fs
murmured an obsequious greeting to Miellyn, and she made some
lighthearted answer.

She had warned me to walk as if I had every right to be there, and I
strode after her as if we were simply going to an agreed-on meeting in
the next room. But I was drenched with cold sweat before the farther
door finally closed, safe and blessedly opaque, behind us. Miellyn, too,
was shaking with fright, and I put a hand on her arm.

"Steady, kid. Where's the scanner?"

She touched the panel I'd seen. "I'm not sure I can focus it accurately.
Evarin never let me touch it."

This was a fine time to tell me that. "How does it work?"

"It's an adaptation of the transmitter principle. It lets you see
anywhere, but without jumping. It uses a tracer mechanism like the one
in the Toys. If Rakhal's electrical-impulse pattern were on file--just a
minute." She fished out the bird Toy and unwrapped it. "Here's how we
find out which of you this is keyed to."

I looked at the fledgling bird, lying innocently in her palm, as she
pushed aside the feathers, exposing a tiny crystal. "If it's keyed to
you, you'll see yourself in this, as if the screen were a mirror. If
it's keyed to Rakhal...."

She touched the crystal to the surface of the screen. Little flickers of
snow wavered and danced. Then, abruptly, we were looking down from a
height at the lean back of a man in a leather jacket. Slowly he turned.
I saw the familiar set of his shoulders, saw the back of his head come
into an aquiline profile, and the profile turn slowly into a scarred,
seared mask more hideously claw-marked and disfigured than my own.

"Rakhal," I muttered. "Shift the focus if you can, Miellyn, get a look
out the window or something. Charin's a big city. If we could get a look
at a landmark--"

Rakhal was talking soundlessly, his lips moving as he spoke to someone
out of sight range of the scanning device. Abruptly Miellyn said,
"There." She had caught a window in the sight field of the pane. I could
see a high pylon and two of three uprights that looked like a bridge,
just outside. I said, "It's the Bridge of Summer Snows. I know where he
is now. Turn it off, Miellyn, we can find him--" I was turning away when
Miellyn screamed.

"Look!"

Rakhal had turned his back on the scanner and for the first time I could
see who he was talking to. A hunched, catlike shoulder twisted; a
sinuous neck, a high-held head that was not quite human.

"Evarin!" I swore. "That does