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himself to be led downstairs to
die.
    * * *
    THE HOUSE'S MODEST ballroom was jammed to
overflowing. All of Clan Obrelt, from the eldest to the youngest,
were present to witness Ren Zel's death. Fewer of Clan Jabun were
likewise present, scarcely a dozen, all adult, saving one child--a
toddler with white-blonde hair and wide blue eyes that Ren Zel knew
must be Elsu's daughter.
    On the dais usually occupied by musicians
during Obrelt's rare entertainments was a three-sided table. On the
shortest side stood Ren Zel; Aunt Chane and Obrelt Himself were
together at one of the longer sides; Jabun and his second, a
grey-haired man with steel-blue eyes, stood facing them.
    In the front row of witnesses sat a figure of
neither House, an old and withered man who one might see a time or
two a year, at weddings and funerals, always wearing the same
expression of polite sadness: Tor Cam tel' Vana, the Eyes of
Casia's Council of Clans.
    "We are here," Jabun lifted his voice so that
it washed against the far walls of the room, "to put the death upon
the man who murdered Elsu Meriandra, pilot first class, daughter of
Jabun."
    "We are here," Obrelt's voice was milder, but
no more difficult for those in the back to hear, "to mourn Obrelt's
son Ren Zel, who dies as the result of a piloting accident."
    Jabun glared, started--and was restrained by
the hand of his second on his sleeve. Thus moderated, he turned his
hot eyes to Ren Zel.
    "What have you in your pockets, dead man? It
is my Balance that you go forth from here nameless, rootless and
without possessions."
    Slowly, Ren Zel reached into his jacket
pocket and withdrew the two cantra pieces.
    "Put them on the table," Jabun hissed.
    "He will return them to his pocket," Obrelt
corrected and met the other's glare with a wide calmness. "Ren Zel
belongs to Obrelt until he dies. It is the tradition of our Clan
that the dead shall have two coins, one to an eye." He gestured
toward the short side of the table, still holding Jabun's gaze.
"Ren Zel, your pocket."
    Obediently, he slipped the coins away.
    Once again, Jabun sputtered; once again, he
was held back by his second, who leaned forward and stared hard
into Ren Zel's face.
    "There is something else, dead man. We will
see your license destroyed ere you are cast away."
    Ren Zel froze. His license? Were they mad?
How would he work? How would he live?
    "My nephew gave his life for that license,
Honored Sir," Aunt Chane said serenely. "He dies because he was
worthy of it. What more fitting than it be interred with him?"
    "That was not our agreement," the second
stated.
    "Our agreement," said Obrelt with unbreached
calm, "was that Ren Zel dea'Judan be cast out of his Clan, and made
a stranger to his kin, his loss to Obrelt to precisely Balance the
loss of Elsu Meriandra to Clan Jabun. Elsu Meriandra was not made
to relinquish her license in death. We desire, as Jabun desires, an
exact Balancing of accounts."
    Jabun Himself answered, and in such terms
that Ren Zel would have trembled, had there been room for fear
beside the agony in his heart.
    "You think to buy him a life? Think again!
What ship will employ a dead man? None that Jabun knows by name."
He shifted, shaking off his second's hand.
    In the first row of witnesses, the aged man
rose. "These displays delay and impair the death," murmured the
Eyes of Council. "Only his Delm may lay conditions upon a dying
man, and there is no death until the Delm declares it." He paused,
sending a thoughtful glance to Jabun. "The longest Balance-death
recorded stretched across three sundowns."
    Jabun glared briefly at the Eyes, then turned
back to the table.
    "He may retain the license," he said, waving
his hand dismissively. "May it do him well in the Low Port."
    There was silence; the Eyes bowed toward the
Balancing table and reseated himself, hands folded on his knee.
    Obrelt cleared his throat and raised his
voice, chanting in the High Tongue.
    "Ren Zel dea'Judan, you are cast out, dead to
Clan and kin. You