Both the Keys were shocked by Alec's words; he could feel it clearly. It was strange to think about their possible age. The Palace clearly wasn't new, and Alec was pretty sure of his hypothesis.

Still, it was only a hypothesis, and he needed facts. Facts to confirm his idea and facts that would help him decide what to do with this. Alec knew he'd be unable to just leave the Palace at the end of his three weeks, and there were many reasons for it.

First, it seemed more and more likely that the Palace was indeed a safe haven for psy-gifted people. Probably it had some kind of screen, natural or artificial, covering all psy activity from Cir, Lanven and the other psy-gifted Keys. If there was any chance to use and replicate this screen, Alec had to try.

Then there was Cir. His strange mix of gifts needed to be trained and developed, and it looked like a worthy challenge. But challenge wasn't the only thing Alec thought about in relation to Cir. Somehow the Key came closer to him than anybody else in his adventurous life; and Cir's touch in the deepest recesses of his mind did not feel alien. Cir wanted him, and Alec knew that very well, but their connection formed even without sex and, very possibly, would go even deeper if - when - they actually became lovers.

And, last but not the least, there was Lanven. Alec could somewhat understand Cir's feelings of obligation before the Palace and its management. They helped him to survive, and the job they had him to do was less harmful than it could be. If he only met Cir, he would let the Palace be. Lanven, though, was another case.

Lanven was in pain. He did not even realize that himself, partly because he had grown used to this pain and partly because what definitely slowed down his aging had also diminished the results of this pain. Still, the constant emotional drain, lack of shielding and the connection to the Well and the entity inhabiting it were slowly eroding Lanven's personality. At some point he will become only a channel from his Masters to the Well.

That had to stop. Alec already took some emergency measures, shielding Lanven as much as he could to give him some rest. Once the Key felt better, it would be time for him to start buildng his own shields.

These measures wouldn't be enough, though. They would slow down Lanven's destruction but not stop it. Again, he returned to the undeniable lack of information. To deal with the Well he needed to know more about it - and through the Well he was certain to learn more about the whole Palace…

He shook his head and looked at the two Keys. Cir was perched on the arm of Lanven's chair, and they were looking at each other, conversing more with their eyes than the words. That was good. Earlier Cir seemed to be a little upset about his immersion in this problem, but Alec would need the assistance of them both. There just wasn't enough time to deal with everything by himself. They came into Lanven's suite by chance, and who knew when they would leave?

"You'll need me to check it out," Lanven said to him suddenly, his voice sounding clearer and much more decisive than before.

Alec blinked at him in surprise, and Lanven nodded at the Well. "This… thing. I think… I can think now, not just be overwhelmed by emotions, and I realize that if it's all true then we need to know what this thing is and what does it want. And it must be me who finds it out."

That was pretty much what Alec himself thought, but… "Are you sure, Lanven? I can try it - you're still too vulnerable…"

"I'm much better now than I was, and there aren't any negative emotions to come through me right now," Lanven said seriously. "And it knows me. It won't be alarmed by my touch. Who knows what it would do if *you* disturb it?"

"You're right," Alec agreed a bit reluctantly. "Still, I'm going to monitor you as much as I can. If you'll need additional shielding or help in pulling away…"

Lanven gave him a small smile. "All right, I'll ask for help if I need it… Now let me think. I never contacted it on my own…"

"But it's separated from you now, isn't it?" Cir suddenly said. Alec turned to him in surprise and so did Lanven. So Cir definitely threw off what had been troubling him earlier… "Go on," Alec nodded.

"Well, if it has some kind of a mind, it must feel the separation strongly - after all, you have never done that before. Then it should be eager to contact you by itself as soon as it can."

"That is, when the shields disappear," Alec finished. "Good thinking, Cir. But I don't want you to go in shieldless, Lanven…" Perhaps the amount of harm Lanven could come to now was negligible compared to what he suffered all this time, but emotional overload also, apparenty, made him unable to think logically, and they needed to find out as much as they could…

"All right," Alec said finally, and both Keys looked at him expectantly. "Here's how we'll go about it. You'll need a bait, Lanven. I'll keep shielding your inner emotions, but you will have a bit of… free space. Imagine table which is covered by some kind of protective cloth, but a small part of the edge is clear for you to work on… Do you have that image?"

Lanven nodded, staring at Alec with rapt attention.

"Good. Mind matters are generally easier to deal with if you compare them to some physical image."

Next to him Cir grinned, letting Alec catch an echo of his impressions of their journey through the Palace network. Alec sent him a flicker of amusement and approval and returned his full attention to Lanven.

"Now, that cloth is my shield, covering your really deep feelings and emotions; basically, your inner self. What I want you to do is to put onto the uncovered edge of the table some emotion; a negative one. If Cir is right, it doesn't even need to be strong. Just remember something unpleasant or frightening. While you do that, I'll try tightening the shields so that you don't involve too much emotion…"

"All right," Lanven nodded seriously, "but I can handle it. I managed before, didn't I?"

No, you didn't, Alec wanted to answer, but now was no time to discuss these things, so he went with the simplest argument. "The less emotion you involve, the more objective information you get. Now, let us try."

So they tried. At first Lanven got caught in the fear he recollected, and his inner emotions Alec was guarding quickly caught the turmoil. "Something less strong, please," Alec said. "Mildly frightening instead of downright scary."

This time Lanven was remembering a man, apparently someone from the Palace staff. He was annoyed about something, and his feelings were not particularly hurtful by themselves - but he had come in just after a Master had left, and Lanven had been evidently still feeling raw.

Alec caught the unpleasant memory echo through Lanven, but then the Key's inner feelings returned to the stability they achieved behind the shields. ::Well,:: Alec said, ::here we go.:: And he released the outer shields.

His presence in Lanven's mind by this time was rather distant and hopefully undetectable to an observer, since he was caught between two layers of Lanven's emotions. Lanven's shields done, he thought, his own and Cir's - done. Now, where are you, beast in the Well? Come out and play!

And then he felt the alien presence touching Lanven. Not human, that's for sure; not that he expected human, but this was far more alien then the animal minds he checked during the exploring phase in his youth. The presence was stranger even than the moths, whose minds, simple as they were, had been the most alien thing Alec had ever touched.

He did not try to check it, leaving the task to Lanven, but one thing was apparent to him: the beast, as he started to call it in his mind, had no emotions of its own; not even the simplest ones, those coming from physical needs - hunger, discomfort, tiredness… It was like a void that had opened in the room. Now Alec understood: the beast drew in what it lacked. It might not even have needed a mind for that, though they'd have to wait for Lanven to confirm that. And the utter emptiness of this void stirred Alec's own emotions, though he quickly stamped them down. Alec was afraid.

But, thankfully, it wasn't him who had to establish a contact with that thing; and Lanven's emotions did not show any particular new disturbance after the entity from the Well made its contact. Alec checked his own contact with Lanven, and it was right on time: Lanven's mental presence began drawing more and more away from his body.

::Is he…?:: Cir inquired tentatively in his brain. After their trip here, perhaps due to the unusual form of their presence in Lanven's suite, Alec and Cir's link seemed absolutely effortless, like joining two fingertips of one hand.

::Yes, he's… gone. As gone as he can be without separating from his body totally,:: Alec answered quietly.

::So what now?::

::Now we wait. Your friend is braver than he seems.::

::He stopped thinking of you as a Master,:: Cir noted. ::Usually if I come to see him right after a Master left, he's as he was in the beginning, but then usually he comes out of it.::

::Usually? But not always?::

Alec could feel Cir pausing in thought. ::Well… lately he's been slower at this. Why? Did you notice something?::

::He's deteriorating,:: Alec said grimly. ::Don't start worrying, though; we'll just have to do something about it.:: Not that this would be easy, he thought in the corner of his mind that he kept private, but he couldn't afford Cir's worry distracting him now.

::Okay,:: Cir said quietly. ::I should've noticed that before…::

::You're not an objective observer.::

::And not as curious as you,:: Cir added.

::That too.::

For a moment they were slient. ::Is it going to take long?:: Cir asked finally.

::I don't know. But he's shown no signs of wanting to leave yet, and no harmful emotions…::

Silence again.

::Alec?::

::Yes?::

::Do you… like him?::

::Who - Lanven?:: Alec asked, startled. :Yes, I guess I do…:: Then he looked at the face of Cir's projection, touched Cir's emotions a bit deeper and almost snorted aloud. ::Don't be silly. He's hurt, and he needs help, that's it.:: That was an easy answer to give. Alec was glad he did not have to define his relationship with Cir now. Cir needed help too, but while with Lanven he gave help and the Key took it, the contact with Cir involved much more - complications, exchange of emotions, kittens… He smiled and recalled vividly kitten-Cir on his lap, and sent the image back to Cir. ::I do not scratch just anyone's belly, you know…::

The burst of slightly embarrassed laughter and warmth from Cir was very timely, because Lanven's mood was slowly changing. He did not become suddenly upset, and there was no heavy draining of his emotions, but the depression was settling in. It did not warrant pulling Lanven away just yet, but traces of it were seeping through to Alec, and it did not help him think and be objective at all.

::I think we don't have long to wait,:: Alec informed Cir.

::Is he hurt?::

::No. I won't allow him to be hurt anymore.::

There was some strange emotion in Cir's eyes and his thoughts, but Alec kept himself distanced from it, concentrating on Lanven, waiting for a signal.

When the signal came, Alec felt it at once. It was emotion, not a thought-signal - Alec would've been able to pick a thought, but projecting emotions evidently came easier to Lanven. The emotion wasn't fear or disgust, just a very strong desire to be away from there. Alec pulled.

At the next moment Lanven slumped back in the armchair, slowly opening his eyes. "Are you okay?" Cir asked, worried.

"I think so…" Lanven answered slowly. "It feels strange to be in control… kind of… I don't know if this thing is stronger than you, Alec - very probably it is, but it did not expect us to act against it…"

"Yes, it must be stronger overall," Alec said seriously, "but we can't evaluate its specific strengths and weaknesses yet…" No matter how strong the beast was, it spent ages feeding through a helpless empath while Alec sharpened his skills at fine telepathic work almost all his life. "Well," he said, "are you ready to tell us what you had found, Lanven?"

Lanven nodded. "It was easier than I thought it would be, actually. I… it's difficult to put everything in words, because it was mostly exchange of… feelings. This thing - this being - is definitely intelligent, but it doesn't think like we do, so it's difficult to talk to it for long; I started to feel like I was drowning."

"Did you learn anything about this being?" Alec asked seriously.

"Not much. It doesn't really think about itself… But it is very old. From what I understood… it was here before the Palace. And it is alone - there aren't any others like this in the world."

"So, either it is a very old mutation or something from another world," Alec summarized. "If it's a mutation, I wonder whether it's connected to the psy mutation… But that's a problem for another time," he added, knowing that it was no time for broader theories.

"Why was it easier?" Cir asked, and Alec nodded at him approvingly. He himself had almost missed this detail.

"Because…" Lanven paused, evidently searching for the right word, "it somehow approved of me reaching out to contact him. This seemed to put me in a different category. These emotions I used as a bait - it took them at the very first moment, but then I tried to contact it, and it started to treat me as a different person. Not the one it's been… feeding from."

Lanven fell silent for a while and shivered slightly. Cir leaned to him, murmuring something, and Alec waited impatiently for more. If the beast in the Well treated Lanven as two different persons… who was the other person supposed to be? Lanven was here as long as he could remember, and he never contacted the being of its own will, so the beast last talked to… the founders of the Palace? Alec made himself calm down, waiting for facts before creating more theories.

"A different person?" he repeated.

"Yes. It started… asking me questions, sort of. About the contract. Wanting to know why I haven't checked with it before, and whether the contract was still valid because lately it had more work… It seems to think that it is being fed - by me - as an exchange for the work it does, and this work has lately become harder. I couldn't understand what this work is, because it has no words to explain and in any case it thinks I know already, but its idea of this work seemed to be protection from attacks…"

"Attacks?" Cir repeated, frowning. "What kind of attacks could these be?"

"I told you about what it's like outside," Alec reminded him. "After meeting Lanven I became absolutely sure that the Palace *is* a haven. Your psy work, Cir, just might be concealed within the functioning of Palace networks, but a projective empath without any concept of shielding just couldn't have survived without help."

"So," Lanven said, "there's someone outside who wants to get at us…"

"Yes," Alec nodded, "and at some other Keys, I'm guessing - after all, there were five or six data cells missing, right?"

Cir nodded.

"But that," Lanven ended his thought,"means that the Well is some kind of a shield, right?"

"Right. I'm pretty sure it functions as a shield for the entire Palace, probably doing some other things besides covering the psy activity - making it less noticeable to the common public, distracting those who enter from the outside world, that kind of a thing…"

"But what does that someone outside want us for?" Lanven asked, bewildered. "I mean, I know I'm a popular Key, but you don't need to come through shields to get to me - you just have to buy my Key."

Alec smiled grimly. "They sure wouldn't want you for fighting stress - that is, if they knew that you existed. Projective empaths can be made into a powerful weapon, Lanven. The last definitely known one managed to wipe out an entire clan - inducing suicide, mostly - before his keepers made a mistake."

Lanven stared at him, trembling. "He… he killed himself as soon as he could, didn't he? I know I would…"

Alec nodded, already cursing himself for bringing the subject up. Lanven was an empath, and Alec had been working with him, thus bringing his own shields lower. Probably Lanven understood more from his words than from his emotions. The Well bubbled.

"Shields, Lanven," Alec said tiredly, and slipped into the already established link, reinforcing the Key's shields and partly switching them so that Lanven could keep them up himself.

"Sorry," Lanven whispered. Cir moved closer to him, his half-transparent hand touching Lanven's solid flesh.

"I'm sorry too," Alec said, "but you needed to understand. Neither of you would've survived unprotected for so long…" Not that Lanven was doing that well even inside the Palace, but at least his present deterioration was slow, and there was time for Alec to do something - and it was entirely clear that he *would* have to do that something. Somehow he had to help Lanven and Cir, keep the Well happy and let the Palace survive as a haven, but do something to stop the abuse such as Lanven suffered and the brain-washing… And maybe, just maybe, if there will be a haven for psy people, he could stop running and fighting and start teaching the young to deal with their gifts…

He smiled wryly. No small goals for him, it seemed. Meanwhile he felt they were almost out of time here. "Lanven," he said, "I'm going to move out. Try rebuilding the shields by yourself."

He kept a thin thread of contact to monitor the Key's progress and to reassure him, but otherwise he let Lanven work on his own - and the Key was progressing far better than many empaths with more training. "Very good, Lanven, very good," he whispered. ::Cir? Is his Key still not sold?::

::Yes. He'll have more time…::

Finally Lanven was done, and Alec gave an experimental push. The shields held. Of course, Alec could have destroyed them if he really tried, but that wasn't what was needed from a first effort. Besides, he could check on Lanven even after they left his suite and perhaps give him more training exercises.

::Do you feel the pull?:: Cir asked suddenly.

::Yes.:: The feeling he had earlier, the one that warned him they had little time to waste, now had intensified to a physical pull.

::This happens sometimes,:: Cir explained. ::The Palace just knows that we're not in our proper place, and pulls us back.::

::I see.:: Well, it was time to say good-bye - and he did all he could do here. "Bye, Lanven. I hope I'll see you again."

"Bye, Lanven," Cir echoed his words and leaned over, giving Lanven a ghostly kiss on the cheek.

If it was truly the Palace pulling them back, then it was very polite in waiting until this very moment. As soon as Cir stood up from the arm of the armchair he was perched on, Alec felt tugging and pulling sensation growing almost intolerable, and then they were flying through nowhere, darkness swirling around them, and he barely managed to concentrate enough to check whether Cir was near him.

They were falling down a well, he suddenly thought - not Lanven's Well, thankfully. And then the falling sensations stopped. There was just darkness all around. Alec opened his eyes and found himself on the bed in the Scrying Key suite, holding Cir in his arms.