the doorway, hearing the soft wind of the city flowing slowly past the
stone archway above him. One of his guards reached out and touched his
mind tentatively, but he blocked his thoughts and strode heavily down
the steps past them.

The sound of the wind above him rose to a screaming, and suddenly it was
as though he were tumbling down the entire length of the stairway,
fragments of sky and stone and faces flashing past in a kaleidoscope,
and the screaming all around him. He almost reached for his bludgeon,
but then he realized that he was not Tebron Marl ... he was Lee Rynason,
and the screaming was Horng and he was being driven out of those
thoughts, tumbling through a thousand memories so fast he could not
grasp any one of them.

He withdrew from Horng's mind as though from a nightmare; he became
aware of his own body, lying in the dust of Hirlaj, and he opened his
eyes and motioned weakly to Mara to break the connection.

When she had done so he slowly sat up and shook his head, waiting for it
to clear. For awhile he had been an ancient king of Hirlaj, and it took
some time to return to the present, to his own consciousness. He was
dimly aware of Mara kneeling beside him, but he couldn't make out her
words at first.

"Are you all right? Are you sure? Look up at me, Lee, please."

He found himself nodding to reassure her, and then he saw the expression
on her face and felt the last wisps of alien fog clearing from his mind.
There were tears in her eyes, and he touched the side of her face with
his hand and said, "I'm all right. But why don't you kiss me or