"Most will neither believe nor disbelieve. But that isn't important. What is important is that they will watch for me, prepared to listen. Can you give me the name of one of the kinfolk near Pest, and how I can find him?"

Nils followed Raadgiver's mind while the counselor looked into the ledger where he kept the names and whereabouts of the more settled kin, as best he knew them. His eyes stopped at a name and location for Nils to read.

"Good. Here is what I'll do before I start north. The Magyars are good fighters, well mounted. I'll send them northeast over the mountains to join the Poles and Ukrainians. Let the Poles and Ukrainians know this. And if your psi, Zoltan Kossuth, is willing and able to go with them, I'll give him this psi tuner. That will give the Magyars contact with the others. He'll get in touch with you later for the settings of any tuners you think he should contact."

I will lead the tribes against Kazi. I will send the Magyars. A weakness, a gray fear, began to settle over Raadgiver. In his long life he had heard big boasts and hollow promises, had even been privy to the minds of megalomaniacs. But those, he told himself, had not been men on whom so much depended. Yet his fear had grown from more than that, and less, grown from something inside him that he did not see, could not look at. Nils's thoughts had seemed insane, but yet they had a sense of certainty and the feel of clear and powerful sanity. And that was impossible. That was insane. The old psi's stable data were dissolving, the keystones of his personal world.

Nils helped him on both counts with a new and simple stable datum, putting it out as if the thought were Raadgiver's own, and the man took it. This is the New Man, maturing. Who knows what He can do? The weakness fell away, replaced by hope.

"Is there anything more you have to tell me?" Nils asked.

"Nothing more," Raadgiver replied.

They saluted each other and Nils replaced the tuner in the chest.

During the long, voiceless conversation Janos had begun to grow irritated, understanding only that Nils was sitting there silently ignoring him. But he had not interrupted. When it was over, Nils turned.

"Your Highness," he said, "I can do what Ahmed did. I can look into minds and speak without sound to others like me. This-" he gestured to where he had replaced the tuner-"is a means by which two like me can speak to one another with the mind, at great distances. Ahmed was not only a counselor loaned to you. He was also a spy against you, reporting everything to Kazi through this. I was using it now to speak with my teacher on the shore of the northern sea."

There was a copy of an ancient topographic map of Europe on the wall, with the modern states outlined on it. Nils walked over to it. "About here is where Kazi's army is now, with thirty thousand men," he said pointing. "The Ukrainians are far too few to hold him, even if the Poles arrive soon to help. But if you took your army over the mountains, here, your combined forces could delay and damage him until other kings can gather theirs."

Janos frowned. "But Kazi's army is more powerful than all the others put together. Otherwise, I'd never have allied myself with him."

"That's what he wanted you to believe," Nils answered. "And in open battle it would be true. But in that land you could work as small units, striking and then running to cover to strike again elsewhere."

Janos' face sharpened. "And who asked your advice?" he said coldly. "Have you forgotten that you're a foreigner of common blood?"

Nils grinned. "I'm young but not foolish, Your Highness. Yet I do indeed advise," he continued more seriously. "And deep in your mind you know my advice is good, because if you don't combine armies, Kazi will eat you up separately. But you are a king, used to listening to advice only when you've asked for it, and so my boldness offended you. Yet I'm only a foreigner, a commoner, a barbarian, and a mere youth to boot. You wouldn't have asked for my advice, so I had to give it uninvited."

The king stared at Nils for several seconds before a smile began to break his scowl. "You're a scoundrel, barbarian," he said, clapping the warrior's shoulder. "But allowances must be made for barbarians, at least for those who are giants and great swordsmen who can look into the minds of others and speak across half a world and heal dirty wounds in three days. You're right. We must move, for better or for worse, and if need be we'll die like men, with swords in our hands. And you will come with us, and I'll continue to listen to your unasked-for advice."

"Highness," said Nils, suddenly solemn, "with your permission I'll go instead to my own people and lead them against Kazi. They are not numerous, but they fight with a savagery and cunning that will warm your blood to see."

"All right, all right," the king said, shaking his head ruefully. "I bow to your will again. If your people are all like you, they can probably talk Kazi into surrender."

Janos sent riders ordering the nobles to gather at the palace on the sixth day, which was as soon as the more distant could possibly arrive if they left at once. The orders specified foreign danger to the realm, in order that there would be no delaying by independent lords who might otherwise be inclined to frustrate him.

After two more days spent resting and healing, Nils submitted his newly knitted thigh and hip to a saddle and rode a ferry across the Duna to the town of Buda. He didn't want to send a messenger to Zoltan Kossuth, the psi, in case the request be interpreted as an invitation to a trap.

Nils led his horse off the ferry and spoke to a dockman. "Where can I find the inn of Zoltan Kossuth?" he asked.

"Would that be the Zoltan Kossuth who is called the Bear? Turn left on the outer street. His is the inn just past the South Gate, under the sign of the bear, and the stable next to it is his, too. It's the best inn in town, if you like your inns orderly. The Bear is notorious for throwing out troublemakers with his own tender hands, although"-he sized Nils up with a leer more gaps than teeth-"He'd have his hands more than full trying to throw you out. Not that I'm calling you a troublemaker, you understand, but if you were."

Nils grinned back, mounted, and started down the cobbled street. "And the fare is good for both man and horse," the dockman shouted after him.

Nils strode into the inn, which was quiet at that hour. The keeper was talking with two men who were telling him more than they realized. Tuned for it, Nils had detected the man's psi before reaching the stable, but engrossed as the Bear was in the words and thoughts he was listening to, he wasn't aware of Nils until the barbarian came through the door.

Zoltan Kossuth was not admired for his beauty. His round head had no hair above the ears, but his black beard, clipped somewhat short, grew densely to the eye sockets, and a similar but untrimmed growth bushed out obstreperously through gaps in the front of a shirt that had more than it could do to contain an enormous chest. He was of moderate height, but his burly hundred kilos made him look stubby. Just for a moment he glanced up balefully at the strange psi, then seeing a servant move to wait on Nils, he returned to his conversation.

Nils sat in an inner corner nursing an ale and a bowl of dry beef. He felt no need to interrupt the Bear's conversation, but saw no point in waiting needlessly if the innkeeper's interest in it was not serious. Therefore, he held in his mind for a moment a clear picture of the Bear holding a gray plastic psi tuner, at the same time naming it in case the Bear would not recognize one by sight.

Zoltan Kossuth scowled across at Nils, excused himself from the table and disappeared into a back room. "Who are you and what do you want?" he demanded mentally.