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deceived by you lot, and you all had to die? Don't you know what we say? Know where all the exits are. Never sit with your back to the door. Watch the reflections. Watch the shadows. Keep your hands free and your weapons loose ."
    Sunlord! he thought desperately, I'm being bombarded with Shin'a'in proverbs! What a terrible way to die!
    He meant that lightly, but it seemed that the Kal'enedral intended to continue until she had recited every proverb on the subject of self-defense that the Shin'a'in ever invented. "Never sit down to eat with your sword at your side—strap it to your back for a faster draw. Better an honest enemy than a feigned friend. When—"
    " Who is wisest, says least ," he interrupted, desperate to cut through what looked to be an unending stream of proverbs. Were Shin'a'in all like that? Even Kerowyn tended to spout Shin'a'in proverbs at the drop of a hint. And a spirit Kal'enedral probably knew every proverb ever composed!
    The spirit laughed aloud again. "Well said!" she applauded. "Keep that sense of humor, and you might just survive this. Chagren, take special care of this one; he's deeper than he looks."
    Chagren bowed low. "As you say, teacher," he replied.
    Karal wasn't prepared for the spirit's departure; he barely blinked and she was gone. A chill ran up his backbone, but he was determined not to show it.
    "If you see a Swordsworn in black with a veil," Chagren said slowly, "it is leshy'a . There have been some few here among the rest of us. We think they come to ensure your safety... or ours. It's debated which."
    "It's more likely both," Karal said, feeling a bit dizzy. "Kerowyn's kin to her ?"
    Chagren shrugged. "So she says. That is something new to me, but the leshy'a are not inclined to talk about their pasts. Often we do not even know their names. She is my first teacher of the sword, and came to me the night that I was Sworn—" He broke off what he was saying to shake his head. "I am babbling. And you , young outland priest, can consider yourself as having passed a kind of examination. None of the Sworn are likely to question your right to be here ever again."
    With that rather surprising statement, he turned and left the chamber leaving Karal alone with his thoughts, which were, to say the least, very complex.
    Although there was one thought that was not at all complex.
    So my right to be here will no longer be questioned. That's all very well for me, but what about the others?
     
    Firesong sighed as he regarded his much abused shirt with a frown. His favorite sorts of garments were not meant for rough living and a camp existence.
    "Glaring at it won't put the hem back up," Silverfox remarked around a mouthful of pins. "You might as well give up and do it the hard way."
    Firesong growled under his breath, but took up needle and thread grudgingly. "All very well for you to say," he complained, "but you've been able to trade off sweeping and scrubbing the sleeping room to An'desha in return for cleaning his dishes. And you've traded Lo'isha massages for cleaning and airing the bedding. I haven't got anything anyone wants to trade for! Valdemar, barbaric as it was, is looking better all the time!"
    Silverfox chuckled. "It could be worse; we could still be eating your cooking. I believe that our kin-cousins are being very generous in taking over the larger portion of the work."
    Firesong growled again. "You only say that because you can do things even the Kal'enedral are interested in. I'm a mage , that's all I know, and they don't want a thing I can do for them!"
    Silverfox put down his needle to look up at him with sympathy. "You aren't just a mage. You are a lover, but you are so exotic to them that they could more easily entertain fantasies of bedding clouds. If there is really something you detest, would you please tell me and let me do it, or barter a massage or something to one of the Sworn and have him do it? You are a mage, ashaka , and I feel in my bones that soon enough you will