"This pleasure was great?"
"Yes."
"Might it not have been pride for the success of your expedition?"
"It grew very much within that place, yet its roots ran deeper still—to some other place where there are no reasons, only feelings. I have been examining it, as I have learned to question my motives, and I can go no further than the simple fact of its existence. It has given me wonder, however..."
"Of what sort?"
"When whatever was done to me was done, making me forget who I had been and what I had wrought, there must have been a good reason. Could it have been that I was a threat, that I represented a danger as I was?"
"I will be honest with you, rather than keep you wondering and worrying," Sundoc said. "Yes, this was the case. But you must realize, too, that you were not destroyed when you could have been. There was also that about you which was considered worth saving."
"But what was it?" Timyin Tin said. "Was it a hidden measure of moral worth some benign prince wished to see nurtured, to balance other things I might have been? Or was it rather that he did not wish to destroy what had once proved a useful tool?"
"Perhaps something of both," Sundoc said, "plus being in your debt."
"The memories of princes are generally short. But be that as it may, I see only one special item in my repertoire for which one such might desire my recall. Whoever sent you here wants me to kill someone, does he not?"
"I think these are matters best to be discussed at a later date, when your treatment has been completed."
Sundoc moved to shake his mount's reins, but Timyin Tin's hand had somehow grasped them before that action could be completed.
"Now," the smaller man said. "I want to know now.
I possess a sufficient degree of self-awareness to understand a simple yes or no answer to my question."
Sundoc looked into his dark eyes, looked away.
"And if the answer is yes?"
"Try it and we'll see."
"Look, I am not the proper person to be making you any proposals. Why don't you wait until we get to where we are going? You will be more in control of yourself and there will be someone there who—"
"Yes or no?" he said as Toba drew up beside them.
Sundoc looked at the other man, who nodded.
"All right. Yes, someone wants a man dead and thinks that you are the best man for the job. That is why we came for you."
The smaller man released the reins.
"That is sufficient for now," he said. "I am not interested in the details yet."
"Well, what is your reaction to the information?" Toba asked.
"It is nice to be wanted," Timyin Tin replied. "Let us be on our way."
"You heard the words with equanimity. How interested do you feel you would be in such an undertaking?"
"Very," he said, "since it must be intricate to warrant my resurrection. I wonder more, though, about another thing."
"What is that?"
"I am strong, and I grow stronger as the treatments progress. But the monk is still with me. I wonder whether this will always be so?"
"Yes, for he is but another of your own faces."
"Good. I would hate to lose contact entirely with this part of my life. It was—peaceful. Only ... I may now be equipped with a strange sort of conscience."
"Let us hope that it does not get in the way."
"It depends entirely on what you are asking of me."
"You said that you were not interested in the de tails."
"That was someone else talking."
"Very well. There is a Road and it goes on forever, and a man with a certain affinity for it, a man who knows the proper entrances and exits, twists and turnings, may follow it to almost any time or place. Of the many who go that route, there is one against whom the black decade has been declared—"
"Black decade?"
"His enemy is permitted ten attempts on his life, without warning. These may take any form. Agents may be employed."
"And your master wishes me to be such an agent?"
"Yes."
"Why the black decade in the first place? What has this man done?"
"I really do not know. It is likely, however, that you will never even see him. One of the others will probably get him first—if that will give your conscience some peace."
"Do you mean to say that you are going to all this trouble to set me up as a backup man?"
"That's right. This man is deemed worth the effort."
"If the others' skills approach my own, he has no chance of getting past the first. But what happens if he does live through all the assaults?"
"I am not sure anyone ever has."
"But this one is special?"
"So I am told. Very special."
"I see. Let us make camp soon, for I must meditate."