Conal's face settled into a mask of superiority. "The Clans are without an ilKhan during this most important time. The ilKhan is the war leader of all the Clans and is chosen by the Council of Khans as the instrument of their combined will.

He is charged with the duty of fulfilling their mandate. More important, he rules until his replacement or his death to safeguard the Clans from the folly that has destroyed the Successor States."

"That I understand, Loremaster."

"Good, then your tutors have taught you well." Conal gave him a patronizing nod. "All Khans are eligible for election, but before that election can begin, charges against any Khan must be resolved or set aside for later judgement. In this case, we have called you to answer a most serious charge against Khan Ulric of the Wolves."

Phelan's eyes narrowed. No surprise. Cyrilla was right. The battleground has shifted."I vow not to rest until justice in this matter has been done." Phelan saw Ulric nod as his response anticipated the Loremaster's next question.

Conal recovered after only a heartbeat's hesitation. "Very good, very good, indeed. The charge against Ulric is this: that he knowingly engineered the death of the former ilKhan, Leo Showers of the Smoke Jaguars. To your knowledge, is there any truth in this charge?"

The bald-faced affront of the question shocked Phelan. He instantly shook his head with vehemence. "Not only is the charge baseless, I must call it ludicrous as well." He felt his temper rising, but fought to keep it under control.

A Khan from the Steel Viper Clan stood. "But you do not deny that the ilKhan died when Khan Ulric did not?"

"No, of course I do not deny it." Phelan swallowed hard and forced his hands to remain clasped behind his back. "I was there. I was the first person onto the bridge after the Rasalhague fighter hit it. The hull had a hole in it bigger than this dais, and anything that wasn't hitched down had been sucked into space. Debris had ricocheted like shrapnel through the area. That there were any survivors at all was a miracle."

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing heart. "When I found Khan Ulric, he was buried beneath the panels of the holotank. He had blacked out and was unable to leave the bridge without assistance."

A Smoke Jaguar Khan stood up under the banner of his Clan. "Such a state could be feigned."

Phelan's nervousness and disbelief boosted into his anger.

"You can't fake cyanosis. His skin and lips were blue from oxygen deprivation and he came around only after I fitted him with an oxygen mask."

Phelan's ire peaked at Conal's expression of contempt. He drew in a deep breath. "But that is less important than the idiocy of what is suggested by these charges. A fighter slammed into the hull of the ship and breached it. Fifteen meters higher and it would have shattered the bridge bulkhead, purging vast chunks of the ship's atmosphere. If Khan Ulric wanted to use such a risky method to kill the ilKhan, it would have been stupid for him to remain on the ship, quiaff?Why would he endanger the Dire Wolfat all when he could have had a supposed 'sniper' from the Rasalhague resistance troops shoot the ilKhan on the ground?"

The Smoke Jaguar Khan slammed his fist into his marble bench. "I will not be lectured by a freebornwhelp!"

"Show respect!" Conal snapped at Phelan.

Phelan's nostrils flared. "You demand a vow of my ceaseless pursuit of justice, then you seek to hobble me. I submit, Khan, that you would not need a lecture from a freebornwhelp if you had the brains of the average surat!"

The Khan trembled with rage at being compared with a bat-winged monkey native to one of the Clan worlds. He started to sputter, but Phelan gave him no chance to speak. "Face it. This charge is born of the fact that Khan Ulric and his Wolves ripped through one of the most densely populated regions of the Inner Sphere while the rest of you moved at the speed of a stunned snail. And now your spite makes you want to strip the Wolves of their best leadership. Instead, you should be choosing Ulric as your ilKhan. He's the only Khan who accomplished anything in the invasion of the Inner Sphere, and those of you with stravagbrains between your ears should see that."

Conal's eyes blazed. "This is the Council of Khans! You are a visitor here. Watch your language and your tone!"

Phelan folded his arms across his chest. "I mean no disrespect, but I cannot fulfill the oath I have sworn to serve my Khan and the Clans if I do not protest this idiocy, Quiaff?"He turned to face the Khans. "As for my language, Natasha Kerensky once told me, 'Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about.' I might suggest that within this, a warrior society, the same applies to those who fight with politics when what is called for are a warrior's skills."

A number of Khans chuckled heartily at that, but their laughter only made Conal angrier. "This conduct would not be tolerated from one who isa warrior, much less an untested foundling." With a flick of his hand, he summoned the nearest Elemental. "Remove him."

Phelan spitted the Elemental with a harsh stare. "Ease off, Ace. I've already laid two Elementals out in my career. You don't want to be the third." Holding his head high, he set his face in a grim mask. "I may not have tested out, yet,but that does not invalidate what I have said. I am slowly coming to understand your ways, but nothing I have learned leads me to believe injustice is a trait for which you select. If it is, perhaps I should just return to being a bondsman."

He stepped from the dais and swept past the Elemental. Slipping through the side door, he let it swing shut behind him, then slumped against the wall of the corridor. Balling his right fist, he slammed it against his thigh. You moron! That's exactly the kind of thing that got you tossed out of the Nagelring. Eventually, Phelan, you have to learn that to get along you have to go along. It's a good thing Cyrilla couldn't see that performance. She'd never consider me for a Bloodname slot if she had.

Levering himself away from the wall, he rushed on past Natasha's archivist waiting in the hallway, far too distracted to notice the man or acknowledge his greeting. Further down the corridor and around a corner, Phelan stopped at a door showing the wolf's-head crest of the Wolf Clan. He knocked twice, then opened the door and entered the small office. Cutting through the door in the back corner, he came into Ulric's private office.

Natasha rose from the chair behind the large desk and applauded. "Thought we'd lost you there for a moment. You did great." Cyrilla, seated across from her, nodded her approval.

Phelan blinked. "What? The proceedings were supposed to be ..." He glanced back at the cabinet half-hidden by the open door. A monitor showed a view of the Grand Council Chamber. "You saw?"

Cyrilla nodded and pointed to the remote control at the monitor. The sound started to come up. "All the Khans have access to this closed-circuit system. Watching the charade certainly violates the spirit of the Council regulations, but not more than a handful of the Khans can keep a secret anyway, so no harm is done."

Like Khan Ulric's cabin aboard the Dire Wolf,his office contained the bare minimum of furnishings required to serve its purpose. The padded leather chairs seemed the only concession to luxury. The ample surface of the sturdy desk was spread out with campaign maps. The other steel and glass tables and shelves were clear except for a few holovid albums and some small stone carvings.