‘Neither did we until recently,’ Enalla reminded him. ‘I think we’ve been missing one of the better parts of life.’
‘Has Aracia been herself lately?’ Balacenia asked her sister.
Enalla shrugged. ‘She’s been irritable, and her priests have been exaggerating those tiresome ceremonies to stay on the good side of her.’
‘It seems that they’re all beginning to slip just a bit,’ Balacenia said. ‘Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, but we’re in the middle of a war right now, so we might have to step in - subtly, of course - and cover for them. There have been a few occasions when I’ve had to go directly to Longbow to get things done.’
‘Persuading Longbow to do something might be even more difficult than bringing Zelana around,’ Vash said.
‘He did take a bit of getting used to,’ Balacenia agreed. She frowned slightly. ‘I think we’re going to have to stay in much closer contact with each other than we usually do,’ she told them. ‘The Vlagh seems to specialize in surprises, and we’ll have to be ready to respond immediately.’
‘Did Dahlaine get everything right when he told all of us about your dream, Dakas?’ Balacenia asked.
‘Pretty close,’ Dakas replied. ‘Of course, it didn’t make too much sense to me when I woke up. I can’t for the life of me make any sense out of that second invasion.’ He looked at Vash. ‘I thought that the Trogites were working for Veltan.’
‘They are - at least Narasan’s army is,’ Vash replied. ‘Veltan didn’t get into too many details when he told me about how he’d managed to hire an army in the land of the Trogs, so I don’t really understand how things work down there.’
Balacenia glanced off to the east and saw a faint light along the horizon. ‘It’s almost morning,’ she told the others, ‘so most of us will be waking up soon. I’ll stay here until noon at the earliest. I need to think my way through this. I don’t think we’ll encounter any emergencies this early, but I’ll be here if any of you happen to need me.’
‘And when you get sleepy, call me,’ Dakas suggested. ‘I can go to sleep almost any time of day. I think that might be the result of growing up with bears.’
‘And when you wake up, you can call me,’ Enalla said. ‘I’ll sleep a while, and then call in Vash. Then it’ll be Balacenia’s turn again.’
‘One more thing before you leave,’ Balacenia said. ‘Be very careful when you’re speaking with the elders. Both Vash and I blundered and referred to each other by our real names. If that happens too often, the elders will start getting very suspicious. Let’s keep them happy - and drowsy. We don’t want them to know that we’re awake, do we?’
The others all agreed, and then they faded from the imaginary world.
Balacenia wandered alone through the glowing aurora as the eastern horizon grew lighter and lighter. Then the sun rose in stately magnificence, touching the sky with rose-tinted crimson. Balacenia’s heart was filled with sadness. The Beloved was deeply troubled, and her pain weighed heavily on Eleria’s side of Balacenia’s awareness.
And then something quite impossible occurred. The figure of a woman came walking out of the sunrise into the place that existed only in the combined imaginations of Balacenia and Vash.
‘That was very nicely done, dear one,’ the woman said to Balacenia in a rich, vibrant voice.
Balacenia immediately recognized the voice and for some reason she was not the least bit surprised that Ara had appeared here out of nowhere. It seemed very right somehow. She nodded politely to Omago’s beautiful wife. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Ara,’ she said, ‘and maybe this is the proper time and place. I’ve had this nagging feeling that I’ve met you before. That actually did happen, didn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ara replied with a fond smile, ‘but it was a very, very long time ago - even for you.’ She held out her arms, and Balacenia automatically went to her.
‘You’re doing just fine, Balacenia,’ Ara said, warmly embracing her. ‘I wasn’t at all sure that Dahlaine’s scheme would actually work, but you just managed the transition so smoothly that there wasn’t even a hint of what was actually happening when you realized who you really are.’
‘It just seemed to me that Dahlaine’s little scheme didn’t go quite far enough, Ara. That was sort of nagging at Eleria. When you get right down to it, this was all the idea of the Eleria part of me. She knew that she and the other Dreamers were going to need help, so she called me.’ Balacenia smiled. ‘I’ve never had anybody wake me before, and her childhood memories brought tears to my eyes.’
‘You have to be a little careful when Eleria unleashes her charm on you. In many ways, she’s you, but she has her own little idiosyncracies. Playing with the dolphins might have had something to do with that. You’ll get used to her, but it’s going to take a while. In the meantime, look after Zelana. She’s not herself right now.’
‘She will get better, won’t she?’ Balacenia asked, greatly concerned.
‘Probably not this time, dear Balacenia. She’s moving toward her sleep cycle right now, and she’s going quite a bit faster than Dahlaine had anticipated, but I can deal with that. For now, comfort your Beloved and keep her safe, and leave the rest to me. Now go back to sleep, dear child. Tomorrow’s another day.’
And then Balacenia awoke and found herself in Eleria’s bed.
The Man Of Honor
1
Narasan was born in the compound of his father’s army, and so in a certain sense he’d been in that army for his entire life, and the notion of becoming a merchant or a member of the government had never even occurred to him.
The army compound had originally been established on the outskirts of the city of Kaldacin, the imperial capital of the Trogite Empire, and it covered several hundred acres. As the imperial city had expanded, it had gradually come to surround the compound, and various high-ranking members of the government had hungrily eyed those prime acres as a possible source of vast amounts of wealth. There had been frequent offers over the past several decades, but a long line of Narasan’s ancestors had steadfastly refused to even discuss the matter.
The compound of his father’s army was in many ways a fair-sized city, with administrative buildings, officers’ quarters, soldiers’ barracks, armories, and storehouses conveniently situated among drill fields, parade grounds, and training areas that duplicated virtually every type of terrain the army might encounter in any war anywhere in the Empire. It was separated from the surrounding city by high, sturdy walls and well-guarded gates. The stone structures within the compound were all of a uniform size with stucco-covered white walls and red-tile roofs, and everything was plumb and square with a sense of permanence that the constantly changing city beyond the walls could never match. Narasan had occasionally looked out at the surrounding city as a child, but he saw no real need to go there. Everything he wanted or needed was here in the compound, so why should he bother going out into the city?