"Your aid is about twelve years too late, Kwarun."

They stared at each other across the fire, Amira feeling as though she ought to go for a walk but not daring to move.

"Sit, Yastehanye," said the belkagen. "Please. Set your burden down and let us talk. When we are done, if you wish me gone, I shall trouble you no more. But you will hear me out. You owe me that."

Gyaidun stood there, every muscle tense, unmoving. At last he gave one swift, hard nod, then stepped forward to place the long strips of horseflesh on the wooden rack the belkagen had built over the fire. A droplet or two of blood fell into the fire and sizzled. He sat.

"You don't wish to wash first?" asked the belkagen.

"I'll wash when this is done," said Gyaidun. "You can be leaving while I'm washing."

"Very well." The belkagen sighed. "First, my news. Lendri found the Vil Adanrath and roused them. Haerul has called the clans and speeds this way. They should be here no later than dusk unless they run into trouble. And I pity whatever trouble places itself in front of Haerul. His exiled son has roused in him a cold fire."

"Lendri," said Gyaidun, "he is… well?"

"His father did not greet him with open arms, and he and his brother still stare spears at one another, but he is alive. I would have brought him with me, but there are things that we three need to discuss before they arrive."

A rustle of black feathers descended into the camp, and Durja settled near Gyaidun. It was the first time Amira could remember the bird not raising a raucous noise upon arriving. Perhaps even the raven sensed the tension around the fire. He looked at the three people gathered round the fire, then hopped on Gyaidun's knee and began to peck at the little bits of flesh and gore that still stuck to the big man's skin.

The belkagen had gone silent. Amira looked to him. The elf seemed troubled, his brow creased in concentration and his mouth fallen into a pensive frown.

"Belkagen?" she asked. "What is it?"

He looked up to Gyaidun, who still sat unmoving, and said, "I told the lady a bit of the Vil Adanrath while we waited for you. She asked how one becomes belkagen, and now my answer enters our present tale.

These lands in which we sit are filled with an ancient power. It was at this very high place thousands of years ago that the Vil Adanrath first came into this world. Akhrasut Neth is very old, a place of great and fell power. She is very ancient. She was old before the Empire of Raumathar was born. Even the Raumathari, great loremasters that they were, avoided Akhrasut Neth if they could. The Tuigan shun it altogether. But"-he looked to Amira-"you remember my tale of Arantar?"

"Yes."

"Alone among the loremasters of his day, Arantar would come to Akhrasut Neth and seek her wisdom. Some said he had been born here.

Whether that is true or not, I do not know. But I do know he came here often, and I believe Akhrasut Neth was the source of much of his power and wisdom."

"Akhrasut Neth?" asked Amira. "The Mother's Bed? This hill?"

"Yes."

"Gyaidun told me it is a sacred site to the Vil Adanrath. It is something… more, then?"

Gyaidun snorted, but the belkagen ignored him and went on. "Much more. It is sacred to the Vil Adanrath for many reasons. Have you been to the top yet?"

"No."

"At the highest point of Akhrasut Neth, the bones of the earth break through the soil, a great outcropping of rock jutting from the ground like a weathered fang. At the base, a crevice splits the rock, forming an entrance to a cave that descends into the heart of Akhrasut Neth. The heart is a place of great power. Hro'nyewachu. What the clerics of the west might call an oracle."

"This… oracle," said Amira, "it answers questions? Tells the future? I don't understand."

"Hro'nyewachu grants… enlightenment. At a price. It is the place where initiates of my people go to gain their power. Those who survive are the omah, the chosen leaders of our people. But a precious few have a different calling. The belkagen."

" 'Those who survive.' You mean some do not?"

"Some emerge quite mad. Some few never emerge at all. Their fate is unknown, even to me."

"But you," said Amira, "you have been inside the… the Oracle?"

The belkagen sighed and closed his eyes. "I have. Once, upon my becoming belkagen. And one time more." He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Gyaidun. "Twelve years ago."

Gyaidun blinked once. Hard. Amira saw a tremor run through him.

"When I learned what had befallen the son of Hlessa and Gyaidun..

." The belkagen lowered his head and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath but did not continue. Amira waited, not daring to speak.

Gyaidun had not spoken of his son much at all, and he had barely even mentioned the boy's mother. That night, after the first mention of Erun, Amira had asked. The belkagen had answered her with stony silence, Gyaidun with a cold glare, and Lendri had simply looked away.

"We were desperate," the belkagen continued. Again his voice sounded old and tired, truly the voice of an old man despite his youthful visage. "I sought the wisdom of Hro'nyewachu." "What did you find?" asked Amira. "Answers," said the belkagen. He almost gasped the word, then gathered his composure and went on. "Though not the answers I sought. What I told you two nights ago I learned through years of study and searching." "So all of this tale is for nothing," said Gyaidun, his voice hard and unforgiving. "A history lesson. Your lore will not help us now." The belkagen sat there, eyes closed and trembling. Amira stared at him, at first thinking he was trembling with fear, but then she saw the iron set of his jaw and his clenched fists. He was furious. If Gyaidun noticed this, he ignored it. "If your tale is done, it is time for you to le-" "Fool!" the belkagen threw off his cloak and leaped halfway to his feet toward Gyaidun. A growl that was more savage beast than elf rumbled deep in his chest, and his eyes shone with a feral light all their own. With a squawk, Durja took to the air. Gyaidun's eyes widened, but he did not back down. The belkagen yelled at Gyaidun in his own tongue. Amira couldn't understand it-though she did catch the word yastehanye at least twice-but she heard the anger in the elf's voice. Gyaidun's nostrils flared and he breathed like a bellows, but he could not hold the belkagen's gaze. Though she had no idea what the old elf was saying, she felt very much as if she were watching an old patriarch giving a misbehaving son a severe reprimand. "Te, Gyaidun? Te?" said the belkagen after a long tirade in his own speech. "Kaweh rut, kyed!"

Gyaidun sat there glowering, his jaw working as if he were chewing on old bark. Finally, without looking up, he said, "I apologize for my disrespect… Belkagen. I beseech your counsel." The belkagen glared at him a moment more, then gave a stiff nod and settled back down into his cloak. Both men sat gazing at one another but did not speak. Durja settled back into a tree near the horses, gave an inquiring caw, then went silent. Amira cleared her throat. "Listen-" "Please, Lady," said the belkagen, a bit of anger still lingering in his voice. "Now we come to the part of this tale that concerns you, why I scratched up all these painful memories." He sighed, then said, "What I saw in Hro'nyewachu I will not tell. Its part in our hunt is my own burden to bear. But I think Hro'nyewachu might be of help to you, Lady Amira."

"Help me? How?" "Hro'nyewachu is sacred to the Vil Adanrath, but she does not belong to us. She was here long before us and, I suspect, will still be here long after we are gone. She is a place of… need, both in meeting needs and filling her own." "But you said most who go in never return," said Amira. "I can't help my son if I'm dead or mad." "I said 'a few,' not 'most.' The belkagenet are few. Since my own master passed, I have walked alone west of the Glittering Spires."