Igraine erupted from his chair, his face contorted, and she saw for the first time since she’d met him the strong and terrible Governor of Khal-Theraxian, whose province was the most trouble free in all the mountains.

“The slaves are the innocents in this, despite their killing!” As quickly as it had come, Igraine’s temper waned and his sadness returned. Suddenly he looked very old.

“Khallayne, don’t you see what our world is becoming? Don’t you see that if we don’t make changes now, we’re doomed?”

He held out his hand for her to come closer. “Our civilization was once vital and innovative. Our citizens were warriors and thieves. We took the best from over the whole continent. Now we do almost nothing for ourselves. Our warriors have grown soft and useless, our people decadent. Our cruelty insists on the suffering of others.”

Khallayne dropped to her knees before him, mesmerized by the power of his voice, hypnotized by the sweet reason of his words.

“Igraine, Governor of Khal-Theraxian, you have been charged with treason and heresy, with endangering the lives of your neighbors and friends by inciting the slaves to insurrection.”

Khallayne kneeled as before in Igraine’s room, only this time, she was squeezed in between Jyrbian and an Ogre female she didn’t know. And Igraine was pleading his case before the council.

“It is not treasonous for me to increase the production of my holdings tenfold,” he argued. “It is not heretical to treat my slaves with kindness if they work twice as hard.”

“And this is the philosophy of ‘choice’ you espouse?” Narran prompted. “What you call ‘free will’?”

“We have grown hard in our ways,” Igraine responded, loudly and proudly enough that no one doubted his belief in his words. “We are selfish while espousing order and obedience. Enslaved by our needs. In doing so, we have grown cold and hollow. We decay day by day, and the ugliness that fills begins to show outside.”

The audience gasped. Some hissed softly between their teeth, but that didn’t stop him.

“It is time we decided for ourselves who we will be and what will be our destiny. We are the firstborn of the gods, the brightest, the best. The most beautiful. Is it not time we lived up to our potential?”

Khallayne shifted imperceptibly. The heat was stifling, the scent of perfumes and bodies thick. She longed for fresh air, a clear head.

Igraine’s words, which had seemed so reasonable the day before, in the bald light of a council hearing bore a tinge of the lunatic. Even so, as she looked around, she could see that not all of the others thought him mad. A few, a very few, were gazing at him as she had the day before, enthralled by the power of his voice.

Igraine ended his impassioned speech by turning his back on the council and opening his arms as if he would embrace the whole audience. “I’m sure there are many who agree with me, who believe as I do. Join me. Show your council that we mean no harm.”

Khallayne’s breath caught in her throat. Several of Igraine’s neighbors and family were in the audience, and they stood, joining him before the council.

Igraine’s eyes swept the room, urging more to come forward, lingered on her. His scrutiny reminded her of the pain of Lyrralt’s healing.

Her muscles tensed, wavering. Just as she started to rise, Jyrbian placed his hand on her forearm. It appeared an innocent gesture, but his fingers bore the weight of his body.

“I think it’s going to go very badly for him,” Jyrbian whispered, leaning very close, his lips barely moving. “And very badly for any who can’t distance themselves from him.”

Khallayne tiptoed into her place a few moments before tbe judgment was to begin. She craned her neck and peered down the aisle toward the front of the audience hall, where families knelt near the throne platform.

Only the families and allies of the Ruling Council were allowed to kneel in the presence of the king. The rest stood in rows, ranked by order of their importance and heritage. As she did, others in the depths of the audience hall shifted from foot to foot and craned for a glimpse of their sovereign.

That the king was putting in a rare appearance was probably not a good sign for Igraine, she reflected.

The huge chamber looked very different in the light of day, in the midst of controversy, than it had the last time Khallayne had been there. The ceiling was lost in shadow and without the sparkle of candlelight; the walls were once again cold granite that reflected the slightest whisper or scuff of boot.

There was no singing of the History. Khallayne felt a pang of remorse. How odd to begin an official function without the reminder of whence they had come.

Teragrym was still refusing her attempts to see him. Even Lyrralt had relented and talked with her about it. She craned farther out into the aisle, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lyrralt, but she wasn’t sure where he was standing.

Her remorse was not enough to make her come forward with the crystallized Song. All Ogres knew the words by heart from hearing it since birth, but the weaving of the intricate melodies, the layer upon layer of meaning, the subtle tonal changes from word to word, sometimes syllable to syllable, were not so easily repeated. Those were locked in the sphere.

The call to come forth and be heard opened the trial.

A stir went through the crowd as the huge doors at the back of the hall opened and the procession began, first clerks and underlings, then lesser nobles. Finally, after a long pause, came the Ruling Council, its members resplendent in their brightly colored tunics, each followed by a standard bearer. Then, after another wait, the king entered, flanked by standard and staff bearers, followed by the largest and most finely attired retinue.

When all had made their way slowly to the throne platform and taken their places, the Noble at Arms advanced with much ceremony up the stairs and bowed to the king.

Khallayne shifted from foot to foot, wishing they would hurry. The floor was cold and bumpy through the soles of her thin dress slippers.

The noble, a thin but broad-shouldered female whose face was lined with age, rapped the steel-capped butt of her staff on the floor three times. “Lord Igraine, Governor of Khal-Theraxian, appear and face your judgment,” she sang out in a booming voice.

Khallayne took a deep breath and eased back into her place, shrinking from view. Suddenly, she wished she had not come. Attendance was mandatory, but surely no one would have missed her.

After another long wait, Igraine came slowly down the aisle, his head held high and proud. A gasp went through the room as everyone saw that he didn’t walk alone, as those charged with serious crimes normally did. Following him, dressed in their finest, were representatives of the branches of his family, heads of the clans of his neighbors, even some who were from provinces far removed.

Across the aisle and closer to the front of the chamber, she spied Jyrbian pushing through his kinspeo-ple to the aisle. They, like she was, were so shocked at the size of the group behind Igraine that they ignored the abominable behavior.

Khallayne heard the drone of the noble’s voice as she read out the formal charges and counter-charges. There were almost fifty Ogres standing with Igraine in an unprecedented show of support. Did they realize this wasn’t a council meeting, where they might voice their opinion? The risk of yesterday, of being tainted by association with Igraine, was nothing compared with this public display. If he was found guilty of treason and heresy, by standing with him they would share his sentence also!