Mikal had conquered most of the inhabited worlds in the Galaxy, and the
others tremble in fear of his armies. But he came to the Songhouse on Tew as a
suppliant, asking for the services of one of the supremely gifted "Songbirds." It
took the better part of a century to find the Songbird suited to Mikal – Ansset, The
nine-year-old orphan who had been trained into a singer unequaled in the
Songhouse's history.
The battle-scarred old Emperor came to look upon the boy as a son, and so for the
first time in his life became vulnerable. It was therefore shocking, but not
unexpected, when Mikal's enemies kidnapped Ansset... and turned him into a
living weapon of destruction.
Ansset and Mikal surmounted that crisis, but there were others – and, as Mikal
foresaw, the day came when he was betrayed and overthrown. The last and
hardest lesson he had to teach Ansset was to use his art to its fullest in loyal
service to the traitor who had cost Mikal his throne... and his life.
Mikal's legacy sustained his successor and in turn Ansset himself when the
responsibility of Mikal's empire fell to him. Yet all his life Ansset knew himself
for an exile from the Songhouse as a Songbird who had betrayed his gift by using
it to wield power.
There was one way he could return – at an unbearably high cost – and the day came
when he took that way.
