to turn for Greatkin Rimble. Only women of courage are worthy. Only women of spirit. And such women do not stay home with their mothers.» «I have spirit,» said Yafatah indignantly. «It be just that I love me Ma. And I be all she has.» «Excuses,» muttered Kelandris. «Break the Blood Day Rule. It's the right of the Trickster's he!» «But I'm the Crossroads Child,» cried Yafatah. «I'm not the—» Fasilla glanced sharply at her daughter. «Doon't forget yourself, Ya! This be shadows, Ya. This be not real. And it will pass, child. Let it go. Let it pass over you. Don't get caught—» Yafatah clawed the air with her fingers. Six hundred feet away, Crazy Kel clawed the air with her fingers. The identities of the two Tammirring merged, their psyches tangling. Crazy Kel sat up abruptly, her mind clear for the first time in sixteen years. Yafatah stared wide-eyed at her mother. Then she announced, «I draw the Jinn-mist round about! That's my way to keep Trickster out!» Before Fasilla could wonder about her daughter's sudden drop of accent, Yafatah added in yet another voice, «Shifttime! Jinnaeon! End of the world! Big changes! Big doings!» Yafatah broke into wild peals of laughter. Fasilla forced the roan mares into a trot. They splashed through the shallow river and up the bank into Jinnjirri. Fasilla urged the horses into a canter, glancing at her Tammirring child whenever she could afford to take her eyes off the dirt road. Yafatah was sitting on the edge of the seat, kicking the air with her feet like a small child. Yafatah caught her mother's worried eye and winked. Fasilla said nothing, driving the mares northeast toward the house of the Jinnjirri healer. Without realizing that she was doing so, Fasilla now drove her daughter to the edge of sanity as well. This was a strange borderland of the psyche. Trickster territory. Unpredictable and fertile. Yafatah shivered as the Jinnjirri landdraw pried away her Tammirring defenses and set her adrift in space and time. Single identity ceased to exist for Yafatah. Guideless, she felt as if she were drowning. Yafatah's Trickster smile suddenly faded. «Help,» she whispered. «Help—» Kelandris stood up slowly, feeling herself and yet not herself. She was not aware of Yafatah or Yafatah's distress directly. However, she did notice a queer sensation of having been psychically buttressed in some unexpected fashion. She tested the strength of it and found it worthy. She was just about to laugh for joy when she saw the flash of something black and yellow off to her left. Kelandris crossed her arms over her chest. She grunted under her veil. «Don't expect me to welcome you with open arms, Rimble,» she muttered at the little four-feet-seven Greatkin peeking at her from behind a nearby tree. «You're a stinking sonofabitch.» «Charming sentiments,» he retorted. «And after all this time.» Kelandris scowled. «I should never have danced for you.»
«But you did it ever so well,» replied Trickster, his pied eyes glittering in the light of the early morning sun. «And I was so proud.» «You made me crazy,» said Kelandris, looking around for a sizable stick or a good throwing stone. Trickster watched her warily. «Don't blame me for what Suxonli did to you, kiddo.» «You abandoned me,» she said calmly, grabbing a small boulder. She towered over Trickster by nearly two feet. «When I needed you most, too.» Still calm, she added, «You're not a Face of the Presence. You're Its ass!» Kelandris lobbed the boulder at him. Her aim was so true that in order to get out of the way of it, Rimble had to dematerialize. He rematerialized a few seconds later in the upper branches of a tree directly above Kelandris. Rimble looked down at her and said, «Well, we could do this all day. Or you could do something really useful—like make up for lost time.» «Me!» shouted Kelandris, her green eyes blazing under her veil. She grabbed the tree by its trunk and shook it. The trunk was narrow and supple, and she shook it with such vigor that she nearly managed to unseat Trickster. He swore, scrambling for a better perch. «Mortals,» he muttered under his breath. Then, looking down at Kelandris again, he said, «So?» «So, I hate you,» replied Kelandris, suddenly realizing that the psychic buttressing she felt was probably due to some trick of Rimble's. That meant it wouldn't last. That meant she would be crazy again. Anguished, Kel slammed the tree with her fist. Swearing at Rimble, she ran quickly away, her veil fluttering behind her. As she turned the corner, Trickster intercepted her. He jumped down from an outcrop of rock and prevented her passage. «Get out of my way!» she cried. «Kelanoorhin,» said Rimble softly. This was Kel's name in Oldspeech, the language of the Greatkin. Rimble had taught Kel its meaning as a child: «she who blooms in the wild light.» Kelandris had not heard the word spoken for sixteen years. Trickster had always used it as an endearment. The woman in black hesitated, all her rage losing its direction. She cleared her throat, reaching under her veil and savagely scratching the bloody scab on her forehead. «What do you want?» she asked hoarsely. «I want you to go to Speakinghast.» Kelandris snorted. «I'm Tammirring, Rimble. We don't do well in cities.» «I have a protected place for you. A safe house.» She shook her head, still refusing. Trickster hadn't expected it to be easy to convince Kelandris to travel to Speakinghast. He decided to try his next approach: compassion and curiosity. If that didn't work, he'd go for revenge. That one was a sure motivator in Kel's case, and Rimble wished to avoid using it if possible. For one thing, Zendrak would be Kel's target. And Zendrak just wouldn't understand or appreciate it. Understandable, thought Trickster. No one likes being the target for revenge. Especially if you're not the party who's to blame for the problem in the first place. And Zendrak was utterly innocent regarding Kelandris of Suxonli. Yonneth? And Elder-woman Hennin? Well, that was a different matter altogether. Trickster would get to them in due time. The little Greatkin grinned. In due time. Trickster picked up a few rocks and started juggling them effortlessly. «All sorts of legacies are passed from one generation to another,» he said conversationally. «Why not a killing spiritual loneliness?» «What do you mean?» she asked uneasily. «Oh, you know. That bottomless pit you wake up with every morning? Call it soul ache.» Rimble changed the direction of his juggling. «It's a feeling of being hungry for something that has no name. Can make a person real desperate inside. They'll do almost anything not to feel soul ache. Even go crazy,» he added softly, his eyes meeting her hidden ones for a moment. Kelandris stiffened. «I don't know what you're talking about.» «Then listen,» said Rimble. At that very moment the stifled, terrified scream of a young girl travelled on the wind to meet them. Trickster grunted. «The future can scream, Kelandris. It's alive, you see. Just like that young girl. Fortunately for her, the child's mother is taking her to a healer. So that child's experience of soul ache will be short. Perhaps.» Kelandris said nothing for a moment. Then she asked. «You gave the Tammirring girl my madness?» she asked. «You wouldn't let me in the front door, Kelandris. So I got creative.» The woman in black swore loudly. «You can't give that girl my madness, Rimble! I'm accustomed to it. I know why it happened. She won't understand. Her body won't understand. It's not her burden to bear. It's mine.» Rimble laughed harshly. «Are you saying you'll go to Speakinghast for Yafatah's sake? That's her name, by the way. Yafatah. Means: opener of the door. Nice, don't you think?» «What're you getting at, Rimble?» «Only this: compassion becomes you, Kelandris, but we both know why you're following that child. Why you want her psyche left intact.» «Why?» Kelandris snapped. Trickster smiled. «You suspect Yafatah knows things. Spiritual things. Sees things like you did once. Makes you itch, doesn't it? You wonder why you don't remember your dreams? Why you never see me anymore, hmmm? You're the shut door, kiddo. And Yafatah is your key.» Kelandris swallowed. «How long will Yafatah be mad?» «You mean, how long will you be sane? Depends on you. Depends on if you go to Speakinghast or not.» Kelandris swore angrily. «What do you want me to do in Speakinghast?» «Just turn.» «Like I did in Suxonli!» she exploded. Trickster sniffed haughtily. «There's no reason to get sore about it.» «You tried to kill me!» «Not me,» said Trickster, his pied eyes turning hard. Then he added, «Sometimes you have to lose something in order to find it, Kelandris. Sometimes, you have to turn the inside inside-out. And enter through the exit. Sometimes, you have to turn contrarywise, Kelandris. Because nothing else will do.» «But why me!» she cried furiously. «Because you're still my Revel Queen,» said Trickster with unexpected affection in his voice. «Because you alone have tasted the poison of my sting and survived. Because you alone bore the full brunt of my touch at the Ritual of Akindo but were cheated of my true ecstasy.» Kelandris frowned, feeling confused. «I thought you said you weren't responsible for the Ritual of Akindo.» «The Ritual of Akindo was a potential.» «Of what?» «Of cruelty.» There was a long pause. Kelandris shut her eyes. She felt exhausted. She felt unsure of what Trickster was telling her. But it had always been like that. Even as a child, Kelandris had never been certain when Trickster was telling her something straight out or when he was simply hinting. The Ritual of Akindo was still too painful in her mind for her to want to dwell on it. She hoped in her heart that Trickster was not responsible for it. After all, he was a Greatkin. He was a Face of the Presence. Kelandris stared down at the ground. If Trickster was behind the Ritual of Akindo, she thought miserably, then that would mean Elderwoman Hennin had been right about the bandy-legged little Greatkin all along. «There's nothing nice about a wasp,» she muttered. Trickster grunted. «Some wasps kill off certain kinds of parasites. The Univer'silsila wasp does that. Pretty generous, if you ask me. So—will you go?» Kelandris shook her head. «No,» she said firmly. «I won't.» Rimble stroked his black goatee. «Well, then you'll miss out.» Kelandris said nothing. She had no intention of falling for such an obvious ploy. Trickster was clearly wanting her to ask him to explain the meaning of his statement. Kelandris tapped her foot. «You're out of practice, Rimble.» Trickster shrugged. «I'd no idea we were having a contest here,» he said disdainfully. «I was just trying to be helpful. Save you some revenge time. But if you're not interested—» «Revenge against who?» Trickster began picking lint off his black and yellow greatcoat. «That fellow.» When Kelandris registered a blank, Trickster added, «Oh, you know the guy. Real tall with dark hair. Smells funny—» «Zendrak!» she said, her heart starting to pound, her face paling. «Was that his name?» asked Trickster idly. «Well, whatever. I
