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bank, my copper skin gleaming in the bright sun. The slightly abrasive plant fibers had buffed me silken smooth. I ran my hands over my flat belly, sluicing the drops from me. I split my sopping mass of thigh-length hair and brought the halves forward upon my breasts. Running my fingers through the snarls, I remembered that upon Mi’ysten I had learned a better way. I raised my hands to the crown of my head and did as the Shaper woman had taught me, bringing my hands slowly down, fingers spread. My scalp tingled, the strands crackled, and my hair lay without knot or tangle upon my breasts. So I had brought at least one Mi’ysten skill back with me. Not all of what had been learned beyond time and space could be used within it. But if one skill could be brought to bear, so might some others. Shaping—creating from the molecules free in the air what one desires—had eluded me in the desert. I thought I might try again, when I had the chance.
    The jiask’s eyes were upon me. He was staring. “It is amazing,” he said, “what a little puiia and water will do.”
    I smiled at him, boldly meeting his eyes.
    “Your cahndor awaits you, crell,” he growled, his eyes on my chald.
    “And his brother, does he too await me?” I queried, as he took my arm and led me back through the tyla palms, toward the appreis. “Are they truly brothers?”
    “Dharener Hael? He is also the son of Inekte, by the same rendi woman, Tasphersi, who was, a Nemarchan until Inekte died.” He stepped over the dead tyla trunk that lay fallen across the path. I followed suit, and gasped as I trod a sharp stone.
    “Who is Nemarchan now?” I asked, limping as we cross , the clearing to the fire, burning low, untended. The other jiasks had already retired to the shade of the appreis. They had left a joint of meat and half-full pot of binnirin, boiled until the grains had dissolved into a brown starchy mass. Beside the joint, cooled so that the fat and blood had congealed upon its charred surface, lay a quarter-filled bladder.
    “Can you not wait to find out? Liuma Sataeje aniet Erastur reigns over the tiasks, over the time and the life, at the side of Chayin rendi Inekte, chosen son of Tar-Kesa.” He intoned the ritual with more than a little fervor. Tar-Kesa, ancient god of the gristasha, still held power in the desert. If Liuma reigned over the time and life, then she was forereader. Chayin had a formidable court, with his blood brother the dharener, first among the Day-Keepers of the Nemarsi, and his couch-mate Nemarchan and forereader. With the three elements in accord, the Nemarsi might be wielded like a single razor-sharp sword in the hand of the cahndor. I knew the ritual of Tar-Kesa, and if Chayin had become his chosen son, he had undergone its testing: arduous, but worth the pain and risk to a man who would become a flesh-god, a living legend, above reproach and question. Dorkat, indeed, was Chayin, who loved power so much that he had laid his life down as wager upon the altar of Tar-Kesa.
    I picked, at the charred meat, at the mass of binnirin in the pot. The jiask gulped his food so fast he must have swallowed each bite whole. He drank long from the bladder. The sun beat down hot upon my back. When he surrendered the drink to me, I found it to be brin, headless and flat, but welcome. The intoxicant eased my mind, lightened my heart. I drank more. I was not hungry, I decided, but only thirsty. I was conscious of the apprei, looming behind my back. Its cool shade did not entice me. I had almost managed to forget why the cahndor had allowed me to wash and feed.
    Marshon the jiask got to his feet and wiped his greasy hands upon his thighs. He tugged at my hair. Reluctantly I rose. He unlaced the flap and held it open for me. I saw that my plight amused him. All within the apprei looked green and indistinct. I stood for a moment, the urge to turn and run strong upon me, but there was nowhere to run. I stepped inside, and the flap fell back in