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voice of the wind, drawn across ten courses of silver-wound wire, with the bass drone strings, thrumming beneath. No matter how emotionally raw, his sensitized talent could not refuse their sweet resonance.
    Arithon gasped a ripped word of gratitude. Reunited with the heirloom lyranthe last played at Sanpashir to raise the lane flux in transfer two years ago, he shoved erect and acknowledged the desert tribes ' generous stewardship. Then he gathered the instrument into his arms. His trembling clasp traced over the fretboard. Desperation guided his tuning. When the first chord rang out in corrected pitch, he immersed his torn faculties into the weaving of music.
    His measures plunged into the well of blind fear. Sliding falls carried him deeper. He wrought his brutal despair into melody, carving out the courage and calm to plumb the most ravaging depths. In harmony, he sought to shatter the terror and break the cycle of endless reliving.
    He would heal by such art, though recovery took days. The Biedar crone allowed him that space. Her dartmen pitched camp and kept watch at her bidding, until the afflicted had played his horrific dreams to a state of prostrate exhaustion.
    Then their journey resumed, with Arithon litter-borne. Once they reached the haven of Sanpashir ' s deep caverns, they slipped into the womb of the earth. In the split cavern they called by the Name of the air, they granted their guest a tight, warded circle of privacy.
    There, his days passed in silence. By night, his cascading spill of struck notes drilled through rock and wind and raised tears in the far-sighted eyes of their gifted.
    * * *
    That incongruous, sheet-silver curtain of sound was the first thing to greet the outland intruder brought in tribal custody from the sea-side. Herded in before dawn a moon ' s quarter hence, this one the Biedar still held under blindfold. Town-born, he had come uninvited, bearing forged arms to the headland. Because his outspoken protests were ignorant, his escort maintained their precautions. Besides the rag, this trespasser ' s wrists were lashed behind his stiff back.
    Since sunrise eased the dread pull of rank dreams, the new arrival need not bear the heart ' s cry of the other guest ' s lyranthe for long.
    While the final, struck notes spun dying echoes through the maze of Sanpashir ' s caverns, Sulfin Evend was pressed, stumbling, down a steep incline of stone. The deft hands of four dartmen guided him through the narrows that guarded a cul-de-sac. There, the tied cloth was pulled from his eyes. A silent young woman swathed in veils cut the rope from his wrists. She replaced the rough bonds with soft rag, more graciously knotted in front of his waist. A damp cloth was offered to cleanse his dust-caked face. Then dried meat, sour cheese, and an unleavened biscuit were set into his anxious grasp. For the first time since setting foot on the shore-line, Sulfin Evend was permitted to eat and drink on his own.
    His escort of silent, robed dartmen remained. They tracked his least move with inimical, dark eyes and answered none of his questions.
    Then, as now, they refused to soften despite his peaceful entreaty. An impatient man, Sulfin Evend leashed rage. He had little choice. A dead seeress ' s loan of their elder ' s flint knife had been the sole grace that once defended his sworn liege ' s life. Since the talisman had delivered the spirit, intact, from the hideous rites of Grey Kralovir ' s necromancers, the Lord Commander of the Alliance ' s war host stifled his rampant frustration. He was not such a fool, to transgress arcane bargains. Neither could he evade the harsh charge of his oath to a Fellowship Sorcerer.
    His overtaxed nerves would have to be nursed, one hard-set breath at a time. Sulfin Evend ate the simple fare without savour. Wary of the poison that tipped desert darts, he would endure till these uncivilized people chose to grant his appeal.
    The haunting strain of the lyranthe remained silenced when