The letter had been transmitted that morning. Twenty-two days. And the worst of it is, Ansset is ready. Ready. Ready.

I am not ready.

Twenty-two days. She pushed a button under the table. Send Ansset to me.

14

Rruk had just entered Stalls and Chambers, right on schedule. She had no power in her voice, but she was a sweet singer, and pleased everyone who heard her. Still, she was afraid. Stalls and Chambers was a greater step than those between Groan and Bell or Bell and Breeze. Here she was one of the youngest, and in her chamber she was the youngest. Only one thing helped her forget her timidity-this was the seventh chamber. Ansset's chamber.

Will Ansset come? Rruk asked a boy sitting near her. Not today.

Rruk did not show her disappointment; she sang it. I know, said the boy. But it hardly matters. He never sang here anyway.

Rruk had heard rumors of that, but hadn't believed them. Not let Ansset sing? But it was true. And she murmured a song of the injustice of Ansset's banning.

Don't I know it, said the boy. I once sang just such a song in Chamber. My name's Ller.

Rruk.

I've heard of you. You're the one who first sang the love song to Ansset.

It was a bond-they both had given something, even dared something for Ansset. Chamber began then, and their conversation ceased. Ller was part of a trio that day. He took the high part, and did a thin high drone that changed only rarely. Yet it was still the controlling voice in the trio, the center to which the other two voices always returned. By subordinating his own virtuosity, he had made the song unusually good. Rruk liked him even more, for his own sake now, not just for Ansset's.

After Chamber, without particularly deciding it, they went to Ansset's stall. He was called to the Songmaster in the High Room just before Chamber. Perhaps he'll be back now. Usually Esste comes to him as master, so it may be that she called him up there to lift the ban.

I hope so, Rruk said.

They knocked at Ansset's door. It opened, and Ansset stood there regarding them absently.

Ansset, Ller said, and then fell silent. Any other child they could have asked directly. But Ansset's long isolation, his unchildlike expression, his apparent lack of interest-they were difficult obstacles to surmount,

When the silence had lasted far too long, Rruk blurted, We heard you went to the High Room.

I did, Ansset said.

Is the ban lifted?

Ansset again looked at them in silence.

Oh, said Rruk. I'm sorry. Her voice told how sorry.

It was then that Ller noticed that Ansset's blankets were rolled together.

Are you going? Ller asked.

Yes.

Where? Ller insisted

Ansset went to the blanket, picked it up, and came back to the door. The High Room, he said. Then he walked by them and headed down the corridor.

To live there? Ller asked.

Ansset did not answer.

15

This was not a job for a seeker, the seeker said.

I know, Esste answered, and she sang him an apology that pleaded the necessity of the work.

Mollified, the seeker made his report. I spent the income from a decade of singers getting into the secret files of the child market. Doblay-me is a simple place to do business. If you have enough money and know whom to give it to, you can accomplish anything.

You found?

Ansset was kidnapped. His parents are very much alive, would pay almost anything to get him back. And when he was taken, he was old enough to know his parents. To know they didn't want him to go. Stolen from them at a theatre. The kidnapper I talked to is now a petty government official. Taxes or something. I had to hire some known killers in order to scare him into talking to me. Very unpleasant business. I haven't been able to sing in weeks.

His parents?

Very rich. The mother a very loving woman. The father-his songs are more ambiguous. I'm not a great judge of adults, you know that. I haven't needed to be. But I had the feeling there were guilts in him that he was afraid of. Perhaps he could have done more to get Ansset back. Or perhaps the guilts are for other things entirely. Completely unrelated. According to the law, now that you and I know this, it's a capital offense not to give the boy back.

Esste looked at him, sang a few notes, and both of them laughed. I know, the seeker said. Once in the Songhouse, you have no parents, you have no family.

The parents don't suspect?

To them their little boy is Byrwyn. I told them that the psychotic child in our hospital on Murrain had the wrong blood type to be their son,

A knock on the door.

Who?

Ansset, came the answer.

May I see him? the seeker said.

You may see him. But don't speak to him. And when you leave, bar the door from the other side. Tell the Blind that I'll be taking my meals through the machines. No one is to come up. Messages through the computer.

The seeker was puzzled. Why the isolation?

I am preparing Mikal's Songbird, Esste said.

Then she arose and went to the door and opened it, Ansset came in, holding his blanket roll unconcernedly. He looked at the seeker without curiosity. The seeker looked at him, too, but not so unemotionally. Two years of tracing Ansset's past had given the boy unusual importance in the seeker's eyes. But as the seeker watched, and saw the emptiness of Ansset's face, he let himself show grief, and he sang his mourning to Esste, briefly. She had told him not to speak. But some things could not, should not, go unsaid.

The seeker left. The bar dropped into place on the other side of the door. Ansset and Esste were alone.

Ansset stood before Esste for a long time, waiting. But this time Esste had nothing to say. She simply looked at him, her face as blank as his, though because of age some expression was permanently inscribed there and she could not look as empty of personality as he. The wait seemed interminable to Esste. The boy's patience was greater than most adults'. But it broke, eventually. Still silent, Ansset went to the stone bench beside one of the locked shutters and sat down.

First victory.

Esste was able, now, to go to the table and work. Papers came from the computer; she wrote by hand notes to herself; wrote by keys messages into the computer. As she worked, Ansset sat silently on the bench until his body grew tired and cold. Then he got up, walked around. He did not try the door or the shutters. It was as if he already grasped the fact that this was going to be a test of wills, a trial of strength between his Control and Esste's. The doors and windows would be no escape. The only escape would-be victory.

Outside it grew dark, and the fight from the cracks in the shutters disappeared. There was only the light over the table, which almost no one ever saw in use-the illusion of primitiveness was maintained before everyone possible, and only the staff and the Songmasters knew that the High Room was not really so bare and simple as it seemed. The purpose of it was not really illusion, however. The Songmaster of the High Room was invariably someone who had grown op in the chilly stone halls and Common Rooms and Stalls and Chambers of the Song-house. Sudden luxury would be no comfort; it would be a distraction. So the High Room seemed bare except when necessity required some modern convenience.

Ansset sat in the gloom in a corner of the High Room as Esste finally closed the table and laid out her blankets on the floor. Her movement gave him permission to move. He spread out his blankets in the far corner, wrapped himself in them, and was asleep before Esste.

The second day passed in complete silence, as did the third, Esste working most of the day at the computer, Ansset standing or walking or sitting as it pleased him, his Control never letting a sound pass his lips. They ate from the machine in silence, silently went to the toilet in a corner of the room, where their wastes were consumed by an incredibly expensive disturber in the walls and floor. Esste found it hard, however, to keep her mind on her work. She had never been so long without music in her life. Never been so long without singing. And in the last few years, she had never passed a day without Ansset's voice. It had become a vice, she knew-for while Ansset was banned from singing to others in the Songhouse, his voice was always singing in his stall, and they had conversed for hours many times. Her memory of those conversations, however, maintained her resolution. An intellect far beyond his years, a great perception of what went on in people's minds, but no hint of anything from his own heart. This must be done, she said. Only this can break his walls, she said to herself. And I must be strong enough to need him less than he needs me, in order to save him, she cried to herself silently. Save him?