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"Well, Dani, are you learning to walk with an eye to being surprised and thrown from behind?"

"Am I ever," Danilo said, laughing. "Gabriel-Captain Lanart-Hastur-caught up with me yesterday. This

time, though, I managed to block him, so he didn't throw me. He just showed me the hold he'd used."

Lew chuckled. "Gabriel is the best wrestler in the Guards," he said. "I had to learn the hard way. I hadbruises everywhere. Every one of the officers had me marked down as the easiest to throw. After myarm had been dislocated by-by accident," he said, but Regis felt he had started to say something else, "Gabriel finally took pity on me and taught me a few of his secrets. Mostly, though, I relied on keepingout of the officers' reach. At fourteen I was smaller than you, Dani."

Regis' distress was subsiding a little. He said, "It's not so easy to keep out of the way, though."

Lew said quietly, "I know. I suppose they have their rea-

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sons. It is good training, to keep your wits about you and be on the alert all the time; I was grateful for it later when I was on patrol and had to handle hefty drunks and brawlers twice my size. But I didn't enjoy the learning, believe me. I remember Father saying to me once that it was better to be hurt a little by a friend than seriously hurt, some day, by an enemy."

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"I don't mind being hurt," said Danilo, and with that new and unendurable awareness, Regis realized his voice was trembling as if he was about to cry. "I was bruised all over when I was learning to ride. I can stand the bruises. What I do mind is when-when someone thinks it's funny to see me take a fall. I didn't mind it when Lerrys Ridenow caught me and threw me halfway down the stairs yesterday, because he said that was always the most dangerous place to be attacked and I should always be on guard in such a spot. I don't mind when they're trying to teach me something. That's what I'm here for. But now and then someone seems to-to enjoy hurting me, or frightening me."

They had come away from the stairs now and were walking along an open collonade; Regis could see Lew's face, and it was grim. He said, "I know that happens. I don't understand it either. And I've neverunderstood why some people seem to feel that making a boy into a man seems to mean making him intoa brute. If we'd all been in the Guard hall, I'd have felt compelled to throw Regis ten feet, and I don'tsuppose I'd have been any gentler than any other officer. But I don't like hurting people when there's noneed either. I suppose your cadet-master would think me shamefully remiss in my duty. Don't tell him,will you?" He grinned suddenly and his hand fell briefly on Danilo's shoulder, giving him a little shake. "Now you two had better hurry along; you'll be late." He turned a corridor at right angles to their ownand strode away.

The two cadets hurried down their own way. Regis was thinking that he had never known Lew felt likethat They must have been hard on him, especially Dyan. But how did he know that?

Danilo said, "I wish all the officers were like Lew. I wish he were the cadet-master, don't you?"

Regis nodded. "I don't think Lew would want to be cadet-master, though. And from what I've heard,

Dyan is very seri-

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ous about honor and responsibility. You heard him speak at Council."

Danilo's mouth twisted. "Anyhow, you don't have to worry. Lord Dyan likes you. Everybody knowsthatl"

"Jealous?" Regis retorted good-naturedly.

"You're Comyn," Danilo said, "you get special treatment"

The words were a sudden painful reminder of the distance between them, a distance Regis had almostceased to feel. It hurt. He said, "Dani, don't be a fool! You mean the fact that he uses me for a partner atsword practice? That's an honor I'd gladly change with you! If you think it's love-pats I'm getting fromhim, take a look at me naked some day-you're welcome and more than welcome to Dyan's love-pats!"

He was completely unprepared for the dark crimson flush that flooded Danilo's face, the sudden fierceanger as he swung around to face Regis. "What the hell do you mean by that remark?"

Regis stared at him in dismay. "Why, only that sword-practice with Lord Dyan is an honor I'd gladly dowithout He's much stricter than the arms-master and he hits harder! Look at my ribs, you'll see that I'mblack and blue from shoulder to knee! What did you think I meant?"

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Danilo turned away and didn't answer directly. He only said, "We're going to be late. We'd better run."

Regis spent the early evening hours on street-patrol in the city with Hjalmar, the giant young Guardsmanwho had first tested him for swordplay. They broke up two budding brawls, hauled an obstreperousdrunk to the brig, directed half a dozen lost country bumpkins to the inn where they had left their horsesand gently reminded a few wandering women that harlots were restricted by law to certain districts in thecity. A quiet evening in Thendara. When they returned to the Guard hall to go off duty, they fell in with Gabriel Lanart and half a dozen officers who were planning to visit a small tavern near the gates. Regiswas about to withdraw when Gabriel stopped him.

"Come along with us, brother. You should see more of the city than you can from the barracks

window!"

Thus urged, Regis went with the older men. The tavern was small and smoky, filled with off-duty Guardsmen. Regis sat next to Gabriel, who took the trouble to teach him the card game they wereplaying. It was the first time he had

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been in the company of older officers. Most of the time he was quiet, listening much more than he talked,

but it was good to be one of the company and accepted.

It reminded him, just a little, of the summers he'd spent at Armida. It would never have occurred to Kennard or Lew or old Andres to treat the solemn and precocious boy as a child. That early acceptanceamong men had put him out of step, probably forever, he realized with a remote sadness, with lads hisown age. Now though, and the knowledge felt as if a weight had fallen from him, he knew that he did feelat home among men. He felt as if he was drawing the first really free breaths he had drawn since hisgrandfather pushed him, with only a few minutes to prepare for it, into the cadets.

"You're quiet, kinsman," Gabriel said as they walked back together. "Have you had too much to drink? You'd better go and get some sleep. You'll be all right tomorrow." He said a good-natured good night and went off to his own quarters.

The night officer patrolling the court said, "You're a few minutes late, cadet. It's your first offense, so Iwon't put you on report this time. Just don't do it again. Lights are out in the first-year barracks; you'llhave to undress in the dark."

Regis made his way, a little unsteadily, into the barracks. Gabriel was right, he thought, surprised and notaltogether displeased, he had had too much to drink. He was not used to drinking at all, and tonight hehad drunk several cups of wine. He realized, as he hauled off his clothes by the moonlight, that he feltconfused and unfocused. It had, he thought with a strange fuzziness, been a meaningful day, but he didn'tknow yet what it all meant. The Council. The somehow shocking realization that he had reached hisgrandfather's mind, recognized Lew by touch without seeing or hearing him. The odd half-quarrel with Danilo. It added to the confusion he felt, which was more than just drunkenness. He wondered if theyhad put kirian in his wine, heard himself giggle aloud at the thought, then fell rapidly into an edgy,nightmare-ridden half-sleep.

... He was back in Nevarsin, in the cold student dormitory where, in winter, snow drifted through the

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wooden shutters and lay in heaps on the novices* beds. In his dream, as had actually happened once or

twice, two or three of the students had climbed into bed together, sharing blankets and

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body warmth against the bitter cold, to be discovered in the morning and severely scolded for breaking this inflexible rule. This dream kept recurring; each time, he would discover some strange naked body in his arms and, deeply disturbed, he would wake up with an admixture of fear and guilt. Each time he

woke from this repeated dream he was more deeply upset and troubled by it, until he finally escaped into a deeper, darker realm of sleep. Now it seemed that he was his own father, crouched on a bare hillside in darkness, with strange fires exploding around him. He was shuddering with fright as men dropped

dead around him, closer and closer, knowing that within moments he too would be blasted into fragments by one of the erupting fires. Then he felt someone close to him in the dark, holding him, sheltering his body with Ms own. Regis started awake again, shaking. He rubbed his eyes and looked around him at the quiet barracks room, dimly lit with moonlight, seeing the dim forms of the other cadets, snoring or muttering in their sleep. None of it was real, he thought, and slid down again on his hard mattress.

After a while he began to dream again. This time he was wandering in a featureless gray landscape inwhich there was nothing to see. Someone was crying somewhere in the gray spaces, crying miserably, inlong painful sobs. Regis kept turning in another direction, not at first sure whether he was looking for thesource of the weeping or trying to get away from the wretched sound. Small shuddering words camethrough the sobs, / won't, I don't want to, I can't. Every time the crying lessened for a moment there wasa cruel voice, an almost familiar voice, saying, Oh, yes you will, you know you cannot fight me, and atother times, Hate me as much as you will, I like it better that way. Regis squirmed with fear. Then he wasalone with the weeping, the inarticulate little sobs of protest and pleading. He went on searching in thelonely grayness until a hand touched him in the dark, a rude indecent searching, half painful and halfexciting. He cried out "No!" and fled again into deeper sleep.

This time he dreamed he was in the student's court at Nevarsin, practicing with the wooden foils. Regiscould hear the sound of his own panting breaths, doubled and multiplied in the great echoing room as afaceless opponent moved before him and kept quickening his movements insistently. Suddenly Regisrealized they were both naked, that the blows struck were landing on his bare body. As his faceless op-

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ponent moved faster and faster Regis himself grew almost paralyzed, sluggishly unable to lift his sword. And then a great ringing voice forbade them to continue, and Regis dropped his sword and looked up at the dark cowl of the forbidding monk. But it was not the novice-master at Nevarsin monastery, but Dyan Ardais. While Regis stood, frozen with dread, Dyan picked up the dropped sword, no longer a wooden practice sword, but a cruelly sharpened rapier. Dyan, holding it out straight ahead while Regis looked on in dread and horror, plunged it right into Regis' breast. Curiously, it went hi without the slightest pain, and Regis looked down in shaking dread at the sight of the sword passing through his entire body. "That's because it didn't touch the heart," Dyan said, and Regis woke with a gasping cry, pulling himself upright in bed. "Zandru," he whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead, "what a nightmare!" He realized that his heart was still pounding, and then that his thighs and his sheets were damp with a clammy stJckiness. Now that he was wide awake and knew what had happened, he could almost laugh at the absurdity of the dream, but it still gripped him so that he could not lie down and go to sleep again.

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It was quiet in the barrack room, with more than an hour to go before daybreak. He was no longerdrunk or fuzzy-headed, but there was a pounding pain behind his eyes.

Slowly he became aware that Danilo was crying in the next bed, crying helplessly, desperately, with akind of hopeless pain. He remembered the crying in his dream. Had he heard the sound, woven it intonightmare?

Then, in a sort of slow amazement and wonder, he realized that Danilo was not crying.

He could see, by the dimmed moonlight, that Danilo was in fact motionless and deeply asleep. He couldhear his breath coming softly, evenly, see his turned-away shoulder moving gently with his breathing. Theweeping was not a sound at all, but a sort of intangible pattern of vibrating misery and despair, like thelost little crying in his dream, but soundless.

Regis put his hands over his eyes in the darkness and thought, with rising wonder, that he hadn't heardthe crying, but knew it just the same.

It was true, then. Laran. Not randomly picked up from another telepath, but his.

The shock of that thought drove everything else from bis

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mind. How did it happen? When? And formulating the question brought its own answer: that first day in

barracks, when Dani had touched him. He had dreamed about that conversation tonight, dreaming he

was his father for a moment Again he felt that surge of closeness, of emotion so intense that there was a

lump in his throat. Danilo slept quietly now, even the telepathic impression of noiseless weeping having

died away. Regis worried, troubled and torn with even the backwash of his friend's grief, wondering what