And died.

His arms fell. He wept, great tears sliding down into his beard. He picked up the dormouse and the hedgehog and held them to his breast, having no more hope.

Then she came. The light grew, white and pure. The scent of lilies filled the air—and she was there, naked, and white, hands empty—beautiful.

"I've come," she said.

His heart hurt him all the more. "Forgive me," he said. "I was trying for something—fiercer."

"Oh," she said, dark eyes sad.

"I make only—small magics," he said. "I was trying for—a dragon, maybe. A basilisk. An elemental. To stop the king. But I do flowers best. And smokes and maybe a little fireworks. And it's not enough. Goodbye. Please go. Please do go. Whichever you are. You're the wrong kind. You're beautiful. And he's going to come tomorrow—the king—and the armies. . . it's not a place for a gentle spirit. Only—could you take them. . . please? Mouse and Hedgehog—

they'd not be so much. I'd not like to bother you. But could you? And then you can go."

"Of course," she said. It was the whisper of wind, her voice. The moving of snow crystals on frozen crust. She took them to her breast. Kissed them in turn, and jewels clothed them in white.

"Old man," she said, and on his brow too planted a kiss, and jewels followed, frosty white. White dusted all the room, all the books and the clutter and the cobwebs. She walked down the stairs and out the gate, and jeweled it all in her wake. She walked the land, and the snow fell, and fell, and the winds blew—till only the banners were left, here and there, stiffened with ice, above drifts and humps of snow which marked the tents. The land was all white, horizon to horizon. Nothing stirred—but the wolves that hunted the deer, and the birds that hunted the last summer's berries.

Death drifted back to the tower, and settled there, in the frost and the lasting snows, where the old man and magic slept their lasting sleep.

She breathed kisses on him, on the little ones, and kept watch—faithful to her calling, while the snows deepened, and even the wolves slept, their fur white and sparkling with the frost. VI

We share the lounge with passengers now. A young couple holds hands under a table over to the corner. Some things never change.

There is crisis aboard. One of the passengers has locked himself in his cabin and the steward and a doctor have been back and forth down the hall trying to get the door open. Jump and transit does this to some people.

I don't think he ever went near a window. He would always sit with his back to them. He talked through all the status advisories.

"You wonder why some people come out here," you say.

"I suppose he has to. Business, maybe." There is a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing, up and down the halls. Some passengers delight in the drama. And sip their drinks and hug their own superiority in their boredom.

"It's a terrible thing for that man," I say. "Perceptions again. The first time you know you're not anywhere near where you were, not anywhere near where your whole world is—then you have to know that you're somewhere else. That man has just learned something. His safe world is shattered."

"Look at the rest of these people. Theydon't lock themselves in their rooms. And I don't think they ever think about the universe. They just have their drinks. And their canned music. And when they look out the windows they don't see the stars. They just see lights."

"That's the tragedy of the man in his room, isn't it? He can almost see the universe. He's so much closer to the truth than he ever was in all his life." I sip my own drink. "And he's locked his door."

"Couldn't they open it from the main board?"

"They could. Or just use the master key. They will if they have to." More to-ing and fro-ing.

"Perceptions," you say.

"Perceptions. Taste, scent, touch, hearing, sense of balance, sight—of course, sight. And the systems we make and the systems others make for us. The orders and the logic. It's so easy to take what others give us. Gifts are so hard to say no to."

"We want so much to believe we know. That's the trouble."

"Even to believe we can't know is a system. Maybe we can know the universe. Maybe there is an answer. It's dangerous to assume there isn't."

"There. I thought you'd gotten sane."

"It's dangerous to assume anything and stop looking."

"You can't guarantee it isn't dangerous to look, either."

"No," I say. "I can't." We have gotten to that stage of renewed honesty. The potential for friendship, it may be. And we know nothing at all of each other.

It is so hard even to know ourselves.

1986

THE BROTHERS

I

The wind came from the west out of the rocky throat of the Sianail, even while the morning sun was shining in the glen, and there was something singing on it. Perhaps unGifted men could not hear it yet, that faint, far wail, but it echoed clearly off the mountain walls of Gleann Gleatharan, down to Dun Gorm, and it gave the king no peace.

There was storm in that wind as it came, scouring hills the stones of which were old and dread, hills which remembered darker things than storms and hid things at their hearts—the bones of warriors and kings, and even, men said, spirits older than the gods.

High within the hills was also bright green, even on this murky, misty day, grass green as life and peace; but whenever this mood came on the mountains that hove up northward, souls keened on the gray wind and black crows flew on it, and it was well to think of shelter. The traveler never did. He came down from the rocky heights, taking chances with stones turned slick with mist. He went gray-cloaked in wool, his feet in scarred brown leather that had seen many a league and many a fording and many a soaking before the one that threatened. He had hanging about his neck, did this gray traveler, a flat stone that a stream had worn through in its center; if a man looked through this opening, then he would see things as they were and glamors had no power on him. But the traveler had limited faith in this magic, putting more trust in the iron of his plain sword, which he had gotten on Skean Eirran off a dead man, on that narrow spit of sand, when they raided up by Skye. This he carried and no other weapon but a dagger for his meat; and no armor but his gray oiled-wool cloak to keep the cold mist from his skin. His name he did not have. He had not been using that since he passed into the southland; and perhaps they were hunting him by now; perhaps they had sent men ahead of him so there would be men to meet him when he came. When he looked over his shoulder he saw nothing but bare old stones and lawless gorse besides the mist-damp green, but now and again from hillsides he heard dogs baying that might be shepherds' dogs disturbed by his passage or might not; they might be pursuit from his enemies and they might not, in this fey, foul day that wrapped itself in storm. Then with the passing of a hill he found all of a broad glen dropping away at his feet, himself in storm-shadow and the most of the glen still in sunlight that speared down through gray-bottomed cloud and turned the dark green to dazzling emerald. It was a land of neat hedgerows and careful fields and pasturages well cared-for. The very hills surrounding this valley had a tamer look, as if here kinder powers blessed the hedges and fenced out the hazards of the wild hills. Amid it all, surely the reason and center of this tranquility—a Dun sat on a hill above a pleasant stream, in the face of low hills where its cottages clung as faint dots against the green. He knew where he had come. It was no great dun. It was built of the wreckage time had made of its hill, so that one melded with the other—Dun Gorm it was, the Blue Keep, and it took its name from those stones as well, that deep gray stone that mimicked the sky and turned strange colors, one thing in storm and another when the sun was shining as it did now in spears across the glen, between the clouds, while the mist on the hills sent freshets down. It held peace, and luck, this land where he had come. He had known neither in his life, and seeing this before him, he went to it.