a book closed and slipping it into a compartment on his desk. The courier was too exhausted to care what the volume was or why the High Councillor acted so furtively.
He nodded to Uriath, spotted a blond wood stool, navigated to it as the door shut behind him with a groan like an arthritic giant. He gave the stool a quick once-over before sitting. The wood was warped and water spotted but showed no signs of mold. He sat and leaned back against the wall with a sigh.
'I think I've got the damage patched up,' he said without preamble. 'Rann, or whoever is handling interna! security for Synalon, actually struck too soon. We didn't give out the fina! assignments until this afternoon, which means no one they netted knows our exact plans or dispositions. As a bonus, it's easier to change assignments and then distribute them instead of changing them abruptly after they've been issued and confusing hell out of everybody.'
'Your idea,' said Uriath, more curtly than usual. Crediting the courier irked him.
'All our reports indicate Synalon's going to be locked up tight in the Palace, working her magics from there. So I've cut the number of people on other squads, the ones attacking the aeries and Monitor stations, to get the full complement for our push at the Palace. What we really need…'
A chime shimmered in the air of the room. Hairs rose on the back of Fost's neck though the sound was now familiar to him. He still wasn't used to sudden tones issuing from tubs of water.
Energized again, he stood and went to peer into the tin vessel. Uriath swiveled in his chair, gave Fost an annoyed look, and bowed his head to the water.
The surface turned murky. The cloudiness began to swirl without stirring the liquid. The murk coalesced into Moriana's tired but radiantly beautiful visage.
'Fost,' she said smiling, 'you're upside down. Good evening, Uriath. I trust everything proceeds according to plan.'
'We have experienced some difficulties, Princess,' said Uriath with a sigh, 'But we are persevering, even in the face of such great adversity.'
Fost saw that Moriana tried hard not to laugh at his sententious manner.
'It pleases me to hear that, good Uriath. Now, as for our plans tomorrow, we must coordinate…'
A door opposite the one through which Fost had entered swung inward on oiled hinges. Councillor Tromym entered unsteadily. His nose glowed the color of Uriath's florid face.
'Uriath, I have to talk with you,' he said with the meticulousnessof the truly inebriated, seeming to pick each word out precisely and exactingly with a pair of tweezers.'It is about this.. . oh. Ah, well, yes. Hello.'
Fost grimaced. Tromym showed every sign of collapsing completely under the strain. In the courier's opinion the best thing the whiskered little man could do was climb into a rumpot and stay put until the shouting was over. Uriath was visibly unhappy.
'Tromym,' he said sharply. He heaved his substantial bulk from the chair. 'If you'll excuse me – I'm sorry, Your Highness. I'll be but a moment.'
Moriana nodded graciously as the pair left her line of sight. Fost looked at her wondering if she was eager to have him gone so they could speak privately. He held his own passions in check. He had more important things to tell her. 'Listen, I've got to tell you something,' he began.
'No, I have something I must tell you,' she said. 'Oh, Fost, I can't express how it makes me feel to see you. When I stabbed you, I knew I was doing the right thing, though part of me died with you. Or when I thought you died.'
In his befuddled state it took him until now to realize that what he'd taken for a necklace about her neck was the all too familiar pendant, a big-faceted stone in an elaborate silver setting. Half of the stone's surface shone white, half radiated blackness. He had only seen the gem once, briefly, but was unlikely to forget it. 'But…' She raised a hand, cutting off his words.
'No, you need say nothing. Even though you didn't die, I can never atone for what I did, not in my own heart.' A tear welled from one eye and rolled down her cheek. 'I… I'll try to make it up to you, Fost. I promise!'
But the courier wasn't I istening. He stared in horror as a wave of black slowly washed over the Destiny Stone entirely blotting out the white. 'So,' a voice said from the outer doorway.
Slowly, Fost turned though he knew what he'd see. He would have felt better at meeting Istu himself awakened from a ten-millennium-long nap. Luranni stood there, her gaily colored smock in sharp contrast to the dull gray of her expression. She looked as if she'd just been struck in the belly. 'Fost? Fost, what's wrong?'
He didn't answer Moriana. Luranni's oval face was stricken. She knew. As Fost opened his mouth hoping some inspiration would make the proper words come forth, she turned and ran.
He caught her in the antechamber of Uriath's office, at the foot of the slimy stairs. Rows of mushrooms stood at attention in boxes, rank on rank until they were lost in the gloom. An eerie pallid glow rose from some of them to mingle with the green shine of the tube filled with miniscule luminous beings that lit the room. Other than sunlight and moonlight, the light vessels provided the only form of illumination by which it was safe to conspire in the City.
He seized her wrist as she tried to race up the stairs. Her arm seemed ridiculously skinny against his scarred fist and burly forearm. He thought with a pang how such restraint wouldn't be possible with a woman like Moriana. 'Wait,' he said. 'I can explain.'
Her eyes called him a liar. He felt shame at uttering the faithless lover's age-old plaint.
'You still want her,' she accused. Her voice, normally so musical, rang out in the cellar as husky, broken.
'I do.' He released her slender wrist and moved closer to her rigid body. 'I'm sorry, Luranni. We…' 'Don't say anything. I thought you believed in our cause – in me.' He took a deep breath and let out a sigh.
'I care for you, Luranni. But I came to the City to help Moriana. I chose to help the princess because of… the way I feel about her, and because I fear what Synalon intends.'
'But I thought you believed in our revolution! Don't you want to bring popular government to the City?' He hesitated, unsure how to answer.
'I guess my upbringing warped me. When I look at any government, no matter how popular or benevolent, all I see is the field of spearpoints holding it up.'
'So you did it all for the love of her!' she cried. She was gone before he could deny it. But then he could never have denied so plain a truth.
The tattoo of her steps faded up the stairs, ended with the bang of a door. He turned back and raced for the office. 'Moriana, you've got to listen to me! The pendant…' 'Yes? What about a pendant?' Uriath's eyes glittered,
Fost looked into the tub. Water. He turned and walked out without another word.
Evening settled on the camp of Moriana's army. The clink of the armorer's hammer drifted to the ridge of the human's camp, along with the murmur of talk around the cooking fires, occasional snatches of song. From the dark pavilions of the Zr'gsz nearby came only silence, as ominous and complete as that in which their oblong skyrafts flew. Rarely, she heard a stacatto burst of syllables, and once came a chanting in a voice she recognized as Khirshagk's.
'Come,' she said, taking Darl's hand. She led him down the far side of the rise, toward the stream above where it curved around the bluff to run beside the twin encampments. The cool, moist air danced with the smell of growing things, and the songs of crickets and frogs and tree lizards hummed and reverberated. Once below the lip of the hill, it was impossible to tell or even believe that within half a hundred paces beings of two races prepared for war.
She led him to a fallen log by the river, shaded and covered with moss. They sat together, watching the sun light the nearby Thails with evening colors. Darl looked robust and heroic in tight whipcord breeches and a silken tunic of the palest blue. This evening Moriana dressed feminine and soft in a long beige gown that made her eyes glow like emeralds.
She hadn't worn her swordbelt; at her waist rode a sheathed poignard. No satchel bounced at her hip. Many things had to be resolved, and she would speak of them herself without having Ziore to soothe her.
'There's something I must tell you.' Her thoughts echoed Fost's earlier in the eveing: I care so much for this man. Why can't I think of anything that's not inane?
'I know,' he said, a tiny smile wrinkling his lips. She looked at him in surprise. 'You do?'
'Yes. I've known for some time.' He laughed at her stricken look, took her chin in his hand and kissed her. 'A blackness lay upon your soul, Moriana. When I came back from the City States, it had vanished. I don't know how it
