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his eyes. Fleetingly Janthis’s face hung before him in the dim room, the lips still parted in speech, and then there was nothing but the endless gush and roil of water and his own hands caressing the Annals. She should have taken the treasure from the Trader and run with it to Janthis, he thought. Why that sudden need to look at it, the selfishness, and then the greatest of transgressions? But that same need was curdling in him again as it had done for the one warped moment when she had spoken of the thing that now lay quiescent at his feet, and he knew that he must never speak with her on that last day again. Feeling thin and somehow drained he lifted the book from his lap and held it against his cheek. Falia. The monotonous chatter of his waterfalls and streams wove with the sick vestiges of longing still tugging at him, and suddenly he wanted to stand and shout “Stop! No more water! Give me silence!” as though he might slay the desire to bend and pick up the box if he could only end the sound of water. A council meeting was due soon, he knew. He would be called, and until then he had only to place the Annals and the other thing in his chest and firmly close the lid. I must take the Annals in the wooden box, he thought suddenly. Someone must have seen it in my hands by Fallan’s Gate. I would like to keep it. It is so beautiful, so warm and dry. But to keep the box I must first remove the treasure. His spine seemed to bend of its own accord, and his hands reached down, trembling. Then he realized what he was doing and sprang up, dropping the Annals into the box with head averted and shutting the lid and fastening the hasp. I am playing with death, he thought, horrified. Walking into his three-walled room, he flung the box into the chest and dove into the rocking coolness of the pool. I will spend more time with Sillix, he vowed. I will not be alone. He swam determinedly, refusing to bring forward the other thought that hovered behind the image of Sillix.
    Sillix will keep me from myself.
    Sillix will prevent me from being alone.

2
    Danarion paced slowly under the spreading haeli trees, their golden leaves whispering sleepily above him, their red, sticky buds exuding a fragrance that would linger on his body and in his nostrils for the rest of the day. Ten dark and sullen years had passed on Fallan since its Gate was closed, but only one winter on Danar, and now spring had come. The endless forests glowed yellow and flame, the corions dozed, drugged by the scent of the birthing blossoms, and the people sat far into each mild, sweet night, unwilling to pass into unconsciousness and miss a moment of the unfolding of the season. Green and blue birds followed him, singing wantonly around his head, swooping recklessly to brush his shoulders. Once in a while he sang with them absently, his eyes on his feet. Falia’s cold necklet was in his hand, a weight of preoccupation, the only token of fear and failure on Danar, and though it offended his fingers and filled him with distaste, he carried it with conscious care. The necklet itself was not repugnant. The finest craftsmen on Shol had made it as they had made all the others, with every skill and vision they had possessed, and it was as consummately wrought as the Worldmaker’s weaving of the stars’ glory. Thin gold links hung with pearls and fastened with Lix crystal went around the neck, and hanging on two gossamer-thin filaments of golden webbing was the sun-disc, rayed also in the pale, glittering stone that was Ixel’s only wealth. Each necklet was distinct, for the craftsmen had put something of each wearer’s world into it. Falia’s had links shaped like tiny horses, the eye of each animal a splinter of green emerald, each flaring tail streaked in silver. The Worldmaker had finished each necklet with benevolent spells of power. Power for preserving, for interpreting and upholding, power for peace and order. But no power to heal,