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  Remarr shrugged. "It's all right. I didn't realize you were friends with Khehaddi Ontarr. I respect her—she thinks with more than her blade."

  Fierce enthusiasm animated Vihena's face. "Khehaddi's wonderful. She taught me everything I know, but even more than that, she took me seriously when no one else would. You can't imagine how important that was for me. It made life bearable." She sighed, shaking her head a little sadly. "Mother has always maintained that I could find a husband by learning to make myself indispensable, but I couldn't do it. I could never even pretend interest in household things. The Khedathi fascinated me: the way the women walk about as free as men, able to do what they want. And the swordplay is so beautiful—like dance, only deadly. I used to loiter near the barracks and the training grounds whenever I could. For the most part the Khedathi ignored me; a few taunted me. But Khehaddi noticed me, and she listened to me. And then she agreed to teach me the Discipline."

  Zan's gaze crossed Remarr's, and they shared a rueful smile, each recognizing the envy in the other's face.

  "In some ways I'm closer to Khehaddi than to my own family. She understands me—who I really am, not who I ought to be—better than I understand myself sometimes. And she cares about me." Her eyes softened with memory. "She told me once that she would be proud to claim me for a daughter." She smiled. "I guess that sounds maudlin, but you can't imagine how important it was at the time."

  "I can," Zan said softly, her voice catching on tears. "I wish my father had said such a thing even once." Memory flashed bitter, then poignant: her father's face, abstracted, a fountain pen pushed up against his teeth. She realized how much it hurt her to know that now he would never look up from his work, find her eyes, and say the words she longed to hear.

  "I envy you, Vihena," Remarr said, "as mean-spirited as that sounds. Khehaddi is a mentor anyone would be proud to have."

  They lapsed into a companionable silence until Ychass and the twins woke, a short time later, and they all prepared to move on.

  For several days after that, everything went smoothly. As Remarr had explained, this was the easiest leg of the journey. The springs were fairly close together, and water was not a pressing problem. Though a couple of the springs beside which they camped were very low, none was actually dry. At one of their campsites, Remarr managed to snare a small desert animal called a nihekh, which looked a little like a prairie dog, and they had a warm meal that afternoon for the first time. The stew Remarr made was tasty, and they ate every bit of it.

  It was a peaceful time, especially late in the day, after everyone had slept and before they were ready to set off on their evening's hike. Remarr and Vihena made rapid progress with the twins' hand-language, and often Remarr sang for them or told them a story. Even the shapeshifter seemed to enjoy the stories, though she didn't much care for the singing. Zan began to relax; she began to believe that the patrols had given up looking for them, and as they never saw anyone, even from a distance, it became easy—fatally easy—to believe themselves the only people in the dry lands.

  One afternoon, as they sat in the long shadow cast by the tent, Remarr looked up from tuning his harp. "Do your people sing, 'Tsan?"

  Zan thought briefly of hard rock and grimaced. "Sometimes."

  "Teach me one of their songs."

  She blinked, at a loss. But she could see his eagerness, so she racked her brain for something suitable. "Well," she said finally, "I could teach you a—a—" She settled on the English word. "Round. The words are easy, they just repeat over and over. Dona nobis pacem. It means 'give us peace.'" He repeated the words, struggling a little over the -cem. Vihena moved a little closer. "May I learn, too?"

  Karivet also wanted to be taught, and soon they were engrossed. Remarr was amazingly quick, Karivet had a pleasant voice and a good ear, but Vihena was the real surprise. She had a rich contralto voice, well trained. Remarr raised his eyebrows at her, and to Zan's surprise she blushed.

  "You've studied singing," he said.

  She nodded unhappily. "I couldn't even do that right. My voice is too low for a woman."

  "It's unusual," he told her.

  "It's beautiful!" Zan exclaimed. "It would make your fortune in the land of my birth. But never mind. There are three parts to this song; here's the second."

  In a short time they were all singing. The sound floated out, lovely though strangely out of place in the vastness of the desert. Remarr picked up his harp and began playing along with them. When they tired of singing, he played on alone, improvising on the simple tunes and harmonies Zan had given him. Finally even the harp's voice succumbed to the silence. Remarr set his harp aside, then met Zan's eyes and smiled.

  "Tomorrow you can teach us another song, if you will."

  "I shouldn't think, Outcast, you'll be needing any more songs," a new voice said, "unless they sing in the Shadow Lands."

  Remarr turned his head, then froze as he found the point of a sword in his face. His gaze traveled up the length of steel to the brown hand that held it, then to the cold eyes of the veiled Khedatheh who held it.

  "Get up. Meet your death on your feet."

  "I am unarmed," he said quietly.

  "Do you think that will save you? You are Outcast!"

  As he started to get to his feet, Vihena leapt up, her sword whispering from its sheath. "He may be unarmed, but I'm not." Her blade knocked the other aside with a metallic ring. Remarr rolled backward out of reach and got up.

  The Khedatheh faced Vihena. "Do you challenge me for an Outcast? You cannot hope to save him—his life is forfeit. Put up your blade or it will go hard with you."

  Vihena did not answer, merely remained standing with her blade at the ready. The Khedatheh whistled shrilly and other Khedathi rose out of the dunes and approached, waiting beyond the edge of the camp.

  "Yield him to us," the Khedatheh said, "and we will allow you to go your way."

  Zan rose, pushing back her hood so that her red hair blazed against her white robe. "If you take him from us, you have killed us all, for we do not know the desert."

  The Khedatheh's eyes widened, and Zan heard her thoughts clearly. Curse it! Now that the others have seen, I can't let them go. "You are Outlanders! What are you doing in the dry lands?" There was outrage in her tone.

  "We travel to Windsmeet to ask a boon of the gods," Zan said, more calmly than she felt.

  The woman stared at her, and Zan was hard put not to flinch at the force of her reaction. Windsmeet! And with my cowardly son? No! It cannot be true. She rounded on Vihena. "Is that true?"

  "Yes."

  The woman's eyes narrowed suddenly. "I have never seen a Khedatheh with gray eyes. Who are you?"

  Vihena put back her own hood, without lowering her sword. "I am Vihena Moirre."

  "Vematheh!" The Khedatheh spoke as though the word soiled her mouth. "Since when have the pampered women of the merchants taken up arms?"

  Vihena's smile was mirthless. "Not all of them—only me. My father says I am one of the gods' jokes, since I was born on the Feast of the Trickster."

  The intensity of the mental reactions to that statement made both Ychass and Zan wince, and Iobeh buried her face in her hands. Gods! Gods! It was the Khedatheh and Remarr both; they had the same stricken look on their faces. Then thoughts began tumbling about furiously. Out of this intense jumble, one stream of thought prevailed, the Khedatheh's. I've said it; I never believed it; but oh, merciless gods, it's true! Changelings! They're both changelings.

  The Khedatheh sheathed her sword and made the welcoming gesture. Vihena returned it, bafflement clear on her face and in her mind.

  "My name is Emirri of clan Khesst. I am the clan leader. I bid you welcome, foster kin."

  "F-foster kin?" Vihena repeated. "But I don't understand." Clear in her thoughts was amazement. Not even Khehaddi had openly claimed foster kinship with her, though she had come close. That perfect strangers, the Wild Khedathi whom Remarr so feared, would do so was unthinkable.

  God
s! Ychass thought. Hasn't she any more sense than to go questioning a colossal piece of luck like this?

  Emirri shook her head slowly. "Small wonder that you do not. I barely do myself." She gestured with her chin toward Remarr. "He was born also on the Feast of the Trickster—and it would seem the Trickster had her way with you both." She shook her head again. "Is it not true that the City women are meek, that they do no work that could callous their smooth and scented hands? I have never heard of even one who learned the Discipline. Even your own father calls you a joke of the gods. From everything you say, you are as foreign to the clan of your birth as he is to us." She gestured toward Remarr with her chin again. "He would or could not learn the Discipline, but preferred to spend his time with that City toy of his. Here the Discipline is like water: it is part of life. You cannot choose to do without it and survive. He was so strange to us that we could only explain him as a changeling, and finally we cast him out to find his way among the people to whom his spirit belongs. You . . ." She hesitated, meeting Vihena's eyes squarely. "You have the fierce spirit that should have been his, as he has yours, at the will of the wise and inscrutable gods. For this reason, my clan will honor you as kin, and for your sake we will welcome your companions. We will even tolerate the Outcast, since it is through him that you have been made known to us. Give me the names of your friends so that I may present them to my people."

  While Vihena complied, somewhat dazedly, Zan sent her own puzzlement to Ychass. I don't understand. How can this Emirri leap to such a conclusion? They might not even have been born in the same year.

  The Feast of the Trickster comes only once in twenty-one years, Ychass returned. I have heard that the Khedathi are extremely superstitious. This must be an instance of it.

  But would the gods meddle like that? Zan insisted. I mean, mixing two spirits . . .?

  Who knows? The mental shrug was strong. But of them all, the Trickster would be most likely. And this mixing sounds like the sort of thing that would amuse her. She is most unpredictable, and uses her power without principles. That is why her feast comes so seldom. It is all the other gods can do to limit her power.

  Zan shivered. It unnerved her to hear someone thinking of the gods as real and active, as having personalities, even if unpredictable ones. Somehow she had never gotten as far as thinking of the gods as real beings. Even though the purpose of their quest was to achieve the gods' intervention, Zan had somehow managed to shy away from that aspect of it; it was very easy to concentrate on getting to Windsmeet without considering what would happen when they got there.

  Suddenly her musings were cut off, as she found herself being presented to the clan leader and her escort. If the truth be told, she was grateful to be distracted from her thoughts.

  FOURTEEN

  The shuttle hissed through the warp as the treadles thudded under Eikoheh's feet. The Fate grew on the loom, full of the golds and whites of the desert. Ohmiden watched anxiously. There had been a moment when he feared Eikoheh would lose that one strand of vibrant blue, but now she seemed to have it under control. There was strain in the weaver's face as she laid her life in the pattern. It was hard work, Ohmiden knew, and this was worse than most, since there were so many strands and shades to keep sorted. He waited until it seemed Eikoheh had reached a calm place, then he spoke quietly.

  "I've made supper."

  She laid the shuttle aside and brushed her hair out of her face. "How domestic of you," she jibed. "More rabbit stew?"

  "No, chicken. And some fresh spinach. You're working too hard."

  She fixed him with a sharp look. "Whose idea was it that I weave a Fate, anyway? Ohmiden, it's difficult for me. There's more going into it than I understand or can control, and if it gets away from me, I can't imagine what will happen. I can't escape the Fate—even my dreams are full of the desert." She shook her head. "Sometimes I imagine the merciless gods watching me and laughing: 'Look at that old fool of a weaver—she thinks she can weave a Fate with the gods in it.' It was stupid to begin, but it would be disastrous to stop." With a sigh, she got up from the loom and went to her cushions by the hearth. "Gods, I wish I knew whether I am doing the right thing!"

  Ohmiden ladled thick stew into a bowl and handed it to her before he answered. "You will not know that, Eikoheh, until we know whether or not the young ones succeed. You cannot judge the pattern until the cloth is finished."

  "Yes. And when one is weaving Fates, one cannot stop to unravel." She was silent, eating, her face drawn in lines of worry and exhaustion. After a while she looked up at Ohmiden. "Tomorrow I will need three new colors. Will you wind the shuttles for me? I'm bone weary."

  He nodded. "Colors?"

  She shrugged. "You choose them. I can't even see straight, much less think."

  They finished their meal and Eikoheh stumbled off to bed. Ohmiden watched her go, then rose and went to the shelf where Eikoheh kept her yarns. He chose carefully, letting his inner eye, the part that dreamed, influence him. He brought the lamp over and set it beside his cushions before beginning the tedious task of winding yarn onto the wooden shuttles. The lamp had guttered low before he finished.

  ***

  They were welcomed into the clan. It seemed incredible to Zan that this tangle of weird coincidences could be accepted and turned into such an explanation, but it was so. Not only were they accepted, but Emirri and the other clan elders decided to accompany the little band of foreigners through the dry lands to Windsmeet.

  "The deep desert is no place for a clutch of untried youngsters," Emirri told Vihena. "We would be failing our kin duty to you if we allowed you to go off so ill prepared. We will not go onto Windsmeet with you, for it is not laid upon us to tempt the gods, even for kin, but we will see to it that you arrive there, if it is within our power."

  The clan Khesst was a large one, including many people and a good number of clean-limbed, desert-bred horses. Iobeh awed the horsemaster, a grizzled Khedathen named Shokhath, by befriending a notoriously difficult mare. She spent a great deal of time with the animal, but her triumph was complete the day she rode past a crowd of Khedathi on its back. She used neither saddle nor bridle, but guided the mare by the gentle pressure of her hands on either side of the horse's neck. Shokhath spent much of the next few days with Iobeh, trying to fathom the secret of her success. Zan enjoyed watching their "conversations"; Iobeh was very inventive in her efforts to make the man understand her.

  While they traveled with the clan Khesst, Zan noticed that Remarr and Ychass both kept themselves apart. She could understand Ychass' s reasons—Zan could hear the uneasiness and suspicion in the Khedathi's thoughts; they were not comfortable with a shapeshifter in their midst, although they tolerated her for Vihena's sake—but Remarr's attitude puzzled her. It was not that the clan did not trust him; they did not seem to think of him at all. When she tried to ask him about it, he cut her questions off brusquely and began avoiding her as well. So Zan shook her head and watched.

  She saw a great deal. Vihena seemed to be entirely in her element. She had been easily accepted by the younger members of the clan, even to the point of sparring with them in their daily training bouts. Zan also saw that Vihena had taken Karivet under her wing; she and her new friends were teaching him to handle the Khedathi throwing dagger. He showed an aptitude for it that surprised them all.

  Zan herself spent much of her time in the company of Fiorreh, the clan storyteller. Fiorreh was a tiny old woman whose hair was bleached bone white by age and the sun, and whose dark, mischievous eyes were set in a face seamed with wrinkles. She had a wonderful voice, rich and compelling, which seemed completely at odds with her delicate appearance. She was an amusing companion, always with an explanation or an anecdote on her lips. Once Zan asked her if a particularly outrageous story was really true, and Fiorreh laughed.

  "I'm a storyteller, Stranger—I am not bound by the truth. Besides, the explanations I give are so interesting they should be true. And they would be, if the gods had thought
of them."

  One day, when they had been traveling for nearly a week, the clan was overtaken by a group of mounted Khedathi. As Fiorreh watched them approach, she told Zan to fasten the veil she had let fall open.

  "This could be trouble," the old woman said. "They are Tame."

  "How can you tell from this distance?" Zan asked. Fiorreh shrugged. "The horses. They are wearing too much metal to be Wild. Metal is scarce here, Stranger. We use it for swords; we don't waste it on ornaments for animals."

  A few minutes later, the truth of Fiorreh's words was borne out. The head of the patrol dismounted and approached Emirri. "I am Shohandeh of clan Nikhett," the Tame Khedatheh said. "We are looking for foreigners. We have reason to believe they have entered your territory."

  Emirri's answer nearly stopped Zan's heart. "Indeed, there are foreigners in my territory," she said deliberately. "They stand in front of me, Shohandeh of . . . the City." She folded her arms across her chest. "You do not have leave to hunt our lands or to drink our water."

  Shohandeh made a placating gesture. "You do not understand. These foreigners are thieves without honor. There are six of them: two from the forest, small—children; one from the City; one Outcast from the dry lands; one who is of the vile kindred that shifts shape; and one, with hair like fire, from gods alone know where. Have you seen them?"

  "You said they are thieves. What have they stolen?"

  The patrol leader shrugged. "I do not know. Some merchant's thing. Have you seen them?"

  "I will tell you this: besides yourselves, I know of no people in our territory who do not belong here. You and your company do not have leave to hunt our lands or to drink our water. Go hence before we lose our patience."

  "We would count it a tremendous favor, clan leader, if you would permit my people to see the faces of your clan uncovered."