could be lying two meters away, and he would never see her.

He opened his mouth to call her, heard a croak come out, and his own voice, circling around to his ears, somehow broke the dam of numbness that he had preserved as he left home.

"Emmy!" His shout was louder than he'd expected, and his voice cracked on it.

A few meters into the blackness he saw a small footprint in the mud; she had come this way. Emmy must be making for the church. She wouldn't go to the neighbors; they would just bring her back home. And she wouldn't go to the manor. The church was the only other refuge.

"Emmy!" He started to say, come back, but what came out was "Wait for me!"

He walked for a long time, calling out now and again. There was no answer, though once he heard a distant crashing in the brush which froze him silent for a long moment.

She couldn't possibly have gone this far! Had he missed her in the dark? Maybe she hadn't come this way at all, but just skirted the forest, and was even now back home, waiting for him with the others. That thought made Jordan's scalp prickle, as if he were the runaway... but that was silly.

The lamp was starting to gutter. "Shit." He was going to wind up huddling the night under some bush; in the pit of his stomach he knew he'd lost Emmy. And now he was alone in the forest.

He bent down, placing the butt of the lantern on his knee, and opened the glass to check the wick. There was probably enough oil to get a kilometer or so. It was more than that back to the village. The church was probably closer.

So he had to go on. Somehow he felt reassured by this. He stood up to continue.

A little star bobbed within the blackness ahead of him. He stared at it, biting his lip and remembering stories of spirit lights that led travellers off cliffs. But such lights were supposed to be green, or white, and to flicker and dodge about in swampy country. This light was amber, and swayed just as a lantern would if someone were walking with it.

He raised his own light and shouted, "Hallo!" The sound echoed flatly away.

The little light paused, then bobbed up and down. He started toward it, along the path. Maybe someone had found Emmy, and was returning with her. The thought sped him up; his heart was in his throat.

It was a lantern, and it was an ordinary person carrying it. But... Jordan had expected a man, a woodsman or even Allegri, but this was a woman stepping delicately over mossed logs and bent reeds. Not Emmy. And alone.

She raised her light again, and he recognized her. He had seen her at the doorway of the manor kitchen, asking for water. She must have accompanied Turcaret here in his steam wagon. When he'd seen her this morning she had been dressed in a long gown, but now she wore buckskin pants like a man, a dark shirt, and a cape thrown over her shoulders. She stood in stout muddied boots, too, and had some kind of belt around her hips, from which several leather pouches hung. Her glossy black hair was drawn tightly back, only one or two careless strands falling past her dark, arched brows. Her eyes gleamed in the lamplight.

"What a happy meeting," she said. Her voice was melodic, and strong; she seemed to taste each syllable as she spoke it, weighing how it might best be pitched. "What are you doing so far from town?"

"Looking for my sister. She... she came this way." He felt suspicious suddenly, wary of admitting Emmy's vulnerability. "Have you seen her?"

"No..." She tasted the word as if it had some special savor. "But then I have only just ventured onto this trail. Perhaps she went by earlier?"

"Not long ago." He heard himself groan faintly, knowing he must have missed Emmy somewhere in the dark. "Please," he said, "can you help me? I'm scared for her. I can't find her. She should have been... back there." He looked around at the curtains of black. "Maybe I missed her."

"All right." She came up to him, and her fingers lightly touched his shoulder as she walked past. He found himself turning as if she held him tightly. They began to pick their way back along the trail.

"I've seen you up at the mansion," she said. "You're the lad who outwitted the stone mother, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am. Jordan Mason."

"Yes." She was smiling now, as if delighted. "It's fortunate I met you just now, Jordan. It saves me a lot of time."

"Why?"

"I wanted to talk to some of Castor's people. On my own, you know?"

Jordan thought about it. She didn't trust Castor? "Is that why you were out at the church?"

"Yes." She shot him a dazzling smile. She was, he noticed, notably taller than he.

His lantern guttered and finally went out. "Shit," he said, shaking it. "Excuse me."

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?" she asked, chiding.

"No, ma'am. I'm afraid of what's in it."

"I see." He heard, rather than saw, her smile in the sound of the words.

The lady appeared to be thinking. She glanced about herself, then said firmly, "I heard voices a ways back. Was your sister going to meet someone?"

"No…" But what if she had met Allegri, or someone else coming from the priest's house? "Where did you hear the voices?"

"This way." She held the lantern high, and walked back the way she'd come. He followed, hopeful that they would meet Emmy coming back from the priest's house.

The lady paused at a fork in the path. The way to the priest's was on the right, Jordan knew. The left way led deeper into the forest. She stepped onto the left-ward way.

"Wait!" He hurried forward. "She wouldn't have gone this way. It doesn't lead anywhere."

"But one of the voices I heard was that of a girl," said the lady, frowning. "And they came from down this way." She stood hipshot, radiating impatience. "You are keeping me from my own errands, young man. I need not help you at all, you know."

"Of course. I'm sorry." He followed her onto the lesser of the two paths.

This way was half-overgrown; the lady seemed to have no trouble seeing the path ahead of them, but to Jordan every way quickly came to look the same. He glanced behind them, and saw only a thatchwork of tree trunks and ferns, framed in black.

"Are you sure this is where you heard the voices coming from?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Of course. Look, there's a footprint." She lowered the lamp for him to see. Jordan peered at the ground where she pointed, but he couldn't see anything.

"I don't see-"

"Are you questioning me?" said the lady. "You are keeping me from my duties. What will Castor and Turcaret say about my lateness?"

"You mustn't tell them!"

"Well, then, stop dawdling."

Jordan was silent for a while, but his heart was sinking. Could Emmy have run afoul of a bandit, or worse, a morph? Who else would be out in this blackness?

"What were you doing out here alone, ma'am?" he asked boldly. "Were you visiting the priests?"

"Yes, of course," she replied promptly. They continued on over the uneven ground, until the thickets and trunks surrounded them tightly, and there was no longer any indication of a path underfoot.

The lady had one foot on a fallen log, about to step over it, when Jordan said, "Stop."

"What?" She stepped up and balanced precariously on the mossy log.

"This is crazy. She can't have come this way. Sound plays tricks in the forest. Maybe the sound came from somewhere else."

"Maybe." She sounded doubtful.

"We need to go back and get help," he said. "I'll roust my work gang. There's no need for you to worry yourself, ma'am. You have your own business to attend to."

"True." She started to step down from the log, but slipped. Jordan saw the lantern fly in an arc, then complete darkness fell around them.

"Damn!" He heard the lady groping about for the lantern.

Jordan put his hands out and hesitantly edged in the direction of the sounds. The darkness was total. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I'm fine. But I can't find the lantern."

Now that he was completely drowned in darkness, Jordan realized Emmy could never have come this far. It was impossible to take two steps in any direction without encountering a wall of uncertainty more solid than any tree trunk.

"Hmmf. Well, that's that," said the lady. "I can't find it. Give me your hand." He reached out tentatively, felt her warm fingers entwine his own.

"Come. This way."

"What are you doing?"

"We were headed uphill. I'm just going to go down. I'm sure we'll find the path again."

"Begging your pardon, but we should stay right here. You're not supposed to keep walking if you're lost in the-"

"We're not lost!" Her voice expressed outraged anger. "And I am not going to miss my appointments tonight!"

"But-"

"Come." She tugged, and though his every instinct was to remain still, Jordan followed so as not to lose contact. Slowly, they walked hand in hand over the uneven path.

Jordan was completely blind, and was sure he would blunder into a tree at any moment, but the lady's pull was steady. Jordan fought within himself and craned his neck up, looking for small swaths of starlight overhead instead of straining to make out the logs and stones underfoot. He tried to feel his way. And she did seem to know where she was going, for she did not stumble at all.

It seemed so strange, placing his feet by faith, seeing only the occasional star, and feeling acutely the touch of this stranger's hand. It was at once intimate and solitary. He cleared his throat and said, "What's your name?"

"I am the lady Calandria May. Turcaret was my travelling companion, but I am not in his employ."

"Oh." So she might be Castor's equal; Jordan felt uncomfortable to be holding her hand. She was his superior, so she could take his, but he could never have touched her so first.

"Careful." She stepped him over another fallen log. He hadn't felt or heard her hit it, but then he was concentrating on staring up. He didn't remember this log from a few minutes ago, and his footing was much rougher now. Round stones rolled under his shoes and long drooling fronds of grass wet his thighs. He smelled the metallic tang of moist earth, mixed with many green and fetid odors.

The strip of starlight was disappearing. He kicked himself for not looking up when he'd first come this way, to judge now where they were. They were not on the path. "We're not on the path," he said.

"Yes we are," she said in the same calm, even tone with which she had pronounced her name. Jordan stumbled over a root; her hand pulled him leftward, then back, and he felt tall brambles tug by. By instinct he had looked forward, and his free hand was out to ward him. When he looked up again, the stars were gone.

He craned his neck to try to see behind him—futile, naturally. His mouth was open to protest that they really were off the path, but her grip tightened, and she pulled him ahead with renewed speed. His warding hand brushed something slick—a tree trunk, he realized even as he snatched his hand back with a gasp.

"Steadily now, Jordan," she said.

"But—"

"Come now," she said. He heard gentle humor in her tone. "We are on the path. After all, we haven't hit any trees, have we?"

It really wasn't his place to question a lady. Her hand was his only lifeline, she his only recourse here. But how could she see in the dark? Was she a Wind? The thought nearly made him break his contact. She sensed something, and gave a reassuring squeeze.

"How can you see in the dark?" he blurted.

"I am as human as you," she said.

How was he going to find Emmy now? "We should stop and wait here for morning," he insisted.

She let go of his hand.

Jordan shouted in surprise.

The lady's voice issued from very nearby. "You may wait here, if you'd like," she said crossly. "I am going on back to the manor, and a warm fire and good companionship. You can sit here in the damp and stew in your own fears, or you can come with me. Which is it to be?"

Then silence. He couldn't hear her moving away, couldn't hear her breathing or moving at all. The silence stretched uncomfortably; Jordan could hear his own breath rasping, and the sounds of crickets, wind in the treetops. Nothing else. Had she left him?

"Please," he said.

Her fingers twined in those of his outstretched hand. Her touch, in the dark, made him remember last night, when a dark-haired woman had come to stand over him in his half-sleep, and laid her hand on his brow.

"Come," she said.

3

Dawn found them walking. Jordan was cold, and almost deliriously tired. For hours now, he had let the wet leaves slide over his face without raising his hand to fend them off. The Lady's hand remained clamped on his, and a strange passivity made him follow her. For the first part of the walk, she had spoken constantly and unhurriedly to him, her voice and the feel of her hand the only realities, until he seemed to lose touch with his body entirely. It seemed they were a pair of spirits, drifting through the underworld.

Morning in Memnonis, Jordan's country, began with the gradual realization of shapes in the dark of the forest. Jordan began to see outlines of tree branches if he looked up, although they seemed etched onto a medium as dark as themselves. And as more became visible, the cold of the night settled to its absolute bottom. In the distance, he heard first one, then another bird begin to sing. The sound made him realize that, for hours, all he had heard was the dumb crashing of his feet in the underbrush, and the slight breaths of the woman ahead of him. Now he could see her, caped back swaying slightly as she trod over the matted leaves and fern beds. She was very close to him, the hand that held his fallen to her side, his own held stiffly in front of him. His own fingers felt numb; hers were warm.

His self-awareness returned with the light. No sharp line divided his passivity from memory and decision, any more than day came like the lighting of a lamp. He simply became more aware of his situation as he became able to see around himself. He was far from home; his sister remained lost and in some peril he may well have not been able to save her from. It was partly to salve his own conscience that he had run after her, and he did feel better for having tried; but as he walked he was troubled by the inadequacy of his parents' response—and his own, for what had he planned to do when he found her?

Now, as color returned to leaf and branch around him, he considered what Emmy had done, and the decision it had forced on him. Whether she and he returned to their home again, they could never again be the daughter and son he had always imagined they were. He and Emmy stood apart from their parents now, and that meant they would have to stand together.

But they could only do that if he could find her. He and the lady Calandria May were now profoundly lost in the woods. Was Emmy going to creep back home after a cold night in the woods, finding him gone and no one to stand with against mother and father—and Castor and Turcaret? Jordan knew the consequences if a search party was called out, and if she was found alive and in good health: she would find the anger of the whole village aimed at her.

The first fingers of sunlight slanting through the treetops overhead told Jordan exactly which direction he and the lady were walking. They were going north-east.

"This is the wrong way," he said. "I knew walking was a bad idea. Who knows how far we've gone?"

"This is the right way," said the lady quietly. Her steps did not falter.

Jordan opened his mouth to object, then stopped himself. She knew they were going the wrong way. It had never been her intention to return to the manor. And somehow, she had mesmerized him into following her. The last few hours were a blur; and even has he realized this, he continued to follow her, step by step.

He stopped walking. "What did you do to me?"

She turned, her face serious. "I need your service, Jordan Mason. Last night, you were too wrapped up in your search to listen to what I had to say. Now, in the light of morning, perhaps we can talk like adults."

Morning light provided Jordan his first good look at the lady. Her oval face was beautiful and strong: her dark brows and the lines around her mouth spoke authority, while her soft skin and the delicate bones of her jaw opposed them with an impression of fragility.

"I'll make a deal with you," she continued. He stood still, glaring at her. May crossed her arms and sighed. "Look, I can save your sister from Turcaret. All I have to do is send a message to one of my people. She'll be safe."

Cautiously, Jordan stepped closer. "Why would you do that?"

"In return for your coming with me. And if you don't, then I don't send the message, my man doesn't find her, and Turcaret does; and you'll still come with me!" She turned abruptly, brushing leaves from her cloak. She glowered over her shoulder at him. "Consider her my hostage." She walked away.

Jordan was sore and stiff, and emotionally battered. "Why are you doing this?" he mumbled, as he followed her. "Because you have information I need," she said. "Very important information."

"I don't," he protested weakly.

"Come come," she said, her voice no longer smooth but peremptory. "If I promise to protect your sister, will you promise to come with me?"

"How do I know you can protect her?"

"Astute." She pointed through the trees to a brighter area. "Clearing there. We'll camp and catch up on our sleep." She waved him ahead of her. "You know about the war between Ravenon and the Seneschals?"

He nodded. "I work for Ravenon," she said. "Right now I do, anyhow. I'm searching for a renegade from the Ravenon forces."

"But the battle," he protested. "They were all killed by the Winds."

"Not all of them. I'm not alone on this journey, Jordan, and Turcaret is in debt to my people. He'll do as I say, at least for such a small matter as your sister."

She was probably lying, but it might do him good to let her think he was gullible. Meanwhile, he stumbled through the brush to an area where young, white birch trees thrust up through the ruined stumps of a very old fire.

May looked up at the open sky. "Six o'clock," she said matter-of-factly. "Well, do we have a deal?"

"Yes," he said. He resolved to escape later, as she slept. She was not of Castors' family. She had no real hold over him unless he decreed it.

"Good." She kicked at an old log, judging how decayed it was, and sat in the single ray of amber sunlight that made its way almost horizontally through their clearing. Little wisps of her black hair floated up, gleaming in the light. "You weren't well prepared when you left the house last night," she said. Jordan had nothing other than his clothes and the lantern that had banged against his hip for the last few hours. He looked down at himself emotionlessly, then around at the soft moss and wild flowers that had taken over the ground. The need to sleep was overpowering.

"Go ahead," she said. Reaching up, she unclipped her cloak and held it out to him. "It's still cold, cover yourself with that. I'm going to go send word about your sister."

He took the cloak. "What's to stop me running away while you're away doing that? Are you going to tie me up?"

"I'll send the message from here." Uncomprehending, Jordan knelt down, then let himself topple sideways onto a mat of vivid green moss and tiny, finely-etched ferns. He started to draw the cloak over himself, but was asleep before he finished the motion.

Calandria administered a sedative shot to the youth. Probably not necessary, judging by his condition, but she didn't want to take any chances.

She sat back, and let the exhaustion she'd walled off these last few hours wash through her. Finding Mason last night had been unbelievable luck. His disappearance, which she had been trying to arrange for days, would now be seen as misadventure, a family tragedy to be sure, but unlikely to be caused by foul play. Because search parties would be out in force by noon, however, she'd had to get him as far away from the village as possible, and chose the deepest uninhabited forest to hide them.

She would program herself for three hours' sleep. But first, she had to adhere to her part of the bargain. She had no idea if such a bargain would help with the boy, but it was worth trying; and he needn't know that, as soon as she learned the trouble his sister was in, Calandria had resolved to do what she could about it.

Closing her eyes, she activated her Link. "Axel," she subvocalized. Spots of color floated in front of her eyes, then coalesced into the word CALLING.

"Cal?" His voice sounded pure and strong in her head, as it had on the several occasions they'd talked last night. She had been in touch with Axel Chan from the moment she found Mason on the trail. If the youth had gotten away from her, Axel would have scooped him up.

"What's your status, Cal? I read you as ten kilometers northeast. Still have Mason?"

"Yes. But I have a job for you, to help cover our tracks."

"Go ahead."

She told him about her arrangement with Jordan. Axel grunted once or twice as she spoke, but made no other comment. "Think you can take care of her, Axel? Keeping her safe from yourself too, I might add."

"Cal!" He sounded hurt. "I like 'em experienced, you should know that. Yeah, she's safe, as soon as I find her. What about you?"

"I'm taking Maso east and then north. There's a manse located about twenty-five kilometers from here, we'll make for that first. Then west again. What say we rendezvous at the Boros manor in one week?"

"Unless you get Armiger's location first, right?"

"Exactly."

"Will do. I'll call you as soon as I get the girl."

"Good. Bye."

The connection went dead, but Calandria did not open her eyes. She accessed her skull computer, and told it to initiate a scan of the area. "Check for morphs," she told it.

Gradually, from left to right, a ghost landscape appeared behind her closed eyelids. The scan was registering all the evidence of the Winds in this vicinity; mostly, it showed lines like the ghosts of trees, and the pale undulating sheet of the ground. But here and there, bright oblongs and snake-shapes indicated the third of Ventus' divisions of life—the mecha, distinct from the ordinary flora and fauna.

The scan showed evidence of a morph about three kilometers south of her, but it was moving away. Still, that was a bit close for comfort. She hoped it hadn't heard her transmission to Axel.

She opened her eyes. The scan had shown a very small mechal life form nearly at her feet. She squatted and shuffled leaves aside until she spotted it, a nondescript bug form.

Watching it crawl brought a strange sense of betrayal to mind, as though the world around her were somehow fake. It wasn't—but of all the planets she had been to, Ventus was somehow the oddest. Maida had been a world of glaciers and frozen forests; Birghila was enwrapped in lava seas, with skies of flame; and Hsing's people lived on a strip of artificial land hovering in tidal stress thousands of kilometers above the planet itself. But Ventus seemed so like Earth; it lulled the visitor, so that when you ran into a morph, or a desal, or witnessed the serene passage of a vagabond moon or the buzz and smoke of mecha life forms devouring the bedrock, a kind of supernatural unease was awakened. She'd felt it when she first arrived, and watching that little bug, knowing the earth and air were full of nanotechnology as thickly as with life, made the prospect of lying down to sleep here unpleasant. The sooner she accomplished her purpose and left Ventus behind, the better she'd feel.

There was no indication that any of the nano around her was aware of her. It should have been; this was the greatest puzzle of Ventus, why the Winds did not acknowledge the presence of the humans who had created them. It seemed to have become a small hobby of Axel's to discover why, but Calandria was merely grateful she could pass unseen.

She checked once more to make sure the morph was really heading the other way. Then she lay down on the damp earth next to Jordan, and compelled herself to sleep.

Jordan awoke in another place, and his hands were on fire.

He was screaming. For a moment he thought he was in the sky again, because he was surrounded by flame—orange leaping sheets of it to all sides, a smouldering carpet underfoot, and blue licking tongues above his head. But he stumbled against a post, and the fires around him shook and long tears ripped through them. The flaming walls of the tent he was in began to collapse.

For some reason Jordan didn't feel the pain, though he saw flame licking up from his hands, the backs of which were black and bubbling. And he could hear himself scream, only it wasn't his voice. It was the worst sound he had ever heard.

The tent pole snapped, and the broken bottom half scraped up his side. He stumbled, flailing his arms wildly as, in a strange spiral fall, the heavy burning fabric of the tent came down on him. The impact, as if he were enfolded in an elemental's arms, brought him to his knees. He breathed smoke and could no longer scream. His throat spasmed.

From somewhere he heard voices shouting. Men. He was pulled to and fro violently, and he heard the ring of swords being unsheathed. Blows all about. And the arms and chest of the elemental branded him, burned away his hair, stripped his skin, pressed against his raw muscles in a hideous, intimate massage.

The cloth over his face was torn free. He tried to blink; could see with one eye; watched bright blades held by desperate men tear at the burning canvas. But although his mouth was open, he could not breathe.

Then he was free. He staggered to his feet, straining, arms lifted to grasp at the sky itself, as if he were trying to climb the air. Jordan heard a deep clicking breath escape from inside himself. He caught a glimpse of men standing in a semicircle, expressions of horror or grim calculation on their faces. They wore military jackets and turbaned metal caps; one or two held muskets. Behind them was a green field crowded with tents.

He heard a deep voice say, "He is dead."

He mouthed the words. Then he died.

§

Jordan struggled to awake. He reached blindly hoping to find the headboard of his bed; he felt cloth. That jolted his eyes open. Was he enshrouded in canvas? But no, it was a leaf-green cloak he pulled away from his face.

He arched his back with the effort to breathe. Rolling back, he blinked up at a ceiling of pale leaves, blue sky and white cloud beyond them. He heard himself gasping.

He tried to sit up, but it was as if someone very heavy were sitting on his chest; he struggled halfway up, and collapsed back, his arms out at his sides, hands up to grab the air. For a few seconds, he struggled to just breathe.

This wasn't the nightmare of fire and death, but it was no better. He wanted to be in his bed, awaking to an ordinary day. The curtain wall wasn't patched yet, and what was the work gang going to think if he didn't turn up for work? He desperately longed to be there, digging at the mortar.

When his breathing settled down, he concentrated on raising his right arm. It moved like a leaden object, hand flopping. He brought it across his chest, and vainly tried to roll over. What was wrong with him? His body had never betrayed him like this before.

His head fell to the side. A meter away, a woman slept on her side, hands folded in front of her as though in prayer. Seeing her, Jordan knew what was wrong—or at least why. The witch had paralyzed him so he wouldn't run away. She intended some evil for him, that was certain.

He moaned, and her eyelids twitched. Suddenly more afraid of being helpless with her awake, he held his breath. His vision began to grey after a few moments, and he started gasping again. She took no notice.

He was trapped, his choice either to be awake in a nightmare reality where his family was lost—or to be asleep and open his eyes in an inferno. He whimpered, and shut his eyes, and the very act of doing so propelled him into a dizzying spin that ended in unconsciousness.

Calandria awoke refreshed. She was on her side facing the boy, who was sprawled awkwardly as though he'd been fighting with her cloak. The sun was higher overhead and the morning was warming up nicely. She sat up, brushing leaves and bits of bark from her cheek, and smiled. The air was fresh and the sounds of the forest relaxing. Her job was going very well. Feeling lighthearted, she cleaned herself up, rolled the boy into a more comfortable position, and set about making a small fire. When that was going to her satisfaction, she rooted through her pouches, considering the rations situation. They would need more than the concentrated foods she had on her. Best reserve those for an emergency.

The Mason boy would be asleep for a while. Meantime, she would get them dinner.

First, she sat in full lotus, closed her eyes and scanned the vicinity. There were rabbits on the other side of the clearing. They were keeping an eye on her, and she would never be able to run them down. Luckily she wouldn't need to.

Fluidly, she moved from the lotus position into a crouch. From her belt she drew the pieces of a compound bow. She put it together quietly, strung it and reaching in another pocket, drew out one of a number of coiled threads. These had an arrowhead on one end and feathers on the other, but were limp as a string. She unrolled the one she'd selected and gave it a whipping yank. Immediately it snapped straight and stiff.

Armed now, Calandria crept very slowly over the log next to Mason, under the canopy of a young pine, and into a nest of rushes by a stagnant puddle where midges hovered. She could see the dome of ferns under which the rabbits were eating. They were invisible to normal sight, but by closing her eyes and scanning she could pick them up easily.

Eyes closed, she straightened slowly and drew the bow. A moment to aim, battling the urge to open her eyes, and then she let fly. A thin squeal sounded from across the clearing.

She walked over the uneven ground and flipped back the canopy of ferns. Her rabbit lay twitching, well impaled. She smiled, and broke down the bow while she waited for it to stop kicking.

"Transmission," said a voice in her head.

Calandria smiled. "Go ahead, Axel."

"Got her. She was hiding near a brook a few hundred meters inside the forest. Seems to have been one of those old kids' forts. Scan picked her up just in time—there's a morph hanging around here, and it had located her too. Now that I have her, what do I do?"

"Hire her."

"What?"

"Axel, she's compromised where she is. She may be in a position to embarrass Castor or Turcaret, which makes her vulnerable. She'll get no help from her family. Best to make her independent of them for a while. Designate her Ravenon's postmistress for this area. She can handle dispatches between the Ravenon couriers. She's of age, and we see women handling positions like that all the time. It's a good chance for her, because it's a light job and won't last more than a year or two. Once the war's over, she'll be able to move right back into her community, because she'll have been there all along. Meanwhile, she's independent of her family, and Castor won't touch her because she's one of ours."

"Yeah. I see it. So you want I should brazenly walk into Castor's place and install her?"

"Why not? See if there's a house you can buy for her. And send a dispatch to Ravenon to open up a route here."

"They might not do that."

"Doesn't matter. It's appearances that count right now. We've got the cash, and the seals of authority, we might as well use them." She watched the rabbit kick one last time and go still. She reached down and picked it up by the arrow through its belly.

"Sounds pretty complicated, Cal."

She smiled. "Just curb your tongue and your appetites, Axel, and pretend you really do work for Ravenon. The indignant knight, discovering a cowering maiden in the dawn light. Make yourself legendary. Isn't that why you came on this expedition?"

He hmmphed. "You make it sound like a bad thing." She laughed. "What about your kid?" he added.

"Asleep. I'll see what I can get out of him today. Maybe knowing his sister's safe will make him more reasonable."

"Reasonable—" Axel bit back on whatever he was going to say. "Treat him gently, Cal." He broke the connection.

She dropped the rabbit by Jordan's feet and sat down on the log to contemplate him. He looked strong enough. Whatever did Axel mean?

Gently. She frowned down at the smooth skin of her hand, matched it against the mossy bark of the log. She was as gentle as water, she knew. It was only that today, and with regard to this youth, she was as purposeful as a river in flood.

She went to work skinning the rabbit.

Jordan awoke to the smell of cooking. The lady had prepared a stout meal for him. He avoided her eyes as he ate. She watched him expressionlessly for a while, then said, "You sister is safe."

He sat up, eyeing her suspiciously. "Tell me."

She explained that she had gone to a nearby road and intercepted a courier she knew was scheduled to pass. She'd told him of the girl's plight, and he went in search of her. Later, he'd sent another runner back with news she'd been found.

"How could all that happen in just a few hours?" he wondered sullenly.

"You needn't believe me. Axel said he found her in some kind of kid's fort, a hundred or so meters in the forest. Does that sound familiar?"

Jordan looked down. It did. He hadn't thought of the place in his own rush; the other kids had used it more than he, because of his fear of the forest. Emmy probably had more memories of it than he.

That meant he'd passed her almost immediately last night.

He ate silently for a while, his mind paralyzed in a catalog of "if-only's". Finally he said, "I want to see her."

"When we've finished with our job," she said.

"What job?" He felt a faint spark of hope; she hadn't suggested before that she was going to let him go at all.

"You have to help me find the man I'm after," she said. "Armiger. Do you know him?"

"No. Why would I?"

"He knows you." She leaned forward, squinting a bit as she appeared to examine him over the small campfire. "He visited you years ago, and left something of his behind. In there." She pointed at his forehead.

Jordan reared back, eyes wide. Was there some kind of thing in his head? He pictured a worm in an apple, and touched his temple with suddenly trembling fingers.

This had to have some connection with the visions. Was that thing their source? But if it had been there for years, he would have had visions for years, wouldn't he?

"You're crazy," Jordan said. "There's nothing in my head but me. Plus the headache you gave me!" he added.

She scowled, but he'd seen her do that before, and she hadn't beaten him then, so she probably wouldn't now. She stood up, stretching her slim arms over her head. "We'll figure this out later," she said. "Put out the fire, will you? We have some walking to do."

He sat obstinately for a few seconds, until she fell out of her stretch and snapped, "I can carry you if I have to. You'll be safe, and you'll see your sister again, but not until I'm done with you."

Reluctantly, he moved to obey-for now.

Jordan crashed through the trees, his heart pounding. There was no way he could run quietly in this brush. It didn't matter anyway; he knew she was right behind him.

The first time he'd tried to escape, he had slipped away while Lady May was engaged in her toilet behind a bush. She had caught up with him half a kilometer away. That time, she had simply stood in front of him, and frowned fiercely, her hands on her hips. He had tried to laugh it off, and followed her for a while. It was obvious she was faster than he was, though, and he no longer believed there would be a moment when he she slept while he did not.

So, when he spotted a stout but dead branch right in his way, Jordan had reached up with his free hand and snapped it off. May did not look around.

He had tried to transcend his exhaustion, summoning what strength he could behind the blow that he landed on the back of her head. She fell, and he was free.

His legs were like jelly from walking all night over uneven ground, and now, only minutes after he struck her, he was only able to stagger from tree to tree, following no path but only trying to get away.

Suddenly his legs went out from under him and he was face down in the leaves. "Huff!" Lady May squatted on his back, and twisted his right arm painfully behind him.

She spat some word in a language he didn't recognize, then said "Nice try," in her slow measured way. Her voice was full of menace.

"Let me go, you witch!" he shouted into the dirt. "Either kill me or let me up, because I'm not going with you! Let me find Emmy! You took me away from her!"

He heard her muttering angrily in that strange language. She said, "You damn near broke my head, boy."

"Too bad I didn't!" He tried to struggle, but she had him completely pinned.

She sighed. "Okay, I guess I had it coming." Without loosing her hold, she left his back in a crouch and rolled him over. Her free hand rubbed the grit away from his face; his wrist was still pinned at an awkward angle. If he moved to much, he was sure it would break.

She let go of Jordan's wrist. A trickle of blood down the center of her forehead lent her a fearsome aspect, as it seemed to point at her eyes, which were narrowed accusingly at Jordan.

"I have done you a great disservice, Jordan. I know that. But you must understand, it is a matter of life and death, for everyone we know, your family included. Your friends will call you a hero when we're through. And I should only need you for a few days. Please trust me about your sister. Will you please wait a day or so, until I can give you proof that she is safe? All this running is doing neither of us any good."

He thought about it. "I will wait for a day."

She nodded wearily, rubbing her forehead, and winced. "Then get up. We only need to walk a little more today, I'm tired too. A rest will do us both good."

Soon she was smiling in her enigmatic way, asking him to name the various trees and birds they passed, and letting him pause for breath when he wanted. Her anger was swift and volatile, and though he had hurt her, she fell out of anger quickly. He expected the unforgiving smolder he had always seen in his parents, and had feared because he'd always felt each bad thing he did diminished their love for him permanently; this woman had flashed into fury, dragged him back to her invisible path, and then forgot her anger. He hated her for what she had done to him, but she seemed incapable of hating him, and this confused him. He decided to be insulted by it.

The countryside they passed through was deeply forested by black oaks that trailed moss, muffling the birdsong. The forest floor was bathed in a secretive green twilight, broken by dust motes sparkling in infrequent shafts of sunlight. The air was warm, but held the expectant fullness of late summer, as if Life were resting. They were far from the habitations of men.

When darkness fell Lady May decided to camp again. Jordan was worn out, and grateful for the respite. She made a quick fire and roasted some more rabbit, and he ate his and fell asleep immediately. His mind had been going all day, running up against walls of fact and memory, and it was mental exhaustion more than physical that put him under.

The last thing he was aware of was Lady May watching him with something like sympathy in her eyes as she languidly fed the fire.

They slit open his belly and dumped out his organs. He did not protest. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling of the tent. Muttered voices all around; the sharp tang of incense; and outside, professional mourners wailed hypocritically.

The two men who were preparing his body were elderly, their long grey hair tied back with strands of hair from the corpses they'd worked on. They wore black velvet robes sewn with many pockets, and from these they produced a variety of vials filled with noisome chemicals. These they dripped on and into his body, and painted over his skin with brushes.

The ceiling was aplay with shadows of underworld spirits, from statues placed around the perimeter of the tent. The shadows elongated and bent, shortened and faded, as if the spirits were waging a war with some unseen enemy across the amber heaven of the canvas.

A metal handle clanked; the bucket containing his blood was taken out of the tent, to be burnt. One of the attendants bent over him, holding a mallet and a long spike with a T-shaped head. Placing the spike under his chin, the man hammered it up, nailing his tongue against his palate, piercing the palate and the nasal palate and imbedding the iron deep into his brain. The T held his slack jaw shut.

"Speak no more," said the attendant, and putting down the hammer he nodded to someone at the door of the tent.

Six men entered, looking solemn. Some stared at him; some looked everywhere else. They lifted the pallet he lay on and he passed out from under the sky of canvas, to the sky of night.

Diadem, the only moon of Ventus, was up and glittering like a tear. The rest of the sky was clear and splashed with stars, rank on rank, gauze on gauze of finest points of white. The river of the galaxy ran across the zenith. The human mourners fell silent, leaving only cricket sounds that seemed to come from the stars themselves.

The night air lessened the smell of burnt meat that had pervaded the tent.

Torches to the left, right, ahead and behind. Spirals of grey moved up to dissolve among the stars. Murmuring voices and the sound of shuffling footsteps, as he was carried out across the plain toward a dark hill.

The hillside rose steeply, blocking the stars. The torches lit a deep cut in its side, where a bare rock face had been smoothed, maybe centuries ago. Deep letters were carved over a slotted doorway uncovered by a huge stone slab. The slab had been tilted to the side, and now leaned heavily on a scaffold made from catapult parts. Rough soldiers sat on the scaffold, passing bottles back and forth. They watched impassively as he passed under them.

Another sky drew overhead, this one of yellow stone. The ceiling was centimeters away. The deeply pitted sandstone was painted in abstract clouds of grey and black by the passage of many torches. The smoke from those burning now swirled up and around him, settling into a layer of trembling heat.

Around a corner, and now he was being carried down a steep flight of steps. His bearers spoke back and forth as they lowered him carefully. Ten meters down, then twenty, into a region of dead air and penetrating cold where squat pillared halls led away to either side. His bearers moved more quickly now, and the torchlight flickered off an uneven ceiling and dark niches in the walls where objects, long or round, were piled.

He was lowered to the floor in front of a black opening, and unceremoniously slid in. The ceiling here was just above his nose. Bricks thudded down just behind his head. What little light there was disappeared, and of sound, only that of stones being mortared into position. After a few minutes, even that ceased.

There had been no name carved above the niche. So, after a while, he raised one hand, slid it across his opened chest, knuckles scraping the stone, and felt behind his head. There, in a band of moist mortar, he wrote the letters:

ARMIGER.

Jordan sat up screaming. Calandria was at his side instantly, holding his shoulders while he shuddered.

"What is it? A dream?"

"Him, him again—I saw him—" He seemed not to know where he was.

"Saw who?"

"Armiger!"

Calandria lowered him back onto his bedroll, and when he closed his eyes and drifted off again, she smiled.

4

In the morning he awoke feeling sore and frustrated. He expected Lady May to raise the subject of his dream last night, but she didn't, as if daylight were not the proper time for such things. She did seem even more cheerful than she had yesterday, though. When Jordan awoke she had already hunted, for there were two pheasants near his head, which she indicated he should tie to his belt. She had also gathered several handfuls of mushrooms and some other roots he recognized as edible. At least they wouldn't starve any time soon.

"Come," was all she said, and they set out again.

He was content not to talk for most of the morning, but the warm sunlight and the shared exertion of the walk was bound to loosen his tongue eventually. She might have been counting on this. Even so, he cast about for a long time for a subject other than the dark vision he'd had last night, finally asking, "Why are we going this way?"

Lady May looked back, arching an eyebrow in apparent amusement. "It speaks," she said. "That was a question you should have asked yesterday, Mason."

He glared at the ground.

"We're avoiding the people who are searching for you. I had my man say he'd seen you going south, but even so they may search north. But not this far into the forest."

"Did Emmy hear that?" he asked sharply. "She thinks I ran away?"

"I don't know what he told her," she said. "He's a compassionate enough man, if a bit of a libertine. I'm sure he wouldn't hurt her by telling her that, if he thought he could trust her with the truth."

Jordan chewed on that. Just how much could Emmy be trusted with something like that? He had to admit he didn't know; she kept secrets pretty well, he thought, but what about the secret abduction of her brother? It made more sense to let her believe the lie everybody else had heard.

In which case she would believe he had abandoned her.

After a while he asked, "How can you know where we are? You say you aren't a morph, but you're not using a compass or anything. And you can see in the dark." And you're pretty strong, but he didn't say that.

They were walking through an area of new growth now. Slender willows and white birch stood in startled lines all around, and the sun had full access to the ground. Very high in the sky, mountainous white clouds were piling up over one another.

Lady May squinted up at them. "Storm coming," she said.

"What are we going to do when it rains? We'll get soaked."

"Yes." She shrugged. "We should be under shelter in time."

"How do you know that?"

Lady May sighed. "It's rather difficult to explain," she said. "And I really didn't want to get into it yet. But you and I are going to have to make an agreement to work together, I mean really work together, and I'm going to tell you some things and you're going to tell me some. Understand?"

He nodded. He didn't want to talk about Armiger; even in daylight, he vividly remembered the embalming tent and the slot in the hillside, and the disturbing implication that he had been looking through the eyes of a corpse.

Calandria debated how much to tell the youth. There was no law as such against revealing galactic news to the isolated and backward people of this world. At worst, the various anthropological groups that studied Ventus would be furious at her for muddying their data.

There was little, however, that Jordan Mason could do with anything she might tell him about the wider world. He was a prisoner of this place, like all his countrymen. There was no prospect of rescue, or escape, for the people of Ventus; compassion dictated that she not even hint that Mason's life could be other than it was.

She was going to have to tell him something, though. It might as well be the truth, as far as he was able to understand it.

They skirted the edge of an escarpment for a while. This path gave a great view of the endless, rolling forest, and of the towering thunderheads that were bearing down on them. Calandria sniffed at the air, feeling it change from dry and still to charged, anticipatory. There was no way they were going to get to the manse in time.

It was ironic, she thought. In idle time before landing she had stood at the window of her ship, the Desert Voice, and contempated this world. Gazing down at Ventus, the human eye lost itself in jewel-fine detail. Her eye had followed the sweep of the terminator from pole to pole, gaining a hint of the varieties of dusk of which this world was capable. Sombre polar greys melted into speckled brown-green forests, along a knee of coastline reddened by local weather, and in a quick leap past equatorial waters her gaze could touch on this or that island, each drawn in impossibly fine detail and aglow with amber, green and blue. Each, if she watched long enough, summoned into night.

She had wondered then if the original colonists had felt the way she did now. When they first beheld Ventus and knew that a chapter of their life was ending, and a new one beginning, had they felt the same unease? And the anticipation?

She had tried to picture what their imaginations brought to the pretty little islands that had caught her eye. Standing above this canvas, each must have painted it with his or her own colors, drawing the boundaries of new states and provinces. It would be irresistible, at a new world, to wonder what the forest looked like from underneath; how the rain smelled; what it would be like to sleep under the stars here.

At that time the skies weren't as empty as they now appeared. The Winds were still visible, like gossamer winged creatures dancing above the atmosphere. All frequencies were alive with their singing and recitative. They were almost as beautiful as the planet itself — as intended — and they took human shapes to communicate with the colony ships. This was expected; they had been designed that way.

The Winds sang, and danced in slow orbits in time to their singing. In those last moments before the nightmare began, the colonists' eyes must have beheld a perfect world, an exact embodiment of their dreams.

Thunder grumbled. It was so different when you were down here, she knew now. The invulnerability of space was a dream. Calandria found her steps quickening, not so much because of the coming rain, but because once again she was reminded that Ventus was not the natural environment it appeared to be.

They rounded another arc of escarpment, and there it was, right where the Desert Voice had said it would be: a manse. Jordan hadn't spotted the long rooftop yet, obscured as it was by trees. Calandria smiled at the prospect of warmth and comfort the manse promised.

Jordan was ignoring the view. In fact, he seemed to be sniffing at something. She raised an eyebrow, and cleared her throat. "What are you doing?"

"Death," he said. "Something's dead. Can't you smell it?"

Damn if he wasn't right. She should have been more alert. Jordan had walked several steps off the deerpath, and now gingerly parted a spray of branches. "Lady May, look at this."

She looked over his shoulder. In a dark, branch-shaded hollow of loam and pine needles lay a giant bloated object. It looked like nothing so much as a big bag of mangy fur. At the top was a kind of flower of flesh, which, she realized uneasily, had teeth in it. As if...

"What is that?"

"Looks like it used to be a bear," whispered Jordan. Its mouth had folded back to become a kind of red-lipped flower atop the bag of flesh, and its eyes had receded into the skin. She looked in vain for signs of its four limbs; save for the vestigial head, it was little more than a sack of fur now.

A sack in which something was moving.

She stepped back. For once, Mason seemed unfazed. In fact, he looked back, caught her obvious distress, and grinned.

"A morph's been here, maybe two, three days ago," said Jordan. "It found this bear, and it's changed it. I don't know what's going to hatch out of it, but... looks like several things. Badgers maybe, or skunks? Whatever the morph thought there was a lack of in this part of the woods."

Of course. She'd been briefed on morphs, she knew what they were capable of. It was a very different thing to witness the result.

"They'll come out full-grown," said Jordan as he backed away from the clearing.

Thunder crashed directly overhead. Calandria looked out over the escarpment in time to see a solid-looking wall of rain coming at them.

"Come on!" she shouted. "It's only a little farther."

Jordan looked at the rain and laughed. "Why hurry?" he asked. "We'll be wet in two seconds."

He was right—in moments, her hair was plastered down on her head, and cold trickles ran down her back. Still, Calandria hurried them away from the disturbing thing that had once been a bear. They continued to skirt the top of the escarpment for a hundred meters, then came out near what might normally have been a good deer-path down the slope; it was a torrent of muddy water.

"What's that?" Jordan pointed. Perhaps two kilometers away, warm lights shone through the shifting grey of the rain.

"Our destination. Come," she said, and stepped onto the downward path. Her feet went out from under her, and Calandria found herself plummeting down the hillside in a flood.

Jordan watched Calandria May get to her feet at the bottom of the hill. "I'm soaked!" she shrieked, laughing. It was the first time he'd heard her laugh in any genuine way.

She was a hundred meters below him, with no obvious way back up. He debated turning and running—but he had no idea where to go. Doubtless she'd be able to track him down, even if he got a half-hour's head start. He sighed, and started picking his way down the hill.

About halfway down he took a long look at the lights burning in the distance, and felt a chill greater than the rain settle on him. He ran the last few meters a bit recklessly, but arrived next to May still on his feet.

"Don't you know that's a Wind manse?" he said, pointing at the distant lights. "If we go in there, we'll be killed!"

She had that serene, unconcerned look about her again. "No we won't. I have protection," she said. Ahead of them, tall stately red maples stood in even ranks. The underbrush was sparse, as if someone regularly cut it back.

Jordan shook his head. They jogged through tall wet grass and into the shelter of the trees. Calandria pointed to a brighter area ahead. "Clearing. I guess there's extensive grounds around this one."

She led him on. After a minute he said, "So you've been in other manses?"

"Yes. I have a way of getting in." She stopped and rooted around in one of her belt pouches. "This." She brought out a thick packet of some gauzy material, which she shook out into a square about two meters on a side. "We wear this over us, like we're playing Ghost."

She held it out to him and he touched it. The material was rather rough, and glittered like metal. It crackled a bit when it folded.

"Stand close." Reluctantly, Jordan did so. She pulled the sheet over both their heads. It was easy to see through, but a little awkward to walk with, as it tended to bell stiffly out. They had to take handfuls of the stuff and hold it close. "Put your arm around my waist," she directed him when it became apparent they were not walking in rhythm. Jordan did so with the reluctance of someone touching a snake.

He forgot his wariness when they came out from under the trees. His hand tightened around her and he gasped. Calandria stopped as well, and smiled.

The forest was cleared here in a perfect rectangle almost a kilometer long. They stood at one end of a green, clipped lawn dotted here and there with artfully twisted trees. Square pools of water trembled now under the onslaught of the rain; under clear skies they would be perfect mirrors. Softened by the haze of rain, made shadowless by the cloud, a great mansion rose up at the far end of the lawn. Its pillars and walls were pure white, the roofs of grey slate. The windows were tall and paned in glass, which lit up every few moments with reflected lightning. Behind some of the windows, warm amber light shone.

Jordan indicated the lit windows with his chin. "They're home. How can we get in when the Winds are home?"

"They're not home." She nodded sagely. "That's part of the secret. The Winds never visit these places. You have a lot to learn, Jordan."

"Everybody knows the Winds live here," he said sullenly.

"I know they don't. You may have a lot to learn, but you are going to learn it, never fear. Let's call this a good first lesson for you. This way." She stepped onto the lawn and led him along the edge. "Wouldn't want to be hit by lightning on the way in," she said.

There were no horses tethered at the front of the huge building. Though light glowed from its windows, Jordan could see no movement within. The marble steps leading up to the tall doors were well swept, but there were no servants visible. He hung back as May trotted up the steps; she took his arm and pulled him gently but inexorably after her.

He held his breath as she reached out to the door handle and turned it. She pushed the door open, letting a fan of golden light out into the blue-grey afternoon. "Come," she said, and stepped in.

He hesitated. Nothing happened; there was no sound from within. Reluctantly, he put his head around the doorjamb.

"I'm soaked!" Lady May yanked the water-gemmed sheet off and tossed it down. "Look at this." Her legs and backside were covered in mud.

Jordan stared past her uneasily. It was warm here, and dry. Light came from a great crystalline chandelier overhead. That meant there must be servants to tend the lights. They were bound to show up at any moment.

"Close the door please, Jordan." He eased in, closed the portal but kept his back to it.

This place was bigger than Castor's mansion. They stood in a bow fronted vestibule at least two stories tall. Two wide marble staircases curved up to either side. Ahead was an arch leading to darkness. There were tall wooden doors at the foot of both staircases. Everything looked clean and straight, but the style was ancient, as if he'd stepped into one of the etchings in his father's book of architectural mannerism.

He looked up past the chandelier. Gold arabesques over the windows. The ceiling was painted with some torrid mythological scene, framed at the edges by ornate gold guilloches.

Lady May followed his gaze. "Derivative," she said. "Venus restraining Mars."

Jordan had heard of neither of them. He looked down. They were both dripping on the polished marble floor. Suddenly horrified at how wet, muddy and disreputable he must look, he said, "We have to get out of here."

"Find the lavatory," she said.

"No, what are you saying? They'll catch us!" He fought a rising tide of hysteria, which clicked in his throat.

"Jordan," she said sharply. "There is no one here. No one to take notice of us, anyway, as long as we keep this with us." She held up the silvery gauze square. "It disrupts their sensors."

He shook his head. "The chandelier—"

"—needs no tending," she said. "And is tended by nobody. There are things here, and I suppose they're servants of the winds, but they're just mechal beings. You know mecha?"

He nodded guardedly. "Flora, fauna and mecha. Like the stone mother. But those are just beasts."

"And this is like a hive for some of them. It looks like a human house for reasons it would take hours to explain. It's not a Wind place; just a mecha house."

"Then why are people killed who try to enter?"

She sighed. "The same reason people are killed when they enter a bear's den. They protect their territory."

"Oh."

"Come on. Let's find the lavatory." She picked up the gauze, half wrapped it around herself, and walked dripping up the stairs. Jordan hurried after.

The halls upstairs were carpeted luxuriantly. Lady May indifferently trailed mud footsteps through the red pile. Jordan walked in her footsteps so as not to soil it even further. His heart was pounding.

Lady May found a huge marble-sheathed room full of fixtures and appliances somewhat familiar to Jordan, but more ornate and absurdly clean. As she entered light sprang up from hidden lamps near the ceiling. Jordan started and stepped back, but she ignored the indication that their presence was known, and went to a large black tub. "Aaah," she sighed, letting her cloak slide off her shoulders. "I need this." She began let water into the tub from somewhere.

"You've been here before," he accused.

"No. This is just a very familiar building plan." She began to unlace her shirt. "I am about to bathe," she said in her slow drawl. "We must both remain close to the sensor sheet, so do not leave the room; but I would appreciate it if you turned you back while I disrobe."

Embarrassed, Jordan turned around. "What you might do," she said, "is clean my clothes for me. I'll do the same for you while you bathe." A sodden bundle of cloth and leather hit the marble next to Jordan with a splat. "Just dump the cloth in that hopper there, and put the leather in the one beside it for dry-cleaning. The boots can go in there too. The mecha will clean them for us."

"Why would they do that?" he asked as he went to comply.

"The mecha keep this house for inhabitants just like us. They have ever since the beginning of the world. The manses were to be the estates of the first settlers here, as well as libraries and power centers. Their tenants never arrived—or at any rate, they didn't recognize them when they did arrive. So they wait. But they're more than happy to fulfil their household functions as long as they don't think we're intruders."

"And this cloth somehow fools them?"

"Yes. It's a machine." He heard her stepping into the water. "Aaah. Do you know machines?"

"Yes. Machines are a kind of mecha."

"Other way around, actually. Mecha is a kind of machine."

He puzzled over that, as he sat down cross-legged facing the still-open door. The hallway was dark; he heard the sound of rain tumbling against distant windows.

"When we've bathed and eaten, Jordan, I will explain to you why I had to take you away from your family, and just what your dreams about Armiger mean."

"You know why I'm having them?"

"I do. And I can end them. If you cooperate. That's why I came to you."

"But—" he started to say for the tenth time that he knew nothing that could help her, but a sound from the hallway stopped him. He scrabbled backward on hands and knees. "What was that?" he whispered.

Lady May was sitting up in the tub, one arm across her breasts. Steam wreathed her. "Probably some mechal thing. Cleaning the carpet, I'll bet. Here, come close and get under the sheet." She drew it up from the floor and draped an end over herself.

Jordan hurried to comply. They could hear a delicate clinking sound now, like wine glasses tapping one another, and then a long slow sliding sound, like a rough cloth being drawn across the ground. Jordan was terrified, and huddled next to the tub. Lady May sank back under the water, just her face showing. The gauze fell into the water and made a flat floor across it.

Something moved in the doorway; Jordan held his breath, eyes wide. He thought he caught a glimpse of golden rods rising and falling, of glass spheres cradling reflected lightning, and then the thing was past, tinkling on down the hall.

He let his breath out in a whoosh. Lady May sighed, and her wet hand rose to clutch his shoulder. "You're safe, Jordan, much safer than you realize. Safer than you were in that village, after you started dreaming."

"I don't believe you," he said.

"Your worst enemy is yourself," she said, and her hand sank back again.

They ate well in a dining hall of royal proportions. Jordan had spent the most luxurious half hour he could ever recall bathing in the marble tub. His clothes were now clean and dry, and Lady May had lit a fire here in the hall, in a large hearth with stone gargoyles on the mantelpiece. It looked as though no one had ever lit a fire there before. Warmth against their backs, they contemplated the rain-streaked darkness of the windows, and Lady May told him the names of some of the people on the painted ceiling.

"The stories those paintings tell are traditional stories, older than Ventus itself."

"How can a tradition be older than the world?" he asked.

"Mankind is older than this world," she said in her measured, confident voice. "The Winds made Ventus for us to use, but then they rejected us. Have you never heard that story?"

"Yeah," he said, looking down at his plate. "We made the Winds, the Winds betrayed us and trapped us. They teach us that at chapel lessons." His fingers traced the perfect circle of the china; he was here, and alive, in a place of the Winds. "It always seemed very remote from real life."

"You're very lucky to be able to say that," she said. "Listen, when did you start to dream about Armiger?"

"A couple of days... a day before Emmy ran away, I think. Was it you who did that to me?"

Now it was her turn to pretend to examine her food. "Yes, but I had no idea it would be so traumatic for you. And it wasn't originally our plan to kidnap you this way. But let's go back a step or two. How do you think I was able to get you to dream about Armiger?"

"You said he put something in my head," he said. "But why should I believe that? I never felt it before. I think you put it there, that night."

"You believe what you want," she said with a smile. "Meanwhile, I'll tell you my version anyway. Armiger did put it there, probably six years ago, when he first arrived on this world." He looked over quickly. "Yes," she said, "Armiger is not from this world."

"What other world could there be?"

"We'll get to that," she said. "Armiger came from another world. And when he came to Ventus, he made you and a number of other people into his spyglasses. He could see through your eyes, hear through your ears, all these years."

Jordan suddenly lost his appetite. He put a hand to his forehead, thinking of all the minor shames and crimes of his youth.

Lady May went on indifferently. "He didn't care about you, or what you did, of course. He was looking for something."

"What?"

She sat back, her mobile face squinched into a speculative look. "Not sure. But we think he came here to conquer the Winds."

Jordan shot her the kind of look he reserved for Willam's less-successful jokes.

"Hmm. I guess it would sound crazy to you. Tell me, what specifically did you dream about Armiger?"

Any former reluctance he'd had about revealing his dreams was gone; Jordan now hoped May would be able to remove them, the faster the better he satisfied her. He began with the first dream, and she listened patiently as he described Armiger's death and burial.

"You remember him writing his name in the mortar? That was real, not an actual dream?" Jordan nodded; he felt he could tell these visions from dreams.

"Strange. He's faked his own death. I wonder why."

"Tell me what they mean!"

"Okay." Lady May turned her heavy wooden chair around to face the fire, and stuck out her boots. They listened as something clittered by in the outside hall, and her hand hovered near the protective gauze until it was gone. "In the first dream, you say you saw a great battle, which the Winds interrupted.

"If that was a true vision, he has been defeated here, just as he has in space. Maybe Armiger only just received a transmission telling him about the greater defeat off-world. You see, a little while ago a battle was fought among the stars. I was there. And I helped destroy a creature rather like the Winds. A thing that went by no name, only a number: 3340." Firelight caressed her features as she spoke. "This creature had enslaved an entire world, a place called Hsing. There are other worlds, Jordan. Other places than Ventus where men walk." He shook his head. "Well, anyway, 3340 has been destroyed. But some of his servants survive. One of these servants is Armiger.

"Armiger was sent here six years ago by 3340, who hoped to find a way to enslave the Winds, and thus take all of Ventus as its own. And Armiger sent out his machines to try to find the Achilles' heel—the secret vulnerability—of the Winds.

"I'm sure you know the Winds destroy all machines that are not of their own devising. They did this to Armiger's first probes. He tried hiding some probes in animals, but the morphs discovered them and took the probes out. But he had learned that the Winds do not change humans the way they do other life here. The morphs can kill, but they do not change people, do they? Only animals. So he realized he could hide his probes in people. And he did so. One of those people was you."

"I would remember," he protested.

"No, it was done in your sleep, using very small mecha. That's all the probe is, a mechal infection on your brain. Nanotech, we call it. And for six years he roamed Ventus, casting a wide net to learn as much as he can about this world. In order to learn how to conquer the Winds."

"You can't conquer the Winds," he said. "The idea is absurd. Armiger must not be very bright."

"Maybe, maybe not." She shrugged. "His master had enough power to spare to send him on a mission that had no guarantee of success. But what if he did find a way?"

She left the question hanging. Jordan stared at the fire, and tried to imagine the sovereign Winds bowing to another power, to the thing that had scratched its own name on the inside of its tomb.

"Armiger," Lady May said, "wanted to become god of this world. But he had a master, from whom all his power came. Armiger is only a spy, possibly an assassin. And he has learned that his master is now dead." She steepled her hands and glared into the fire. "So now what? Is he free to pursue the plan on his own? Your story suggests he's gone mad, but he may just be going to ground, dropping from sight, which would make sense if he suspected we were going to come after him."

Jordan blinked at her. This was too strange to question; he could not fit any of it into his understanding of the world.

Lady May seemed to sense his confusion. "The rest is simple," she said. "All 3340's agents are being hunted down and killed. Axel Chan and I have come to find Armiger, and destroy him. Destroy it; Armiger's not a human being like you and me."

"But he died."

"And you went on receiving from him after he died? He's not dead, although he might not realize it himself yet, if he has gone insane. When we came here, Axel and I could not discover Armiger, but we found you. And we found there was maybe a way to use you to find him. Our intention was to hire you away from your father, as an apprentice. I travelled with Turcaret for credibility's sake, to negotiate that with Castor. Castor would have none of it, though; maybe it was Turcaret poisoning his mind about your sister, he realized he couldn't shatter the whole family and chose Emmy. We were stuck until your sister ran into the woods. You see," she shot him a conspiratorial smile, "it was the perfect opportunity, and I really had no time to explain."

"So you made me dream."

"I'm not sure why that's happening. He seems to be broadcasting a signal to his eyes and ears. Trying to summon them home, maybe. A good happenstance, since we still can't track Armiger directly through your implants. But you can tell us where he is. Better and better."

"For you, maybe." He stood up and walked away from the fire, to peer out the rain-runneled window. Instead of telling him something he could make sense of, she'd prattled a tale of insanity. "You're telling me you're from the stars, too."

"I am." She laughed. "Oh, Jordan, I'm sorry we had to meet this way. Our intention was to hire you, and you were to receive all the benefits of our knowledge and skills. We were going to pay you better than in coin for your service, and you would return home equal to Castor or any of the monks in your wisdom. You see, we did plan to tell you something about the world you live in—the truth, not the myths you were raised on."

He heard her stand and approach. Close behind him, she said, "And I will still honor that intention. We have more to make up for now, but I promise you we will make it up. Money is the easiest thing; I can pay you in knowledge, and wisdom."

Jordan had lost the safety of his village and family. Calandria May had told him a tale which, in the normal course of things, would have sparked his imagination; it made a good tale, people up there in the sky, fighting nameless gods and stalking a demonic assassin across the plains and mountains of the world. Now, though, he could only shake his head dumbly, and try not to think at all.

For a while they stood looking out at the storm; when he glanced at Lady May again, her eyes were hooded, her carven features masklike. But she caught his eye and smiled, not with her usual harsh amusement, but with sympathy. In that moment she was beautiful.

"Let me show you something," she said.

She led him from the dining hall to another giant room. Though there was no fire, it was just as warm in here, almost too warm. Jordan had seen lights coming on as they entered other rooms, so he was ready when those strangely steady spots of illumination pinioned scattered armchairs and tables. He wasn't ready for the vista of the walls around them.

"Books!" Castor had a library, but it must amount to a twentieth of this bounty. The ornately decorated wooden shelves rose to three times his height, and they covered all the wall surface. "There must be thousands!"

"Yes," she said. "A tiny portion of the knowledge of the human race as of one thousand years ago—when Ventus was settled." She strolled along the shelves, trailing one hand along the spines. "Ah. Try this one." She pulled a thick volume out. "You can read, can't you?"

"A little." The book she handed him was well-made, leather bound and solid. It had a title written in letters he knew, but the words made no sense: Baedeker's Callisto, it said. He flipped the book open to a random page.

"What language is that?" she asked.

"Not sure..." He puzzled over the text, which was perfectly inscribed. Actually, he recognized a lot of the words, and with a bit of puzzling, he could make out what it said. "It's a description... of some place where you can eat?"

She looked over his shoulder. "Ah, yes, the Korolev restaurant strip. I don't think that exists any more, but the city of Korolev does." She flipped the page for him; Jordan found himself looking at a colorful map of roads and towns, all on a surface strewn with circular formations.

"This is a tourist guide," said Calandria. "For another world. It's written in an archaic version of your language. Now, why would the Winds have books? Aren't they omnipotent and all-knowing?"

"I... don't know."

"Books are for human readers," she said. "As are armchairs, and lamps. This manse was made for you, Jordan. But the makers and maintainers no longer know that."

He flipped to another page. This one held a photograph, of much better quality than those hanging in Castor's great hall. It showed a white landscape under a black sky. There was a moon in the sky, but it looked all wrong: orange, banded and huge.

"There is much to the world," said Calandria May. "And there are many worlds. Come, it's time we slept."

Jordan remained awake long after they bedded down in a room opposite the marble washroom. He lay staring at the canopy of the great bed that had swallowed them both. He was afraid to sleep lest he open his eyes in a cold tomb, but also he was aware of a deep current within himself, bringing a change he was not ready to face. The lady had told him a fabulous story, and he wanted none of it. He wanted his home, his work—even Ryman would be good company right now.

He had been stripped of that—and stripped of the only other thing he knew, which was the certain safety of his own mind. And yet he still breathed, and walked and ate. Then who was he? He no longer knew.

There were demonic Winds in the mythology known to Jordan, who gave and took away. In one story he knew, such a creature granted immortality to the generalissimo who craved it—but only after removing his sight and hearing. These Winds often gave and took away, but sometimes they only gave, and the torment of the recipient of the gift took the form of doubt: why should the demon give me this if demons only harm? In some stories, the gift's recipient came to hate and fear the gift because no harm had come from it, where everything they had heard told them some should. Suspicion ate these people from within.

It was easy to see Calandria May as such a gift-giving Wind. It was clear what she had taken away; at the same time, her words placed Jordan in the middle of a tale so wild and fabulous he could not believe it. But when he closed his eyes they opened in Armiger's face, and she was the only one who made that experience sensible to him.

He tossed and turned, and also lay at times looking at her. She seemed to sleep like a stone—the sleep of the just? Her ability to sleep soundly was another sign of her arrogance, he felt. But in sleep her features softened, and he told himself that maybe her true character was revealed now, maybe she was gentle at bottom, maybe he could trust her.

She seemed to trust him, for he was neither drugged nor bound tonight. Although, where would he run?

At length, still wide awake and needing to relieve himself, he rolled to the edge of the bed and groped underneath for a chamber pot. There wasn't one. Maybe it was on her side. He crawled out into surprisingly warm air, and rooted around past her boots. There was no pot under the bed. What did these people do if they had a need, he wondered, then remembered that no actual people lived here.

He had almost grown used to this place. There was nothing threatening in this room, and the gauze draped over their covers guaranteed their safety. Still, he wasn't about to venture out of the room without it. The washroom was right across the hall. No harm would come to Lady May if he walked across and back carrying the gauze; he would be able to watch the doorway from the washroom. Gently, he drew the gauze off the bed and folded it once around himself. Then he padded to the doorway and peeked out.

Nothing. Quickly he hurried across to the marble room and felt about in the dark for the toilet. He pissed hurriedly, feeling exposed the way one does in the woods.

He heard a faint gasp. He frowned and turned to look to the doorway, and as he did Calandria May screamed.

"No no no!" He ran out into the hall, but stopped in the doorway to the bedroom. A thing was on the bed, and its great golden limbs bounced from the canopy and down again as it tried to stab Lady May. She was holding onto the yellow blades at the end of the thing's arms, and was raised and flung down repeatedly as it tried to get past her hands to stab her. Blood ran black down her wrists, and from her throat. She was still screaming.

Jordan stood frozen in horror. It could not have crept past him as he stood in the lavatory, he would have seen or heard it. That meant it had been in the room all along, either on top of the canopy, or... under the bed.

He backed away. He had the gauze—he could make a break for it now, and nothing in this place could touch him. If Lady May wasn't dead she would be in moments. He could escape.

And run until he had to sleep? And then to awake with Armiger in his tomb? What, now, could he escape to?

One of the golden thing's legs was right at the edge of the bed. Jordan tried to shout—it came out as a choking sound—and running forward, he kicked at that leg. The thing lost balance and toppled past him onto the floor.

It rose in a flurry of hissing, whirring limbs. He expected it to attack him but it didn't, instead moving around him to remount the bed.

"No!" He dove onto the bed, raising the gauze above himself. Terrified, staring into glass curves and white metal, he still heard Lady May moving behind him. "The sheet," she croaked.

The mechal thing's arm struck past him. It lifted Calandria May and tossed her across the room in one motion as though she weighed nothing. She broke an ornate side-table in her fall, and skidded on into the wall. The thing went after her.

Before it reached her she was on her feet, eyes and teeth glinting in the faint light from the window. "Bastard!" she hissed, and Jordan didn't know whether she meant it, or him for abandoning her to it.

It struck at her but she ducked out of the way and came up with a piece of the table, which she swung like a club. She hit it and the bit of table shattered. The mechal killer fell back.

"The sheet!" she screamed. Jordan leaped off the bed and ran to her. They hunkered down under the thin stuff. It seemed a suicidal maneuver to Jordan, like closing one's eyes to danger. But the golden thing paused, glass globes whirling this way and that. And then it reached down and picked up part of the ruined table—and another part, and more, piling wooden flinders in its arms. It was cleaning up.

Lady May groaned and slumped against the wall. Jordan took her hands and opened them, expecting to see her cut to the bone, and her tendons severed. She had numerous long thin gashes on her palms and up her wrists, but nothing very deep. And the wound in her throat was also shallow; it had nearly stopped bleeding, though the thin shirt she had worn to bed was soaked.

"How—?" Jordan snatched his hand back from the examination. She opened her eyes and smiled faintly at him.

"No bruises, no deep cuts. I know. I wear armor, Jordan, but under my skin, not over it. I can't be cut deeply. And in my blood is a substance that goes rigid for an instant if it is shocked. Getting thrown across the room is... nothing." She coughed. "Almost nothing."

"Let's get out of here," he said.

She stared at the golden creature which was tidying up the bed now in a fussy manner. "Actually, yes, let's."

They gathered their shoes and clothes from under the bed. As they staggered out of the room she said, "Next time you have to go, use the chamber pot."

He started to protest that there hadn't been one, then thought of the golden thing hiding under the bed. Incongruously, the image of it putting the chamber pot into his groping fingers came to mind. To his own horror, Jordan chuckled, and wonder of wonders so did she, and then they were both laughing out loud, and it felt good.

5

Armiger tried to open his eyes. Something had changed. Deep within him, all his voices still mourned. But something had pulled him back into this body, where he had never expected to return.

His eyes wouldn't open completely. The lids were drying to stiff leather, and the orbs beneath had shriveled. All he saw was ruined blackness. He was still in his niche, closed in on all sides with stone, as was proper. His neighbors were the dead, and he should feel kinship with them now. He was also dead.

Life to him had been so much more than this one body, that its own survival meant nothing. He was a god, composed of living atoms and enfolding within himself the power of a sun. His had not been a single consciousness, but the coordinated symphony of a million minds. Each thing he touched he felt in all ways that were possible; and each thing he saw, he saw completely and was reminded of all things. All was in all for him, and he had acted decisively across centuries.

He had been brought low by an army of creatures as thoughtless compared to him as bacteria. They were led by a woman to whom he was incidental, merely an obstacle to be removed. And when she killed him, she had no idea that something whose experience exceeded that of her entire species had died. All the questions she could ever have asked, he had answered long ago. She was ignorant, and so all of his wisdom was lost.

This body had no purpose without that greater Self. The fact that it still moved and breathed was irrelevant; the motivating soul was gone.

But lying here, senses blocked, embalmed and shriveling as was proper, Armiger had continued to think. He was locked in the paralytic cycle of grief; all his thoughts had turned on the higher Self, predicated by its existence, and with it gone, every thought hit an impasse and locked hard. He could have no notion, no memory, that did not run up against that barrier, so Armiger's mind was now a chaos where no thought finished forming, no purpose completely crystallized. Jagged nightmare images, half-memories and monotonous fragments of impulse echoed on and on. The flesh of this body would turn to dust, but Armiger's real body was a filamentary net of nanotech, and that would last for centuries. So would the echoes of grief.

And nothing should matter, nor disturb his rest. But his eyes had opened.

A faint vibration sounded—footsteps. The sound of someone walking in the catacombs had waked him. Whatever walked was bipedal, with the same period to its step as a man—but it could still be anything. Maybe one of Ventus' mechal guardians, come to dissect him.

It didn't matter. He tried to shut his eyes, but they would no longer obey him at all.

He couldn't stop listening, either, as the footsteps approached, paused nearby, and came even closer. A second set of steps approached, then a third. Now he heard voices. The men were standing just outside his niche.

Anger emerged from the chaos in Armiger's heart. He should be left in peace. Humans had no idea of his pain; they had killed him, and were they now here to desecrate the remains, play with his corpse? His throat caught in a gesture that would have formed a growl, if he still had lungs to breathe with. His fists rose at his sides, struck the stone overhead, and fell again, trembling.

The anger possessed him. It stilled the mourning voices. Armiger's attention turned to the wall behind his head as the first blow of the hammer fell outside.

"He's a general, he's not going to have jewelry," muttered Choltas. He looked around uneasily.

The oldest of the grave-robbers, Enneas, watched him good-humored. Choltas had been into a couple of mounds near Barendts city; the operations had consisted of surveying and tunnelling, based on the assumption that the burial chamber was at the center of each mound. They'd been right once, but the chamber had collapsed long ago. They had sifted through clay and stones in a suffocating tunnel by the light of fireflies tethered with horses' hairs. The operation had taken weeks, but was worth it when they turned up some sintered metal, a little gold and a jade pendant in the shape of a machine.

Choltas had been scared then; how much more so was he now in his first catacomb. This hall was low and wide, so that Choltas' lantern lit a spot of floor and ceiling, and only hinted at the rest of the space. He kept starting and looking around, because every now and then the lantern light would gleam off a slick surface of one of the pillars that lined the place. Enneas knew they could play tricks on the eye; he had been here before. If you let your imagination run away with you, the pillars looked like men, standing still and silent all around.

"He could have anything," Enneas said. "You never know what a man will choose to be buried with. If nothing else, if he's high-born, there's the gold in his teeth."

Choltas grunted. Corres, the third member of the party, waved impatiently from a ways down the gallery. His impatience, Choltas knew, was not due to fear, but a simple desire to get an unpleasant job done. Corres had no imagination, no apparent feelings, and seldom spoke. Enneas had no idea what he did with the money he made in these tombs.

They joined him near one wall of the passage. "It's somewhere along here," said Corres. He swung his lantern, making shadows lean up and down the hall. Corres was merely trying to get a good view, but Choltas watched the moving darkness with growing alarm.

"It's okay," Enneas said, patting him on the shoulder. He pitched his voice at a conversational volume. "This is our place of employ. We belong here." Choltas stared at him wide-eyed. Enneas chuckled.

Well, it was almost true. Fear battled anger in Enneas' stomach every time he entered a tomb like this. The fear was natural; he'd never reconciled himself to death. The anger was more powerful, though, and it had to do with Enneas' legacy: his family had fallen from one of the highest positions in the republic. The deciding moment in his life had been the day his mother took him to visit burial mounds of some ancient warlords. "Your ancestors are buried here," she had said, gesturing at the earthen hills, each surmounted by a fane of pillars. He'd imagined men and women with his family's faces standing at attention under those hills, watching him. Their eyes had accused: you are poor, they had said. You are no longer one of us.

Enneas had naively believed that fortunes lost could be regained. His youth had been a comedy of failure; he could enter no guilds, influenced no inspectors with his painstakingly written political letters. Business ventures begun with pride and faith in his fellow man had ended in betrayal by his customers and friends. One day he had found himself wandering penniless near the field of mounds. He was damned if he would beg. And his ancestors' eyes followed him as he walked among them. He decided to shut their eyes once and for all, and had started digging.

And now he was wealthy. Choltas, too, was from a fallen house, though he was too young to be bitter. Enneas had taken it upon himself to spare the youth the detours that had brought him to this point. Even now Choltas wasn't sure he wanted to live this way, but Enneas kept at him. Tonight was an important test for the boy.

The wall was full of niches. They were not shallow and broad, as in most catacombs, but were deep holes into which a body could be inserted feet-first. The builders of this place had planned it to be used for many centuries, but their nation had been overrun sometime in the dim past. The city this tomb had served no longer existed, so it was seldom visited. The general's army had been camped nearby, otherwise he would have been buried elsewhere. Good luck for the robbers, for although the heavy stone that covered the main entrance could not be moved by less than thirty men, there was another way in which Enneas knew about. It had been easy to convince Corres to come here—nearly impossible to convince Choltas.

"I don't like this," said Choltas. His round face bobbed palely in the lantern-light. He stared in frank terror at the bricked up niches Corres was passing his hands over.

"Quiet," said Corres. "Look for new mortar."

"The sooner we find him the quicker we can be out of here," Enneas sensibly reminded the boy. He joined Corres at the wall. The floor around this whole area was scuffed. The burial party had come straight to this section of wall. No set of footsteps ventured into any of the other halls, unsurprisingly. The superstitious soldiers who'd put the general in here had wanted to get the job done as quickly as they could, and get out again. Enneas imagined they'd looked around themselves fearfully just as Choltas did now.

And his own pulse was racing. He wanted to leave—but each time he thought that, he remembered poverty and disappointment, and his feet remained planted right here.

"It's none of these, they're all old," Corres complained. "And the letters make up other names, I think."

"Yes." The general had not been buried in any of the top or middle niches. Enneas lowered his own lantern and examined the row of low openings at floor level. Several were bricked over, and two of these fell in the center of the scuffed area. "It's one of these."

Choltas backed away. "We shouldn't be doing this," he said.

They both looked at him. Corres was unslinging the smith's hammer he carried for this kind of work. "Getting traditional on us?" he asked.

"It's—it's wrong," said Choltas. "There must be a better way to..."

"To live?" Enneas was annoyed. Choltas was shaking; this would not do. "You can be a beggar, Choltas, you can do that. Go on—leave us and take up your position on some rainy street. And every time a copper piece clinks into your cup, remember that for every one of those, a hundred gold sovereigns hang in the purse of a dead man, vaulted away underground where they'll never buy any child a year of meals, least of all yours. And when they spit on you and call you useless, think how useless those sovereigns are. Now don't be foolish. We have a job to do." This was a rehearsed speech, but his delivery had real passion behind it, and it seemed to work. Choltas' shoulders slumped.

Corres tapped against each niche. "The right one seems newer," he said. "It's hard to tell."

"We'll open it first, then try the other one," said Enneas. Corres swung the hammer back, then glanced at Choltas. He stood and handed the hammer to the youth. "Go."

Breathing raggedly, Choltas leaned over and swung the hammer with both hands. The hollow thuds it made didn't echo, though all the stone around them should have promoted that effect. Enneas imagined the corpses in their bricked niches absorbing the sound, shifting a bit and settling with every blow. He glanced around uneasily.

One of the bricks dented inward, and on Choltas' next blow it disappeared, leaving a black window. "Shit," said Choltas as if he'd wanted the wall to stand firm.

"Good." Corres knelt and, putting his hands in the aperture, pulled. The bricks around the opening twisted out, then fell with a clatter. Choltas dropped the hammer.

Enneas' own fear reached its peak. This was always the hardest part for him—facing the body. He knew what to do from long experience, however: use his anger to deride the fear, make fun of it and thus extinguish it completely.

"Allow me," he said. Corres grunted and stood up, dusting his hands fastidiously. Deliberately, Enneas didn't shine his lamp into the opened niche. He knelt, and stuck his arm into it.

There was no real odor coming from this niche. It couldn't be the general's, then. Oh well, it might still have some valuables in it. Enneas kept a casual smile fixed on his face as he groped around. His heart nearly stopped as his hand fell on a rounded surface covered with lank hair.

Might as well have some fun. "Here he is," he said. He got a good grip on the hair and pulled. The skull came away with a brittle pop. He stood up and thrust the skull at Choltas, not looking at it himself. "Meet general Armiger," he said.

The other floor-level niche exploded outward.

Corres was standing right in front of it. For a moment he looked down in bewilderment at the brick dust covering his boots. Then his eyes widened impossibly, and his head ratcheted over a bit, down a bit, until he stared at the black opening that had appeared by his feet.

A black hand snapped out into the lamplight. It grabbed the edge of a brick and shoved it into the corridor.

Choltas began to scream. Enneas stepped back, raising the skull to his chest as a feeble shield. He wasn't really thinking, and later he couldn't remember fear. But he remembered Choltas screaming. And he would always remember Corres standing helplessly, watching coal-black, half-dried arms widen the opening they had made, and then clasp its sides to drag a foul-smelling, lolling thing onto the floor at his feet.

One of the black hands touched Corres' boot, and he finally moved, stepping away quickly. "Hammer," he said, but Enneas barely heard him over Choltas' screams.

The general stood up. His dress jacket was open, and showed his split torso; there were no organs inside, only darkness. His eyes had dried half open. He swayed unsteadily, like a puppet held aloft without the use of its legs. His right arm swung out widely, then came back to paw at his throat. The fingers closed around a metal bar there, and pulled.

Corres had found the hammer. He stepped forward, shouting the name of a Wind Enneas had never heard him espouse, and swung. The hammer caved in Armiger's split chest, banging him against the stone wall. The general's head rolled around helplessly.

He made no sound as he stepped forward. His hand moved down, drawing a long T-handled spike out of his jaw. Now his mouth gaped open, but still he made no sound.

In the lamplight Enneas saw the black burns that covered his head and arms, and pale white flesh like ivory elsewhere. The image was burned into his memory in the instant Armiger stood with the spike in his hand, then the general moved, almost too quickly to follow.

He stepped up to Corres, and his arm came up and drove the spike into the hollow at the base of Corres's throat. Corres' eyes bulged, and his lips writhed back. No sound came, only blood.

Armiger took another step, his arm rigid before him, and the force carried him and Corres outside of the circle of lantern light.

Choltas stopped screaming, and ran. The wrong way. And that was too much for Enneas, who also ran. He banged into the stone jamb of the door to the hall, and swung himself around it to stagger in total darkness toward their entrance shaft. Anything could be waiting ahead, but he knew what was waiting behind. He heard Choltas start screaming again.

He tripped over a loose stone and fell, banging his chin and twisting his arm. Pain lanced up his neck. He stood anyway and lurched into the opening he knew was there. He expected fingers to encircle his ankle as he grabbed for each hand-hold in the rough stone shaft.

Enneas pulled himself out of a pit into starlight on the top of the hill. He ignored his sacks and supplies, and ran until he tripped and rolled over and over down the slope. He came to rest at the bottom, not badly hurt but bruised and shaken. When he stood up, he continued on at a limp, eyes fixed on the horizon where dawn was hours away.

And though the fear didn't go away, as the hours passed, Enneas began to feel again all the anger of injustice and betrayal he thought he'd overcome years ago. When he wept it was from frustration, at the end of the only chapter of his life that had been in any way successful.

Armiger's eyes had dried out, but he could see. His ears had withered in his skull, but he could hear the sough of wind across the top of the shaft as he neared it. Stars glowed above the lip of the pit.

He had already forgotten the humans. A deep passion they would not have understood moved him now. He climbed swiftly, as if chasing something, but what he pursued was his own meaning.

Choltas had heard the footsteps of the devil fade away. He knew it would be back unless he stayed very still. This was the thing's home; it would never venture out into the world above. So though he couldn't hear it, he knew it was there. If he stayed completely still, wrapped around himself in this corner in total darkness, it might not find him. But if he so much as sneezed, he knew it would be on him instantly.

Even now it might be creeping up on him silently. He wrapped more tightly around himself, and tried not to breathe.

Time passed, but Choltas did not move. When thirst began to torture him, he stayed still. He wet himself and shat in his pants quietly. And eventually, delirium overcame him; he heard his mother's voice, saw drifting pictures of his home.

He kept his arms around his knees, and his face buried there against his own flesh. And he breathed weaker and weaker, aware at last only of the murmur of his own heart and the torment of cold and thirst, overridden by a fear he could no longer identify.

Stay still, stay still.

Its hand hangs above me.

6

Jordan became aware that the jolting of the cart they rode had stopped. He blinked and looked up. He didn't remember much of the past day; all he could see was the startled face of that man in the tomb, as an arm that seemed to be Jordan's own pushed the spike through his throat. And then the ticking footsteps to the stone shaft, and up and out into bright starlight.

Armiger was walking in the world again. Jordan could hear the creaking of his dry joints, as if the dreams had begun to infect his waking life. If he closed his eyes, he could even see the afterimage of some other place, a field or clearing. Armiger's steps fell like the beat of a metronome, far past human confidence. Steady and fast, day and night, he was going somewhere.

He hadn't told Lady May much. She knew Armiger was out and moving, and that he still seemed to be dead. In the dream Jordan had looked down at himself, and awkwardly buttoned up his jacket to cover the hole in his chest. The skin of his fingers was taut and black, but in the last day it had turned an awful yellow, and become more flexible.

A horrible thought had come to Jordan this morning. Surely Armiger could see what Jordan saw; wouldn't he know that Calandria May was after him by now? He had asked Calandria, and she had said, "The changes I made to your implants are supposed to prevent him from receiving you." All Jordan heard of that was the phrase supposed to.

He was sure Armiger was coming after them. If Armiger had power over life and death, how was Lady May going to destroy him? She seemed gay and unhurried. The only reassurance he had was the memory of her apparent invulnerability during the fight with the mechal butler at the manse.

He was numb by now from fear and horror, so he said nothing. He'd only spoken once or twice, when Lady May pressed him for details of the countryside Armiger moved through, and when he had asked her, "Are you like him?"

"No," she had answered vehemently. "I am flesh and blood like you." She took his palm and put it her cheek. "I've sold nothing of my self to gain the powers I have. Remember that." She smiled in her quietly confident way.

Now she was smiling in that same way, looking at the stone posts of a large gate they had come to. The road ran on, but the track through those gates was well-rutted, as if from much recent traffic. This belied the impression given by the dead ivy thronging over the posts and the verdigrised metal gates, which seemed frozen open.

"Where are we?" he asked weakly.

Her arm encircled to hug him quickly. "Refuge," she said. "We'll meet Axel here. Then we'll decide how to eliminate Armiger."

She flicked the reins, and the horse obediently turned through the gates. They'd bought this cart and the horse in a village yesterday. Lady May had paid the startled ostler well for it, foregoing the usual haggle over price and quality. Although she treated the horse well, Jordan had the feeling she took her ownership of it lightly, and would cheerfully abandon it and the cart the moment she ceased to need it. Jordan would have to work two years at Castor's to afford such a beast.

They passed down an avenue of trees. Gaps to the right showed well-tended grounds, much more extensive than Castor's. At first no one was visible, then Jordan spotted three children in bright clothing running across a lawn. The path wound down, and Jordan revived a little at the sight of warm shafts of sunlight piercing the green canopies, one lighting a stone trough by the road carved with well-worn images of the Diadem Swans.

Two giant oaks signalled the end of the grove. In the bright sunlight beyond, Jordan could see green grass and the beige stone of some vast mansion in the far background. But nearer, a few yards past the oaks, a table had been planted on the lawn. A clean white cloth draped it, held down by bowls of fruit and meat, plates and cups and tankards. Three people dressed in white livery stood by, gathering up platefuls of food. Now he could hear a continuous murmur of voices, laughter and the thud of hooves, coming through the remaining screen of trees.

As they passed beneath the twin oaks, two attendants appeared from behind them. They bowed, and one took the bridle of the horse.

Jordan barely noticed them. He was staring at the beautiful lawns, where a party was taking place.

Tall beribboned poles had been planted in the ground at wide intervals. At least six tables were scattered around the field, each piled high with food. Servants ran back and forth between knots of people—and the people, when Jordan turned his gaze on them, were amazing. They were brown-skinned, white-skinned, dressed in bright colors, or sombre black, or barely dressed at all. Sunlight flashed off jewels at the throat of a laughing woman. Nearby, a man with iron-grey hair patted his hands on his velvet trousers, and tried again to mount a pair of stilts held for him by two long-faced jugglers. A small knot of red-skinned men were having an archery competition, their target a melon on top of one of the poles.

Calandria May looked puzzled. "What's the occasion?" she asked the servant leading their horse.

He looked back, arched his eyebrow, and said, "Aren't you family?"

She hesitated almost imperceptibly. "Guests," she said. "Of Inspector Boros. Our arrangement was made some weeks ago, but we were delayed, I fear. It seems we've arrived at an unfortunate moment."

The servant smiled arrogantly. "We have plenty of room." He gestured to the manor.

This place put Castor's to shame. Massive fluted pillars framed the entranceway, iron lamps perched upon their capitals. They did not hold up a roof, but were open to the sky. The building's facade was of tan stone, filled with windows, each framed by pillars. Statues posed on the rooftop corners, and more stood in niches in the walls. Three storeys were indicated by the windows, and by the width of the place it must sprawl around a central courtyard large enough to hold Castor's mansion.

Behind the profusion of chimneys on the roof, a bleak grey fortress tower rose incongruously. Its sides did not curve smoothly, but in juts and acute angles; it seemed to have been built of stone triangles. Black stains like tear tracks wove down its sides.

As the cart passed near a group of revellers, a tall woman in severe black and scarlet excused herself and walked over. The servant stopped them as she approached, and Lady May hopped down from the cart and curtsied to her.

"Good grief, are you a boy or a woman?" laughed the lady in a deep voice; Calandria was still dressed in buckskins. The lady made a fluttering gesture with her hand near her breast. Silver chain in her hair glinted as she cocked her head. "And which side of the family are you from?"

Lady May curtsied again. "Neither side, I fear, Madam. I am Lady Calandria May, and this is my charge, Jordan Mason." Jordan started at the sound of his own name. He stood awkwardly and bowed. "I wrote asking for the hospitality of the house some weeks ago, and received it," Lady May went on. "If we have come at the wrong time, please let us know."

"Nonsense," said the lady. "Make yourselves at home. I am lady Marice Boros. My husband is, alas..." she smiled for the first time as she looked around, "missing. You see, we are having the first family reunion in a full generation, and the clan has grown to unmanageable proportions. These are all my kin." She swept her hand to indicate the throng, then turned and frowned at the vista. "Oh dear, they are, aren't they? Well, no matter, we will accommodate you. Alex," she said to the man holding their horse, "put them in the tower." She nodded sharply to Lady May. "I trust you will join us for dinner? I'm afraid we shan't be able to give you too much attention today; I've not spoken to some of our family members yet, and will be doing that at dinner."

"We understand. Though I hope we will be able to converse at some point, your obligations are clear," Lady May said. "Oh—we were to rendezvous here with an acquaintance. Sir Axel Chan. Has he by any chance arrived?"

"Chan. Ah, of course." Lady Marice's eyes narrowed. "I think you can find him right over there."

Jordan and Lady May followed Marice's pointing finger. In a clear area of grass, two men circled each other. One wore a sky-blue silk uniform with winglike feather epaulets. The other, shorter man wore black leather. They were surrounded by a small crowd of young men, who either sipped delicate glasses of wine or negotiated bets among themselves. Abruptly the man in black stepped forward, took the wrist of his opponent and, without appearing to move, flipped him over to land with a thud audible all the way to the cart. Scattered laughter and jeers drifted over.

Lady May sighed. "I was afraid of that. I will take him off your hands, Lady Marice."

"Thank you." Marice curtsied, and walked away. Lady May started in the direction of the fight, and Jordan stepped down to follow.

The youth who'd been flipped stood up angrily. "—Slipped!" he shouted. Two of his friends shook their heads as they paid the ones with whom they'd bet.

The man in black grinned like a gargoyle. He was not tall, slighter than his black jacket and leggings tried to suggest, but broad-chested. His features were strange—flat, with a broad triangular nose and dark hooded eyes. His hair was a black tangle kept tied back in an unruly pony tail. But when he smiled, his teeth were perfect, and he smiled very broadly when he saw Calandria.

"My lady," he shouted, spreading his arms and stepping forward to embrace her.

Lady May shifted her weight slightly and shrugged. Axel Chan flew over her cocked knee and onto his face.

The crowd erupted in laughter. The young man whom Axel had humiliated smiled, and bowed to Lady May as Axel picked himself up.

Jordan's attention wavered between Axel and Calandria May. As she had before, now she changed before his eyes, her mobile face taking on a rakish smirk as she played up to the young men. "Dear sir," she said, "Our friend is not well known to you; he is to me. Hence, you can be forgiven for not being prepared for him. I, however, am surely ready for any meeting with Axel Chan." She put a hand on Axel's shoulder and shook him lightly. Axel grinned stupidly.

"Axel, you will show your worthy opponent what you did to him—later. For now, I need your ear. Get yourself cleaned up and I will meet you in your quarters."

Axel winked at the youths. "In your dreams, Axel," added Lady May, as she turned to go.

Jordan stayed where he was. After a moment, Axel noticed him, and his expression became serious. He waved away the questions from the other men, and came to stand before Jordan, hands on his hips. He smelled of wine and sweat.

"Well. Mason, isn't it?" He stuck out a grimy hand. "Axel. I met your sister."

Jordan wasn't sure he liked the idea of this rogue coming anywhere near Emmy. "How is she?"

"Fine." Axel glanced after Lady May, who was remounting the cart. "Don't tell her ladyship there, but I told Emmy what's up. I have a letter she wrote you." He grinned at the way Jordan's face lit up. "Don't do that! She'll figure it out. This is between you and me. I'll let you have it later, whenever we can escape from her clutches for a minute or two."

Jordan opened his mouth, countless questions crowding for expression. Axel gave him a friendly shove. "Be on your way, boy. She wants you. We'll talk later."

Jordan nodded, and practically ran back to the cart. He remounted it next to a scowling Calandria. "...About as inconspicuous as a tart at communion," she was muttering. "He'll be the death of us all."

They were led to the main doors of the manor, where they dismounted. Another servant preceded them into the giant rotunda of the place, and through a wide greeting hall to a glass-walled chamber which let out onto the central courtyard.

The manor wrapped almost all the way around the courtyard, which was packed with statues like a forest of stone. The neat procession of pillared windows and beige wall was broken at the far end by the strange angles of the old tower. The manor seemed to have grown out of one of its corners.

Jordan marvelled at the workmanship of the statues. They depicted men and women, mechals and desals and other fabulous creatures, and one or two were attempts at modeling the Winds themselves. He paused before one of these, which was a human form made of tortured folds of cloth carved in marble. It looked realistically windblown. The servant noticed him looking and said, "Lady Hannah Boros, six generations ago now. This was her workplace. She made all our statues," he added proudly.

One statue near the dark entrance to the tower was missing its head. The blond stone in the wound was fresh; Jordan could see a few chips half-covered by grass at its feet. "What happened to that one?" he asked.

"Hush," said Lady May. "Be discreet." The servant pretended not to have heard them.

Jordan was still puzzling over that exchange when they were shown their chamber. It was squarish and about six meters on a side, but the ceiling was a spiderweb of buttresses. One narrow window looked out over the courtyard. There was only one bed, but the servant told them another would be brought up. Other than that, the place held only a dresser and wardrobe, and a small writing desk. Sheepskins were scattered about the stone floor; it smelled of camphor and woodsmoke here.

Lady May thanked their guide. "I need clothes," she said to him on his way out. "Can you send me a tailor?"

"We have the best here, lady. Dinner is at six."

"Thank you." He left, and she collapsed backwards onto the bed. "Whew."

"Why are we here?" Jordan asked. He was admiring the stonework. This place was very solid, much more so than the manor house itself. It might even be strong enough to keep Armiger out.

Lady May had stripped off her left boot and was massaging her toes. She peered at him through the window her legs made. "We will be staying here until we know exactly where Armiger is. You have to get hold of yourself now, Jordan. We need you tell us exactly where he is, and where he's going. When we locate him, we'll strike."

"Why should I help you any further?" he asked. "When I tell the Boros' what you did to me..."

"Do you want the nightmares to stop?" she asked quickly. "When Armiger is no more, they will cease," she continued. "But only Axel and I of all the people on Ventus can destroy him. You can surely escape us, Jordan, but by doing that you guarantee you will never escape Armiger.

"Well?" she asked after they had glared at one another for a long moment.

"He's coming here," Jordan said sullenly.

She dropped her foot and sat up. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, he's after me!"

"How do you know that?"

"I... I just know."

She grimaced. "I don't think so. At least, we've seen no evidence that he's aware that his connection with you is still open. As I told you, we've taken steps to disable it so he can no longer see through your eyes. But we'll determine all of that soon. This is our headquarters now, Jordan. We are also guests here, and I expect you to behave accordingly."

"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

She patted the bed next to her. He sat on the linen; it was softer than any bed he'd known, except maybe the one in the manse. Lady May leaned over and massaged his shoulders delicately. "I'm going to go talk to Axel. When the tailor comes, I want you to ask him to dress you. Not in servants' clothing—you are no one's servant now, you are the equal of anyone in this building. So waistcoat, evening dress, the lot. Do you understand?" He nodded. "And do not wander too far, but please do not enter any of the servants' areas—when you walk, you will walk in the main halls like the owners. I think this might be hard for you, but it is necessary."

He frowned. He hadn't thought about it, but it definitely would be hard. Never in his life had Jordan walked the halls of a manor as if it were his home. He was used to ducking from stairwell to stairwell, never straying beyond areas where he could justify his presence. She was right: his instinct would be to find the back halls, eat in the kitchens and leave the building when night came. He shook his head. "I'll try."

"Good." She rolled off the bed. "I'm off to tackle Axel. Wish me luck."

He watched her go, and bolted the door when she'd left. Then he went to examine the mortaring around the window, and tried to gauge its strength.

Axel had weaseled his way into the main building, naturally. Calandria had no difficulty getting directions to his room; all the servants knew him. He'd only been here two days.

She took the steps up to the third floor two at a time. Despite herself, she smiled as she thought of Axel tossing that fop on his ear. Outside his door she paused, looking down at herself. She still wore ragged outdoors gear. It would have been so much better if they'd arrived first, then she could have met him in a proper gown, with pearls at her ears. She sighed, and rapped on the door.

"Enter." She stepped into a lavish bedroom. It was huge—and had a perfect view of the grounds. Velvet draperies hung everywhere, over the windows and framing the bed. The bedposts were carved with leaf motifs, and painted gold. Or maybe they were gold. A woman's slipper lay half-concealed under the bed. Yes, this was Axel's room all right.

He rose from a writing desk. He had discarded his jacket, and wore a billowing blue silk shirt. "Ho!" He opened his arms as he came to her. "And don't hit me this time!"

She returned the embrace warmly. He still smelled of wine, but she knew him; he'd have taken a restorative before meeting with her. He held her for a second longer than she'd have liked, but that too was normal. As he broke away he gestured at the room. "Quite a place, no?"

"I expected no less of you," she said, eyeing the slipper.

It constantly amazed her how well Axel did in situations like this. After all, he wasn't a professional, like her; Calandria had been trained in espionage and intelligence-gathering by people who made a religion of such things. They had plucked her out of the crude reformatory she had ended in after her mother's arrest and death, and erased all links with her past and home world. Then they had given her, not a new identity, but a repertoire of identities. Calandria had spent every waking moment since then acting. Only after she had turned rogue on her employers could she behave like something approaching her true Self—and then only with close friends like Axel.

She had met Axel in deep space, on a remote, frozen planet without a mother star. He was a smuggler. They dealt to their mutual satisfaction several times, and each time she was a different person. It took him quite a while to wise up to her act, and by the time he did she had taken a liking to him. When he confronted her, she took the opportunity to chastise him for his inattention. "If I'd been hired to trap you, you'd be undergoing decriminalization now," she told him. "Count yourself lucky." He had laughed at that.

Calandria needed her disguises to move through the different societies and subcultures demanded by her work. Axel just seemed to make friends where ever went, without changing one iota of his appearance or style.

"Here, look at these pictures," he was saying now, as he dragged her to one wall. The walls were hung with large, faded photographs, apparently of ancient members of the Boros clan. "Printed on porcelain," he said. "So they don't deteriorate. Good idea, no?"

She arched an eyebrow. "I suppose." Photography was permitted by the Winds, along with other gentle forms of chemistry; Axel knew that, so why should he care about these examples? They were nothing compared with even the most primitive hologram.

Axel had picked up a decanter of wine. "Oh, do stop," she said. "It's not even dinner time yet."

"I think these pictures are fascinating," he said. "Especially this one—it's printed on vellum." He put the decanter down on an ornate dresser under one, and stretched to grab both sides of the frame. He lifted it off the wall.

An irregular hole was revealed. Set into the plaster was the verdigrised mouth of a large horn. Calandria blinked at it. Axel cupped his hand at his ear. He adopted an exaggerated listening stance. Then he made a talking gesture at her with the other hand.

She cleared her throat. "I wonder how they did that?"

"The porcelain, or the velum?" Axel picked up the decanter, and gestured at the horn. She shook her head.

He shrugged, and upended the decanter into the horn. Red wine gurgled as it drained down into some pipe in the wall, and, she imagined, straight into the ear of whoever might be listening at the other end.

Axel cackled with glee and, grabbing up the silk doily on the table, stuffed it down the horn after the wine. Then he replaced the picture, and dusted his hands. "That was the only one," he said. "Now we can talk."

"Oh come now," she said. "Why would they be bugging us? We're just visiting."

"Timing," he said. He flipped a white, plush-cushioned chair backward and sat in it, leaning his arms on the back. "The whole Boros clan is here, and that's bad. Old Yuri may think we're spies."

"Why? They seem like a friendly enough bunch. Not that I've had the time to talk to any of them..."

"Ah, you will. You're better at this than I am, I suggest we attend dinner and you can tell me who intends to kill whom. They are a murderous lot—did you see a certain statue in the courtyard?" She nodded. "Yesterday night. A duel. I didn't see who, or who lost, mostly because it wasn't pre-announced. Ambush, maybe? Who knows."

"Really." She sat at the writing desk, and looked out over the grounds. "I've never been anywhere quite like this."

"It's positively medieval," said Axel with a nod. "But then, look at their history. Six hundred years ago these people were still scrabbling in the muck, living in mud huts. Only a few warlords had any kind of power. It's actually pretty amazing how far they've come as a society, considering the ancestors of people like the Boros."

He waved at the grounds. "All this is very European in style. I'm pretty sure people must have raided manse libraries here and there over the centuries. How much would it take, do you think, to build a nation? One book of economics? Another about gardening? They saved very little from the initial disaster, so they must have supplemented it from the manses, but it was obviously hard-won knowledge, or there'd be more of it."

Calandria pictured a group of soldiers armed with pikes trying to face down several of the golden creatures she and Jordan had seen—battling their way to a manse library, grabbing a few books at random, then bolting with crystalline things at their heels.

That was interesting, but not what she had come here to talk about. "What's the occasion for this reunion?" she asked.

"Yuri called it—the patriarch, you met his wife. Marice. Good name. There's some kind of power struggle within the clan, and he wants to resolve it. The Boros are old money in three nations: Memnonis, Ravenon, and Iapysia. The revolt of the parliament in Iapysia has tipped the balance of power somehow, and Yuri wants to make sure it trickles through the family correctly. The Iapysians don't mind—they get to call in favors to consolidate their position back home. Problem is, there's two factions represented there—the parliamentarians, and the royalists. If you look you can probably make them out—at opposite ends of the grounds."

"Hmm." Calandria did look out. "Dinner will be fun."

"It gets better. There's some dispute over Yuri's position as patriarch. Which side will he support in the Iapysian thing? That's a touchy question, because the loser might decide to open the old wound of his legitimacy. That's all happening down there even as we speak."

"My." She smiled at him. "We do pick the most interesting hotels."

"Yeah. Well, we'll have to be careful not to get involved. Now: how's Mason?"

"You saw him. What do you think?"

Axel shrugged. "He looks tough. Does he know where Armiger is?"

"If he did we'd be able to send him home," she said. "No, he doesn't. That's our job for the next day or two—locating Armiger. Jordan's a bit wrapped up in his own misery right now, so we'll have to show him the advantages of his position. He's afraid Armiger is coming here."

Axel frowned. "Is he?"

"I don't know. That would surprise the Boros, wouldn't it? I guess Armiger is a walking corpse at the moment, though he may be recovering. We have to know how powerful he is before we face him. I'm wondering how we can get Jordan to find out for us."

"Yeah, yeah..." Axel chewed on one knuckle absent-mindedly. "We need more power."

"Political?"

"No, guns, damn it. I don't like this planet, Cal. The damn Winds are always watching. If you bring anything higher-tech than a wrist watch in here they'll pounce on you and rip it off. We can't face Armiger without real weapons—a plasma cannon would do."

She laughed shortly. "We stick to the plan. When we've got him in our sights, the Desert Voice will hit him from orbit."

"And then the Winds will blow your starship out of the sky!"

She glowered at the table top. "My reading of the Winds is that they have an abysmal reaction time. They let us bring the cutter down, and it got back to the Voice okay. Nothing technological stayed on the surface, as far as they know."

"Yeah, but they'll object to Armiger getting nuked. I have another idea."

She didn't really like the current plan either, so she said, "Go ahead."

"We contact the Winds ourselves. Tell them about Armiger. They're like the immune system for the entire planet; any foreign body gets eliminated eventually. Like we will be, if we stay here too long. I don't know how Armiger's lasted this long; superior technology, I guess—"

"Well, precisely," she pointed out. "He's more sophisticated than the Winds. Even if we knew how to carry on a rational conversation with the Winds, do you think they'd believe us? I'm sure Armiger's totally invisible to them. And I doubt it's going to change."

"Ventus is a lot more complicated than we thought," he said. "Some people do talk to the Winds; I've heard more stories in the past couple of days—"

"Stories? Axel, this planet breeds myths like fungus! None of the locals have a clue what the Winds are, and if they did they can't affect them at all."

"They can—there are ways. Do you seriously believe humans would co-habit this world with them for so long without working out ways to deal with them?"

Calandria looked out over the grounds again. This manor was centuries old, and the civilization that had built it was older still. And the Winds were as constant as their namesake in these people's lives. Axel could be right. "So how do they do it?"

"It's actually pretty simple. A couple of their main religions are ecologically based, right? The inner doctrine seems to be emulation of the Winds. If you act like the Winds, they treat you like one of them. And then they'll talk to you."

"Sounds too easy," she said. "And suspiciously mystical."

He threw up his hands and stood. "Believe whatever the hell you want! But it makes sense, Cal: the Winds are confused about humans to begin with. They don't know whether we're vermin or part of their grand design. How do you think agriculture gets done on this world? People placate them. It works. I think we should look into it."

"All right," she said. "You look into it. Meanwhile, I'm going to work on Jordan, and find out where Armiger is going."

Axel frowned. "He really is on the move?"

"Maybe. The Desert Voice located the site of the battle he talked about, but the forces that survived it are dispersed across hundreds of kilometers of territory. I'm going to try to get some more lucid descriptions from Jordan."

"And what if Armiger is headed this way?"

Calandria looked out at the forest woods beyond the manor grounds. "Then Jordan had better be able to warn us when he's due."

7

Jordan smoothed the lapels of his vest nervously. He had never worn clothes like this. Their strange fit and discomfort in the oddest places was a constant reminder of his role tonight as apprentice to Calandria May. The stiffness of the fabric and the cut of the shirt and pants made him constantly arch his back, and drew his shoulders up. All the other men stood and walked the same, in an almost exaggerated, prideful posture. He had always assumed that went with their station. The idea that their clothes were made to hold their noses up amazed him. He couldn't look at them with quite the same awe as he'd used to.

He stood just outside the dining hall in a swirl of young men, who mostly spoke among themselves. He knew the language, but had no idea what they were talking about—rights, obligations, and fine points of the pecking order, it seemed. As far as possible Jordan tried to stay out of any dialogue, only nodding and smiling when it was needed. He knew his accent was guild-class, and although Calandria claimed to be able to fix that, she hadn't yet. He gave his name when it was required of him, but nothing more.

"Ah, there you are!" boomed a familiar voice. Axel Chan's hand descended on his shoulder like a vice. "Where's the lady?"

"Changing," Jordan said tersely. Axel had spoken so loudly that heads turned all over the chamber. Jordan wanted to shrink into the floor to avoid all those high-class gazes.

"Good. If she's not about, I'll borrow you for a moment." Axel steered him away from the men, past the ladies, who were preening and talking behind their feather fans, and out of the antechamber. He led Jordan halfway down the lower, stone-floored corridor that ran between the antechamber and the stairways, then stopped under a high window. Evening light suffused the corridor, gilding the stones that Axel leaned against. He grinned, slouching, and put his hands in his pockets.

"How are you doing, lad?" he asked.

"I don't like this," said Jordan, pulling at his jacket.

"It's a fine uniform. Red and gold—your choice?" Jordan nodded guardedly. "Very nice. Tasteful. We'll make an inspector out of you yet."

"Calandria says she can teach me to talk like them."

"It's no trick. You just speak slowly and flap your lips a bit, as if," he switched into an overdone upper-crust accent, "you could barely care to speak at all." Despite himself, Jordan grinned at the imitation.

Axel leaned close. "Don't worry. We're all pretending; that's what events like this are all about."

"Why are we doing it at all?"

"To fit in. Better that we be there to be spoken to than absent to be spoken about." Axel stood away from the wall and smiled archly as two ladies walked past. They ignored him. He slouched back again and said, "Now, I promised to show you the letter from your sister. Can you read?"

"A bit. I can do figures and architectural terms, and a little more."

"I'll read it to you. Your sister dictated it to me." Axel pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. He flipped it open and began to read.

"Oh, Jordan, I miss you so much. I wish you were here right now, but Sir Chan says you have to finish a job for him first. Then you'll be back and bring lots of money.

"I'm sorry I ran away. Mom and Dad are really mad at us, though they won't say it. They just don't talk about that night. And they pray for you to come back all the time. I can't talk to them! I wish you were here so I would have somebody to talk to.

"Sir Chan told me to write something so you would know it was me. Remember that turn on the stairs in the manor, where we found the crack? Remember the note we hid there before Dad mortared it up? I know what the note says—only me and you know. The first word is 'Boo!'. Remember that?"

Jordan let his tension out with a big breath, and leaned heavily against the wall next to Axel. He smiled at Axel.

"So, it's really her, is it?" asked Axel.

He nodded. "After Sir Chan found me, he gave me letters of appointment to the king of Ravenon. I can't believe it—neither could anybody else, but Castor did. And Turcaret—you should have seen his face when Sir Chan showed him the letters. He wanted to kill Chan, I could tell, but he was afraid to. But Castor—he almost smiled, I think. Anyway, he told Turcaret not to argue, and he signed the letters, and Sir Chan lent me money to move in with the Sanglers which is where I am now. Waiting for dispatches from Ravenon, who will come to me before they come to Castor. I'm so proud, and scared at the same time. And lonely. I hope you come home soon. Sir Chan says you are okay and having an adventure. Please write me and tell me all about it."

"Can I?" Jordan asked.

Axel nodded. "But you can't talk about what we're doing, or say anything about Armiger." He looked over Jordan's shoulder at something, and smiled. "And speaking of ladies, here she is! You're a vision, my dear."

"Than you, Axel," Calandria said, smiling. She wore a long, emerald-green skirt, a bodice worked with beads of gold, and a white loose-sleeved blouse. Her hair was piled up and held in place with pearl-tipped pins. A gold necklace completed the ensemble. Her face glowed with an inhuman perfection that Jordan had guessed at but which had hitherto been hidden under a layer of grime and disarrayed hair. Surely she wore makeup, but he could see no sign of it. Despite all that she'd done to him, in that moment Jordan thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He stammered something, and blushed. Calandria lowered long lashes and made a near-smile. "You look the proper gentleman, Jordan. Shall we join the dinner party?" She cocked her elbows; Axel immediately stepped out to take one of her arms, and Jordan hurried to place himself on the other. He felt a burst of pride as they entered the antechamber and conversations died left and right. Calandria's smile grew even more subtle, and Axel's face had hardened into an imperious mask. Jordan had no idea what he himself looked like, but strongly suspected he was ruining the effect. He tried to draw himself up as Axel had done and don a suitable air of contempt.

The hall was brightly lit by gas lamps. Jordan could see all the way to the blond stone groin vaults of the ceiling a good fifteen meters overhead. The hall was as wide as it was high, and twice as long. Tapestries hung between the narrow buttresses, depicting scenes from the long, industrious history of the Boros inspector generals: collection and taxation figured prominently, but instead of glorious victories, as true nobility would boast, the few battle scenes showed Boros' militia sweeping away mobs of rioting citizens. A huge fireplace roared at one end of the hall, silhouetting the raised chairs and table of Yuri Boros and his family and filling the room with the smell of woodsmoke. Long tables had been laid out down the sides of the hall, each length overhung by wrought-iron arches holding a lamp and trailing flowers. People were seating themselves now with the aid of black-coated servants, who paced up and down in the clear runway that stretched from the main doors at the foot of the room to the raised table and fireplace at the head. A low murmur of voices lofted up and echoed down from the arches.

When Jordan was very young, he had once watched a gathering like this through a crack in the kitchen doors at Castor's hall. He remembered none of the logic of the occasion, only the brightness and laughter, and the amazing variety of food that was carried past him. All adults had been like gods to him, the controllers and inspectors more so. He longed to find some door to hide behind, some safe vantage from which to watch the tables. At the same time, he wanted to be here, seated with his betters as if he had the right—for at least tonight, Calandria's aura protected him. So, as they took their seats at an obscure table at the back of the room, Jordan sat at his place in wonder and delight, and wished fervently he could also be peering through the crack in the kitchen door, his Self there pulling the strings of his Self here.

He glanced at Calandria's perfect face, and had a flash of insight: were she and Axel standing somewhere aloof from themselves at moments like this, pulling the strings of their public faces?

His contemplative spell was broken by the bray of a horn. Everyone was seated now; Axel and Calandria had put themselves to either side of Jordan, effectively isolating him from conversation, which was fine with him. It came to him just where he was, and he had one of those moments that is later permanently impressed on memory; his finger traced the edge of a blue-china plate such as he had seen but never touched back home, and the sleeve of his arm was red and beautiful in the white light which flashed off the knife and forks by the plate. He looked up, and as he did the main doors to his right opened, and a procession entered.

They had done this at Castor's too, he remembered, and the familiarity mixed with strangeness sent a shiver down his back. Servants dressed as highborn men and women entered the hall, walking sedately in pairs. Each wore a finely crafted mask—the death masks of the Boros ancestors. These masks probably resided in a room of their own, somewhere near the front of the manor. The ones at Castor's manor were racked on the wall in pairs, with lines painted on the wall between the hooks, plainly showing the family tree.

At festival occasions they were taken out and worn, as now. The Boros ancestors had come to visit their descendents.

The horn sounded again. Everyone stood. The masked procession proceeded up the hall within the space between the tables, and each figure bowed or curtsied politely to the head table before it turned to walk back. Polite guests were expected to have already learned the names and histories behind these masks; Jordan had never thought to do so, but then, he had never been any highborn person's guest before. He resolved to visit the mask room and learn the Boros pedigree as soon as he could.

Lady Marice stood. "On behalf of my husband, I welcome you. We have much that is serious to discuss amongst ourselves, but I pray you first enjoy this fine meal we've brought you, and forget your cares for a space."

"What does she mean about serious stuff?" Jordan whispered to Calandria.

"Something's up," Axel responded cryptically. Almost imperceptibly, he gestured at the table opposite. Jordan looked, but didn't see anything odd or unusual—just two family groups seated near one another, each attentive to Marice. Now and then glances were exchanged within each group, but not between them.

Axel nodded to the patriarch of the family closer to the head table. "That's Linden," he whispered. "Direct heir to Boros. Not by blood, apparently, but some kind of tradition." Linden was a thin, whippish man with pale hair drawn back in a pony tail. His eyes were fixed on Marice as she spoke. "And that," Axel indicated the square-faced head of the other family, "is Brendan Sheia, bastard son of Yuri and a lady from Iapysia. By the laws of Iapysia, he is the heir."

"Isn't there a civil war in Iapysia?" Jordan whispered back. Axel nodded.

Calandria touched his arm. "Can you tell me who here is a royalist, and who is a parliamentarian?"

Jordan looked from one family to the other, then down the rows of the tables, where many more sat. Marice had finished her short speech and as she sat down, the buzz of conversation started again. Now Jordan was eager to see who spoke with whom, but there was no easy dividing line.

"Bright lad," Axel said behind his head. "He's looking for the battle lines already." Calandria nodded.

Waiters swirled up carrying trays of food. A very complicated service began; Jordan knew vaguely that there was a protocol to which dishes one took and in what order, but had no idea what that was. In a fit of inspiration, he decided to watch the apprentices of two households opposite, and choose what they chose. Once a plate came to him before either of them, and he felt a moment's panic. He appealed silently to the waiter, who smiled and gave a slight nod. Relieved, he took the dish.

And so it proceeded, through a gruelling two hours of careful eating, followed by a gruelling hour of ambiguous speeches and circumlocutions. Jordan alternated between relaxed enjoyment and extreme discomfort. Despite himself he began to fight back yawns, and to keep himself awake he let his thoughts drift to his sister. He didn't want to think about his parents beyond acknowledging to himself that he was still angry with them. But as Postmistress, would Emmy attend banquets like this one? He would have to tell her about the evening, and reassure her that she could do the same at Castor's.

Except that Castor had not approved of her posting...

He shut his eyes, weary and worried again about Emmy. Her official position was a thin shield, he knew. Somehow he must accomplish what Calandria demanded of him, and return to her. Tonight, or tomorrow; soon.

Suddenly dizzy, he opened his eyes. To sunlight.

Jordan blinked, and again saw the tables and the guests, under lamplight. He craned his neck back. Shafts of evening light still shone through the oculi high overhead, but it hadn't been those he'd seen. For a mere instant, he'd seen forest light, leaves and sky.

He shook his head and sat up a little straighter. Must be the wine, he thought hopefully. With an effort, he returned his attention to the banquet.

Linden and Sheia still ate stone-faced, though their wives seemed animated enough. At the head table, Yuri seemed most relaxed, his slack-jawed pale face shining in the gas light. But, Jordan noticed, his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and it wasn't hot in here. Of course, Yuri was right next to the fire.

In more ways than one, Jordan thought, and smiled. "You wouldn't wish to have the troubles of the highborn," Jordan's father had told him more than once. Just now he agreed.

Jordan leaned back and closed his eyes.

His ruined hand brushed aside twigs, revealing a forest path. With a sigh he stepped down to it. For a moment he swayed, and put one hand out to steady himself against a tree. Then he sat down.

Armiger looked up at the sky. Night was coming. He had been walking for two days now without pause; night merely slowed him down. At first it had been mechanical, aimless activity. Gradually as he walked, though, the bright air and thrum of life all around him awakened something in him—a kind of recognition, an identification with the things that grew and struggled all around. If he squinted at the sky, his healing eyes could perceive the faint threads of the Diadem swans wavering in their high seats. The Winds still did not know he was here. But while the sight of them filled him with a deep pang of loss—for they were his own kind, if distantly related—it was the buzzing insects and the gaudy flowers that he drew strength from. The swans, like his greater Self, were inaccessible.

As he walked, Armiger for the first time contemplated what it meant to be mortal.

Now as he paused on this tenuous path, he forced himself to take stock of his body. Hitherto the body had been just a vessel, rugged but ultimately disposable. Today as he walked he had begun to come to grips with the idea that this was his only body now—that his resources were finite and concentrated in this ruined husk.

His wounds were healing. If he tried he could articulate words with his split tongue, and his fingers could grip again. The terrible wound in his chest had closed, and great sloughs of skin had fallen away to reveal flesh new and pink. As he walked he had stuffed leaves into his mouth to make up the mass he'd lost, dimly aware as he did so that the human biology of his body protested. He overrode it to command digestion and assimilation. After all he was not human; he was Armiger, agent of a god.

Or he had been. What he examined now in the failing daylight was a badly wounded man, dehydrated and staggering on blistered feet. In his experience in the field, he had seen men like this weeping as they collapsed by the side of his marching columns. They tended not to rise again.

When he closed his eyes and listened to this human body, Armiger knew why. Yesterday as he walked he had wondered how the small lives around him experienced existence, unaware that he need only pay attention to his own body to know.

As long as he thought of himself as Armiger the demigod, this body's problems seemed trivial, as he had treated those dying men's tears as trivial. After all, they were so stupidly unaware of themselves as parts of the systems of army, ecology and planetary action which Armiger felt in his deepest being. What was a body, or even a mind? Get rid of it, there were more, the important thing was the system. Armiger had been the systems' awareness; they had been it also, but never knew.

While he had his tie to the omniscient power that had created him, Armiger had rarely used the brain of this human body he was in, except when he needed to understand the irrational actions of his soldiers. This body thought, and felt, like any human, but he didn't need to use that mind, for he had access to the far greater mind of his master, whose own thoughts could themselves be conscious entities.

Previously Armiger had existed as god and mind, with the body merely a tool. Now he was only mind and body. He ran his hands over this body, finding the strains and infections. He stank, he realized. The human instincts he had ignored so long quailed at the damage, the humiliation of his state. For the first time, Armiger opened himself to those instincts.

This was what his men had felt, fighting and dying. This was the essential experience of the deer and foxes he had sighted as he walked: pain and loneliness.

Armiger no longer had the god to center him, make him complete. Humans and the animals of this world had existed without such a god. How? Who are you? he asked his human side.

In wonder, Armiger realized he had sunk to his knees, was clutching himself, and crying in wrenching gusts. And now he knew the feeling of the human misery he had heard so much on this world.

"Calandria!" Jordan clutched at her shoulder.

"Shh!" She put a hand on his lips angrily.

He started to protest—he needed help, the visions were back—then noticed the silence.

Jordan turned his head. A few people were staring at him. The rest had their eyes on the head table, and only one voice in the whole hall was speaking. It was Yuri, who had risen and now stood with his arms crossed, staring at nothing while he spoke. Jordan had not heard him speak before; his voice was a high tenor, very mannered and hard to hear, even in this attentive silence.

"...Are aware of the Iapysian tragedy. The Boros clan has an obligation, as nobility in that state, to not stand aside and allow it to continue. We also have an obligation, as nobility in other states, to avoid any action that might seem to be foreign interference. That is the reason I have not acted before now. It is the reason you were called here. All three nations know the Boros' are meeting, and that we are meeting at our ancestral home because it is our home, and for no other political reason.

"Now, there are many stories circulating about the nature of the catastrophe in Iapysia. It is popularly held to be a punishment by the Winds, who are popularly held to have installed Queen Galas to begin with. Firstly, though, she was the legal heir, so she would have inherited without their help. And second, she has been committing all manner of atrocities in the name of 'reform', many of which have struck at the very heart of our social order."

Brendan Sheia glared at Yuri. "Is reform a bad word around here?" he boomed.

Yuri held up a hand, cocking his head, and said, "Not at all. But we have to face the prospect of a nation ruled only by the rabble, in the form of the Iapysian parliament. Regardless of Queen Galas' crimes, no right-minded man or woman would want to see the state headless. We would all have to deal with the consequences and, I believe, the Winds would not look favorably upon Iapysia. And we, the Boros, are part of Iapysia."

Calandria put her hand on Jordan's sleeve. "Are you all right?" she asked in a whisper.

He wanted to tell her about the visions—but that would end the evening for sure. It wasn't that Jordan was enjoying this assembly, but it was a very big thing to be here at all. He wanted to stay until the end.

He shook his head. "I'm fine." But he was beginning to sweat.

Yuri continued: "The Queen earned the wrath of the parliament, and much of the nobility, by creating a number of `experimental villages' in which the laws of the land were replaced by mock laws of her own devising. In one such, every citizen was entitled to both a husband and a wife—male and female." Yuri nodded sagely at the shocked expressions of his audience. "In another she repealed law entirely, replacing it with crass public opinion. And in yet another, she inverted all the laws of the land, so that no one was punishable for any act—instead of being punished for acting unjustly, people were rewarded for acting justly. In short, she flung a challenge into the face of decency in all its forms. All in the name of some nebulous `reform'." Yuri looked down his nose at Brendan Sheia. "We are all ashamed of the actions of this Queen, and no amount of condemnation would be sufficient.

"But she is Queen, and if she is to be dealt with, it should be by the land owners, not the rabble. So, my dear family, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, for the army raised and ruled by parliament is winning the war against the Queen."

Who cared? He had to get out of here. Jordan made to stand, only to feel Axel's hand clamp onto his shoulder, forcing him down again. He turned to snap at the man, but a wave of dizziness overcame him.

Strange, how reassuring tears were. They were right for this body, a healing action. Armiger had never known that about tears before, had always taken them to be some reflex reaction of his men to pain. But they freed up sorrow, and this body of his, now his only one, thanked him for allowing them.

Now he stood, wiped his eyes, and gazed up and down the path. What else did this body need? It seemed he should take it into account now that his greater Self was gone. He required proper food, yes, and shelter, warmth and rest. Rest...

He had not known that his body was so weary. All the energy he had poured into it over the past day had poured right out again as he walked. He was healing despite his great expenditure of energy, not because of it. If he wasn't careful, the body would give out again, this time permanently. He would have to find another, or exist only as the ghostly net of threads that had first come to this world. While he could survive that way, Armiger feared the loss of his human body—it was his anchor. Without it he would drift into the madness of his own sense of loss.

His body wanted the comfort of its own kind to heal it. He would see where this path led to.

Axel took his hand off Jordan's shoulder. The kid had settled down. He now appeared to be concentrating on Yuri's speech. Good; couldn't have him running off to the latrine right now. Yuri was obviously about to announce which ship he was backing, the parliament or the Queen. It would not do to be conspicuous right now.

Jordan couldn't move. His perceptions seemed doubled: he knew he was sitting at the table in the banquet hall, even felt Axel take his hand from his shoulder. But at the same time, he was far away, watching through another set of eyes. His other hand brushed leaves aside; he stumbled, and Jordan tried to put his right hand out to steady himself. It worked!—he grabbed a branch. But then the hand let go again, before he willed it. No, he was not controlling this body, only reacting in synchrony with it.

"So it is with reluctance and in full awareness that this decision will please no one, that I have to tell you the official position of the house of Boros." Yuri frowned around at the assembled family members. "In the interest of eventually returning a true monarchy to Iapysia, we must support parliament at this time."

The path wound down a hillside, and there on a shoulder of the hill, under tall trees, sat a cabin. Extensive gardens were carved out of the brambles at the bottom of the hill, where a small stream wound through this wooded ravine.

Armiger paused, breath heaving. He felt conflicting impulses—to avoid this place, since he was not strong and his body might not survive a hostile encounter—or to seek help for it now. He was desperately ill, tired and wounded.

He stood shifting from foot to foot, aware of jabs of pain every time he moved. Where else could he go? Would he walk to the edge of the world? Or until the Winds found him and wrapped him in their own unwanted embrace? That prospect was daunting.

A gasp from behind him caught Armiger by surprise, and he tried to turn, only to lose his footing. With a raw shout he tumbled down the slope, quite helpless. At the bottom he lay wondering at his weakness. Never, even in the tomb, had he felt this way. His energies were failing from the effort it took to restore his body to life. Coughing, he blinked at the pale leaves high above.

"Goddess!" The voice was a woman's. "Are you all right?"

A shadow bent over him. He heard another intake of breath. "Goddess, you are not!"

Armiger tried to lift his hand. "Please," he croaked. "Help me." His black fingers closed in fine hair.

"No!" Jordan was barely aware that his plate was skittering across the table, and off to shatter on the floor. He had fallen forward, fighting to hold back Armiger's distant body. "Run! Get away from him!"

No one was paying any attention to him. Brendan Sheia was on his feet, shaking his finger at Yuri. "This is a calumny!" he shouted. "We all know the real reason you're supporting parliament, father. It's to cut me out of my birthright!"

A gasp went around the room. Then everyone was shouting at once.

No one could hear Jordan—not those in the banquet hall, transfixed as they were by the drama unfolding here, nor the distant woman, too close to Armiger. Jordan felt her hands on him—or were they Calandria's?

A torrent of outraged voices enveloped him—"Your anger does you no credit, Brendan!" "Quiet, Linden, you traitor." Chairs toppled; ladies scurried for cover as the two Boros heirs confronted one another below the head table.

None of this mattered to Jordan. He tried with all his will to take control of Armiger's body, but it was futile. That hand in her hair... He dimly knew that Axel had him in an armlock and together with Calandria, was marching him from the banquet hall.

He fought the wrong bodies, and even as they resisted, in that distant place the one who should resist, should flee, did not. Instead, her gentle arms gathered him up.

8

Calandria poured some wine and handed Jordan the cup. He accepted it gratefully, and hunched further under the blanket next to the fire Axel had lit in the fireplace. Axel now paced angrily at the doorway to their tower room. He had barred the door. Several times people had knocked, but he'd shouted that things were under control, Jordan was fine.

It seemed he'd disgraced them at the banquet. Jordan could still taste vomit faintly; he gulped at the wine to mask it. His hands shook, and he stared at them dumbly.

"What's wrong with him?" Axel demanded.

"He seems to be becoming more attuned to the implant. He was only able to receive when he was asleep before. Jordan, can you hear me?"

He drew himself closer to the fire. Reluctantly, he said, "Yeah."

Her fingers alighted on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." He drained the wine, facing into the fire.

"This is too much for him," Axel said. "We should stop."

"We don't know where he is yet!" she retorted. "The avatar is a threat until we find him and neutralize him. You know how the gods are. We have no way of knowing whether 3340 hid a resurrection seed in Armiger. If it did, and the seed sprouts... then, everything we've done is threatened."

"There are other ways to find him."

"No!" They both turned their heads. Jordan glared at them. At that moment the two of them reminded him of his parents, ineffectually mouthing words instead of acting. "We have to do something now! He's hurting people."

Calandria came to sit next to him. "What do you mean?"

"We have to find out where he is right now," Jordan insisted. "You promised you would take the visions away when I'd told you where Armiger is. Well, let's do it. I thought after the manse that things would get easier, since you said you knew what was happening and I thought you could do something about it. But you didn't expect what happened tonight, and it's getting worse!" He hunkered himself down, trying to pin her with the reproach of his gaze.

Calandria and Axel exchanged looks. Axel shrugged, appearing almost amused. "There are three of us in on this venture now, Cal. He's got a point."

"Where's the wisdom you were going to trade me for telling you where Armiger is?" Jordan pointed out. "I haven't got anything out of this. You kidnapped me, and put visions in my head till I'm almost crazy!" He was mildly astonished at his own outburst. Of course, he'd had a few cups of wine tonight, but really enough was enough. An echo of the force that had driven him into the night after Emmy drove him to speak now.

"You seem like the Winds sometimes," he said, "but you haven't done anything for me. You said you would."

Calandria stood. "I'm sorry," she said. "I promise to make it up to you. And I realize I made a mistake in bringing you to the banquet. I didn't think you would find it so stressful."

"Wait a second," said Axel. "So he was under extreme stress tonight. And started having visions. Is stress the trigger?"

She nodded, and sighed. "Sorry, Axel. I wasn't sure of it before, so I didn't mention it. But the banquet proves it. There's a correlation between stress and his receptivity."

"Maybe if he can control his stress reactions, he can control the visions," said Axel. Jordan looked up again at this.

Calandria looked pained. "Yes, but we don't want to eliminate them entirely. On the other hand, he won't be able to learn to control himself fast enough to prevent us learning what we need to know."

"We can at least teach him how to avoid the sort of thing that just happened." Axel nodded, his arms crossed and his eyes on Jordan. "Teach him some of your tricks. Relaxation games. Mind control. We owe him that much, and you'd said we'd pay him in wisdom. So let's start paying."

Calandria looked from Axel to Jordan, and nodded wearily. "All right." She sat down again. "Jordan, we will start your education right now, if you want."

"Yes!" He turned to face her. Finally.

"This will take time, and a lot of practise. It might not even work for the first while, but with practise you'll start to get it. Okay? Good. The first thing you must learn is that you cannot do anything if you cannot control your own mind—your emotions and your reactions. So, that is the first thing you will learn. Beginning with how to relax."

Jordan forgot the heat at his back and the wine in his cup, and listened.

Two anxious days passed. Armiger wasn't moving, so Jordan had nothing new to report to Calandria. He knew she was frustrated by the delay; they went over his previous visions time and again, but he could provide nothing new for her. He often saw her meditating with her eyes closed, and often after these sessions she had new questions for him about the landscapes he had glimpsed: "was there a tall rounded hill in the distance? Did the forest extend in three tongues near the horizon?" He had no answers.

On the third day, on one of his infrequent breaks, Jordan went to the roof to stretch. The Boros estate sprawled out below. People went to and fro about duties that were all familiar to him. He could tell what was happening by watching the servants, though the purposes of the Boros' themselves were impossible to read.

Though politics as such was beyond him, Jordan could read the story of the Boros family home from its very stones—could tell what was added when, and in what style. If you went by the boasts of the visiting family members, the clan had always been prominent. But this tower was ancient, and the manor house new, and in between were traces of buildings and walls in styles from various periods. Jordan could imagine each in turn, and he saw large gaps between the apparent razing of one set of buildings and the growth of the manor. If this were the Boros' ancestral home, it had lain unoccupied for up to a century at a time.

This exercise was a good way to take his mind off things. And, he had to admit, he was starting to relax despite himself. Over the past days he had constantly practiced the skills Calandria May had taught him. He'd never known he should breathe from the belly, not the chest—or that his body carried tension in tight muscles even when his mind was relaxed. He scanned his body every minute or two, and every time he did, he found some part of it had tightened up, usually his shoulders. He would concentrate for a second, relax them, and go back to what he was doing. The feeling of being pursued that had plagued him was receding.

Best of all, the visitations by Armiger were no longer arbitrary and uncontrollable. He still dreamed about the demigod, but in daylight he could tell when a vision fit was creeping up on him. Using the relaxation exercises Calandria had taught him, he could usually stop it dead. Calandria encouraged him to think of the visions as a talent he could master, and not as some alien intrusion.

He knew this worked to her ends, but was prepared to go along because, at last, her ends paralleled his own. He was able to think about the visions with some objectivity, and report what he saw and heard in detail to her.

Most importantly, what he saw and heard had changed. Armiger lay in bed in a cabin somewhere to the south. He was being nursed by a solitary woman, a widow who lived alone in the woods. In his convalescence Armiger seemed like an ordinary man. His terrible wounds were healing, and the small snatches of dialogue between him and his benefactor that Jordan caught were mundane, awkward, almost shy. Armiger had not eaten her, nor did he order her about. He accepted her help, and thanked her graciously for it. His voice was no longer a choked rasp, but a mellow tenor.

Jordan didn't doubt Armiger's capacity for evil. He was not human. But what Jordan saw was no longer nightmarish, and that, too, was a relief.

"Hey, there you are!" Axel Chan's head poked up from the open trapdoor of the tower's roof. He emerged, dusted himself off, and came to join Jordan at the battlement. "What are you doing up here? The gardens are fine today. Soaking up the sun?"

Jordan nodded. "I like it up here. I can see all the buildings." Gardens didn't interest him; they were the provenance of gardeners, not stoneworkers like him.

He hesitated, then asked something that had been on his mind. "We're not staying here, are we?"

"We'll be leaving as soon as we have a fix on Armiger." Axel leaned out carefully, and spat. "Hm. Twenty meters down." He looked slyly at Jordan. "You wouldn't be hiding from Calandria up here, would you?"

"No." It was the truth, though Jordan did know what Axel meant. "She works me pretty hard." If she had her way, Jordan would spent sixteen hours a day on his exercises.

Axel shrugged. "She's trying to pack as much information into you as she can in a short time."

"But she won't answer all my questions."

"Really? Like what?"

"I asked her what the Winds are. She said I probably wouldn't understand."

"Ah. No, you probably won't. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't tell you," added Axel with a grin. "You want to know? The unabridged version?"

"Yes!"

"Okay." Axel steepled his hands, looking out over the estate. "Has she told you what gods are?"

"Primal spirits," Jordan said. "Superior to the Winds."

Axel scowled. "You see, here's one of those places where the questions will go on forever. Okay, first of all, the gods aren't spirits, they're mortal. Second, humans existed before the gods. Thirdly, we made the first gods, centuries ago. They were experiments in creating consciousness in mechanisms. Nobody knows where 3340 came from, but He was the same kind of thing as the Winds, and just as out of control."

"How could a god be a mechanism?"

"Hmmf. Look at it this way. Once long ago two kinds of work converged. We'd figured out how to make machines that could make more machines. And we'd figured out how to get machines to... not exactly think, but do something very much like it. So one day some people built a machine which knew how to build a machine smarter than itself. That built another, and that another, and soon they were building stuff the men who made the first machine didn't even recognize. Some of these things became known as mecha, which is the third order of life here on Ventus. Mecha's as subtle as biological life, but constructed totally differently.

"And, some of the mechal things kept developing, with tremendous speed, and became more subtle than life. Smarter than humans. Conscious of more. And, sometimes, more ambitious. We had little choice but to label them gods after we saw what they could do—namely, anything.

"Most of the time gods go on about their own concerns. 3340 decided its concern was us. Luckily we—humans—know how to create things of equal power that serve us. The Winds were intended to be your slaves, not your masters. Apparently there's stories here to that effect."

Jordan nodded.

"The exact design of the Winds has been lost," Axel said, "since they were a one-shot project of the European Union, and the university that oversaw the project was nuked along with Hamburg in 2078. Anyway, the Winds were created and given the task of turning Ventus from a lifeless wasteland into a paradise where people could live. They did so—except that when the colonists arrived, the Winds didn't recognize you.

"It seems there was no way to communicate with them. One of the things we don't know to this day is what the chain of command within the Winds was supposed to be. There seems to be no central 'brain' which rules the planet. And communications between the Winds seems spotty and confused. It's as if they've all gone their own ways.

"A lot of people think this is what happened. The Winds all concern themselves with the ecology of the planet, but at different levels. The vagabond moons worry about the overall distribution of minerals and soil nutrients, so they scoop here and dump there; they want to do in centuries what evolution and tectonics would take billions of years to accomplish. The mecha embedded in the grass are advocates of the grass, and they may object to the moons' dumping crap on them, say. There's no central brain telling both it's a good idea. But maybe there was originally supposed to be a central plan, that they would all have access to. Knowing this plan, the grass would acquiesce to its death by salting, or drowning in a new lake made by the desals. So, though none of the Winds were to be answerable to any of the others, they would all be answerable to the Plan, because that was the only way to guarantee the proper terraforming of Ventus.

"Humans don't seem to be mentioned in the programming of the Winds. We were supposed to be the apex of the Plan, represented as its ultimate purpose. That's what went wrong—no Plan, no accommodation for the arrival of the colonists.

"So a strange double-world has developed on your planet. Each object seems to have its resident spirit—the microscopic mecha, or what we call 'nano', that coordinate that object's place in the ecology. Originally these resident spirits were supposed to have a common goal over and above the survival of their hosts. They were to put themselves at our disposal—be our tools. But now, it's anarchy. War in the spirit world. The only ones aloof from this war are the greatest Winds, the Diadem swans, the Heaven hooks and the like."

Jordan had only understood a little of this speech. "But some people do speak to the Winds," he said. "That's how the inspectors and controllers know what crop yields should be, or where they can build a waterwheel. The Winds tell them what's allowed."

"Hm..." Axel raised an eyebrow. "I'd heard that from other people here too. Up there," he jerked a thumb at the clouds, "people don't believe it. They say your inspectors are a bunch of charlatans, holding onto power by pretending they can talk to the Winds."

Jordan crossed his arms. "I don't know. I just know how we do things."

"Right. That's fair."

"So what is Calandria May?" asked Jordan. "Is she a Wind, or a thing like Armiger? Or just a person?"

"She's... just a person. But a person with special skills, and enhancements to her body, such as the armor under her skin. I've got that too," he said, rubbing his wrist. "And I'm still human, aren't I?" He grinned.

"So how did you get here? I know you followed Armiger, but..." Jordan had too many questions; he didn't know where to start.

Axel frowned down at the distant gardens. "We were at war against 3340—all humanity was. It wanted us all as slaves. It had all its godly powers; we had our super-mecha. And a few agents who were more than human, but less than gods, like Calandria May. Last year she infiltrated a world called Hsing, which 3340 had enslaved, to try to find a way to turn the population against their unchosen god. She found 3340 had been changing ordinary people into demigods—Diadem swans or morphs, if you will—by infecting them with mecha that ate them from within, replacing all their biology with mechalogy. 3340 enslaved these much more brutally than even the humans. Cal found a way to turn them against 3340, and she did that during our attack six months ago."

"How?"

"She had to briefly become one of them herself. You or I couldn't have done it, but Calandria was able to leave her humanity behind. She became a goddess, only for a day or so. And she killed 3340."

"If she became a goddess, why didn't she stay that way?"

Axel shook his head. "Don't know. She could have kept fabulous powers; she would have lived for thousands of years if she wanted. She didn't want to. I think she was crazy to give that up. Don't understand. I really don't."

Jordan was thinking. "So after 3340 died, you came here. To kill his servant, Armiger."

"Exactly." Axel leaned against the battlement, and squinted at the sun. "What does all of this imply about the Winds, now?"

Jordan hesitated. What came to mind was impossible.

Axel nodded smugly. "You're smart. Isn't it clear? The Winds are made of the same stuff as the mecha. They are alive. And they, too, are mortal."

Jordan turned away. "Crazy talk. If the Winds are mortal, then everything could be. —The sky, or the sun, or the earth itself."

"You're beginning to understand," Axel said. "Now understand this: what is mortal can be murdered."

The door to their tower room was bolted; the fire was lit and candles sat on the table. Jordan, Calandria and Axel sat in imitation of some domestic scene, each bent over an evening task. Except that Calandria was not darning, but poring over a map on the table top; and Axel was not repairing tools or his boots, but polishing the steel of a wicked sword; and Jordan was not playing games or cleaning, but sat cross-legged in the center of the floor, hands on his knees, eyelids fluttering. He was trying to count to three, one digit per breath, without allowing any stray thoughts to intrude on the way. Tonight he felt he was finally starting to get the hang of it.

At two-and-a-half breaths, he caught himself thinking hey, I can do this! Stop. Back to one.

"Shit." He slapped himself on the forehead. Calandria laughed.

"You're doing well," she said. "You can rest now."

"But I had it once or twice!"

"Good. Don't push it, or you'll get worse rather than better."

He unwove his legs and stood. Two deep breaths, just as she had taught. Jordan felt great, relaxed and able to deal with things. He'd never really felt like this before... oh, maybe when he was really young, and didn't know what the world was like. All his cares and worries seemed distant, and he was able to pay attention to the here-and-now. He smiled, and plunked himself down on the edge of the bed.

"Axel tells me you have quite a mind," Calandria said. "He told me you figured out your own history of the Boros clan by reading their architecture."

"Yeah," he said suspiciously. He and Axel had moved on to talk about that this afternoon, after their conversation about the Winds and 3340 had ended in impasse. Axel had been quite unaware of the contradiction between the Boros' official history and what the stones suggested.

"Do you want to move on to a new study? You must continue to practise what I've taught you, of course."

"Sure!" He felt ready for anything. "What do we do?"

Calandria folded her map and put it aside. "We can build on what you've already learned. If you can relax, you can concentrate. If you can concentrate, you can do marvels."

"Like what?"

"Perfect memory, for instance. Or perfect control of your body, even your heartbeat. Tonight, I'll show you something to help you control your visions."

"I thought that was what I was learning."

"You've been learning how to stop them. Now you'll learn how to make them happen."

Axel looked up, surprise written on his mobile face. "Do we know that?"

"Everything's consistent," she said. "I'd be very surprised if this doesn't work." She motioned for Jordan to sit on the floor, and seated herself in front of him. "Now, close your eyes."

Jordan wasn't sure he wanted to be able to make the visions happen—he was happy that they were going away. But he obeyed. Armiger was not so frightening any more, and if he could stop a vision once it started, the prospect was less daunting.

"Now," Calandria said, "without actually doing it, imagine you are raising your hand in front of your face." He did so. "Examine your imaginary hand. Turn it back and forth. Make a fist." He obeyed. "Look closely at your hand. Picture it as clearly as you can."

Jordan did his best. "Do you keep losing the image?" she asked. He nodded. "Do you get little flashes of other images?"

Puzzled, he sat for a while. Then he realized what she meant: the hand was replaced for a split-second here and there by pictures of inconsequential things, like the washbasin in the corner, or a vista of trees he couldn't identify. "I see it," he said.

"This is what goes on behind everybody's eyes," she said. "A constant flicker of visions. As you practise the counting exercise and your concentration improves, you'll be able to damp them down, and see what you want to see for longer and longer.

"Now, as you've imagined your hand, imagine you can see your entire body. Keep your eyes closed, and look down at yourself." He moved his head, imagining his bent knees and bare feet against the flagstones. "Good. Now, keep your eyes closed, and don't move. Imagine this second body of yours is your own, and stand up in it."

He did. "Look around." Jordan pretended he was standing and looking around the room. It was hard to maintain the images; they kept sliding away. He said so.

"That's okay. Now pretend to turn around. Do you see the bench where Axel's sitting?"

He concentrated. "Yes..." He kept seeing it as a memory, from the position of the bed where he'd sat earlier. He tried to imagine seeing it as if he were standing in the center of the room.

"See his pack on the floor next to it?"

"Yes."

"Go over to the pack. Open it up. Look inside. What do you see?"

He pretended to do as she said. "There's... a knife, a book, a glass liquor bottle."

"How full is the bottle?"

Jordan pretended to hold it up. It seemed to be a quarter full. "A quarter." That was just a fancy, of course; he had no idea what was in Axel's pack.

Calandria said, "Axel, open your pack. Is there a bottle in it?"

"Yeah."

"How full is it?"

"A quarter full, but hey this is just a memory trick. I was drinking from it earlier, you both saw me."

"Jordan, do you remember seeing Axel drink from the bottle earlier?"

"I... I don't know. Maybe."

"Maybe. But you're not sure. And yet you see the bottle, and you know how full it is, and where it is. How strange, hmm?"

A strong exultation gripped Jordan. He had seen it! What he saw with his imagination was somehow real.

"Parlor trick," muttered Axel.

"Be silent!" she commanded. "Now try this. Sit your body down again where your real body sits. Close your imaginary eyes." He did so. "Imagine blackness. Now..."

Her hand touched his shoulder. Jordan struggled to keep his eyes closed. "Practise your deep breathing. Calm yourself, and see deeper and deeper black." He felt the center of his consciousness dropping through his body, to rest finally in his belly, where great strength drove slow breaths in and out.

Calandria's voice had taken on its most hypnotic lilt. "You will open your inner eyes again, but this time, the hand you see before you will not be yours, but rather Armiger's. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"Open those eyes."

He did so.

The ceiling was low, and beamed. He could see the cross- pattern of thatch crooks flickering above that in the firelight.

Armiger sat up. The effort was easier this time. He looked around, fingers opening and closing on the soft cloth which was draped over his naked body.

The woman sat near the fire. Megan, she had called herself. She held a cloth sack draped across her knees, and was just positioning the second of two buckets at her feet. It was probably the scraping sound of the buckets that had woken him.

All Megan's possessions were visible within the one room of this cabin. She had three chairs, a full set of pots, cooking, and fire implements, two hatchets by the door, and a spinning wheel. Chests were wedged into the corners. Dried herbs and kindling hung from the rafters. Everything was rough-hewn, except three items of furniture: the posted bed Armiger now sat in, a fine oaken dining table and, at the wall behind Megan, a wooden cupboard with inlaid patterns of leaves. Yesterday he had lain for a while, too exhausted to move, and examined the pattern on that cupboard from his position here.

Megan was in her thirties. Her hair was grey, her face lined and wind-burnt. She was very strong, though, and still slim under the red peasant dress she wore. Now she plunged her hand into one of the buckets, and brought out a fistful of brown and white feathers. She began riffling through the mass with her other hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice sounded stronger.

Megan looked up quickly, and smiled. "How are you?"

"Better." He rolled his head, surprising himself when his neck cracked. It never used to do that. He fingered the underside of his jaw. The scar was almost gone. "I'd like to try to walk today."

"Tomorrow. It's evening."

"Oh." She began stuffing feathers into the open end of the sack, and he realized she was making a pillow. "I've been using your bed. I..." He wasn't sure what he was going to say. Thank her for that? But he had been ailing. It was a human thing for her to do, he knew; not that any of his men would have willingly done the same. "Where have you been sleeping?"

"Oh, I slept there with you the first night," she said, looking down at her work. Her hair hid her face. "You were so cold, I thought you might not survive till morning. The last few times, I've used the table. With some quilts on it, it's quite fine. The bed's mattress is only straw, anyway."

Armiger imagined her lying on the table, like a body in state. He pushed the image deliberately out of his mind.

"I'm sorry to be a burden to you," he said stiffly.

Megan frowned. "Don't talk like that. It's no trouble, all else I have to take care of is me. And I am fine. Anyway... what else could I do?"

"I was dying," he said, wondering at the thought. "You saved me."

"I've tended the dying before," she said. "Last time, with no hope he'd recover. I had not that hope this time, either. So I am happy, you see, if I could save someone." Her face fell as she thought of something. "At least this time..."

"You lost someone close to you?" He looked around, noticing the fine wooden table and bed-frame. "Your husband."

Megan nodded as she reached for more down. "You see I know about losing things. And about trying to keep them." She looked at him, almost fiercely. "You always lose it in the end—what you want to keep. The harder you try to keep it the more it goes. So now I know how to keep things right."

"How is that?"

"You can never keep a whole thing. But you can keep a part of anything." She looked sadly at the wooden cupboard. "Be it only a piece of furniture. And if you can learn to be content with that, then you can let anything go." Megan stood and walked to the cupboard. She smoothed her hand over the fine wood grain. "I would sit and watch him as he made this. He spent so much time on it. We were in love. When you lose your husband, you think you've lost everything—nothing has any value any more. Funny, how long it took to know that this was still here, and other little things. The parts of him I could keep."

She shrugged, and turned to Armiger. "And what have you lost?"

He felt a surge of rage at the mindless presumption of the question. As if she could comprehend what he'd lost! Well, maybe to her, losing her husband was the equivalent of his own disaster. "I lost my army," he said.

Megan laughed. "And nearly your life. But soldiers don't worry about that sort of thing, do they? I admire that."

He scratched absently at the back of his arm. "Good lady, soldiers worry about nothing else."

She came and sat down on the edge of the bed. He smelled pungent chicken feathers. "Now," she said seriously, "maybe I do believe that. Because you've lost something. More than your way."

Armiger stared at her. There was no way he could talk about this—words could not encompass it, they were too small. The part of him he had communed with had been beyond words, or any of a human's five senses; it had invented senses, and sense, to suit its intimacies.

He wanted to speak to her in thunder, in torn ground and shocked air. Would have, had he only the strength.

Reminded that she had given him what strength he did have, he looked down.

"I think... I did die," he said. It was the only human analogue he could think of. "I died when... She died." She was completely wrong to describe his higher Self; but Megan's people thought their souls were feminine. He struggled to find words, wrapping his arms around himself, glaring past her. "More than a wife. More than a queen. My god died, who gave meaning to more than just my life, who infused everything, the stones, the air, with it."

Megan nodded. "I knew. From things you said in your sleep. From the look of you." She sighed. "Yes, you see, we are together in that."

"No. Not like you." He sat up angrily, feeling sharp stabs of pain in his side. Megan stared at him, patient and undaunted.

He wanted to pierce her calmness, her certainty that her own pain was as great as his. "She wasn't a human being," he said. She was... a Wind."

Megan blinked. Her brow wrinkled, then cleared. "Much is made clear," she said. It was his turn to look surprised. Megan reached out, slowly, and touched the healing scar under his chin. "I know the rites of death," she said. "I have had to perform them myself."

Armiger sat back. His anger was deflated. For some reason, he felt unfulfilled, as if he had lied to her, and not merely told her what she would understand.

Everything was greying out. "Sleep," she said. "My morph."

He lay back, listening to her move about the cabin. Just before he drifted off again, he heard her say, maybe to herself, "And what part of this are you going to keep?"

9

"This may be our last warm night of the year," said Megan the next evening. "It pleases me to see you enjoying it."

Armiger smiled at her. He stood in the center of the clearing next her cottage. The sun had just set, leaving a rose band across the western horizon. The moon Diadem was rising. The moon received its name from the scattering of brilliant white craters on its surface, which made it a dim oval studded with diamond-bright pinpricks of light. On other nights Armiger had praised or cursed those gleaming points, depending on whether night-visibility was to his army's advantage or not. Tonight, possibly for the first time, he was able to admire the sight for its own sake.

He felt content. He knew it was because he was free from all responsibilities during this convalescence.

"Strange," he murmured.

Megan looked up at the moon, then back at him. "What?"

"I should be dead," he said.

She touched his shoulder. "Your wounds were terrible. But they're healing quickly. Isn't that normal for a morph?"

"I'm not exactly a morph," he said wryly. "Just something like one. But yes, you're right." The lie came easily to his lips. Then he thought about it. Could he explain this to a mortal? He would never have thought he had an obligation to try.

Armiger lowered his eyes from the moon, and studied Megan in the pale light. She was a creature he didn't understand. His plans had rarely included women. But she stood next to him now, easy in the cricket-song and darkness, and played none of the dominance games males played. She took her own obligation to him, the wounded soldier, for granted.

"My link to my higher self," he began, then stopped. "It was more than love. We shared an identity. When... she died, I should have died too. Because there was only one of us. Or at least that's what I believed."

Megan nodded. "We all think that of our life's love. But one carries on."

At first Armiger thought she had simply not understood him. Then he thought of another possibility: Megan knew his experiences were not like hers, but she was making an effort to translate them into terms she could understand.

It surprised him to think that she might be spending her time with him doing such an odd kind of work. For it would be work, finding commonality with a stranger's experience. Armiger himself did so only as a way of anticipating the next move of an opponent.

If she'd kept her conclusions to herself, he might have believed she was doing that too. But she shared them.

"Was she killed in the war?" Megan asked.

He started to say no, since this local brushfire he had been involved in had nothing to do with the interstellar conflict that had resulted in his greater self's demise. But he could play the same game as her: what would make sense to her, on an emotional level? "Yes," he said.

"You won't go back to being a soldier, will you?"

He barely heard her. Why am I alive? When his Self died, he should have been extinguished, or at least turned back into an aimless machine.

"I thought I knew what I was," he said. Armiger had pretended to be human since arriving on Ventus. Before that, he recalled bright light and deep vacuum, vision encompassing 360 degrees, radio song in his head, and others' thoughts as well. In that existence, there had been no distinguishing his own mind from those of his companions, the other servants of 3340. And the god's will was the same as their own. The part of that vast identity that was Armiger thought of himself as an extension of the greater whole. He had assumed that when he thought, it was 3340 who was thinking, and when he acted, it was the god acting. It had always been that way.

No, not always...

Suddenly the presence of this woman at his side felt threatening. Something ancient, a memory perhaps, made him turn away from her. "I need to be alone now," he said. The harsh tone of his own voice surprised him.

"But—" she began. Then she seemed to think better, and turned and walked away quickly.

Armiger glanced back. Humans were biological creatures—mortal animals. For a second there, though, he had touched on some deep-buried feeling within himself. Megan had loomed in the darkness as real as 3340 itself. For an instant, he had... remembered? Remembered standing with someone, a human being, who was every bit his own equal. A creature like himself.

A woman.

And there and then a memory unfolded within Armiger like a long-dormant flower: of himself walking and laughing, a young man with a young woman on his arm, on a world with two moons. On a night like this.

That memory was a thousand years old.

Had he once been human himself? That could explain why 3340 had chosen him for this job. On the other hand, the god could have crafted his personality from the remnants of captured human minds. After all, a memory was nothing more than a synaptic hologram. He was sure 3340 could manufacture any sort of memory for its agents.

Armiger stalked through the long wet grass, swiping at it absently with his hands. The moon and the warmth of the night were forgotten now. He came to the edge of the woods, and turned to pace back the way he'd come, scowling.

If that had been a manufactured memory, why should it remain submerged for so long? He would have expected the god to make only useful memories, and provide them all to his agent's consciousness.

This memory... her hand in his... was an alien thing. He couldn't fit it into his purpose or identity as 3340 had given them to him.

He realized he had been kicking the grass out of his way as he walked, tearing it up by the roots. Armiger stopped, and glanced back at the cottage. Megan stood silhouetted in the doorway.

He ran his hand through his hair. Well. Evidently there was some fragment of human mentality in him. 3340 would not have sent him on this mission were that not the case. It could explain why he was still alive: for some reason 3340 had given him the same instincts for autonomous self-preservation as biological creatures had.

He told himself not to jump to conclusions. He had yet to really take stock of himself. Hitherto the overwhelming fact of his bereavement had kept him from exploring what was left to him. Maybe it was time.

He walked back to the cottage. Megan still stood in the doorway, a frown on her face. "I can't say I haven't done that myself," she said. "I'm sorry if I reminded you of things you didn't want to think about."

Armiger felt tired, in body and mind. "I need to thank you, actually," he said. "You've provided me such a safe haven here that I can finally face some of these things."

Megan beamed. She seemed to struggle for something to say. "Oh," she managed at last. Then, slyly, "then I can take your ripping up the garden as a good sign?"

"Garden?" He glanced back at the darkened field.

"You tromped right through one of them a minute ago."

"Oh." What to say? "I'll repair the damage in the morning."

She laughed. "Just do your best. I can't picture you as a gardener, whatever else you may be."

Awkwardly, he tried a grin in reply. Megan combed her fingers through her hair and bumped her shoulder against the doorjamb a couple of times.

"I'll heat up some stew if you'd like," she said at last.

"Thanks. I'm going to sit out here and meditate a while."

"Okay." She ducked back in, leaving the door open to the fragrances of night.

Armiger sat down stiffly on the uneven boards of the cottage's small porch. There was just enough space next to Megan's rocking chair for him to sit in full lotus. He gazed out over the breeze-runnelled grass. Diadem's light cast shadows like nodding figures under the trees. He closed his eyes.

Armiger decided to avoid a full neurophysiological exam for now. He just wasn't psychologically strong enough to take an objective look at how much intelligence, memory and will he had lost with 3340. He could treat his body dispassionately, however, so he started with that.

His resources were painfully low. The gossamer nanotech that made up his real body had unfurled from its usual position at the spine, and spread throughout this human form, right to its extremities. Nearly all his energy was devoted to shoring up the body's ravaged immune system. He had manufactured nano to move in and repair the dead cells of his own corpse, and until a day or so ago he had been warm and breathing only because the nano had replaced normal cell processes with their own harsh metabolism. Now the nano were easing out of revived cells and were being reabsorbed into his filamentary body. His strength was growing, but very slowly. At this rate it would be many months before he recovered fully.

He regretted having been so profligate with his power when he arrived. To think he had detached parts of his own gossamer and implanted them in humans, just to use them as remote eyes and ears...

Armiger opened his eyes. He had completely forgotten about the remotes. It wasn't surprising, with everything that had happened; they had always been a minor part of his plans, the mental equivalent of posting picket sentries around a camp. They did contain valuable nano, however. He could considerably speed up his recovery if he recovered some of that.

If it hadn't been too badly damaged by the catastrophe, he should still have links to each remote. They operated on superluminal resonances, undetectable on the electromagnetic spectrum; he had set up the links this way to prevent the Winds from homing in on his position. It was still possible to trace the signal back from one of the remotes, but that would require an understanding of human physiology and psychology that he knew the Winds didn't possess. Superluminal links were always two way—what affected one station affected the other. Armiger knew of no Wind capable of exploiting the fact to turn one of his remotes into a receiver, so he had felt safe in making them.

Shutting his eyes, he called up their perspectives. The system was weak from damage and disuse, but after a few seconds the remotes began to respond.

There should have been twelve. By the time the system was fully up, Armiger could see through only six pairs of eyes.

Even that was nearly overwhelming. Somewhere in the catastrophe he had lost the ability to process multiple sensory inputs. What came to him now was a chaos of sensations: blue cloth waving near a fire, water down a horse's flank, the feel of stone on his bare back, a warm hand on his belly—

—Pounding heart and ragged breaths gulped into a tight and painful chest.

He recoiled in pain. It was too much to take all at once. After opening his eyes and breathing quietly for a minute, he resumed, this time singling out one remote's perspective.

This other's hands smoothed the chestnut flank of his horse one last time, then turned away. Armiger saw he stood in a small stable, the sort attached to country inns all across Ravenon. This perspective belonged to an engineer who travelled the country repairing and updating the heliographs in royal signal towers. He saw a lot of the country in his travels, and more than once Armiger had used his perspective to gather intelligence.

Tonight he was idle, walking slowly out of the stable, through a light drizzle to the door of a thatch-roofed inn. Armiger stayed with him only long enough to see him slide aside the curtain to a private closet; a candle already burned next the small cot there.

Armiger turned his attention to the next perspective. This man was in bed already, but not alone. Several people sat on hard wooden chairs next to the bed in his small plaster-walled bedroom. Armiger's remote was talking to them.

"...Came at me like that out of nowhere. Why? What did I do to deserve this?" He gestured at his leg, which lay exposed above the bedding. It was thickly wrapped in bloody bandages.

"How many did you say there were?" asked a man wearing the crimson ribbons of a priest.

"Five, six. I don't know! It all happened so fast."

"Well, you must have done something to offend them."

"Not necessarily," said another man. "Maybe someone else did. Matthew was passing by. He was a handy target."

"I don't understand," whined the man in the bed. "How am I going to work now?"

"Don't worry. We'll help you."

Armiger left this perspective for the next.

Still on her back. Cold stone and pebbles ground against her hips. Her legs were wrapped around the broad torso of the man who moved against her. Past his shoulder, Armiger could see bright stars.

He moved to the next remote.

Stumbling in the blackness, he went down on all fours. His own breath was a rasping rattle in his ears. This man stood, staggering now from a broad scrape down his leg, and ran.

Through leaves and dancing branches he ran—down a hillside, recklessly, barely keeping to his feet above prancing stones—and into an orchard. The limbs of the well-tended trees stretched skyward like supplicants' arms to heaven. He barely glanced up at them. After weaving his way down an alley between the trees, he allowed himself to slow, then to pause, and look behind him.

Nothing pursued him in the darkness. He looked up.

The night here was overcast, making the darkness near total. But past the crest of the hill he had just come down, above the clouds, light shone as though men with lanterns rode some causeway there. The lights were coming closer, with apparent slowness.

He gave a cry that was more a painful gasp, and turned to run again. A cottage was visible now at the end of the rows of trees. Low, stone, with a goat-pen attached, it glowed with internal firelight, warm and inviting. He renewed his run, breathing harshly.

Armiger felt the boards under him dip as Megan came out onto the porch. She said something. He raised one hand to still her.

The runner had reached the cottage. "Lena!" he cried, then flung himself to hang on the fence around the goatpen. He shuddered.

"Perce?" A young woman appeared in the cottage's doorway—uncannily silhouetted as Megan had been earlier. "Perce! What's wrong?"

"They're coming! Just like the old man said they were."

"No. That can't be. He's crazy, we all know it—"

"Look!" He reeled around, and pointed at the glowing sky.

She screamed.

"What's going on here?" An older man and woman appeared behind the girl.

"Perce!" She ran to him. Perce reached over the fence as she threw her arms around him. "What's going to happen?"

"The old man said they wanted to take me away." Perce laughed giddily. "We never believed he really spoke to them, remember? All those years... He said they'll take me. And I'll never see you again."

She buried her face in his neck, crying. He could see her parents standing in awkward confusion nearby. They were staring at the sky.

"I came to say goodbye."

"No," she said, muffled. "You can hide here. We'll take care of you. They'll go away."

"I tried hiding," he said. "They found me—started to pull the stables down around me! I ran to the river—dove in and let the rapids take me awhile. That's the only way I got as far ahead as I did. If I stay they'll kill you to get at me. But I couldn't go without saying goodbye."

She shook her head.

"There's so much I want to say," he mumbled. "Something—I wanted to say something to let you know how much you mean to me."

He pulled away, leaving her reaching for him over the fence. "All I could think of was when we were twelve. Remember when we played hide-and-seek in the orchard? That day? I dream about it all the time. Have, ever since."

Turning away to face the darkness, he said, "That's all—I remember that day. Goodbye, Lena."

She screamed after him but he ran with renewed energy. Armiger deduced he wanted to get as far from the cottage as he could before whatever was coming found him.

Perce ran around the goat pen and down a laneway that led between more orchards. Low fieldstone walls lined the laneway, and in the darkness they closed in claustrophobically. Perce's eyes stayed down though; he seemed to know what in the dark he was afraid of, and it was nothing that might lurk behind those walls.

He had gone perhaps half a kilometer, and was beginning to stagger desperately, when he heard a ripping sound overhead. It was a sound almost like a flag in the wind, almost like the blurred noise of a sword on the downstroke, but it went on and on, rising to a deafening crescendo. Dust leapt from the laneway around Perce, and he coughed, and stopped helplessly.

Giant claws crushed him. He shouted blood as they spun him around and pulled him into the sky.

Perce saw his hands reaching down to the receding lines of the laneway, then he saw the jewel-box perfection of Lena's cottage glowing below him. It was intact. Drops of blood trailed off his fingertips and fell toward it.

Darkness fell over him like a cloak.

Armiger cursed, and opened his eyes. Megan stood above him, her expression quizzical.

Something had severed his link to the remote.

"What is going on here?" he asked himself.

Megan laughed lightly. "I was about to ask you that myself. What are you doing?"

He shook his head, scowling into the night. Suddenly the shadows Diadem cast across the clearing didn't look so benign.

I have to leave, he thought. But, looking up at Megan, he found he didn't want to say that to her. In its own way, that was as disturbing as the vision he had just had.

He pushed the heel of one hand against his forehead, a gesture one of his lieutenants had favored.

"You're a mess," Megan said sympathetically.

Armiger thought about it. Then he squinted up at her. "Dear lady," he said, "I believe you are right."

Returning from exploring the local town, Axel found the road to the Boros estate blocked by a number of wagons. They sat listlessly in the hot sun, waiting for some obstruction ahead to clear.

His horse snorted and turned to look at him. Axel stretched and grinned. "You hate to wait, don't you?" he said to her. She swung her head away again.

He had gone into town to look for discrete lodgings for August, and to buy a good pair of horses for Calandria and Jordan. He'd found the lodgings, but not the horses. It was a good start.

He cantered over to the wagons. "Making camp?" he inquired of the driver of the wagon that sat square in the middle of the gateway. The man looked at him wearily.

"Everybody's a comedian. Sir," he added, noting the way Axel was dressed.

"Seriously, what's the hold-up?" One very large wagon blocked the wrought-iron gates to the estate. Axel supposed he could ride around through the underbrush. He didn't, but leaned forward as the other man pointed down the road.

"Breakdown up ahead."

Axel laughed. "Some things never change. Any chance you can move that cart a meter or two and let me by?"

"Yes, sir." The driver urged his horses forward a bit. Axel's own steed balked at the narrow opening between the stone gate post and the side of the wagon, so he dismounted and led it through.

Six or seven wagons waited on the roadway ahead. He didn't bother to mount again as he passed them.

Funny, he thought, but these wagons looked awfully familiar. Then he looked past them, and understood why.

Turcaret's steam car sat wreathed by smoke and mist a little down the road. The controller himself stood next to it talking to a pot-belled man in greasy velvet robes. Axel passed the lead wagon and walked up the center of the road to meet Turcaret.

When he spotted Axel, Turcaret turned and casually waved. He was a tall man who appeared forever to be posing for his own portrait. He wore a red velvet riding jacket, and spotless black boots. He stood ramrod straight and held his chin high so that he could look down his long, pointed nose at Axel.

"Ah, the wandering agent of Ravenon," he said. "I see you made use of my suggestion to visit the Boros. How is the lady May?"

"Never better, sir." Axel peered into the pall of smoke around the steam car. He hated Turcaret. "Having a little mechanical problem?"

"Nothing we can't fix. I've sent a man ahead to tell Yuri we're arriving. I trust you've found the Boros' accommodating?"

"That we have." What was Turcaret doing here? He had outlined his travel itinerary at length in several tiresome dinner conversations prior to their arrival at Castor's. Cal had decided to take up the hospitality of the Boros family precisely because Turcaret was not expected to come here. The fewer people to compare notes about them the better.

Might as well admit surprise, he thought. "And what brings you here? I thought you were heading straight for the capital after Castor's?"

"Oh, I was." Turcaret smiled one of his strangely infuriating, smug smiles. "But then I was given some information that I thought Yuri simply must know about. So I thought it best to come here directly."

Axel felt his smile grow a bit wooden. "Information? What information?"

"Oh, that would be telling," said Turcaret.

"Yes, well... I hope to see you at dinner, then?" Axel remounted his horse.

"Oh, you'll be seeing me, Mr. Chan, count on it." Turcaret smiled again, and turned back to inspecting his steam car.

This can't be good, Axel thought as he spurred his horse to a trot. He'd had a very good time here at the Boros estate, but the worm was in the apple now. What would happen if Turcaret and Yuri compared notes? Maybe nothing...

But he would start packing anyway, he decided, just as soon as he'd told Calandria the news.

10

On the night of Turcaret's arrival, Jordan awoke somewhere around three A.M. For a moment he thought he must be back in Armiger's mind, because the sound that had awakened him was the sound of metal striking metal: clashing swords. He sat up, and looked around. This was definitely the tower room, with its odd triangular stonework. The sound had come from the window. Outside it was the courtyard of statues.

The sound was faint and intermittent. For a few seconds he thought he might be imagining things. Then it came again.

And again, silence. Jordan pictured two figures circling one another, in unspoken agreement that no alarm should be given. Unless one was already dead?

He rose and padded quietly to the window. The smell of the rain which had cascaded down all evening came to him. Calandria slept in her usual comatose way, limbs flung akimbo, body entangled in the sheets. Jordan stood on his tiptoes and peered down at the darkened well of the courtyard.

His scalp prickled. He had never seen the courtyard after lights-out. Not even the glow of a lantern filtered down from the tall windows of the manor. Lady Hannah Boros' statues posed like dancers at some subterranean ball, who needed no light, whose music was the grumble of bedrock settling and whose dance steps took centuries to complete. Jordan had no doubt, after seeing the manse, that such places existed.

One of the statues leapt out of place and dodged behind another. Jordan heard labored breathing and the slide of metal on stone. Shadowed darkness near one wall roiled, showing another figure in motion. Jordan's breath caught, and he pulled himself up farther to look straight down.

These two seemed to be alone. If there were seconds to this duel, they must be invisible in some darkened doorway. Jordan doubted there was an attending physician present; there was the grimness of vendetta about the silence and darting motion of these men.

Holding onto the edge of the window was hard. The opening was little more than an arrow slit, meant to provide light and a good firing point if one pulled up a chair to stand on. The chairs in the Boros manor were huge, heavy and old, and he was bound to wake Calandria if he tried to drag one over. He clung as long as he could, catching frustrating glimpses of movement below. Then he fell back, flexing his arms in frustration.

If he awoke Calandria, she would order him to stay here while she investigated. No way he was going to let that happen.

The whole thing was probably none of his business... but Turcaret's steam car had puffed into the estate this afternoon. Where Turcaret went, bad news followed, Jordan had decided. And Jordan knew that Axel and Calandria had decieved Turcaret; they were both worried about his arrival. It was always possible, he told himself as he headed for the door, that one of the embattled shadows downstairs was Axel Chan.

He raced down the steps, slowing to a loud skip as he reached the first floor, and poked his head around the corner of the archway. Directly ahead was the door to the courtyard; to either side long halls led off in dark punctuated by coffin-shaped opals of light from the windows. These halls connected the tower to the main manor house at ground level.

A black figure reared into sight in one of these lighted spaces. It crossed the beam of crooked light, then disappeared again in shadow. He watched for almost a minute, until it appeared again in a lozenge of lunar grey farther down the hall.

Though the night watchman must be a thirty meters away by now and facing the other way, Jordan still held his breath and tiptoed very quietly across to the door. He eased it open, letting in a breath of cold, misty night air.

Jordan felt exposed just peering around the door jamb. The statues seemed to be staring at him. Aside from them, there was no sound at all now.

The two men might still be circling in the dark, only meters away for all he knew. Now that he was here Jordan had no idea what he was going to do. Sound the alarm? That would be the sensible thing to do—but this was doubtless some political feud, and Calandria's dress-up games aside, he was still only a mason's son, and it was not his place to interfere. He had already drawn the attention and wrath of the household for fainting at dinner. He was not about to compound that by waking the place, especially since the courtyard seemed empty now. Maybe the duellists had lost their nerve, and fled, or one had capitulated.

The silence drew out, and the outside chill began to penetrate Jordan's bones so that he shivered as he clung to the door. Then he heard a cough, followed by a faint groan.

The duel was over then, but the outcome had not been peaceful. Now what? Wake the household? Run back for Calandria, tell her a man was bleeding to death in the courtyard?

'So what', she would say. She was too ruthless, and seemed to think it best if Jordan unlearned empathy as she sometime had. But he couldn't do that.

He eased out into the night air, and paused half-expecting a dark figure to rush him from the forest of statues. Nothing moved.

He heard the groan again, and this time was able to locate its source. Huddled near one wall of the manor was a man. He held his stomach with both hands, and his mouth was open wide as he struggled to breathe. His epee lay neglected on the grass nearby.

Jordan ran to him and knelt down. The man flinched away from him. "It's all right," Jordan said. "I'm going to help you."

"Too... too late for that," the man gasped. He was tall and rangy, with a hatchet-shaped face. Lank black hair lay plastered across his forehead. He was dressed in the livery of Linden Boros' household. "I... I lost. Let it be."

"What are you talking about? You need help, or you'll die."

"I know." Black liquid welled up between his tightened fingers. "Got me... a good one." He gritted his teeth and raised his head to look at his belly.

"Yes, you lost fair and square. But he didn't kill you, did he? You've got another chance."

The man shook his head. "Can't... face them. Now. Too humil—, humili—" he didn't have the breath for the word.

"What?" Jordan was desperate that the man would die in front of him. He sat back on his haunches, suddenly angry. "You can't face them? Is that supposed to be brave or something?"

The man glared at him.

"I've always admired soldiers for their bravery," Jordan went on in a rush. "Being willing to die for your pride seemed honorable. But I guess some men are willing to die because they're brave enough to face defeat, and some because they're afraid of facing their friends after being defeated." He crossed his arms and tried to stare the man down. "Sounds like you're the second kind."

The man fell back with a groan, closing his eyes tightly. "I'd... I'd kill you," he gasped. "If I could stand."

"Yeah, that way you wouldn't have to listen to me. Cowardice again. Are you going to let me help you?"

"Go to hell."

"What's the problem?" Jordan nearly shouted in exasperation. "Where is everybody? Where are your friends? What's so awful about getting yourself sewed up? Who's that going to kill?"

"House—house rules." The man opened his eyes again, to stare at the stars and wind-torn clouds. "Boros rules. No duelling... allowed. I call f-for help... Linden loses. Loses face. Maybe more."

"We'll take you to Linden's doctor. He can cover up for you, surely?"

"Ordered... not to treat... duelists." The man began to shiver violently.

"Oh." Jordan looked back at the tower, which stood in black silhouette against the troubled sky. "So your surgeon won't treat you because he's ordered not to, and Yuri's won't for the same reason. I suppose it was one of Brendan Sheia's men who stabbed you, so his surgeon certainly won't help." The man nodded fatalistically.

"Lucky for you I'm not a member of this household, nor one of yours, or Sheia's," Jordan went on. "I've been given no orders against helping you."

"Are you... surgeon?"

"No, but," he guessed, "my lady is."

The man tried to sit up. Jordan slipped an arm under his shoulders and helped him. "How can... lady be..." A violent shiver took hold of the man. "C-c-cold."

"Come. We'll stand up. Then we'll see." Slowly and gingerly, he drew the man to his feet.

§

Calandria cursed in a language Jordan had never heard before. He needed no translation.

"Look at the trail of blood!" she snapped. "How are we going to hide him as you're suggesting? And what if he dies? We'll have a corpse in our room!"

"Not... my... idea," whispered the bleeding man.

"Lie back," she said to him. She knelt, whipping her nightdress around herself crossly, and poked at the embers of the fire. "You're going into shock. I'm going to get the fire well up, then we'll see to your wound." Jordan sat with his hands pressed hard on the man's stomach. Blood flowed everywhere, but no more than at the butcher's; Jordan was more worried by the amazing paleness of the man, and the coldness of his skin.

"Don't mind her," he said to keep his mind off these things. "What's your name?"

"A-August. Ostler." By Ostler he might have meant his family name or profession; Jordan didn't pursue the issue.

"I'm Jordan Mason. This is Lady Calandria May."

"Jordan, stop it! You're wasting his strength." Calandria thumped two logs onto the churned embers. Sparks flew up, and she poked the wood into position so it caught. Jordan had noticed before that she wasn't very good at tending fires, a strange lack in someone so otherwise talented. Luckily these logs needed no encouragement to catch.

"Get Axel," she said. "I'll take over here." She pulled her pack from under her bed, spilled its contents on the floor, and came up with two white metal tubes. Without glancing up, she added, "Then clean the blood off the steps, and yourself too."

Jordan ran.

He was glad now that they had taken the tower room. The place was set apart from the main manor, so comings and goings like this would be much less noticeable than in the house. Still, Jordan slowed to a cautious walk when he reached the downstairs gallery, and paused every few steps to listen for the night watch.

Infrequent lamps dimly lit the halls of the manor. Jordan's bare feet made no noise on the cold stone floor. He took servant's ways; the idea of walking the main halls still bothered him, especially now when no one should be afoot. This also allowed him to pause at the cistern outside the kitchen. Low voices came from inside. He cautiously ladled water into a bucket, and washed himself. He took the bucket with him up the tall narrow stairs to the top floor. If anyone stopped him, he could come up with any number of plausible servant's explanations for carting water about at two in the morning.

Even with this prop in hand his heart was pounding. As he reached the top of the stairs, he heard voices again. He plunked the bucket in a corner and quickly cast about for a place to hide. Finally he stood behind the door to the hall. Stupid, but what choice was there?

The voices became louder: a man and a woman in quiet conversation somewhere nearby. Very nearby. He held his breath, and waited for them to open the door.

Nothing happened. They must be standing just on the other side. Jordan waited for several minutes, but they did not move. But he had to get to Axel. Time to brazen it through. He took a deep breath, picked up his bucket, and opened the door quickly.

There was no one on the other side.

The voices continued. Jordan put the bucket down and placed his palms over his ears. The dialogue continued, within his own head.

"Shit! Not now!" He staggered back, nearly tipping the bucket. All the excitement tonight had made him vulnerable, and Armiger had stepped into his mind again. Now that he knew what it was, the voices were obviously those of Armiger and Megan.

He stood for a minute in silent panic, waiting for the vision to wash over him completely. He would lose himself here, just when Calandria and Axel needed him. Maybe someone would find him wandering like an idiot, blood-stained. If August died, he would be taken for the murderer.

As he thought this, the top-floor landing did begin to fade. He thought he saw the inside of Megan's house, lit by a single candle. She and Armiger sat close together, talking earnestly. The vision became sharper with each passing second.

Jordan reached out blindly, and felt the bannister at the head of the stairwell. He held it tightly in both hands to anchor himself. It was the panic he had to fight. There was no other way to stop the vision.

He put his awareness into the tip of his nose, and breathed slowly, in and out, counting his breaths as he did so. Over the next few minutes he used every trick Calandria had shown him to engender calmness, and gradually the voices faded. When he was confident he had them at bay, he let go of the bannister. He could see again.

Jordan wasted no more time, but grabbed up the bucket and went straight to Axel's room. He debated whether to knock or walk in, knowing Axel might be with someone. He stooped to peer through the keyhole, just in case.

A candle burned on the table by the window. Axel sat there in a loose robe, his hands steepled. He was speaking in a low voice to someone out of sight. Jordan craned his neck to see who he was speaking to.

"...The local humans don't seem to be in great awe of the Winds they deal with every day," Axel was saying. "They know the morphs and desals moderate animal populations. People treat morphs like they do bears or moose, with caution but not fear. But they mythologize the Winds they know the least—you can see it in their names for the geophysical Winds—like 'Heaven hooks' and 'Diadem swans'. They can't connect the activities of these Greater Winds with their day to day lives."

He still couldn't see who else was in there. Well, there was nothing to be done about it. Jordan knocked lightly on the door. Axel stopped speaking immediately. Jordan heard him approach, and then the door opened a crack.

"What the hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?"

"Come quickly," Jordan said. "We need your help."

Axel opened his mouth, thought better of it, and went to dress. He left the door wide open, and Jordan was able to satisfy himself that indeed, there was no one else in the room.

§

He was not surprised to find August asleep and breathing easily when he and Axel arrived. Calandria had removed the man's bloodstained jacket and shirt, and was examining a harsh gash under his sternum. Amazingly, the gash was not bleeding.

"I had to use nano on him, or he'd have died," she said without preamble. "Jordan, go wash the stairs."

He did so despite fierce curiosity. When he returned, August had been bundled under several blankets. The fire was roaring nicely. Calandria and Axel seemed to be arguing hotly about something. They stopped when Jordan entered, and both glared at him.

"Bad move to save him," Axel said. Calandria said nothing.

"What was I supposed to do, let him die?"

"What were you doing out there in the first place?" Axel shot back.

"What does that have to do with it? I was there. He was in trouble." Jordan stuck out his chin. "What was I supposed to do?"

"The question is," Calandria said drily, "what are we supposed to do, now that we have him? I let the nano work just long enough to suture the wound. I think I got it all out, but he may wake up in the morning without a wound at all. That's going to be hard to explain. Our discretion in this place seems to be evaporating. Once again you are the cause of the problem, Jordan."

"It's hard to think ahead when somebody's dying in front of you," Jordan said quietly.

Axel and Calandria glanced at each other. "All right," said Axel, "we're going to have to handle this carefully. He can't be moved right now, obviously. But he must be moved tomorrow night. You," he pointed at Jordan, "will be his nursemaid tomorrow. Then you will help me sneak him out and into town tomorrow night. Understand?" Jordan nodded. "We're lucky he's feeling personally humiliated. The fact that he wasn't supposed to be fighting will work in our favor; he won't come back here for a while—if, as you say Cal, he's not totally healed by morning."

"How could he be?" Jordan asked.

"Science," Axel said blandly. "Not the kind we're teaching you, though."

"Nano, right?"

Calandria swore in that other language again, and Axel laughed. "Yeah, nano. Shit, Cal, it was your idea to snatch Jordan in the first place. Live with it." She glowered at him for a second, then composed herself: the anger seemed to drain away totally, and she was once again her usual poised, calm self. This sudden calm was in its way more unsettling than the anger.

"How are we going to explain August's miraculous recovery to him?" she asked.

"He wasn't exactly in a position to judge how bad it was," Axel said. "All he knew was he had a hole in him. If it turns out to be less of a hole than he thought, well, he'll just thank the Winds, I suppose. We'll bandage him thoroughly, and if there's no hole there at all tomorrow, I'll put one in—cosmetic, of course, don't look at me like that."

Calandria shook her head. Axel smiled. "You're good at planning," he said. "I'm good at improvising. That's why we get along."

"When we get along," she said with a sphinx-like smile.

Jordan sat down on his bed, suddenly very tired. In the back of his head, he heard Armiger and Megan still talking. It didn't matter. At that moment, he had to wonder which was the more real—the quiet, ordinary dialogue taking place in his head, a thousand kilometers away—or the mad conversation Calandria May and Axel Chan were holding, barely a meter away from him.

"Jordan!" He looked up. "Did you clean the blood off the steps?" Calandria asked.

He shook his head, and rose to do so. He'd left the bucket outside, ready for this.

"I'll help," said Axel unexpectedly. After they got outside and shut the door, he said, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah."

"You did the right thing," said Axel as they both knelt to dip rags in the bucket.

"She doesn't seem to think so."

"Oh, she does. She just gets angry when something happens she can't control."

Jordan sighed, and began swabbing at August's blood. "Why?" was all he could think of to ask.

"Cal has her own problems," said Axel quietly. "She's never been a happy person. Why should she be? She never had a real childhood."

"What do you mean?"

"Cal was inducted into a military organization at a young age, after her mother was sent to prison. Over the years, they made her into a tool, an assassin who could serve the causes they were paid to support. She can change her face, her height, her voice... I don't know what she can't do. She can read a book and memorize every word the first time, or learn a language in days. She's probably the best fighter on this planet. She has amazing powers, but she's never really had her own life. She ran away from her masters, the ones who made her, and for years she used her talents to support herself. Then she got tangled up in the war against 3340.

"People had tried to destroy 3340 from without," Axel continued. "Cal found the way that worked—she killed him from within."

"You told me."

Axel shook his head. "I gave you the sanitized version. You know 3340 was in the habit of 'promoting' humans—turning them into demigods pretty much at random by making them immortal, replacing their biological cells with nano, that sort of thing. He'd subverted the whole human civilization on Hsing to this perverse lottery. Once you became a demigod, though, he took control of your mind using some sort of sophisticated virus program. One of his 'conscious thoughts', I guess. The place really was hell, there was no morality there, everyone just scrambled to try to become immortal, and didn't care what they had to do to get it.

"3340 looked unbeatable. But we kept hearing rumors that one demigod—and only one—had beaten the virus thought, and thrown off 3340's enslavement. Calandria tracked him down, and got the secret. Then she arranged to be 'promoted' by 3340."

"How did she do that?" Jordan had been dabbing at the blood spots one at a time; now Axel upended the bucket and poured the contents down the steps. "It'll be dry by morning," he said.

Axel looked at his now-wet feet. "You needed to really impress 3340 to get promoted. So Calandria betrayed us." He glanced up and, apparently satisfied by Jordan's shocked look, nodded. "The whole underground that Choronzon and the Archipelago had built up on the planet. Had us arrested, thrown in jail... sentenced to be eaten by 3340's data gatherers.

"It worked." His voice had become uncharacteristically flat. "The god took notice of her. He promoted her to demigod status on the spot. She became sur-biological, able to shape-shift, split her thoughts off into autonomous units, invent new senses for herself. They tell me it's the ultimate experience, short of real deification, but you're not even remotely human anymore. And of course, he slipped his virus thought into her, and it took her over."

Jordan had forgotten the wet steps. "Her plan didn't work?"

Axel half-grinned. "Our ally god Choronzon had arrived in force, but his navy was being cut to pieces. Calandria went straight into the heart of the battle. But once she got there... she fought off the virus, and flew through 3340's ranks showing all the other demigods how to get free.

"So suddenly 3340's whole navy turned on him. Both navies chased him down to a mountain on Hsing, and Calandria and Choronzon confronted him there, and killed him."

Jordan shook her head. It sounded like myth, but Axel was telling it in a bald matter-of-fact way.

"It must have been overwhelming for her." Jordan shifted uneasily, trying to imagine what it would take to deliberately choose to become like Armiger. "But you say she's human now?"

"She rid herself of all her powers—had her nanotech commit suicide by building itself back into normal human cells. She did it publicly to show the people of Hsing that being human was better than being a god." He shook his head. "Me, I'd have stayed immortal. Think of the fun you could have."

"Why did she do it?"

He shrugged. "Like I said, she has her own demons—metaphorically, I mean. I think they pursued her even into godhood. She found some way of coming to terms with them by becoming human again. I don't know the details, she won't talk about it. She's also the most fanatically moral person I ever met," he added. "She thought it was the right thing to do.

"The thing is," he added gently, "you impressed her tonight by saving August. She wouldn't have left him to die either, no matter what she might say. She just doesn't understand that at heart she's no different from any of us.

"And that, my friend, is a scar I don't know how to heal."

11

When Jordan awoke again, it was to the sound of a flock of geese honking their way south. He climbed stiffly out of bed and went to the window to watch them. Calandria was already up—or she had never returned to bed at all.

Autumn was coming. The smell of woodsmoke pervaded the estate, and the dawn chill reminded him of waking at home to find snow on his blankets. He would drag his clothes into bed—icy and stiff, they would start him shivering immediately. Better to warm them under the covers, than to step into the cold air of the loft and put them on there. Quickly he would stomp downstairs, carrying his chamber pot like a lamp to set near the fire if its contents had frozen, otherwise by the door. And then to the chores, and breakfast.

Sleepy winter. He felt a sorrowful ache, remembering and knowing things would never be the same. Resting his head on his hands, he stared out at the brooding sky.

He heard movement near the fire, where they had lain August. He was awake, staring at the ceiling with a puzzled expression on his narrow face.

When Jordan walked over to him, August said, "It doesn't hurt," in a thin voice.

"It will if you move," Jordan warned. Axel had coaxed him on that point. August was almost completely healed. They would have to trick him into thinking he was still hurt.

"I'm thirsty." Jordan nodded and went to get some water from the table. He tilted a cup to August's lips, and the man drank awkwardly.

"Where are we?"

"The tower. We're going to move you to town tonight. You can recover there, out of sight of the Boros."

"Ah." August appeared to consider this. "Will I have a commission to come back to? Duelling is frowned on."

"What about self-defense? You can claim you were attacked while you were out taking a piss." Jordan shrugged. "We'll think of something."

August's eyes squinched shut for a second. "Thank you," he said. "I'm beholden."

"I don't think so." Jordan sat back on the wood floor. "Why were you fighting?"

August sighed. "I saw Sheia's man Andre acting suspiciously. I think he was stealing. Anyway, I followed him and challenged him, and he took me on. Maybe I should have raised the alarm, but... Linden has a curfew, and I was breaking it. I'd have had to explain myself too. And what about you? What were you doing out of your room?"

Jordan pointed to the window. "You woke me up."

"Oh. ...Sorry." August grinned ironically. "We thought we were being so quiet."

Jordan scowled. "Duelling is stupid."

"I know." August looked very serious now. "My older brother was killed in a duel."

"So why did you do it?"

August stared at the ceiling pensively. "It gets easier to risk your life as you get older. I think women understand that when they have children. Suddenly they know they would give their life for their child, and it doesn't bother them. With men it's different, but we... trade our allegiance in the same way. At some point, if you've grown up at all, you have to decide that something outside yourself is more important than you are. Otherwise you'll be a miserable bastard, and you'll die screaming." He closed one eye and peered at Jordan. "That make sense?"

"I don't know," Jordan said uncomfortably.

"You get perspective. You can stand outside your own death, a little. Not while you're dying, though." He frowned. "Shit, I was scared. Scared..." He closed his eyes.

"You should sleep more," Jordan prompted.

"No. I like being awake. Alive, you know?" His face wrinkled; for a moment he looked as though he would cry. Jordan sat back on the wooden floor, blinking in surprise.

August swore. "Stupid, stupid, stupid! Things are coming to a head between my master and Sheia. He needs me right now, and I've let him down."

"Yuri decided in favor of your master," said Jordan.

"Yeah, but we know Sheia won't stand for it. He's going to lose everything, because his queen is going to lose her war. His only hope was to shelter under the Boros title. Now he can't do that. We don't know what he's going to do, but he's going to have to do it soon. Yuri's living in his garden if he thinks Sheia will just accept his decision."

Jordan shook his head, puzzled. "But what can Sheia do about it?"

"Don't know." August scowled. "He's devilishly clever, the bastard. He's probably celebrating my death right now; one less man to defend Linden."

"Linden should leave."

"And leave Sheia alone with Yuri's family? No. We stay."

A key rattled in the door. It opened and Axel poked his head in. "She here?" he asked.

"No."

"Okay." The door slammed again.

Jordan sighed. "You'd better rest," he said to August. "I have to go study."

Axel found Calandria on the manor's roof. He'd thought she might be here; this was a good spot from which to signal her ship. The Desert Voice maintained a high orbit, waiting for its order to obliterate Armiger, and Calandria came up here to listen for its pulsed radio beacon every day. She seemed to need the reassurance of its presence, which was one of those unlikely character traits that people who didn't know her well would find hard to credit.

"How are you doing?" he asked as he settled onto one of the crenels beside her. She was staring moodily out over the estate.

"Fine." She shrugged. "Things are getting more and more complicated, that's all. I was hoping we could get out without impacting the local culture at all. That seems unlikely now."

"These people are used to miracles," he said. "They're part of the natural order here. Look." He pointed east, where a pale crescent hung high in the sky: a vagabond moon. Another made a tiny dot above the southern horizon. "We aren't doing anything supernatural, as far as these people are concerned."

"I don't like it," she said. "Especially after last night. August's wound is almost totally healed. That's one miracle already. The Desert Voice is going to nuke Armiger, which is two."

"Well, I'm afraid I have to add to the complications," he said dolefully.

"Why? What's happened now?"

Axel puffed his cheeks out. "This time I really was minding my own business. I went for a walk in the gardens. You know me, I think better on my feet, always have. Anyway, there's the usual conspirators, sitting in shady bowers here and there in pairs. Very silly. As I'm walking, who should I see coming down the path, but the bastard himself."

"Turcaret?"

"The very same." Axel rolled his eyes. "Anyway, he calls me over like I'm some sort of lap-dog, you know—" he gestured with one hand, as if to bring something to heel, "and says, 'I need to have a talk with you. Meet me in my quarters at eight o'clock tonight.'"

"Talk?" She frowned.

"Yeah." Axel shrugged uneasily. Their cover story here might be blown. "So I said yes," he finished unhappily.

"He's forcing our hand," she said.

"So what do we do? I told him I'd be there."

"Wise, but obviously we can't just react at this point. I wanted just a day or two more to pinpoint Armiger, but..." She nodded decisively. "I think we have enough."

"You know where he is?"

"About a hundred kilometers from the Iapysian border," she said. "Almost due south. More importantly, I think we've figured out where he's going."

"The queen?"

She nodded. "He seems to be interested in war. If he can use his powers to save Queen Galas, he might take over Iapysia. I thought before that the battle where the Winds intervened was a test. He may have wanted to find out what it would take to attract their attention. But it could be that he really does want to conquer a kingdom. Maybe he needs a large number of men to help him search for the Winds' Achilles Heel, or some other resource he's after." She shrugged. "It's all speculation."

He grinned loosely. "So let me get this straight: we cut and run now, Turcaret sends the king's guards after us, and where are we running, but straight into a war zone."

She half-smiled. "Essentially, yes. The problem is what to do about Jordan."

"We can't very well leave him," he said.

"We can't very well take him with us either. Not only because he'll slow us down. You and I are prepared for the danger, but he is not."

"That's where August comes in," he said brightly.

"Absolutely not. We've already involved too many people."

Axel threw up his hands. "Will you stop whining about that! It's their world—you can't treat these people like children. So a few of them find out what's going on—what kind of crime is that?"

"That's not the point. We keep adding extra concerns that just muddy the main issue, which is how to deal with Armiger as quickly as we can and get out."

"Is the job all you care about?" He hopped down from the crenel. "These people aren't going to cease to exist just because we go away. We kidnapped Jordan. What's he going to do when we cut him loose? Haven't you considered that?—or were you just planning to get him away from Turcaret and then cut him loose?"

She glowered at him. Obviously, she had been thinking just that.

"You're not playing the whole game, Cal, you never do. We're not just here to eliminate Armiger, we're here to act like decent human beings. What's wrong with getting to know people and helping them live their lives? And letting them help us live ours? I like Jordan. He did the right thing last night; he'll be a man of solid character once he's able to support himself."

"Well," she said coldly, "you've decided the right and wrong of it all, I see. So my opinion now isn't going to matter."

Axel clutched his black hair. "Your opinion matters! So does Jordan's. So does August's! We're not just assassins, that's all! Why don't you get to know these people? Maybe you'll like them. Maybe," he laughed, "you and August will hit it off! What's so bad about that?"

She stalked away. "We'll leave tonight—with Jordan," was all she said as she yanked up the lead-sheathed trapdoor.

Axel watched the door slam, then cursed. She hadn't understood a word he was saying.

Armiger stood and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had been trying all afternoon to repair the damage he'd caused to Megan's garden last night. Short of using some of his own nano, there was nothing more he could do.

"Very good," she said. He turned. Megan leaned on the tall stump that marked the end of the garden. She smiled. "But seldom have I seen a man so grimy."

"I told you I would fix it."

She laughed. "One does not 'fix' growing things, Armiger. But... with practise, you could become a good gardener. I may leave the task to you for a while."

He brushed back his hair. She seemed happy at the thought, and he did not want to disappoint her. Still... "I can't stay," he said.

Her face fell. "Why not? You're not going back to your damnable army?"

"This is another army, and another war." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I want to talk to Queen Galas. She's the only one on this off-chart world who seems to know what the Winds are. The only human on Ventus with vision. Naturally, she's going to be killed for it. So I have to reach her immediately."

Megan folded her arms under her breasts. "You know this queen?"

"No. Never met her."

Megan watched him pick his way carefully out of the garden. He hadn't said he was in love with the queen. Still, he was willing to leave Megan to see her.

He paused next to her, waiting for her to fall into step as he headed for the cottage. His recovery had been unnaturally swift, so that by now he showed no sign of having been at death's door. Quite the contrary; his face glowed with health, and he moved with a cat-like grace he had sometimes caught her admiring. None of this surprised Megan; he was a morph, or some spirit very like that, so such powers were to be expected. But he was still a wounded man, she knew, regardless of his bodily strength. He walked and ate like one in shock, and their conversations had continued to be brief and awkward. Some men trod heavily on their own hurt; the worse it was, the harder they would push it down, but it showed—in premature age, in lines of exhaustion and anger in the face. And she well knew that a man who will not salve his own pain will often put all his energy into healing that of others'. To Megan, such brutality against oneself combined the most noble and foolish that men were capable of, and men of this sort drew her like magnets. Her own Matt had been like that. She believed only a woman could ease the intolerable pressure these men put on themselves.

So, Armiger was leaving. But she would be going with him, though he did not know it yet—and she had only this moment decided.

"I have money," she said. "Enough for a horse, maybe two. Riding palfreys."

"I only need one horse," he said. Men were so obtuse sometimes; she half-smiled.

He strode easily through the thick grass, muscles moving in that fascinating synchrony she saw only in horses and men. "I'm not letting you in the house until you're clean," she said mischievously.

"You might have a long wait, then." He grinned back at her. "Your little well only draws a cupful at a time. Do you propose to wash me a palm's-width at a time?"

"That might be delightful," she said. "But wait and see."

When they reached the cottage, he laughed in surprise. "How long did this take you?" She had filled an entire washtub while he was in the garden.

"Well..." She put her hands behind her back and kicked the dirt. "I rather thought you would need it. So I started just after you left."

"I do need it." Unself-consciously he stripped off his shirt. Her eyes widened as she saw he meant to do the same with his pants.

Armiger had only bathed in the presence of other men—officers and enlisted men, at river's edge or encampment. It took him a moment to notice her sudden silence, then he realized he might be shocking her. By then he was naked, and had already stepped into the water.

He turned and their eyes met. Even as she stepped toward him, he felt his sex stirring. Since becoming embodied, he had not made love; it wasn't necessary. Still, he had seen others do it many times, although the rapes performed by his men were distasteful, nothing like the love-making in which he had seen his remotes indulge.

Megan took a washcloth and wordlessly ran it up his leg. She did not look at him as she laved his calves and thighs; but his excitement was visible, and she raised her eyes to his as she brought the cloth there.

He reached to touch the nape of her neck. She sighed heavily, and ran her wet fingertips along his member. She kissed the flat of his stomach, then stood into his embrace.

Part of him wondered why he was doing this—an old, inhuman side whose voice had been losing strength and confidence over the past days. Another part of him, young and ancient at the same time, almost wept with desire and relief as he drew her dress down to bare her shoulders, and buried his face in her hair.

Megan dropped the dress completely, and stepped into the basin with him. "It's been so long," she whispered.

"Yes." He lifted her onto him. The feeling awoke a torrent of memory—false or real, it no longer mattered. He encircled her with his arms. "Too long," he murmured. Their mouths met, and neither spoke again.

Jordan came to himself suddenly. Calandria was standing in front of him, bathed in slanting evening light. Her face was framed by a wreath of fine black hair, tendrils of which caressed her forehead and the nape of her neck. She smiled at him. Jordan cleared his throat.

"How is our patient?" she asked, nodding to August. "Well enough to travel?"

"I feel fine," said August. "The wound doesn't seem so bad. I think I could even manage to hide it from Linden."

"Really?" Calandria brushed a hand through her hair absently. "That might not be such a bad idea after all."

Jordan was surprised by this. Last night she had been adamant about getting August out of the way so that he would not call further attention to them. The state of his wound was bound to be cause for comment, after all. Of course, if he himself hid it from his masters...

"Jordan, can I speak to you alone for a moment?" she asked. He nodded, smiled at August, who shrugged, and followed her into the hall.

She closed the heavy door, and said, "Our plans have changed." Jordan felt a quickening sense of excitement, but said nothing. "We are leaving tonight," she continued. As she spoke she watched his face closely. "I want you to pack our belongings and wait for me to return. Be prepared to move quickly," she said.

"What about Armiger? I thought we were staying because we hadn't figured out where he was."

"Well. We have enough to make a start, don't we?" she said brightly. Then she walked away, apparently confident.

Jordan reentered the room, and closed the door. "What's up?" August asked him. The man was stretched out, seemingly at leisure, on his bedroll next to the fire.

Jordan shook his head. "I have no idea," he said.

Axel raised his fist, then carefully loosened his knotted muscles and knocked politely on the tower door. It was a hard climb up here, past Turcaret's guards then up a narrow windowless spiral stairway. He could barely make out gleams of light coming through cracks in the door. After a moment he heard shuffling footsteps, and the door opened inward.

"Come in, come in." Controller Turcaret waved him inside.

Axel was surprised to find the controller was alone. The tower room he had been given was lovely. Tall leaded windows in all four walls admitted long shafts of afternoon light to gleam on the leaves of hundreds of plants festooning every surface. The chamber was tall, maybe six meters, and stone-floored. Whoever normally lived here had trusted to the sturdiness of the place, and had potted several young trees of respectable size. One, a willow, curled its long branches down over an iron-framed bed. Another overshadowed a writing desk. A wardrobe, several cabinets and a table sat half-hidden behind the foliage. There was a fireplace by the bed; the place might be quite cozy in the wintertime.

Axel crossed his arms, trying to manage a diplomatic smile. "Well. How are you?" he asked. It really should be Calandria at this meeting; but Turcaret had asked for Axel in particular, so Cal was off getting the horses ready, and he had to pretend to like this man for a few minutes. He manufactured a smile.

Turcaret brushed some leaves and a beetle off the table and motioned for Axel to sit. "Come in, Chan," he said as he rummaged in a cabinet. "Make yourself comfortable." He produced a bottle of wine and two glasses.

Axel eyed the bottle. "Are we celebrating something?"

Turcaret laughed darkly and uncorked the bottle. "We might be. That depends on how cooperative you are."

"Does it have to do with your reasons for visiting the Boros?" asked Axel. What he really wanted to ask was, Did you follow us here?

"All in good time, man." Turcaret made a shooing motion toward the wine glass. "Try it. I think you'll appreciate it."

Axel scowled, but picked up the glass. He took a sip. Instantly his diagnostic nano went to work. They detected no common poisons, although the liquid was full of substances foreign to them. That in itself was normal for Ventusian wine, Axel had discovered.

"Hmm." He dismissed the paranoid thought that Turcaret might try to poison him, and took another sip. It was delightful stuff, so strong it seemed to dissolve into his soft palate before reaching the back of his throat.

He smiled at Turcaret and raised his glass. "All right," he said. "Now what did you want to talk about?"

"Ah, that." Turcaret steepled his hands and smiled. "It has to do with the little matter of your being an imposter."

Daylight was seeping away outside. Jordan was fairly sure Calandria would wait for darkness before making any moves, but knowing that didn't make the time pass any easier.

The time dragged. Jordan had packed everything in the ten minutes after Calandria left, and after that all he could do was wait. August had eyed him while he worked, but said nothing. He seemed content to let Jordan speak if he wished, but Jordan was distracted, and too upset to give the man much notice.

What confused Jordan even more was that Armiger and Megan were making love next to her fireplace. If he closed his eyes for even a second, he was there, seemingly touching her himself, and the vision was so mesmerizing he didn't want to look away. It was powerfully arousing, and he couldn't afford that—not tonight, and not with August in the room.

August kept twisting his body, flexing his arms, and touching his wounded side. He looked puzzled. Obviously he was trying to find some motion that would hurt enough to locate his wound. Jordan seized on the distraction.

"I told you, we've put something on it to kill the pain. You'll just open it up if you move about."

"No," said August. "I can feel everywhere around there. It seems..." He threw the blankets off.

"Stop!"

August stood up. "I'll be damned," he said. He pressed his hand to his side. "It feels..." he looked up suddenly.

Jordan heard something. "Quiet!" he hissed. August looked up in surprise.

"What—?" Jordan waved him silent. He sidled over to the door and put his ear against it.

August hitched his pants up and came over as well. "What is it?" he whispered.

"I heard footsteps. They stopped just outside the door," Jordan whispered back.

August planted his ear against the door. "I hear voices. Snuff out the candle, will you?"

Jordan ran to obey. August flattened himself against the wall next to the door, and Jordan barely had time to duck down behind the bed before someone pushed the door open, and three men stepped into the room.

12

Turcaret glanced out the window to check the angle of the light. It was almost dark. Almost time.

"I sent a semaphore message to the king of Ravenon," he said to Chan. "Shortly after you left Castor's manor. The king had never heard of you, nor the damsel who calls herself Calandria May. You are not couriers for Ravenon. We don't know what you are—but I did receive permission to have you arrested and sent back to the capital in irons if I chanced upon you again."

Chan took another sip of his wine, his expression bland. "We're alone in this room," he pointed out. "If you wanted to arrest me, you would have already done it."

"True." At least Chan wasn't the idiot he looked. "I had a better idea," Turcaret admitted.

"I'm all ears," said Chan. Turcaret had never heard that expression before; the image was so bizarre he laughed.

"I originally intended to turn you in," he said. "After all, you rendered me a tremendous insult."

Chan sat up straight. "In what way? I'm sure we intended none."

"You intended none?" Turcaret couldn't believe his ears. "Well, to start with, you stole my property away on a pretext."

"What property?" The fool looked puzzled now.

"The Mason girl."

A look of disgust slowly spread across Chan's face. He tilted the glass, pouring the wine out on the floor. That was all right, Turcaret decided; he'd probably drunk enough by now.

"People are not property," said Chan quietly. "They have rights, even in this godforsaken country."

"Rights? Yes, let's talk about rights, now," said Turcaret. "That girl was just a thing, of no consequence, and no one would protest her fate, because no one can do anything about it. She was my right, she was the payment of a debt, and that was the beginning and end of it. "But you! You have the gall to be indignant about that little trollop when you yourself are nothing but a thief yourself—the thief of a title of Ravenon! You are the one befouling propriety here, and I'd be within my rights to have you summarily executed right here and now."

"You and what army?" asked Chan. He shook his head stupidly; the plant extract the priests had prepared for Turcaret must be starting to work.

"You're referring to the fact that we're alone. Perhaps you think you could take me in a fair fight. Maybe. But you wouldn't get far, even if you avoided my men and escaped the grounds."

"'Zat so?" Chan seemed to suddenly realize what had happened to him. He tried to stand, unsuccessfully.

"Oh, yes, you've been drugged," said Turcaret. "But that's not why you'll never get out of here. The Winds have chosen you to play a part in the events that are about to unfold. The Winds are on our side. We know they favor us. By the time this evening is out, everyone will know it."

"Go to hell," muttered Chan. He didn't seem afraid at all. Angry, maybe. Turcaret supposed he was stupider than he looked, after all.

The controller smiled, not trying to hide his smugness. "You have been sent to us, sir. You might think you were the author of your own actions, but you are not. A higher power has sent you to us."

Chan shook his head sloppily. "Yer delusional." He tried again to stand, unsuccessfully.

"Feeling a bit weak?" Turcaret asked. "Good. Stay there, I want to show you something."

He reached behind the orange tree and brought out the wrapped packages his man had delivered just prior to Chan's arrival. He leaned the long cloth bundle on his own chair, and put the smaller package on the table. He unwound the cloth that wrapped it. Chan blinked at him owlishly as he did so.

Turcaret spared a glance outside. The sun was down. It was time.

"Recognize any of these?" Turcaret unrolled the smaller bundle to reveal a dagger, a cloak pin, and a wide, ornate belt.

"Hey!" Chan fell forward over the table top. "Those're mine! You stole 'em?"

Well, that was finally a satisfying reaction. Turcaret casually unwound the cloth from the longer bundle. He held up the sword and let the last drapes of cloth fall from its tip. "And how about this?"

Chan stared at the blade. He said nothing. He had obviously expected to see his own sword revealed under the wrap, correctly assuming that it had also been stolen from his room. This was not his sword, but rather a much more ornate, finely made epee. "Yuri's favorite sword," Turcaret said. "He keeps it in his bed chamber. I've only borrowed it, don't worry. It's going to be back there in an hour or two."

Shaking his head, Chan tried to rise. "Hey, wait. Just wait a—" He fell back, head lolling.

"You should see yourself," Turcaret said. "You look pathetic. That's no way to die, Chan. I would have expected more of an 'agent of Ravenon'."

He raised the sword, aiming it straight at Chan's heart. "I've been told to kill you neatly and quickly," he said. "And I will. But not before you tell me something."

"Huh?" Chan levered himself up with his arms; his legs seemed unresponsive. Turcaret stepped forward and kicked him behind the knees. The man went sprawling off his chair.

Turcaret raised the sword, turning it so that it gleamed in the lamplight. Chan's eyes were fixed on it.

"Tell me this, or I'll make it a slow death rather than a quick one," Turcaret said.

"Why are the Heaven hooks coming to take Jordan Mason?"

§

August's epee flashed in the dimness. One of the men who had entered the room screamed and fell, clutching his leg. The other dove forward, reaching for his own blade. This brought him up against the bed.

Jordan looked up into the startled eyes of a man wearing Turcaret's livery.

"Run, Jordan!" August's thrust clove the air where the man had been an instant ago. Jordan rolled sideways and ended up in the middle of the room. He could see the other two struggling, hands locked to wrists. The man August had stabbed was crawling toward the door; his left calf streamed blood. August had ham-strung him.

"Run!"

Jordan staggered to his feet, and ran. He was in shock from the unexpected violence, and didn't even bother to check whether there were more men in the hall. He stumbled down the steps, mindless, until stopped by a heavy thump above him. A dark silhouette with a sword appeared at the top of the stairway.

"Jordan!" He stopped, and let August catch up to him. The man was clutching his side, where he had been wounded last night.

August grabbed Jordan by the shoulder and shook him. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you try that with me," said August in a deadly tone. "My sword-wound!"

"What about it?"

"There's a shallow cut there that looks fresh, but I can't feel anything deeper. It's healed!"

"Uh..."

"And why were two of Controller General Turcaret's men invading your chamber?"

"I don't know!"

"You! Stop!" Several men with swords had appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Later, then. Go!" August shoved Jordan down the last few steps. This time Jordan didn't hesitate, but ran. The ring of steel echoed after him as he shouldered open the door to the courtyard, and then he was dodging between statues, as the sounds of the fight faded behind him.

Axel tried for the fifth time to stand. "Go to hell!" he muttered. Concentrate, he told himself. Think of a way out of this.

The damned controller kicked him in the ribs. It didn't hurt much, but there went his equilibrium again. Whatever it was they'd spiked his drink with, it had gotten past his usual immunities, and so far the diagnostic nano hadn't caught it. Cheap hardware. Never should have bought it from Choronzon.

He had left his sword and dagger in his room, where all his gear was packed for their flight from this place later tonight. Etiquette had prevented him from wearing them to what he'd been told was a simple meeting with Turcaret; they'd known that he'd leave them behind, so it must have been simple for someone to slip in and take them.

He tried to use his radio link to call Calandria. It needed some pretty specific mental commands to operate, and he couldn't focus well enough to give them. "Damn!"

"Tell me!" insisted the controller. "Why are the Heaven hooks coming for Mason?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Axel.

"The Heaven hooks will take the Mason boy tonight," said the controller. "I know all about him, though you tried to hide him from me. The Winds have not told me why they want him, though. All they will say is that he threatens 'thalience'. What does that mean? What is thalience?"

Axel had never heard the word before. He said so. "Who's really pulling your strings, eh? Tell me that, I'll tell you what the Winds want with Jordan."

Turcaret raised the sword, face white. Then he thought better. "If you paid attention to something more than the scullery maids and the location of the better wines, you'd know what's going on," said Turcaret. "We're putting Yuri's mask in the parade room. He backed the wrong man."

"You're in bed with Brendan Sheia?" Axel had to laugh. "You're an idiot! He's going down in flames! The queen is going to lose her war and then he'll be stateless. He hasn't a prayer of convincing the family he's the rightful heir. You know that."

The controller had calmed down. In fact, he looked much too calm now. "Well, Mister Chan, maybe I know something you don't. Unlike Yuri, we have the backing of the Winds. We know the Truth about them, you see." Axel was sure Turcaret had put a capital T on Truth. "That the Winds are ultimately destined to be our servants."

He swung the sword in a bright arc over his head, and brought it down on Axel's neck.

Jordan was half way to Axel's room when the new vision began.

He could sense Armiger, somewhere in the back of his mind. He knew the man was still in bed with Megan, but had stoically managed to stay away from them. Armiger's senses were seductive, dangerously so.

This new thing was something else, another voice or voices. Despite himself, he stopped, bewildered.

He stood in one of the main halls of the manor. He could distinctly hear voices coming from one of the salons. Layered overtop that was a confused jumble of whispers, whose origin he could not place. They seemed to be coming from all around him.

Many of the whispers were in languages he didn't know; some were in his own. He also caught fragmentary, strange glimpses of things: black sky; the side of a building at night; something that looked like a tiny model of the Boros estate, viewed from above.

He shook his head, trying to remain calm. As he had the last time, he would have to pause now, and damp the visions down, or else he would be unable to get to the safety of Axel's room. If he was to do that, he would have to find a secluded spot, or Turcaret's men would find him.

He moved as quietly as he could to the door to the mask room. No one would be here at this hour. As he pushed the door open, he leaned against the stone lintel, and the touch sent an electric sense of awareness into him.

"What—?" He snatched his hand back. The murmuring voices hushed again. They might have been coming from the ranked masks on the wall, but somehow he sensed it was more than that. Still, the vacant eyes of the masks sent a shiver down his spine. He turned his back on them.

Tentatively, Jordan reached out, and touched the stone wall with his fingertips. Again he felt a sense of connection, as though he had stepped from a silent corridor into a bright hall full of people.

"What is this?" he whispered.

The voice was strong this time. I am stone, said the stone wall.

§

Calandria had visited the kitchens and filled a pair of saddlebags with food. Then she'd gone to the stables and overseen the provisioning of Axel and August's horses. Leaving at night was bound to cause talk, but hopefully not until morning, when they would be many kilometers away.

When everything was to her liking she went back to her chamber to tell August Ostler he should make ready to travel.

She could tell something was wrong from the bottom of the stairs. The door to their room hung open. Calandria moved silently up the steps, watching for any movement. The room seemed empty, but she saw fresh blood on the floor.

She cursed under her breath and stepped inside. There was no one here. Had Ostler attacked Jordan? The blood was smeared inside the room, but she could see drops of it receding down the hall. Whoever it was that had been hurt, they had left under their own steam, or had been carried.

None of this made any sense, and not knowing the situation alarmed her more than any certainty would have.

She opened her radio link to Axel. "Axel? Where are you?"

There was no answer. Now fully alarmed, She stalked past the discarded blankets by the fireplace, and began stuffing her few possessions into a bag. She scowled down at the beautiful gown she wore; it would be very difficult to ride wearing this confection. Although her instincts told her to run from the room, she paused long enough to shuck the gown and pull on her tough traveling clothes. Then she hefted her bags and turned to go. These few things would have to do.

Where next? "Axel?" Still nothing. He had not activated his transponder, so she couldn't locate him that way either.

Jordan's few things lay on his bed, and she eyed them. He had not taken anything with him, a sign that he had not gone willingly.

Axel was supposed to be visiting Turcaret right now. She could go that way, or follow the blood stains to where Jordan might be in danger.

Axel could take care of himself, but Jordan was only here because she had kidnapped and coerced him to be.

Cursing foully, Calandria wrestled her cape into position, threw her bags over her shoulder, and went to follow the blood trail.

As she left the room, a voice emerged from the darkness ahead of her.

"You're in quite a hurry for an innocent traveler, Lady May."

§

Turcaret stared at the place on Yuri's sword where it had broken cleanly in half.

Axel Chan's hands were at his throat. He gurgled. Then he rolled to one side, spat, and gasped.

"The sword broke," whispered Turcaret. "On your neck..."

Axel put his hands under himself and carefully rose to a kneeling position. Then he grabbed the edge of his overturned chair and used it to brace himself as he stood up. He tried to speak, but only a cough came out.

His throat was red and lacerated where Turcaret had hit it with the sword. Little blood flowed; the wound seemed superficial.

Obviously, he had struck the stone floor with the tip of the sword before the rest of the blade had touched Chan's throat. That must have been what happened.

No time to worry about that, Chan was on his feet. Turcaret grabbed the man's own dagger off the table. Chan made a clumsy grab for him but Turcaret stepped inside his reach and stabbed up, right under his heart.

The dagger tore through Chan's shirt and grated across his ribs. He staggered back, coughing. Blood flowed freely from the wound. Turcaret could plainly see he'd raised a flap of skin the size of his palm—but the blade had not penetrated.

Surprised, but not worried, Turcaret jumped after Chan, who was trying to get to the door. "Die, damn you!" He reversed the dagger, grabbed Chan's shoulder and stabbed him again and again. It was like stabbing a table. Each blow cut Chan's shirt as the blade scored across his skin, and plainly he wore no armor. But the blade would not penetrate more than a few millimeters. Finally it too broke against the man's shoulder.

Turcaret backed away. "How have you done this?"

Chan huddled against the closed door, gasping. His whole upper body was covered in blood. This was not going to be the clean kill Brendan Sheia had demanded. There was no way Chan would appear to have been killed by Yuri's dying blow. Maybe it could be made to look like more of a fight had taken place, but they had wanted to avoid that because the question would be raised why no one had heard anything. But the man would not die!

Chan turned now and uncovered his eyes. He might have been vulnerable there, but Turcaret had not thought of it in time. Chan's face was transformed. The skin around his mouth was pure white, and his eyes were wide. He was shaking, but not, it seemed, from fear.

"Help," Turcaret said under his breath. Then he screamed it.

"Get in here and help me!"

§

Jordan was no longer sure where he was. When the wall spoke to him he'd bolted, and came to himself briefly to find himself here outside on the front lawn of the estate. He tried to keep going, to somehow escape the noise in his head, but only made it fifty steps before he went blind again. He could see—with a clarity which was itself frightening—but no longer through his own eyes.

The spirits surrounding him were handing vision back and forth, like a ball. All the parts of the Boros estate had their spirits, it seemed, and each kind of thing perceived the world in a different way. They were all speaking at once, looking about themselves, as though awoken from an ages-long sleep to find themselves startled by the world.

Something had awoken them. Something was coming.

The trees told of a gargantuan weight descending through the air, and of a shadow between them and the twilight sky. The stones could feel an electricity spreading in a kind of wave, coming from the east. Jordan understood these things because the stones, and trees and water, were speaking in common terms of reference, some of which were actual words and phrases he could understand, some images, some physical sensations.

He staggered to a stop, swaying, unsure whether he was even still on his feet. No, he seemed to be above the ground now, very high up. He could see the rooftops of the manor, and he saw the windowed facades (last rays of sunlight touching them gold) and felt the draft of the passage of human bodies through the halls within. The attentiveness of the estate seemed to draw a tighter focus, bearing him images of people. He seemed to touch the faint trails of heat left by the cooks in the kitchen, as reported by an archway there. The flagstones in the courtyard felt the pressure of walking feet, and measured the passage of four people. The sound of voices echoed weirdly as if from a long distance.

The spirits were searching for someone, he realized—a man or woman who was somewhere on the estate.

He knew he wasn't really in the air; this was just a vision. Jordan began to move again, perversely wishing they would notice him because then he could see where he was, if only through their eyes. He put his hands before him like a blind man, and walked.

The heavens... something was coming down from the sky. The estate knew it, and increasingly the snatches of vision Jordan caught were images from a vast height, far above the highest trees.

If he wasn't able to fight back these visions, he was as good as dead. Was he just going to stand here and let whatever it was that was coming take him?

Angry at his own helplessness, Jordan stopped walking, dropped his arms to his sides, and breathed in deeply. Once. Twice. He called on all the things Calandria had taught him, and tried to subdue the panic. All so he could have his own eyes back, for just a moment.

He felt the kaleidoscope of visions clearing, and tilted his head back. He saw the cloudless sky, scattered with the first stars of evening like finest jewels on blue silk.

And he saw the Heaven hooks.

§

Linden Boros displayed the family smile to Calandria. It was no more charming coming from him than it had been from Yuri or Marice. He was dressed in dark riding breeches and a red embroidered jacket, as if he had just arrived from the stables. He had ten men with him, all armed. August Ostler stood near him, looking uncomfortable.

"August told me there was a fight," said Linden. "Were you a witness to it, lady?" His bodyguards had their swords out.

Calandria looked at the swords, wide-eyed. "What is this about?"

"It would seem my bastard brother has overstepped his boundaries," Linden said dryly. "Through his friend Turcaret." He gestured for her to come up the steps. She walked up to stand before him.

"Where is my apprentice?" she asked. "He should be with your man here." She indicated Ostler.

Linden's brows furrowed slightly. He glanced at Ostler, who shrugged. "Not my concern," he said. "But I think you owe us an explanation."

Calandria cocked her head to one side. "Explanation? Regarding what? That we saved your man here from death requires no explanation—unless you are one of those who would not save a life unless it profit you. That we hid him? It was at his own request. He was a bit ashamed of himself after breaking the rules of the house."

"And why are you dressed for riding at this late hour, lady?"

"Considering the kindness I've done your man, Mister Boros, I think I'm entitled to keep that to myself."

He scowled. "May I remind you that you are a guest in this house?"

"Not for much longer," she said. "And I am not the guest who transgressed the rules," she added, nodding significantly at August, who shrank back.

Linden folded his arms. In this light he appeared quite menacing, slim and poised, with his sword loose at his side. The blond hair cascading down one shoulder was bound with black ribbon. Standing this close to him, Calandria caught a scent of leather, horses and sweat. "Speaking of transgressing rules," he said with some irony, "the Winds might be upset to know just how much science you carry around with you, Lady May."

She didn't reply. "Our poor August, here, was done for, by his own admission," Linden continued. "Someone tried to disguise a freshly healed sword wound with a new and shallower cut, but it's a clumsy job. Especially since there's a corresponding scar on his back. I've never seen such a pair of scars like that before... most people with that sort of wound don't last a day. Now August assures me his blood is actually rather thin, making it difficult for him to clot a cut finger. He says you did something to him... something scientific, which brought him back from the brink of death. The last person to try that was general Armiger, whose entire army was destroyed by the Winds."

"But—" she started.

"But," interrupted Linden, "you happen to be right. You did save my servant's life, by his own admission. I'm not sure what it is you are doing, but those who attacked August the first time just returned to finish the job. That tells me you are not one of them yourself. I don't know who you are, but—"

He was stopped mid-word by screams and shouts breaking out below them. A man ran up the stairs recklessly, shouting "Sir! Sir! He's dead!"

Calandria had bent to pick up her packs. She hesitated, as the man stumbled on the top step, skidded to his knees, and shouted, "They've killed Yuri!"

Linden's eyes widened. "Brendan! I knew it!" He rounded on Calandria. "If you have some involvement in this, lady, then you won't live to see trial. But you saved August, so if you love our house then come with me!" He raced down the stairs.

Calandria reached for her packs, but August already had them. "Where is Jordan?" he asked her, as men raced around them like a river in flood.

"Don't you know?"

He shook his head. Then they turned as one and ran after the mob.

§

Axel reached for the first thing at hand. It was a potted spider plant.

"B-bastard," he managed to croak. His throat burned like he'd been branded. Every time he moved, his arms and shoulders screamed pain. The subcutaneous armor worked just as Calandria had advertised, or else he would be dead by now. It wasn't enough to prevent loss of blood and deep bruising. He had to hope Turcaret didn't realize just how close to collapse he really was.

He threw the pot. Turcaret dodged it easily. Axel's reflexes were still pathetic, but the dizziness was passing.

"I'll kill you," Axel told the controller, trying to sound confident. He stepped into the center of the room. Turcaret backed to the window. Axel stared at his stolen possessions, laid out on a piece of cloth on the table top as if they were for sale. They were going to plant them wherever they killed Yuri, in case they didn't get Axel himself. Good plan.

Turcaret stepped to the window and shouted "Men! Get up here!" loudly.

"Oh, right—" Axel began, but just then the door behind him burst open. Four large men with swords spilled into the room. They stopped their onrush when they saw Axel, bloody by the table, and Turcaret backed against the window.

The leader's eyebrows hopped up and he sneered at Turcaret. "Shall we finish him, sir? It's well past time for—"

He had laid himself wide open, so Axel put a side kick into him. The man sailed across the room and shattered a fine lacquer cabinet. Axel staggered and nearly fell over.

A sharp blow to the shoulder drove him to his knees. This time he had the sense to roll forward, and came to his feet on the far side of the table. The man who had tried to chop his head off was looking at his sword in surprise.

Two of them came around opposite sides of the table. Axel hopped onto it and let one stab him in the chest. He reached out and took the man's wrist; Axel twisted it and took the sword out of his hand while the other bodyguard watched in confusion.

He couldn't let these men catch him. He turned to see a good view of Turcaret's rear end, as the controller struggled to get out the window.

Axel put the pommel of the sword into its owner's face and got off the table. He kicked a chair between himself and the other bodyguard and ran for the window. Turcaret had made it outside, and was clinging to the casement, some three meters above the roof of the manor.

No more time to look—they were converging on him. He grabbed the window frame and pulled himself through it as they howled after him.

The fall would have broken something had he been unarmored. As it was, he was stunned for a second. When he pulled himself to his knees on the rooftop, he could not at first spot Turcaret.

But there he was struggling with the metal door set into the rooftop. Behind him the moon was rising, huge and white. Axel barked a laugh and painfully pulled himself to his feet.

Turcaret looked up in fear—and it took a moment for Axel to realize the controller was not looking at him, but past, at the sky.

Ventus only had one moon, and Diadem was small. The thing Turcaret was silhouetted against was huge—larger than Earth's moon—and growing by the second. It glowed from within.

Turcaret was staring at something behind Axel. He turned around, and looked up... and up.

"Oh, thank you," Turcaret said.

§

The Boros family feud really wasn't any of Calandria's affair, but right now she was surrounded by shouting men for whom nothing could be more important. She let herself be swept along with them, thinking that by doing so she might find Jordan.

Linden raised a hand. "Silence!" he thundered. "Where?" he said to the man who had told them of Yuri's death.

"In his bed-chamber!"

"Oh, pray he was not butchered in his sleep." They hurried out into the courtyard, which was ablaze with torches. The sky was lit by the crepuscular glow of a vagabond moon, huge and lowering over the estate. Servants crowded everywhere, gawking. Linden's men were rallying under the main doors to the manor. "Where is Sheia?" roared Linden.

"We've got his men barricaded in their rooms!" crowed a lieutenant. "Don't know where he is—doubtless he's run, like the cur he is."

"Where is Marice?"

"With Yuri."

"Come then." Linden hurried into the manor. They followed. August stayed close to Calandria, but said nothing.

Yuri's bedchamber was on the third floor, at the front of the house. It had a commanding view through many floor-to-ceiling leaded glass windows. Two fireplaces faced one another across the room; Yuri's giant, canopied bed hulked near the one to the right. Linden's men crowded in after a whole mob of people, who were babbling and wailing incoherently.

Everything had been knocked about in the course of Yuri's final battle. Tables were overturned, chairs smashed. It was astonishing no one had heard the fight—but then, the walls were thick stone, and the door was four centimeters-thick oak.

Yuri lay on his back on the bed. His belly was slit, and intestines bulged blue out of the wound. His eyes were still open, glaring at the ceiling.

Lady Marice stood next to the bed. There was no expression at all on her face; it was as if she were carved from stone. She watched as people ran back and forth shouting.

"The assassin fled," someone said to Linden. He stepped up to Marice and took her hand. She snatched it back, and turned away from him.

"But he left his sword." The man pointed to the floor by the bed.

"Did he now?" Linden knelt and prodded the blade that lay there. "And whose is this, I wonder?"

Calandria gasped. It was Axel's sword.

13

The bowl of the sky was being filled. Jordan could see stars only near the horizon; the rest of the firmament was taken up by the dark mass of a vagabond moon. He had never seen one so low to the ground before—had never realized how big it was, like a thunderhead. It seemed ready to drop on him at any moment.

From a distance the moons seemed featureless, but up close he could make out tiny patterns in its dark skin, like the veins of a leaf. And directly above him, in the center of the bowled-in sky the moon made, he saw a deeply black star-shaped opening appear, and motes of light drifted silently down from it.

The Heaven hooks. He could see them among the lights now: black filaments, like spider's thread, with the lights strung along them like paper lanterns at a fair. Everyone knew the hooks rode on vagabond moons, reaching down through clouds like the hands of a god to scoop up entire fields. He had never seen them before—no one he knew had. But he knew the stories.

The entrance to the manor was only a hundred meters away. Jordan put his head down, and ran for the doors.

Linden Boros picked up Axel Chan's sword. The blade was covered in blood. The lord turned it over in his hands thoughtfully. "Foreign make," he said. "Could be Iapysian?" A fresh commotion was breaking out in the hallway outside Yuri's bed chamber. The whole estate, it seemed, was erupting with noise.

"What does it matter," said the lieutenant at his side. "We know Brendan Sheia is behind this."

"Is that so?"

Silence fell like a cloak across the room. Calandria stood on her tiptoes to see what had happened.

Brendan Sheia stood in the doorway. He had one hand on the pommel of his sword, otherwise he appeared calm. "Is it wise to jump to such conclusions, brother?"

"I'm not your brother!" Linden paced up to him. "It was very stupid of you to come here, Brendan. I suppose, though, it saves you the humiliation of being run to ground."

"You're too quick to jump to conclusions," Brendan said. He went to Marice, and gravely bowed. "My lady, I don't know what to say. This is terrible." Again, Marice turned away.

Brendan Sheia wheeled about like an actor on stage. He knew he had the attention of every person in the room. He was a hulking man with a square face, black hair and beetle brows. He wore a house coat embroidered with the family crest, and simple grey breeches, a doubtless calculated attempt to look like he had come from his own bed chamber, which the sword spoiled.

He would have had to be insane to enter this room without the weapon, judging from the way people were looking at him.

"What is that?" He nodded at the sword Linden held. "The murder weapon?"

"Yes," said Linden, "and as soon we find which of your men it belongs to, we'll pin him to the south wall with it—just ahead of you."

"One of my men?" Sheia frowned. "Not likely. That belongs to one of our other guests... the tawny fellow, you know, the irritating one."

"Sir Chan," said Linden's lieutenant.

"Yes, that's the one. Where is he during all this commotion?"

Linden looked at Calandria. She had nothing to say, but simply shook her head.

"Perhaps you do need to tell us the reason for your travelling clothes," Linden said to her.

"Well then." Sheia crossed his arms and glowered at Calandria. "It seems straightforward."

"Not necessarily," said Linden. "They have no motive. Quite the contrary."

"Maybe they were hired by Sheia," said the lieutenant.

Sheia guffawed. "They're agents of Ravenon, by their own admission. By this one stroke they've sown disorder in both Memnonis and Iapysia. Considering the troubles Ravenon's having, they'd love us to squabble within ourselves. If you don't see that, Linden, you're an idiot."

Linden stepped toward him, white-faced. Sheia ignored him, turning instead to Calandria. "So Lady May was taking the servants' stairs, was she?"

"If the assassin got away," Calandria said, pitching her voice clear and steady, "why did he leave his sword? That seems like a rather large oversight."

"Perhaps he was overwhelmed by what he had done. Or, maybe he was hurt?" Sheia appeared to consider that idea. "It looks like quite a fight happened here. That being the case, brother," said Sheia, "wouldn't you agree we should be hunting for Chan?"

Linden appeared to have regained his poise. He snapped his fingers at two sergeants, who came to attention and hurried from the room. "There," he said. "Now let us get back to the question at hand: namely their connection to you." He nodded to two more men. They moved forward to flank Brendan Sheia.

"Before you make an ugly mistake," Sheia said, "consider your options. Who are you going to put to the question here? I did not kill Yuri. With him gone, the family needs us united—it is imperative to our survival. If my men hear you've imprisoned me, there'll be a bloodbath, and nobody wants that. You can find out for sure who killed Yuri. Ask her."

Linden laughed humorlessly. "We will. But you're not going anywhere until we're done. Bring her." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" August jumped between Calandria and the Boros'. "She is no assassin. I can vouch for her."

"And bring him too!" Linden cried. He flipped his cloak about himself angrily as he stepped from the room. Sheia laughed richly as he followed.

"Wait!" August shouted. A soldier clouted him on the side of the head, and he went down on his knees. Another man took Calandria's arm and pushed her roughly toward the doors.

She had just turned to snap something rude at the man, when the ceiling caved in.

Turcaret laughed spitefully. "You are too late. The Heaven hooks have come, to take your young apprentice. Doubtless they will take you, too."

Axel stared at the sky. "Oh, shit," he whispered.

The biggest aerostat he had ever seen was hovering over the manor house. They were a common enough sight in the skies of Ventus, and very similar to the aerostat cities he had seen on gas giants and dense-atmosphere planets. The thing was just a hollow geodesic sphere about two kilometers in diameter. It didn't much matter what you built one with; at that size it would remain airborne despite its mass because, due to its high surface-to-volume ratio, sunlight would trap enough heat inside to create buoyancy. On other worlds entire cities lived in the bases of the things; here on Ventus, Axel had been told, they served as bulk transport for minerals and other terraforming supplies. No human had ever entered one and come out again, of course—they were purely tools of the Winds.

The belly of this aerostat had opened out like the petals of a flower—or more ominously, like the beaked mouth of a octopus. Hundreds of cables woven round with gantries and buttresses tumbled into the high air from this opening. He could see them spiralling down at him in glimpses highlit by Diadem, the world's one true moon.

"They will take you, Chan!" Turcaret shouted. "It was going to happen, if you lived. Somehow you and yours have offended the Winds. They have taken notice of you! My killing you was an act of kindness, don't you see? I would have spared you this!"

"Shut up," Axel said distractedly. What the hell was the thing doing here? This couldn't be some random event; his briefings on Ventus had never mentioned an attack like this. But the Winds treated any technology not of their own creation as a pathology to be removed. Axel had thought he and Calandria had succeeded in hiding their nano and implants from the rulers of Ventus. Maybe it hadn't worked.

Axel had to get to Calandria, and Turcaret happened to be standing on the only door. "Out of the way, you bastard," Axel said. Turcaret's face was lost in darkness, but Axel could see he was shaking his head.

"I will deliver you to them," said the controller. "It will be my pleasure." He shouted something into the sky in some old language. Past his dark outline, Axel saw a thing like a caged claw, big as a house, fall straight at them. Just before it hit, great lamps like eyes blazed into life from its crossbeams.

The roof disappeared with a great slap Axel felt in his bones. Dust and scraps of shingle and wooden beams shot into the air, and he was airborne too before he knew it. He landed on his side on the roof, which swayed and pitched like the deck of a ship. Something bright as the sun, and howling like a million saws, planted itself in the roof next to him and twisted this way and that. He smelled hot iron and ozone.

Axel rolled onto his stomach. Turcaret was crouched two meters away, also looking up. Axel willed himself to stand up, but his strength momentarily failed him. As he was struggling onto his elbows, Turcaret sent him a silent, contemptuous glare, and hopped down through the hole in the roof.

A metal tower reaching all the way to heaven was heaving its base back and forth through the ruins of the manor. Only part of one wing had collapsed, so far, but the thing had hundreds of arms, and these pounced out and down into corridor and chamber, and through the dust he could see some of these arms passing struggling human forms inward to the thing's central cage. Horrified, he rolled away from the sight.

He came up against the door, which had popped open. The stairs leading down appeared quite unscathed. A last glance back showed Axel that other giant arms had landed on the grounds and by the stables, in a rough circle around the main building. They were eating the trees.

Axel wailed and fell through the open door.

Calandria sorted herself out of the tangle of lead triangles and glass flinders on which she had landed. She had never read of, seen or VR'd someone jumping through a leaded glass window before; it had turned out to be a lot more difficult than she had expected.

It had taken two tries, but she was on the ground now. Poor August was still upstairs, but there was only so much she could do. She rolled to her feet, rubbing blood out of her eyes.

Madness had fallen from the sky. She had a perfect view of the grounds from here in the bushes by the front steps of the manor. People were running back and forth, trying in equal numbers to get into and out of the house. An aerostat hovered over the estate, visible in the light of fires that were springing up all over. Calandria stared at it for a moment, then shook her head to clear the muddle of half-thoughts that filled it. Bits of glass flew from her hair.

A deep crash sounded from inside the manor; the front doors flew open, and a waft of dust blew out. There was no going back in there—but she had to find Axel. She bounced on the balls of her feet for a moment, debating whether to use radio to contact him.

A huge metal arm plowed into the earth a hundred meters away. Its end flopped there for a second or two, then split into a hundred bright threads, which coiled outward. Each thread—which must be a motile cable as thick as her body—bent and probed the ground ahead of itself as it moved. She realized suddenly that this thing might be able to smell her out from the radio waves, and her scalp crawled with sudden fear. She had been about to contact Axel. Its cables continued to unravel and lengthen, and some were heading towards her.

With a terrible rending crash, one wall of the manor fell outward. Calandria screamed as the air around her was filled with flying stone. At least ten people had been hurrying across the patch of ground the wall had hit.

She stood back and cupped her hands around her mouth. ."Axel!" Twenty meters away, a gleaming metal snake reared into the air, its mandibled tip quivering. It slid deliberately in her direction.

A hand fell on her shoulder. It was Axel, coughing and covered head to foot in blood and grey dust.

"You're hurt!" She gingerly peeled his sticky shirt aside.

"It's superficial. You look a bit rough yourself. You okay?" he said.

"So far. Look at that!" She pointed at the questing snake.

He glanced at it briefly. "Yeah. Let's get out of here."

"Which way?"

"We need our supplies. Where's your stuff?"

"August's got it. He's... well, we got separated. How about yours?"

Axel pointed wordlessly at the heap of rubble even now being picked through by metal scavengers.

"Inside!" She went to grab his arm, and thought better of it; she didn't know where all his wounds were. "Oh, Axel, what happened?" She gestured for him to follow her up the pillared steps. The snakelike thing was only a few meters away now.

"Can't we just run for it?" He stood swaying slightly, staring at it.

"Come on!" Abandoning care, she hauled him inside. The foyer of the manor was a chaos of screaming people. One staircase had collapsed; a weeping woman dug frantically at the wreckage, screaming "Hold on! I'm coming!" Some soldiers with their swords in their hands stood in a knot, staring hectically at the shadowed ceiling. Men were hauling injured people and corpses in from one of the side corridors.

"There's nowhere else to go," said Axel.

"What's happening?" She pulled Axel to face her; his expression was lost in darkness, since the only light came from a couple of oil lamps, and from fires burning outside.

"Turcaret says they're after Jordan," said Axel. "I guess his implants set them off somehow. The bastard did this to me," he said, raising his arms then wincing. "Tried to set me up for the murder of Yuri."

She shrugged angrily. "Yes, I saw the result. Where's Jordan?"

"No idea." One of the front doors fell off its hinges. With everything else that was happening, this didn't seem momentous. But harsh cones of electric light pierced the dust from outside. Calandria heard a loud whirring sound, accompanied by undulating movements in the doorway.

"What do we do now?" she said.

"Nothing," he said, staring into the light.

"Not nothing!" She let her breath out in a rush, coughed on dust, and said, "We shoot down the aerostat."

Axel's eyes widened. "With what?"

"Call the Desert Voice. Land her here. Have her take out the aerostat on the way."

"But Jordan—"

"Axel, we're done here! We need to get Armiger and get out of here. Axel—" she couldn't prevent her voice from rising as she spoke—"they're killing everyone here! Because of Armiger!"

Axel's lips were drawn in a tight grimace. He clenched his fists and glared at her while around them people screamed. "All right!" he said finally. "Do it!"

Calandria closed her eyes and opened the link.

Turcaret ducked involuntarily as something nearby fell with a crash. The manor was coming down around him, but he couldn't leave it until he had taken care of his people.

He fought his way past running servants to his people's quarters. The maids and footmen were clustered at the windows, staring outside in disbelief. "Run!" he barked at them. "Quickly now. Get outside before the rest comes down."

"What's happening?" wailed one. "Is it the war?"

He shook his head. "Just go."

They made for the door.

He sighed. Duty was satisfied; now to find Jordan Mason.

He had no idea whether the assassination of Yuri had gone off successfully, but that seemed unimportant now. The Heaven hooks were in a rage. He could hear them, a deep sussurating chorus in his mind.

Never in his life had Turcaret been in the presence of such powerful Winds. He had heard voices as a child, and long before he met anyone who could explain them, had decided they were Winds. Little things spoke to him, trees and stones, and sometimes he could reply. They generally rambled about subjects he didn't understand, but every now and then they brought news of the Hooks, or the Diadem Swans, and once or twice had told him of the activities of the desals. He clearly remembered the day he learned that the desals had chosen to put the lady Galas on the throne of Iapysia. She was blessed by the Winds; it was this fact that finally made him throw in with Brendan Sheia, because she had somehow angered the desals, and he feared what the Winds might do if that happened.

Now the voices discussed their search for a man. The Winds were acting to eliminate a threat—but how could that be? In all his years, Turcaret had never heard the Winds speak of any sort of danger to themselves or the world. They were all-powerful.

Sometimes when the Winds were very near, Turcaret could see secrets within things. That was happening now, but on a scale he could never have imagined. Everywhere he looked, ghostly words and images seemed to hover in front of objects—the chairs, walls, casements and jittering chandeliers each had its orbiting retinue of tiny visions. He knew if he had time to stop and examine them, each would reveal some secret about the object behind it. You could learn all the crafts, from masonry to bookbinding this way.

He had always felt exalted by such gifts. They were proof that he was special, destined in some way to be a great leader and master over both Man and Nature. When he heard whispers of the coming of the Heaven hooks last night, Turcaret had assumed they knew of his plot with Brendan Sheia, and were preparing to marshal the forces of heaven itself behind their attempt to wrest control of the Boros family. Sheia didn't believe him when Turcaret told him, so they had continued with the conservative approach: framing the visiting imposters for the assassination. But Turcaret had suspected such detail work would prove unnecessary in the face of what was to come.

Now the Winds had arrived, and they were destroying the estate! He would have thought they disapproved of Yuri's assassination, were it not that he could hear plainly they wanted only one thing: Jordan Mason.

Turcaret himself meant nothing to them. That knowledge came as a deep blow, worse than anything Chan had inflicted.

At the foot of the stairs, people were spilling into the courtyard. He could see Linden Boros trying to organize his men among tilting statues. The terrifying arms of the Hooks reared overhead.

Turcaret ignored them; they were no threat to him. He scanned the faces in the courtyard. He had seen Mason once, being hoisted aloft in Castor's courtyard for some minor victory. And indeed, there he was coming out of the front hall. He looked more boy than man, his dark hair tousled, eyes wide.

"Give me your sword," Turcaret demanded of a passing soldier. Dazed though he was, the man hurried to comply. Turcaret hefted the blade and walked through the mob, eyes fixed on Mason.

What was this boy to the Winds? He was nothing but a loutish tradesman, and yet the Heaven hooks were willing to kill everyone on the estate to get at him. "You!" Turcaret levelled his sword at Mason. "What did you do to anger them?"

"I don't know!" shouted the boy. He shook himself and glared at Turcaret. "And who are you to accuse me?"

Anger always calmed Turcaret; it gave him focus. He smiled now at the boy. "You've spent too long with Chan. Answer me! What have you done to offend the Winds?"

Uncertainty crept into Mason's eyes again. He was lit in intermittent flashes of lightning, making him seem to shift in place. If he tried to run, Turcaret was prepared to kill him.

"I don't know why they're doing it," Mason said simply. He seemed guileless; whatever he had done, he was probably too stupid to remember or connect it to tonight's events.

The Heaven hooks would keep tearing the estate apart until they found Mason. He was the cancer at the heart of the night, and only his removal would restore the correct order to things.

Killing him would also surely make the Winds notice Turcaret at last.

"Stand still," he instructed the youth. He stepped forward and raised the sword.

Lightning flashed again, and Turcaret caught a glimpse of Mason's eyes. In them Turcaret saw something he had never believed he would see.

Words and images flickered like heat lightning in those eyes. Somehow, this youth was both Man and Wind. The whispering voices of nature spoke from within him. All the people on this estate—all people everywhere—appeared to Turcaret as absences, silhouettes against the glow of the Winds. All except Mason, who shone like nature itself.

Mason glanced up at the sky. Suddenly everyone in the courtyard was screaming.

Mason jumped back. People were running for the walls, so finally Turcaret tore his gaze away from the youth.

He just had time to count the claws on the giant hand before it fell on him, took him, and crushed out his life.

Jordan met August Ostler in a cellar hallway choked with dust and swarming with terrified people. The soldier looked stunned, and Jordan had to take him by the shoulders and shout in his face to get his attention.

August blinked at him. Despite the warm red light of the torches, August's face was deadly pale. "The Heaven hooks have come," he said.

"I know," Jordan said impatiently. "Where's my lady?"

A series of scraping thuds sounded overhead, like the foosteps of a bewildered giant. The crowd grew suddenly silent; their gleaming eyes rolled and glanced to and fro.

Jordan felt curiously detached. He knew he would be in the same state as these people, if he didn't know who the Heaven hooks wanted. But they wanted him; knowing that made his mind wonderfully clear. He was sure he was as afraid as anyone here, but his fear was focussed and sharp. He knew the thudding steps above were the gropings of a god which was determined to take the manor apart stone by stone until it found him.

August stammered. "Last I saw, she was being held by Linden's men. They suspect her of killing Yuri!"

"Killing Yuri? That makes no sense!"

A giant roaring collapse took place somewhere above. It shook dust from the ceiling. People had begun to talk again, and this silenced them.

Jordan strove to compose himself. It seemed everything that went wrong in his life did so when he lost control. He folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and tried his breathing exercises. With an effort he began mentally reciting one of the nonsense mantras Calandria had taught him.

He would have to leave the building. The Heaven hooks would get him for sure, but it sounded like it was just a matter of minutes anyway before they dug down to where he was now.

Once he came to this decision, he felt calmer. He opened his eyes.

August stood near him, eyes downcast. Only now did Jordan notice the bags he was carrying.

"These are Calandria's!" He fingered the strap of one.

"Yes, I was carrying them because... well, never mind."

"Give them to me!"

August did so without complaint. He seemed relieved, in fact, to be free of the responsibility.

Jordan sat down on the cold flagstones and began rooting through the bags. His mind was racing, spinning between the terrible feeling that he was somehow responsible for this disaster, and a hope that he might be able to set it right.

"August, what do the Heaven hooks look like to you?"

August shook his head dumbly.

"Come on! What do they look like? Animals?"

"No."

"Trees?"

"Almost... no. They are what they are, Jordan."

"Do they look like mechanisms?"

August frowned, then nodded.

Jordan had found what he was looking for. "Listen, August, when Calandria and I were on our way here, we stopped one night in a manse of the Winds. We slept there, unmolested."

"Impossible."

"I thought so too. I didn't want to go in." Jordan half-rose, and poked August in the spot where the man had been run through. "Remember this? The wound that nearly killed you last night? That's now gone? Calandria May has more tricks than that. One of them is this." He held up the gauze they had used to avoid the mecha in the manse, and told August how they had used it.

He had the man's attention now. "I swear to you," Jordan said, "the Heaven hooks are after me! I'm not Calandria's servant, or Axel's apprentice. I'm just a workman. But I've been cursed, and the Winds are after me. They're tearing the manor house apart because I'm down here! If I leave, they'll stop."

"If that's true..." August didn't finish, but Jordan knew what he was thinking. August believed him. It was best for Jordan to go out there, and if he wouldn't go voluntarily, he should be forced. And yet, from the look on August's face, he had no love for the idea.

Could it be that August felt some sort of loyalty to Jordan, because he had saved the man's life? Ridiculous. Other people were worthy of such admiration, but Jordan knew he was not.

He had no time to think about that now. Renewed crashings sounded above them, and deep thuds which seemed to be coming nearer. "Listen," he shouted over the din, "Lady May says mecha are a kind of machine. If the Heaven hooks are like the mecha, maybe this will hide me from them."

"Then they will go berserk for sure," said August. "But anyway, the Winds are different from live things, and different from machines."

Jordan shook his head. "Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I've got no intention of just disappearing." He told August his plan.

Thousands of kilometers above Ventus, a thing like a bird sculpted in liquid metal heard Calandria's call. The Desert Voice was named for the voice of conscience that had driven Calandria from the employ of the men who had trained her. The Voice knew the origin of her name, and was proud of it and of her mistress. When she heard Calandria's call she was nearly over the horizon, following her orbit; she instantly reversed thrust. A bright star appeared in the skies over Ventus.

The Voice had been sailing a very quiet sky. There was no radio traffic from the surface of Ventus, except for localized tight beams between the vagabond moons and the Diadem Swans. The Swans themselves were invisible, wrapped in radar-proof cloaks. They knew the Voice was there, but the starship had been discreet after dropping Calandria and Axel off.

They were about to become very interested in the Desert Voice.

She broke orbit entirely and dropped to hover directly over the Boros estate at an altitude of two hundred kilometers. The fire from her exhaust pierced the ionosphere and created an auroral spike visible over the horizon. To the survivors huddled in the ruins of the Boros estate, the vagabond moon that eclipsed the sky glowed faintly for a moment.

"She's here," said Calandria.

The Voice assessed the situation. The aerostat between her and her mistress was a big one: two kilometers in diameter, comprised of a thin carbon-filament skeleton covered with quasi-biological skin. It was surrounded by a haze of ionized air, which it created and directed around itself to control its movement. It was completely empty except for a ring of storage tanks and gantries in its belly, which was of insignificant mass compared to the lift the sun-warmed air inside it gave.

It stood five hundred meters above Calandria's position. The Voice could see it straining to maintain its place: lightning shot from its waist, and a vast electrical potential roved its skin, pulling the air about. It was creating its own weather, and it would have to lift soon or the instabilities would drag it into the ground.

The Voice reviewed her options. Eliminating the aerostat without having it fall on Calandria was going to be tricky. She could send a nuke into the center of the thing and blow it to smithereens, but a lot of the debris would fall on the mistress. Better to blow a hole in its side—but a quick calculation told her that the aerostat could stay on station for many minutes despite huge structural damage, simply because it would take a while for the warm air inside to be replaced by outside air.

She could nuke a spot some miles above the aerostat. The updraft would loft it into the stratosphere... but might also tear it in half.

Her thoughts were interrupted as, all across the sky, the Diadem Swans threw aside their cloaks and came for her.

"Goodbye, August," said Jordan. They shook hands. August looked grim.

"I think I'll see you again, Jordan," he said. "You're a mad fool, and such people have a way of surviving."

Jordan laughed. His heart was hammering. "I hope you're right!" He turned and stepped out the servant's door.

The grounds of the estate were lit by fires and the savage beams of lantern light cast by the Hooks. Jordan ran with Calandria's magic gauze wrapped about himself, and though he passed close to several of the vast armatures, none moved in his direction. They continued pounding at the ruins of the manor. He could see very few people. Only here and there survivors huddled under the shelter of trees, or in archways. They watched the approach of the metal arms of the Hooks with increasing apathy.

Jordan tripped through deep gouges, and ran around uprooted trees and fallen blocks until he reached the middle of the field, where he had first stopped to look up at the Hooks. There was rubble all the way out here, a hundred meters from the house.

He didn't give himself time to think, just threw aside the gauze and screamed at the sky, "Here I am, you bastards!"

For a moment nothing happened. Then he saw the great arms that had buried themselves in the manor were lifting up and out. And above him, a pinpoint of light began to grow into a beacon, as something new fell towards him.

"Oh, shit," he whispered. He had been hoping he was wrong, that the Hooks were here to avenge someone else's transgression.

A wind blew up suddenly, carrying with it a strong smell like air after a thunderstorm. Dust and smoke swirled up, and began to wrap around the base of the vagabond moon.

Certain he had their attention, Jordan wrapped himself in the gauze again, and ran for the trees.

A big metal crane slammed into the spot where he had been standing. The impact threw Jordan off his feet, but he was up and running again in a second. He heard the thing thrashing and digging behind him, but though his shoulders itched with expectation, nothing grabbed him. He made it to the edge of the forest, and paused to look back.

Several arms now hunted over the grass. None were coming after him. Better yet, those limbs that had been demolishing the manor were gone, lifted back up into the belly of the moon. The thunderstorm smell was stronger, though, and fierce, conflicing gusts of wind blew across the treetops. The moon seemed to be hanging lower and lower in the sky.

Jordan had run for the screen of trees that separated the road from the grounds. He stood at the entrance to a pathway that he knew led to the stone trough at the side of the road.

He unwound the gauze. "Hey!" he shouted, waving his arms over his head. "Over here!"

The questing arms rose into the air, and silently swung in his direction.

He covered up and stepped into the shelter of the trees.

"It's moving away," Axel observed. He and Calandria stood with some others watching the departure of the arms that had harried the manor. In the sudden silence he could hear the shouts and screams of trapped and injured people. Blocks of stone still fell from the sky at intervals, so everyone's attention was directed upwards; few people were moving to help the injured.

It did seem like the aerostat was moving away, and the strong winds were probably the reason. Along with the smoke Axel smelled ozone. Electrostatic propulsion? Probably.

"Think the Voice scared it?"

Calandria shook her head. "I doubt it. Anyway, we've seen no sign, except that one faint flash. Maybe it decapitated the aerostat, though; we might not know until it hit the ground. As soon as it's far enough away I'll call the Voice and check."

Axel nodded. He returned his attention to ground level. A shame. A real shame. "Our first priority is to help these people," he said. "There's still some trapped in the rubble."

"I'll dig," she said. "You'd better sit down."

He looked down at himself. He was covered in blood, with open cuts up and down his torso. He hurt all over, too.

"Yes," he said as he lowered himself onto a stone. "I think I'd better."

Jordan made it to the highway. He was out of breath and covered in sweat, but the Hooks hadn't caught him yet. From here on the countryside was open, which could pose a problem; but he remembered the golden monster in the manse reaching around him to pick up shattered wood after he had merely raised the gauze in front of it. It had not seen him even though he was right in front of it. By now he was fairly sure the Hooks would not spot him even in open country, as long as he had this protection.

He would make for the forest. It was a day or two's travel away, but he wouldn't feel he could rest until he was under the trees, gauze or no gauze. And then, if he survived, he would try to find his way home.

Or would he? He had started walking, and paused now. He might lose the Heaven hooks for a while, but something else would come after him in time. The Winds were everywhere. He had only delayed the inevitable—unless he were to wear this accursed cloth for the rest of his life, and shun any community that the Hooks might dismantle to reach him.

Jordan realized that if he survived, it was going to be as an outcast, unless he was willing to risk everyone around him. Was that how he was going to end his days? Hiding from god and man alike in the forest?

He lowered his head, and wept as he ran.

A few minutes later there was a brilliant flash of light in the sky, like sheet lightning but as bright as the sun. A few seconds later, a violent bang and grumble of thunder sounded.

The vagabond moon had lit up like a lantern in the flash. In the aftermath of the thunder, Calandria and Axel stood from their digging to watch as the moon dipped lower, until its base disappeared behind the trees. Then it seemed to crumple like the finest tissue, even as it continued to move east. Over the next few minutes it spent itself across the fields, in a trail of girders and torn skin many miles long. There were no fires, no explosions, and only faint distant rumblings as it fell.

It came down closer to Jordan, and he saw the bottom ring with its mouth full of hooks touch the earth and shatter, spilling stone blocks, trees and human figures. Many of those figures lived, and struggled free of the wreckage; the moon had not fallen straight down, but glided slowly into the earth at an angle. Most of those alive when it hit were still alive afterward.

Jordan saw this, but he could not stop, because he could not be sure some new horror would not follow. He continued walking, nursing a stitch in his side. If he could not go home because of the voices in his head; and if Calandria May was wrong about Armiger, as he had begun to suspect; and if even she could not prevent the Heaven hooks from coming after him; then he would have to find help elsewhere.

He was no longer walking east. His goal now lay to the southwest.

When the aerostat had finished falling, Calandria May knelt down, closed her eyes, and signaled her ship. Axel watched as her brows knit, and she frowned. She remained kneeling for longer than he thought should be necessary. When she opened her eyes, she looked at him with an expression of tired acceptance.

"The Desert Voice doesn't answer," she said. "I'm afraid, Axel, that we may be stranded."