After the closing bell on the observation tower had sounded on the second morning of the tourney, Grifford went to meet his sister. He found her seated in one of the many deep couches that lined the walls of the lower embarkation hall, with a heavy book open on her lap. The two sets of metal lift doors opposite the wide staircase to the great-hall were closed, and the heavily ornate dial set in the wall above them indicated that the east lift would arrive in twelve minutes' time.

"You are late," said Tahlia, glancing up from her book. "We just missed one."

Grifford joined her on the sofa without comment, and Tahlia bent her head back to the book, leaving him to sit in silence and look at the portraits of Klinberg's previous Grand-commanders, which lined the circular room.

"What are you studying now?" he asked, after the silence had stretched on for a few minutes.

"It is not study," replied Tahlia. "I found this book at a stall today. The theolite who sold it to me said it has a lot of old secrets in it."

"Oh," said Grifford, unimpressed.

"I am looking to see if it says anything about the old places. Like the Sanctuary and such."

"Why?"

Tahlia looked up at him.

"Just because," she said. "It is interesting."

Grifford gave a loud tut.

"If you find Fortak so interesting, you should go to the temple and become a Communicant."

"No, thank you! They barely set foot outside the temple. All closed up in there. Just the thought of it gives me the shivers."

Tahlia flipped over a page in the book, to a picture of Fortak giving his last message to his people before going to his near eternal rest. Boldly illustrated writing decorated the borders of the pictures, and his sister began to study their lines carefully. Grifford turned back to the lifts, as the needle on the dial above them dropped from ten minutes down to nine.

"Oh it is useless," said Tahlia, slamming the book closed and dropping it onto the seat beside her. "There is nothing in here about the old places that I do not know already."

"Oh," said Grifford, still without much interest.

"All it says is that the old places were created by the servants of Fortak to keep his people safe, and that he gave them knowledge so they could survive."

"I thought that we were the servants of Fortak," said Grifford.

Tahlia gave a loud sigh.

"Do you never listen to Chief-communicant Vennar's messages at the temple?"

Grifford wasn't listening. He was frowning at the sound of footsteps from the archway where one of the winding stairs led down from the chamber. He scowled at the figure who entered.

The figure scowled back.

"Squire Grifford," said the boy, the words twisting his lips.

"Squire Tasker," Grifford replied coldly.

The older boy walked confidently through the sets of high backed chairs that filled the centre of the room, and stood opposite them, one arm resting on the back of a particularly ornate seat.

"Oh, and his sister," he said, noticing Tahlia. "Still grubbing about in unwholesome places, I hear?"

"The places I grub around in," she replied, meeting his mocking glare with her own. "Are none of your business."

The nasty smile went from Tasker's lips.

"Be careful how you talk to me, girl. You will not have your father's protection forever."

"Yes I will, and when he is Grand-commander, you won't dare talk to me in that tone."

Tasker gave a single high pitched burst of laughter.

"Your father does not have the worth to be Grand-commander of this Order."

Grifford rose to his feet.

"You have no place to talk about the worth of one's father!" he said.

Tasker moved swiftly, grabbed Grifford by the front of his shirt and thrust him backwards onto the seat beside Tahlia, his greater weight bearing him down. Tahlia grabbed the heavy book from the sofa beside her and jumped up.

"Leave him alone," she cried, brandishing the book above her head.

"Do not decry my father!" hissed Tasker in Grifford's face, ignoring Tahlia and the raised book.

"Why? Everyone knows what your father did, so you can stop spreading lies to your cretinous friends about mine."

Tasker tightened his grip in the front of Grifford's tunic.

"It is your father who lies, and like your stupid self, everyone believes him."

"Oh what rubbish you talk!" said Tahlia. "How dare you call our father a liar!"

Tasker turned swiftly, and Tahlia took a step backwards, raising the book further above her head. Grifford sprang to his feet again and stood between them. Tasker glared down at him, fists clenched.

Then there came the tread of heavy footsteps on the stairs, and a squad of fortress guard marched into the room.

The angry sneer had left Tasker's face, but it returned briefly.

"I will not waste my time on you now," he hissed at Grifford.

The squad leader led the soldiers to the centre of the room and halted them there, and they stood at ease, facing the lift doors.

"This conversation is done," said Tasker.

Then he looked over at Tahlia, and smiled at her almost politely.

"And I look forward to the day you come of age. Maybe you would make a good wife if you could learn some obedience."

With a final nasty grin, he left them and went to slouch in one of the armchairs on the other side of the room.

"What a horrible person," said Tahlia.

Grifford grunted, still glaring at Tasker.

His sister tutted and shook her head in feigned exasperation.

"And all that rubbish about being his wife," she said. "His threats do not scare me."

"Well they should. He could be your husband one day if he chooses to fight for you."

"I do not think I want him as a husband."

"You will have no say in the matter, and even if father were Grand-commander, there would be nothing he could do."

Tahlia smiled at him.

"I will still have you, little brother."

"There would be nothing I could do either."

"Oh," said Talia, looking disappointed. "Well, I am sure I will think of something."

A group of ladies came in then, dressed in their best summer dresses. Some were very young, not much older than Tahlia. They were obviously returning from the tourney, retiring to their quarters, or to the baths to refresh themselves from the heat of the morning. The younger ones were eagerly chattering among themselves about the knights they had just seen, and the possibility of future husbands. Their older chaperones ushered them to the sofas, keeping them away from Grifford, and the brooding figure of Tasker, who had not moved from his chair.

Tahlia opened her book again and started flicking through it idly. Grifford looked over at the dial between the two lift doors and saw it was past the one minute mark, and as he watched it slowly falling, a few more people entered the chamber. A few more ladies of the Order climbed the stairs and took their seats, followed by some clerks and heralds, going about the business of the fortress.

When the dial's needle reached the zero point, a large bell above the right hand set of doors chimed a loud clear note, and they slid slowly open. Only a few people stepped out; some clerks and a pantler who hurried out of the chamber quickly, muttering to himself, a heavy book clutched to his chest. The ladies of the Order entered the lift first, then the heralds made to follow. Tahlia did not wait, and pushed herself in behind them, much to the annoyance of the clerks who were waiting to follow, and who gave her looks of derision and incredulity.

"Excuse me," she said to the heralds in front of her as she pushed her way through, catching one of them a harsh blow on the knee with the heavy book as she passed. Grifford saw Tasker waiting patiently behind the clerks. He gave the older boy a hard smile and pushed his way into the lift behind his sister, causing more mumbles of annoyance and looks of exasperation.

* * *

Tahlia managed to get herself a seat at the opposite side of the round couch, which faced the curved wall of the circular lift and its ornately framed glass. There was nothing to see on the other side of the window, except for the dark grey metal of the inner fortress wall. The rest of the sofa had been taken by the ladies, and some of them were casting her scornful, hostile, looks. The younger ones were having whispered conversations behind their hands, while openly giggling at her dirty dress and unkempt hair.

Tahlia ignored them.

The rest of the passengers slowly filled the remainder of the circular space. The clerks and heralds took up the curving wall seats, and the soldiers stood in a circular railed section in the floor's centre. Her brother had found a place beside her, leaning against the shiny metal rail that circled the wall of the lift.

Someone standing over Tahlia cleared their throat politely.

She looked up from the book that she had again opened on her lap, to find an elderly, immaculately dressed, lady looking down her nose at her.

"It is seemly behaviour for a child to make some room for one of higher standing in the Order," she said in a courteous, but firm, voice.

"It is indeed," said Tahlia, and immediately returned her attention to the book.

Tahlia heard the lady's sharp intake of breath, and she was preparing herself for another polite assault, when the lift's attending Junior Engineer closed the doors. The glow-lights arrayed around the wall brightened to compensate for the sudden darkness, filling the lift with their rippling light.

A whistle sounded, and was followed by a pause, then the lift jerked and started to rise.

Though the light was bright enough to read by, Tahlia sat with the book open on her lap and looked up at Grifford, noticing that he was still glaring, with open hostility, across the lift to where Tasker stood with the soldiers.

"Glaring at him is not going to make you feel any better."

Her brother ignored her and continued his hostile scrutiny of the older boy. Even the view from the curve of window, as the lift left the bulk of the fortress and began its ascent up the side of the keep, did not seem to lighten his mood.

Tahlia remained with the book open on her lap and leant forward to watch the expanding scenery below. She had taken the lifts times beyond counting, yet she found that the view still stole the breath from her chest, just for that first instant when the lift passed from the darkness, into the daylight. The towers of the fortress reached up towards her from the wide plaza of the central-courtyard below, where the massive gates leading through to the barbican stood in perpetual shadow. Its two flanking shield-bastions looked almost small from that height. On the far side of the north bastion, Tahlia could clearly see the dark maze of the barrack blocks, crawling with the specks of soldiers. Over the north-eastern bastion, the pens and storehouses of the siege-enclosures stood empty. The fortitude bridge, which joined the barbican to the access-keep, looked equally small, but it was still dizzying to look down and see the thin shadow that it cast on the ground far below.

She traced the line of the bailey road, noticing where the grass had been trampled between the twin rows of ascension markers leading away from it, south to the temple. She noted, as she often did, how the grass between the northern markers, leading to the final-field, with the giant cherossa tree at its centre, was not so well trodden. She always found that a little sad, without quite understanding why.

When she lifted her eyes from the view of the bailey and looked north, she could see, on the far surface of the land, the slowly moving patch of one of the karabok herds. She knew it was her mother's greatest pleasure to hunt the wild karabok. One day she herself would be able to hunt them, carried on Tembesta's back with bow in hand and a hunting knife at her waist. That was if she could ever overcome her steed's inherent disobedience.

The lift stopped three times during its ascent of the keep. A few of the clerks and heralds disembarked, but the ladies and the squad of soldiers remained until the lift reached as far as it would travel. From that height the temple was nothing more than a small exquisitely carved stone on the ground, and the giant cherossa in the centre of the final-field seemed like a newly sprouted seedling.

The junior Engineer opened the doors to the upper embarkation chamber, where tapestries hung on the walls, their expensive threads glowing in the brightness of the light wells. The ladies left the lift first, and the soldiers filed out after, to begin their climb up the spiral stairway to the spire of the keep's watchtower.

Without giving them a second glance, Tasker left by the stairs to the rest of the ladies' quarters. Her brother watched him go.

"Come on," said Tahlia. "Don't just stand there! ! We don't want to keep mother waiting."