Alec saw the same expression mirrored in other Aurenfaie faces, as if their very souls shone in their eyes. Exile or not, Seregil was among his own. Ever the wanderer, Alec envied him a little.

"Welcome, my friends!" cried Riagil. "Welcome to Sarikali!"

"I thought there was a city," Beka said, shading her eyes.

Alec did the same, wondering if some magic like that guarding the high passes in the mountains was at work. There were no signs of habitation that he could see within the embrace of the two rivers.

Seregil grinned. "What's the matter, don't you see it?"

A broad stone bridge arched across the narrower of the two branches, allowing riders to cross four abreast.

The steel helmets of Urgazhi Turma shone like chased silver in the slanting afternoon light, and steel and chain mail glinted beneath their embroidered tabards. Riding at their head, Klia was resplendent in wine-dark velvet and heavy jeweled ornaments. Polished rubies glowed in the large golden brooches that pinned her riding

mantle at the shoulders and in the golden girdle of her gown. She also wore all the Aurenfaie gift jewelry she'd received, even the humble warding charms. Though she'd put aside armor for the occasion, her sword hung at her side in a burnished scabbard worked with gold.

Once across the river, Riagil led them toward a dark, rambling hillock several miles off. There was something odd about the shape of it, thought Alec. As they drew nearer, it looked stranger still.

"That's Sarikali, isn't it?" he said, pointing ahead. "But it's a ruins."

"Not exactly," said Seregil.

The city's dark tiered buildings and thick towers appeared to draw themselves out of the ground. Masses of ivy and creepers growing thickly up the stonework reinforced the illusion that the place had not been built by hands but erupted from the earth. Like a great stone in the river of time, Sarakali stood steadfast and immutable.

The closer Seregil came to Sarikali, the more the long years in Skala seemed to fade away. The one dark memory he had of the city, ugly as it was, could not efface the joy he'd always associated with this place.

Most of his visits had been in festival times, when the clans gathered to populate its streets and chambers. Banners and strings of kites festooned the streets of every tupa, the section of the city each clan traditionally used when visiting. In the open-air marketplaces one could find goods from every corner of Aurenen and beyond. Outside the city, colorful pavilions would sprinkle the level ground like great summer flowers; bright flags and painted poles marked out racetracks and archery lists. The air would be filled with magic and music and the smells of exotic foods to be tracked down and sampled.

Today the only signs of habitation were a few flocks of sheep and cattle grazing on the plain.

"You'd think the Iia'sidra would come out to meet the princess," Thero remarked disapprovingly in Skalan.

"I was just thinking the same." Alec eyed the place dubiously.

"That would give status," said Seregil. "They retain it by having her come to them. It's all part of the game."

Their Aurenfaie escort dropped back when they reached the city's edge, and Urgazhi Turma formed up into two mounted ranks, flanking Klia.

Turning to Riagil and Amali, Klia bowed in the saddle. "Thank you both for your hospitality and guidance."

Amali nudged her mount forward and clasped hands with Klia. "I wish you success. The blessings of Aura be with you!"

She and Riagil rode off, disappearing from sight with their respective riders among the dark buildings.

"Well, then," Klia said, squaring her shoulders. "It's up to us to make an entrance, my friends. Let's show them the queen's best. Seregil, you're my guide from here."

No curtain walls shielded the city; it had no gates, no guards. Instead, open ways paved with springy turf cut into the jumbled mass of the place like rambling fissures weathered through a mountain by a thousand years of rain. Its street were empty, the arched windows of it towers blank as dead eyes.

"I didn't expect it to be so empty," Alec whispered as they continued along a broad, winding concourse.

"It's different when the clans gather for the festivals," Seregil told him. "By the Light, I'd forgotten how beautiful it is!"

Beautiful? Alec thought. Eerie was more like it, and a little oppressive.

Evidently he was not the only one to feel it. Behind him, he could hear the Urgazhi plying Nyal with questions, and the steady murmur of the interpreter's replies.

Smooth walls of dark green stone etched with bands of complex designs rose on all sides. There were no recognizable figures; no carved animals, gods, or people. Instead, the intricate patterns seemed to fold and knot themselves into greater interconnected patterns that drew the eye to a single central point or away along lines of rhythmically repeated shapes and symbols.

The turf gave beneath their horses' hooves, sending up the scent of crushed herbs and deadening the sound of their passing. The deeper they rode into the city, the more muted sounds became, underscoring the strangeness of the place. The wind brought the occasional distant crowing of a cock or the sound of voices, but just as quickly whipped them away.

Alec gradually became aware of an unsettling sensation creeping

over him, a sort of tingling on his skin and the hint of a headache between his eyes.

"I've come over all strange," said Beka, feeling it, too.

"It's magic," Thero said in an awed voice. "It feels like it's seeping from the very ground!"

"Don't worry; you'll get used to it soon," Seregil assured them.

As they rounded a corner, Alec saw a lone robed figure watching them gravely from the lower window of a tower. Beneath the red-and-black sen'gai and facial tattoos that marked him as a Khatme, the man's expression was aloof and unwelcoming. Alec uneasily recalled a favorite saying his father had had: How you come into a place is how you go out.

Seregil's initial joy at seeing Sarikali did not entirely cloud his perception. Clearly the isolationists still held the upper hand. Nonetheless, his pulse quickened as he felt the quicksilver play of exotic energies across his skin. Childhood habit made him peer into the shadows, hoping for a fleeting glimpse of the fabled Bash'wai.

Rounding a familiar corner, they came into the open again, at the center of the city, and the breath caught in Seregil's throat.

Here lay the Vhaddsoori, a clear pool several hundred yards wide and so deep that its waters remained black at high noon. The magic was said to radiate from this spot, the most sacred ground in Aurenen. Here, at the heart of the Heart, oaths were given, alliances forged, wizardry powers tested. A pledge sealed with a cup of the pool's clear water was inviolable.

The pool was ringed by one hundred and twenty-one weathered stone statues that stood a hundred yards or so back from the water's edge. Neither the reddish-brown stone nor the carving style was to be found anywhere else in the city, or in Aurenen beyond. Thirty feet tall, and vaguely man-shaped, the statues were said to be a relic of some people older than the Bash'wai. They towered and tilted now above the crowd gathered outside the circle. Expectant faces and sen'gai of every description formed a colorful mosaic against the muted backdrop of dark stone.

"That's him," he heard someone whisper loudly, and guessed they were talking of him.

The crowd parted quietly as he led Klia and the others to the edge of the stone circle. Inside, he saw the eleven white-clad members of the Iia'sidra waiting for them at the water's edge, flanking the Cup of Aura on its low stone pedestal. Its long, crescent-shaped bowl,

carved from milky alabaster and set on a tall silver base, glowed softly in the late-afternoon sunlight.