Mikal's face set hard. Of course you didn't disappoint me. I told you. That song was what I hoped for. But I want to hear a song of yourself. Surely you have songs of your own.

I have, Ansset answered.

Will you sing them to me?

I will, said Ansset.

And so he sang, beginning timidly because he had never sung these songs except to people who already loved him, people who were also creatures of the Songhouse and so needed no explanation. But Mikal knew nothing of the Songhouse, and so Ansset groped backward with his melody, trying to find a way to tell Mikal who he was, and finally realizing that he could not, that all he could tell him was the meaning of the Songhouse, was the feel of the cold stone under his fingers, was the kindness of Rruk when he had wept in fear and uncertainty and she had sung confidence to him, though she herself was only a child.

I am a child, said Ansset's song, as weak as a leaf in the wind, and yet, along with a thousand other leaves I have roots that go deep into rock, the cold, living rocks of the Songhouse. I am a child, and my fathers are a thousand other children, and my mother is a woman who broke me open and brought me out and warmed me in the cold storm where I was suddenly naked and suddenly not alone. I am a gift, fashioned by my own hands to be given to you by others, and I don't know it I am acceptable.

And as he sang, he found himself inexorably heading toward the one song he would never have thought to sing. The song of the days in the High Room. The song of his birth. I can't, he thought as the melodies swept into his throat and out of his teeth. I can't bear it, he cried to himself as the emotions came, not in tears, but in passionate tones that came from the most tender places in him. I can't bear to stop, he thought as he sang of Esste's love for him and his terror at leaving her so soon after having learned to lean on her.

And in his song, too, he heard something that surprised him. He heard, through all the emotion of his memories, a thread of dissonance, a thread that spoke of hidden darkness in him. He searched for that note and lost it. And gradually the search for the strangeness in his own song took him out of the song, and brought him to himself again. He sang, and the fire died, and his song at last died, too.

And it was then that he realized that Mikal lay curled around him, his arm embracing Ansset, the other arm covering his face, where he wept, where he sobbed silently. With the song over, the sparks were the only music in the room as the last fusses of flame kept trying to revive the fire.

Oh, what have I done? Ansset cried to himself as he watched the emperor of mankind, Mikal the Terrible, weeping into his hand.

Oh, Ansset, said Mikal, what have you done?

And then, after a moment, Mikal stopped crying and rolled over onto his back and said, Oh, God, it's too kind, it's too cruel. I'm a hundred and twenty-one years old and death lurks in the walls and floor, waiting to catch me unawares. Why couldn't you have come to me when I was forty?

Ansset did not know if an answer was expected. I wasn't born then, he finally said, and Mikal laughed.

That's right. You weren't born yet. Nine years old. What do they do to you in the Songhouse, Ansset? What terrible squeezing they must do, to wring such songs out of you.

Did you like my song this time?

Like? Mikal asked, wondering if the boy was joking. Like? And he laughed a long time, and laid his head on Ansset's lap. The two of them slept there that night, and from then on there were no more searches, no more questions. Ansset was free to come to Mikal, because there was no time when Mikal did not long to have him there.

4

You're in luck, their guide told them, and Kya-Kya sighed. She had been hoping that they would be lucky enough to get out of Susquehanna after only the normal five-hour tour. But she was sure that was not what the guide had in mind. The emperor, said the guide, has asked to meet with you. This is a very great honor. But, as the Chamberlain told me just a few moments ago, you students from the Princeton Government Institute are the future administrators of this great empire. It is only just that Mikal should meet with his future aides and helpers.

Aides and helpers, hell, Kya-Kya thought. The old man will die before I graduate, and then we'll be aiding and helping somebody else-probably the bastard who killed him.

She had work to do. Some of the trips and tours were worthwhile-the four days they spent at the computer center in Tegucigalpa, the week observing the operation of a welfare services outlet in Rouen. But here at Susquehanna they were shown nothing of any importance, just as a matter of form. The city existed to keep Mikal alive and safe-the real government work went on elsewhere. Worse, the palace had been designed by a madman (probably Mikal himself, she thought) and the corridors were a maze that doubled back constantly, that rose and fell through meaningless ramps and stairways. The building seemed to be one vast barrier, and her legs ached from the long walk between one exhibit and another. Several times she could have sworn that they walked up one corridor, lined with doors on the left, and then turned 180 degrees and walked down a parallel corridor with doors on the left that led only to the corridor they had just traveled. Maddening. Wearying.

And what's more, said the guide, the Chamberlain even hinted that you might get a chance usually granted only to distinguished offworld visitors. You may get to hear Mikal's Songbird.

There was a buzz of interest among the students. Of course they had all heard of Mikal's Songbird, at first the scandalous news that Mikal had forced even the Song-house to bend to his will, and then the spreading word from those privileged few who had heard the boy sing: that Mikal's Songbird was the greatest Songbird ever, that no human voice had ever done what he could do.

Kya-Kya felt something entirely different, however. None of her fellow students knew she was from the Song-house, or even from Tew. She had been discreet to the point of aloofness. And she did not long to see Ansset again, not the boy who had been Esste's favorite, not the boy who was the opposite of her.

But there was no escape from the group. Kya-Kya was systematically being a model student-creative but compliant. Sometimes it nearly killed her, she thought, but she made sure there would be glowing recommendations from every professor, a perfect record of achievement. It was hard for a woman to get a job in government at all. And the kind of job she wanted usually came to a woman only as the climax of her career, not at the beginning.

So Kya-Kya said nothing, as they filed into the seats that formed a horseshoe whose open end framed Mikal's throne. Kya-Kya took a seat near one end, so that she would be looking at Mikal's profile-she preferred to study someone without direct eye contact Eye contact allowed them to lie.

You should stand, said the guide deferentially, and of course they all took the suggestion and stood. A dozen uniformed guards entered the hall and fanned out to positions along the walls. Then the Chamberlain entered and announced in slow, ceremonial tones, Mikal Imperator has come to you. And Mikal came in.

The man was old, the face lined and creased and sagging, but his step was bright and quick and his smile seemed to come from a light heart. Kya-Kya of course rejected that first impression, for it was obviously the public relations face that Mikal wore to impress visitors. Yet he seemed to be in undeniably good health.

Mikal came to the throne and sat, and it was then that Kya-Kya realized that Ansset had come into the room with him. Mikal's presence was so overpowering that even the beautiful Songbird had not been able to distract. Now, however, Mikal took the boy's hand and gently pulled him forward, sent him a few steps ahead of the throne, where he stood alone and looked at everyone in the small audience.