It had begun without Tarlson's knowledge, during his unconsciousness. There had been strong opposition, which was stronger now. Gjerdrum had outperformed his classmates. Though Tarlson felt immensely honored, he feared he would have to ask the boy to withdraw.

He felt a quirk of irritation. It startled him. It wasn't like him to feel antagonism over accidents of birth. Still, they couldn't accuse him of ambition. He had never asked honors or titles, only the opportunity to serve.

"Maybe. But I'm sure it's a memory from this life. I'll find the handle someday." After a long pause, "I have to. I'm the only one who. saw them all."

"Eanred, tell the King. Don't take everything on yourself."

"Maybe." He considered it.

Weeks passed before he spoke with the Krief. The occasion was his induction into the Order of the Royal Star, the Crown's household knights. The endowment was hereditary and carried a small living.

The Nordmen were bitter. But their opposition remained muted. The ceremony took place in Vorgre-berg, where Tarlson was immensely popular.

He could be put in his place when the mad King died. Afterward, in his private-audience chamber, the Krief asked, "Eanred, how are you? I've heard the pressure's bothering you."

"Fine, Sire. Never better." "1 don't believe it. You showed nerves today." "Sire?"

"Eanred, you're the only loyal subject I've got. You're invaluable as champion, but worth immeasurably more as a symbol. Why do you think the barons hate you? Your very existence makes their treasons more obvious. They resist honoring you because it makes you more promi­nent, makes your loyalty a greater example to the lower classes. And that's why I refuse to let you take Gjerdrum out of the Rebsamen." Tarlson was startled.

The King chuckled. "Thought you had that in mind. In character. Bring me a brandy, will you?"

While Tarlson poured, the Krief continued, "Eanred, I don't have much time left. Three or four years. If I do things that seem strange, don't be surprised. I'm chasing a grand plan. So the scramble for succession won't destroy Kavelin. Thank you. Pour one for yourself." For several minutes he sipped quietly while Tarlson waited.

"Eanred, when I'm gone, will you support the Queen?" "Need you ask, Sire?"

"No, but I don't envy you the task. My remotest cousins will be after the Crown. You'll have no support." "Nevertheless..." He remembered his wife's sugges­tion. "Maybe if we found the true Prince..."

"Ah. You know. I guess everyone does. But it's not that easy. There're facts known only to myself and the Queen. And the kidnappers. Eanred, the Prince was a girl. Fool that I was, I thought we could pretend otherwise..."

: Tarlson dropped into a chair. "Sire, I'm a simple man. This's a bit complicated ... But there's something I've got to tell you. It may help." He described what he had seen the night of the abduction.

"The Captal," the Krief said when Eanred finished. "I suspected it. The creatures in the tower, you know. But I kept asking myself, what did he have to gain? Now I wonder if he was a willing accomplice, or under duress? I've no ideas about your attacker. He must've been a Power..."

"You haven't investigated?" The puzzle had been answered. The old man had been the Captal of Savernake. Eanred had seen him briefly during the wars.

"I had my reasons. For now I have a son, though he'll never be King. Meanwhile, I keep hoping there'll be an acceptable heir..." For a moment his face expressed intense anguish. "The girl's no more my blood than the changeling."

"Sire?"

"Don't know how it was managed. But I didn't father the child. Haven't had the capacity since the wars. No need to be shocked, Eanred. I've managed to live with it. As has the Queen, though she wasn't told till recently... I'd run out of excuses. And it was time she knew. She might find a way to give me an heir before it's too late." He smiled a tight, agonized smile.

"I doubt it, Sire. The Queen..."

"I know. She's young and idealistic... But a man has to live by his forlorn, twisted hopes."

Tarlson shook his head slowly. More than the knighthood, the Krief's confessions were honors that showed the high esteem in which he was held. He wished there was something he could do...

He returned home in a dour, bitter mood, silently cursing Fate, yet with a renewed respect for the man who was his lord and friend. Let the Nordmen call him weakling. The man had a strength they would never understand.

iii) She walks in darkness

Three times emissaries of the Demon Prince came to Maisak. Each time the Captal sent them home with polite but firm refusals. Then he heard nothing for a long time.

He considered going to the Krief. But temptation called. He might stumble into something yet...

News came, whispering on demon wings, of a great thaumaturgic disaster. It stirred awe and fear among sorcerers throughout the west.

Yo Hsi and the Dragon Prince had been destroyed. In his hidden fortress deep in the Dragon's Teeth, the sorcerer Varthlokkur, the murderer of Ilkazar, had stirred and twitched and lashed out with unsuspected power.

The Captal, like sorcerers everywhere, retired to his most secure fastness to cast divinations and lay a wary inner eye on the Power in the north. The possibilities were unimaginable. The Empire Destroyer loose again. What would he do now?

And what of Shinsan? Nu Li Hsi's heir-apparent was a crippled child, incapable of holding the Dragon Throne. Yo Hsi's daughter was a postulant of a hermitic order, uninterested in her father's position and power... Would Varthlokkur seize Shinsan before the Tervola could select an Emperor?

Across the west, sorcerers gathered their strength, saw to their defenses.

And nothing happened. The Power in the Dragon's Teeth quietly faded away. The Captal's probes sensed only patient waiting, not ambition, not gathering sorcery.

Nor were there thaumaturgic hostings in Shinsan. Both successions proceeded smoothly.

He returned to his experiments.

She came at night, under a full moon, three years to the day after the baby change. In her train were imps and cockatrices, griffins, and a sky-patrolling dragon. She rode a milk-white unicorn.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He loved her from the beginning.

Shoptaw roused him from slumber with the news.

"Has the alarm been given?" he asked.

"Yes, Master."

"What's the matter?"

"Great magic. Terrible power. Many strange beasts. Men without souls."

"You've been to see them?"

"I flew with five..."

"And?" A pang of distress. "Someone was hurt?" He loved his creations as a man loved his children.

"No. Very frightened, though. Not get close. Great winged beast, eyes and tongue of fire, large as many horses..."

"A dragon?"

Shoptaw nodded.

Dragons were incredibly rare, and sorcerers who had learned dragon mastery rarer still. "They didn't act hostile?"

"No." But the winged man drew his crystal dagger.

The Captal's gaze wandered its edges and planes. There was a glow almost indiscernable.

"No inimical intentions," he translated. "Well, let's have a look at them."

She was a half-mile away when first he spied her, a glowing point below the circling dragon. He recognized the unicorn, was awed. Unicorns, he had on high authority, were extinct.

"Mist," he whispered once she had drawn closer. "Yo Hsi's daughter."

She stopped before the gate, showed the palms of both hands. The Captal smiled. He knew the gesture was empty if she intended evil.

Yet it was a gesture. No sense antagonizing her when she had Shinsan's best at her back. A fight would be hopeless. He would last barely long enough to send a message to Vorgreberg.

He delayed the message pending outcome of the parlay.