by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Shiranan, is a dark haired, wiry woman known for her whipchord strength and swift, sure movements. She is the newly installed leader of the Red Shadow Cadre of Assassins, and she is leading the other two members of her cadre, Rollenby and an even younger youth, up the side of a jagged granite spur.

She scolds them for their noise as they shinny to the top and use a magic-powered seeing device to peer down into a walled compound, Blue Caves Sanctuary, home of the most famous healers in the Kingdom. A large formal ceremony is in progress in the courtyard.

Shiranan spots her quarry, Lewin Eldone, Chief Healer of the Sanctuary. The device identifies the ceremony as the installation of Eldone's successor. Her first sight of this blue robed man stuns Shiranan.

Seeming about her own age, he is slightly built, but moves with an oiled smoothness bespeaking a perfect body beneath the robes. To her eyes, he seems outlined by a stark vividness contrasting sharply with the other healers in the courtyard below. The magical device informs her the ceremony will go on for some time. She concocts and launches her plan.

She has her youngest follower swathed in bandages. They rig a litter to swing between two horses, pretending he's badly injured. They are dressed as King Hardin's personal messenger and her men at arms.

During this, we learn that Shiranan has been crusading against corruption among the Assassins since her parents - who were members of Red Shadow Cadre at the time - died mysteriously. That was shortly before Red Shadow Cadre was wiped out attempting to complete King Hardin's commission to kill Chief Healer Eldone, so Shiranan never really learned all the details of her parents' deaths.

The Chief Healer is accused of treason against Hardin because he Healed the now exiled, former King Vennard when Hardin wounded him in their final battle. Shiranan detests Vennard because his policies drove her parents into becoming Assassins. So she has no compunctions about killing Eldone, the traitor Healer.

Likewise, via the assassins' comments, we learn that they resent Shiranan's leadership. She has seniority, having been raised as an Assassin, working from the time she was seven years old, but they feel she is taking them on a suicide mission. A superstitious dread surrounds Eldone because of the way a blizzard wiped out the ten members of Red Shadow that went up against him before.

Furthermore, her men feel it was her fault they were cut off from their old cadre, Silent Breath. She was the one who fought and killed a fellow member of Silent Breath, and they no longer believe that the one she killed had been corrupt. Not a single other member of the Assassin's Guild believed her story of corruption, and so the three were cut off from their former cadre, and no other cadre would have them. Shiranan's plan to redeem their honor by taking up the name and mission of the extinct Red Shadow Cadre once seemed clever, but now seems only like the demented ravings of one "shadowed."

Being "shadowed" is the fate of any Assassin who breaks oath and uses his or her skills against a sworn member of their own cadre. The "shade" or ghost of the victim attaches itself to the aura of the killer where it is subliminally perceptible to all, an indelible sign of ultimate disgrace.

But an Assassin without a cadre is held in even worse regard than a Shadowed Assassin, so they bundle the youngest into the litter and ride through the Sanctuary gate into the crowded Blue Caves Sanctuary courtyard.

Behind the Healer's stone buildings, in the cliff face that looms over them, is the entry to the healing caves. And behind that rises the Blue Ramparts, the uncrossable mountain range.

Convalescing patients are watching the proceedings from their windows. They make Shiranan nervous because she knows that while some are Kings' Men, loyal to King Hardin the First, many others are still nurturing their loyalty to King Vennard whom Hardin deposed. Eldone has nurtured the loyalty to Vennard among his healers, too. So the Hardin uniforms she and Rollenby are wearing are not greeted enthusiastically.

But Healers are sworn neutrals and non-combatants, so Shiranan expects no trouble if they're quick about their business and their escape.

Shiranan 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 must personally see to the man.

By the time she completes her announcement, the Chief Healer's newly installed assistant pushes forward and identifies himself as Nathan Norby. He claims the Chief Healer no longer takes personal charge of patients. Shiranan does not believe him.

She notices unusual tension in him as he bends to unwrap the furs from the supine man on the litter who is dressed in the standard black uniform of Assassins and is wearing the badge of Red Shadow. As Norby starts to unwrap the bandages that cover the presumed face burns, he announces that he senses no pain, so the victim must be unconscious.

But his eyes fix upon the badges and his face betrays his sudden understanding of the plot.

In that moment, the last face bandages come away, the supposedly injured youth explodes into deadly motion, grabbing his clothing and tumbling him to the ground. Yanking Norby's new assistant's medallion free, he throws it aside in disgust, and hurls himself at Chief Healer Eldone while Shiranan and Rollenby release the litter and clear a path with their horses.

In a dizzying flash, the supposedly noncombatant Norby flings aside is torn healer's robe and attacks the youthful Assassin, intercepting his deadly thrust. Shiranan and Rollenby drive their horses in to attack Norby.

Using a Red Shadow move, perfectly executed, Norby unhorses them both, dives and rolls and comes up in a ready crouch, holding the three Assassins at bay.

Without thinking, Shiranan gasps, "You're Red Shadow!"

"Not any more. I'm Norby, a healer of the Blue Caves. You're not Red Shadow. Red Shadow is dead." He circles warily.

"The Red Shadow lives! In us!" Shiranan corrects. "You must honor your first oath and join us to cleanse our name."

Warily, the three circle him, expecting him to join them 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 Norby fighting right before their eyes. Their sheer numbers impede the bandaged swordsmen who are rushing out of the convalescents' building.

Meanwhile, Shiranan overhears remarks of the healers. "How could Norby have dared come here!" "He fooled all of us." "How are we going to get rid of him?" "Just hope they kill him. That will solve the problem."

"See," taunts Shiranan, "you don't belong here. Help us." But repeatedly he blocks their approach to Eldone, who has made no effort to retreat.

Suddenly, Norby, showing only the slightest sign of being out of practice, advances and throws Rollenby to the ground. There is a dull crunch and the man's body writhes only from the waist up as he cries out. Norby swings around to deal with Shiranan and the youth. Several healers converge on the stricken man.

Lewin Eldone tries to stop Norby by calling him to his healer's oath. Norby swears at him, ordering Eldone to flee. "Red Shadow's the best. You haven't got a chance. Get out of here!" Then he attacks Shiranan and the youth. They spar guardedly, hampered by their oaths not to turn Red Shadow killing skills against their own.

The youthful Assassin finally gets by Norby, but before he can kill the Chief Healer, the convalescent soldiers get through the press of healers. The patients are led by group of mercenaries who have grabbed up their swords, but are fighting in night dresses, slippers, and bandages.

No one loyal to King Hardin could be defending Eldone, so Shiranan has no compunctions about fighting them, but the odds are against the Assassins now.

She shouts to her young assistant, "Forget Eldone. We've got to take Norby. Come on!"

The two finally overwhelm Norby, bundle him over the saddlebow of Shiranan's horse, and ride out the gate, leaving Rollenby behind on the ground, surrounded by Healers.

The ignominious defeat stings, but at least they're alive. They've broken the jinx, she tells herself. Next time, they'll succeed. Then a bowman climbs the Sanctuary's gate and takes a long shot, hitting the youth who falls from his horse with a sickening thud, an arrow through is back.

Shiranan spurs her horse on and escapes into the broken hill country around the Sanctuary torn between joy at surviving and agony at losing her men.

END CHAPTER ONE SUMMARY

When the horse can go no further. Shiranan camps in a small valley near a stream and ties Norby up. Here we learn some of Norby's story of how the original Red Shadow cadre was wiped out before they mounted an assault on Lewin, and how Norby 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.

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

There had been a scalp gash from a head wound he didn't remember getting, and he had lost his own identity. By the time he recovered his memory, he had already taken a Healer's first vows.

We also learn more of Shiranan's personal, desperate reasons for reviving Red Shadow, though Norby doesn't learn it all at once. Her parents had been Red Shadow, forced into becoming Assassins by King Vennard's policies. They had upheld the strictest interpretations of the Assassin's Guild charter, and therefore often made enemies within the Guild. The Charter requires a prospective client to show cause why the whole society would be better off if the quarry were dead. Some Assassins were willing to waive that requirement for increased fees. Shiranan and her parents stood against that corruption.

Shiranan believes her parents were killed because of their ethics, but she has no proof.

Norby argues that Eldone should not be a quarry, and he makes a sterling case. The Chief Healer is an invaluable asset to society, even to King Hardin, because he Heals impartially. Shiranan isn't buying this line.

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 Assassins' Guild.

But in this case, it turns out now that Eldone never fought Red Shadow hand to hand. Combat by magic voids the custom.

Norby plants the suspicion in Shiranan's mind that the original Red Shadow was wiped out by a magician, a weather-scryer hired to give them false information on the weather. And maybe even a Beast Mage who sent the wolves after them. Who would want to do that and why are a mystery.

Norby, in desperation and in direct contradiction to his previous stance, argues that since he survived, she can't be Red Shadow because he didn't swear her in. Eldone's life is his to take as he chooses, in his own time.

She argues against that. He had been declared missing and, after the requisite year and a day, dead. Furthermore, he was forsworn, having taken Healer's Oath, and had thus the Guild Court would declare him cut off from his cadre and would, by tradition, give him to her for final disposition.

"Ah, so you admit I'm not Red Shadow."

She offers him the chance to throw off his Healer's Oath and swear again to Red Shadow through her, then to redeem their honor by killing Eldone.

He is adamant in his refusal, and when Shiranan is convinced he means it, she has a heavy decision to make. She can't kill him, so the law requires she must exile him, strand him where he can't come back to thwart her next attempt at Eldone or ever again interfere in Red Shadow affairs. But what she really wants to do is go back immediately and finish off Eldone.

As she is fixing a stew, Shiranan watches Norby, not quite able to figure him out.

At last, he snaps, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

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

"But I am not Red Shadow! You said so yourself. And if he's dead, I didn't kill him. He took a clumsy fall and broke his own back."

"He wasn't Red Shadow caliber, but you can't say you were just sparring with him! You're better than he was. And just because you're legally dead and can't run the Cadre doesn't mean you're free of the oath you took."

Norby squints up at her appraisingly, surprised that he follows her twisted reasoning. And at last he notices her own shame. "You're Shaded!" Shaded - haunted by the ghost of a dishonorable kill. "I should have felt it before."

Shiranan accuses him of having blunted his healer's senses by violating his healer's oath. It's a low blow, but she feels a need to hurt him as he has hurt her by destroying her chance at redeeming her honor. And she's ashamed. She knows just what a Shaded person feels like to those around her: an indistinct shadow hovering around and over, making it unpleasant to look directly at the person; an annoying not-quite heard tone grating on the nerves.

Without asking how she came to be Shaded, Norby just says, "I'm sorry. It must be very difficult for you."

The sympathy almost undoes her and she snarls at him and stamps off cursing him. A Healer may become Shaded if he has badly mistreated a patient who dies and blames the Healer, and this is the curse she hurls at him.

A Shaded Assassin who died still Shaded had to face that Shade in the other world. That was something Shiranan is determined to avoid. But she had no idea how she was going to shake off this Shade. He had died emotionally committed to forcing her into his own corrupt behavior. He would not leave her until she soiled herself by killing for money alone. This was a point he made repeatedly as he appeared in her dreams. She tells herself, "I'll never give in!"

HERE MIGHT GO A FLASHBACK TO THAT FIGHT - LATER MIGHT GO A FLASHBACK TO HER TRIAL AND HER DECISION TO RED SHADOW

The next day, she uses leather thongs to tie Norby across her horse's rump. He's light, and though large for a woman, she is also a much lighter burden than this war horse is used to. So they make fair time across the foothills to the Two Way River.

As they near the town of Thango, she extracts his promise not to try to escape until after she's sold him, then she lets him ride sitting behind her.

The Two Way River, the greatest landmark of the known world was carved out by the 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. It stretches across the high plateau, through rolling flatlands, cutting straight as an arrow through a dozen kingdoms until it reaches the far mountains. It can be crossed only by few bridges and tunnels Pedraic supplied. Great towns have grown up at those crossings.

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. If it hits the line at too steep an angle, though, unpredictable disasters occur that create wild legends.

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 where a bridge arches over the river, cut from the stone of the mountain itself, Shiranan goes to the markets, picking up gossip, and following leads until she 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. Norby is turned over to his new owner with nothing but the trail worn rags he is wearing. The merchant is planning an early departure in the morning, and it is too late this evening to take him to a magician to have his Assassin's training blocked.

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

Earlier that evening, Shiranan used the money she got for Norby as a gambling stake and won a considerable sum. Further, she 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 while until Hardin hears of it.

To Shiranan this means that gathering anti-Hardin forces at Blue Caves will make it harder for her to get close enough to Eldone to kill him. But she now has a plan which she is suddenly rich enough to execute.

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 Norby, educated, skilled and with the kind of beauty appreciated in that land, would bring enough money to buy such spells. Why should that incompetent merchant transport him and make the profit, when Shiranan must go to Lithen anyway?

So Shiranan takes Norby to a local magician for a quick, cheap binding spell on his fighting reflexes. Here we learn that Norby is difficult to bind, oddly difficult. And Shiranan gets her first hint that Magicians know more about Shades than they generally let on. There may be more than one way to get rid of a Shade. But she knows of only one. So she buys passage for Norby and herself on a river boat.

During the trip through the tunnel, people scare themselves with the Legend of the Shaded King which shows how and why a Shaded King can't rule, and it also shows how the people would rise to destroy such a King. Thus it is clear why Kings do everything within their considerable power to "keep their own hands clean" and prevent themselves from becoming Shaded.

Shiranan keeps to herself as much as possible, and otherwise does what she can to keep her own Shade from being noticed. Since Norby is the only healer aboard, this isn't too difficult, for ordinary folk don't instantly identify the source of their subliminal discomfort around a Shaded person because Shading is rare.

At the exact center of the tunnel, where a particularly (sic RBW particular) pillar 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, Shiranan and Norby both get to make a wish. He wishes for Eldone's life, and Shiranan for his death by Red Shadow hands.

But after spending so much time with Norby, who quietly insists on Eldone's worth to the world, she has sudden misgivings. What if by killing Eldone she is playing right into her Shade's hands and succumbing to corruption. What if Hardin is wrong and Vennard is right?

It is only as they emerge from the darkness that she's able to throw off that horrid feeling. She'll know when she kills Eldone and not before. If the Shade disappears when she kills Eldone, then she's been wrong, and Eldone should have lived. What would it be like to live the rest of her life free and unShaded simply because she'd compromised her own integrity and killed a man who didn't deserve it. Buying her freedom with an innocent death would be like taking money for an innocent death. She refuses to think about that eventuality. Eldone must die.

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 Shiranan to think of them as a mob of nobles without a king because 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. Confronting the dangers of the road, they hear rumors that Vennard is here in exile and has been gathering forces to depose Hardin.

During all of this, Shiranan is aware that Norby is studying her. He does not restrain his curiosity about her Shade and her background. She begins to like the man. She's impressed with the way he handles himself in dangerous situations, being firm and commanding without the use of his fighting skills. And she will never forget those skills. Other than herself, he is the only one living who has had Red Shadow training, and hers was not as lengthy as his.

She keeps pressing him to come back to Red Shadow, and he steadfastly refuses. She is perversely delighted when, in another emergency, he discovers that his violating his Healer's Oath has not totally destroyed his healing ability.

She becomes so involved that she misses the clues that he is beginning to loosen the magician's blocks on his fighting ability. She does notice that he is not Shaded, which means Rollenby must still live.

Possibly Eldone will tend Rollenby, and if so then maybe Rollenby will complete her mission for her. She views this with mixed emotions, and it spurs her on to make haste.

By the time Shiranan sells Norby in Lithen, she is wishing mightily that she'd known him long ago, before all this started. Things might have been different.

Nevertheless she sells Norby for a nice price. The slave jobber who buys him spruces him up and puts him on the auction block, selling him as much for his looks as his education and skills - not to mention his exotic background.

Shiranan lingers at the edges of the auction, curious beyond her ability to deny and angry with herself for it.

The obvious distress Norby displays wrenches at her heart. As the bidding heats and she realizes he's going to be sold as a male sex-slave, she worms her way through the throng and chooses the cleanest looking bidder present, a soldier or a private estate guard. He has the racial character of her homeland.

"He's a healer," she tells the man, and recounts what everyone saw him do on the caravan trek across country. "A real miracle worker. You could use one like that in your business."

With unexpected vehemence, the man turns on her. "What would you be knowing of my business?"

"Nothing. I just thought . . . you look like a soldier." She hastily fades back, realizing that this man might well recognize her for the Assassin she is whereas the natives here wouldn't know an Assassin from a musician. Belatedly, it occurs to her that this soldier might be one of Vennard's men.

The soldier-guard buys Norby for an astronomical sum, and she leaves him to his fate, wondering whether she's just sealed her own and Hardin's fate by getting a top notch Healer for Vennard.

She goes into the city and ferrets out magicians who can supply the illicit spells and devices she needs to execute her plan. If Vennard is active, then she must hurry.

Shiranan overhears comments about King Vennard and accidentally lets out her own opinion of him, and her support of Hardin.

After she's ordered her tools to be made, but before they've all been delivered, one of the magicians betrays her.

Late one night, she is accosted by several armed men and taken prisoner - not before she kills one of them and badly wounds another, taking a severe wound herself.

She wakes up in a stockade with Norby treating her wounds, and discovers that she is a prisoner of King Vennard who is indeed planning to retake his throne.

She's been taken prisoner because Vennard believes she will run right back to Hardin and betray his plans. He's right.

While she's a prisoner, she learns a lot about Vennard as a leader, from his men and from Norby who is now a freed man serving Vennard willingly.

Vennard still regards himself in debt to Eldone, for Eldone's skills saved his life. Once his magicians verified that Norby was Eldone's chosen successor (and the reason for the impairment of his Healer's powers), he was put in a place of honor in Vennard's household staff and the binding on his fighting skills was removed.

He has been now apprenticed to a magician who believes Norby's true skills lie neither in healing nor killing, but in magic. Norby is now learning quickly how to be a field magician with an army.

Shiranan discovers that Vennard knows of the plotting going on in Blue Caverns, told partly by Norby, and partly from his own spies.

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 only suspects Vennard is "out there."

The rebels at Blue Caves 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 has moved up his invasion to this spring, as soon as Blue Caves' passes are clear. His mobilization is proceeding at a frantic pace.

Norby has told of Hardin commissioning Red Shadow to kill Eldone, and how the revived Cadre is still a threat to Eldone through Rollenby and Shiranan. The only way to stop Shiranan other than killing her outright is to remove Hardin from the throne and rescind the royal order for Eldone's death. That way Red Shadow would no longer be obligated to kill Eldone, and Shiranan's honor would be clear. The same goes for Rollenby.

The man who bought Norby at the auction encounters Shiranan and eventually puts together Norby's story of how he came to be sold and realizes that the prisoner, Shiranan, must in fact be the Assassin planning to kill Eldone. When this finally gets back to Vennard, Norby hears of it and just before Vennard's men come to kill her (a measure of Vennard's respect for the Guild), Norby releases her from her cell and helps her escape.

He can't watch her die, yet he can't bear the thought of her killing Eldone either. He pleads with her to delay taking action until Vennard has his try at regaining the throne. If she doesn't warn Hardin, Norby promises he will bring his rudimentary magician's skills and his Healer's skills and pledge himself to the cadre under her.

She doesn't exactly believe him. He's too desperate. But she wants it to work out that way. Vennard isn't so bad as she'd once thought. Grudgingly, she admits the man has impressed her as a leader and as a king. Even his willingness to kill her to protect his loyal man, Eldone, is something to respect. And what she's heard of his policies does not support the idea that his mismanagement of the kingdom drove her parents to become Assassins.

But she's committed to her course and takes her freedom from Norby without giving any promises.

She picks up the magical tools from the magicians who didn't betray her, leaving the magician who betrayed her alone. Then she takes off for the river and home.

On the way, she decides to kill Eldone as quickly as possible. Once Vennard crosses the border, anything could happen. She does not want to take any chances. She's sure that with the charms she has bought, she can kill Eldone.

Her sojourn in Lithen has changed the way she sees the ordinary life of the kingdom, and suddenly it doesn't seem that Hardin is such a wonderful King. Things could be a lot better, and some of what she's heard of what Vennard wants to do seems reasonable. She fights off these treasonable thoughts and disciplines herself to her task.

She hears rumors that the rebels in Blue Caves 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 before Spring when it will be least expected.

Hardin doesn't know that Blue Caves has a magician capable of opening the passes for them. Shiranan, as she's outfitting herself for the snow choked mountain journey, is involved in an incident where one of Vennard's spies tangles with a Hardin spy over a conspirator's message. She wrestles with her conscience, and finally, thinking what it would feel like to watch Norby slaughtered in the very pass where he saw the rest of Red Shadow die, she helps Vennard's man get away with the news of Blue Caves winter initiative.

But in the process, Hardin's man likewise gets away with the news. Shiranan, with her Assassin's skills, could find and stop him. But she chooses not to. She is uncertain of her own motives and very disturbed by the entire incident. It takes all her personal discipline to keep her objective in mind and continue to outfit herself for her last try at Eldone.

The news of the rebel initiative forces Vennard's hand. Shiranan is still in Thango, watching the weather, gathering equipment, and making forays to cache supplies along her retreat route when Vennard (with Norby) arrives with a small force 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. It is destined to sustain the Blue Caves rebels until spring.

As a series of late winter storms batter the mountains, pinning down Vennard as well as Shiranan, a division of Hardin's army arrives and camps just outside Thango at the foot of the trail leading up to Blue Caves. Rumors are confused about whether Hardin is or is not with that division. In her heart, Shiranan is certain they came because she let the spy get away.

Vastly outnumbered, Vennard can't wait in Thango. He'll have to get by Hardin's army. Shiranan, well equipped, circles Hardin's scouts, joining the Blue Caves trail way beyond where Hardin's men are watching. She must get to Blue Caves first and kill Eldone. If she's quick about it, she might even be able to rescue Rollenby. With those two tasks behind her, other Assassins would join her Cadre. Life could be good again. She has to argue furiously with herself.

She is still arguing when she arrives at the spot where the freak blizzard destroyed Red Shadow. She camps facing a wholly blocked pass.

When she is ready to return to Thango in despair and await spring, assuming the Blue Caves insurgents have given up until the spring thaw, the magicians inside Blue Caves begin clearing the pass, using wind to blow the loose, light snow up out of a narrow canyon.

With an insane boldness, the insurgents beat their way down the narrow channel the magicians have cleared. The blizzard they've created almost buries Shiranan alive, and does kill one of her pack animals, but just then Vennard and his small band appear on her heels. Norby uses his new skill with field magic to glaze the sides of the snow canyon and allow Vennard to meet with the insurgents.

Under cover of the confusion, Shiranan uses one of her stealth charms to get by them, but as she looks back and down she sees Hardin's army moving up in Vennard's wake. Then she notices Norby looking at the place where she crouches invisibly and realizes he sees her Shade, not her.

But Norby's attention is drawn away as others note the Hardin army's approach, and Shiranan slips into the Sanctuary, intent on her quarry.

As she explores and concocts a plan, Vennard takes command of the rebels and leads them back into Blue Caves. Norby closes the pass behind them just in time to block Hardin's army. The problem is that Hardin also has magicians capable of clearing passes.

Shiranan hasn't much time left, but she knows that haste won't serve her now. She will only get one shot, and it must be true.

During the next couple of days, she observes Norby frantically scouring the library and quizzing the other magicians trapped with them for anything and everything pertaining to Shades, and particularly to Shaded Assassins.

Knowing that the stealth and invisibility charms don't conceal her Shade, she is puzzled on one occasion when caught in the open, she isn't noticed. But gradually it dawns on her that during that moment, she felt a deep inner peace, a silence as if the Shade had vanished.

Then, during another such moment, she stumbles on Norby surrounded by magical regalia, conversing with her Shade. She stifles a leap of excitement at the farfetched idea that a Shade could be induced to leave its victim, and then discovers that Norby is scheming to accomplish just that. From Norby's scrawled and cryptic notes, she deduces that he is planning to transfer her Shade to Rollenby, who lives but is paralyzed. Apparently, Norby believes Rollenby is the one who deserves to be Shaded, not her.

However, Norby is a beginner at the stunts of Magicians, and the other more senior staff Magicians and Healers all scorn his efforts. Shiranan has mixed emotions about it. She wants to be rid of the Shade, but doesn't think it honorable to wish it onto a fellow Cadre member. So she's ashamed of her eagerness for Norby's success. On the other hand, she is deeply touched at his persistence in the face of ridicule. At the same time, Norby is the major obstacle between her and Eldone.

He takes shifts with the other magicians and soldiers guarding Eldone, and looks in on his old master at odd intervals - chiefly when he's lost track of her whereabouts. He is using his magical skills, his Healer's sensitivity to Shades, and his Red Shadow training to track her, and has subtly blocked several of her attempts on Eldone before they really got close.

Eldone, however, regards Norby as a traitor to everything he ever taught him. Norby's embracing the Magician's way, and flagrantly using his Assassin's skills has placed him outside all the protection normally given Healers. Norby is a traitor to two oaths, Red Shadow and Blue Caves, and therefore not to be trusted.

Despite this, Norby persists along a path of his own.

Rollenby is paralyzed from the waist down, and is in the grip of the typical depression from such injury. Shiranan finally realizes the only hand that can get close enough to Eldone to strike is Rollenby's, and she manages to give him a weapon. They both know it will be suicide, but Shiranan doesn't tell Rollenby that he's better off dying before Norby can transplant a Shade onto him. She doesn't have to mention that a cripple such as he has little chance in their world.

While Shiranan has been busy sparring surreptitiously with Norby, Vennard welds the rebels and his own small force into a single fighting unit. He keeps Norby and the other Magicians busy driving communications through the interference of Hardin's Magicians. It is imperative that Vennard's rebel forces coordinate their sortie with the arrival of Vennard's main army. Vennard's army arrives in Thango and drives on up the trail to Blue Caves, ready to attack Hardin's forces from the rear.

Despite Vennard's Magician's best efforts, Hardin's army discovers the huge force moving up on their rear, and despite a vicious storm, they burrow through the clogged pass to attack the Sanctuary. It is only then that Vennard discovers that, sometime during the siege, Hardin himself has arrived to command his army, and he has brought reinforcements.

Norby is called out with Vennard's other magicians to delay Hardin's advance until Vennard's own army can arrive.

Norby's distraction comes at a convenient time for Shiranan, for at that exact moment Rollenby is in Eldone's rooms setting him up for the kill. Rollenby is claiming that he's finally adjusted to his loss and is willing to start therapy to learn how to survive as he is, but Eldone must conduct the therapy sessions in private.

Shiranan uses her "human fly" charm to climb the unclimbable wall into Eldone's rooms, to be in position for a second chance if Rollenby's strike fails.

Norby, however, spots Shiranan's Shade going up the wall, and races to cut her off, leaving Vennard aghast at him for abandoning his post. After Eldone's many speeches impugning Norby's integrity, Vennard thinks Norby has sold out to Hardin.

Aware that Norby is racing up a back stair heading for a secret passage into Eldone's apartment, Shiranan watches as Rollenby uses the dagger she provided for the attempt on Eldone.

It takes so long for Rollenby to lure Eldone into his limited range that, as Rollenby finally strikes, Norby bursts into the room and takes Eldone down in a rolling tackle. Rollenby's strike goes wild.

In that same moment, Shiranan crashes through the window shutters and wrenches Eldone free of Norby's grasp exposing his back to Rollenby. She shouts, "Throw!" The dagger tip was poisoned, and even a nick might well do the job.

Rollenby throws the dagger at Eldone's back. Norby 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.

Norby ignores them and hastily deploys magical paraphernalia Shiranan has seen him use to summon her Shade. Before she can react, her Shade precipitates into a tangible figure in Silent Breath Cadre badges. He is Rissel, the very man she killed. She is paralyzed with an irrational terror.

The Shade goes for her throat in a neck-breaking Silent Breath move. The Shade's touch is solidified fire.

Norby interposes with a Red Shadow move and together they fight the Silent Breath man to a standstill.

Shiranan turns to kill Eldone - having convinced herself that only Eldone's death will free her of the Shade.

But Norby intercedes and immobilizes Shiranan, holding the wrist of the hand in which she grips her dagger poised for the killing stroke to Eldone.

"Shiranan, think!" He gestures to the Healer, "Will the world be better off without such a Healer? How could Hardin have justified a commission to kill such a man? Isn't the Assassin's Judgement what this is all about? Show me Cause why Eldone should die, and I'll redeem Red Shadow with my own hand!" He raises the dagger over Eldone.

Eldone ignores them all, concentrating on his efforts to deal with the poison travelling up Rollenby's leg.

It was, Shiranan admits, the principle her parents had died protecting, it was the principle she'd killed to protect, killed and become Shadowed for. A client had to show cause why the world would be a better place without the quarry. Even a King had to show cause.

And during the time she'd stalked the halls of Blue Caves Sanctuary, she had learned too much of Eldone. He would work as hard to Heal Hardin as he did to Heal Vennard. He was there now, frantically fighting for the life of the man who had twice tried to kill him. He was neither loyal nor disloyal to either King; he was loyal only to his Healer's Oath. Neither he nor any of his Healers had begun the rebellion. Though he didn't oppose it, he didn't support it either. He only Healed.

And if she killed Eldone, then she would have done just what her Shade had died trying to get her to do. She would have used an Assassin's skills to take a life unjustly. Shiranan tells Norby that she understands his wish at the center of the tunnel - a once in a lifetime wish that he spent not on himself but on Eldone's life. She gives him that life now, saying she'd rather remain Shaded than kill such a man.

She drops the dagger, and in that instant the Shade again attacks her in an eerie repeat of the battle they once fought, and which he lost.

Norby launches himself at his magical equipment. "Shiranan, stall!" Fumblingly, he produces a smoky whirlwind which engulfs the Shade before it can throttle Shiranan.

Enlisting Shiranan's aid, he uses the whirlwind of fog laced through with dangerous lightning bolts to force the Shade out the window. He commands it to depart this plane or find someone worthy of being Shadowed. Shiranan adds that it should be the person responsible for wiping out Red Shadow with weather magic and beast magic and Norby makes that a formal command.

At that moment, Rollenby goes into convulsions, and Norby pitches in with his Healing skills to help Eldone try to save him. But Rollenby dies of the poison. Eldone, working beside Norby to Heal, seeing how selflessly Norby gives of himself and how much of his Healer's power remains, begins to accept that Norby's integrity is intact, but is not that of a Healer. He never was an Assassin or a Healer, but his true identity is as a Magician - something of a cross between both.

Suddenly, the noise of battle outside reaches a new pitch. They rush to the window themselves to find that Hardin, leading his troops, has broken through the Sanctuary gate, but now his Magicians have proclaimed him Shaded. His men are turning against him or surrendering to Vennard's army. As with the folk tale told during the journey through the tunnel, no one will follow a Shaded King.

Vennard is carrying the day.

Eldone is surprised to find that Hardin killed off the very Assassins he sent to kill Eldone. Hardin must have ordered Red Shadow's destruction since Norby commanded the Shade to go to the one who destroyed Red Shadow. Norby says that Red Shadow must have known something Hardin didn't want revealed, but Norby had been so young at the time, he hadn't been privy to the adults' councils. They deduce that Shiranan's parents were killed for the same reason - whatever it was. Probably by Hardin. Eldone suggests that certain mind-healing techniques might be used to reveal whatever secret it was.

He speculates that it might have had something to do with the way Hardin acquired his throne.

Shiranan says that it doesn't seem to matter now. Hardin is done for.

As they watch Hardin's army dissolve, and Hardin get killed in single combat against Vennard, Eldone asks Norby how he had the nerve to try such a foolish stunt with the Shade, and Norby admits he did have some doubts about his magical control of the Shade. The spell he used was supposed to work only if the Shading were unjust, but he is very relieved that his assessment of Shiranan was correct and she is indeed worthy of the Red Shadow badge.

Norby believes that Hardin wiped out Red Shadow because he knew they couldn't be bought, and he knows now that Shiranan is truly Red Shadow because she can't be bought.

Later, King Vennard finds out how Norby actually did not desert his King at a crucial moment, but ran to save the day by attempting magic far beyond his abilities. Norby's protests are to no avail, and Vennard awards both Norby and Shiranan lands and titles and a place at court.

The End