"What, are you supposed to be Tama now?"

Duyam Sona had blocked their path to their table, and was doing a fairly convincing disdainful sneer. Kieran handed off his tray to Ash, just in case, but didn't bother replying. He just cocked an eyebrow and waited.

"You're a disgrace to your tribe, if you even have one."

"Tama'ankan," Kieran clarified mildly. "Sure I'm a bastard, but I knew my mother well enough. How about you? Let me guess -- Chamka?"

"Tallgrass," said Sona haughtily.

"Figures. Think you're better than the rest of us 'cause you got to keep your ranges, then you come into town begging for handouts the first time the rains fail. Well, in your case, I guess you got a job -- will you fucking quit?" This last because he had to block a halfhearted punch. "Kaiyo bastard."

"You're the one who's crazy. Walking around looking like that. You know what happens when you cross the line around here?"

"Tell me."

"Vivisection."

"Fun."

"Yeah, laugh it off, crowbait. You'll be screaming soon enough. And then your bumboy's anybody's meat."

It actually required a bit of effort not to react to that. He turned to Ash. "Is that what people were saying when they were talking shit to you?"

"Um. Pretty much." Ash was blushing again. He'd have to learn to control that sometime soon.

"You care if they think it's true?"

"Not really."

"Hey, Tama, I'm talking to you!" Sona gave him a shove.

Kieran considered his options. It would be easy enough to wreck Sona's day, but the food was getting cold. "All right. You're talking to me. Why?"

"Because." That seemed to stump him a bit. "I'm just warning you."

"I appreciate it," said Kieran solemnly.

With a snarl, Sona turned on his heel and stalked back to his breakfast.

Ash made an exasperated noise as they sat down to their own ugly food. "What is up with that guy?"

"You're the empath. You tell me."

"I can't. I mean, you did kill his brother, you admit it, so of course --"

"They didn't like each other. It's not like it hurt him personally."

"Yeah, but family is family, right?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Oh. Well, I don't have anybody but my aunt, but if someone murdered her and I let it slide, I'd hate myself forever."

"You like her?"

"Kieran, it doesn't matter. I mean, yes, I do, but even if I didn't -- this is a tangent. What I'm saying is, he should feel like it's his duty to take revenge on you. What I can't f igure out is why he doesn't just do it, like you said the other day. The way he keeps baiting you, it's like he wants something else. I can't figure it out."

Kieran shrugged. "Me neither. Eat your slop."

Ash stirred his oatmeal, watched the congealing mess plop off his spoon a few times. "Maybe I should talk to him."

"You?" But after a moment's thought, Kieran realized it might not be such a bad idea. "Okay. Do it."

So when they were all turned out to pasture, Kieran stayed by the wall and Ash wandered over by Sona alone. Kieran was surprised to see that Ash was the taller of the two, by two or three inches. The pale boy acted so small, Kieran had gotten into the habit of thinking of him as little. The truth was that he was taller than most of the others in the yard. Not the thinnest, either; Kieran himself probably looked about that skinny with his clothes on. It was Ash's whiteness that made him look so fragile, and the little-kid freckles, and the glasses. He was the epitome of the kid the whole neighborhood picked on. Kieran wondered if he'd keep that wimpy look all his life -- then reminded himself that neither of them were likely to live long enough for it to matter.

Ash didn't seem to be having any trouble handling Duyam Sona. They were just talking. Sona looked angry, but then he always did. He was making tight, sharp gestures with his hands. Ash had his head tilted like a kitten. That's it, kid. Be cute and harmless, and no one will have the heart to --

Wrong. Just as that thought went through Kieran's head, Sona snatched the spectacles off Ash's face, threw them down, and stepped on them.

Then he looked straight at Kieran.

"Fine." Kieran pushed himself away from the wall. "It's your funeral."

Sona gave a sickly smile, watching Kieran come at him. With a deliberate, contemptuous gesture, he lashed out and backhanded Ash across the face, knocking the white boy sprawling.

The world abruptly shook itself into a new focus; a cold, tense state where the colors were washed out and the air tasted of metal. Sona ceased to be a person, became an offending object which must be broken down until it vanished. Options for achieving this flashed through Kieran's head with tight clarity. All the mobile obstacles in the yard scattered out of his path.

All but one. One of them got in front of him, mouthing noises at him. He grabbed its head to throw it aside. But the skin of his palm remembered this texture, and it yanked perspective back into him with a painful shock. For the space of one breath he was holding himself together on the verge of going feral, shredding everyone within reach.

Then he smoothed down Ash's hair where he'd disarranged it, and Ash's words began to be a language he could understand.

"-- what he wants, you can see that, I know you can, just walk away Kieran please you don't have to prove anything --"

"Hush," Kieran said, and Ash did. The relief in the sagging of those narrow shoulders, in the dimming of those sky-colored eyes, made Kieran ashamed. He felt sick to his stomach. He wasn't shaking, but a vibration in his nerves told him he might begin any minute now. Sona, beyond Ash's blocking body, was visibly trembling; awkward, as if he'd forgotten his lines. All the faces on the periphery were round-eyed, skittish like horses. Only Ash wasn't afraid. Why wasn't he? Kieran almost hadn't recognized him -- and he shouldn't have assumed that he was immune, whether recognized or not.

"I figured it out," Ash said. "What he wants. He wants to die, Kieran."

Kieran tested his voice. It came out too deep, but smooth and calm. "I gathered that."

"No, I mean it's a plan. He wants you to kill him." His voice dropped to a whisper. "For which the guards will probably shoot you."

"Clever," Kieran said. He raised his voice so Sona could hear. "But you're going to have to wait until I'm suicidal too. Until then, every time you lay a finger on Ash, I will break that finger. My guess is the Watch don't mind what shape your hands are in."

Sona's face contorted. He gave an incoherent bellow and rushed at Kieran, swinging wild, all pretense at skill gone. Kieran stepped out of his path and tripped him.

"Give it up, Sona. You're making us all tired."

"Just wait." Sona got as far as his knees and stayed there, head hanging, fists clenched in his lap. "You wait. You may think you're used to shame, but you don't know anything yet."

"Coward." Kieran picked up the remains of Ash's glasses. They were ruined, both lenses smashed, wire frame twisted. He dropped the useless thing in front of Sona. "Maybe you can slit your wrists with the pieces. Inayaju. You make me sick. Remember to cut up, not across." Then he took Ash's arm and hauled him away.

"That was cruel," Ash said when they were out of earshot. "Kieran, that was outright cruel."

Kieran spat on the ground. "You don't understand. He's not just a coward, he's a blasphemer. A hypocrite. See, if all he wanted was to commit suicide, there are plenty of ways around here. Spoon knife. Pants noose. Hell, you can bang your head against the wall if you get really desperate. But that's not good enough for him. He thinks he's a heriye, a noble knight, he wants to go down in battle. 'Cause we Iavaians have more Hells than you folks do, and suicides go to the basement." He spat again. "Inayaju kamon."

"What's that mean?"

"I don't know how to translate it. Crybaby, sniveler. Somebody who spends all his time bitching about his problems instead of solving them. What about you, aren't you pissed? He broke your glasses."

"I'm just a little nearsighted. It's not as if I'll need to read street signs or anything. I can see well enough not to run into walls."

Kieran noticed a smear of blood on Ash's lip. Without thinking, he reached out and wiped it away with his thumb. He immediately regretted the gesture -- because of how it had probably looked to everyone else, and because Ash's sharp inhalation and dilated eyes were going to stick in his mind and bother him when he was trying to sleep.

He glanced at Sona, to remind himself he was angry. "He's not forgiven."

"I just think, if we let ourselves get worked up, we'll end up like that --" Ash aimed a thumb in Sona's direction -- "sooner than if we keep our heads."

"You might be right." Kieran turned abruptly away from Sona's kneeling form, suddenly worried that anguish might be contagious. "Well, that was embarrassing. Let's pretend it never happened."

"Let's pretend we're fishing in Helermont Bay, while we're at it." Ash returned with a lopsided grin.

"Kieran Trevarde." The cell unlocked with a clank. "Get your ass out here."

"I'm getting to really hate hearing my last name," Kieran grumbled as he obeyed. He glanced back to see Ash looking apprehensive, gnawing his lip. Kieran gave him a bitter smile on the way out.

This time, as he was marched to the tunnel, he examined the features of the place as he passed them. The walls were clad in glazed brick to about eight feet up, but above that was bare stone, rough enough to climb, at least if you were a halfway decent climber. If he could get on top of the door-opening mechanism... then he'd be shot, and if he found some way to avoid that, the skylights had bars on them.

Well, there were two ways to look at that thought. It might be better to consider it one out of three obstacles potentially defeated. Two out of four if he counted the fact that these two guards with their guns were standing way too close to him. He could deal with them any time he wanted.

It was the same tunnel they took him into, the same stairs up, so Kieran was disoriented when they came to a turning that hadn't been there before. The hall should've gone straight to the door of Warren's little white room. Instead, it curved right, bringing them to a short cross-passage with a door at one end.

Again Kieran was made to wait until the door opened. Again it was the same Watchman who let him in, and again Warren was waiting. But this was a different room, longer, with two metal chairs bolted to the floor facing each other. One chair was empty; the other was full of Sona's fat blond friend, bound to his seat with leather straps. He looked mostly out of it, not red-faced now but grayish. The empty chair had straps as well. He really didn't like the look of this.

"Sit," Warren ordered.

"Make me," said Kieran.

Warren glared at him, just long enough that he began to wonder whether the officer had any means to force him into that unpleasant-looking chair.

Then the pain came.

Formless, sourceless, engulfing, thought-killing, it came inside all his defenses and turned him in an instant from rational being to suffering animal. It could not be fought, ignored, or endured. When it ended, he was lying in a puddle of vomit, too weak to even wipe his face.

His escort lifted him into the chair and strapped him in.

"Now," Warren said in that hideously reasonable tone he used. "We wish to study your threnodic Talent. The man before you is weak, close to death. Kill him."

Kieran considered several replies, discarding the ones most likely to cause Warren to torture him again. What he eventually said -- mush-mouthed with the pain's aftereffects -- was, "It doesn't work like that."

"Don't presume to educate me, Mr. Trevarde. You will remain in this room until that man is dead. Should you choose to try to outwait us, you will become very thirsty." He gestured, presumably to his minion, and went out of Kieran's field of vision. A moment later, the door slammed.

Kieran spent some time taking leisurely stock of his situation. Testing his bonds. They were solid, of course. Then he tried talking to Blondie, but the man was out cold. For a while he debated with himself whether to try offing the guy. On the one hand, the man was doomed. If Kieran refused or failed, the Watch would find another use for him. Vivisection, for instance, unless that was a product of Sona's diseased imagination. So it wasn't like there was a moral issue. On the other hand, Kieran didn't feel particularly cooperative after the nasty zapping he'd gotten. And he resented having to make this decision at all. The whole thing was sordid and idiotic and got him nothing either way, except maybe a few minutes of semi-privacy, if he could ignore the fact that Warren was probably watching him by some magical means right now.

So Kieran settled down in the chair as far as the straps would allow, let his head roll back, and took a nap.

Quiet. So quiet up here, bright and warm, on the mesa's top. Small, harsh plants grew in cracks and hollows, and he was the first person ever to see them. The sky was pale, the sun white, the air still. He could see all the way to the mountains along the western horizon, a gray unevenness along the bottom of the sky, pretending to be a cloud bank. All around him the broken land of the desert unrolled.

Someone said his name. He turned around. At the mesa's center stood Ash Trine made perfect; he glowed copper and ivory, his eyes were gas flames, his smile of welcome was brighter than the sun. Kieran's heart constricted with a delicious pain of longing, a righteous fire of resentment at his blood's lusting boil, his teeth ground together. He raised his weapon and pulled the trigger -- the sound slowed and rolling like a distant machine growling -- and the arc of Ash's body flying backwards was beauty in the raw, better than sex.

Ash was trying to speak, blood bubbling from his lips in lieu of words. Kieran bent to kiss him, swallowing the blood from his mouth. In it he tasted the words Ash had been trying to say.

He woke suddenly and without transition. He could still taste the blood; for a moment, he was unsure which was the dream and which was real. Then reason started its destroying engine and began to chop his dream apart. That was outright sick, he told himself. Also largely meaningless. And could you possibly have picked a weirder place to fall asleep?

He still smelled of vomit. The man in the other chair was still out cold. He had no way to judge how long it had been. But he was very thirsty.

Enough, he decided. He'd asserted that he wouldn't obey out of simple fear. Now it was time to do what he had to. At least the poor son of a bitch didn't have to be awake to feel himself being tipped over the edge.

Using his Talent never felt like something he did with his mind. It seemed, instead, as if a new kind of hand grew out of him, pulling from his chest, and reached into the other man as into a pool of water. What this hand actually did was hard for him to explain, even to himself. Perhaps everyone carried with them the seed of their own death, perhaps what this hand touched was the death that was already there, merely bringing it to the surface. Or perhaps he found the shortest path of possibility, and steered his victim's time onto it. In this case, the man was so close to dying, so riddled with infection and bloated with internal bleeding, that Kieran barely had to brush him with the invisible hand; the man gave a long sigh, as if relieved, and it was over.

Despite the humiliating circumstances, he felt a sense of satisfaction. A clean job, more a mercy killing than a murder, no pain, no complications. Hangman's pride.

"He's dead," said Kieran loudly. "Can I go now?"

After a short wait he heard the door open, heard two sets of footsteps. Smelled one man's sweat and another's dusty breath. Felt hands wrap around his head from behind, and had just time to think oh shit before they both came in at once.

He woke partway when he hit the floor; just enough to guess by smell and sound that it was the floor of his cell. Not enough to move, though he'd been thrown down in a sort of awkward position. The floor was wonderfully cool, but not very clean. He hoped to God they'd leave him alone until he felt better.

He heard a small gasp, and a choking sound. Hands shoved at him, got under his shoulder and neck, lifting him onto someone's knees; arms around him, pressing his face into a bony chest that was shaking with hoarse, uneven breaths.

Kieran swallowed spit until he was no longer too dry to talk. Then he said, very carefully, "Who are you, and why are you hugging my head?"

The hands shifted, cradling the back of his skull so he could look up. The light was dim and yellow, but he could make out a diamond-pale eye, recurved lips, a pointed chin speckled with metallic stubble. Ash. Of course. He was a shade alarmed at the thickness of the fog in his head, now that he'd realized it was there. He'd thought, for a moment, that he was back in Tiyamo.

"Oh," he croaked. "This is that prison."

"I thought they'd killed you," Ash whispered. "I thought you were never coming back."

"No such fucking luck."

Ash took in a long, shuddering breath, let it out smoothly; composing himself. He set Kieran's head gently on the floor. Some noises later, he returned with a dripping rag. "What did they do to make you throw up? Poison you? Did they hit you in the stomach?"

"Nuh-uh. Kinda... pain zaps. Brain torture thing." Caught between wanting to be cleaned up, and hating the cold and wet of the cloth, he endured it until he felt he was no longer outright filthy, then tried to turn his head away. "Wanna sleep now."

"I can't move you. You're too heavy. Can you help?"

"I'll stay here." Kieran let his eyes close.

He meant the floor. But when his head was lifted and then lowered to be pillowed on Ash's lap, he found he didn't mind it much. It was pretty comforting, actually. He felt as if he were made of soft lead, sagging to conform to the surface beneath. He was nearly asleep when his human pillow shifted slightly; shortly thereafter a blanket settled over him. He realized he'd been shivering only when the shivering stopped.

Noises came and went. Sometimes he was moved a bit, and this annoyed him, but on no account was he going to bother waking up. Sleep was too safe and precious; even the dry sleep of empty, looping dreams that was the only kind he could get inside the prison wards.

But there came a time when he could no longer cling to sleep. The world was clamoring for his attention. Aches everywhere: head, throat, joints, muscles, stomach. Coughing sometimes. Light. Opening his gummy eyes, he saw the underside of Ash's chin, and the grayness of daylight. It took some effort to make a noise. When he managed it, Ash looked down and smiled with such proprietary gentleness that Kieran was immediately embarrassed.

"Ag," said Kieran. He tried again. "Hat." He choked on dryness and was taken over by a long, painful coughing session. Ash's hands were on him the whole time, smoothing back his hair, steadying his shoulders until it was over.

"Can you move now?"

As an answer, Kieran sought for and found his limbs, dragged an aching arm across the floor.

"Good. I'm going to sit you up now. Let's try to get you onto your bed."

That didn't sound like fun, but neither did staying on the floor -- the gritty stone that had seemed so comfortable before was now a literal pain in the ass. Not sure if he was up to the effort, Kieran resolved to do his damnedest anyway, because he remembered that when he'd gone through that gauntlet of examinations -- what was it, not even a week ago? -- he'd weighed in at a hundred and ninety pounds, and he was pretty sure Ash had never lifted anything bigger than a dictionary in his life.

Ash surprised him, though. The kid might not have been strong, but he was methodical, and not afraid to use what little strength he had. When Kieran proved unable to do much more than tremble and wobble, Ash uncomplainingly did the whole job himself, though it was awkward. Kieran indicated gratitude by a flopping gesture of his hand that probably didn't convey anything.

Ash brought him a cup of water. Kieran had to concentrate his full attention on simply holding his head up, but it was worth it; though the cup knocked against his teeth with his trembling, it was as good as a clear stream after a week in the desert. Which implied that he was badly dehydrated.

"More," was his first coherent word of the day.

Ash poured water down Kieran's gullet until he sloshed, then made him eat two slices of cold toast, clammy with congealed raspberry jam. "The guard got it for me," Ash explained to Kieran's questioning look. "I think it was his own breakfast. I don't think they hate you as much as they pretend to."

Kieran rolled his head, as much of a gesture of negation as he could manage. He knew that if a guard had shared his breakfast, it wasn't for Kieran's sake, but for Ash's. There was just something about those round blue eyes that made authority figures go protective. His theatrical selflessness might have had something to do with it as well. "Did you sit there all night?"

"Um. Well. Yeah. Don't worry about it. It's not like sleep's in short supply around here."

"The floor would've been fine."

Ash said nothing.

"Well. Anyway. I guess... thank you."

"You should rest."

"I did. I will. You missed breakfast so you could keep being my pillow, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get any food?"

"No."

"Martyr."

"Maybe I just didn't want to go out there alone."

Kieran made an attempt at a laugh. "Nah. I think I'm getting the hang of you. You're like the nice little boy in those improving books. The one who's so kind and good that nothing bad ever happens to him. Was life really like that for you before?"

"Maybe. I guess. God watches over fools and children, and like that."

"Bullshit. Fools and children get jacked all the time."

"Well, I'm not going to get into philosophy with someone who can't talk with his eyes open. You get some rest. I've got work to do."

This provided a reason for Kieran to unstick his eyelids. "Work?"

Ash displayed a thin book with blue card covers. "Our friendly guard came through yesterday while you were in Testing. A whole empty account book and a brand new pencil. But he still won't tell me his name." Ash flipped the book open and offered it. "I've already started. See?"

Kieran squinted at the gibberish on the page; his first reaction was that he was even sicker than he'd thought. A closer look confirmed that the first word was, indeed, 'QNMAUUP,' and it just got worse from there. "What the hell is that? Some kind of code?"

"Cypher. Not that there's anything in here they don't already know, but I like the idea of the headache they'll get trying to read it."

"They teach that at rebel school?"

"I guess you could say that."

"So how am I supposed to read it when you're not around to decode it for me?"

Ash turned pages, the motion of his hands crisp and businesslike. "Here, I wrote the square on the first page. You encrypt the first letter using the line beside the first letter of the key, then move to the line beside the second, and so forth. Just try to avoid touching the letters as you go through it, or the smudged places will give away the key."

"Which is?"

"Something you said, actually. Struck me as appropriate. Loser unity."

"Perfect." Kieran's laugh turned into coughing. "Okay, I feel like hell. Go do your code thing and let me sleep."

"Right. Say -- you didn't go to school, did you?"

"You're joking. I'm Iavaian. They don't let us into school. Why?"

"I was just wondering how you learned to read."

"Taught myself. Had plenty of free time. Assassin's not a full-time job, you know; wouldn't be much of anybody left if it was. Now for fuck's sake let me sleep."

"Sorry."

Kieran thought for a few moments that all this conversation had made him too alert to go back to sleep, despite how rotten he felt. Then his thoughts began to wander, and he emerged from one long, confusing concept to realize it had been a dream. He drifted easily under the surface of dozing, lulled by the scratching of his cellmate's pencil. It was an oddly pleasant sound.