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    He recalled what Auster, the Keeper who trained him, had said; that men devised myth and legend to explain what they could not understand. When he felt the spell his father had laid on him, he sometimes envisioned it as a frozen vice clamped around his temples, other times a slowly turning knife point in his belly. Perhaps Saravio envisioned himself acting upon the will of the demigoddess when he did his healing work. Surely easing the pain of a dying child was a good thing.
    Eduin, his interest aroused, asked, “What exactly is Naotalba’s gift? How did you use it to help this child?”
    In answer, Saravio closed his eyes and began humming. His sense of pitch was not very good, but Eduin recognized a common street song. The melody would have been familiar and reassuring to the child of an innkeeper. Perhaps her own mother had sung it to her as a lullaby.
    “Oh the lark in the morning,
She rises in the west,
And comes home in the evening
With the dew on her breast.”
    As he listened, Eduin felt his own muscles soften and relax. The soreness from the unaccustomed hard labor melted, replaced by a warmth that soon spread along his limbs. His belly felt as full as if he had just risen from a holiday feast. The dull pressure in his head lifted, and within the confines of his skull, he heard only the lilting melody.
    His lips curved unbidden into a smile. Surely there could be nothing so wonderful as to sit here, surrounded and filled by this music. He could not remember feeling so safe, so content, so blissful. The knotted ice in his belly lifted like mist from summer fields. The hissing scorpion voice in his head fell utterly still. A wave of inexpressible relief passed through him. Tears rose to his eyes. From his groin, heat thrummed in rising pleasure.
    Pleasure . . .
    What in the name of all the gods was Saravio doing?
    Eduin jerked alert, his psychic barriers slamming into place. The physical sensations of arousal receded. He caught his breath in a gasp and realized he had been weeping silently. Saravio was still half-singing, half-humming, his words barely understandable.
    “What—” Eduin stammered, “what did you do to me?”
    Saravio met his gaze with a blankly innocent stare, devoid of any trace of dissembling. “You? I brought you in from the storm.”
    “You sang to me, didn’t you? Just as you did to the child, just as you did now?”
    “You were delirious and might have done yourself injury. I sang to calm you. There was no harm in it, any more than when I sang for the innkeeper’s daughter.”
    “And that’s all? You just . . . sang to me?”
    Again, that guileless stare, as blank as a child’s. “Why, yes, unless . . . You must mean the kirian. I had a little remaining to me. Are you angry that I gave it to you without your permission? We are neither of us bound by the rules of the Tower.”
    “No, I’m not angry,” Eduin admitted.
    The kirian alone could not have eased the spell. Either Saravio was a consummate liar with the best laran shielding on Darkover, or else he truly did not know what he had done.
    Saravio shrugged. “As you have heard, I am no minstrel. Still, it was honest work and paid for this room, food, a little heat. My needs are few. In the end, Avarra took the child to her bosom and I had not the heart to sing for another. On the day I found you, a man at the King’s granary gave me a coin. I wonder if he thought me a beggar. He should have known better, for he understood the evils that beset this city, which only Naotalba can save. But alas, Naotalba had not touched his eyes, as she has mine.”
    Before Eduin could ask any more questions, Saravio leaned closer. His eyes burned, as if lit with dark fire. He lowered his voice, now trembling with urgency. “I can trust you. You know what it is to run, to hide, to be persecuted for speaking the truth.”
    Eduin nodded, although he was not entirely sure what Saravio meant. His head might be steadier than it had been in