Dirk's own possessions remained as well, the few things he had left behind when he and Gwen had run, nothing but a small pile of light clothing he had brought from Braque. Useless here in the chill of Worlorn. He set down the laser, knelt, and began to rummage through the pockets of the soiled pants. It was not until he found it-jammed away, still in its wrappings of silver and velvet-that he really knew what he was looking for, and why he had come back to Larteyn.

In Ruark's bedroom he found a small cache of personal jewelry in a lockbox: rings, pendants, intricate bracelets and crowns, earrings of semi-precious stones. He pawed through the box until he found a thin fine chain with a silver-wire owl frozen in amber and suspended on a clip. It looked about the right size, that clip. Dirk tore away the amber and the owl and replaced them with the whisperjewel.

Then he unsealed his jacket and his heavy shirt and hung the chain around his neck, so the cold red teardrop was next to his bare skin, whispering its whispers, promising its lies. The small stab of ice was painful against his chest, but that was all right; it was Jenny. Very shortly he grew used to it, and it passed. Salt tears rolled down his cheeks. He did not notice. He went upstairs.

The workroom that Ruark had shared with Gwen was as cluttered as Dirk remembered it, but the Kimdissi was not there. Nor was he to be found in the deserted apartment above that where Dirk had called Ruark from Challenge. There was only one more place to search.

Quickly he climbed to the top of the tower. The door was open. He hesitated, and then entered, holding his laser at the ready.

The great living room was chaos and destruction.

The viewscreen had been smashed or had exploded; glass shards were everywhere. The walls were scarred by laser fire. The couch had been overturned and ripped in a dozen places, stuffing pulled out in great handfuls and scattered. Some of it had been thrown into the fireplace, where it contributed to the sodden, smoky mess that choked the hearth. One of the gargoyles, headless and upside down, leaned up against the base of the mantel. Its head, glowstone eyes and all, had been thrown into the sodden ashes of the fire. The air stank of wine and vomit.

Garse Janacek was sleeping on the floor, shiftless, his red beard stained even redder by dribbled wine, his mouth hanging open. He smelled like the room. He was snoring loudly and his laser pistol was still clutched in one hand. Dirk saw his shirt balled up and lying in a pool of vomit that Janacek had tried to mop at halfheartedly.

He walked around carefully and took the laser out of Janacek's limp fingers. Vikary's teyn was not quite the iron Kavalar that Jaan imagined him.

Janacek's right arm was still bound by iron-and-glowstones. A few of the red-black jewels had been forced from their settings; the empty holes looked obscene. But most of the bracelet was intact, except where it was marred by long scratches. Janacek's forearm, above the bracelet, was also scarred. The scratches were deep, and often continuous with those scored in the black iron. Arm and armlet both were caked by dried blood.

Near to Janacek's boot Dirk saw the long bloodstained knife. He could imagine the rest. Drunk, no doubt, his left hand made awkward by his old wound, trying to pry the glowstones free, losing patience and stabbing wildly, dropping the blade in his pain and his rage.

Stepping backward lightly, detouring around Janacek's damp shirt, Dirk paused in the door frame, leveled his rifle, and shouted. "Garse!"

Janacek did not stir. Dirk repeated his shout. This time the volume of snoring declined appreciably. Encouraged, Dirk stooped and picked up the nearest object at hand-a glowstone-and lofted it through the air at the Kavalar. It hit Janacek on the cheek.

He sat up slowly, blinking. He saw Dirk and scowled at him.

"Get up," Dirk said. He waved his laser.

Janacek rose shakily to his feet, looked around for his own weapon.

"You won't find it," Dirk told him. "I've got it here."

Janacek's eyes were blurred and weary, but he had slept off most of his drunkenness. "Why are you here, t'Larien?" he said slowly, in a voice tinged more by exhaustion than by wine. "Have you come to mock me?"

Dirk shook his head. "No. I'm sorry for you."

Janacek glared. "Sorry for me?"

"You don't think you deserve pity? Look around you!"

"Careful," Janacek told him. "Jape me too much, t'Larien, and I will discover if you have steel enough to fire that laser you hold so awkwardly."

"Don't, Garse," Dirk said. "Please. I need your help."

Janacek laughed, throwing back his head and roaring.

When he had stopped, Dirk told him everything that had happened since Vikary killed Myrik Braith in Challenge. Janacek stood very stiffly as he listened, his arms crossed tightly across his bare, scarred chest. He laughed one more time-when Dirk told him his conclusions about Ruark. "The manipulators of Kimdiss," Janacek muttered. Dirk let him mutter, then finished his story.

"So?" Janacek demanded when he had concluded. "Why do you think any of this is any matter to me?"

"I guess I didn't think you'd let the Braiths hunt Jaan down like an animal," Dirk said.

"He has made himself an animal."

"By Braith lights, I suppose," Dirk replied. "Are you a Braith?"

"I am a Kavalar."

"Are all Kavalars the same now?" He gestured toward the stone head of the gargoyle sitting in the fireplace. "I see you take trophies now, just like Lorimaar."

Janacek said nothing. His eyes were very hard.

"Maybe I was wrong," Dirk said. "But when I came in here and saw all this, it made me think. It made me think that maybe you did have some human feeling for the man who used to be your teyn. It reminded me that once you told me that you and Jaan had a bond stronger than any I had ever known. I guess that was a lie, though."

"It was truth. Jaan Vikary broke that bond."

"Gwen broke all the bonds between us years ago," Dirk said. "But I came when she needed me. Oh, it turned out that she didn't really need me, and I came for a lot of selfish reasons. But I came. You can't rob me of that. Garse. I kept my promise." He paused. "And I would not let anyone hunt her, if I could stop them. It appears that we were bonded by something a lot stronger than your Kavalar iron-and-fire."

"Say what you want, t'Larien. Your words change nothing. The idea of you keeping promises is ludicrous. What of your promises to Jaan and myself?"

"I betrayed them," Dirk said quickly. "I know that. So you and I are even, Garse."

"I have betrayed no one."

"You are abandoning those who stood closest to " you. Gwen, who was your cro-betheyn, who slept with you and loved you and hated you ail at once. And Jaan. Your precious teyn."

"I have never betrayed them," Janacek said hotly. "Gwen betrayed both myself and the jade-and-silver she wore from the day she joined us. Jaan deserted all that was decent in the way he slew Myrik. He ignored me, ignored the duties of iron-and-fire. I owe neither of them."

"You don't, do you?" Beneath his shirt Dirk could feel the whisperjewel hard against his skin, flooding him with words and memories, with a sense of the man he had once been. He was very angry. "And that says it all, right? You don't owe them, so who cares? All your damn Kavalar bonds are, after all, are debt and obligation. Traditions, old holdfast wisdom, like the code duello and mockman hunting. Don't think about them, just follow them. Ruark was right about one thing-there is no love in any of you, except maybe Jaan, and I'm not so sure about him. What the hell was he going to do if Gwen hadn't been wearing his bracelet?"

"The same thing!"

"Really? And what about you? Would you have challenged Myrik just because he hurt Gwen? Or was it because he damaged your jade-and-silver?" Dirk snorted. "Maybe Jaan would have done the same thing, but not you, Janacek. You're as Kavalar as Lorimaar himself, as stiff as Chell or Bretan. Jaan wanted to make his folk better, but I guess you were only along for a ride and didn't believe any of it for a minute." He yanked Janacek's laser out of his belt and flung it across the room with his free hand. "Here," he shouted, lowering his rifle. "Go hunt a mockman!"