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quiet and calm.
    Rubbing the sand out of his eyes, Mosiah blinked, trying to see who had come to his rescue, wondering what anyone else would be doing on the Border. Catching sight of a flutter of orange silk, his heart sank.
    “I say, old chap,” came an all too familiar voice, “thanks awfully. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that shield myself, except I was having a rollicking good time getting tumbled about like those jolly plant things that never take root but go bounding along the sand. And I’ve got a new style. I call it
Cyclone.
Do you like it?”

4

I Call It Cyclone
    M osiah glared in displeased astonishment at the figure standing next to him in the magical bubble.
    “Simkin,” he mumbled, spitting sand out of his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
    “Why, it’s Almin’s Day. I always come here on Almin’s Day. What did you say? This is Thursday? Well”—he shrugged—“what’s a day or so between friends.” Raising his arms, he exhibited his clothes. “What do you think?”
    Mosiah glanced at the bearded young man in disgust. Everything Simkin wore—from his blue brocade coat to his purple silk vest to his shimmering green trousers—was inside out. Not only that, but he was wearing his undergarments on top of his clothes. His hair stood straight up on his head and his normally smooth beard stuck out in all directions.
    “I think you look a fool, as always,” Mosiah muttered. “And if I’d known it was you I would have let you sail off until you smashed headfirst into the mountains!”
    “It was I who saved
you
from sailing off, remember?” Simkin said languidly. “What a foul humor you’re in. Your face will freeze like that, I’ve warned you before. Puts me in mind of the corpse of the Duke of Tulkinghorn who didn’t die but just nastied away. I can’t think
what
you have against me, dear boy.” Conjuring a mirror, Simkin gazed at himself with pleasure, ruffling up his beard to heighten the effect.
    “Oh, can’t you!” Mosiah snapped viciously. “There were only a few people who knew we were to meet in the Grove that night—myself, Joram, Saryon, you, and, as it turns out, the
Duuk-tsarith!
I suppose that’s just the sheerest coincidence?”
    Lowering the mirror, Simkin stared at Mosiah incredulously. “I can’t believe it!” he cried in tragic tones. “All this time you have suspected me of betrayal? Me?” Dashing the mirror to the sand, Simkin clutched at his heart. “Break! Break!” He moaned “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would wilt.”
    “Stop it, Simkin,” Mosiah said coldly, barely able to control an urge to grab the young man around the neck and choke him. “Your games aren’t funny anymore.”
    Glancing at Mosiah from beneath his fluttering eyelids, Simkin suddenly straightened, smoothed his hair, and changed his clothes to a very proper and conservative ensemble of gray silk with white lace, pearl buttons, and a tasteful mauve cravat. Adjusting the lace at his wrist, he said casually, “I had no idea you were harboring this resentment. You should have spoken out earlier. Saryon was the traitor, as I’ve told you before. Surely Prince Garald has his sources for discovering the truth? Ask him, if you don’t believe me.”
    “I don’t and I have,” Mosiah said, scowling. “And no one knows anything if there’s anything to know—”
    “Oh, there is,” inserted Simkin.
    Mosiah shook his head in exasperation. “As for the catalyst betraying us, I’ve heard that wild story you concocted about Saryon and Joram and I don’t believe it. Father Saryon would never have betrayed us and—”
    “—I would?” Simkin finished calmly, smoothing his hair. With a wave of his hand, he pulled a bit of orange silk from the air and dabbed at his nose. “You’re right, of course,” he continued imperturbably. “I might have betrayed you, butonly if things got dull. As it turned out, I didn’t need to. You must admit, we had rather an exciting