Janacek, startled, snapped the weapon out of the air almost by reflex. He stood holding it clumsily and frowned. "I could kill you now, t'Larien," he said.

"Do that or do nothing," Dirk said. "It's all the same. If you had ever really loved Jaan-"

"I do not love Jaan," Janacek snapped, his face flushed. "He is my teyn!"

Dirk let the Kavalar's words hang in the air for a long minute. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Is?" he said. "You mean Jaan was your teyn, don't you?"

Janacek's flush faded as suddenly as it had come. Beneath his beard one corner of his mouth twitched in a manner that reminded Dirk of Bretan. His eyes shifted, almost furtively, half ashamed, to the heavy iron bracelet that still hung about his bloodied forearm.

"You never did get all the glowstones out, did you?" Dirk said gently.

"No," Janacek said. His voice was oddly soft. "No, I did not. It means little, of course. The physical iron is nothing when the other iron is gone."

"But it's not gone, Garse," Dirk said. "Jaan spoke of you when we were together in Kryne Lamiya. I know. Maybe he feels himself iron-bound to Gwen too, and maybe that is wrong. Don't ask me. All I know is that for Jaan the other iron is still there. He wore his iron-and-fire bracelet in Kryne Lamiya. He'll be wearing it when the Braith hounds tear him down, I imagine."

Janacek shook his head. "T'Larien," he said, "your mother comes from Kimdiss, I would vow. Yet I cannot resist you. You manipulate too well." He grinned; it was the old grin, the one he had flashed that morning when he aimed his laser at Dirk and asked if it alarmed him. "Jaan Vikary is my teyn," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

Janacek's conversion, however reluctant, was thorough enough. The Kavalar took charge almost immediately. Dirk thought they should leave at once and discuss their plans en route, but Janacek insisted that they take time to shower and dress. "If Jaan is still alive, he will be safe enough until dawn. The hounds have poor night sight, and the Braiths will not be eager to go blundering into a dark choker-wood. No, t'Larien, they will camp and wait. A man alone and on foot cannot get far. So we have time enough to meet them like Ironjades."

By the time they were ready to depart, Janacek had removed almost every trace of his drunken rage. He was slim and immaculate in a suit of fur-lined chameleon cloth, his beard cleaned and trimmed, his dark red hair combed carefully back from his eyes. Only his right arm-scrubbed and carefully bandaged, but still conspicuous-gave evidence against him. But the scratches did not seem to have impaired him much; he looked graceful and fluid as he charged and checked his laser and slid it into his belt. In addition to the pistol, Janacek was also carrying a long double-bladed knife and a rifle like Dirk's. He grinned gleefully as he took it up.

Dirk had washed and shaved while waiting, and had also taken the opportunity to eat his first full meal in days. He was feeling almost energetic when they set off for the roof.

The interior of Janacek's huge square aircar was every bit as cramped as that of the tiny derelict Dirk had flown from Kryne Lamiya, although Janacek's machine did have four small seats instead of only two. "The armor," Garse said when Dirk remarked on the limited interior space. He strapped Dirk into a rigid uncomfortable seat with a tight battle harness, did likewise for himself, and took them swiftly aloft.

The cabin was dimly lit and completely enclosed, with gauges and instruments everywhere, even above the doors. No windows; a panel of eight small view-screens gave the pilot eight different exterior views. The decor was unpainted, unornamented duralloy.

"This vehicle is older than both of us," Janacek said as he took them up. He seemed eager enough to talk, and friendly in his abrasive sort of way. "And it has seen more worlds than even you. Its history is fascinating. This particular model dates to some four hundred standard years ago. It was built by the Wisdoms of Dam Tullian, well within the Tempter's Veil, and used in their wars against Erikan and Rogue's Hope. After a century or so it was disabled and abandoned. The Erikaners salvaged it during a peace and sold it to the Steel Angels on Bastion. They used it in a number of campaigns, until it was finally captured from them by Prometheans. A Kimdissi trader picked it up on Prometheus and sold it to me, and I adapted it to the code duello. No one has challenged me to aerial combat since. Watch." His hand reached out and depressed a glowing button, and suddenly there was a surge of acceleration that pressed Dirk back against his seat. "Auxiliary pulse-tubes for emergency speed," Janacek said with a grin. "We will be there in less than half the time it took you, t'Larien."

"Good," Dirk said. Something was nagging at him. "Did you say you got it from a Kimdissi trader?"

"That is truth," Janacek said. "The peaceful Kimdissi are great arms traders. I have scant regard for the manipulators, as you know, but I am not above taking advantage of a bargain when one is offered."

"Arkin made a great show of being nonviolent," Dirk said. "I suppose that was all another sham."

"No," Janacek said. He glanced at Dirk and smiled. "Startled, t'Larien? The truth is perhaps more bizarre. We do not call the Kimdissi manipulators without reason. You studied history on Avalon, I assume?"

"Some," Dirk said. "Old Earth history, the Federal Empire, the Double War, the expansion."

"Yet no outworld history." Janacek clucked. "It is expected. So many worlds and cultures in the man-realm, so many histories. Even the names are too much to learn. Listen, and I will enlighten you. When you landed on Worlorn, did you notice the circle of flags?"

Dirk looked at him blankly. "No."

"Perhaps they are no longer in place. Once, though, during the Festival itself, the plaza outside the spacefield flew fourteen flags. It was an absurd Toberian conceit, yet it came to pass, in a fashion, though the planetary flags in ten of the fourteen cases represented nothing. Worlds like Eshellin and the Forgotten Colony did not even know what a flag was, while at the other extreme the Emereli had a different banner for each of their hundred urban towers. The Darklings laughed at us all and flew a cloth of solid black." He seemed very amused at that. "As for High Kavalaan, we had no flag for all our world. We found one, though. It was taken from history. A rectangle divided into four quadrants of different colors: a green banshee on a field of black for Ironjade,

Shanagate's silver hunting bat on yellow, crossed swords against crimson for Redsteel, and for Braith a white wolf on purple. It was the old standard of the Highbond League.

"The League was created about the time that the starships first returned to High Kavalaan. There was a man, a great leader, named Vikor high-Redsteel Corben. He dominated Redsteel's highbond council for a generation, and when the offworlders came he was convinced that all Kavalars must band together to share knowledge and wealth equally. Thus he formed the Highbond League, whose flag I have described to you. The union was sadly short-lived. Kimdissi traders, fearful of the power of a unified High Kavalaan, contracted to provide modern armaments exclusively to the Braiths. The Braith highbonds had joined the League only from fear; in truth, they wished to shun the stars, which they avowed were all full of mockmen. Yet they did not shrink from taking mock-man lasers.

"So we had the last highwar. Ironjade and Redsteel and Shanagate together subjugated Braith, despite the Kimdissi arms, but Vikor high-Redsteel himself was killed, and the cost in lives was hideous. The High-bond League outlasted its founder by only a handful of years. Braith, badly beaten, fastened on the belief that it had been tricked and used by Kimdissi mock-men, and thus cleaved to the old traditions even more firmly than before. To blood the peace and make it lasting, the League-now dominated by highbonds from Shanagate-seized all the Kimdissi traders on High Kavalaan and a ship of Toberians as well, declared all of them to be war criminals-a term the offworlders taught us, by the way-and set them free on the plains to be hunted as mockmen. Banshees killed many of them, others starved, but the hunters took the most and carried the heads home for trophies. It is said that the Braith highbonds took special joy in flaying the men who had armed and advised them.