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before Palicrovol himself had taken one single act toward rebellion. God was now his god. “And I,” cried Palicrovol, “I will follow God.”
    And I, whispered white-skinned Sleeve, pink-eyed Sleeve, I could shake the earth and unmake this fortress, and with my left hand I could cause a forest to rise in the place of Zymas’s five hundred men. Why should I link myself to these unmagicked men, particularly if they fear that ridiculous god named God? They have no need of me, nor I of them. But Sleeve felt the hind’s blood hardening on his arms and hands, and he was content that Palicrovol should be king, even if he did it in the name of this angry young God.
    And that is how Palicrovol began his quest for the throne of Burland.

2

The Girl Who Rode the Hart
    Three times in her life, Asineth learned what it meant to be the King’s daughter. Each lesson was the beginning of wisdom.
    A SINETH’S L ESSON OF G OOD AND E VIL
    When Asineth was only three, the ladies who cared for her walked her in the palace garden, in the safe part, where the gravel walks are neatly edged and the plants all grow in animal shapes. One of her favorite games was to sit very still, dribbling sand or gravel from her fingers, until the watching women grew bored with her, and got involved in their own conversations. Then she would quietly get up and walk away and hide from them. At first she always hid nearby, so she could watch the first moments of panic on their faces when they realized she was gone. “Oh, you little monster,” they would say. “Oh, is that a way for a princess to run off and leave her ladies?”
    But this time little Asineth hid farther away, because she was getting older, and the world was getting larger, and she was drawn to that part of the garden where moss hangs untrimmed and the animals are not rooted to the ground. There she saw a great grey beast drifting slowly through the underbrush, and she felt a strange attraction to it, and she followed. She would lose sight of the beast from time to time, and wander searching for it, and always she caught a glimpse of it, or thought she did, and moved after it, farther and farther into the untamed garden.
    She did not hear the ladies searching for her; she was not nearby when, frightened, they reported to the Butler that she was missing; only when the sky was getting red and the soldiers found her bathing her feet at the edge of a large pool of water, only then did she remember her game of hide and seek. The soldiers took her away from the pool and carried her through the woods to the safe garden where she had been playing. There she saw the three women who had not watched her well enough, naked and staked out upon the ground, their backs and thighs and buttocks bloody from flogging. She was afraid. “Will they beat me, too?” she asked.
    â€œNot you,” said the soldier who carried her. “Never you. King Nasilee is your father. What man would dare to take a whip to you?”
    So it was that Asineth learned that the daughter of the King can do no wrong.
    A SINETH’S L ESSON OF L OVE AND P OWER
    King Nasilee’s favorite mistress was Berry, and Asineth loved Berry with all her heart. Berry was lithe and beautiful. When she was naked she was slender and quick of body, like a racing hound, and all her muscles moved gracefully under her skin. When she was clothed she was ethereal, as distant from the world as a sunburst, and as beautiful. Asineth would come to her every day, and talk to her, and Berry, beautiful as she was, took time to listen to the little girl, to hear all her tales of the palace, all her dreams and wishes.
    â€œI wish I were like you,” Asineth told her.
    â€œAnd how would you like to be like me?” Berry asked.
    â€œYou are so beautiful.”
    â€œBut in a few years my beauty will fade, and the King your father will set me aside with a pension, like a housekeeper or a