Long ago, sweet Nira had come to the Prism Palace bearing potted treelings, small offshoots of the worldforest. Now, years after her death, the woman Sai'f had brought Jora'h a bonsai tree, and the memories all came flooding back to him...

Jora'h refocused his attention on the scientist woman. He did not want her to note his troubled thoughts, or to leave dissatisfied. He made love to her with an intensity that, for a while at least, drove back the ache of memories.

Jora'h requested an audience with his father. The Mage-Imperator's bright eyes were set within folds of fat, and his plump lips smiled when he saw his son. Bron'n, the fierce personal bodyguard, stood at the doorway to the private chamber so the leader and his eldest son could speak privately.

"I wish to send another message to Theroc, Father."

Mage-Imperator Cyroc'h frowned, leaning back in his chrysalis chair, as if relaxing into the telepathic connection of thism . "I sense that you are thinking of that human female again. You should not allow her to kindle such an obsession in you. It can only disrupt your more important duties here. She is long dead."

Jora'h knew the corpulent leader was correct, but he could not forget Nira's smile and the joy that she had brought him. Before coming here, he had gone to the skysphere arboretum. One particular chamber had been used to house the Theron treelings. By now, the greenhouse had been replanted with salmon pink Comptor lilies and crimson poppies, swelling the humid air with heady perfumes. Five years ago, when he had returned from Theroc to learn the terrible news, he had stared in horrified awe at the scars from the inexplicable conflagration.

There had been no bodies left to send back to Theroc. And the worldtrees were already burning by the time Nira and Otema arrived to fight the fire, so they had been unable to send any last messages through telink. Everything had been lost. Grieving, Jora'h had explained the tragedy to his friend Reynald in a special communique delivered by a Solar Navy ship.

By now the ashes and soot stains had been scoured clean, but the memories and the sadness remained. In his heart, Jora'h had never accepted that Nira was dead. If only he had been here, he would not have let any harm come to her...

Sensing his son's sadness through the web ofthism, Cyroc'h nodded somberly. "You will carry many burdens when you ascend to take my place. It is your destiny, my son, to feel the pain of all our people."

Jora'h's tiny golden braids flickered like tendrils of smoke. "Nevertheless, I would like to send a new message to Reynald, in memory of the two green priests. We did not send the ashes or the skulls back to them." He spread his hands. "It is such a small thing, Father."

The Mage-Imperator smiled indulgently. "You know I cannot deny you." The ropelike braid that hung from his head coiled around his pudgy stomach and twitched, as if the great leader were annoyed.