The Gift of the Second Prime

So, here it is!

This Chapter has been the hardest of the four to write so far, I hope you like it! Let me know if you do or don't! Many thanks this time to James. I got stuck at one stage and he showed me the way forward. Thank you.

There's more sex in this one, as you would expect with Gifts meeting their Warriors. Some new themes are introduced as well, so let me know what you think of those.

Chapter Five will take a little while, I'm afraid. Have work to do next week so will only be able to write in the evenings. I'll aim for next weekend for this chapter. Sorry.

In the meantime, talk to me. Let me know what you like or don;t like. What you would like to see happen etc. etc.

The Gifting

The Gift of the Sidian Deserts sighed and looked over to his Warrior asleep on their shared bed. He had taken nectar only half an hour ago and would sleep now until the morning. For his Gift, however, the night would not be that restful.

It had been one of the first Gifts created, and back then, the Gifts were just that, gifts to the Warriors who had served the Warrior General Ghen well. Creatures created from science and magic to serve their Warriors, make them strong.

Uphold the authority of the Second Realm.

Of course the Professor had always known the true power of the Gifts, he had designed them after all, but even he would not allow them to reach their full potential while the Warrior General still lived. Such was the authority of the man that even the Professor would not, could not, defy him.

The Warrior General had never been gifted, and that had always surprised Sidian Deserts. The man had been a powerhouse of energy and tactics. His brain was beyond comprehension most of the time. He could see what the Gifts brought to their Warriors and must have wanted that for himself - yet he remained outside this system of patronage that he had designed and now reigned over.

The Second Realm, the single-handed creation of the Warrior General, still stood today, over four hundred years later. A testament to the beliefs and strength of the Warrior General. But it was old now. The society Ghen had sought to create had grown and evolved and was now bigger than its original constructs. Like a bier supporting a coffin, the traditions of the Second Realm were smaller than the society they sought to contain.

To control.

A new energy was needed. A new Warrior General.

And that was the dilemma. Balance was at the heart of the Second Realm, balance embodied in the twin palaces at the centre of Troubian. For there to be a new Warrior General, that balance would have to be destroyed. Both palaces would have to be swept aside in a new revolution.

There were many Gifts, and the Sidian Deserts was forefront among them, who believed that the Second Realm could be saved but that at its heart it would have to be three, not two. That the Second Prime would have to hold sway over the Second Realm. This had led to the gifting of three young men. Young men who could grow into the authority of the Second Realm.

But now, now that the plan was almost realised, the Sidian Deserts was not sure of its aims. Not certain anymore that any of them had read the situation correctly. At its heart, the Second Prime revolved around a scholar, a rebel and a talented warrior. Could these three and their Warriors lead the revolution?

The Sidian Deserts was not sure anymore.

There was another group among the Gifts who believed that a new Warrior General should be found. A single Warrior who was as charismatic as the Warrior General Ghen, but who could be led and moulded by the Gifts. A new Warrior General could certainly galvanise the hearts and minds of the people, but would he rule knowing that he was just a puppet for the Gifts?

No. No Warrior would or could.

They were the law, and they believed this implicitly.

And the Gifts were not exactly united over this. Just as the Clans played games of politics one with another in the Palace of Sunrises, so the Gifts also played these games of brinkmanship one with another. The Gifts were powerful, was it perhaps time to separate them from the Warriors? To have them stand alone in the glare of the sun? No. The Warriors, the two palaces, the whole system of Gifting, it was worth too much to be destroyed by ego and tyranny.

A paragraph from the Triple Condimium came back to it now as it sat and pondered the future of Tare du Maretch:

Everything casts shadows; things that are great and wondrous to behold cast shadows of despair and decrepitude - while things that are dull and tainted cast shadows of former might or future glory.

The creation of the Second Realm had cast long shadows indeed.

The creation of the Second Prime, whatever form it ultimately took, would cast even longer shadows. It would reach across the galaxy. It would touch into the heart of humanity, even the One World would be consumed by its glory and its fury.

But it had to be balanced.

If it was to reclaim that which humanity had lost, it had to be balanced.

A Warrior General alone was not balanced.

Three Gifts contained their own balance within them. One would always balance the excesses of the other two, but, like fate, they also stood alone. They were Gifts. And what in this galaxy could balance a Gift?

The revolution that humanity so desperately needed, it had to be popular. If history said anything, it said that the people themselves had to believe in the revolution - had to lead it, even ask for it to happen. How could the Gifts make people like those living in the town outside this palace, believe the need for revolution?

Tare du Maretch might sell its mineral wealth to the rest of humanity, but the customers never came to the planet, never even came near the system. This society was isolated in the galaxy, both physically and spiritually. A revolution started here could be lost in the great rift that surrounded the system before it had a chance to spread into the spiral arms on either side of the rift.

But it had to start somewhere and at some time.

And fate had given to this planet the Gifts. And the Gifts were the ultimate humans. The pinnacle of human-controlled evolution. But there had to be a balance. A Gift alone would destroy the future. The Professor realised that and balanced them with the Warriors. The Gifts realised that, but if they were to move beyond this planet, would the Warriors alone be enough to balance their voracious ambition?

And balance is such a delicate state, and for it to remain in balance there needs to be a fulcrum. The fulcrum upon which the fifth prime is balanced is fate. Fate had spurred the Warrior General Ghen and his companions to forge the Second Realm in the first place. But even fate cannot balance a civilisation forever.

People have to do that.

Human people; in whatever form their humanity may take.

The shadow cast by one man, it can be longer than the shadow cast by a mountain. And its shade can stretch forward into the future as much as it can cover the ground with its darkness.

So what length the shadow of the Second Prime? Gift, Warrior and Human? How long would that reach, and how far into the future would it stretch?

The decision trees threatened to overwhelm the Gift of the Sidian Deserts again, and from the bed its Warrior, Graescin, called for his Gift in his sleep. The Gift smiled at the sleeping form of his love, then rose and went to him.

There would always be time to plan the revolution tomorrow.

"They are here now?" The Gift of the Lost Clan asked.

"Don't tell me you can't note them!" The Gift of the Lost Boy laughed. "Their musk is vital, lom!"

"I had not... oh, yes!" Lost Clan laughed, lowering its head. "I smell them now." And then it blushed.

"You are so sweet!" Lost Boy smiled. "What do you think, maybe we should dance for them, or something?"

"You can dance?" Lost Clan asked.

"My hips have been known to do a little more than just swivel a beautiful sketch, I'll have you note."

"Maybe we should just go over and talk to them?"

"And maybe the Prof-man will give us to Troubian this moon!" Lost Boy replied. "You know the protocol." He said quoting something the Gift of the Lost Warrior told them constantly.

"I know the protocol."

There was a garden at the base of the Tower of Gifting. A large and shady space that offered some seclusion to the new Gifts as they learned to live with their new lives. As they discovered their potential. The garden was surrounded on two sides, north and south, by wide cloisters that allowed the inhabitants of the Palace of Sunset to move through the confines of the great building without being troubled by the elements.

The Cloisters were open to the garden, a series of arched windows allowed the light, sights and scents from the garden into the cloisters. The north cloister, known as the Gift Cloister, led from the East entrance of the palace past the Shombruh du Garree-ay to the College and the dormitories in the north of the Palace. There was always a stream of Warriors and warrior-stujair along this corridor.

Always a group of young warriors would gather at one of the high windows, straining to see down into the Garden of Gifting. Hoping to catch site of a Gift. There was a group there now, three of these young warriors in training, silently staring down into the garden. Seeing, but not seeing, the two Gifts sat there screened by trees and a row of fountains.

"He is there." Lost Clan said after a moment.

"You can check him away from the others?" Lost Boy laughed. "You are better than me! All I check is hot warrior musk!"

"You always reduce everything to sex!"

"There is anything else for it to be reduced to?" Lost Boy asked. "I bet your man-mountain out there is only thinking with his quill at the moment! Reckon it would be pretty much standing to attention as well. Why don't you wander over there, see what happens?"

Its laugh wrapped around them both.

"If their presence offends so much you could always retire to the tower..." Lost Clan smiled.

"I am growing used to it." Lost Boy replied.

"I bet you are! Look at you, you are like a Tronc in heat!"

"And you're not? 'He is there.'" Lost Boy said, mimicking its friend. "Tell me you are not going to fantasise about being gifted to him tonight!"

"Jax chance of doing anything else at night around here, is there?"

"Truthsaying." Lost Boy agreed. "Oh, they are going."

It stood and wandered across the garden to the cloister where the warriors had been standing. Their scent was still strong, but the corridor on the other side of the high wall was empty now. He could hear them running off through the cloister, laughing and shouting to each other, running back to the college or their rooms.

"Sometimes I feel like this place is nothing more than a golden box." It sighed as it turned and made its way back across the garden. "And when we are gifted, we swap all this..." It said spinning and holding out its long slender arms to encompass the whole palace. "For just another prison."

"You need to take something for your melancholy." Lost Clan smiled, putting its reader down and standing to stretch its legs.

"You giving up on reading at me then?" Lost Boy asked as it bent down to pick up the reader and hand it back to the Lost Clan.

"Even I can grow weary of this place." Lost Boy sighed, staring up into the blue sky above them.

"Yeah. We need to be away lom! Think we can turn the Prof-man?"

"Doubt it."

"But he keeps singing how special we are!" Lost Boy complained. "If we are that special he can make something happen for us. I'd love to skip you through this city, lom! You would be stomped!"

"And it would be nice to see something that wasn't the Palace." Lost Clan agreed.

"But until then." Lost Boy sighed. "Until then let's go and find the Lost Warrior. Maybe it has an exercise that'll give us smiles again!"

"You think?" Lost Boy said. "My muscles are still aching from this morning! Do we have to do more?"

"Think of it as preparing yourself for your blonde beauty." Lost Boy laughed as it ran across the garden and into the Tower before the Gift of the Lost Clan could catch it.

"Ah, there you are." The professor laughed as he wandered out onto the parapet at the top of the Tower of Gifting. "You seem lost today, is something troubling you?"

"I need something to do." The Gift of the Lost Warrior smiled, turning and leaning against the guard rail. "I need a challenge."

"But it's a rest day." The professor reminded it, coming up to the parapet and leaning over the railing, looking down into the Silver March.

"You forget." Lost Warrior smiled, turning and also looking down into the Silver March. "I trained all my life to compete in that arena. The last six months have been strenuous, but not nearly as strenuous as my training. My mind works best when my body is challenged."

"Hah!" The professor laughed. "You are an interesting one, you know?" He smiled. "I can see why the others were desperate to get you Gifted. You are still a warrior, despite what your body portrays now. Just one look at you says that. I bet you could still compete down there and win."

"It would no longer be a fair competition, though. This body, it can do much more than any warrior-stujair."

"Indeed it can. And through you, your own Warrior will be able to do more."

"But what about me?"

"I don't understand." The Professor said.

"Before I came here, to this tower, there was so much talk about the change I could bring to the Second Realm, to Tare du Maretch. But all I see at the moment is learning and study. I want to be involved!"

"You must learn to curb your impetuousness, my friend." The Professor smiled. "Your life stretches away in front of you. You will live beyond the lives of at least three, maybe four warriors. Time is your friend now, not your enemy. And with all that time you have more time to be involved."

"But the problems in our culture are here now." Lost Warrior said. "Troubled Waters told me that we had maybe a millennium. If I wait any longer to act there will barely be enough time to plan what needs to be done, let enough see it through!"

"Patience!" The Professor laughed. "You are still a Gift, have still to be gifted. Pass through that first, then let your Warrior have some time to get used to being a Warrior, to being with you. Then you can change the galaxy."

"Two weeks!" Lost Warrior sighed. "It may as well be two years!"

"There is such a palpable aura of violence around you when you become angry!" The professor said. "I find it very fascinating."

"Sorry." The Gift smiled. "I am frustrated, that is all!"

"You all are." The Professor said. "Your two companions are racing up the stairs to this platform even as we speak. You have too much energy, you three!"

"Then give us something to do! Let us out of the Palace for a while!"

"I don't think that would be possible."

"Why?" The Gift asked. "This is Troubian. Other Gifts leave the Palace. They may not walk in public, but they do get out. We need a break from the routine, professor."

"It would be difficult to arrange." The Professor mused. "But it could be done, I suppose."

"Look into it." The Gift pleaded. "We are all so tense at the moment, I fear we might actually start hating each other at times so loud are our disagreements!"

"And that is the source of your frustration." The professor noted. "You have all come into your sexual maturity in the last few days. I have never seen it manifested so strong as I have with you three."

"Well you've built it up into such a big thing!"

"And it is. Let me talk to Troubled Waters, jen? And in the meantime try and keep away from the arguments."

"Jen." The Gift laughed just as his two friends burst out onto the platform.

"Stop!" The Gift of the Lost Clan laughed. "My breathe is dead!"

"I thought you were fitter than that!" The Gift of the Lost Boy laughed, dragging his friend over to the Professor and the Gift of the Lost Warrior. "Entertain us!" It added, smiling at the Professor.

"Funnily enough we were just talking about that." The professor smiled. "I will speak with you all later."

He bowed and made his way off the parapet.

"Jax!" The Gift of the Lost Clan said as it looked out of the window of the drone.

"What's wrong?" The Gift of the Lost Boy asked.

"Yes." The Lost Warrior agreed, looking through the window itself to see what had startled the Lost Clan. "It is not like you to swear!"

"I can't get out here." Lost Clan said. "I'm sorry. If I'd known the Professor had arranged for us to come here I would have stayed at the Tower!"

The Lost Clan was physically shaking now, with fear as well as what appeared to be anger.

"But..." The Gift of the Lost Boy began.

"I can't go there!" The Gift of the Lost Clan screamed, into their ears as well as their heads.

And with the words came jumbled images.

A cage with a Gift inside.

Two men sat at a table in bright sunshine drinking.

The Warrior Graescin in full battle mode.

A village in flames.

An endless journey through a forest of tuyeau.

A dark room where there was blood, lots and lots of blood.

"Check, lom!" Lost Boy said, falling back into a chair. "That was rich!"

Lost Warrior came over and put its arms around Lost Clan.

"Do not worry." It said. "We don't have to get out here. We can return, go somewhere else."

"No." The Gift of the Lost Clan sighed, and there were tears in its eyes. "That is not fair on you two. You have both been looking forward to getting out of the Tower. I will cope."

"Lom!" Lost Boy said. "What happened to you in this place?"

"My Clan was destroyed here." The Gift of the Lost Clan said. "Not in this palace, but by the authority of this place. Here my Uncle and my brother, my father, were butchered under the command of the Warrior Graescin."

There was silence for a while between them.

"Hence your naming." Lost Warrior replied. "I begin to understand now. We will return to the Tower. Do you know how to send the drone back, Lost Boy?"

"I can work it." Lost Boy said, moving forward to the front of the drone. "These things can't be that jigged."

"No." The Gift of the Lost Clan said standing up. "This is wrong. I have reconciled myself with everything that happened here. Have spoken with the Sidian Deserts since what happened here... happened. This is something I really need to do. I need to close this."

"Are you sure?" The Gift of the Lost Warrior asked.

"I am sure."

"Then we go threes." Lost Boy said, taking one of the Lost Clan's arms and indicating that the Lost Warrior should take the other. "We were made to be three and we will stand as three. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

A tail flicked forward and punched a button next to the door. There was a whirring from within the skin of the drone and the door before them opened out and then to the left. It was night. the air was fresh with the scent of rain and something else, something green. There was a forest of some description nearby and its scent filled the air.

Earthy, pungent, sweet.

The drone had landed in a compound that stood to one side of a large building. They could not make much of it out in the gloom, but, where there were lights, it looked like a larger version of the grand houses found in Anka Cotto back in Troubian. Two other drones waited on the soft ground just across the way. The only way into the compound seemed to be through a small building in the wall in front of them.

Another Gift, the Gift of the Sidian Deserts, ran across the damp ground from this building.

"Welcome." It smiled, taking the Gift of the Lost Clan into an embrace and then holding it as they stepped forward. "How do you feel?"

"Scared and more angry than I have ever been."

"Hate and anger are the opposites to joy and determination." Sidian Deserts whispered.

"I will not play quotes with you this night." Lost Clan replied. "Take me somewhere where I can be alone."

The Gift of the Sidian Deserts bowed its head and hurried them all through the small building, then across an elegant courtyard to the large house. A light drizzle filled the air around them, but it was not cold. If anything the air was muggier as a result of the rain.

Along a plain plastered corridor, then into a grand foyer. The palace was warm, and all of them were sweating by the time Sidian Deserts had brought them to the second floor and a large double door that opened onto a suite of rooms that filled the entire west wing of the palace on this floor.

This will be your suite while you stay here." The Gift told them. "We have prepared you each a room."

He led the Gift of the Lost Clan down an elegant corridor and up to another painted and gilt door.

"This is yours." It whispered.

"Thank you." The Gift of the Lost Clan said, pulling Sidian Deserts into a hug. "Do not let anyone disturb me. For the rest of this night I just need to remember."

"I understand."

"What happened here?" Lost Boy asked as Sidian Deserts led them further down the corridor and into a large room at the end. A meal had been laid out for them here and they sat on cushions around a low table and began to eat the food.

"I saved a young boy from the folly of his Clan once." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts said after a while. "His Uncle, the leader of a remote farming clan on the other side of the Green Forest, stole me from my Pahtron."

"What, as in abducted?" The Lost Boy asked.

"Yes." Sidian Deserts answered. "The Warrior Graescin was battling with some local militia when the clansmen broke into our camp and stole me. I was imprisoned in a cage in their main settlement."

"You could have escaped..." Lost Warrior began.

"Indeed I could have, but then I felt the boy. Such power! But such a sadness about him. His mind was untrained, but even the small training he had received marked him out as something special. I knew then I had to remain a prisoner so I could save him from the wrath of my Pahtron."

"The Clan was destroyed?"

"Completely." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts answered. "Clansmen sold into slavery or for their meat. The settlement razed to the ground."

"And the boy?" Lost Warrior asked. "He became the Gift of the Lost Clan, yes?"

"Yes. But his was not an easy emergence. His Clan was destroyed, and my Pahtron made him watch while his Uncle and father were butchered in the kitchens of this palace."

"Harsh." The Gift of the Lost Boy sighed. "Makes my story seem justice!"

"He also had to watch my Warrior while he drank their blood and eat their gonads..."

"Ah. That would explain his fear in the drone." Lost Warrior said. "Maybe we should take it away from here? The memories could be too strong."

"But it will all have to be faced eventually." Sidian Deserts said.

There was silence as they eat the food. It was mostly vegetables with a spiced-meat casserole in the centre of the table. A large bowl of Hadge stood to one side of the casserole. "This is good." Lost Boy said as it finished a bowl of the casserole and settled back onto its cushions with a glass of wine.

"It's a local dish." Sidian deserts explained. "They call it Vaistij. It's made from the off cuts of meat, scraps that would be thrown to the Jidendry were they not used in this dish. The mixture of spices and the way the dish is dry-fried then cooked in the sauce is what makes it so special."

"What are these little bulb things?"

"The roots of the mature tuyeau." The Gift of the Sidian Desert explained. "The forest plant that grows rampant in these parts. At the end of summer they put out these little tubers on the end of their roots. They are quite sweet and one of the staples in this province."

"And here was me thinking tuyeau was just a position in an archetype!" Lost Warrior smiled. "Now I get to eat it."

"And tomorrow you will see it." Sidian Deserts promised. "The Green Forest comes almost up to the palace walls in places."

"I smelt that when we stepped out of the drone." Lost Boy said.

"Yes." Sidian Deserts agreed. "It does have a distinct smell, especially this time of year at the start of the rainy season."

They were quiet again as they relaxed in front of the fire that had been laid for them in the large grate. The Lost Warrior finally asked,

"Where is your Pahtron?"

"Graescin?" Sidian Deserts asked. "He is away tonight. I will join with him again tomorrow."

"I can't wait for that to happen, you jen?" Lost Boy said.

"What?"

"To have a Warrior, to need him as much as you did then when you spoke of the Warrior Graescin. What's it like being gifted?"

"Hah!" Sidian Deserts laughed. "I have been gifted twice and both times it was the most intensely emotional thing I have ever done. You will love so much that your whole body hurts."

"Sounds scary." The Lost Warrior smiled.

"And it is, but it is also wonderful. The union is what we and the Warriors have been created to achieve. And when you create the union you understand what it really means."

"And the Warriors will be addicted to us?" Lost Boy asked.

"They will be addicted to your nectar, yes." Sidian Deserts said. "But the union is more than an addiction."

"But I will control a Warrior." The Lost Boy sighed. "That is strict power!"

"And you will also be controlled." Lost Warrior reminded it. "The conventions of our society will ensure that you are controlled by the Warrior as much as you control him."

"Maybe." Lost Boy mused. "But the other Gifts, they want us to shake this place up. I'm thinking we could do that just by letting our Warrior-men free. Show this space-rock the stink they can really raise!"

"Why would you want to do that?" The Sidian Deserts asked.

"Because the whole thing is stale. Too wrapped up in itself to serve its people."

"But it works." The Lost Warrior noted. "Our culture has been stable for almost four hundred and fifty years. Remember the chaos that reigned before the Second Realm? Would you want that back?"

"History is always scribed by the Victor." Lost Boy said. "How do you know there was chaos before the Second Realm? Maybe our whole society is built on the crazy blood-lust of the Warrior General."

"He was an angry man." Sidian Deserts said. "I was originally gifted to the General Scerael." It explained. "It was near to the end of the Warrior General's life, but even then he was always angry."

"I didn't realise that you knew him!" The Lost Warrior said. "What was he like?"

"Gifts were still a new concept back then." Sidian Deserts said. "The Professor had only been living on Tare du Maretch for twenty or so years by then..."

"Prof-man!" Lost Boy said. "You mean he is as old as you?"

"He is older than me." Sidian Deserts said. "Older than anyone on this world."

"How did he come to be here?" The Lost Warrior asked. "We are not exactly at the centre of the human galaxy."

"I do not know the full story." Sidian Deserts said. "Maybe you should ask him when you return? All I know is that he came here to hide from something. The Warrior General and he became strong friends and, towards the end of his life, the Warrior General allowed the Professor to begin engineering Gifts. I was one of the first."

"Who was first?"

"It died." Sidian Deserts sighed. "The whole first tranche did. We were designed to die with our Warriors at the start."

"But that isn't right." Lost Boy protested. "I don't remember learning that!"

"I doubt you learned much about Gifts at all in general school!" Sidian Deserts laughed. "We were not instrumental in the creation of the Second Realm. Our duty is to maintain it until it is ready to move beyond its original design."

"And that is now?" Lost Warrior asked.

"Soon." Sidian Deserts replied. "Tare du Maretch is not in crisis, but we are stagnating. The remote provinces, like this one, are becoming more and more lawless. Warriors here are not law-bringers, they are commanders, fighters. Lost Clan's clan is not the only one fighting us here. Has not been the last to be destroyed, sadly."

"I did not realise." The Lost Warrior said. "Why do they rebel?"

"Because the system is top heavy." The Lost Boy said. "I noted that when I was not gifted, now it's even more blue! This space-rock makes creds, lom, but the two palaces suck most of that to themselves. People want their share."

"How do you know this?" Sidian Deserts asked.

"Because it's what we used to spark when we were diving." Lost Boy explained.

"Troubian is isolated from this place, from anyplace but itself. But even there, there is a growing underclass there that wants more from life than another turn on the wheel. Men want life now, not in another life!"

"And that is the crux of our problem." Sidian Deserts said. "The Wheel is not serving the people. It is too unfocussed as a philosophy, has no priesthood to serve it. Standards of living have improved over the last century, but the people hold on even tighter to their traditions because of this. We do not have to eat ties anymore, for example, but we continue to do so and in even more numbers than ever before. Our traditions have become more important than our religion and progressive government is seen as a threat in regions like this."

"Check, lom." Lost Boy smiled. "And you want us to solve this for you?"

"Tonight if you could." Sidian Deserts said, and then laughed. "Seriously, though, we need to come up with some solutions. You three were gifted because many of us believe that the skills you have individually will combine to give us a way forward."

"But not every Gift believes this?" Lost Warrior asked.

"Not every Gift." Sidian Deserts admitted. "There are just as many who would have us create a new Warrior General."

"But that would destroy everything!" Lost Warrior said.

"Exactly!" Lost Boy laughed. "That's the point, why can't you note it? The two palaces are failing most men on this space-rock. They are self-serving. A new Warrior General would bring a single focus back into our world."

"And lead us into anarchy!" Lost Warrior complained. The two palaces are stability. They ensure that life has improved on Tare du Maretch. They ensure that metals are mined and processed and sold on. If those systems collapse we would risk direct involvement of the Galactic Allegiance on the planet!"

"The Allegiance is sworn to remain out of local politics. It serves only trade. As long as the trade continues, it will not mind if we are ruled by the two palaces, a Warrior General or Galaxia herself. Trade's gonna flow."

"But trade needs stability. And what would happen to the installations on the other planets in this system, if Tare du Maretch, collapses into civil war? If the trade stops..."

"But we need change!" Lost Boy said. "Didn't you note anything Sidian Deserts just said? This region and others like it are starting to stir. How long before entire provinces rise up against the Second Realm? In Troubian I could point you to hundreds, if not thousands of disgruntled workers who expect more from their lives."

"So make the Wheel of Life more of a religion. Embed it in everyday life..."

"There is no time for that!" Lost Boy laughed. "We would need to find a prophet and have the prophet martyred before we could even begin to get popular! Far easier to get a Warrior to step up the place and lead people to victory."

"But he would be fighting against the Palace of Sunsets!"

"Or we could all fight together. The system must change, let us have one leader to make those changes. The two palaces can be contained into that. A popular revolution that does not need to threaten the two palaces."

"I can't see that working. Revolution needs martyrs too." Lost Warrior reminded it. "And it has to revolt against something. We are not talking people who have no jobs here, or educated people with no prospects. All you have to work with are people who feel vaguely let down by the system. There is no revolution there."

"But what about out here?" The Lost Boy asked. "What do they fight against here?"

The Gift of the Sidian Deserts stood and slipped from the room. This was an argument that would rage for a while yet, and it needed to rest before its Warrior returned in the morning. It was pleased that the discussion had developed so quickly though. And with the two of them arguing it was good to see the ideas within them begin to ferment.

The Gift of the Lost Clan was the balance between these two, that was clear now, and that was also why this meeting had been arranged here in the Palace of the Green Forest. The Lost Clan had to be otherwise engaged for another day at least. To allow the Lost Warrior and the Lost Boy to create their own resolution to this problem. From their arguments, the Second Prime would be created.

"You do not wish to join your friends in their morning sparring session, then?" A voice asked.

It floated into its head and brought with it visions of the wider palace, and the Warrior Graescin.

"I am reading Jalcomm's Thoughts on Human Nature." The Gift of the Lost Clan said out loud. "You used a quote from it when we first played the Game of Quotes. The next time we play I wish to be able to return the favour."

"Hah!" The Gift of the Sidian Deserts laughed as it came into the room.

It settled down in a chair opposite the Lost Clan. A small table had been placed between the chairs and both Gifts helped themselves from the bowl of fruit that had been placed on it. Behind the table was a tall thin window that looked out onto the front of the Palace of the Green Forest.

A wide and sweeping lawn laid with seven large beds, led down to a dark black lake. Beyond the still waters of the lake was the looming forest that gave this region its name. In the wet air of the morning, though, it was far from green. From this window, the stretch of the Forest was darker than waters of the lake.

"You have not ventured out of this suite yet." Sidian Deserts said. "The palace is not all full of evil, you understand?"

"I understand. I am just worried that I will turn a wrong corner and end up in the kitchens or your suite. I am not ready for either of those places. May never be."

"I understand as well."

They were silent for a moment, then the Sidian Deserts spoke again.

"If I could go back there, to the barn, I would do it differently."

"Intellectually I understand that." Lost Clan sighed. "You did what you could do given the resources and the time you had. I do not have to accept the reality of that though. And if it is any consolation, if I could return to the barn it would be different for me this time as well."

"I sense that you would not ask me to save you if that were possible."

"I do not feel like Lost Boy or Lost Warrior." Lost Clan replied. "They have slipped into this new life with an ease of purpose that I cannot seem to find."

"So you believe I should not have had you gifted?"

"No. I understand why that has to be. If I could change it I would, but I cannot and so I accept it. I just do not understand my place in this little triumvirate you have created. The Lost Warrior is a hero, it will make its Warrior the strongest Warrior this planet has ever seen. The Lost Boy has a verve, a desire for life that defies explanation. He is the opposite to everything the Lost Warrior stands for and that makes them both stronger. What do I have to offer? All I do is read, and think."

"You are the catalyst between the other two." Sidian Deserts said. "They clash, will continue to do so, but you, you are the mediator, the philosopher that will find the middle ground between their extremes of opinion. You may not see it now, but you are the leader of this group. without you it would fracture into pieces."

"But a leader is action! I am not action, I use words, not force. I can already spin words about the state of humanity that would make you weep at the depth of their understanding. But I am no leader!"

"Yes, you are. A leader is not just someone who fights. Your Warrior will do that for you. A leader holds people together. That is what you do. You may see it as only spinning words, but out of the words spun by the Warrior Ghen, the Second Realm was born. How much more can you do?"

"But I am still Traes!" Lost Clan complained. "He is still cowering in my heart. Others may look at me now and see a Gift. See majesty and power, but, in the dark of night, I still want to have my vengeance on your Warrior. I still do not understand why he did what he did."

The Gift of the Sidian Deserts smiled, then whispered:

"Until you have lived, how can you know death?"

"What do you mean?"

"A line from the Triple Condimium." Sidian Deserts explained. "I did not understand myself its true meaning until just then. Now I understand and will attempt to explain it to you. You have lived inside many prisons so far, young one. In your clan, in the Tower of Gifting, even here... You are not in a position to be the judge yet. Not until you have tasted life. Come to me in two years and tell me that you still wish vengeance on my Warrior. The we can have that discussion."

"I may hold you to that."

"I have no doubts that you will." Sidian Deserts laughed. "Now, to the other reason for my visit with you. The warriors that face the Silver March, the Essai du Marsh Darzhon, they have to rest before they face the Silver March. Each year, for two days, they are sent to a remote province to gain their strength. To relax and prepare in their own ways for the Silver March. This year they have been invited here. We are holding a meal for them tomorrow night. You three should be there."

"But we cannot meet the warriors before the gifting!" Lost Clan exclaimed. "We might link with them too early. Endanger the whole Essai!"

"The feast we will hold for them will take place in the Shombruh here. At one end of the hall is a minstrel gallery, at the other a more secluded gallery that is hidden behind a screen." Sidian Deserts smiled. "You could sit and eat there, in private and still see the warriors-stujair."

"And we would be there why?"

"Such innocence!" The Gift of the Sidian Deserts laughed. "To watch the young warriors, of course! You do not want to see them?"

"I would like to see one in particular."

"Yes, the Lost Boy took great pleasure in telling me about your crush on the warrior-stujair Sadath."

"I did not know his name."

"And now you do. It is important to the young warriors, this break. And also it is important that you see them all. You are each drawn more and more to one warrior. He is the one you will lead to victory in the Silver March."

"I will lead to victory?"

"The warrior will have the ability to move through the intricacies of the archetypes they will use in the Silver March. You, though, you will need to give him the strength and the reason to win."

"But I am not gifted to him yet!" Lost Clan complained. "I've only just learnt his name!"

"But you forge a connection to him now. If you concentrated hard enough you would be able to tell me where he was now in the Palace of Sunsets. Even though it is on the other side of the planet."

"I always know where he is..."

"There you go. He will not feel you yet. For warriors that comes during the Silver March itself or... after. But if you want him, you must give him your strength. That way he will win and you will be his Gift."

"Does the Lost Boy know this?" Lost Clan laughed. "It will be laying wagers with every Carder in Troubian!"

"Gifts and Gifted Warriors are not allowed to wager on the outcome of the Silver March." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts smiled. "We will all know the outcome the moment you appear in the arena."

"And we will not be seen tomorrow night?"

"My Pahtron and I will know you are there, and a few of the ties, but no-one else, and certainly not the warrior-stujair."

"And we can eat?"

"You can eat."

"Good. The food in the Tower has become repetitive of late!"

"But it is good for you."

"Of course it is. But it would be nice to eat something that is not good for me for a change!" Lost Clan replied.

"Well that will happen tomorrow night."

"Good, I'll tell the others."

"Jen. I will come and get you when it is time."

"Jen."

They sat in silence for a while, then both reached for the fruit bowl at the same time.

"I am scared, you know." Lost Clan said as their hands touched in the bowl.

"I know. But there is nothing to be afraid of."

"Has a Gift ever chosen the wrong warrior?"

"Never."

"Then I could be the first!"

"Unlikely." Sidian Deserts smiled. "But it is not that which worries you, is it?"

"No, it is what happens... after!"

"You never had sex before your gifting, did you?"

"No. And now it is all different! I had trouble understanding what to do back then. Now the Professor has moved everything around, I can't even think where to start!"

"You will not be alone, we will all be there for the first time."

"Somehow that doesn't make it any better!" Lost Clan laughed. "Knowing that it will be my first time and that it will be an event watched by every Warrior and his Gift in the Palace of Sunsets! Not too much pressure, then!"

"It will come together. When you are first in the arms of your Warrior, it will all come together. Later you will laugh that you could feel like this."

"And you are sure?"

"I was gifted once as well." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts reminded it. "I can still remember what it was like. We all do! You do not think your warrior is also feeling like this?"

"Of course not!" Lost Clan smiled. "Lost Warrior told me they have ties that serve them, body and soul, from when they are thirteen. He knows sex!"

"But he has never been with a Gift. None of them have. Your souls are already linked, young one. If you are feeling this nervous, I would wager your warrior is equally so."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Hah!" Lost Clan laughed. "Then the Lost Boy's warrior is probably working his way through the Serail as we speak!"

"Theirs will be a... physical union!" The Gift of the Troubled Waters smiled.

"Jen! Make sure the Professor soundproofs their room on the day!"

"And Lost Warrior. Has it chosen yet?"

"The warriors-stujair come and look through the cloister wall in the Tower garden at us." Lost Clan said. "But Lost Warrior has never been in the garden to witness this. He has not chosen."

"It will be interesting." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts mused. "There are two choices I see for him. I would like to know which one he favours."

"I thought you said you couldn't wager anything on this?"

"It is an intellectual interest."

"Really?"

"There is nothing wrong with a friendly wager with the other Gifts before we know who you have chosen, is there?"

"And there will be other Gifts here tomorrow night?"

"My Pahtron does not work here alone." Sidian Deserts smiled. "There will be four other Warriors and their Gifts here tomorrow night. We will be interested in your choices."

"I didn't realise that we were the subject of such scrutiny!"

"This is an exciting time of year for us." Sidian Deserts laughed. "New Gifts emerging, being gifted. New warriors in the making. Of course we are scrutinising you! There is sex and love in the air, and at the end of the day, we are all interested in that!"

"Still scares me, though!"

"Hah! Come on. Let us go and find your friends. I wonder if Lost Warrior has managed to throw Lost Boy out of the practice ground yet?"

"If you heard them earlier you would have thought they were killing each other!"

"But this training schedule Lost Warrior has designed, it amuses them both. After tomorrow night there is only one more week. If you are not kept busy it will pass like an eternity!"

"And I get to delay... that, for a while longer."

"But only for a little while longer." The Gift of the Sidian Deserts smiled as it held the door open for the younger Gift.

The tie that had brought them to the room on the other side of the screen bowed and backed out of the room and the three of them rushed to the screen looking down into the hall. It was not the Shombruh du Garree-ay in the Palace of Sunsets, but it was a large space. Thirty or forty metres long and maybe three stories high. A small rotunda of guitarists played at the opposite end of the room and they sat behind the screen in the room opposite the minstrel gallery.

A large table filled the centre of the space, laid out for the meal tonight. A fire blazed in the fireplace on the wall to their left, and ties worked the serving tables along the opposite wall. Apart from the ties the room was empty.

"Nothing." The Gift of the Lost Boy sighed. "Just ties. How long do we wait?"

"Not long." The Gift of the Lost Warrior smiled as it settled back into its chair. "You are quiet, Lost Clan."

"Scared. Tonight I will see him properly."

"What's his name?" The Gift of the Lost Boy asked, jumping the arm of his chair and landing in the seat with a thump.

"Sadath."

"Pretty."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"Will you two stop!" Lost Warrior laughed. "At least you have seen them all. I've never even caught a glimpse of one of them!"

"Sidian Deserts said that I had already forged a link with Sadath, that you two would do the same. Can you not feel him?"

"Too much choice!" Lost Boy laughed, pulling its legs up onto the chair.

"There is... something and then nothing." Lost Warrior sighed. "You said Sidian Deserts spoke of two possibilities?"

"But no names." Lost Clan said.

"And nothing at all for me?" Lost Boy asked.

"It said that your relationship would be physical!" Lost Clan laughed nervously.

"As if I would let it be any other way! This is the man I have to slide for the rest of my life!" Lost Boy replied. "It had better be Jax physical!"

"How does that feel?" Lost Warrior asked.

"What?" Lost Boy replied.

"To speak of loving a man, a Warrior? When you were human, you had your heart set on a woman, I remember you saying."

"That was before Prof-man got his hands on me!" Lost Boy laughed. "Now, now I need a Warrior. Need him a lot, you understand!"

"You're doing it again!" The Gift of the Lost Clan sighed.

"What?" Lost Boy asked.

"Reducing everything to sex!"

"And that is what it will be about at first." Lost Boy reminded him. "You were at the same lesson as me for that one. The Warrior will need nectar every four or five hours for the first week. That's a lot of bezzie, my friend!"

"I know!"

"Reckon you are up to it?"

"Stop it, Lost Boy! You are scaring it!" Lost Warrior smiled. "It is not Lost Clan's fault that its life as a human was as unfulfilled as yours was fulfilled."

"Or yours!" Lost Boy added. "You were given bezzie for free, don't forget."

"But I am not the one teasing Lost Clan!"

"Jen, I'm sorry. It's just that they are so close! And when I get excited, I get all shaky, jen? My bezzie is out there!"

"You can't call a Warrior a bezzie!" Lost Clan laughed. "He is more than his quill you know!"

"Not for the first week, my friend. For the first week it is all about quill! And quill's bezzie. That is the whole point!"

"Jen! I understand." Lost Clan smiled. "I just need to get my head around the whole thing, that's all?"

"I'm not sure it's your head your Sadath will be interested in!" Lost Boy laughed.

"Stop!" The Gift of the Lost Warrior said. "You are scaring it again!"

A gong sounded outside in the hall.

"It begins!" Lost Boy said as it dragged its chair to the edge of the screen and looked down into the hall.

Several men and women came into the Shombruh, and mixed with them were five Warriors and their Gifts. The Warrior Graescin, ruler of this Palace, was easily the largest of the Warriors in the room and, for the first time since he had seen him, the Gift of the Lost Clan understood why he was the master Warrior here. The man had a presence, an authority that demanded obedience, even without the Warrior speaking a word.

"Move over." The Gift of the Lost Warrior said as it pulled its own chair over, making room for the Gift of the Lost Clan who also pulled up to the edge.

"My stomach is dancing!" Lost Clan laughed.

"Stop!" Lost Warrior said, holding the end of its tail over Lost Boy's mouth. "Let us enjoy this without the innuendo for a while."

"Jen." Lost Boy complained, pushing the tail away. "But not for too long, please?"

The guests in the hall below them milled around the table for a while before they took their places. In all there were maybe twenty of them plus the five warriors and their gifts. Graescin and The Gift of the Sidian Deserts sat alone in the centre of one side of the table. Three spaces were still free on one side of the Gift and three on the side of the Warrior.

Behind the three Gifts in the room above this hall a door opened and a tie came in with a tray of canap‚s and some drinks. The three Gifts turned to watch, but soon returned to the view below. Every now and then a tail would lift a small food parcel or a glass to a mouth, but this was done automatically as they waited for the new warriors to enter the room.

A moment later and the Warrior Graescin rose to this feet.

"Maetzue et Kudoe." The Master Warrior said. "Palach du Foray Vair voo akwaila fai por Essai du Marsh Darzhon."

"What's he saying?" Lost Boy asked.

"He's welcoming everyone to the Palace of the Green Forest!" Lost Clan sighed. "Didn't I see you in the language lessons?"

"Didn't mean I was paying attention!" Lost Boy laughed. "He will switch back to common soon, yes?"

"Yes." Lost Warrior assured him. "This is a formal occasion. They have to speak Motdieu for that."

"Listen!" The Gift of the Lost Clan said rather too urgently. "He's introducing the warriors-stujair!"

"Et monteno, silvoo plaitotra verticarch por praytondaset ahnay du Marsh Darzhon grahn. Jayvoo don Essai du Marsh Darzhon!"

"Please be upstanding for this year's contestants in the great Silver March. I give you..." Lost Clan translated.

"Essai du Marsh Darzhon. The Test of the Silver March." Lost Boy interrupted. "I know, I did listen some of the time!"

"They are here!" The Gift of the Lost Warrior hissed and they all fell silent as the warriors who were not yet Warriors, came into the room and took their places at the table.

Sadath stood next to the Warrior Graescin. The Gift of the Lost Clan noted this, but chose not to read any deeper meaning into the seating arrangement at the moment.

"There!" The Gift of the Lost Boy hissed. "Damn but that's a mighty sight!"

"Who?" The Gift of the Lost Clan asked.

"The middle of the three next to the Gift of the Sidian Deserts!"

"He has a certain.. charm!" Lost Clan laughed.

"That's not charm, that's my bezzie!" Lost Boy smiled. "Yours is looking mighty square as well!"

"I've never seen him all over! If you know what I mean." The Lost Clan smiled.

"He's a blonde one. I'll give you that."

"And so is yours!"

"So he is!" Lost Boy laughed. "Looks like we are more similar than you thought. Maybe it should be your room being sound proofed!"

"They'll have used it all on yours!" Lost Clan laughed.

"What about you... Hey, I think the Lost Warrior is in love!"! Lost Boy joked.

The Gift of the Lost Warrior had its head resting against the screen. Its face was transfixed and the object of its desire stood tall and broad, standing next to the Gift of the Sidian Deserts.

"Check it's still breathing!!" Lost Clan laughed.

The Gift of the Lost Boy ran its tail beneath the Lost Warriors nose. The Gift brushed it aside.

"I can hear you." It sighed, settling back into its chair. "I did not expect the feeling to be so strong!"

"Hey!" Lost Boy laughed. "Three blondes!"

"Does that mean anything?" Lost Clan asked.

"Well I'm not sharing mine!" Lost Boy said.

"As if I need yours..."

"Stop!" Lost Warrior sighed again. "Those are our Warriors!"

"I'm even more scared now!" The Gift of the Lost Clan said. "He's so real!"

"If we are being honest here." Lost Boy whispered. "So am I. Up until now it has been a big game. Now, now I can feel him!"

"And me!" the Lost Warrior said.

"I've lost my appetite." the Lost Clan said.

"Me too." The Gift of the Lost Boy added.

"Let's just stay here and watch them for a while." Lost Warrior said as it rested its head against the grill again.

Behind them, their tails wrapped around each other and settled to the floor.

They had chosen their Warriors.

And now it was time.

"I don't like this!" The Gift of the Lost Clan complained.

They had stayed in the Palace of the Green Forest for three days. And, despite itself, the Gift of the Lost Clan had enjoyed itself. Relaxation, exercise and good conversation, as well as the occasional sight of the warrior of your dreams, it helped to refresh the soul.

Now, though, now it was all too real! The Silver March had begun and, as the prize for the March, it was time for it to be displayed!

"No-one has ever fallen off!" The professor smiled as he helped pull the frame into an upright position.

It was a large inverted equilateral triangle, an appropriate symbol since its geometry embodied the Second Prime. At the point of the triangle was a small ledge and the Gift balanced its feet on this. Its arms were wrapped around the horizontal bar at the top of the triangle and its tail grasped this for support and comfort as well.

It was shaking.

"What's wrong?" The professor asked once he was happy the triangle and the Gift were in place.

"I'm scared!" The Gift complained. "Why must I go first?"

"Because you were the first to be gifted." The professor smiled, stroking the tip of the Gift's tail. "Just reach out to him, settle in his mind. Everything else will fall into place."

"If you are sure..."

"You can't go back now!" The Professor laughed. "Your fate has been decided. There are no choices but those that require you to support the fate." He added, quoting the Golden March.

"And when you hold that fate in your hand, find its balance." The Gift of the Lost Clan added, completing the quote. "And when you have the balance, you become the master of your fate. You control your own destiny."

The words became a mantra, and the Gift used them to calm itself.

And a time before flooded into its memory.

A small boy, cowering behind a Gift in a barn ten thousand kilometres and two years away from here. Back then it had needed to calm itself. Then it had used the Soldier's Rejoice. Now, now it needed something more.

Fate had been what the Sidian Deserts used to protect that small boy from the Warrior Graescin. How had that been balanced? The boy was a Gift himself now and soon, very soon that Gift would have its own Warrior. Was that the balance, itself as a Gift and the soon to be Warrior?

But all that did was balance the small and scared boy in the barn. It didn't bring any balance to the moment, to the now. And it certainly brought nothing to balance the warrior about to step into his second and, the Gift knew, final, Silver March.

The wind whipped up the sounds of the crowd and they span around its ears like leaves for a moment. It looked up and sniffed the air. From behind the wall it could not see the invited audience from both Palaces, but their scent was very real. There was excitement and not a little tension on the breeze today.

None of the people in the audience understood the real meaning here, though, and maybe it was right that they didn't understand.

The small boy, Traes, scared for his life and fearing for his soul, had been balanced against the destruction of his Clan. He had been balance for the Gift of the Sidian Deserts. The fate of a child balanced against the wrath of a vengeful Warrior. What that small boy had become, this Gift, that was the fulcrum. And it was balanced not by the warrior below, but by the other two Gifts that it now called friend.

This new balance, it had the potential to change everything, but before that... before that, there was a more pressing problem. There would be sex and, yes, love today. And in its whole life it had had precious little of either.

That was what really scared it.

There was a roar from the crowd, and the wall in front of the Gift slipped aside. The triangle moved forward and the Gift found itself hanging now, about a metre, up the wall above the arena. From here it could see across most of the Silver March. Could see the rows of seats on the right. Could look clearly now at the audience of Warriors, Gifts and invited guests. Could see the small cameras zooming around the arena that were beaming this event live to the planet.

Three of them hovered in front of it for a moment, before they zoomed back off into the arena.

How would it know when it all started?

And then the Gift's mind flipped as the warrior-stujair stepped into the arena. Sadath was here, and the Gift of the Lost Clan felt its mind drawn to the warrior, drawn into the warrior. He was standing at the other end of the arena, lost behind a stand of poles that rose almost four metres above him. His opponent, Mandim, was elsewhere in the arena. The Gift located him, ten metres away to the south. It let this knowledge settle into Sadath's mind.

The warrior-stujair accepted this information as part of his meditation. He was calm, so he could feel his opponent. Taste his mind across the arena.

A siren sounded above the arena.

The first of the three Silver Marches planned for this day was begun.

Sadath relaxed into a Pous, then launched himself up the nearest pole, using rails to add momentum to his upward thrust. Across the arena, the Gift noted that his own strength was feeding the warrior. It also saw that Mandim had executed a series of Sauta that were taking him further away from Sadath.

Sadath took this knowledge and in a moment launched into a sequence of Relai that saw him somersault across the top of fifteen poles, bringing him to a position where he would be above Mandim for a moment. This was a game of three strikes, and the first to three strikes would win. Sadath planned to execute the first strike here.

He could hear Mandim now as he rolled across the ground and came up against a wall. A moment later and he was over the wall, another Sauta and another roll. He was below. It was clear he was planning to draw Sadath out and his Sauta had brought him in a wide arc around the arena.

All the games of the Silver March began with the warrior in one of seven starting positions around the arena and Mandim had come past six of them now.

This was the key the Gift realised, to Mandim's thinking.

There was only one way Mandim could move now, and this would allow Sadath to strike first. It slipped the knowledge to Sadath. The warrior realised it had just worked out Mandim's strategy.

He executed a gombillay and settled into a Flaish, waiting for Mandim to launch into another Sauta. The moment he did, and Sadath fell from the top of the pole he was using, fell into a Flaishet and his betoe swung in an arc, swiping Mandim across the shoulder.

A thin trail of blood followed his betoe as it passed over Mandim's skin, and the colour of the blood on the brown skin of the warrior excited both Sadath and the Gift.

That was unexpected.

That there could be a bloodlust here as well. That his Warrior could be excited by the blood of his foe. That the Gift had the potential for that lust within itself...

Sadath flipped in the air, and the Gift of the Lost Clan was there with him, helping his feet flip over his head and land onto the ground. Into a roll then as the audience erupted. Without waiting for the cheers to die away, Sadath executed a Tuyeau before another Pous took him back up and then across the poles.

When he was ten metres away, he rested.

The Gift of the Lost Clan was ecstatic!

They had taken first blood! Sadath, though, he was not as happy. They were both playing to type, he and Mandim, both using archetypes and patterns they had always used. He would be able to predict Mandim's next move as easily as Mandim could predict his.

The Gift had not thought of that, and it was only when it realised that it couldn't sense Mandim anymore that it realised there was a problem. Mandim was in the arena, but the warrior was now concentrating so much on his training, on calming his mind, of playing against type, that the Gift had lost him.

Sadath pulled together a string of moves that took him towards where the Gift was hanging in its triangle. There was an open area here and he planned to face down Mandim in the space at the foot of the Tower of Gifting. Not being able to see Mandim, or feel his thoughts, beyond his general presence in the arena, all the Gift could do was watch.

There was an elegance in the moves Sadath was executing that the Gift had not seen when The Gift of the Lost Warrior executed them. The Lost Warrior was good, it knew these moves and when it utilised them they were executed as if from a text book. Sadath was not that formal, not that stylised.

His movements flowed smoothly from one pattern to the next, as if the gombillay itself was part of both the patterns it sat between rather than a transitory pattern in its own right. It knew that the Lost Warrior would see this as lax, and it smiled.

Sadath had his own way, and the Gift of the Lost Clan admired him that.

And then... attack!

Mandim had been waiting half way up a pole on the edge of the clearing. Had heard Sadath approaching and created his own attack position. The betoe swiped the back of Sadath's leg as he passed Mandim, and Sadath was forced to duck and then roll into the clearing. The Gift of the Lost Clan was beside himself!

It had lost concentration, and Mandim had been able to pull a point back. Second strike had been made! And now a line of blood trickled down Sadath's left calf.

There was no time!

At once Sadath was up and on his feet, facing Mandim who landed a few metres away from him in the Cloetuzh, a pattern that Sadath himself had also taken up. There would be a Troubetch now. A fight, betoe to betoe. Both warriors had trained to fight like this and Sadath launched straight into the attack, Cloetuzh giving way to a parry that was a whirl of wood and arms.

The Gift of the Lost Clans did not understand how to fight like this, but it understood that the warrior did. It could feel the moves in his mind and it used its own mind to bring calm to the whirling mind of Sadath. For Sadath the moves open to him suddenly became clear. Mandim was forced back and Sadath allowed the parrying and thrusting of this joust to move Mandim away from where he had started fighting, to an area of the clearing about five metres away from his starting point.

Once Mandim was in position, he launched into a Sairpon. A high-kicking attack that used feet as well as betoe and pushed Mandim back with the force of the attack. As the blows rained on him, Mandim stumbled, then fell between two poles. He had not realised he had been led around the clearing and had assumed there was still a pole at his back. He had intended to use this as a brace to launch a counter offensive against Sadath. The pole was not there and as he tried to jump to his feet, Sadath gained enough time to whip his betoe around and catch Mandim on the hip.

Third blood!

The audience cheered again.

There was a chance Sadath could win now, and they were becoming excited. Carders were playing the audience and a flurry of wagers were being made.

In the arena, Sadath used his betoe to vault over Mandim, then launched into a series of Sauta that took him away across the arena to an area where a series of gullies allowed him time to catch his breath.

That had been a new move for Sadath. He did not like Sauta it took too much effort, but today, for some reason, he had sailed through the moves, ending in a Sohns at the base of a gully. He relaxed back into a Cloetuzh, letting his heart and breathing calm.

The Gift was sweating with the exertion of this game!

It was trying to take away some of the strain from the warrior. Silently it thanked the Lost Warrior for all the enforced exercises over the last six months that had given it the strength to cope with this. In the arena below, Sadath was almost as relaxed and alert as he had been when he had entered the Silver March. As for the Gift, it was all it could do to maintain its hold on the triangle, such was the depth of its exhaustion.

Mandim was also exhausted and this gave the Gift time to recover its strength a little. When it looked up, Mandim was half way up a pole, and was springing from pole to pole around the edge of the clearing. It was clear he was trying to use this vantage to locate Sadath.

The Gift let Sadath know where Mandim was, and in his mind's eye he could feel Sadath smiling. At last the warrior realised that the Gift was with him, and this seemed to draw strength into him.

He let out a shout of triumph, and Mandim halted in his jumps. He worked out where the call had come from and changed tactic, dropping to the ground and launching into a series of Sauta once again that would bring him close to Sadath. He had reverted to type and Sadath saw this through the Gift's eyes.

In a moment his strategy became clear.

Mandim would expect him to become aerial. They both knew this was Sadath's preferred fighting style. Sadath dismissed that, though, and instead launched into a Pronda. Using a low rail sticking out of one of the poles, he swung around it ever faster until he finally released and used the momentum of this flip with the power of his legs to charge through the poles straight at Mandim.

They were not that far apart and Mandim, still in mid-Sauta could hear Sadath but assumed he was above him. His final Sauta became a Pous as he launched himself diagonally into the air. He was aiming for a bridge on a nearby pole. As he flew above, so Sadath stopped and turned his forward motion into a flip. His betoe swung around and knocked Mandim's betoe from his hands, clipping him on upper arm.

Sadath landed on his feet in a Metrah. Mandim, aware of his defeat. Rolled across the ground and pulled himself to his feet, reaching over and retrieving his betoe.

Both warriors were bleeding, but one of them was Victor. And, as the forest of poles dropped away and the audience rose to their feet in appreciation of the game they had witnessed. Sadath bowed low to them. Behind him Mandim fell to both his knees and, when Sadath turned to face him, he offered his betoe up to the victorious Warrior.

Sadath took the weapon, turned back to the audience, and then snapped the betoe across his knee as was the tradition. He let the pieces fall to the floor as the audience cheered again.

The Master Warrior entered the arena and a bevy of cameras swarmed above his head.

"Maetzue et Kudoe!" He shouted, in Motdieu.

His voice was picked up by the cameras and echoed around the arena, around the planet.

"Tue Gratse, Princhipay dae Princhipaya ay Rejenta!" He added, switching to the language of the Palace of Sunrises, Motdeprons. "Honoured Guests and Freemen of Tare Du Maretch!" He laughed, reverting to Motlomme, the common tongue. "I give you the Warrior Sadath!"

He held out his arms and Sadath walked towards him, into his embrace.

He then took Sadath by the shoulders, Held him in front of the audience while they cheered him, then he took him by the shoulders and led him over to the frame that held the Gift of the Lost Clan.

The triangle had been lowered to the ground and the Gift of the Lost Clan looked eye-to-eye at his Warrior.

"Your prize." The Master Warrior whispered, pushing Sadath forward. "Take the Gift."

Sadath walked up to the triangle and put his arms around the Gift of the Lost Clan's waist, he pulled the Gift from the triangle, which was pulled back up into the tower above. The Gift wrapped itself around the Warrior, its tail wrapping twice around Sadath's neck.

"I have been through so much to reach to you." The Gift whispered, lowering his head onto Sadath's shoulder and breathing deep of the Warrior's scent.

His Warrior's scent.

"And I have waited so long for you!" Sadath sighed, holding the Gift's head gently in one hand as the Gift relaxed onto his shoulder. The Master Warrior took his shoulders again and now turned the new Warrior to the audience. He smiled and wrapped his arms tighter around his prize, the Gift.

The Master Warrior took him by the shoulder and then several other Warriors came from the audience and led them into a door that had opened in the base of the Tower of Gifting. This opened onto a short corridor that itself ended in a large circular room. A platform, more a low table with a deep red leather mattress on the top, stood in the middle of the room. The Warriors, and then their Gifts, gathered around this table as Sadath lay the Gift of the Lost Clan onto the top of the leather mattress.

There were no words between them. No need for words between them.

The Gift reached down and took his Warrior's quill into its hands, stroked his sex and then ran hands up along his muscled belly to equally muscled chest until he wrapped both hands around the Warrior's thick neck.

"I am yours." It whispered.

Not the best first statement of undying love it could have chosen, and now that it had uttered the words, the Gift of the Lost Clan realised it could have used a thousand other, better statements! But, at the end of the day, it served its purpose.

Sadath smiled, noting the worry in the Gift's mind, and then climbed onto the Gift, he pulled it into a kiss and then ran his own hands along and around the Gift's body. Hands settled around the Gifts own sex, erect also in anticipation of the love to follow. Hands moving down the shaft and then stroking gently as they reached the large Nectaria at the base of the shaft.

And then, just behind and below the Nectaria, that new opening that made the Gift so uniquely a Gift. The Prostatae. An organ shaped from the original prostate gland that had been designed with the dual purpose of pleasure and the collection of sexual fluids from a Warrior.

The Warrior stroked his fingers across the opening and the Gift gasped. And then first one, but then two fingers slipped inside and the Gift writhed beneath its Warrior, as it was breached in this way.

Sadath slipped back slightly, then settled between the Gift's legs. The Gift's tail was already wrapped gently back around his neck, pulling the Warrior closer to it. Sadath took his quill in one hand and guided it gently to the entrance of the Prostatae. The Gift's hands and fingers fluttered wildly along the Warrior's back. It knew what was to come, knew it wanted this now, needed it even, but knew how to make it happen.

There was a pressure as the head of the quill pushed against the opening of the Prostatae, and the Gift of the Lost Clan could feel the ecstasy as the quill pushed into it. And with that push came a fire that spread through its body. Rushed around its Nectaria, wrapped around belly, chest, heart. Prised open the fist of hate that had settled there since the destruction of its Clan and then spun around brain and head. And then a feeling of tingling warmth and energy flowed over and through its entire body.

For the first time since it had emerged, the Gift glowed.

Around them, around the bed, the gathered Gifts began to keen. A low sound that rose to a crescendo in waves as the energy and excitement of the Gift and the Warrior before them rose to its own peak.

And on the bed, the Gift took its Warrior's head in its hands and looked long and hard into his eyes. A connection was forged then, a connection of mind that echoed the physical connection of their bodies.

"I am yours." The Warrior whispered, and the keening from the Gifts around them broke down into howls of desire and need as the young Warrior thrust harder and harder into the young Gift.

This was something new, never before had the physicality of the first joining overwhelmed the assembled Gifts in such a way and, as Sadath rose to his peak, so the assembled Warriors went to their Gifts, pulled them closer. there was always sex after witnessing a first joining, but the sex today would be intense indeed!

And in a moment, already excited from the exertions of the Silver March and his victory over Mandim, Sadath erupted into his own ecstasy. His orgasm flushed his skin and he collapsed onto the Gift, pushing his quill deeper and deeper into the Gift as he fed his love to his new love. As the power slowly drained from his balls and quill, the Gift pulled him into a kiss, and then the keening of the assembled Gifts came together again, a song of triumph.

The Warriors cheered, but several of them were already pulling their Gifts away from the room and back to their suites in the Palace.

The Gift of the Lost Clan smiled and glowed brighter, it had forgotten this had been a public event! Sadath was pulled away from the Gift, out of the Gift, by the remaining Warriors. They took him out of the room and into another room to celebrate.

The remaining Gifts crowded around the mattress. All were glowing, and all were still keening, although the sound had lost its coherence now as each individual Gift sang for the time they were first gifted. They lifted the Gift of the Lost Clan gently from the table, then carried it out of the room and into an antechamber, to where the professor was waiting.

"Lost Clan!" A voice called. "Even I felt that! You had some mighty bezzie?" The Gift of the Lost Boy laughed.

"I had some bezzie!" The Gift of the Lost Clan smiled as it was laid gently on a soft bed.

"How do you feel?" The professor asked?

"I feel like love!" The Gift smiled.

"Always a good sign." The professor said. "When you have just had your first love!" He laughed at his own joke.

Hands reached out, many hands, and tails and these stroked across the Gift of the Lost Clan, made it feel even more loved, even more at home.

"Now," The professor continued, "I have to examine you to make sure everything is working, jen?"

"Jen." The Gift sighed as the Gift of the Lost Warrior came and stood on its other side.

"What was it like?" The Gift asked.

"Like nothing I have ever experienced before!" The Gift of the Lost Clan smiled.

"And he is jen?" The Gift of the Lost Boy asked. "The one?"

"He is the one." The Gift of the Lost Clan said.

In its head it remembered a conversation with the Gift of the Sidian Deserts from what seemed like an eternity ago:

"There is only one way I can save you Traes. Do you desire love beyond the love of life?"

"Would I love despite my life?"

"You know the litany, Traes. Do you understand the words?"

"Would you die for your Warrior?"

"I would die today if I knew he would live tomorrow."

"I desire a love such as that."

The Gift of the Lost Clan smiled.

It understood now, at the end.

Finally, it had such a love as that.

The Gift of the Lost Boy settled back onto the bed. The sheets were soft, the mattress was soft, and the whole room seem designed for the pleasures the coming week would so certainly bring. To him and to his new Warrior, Selah. It climbed off the bed and wandered around the room, hands reaching out and stroking the bed, the walls, the chairs.

It was in a building known simply as the Salars du Marsh, the Rooms of the March. This small building was located in the palace gardens. These ran almost the length of the Palace of Sunsets to the south of the Silver March and the Tower of Gifting. The Salars du Marsh was one of three buildings erected in the gardens.

This would be its home for the coming week as it merged body, mind and soul with its new Warrior. And it so needed for that to happen. Two years ago it had been a boy, like so many others. Born to a good family and just eight months away from his first majority. But behind that veneer, behind the good family, the successful parents and the studious son, there were problems.

He had always had issues with his father. The man sacrificed his own soul to his career and this example had driven the boy Janah into the arms of excess and made him seek out more and more extreme pleasures. In the end, the pleasures themselves became the goal rather than the need to escape from his father. This, perhaps, had been the genesis of his undoing.

He had lost sight of what he had been running away from and had instead grasped at the possibilities the sex and narcomeds offered up as a substitute for love.

His mother was too weak to stand up to his father, or too tired to care. Her life was also one of success and she drove herself as hard, if not harder than her partner. If his father had sold his soul for his career, then his mother had sold her humanity. She was a quiet, intense woman who became more and more withdrawn from the family home. In the end it was a rarity that she even appeared at weekends.

She had developed another life, one of friends and fantasy that replaced the bland emotionless austerity of her home. Her son had been part of the sacrifice she had willingly made. He had loved her, but had lost his respect for her many years ago. He had not been loved by his family for so long he couldn't even remember what that actually felt like. And now, now everything was different.

The boy Janah was no more and, fashioned from his body, was the body of the Gift of the Lost Boy. Their minds, though, those of the boy and the Gift, these were the same, as was their soul. The boy was now the Gift, but the Gift was so much more than the boy. But at its core, the Gift still felt what the boy felt, still lived that life, still remembered.

The beatings, the shouting, the crying, the fear, the loneliness. The hate.

Had he ever been happy then?

It remembered laughter with friends, at studies and yes, at times, even with its father. It had no memories of laughing with its mother. With her there was only silence and despair. But even the fleeting moments of happiness he could remember with his father, they were not the norm, not the themes that defined this life. The life of the boy had been crafted in response to a vacuum of love, out of an empty home and an uncaring family.

What was the Gift made from?

Janah was there, that was certain, but this was mixed with something else, something greater than anything Janah could ever had achieved on his own. It was now a part of something bigger. Yes, it belonged to the Palace of Sunsets and its new Warrior, but it also belonged to two other Gifts. The Gift of the Lost Clan and the Gift of the Lost Warrior were as integrated into the Gift of the Lost Boy's soul as was anything else.

From these two it learned innocence and wonder, strength and control. From these two it learned to look forward with an open gaze and not through the fog of the past. From these two it had the strength to love and, more importantly, to allow itself to be loved.

Selah, its new Warrior, had fought a mighty battle at the Silver March earlier. Unlike with the Gift of the Lost Clan's Silver March, this one had been a contest involving Epay. The short sword that was as much a symbol of the Warrior's authority as was his red skin and black ceremonial boots. The arena had been transformed into a sea of low poles, the tallest of which was no more than two metres high.

This sea of poles was sculpted into a frozen ocean of waves. Of valleys, hills and troughs. And on top of these poles he and his Warrior had fought together for the chance to be gifted. It had been strenuous, and the Gift had almost passed out at one stage with the exertion of feeding its own strength to the warrior in the field beneath it.

Selah was a canny fighter, but his opponent was a master of Epay, and this is what had worried the Gift the most. Selah was strong, but neither of them knew how to fight well with this weapon. Realising that it needed to give the young warrior its strength rather than its guile, the Gift had opened its mind to the warrior. Almost at once the connection had been forged.

The young warrior recognised the Gift in its mind and realised he had been chosen. With a speed and dexterity then that was extreme, it turned this battle not into one of Epay against Epay, but one of balance and speed against Epay. Sauta, Relai, Pous all the aerial moves were used by the warrior as he flew around the arena. His opponent was left dumbfounded, not sure how or when to attack.

First blood had come quickly as Selah sliced his blade across the other warrior's arm as he executed a manoeuvre that had him vaulting the motionless warrior.

This attack, though, had forced the other warrior, Annax, into action and the fight became a chase, became a dance, became a contest of agility that had drawn all of the Gifts strength away from it. It was grateful that the Gift of the Lost Warrior had trained so much with it, especially in the last two weeks. It needed that extra energy. Needed to feed this energy to its warrior.

The gambit had paid off and Annax began to tire, began to slip on the small tips of the poles. Clashes there were a many between them still and the audience were on their feet screaming their appreciation of one or the other of the fighters. This was a fast game, and they had not been expecting that. Like Annax, they had been expecting a more formal fight of Epay over Epay.

This dextrous dance across the poles, of clashes between body and Epay, this was something new, something exciting.

Second blood came as Annax slipped and caught itself on his arms. He hung from the top of one of the higher poles as Selah swept past on the poles below and knocked the Epay from his hands, slicing the top of his knuckles as he did so. Annax was allowed to regain his Epay, but there was a fear in his eyes now.

Selah was still fresh, still moving across the arena in a wide arc, using the Sauta to pick up speed. It was all Annax could do to remain standing and in the end he settled onto a lower pole, using the height of the poles behind him to rest against. The arc took Selah behind these poles and then back towards them at a rush. At the last moment Sauta became Pous and he sailed over the high poles, rolling in mid-air and landing on a pole directly in front of Annax.

At once he launched into a parry. A thrusting round of Epay swordsmanship that, had Annax not been so tired, would have seen him easily defeated. Selah was not good with an Epay, but he was fresh while his opponent was tired, defeated. And the end had been swift.

A miscalculation by Annax and Selah found an opening, his Epay striking the warrior's chest and drawing the final blood.

Selah had claimed his Gift then and, as had been done with the Lost Clan before, he had taken his prize in front of the other Warriors and Gifts.

Now, now the Gift waited for its Warrior to come to it. Waited for the time it could take this young Warrior and make him part of it. Merge them both. Tie its past firmly into its future.

There was a noise outside the Salars. It was tradition that the new Warrior could not step onto the palace garden lawns until it had become merged to its Gift. To this end older, gifted, Warriors carried the new Warrior on a metal sledge above their heads. This was raucously deposited in front of the veranda at the front of the Salars. The new Warrior stepped off the sled and into the building.

All three Gifts would spend the next week here with their Warriors, and Selah had been told which rooms were assigned to him and his Gift. He came straight to the door now and let himself in.

The Gift of the Lost Boy was standing by the window, it turned and smiled at the young Warrior in the doorway.

"Hi." It smiled.

"Hi." The Warrior said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind it.

They walked towards each other, just looking into each other's eyes. Then a hug, and the gift cried.

"What..." Selah began but the Gift looked up at him and smiled.

"It has been a while since I needed someone." It whispered, tail stroking the Warrior's head, face, back.

"And now?" The Warrior asked.

"Now I need you."

It led the Warrior to the bed and pulled him onto it with him. They lay there then, hands stroking each other, touch replacing voice as they learned the body they would love.

"Before all this starts." The Gift said, after a while, smiling at the Warrior. "There are some rules."

"There are?" The Warrior asked.

"Oh yes." The Gift laughed. "I am your Gift, but that does not mean I am your possession. You understand that?"

"I... no."

"In public I will be everything a Gift should be. I will support you, take my lead from you, do what you ask. In private, though, you will love me, and love me often. I need this." The Gift smiled, reaching down and taking the Warrior's quill in its hand. "And if you want anything in return, you are going to have to give me this, often!"

"Hah!" The Warrior laughed, and he rolled over onto the Gift. "I was thinking you were going to have to stop me trying to give it to you!"

"You were? And who's mercenary was going to help you?"

They both laughed then as a wrestle ensued. The Gift slipped around from under the Warrior, jumped on his back and began stroking his balls and quill with its tail which had slid up between the Warrior's legs.

The Warrior stood on the bed and the two of them slipped into a heap on the floor as the top sheet slid off with them, around them. Now the Warrior twisted and the Gift was trapped within his arms. His tail slipped down the Warrior's back as he stood, lifting the Gift back up onto the bed. Slipped down his legs and then began pushing at his backside.

"Hey!" The Warrior laughed as he dumped the Gift onto the bed. "That's not fair, you've got an extra thing to attack me with!"

"It's called a tail." The Gift smiled as it pulled the Warrior down onto the bed, tail still stroking and pushing at his rear.

"It's quite a nice thing, tail." The Warrior whispered.

"Really?"

And the Warrior pounced, pulling the Gift into a hug and then wrapping it up in arms and legs. The Gift was trapped, tail also caught within the embrace of the Warrior.

"I like you." The Gift said, licking across the Warrior's face and then pushing its tongue into first one and then the other ear. "You can stay!"

"Well thank you." Selah laughed. "We always talked about what this moment would be like, you know? When we are preparing for a Silver March."

"And?" The Gift asked, settling into his Warrior's embrace.

Its tail reached down and pulled the top sheet back onto the bed, back around them and then over both their heads.

"And you just don't know what to expect." The Warrior sighed as the Gift pulled him into a kiss. "This is not meant to be sex, it is meant to be pure or something!"

"Well they forgot to tell me that!" The Gift laughed, leaning back so he could get a better look at the Warrior. "We can do pure when we go and meet the other Gifts and Warriors." It said. "When we are alone I want lust, and lots of it!"

"I had assumed Soldesha was off limits once I was Gifted." Selah said, his hands stroking the Gift's own quill, the other hand slipping down and around the large Nectaria.

"Soldesha!" The Gift laughed. "My boy, Selah, Pahtron." It smiled, licking Selah's nose. "You are my bezzie, jen? And I want you dancing across me like a buxom on fire! You understand?"

"You want me to sponge you?" The Warrior asked slipping into the same patois.

"Hmm." The Gift smiled. "Thinking more than sponge, lom. You up for smooth?"

"I'm up."

"Then take it to me!" The Gift laughed. "I'm shining for you here, take it!"

The Warrior lifted the Gift up and over, placing it on its back. The sheet that had been over them now wrapped itself around them as the Warrior pulled himself onto the Gift. They kissed then, the Gift's hands and tail sliding around the Warrior. Caressing his back, his face, his backside. Stroking his balls, pulling his quill to attention.

And the Warrior, his mouth was sliding across the Gift's chest, slipping down its belly, it took the Gift's quill into his mouth. The Gift sighed, then laughed.

"Fuel's going to be smooth there, boy. But first you have to pay."

"I have some mads I'll be paying mighty quick." Selah whispered, running his tongue down the Gift's Quill.

He began to kiss his way around the Nectaria. They were too big to take into his mouth, but that didn't stop him kissing, licking. And then he moved down, behind the Nectaria, to the Prostatae. Tongue began to probe and push and, at the same time, fingers began pushing against the Gift's own backside.

Fingers and tongue entered the Gift at the same time and it arched its back in appreciation. Talking was gone now, and both their minds were amplifying and echoing the need for sex that was rising around them.

The Warrior slid his mouth back up to the Gift's quill, and the Gift wrapped its tail around his buttocks, pulling the Warrior closer to him. And hands pulled at his head, using ears to slide his body over its own. And all the time the tail was probing at the Warrior, pulling him onto the Gift, pushing into the man.

The Gift felt the Warrior's quill push up against it. The tail suddenly gripped the man and pulled him forward. The quill slid into it. And there was pleasure. Before, in the room with the other Warriors and Gifts, the first mating had been about ritual. The Warrior took his prize. That was the way of it. Now, now the second time they mated, it was about desire. Soldesha.

The Warrior began to pull into and out of the Gift in long easy strokes. The Gift moved up and down in anticipation of Selah and in support. Together they loved. Selah smiled and kissed the Gift.

"This is better." He whispered, head pressed against the Gift's ear. "Than any fantasy!"

"Just promise me you won't stop." The Gift replied.

The Warrior was rising to orgasm now, and the Gift felt the heat of the sex spread from Selah's body into his own. Beads of sweat appeared on his Selah's forehead and the Gift reached up and licked them off. Its body began to glow gently, getting brighter as the Warrior came to orgasm.

"I'm..." Selah began, but could not finish as the orgasm exploded through his body.

He wrapped himself around the Gift and the Gift pulled him in closer with arms, legs and tail. He shuddered as he passed his juice, his life, to the Gift, and the Gift flushed, a feeling of warmth spreading all around its body.

"Rapture?" The Gift whispered, stroking the Warrior's hair.

"Truthsaying." The Warrior replied.

"I love you already."

"Lost to you." Selah whispered and kissed the Gift tenderly on the mouth, then the forehead.

"I..." The Gift began, but its body had other ideas.

The last thing it remembered before it slipped into unconsciousness was its Warrior, Selah, leaning over and smiling at it.

"Are you alright?" Selah asked as the Gift collapsed back into the bed. "Hello?" He asked, panic creeping into his voice.

He sat up and held the Gift's head in his arms, pulled it closer to him. There was breathing, but it was so shallow.

"Wake up!" He whispered urgently.

"It will be alright." Another voice said, making the young Warrior jump.

"Who are you?" He asked as a man walked across the room from the window.

"I am the professor." He explained, coming over to the bed and touching his hand to the Gift's forehead. "I help the Gifts to emerge into this world." He explained.

"What has happened to it?" Selah asked, still holding onto the Gift tightly.

He was sat up at the back of the bed now, and the Gift was wrapped up in his arms, lying across his chest.

"It is fine." The professor smiled, taking out a small device and attaching it to the Gift's chest. "You have just made love to it, yes?"

"Yes." Selah said and then blushed.

The professor smiled.

"In order to make nectar for you, the body of the Gift has to expend a lot of energy. This means it falls into a deep sleep for a few hours. When it wakens, you will have to bring it to its own orgasm. That will be when you can take the nectar."

"I thought I had hurt it!" The Warrior laughed.

"It will take a lot more than a Warrior to hurt a Gift!" The Professor laughed, taking the device off the Gift and checking its readings. "This one is strong, stronger than you will ever be. Remember that, young man."

"I... I will."

"Good. Now, you must stay with it while it is in this state. While the nectar will be ready in an hour, but it will not be at its peak for at least two hours. Your job will be to stop the Gift trying to release the nectar before then."

"It would do that?"

"It will do that." The Professor said. "The nectar is not at its peak until it regains consciousness. Before that, keep its hands on you and not on itself. You understand?"

"Yes."

"Perfect. Later, you will provide a harness for the Gift and you can tie its wrists into this while it is in its ecstasy. Until then, you are the harness, jen?"

"Jen."

"Then I will leave."

"What will the nectar be like?" Selah asked as the professor stood from the bed.

"No two Gifts produce the same nectar." The professor replied. "It is genetically keyed for you and you alone. The first time you take it you will be laid out for almost four hours. After that each time you take the nectar it will put you to sleep for a few hours while it works on your body."

"What will it do?"

"Don't they teach you any of this?"

"We know we will be gifted. That is all. Even the Gifts in the college do not talk of this."

"They have their reasons, I suppose." The professor mused. "Know this then, Warrior Selah. The nectar this Gift gives you will turn you into a Warrior physically. At the moment it is just a title. Your skin will darken and eventually take on a red sheen. Your muscles and skeleton will grow larger. You will become more agile and the bond between you and your Gift will be forged into an almost physical link. You will never be alone again, no matter how far you are from your Gift."

"It is said that the Gifts will aid us if we have to fight. Will make us even faster and stronger."

"Your Gift can make you appear invisible if it is necessary." The Professor smiled. "But that is to come. This week is all about bonding. The nectar is very addictive, and at the beginning you are going to need to take it about every four hours."

"And after?"

"At least once each day, more if the need takes you. You will both know."

"Thank you." Selah sighed, stroking the Gift and kissing its forehead. "Thank you for giving me the Gift."

"It is my pleasure." The professor replied.

Selah leaned down to kiss the Gift again. When he lifted his head the professor was no longer in the room.

The Gift of the Lost Warrior pulled itself back up into wakefulness. There was a weight on its chest, heavy, but not uncomfortable. It opened its eyes. The room in the Salars du Marsh was in darkness, but its eyes allowed it to see clearly. The Warrior Chedda was laid across his chest, snoring gently.

The Gift reached out with hands and tail, stroked the Warrior's back, cupped his face and pulled him into a kiss. Chedda's arms snaked around the Gift's waist and he pulled him into a deep embrace, mouth clamped to the mouth of the Gift. When the kiss finished the Warrior opened his eyes.

"You taste like sex!" He whispered as the Gift ran his hands around his chest.

"I am your sex." The Gift smiled.

"I thought you were dying!" Chedda said, pulling the Gift even closer into him. "When you fell unconscious after we made love, it happened so quickly I thought you were dead!" "I cannot control it." The Gift replied.

"I know. The professor came and explained it all to me."

"He was here?"

"I was scared and he came and assured me you were alright."

"He's a sneaky one!" The Lost Warrior laughed. "But I am still here and so are you."

"I am." Chedda whispered and began kissing the Gift's head, eyes, nose, mouth.

"Do you know..." The gift whispered. "The last time I remember you was when you were a Jen-Warrior?"

"Why is that?" Chedda asked as he slipped down slightly and began licking and then gently biting the Gift's nipples.

"You were playing a game of Aikair. We had just had a boring lesson with the Espree-Warrior. My friends wanted me to pick out some winners from you and your comrades."

"I hope you picked me." Chedda said as his tongue slid down the Gift's chest, and then wrapped itself around the head of its quill.

It gasped as Chedda took its quill into his mouth, one hand massaging its Nectaria while the other probed first its Prostatae and then its backside.

"I picked you." Lost Warrior sighed as a feeling of desire spread from its chest down through Nectaria and then out along its quill into the Warrior.

The Warrior sighed, then suddenly changed position. From just holding the head of the Gift's quill in his mouth, he moved and swallowed the whole quill. Sank onto the Gift so that all the Gift could see were the lips of its love stretched across the base of its quill.

The Warrior's eyes were closed and already the hints of nectar leaking from the quill was driving him into his own ecstasy. His hands still massaged the Nectaria, but his body had settled across the bottom of the Gift's body. The Gift's tail rose up and began stroking the Warrior's head, back, backside. The Warrior turned onto his side and the tail wrapped around quill, then slipped around his balls.

And then an urgency arose deep within the Gift. A need to release that overwhelmed the body, swamped the brain. Span around head and Nectaria at the same time. A dizzy, spinning need to feed this man, this Warrior. A feeling of heat started in the tip of its tail and spread rapidly through its whole body.

It didn't glow, for this was the antithesis of glowing. It seemed to suck the light from the room into its body for a moment, and then, then an explosion of lust, of desire, of need! The Warrior jerked and began drawing the nectar into his stomach. Began to massage faster and slowly, slowly, he slid his mouth up the Gift's quill, and the sensations!

It was tickling, it was grating, it was exciting, it was love, fear, need, want, lust.

And with a final explosion, the nectar rushed along the quill and into the Warrior's mouth, into his throat. The Warrior, though, had been overwhelmed. He lay now, mouth still clamped on the end of the Gift's quill, but the last of the nectar was running from his mouth over the Gift's belly. He was unconscious.

The nectar had claimed him.

The Gift of the Lost Warrior smiled.

For most of its life it had dreamed it would be in the position of this Warrior now. But now that it was actually here, this was better. To have this man, this perfect man, this body, soul and intelligence lying with his mouth still wrapped around its quill. Lost to the power of the Gift's body, the Gift's nectar.

This was control. And it needed this control more than it needed the life Warrior. That was why it was gifted, why it was a Gift. Why its Warrior lay now wrapped around its sex. It pulled the Warrior up its body, lay the man on the pillow next to its own. What dreams they would weave into these pillows this night! What desires they would tell in the soft gentle light of the morning! What love they had seen, would see for the rest of this week.

It smiled and looked down on its Warrior. The man was beautiful. Hair, blonde, but dark was close cropped to the head. Ears were small and delicately round and the Gift leant forward and licked at first one, then the other ear, taking the delicate lobes into its mouth and biting gently on them. Tail flicking into the one ear while mouth worked with the second.

Eyes, wide set and, when open, the deepest blue. Brows neat and straight above deep broad eyes. Nose just right and the gift nipped the tip and then ran its tongue across two pillow lips. Tasting its own nectar as the tongue wiped the lips clean.

Perfect lips. Pale, soft and beneath, strong teeth. It pushed its own lips against the Warrior's, forced its tongue into closed mouth and then ran its tongue across hard teeth and beneath soft gums.

There was a sensuality in this mouth that it needed to explore again, perhaps when the Warrior was conscious...

Neck was broad and wide and framed the chin. Square, with a dimple just below the lips and the Gift licked the dimple, pushed tongue against skin and sucked at the skin of the Warrior, pulled his essence through his skin. He tasted of salt, of the sea, of the earth and of his sex.

And at the base of the neck, supporting the neck and spreading across to the shoulders were two strong tendons. The Gift kissed them both, then followed first one across to shoulder, then down the arm. Kissing elbow, licking wrist, tail following, stroking shoulder, wrapping around elbow, the wrist. And the Gift took the fingers of each hand into its mouth. Sucking, kissing, loving.

And then chest. It was broad and wide, hinting at the girth that would come once the nectar began its work. This Warrior would rival the Warrior Graescin in size, and that pleased the Gift. It licked and kissed two erect nipples, taking each one in turn between lips and then teeth. Tail and fingers playing with the one nipple as lips, tongue and teeth serviced the other.

And then tongue and fingers and tail ran down the line at the centre of the belly. Leading through domes of muscle on each side to the belly button, the perfect receptacle for the head of the Warrior's Quill. The quill itself arched from its base up and over the belly, almost pointing the head into the belly button, as if it had been designed to receive it in just this way. The perfect resting place for the perfectly shaped head.

A bubble of pre, or post, sex lay at its tip and this was delicately licked by eager tongue, then mouth closed over the head and slipped down the whole quill, as the Warrior had done just moments before for the Gift. Again, it tasted its own sex, but this was now mingled with the sweat and secretions of the Warrior and the combination of their juices was more beautiful than the juices of either one alone.

The Warrior was under the spell of the nectar now, but even as he took his lover down his throat, the Gift knew they would do this again, and next time when the Warrior was in control...

Balls, tight, round and rolling slowly as they worked their magic and began to refill ready for the next round of sex. Warriors had hair on their heads and on their balls, nowhere else. And the hair on Chedda's balls wrapped around them delicately, soft as feathers. He lay his head next to the Warrior's quill and watched for a while as he stroked the balls with the tip of its tail, watching them roll gently at the ministrations of tail tip and fingers.

And then thighs, large, skin rolling in waves across taught muscles. The Gift ran its tongue from just behind the balls down each leg to the knee then back up again. This man was meat! And his meat belonged to the Gift of the Lost Warrior. He bit the inside of each thigh then, drawing blood just where the balls rested against the top of the legs.

This was his man and this mark showed its ownership!

Calves leading down, round and long to feet, slender and soft. Toes, suckled, wrapped in lips and teeth, tail flicking between each as mouth bit at each nail. The Gift smiled. It had never needed to love like this before, but this Warrior demanded attention and he wanted to be oh so attentive!

He pushed the Warrior over onto his back, then bit and licked at Achilles. Sucked and licked up succulent calves to the back of the knee. Then thighs leading to buttocks. Globes of softness, pale against the darker skin. Soft when they looked so hard. The gift pushed its nose and tongue between the buttocks and sniffed, licked, sucked then bit at the glory that lay beneath these mounds of flesh and muscle.

There would be a time when he would bring his Warrior to ecstasy here. Maybe soon.

The Gift slid forward, tongue and nose running along the small of the back and then up the spine. Kissing vertebrae, following the line of muscle from central back across shoulder and around to chest.

Beautiful.

Sexual.

And neck again, firm, wide, strong. And the Gift nuzzled the Warrior's hair, turning the man so he lay on his back once more. Hands ran across chest, fingers tweaking nipples while tail wrapped around still erect quill. The Gift slid up onto the Warrior, took his quill into the Prostatae and rolled around the sex of this man. The Warrior would not release while he was under the control of the nectar, but his body would still be aroused, still pleasure the Gift.

And it needed this pleasure.

Needed this man.

He was sex, reduced to nothing more than his sex, but that was what the Gift was at the moment as well. Together they were Soldesha, lust. Together they were two into one. The prime resolved.

A hunger stirred in the Gift's belly and it pulled itself slowly and reluctantly off its Warrior. The professor had warned of this. The Warrior would eat nothing but nectar for the rest of this week, but the Gifts would have to eat, and eat regularly if they were to supply all the nectar their Warriors would need.

At the end of the week the Warrior would be addicted to the Gift and the Gift would be merged with the Warrior.

Love to love.

Sex to sex.

Soul to soul.

Body to body.

Mind to mind.

"And?" The Gift of the Lost Boy smiled as the Gift of the Lost Clan came into the room. "What is it like?"

"As if you don't know!" Lost Clan laughed. "I have never felt anything like it! It was explosive enough when he first made love to me, but when he took the nectar! I could have died then and been the happiest person in the universe!"

"Truthsaying!" Lost Boy said, then handed over a plate of meat to his friend. "Major fuel shortage now, though!"

"And that is truthsaying! I could eat all of this and then some!" Lost Clan said as it took the plate and helped itself to a roll of meat from the dish.

A door opened and the Gift of the Lost Warrior came into the room.

"Welcome back to normality." Lost Boy smiled.

"How intense was it for you?" Lost Clan asked through a mouthful of bread.

"I can't even begin to explain." Lost Warrior smiled. "I take it you two are happy as well?"

"Happy?" Lost Boy laughed. "I have never felt like this before, lom! Never!"

"Here." Lost Clan said passing over a plate of meat to Lost Warrior. "Eat. You are going to need it."

"And we have a week of this!" Lost Warrior said, taking meat from the plate and wrapping it in some bread.

"How lucky are we?" Lost Boy laughed. "A week of solid bezzie and the best food this side of the Palace of Sunrises. What more could we need?"

"The Professor said they had put aside two beef-ties for this week." Lost Clan said. "I reckon I could eat them both myself. Is it just me or are you ravenous too?"

"I feel like I haven't eaten for a week!" Lost Warrior said through a mouthful of food.

The juices from the meat it was pushing into its mouth were running down its chin.

"Only two beef-ties?" Lost Boy replied. "We may have to put in an extra order!"

They were silent then as each gorged themselves on the food before them. When the table was empty and in ruins they settled back onto the cushions. The Gift of the Lost Boy lay on the cushions, stretched out on its back, while the Gift of the Lost Warrior and the Gift of the Lost Clan leaned against each other for support.

"Our sleeping beauties don't know what they are missing." Lost Boy sighed, rolling onto its side. "All this food..."

"But they get nectar." Lost Clan pointed out. "Lots of nectar!"

"Truthsaying!" Lost Boy laughed rolling back onto its back. "I didn't expect there to be that much! When I was not gifted there was never that much!"

"I thought my Warrior was going to drown!" Lost Warrior said, and they all burst out laughing at the image that created in their minds.

"Have you looked around this place yet?" Lost Clan asked after a moment.

"Haven't been out of my room yet..." Lost Warrior smiled.

"I have." Lost Boy said, pulling itself to its feet. "And you've just reminded me of something! Come on!" It said, reaching down and grabbing the hands of its friends, pulling them to their feet.

"Too full!" Lost Clan cried.

"I think you'll like this." Lost Boy laughed as it skipped down the corridor in front of them.

"Make him stop being so energetic!" Lost Clan pleaded with the Gift of the Lost Warrior.

"Apart from beating him senseless with a dirty food plate, I don't how I can!"

"I heard that!" Lost Boy called.

It had disappeared into a room at the other end of the corridor from the dining room. The other two Gifts pushed open the door and stepped into a large airy and bright room. Windows lined two of the walls with a large fireplace at the other end. It was what stood against the other wall that brought them up to a halt though.

On the other wall was a huge bed, and the Gift of the Lost Boy was currently lying in the centre of it, lost to the size of the bed.

"How good is this?" It asked, stretching out arms across the bed and not even reaching the sides.

"What would you use this for?" Lost Clan asked as it fell forward onto the bed.

"I can guess." Lost Warrior laughed as it too lay back on the bed.

The three of them lay in the middle of the bed in silence.

"No!" Lost Clan suddenly said sitting up.

"What?" Lost Boy asked.

"I know what you are thinking!" Lost Clan said. "You want us all here with our Warriors!"

"Why not? Everyone keeps telling us we are together. They've given us this bed..."

"And it could be fun." Lost Warrior said, sitting up on its elbow and looking across the bed to Lost Clan.

"No!" Lost Clan blushed. "Both of you? I... I can't!"

"Why not?" Lost Warrior asked. "It's not as if we are going to swap, just be together."

"Like we should be." Lost Boy added.

"But... no!" Lost Clan laughed. "I've only just got used to the whole bezzie thing! But this is like an orgy!"

"No." Lost Warrior said. "It is right, can't you feel it?"

"I can." Lost Boy said. "As long as I get the middle."

"Stop it!" Lost Clan said. "I can't do... that in front of you two!"

It climbed off the bed and went over to one of the windows. It looked out onto the palace gardens, across to the Cloister that ran along the south side of the Silver March. "You did it in front of what, at least ten Warriors and their Gifts?" Lost Boy pointed out. "And you didn't know any of them as well as you know us two!"

"Come on." Lost Warrior smiled. "I'm not going to agree with this one on everything." It added, running its tail around the top of the Lost Boy's head, "But I do agree with this. We should be together with our Warriors."

"But..."

"What?" Lost Boy asked.

It stood up and went over to the Lost Clan and pulled it back towards the bed, pushing it down into the middle, between itself and the Gift of the Lost Warrior. "I..." Lost Clan whispered as the Lost Warrior pushed it back onto the bed.

"Do you think Sadath would mind?" Lost Warrior whispered.

"At this stage of the game he is going to be so desperate for more nectar that he would do anything!" Lost Clan admitted.

"There you go then!" Lost Boy laughed. "Come on, I'd much rather be in my ecstasy if I knew you two were in ecstasy next to me!"

"Me too." Lost Warrior said. "What about you?"

"I... yes." Lost Clan sighed. "Why else would they put this room here if they didn't want us to use it?"

"Precisely!" Lost Boy smiled. "I need you two, jen?"

"And I need you two." Lost Clan replied. "It's just that this is all new to me! I come from a backwater region. Sex was always behind doors!"

"We know." Lost Warrior laughed. "We were there too, remember?"

"And you can stay in the middle, if you want." Lost Boy laughed. "I quite like this side of the bed."

It rolled onto its back and stretched across the bed.

"What are you doing?" Lost Clan asked.

"Imagining what it will be like with Selah here." Lost Boy said.

"And?" Lost Warrior asked.

"It's good." Lost Boy sighed. "Jax good!"

Lost Warrior rolled onto its back and laughed.

"Listen to us!" It laughed. "We sound like dumbstruck virgins!"

"Hey!" Lost Clan smiled. "That's me you are talking about!"

They laughed, then all rolled into the middle of the bed, pulling themselves into a hug with the gift of the Lost Clan at the centre.

"I need you two." Lost Boy whispered.

"We all need each other." Lost Warrior agreed.

"Just promise me you aren't going to sidle my Sadath while I'm sleeping!" Lost Clan laughed.

"Promise." Lost Boy smiled. "Besides, I've got one of my own now!"

"And me." Lost Warrior said.

They lay there for a while, all glowing in the centre of the great bed.

"He's stirring." Lost Boy said after a moment. "I'm going to wake him and bring him here."

"We'll go and wait for ours then." Lost Warrior said.

The three of them slipped off the end of the bed and went to their different rooms.

Half an hour later and the Lost Warrior led a dazed Chedda into the room.

"Where are we going?" The Warrior whispered, arm around his Gift's waist. "Oh." He smiled as he saw the bed and the others wrapped around each other on it. "Hi guys!" He said as the Lost Warrior pulled him onto the bed.

There was a writhing of bodies then. Warrior on Gift, Gift around Warrior as they all let the hunger that had been kindled in the Silver March overcome them again.

The Gift of the Lost Clan lay beneath Sadath who had slipped his mouth and tongue out of its own and was now kissing down its chest. Licking at its quill, fingers probing Prostatae eagerly. And the Lost Clan's tail was wrapped around Sadath's neck, then slipping down his chest and playing with his quill and then balls.

Sadath slipped between Lost Clan's legs and his quill pressed gently at the Prostatae, slipping slowly and languidly inside. Now they both knew what to expect this lovemaking did not need to be hurried.

The Gift of the Lost Boy sighed and slipped off his lover. Selah pulled the Gift under him and then pulled the Gift into a kiss. Tongue pushing into and then stroking the Gift's mouth. Their tongues wrapped and their bodies pulled together tightly, Warrior quill rubbing up against Gift quill and both of them flushing at the sensations this brought them.

Without a word Selah began kissing his way down Lost Boy's chest and Lost Boy's tail wrapped around one of Selah's wrists, pulled his hand away from its Nectaria and down to the Prostatae. Selah smiled and began to massage the opening to the Gift, then slipped fingers inside.

And then he positioned himself, quill replacing fingers as he pushed his sex into the Gift and the Gift pulled the Warrior closer into it, bodies synchronising as the movements of sex overcame them.

The Gift of the Lost Warrior picked up its Warrior with arms and tail. The Warrior had been lying on his side next to the Gift, kissing and licking his face and neck. The Gift positioned him on top of its body, and for a moment they both lay there, Warrior pressing down on Gift, eyes staring into eyes.

Then Chedda slipped his hand down the Gift's body. It wrapped around the quill, massaging this for a moment before it began massaging the Nectaria slowly. The Lost Warrior's tail wrapped around Chedda's neck, then ran down the centre of his back making Chedda squirm in pleasure as the talon in the end of the tail scratched across vertebrae.

The tail slipped between the Warrior's buttocks then and began to push at the man, the talon finally entering the Warrior just as he pushed his own quill into the Gift. They timed their movements then, the Gift pushing into and out of its mate while the Warrior pushed into and out of his love.

As the sex began to overtake him, the Gift slipped its tail out of the Warrior and it moved and wrapped around the tail of the Lost Clan, in the throes of its own love next to it. A moment later and another tail, that of the Lost Boy, snaked over and wrapped around the other two.

They were one now.

And then the Warriors peaked and their seed, their juices, filled the Gifts.

The Lost Boy arched its back as it took the gift from its lover. And then something happened. There was a twist in its head and for a moment the Gift was the Warrior. Lost Boy blinked human eyes and looked down on the Gift that was its love and it knew that Selah was staring back at his own body through the eyes of the Gift.

Another twist and the Gift settled back into its own head. Selah smiled and they kissed.

The Lost Clan cried as the love exploded through its body. Of the three Gifts it glowed the brightest as its Warrior filled it with his sex. And again, its mind and Sadath's mind slipped out of their bodies. He saw Sadath as a small boy being sold to the Palace of Sunsets by a relative. Saw Sadath learning the art of the Warrior and was with him once again as he fought the Silver March.

And Sadath was with the Lost Clan as it sat frightened behind the cage. Was with it as it was forced to watch the butchery of its uncle and brother/father. Stayed with it on that trip to Troubian in the drone and loved it all over again at the end of the Silver March.

The Lost Warrior began to hum as Chedda filled it with his love. A tune that was picked up by the other two gifts. It grabbed the face of its lover and their eyes locked again. Chedda was the Gift of the Lost Warrior and the Gift of the Lost Warrior was Chedda. Bodies and minds became one.

And then wrapped up in their loves, the three Gifts slipped into their ecstasy.

Back in the Palace of the Green Forest, the Gift of the Sidian Deserts was woken by a sound. Three voices, three Gifts, singing with one voice. The sound filled its head and it pulled its Warrior over to face it.

"My love?" Graescin asked, opening his eyes and pulling the Gift closer to him.

"Love me." Sidian Deserts pleaded, and the Warrior Graescin pulled his Gift into a deep kiss.

In the Palace of Sunsets, the Gift of the Troubled Waters also woke to hear the singing of the voices in its head. It realised the Second Prime had been forged and it too pulled its Warrior closer.

"Is something wrong?" The Master Warrior Fedash asked, turning and wrapping himself around his Gift.

"It has begun." The Gift whispered. "Now you must love me."

Fedash smiled in the dark and pulled his Gift into a kiss, his quill rising ready to feed its Gift.

In the Tower of Gifting, the Professor also looked up from the cells he had been studying in the microscope in front of him. The voices filled his head and he too smiled. He had planned for this moment, created the Gifts and then created the desire for this merging within them.

The Second Prime had arisen. Now the time for his revenge was come.

There would be no more work this night. He wandered over to a window and looked out onto the palace gardens, at the building nestled between the trees that contained the key to his future.

To all of their futures.

And all across Tare du Maretch, Gifts woke and heard the singing of the Second Prime in their minds. Or looked up from their work as the singing overcame them. Each of them understood. For better or worse a power had been created this day, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Each of them went and sought out their Warrior. As the Second Prime entered its ecstasy, so every Gift on the planet pulled their Warrior into a facsimile of that love.

The Second Prime had called to them. Now they would answer with calls of their own.