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A figure loomed suddenly in the firelight. "Tell me why."
Lady felt her pulse throb in her throat, and hot tears sprinkled her face as he looked down at her. It was
Thomas.
Chapter 29
"Because we're alike, you and I," the desert mutant said, "and we were born out of their dreams, not
their nightmares, no matter what that bastard buried in the mountain told you."
Blood-splattered and weary, Thomas swayed on his feet. Then he looked to Lady.
"Believe him, Thomas."
He closed his eyes faintly. That tiny sense of Truth-read came to him, a fragile thread of an ability the
ghost road had leeched from him. It told him that his enemy was honorable. He pointed at the wards on
Lady's wrists. They parted with a blue spark that snapped. "Show me your hospitality and we'll talk
tomorrow."
They slept till mid-morning in a canopied tent of golden silklike fabric that billowed in the wind and
captured the rays of the sun. A gold and dust dappled coyote lay in the corner, his head on his paws,
eyes watching them alertly, but no one in Denethan's camp bothered them.
He slept on one cot, holding Lady in a light embrace, and the desert raider slept on the second. They
had lain down warily, too tired to talk, accepting a momentary truce, after Lady had said, "Thomas
Denethan did not raid the peninsula."
But Thomas had had doubts of his own and that touched on them. So they had agreed to discuss their
differences when their heads were clearer, Denethan out of courtesy, he thought, and himself out of
necessity. Besides, Denethan was within arm's reach should Blade change his mind and decide to kill
the mutant.
He woke, Lady's soft purr upon his chest, and lay there. He kept still, not wanting to wake her. When
he finally turned his head to look at Denethan's cot, he found the man watching him, eyes like molten
gold. He was not a lizard he was like the coyote, the hillcat, and then a lizard, but all gold and dun.
"You can leave her," Denethan said quietly. "Fox here will watch her. You and I have much to talk
about."
He moved carefully to disentangle himself, but woke her. She yawned and sat up, saying, "You weren't
running out on me?"
"Never."
She glanced at Denethan. The man stood by his cot and bowed with liquid grace, saying nothing. They
moved out into the sun where chairs and a table had been put out for them.
His men treated him like a monarch, and perhaps he was, a desert lord where no one else dared to
reign. His lightly scaled skin was tanned gold, and his hair was light blond, like Thomas' but thick and
curled. His eyes were bronze, catlike, and warmed when he smiled. He was tall and well-muscled,
taller than Thomas and more massively built, but exceedingly graceful. He walked barefoot to the
conference chairs. His toes were webbed, the skin delicate, with gold tracery upon the folds. His nails
were hardened, nearly claws, but, visibly, that was all of the mutant about him. Thomas sensed there
might be more. He thought to himself ironically that this was the being he'd called the Lizard of Oz, a
green man from an emerald city, but this man had nothing about him that was not gold.
Thomas settled himself, keeping his legs under him and his body loosely balanced. Lady took her cue
from him and did the same. She graciously accepted a cool glass of juice from Micah.
In the daylight, Thomas could see much more of the lizard about Micah than showed in Denethan. Just,
he supposed, as Micah could see he had gills and Lady did not. He refused the juice when offered,
saying, "Tell me why we shouldn't kill each other."
Denethan put an eyebrow up. It arced elegantly over his amused eye. "It would be a waste, I think. We
are both excellent specimens of our race."
"And what race is that?"
"A race that was meant to walk the stars."
"Perhaps except that one of us is a little cold-blooded."
"Thomas!"
The desert lord waved a hand. "Let him talk. He hasn't offended me& yet. We are old enemies, and that
weave is a very knotted one, but I'm beginning to think we are not the only weavers."
"Why?"
"Because, as Lady Nolan expressed so elegantly late last night, my troops were not responsible for the
massacre on the Palos Verdes peninsula. We interrupted the real murderers and they fled rather hastily.
Not, you understand, that I had not had similar intentions."
"You did not allow looting."
"I never do. We're not barbarians. We are only desert adaptive. We are survivors."
Thomas shifted slightly. Charlie's last words had spoken of betrayal, not raiders. Had the College Vault
escort brought an attack force with them? And Charles, all unaware and triumphant in his dealings,
welcomed them? Those who thought of the county settlements as infestations? "Did you see what
happened? Could you identify who fled?"
"No. We were on their heels, but not that close. I had my men give the mercy stroke to those who were
mortally wounded& I could not spare the attentions of my Healer. For that, I am truly sorry."
"Then why were you here? Why did you come back out of the Mojave after, what, ten years?"
Denethan paused. He poured himself a glass of fruit juice and savored half of it, making Thomas wait.
Then he set the glass down. "Have you ever been to my region?"
"No."
"But you have felt the hot winds come scorching out of the desert?"
Thomas nodded.
"It can be a cruel life. Some of us are more& reptilelike& than we deserve to be." Denethan got up.
His muscular form rippled gracefully with the movement. "We were mutated genetically engineered
for survival. I'm told that originally, my breed was destined for colonization elsewhere. Mars, perhaps.
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