"Try me!"

Duun came back and laid him straightway breathless on the sand, then stood looking at him. "Well, it wasn't can'tthat threw you that time. Did I promise you a miracle?"

Thorn rolled over and tried to cut Duun's ankles from under him.

Thorn ended on his belly this time, spitting the sand that glued itself to his face and hands and body; Duun's knee was in his back, his arm twisted painfully. Duun let him up and sat down on the sand.

(Invitation?) But Duun held up his hand. "No." Duun said, "not wise."

Thorn knew where that attack would have taken him— into Duun's grip when he refused to go sailing over Duun and halfway to the wall. And Duun's teeth at his throat. Never grapple, Duun had hammered home to him. Nature shorted you, not me. And Duun had grinned at him that day to make the point.

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Thorn tucked his knees up and locked his arms about them, panting. Sweat ran into his eyes and he wiped a gritty hand across his brow, flexed the fingers and held them out.

"You're pulling your claws, Duun-hatani." Pain welled up and hurt his chest and it was not all the pain of several meetings with the floor. "You'd have me in tatters. You'd tear my throat out. Anybody normal— would."

"Eyes," Duun reminded him, with a touch at his own brow-shadowed eye.

"That's worst. You let me at your face. Never."

"I'm sorry, Duun."

"You wouldn't be sorry. You'd be blind. Damn right I pull it. You do that again I'll scar you. Hear?"

Thorn rocked his body in something like a bow. He hurt. His bones ached as if they had all been reseated.

"Yes, Duun."

"But as for the claws— they might take you if they could touch you. If you were a fool. I'm very good, Thorn. Doesn't that tell you something?"

Thorn paused a long time. The ache got into his throat and stuck there, embarrassing him. "That I might be."

"Did you touch me?"

"No, Duun-hatani."

"Do I hear can'tnow?"

"No, Duun-hatani."

"The outsiders have gotten into your head. Their moves have infected you.

Do you let them touch you?"

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"They touch each other. Not me."

"They touch you— here." Duun touched his brow. "You lose your focus.

Youth, Thorn. Give that up too."

Thorn drew another painful breath. (They're yours. Aren't they? A hatani dictates the moves others make…. Duun-hatani.) "What can they teach me you can't?"

"What is ordinary. What the world is."

(The world is wide, minnow.)

"Duun— they act like I was nothing unusual."

Duun shrugged.

"They're lying, aren't they?"

"What does your judgment tell you?"

"They're lying. They're pretending. You sent them. You're in control of all of it."

"Tkkssss. You have a suspicious mind, Haras-hatani."

"You've always been. Is that close enough to beating you? No one'slike me. There aren't any. I'm different. And they're so bust not noticing it they shout it. Why,Duun?"

"You build bridges in the sky."

"On rock.On what I see and don't see." Thorn's muscles began to shake; he clenched his arms about his knees the harder and tried not to show the shivering, but Duun would see. Duun missed nothing. "What's wrong with me? How did I turn out this way?"

"Doubtless the gods did it."

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The blasphemy shocked him, from Duun. He piled one atop it. "The gods have a sense of humor?"

Duun's ears went back. "We'll talk about it later."

"You'll never give me my answer. Will you?"

A long silence. Yes and no trembled on a knife's edge. For the first time Thorn felt Duun was close to answering him and a breath might tip the balance. He held that breath till his sides ached.

"No," Duun said then. "Not yet."

* * *

"He's intelligent," Ellud admitted. Duun clasped his crossed ankles and returned a stolid stare. "Did I say not?" Duun asked. "What else do your young agents say?"

Ellud laid back his ears. "I handed them over to you."

"Come, Ellud. How many sides do you face at once?"

Ellud shifted uncomfortably on his desk. "I'm fending rocks, Duun; you know that."

"I know that. I want to know who you're talking to."

"The council. The council wants to talk to him."

"No."

"You say no. They get no from you and come to my back door. I'm getting supply shortages; I'm getting delivery delays; I'm getting records lost."

"Not coincidence."

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"Not at this rate," Ellud said. Duun drew a deep breath and straightened his back; Ellud held up a hand. "I'll take care of it, Duun. I'd have come to you if I couldn't."

"How does Tshon report me?"

Ellud's mouth dropped. "Duun—"

"I'm not offended. How does she report me?"

"I— told Council you're quite stable. Her report was an advantage. To both of us."

Duun smiled. With all the horror that expression had for the beholder; and he was always, with Ellud, aware of it. "I sent council a letter. If they want a hatani sanction individually and singly— let them forget their contract.

The government made it. They've got it to my dying day."

"Or his."

"Are you telling me something, Ellud?"

"I don't remember telling you anything. I'd have to swear I didn't."

Few things disturbed Duun's centering. This was one. Ellud grew very still, hands loose in his lap, for a long while staring at that stare.

"If there were to be an accident," Duun said.

"I don't know how it would come. He's hatani, you said. He wouldn't be easy. Duun— you have to understand. It's not just council; it's public pressure: the matter at Sheon— got out."

Duun said nothing and Ellud lifted a modifying hand, sketched diffident explanation. "They called the magistrates, the magistrates called the province head— back when they thought they'd run afoul of the Guild, when they thought they'd hatani troubles up to their armpits— well, the matter got blown up larger: a few offices got onto it, and a few wealthy 89

Cuckoo's Egg

landholders at some dinner party— Well, a note went out to political interest here. And Rothen's successor—"

"Shbit."

"Shbit. Exactly. Wants to play politics. On the issue the whole thing's gone sour." Ellud made a helpless motion. "Duun, hard as it is to think anyone could be shortsighted enough—"

"I don't find it hard at all. "I have a very fine appreciation of venality. And stupidity. Tomorrow doesn't come and a stone cast up doesn't come down.

For a renunciate, I'm a verypractical man, Ellud. You should remember that."

"I remember." In a small, hoarse voice. "Duun, for the gods' own sake—they're trying to get between you and the Guilds. You know that's how they'll work. They're trying to slow my office down with their paper-delays. They want documentation of malfeasance. I'm making duplicates of everything. I've got them in a packet in hands that will get them to the Guild— if— anything should happen."

"Wise."

"People are frightened, Dunn."

"Go on guarding the back door. I'll take care of the front. Iwill."