CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Himalaya's Beautiful Daughter

The caravansary echoed with the ghost voices of the company, long since gone back to Earth.

Ilyana stretched out belly down on the bench in the courtyard, letting the sun warm her back through her silk shirt. She reveled in her solitude.

"You have been idle for fifteen minutes," said her slate. "Do you wish to close the Karnak program ?"

She yawned. "Yeah, sure." She crossed her arms over the slate and lay her head down on them.

The back of her neck between the part in her braids got sun for the first time in an hour. She tucked her chin down, to expose more of her neck to the glorious warmth.

A boot scuffed the pavement at the entrance gates.

She jerked up, swinging her legs off the bench. But it was only David. He dumped a saddle and bridle just inside the gate and walked over to her, pulling grass out of his hair.

"You were out riding. What happened?"

He rubbed one shoulder. "Damned horse threw me. It got startled. The dome came down."

"I didn't hear—"

"It wasn't the noise. It was the flash when the field was shut off. You didn't notice it?"

"I had my eyes closed." She bounced up to her feet. "But that means the dry season's here, just like Genji promised when she made us put those weird membranes on. Now we can go live somewhere else."

"You don't like it here?"

She shrugged, unwilling to admit to him that the ruined caravansary still made her nervous. She never went there alone.

"You're sure, Yana, that you don't want to go . .."

"Home?"

"Back to Earth."

"No. I like it here, really."

"Even after two months alone? It's pretty quiet."

"Don't you like it?"

"I don't mind it, Yana, but it's generally accepted that adults can adapt to many circumstances for a finite period of time. Meditative retreats are considered beneficial to mental and physical health, after all. But you're still young—"

"As you keep reminding me," she snapped, irritated by his avuncular meddling. "I like it here just fine, thank you! It's nice to be alone for a while. And anyway, Genji says she's working on Duke Naroshi to invite Augustus Gopal here, to dance, so then my friend Kori could come visit."

"Ah. That would be nice for you."

Ilyana rolled her eyes, grabbed her slate, and stalked outside. She had been a little nervous, two months ago when the company had finally packed everything up and left, about staying alone here with just David. She wasn't quite sure about what, what there was to be nervous about, or if it was something about David or something about her, but that had changed. She liked David—well, in some ways she really loved him, because he showed her more attention and affection than her parents ever had. But really, he was positively becoming as tiresome as a parent, constant questions and worrying about her and wanting to know every least thing Genji said to her during their visits and if she was going out when she was coming back. It went on and on and on, so that even though there were only two of them here— just two humans, that is—sometimes she felt crowded.

Tucking her slate in her belt, she hoisted up her saddle and saddlebags and went out to the horses.

She rode Sosha past the burnt circle of ground that was all that was left of Valentin's pyre and kept going, all the way to the rose wall and through the gate that opened for her. Armed now with a kind of a second skin, an invisible membrane that did something with the air, filtered it somehow, she forged forward, unafraid. Naroshi's palace was huge, and she and David were just beginning to mark out a basic map of it. But some routes she knew quite well.

Naroshi's palace lived in a jungle. The wet season lasted for five months, and the dry for six, more or less, according to human measures of time calculated by Genji. But these "monsoons" dropped as much as sixty feet of rain in a season, which was why Naroshi had had his steward Roki erect the dome, knowing that the humans were adapted to what Genji called a "savannah" climate.

The vegetation steamed under the sun, still drying out. The smells came so thick that they almost choked her. Animals writhed through the undergrowth, but she didn't look closely, just stayed on the path. There were more birds than she had ever seen and trees a hundred meters high, slim towers piercing toward the great rings of the planet above. The sun stood at its apex, so that she and Sosha cast a lumpy shadow that moved along on the packed earth path beneath the horse's hooves.

After about an hour, taking two right forks and one left, Ilyana came to Genji's cottage. Genji sat on a bench grown out of the limb of a tree, one hand held to the bark as if she was listening to something. Seeing Ilyana, she stood.

"Your cousin, the prince of Sakhalin, approaches this palace," said Genji calmly.

At once the equanimity Ilyana had gained on her ride was overthrown.

To hide her flush, her suddenly shaking hands, Ilyana turned aside and hobbled Sosha near a pool of water surrounded by grasses. This mundane chore settled her. Was she really so self-centered that she would think that Anatoly Sakhalin was coming to Naroshi's planet to visit her? Probably, if everything she had heard was true, he had to negotiate with Naroshi about the disposition of the territories, Earth and the League, that had once belonged to Naroshi and had now come into the possession of Sakhalin. She gave Sosha a final pat and walked over to Genji.

"We will go to the palace of memory," said Genji, having evidently dismissed the specter of Anatoly Sakhalin. Ilyana vowed to do the same. "One of the attendants will take the horse back."

Genji's skin gleamed in the sun, faintly iridescent, the pearllike surface shot through with color in its depths. "Today we will begin to discuss the art of building."

They went in a barge, open now to the air. Ilyana hung on the railing and watched the palace skim past beneath them. The air streamed around her face, whipping her braids back into the wind. The whole palace seemed to steam, releasing months of rain toward the sun. It was beautiful.

"Will we start with tension and compression?" Ilyana asked when the barge floated down in front of the palace of memory and she could talk.

Genji alighted on the steps and waited for her. "My child, any building must start with the foundation."

Abashed because she hadn't thought of what was so patently obvious, Ilyana followed her inside without another word.

"The hall of building and the hall of time wrap around each other as in a maze," said Genji, "being necessarily intricately intertwined."

They came to a branching in the hall, and Ilyana stared to her right, where a hall receded into dim shadows. She saw the statue, lost in gloom, that stood in the center of that hall: She knew it, as a tingling on her skin. It was Shiva. He was waiting for her.

Shaking off her disquiet—or was it anticipation?—she followed Genji straight through the intersection. A pylon fronted this hall, painted with inscriptions and human figures. A statue of ibis-headed Thoth, holding a staff and an ankh, seemed to watch them as they went by. Passing through the pylon, Ilyana realized that they were in an undersized model of Karnak.

"We will begin in Egypt," said Genji, leading Ilyana forward to an altar presided over by a female figure carved into the stone. So this was not a precise model of Karnak, Ilyana thought, but a fantasia built on the theme of the old temple at Karnak. "Here is an altar dedicated to the goddess Seshat, the Lady of builders, of writing, and of the House of Books."

Ilyana peered at the statue. The shaded chamber muted the painted stone, a clay red dress, a headdress, the tools of her trade: a measuring stick, a square, and a triangle. At her feet lay coiled rope tied in knots at intervals. Ilyana got that nervous feeling again, as if at any moment the statue might come alive. She no longer trusted the creatures in Genji's hall. If Genji "grew" them, might they not be alive in a way that wasn't quite like a biological being?

Genji pulled a batch of scrolls, bound together by a string, out from a niche in the stone. "The legendary Imhotep was said to be the author of The Book of Foundation for Temples, and it is here we should start. With rock, with soils, with stability. With soil bearing capacity, soil properties, permeability and shear strength. Footing types."

But Ilyana was still staring around the chamber. The pillars were carved to look like flowers, or like bunches of reeds, painted in flat reds and greens and blues. "How come you have all this Earth stuff here? I mean, I always wanted to ask, but it didn't seem polite."

" 'I had access to all the writings of the prophets; there was nothing which I did not know of that which had happened since the beginning.' "

"What does that mean?" Ilyana reached out and, tentatively, touched the statue of Seshat. The goddess stared at her, sloe-eyed, her eyes outlined in heavy black; she wore a necklace and multicolored bands on her arms. She did not move. She felt as solid and quiescent as stone. "How do you know so much about Earth?"

"I became acquainted with daiga—with humans—when Third Brother was alive."

"Who is Third Brother?"

"His name is no longer spoken within the Empire. It is true that he transgressed the boundaries. I am sorry for his passing. I planted towers in his memory before I brought Fourth Brother out of the nidus."

"But that still doesn't tell me who he is. I mean, was."

"My brother discovered the planet which you call Earth."

"But it was the famous Chapalii traitor called the Tai-en Mushai who supposedly discovered Earth.

That's why there're humans on Rhui. He transported some there during the Stone Age. Or at least, that's what I was taught."

"Yes." Genji slipped the string off the scrolls. A bit of dust came with it, and Genji used her sleeve to brush off one of the scrolls. The dust was so thick that it was caked on the papyrus, but none stuck to the sleeve of Genji's robe, and as soon as it drifted to the floor, a tiny, humming creature glided out from the walls and ate it up, disappearing back into a tiny niche at the base of the wall.

"Oh, you have dust-eaters, too," said Ilyana. "I figured you did, but I never saw any before." Then, as if it had taken that long to sink in, she registered Genji's reply. She swallowed. "Do you mean it?"

Gods, what David would say when she told him! "But Naroshi is your brother, too."

"He is Sixth Brother. I confess that after Third Brother brought daiga to me, I became fond of them and learned what I could, studied, was not displeased when the emperor reabsorbed daiga territories because then I could study in earnest. It has become a bit of a project of mine. We each of us have projects. I am something of a renegade among females, interesting myself to a small extent in the activities of the males, of the empire. I pulled ... strings, you might say, so that Sixth Brother would receive the daiga holdings in his time. Now they are taken from him."

"Uh, does that make you angry?"

"Angry? What does this mean?" She had moved under a well of light sinking down through an opening in the roof above. This close to her, Ilyana looked into her eyes and was puzzled to see that they looked flat. Genji did not have eyeballs. " 'A feeling of extreme displeasure, hostility, indignation, or exasperation toward someone or something.' No, that does not make me angry. Should it?"

"I guess only if you're human, or if you wanted to be emperor."

Genji was amused. She turned to look down the axis of Karnak; had to turn her whole head to change her angle of vision, Ilyana realized now, because she could not roll her eyes in her head. "I am a builder. I have told you this before. I am training you, Ilyana Arkhanov, in the art of building." She lifted a hand to encompass with an economical gesture the whole of the hall. "In the time of the Egyptians, after the master builder had completed the design she would transfer the design of the building onto the site. This was done with the plan net." She blinked, and beneath Ilyana's feet a grid appeared, knotted at intervals like the rope coiled at Seshat's feet. "The ground was staked and a cord stretched between the stakes to delineate the outline of the building, to mark the formative axis."

"It looks like a grid. It looks like the grid in nesh, the one I always come through."

"The empire itself is a plan net, staked out and growing. So are the daiga. Third Brother discovered them, although to be fair I will say that the daiga discovered themselves. Now they emerge onto the web of the empire, by his rash action, by my wish to see what may come of this new building."

Genji turned and began to walk on down the axis of Karnak, toward the next hall ... whatever it might contain. Ilyana hastened to follow her, the rustling of Genji's robes like a beckoning whisper: come see, come see.

"I have set a new edifice in motion," said Genji without turning back to look at Ilyana. Her voice sank into the stone, muted by the frozen reliefs, circling round pillars, and yet the very closed nature of the chamber amplified the precise, clipped utterance of each syllable. "I have prepared the foundation with care, making sure it is solidly grounded. Now I will watch and see what grows."

Anatoly was truly annoyed to find the caravansary empty except for David, who had evidently been dozing on his cot.

"I didn't expect you," said David with his usual placidity. "You didn't send word you were coming."

"I came to see-—" He rethought his tactics quickly. "To see Duke Naroshi. You're not all alone here, are you?" Better not to mention her name out loud, or David might grow suspicious.

Nevertheless, Anatoly fingered the hilt of his saber, caught himself doing it, and withdrew his hand and hooked a thumb in his belt.

"Right now I am. Yana ran off again, as she's always doing. She's turning into a damned jaydee ...

but she's all right," he added quickly. "She's just feeling her way now that her circumstances have changed so much."

"In what way?"

"You didn't hear?" David finally deigned to get up and walk out of his dark room, into the sunny courtyard. "Her mother threw her out, not just threw her but disowned her, I guess."

Two emotions hit Anatoly simultaneously: disgust and exhilaration. "That's terrible," he said, even as he thought, she would now want a new family to replace the old one. Surely the gods had meant this all along. Why, ever since he had conceived of this idea three months ago, he had barely thought about Diana more than three or four times a day, or when he was with Portia, or was being forced to read the latest draft of the accord that would protect the rights of each parent and bind them to their responsibilities in relation to the upbringing of the child.

"Sit down," said David. "You look hot. I discovered a cache of great old wine in the catacombs. I'll pour you a glass."

"No, thank you," said Anatoly curtly, but he did not move away immediately. He liked David, for one, and for another, the other man might inadvertently grant him more information about Ilyana that could prove useful: Such as where to find her.

David tucked his feet up under himself on a bench and looked guilelessly up at Anatoly. "So what's it like? I hear the emperor made you a prince? Met any Chapalii princes yet? I hear you made record time to Chapal and back, and that you got all kinds of transport information and that you agreed to let Charles stay in control of Rhui, for now, and that you've been cooling your heels on the Gray Raven for the last couple of months and gathering information and scouting out a site for a central—well, a palace, I'd guess you'd say."

"I was thinking of Mongolia, or Dzungaria. You're well informed."

"I have to be. As do you. What will you do after you've met with Duke Naroshi?"

Anatoly flushed abruptly. Irritated with himself, he spun and walked over to the gazebo. The latticework was shattered at the base; that he had heard about. "Do you have any suggestions?" he asked, to cover his discomfiture.

"More questions than suggestions. I wish you'd let me know you were coming; I'd have prepared a specific list." He sounded aggrieved.

"I can stay for nine or ten days," replied Anatoly ingenuously, planning already where he would go into seclusion for the traditional nine days; in the catacombs, perhaps. He did not want to stay anywhere near the room he had shared with Diana. It might remind him of her. Of course he had no tent. "My grandmother died," he said abruptly, sitting down on the bench beside David. "I got the news when I was at Odys." How soon would his sister Shura receive his message? Would she come to him? "Perhaps I will have some of that wine."

"I'm sorry," said David.

Duke Naroshi arrived while David was fetching the wine.

Anatoly heard a craft approaching, but he did not stir from the bench. He was learning things about these Chapalii: Let the lower ranks come to you, unless you want something urgently, in which case you could go wherever you damned well pleased, as long as your path did not take you into direct contact with another prince.

David came in with the bottle just as Naroshi entered the courtyard and knelt before Anatoly.

Anatoly felt more than saw David stop, waiting about ten paces behind and to his right. He could almost smell the faint scent of wine in the dry air. Two glasses chimed softly together.

"Duke Naroshi," said Anatoly, acknowledging him.

"Your grace. I am honored by your presence."

Anatoly examined the Chapalii duke in the harsh light of the afternoon sun. His eyes were quite large, the most prominent feature in his face. A hood covered most of his head and his robes draped him from neck to toe, but Anatoly caught a brief glimpse of dark slits along his neck, like those he had seen on the Teardrop Prince. Only the skin on his face revealed anything of him, and he remained pale, controlling himself. His mouth remained fixed, except when words emerged.

When Anatoly did not reply at once, Naroshi went on. "I assure you that I am proceeding with all due haste in removing my retainers from Earth and the other daiga territories, from Sira, Ophiuchi-Sei, Eridanaia, Hydra, In-tali-kono-ah, and Small Rings. From Concord. From all stations and interstitial colonies."

Anatoly glanced back at David, wanting to ask: And what the hell am I going to replace them all with? Instead, he set his hands on his thighs and leaned forward toward Naroshi. "I want to see your sister Genji."

A hint of red stained Naroshi's skin, but faded before Anatoly could be sure he had seen it. Was Naroshi amused about something? "I beg your pardon, your grace," the duke said in his colorless voice. "Not even a prince of the realm may enter those halls, nor summon a female. Please accept a thousand thousand apologies from my mouth, that I may not obey your wish in this."

"I will go see her, then."

Naroshi bowed his head a little lower, as if to signify that this, too, was forbidden.

"Damn it! I have to see her." Forcing himself to calm down, he regarded Naroshi coolly. He must not get angry at Naroshi. That would be not so much bad manners as poor governance.

"Perhaps I may convey a message to her, your grace."

"All right, then. Perhaps you know the answer. I believe your sister has been watching me while I travel, watching me while the ship I travel on is within the singularities, the windows. Can this be?"

"Ships are not the only vehicles for traveling on the great web, your grace, although most creatures are limited to this mode."

One of the glasses shattered on the paving stones. "Oh, shit," muttered David.

Stunned, Anatoly finally winched himself around to see David staring gape-mouthed at the Chapalii duke. Shards of glass lay strewn around his boots, slivers winking in the sunlight. "Well," said Anatoly, looking back to Naroshi, "so Genji can somehow travel along or through the singularities without leaving this moon?"

"It is a female mystery, your grace. Only those who know the secrets of the deeper tongue can travel the web."

"Are allowed to, or are capable of?" David murmured.

"And of those who know the deeper tongue, only the builders can fathom the net."

"If your sister Genji has taken Ilyana Arkhanov on as some kind of apprentice, then does that mean she will teach Ilyana to, uh, fathom the net?"

"I beg your pardon, your grace. Although you are elevated above all but the other Yao by the Yaochalii himself, yet you and the others of your kind are still daiga. Animals are bound to the physical world. Is it not true that you can see only in the realm of what you call visible light, except with the aid of your brittle tools? As for the rest, you must ask this of your cousin yourself. She is not of my house, therefore I may not speak to her." Naroshi lifted his head. "Unless you seek to give her into my house by marrying her to me."

David hissed a sudden breath in through his teeth.

Anatoly shuddered, looking at this alien creature. But surely Naroshi had no ... sexual designs on Ilyana. To him, surely, she would simply represent a powerful alliance with another princely house, a triumph for his house, for his prince. Who was, of course, the Teardrop Prince. Who had already stated his enmity toward Anatoly and his tribe.

"No," said Anatoly. "No. I think not. But I would like to see her, if you know where she is, if she is with your sister."

Naroshi waited for a moment. His gaze strayed to the broken latticework and back to Anatoly. "I am sure that my sister is already aware of your presence here. Is there more, your grace? Another way I might serve you?"

"No. You are free to go."

When he had gone, and his craft sailed off into the late afternoon sky, David sat down and laughed weakly. "Oh, Goddess, I don't know what gave me a worse turn, finding out that Genji can maybe travel through the singularities on her own, or the thought of Ilyana being married to that chameleon.

Oh, Lady. Even if it was a nice Earth boy, it would not be what the poor child needs right now.

Getting married, I mean. But I just could not reconcile that cold fish Naroshi with an ardent bridegroom having lascivious thoughts about his young bride. Like Himalaya's daughter, who was so beautiful that Shiva was tempted to love her divine body for a thousand years.

Then Anatoly made his first mistake. Surprised by David's babbling, he looked him right in the eye.

David was no fool. Nor was human nature any mystery to him. He jumped back to his feet, wine bottle and remaining glass hanging limply from his left hand. "Don't you dare! She doesn't need that.

She's too young."

Anatoly bristled. "Staking out your ground?"

"She's sixteen years old! She's a child."

"My grandmother was married at—"

"And her mother Karolla had had a child by the time she was sixteen or seventeen, yeah yeah, I've heard it all before. But this isn't the jaran, in case you need reminding."

"I can do what I want."

"What the hell am I talking about?" said David suddenly, setting the bottle and glass down on the bench. "This isn't truly about Ilyana, is it, however attractive she certainly is? This is about Diana. For which I am very sorry, Anatoly."

"I don't want your pity!"

Anatoly whirled and ran out of the gate. He went out to the horses, but Little Sosha was gone, and he had left his saddle on the yacht in any case, in his haste to come downside. Swearing under his breath, he began to walk across the grass toward the ruined caravansary, the only place he could brood in peace. Shadows lengthened around him. By the road, the night-flowers began to open, their scent mingling with the smell of grass and an odd flavor in the air, one that hadn't been here before.

Looking up, he realized that the air above no longer wore the faint shimmer that betrayed the presence of the dome. So many things he had failed to notice, in his haste to come downside. Insects buzzed. A horse neighed, calling out, and he turned to see Little Sosha, at a distance, galloping toward the herd.

Behind her came a barge. He waited.

As he knew it would, it halted before him and Ilyana walked hesitantly down the ramp. She stopped in front of him, cocking her head to one side. Then she blushed and with an effort did not look away from him. He had forgotten how beautiful she was.

He drew his saber.

She paled and took a step back, one foot coming solidly down on the ramp. The barge did not move, floating in the air, ready to receive her.

"Don't," she said. That was all.

"Oh, gods," said Anatoly, and shut his eyes. While they were shut, he sheathed his saber. When he opened them, she still stood there. She was still beautiful. She was so young, and yet not young, having been marked by death and exile. "You have to marry," he said finally.

"Oh, gods!" She rolled her eyes and grimaced, no longer shy of him. He could see himself transforming in her eyes into another meddling adult. "I don't have to marry. I don't have to take a lover unless I want to. And I'm sorry about the flower night, but you know that my mother lied about it. Not that I wouldn't have picked you under other circumstances—" But that was too much. She faltered, collected herself, and glanced toward the distant caravansary, as if willing David to come to her rescue.

Anatoly realized that he was jealous of David. But that was a morass he did not want to step into, yet.

"I'm sorry about Diana," she said finally. "I feel really bad for you. I know you ... loved her."

He looked away, unable to endure her sympathy.

"But ... I was thinking, about Evdi. Maybe Evdi could be with Portia. Maybe there could be some kind of arrangement, with ... Evdi's parents, that she could be fostered out. I think it would be better for her, and I bet Portia would like it."

"It's a good idea," he said without looking at her. "I'll see."

"And Anton," she pressed. "Maybe Hyacinth and Yevgeni could foster him for a while."

"Yes," he said automatically, thinking it was a good idea before recalling that he ought not to approve. But he did approve. "Do you like it here, Yana?"

She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Genji told me something really strange today, but interesting. It's true you're a prince, isn't it? I mean that the emperor said you were one."

"It is true that he has acknowledged that I am a prince of the Sakhalin. What did Genji tell you?"

"Well." He heard her feet rustle in the grass as, gaining confidence, she stepped off the ramp again.

"She said that the empire is like a grid, all staked out and growing to fill the lines, the ... space, I mean the grid that's already staked out. I'm not quite sure what she meant, except she talked about the net, it's like the grid in nesh. Does it make any sense to you?"

Anatoly clenched his hands. A slow smile spread onto his face. "Yes, it does. A bit of sense. It'll make more sense to others. What if she's talking about the transport system, the singularities? That would imply that the Chapalii constructed, or created, the singularities themselves, that they've already sown them, staked out the net, and now the empire is just growing to fill it. Except how far does it extend?"

"I dunno. Genji says the Mushai was her brother, one of her brothers, I mean. He was an earlier brother than Naroshi."

"But according to what we understand of Chapalii history, the Tai-en Mushai's line was made extinct."

"That's what she said. She made it sound like there were other brothers between the Mushai and Naroshi. Like she only has one at a time, like she controls when they appear, or something."

"You must ask her further about this."

"I know."

Struck by the confidence in her voice, he almost laughed. Here she spilled this vital intelligence, information that even he couldn't get, that generations of civilized khaja had not discovered, and there she stood, not truly a woman yet by jaran custom but old enough to be a woman, once she chose to cross over. He studied her, although it was not quite good manners to do so. She folded her arms over her chest and regarded him in her turn, steadily. Any man would be honored to be chosen on her flower night.

But Anatoly had a damned good idea, at this moment, that he wouldn't be the one.

"Are you truly happy here?" he asked instead. "I can take you somewhere else, see that other arrangements are made...."

She threw up her hands in disgust. "None of you want to believe me. I am happy here. I'm where I belong. When it's time for me to leave, I'll go, to wherever I need to go next, but this is where I need to be right now."

"Then I will leave you, Cousin," he said, inclining his head toward her as a man does toward a woman, to show his respect, "although I hope you will give me a full accounting of all that you have learned, all that you do learn, from Genji. You are our only window into her world."

"I know, and I understand."

So he left her and walked back, alone, to the caravansary.

"What will you do now?" asked David, kindly not alluding to whatever may have happened between Anatoly and Ilyana, out on the grass.

Anatoly allowed himself a few moments just to bask in the sunlight. It almost warmed him, but he felt perpetually cold these days, except when he had Portia by him. He shut his eyes and tried not to think about Diana, but failed. So he opened them and caught David watching him, with compassion on his face.

"I don't know," he admitted finally, because he had to admit it to someone. David was loyal to Charles Soerensen; Anatoly knew that. Yet David was more than that: David was simply David, a human being who was capable of caring and of understanding and of just plain listening. "I thought I knew. I thought I comprehended the worlds. It's like seeing the lay of the ground through a mist, and then having the mist lift and none of the landmarks are what you thought you knew. Suddenly you're lost, when you thought you knew the path."

"I don't envy you your position, Anatoly. Some may. That's the way of the world, that's the way of human nature. But unless you succumb to the easy road, to the abuse of power, you're not going to have an easy time of it."

"It's not that, so much. I am a—"

"—prince of the Sakhalin, yes, born and bred to power." But he said it with a laugh.

Anatoly tried to grin but could not. "It's that I just ... can't ... understand why Diana—" Here his voice broke, and he could not go on.

David put a hand on his arm, companionable. "Have some wine. Hell, forget the wine. I've got some Martian whiskey. Let's get drunk."

So they did.

Once the shock of the dry season wore off, Ilyana discovered she was tired of it. She missed the novelty of the rain. She and David went looking for a new place to live, but in the end they decided to stay in the caravansary. It had room for visitors, and it was the most humanlike structure that they found, except for Genji's monumental halls.

Ilyana studied, and rode, and visited Genji. David did whatever adults did when they were on retreat, and he faithfully transcribed her reports, asked her probing questions about what she had seen and talked about, explained a few things she had missed or misinterpreted, and sent coded messages up into the heavens to Charles Soerensen's—no, to Prince Anatoly's agents.

Ilyana did not visit the ruined caravansary, but she still dreamed about Shiva, dreamed of him dancing, dreamed of the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, dreamed the grace and power of his body. And woke up, sitting bolt upright, his sash twined around her body and her heart beating hard, sure that someone had been in her room, was in her room, but no one ever was.

But when she didn't dream about him, she woke up disappointed.

"You must learn to draw and measure," said Genji.

So David came upon her one day while she sat cross-legged on the road a hundred meters away from the caravansary. Flowers bloomed on either side of her. Their scent filled the air. Beyond them, the horses grazed. Sosha nipped at another mare, and there was a flurry as they settled back into place. Insects buzzed. Birds had flown in from the jungle and combed the grassy verge for bugs.

David crouched down beside her. She had a board across her knees for the paper to rest on, and a pencil gripped in her right hand. She frowned at the sketch.

David cleared his throat. "What is it?"

She grimaced. "It's supposed to be an elevation. You know, an image of the standing facade except I thought I'd start with something I could draw from life. Genji says I need to learn how to draw, and the Roman architect Vitruvius says that an architect must be 'skillfull with the pencil' and a bunch of other things, too, like astronomy and law and medicine and music and obviously mathematics, so I thought ..."

"Uh. Do you mind? I have some skill at drawing, and, uh—"

"It's terrible, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. If you're going to learn to draft, you'll have to start with the basics. But you're right to start with pencil and paper. We'll go the modeller once you've got a handle on this technique."

So they worked. After a bit, Ilyana paused and looked at him.

"I want to use your nesh, to see if Valentin ..."

"Ilyana, Valentin isn’t in nesh anymore. Please understand that. He's dead. His neshamah, his soul, hasn't somehow gone to a higher plane where it has found immortality."

"I thought you believed in a god."

"I believe in the divinity of the spirit, Yana, but not in the immortality of the individual soul."

"I have to do it, David. I ride past the ashes of his pyre every day. I have to find out for myself."

"I'll come with you, then."

"I'd like to go alone. You know that I'm aware of the dangers. I'm not at risk. Of course you'll monitor me."

Because there was no reasonable objection, he let her hook up to his nesh unit that evening.

She walks the web of light that Genji walks at will. But she turns away from the strand that leads into the hall of memory. She knows where her lost brother has fled.

The great desert is still today. The sun bakes the sand into a hard surface, as hard as stone and yet under her bare feet it cools, because all that is Valentin, all that made it Valentin's, seeps away without his soul to animate it. Except that can't be. He has made it, but it remains as he made it. She is the one draining it of life, of his life.

The sand grows hot under her feet so that she has to dance, hopping from one foot to the next. She waits for the storm. It comes, wailing down from the northeast, and she forges through it as through a funnel, pulling her in toward the crack of unwavering light that is the other land.

She feels the hot breath of a summer wind and throws herself through, and she is out on a golden plain, flying above it. She is an eagle. She soars above the plain, seeking, searching, and at last with her eagle's sight she sees the tribe three days' ride away.

Her shadow covers the ground below, like the wind moving over the grasses, and she flies over the line of march, jahar riders in front and archers behind, surrounding the carts that carry the children and the old people. There is her uncle, Anton, and there are men dressed in the surcoats of Bakhtiian's guard. Her aunt Arina drives a cart, and Ilyana swoops down toward her, toward the thin boy who sits beside Arina on the cart.

It is Valentin.

She lands on the wagon, perching on the rim, and she shrieks, crying to him.

"A spirit," says Nikolai Sibirin, who rides beside the wagon.

But Valentin is a Singer. He sees with a Singer's eyes. "It is Ilyana," he says to the others, and then to her, he speaks: "This is where I belong."

She cries, an eagle's call, and he smiles at her, a Valentin smile, full of impish humor and intelligence and a trace of the old sullenness, he is not free of that yet, but most of all, he looks content. He is where he belongs. As is she.

"I love you," he adds, "but I think we are going where even you can't follow."

"I'll find you," she says in her eagle's voice, "I love you, Valentin." But the cart hits a bump and jounces her off and she throws herself into the air and currents draw her upward, up and farther up. Valentin raises a hand in farewell. She circles the tribe once, but she knows that he is right. She can't follow them, not truly. They have their own destination.

The wind pulls her backward, and she gives up fighting it as the tribe recedes into the golden ocean of the plain, lost at last to her sight. The plain is swallowed up into a single grain of sand in the desert, and she walks backward, onto the web of light, and goes home.

David said nothing. He just smiled at her fondly, sadly.

Ilyana tucked away the nesh sponge, putting everything back in its place. She wiped one tear from her right eye and got to her feet and walked outside. The planet and the sun set together, their conjoined light a rich glow on the flower beds.

She took in a deep breath, letting the sharp sweetness of the flowers sink into her lungs. It was time to raise her own tent, to follow the path that opened out from her feet. It was time to begin her new life.

She rose before the dawn and came to him with flowers in offering, where he stood at the center of the universe, which is said by some to be the human heart. In the myths, Shiva dances at critical moments: in madness, on the battlefield, before his marriage. But in life, every moment can be said to be critical; all is revealed and concealed, created, maintained, and destroyed in the great dance of time.

Ilyana laid the flowers at his feet.

Shiva said nothing, standing with one foot on the back of the demon of forgetfulness, with the other foot poised in the air, his arms as graceful as any dancer's, muscled, strong, and sensuous. Nor did he look at her, or acknowledge the gift or the gesture. Fear not. He was just a statue, after all.

But she felt a breath of wind, disturbing the cloistered silence of the hall, and though she did not move, that breath stirred the sash that she held in her hands.