"Green,.Sharon.-.Hidden.Realms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

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t wasn't my fault. I'll be the first to admit it usually is my fault, but not that time. It was a simple accident, and Master Haddil shouldn't have—But maybe I ought to start from the beginning.
At first it was a perfectly ordinary day. I'd dressed to go riding right after breakfast, but the heavy gray clouds that had been threatening since the day before finally let loose. It wasn't exactly rain that came down, not with the air as cold as it was. Half sleet and half snow, likely to become all one or the other before very long, and nothing any sane person would deliberately go out in. I'd stared at it through the diamond-paned window of my kitchen, not very pleased.
And then I'd gotten curious. Water fell from the skies in different forms, but it was still water. We drank it, bathed in it, washed things with it, cooked with it—but how much experimentation had been done? If memory served there wasn't very much, and what better day to correct that? There were ail sorts of things to try with water, so I headed for my workshop to get started.
All right, so I didn't change out of the heavy riding clothes and boots. I tend to keep my house on that world on the cool side; when I'm in the mood for cold weather, I want to know it's there. Staying in those clothes shouldn't have made any difference ...
Well, I gestured a bucket of water into being, then thought about what I wanted to try first. A sorceress at my level is


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capable of quite a lot, but I didn't want to use magic to make water do things. I wanted to investigate water, with magic just another tool. But what was there to try . . . ?
And then I saw the single drop, shimmering at the rim of the bucket. What was a single drop, and how much water had to be present before it became two drops, or three, or a dozen? Some drops were smaller or bigger than others, so where did the cutoff point come? Was it possible to extend the cutoff point, using magic only lightly? How far beyond was it practical to go?
The questions increased to a dozen, then began multiplying. On top of that I'd gotten an idea, which in turn suggested a test to answer the questions. Wording my spell carefully, I used the water in the bucket to make a sphere a foot and a half in diameter. I was able to hold the sphere in my hands without bursting it like the soap bubble it resembled, which was one of the things the spell had specified. I had to be careful, but 1 could hold it.
Once that was done, I brought into being nine more gallon buckets of water. The first question to be answered was how many gallons the one-gallon sphere would be able to hold without rupturing or leaking. That meant filling it slowly and watching for the natural stress point, not forcing it to hold what / wanted it to. A wizard could have garnered the waters of an ocean into a ball; that wasn't what I was trying to accomplish.
I had just finished adding the contents of the fourth bucket when the Summons came. The sphere was very full but not yet leaking, and then my attention was taken by the entry that chimed into existence not two feet away. It looked like a perfectly ordinary doorway, except that the name Haddil sat in large block letters on its top. A quick spell matched the master's true resonance with the work, which meant it really was him doing the Summoning. Come now, was the message, one Master Haddil had never sent before. There had to be some kind of trouble . . .
Without wasting another moment, I stepped through the entry. Moving from world to world like that is effortless, so much so that you sometimes forget to watch where you're walking. One step, after all, and not even across a raised threshold. It let me out just short of a real doorway, one
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that did, unfortunately, have a raised threshold ...
So it wasn't my fault. Maybe I did forget I was still holding the sphere of water, but that wouldn't have mattered if the entry had been put beyond the raised door sill. All my attention was on the room I approached, trying to see who was in it. It seemed to be a conference room in the Palace of Ease at Yellow Rivers, and the master wasn't alone. People came in by ones and twos through other doorways that must also have had entries behind them, and Master Haddil was in the midst of creating even more. I heard part of one spell as I approached, and then—
And then my heavy riding boots made me trip over the sill. My reflexes were good enough to keep me from falling, which was the major part of the problem. As my arms flew up to reestablish balance, my hands threw the sphere of water I'd forgotten I was holding. I recovered my footing in time to see the sphere go sailing toward Master Haddil, and immediately felt relieved. Master Haddil, after all, was warded against magic with his own wizard's strength, so my sphere couldn't possibly reach him.
And it didn't. But his warding also didn't destroy the sphere, as I'd thought it would. Instead, the sphere bounced—straight toward the man who stood beside Master Haddil on his right. Again, since the man was Sighted, it shouldn't have mattered; his own warding should have protected him. What's that saying about "should" and "would" and "could"? To make a long story even longer, he wasn't warded. The sphere hit him head-on, burst the way it was supposed to, and drowned him in five gallons of water.
"Chalaine!" Master Haddil screamed, staring in horror at the man who was drenched from head to foot. "What have you done this time? Have you any idea? Even a hint?"
Chalaine, that's me. Master Haddil pronounces it as though it should be Abysmal or Catastrophe, but he's always done that. Things tend to go badly for me, especially when he's around.
So I was used to being accused, and that's why I didn't say anything as I watched the big drowned man use one hand to wipe water out of his eyes. His long, golden blond hair hung in strings, his dark tunic and leather
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breeches sagged, and his boots must have been full. Even his swordbelt was wet, and I had just enough time to wonder why a magic user would be wearing a swordbelt before he moved his hand in a banishing gesture. All the water and wetness disappeared immediately, of course, leading me to also wonder why no one else had thought to do that.
Like Master Haddil. "Forgive me, Your Highness, but I should have done that," he apologized, tugging at his bright yellow robes. "It's just that girl — when she appears, my mind ceases to function. Are you all right?"
"I'm not so delicate that I dissolve in water, Master Haddil," the big man returned, annoyance in his deep voice. They were both trying to ignore the hysterical laughter coming from the other new arrivals, all of whom were Sighted. "If the girl's that bad, why did you include her in the Summoning?"
"She isn't bad, Your Highness, merely a catalyst for chaos," Master Haddil answered with a sigh. "If we simply avoid her close proximity, we should survive with only minor damage. If you'll excuse me now, I'll finish creating the rest of the entries."
The big man nodded sourly, and Master Haddii went back to work. By then I'd crossed over to a deep leather chair, hoping that sitting quietly in one place for a while would calm the upheaval I'd caused. It was almost as though cause and effect were two halves of a piece of rope that sometimes folded back on itself. Normally each effect needed a separate cause, but the folding brought about effect after effect after effect . . .
And I was always in the middle of that folding. I sighed as I leaned back in the chair, noticing that the big blond man hadn't even given me a second glare, let alone a second look. Well, there was nothing unusual in that, not once I'd "caused." People don't enjoy being in the middle of chaos, not even if they're Prince Bariden of Melen. Which was who he had to be. Third son of King Agilar of Melen, and unexpectedly born Sighted.
Two more entries were created, one after the other beyond adjacent doorways, and Master Haddil still wasn't finished. The conference room had been built especially for the
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use of a wizard, with more than two dozen doorways spaced around its circumference. Normally those doorways led only to various corridors or halls in the Palace of Ease, specifically the corridors and halls just outside the room. If an emergency happened and the king needed to meet with his nobles quickly, his wizard could establish entries through the doorways and bring them right to him.
But this time it was Sighted who were being brought through, and not just any Sighted. From the few I recognized, Master Haddil seemed to be Summoning everyone he'd ever taught who hadn't yet reached wizard strength. Since it wasn't likely he was simply holding a reunion, something important had to be going on. Once the Summoning was over, we'd all find out about it together.
In the meanwhile, those who had already arrived were finding places to wait. Small groups had begun to form, using couches, chairs, and the small tables they surrounded, for the purpose. The furnishings in that room were all brightly colored silks and brocades, reds and yellows and blues and greens, all bound around with the royal maroon and gold. Some parts of it looked like an autumn tree had exploded, but that was the way the king liked it. Lots of bright colors all thrown together, and never mind if some people had to squint against the glare.
Aside from the colors, the room itself was magnificent. Round and high-ceilinged, it gave the impression of large sunshiny windows bright with the warmth of summer, the beautifully made furniture gleaming in reflection of that. The effect came from magic, of course, since the room had no windows at all. And it was warm despite its size, reminding me about the heavy clothes I wore. I thought about changing entirely, but wasn't in the mood for dress-up. A sh ort spell simply changed my white tunic, brown breeches, and brown boots to lightweight form, and that served the purpose.
I wasn't the only one who sat alone in the room, but I was the only one pointed out to newcomers by whatever group they joined. After that the story was retold, and then came the inevitable laughter. But most of the laughter
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seemed to be aimed at Prince Bariden, as though he'd had some hand in what had happened to him. It occurred to me that in a way he had, by not being warded, and that made me curious. Why would a magic user not be warded, especially if he was also a prince? Even I wasn't that blase or absentminded ...
I had some time to consider the question, but before I came to any conclusions, Master Haddil finished the Summoning. Almost two dozen people had come through the entries, and every one of us looked at him when he raised his arms for attention.
"It pleases me that all of you honored your obligation so promptly," he began, looking around at the group. "As the one who taught each of you his or her craft, I have the right to call on you for assistance should the need arise. It's my unfortunate duty to inform you that more than simple need has arisen."
Soft murmurs of surprised comment came from a few places around the room, and not only because of what had been said. Now that I looked directly at Master Haddil, I could see what certainly must be worry lines creasing his face. His gray-touched brown hair was less neatly combed than usual, his light eyes were bleak, and he seemed not to have slept in much too long. For someone who was Court Wizard to King Agilar of Melen, he looked pretty awful.
"In the last month a ... situation has developed that I— haven't been able to get to the bottom of," he continued. "Before I go into details, you're entitled to know that there will be a good deal of danger for anyone who assists me. I... have already lost four of you, those I Summoned more than a week ago. I had no idea—I certainly wouldn't have— without warning them—"
His voice broke completely then, and he stood in the middle of the room looking down at his folded, robe-covered arms, silently trying to pull himself together. It occurred to me that yellow was an odd color for a wizard's robe, but it probably had been the king's idea. Master Haddil's grief and guilt were so clear he might as well have been projecting them, giving us the feeling that black would have been more appropriate. A new round of murmurs arose,
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accompanied by stirring, and a man from one of the small groups stepped forward.
"Master Haddil, are you saying you're giving us the choice about whether or not to become involved?" he asked, his brows knit with disturbance. "Four of us have already been ended, and there's a good chance more will go the same way?"
"They haven't precisely been ended, but the rest of what you said is accurate," Haddil agreed after taking a deep breath. "I cannot in all good conscience demand your assistance, not with something like this. I ask for your help, but will understand any refusal to give it. Take a moment to consider, and those who decline may then leave."
Everyone stared at Haddil for the first moment, and then those in groups began to murmur among themselves. Those who sat alone simply looked thoughtful, but none of the deliberation took very long. Without glancing at Master Haddil again people began to leave, presumably to go back to safer and more important pursuits. Since I didn't have anything more important — or at least nothing mat wouldn't keep — I stayed to become one of thirteen with similar opinions. That number wasn't the best of omens for most, but for me it had always been lucky.
"Well, we're left with a larger number than I had anticipated," Master Haddil observed once the last back had disappeared through a doorway. "You all have my thanks, of course, but I must repeat that I want you to be very certain. If anything happens to one of you . . ."
He didn't want it weighing on his conscience any more than it already did. The problem was actually Master Haddil's, which was why he felt like that, but we already knew that. The man who had spoken earlier had been one of the first to leave, so we sat without commenting until the wizard was ready to go on.
"All right, let's get down to details," he conceded with a sigh when no one else moved. "The problem began about a month ago, when the king guested a deputation of merchants from the city. Business had been going so well for them that they were ready to branch out, and they came to discuss possible trade treaties with the king. Trading with people you won't be able to collect from isn't very good
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business, nor do you want to get involved with potential enemies. Not that this realm has many enemies . . ."
His voice trailed off again as though his mind had become distracted, and some of us exchanged glances. This wasn't the Master Haddil we knew, and the difference was disturbing. He was badly shaken by the — situation, and in another moment we found out why.
"At any rate, the king held a feast the night they arrived, and the next day the first of the discussions was scheduled to begin. Everyone showed up in the conference chamber at the appointed time — except for the head of the deputation. Thinking he'd overslept, they sent a servant to his rooms to wake him. The servant came back on the run, reporting that the man hadn't overslept. There was something wrong with him, and a healer had already been sent for. The healer arrived promptly, spent a few minutes with the man, then immediately called me.
"When I first walked into his bedchamber, I was startled," Master Haddil continued with a sigh. "The man sat in a chair at his breakfast table, the remnants of his meal spread out before him. To the casual glance he was about to take a last swallow of coffee before going to dress, and I nearly apologized for intruding. Then I realized that he wasn't moving, and in fact was breathing only shallowly. The healer had tried rousing and neutralizing spells, thinking he might be drugged, but nothing had worked. It was almost as though someone had stolen his soul . . ."
If Master Haddil didn't shiver, some of the rest of us weren't far from it. Death, being natural, is acceptable, even if it's caused by unnatural means. What had happened to the merchant didn't come under the same heading, and a sudden chill insinuated itself into the warmth of the room.
"And that was only the first of it," Master Haddil said into the deep silence. "Two more merchants were taken the same way before the rest packed up and left on the run, and then two of the king's advisers were stricken, one right after the other. By then I'd Summoned your predecessors, but they weren't able to discover any more than I had. Ilainna, Saydra, Hannar and Gadran — one night they were fine, the next morning they'd become a group of living
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statues. Maybe they did discover something, and paid the price for forbidden knowledge. Do you see now why I told you to be very, very sure?"
The haunted look in his eyes touched each of us in turn, an odd sort of pleading that was only partially for help. The rest of it seemed to be begging us to get out of that mess as fast as possible, for his sake as well as our own. After hearing the details I'd almost decided to do just that, but then he'd mentioned which Sighted had been taken ...
I shifted in my chair in the midst of the new silence, fighting to keep from demanding that he get on with it. I knew Ilainna, Saydra and Gadran only slightly, but Hannar—He and I had been lovers, and after that, friends. Finding a lover isn't hard even for someone like me, but a friend ... who wasn't ashamed to have others know ... who had been there for me that time I'd needed someone so badly «... now he was the one in need and, chilled or not, I'd be there to do everything possible.
But glancing up showed not everyone felt the same. Of the thirteen who had been left after the first culling, another eight were in the process of leaving. That left four others besides me, but they looked as determined as I felt. They must have had similar personal reasons, and Master Haddil seemed to accept that once the others were gone.
"So we have five who have made up their minds to experiment with the unknown," he said with a sigh. "And, of course, Prince Bariden, who is involved on behalf of his father. I wish it were possible to thank you for coming and then send you home, but I need you too badly. Right now I'd like each of you to make a small tile with your name on it, half inch by one inch, in white. Then place it facedown on this table over here."
He walked to the table he meant, a round thing of gold and red enamel, and waited for us to do as he'd asked. It took no more than a moment to speak the very brief spell that produced the tile, and then I joined the others in placing it on the table. Each tile had its maker's resonance as well as his or her name, which had to be why Master Haddil hadn't simply produced them himself. He wanted something with our individual traces, and now he had them.


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"Rather than assign working partners, I've constructed a spell that will choose the best possible working pairs from among you," he said, glancing around at us. "We'll need all the help we can get in this affair, so I'm sure you'll all cooperate."
We nodded to show that we would, but the nods of the other four, two men and two women, were a bit on the reluctant side. I had no idea who they were, but they, apparently, knew me. None of them said a word, but their glances informed me their cooperation would be minimal at best if one of them was named my partner. Well, that was all right. I was used to working alone.
Master Haddil waited until Prince Bariden put his tile down with the rest, and then he muttered a single sound I didn't catch. The tiles immediately began to spin around, as though each one was trying itself against the others. That told me Master Haddil had prepared his best-match spell in advance, and then had keyed it to a single sound. The language of spells may be a verbal shorthand, but you'll never find a complex spell described with no more than one sound.
It didn't take very long for the combinations to sort themselves out. The six tiles separated into three pairs, and the pairs formed an almost circular triangle in the middle of the table. Master Haddil reached for the pair of tiles at the right of the base, and turned them over.
"Vaminda and Regel," he said, smiling at the two. Vaminda was a couple of years older than me, with blond hair, green eyes, a slender build, and a sweet, understanding smile. Regel was her age but not as sweet, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a short, neatly trimmed beard. The two glanced at each other, looking a good deal happier than the other man and woman. Master Haddil reached out again for the left side of the base, and the unnamed two watched with bated breath.
"Nolar and Jilla," the wizard announced, possibly proving bated breath adds to the strength of fervent prayers. Jilla was very close to my age with black hair and dark eyes, but seemed to have the self-assurance of a woman two or three times older. Or that of an absolute monarch. Nolar was clean-shaven with the same black hair and
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dark eyes, but there the similarity ended. Despite being a year or so older, he seemed less assured than his new partner.
And then it came to me who my new partner had to be. Without looking at him, I reached out and turned over the two remaining tiles. Yup. None other than the now-dry Prince Bariden.
"That means, of course, that the final pair is Prince Bariden and Chalaine," Master Haddil said, rubbing it in. "With that settled, I'll now be giving you initial assignments. After that, you'll follow whatever trails and clues you come across on your own."
"Did our predecessors work in pairs?" Jilla asked, interrupting smoothly. "If they did, it might be a better idea for us to work separately. We can't show we're better than them if we repeat their mistakes."
"Your predecessors worked singly," Master Haddil informed her evenly, obviously working to keep from saying anything else—less friendly. "That was one of the reasons I decided on pairs this time. Now—"
"And we aren't here to make other people look bad," Regel said to Jilla, his new partner Vaminda smiling sweetly and nodding in agreement. "We're here simply to let others know how selfless we are, how dedicated to what's right, and how supportive of Master Haddil. Nothing else matters."
"Not even all the accolades that will come to whoever figures this puzzle out?" Nolar asked him, coming to the aid of his own partner Jilla. "I don't believe in modest anonymity. When I finally prove just how good I am, I want everyone to know about it."
"When you really are good, the only one who has to know it is yourself," Prince Bariden put in suddenly, his deep voice cutting across comments from the other three. "If you don't know it, what others think is useless. Just as it is about most things. Now how about letting Master Haddil get on with it."
All four of them muttered to themselves, two resentfully, two piously, but that was as far as it went. Master Haddil paused another moment to be sure of that, then continued.


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"There are certain lines of investigation that haven't yet been looked into," he said, gray eyes moving among the four who had spoken. "For instance, it's certain that magic is involved in this mess, but we still don't know why magic was used against the victims. Very often when you discover motive, the one responsible suddenly becomes obvious. Jilla and Nolar, I'd like you to interview the families and business associates of the three merchant victims, especially the first. Find out about any enemies or people with grudges, and whether anyone involved has had recent dealings with magic users."
He then turned to the other pair. "Regel and Vaminda, I want you to do the same with the two stricken advisers. And while you're about it, see if there are any ties between them and one or more of the merchants. Did the merchants want the king to make a treaty with someone those advisers were set against? Did the advisers suggest a realm the merchants would have had minimal profit from at best? What about personal grudges, things mat had nothing to do with the talks? Is there anyone who had something against all of the victims? The four of you should compare notes often, to see if there are any common links."
The four of them nodded dutifully, but from the way they avoided even glancing at each other, I had doubts about how much comparing would be done. And they looked bored already, as if they'd thought investigating a mystery like that would be more exciting.
"And last but not least, Prince Bariden and Chalaine," Master Haddil said, looking only at the male half of the team. "I'd like you to go over the places each of the victims was found, inch by inch if necessary, to see if you can pick up any trace of the one responsible. Was the deed done from a distance, or do you believe an entry was used? Are there similarities between the locations, some one point that makes them identical? Some one point that makes them totally different? Anything, especially if it supplies a clue as to who or how."
The Prince took his turn at nodding dutifully, but since I hadn't even been glanced at, I didn't find it necessary to do the same. Instead I asked, "And what assignment have you given yourself, Master Haddil? Something with
a chance for more definite results, I hope."
He finally turned to look at me thoughtfully, and then he nodded. "You and Hannar were rather close, weren't you, Chalaine? I'd forgotten, but I remember now. And yes, my own assignment has a chance to generate more definite results. I'm working to break through whatever spell is holding the victims living but lifeless. My one most fervent hope is that their essences weren't taken for some twisted purpose. If that proves true, we'll never get any of them back."
That chill wind blew through the room again, but this time I wasn't the only one riffled. Regel paled somewhat under his beard, Nolar looked briefly frightened, Vaminda's smile turned from sweet to sympathetic, and Jilla shrugged. All of us were reacting in our own separate ways, including my own new partner.
"Then we'd better get started as quickly as possible," he said, the words more of an order than a suggestion. "If those essences are going to be used for something, our only hope of stopping it is to find the one responsible. Let's go."
It was fairly obvious he was talking to the other four, and they responded by immediately heading for a door that would take them through the palace to the locations of then- assignments. Each pair was engaged in low-voiced discussion even before they were out of sight, probably deciding on how to begin. Master Haddil banished all the entries he'd created with a single gesture, then also headed out of the room, unconsciously brushing at his robes to straighten them.
Even before that, my partner had disappeared completely in yet another direction. He'd given his orders and then had left with a broad stride, supremely confident that any unimportant details would follow along behind. Without his needing to even glance at the detail. I paused to get a few thoughts in order, then chose my own way out into the corridors.
The Palace of Ease was what all palaces should be like: opulence on a gigantic scale with an equal amount of comfort. Melen was a wealthy kingdom filled with satisfied, wealthy people, and rather than resent the riches their king


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displayed, his palace made them proud. It also employed a large number of the kingdom's less affluent citizenry, which added to everyone's happiness. Too many poor, jobless people were bad for a kingdom, not to mention unsightly.
I used the conference room to orient myself, then headed for the main kitchens. I'd learned my way around while I was studying with Master Haddil, even though it had been necessary to stay out of the royal family's way. The king didn't mind his Court Wizard spending time training those who also wanted to be higher level magic users, but Master Haddil felt it would be an imposition if his students were visibly there. The kingdom was too safe and secure for him to have much else to do besides teach, but he was still firm on the point.
Rather than use invisibility to satisfy the requirement I'd used the deep night, wandering the corridors and halls while most people slept. I've always been a creature of the night, so doing it that way hadn't been much of a hardship. I'd also gotten to know some of my fellow night creatures, those who preferred working late hours and those who, being new, had been assigned to them. It had been more man a year since I'd left, but there should still be those around who remembered me.
The main kitchens were staffed at all times, fully staffed between the hours of dawn and midnight. The king wasn't much of an early riser, but the queen tended to start things moving at first light. She expected the day's baking to be done, all meals planned and more man started, all cleaning well under way. At the other end of the scale was the Princess Efria, who slept till noon then invited people to late night suppers. The staff had to cope with all of that, or they would have gotten another staff.
Right then it was the middle of the day, just past lunchtime according to the position of the sun. I stopped just inside one of the kitchen entrances, the only spot immediately available for keeping out of the way of the rush. There were enough people hurrying around t o fill a small town, which the kitchens were almost large enough to be. It had only been a short time past breakfast on the world where my cold weather house was, but watching all that activity started to make me hungry.
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"Chalaine, is that you skulking in that corner?" a booming voice demanded. "It is you, and not a word for an old friend. Whatever is this world coming to?"
By that time the speaker was about eight feet away, standing with wide fists on wider hips and forcing everyone to go around her. She also wore the sort of devif ish grin that didn't usually go with a woman her size, a grin that said she liked fun more than authority. Not that she didn't also have the authority. Benatha Aylie ruled completely in the royal kitchens, either personally or by proxy. She watched me try three times to cross the eight feet between us, laughed at the measly foot-and-a-haTF s worth of progress I made, then finally took pity on me.
"What you need is the sort of size / carry," she informed me after simply walking forward and letting everyone else get out of her way. "With the queen holding a reception for the ladies of the city this afternoon, that "traffic won't slow down until bedtime. Let's get you some place where we can sit down and talk."
She put a giant arm around my shoulders, then led the way left toward her alcove. The area was furnished like a very small sitting room a short distance away from a chopping and skinning table, two of the roasting hearths, three of the freestanding soup cauldrons, and a minor storeroom. The area was also no one's but hers, and anyone trying to use it uninvited would be lucky if they were able to leave again on their own.
"I had a feeling you'd be showing up about now," Bena said as she deposited me in a chair before moving to take her much larger one. "Everyone in the palace knew Haddil was going to be Summoning help today, which was probably why he took an early lunch. Are you sure it's smart to get involved in this? The first four who came to help were supposed to be the best, and now look at them.'1''
For once her face wore nothing of a grin, and the short amount of time she'd teased me showed how upset she was. I knew she wanted to be reassured, but not if I had to lie.
"One of those four is a special friend of mine," I told her with a shrug. "Would you be able to simply turn around and walk away?"
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she grumbled, not very happy to get an answer she couldn't argue. "Most of those other freaks don't give a damn about anybody but themselves, especially not if giving a damn means they have to put themselves out. I've always wondered what makes you so different."
"How many freaks do you know as well as you know me?" I countered, feeling no real insult at what she called me. A lot of people considered the Sighted to be freaks rather than gifted, but most weren't as honest about it as Bena. Or as fair. My being a freak didn't stop her from being my friend.
"I've run across a lot of freaks in my time," she assured me, her wide face still unusually serious. "Even the ones who didn't treat me like dirt acted like they were doing me a favor eating what my kitchens produced. What none of 'em have is good manners, but you do. That's what makes you so different."
"You didn't think so the first time we met," I reminded her with a badly swallowed grin. "You called me a clumsy sneak thief, and an underfed one at that."
"And you told me to keep my night-cook opinions to myself," she came back, finally recapturing a grin of her own. "You hadn't come to steal food, only to look around, and you weren't underfed, you were fashionably slender. I always wondered why you didn't zap me when I laughed."
"Not because I wasn't tempted," I assured her, feeling myself relax as I always did around Bena. "But if I had the king would have put a bounty on my head, and that would have been the end of my studies. I had no idea who you were, or that someone hi your position would be a night rover like me."
"I didn't know who you were either, or why you would study with someone like Haddil." Her light brown eyes were on my face again, not as grim but certainly serious. "He's one I'd watch starve with a smile, and you have no reason to like him any better. All he ever did was criticize you, but not in a useful way. If I treated my chefs half that bad, they'd pick up and walk out."
"Not the ones who were determined to study with you," I disagreed. "There are a lot of people in the worlds who have an incredible amount to teach, even though they have


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little or no personality. You don't have to like them to learn from them, and Master Haddil had one really big attraction for me. I knew he'd never let me be sloppy in my lessons because of my reputation. For some reason, I generate a lot of supposed toleration from a lot of people."
"For some reason," she echoed, back to studying me. "And for the same reason you generate panic in others. They don't know how to deal with that—special talent you sometimes show, so they react according to their natures. I never saw it for myself so I can't say if it's true or not, but you tell me you cause problems at times for the people around you. Things happen, and those things aren't pleasant, so people get rattled. Even if it never happened to them, most don't know how to treat you, so either they pretend they're tolerant, or they panic."
"Which doesn't change the fact that they do react like mat," I said with a sigh. "Master Haddil became impatient instead—which usually made me nervous—but that didn't keep me from learning. It did cause some spectacular 'accidents,' though . .."
She chuckled when I let the words trail off, finding more amusement in most of those few but incredible incidents than I ever had. Complex accidents as opposed to the simple sort, more involved than any of the situations could possibly have called for. Like that first time it had happened directly to Master Haddil... I'd rolled on the floor when I'd heard about it, even though laughing wasn't the usual way I handled hearing about it... As a facet of talent, that sort of thing leaves a lot to be desired ...
"Bena, teli me what you know about what happened," I said, shifting to another unpleasant topic. "All those people who were left as empty shells—doesn't anyone have an idea about why it was done, if not by who?"
"One's as good a question as the other," she replied with a shrug. "Some are saying the merchants and the king's men were planning something that would hurt everyone in the kingdom but them, and the EverNameless stepped in to stop them. Others think it has to be an enemy of Haddil's, trying to make him look bad. The king's worried that it might be someone testing a new spell, one that they'll use later on their real target. The queen thinks it's someone getting even


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for not being invited to one of her parties. If you happen to have a favorite theory, just ask around a little and you'll find five or ten other people who think the same thing."
"And what do you think?" I asked instead, unsurprised at the way people were taking it. "You always know what's going on in this place, and more importantly you know rumor from fact. Give me something I can work with."
"I wish I could," she said, sympathy in those light-dark eyes. "And not just because you bring out the mother in me. Whatever took those people like that could take one of us next, like me, for instance. The idea scares me worse than being invited to a new bride's first meal, but there's nothing to build a real theory on. Nobody knows anything, everybody's just guessing. And everybody's worried about who'll be next."
"Why are people expecting more victims?" I asked, tripping over the oddness of that "The merchants and king's men could have had a common enemy, and the Sighted were done because they came close to finding him. The king's theory is as silly as the queen's, and both match the thought mat the EverNameless would bother. But everybody, including you, expects more victims. Why is mat?"
"That's another good question," she allowed, brows raised in surprised thought "I hadn't looked at it like that before, but—You're right, we do expect more people to be taken. Why don't you have something to eat while I try to figure out why that is."
"Bena, I ate only a couple of hours ago," I said with a sigh, suddenly finding myself in a too-familiar position. "I really don't think you can call me underfed any longer, and on top of that I haven't much time. Right now I'm supposed to be somewhere else, and if I don't get there soon, we'll probably be able to hear the explosion from here. Is there anything at all you can tell me, no matter how silly or useless you consider the information? Take a minute to think, but don't try to force it. I may have to leave now, but I'll be back later some time."
"Right now I can't think of anything," she admitted, her wide brow creased into a frown. "Something just might come to me later, so don't forget about coming back. If you're still in one piece, that is."
Her last words were accompanied by a sudden, mischievous grin, making it my turn to raise brows questioningly. Bena would never joke about my staying unhurt, even if she didn't know how much it would take to harm me. And then I noticed that she was looking past me, and the answer became perfectly clear.
"What the hell are you doing in here!" a deep, angry voice demanded from behind me, confirming a guess that had been a virtual certainty. "Chatting with friends over tea wasn't part of our schedule."
"You're right, Your Highness, she does deserve a good scolding," Bena promptly put in, that look in her eyes increasing. "If you're the one she was supposed to be someplace else with, she has no business visiting with an old woman instead. Give i t to her good."
"Bena," I muttered warningly, but that did as much good as you would expect. I was ignored completely—but only by her.
"Well?" my new partner demanded again, coming around to my left. "Answer my question."
"I'd say you've already answered it yourself," I responded, not quite looking at him. "But it doesn't matter, because I'm through here anyway. Let's get to that schedule you mentioned."
"Just a minute," he said as I stood, one big hand coming to my left shoulder. "What do you mean, I've already answered the question myself? I don't ask questions I already have the answer to."
"I'm sure you don't," I said with a nod, glancing around the kitchen. "I must have been mistaken, the way I often am. Let's just forget about it and get on with what we're supposed to be doing."
"Don't accept that, Bariden," Bena said suddenly as the hand finally began to leave my shoulder. "She has a nasty habit of holding people at arm's length by refusing to argue with anything they say, even if it's wrong. You two seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, and if you continue to let her push you away it can only get worse."
"I'm sorry, Bena, but you've somehow gotten the wrong impression," the man answered, most of his impatience gone. "She and I don't have a personal relationship, only
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a working one. She can push me as far away as she likes, and I won't mind a bit. But you really do have to excuse us now. Let's go, girl, and this time try not to lose me."
Once again he strode away, leaving me to wonder if that was the only method of walking he knew. Bena, now looking upset, started to say something, but I took off after my partner before she could get the words out. She deserved to be upset for practicing out-of-the-blue matchmaking, and hopefully whatever embarrassment she felt would keep her from doing it again very soon. Expecting it to stop her for good would be living in a dream world.
I had to use a minor repulsion spell to get out of the kitchens without getting run over, but Prince Bariden didn't have the same problem. He had more size than Bena, but distributed it differently. Rather than being fat he was just plain big, broad shoulders above a massive chest, thick arms, wide, flat waist, muscled legs. He also had big feet, but I suppose he would have looked funny with small ones. What he looked was dangerous, something most magic users took pains to avoid. Maybe it was the sword.
His broad stride led the way from one corridor to the next, and although he never looked back I was sure he knew I was following about ten feet behind. Mostly he seemed to be involved in his thoughts, as though something were bothering him. I wondered if it had anything to do with the problem, and if he knew something I didn't. He finally turned into a corridor in the guest wing, and stopped in front of one set of double doors.
"This is the apartment where the first merchant was found," I was informed as soon as I reached him. "It's as good a place to start as any, even though too many people trampled through it before Master Haddil closed it off. If we don't get anything here, we'll go on to the others in turn."
"Don't step in yet," I said as he reached toward one of the doors. "I'd like to try to get a body count first, and the setting of Master Haddil's exclusion spell will be more than the tail end of it. It will also let me know if anyone's been in here since the spell was set."
"I can see where that last would be useful, but why a body count?" he asked with the usual frown in his voice.
"What good will it do knowing there were fifty people rather than forty?"
"If fifty people went through that doorway and we can find the traces of fifty-one inside, we then check the win-dows," I said, thinking about how to word the spell. "If they weren't used instead of the door, we'll know an entry or something else magical was used to get in. Finding traces of something is easier when you know that that something was definitely there."
"I hadn't thought of that," he responded, the admission ungrudged and actually almost neutral. "It's a good idea, so I'm glad you thought of it. Why don't you look at me when you talk to me?"
The question seemed to hold nothing but curiosity, but I have to admit I was surprised he'd noticed. Right then I was still studying the double doors, so I shrugged.
"You can consider it a bad habit, if you like," I suggested, continuing on with that habit. "You'd be best off ignoring it. Now let's see how effective my spell is."
I raised my hands and spoke the spell, causing the doors to do something they were capable of but not usually required to do. Ail doors "know" how many people pass through them, it just takes more than a simple request to get the information. There was an instant of recollection during the time period specified, and then the right-hand door began to open and close. It did it seventeen times, hesitated a full five heartbeats, then closed more fully with a click.
"Seventeen people went in and out, but no one after the exclusion spell was set," I reported. "Now we can check that against the number of people who were actually in the rooms."
He made a vague sound of agreement and led the way in, using the key phrase Master Haddil had given him to exempt us from the exclusion spell. It would have been possible to enter even without the key, but it wouldn't have been easy to start with and eventually we would have found it impossible to stay. Even some unSighted could have managed to get in, but their stay would have been a lot shorter.
The apartment's reception room was a good size, large enough to accommodate at least two dozen people comfort-
ably, more if it happened to be necessary. The wall lamps had come on when Prince Bariden had snapped his fingers, but they were the only source of light. There was a closed door to the left and one to the right, lots of chairs and couches and tables and wail paintings and knickknacks— but no windows.
"The merchant was found in his bedchamber, through that door," my partner said, nodding to the left. "Let's count and separate the traces in here, and then we'll have something to compare the ones from in there to."
"First let's see what's behind there," I answered, heading toward the door to the right. "It's probably nothing but a guest lavatory, but it won't hurt to take a look ..."
Looking inside showed exactly that, a full lavatory including a porcelain bathtub. Why mere would be a bathtub I had no idea, but walking closer showed it had even been used at some time. A grayish residue partially circled the drain hole, but the rest of the tub was clean. The sink was closer to being spotless, as was the commode, both of which were emptied by magic rather than piping. I could feel the trace of similar cleaning spells around each of them, a trace the tub didn't have. Pipes carried that water away ...
The lamp I'd turned on suddenly went dark, which shouldn't have happened. When you light a lamp with magic, it doesn't go out again for no reason. Realizing that made me turn toward the doorway, and sure enough, the reason stood there with folded arms.
"When I spoke to you, you didn't seem to hear me," he said, faint annoyance back in his tone. "Don't you think we have better things to do than stand in small rooms staring off into space?"
"Sometimes I get distracted," I half-apologized, feeling my cheeks grow warm. I had been wasting time, wondering about cleanser residue while nine people lay helpless and half-alive. I can be a real imbecile at times, and it was just my luck that this particular time had had an audience. I quickly headed out of the room, and my audience stepped back to let me through the doorway.
"I'd appreciate it if you could save being distracted for when you're alone," he said as I passed him, doing a good
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job of making me feel worse. "Do you know a spell for separating and identifying traces, or do we have to construct one ourselves?"
"I know a spell," I answered, forcing myself to concentrate on what was at hand. "It was developed by forensic wizards, so you don't have to worry that I constructed it myself. It goes like this."
I spoke the spell I'd learned just for the fun of it, adding the proper gestures at the proper time. A rush of wind came, as though we stood outdoors, and then the traces began separating under glowing numbers. Traces are like delicate scents or light touches are to the physical, indistinct but definitely there. I could sense the traces with my abilities as a Sighted, and even tell one from another; what I couldn't do was get a firm grip on them.
"But the numbers only go up to eleven," Prince Bariden objected. "I thought you said there were seventeen people involved."
"There were seventeen instances of people going through the doors," I corrected, carefully studying the traces under the glowing numbers. "That could be seventeen individuals, or one person going in and out seventeen times. I used this spell once just to see how it worked, and I noticed that it was really efficient. Multiple traces are shown under a single number, but they're separated by tiny black dots. Like that one, under T."
"Two dots, which means three traces," he murmured, now understanding what he was seeing. "The next four numbers have one dot apiece, which means two traces each. The last six have no dots, which means those people came in only once."
"And the first, with three traces, probably stands for the victim," 1 agreed. "You'd expect the man who lives here to be in and out the most. There are only three, because he wasn't here that long. The ones with two traces are probably the servant who found the merchant, the healer who sent for Master Haddil, and someone else, maybe another servant. The fourth is definitely Master Haddil, since I happen to know his trace well enough to recognize it. The rest—serva nts, most likely, and maybe a couple of curiosity seekers."
"If it becomes necessary, we can find out," he said, and then 1 felt the weight of his stare on me, "You said you'd used this spell once before, but I've never even heard of it. What could you possibly have used it/or?"
"I—used it because I was curious," I admitted, feeling the return of the heat to my cheeks. "It wasn't/or anything, only to see how it worked. Now let's do the same thing in the bedchamber, and see what we get from there."
I strode off toward the bedchamber without waiting for any sort of answer, fervently hoping there wouldn't be one. I was beginning to feel downright gawky rather than simply awkward, and I hated it. As soon as I found the guilty party we were looking for, I'd get out of there as fast as possible.
The bedchamber wasn't quite as large as the reception room, but it didn't miss by much. Silk hangings decorated the walls, the furniture and the bed curtains were color-coordinated, and the private meal-nook had armchairs at the table. Like the first room, what it didn't have was windows, which might or might not be helpful. That depended on what we found in the way of traces, and there was no sense in not getting right to it.
I spoke the spell a second time, and after the wind had blown through got the sort of results I'd been hoping I wouldn't. One person had three separate traces, again probably the victim, Master Haddil had been in there twice, and one other person twice. The remaining five had come in one time each, but none of them looked very promising.
"We'll have to do some deliberate comparisons, but I think we have a problem," I told my partner. He'd followed me into the bedchamber, but hadn't said anything. "Unless I'm mistaken, every one of these traces has a match in the next room."
"If that's true, then no one came through an entry," he responded, once again sounding thoughtful. "That should mean the guilty party walked in through the door, and is therefore someone whose trace we found."
"Not necessarily," I disagreed with a sigh. "If the culprit was sneaky enough, he or she could have used a delayed spell. You speak it after you pass someone in the hall, say, and it's designed not to work for another three or four hours.
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Or, if the Sighted was strong enough, he or she could have stood out in the hall and still reached the victim. Since we don't know what was done, we also don't know how close you have to be."
"Then what was the point in counting traces?" he demanded, frustration thick in his tone. "I thought you expected to learn something from it."
"I did learn something," I answered with a shrug. "I learned that no one used an entry to get into this room. If I can eliminate enough other possibilities, whatever I have left will be the answer."
"1 just noticed something," he said, and suddenly his hand was on my arm, pulling me around to face him. "Not only don't you ever look at me when you speak, if you're not paying attention you say T rather than 'we.' I take it that means you see yourself working alone, rather than as part of a team. Is there some particular reason I'm being dismissed like that, or is it just that you don't happen to like me?"
Frustrated anger carried him all the way through the speech, but surprise at having his hands on me made me look up directly at him. Obviously it wasn't his intention to harm me, otherwise my warding would have flared blue and thrown him back. My warding didn't flare at all, but suddenly he looked thrown anyway. Light brows rose over pale blue eyes, and the scowl that often twisted his broad, handsome face disappeared completely.
"Hey, I'm sorry," he said at once, both hands releasing me immediately. "This insanity has been getting to me, making me almost as crazy as whoever is doing it. I didn't mean to frighten you."
"You didn't," I answered with my own furious anger, having more trouble than usual in keeping it from showing. He was staring down at me in the way I'd seen so many times before, the way I hated more than almost anything else. Abruptly I turned away and said, "Let's finish the comparisons, and then we can get on to the next place."
He made a faint sound of agreement, but that was all he said. Big, tough Prince Bariden of Melen, folding up as quickly and easily as anyone else. I spoke a spell to bring the bedchamber traces out into the reception room, and once
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there began comparing. But most of me was running on automatic, my mind being too busy with other things to cooperate.
Other things! I wanted to scream and stamp my feet and break fragile glass items, but I'd indulged the urge at other times and it hadn't done any good. I happen to have been bom with very large, very dark eyes, and if I'd been even a little less stubborn I would have changed my appearance a long time ago. Someone had once said I resemble a frightened, wounded doe when I look straight at people, and that throws them off completely. Most, to their credit, I suppose, if they don't know about my talent for causing catastrophe, immediately turn kindly and concerned and anxious to help make things better.
There's another reaction, of course, and I definitely prefer that one. I took a deep breath as the last of the traces searched for their matches, knowing that definite preference said a lot about my nature. Some people took one look at me and immediately tried to take advantage, picturing me as the shy, helpless son who could be walked over in complete safety. I usually had fun with that kind, kicking their feet out from under them even before they realized dieir mistake. What I didn' t have run with was the first reaction, especially from people who felt bad about "frightening" me...
"Well, it looks like you were right," my partner said with a sigh. "There are no unaccounted-for traces, so we know an entry wasn't used. That doesn't leave us much to work with, even if it does eliminate a possibility. Eliminating the rest won't be as easy if we can't figure out what they are."
"We can make a list later, after we've seen the other locations," I replied, waving a hand to get rid of the traces. "If the second and third victims were also merchants, their apartments shouldn't be far."
"No, you're right, they're just down the hall," he said, his tone gentle and reassuring. "Follow me, and I'll show you."
I followed him as requested, but would have preferred doing it while pronouncing the list of all those words you aren't supposed to use in mixed company. Prince Bariden
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was being very careful not to frighten me again, and wasn't that comforting. I'd tried hard to avoid the circumstance, but the Fates were still against me. And we still had so much time we'd need to be in each other's company . . .
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e checked traces in the two merchants' apartments and then in those of the king's advisers, but might as well have skipped it. Only two traces were to be found in all five places, Master Haddil's and what turned out to be the healer's. We finished with the sitting room all four of the Sighted had been found in, and finished was the proper word. Nothing in the way of a clue or suggestion came jumping up to present itself.
"That seems to be that," Prince Bariden said after a long period of silence, looking around the tan, brown, and gold sitting room. "We're out of locations and out of ideas."
"Not yet," I disagreed, wishing I had more hope for the success of what looked like our last few chances. "I don't know about you, but I still haven't seen the victims themselves. Since we know the guilty one touched them in some way, maybe we can pick up part of a trace from them. There are also one or two other things to be done, but first I need to take a break and get something to eat. I'll meet you back here in about an hour, and we can see the victims together."
The idea of having to look at an unliving Hannar upset me, so I headed out of there even faster than I normally would have. I was almost to the door when a big hand wrapped gently around my arm, pulling me to a halt.
"Why are you always in such a hurry?" my partner asked, the lighthearted look pasted on his face almost making me flinch. "I was going to suggest getting something to eat


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before we continued, but you beat me to it. Why don't we have the meal together, and at the same time get to know one another? I know you must have studied here in the palace, but I don't remember ever meeting you before. I hope you're not going to tell me we did meet?"
By then his expression had relaxed, and the charming grin he showed looked almost natural. He really was handsome when he wasn't frowning, but his newest reaction was also one I'd run into before.
"No, we never met," I reassured him—unnecessarily, I would have bet. For one reason or another, people don't often forget meeting me. "But before we do all this getting-to-know-each-other, I have one question. What's my name?"
His charming grin faltered and he said, "I don't understand," but he sure as Hellfire did. "You have to know your own name," he tried next, obviously working to keep it light. "I'm sure you'll remember once we get some food into you."
"I can remember without the food," I told him, ruthlessly demolishing his new grin. "What I'm trying to find out is if you remember, which I don't think you do. You heard my name at least two or three times, so come on. Tell me what it is."
"What makes you think I don't remember your name?" he asked, now trying to play it cool. "Have I been referring to you as 'Hey, you' without realizing it? And what has your name got to do with our taking a meal together? If we're going to be partners in this, we'll certainly eat together more than once."
"I have this rule about never breaking bread with people who can't remember who I am," I said, folding my arms as I looked up at him. "What tells me you don't know my name is the fact that you took my arm to stop me, rather than speaking to me as most people would. For all you knew I could have hiked up the gain on my personal warding, but that still didn't stop you from touching me. Would you like to claim now that you didn't know I was a sorceress?"
"Is this the reason you were so quiet for so long?" he countered, his face darkening a bit under its tan. "Because when you finally do open up, you do it like a steel bear


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trap? Why are you acting as if I tried to assault you? All I did was invite you to share a meal."
"And all I did was ask you my name," I pointed out, refusing to let him argue a safer topic. "Show me I'm wrong in my beliefs, and I'll certainly apologize."
"You don't give an inch, do you?" he said, and the observation wasn't a compliment. "Most men hate being put on the spot like that, and most princes refuse to allow it. Are you so used to dealing with princes that getting one mad is nothing new? Or do you just like hearing me say you're right? Which, I'm once again forced to admit, you are. I know I heard your name more than once, but for some reason it didn't stay with me. So what happens now? Execution for the heinous crime of being distracted by what we're working on? If so, go ahead and do it."
The look hi those blue eyes was completely steady, not even a comer of the charm showing. He hadn't enjoyed admitting the truth but had done it anyway, and now waited for what would come because of it. I usually make a habit of encouraging honesty, but not to the point of stupidity.
"What happens now is what I said before," I told him, ignoring the dramatics of his speech. "I'm going to get something to eat, and I'll meet you back here in an hour. Do enjoy your own meal."
I heard what sounded like a growl as I turned away, which was just fine with me. His sudden interest in sharing a meal with me was certainly an extension of his initial reaction, that of a strong man wanting to protect a poor little female. After the urge to protect seems to come physical desire, but I'll be double-dyed in purple and pink if I know why. Enough men had reacted that way to make me certain of it, so it must have been a male thing. As if that was supposed to make me feel happier about it.
I gloomed my way through the halls and down a flight of stairs, then took the corridor that led to my favorite hideaway. Not far from the kitchens is a small, walled-in garden, one that no one from the royal family had ever used while I studied with Master Haddil. I knew that because I'd used it so often, and just then I needed its quiet beauty to help me out of the deeps. I know men can't help acting like men, but having it happen again and again is completely depressing.
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If, just once, I could find a different reaction . . .
I sat on one of the stone benches with a sigh, then spoke the spell that created the food I wanted. It all appeared on an oblong tray beside me, and the first thing I reached for was the coffee. The last couple of hours hadn't been particularly strenuous, but they had been wearying.
"I knew I'd find you here," a voice said, and then Bena Aylie moved around from the left toward the bench opposite mine. She still wore her long-skirted brown dress and gray apron, and she stopped by the bench without sitting. "I thought you were going to come back to talk to me again? And what are you doing eating out here, when you could be eating decent food in my kitchens?"
"One of the nice things about this garden is that I don't have to fight my way in and out of it," I said as I reached for the sandwich on the tray. "And although this is later, it isn't the later I had in mind for talking. This later is for eating excellent food and relaxing. How did you know I was here?"
"Maybe I found you the way Prince Bariden did earlier," she said, walking a few steps closer to me as she frowned at what was on the tray. "How excellent can that stuff be, if it wasn't made by one of my chefs? And it wasn't, was it?"
"No, it wasn't," I agreed around a mouthful of sandwich, then chewed and swallowed before adding, "Prince Bariden found me with magic, probably by using a tracking spell. Since you aren't Sighted, I doubt very much that you did the same. Don't tell me you had someone watching for me?"
"All right, I won't tell you," she agreed in turn, still giving cold disapproval to my food. "I'd love to know how you can sit there calmly poisoning yourself, when it would have been just as easy to get something decent. That soup even looks funny."
"That's just the distortion from the protective spell keeping it hot," I told her after the next bite. "Why don't you taste it before telling me how bad it is."
I banished the insulating spell with a flick of my finger, then produced another spoon which I held out to her. She sniffed in disdain, thinking about refusing, then realized she had to put up or shut up. She accepted the spoon, stirred the
contents of the bow! twice, then brought the coated spoon to her mouth.
"So, you've taken to lying," she pronounced once the spoon was out of her mouth again. "I should have known you'd never settle for seconds when firsts are so easily available. That's Lidiar's best vegetable soup, which means it's the best anywhere. There are one or two chefs who can almost match him, but no one anywhere is better. What about that mousse?"
She bent again to take a very small bit of my dessert pudding, then nodded with satisfaction after tasting it.
"Even through the residue of soup I know that taste," she said. "Nida's mousse is famous on every civilized world in this sector, and the only dessert chef better than her died ten years ago. Why did you say you weren't eating from my kitchens when you were?"
"Bena, what soups was Lidiar supposed to make today?" I asked without looking at her. "And didn't I hear some place that Nida was supposed to be married and away on her honeymoon around this time? Did something happen to make her change her plans?"
There was heavy silence from the woman standing over me, enough of it to let a bird in the trees trill its pleasure and then be answered. It really was a beautiful day, reminding me that I hadn't eaten picnic-style in much too long.
"All right, I'm asking for an explanation," she said at last, putting down the spoon before returning to the opposite bench to sit. "Lidiar made potato soup, barley soup, and beet soup today, and only those three. Nida left on her honeymoon two days ago, and her assistants wouldn't dare try mousse on their own—at least not yet. Where did you get that food?"
"I got it where I get most everything else," I told her, finishing the last of the sandwich and reaching for the soup. "The last time someone tried discussing this with you, you went for them with a rolling pin. Talking about magic seems to give you indigestion."
"Nothing gives me indigestion, and I don't happen to have a rolling pin right now," she gritted out, her annoyance with me growing. "You're right about me not liking talk about magic, but we're also talking about what my kitchens
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produce. Since you couldn't have simply taken the food, I want to know how you got it."
"I got it by being a magic user," I said, finally meeting that light-dark stare. "In order to do magic, you have to describe something in the language of spells. The more detailed a description you can give, the better the hold you have over the object and the more strength you can bring to bear.
"If I described that stone bench you're sitting on as just a stone bench, I couldn't affect it much because there's not enough description. If I described it instead by saying it was Rangri marble and Tansan wood, five feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high, I'd have a better grip on it and could do more. But if I really wanted my spell to work, I'd add that the marble came from the north side of the quarry, had a fifth level density, had a blue-veined pattern two millimeters wide, and so on, doing the same for the wood. Then I could make that bench sprout wings and fly away if I liked. Do you understand that?"
"I understand that you'd damned well better leave this bench alone," she stated, glaring at me harder. "And if you have to put so much into those spells of yours, why doesn't it take an hour to do each one?"
"Because the language of spells is a verbal shorthand, one sound or gesture able to stand for strings of words or phrases. Like tsp for teaspoon, only more so. I don't know the abbreviations for pinch and dash."
"That isn't funny," she grated into my grin. "Only amateurs follow a recipe exactly, and that's what this freak stuff sounds like to me. This first and then that, and don't ever change it."
"Some of the stronger wizards change it," I disagreed, reflecting that she knew more about magic than she was willing to admit. It was true that spells had to be spoken precisely the same to get the same results, but I hadn't told her that. "Half of the ones who fiddle with changes make big names for themselves, almost as big as those famous chefs of yours."
"What about the other half?" she asked, trying not to feel pleased at the thought of all those artists under her wing. "Do they give it up and get married and have children?"


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"Most of them spend the rest of their lives as three-foot, orange frogs," I said, exaggerating only a little. "Or they disappear in a puff of smoke one day, and no one ever sees them again. Changing spells without knowing exactly what the change will produce is dangerous, a lot more dangerous than changing a recipe. The worst a mishandled recipe can do is make you throw up. A mishandled spell can literally turn you inside out, or freeze you in one position for the rest of eternity."
"And playing with that sort of thing is what you do," she stated, sudden ly pale and indignant. "I knew I should have tried talking you out of learning it, knew it mat first night we met. You have a lot less sense than my kids had, so I never should have just let you go your own way. I should have said somediing and kept on saying it—"
"Bena, please," I interrupted, refraining from reminding her that she had said something, more than once. "Sighted who try to deny what they are end up insane, and I do not do the sort of thing you mean. I'm just a harmless sorceress who has no intentions of ever getting involved with the dangerous stuff. I may be curious, but I'm not crazy."
'That's a matter of opinion," she returned, still not happy with me. "You don't have to tramp through an entire mud puddle to get splattered; stepping in one coiner of it is usually enough. And you still haven't said how you got that food. Did you say a spell that caused Lidiar and Nida to cook for you?"
"I don't do zombie spells, even when using one would be practical," I responded, making no effort to keep the stiffness out of my voice. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't use one even if they were legal. Have I ever told you how much I appreciate your high opinion of me?"
"Okay, okay, you can unbottle that tail," she grumbled, shifting her bulk on the bench. "I didn't mean to insult you, and I apologize. So how did you do it?"
"I Saw the ingredients the first time I ate the various dishes, and have been able to copy them ever since," I told her with a shrug. "Any Sighted above magician and witch level can do that, and many probably have. That's why the king's chamberlain tried to suggest that you have the dishes protected by magic. Unless and until you do, every magic
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user coming by can afterward eat as well as the king. Or sell the recipes to anyone who wants them."
"Sell my chefs' recipes?" she demanded in horror, finally getting the big picture. "To every shopkeeper and fishwife in the city? In every city? Chalaine, I thought we were friends. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"
"I try not to tell people things they don't want to hear," I pronounced, for the second time holding her stare. "Not long after we met, you asked me not to discuss 'freak stuff' with you. As a friend, I respected that request Are you saying I was wrong to do it?"
"No," she grudged after a short hesitation, shaking her head with a sigh. "No, obviously I asked for it. Can you fix it so that this kind of thing can't happen again? I don't mind you having the dishes, but a stranger who would sell them—!"
"Ask the chamberlain to have Master Haddil do it," I recommended. "Not only will he do a better job, he has to have another wizard in this world who maintains his spells when he leaves for a while. I don't, which means the protection would disappear the minute 1 stepped through an entry or a gate."
"I thought you planned to be around for a while," she said, and somehow I got the feeling the subject had been changed. "I mean, now that you've met Prince Bariden and all... Didn't you like seeing how attracted he was?"
"Attracted?" I asked with a short laugh. "How can you say that with a straight face? He told you himself he couldn't care less about me, and he stuck to that until he got a really—fullface—look at me. After that he wanted me to eat with him."
"I swear, I never know how to take the things you say," she complained, looking at me with brows raised. "Of course he was attracted, why else would he bother to say he wasn't? Somebody would think you knew nothing at all about men. So what are you doing out here instead of being somewhere cozy with him?"
"Bena, how much time do you spend with people who think there's something wrong with you?" I demanded, suddenly all out of patience. "I don't mean people who are concerned about you in general, but those who think of


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you as crippled? And I don't mean handicapped, because that's not the same thing at all. How much time do you give people like that? An hour, half a day, two or three days at a clip? I'd really like to know."
"Chalaine, I don't understand why you're angry at me," she said slowly and seriously, no longer playing the archetypal matchmaker. "The last thing in the world I want to do is upset you, but sometimes the teasing gets out of hand. You've—never been this bothered before."
"That's because I've never been through so many disasters before." Her soothing apology hadn't made me feel better, and I couldn't imagine what would. "He started out by apologizing for frightening me, and didn't even hear it when I said he hadn't. That was after he'd gotten a good look at me, of course, and from then on there wasn't a harsh word out of him. When we finished the first stage of our investigation and he asked me to eat with him, / asked him what my name was."
"Oh, don't tell me," she said, looking appalled. "He didn't know your namel No wonder you're so out of sorts. Even being a prince doesn't excuse something like that."
"He didn't think it was a hanging offense, but I disagreed," I grumbled, putting the soup bowl aside in favor of the coffee. My spell had specified that the cup continually refill itself, so I didn't have to nurse it. "Aren't there any men in the worlds who judge on something other than looks? His eyes told him I was a wounded, helpless little thing that needed to be looked after and protected, and he didn't enjoy it when I refused to act that way. If I'd whimpered and limped a little, he probably would have done handsprings."
"You know, that doesn't sound like the Prince Bariden / know," she mused, staring at my tray without seeing it. "When he was a boy, he started to play at slipping into my kitchens without me seeing him. If I caught him I would make him sit down and tell me about his day, and then I noticed I was catching him more and more often. He didn't seem to get on well with his brothers and sisters, but not because there was anything wrong with him. He's a full-grown man now with a reputation or two he'd be better off without, but he's never stopped treating me decent."
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"Maybe that's because you're almost as big as he is," I muttered, then looked at her curiously. "What did you mean about a reputation or two? Has he made himself notorious?"
"Only in a way," she hedged, then glanced at me and sighed. "Well, you can see part of it for yourself, in that sword he wears. They had him learning weapons from the time he was really small, but I don't think they expected him to be as good with them as he is. He's been challenged three times to serious fights, and answered all the challenges personally. As a prince of mis kingdom he could have used a champion, but instead chose not to."
"That's stranger than you know," I said, my brows way up there. "Those who are Sighted don't usually get involved in physical fights, not when using magic is so automatic to mem. It would be like—oh, an ordinary man trying to fight a duel while hopping around on one leg. If his other leg wasn't tied to keep him from using it, sooner or later he would forget and stand on it. Did the Prince forget and end up doing something he shouldn't have?"
"He most certainly did not," Bena huffed indignantly. "Bariden is an honorable man, and he killed those three fair and square. He would never cheat, not even if it meant losing. But he didn't lose, and that's what has people talking. His oldest brother Trayden is heir to the throne, but even though he's good with a sword, he isn't as good as Bariden. People are afraid Bariden intends to challenge his brother once their father is gone."
"And with him being Sighted, they're also afraid they'll have an unopposable tyrant for centuries rather than for a single lifetime," I summed up, finally seeing the point. "None of them will consider the possibility that he'd make a better king than his brother, because a freak couldn't possibly be. What's the other crime he's accused of?"
"It's—not exactly a crime," she grudged, and I had the feeling she'd hoped I would forget about that second part. "Or maybe it is, I don't think I know any more. He—has something of a reputation with—women, like where they're always after him, you know? He—usually lets himself be caught, but—not for long. / say he's looking for the right woman, and when he finds her he'll stop looking."


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"But in the meantime he's forcing himself to have fun," I summed up a second time, ignoring her gallant interpretation of not-so-gailant actions. Bena tends to think the best of the strays she adopts, even if they happen to be freaks. Or fast-living princes.
"Chalaine, he's a man," she said with an exasperated sigh. "Men do things like that, but not because they mean harm. Would you be happier if he was a prim and proper virgin? Men tend to think virgins are special, but women know better."
"Bena, I wouldn't care if he also had bad breath, flat feet, and writer's cramp," I told her as clearly as possible. "He may be a man, but he's one I don't care to know any better than I already do. If you're looking for someone to pair him up with, look somewhere else. It would eventually get to be annoying to have to remind him what my name is."
She winced as though she'd forgotten about that, but didn't get the chance to make any more excuses. Just as she parted her lips a servant came rushing out into the garden, and he looked frightened sick. Since I was the one he headed toward, I knew something else had happened. I didn't yet know what, but had the definite feeling I'd regret what I'd eaten ...
Bariden, third prince of Melen, cursed himself silently as he watched the girl walk out of the room and disappear up the hall. He hadn't been that clumsy with a woman since the age of fifteen, when an older woman of nineteen had let him know she was interested. He'd been nervous with his first older woman, but only to begin with. As soon as he realiz ed that all women, young or old, responded the same, he'd been just fine.
Until about five minutes ago. He ran a hand over his face, possibly in an effort to wipe away invisible boot prints. She'd stomped him up one side and down the other, and to say he hadn't expected it would be vast understatement. Women just didn't talk to him like that, even if they weren' t very happy.
"And how the hell did she know?" he growled, still finding it incredible that he'd actually forgotten her name. He didn't believe the explanation she'd given him, about
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his touching her rather than speaking. That was the sort of thing you thought of after you already knew, and she hadn't been guessing. For a shy and quiet girl, she was unbelievably sharp .. .
He felt the urge to go and do something, but instead went to a comfortable chair, sat, and spoke a spell for the meal he wanted. He'd been too busy to stop for lunch, and then he'd been too distracted. Never in a million years had he expected that old spell of his to work now, in the middle of chaos, and certainly not with a girl who had almost drowned him the first time they met. ..
Bariden shifted his sword into the chair's slot, then reached for the wine he'd specified with the food. What he needed right then was someone to talk to, but not just any someone. Bena, for instance, would listen sympathetically and then give him advice, but chances were good that the advice would be wrong. She didn't understand magic, and therefore tended to dismiss it—along with most Sighted. The unSighted didn't usually have his kind of problem ...
He sighed when he realized he had only one choice of whom to talk to, even though the conversation wasn't likely to be pleasant. ReSayne was one of the strangest entities he'd ever come across, and that was saying a lot when you considered some of those he'd met during occasional trips. ReSayne's people were somehow related to demons, but not in any way a human would understand, he'd been assured. They called themselves fiends and considered themselves better than demons, but again refused to discuss in what way. There was a lot they refused to talk about, but ever since he'd helped ReSayne—in some way he still didn't understand—his problems weren't part of the refusal.
Bariden took a sip of wine before replacing the glass on the tray floating in front of him, then reached to his left hand with his right. Using his right little finger, he pressed his left hand just below the wrist bone, an action he wasn't likely to perform by accident. At the same time he said, "ReSayne ... ReSayne ... ReSayne ..." as though sending out some sort of message. After three repetitions, he stopped and went back to his meal. The fiend would have heard him, and would come as soon as possible.


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He was just about finished with his duck a Forange with stuffing and honeyed yams, when the air in front of him began to ripple. Fiends didn't use entries any more than demons did, although they both used gates on a regular basis. The rippling air began to swirl, and as it did, very bright rainbow colors appeared. The colors grew bright enough to dazzle, and then they settled down to simply float.
"Bariden, how could you?" a smooth, light voice asked from the middle of the colors. "Stuffing and yams with duck a 1'orange? A prince is supposed to have style, not a lumberman's appetite. And how do you like my new look? Isn't this nicer than thick blue smoke?"
"Absolutely," Bariden agreed, ignoring the comments about his taste in food. "Flashy and gaudy are you, ReSayne. Do you by any chance have some time to listen?"
"Bariden, dear boy, why else would I have responded to your summons?" it said, and then its voice went morose. "Although I dislike admitting it, you're probably right about the gaudiness. I'll just have to think of something else, but that's for later. Where are we, by the way? I can feel the strangest spell on this room."
"That's an exclusion spell, to keep people out," Bariden explained as ReSayne settled down to a solid form. The form it chose, though, was that of a fancy straight-backed chair, with cushioned seat in orange and two eyes in the polished-wood backrest. The eyes were a bright leaf green, and Bariden couldn't help thinking that his father would probably love ReSayne.
"We have something of a problem around here, but that's not what I need your help for," he continued. "There's this girl, and that spell I told you about a couple of years ago, and the fact that things have been going from bad to worse with every move I make. I never went through the awkward teenager stage, but I'm beginning to think that's because the experience was saving itself for now."
"That does sound serious," the ReSayne chair said, bright green eyes blinking thoughtfully. "Why don't you tell me about the girl and the spell, and then we can get into what's been going wrong."
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"I suppose I should start from when she drowned me," Bariden mused, reaching again for his wineglass. "She was one of those Summoned to help with this problem we have, and she and I ended up being paired as partners."
"She drowned you," ReSayne stated, and this time the eyes looked impressed. "She must be a good deal more formidable than the females you usually associate with. I hadn't thought it would be possible to find one larger and stronger than you, but—"
"No, no, no, she's not bigger than me," Bariden interrupted. "You can see how well I'm doing even with explanations. She's about average height for a woman, I suppose, and seems to be built fairly well. Her hair is—auburn, I suppose you would call it, brown with a lot of dark red. and it's long enough to reach her behind. She wears it braided, to keep it out of the way, I guess, but I'd love to see it loose. And her eyes, the biggest, darkest eyes I've ever fallen into . . ."
"Bariden, if you want to daydream, you'd be best off doing it alone," ReSayne's voice came after a moment, bringing him back to the present. "If you want to talk instead, it's more effective when you use words."
"Words, right," he agreed after clearing his throat. "You can see what kind of shape I'm in ... At any rate, what she did was bring this big—bubble, I thought—through the entry with her, and somehow it got away from her. It went straight for Master Haddil, but he uses personal warding. It bounced off his warding straight at me, but why would I bother trying to avoid what looked like a giant soap bubble? Only it wasn't a simple soap bubble. When it hit me it burst, and gallons of water poured out of it all over me."
"I would have enjoyed being there to see that," ReSayne chortled, its green eyes narrowed with amusement. "And to have seen that very interesting bubble. Was that when you discovered your bottomless fascination for the girl?"
'"What I discovered was the urge to mutilate," he answered, finding ReSayne's reaction the expected one. "After I banished the sogginess I ignored her, otherwise I might have been tempted to commit mayhem. I'd parted company with my latest—female companion just the night before, and as unpleasant as it had been, I was somewhat
SHAROM
down on women just then. When I ended up paired with this one to work on our problem with no possible way to refuse associating with her, my mood turned even sweeter."
"But that obviously changed," ReSayne commented, probably to hurry the story. "When and where, not to mention why?"
"When we began working together, I couldn't help noticing how sharp she was despite also being very quiet. She knew what had to be done, and went ahead and did it. But she hadn't once looked straight at me, not even when she spoke to me, and that quickly became very annoying. After a while I grabbed her, and forced her to look directly at me."
"And ended up being thrown across the room by her warding," ReSayne concluded, the green eyes all but nodding. "I could have told you that would happen. How many times have I pointed out how foolish you're being when you refuse to use warding of your own? Haven't I—"
"ReSayne!" Bariden interrupted again, in no mood to be lectured. "Let's save that argument for another time. The point here is that I didn't set off her warding. It must be keyed to intent, and it wasn't my intent to harm her. Instead, I got my first good look at her—and that set off the spell with a vengeance."
"Now's the time to refresh my memory about that spell," ReSayne cued him, not in the least insulted over having been interrupted. That meant it intended to return to the interrupted subject later, a realization that made Bariden groan on the inside. The fiend never forgot anything that involved lecturing, leading Bariden to wonder if it took invisible notes ...
"Only a few years after I began to study magic, a wizard came from another realm to speak to my father." Bariden remembered the episode clearly, more clearly than most things from that time in his life. "Master Haddil was off doing something or other on one of the planes he frequents, so the wizard, Tramfeor, felt it would be impolite to visit long. But while he was here he spent some time talking to me, asking about my life and my studies and such. I remember getting the feeling he already knew the answers to the questions he put, but that had to be my imagination. If
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he already knew the answers, why would he have bothered to ask?"
"Some wizards are like that," ReSayne assured him, the green eyes moving three inches higher in the chair back. "They like to pretend that they know everything, just to impress the people around them. If they did know everything, they'd be fiends rather than wizards."
"Yes, of course," Bariden murmured diplomatically. "Well, his questioning got around to how well I liked girls, so I told him. He didn't think it was unusual that I'd already had more offers than I'd been able to take advantage of, or that a lot of the giris had been encouraged in their interest by their mothers. I was a prince, after all, and one who was Sighted. Either of those things alone would have made me a 'catch,' but both together guaranteed that I would do exceptionally well in life. When he said that, it made me feel very strange. It hadn't occurred to me that the girls were more interested in what I was than in what sort of person I was becoming."
"But weren't you all barely more than children?" ReSayne asked gently, almost as though it could feel the pain he'd experienced. "Children are usually self-centered and shallow, or so I've been led to believe."
"No one past puberty is still a child," Bariden stated, reaching again for his wineglass. "Your basic personality is formed and set even before then, and once your body changes you're fully adult. If you've decided by then that what a person has is more important than what he is, nothing short of getting kicked in the teeth two or three times will change your mind. If anything can change your mind. Tramfeor noticed how disturbed I was, and that was when he offered to teach me the spell."
"Your dramatic pause is very effective," ReSayne said as though it were complimenting a toddler. "Now that I've noticed, do feel free to go on."
"It was a Spell of Affinity aimed at the opposite sex," Bariden answered, almost in a growl. ReSayne could be so damned annoying . . . "It's meant to tell me just how well a particular woman will match with me, just how seriously committed she's capable of being. Until now I've had glimmers, small bursts of light when I looked into


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women's eyes. Some were stronger than others, like the one with Miralia, the girl I just broke up with. At first I thought she was the best match for me, the glimmer was so strong. But there were certain things about her—Well, let's just say she and I disagreed over a few matters I consider important."
"Am I correct in assuming the burst of light was stronger with the new girl than it was with this Miralia?" ReSayne asked. "If so, I fail to see your problem. As you felt it necessary to pursue the former woman, now you must pursue the newcomer. You bipolar entities always make things so difficult when they're really quite—"
"ReSayne," Bariden interrupted, knowing the fiend was getting ready to leave again. "Whether or not to—'pursue' the girl isn't my problem. The burst of light I got from her was so strong it almost blinded me. Of course I want to get to know her better, but—I did something really stupid, and now she doesn't want to know me. Considering the fact that she's a Sighted, I thought you might be able to help me figure out a way to—to get her to change her mind."
Bariden all but muttered the last of his words, which immediately put vast amusement into the leaf green eyes studying him. ReSayne was enjoying itself, and wasn't that outcome surprising.
"My dear boy, you must really be desperate," the light voice purred while the green eyes shifted leftward along the chair back. "For a human of your experience to be asking help from a fiend—? Whatever you did to annoy her must be of monumental proportions. I can't wait to hear what it was."
"I—had to admit I didn't know her name after hearing it three separate times," Bariden grudged. "Don't ask me why I didn't remember, maybe it's the way women usually repeat their names for me over and over, to be sure I don't forget. Somehow she knew all about it, and even admitting she was right didn't help."
"Oh, Bariden," ReSayne said in shock, the green eyes wide. "Even a life-form such as myself can appreciate a blunder like that. And with a female Sighted? The woman must be truly remarkable if she didn't reduce you to a pile of ashes on the spot. You'll certainly need every bit of charm
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you possess to even begin to make headway against that."
"I've already tried charm, and it didn't work," Bariden said morosely. "If I didn't know better, I'd think she was warded against it. For such a pretty little thing, she's— well, like a meat grinder. Completely quiet and harmless until you start to turn her handle. And I sure as Hellfire turned her handle, but now it seems to be going on by itself. What I need is a suggestion on how to get it to stop."
"Is that all?" ReSayne said in a pooh-poohing tone. "Nothing easier, my boy. Just do something for her that will outweigh the insult you gave. And now that that's settled—"
"No," Bariden interrupted immediately, before the fiend could change the subject. "That isn't settled. Generalities I've been able to come up with on my own. It's specifics I need some help with, like suggestions on what I could possibly do for her. What is there to do for a woman who's also a sorceress?"
"Bariden, the time has come to speak plainly." ReSayne's green eyes stared unblinkingly at him. "I'm aware of the fact that you have very little experience in the actual pursuit of females. For most of your adult life they' ve pursued you, which must certainly have had its pleasant moments. Now, however, the effort has become yours to make, and the first thing you do is ask someone else to solve the problem for you. Is that what being a prince does to a human male? Turns him incapable and dependent?"
Bariden was about to heatedly deny the charge, but the quietly sober way the fiend had spoken made him pause. ReSayne wasn't usually that serious, not unless the point it discussed was more than somewhat important. And now that he'd stopped to think about it, the charge was uncomfortably true. When it came to—fighting his own battles with a sword, say, he would have considered it cowardly to go running to others to ask for their help. His current situation was harder and more dangerous than a sword fight, but still...
"All right, I'm forced to admit you've made a very good point." The words weren't easy, but Bariden said them anyway. "If this is important enough to be a problem, it's one I have to solve for myself. I just wish you weren't also


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right about how little experience I have with pursuit. Even Miralia came to me, although she did make me work for the privilege of sharing her bed. One problem was that it never stopped being a privilege, never grew into something we both looked forward to ..."
Bariden let the thought trail off, at the same time gesturing away the tray with the remnants of his meal. She'd accused him of being spoiled by all the female attention he'd had, unable to appreciate the real, true gesture she always made. He was nothing but an ungrateful boor, telling her she ought to be behaving like his legion of trollops. If he didn't know what a real lady of quality was like, he ought to find out before accusing her of improper behavior ...
He hadn't been accusing Miralia of anything, but her attitude had made him wonder if he was being a boor. She'd walked away from him with her head high and her body stiffly offended, and two hours later his mother had sent for him. Somehow she'd heard about the exchange, and had lost no time in telling him again what a disappointment he was to her. He'd listened with jaw clamped shut to her usual lecture about how she'd never dreamed she'd give life to such a sorry excuse for a man and a prince, and then he'd left. Later, when Miralia had announced that she was ready to listen to his apology, he'd told her he was still trying to figure out what he'd done that needed to be apologized for. She'd then informed him he needn't come back until he did figure it out, and he'd agreed that that might be best...
"Was there anything else you needed to discuss with me?" ReSayne interrupted his thoughts, for once in a gentle way. "I am somewhat involved with a project of my own at the moment, but since I'm already here, you might as well take advantage of the fact."
"No, no, there's nothing else," Bariden decided aloud with a sigh. "There are some things I'd love to palm off on others, but I don't know anyone stupid enough to willingly accept them. The one thing I might eventually need your expertise for is this mystery I'm helping to investigate. The lives and well-being of a lot of people are at stake, and if we can't figure it out ourselves I'll need everything you can offer. Hopefully your own project will be finished by then."
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"Even if it isn't, I'll probably be willing to be distracted," ReSayne answered, and then the chair melted into a blue-gray cloud that had the same leaf green eyes. "Your mystery sounds intriguing, and the moment I have time I want to hear all about it. If my project is completed sooner than anticipated, I'll come right back rather than wait to be summoned. And I may even have a new look by then that will satisfy us both. Good hunting with your problems."
Bariden nodded his thanks as the fiend faded from view, deliberately making no comment about the next possible new look. He had enough to worry about without that; trying to anticipate what ReSayne might come up with would drive him even crazier than he was right then. What he needed was some solitary time filled with serious thought—
"Your Highness, excuse me," a voice came from the hall. He looked up to see the anxious face of a messenger peering in through the open door, but the man didn't enter. For a moment Bariden wondered why, and then he remembered about the exclusion spell.
"What is it, Stollen?" he asked as he stood. Since there was nothing left to do in that room, he might as well find someplace else for his thinking. But when he walked out and pulled the door closed behind him, Stollen looked only faintly relieved.
"Your Highness, it's happened again," the messenger said in a strained whisper, obviously trying to keep the word from spreading too quickly. Which had to be why he'd waited for Bariden to reach him before speaking. "Since you're one of those working on th e problem, I've been sent to bring you there. Master Haddil is unavailable at the moment, but the healer has been sent for as well."
"Who is it this time?" Bariden asked as he gestured for the other man to lead the way. "And what about— my working partner. Has she been sent for?"
"Yes, sir," Stollen answered even as he started off. "The sorceress Chalaine was expected by Benatha Aylie, so another messenger is checking with Bena first. If she isn't there, he'll have to search. And the victim this time is Diri,'one of the maids who usually works in this part of the house."
SHARON
Bariden was surprised to hear that, but speculation would be more profitable when he reached the scene of the occurrence. In the meantime, he took a moment to really appreciate the messenger system his father had put into effect. There were messengers scattered all over the palace, and their job was to know the whereabouts of those people in the palace who mattered. In normal times one of their number made the rounds every couple of hours, gathering information from individual messengers and collating it for a complete picture. If someone needed someone else, it rarely took more than a few moments to locate mat person ...
And just then they'd done him more of a service than simply locating him. He smiled as his mind repeated the name Chalaine, a name he really should have remembered. He still didn't know why he hadn't, but he wasn't about to forget it again. The investigation they were working on had to come first, but after that...
By the time Stollen showed him to the maid Diri's rooms, Bariden had lost a lot of his satisfaction. Din had worked her way up to a quasi-supervisory position, and for that reason had earned a small apartment of her own. The two rooms were tiny compared to the major apartments, but they were worlds better than the dormitory slots or shared cells many of the other maids lived in. Din worked along with the girls she also supervised, which meant it was hard to understand why she'd become a victim. Could she have learned something important, and been silenced before she was able to tell anyone?
"The healer is already here, and so is the sorceress," Stollen told him in a soft voice. The man undoubtedly knew that from the other messengers standing outside the room, both of whom looked frightened. From inside came the sound of sobbing, and when Bariden reached the doorway he found out who was producing it. "That's the girl who found her," Stollen supplied. "It wasn't like Dili not to get back to work on time after lunch, but her girls thought she might have needed to do something. When hours went by and they still hadn't heard from her, one of the girls came looking. The messenger in this section heard her screaming, and immediately sent for the circulating supervisor."
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Bariden thanked Stollen, then left him outside and went in alone. The tiny sitting room had only a single easy chair, positioned opposite the doorway in the far right-hand corner of the room. The crying girl sat huddled in it, her face buried in her hands, clearly wanting to be as far from the unmoving body to the left as possible.
Diri sat in one of the four chairs around the small table to the left, an almost-empty cup of something on the table in front of her. Her left hand rested on a book and she seemed to be reading, but no book ever written could absorb someone to that extent. The woman was barely breathing, and when the healer, who was crouched in front of her, touched her arm, it was as though he touched a statue.
It was then that Chalaine appeared, from the doorway to the right that must lead to Diri's bedroom. She glanced at him as she passed in front of the crying girl, but she didn't speak to either of them. Instead she walked to the center of the room and began to study the walls. For someone who had wanted to see a victim, she was paying more attention to the interior decorating than to Diri.
"Was there anything out of place in the bedroom?" he asked, just to be saying something. The paneled design the walls had been painted with was intricate and more attractive than one would expect in a place like that. Still, Bariden didn't enjoy the idea that Chalaine preferred looking at if to looking at him,
."The bedroom is neater than any pin ever made," the girl muttered, still staring around. "It also has a design on its walls, but not separated into panels like in here. Do you see anything . . . unbalanced in any of these sections? There's something wrong, but I can't put my finger on what."
Bariden started to demand what a painted wall could possibly have to do with the mystery, but that was the whole point. They hadn't been able to find anything to do with the mystery, and for all he knew the answer was on the wall. With that in mind he began to look more closely at the panels, trying to compare each section with the ones to either side of it. He also moved farther into the room, but hadn't taken more than two steps before Chalaine made a sound of satisfaction.


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"That's the one," she said, pointing to the first panel beyond the far left-hand comer of the room. "That section there is the one that doesn't match. Can you see it?"
Bariden's view was blocked by the stricken Diri and the now-standing healer who continued to try to reach through to her. On top of mat, Chalaine was moving toward the panel she'd singled out. In order to see what she was talking about, he had to swing right before circling in behind Chalaine to the left. At that point there was nothing in the way—and that was when it happened.
Like a giant, invisible hand, the compulsion reached out and grabbed him. He had to get to that section of wall, and as fast as possible! Nothing could stop him, nothing would stop him! Clouded by vast confusion and unyielding determination, Bariden broke into a run. Having no real idea what he was doing, he also failed to understand when Chalaine stepped directly into his path. Her back was to him as she examined the wall panel, but she didn't reblock the compulsion. It continued to pull him, and he just kept running—even when he crashed into her, sending her forward ahead of him—up to the wall—and then through it—
CHAPT€R
I fell into something soft when I went down, and it took a moment to realize it was also cold. I was too dazed to understand immediately what had happened; I heard the cursing from my right, and then a hand touched my shoulder.
"Are you all right?" Prince Bariden's voice demanded, and then he was trying to help me to my feet. "Come on, you can't just lie there in that, you'll get frostbite. We've got to find our way back."
"Frostbite?" I echoed, getting up only because he was doing the lifting. "Back? What are you talking about? What happened?"
"I must have hit you harder than I thought," he said, sounding savage. "Damn that setter of traps. Here, take a quick look around and then we have to get moving."
He helped me turn away from him, and what I saw men made no sense. We stood in an open wood at dusk, thick white snow covering the ground, new flakes falling silently all around to add to them. It was also cold, very cold despite the lack of wind. How could we possibly have gotten to a winter wood ... ?
"I think it's safe to guess what bothered you about the walls in Din's sitting room," he said from behind me. "There was an entry hidden just at the surface at one point, and it distorted the pattern of painting just a little. But it was also primed with a compulsion aimed at me, demanding that I get to it as fast as possible. I remember starting to run, and didn't stop even when you got in die way."


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"Which made you knock me through ahead of you," I added, finally remembering getting shoved hard toward the wall. "I expected to be flattened, but ended up flying through the air instead. But if we came through an entry, where is it? I'm starting to freeze solid."
"I hope it's masked rather man one way," he answered as I brushed snow off the front of my tunic and breeches. "If it isn't, we'll have to call up an entry of our own. Or you'll have to. I've never called up an entry, and I understand you need certain coordinates."
"You do, but it isn't a problem," I assured him. "I have the coordinates to a lot of places, so you aren't as trapped here as you were obviously supposed to be. But first I'm going to do something about these clothes I'm wearing. It's too cold for summer lightweights."
I could see my breath as I spoke, so I hurriedly added a warm-clothes spell to the speaking. It was short and simple, which means the reaction came very quickly. The spell carved itself into the air in glowing letters, overbright in the dusk, and then the letters began to crumble from the bottom. Tiny pieces fell the way the snow fell, and in no time at all the letters were completely gone.
"Fantastic," the prince muttered from behind me, his tone full of disgust. "This place is sealed by someone with wizard strength, and no one's spells will work but his. Apparently he wasn't taking any chances about my knowing an entry spell after all. We'd better get to shelter before we try to figure out what to do next."
"What kind of shelter is there around here1?" I aske'd, my teeth already beginning to chatter. I'd also wrapped my arms around me, trying to remember I liked the cold.
"That way, through the woods," he said, putting his hands to my arms to turn me. Behind where he'd been standing I could see something that looked like a house a short distance off. It was dark and looming rather than well-lit and cheery, but we weren't in a position to be choosy.
"Then let's go," I said, pulling away from the delightfully warm hands that had been touching me. I needed something warm just then, but Prince Bariden's hands weren't it. He could save that for when he got back to his horde of girlfriends.
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It wasn't possible to run through the deepening snow, but the hurried shuffle I adopted brought a small amount of warmth. My companion drag-trotted beside me to the right, his left palm against his sword hilt, his eyes moving around the woods we passed through. There couldn't be many beasts out hunting in a snowstorm, but even one would be one too many. With that in mind I added my own looking around, at the same time hoping snow wasn't what mat world always had. If it turned out to be the norm, we could run into any number of hunting beasts who considered it a lovely day ...
Whatever the true situation was, we finally reached the house without anything attacking us. The thing was larger than it had looked at first, but wasn't any lighter. Dark stone blocks made up what we could see of it, with a heavy wooden door closing off access to the inside. I was so cold by then that I didn't care what was inside. Even if it was something dangerous that preyed on visitors, it would still have to fight to keep from being kicked out of its lair.
Prince Bariden, his grim expression saying he felt the same, gripped the metal knocker and pounded on the door with it. The metal must have been cold to the point of pain, but he pounded away as if he didn't care what he held. But he used his left hand rather than his right, which said he knew he might be leaving some skin behind.
I could almost hear the sound of his knocking reverberating inside, a demanding boom-boom-boom-boom that echoed around in emptiness. If no one came to answer the door we'd have to try to break in, and I didn't even want to think about that. There were no windows in view from where we stood at the front door, and—
"Watch it," Prince Bariden said softly, at the same time stepping in front of me. The large wooden door was beginning to open, with nothing to show who or what was doing the opening. The hinges groaned rather than screeched, and then—
"Come on in fast, before you freeze," a light, friendly voice urged. "And before / freeze, from standing near this open door."
I couldn't quite look over the prince's shoulder, so I


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moved to the right to look around him. Standing in the doorway was a pretty blond girl about my age, her smile matching the friendliness we'd heard in her voice. Not exactly what we'd been expecting, but...
"Thanks," my companion told her, then reached around to push me through the doorway first. "We really appreciate this."
"For a minute I thought you were alone," the girl said to him with a laugh, stepping aside to let me pass. "It's been all pairs so far, but you never know. I'm Janissa."
"Nice to meet you, Janissa," he acknowledged with a smile, then helped her push closed the door. "I'm Bariden, and my companion is Chalaine. What did you mean when you said it's been all pairs so far? Where are we, and what's going on?"
"We have no idea where we are," Janissa answered, diverting me from marveling over the fact that Prince Bariden had managed to learn my name. "We also don't know what's going on, but we've found a theory most of us like. As pure guesswork, it tends to give us something that makes sense. Come on into our gathering room, and we'll tell you about it after you've met the others."
She turned and led the way toward the right, through a wide, dark hall that was lit by a single torch. Everything around us, floor, walls, and ceiling, seemed to be made of the same dark stone, without anything in the way of adornment. It was a lot warmer inside than it had been out in the snow, but that's not to say it was warm.
Janissa, wearing a long dress of pale green and what seemed to be matching slippers, ignored a shadowy doorway to the left in favor of the one beyond it. Soft light came through that second doorway, and when we reached it I could see there was a fireplace which added to the light and warmth. Around the fireplace was an austere room of rigid comfort, a place for someone to relax who didn't really enjoy relaxing. Stiffly rather than deeply upholstered chairs, couches that encouraged sitting up straight, small, sturdy-looking tables, nothing on the walls but mostly empty torch sconces. No decorations, no frills, not even carpeting on the stone floor. And five people sitting loosely together, watching us walk in.
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"Everyone, this is Bariden and Chalaine," Janissa said, stepping aside to gesture at us. "It looks like our friend is at it again, and maybe this time we'll get a usable clue."
"I certainly hope so," one of the men said as he stood. "We haven't been here all that long and the company is certainly congenial, but I'll be happier if I'm free to go about my business. I'm Vadran, and this is Wellia."
He was tall, brown-haired and blue-eyed, and his very attractive smile seemed aimed mostly at me. The woman beside him, introduced as Wellia, had the same brown hair and blue eyes, but wasn't as tall. Her smile and nod seemed intended more for Prince Bariden, which balanced the greeting. Vadran wore black boots and trousers and a blue tunic, while Wellia was in a dress and slippers like Janissa's, only in a blue like Vadran's tunic.
"We were the newcomers until you two arrived," a second man said, also standing now. "That doesn't mean we're not just as anxious to get out of here, an attitude you'll unfortunately be finding out about for yourselves. This is Idara, and I'm Halad."
Once again Halad's smile was for me, Idara's for Prince Bariden. These two were redheads with dark eyes, and they were dressed like the others except that Halad's tunic and Idara's dress and slippers were a reddish brown. The pattern was absolutely clear, and then the last man stepped forward to clinch it.
"I'm Kamen," he said with a smile all for me. He was tall, blond, and green-eyed, wearing a light green tunic that matched Janissa's dress. "Janissa and I have been here the longest, so we tend to feel like the host and hostess of the place. Why don't we take you two upstairs to find the clothes that will have been provided for you? After you've gotten past being cold and wet, we can exchange information over a meal."
"I think we'd rather do some drying out by that fire," Prince Bariden said, all but taking the words out of my mouth. "That way we can exchange information right now, without having to wait. Kamen, you said you and Janissa have been here the longest. Just how long is that, and how did you get here?"
By then we were already on our way to the fireplace, but


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Kamen didn't seem to be bothered by having his suggestion ignored. He glanced at Janissa, and then shrugged.
"By the day-and-night cycle of this world, it's been about four weeks," he answered. "As for how we got here, we're still not quite sure. Janissa was simply walking from one of her houses to another by entry, and I was on my way to Conclave. Pd called up an entry to take me there, but when I stepped through I was ankle-deep in snow with Janissa only a few steps away. When we spotted this place we headed for it, and found the door open and inviting."
"Not inviting, but better than the snow," Janissa amended. "About a week later Vadran and Wellia came knocking, and a week after that Halad and Idara. This week it seems to be your turn."
"We were all going elsewhere and ended up here," the brown-haired Vadran said. "Not only are we all Sighted, we each became one of a matched set. But you two don't fit into that, and I wonder why. Is the game almost over, or has the player simply decided to change the rules?"
"The game he means is what goes on in this house," red-haired Idara said with a small shiver. "I'm sure you've already discovered that your spells don't work here, and that because of the wizard strength of whoever set this up. He or she seems to want to watch us cope without the help of magic, and that hasn't been easy. The player feeds and clothes us and keeps us warm, but for everything else we're on our own."
"Everything else means the—things—this house is haunted with," brown-haired Wellia said with her own shiver. "They appear mostly when you're alone, occasionally when you're with someone who can't do much better than you. Then you have to drive the thing off somehow, or else it will—disgust and nauseate you."
"But only if you're female," Halad said, taking his turn. "If you're male the thing will be out for blood or broken bones, which may or may not be worse. The only real weapon in this house is that sword you're wearing, Bariden, but even if the rest of us had the same it would make no difference. I can't use a sword, and I doubt if Kamen or Vadran can either."
"He's right about me," Kamen admitted while Vadran
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simply shrugged and nodded. "I never thought I'd need any weapon beyond magic, which proves how shortsighted it's possible to be. But now that you know about us, what about you two? As Vadran pointed out, you two aren't matched. Did you know each other before you got here?"
"It so happens we did," Prince Bariden answered, turning partially away from the fire I was still drying myself at. "Chalaine and I were working on a serious problem our realm has, and apparently the guilty party was afraid we would get to the bottom of it. A new victim was made for us to go look at, and the room was booby-trapped with an entry and a compulsion. The compulsion forced me through the entry, and Chalaine was accidently swept along."
"Which means one of two things," I contributed, only glancing over my shoulder. "Either our guilty party and your game player are one and the same, or our guilty party simply happens to know about what's going on here, and took advantage of it to get rid of us. At this point it's a matter of pick the one you like best."
"But maybe we can figure out which one it is," Kamen said, his green eyes suddenly bright. "If two more rooms and sets of clothes have been prepared, then yo u're expected rather than just tossed in. If they're not, you weren't meant to be here."
"That only works one way," I disagreed while everyone else commented or exclaimed. "If no rooms are prepared, that means we were tossed in. If rooms are prepared, that could mean the original spell on this place allows for newcomers automatically. It doesn't have to mean our guilty party is your game player."
"I hadn't thought of that," Kamen said as he blinked, and then he produced a grin. "But the thought occurring to me now is that we finally have a real thinker among us. I have a feeling you're the one who will find us a way out, Chalaine."
"Isn't that funny," Idara said, toying with a strand of her red hair. "I was just thinking that about Bariden. I hope at least one of us is psychic."
"As long as it's not psychotic," Halad said from beside her, looking amused. "This place is enough to do that to


58
anyone. Why don't we go upstairs and check out the room situation? If they have been provided for, they'll at least be able to change for dinner."
"And it is getting close to that time," Janissa put in. "if there isn't any provision for them, we'll have to share what we get. Let's get started now."
All six of them made sounds of agreement as they began to move, drawing the prince and me along with them. I would have preferred staying by the fire, and not just because my clothes were still wet. That whole situation felt really strange, even beyond the strangeness it was supposed to be. Six magic users trapped in an unpleasant situation, and ail they'd done was settle in? Granted they couldn't use their magic, but still...
The group led the way left out of the room, and only a short distance away was a wide staircase. The steps were some sort of polished stone, hard to see in the dimness of the single torch burning nearby. It was also colder away from the fire, but that wasn't the only thing trying to make me shiver. That house insisted on feeling deserted even with eight people walking through it...
The staircase led to a second floor that somehow gave the impression of being larger than the ground floor. Corridors stretched left, right, and straight ahead, and we were directed left. This corridor had occasional candles burning in sconces on the walls, while the others had been dark.
"The first two bedrooms, to left and right, were given to Janissa and me," Kamen said with appropriate gestures. "The next two belong to Vadran and Wellia, and the third set to Halad and Idara. If you two have been provided for, the fourth pair will be lit."
The doors to the indicated rooms were open, and I could see what was probably the light from only one or two candles in each. I wondered if it was our fellow captives who were so frugal with the candles, or if that was our host's doing. And then I forgot the point as we reached the fourth pair of doors.
"Well, so much for us getting a useful clue," Kamen sighed. "These rooms were dark, and now they're lit. One way or another you two have been included in, so we might as well get you settled. This way, Bariden."
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He and the other men took the prince to the left, and Janissa touched my arm before heading right. I followed her into a fairly large chamber that was as formally stiff as the gathering room downstairs, and just as spartan. Against the far wall to the right was a large bed without canopy or curtains, and farther right was a plain wooden wardrobe. A couple of small tables held unlit candles in plain silver holders, utility uncombined with any sort of beauty. To the left of the door was a fireplace complete with fire, two uncomfortable-looking chairs set a few feet away in front of it. Closer to the door on the right was a washstand with basin and pitcher, and that was it as far as interior decoration went.
"The inside door of the wardrobe has a mirror," Janissa told me, walking over to open it and prove the point. "You'll notice there's only one dress and pair of slippers in here at any one time, but that's all you'll need. When you take your worn clothes off put them in here, and the wardrobe will take care of them,"
"But you have to take care to change as quickly as possible," Wellia added. "The longer you're alone, the better the chance that one of those—things—will come after you. You can't avoid them entirely, but there's no sense in making things worse."
"Easiest is being with one of the men when it happens," Idara put in, checking herself quickly in the mirror. "The thing always turns out to be one that goes after them, so you don't have to put up with the awfulness more than once hi a while."
"Don't the men mind if you take advantage of them like that?" I asked. "I know they're supposed to be big and strong and all, but dumping the whole load on them doesn't seem fair. Even if they know all about it and insist on doing it like that—"
"They do insist," Janissa interrupted with a smile. "They get their own benefit out of the arrangement, so they don't mind at all. But dinner should be ready soon, so you ought to get changed now. We'll be waiting downstairs."
The other two added their smiles to hers, and then all three left. The last one out closed the door, but I just stood there for a moment wondering what hadn't been


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said. I would have bet gold on the fact that there was something, and maybe even two or three somethings. For people who had been dragged unwillingly into some unspecified experiment, they'd adjusted to the situation awfully fast and awfully well. . .
The clamminess of my clothes reminded me rather quickly that I was there to change, so I gave up on speculation for the moment and turned back to the wardrobe. The dress hanging in it was dark brown trimmed with red, not exactly my favorite color combination, but predictable. The slippers matched perfectly, of course, so I took them and the dress over to one of the chairs near the fire.
Once I was out of my own things and into dry, I spread my wet clothes as close to the fire as was safe for them. The wardrobe could have back anything it gave me, but I didn't care for the idea of losing what I'd worn to that world. When you have a choice, even in what clothes you'll wear, it's easier to keep from going along with the demands of others. The six previous victims of that trap might have settled in, but I had no intention of doing the same.
With my wet clothes taken care of, I went back to the wardrobe to check my new finery in the mirror. The fit was perfect, of course, and even the colors didn't look as bad as I'd thought. The dress was long enough to brush the top of my slippers, was long-sleeved, and closed with buttons up the front of the bodice. The material was very soft and rich-feeling, like silk but without the slipperiness of silk. Most of the red trim was lace, and—
I stiffened as I saw, in the mirror, the figure appear behind me. It materialized out of thin air, and its arrival was so abrupt it took me an instant to realize what it had to be. I whirled around, needing to face it rather than have it behind my back, but that did no good at all. I couldn't use magic to get rid of it or defend myself, and the thing laughed when it saw I'd remembered that.
The thing. Actually, it was supposed to be a man, but not your ordinary, everyday type. He was fairly tall but stood round-shouldered, as though preferring to blend into the crowd rather than stand out. He was long-faced and dull-eyed, but wore a smirk as though he thought no one else was as good. He also had long-fingered hands, the sort
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