Either way, he knew that he'd be involved. Again.

The sign was a new one, and he wasn't surprised that the bar bore an unfamiliar name. How long had it been since he'd exiled himself? It seemed like just yesterday, memories being what they were, and his still intact despite the psychic blows he'd taken. The Arnians really knew how to fight--and dirty--using techniques that were unknown to all but the Initiated. He was able to ward off the worst of them, but the experience still gave him waking nightmares.

Spitting out the raz weed, Naron checked his stunner's safety, then sauntered in. The lighting was dim, just as he remembered it, but there was a green--rather than the familiar red--glow emanating from beneath the floor. Moist air circulated throughout, welcome in the Dry Region. Yes, the new owners wanted their patrons to stay awhile, not rush off after they'd downed an ertil or two of their pungent, but effective, brew.

It was odd how the place was nearly empty. Naron stepped lightly down to the end of the bar, sniffed the air for signs of anger or fear. Nothing. These folks were just having a drink. No worries for tonight.

"What'll it be?" The barkeep's bright voice was slightly accented. Naron couldn't quite place it. Another off-worlder? An Arnian spy?

"Suggestions?"

"The Special." The barkeep winked.

Naron nodded, reached into his side pocket for exchange coupons.

"Your crud no good here. Put on mine."

Naron's head whipped around to the sound of his old friend, Mizar's, voice.

"We 'fraid you dead. Where you been?"

Naron and Mizar surrounded each other with spindly arms, pressed their foreheads against each other and playfully wiggled them back-and-forth.

"Na dead, Fr'nd. Just out town."

"What's been?"

Mizar shook his head.

"Sit-sit. Drink now. Talk later."

Naron looked through the circular window; the moons glowed faintly in the distance. Mizar snorted in his drunken stupor.

"It's ok--he sleeps it off here all the time. Sometimes he talks in his sleep. Mostly unintelligible stuff. No worries. Hey-would you like some fambo juice? It'll keep you going until the third moon sets."

"Na, tank ya. Got to be goin' now." The barkeep didn't seem tired at all. Must be that fambo juice.

He scanned the horizon; no sandstorm in sight. Good omen, he thought, reaching into his pack for a new face cover. He'd forgotten how insidious the dust and grit was here. That he hadn't missed.

Several new bars had opened since he left, but there was one in particular he sought this night. Naron wondered how reliable Mizar's directions were.

No matter what Mizar said in an attempt to dispel his fears, there was something definite troubling his old friend. What really worried him-or perhaps he only thought it was off-was that Naron was unable to penetrate Mizar's mind.

The bar he sought was right where Mizar said it would be. Nondescript was putting it mildly. Naron would have passed right by it if he hadn't detected the telltale vibrations of Mind-dancing.

The Arnians sensed his arrival, and were awaiting him as the door slid open. Pungent arogan smoke drifted through the dark interior of the long room. He felt their mind probes, and willed himself to relax while they journeyed where they would. He'd learned resistance could be a most painful process.

After they withdrew, Naron clasped his hands over his forehead, bowed to the room, then recited the traditional greeting in a resonate voice which thwarted the silence of the hall.

"You know why I have come. You know what it is I seek. Let us serve each other."

"Let us join as brothers," rose from the back of the room. The Arnians parted as one to allow their leader, Tir, to greet Naron.

"It is good that you return," intoned Tir, readjusting his flaxen hair, which was braided in the ancient serpentine fashion.

"It is good to return."

Naron clasped his hands, palms outward, over his inner heart, bowed his head.

"Come, brother of my Beloved First Wife, we have much to accomplish before the moons set.

There was a time when he never doubted himself, when his focus never wavered. But now, standing outside what was once the meeting place for the Notil, his mother's clan, he knew what it was to be truly without family.

How could his sister have married an Arnian? She might as well have committed Soti along with their parents. Suicide would be a more pleasant fate than being wed to their enemy.

"Why you outside?" Mizar scolded as he approached Naron. "This night na good to be outside."

Their eyes, then minds, merged, and Naron realized that Mizar knew that something was unfolding.

"I know many things, fr'nd-and what I don't know--" Mizar chuckled, spread his arms wide, pointed where the first moon had set, then at the second and the third.

"So--what we do now? The others probably think I'm traitor. The Arnians think I'm one of them."

Mizar tugged on an ear lobe, stretching, then releasing it. "Why you come back? You safe where you were."

"The Reckoning."

Mizar visibly paled at the word spoken aloud. "Not since ancient times has there been such."

Naron nodded. "Tir is fond of ancient ways. There will be a Reckoning. They've brought back the Mind Dancers."

"Na! It's impossible. They died out thousands of moons ago. The ancient texts, destroyed. Who would train them?"

"It is so, Mizar. I felt them inside me-walked among them."

A keening arose from deep within Mizar's chest. It was a frightening sound, and Naron resisted the impulse to cover his ears against his friend's grief. Why couldn't he feel it? Was he robbed of all feeling now? Only the fact that he had returned to do what he could gave him hope that he was still worthy of life.

"It is good to see you again, my brother."

"And you, sister."

Tir sat across the room dressed in a simple crimson tunic, copied he was sure, from an ancient pattern. Despite the formality of this occasion, Naron felt a snarl rise inside him. Tir dared much.

"You have come of your own free will?"

Naron closed his eyes, hoping to see just a glimmer of what Mela thought. Nothing. Lest she take his silence for denial, he nodded.

Mela took her brother's hands in her own. Together, they intoned the opening words of The Reckoning ceremony.

"So it begins. So it ends. So it spins anew."

The second moon had drifted from view, and the third was close behind, its peculiar opalescence a harbinger of doom. But for whom? Naron recalled the sound of Mizar's keening, and wished he knew what had really happened that day when the Arnians first arrived. Stories had traveled fast; his sister, a First Daughter of the Notil, had been taken prisoner, subjected to untold horrors.

Now he wasn't so sure.

He added these stories to the others taking form within his mind. There was something about the ancient Reckoning texts. Could his sister be the one translating the forbidden tomes?

But why? The price of sharing this with outsiders was Sotil. He shuddered, remembering the day his parents had committed Sotil, the entire clan gathered around--first facing them, then turning away. Cut off from the clan, they would have nowhere to go. He was sure they were no longer flesh. His eyes burned and threatened to pool.

Naron reached inside his pouch for a piece of raz weed, stuck it between his teeth, then spit it out as the third moon passed below the horizon.

Tir fingered the beaded ends of a braid as he listened in awe while his wife chanted the Great Words of Reckoning in the ancient tongue of the Notil.

Naron's eyes were slightly open as he surveyed the assembled throng. The First Phase of The Reckoning ceremony had begun at dawn, and would continue through the day. His stomachs were growling from lack of food. Only water was allowed him until Phase Two, when he would begin to drink Mo-mo juice to fortify his strength.

Phase Three was still a mystery to him. He had to trust Mela, who had cautioned him not to push her on this matter. On some level of awareness, he wanted to believe that this ignorance would protect rather than harm him-and what was left of The Notil.

Time swerved past, and Naron felt his inner barriers give way. The Mind Dancers spun through his thoughts like puchi bugs, their incessant buzzing a sign that they were novitiates rather than adepts.

Then he felt Mizar's swift mind touch.

His old friend was up to something, and this knowledge was power. Naron felt the corners of his mouth raise slightly in a smile. It was not a pleasant sight.

On the third day of The Reckoning, the air within the cave was charged. His physical body seemed far away; only his mind, his sister's mind, and the conjoined minds of the Notil and the Arnians breathing in and out of each other felt tangible.

The Reckoning had begun; Naron refused to ponder what could emerge from this forbidden coupling.

From the corner of an eye, Naron watched Mizar approach Mela. Tir either didn't notice or was too enraptured with his own success. What could they be up to?

At first, he barely felt The Opening. As the Great Shift began, Naron knew, in the way that his people had always known, what would now unfold.

Together, the three accessed that mind-space possessed only by the Notil. As their minds reached out to their clan, the Dance changed form, and the clan were released by The Reckoning.

For thousands of moons, Notil story-tellers would begin this tale in the same way: The screaming began just before dawn on the third day of The Reckoning. It is said that no Arnian mind survived the force of the Notil that day. Their bodies? No one really knows what happened to those. Some say that the Arnians wandered into the High deserts; others say that they were left outside the puchi bug hives. What really matters, though, is that no other Arnians ever attempted to invade their sands again.

As other moons came and passed, the tale would shift until it, too, became a legend among many, and the true meaning of The Reckoning returned to the sands from whence it arose.

"What is it?" children would ask their parents, their elders, and any shop or bar keep that they came across, hoping for a story.

"It is different things to different people," they would respond, or "Be careful! Naron may be listening, and he'll return."

"Tell us of Naron!" they'd squeal, gathering 'round.

No child ever tired of hearing the tale of Naron's return, of how he, his sister, Mela, and his friend, Mizar, saved The Notil from Tir and the Arnians.

As with every civilization, dissenters arose who questioned whether it was Naron at all, but his sister who wielded the true power that day.

As with so many things, that too, is covered in sand and dust.