Wyrms

But there's a translucence to you, a lightness in your eyes."

Until this moment, it had never occurred to Patience that she might be beautiful. Her mirror did not reveal the soft and rounded features that were the fashion of beauty these days. But there was no hint of flattery or deception in Oruc's words.

"As long as you're alive," he whispered, "anyone who sees you will want me dead, so you can take my place. Do you understand that? Me and all my family, dead. Whether or not someone bred you to be what you are, you are. And I will not have my children destroyed for your sake. Do you understand me?"

"Your children have been my playmates all my life," said Patience.

"I should kill you. Your father even advised me to kill you. But I won't do it."

But Patience knew that there was an unspoken word: yet. I will not kill you yet.

"What maddens me is not that I choose to leave you alive, for in truth I rejoice in you as surely as any Vigilant. What maddens me is that I don't remember deciding to leave you alive. I don't remember choosing.

The decision was simply-made. Is it you? Is it some trick of manipulation your father taught you?"

Patience didn't answer. He didn't seem to expect her to.

"Or am I being twisted as the Wise were twisted? The decision made for me because whoever it is wants you, wants you alive." He turned to the heads. "You-you have no will anymore, only memory and passion. Do you remember what it is to choose?"

"A dim memory," said Konstans. "I think I did it once or twice."

Oruc turned his back on them. "I have done it all my life. Chosen. Consciously, deliberately chosen, and then acted upon my choice, regardless of passion. My will has always been in control of my triune soul-the priests know it, that's why they fear me, why there is no revolution in your name. They believe that whenever I choose to, I can and certainly will kill you. They don't know.

That on this matter I have no will."

Patience believed that he believed what he was saying.

But it was still not true. There would come a time when he feared her more than now, and he would kill her. She could feel that certainty lying beneath everything he said.' For that was the foundation of his power, that he could kill anyone when he chose to. "Father told me once,"' she said. "There are two ways to rule human beings.

One is to convince the people that if they do not obey they and those they love will be destroyed. The other is to earn the love of the people. And he told me where these two ways lead. Eventually, the course of terror leads to revolution and anarchy. Eventually, the course of flattery leads to contempt and anarchy."

"So he believes no power can last?"

"No. Because there is a third way. It looks like the course of love sometimes, and sometimes it looks like the course of terror."

"Back and forth between the two? The people wouldn't know you then, and none would follow you."

"No. It isn't back and forth between anything. It's a straight and steady course. The course of magnanimity Greatness of heart."

"It means nothing to me. One of the cardinal virtues but the priests don't even know what it means."

"To love your people so much that you would sacrifice anything for the good of the whole. Your own life, your own family, your own happiness. And then you expect the same from them."

Oruc looked at her coldly. "You're repeating what you learned by rote."

"Yes," she said. "I will observe you, though, my Heptarch, and see if it is true."

"Magnanimity. Sacrifice anything. What do you think I am-Kristos?"

"I think you are my Heptarch, and you will always have my loyalty."

"But will my children?" asked Oruc. "Can you tell me that?"

She bowed her head. "My lord, for your sake I would die for your children."

"I know. We've had theatrical proof of that. But I know better than you do. You are loyal to me because your father taught you to be, and he is loyal to me because he loves Korfu as much as I do. He's a wise man, your father. The last of the Wise, I believe. I think it's only because of his bloodline that he hasn't heard the Cra

The guards he had sent for were waiting in the doorways.

He beckoned them in. "Take her back to the physician and have those bugs removed. Then give her back into the custody of her father's slave. Angel. He's waiting in the garden." He turned to Patience. "He's waited there for days, never stirring. A most devoted servant. By the way, I've ordered a medal struck in your honor. Every member of the Fourteen Families will wear it for this week, as will the Mayor and Council of Heptam. You handled the situation with the Tassali brilliantly.

Perfectly. I will have occasion to use your talents again." He smiled gruesomely. "ALL your talents."

This had been her final examination, then, and she had passed. He intended to use her as a diplomat, young as she was. And as an assassin. She would wait now, as her father had always waited, for the knock on the door in the night, and the shadowy messenger with a note from King Oruc. She would read the note, as Father did, to learn who it was who should die. Then she would burn it and comb the ashes into fine powder. Then she would kill.

She almost danced down the corridors of Heptagon House. She needed no litter now. She had faced the King, and he had chosen her as her father had been chosen.

Angel took up her education where it had left off only a few days before, as if nothing had happened. She knew enough not to speak of these matters inside King's Hill, where everything was overheard and reported.

Two days later, Angel received a message late in the afternoon and immediately closed his book. "Patience," he said. "We will go down into the city this afternoon."

"Father is home!" she cried in delight.

Angel smiled at her as he put her cloak around her shoulders. "Perhaps we could go to the School. We might learn something."

It wasn't likely. The School was a large open place in the middle of Heptam. Years ago, the Wise of the world had come here to teach to all corners. Because of Crossriver Delving and Lost Souls' Island, Heptam was known as the religious capital of the world; the School made it the intellectual center as well. But now, a generation after the Flight of the Wise, the School was no more than a gaggle of scholars who endlessly recited dead and memorized words that they did not understand. Angel took great delight in teaching Patience to go to the heart of an argument and find its weak place. Then she would confront the would-be philosopher and skewer him publicly.

She didn't do it often, but enjoyed knowing that she could, whenever she liked. Learn something? Not at the School.

It wasn't learning she was after anyway. It was freedom.

Whenever Father was away, she was forced to remain within the high walls of King's Hill, among the same nobles and courtiers and servants. She had long since explored every corner of King's Hill, and it held no surprises for her. But whenever Father came home, she was free. As long as he was behind the walls of King's Hill, Angel could take her wherever he wanted in the city.

They used these times to practice techniques they could never use in King's Hill. Disguises, for instance. They would often dress and talk as servants, as criminals, as merchants, pretending to be father and daughter. Or, sometimes, mother and son, for as Angel said, "The most perfect disguise is to change from one sex to another, for when they are searching for a girl, all boys are invisible to them."

Even better than the disguises, though, was the talk.

Switching from language to language, they could freely converse as they walked along the bustling streets. No one could stay near them long enough to overhear an entire conversation. It was the only time when she could ask her most difficult and dangerous questions and voice her most rebellious opinions.