by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Shiranan, a dark haired, wiry young woman known for her whipchord strength and swift, sure movements, is about to be installed as the official successor to the Chief Healer of the Blue Caves Sanctuary.

The Blue Caves healers are assembled in the huge courtyard surrounded by the buildings where they live and work. Convalescing patients are watching the proceedings from their windows. They make Shiranan nervous because she knows that among them are some Kings' Men, loyal to King Hardin the First, while many of the others are still nurturing their loyalty to King Vennard whom Hardin deposed. The political schism is also evident among the assembled healers, though they tend to be silent supporters of Vennard.

Behind the buildings, in the cliff face that looms over them, is the entry to the healing caves. And behind that rises the Blue Ramparts, the mountain range that cannot be crossed over. The Sanctuary used to be a pocket of peace among the high crags. It has lately become a locus of silently building tension.

Shiranan, known here as Rana, faces the Chief Healer, Lewin Eldone, as he addresses the crowd. She feels like a fraud, for she knows that she would never have been accepted for training had they known the truth about her.

But, for the thousandth time, she puts that truth behind her. She is no longer Shiranan the Assassin. The blue waters of the ponds in the healing caves washed all that out of her, and she was reborn Rana the healer. Or so she tells herself.

She is called forth, crosses her open palms before her breast in the greeting of a healer, and bows her head before her superior to receive the sigil of her new office, a gold medallion charged with a magic that resonates only to her touch. "By this token shall you be known to all, your skill recognized, your judgement unchallenged by those less qualified."

As the chain is placed around her neck, the main gates crash open.

Two mounted soldiers in the King's livery burst into the courtyard, healers scurrying out of the way of the shod hooves that strike sparks off the cobblestones. Between the two horses, a litter is swung, a fur wrapped form strapped to it. Clearly, the two horsemen are surprised to find such a mob in the courtyard.

The Captain of the men demands that the Chief Healer come and treat this Assassin who was found badly burned, lying at the edge of a small forest fire down the mountainside. It is imperative that he be questioned in a matter of great concern to the Crown, so the Chief Healer himself is charged personally with seeing to the man.

By the time this announcement is complete, Rana pushes forward claiming that the Chief Healer no longer takes personal charge of patients. This is not strictly true, but she motions frantically to Lewin to stay back. She is highly suspicious.

Strung tight, she bends to unwrap the furs from the supine man on the litter. He is dressed in the standard black uniform of Assassins and is wearing the badge of her own cadre. Her suspicions crystalize to a dread certainty. She starts to unwrap the bandages that cover his face burns, holding her breath against the odor of burn ointment. She senses no pain in him, and assumes he's unconscious.

Incredulous, she understands the plot - someone has allowed himself to be badly burned in order to be treated by Lewin, planning to strike at Lewin after the Healing, when Lewin would be least expecting it.

As she struggles with the last wrap of bandage, she sees a youth she doesn't recognize. Not surprising, for as far as she knew, Red Shadow Cadre had died to a man, leaving her the only survivor. She surmises that the Red Shadow Cadre has been recommissioned with wholly new recruits, and these three may be the only ones with guts enough to take on a dishonored cadre name and try to reclaim its honor.

As the last fold comes away, she sees that the youth is not burned at all. From deep tranced repose, he explodes into deadly motion, grabbing her clothing and tumbling her to the ground before realizing that she is not Lewin Eldone. Yanking her new medallion free, he throws it aside in disgust, and before else can react, he hurls himself at the Chief Healer.

There is no time to think it through. Rana flings aside her torn healer's robe, and attacks the Assassin, thwarting his surprise thrust at the Chief Healer. The supposed King's Men turn out likewise to be Assassins, and they attack Rana.

After one quick exchange in which she parries with a Red Shadow move, one of them accuses her, "You're Red Shadow!"

"Not any more. I'm Rana, a healer of the Blue Caves. The Red Shadow is dead." She circles warily, for the cadre's oath prohibits their turning their killing skills on each other - ever. And she is now sworn guardian of life, not a terminator.

"The Red Shadow lives! In us!" the Captain corrects her. "You must by your oath, join with us to cleanse our honor."

Warily, the three circle Rana, obviously expecting her to come to her senses so they can strike Lewin down and make good their escape. They don't expect any interference from the mob of healers around them, for everyone knows healers may not lift a hand in violence.

The other healers can't quite believe what is happening, and many, including Lewin Eldone are aghast at what Rana is doing right before their eyes. Their sheer numbers prevent the "Kings Men" from getting at Lewin while Rana keeps them busy. Meanwhile, Rana overhears remarks of the healers. "How could she have dared come here!" "How could we have been taken in?" "How are we going to get rid of her?" "Just hope they kill her. That will solve the problem."

Stung by that, Rana, despite seven years lack of practice, advances and throws the one wearing the Captain's Uniform to the ground. There is a dull crunch and the man's body writhes only from the waist up as he cries out. She turns to deal with the other armed man while other healers converge on the stricken man.

Lewin tries to stop her by calling her to her healer's oath, and she swears at him, ordering him to flee, shouting at him over her shoulder as she fights the two remaining Assassins - who are handicapped by their oaths not to kill her. "The Red Shadow Cadre was hired," she tells Lewin, "to kill you by King Hardin because you healed Vennard and let him escape." Between exchanges she grunts out, "They'll succeed or die trying. Matter of honor. Run, Stupid! Don't just stand there being a perfect target!"

Since Vennard was beaten on the battlefield, and then healed at Blue Caves, he has not been heard from, but Hardin's men are still searching for Vennard. Within the kingdom, there is a growing resistance to Hardin.

The youthful Assassin gets by Rana, but before he can kill the Chief Healer, a mob of convalescents emerges from the ward wing and attacks. The patients are led by a group of mercenaries who have grabbed up their swords, but are fighting in night dresses and slippers, bandages hampering them. Rana notices that the Kings Men are not among the defenders.

Seeing the odds turn against them, the two remaining Assassins converge on Rana and overwhelm her. They grab her up and, stripping the litter from between the horses, they ride out the open gate, leaving their fallen Captain behind. Rana is slung across the front of one saddle while the other horse is ridden by the "injured" youth. A bowman climbing onto the swinging gate takes a long shot and hits the youth who falls from his horse with a sickening thud, an arrow through is back.

The man with Rana across his saddle spurs his horse on and escapes into the broken hill country around the Sanctuary.

When the horse can go no further, they make camp in a small valley near a stream. Here we learn some of Shiranan's story of how the original Red Shadow cadre was wiped out before they mounted an assault on Lewin, and how Shiranan came to be the sole survivor. As the old Red Shadow was approaching the Blue Caves Sanctuary, they were engulfed by a freakish late spring blizzard, and later attacked by a starving wolf pack driven back into the mountains by flood.

She had staggered away from her dead fellows, half delirious, and had found a wagonload of frozen folks from whom she stole clothes. She kept moving through the blizzard until she staggered up against the Blue Caves gates where she was found frozen to within a hairsbreadth of death.

There was a scalp gash from a head wound she didn't remember getting, and she had lost her own identity. By the time she recovered her memory, she had already decided she wanted to be a healer.

We also learn that her captor, Nathan Norby, has personal, desperate reasons for reviving Red Shadow. He and his two compatriots had been ejected from their previous cadre in disgrace. No other cadre would claim them, so Rollenby, the one who wore the Captain's uniform and considered himself their leader, decided they had to revive Red Shadow. They were permitted to do this on condition they completed Red Shadow's last commission - the extinguishing of Lewin Eldone.

In the seven years since Red Shadow failed, a superstitious dread has grown up around Eldone. By tradition, when a cadre is wiped out without completing the commission, no other cadre may accept that job. In other words, if a victim beats off an entire Assassin's cadre, he has bought his life - at least from the organized Assassins.

But in this case, it turns out now that Eldone never fought Red Shadow unless by magic.

Rana insists that he would never have violated his healer's oath in such a way. If he had, he'd have lost the power to heal - as she now has done by fighting and injuring Rollenby.

That being the case, Norby says, the superstitions may in fact be right and something protects Eldone, or Blue Caves, or both. And no Assassin is willing to deal with that something. Still, Norby maintains, he must return to finish that job.

However, Shiranan's survival changes everything. Red Shadow was not wiped out. Other cadres might be hired to finish Red Shadows' botched work, and that would end forever Norby's chance to redeem his own honor. So he must act swiftly. And Shiranan must, for the sake of her own honor, help him. Or since she's Senior, he will help her.

She is adamant in her refusal, and when Norby is convinced that she really meant to defend her target rather than strike at it, and when he realizes that she is willing to use Red Shadow skills to kill him, he has a heavy decision to make. By oath, no Assassin may kill her, even if she violates her oath to this extent. Since she can't be struck down, but is a disgrace to the Cadre - which now consists only of Norby and Shiranan - it is Norby's responsibility to exile her, then come back and finish off Lewin.

That decision made, and with darkness falling, Norby sets to making camp. Every once in a while, he turns swiftly to spear her with a measuring glance even though she is tied hand and foot by an expert who knows all her tricks.

At last, she snaps, "Why are you looking at me like that?" She is feeling the devastation she has wrought on her own life in the last few hours.

"You're not Shaded. You ought to be Shaded. You killed Rollenby, and he was sworn to Red Shadow as you are."

"I am not! Not any more. And if he's dead, I didn't kill him. He took a clumsy fall and broke his own back."

"You can't say you were just sparring with him!"

The searing resentment behind his tone penetrates Rana's fog, and she finally thinks to look to see if Norby is "Shaded," - haunted by the ghost of a dishonorable kill. Looking just so in the firelight, she can see it hovering above and behind him. And now that she's aware of it, she can feel it, like a not-quite heard tone grating on the nerves. She's surprised she still retains that much healer's sensitivity.

There is such a thing as a Healer being Shaded, though it is rare. But where a Healer has badly mistreated a patient, and the patient dies of it, the Healer may become Shaded by the ghost of that patient.

She begins to understand Norby, though not to like him any better. The low grade but constant reminder of dishonor that a Shade represented, the nerve grinding unheard buzz of its presence day and night, could drive a man to anything while it simultaneously drove all his friends away. A Shaded Assassin who died before redeeming his honor to the Shade's satisfaction had to face that Shade in the other world. Norby's behavior becomes understandable in the light of his constant torment and fear, but it brings up a number of other questions.

She doesn't get a chance to ask them all at once, for Norby takes her, trussed up ignominiously, on a long journey. After a few days of being tied up and transported face down across his saddle, she gives him her word not to try to escape until he has sold her. They cross the foothills to the Two Way River, the greatest marvel of the known world.

This is a gigantic river whose bed was carved out by the great Magus, Pedraic, a thousand years ago. Today, such a feat could not be duplicated, and people can only marvel.

The river is nearly half a mile wide and deep enough to float large cargo riverboats. The river stretches across the high plateau, through rolling flatlands, cutting straight as an arrow through a dozen kingdoms until it reaches the far mountains.

On this side of the continent, the river runs through the Blue Mountains in a polished tunnel bored straight through the base of the mountain range. It is half a mile wide all the way. But the real magic, the feat that none can comprehend, is that the river flows in both directions. Half the river goes west, and half goes east - and it doesn't seem to notice whether the terrain rises or dips. The current speed is a uniform six miles an hour at the center. A sharp dividing line separates the two currents, with not a ripple of turbulence between.

A ship that gets too near that line is nudged back onto its own side.

And stranger yet, flood or drought, the river stays the same depth, the current flows at the same steady speed.

According to the laws of magic as anyone of the modern world knows them, this is simply not possible. Yet there is the Two Way River, the central trade route for the entire continent.

At the town of Thango, situated at the eastern mouth of the river tunnel, Norby goes to the markets, picking up gossip, and following leads until he finds a slave dealer heading through the tunnel and willing to handle a rejected Assassin trainee - one too dangerous to be turned loose in the Kingdoms, but too incompetent to be promoted into the cadres.

This was the standard story that the Assassins told regarding those of their number who had to be exiled, and the merchants are used to it. Rana is turned over to her new owner with nothing but the trail worn rags she is wearing. The merchant is planning an early departure in the morning, and it is too late this evening to take her to a magician to have her Assassin's training blocked.

The moment the merchant's surveillance slackens, she escapes. But she is too precipitate. Norby is still nearby, and the merchant complains to him. Norby recaptures her - not without some difficulty.

Earlier that evening, Norby used the money he got for her as a gambling stake and won a considerable sum. Further, he has learned that the Red Shadow escapade at Blue Caverns has stirred things up. Rumor has it that Eldone's Sanctuary has become the rallying point of a new underground movement to overthrow King Hardin. But that is a very guarded, very secret rumor. It will be a long time until Hardin hears of it. (There are reasons Norby won't be the one carrying the tale to Hardin.)

To Norby, this means that it will be much harder to get close enough to Eldone to kill him. But he has a plan. On the other side of the mountains, in the city of Lithen, there is a magician who will sell certain shrouding spells and shape-changing spells, no questions asked. Furthermore, in the city of Lithen, a slave such as Rana would bring enough money to buy such spells. Why should that incompetent merchant transport her and make the profit, when Norby is (suddenly) going to Lithen anyway?

So Norby takes her to a local magician for a quick, cheap binding spell on her fighting reflexes - which he now has sore reason to respect - and buys them passage on a river boat.

The passage through the tunnel itself is interesting, for it is fraught with superstitions and folk tales. We see just how superstitious the average citizens on both sides of the mountains are. They tell the tale of the Shaded King which shows how and why a Shaded King can't rule, and it also shows how the superstitious would rise to destroy such a King. Given this superstition, it is clear why Kings do everything within their considerable power to "keep their own hands clean" and prevent themselves from becoming Shaded.

The people particularly fear ghosts, and won't traverse the tunnel with anyone who is Shaded. Fortunately for Norby, it isn't always easy to spot a Shade, and he's careful not to do anything to make his act up.

At the exact center of the tunnel, where a particularly powerful post maintains the magic, the seasoned sailors of the tunnel conduct a ritual ablution upon those who are traversing the darkness for the first time. At that point, each - Shiranan and Norby both - get to make a wish. She wishes for Eldone's life, and Norby for his death by Red Shadow hands, for in that death would be both his freedom from the Shade and his personal honor and professional reputation.

On the other side of the mountains, the country and the crops are very different. Here is a coastal valley, rich, fertile, and warm the year round. The people are different, too, and not just in racial character. They do not tolerate kings. They govern by democracy, each city-state in its own way. It is easier for Norby to think of them as a mob of nobles without a king, for as far as he can see, to get a vote in this democracy, one must be of the hereditary, landed nobility - those who own without being owned.

From the town where they debark, they join a wagon train going cross country to Lithen.

During all of this, Rana studies Norby, his Shade, how he got into this fix, and she tests and manages to loosen the magician's blocks on her fighting ability without Norby knowing it. She also pushes and tests at her healing ability, finding it not wholly gone, yet not intact either. She has used Assassin's skills and thus sacrificed her Healer's skills. And still, she is not Shaded. Rollenby must still live. And he will be tended, she is sure, by none other than Eldone.

Norby and Rana are vowed enemies, and yet, in such close quarters, through many dangerous and threatening situations, they come to know and rely on each other. By the time Norby sells her in Lithen, Rana is wishing mightily that she had met him before he acquired his Shade, or even that he had been Red Shadow on their original raid to kill Eldone, for she feels that had he been there, they wouldn't have failed.

But she also now knows that Rollenby is as much responsible for Norby being Shaded as Norby is. Rollenby had been Norby's senior in the Silent Breath cadre. Rollenby was ambitious and strove to wrest the leadership of Silent Breath from the older but still sharp, Rissel. Rollenby ordered Norby to refrain from an act of support for Rissel during a mission, and Norby knew what the result would be. Yet he did not act. Legally, he was in the clear since it wasn't his place to judge the results of his actions in the field, but only to obey Rollenby's lawful order. As a result, three of the Breath's cadre died, and one of them was his best friend who is now Shading him. Rissel survived sorely wounded.

At the trial of Rollenby and Norby, Norby was nearly acquitted until it was noted that he was Shaded. That proved that one of the dead, one of his own cadre, considered that Norby had wronged a sworn brother. Therefore, he was expelled with Rollenby, and no other cadre would take them in. Norby's response to all this vacillates between a self-righteous defensiveness, and a bewildered contrition. But the Assassins' own magician has assured him that the Shade will leave him when he has shown that he will not make that mistake again. This is the reason he and Rollenby could not defeat Shiranan in combat, even though she was out of practice. Norby is terrified of wronging her and earning yet another Shade, one that would be much harder to shake.

After the harrowing trip they've had together, Norby is reluctant to sell Shiranan, but he does it - and she understands why he feels he must. Still, she opposes his purposes with a steely determination. Eldone must live, even if it costs Shiranan her life and her honor.

The slave jobber who buys her spruces her up and puts her on the auction block, selling her as much for her beauty as her education and skills - not to mention her exotic background.

Repelled by the leering attentions of some of the shoppers, she searches frantically for a way out. At the last minute, she spots a bidder who seems to be from her own home area, though dressed in local clothes. She crosses her palms in the Healer's gesture, a gesture not understood by anyone this side of the mountains.

The familiar bidder buys her for an astronomical sum, and she is ashamed, for she is not really a Healer any more. Worse yet, she feels compelled to lie about her background, saying that she was apprenticed at Blue Caves and has only rudimentary skills. To her surprise, this does not evoke fury from her new owner.

"If you can stitch a wound and set a bone, dress a burn or offset magic-backwash, we've a use for you. And I'll wager you won't mind that use one bit. Come along now."

She finds she has been purchased by a mercenary band made up mostly of refugees from Hardin's victory. Then, as she wins their confidence, she discovers they work for King Vennard, who is planning the very invasion and revolution Hardin has feared all this time.

By guile and forthright manipulation, she works her way into the direct service of Vennard's household, and finally wins audience with the him.

At that point, his spies have told him what is going on at Blue Caves Sanctuary, and Shiranan knows most of it already - which is why she worked so diligently to gain this audience.

Against the uniform policy of neutrality practiced by all Sanctuaries, Eldone's has become a center of rebellion. Those who have gravitated to it do not know that Vennard still lives. That secret has not sifted back across the border - Hardin does not know but only suspects Vennard is "out there."

The rebels are casting about for a candidate for King to lead them, but as yet have found no one they can all agree on. Vennard is the standard by which all are measured, and all come up short.

Though he is not fully ready yet, Vennard is now planning his invasion for this spring, as soon as Blue Caves passes are melted free. His mobilization is proceeding at a frantic pace.

Shiranan identifies herself fully to Vennard, and tells of Hardin commissioning Red Shadow to kill Eldone, and how one operative still lives within the Sanctuary while another is planning a very clever penetration and assault on Lewin Eldone.

Vennard still regards himself in debt to Eldone, for Eldone's skills saved his life. Once his magicians have verified that Shiranan was Eldone's chosen successor (and the reason for her loss of Healer's powers), she is put in a place of honor in Vennard's household staff.

She is apprenticed to a magician who believes her true skills lie neither in healing nor killing, but in magic, which he regards as an uneasy blending of the two. He sets her Assassin's skills free, and she learns quickly some of the more useful techniques of field magic.

Vennard's spies bring alarming news. Now knowing what to look for, they have spotted Nathan Norby, but they are afraid to tackle him for he possesses fearsome (illegal) offensive magic of which he is not personally a Master. Magic aside, they refuse to tackle an Assassin about a lawful commission. "That's a suicide mission," they complain.

In addition, the last news of the winter from Blue Caves is very bad. It is said that they have gathered troops and magicians enough to challenge Hardin even though they haven't yet a King candidate of their own. Come what may, they are determined to rid the continent of Hardin, and they plan to do that by sallying forth in mid-winter when it will be least expected.

Hardin doesn't know they have a magician's staff capable of opening the passes for them. The fact is that their magicians just might not be able to do it, but they've convinced themselves they can and will.

This forces Vennard's hand weeks too soon. He concocts a dangerous plan. Vennard and a small, mobile force are going to meet the Blue Caves army - before they emerge from the passes. Vennard will take over command and send them back to wait out the winter until his own well armed and drilled forces can arrive.

This requires that they bring rations to last such a contingent through the winter - for one reason they are planning this desperate gamble is that Blue Caves doesn't have food stores to support their numbers all winter.

Vennard takes his small force through the tunnel disguised as a merchant family transporting packbeast trail food which will be needed by caravans leaving Thango in the spring. Actually, the cargo is human foodstuffs, "freeze-dried" by a magical process, and packed as animal food.

They have a barge which they must operate themselves, and so they need a tunnel-pilot. While his people are searching for a suitable pilot, Vennard gathers his special force, and includes Rana, playing the part of his young bride.

During the trip, Rana uses her Assassin's skills to save Vennard's life when the tunnel pilot turns out to be a traitor. She then uses her magical skills to extract the basics of his trade from his dying mind, and proceeds to pilot (clumsily) the barge through the remainder of the tunnel. This is more dangerous than it sounds. Magicians are taught never to attempt this method of gaining skills for it generally leads even the strongest magicians into blubbering insanity. Rana's Healer's skills - which are forbidden such usage by vow, not by nature - aid her in avoiding that fate, but at the time, since no Healer has ever become such a magician as she has become, nobody knows for sure that she can handle it.

As Rana shows her mettle, Vennard becomes a bit more than attracted to her, and somewhat aggressive about it. But he is not thinking of her as a future queen, rather as a concubine, honored mother of his illegitimate children.

Rana discovers that she preferred being Norby's slave to being Vennard's "wife," even though she admires Vennard's politics and wants him to be King. She begins here to examine her heart where Norby is concerned, and the result alarms her. She has decided that it will fall to her to kill Norby but how can she do that when she loves him?

They have a time in Thango where Hardin's men are bivouacked, waiting for spring when they can "take care of" the insurrection at Blue Caves Sanctuary. Their orders are to destroy the place forever as a center that breeds traitors not healthy subjects.

That order is not popular in the streets, but the armed men are so numerous and Hardin's wrath so feared that no ordinary citizens are willing to declare against Hardin or the troops. Thango, however, has always depended on Blue Caves for healing, so Vennard is certain that he and his men coming behind him disguised as various sorts of merchants will be welcomed, not betrayed, by the populace.

Rana is still wrestling with her emotional quandary when they arrive with laden pack animals at the spot where the freak blizzard destroyed Red Shadow, and they camp facing a wholly blocked pass.

About the time they are ready to return to Thango in despair and await spring, assuming the mercenaries have given up for this year, the magicians inside Blue Caves begin clearing the pass, using wind to blow the loose, light snow up out of a narrow canyon.

Rana has to use all her skill to keep her party from being buried alive by the inept magicians, and then to glaze the sides of the cut the magicians have made through the snow so it won't fall on the emerging army - or on Vennard as he plunges in to meet them.

Busy to the limits of her powers, she misses the fleeting flicker that is the magic-shrouded Norby penetrating the newly opened pass. The only thing his expensive magic spell can't mask is his Shade - whom Rana has come to recognize.

Vennard succeeds in taking command of the volatile rebel band and leading them back into Blue Caves - closing the pass behind them to protect themselves from Hardin's men who are everywhere. Hardin also has magicians.

The problem is that Norby and Rollenby are sealed in with them.

During this time, Rana sets herself to scour the library and the brains of the magicians stuck here with her, for anything and everything pertaining to Shades, and particularly to Shaded Assassins. She devises and tries several tactics for dealing with Norby's Shade. In the course of this, she holds several brief but intensely revealing conversations with Norby's Shade and discovers that he is indeed the best buddy Norby thinks he is. The Shade is outraged at Norby for just following Rollenby's order, knowing it would mean the death of his best friend, not to mention other sworn brothers. She fails, however, to discern what she can do to free Norby or the Shade from their bondage. She does learn much about the subject, and begins to fancy herself an expert on this esoteric branch of magic.

The best scheme she can concoct is to try to lift the Shade from Norby and attach it to Rollenby where, by her estimation, it really belongs. Yet she can't see quite how to accomplish this.

Meanwhile, to gain the freedom of the library and a relief from tension she badly needs, Rana has to confront Eldone with what she has become and why and make peace with him. She also has to convince him, the other healers, and the rebel magicians, that Norby is skulking about somewhere, intent on assassinating Eldone, and she is Eldone's only chance of surviving that attack. She also warns Eldone that Rollenby is a serious threat. Eldone, who has heard of her stunt with the tunnel-pilot's dead mind, doesn't quite believe her.

Eldone regards Rana as a traitor to everything he ever taught her, and her use of Healer's skills to rape a dying mind repels him utterly. He can't see how anyone who could do such a thing could retain a shred of moral fibre.

Rollenby is paralyzed from the waist down, and is in the grip of a monumental, but typical, depression. Rana's strategy is to keep Norby from getting to Rollenby and enlisting aid.

She knows she's failed the day Rollenby doesn't seem quite so genuinely depressed, and Eldone is buying Rollenby's line that he is adjusting to his plight.

Meanwhile, Vennard is busy trying to weld the rebels and his own small force into a single fighting unit set to coordinate with the first of Vennard's men to gather in Thango. Vennard is trying to orchestrate a first class coup from the worst possible position, and keeps all the magicians busy working his communications - while striving to keep Hardin's (superior) magicians from either reading their signals or cutting them off completely. Since many of Hardin's magicians were once Vennard's, it isn't hard for him to suborn them, even at long distance.

One night, when they think they've got the upper hand, the inevitable happens. Under cover of an intense storm, Hardin's magicians burrow through the pass, an immense attack force behind them. It is lead by none other than Hardin himself, come to smash Vennard and the insurrection and put an end to Blue Caverns Sanctuary once and for all.

Rana has to turn out with Vennard's other magicians to try to stop that advance, and to call in their sparse forces from Thango.

While she's distracted, Norby uses his "human fly" spells to climb the unclimbable wall into Eldone's rooms where Rollenby has set Eldone up by claiming to be willing to start physical therapy if Eldone will work with him in private.

Since Eldone refuses to participate in the military operation going on outside, the attack doesn't interfere with the "more important" business of healing this patient.

Rana sees Norby and races to cut him off, leaving Vennard aghast at her for abandoning her post when he's come to rely on her loyalty.

Rana makes it up a back stair and through a secret passage into Eldone's apartments and arrives just as Norby comes crashing in the window. Her intention is to attempt the risky business of lifting the Shade from Norby and attaching it to Rollenby, thus disarming much of Norby's motivation in wanting to kill Eldone. Rollenby, because he's crippled, should be much easier to handle.

She's aware that Norby could still see it as his duty to recoup Red Shadow's honor by killing Eldone, but this she might argue him out of, whereas his obsession with ridding himself of the Shade can't be argued with. She believes that Norby is basically a decent sort of person, and free of the Shade, would behave very differently.

She confronts Norby over Eldone. Taking advantage of the distraction, Rollenby throws a poisoned knife at Eldone's back. Rana fields it magically and it skitters away, flips and falls by accident on Rollenby's paralyzed legs, scratching him. Eldone immediately tries to save Rollenby's life.

But Rana doesn't see that, for she is focused on Norby. She uses now, in a harebrained, ill-prepared gamble, a magical sequence she only understands in theory. She has had such success with wild chances that she is too bold and self-confident here. The spell does not banish the Shade, but rather makes it tangible - precipitating the Silent Breath cadre Assassin in all his battle-raging glory.

And he goes for Norby.

When she recovers from the shock, Rana goes to Norby's aid, and together they fight the Silent Breath man to a standstill.

Norby, unstrung by the very confrontation he has been running from all this time, turns to kill Eldone - having convinced himself that only Eldone's death will free him of the Shade.

But Rana understands the Shade's outrage. She intercedes and immobilizes Norby, holding the wrist of the hand in which he holds his dagger poised for the killing stroke to Eldone. Then she puts it to the Shade, "Which is better, that Norby should show a total lack of personal judgement, follow the Assassin's court's decree, and kill Eldone? Or that Norby should think through what he's doing, realize where his true loyalties lie, and refrain from killing Eldone despite any order from one in authority?"

When she has their attention, she convinces the Shade that Hardin set Red Shadow against Eldone who never did anything wrong and doesn't deserve to die any more than Shade deserved to die. Eldone healed Vennard, yes, but Eldone would have healed Hardin had the situation been the reverse. Eldone has twice tried to heal Rollenby, a man sworn to kill him. This is a man who should be an Assassin's target?

Red Shadow took Hardin's commission as mindlessly as Norby accepted Rollenby's order that resulted in Shade's death. If Norby completes Red Shadow's commission he is doing exactly the same thing he did by obeying Rollenby - only this time Hardin has set Norby to it.

If Norby refuses to kill Eldone, then he's learned his lesson and no longer deserves to be Shaded. And in that case, it's Rollenby who should be Shaded if anyone. Reference here to the folk tale of the Shaded King which shows that Shades could do more good in the world by choosing who to Shade more carefully.

The Shade insists that he didn't have much choice, but nevertheless sees the logic of her argument. Eldone, eyes riveted on the dagger poised over his heart, announces that Rollenby died of the poison on his own dagger several minutes ago.

Rana is shocked for she didn't see the knife strike Rollenby. But she isn't Shaded. Rollenby apparently accepted it as a true accident, both times she injured him.

Rana gathers herself, realizing that her wavering concentration is losing her the control over the Shade's materialization. Weakening, her grip on Norby's wrist loosening, she is eye to eye and practically lip to lip with Norby as she says to the Shade, "If you truly love Norby, your brother in Silent Breath, then your real quarrel is with Hardin, who has left Norby no choice but to kill Eldone or remain Shaded!"

With her last strength she bestows a light kiss on Norby's lips then collapses, nearly fainting. This leaves Norby holding the knife over Eldone while the Shade dematerializes. Norby, shaking with conflict, in agony because he does truly love this woman but can't bear the risk of remaining Shaded when salvation is within his grasp, finally throws his dagger aside and begs Eldone to heal Rana of magic-backlash.

The Shade but does not reattach itself to Norby. With a flicker of invisible motion, it flows out the window.

Eldone bends to heal Rana of the ravages of her ill-considered exercise of magic.

Norby realizes that had he stabbed Eldone, the man would have tried to heal Rana with his dying breath. As it seems Rana is dying of her foolish grasping at abilities beyond her, Norby tells her that he understands her wish at the center of the tunnel - a once in a lifetime wish that she spent not on herself but on Eldone's life. He gives her that life now, saying he'd rather remain Shaded than kill such a man.

The noise of battle outside reaches a new pitch, and it seems to rouse Rana. Both Eldone and Norby are so relieved that it takes Rana to notice that Norby isn't Shaded.

They rush to the window and discover that Hardin, leading his troops in breaking down the Sanctuary gate, has suddenly become Shaded, and his men are turning against him.

Vennard is carrying the day.

Later, King Vennard is told by his magicians how Rana risked her life with magic far beyond her abilities in order to save his throne from the Usurper Hardin, and managed to sic a Shade upon Hardin thus winning the battle. No amount of protest on Rana's part that she had no intentions toward the battle can convince Vennard that he's wrong.

He awards Norby and Shiranan each lands and titles and a place in his court. Privately, he apologizes to Shiranan for the way he treated her on the river, and assures her that she has, from this day forward, earned her King's utmost respect as a Lady.

The End