SHROUD OF MADNESS

by

Carl Sargent & Marc Gascoigne

Copyright © I995 FASA Corporation.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Published by FASA Corporation I100 West Cermak - B305 Chicago, Illinois 60608

First Printing, July I995 I0 987654321

Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover: Les Dorscheid Frontispiece: Steve Bryant Map: Aldo Pinkster and Carl Sargent

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Printed in the United States of America.

Prologue

Before science, before history, there was an age of magic and legend, an age of heroism and of terror, the age of Earthdawn. In this mythical time, magic flowed freely. Mages, swordmasters, troubadours, and weaponsmiths bent the patterns of life with their mystical powers.

The rise of magic also weakened the fabric of the metaplanes. Horrific creatures from the astral plane began to spring forth into the world, ravaging the land, the waters, and mankind. At first the Horrors were few and weak, but over time they grew many, strong, and deadly. They were a pestilent tide, a Scourge that could not be turned back.

The great mages of the Theran Empire understood the futility of trying to fight the Scourge from beyond and so they prepared their peoples and cities for the day of the Sealing. The people would build great underground kaers, sealed and warded by magic, where they would wait for the centuries to pass as the Horrors roamed and devastated the land above.

Now, after five centuries of living deep in the belly of the earth, humanity and the other races of Earthdawn have emerged once more onto their beloved Earth as the Horrors have begun to fall back into the abyss from which they came. From their great cities, the Therans have sent armies and airships across the world, re-establishing links with their many fortresses and relaunching their campaigns of conquest. Great and powerful in arms, magic, and wisdom, the Therans seek to repossess the world lost to them when the Horrors came.

In such turbulent times, little goes smoothly even within the fortresses of the Empire, and darkness and corruption lie within as well as without. . .

1

The knife was damnably sharp, but not so sharp that he did not feel every last rigid inch of it slide into his stomach. Slowly, fascinatingly, it nosed its way through his flesh, until it was lodged in the inverted V-shape beneath and between his lowest ribs. Blood welled around the hilt, running in a narrow rivulet down into the creases between the hooded figure's thumb and forefinger as they adjusted their grip. The howling came without warning, was not a part of him, drawn unconsciously from deep within his destroyed body. With a single heft, the hand drew the knife in a straight line down through his innards. A quiet hiss of exertion, or maybe satisfaction, escaped shadow-masked lips.

Lamp oil spilled across the back of his brain and was set alight; the searing flames ignited behind his eyelids. The knife was pulled free, cleanly and without effort, and for a crazed instant he felt the loss of its presence within him, an uncomfortable emptiness. Another wave of agony washed through him, erasing all such fancies. Lowering his head and daring to look again, he saw the gore-streaked hands twist the long knife a half-turn, push it into his side and draw it across his guts. At the far end of its devastating journey through his midriff, the knife was pulled unceremoniously from him.

He reached for his intestines as they fell wetly from his gaping stomach, but his hands were still restrained by the daggers with which they had crucified him. He kicked his legs and heard the tearing of cloth, but they would not come free from their bindings. Blood welled up into his throat, drowning his lungs. The second hooded figure approached, pushed back one rough gray sleeve to reveal a slender wrist with grasping artificial claws. They pulsed, as if scenting his blood. Without ceremony, the figure pushed its hand into the ruins of his stomach, rooting upwards through his insides, wriggling up beneath his rib cage. There the claws found their prize, squeezed hard so as not to lose their grip, and yanked hard. Lost within a shrieking storm of tormented agonies, he imagined he felt the savage nails digging into his flesh as his heart was torn from his body. A crimson tide rose fast across his mind, and it was over.

The air felt like a baker's oven even at four in the morning. In all the Great City there had not been a single breath of cooling breeze to lure fitful sleepers into sleep and relief, save for those pampered and wealthy families—or magicians—whose magic of elemental air kept their homes and colonnaded academies cool. Cassian woke from his own fretful tossing and turning with hair stuck to his forehead, sweat glistening on his bronzed back and arms. No such cooling magics were to be found in his barracks; the praetori of Thera were expected to dispense with such luxuries. His single cover was tangled lightly around his legs; the tear through which one ankle was thrust indicated just how restless his sleep had been. Memories of an already-forgotten dream fled faster than his mind could chase and recall.

The elf had been wakened by an unexpected early visitor. At first he thought it was the slave boy, Izman, the young Croatian, bringing him his ceramic bowl of water to wash and shave, but the boy would have knocked at the door and waited to be asked in. No such formality delayed the haughty, dark-haired man who swept through the door in a wave of crimson and silver. For an instant, Cassian felt something close to alarm. The garish golden sunburst on the man's chest, with the tri-colored ribbon dangling below it, told him the visitor came from the offices of the karinthini, the Arbiter-General. And the man's manner told him this wasn't the usual summoning of a praetor to a junior functionary who, bored, would shuffle through his paper and give him some trivial instructions—this was important. The fact that the man had no members of the Imperial Phalanx at his back also told Cassian that the importance was not a matter of some awful blunder he had somehow committed. The incipient sense of alarm vanished, to be replaced by apprehension. At this time of the morning?

"Karinthini Andreax will see you in half an hour," the man said curtly. "Be sure you are well presented." Without another word, and before Cassian could ask more, the man spun smartly on his heel and left. Half an hour wasn't enough time for the elf to make himself truly presentable for an audience with the forbidding Arbiter-General and he knew it. Mixed with splashing sounds as he threw water over himself while searching for the soft green lathering soap to shave his face was an irate yell to the slave boy to bring his family robes from the racks of uniforms, and to do it damnably quick.

Nearly a thousand miles away in the city of Vivane, some papers dropped from the shaking hands of a much older elf. Everything was there, everything, all the lies and deceit and swindling, documented to such a degree that there were details even he had forgotten until he'd gathered his stunned thoughts enough to read the missive a second time. 1 am ruined, his heart and soul told his mind.

The t'skrang! It has to be one of the Carinci t'skrang, he thought feverishly. They've always envied our position here. We negotiated too many of the trading rights in the Theran conclave, they've always been jealous. Has it come to this, that I am betrayed by one among my own House?

No. His mind rejected the simple instinctual conclusion. This isn't their way; they aren't so devious, nor so precise in spying. This is beneath them. They would try to better me, not bring me down like this.

The consequences of the document were clear to him. There wasn't any hint of blackmail about it; it simply promised to make every last fact public after the feast of Kypros, fifteen days away. He would be ruined, his property and title stripped from him and lost to his House. For one mad moment he even suspected his wife, for his ruination would mean that his son would never inherit; then tears rose to his eyes as he remembered some of the best moments of nearly a full century of togetherness, Karlanta's love and loyalty, her ever-kind nature and good heart. His hands crumpled the last page into a ball with anger, rage at himself for having deceived her in his ways.

Daralec sat quietly for a few minutes, and pondered what must be done now. There would be a brithan hunt, and a tragic accident. It would be simple enough; he could fall from his mount, and if the brithan didn't kill him, his hunting weapon could easily pierce his guts. If there were no brithans to be found, anything would do— , a stag, perhaps, or a wild boar. Perhaps his unknown persecutor would be stricken with remorse, though the cold dispassion of the document suggested otherwise. At the least, though, the sympathy aroused by his death would surely close ranks around his son if this dismal history ever became public. And some might even suspect that he had not been killed in an accident at all, and that an act of murder was being followed by this public defamation, and there would be anger at that. Whoever stood in the shadows and had watched him for so long might even be brought to justice by that anger.

He burned the letter. He thought of his son, so long in Thebenta, and his face creased into lines of pain as he yearned to see him one last time and knew he could not. But the boy would inherit, and that was what mattered now.

His gaze strayed through the window, to the six vast pillars of Sky Point so many miles away, barely visible on this hazy morning. A line of slaves was meandering across the plain, now being led toward the city from the distant garrison. The irony of it brought a grim smile to his face. I am about to die, and their new life in this city is about to begin. None of us has any choice in the matter.

He rose from his chair and called for his manservant, trying to muster a feigned good-hearted desire for a day of fine hunting that was as far from his true feelings as anything he had ever pretended, simulated, or lied about in what felt like a wearisomely long life of deceptions. He thought of his son again, sadly and lingering long.

He had no way of knowing that his son was already back within the walls of Vivane, and had himself only three days left to live.

"I am sorry that you have been roused at so early an hour." The velvet voice came from a fresh face that showed all the proof of a contented night of sleep. Andreax most certainly would have slept in blessed cool while the rest of Thera sweltered in the Sollus heat. "I have a matter of some importance before me, and I have judged that you are the right praetor to undertake this delicate enquiry. Your record has impressed me, Cassian ma'Medari." The name was spoken with a soft, gently different emphasis from the formality of the Arbiter-General's greeting.

Use of his House and family name sent a slight shiver along Cassian's spine and he guessed that was Andreax's intention. The older elf hadn't lived nearly three centuries not to know how to touch just the right spot, looking for an emotional response. The two elves shared family and House origins, though both would have been expected to have transcended such ties long igo. Their different trainings had been designed to ensure just that. Now, Andreax was cleverly subverting such matters and impressing the importance of it all at the same time. Reminding the much younger elf of his House and family ties, he was stressing their common role in protecting the strength of the Theran Empire. So much was contained in a mere name and the timbre of its utterance.

"I am greatly honored, lord." Cassian waited.

"The matter before me is a disturbing one. There have been certain misfortunes befalling individuals of noble Houses in one of our cities, Cassian. One of importance—Vivane."

Cassian nodded with a slight raising of his eyebrows. Of all Theran cities, Vivane had particular significance, bordering as it did the wild edges of the province of Barsaive, where Thera sought to retake the lands it regarded as its rightful territory. Much of the city had been shattered in the Scourge, and the occupying Eighth I .egion and its accompanying artisans, slave workers, and magicians had as yet rebuilt only a part of it. Most of the city's inhabitants dwelled in near-ruins, it was said, and I he place was an uneasy mix of Theran scribes, administrators, builders, merchants, and House members trying to raise their station, on the one hand, and a large number of Barsaivians varying from the trusted to the unscrupulous to the downright seditious, on the other. Cassian had never been posted there, and the prospect was not inviting, but he would go where he was told. A praetor had no choice in the matter.

"These misfortunes are not minor matters. Two cases of apparent suicide, one case of seemingly incurable insanity, and one very unpleasant murder. The obvious reasons have been researched to some extent, but between you and I, the skills of Kypros and Crotias do not run to the investigative."

The two elves shared a smile, just for an instant, at the mention of the names of the military controllers of Vivane and its satellite, Sky Point. Overgovernor Kypros had ambition, General Crotias had a magnificent history of battle conquest and a temper to match the thick red braid that fell the length of her back, but neither was renowned for an over-abundance of intelligence.

"These misfortunes have some hallmarks of a House feud, Cassian. And it is our role to investigate such feuds and resolve them; such is our lot." The Arbiter-General nearly allowed himself the hint of a reflective, resigned sigh. He was a past master of the subliminal gesture. It might not be a skill absolutely necessary for becoming Arbiter-General, but it was very useful when re-election time came around every four years. Andreax hadn't survived three elections without possessing formidable skills of charm and persuasion.

"Be that as it may, the Vivanians are expecting us to send a praetor to investigate. They will be restless if this is not done. I am glad to have you at such a time."

"As you wish, lord." Cassian was still waiting to hear why he had been summoned at such an impossibly early hour. He had investigated some murderously inclined House disputes before, but none of those had ever justified being dragged from his bed almost before dawn for a briefing. Nor had any of those cases ever justified a meeting with the Arbiter-General himself. Only the most senior of his fellows could expect that, and Cassian still only regarded himself as of middling rank. With at least two centuries of natural lifespan left to him, he was in no hurry to be overambitious.

"I have a full briefing for you, but it will have to take the form of this record, I'm afraid," Andreax said, opening one of the many drawers of the latrawood desk that seemed to stretch all the way to the vast shelves of scrolls and records covering the walls of his huge atrium. "You must be ready to leave Thera within the hour. The Ascendancy will be sailing from Cloudtouch in an hour's time and you will be on it."

"The Overgovernor's own airship? I thought it never left Sky Point," Cassian ventured.

"We are not in the habit of making public its whereabouts every minute of each day," the Arbiter-General shot back tartly. "The vessel is merely collecting cargo, goods that are not so easily to be had in Vivane. Captain Korrurg will not be pleased if you are late. Not even I can delay his arranged time of travel."

The elves shared a smile a second time. Korrurg was known to them both, a troll with an appetite for schedule and precision that would have terrified half of Thera's Imperial Scribes. He would not have delayed his time of departure if the First Governor himself had been an unexpected additional passenger.

"I must go and collect my things," Cassian said, waiting for a nod from his elder before beginning to lever himself out of the chaka-leathered chair. He reached for the sheaf of papers, tied with the ribbons of office of Thera's supreme diplomatic service.

"Don't bother about your things. They've already been fetched for you. If I were you, I would spend my last hour or so getting a decent Theran breakfast down my gullet. They say that boiled chakta bird is regarded as a delicacy in Vivane."

Cassian laughed, but the smile had faded from his face halfway down the seemingly endless corridor leading away from the offices and sanctums of the Arbiter-General. Something was still not quite right, though nothing in what Andreax had said, nor in how he'd said it, gave him the slightest clue to what that was. Only his instincts said otherwise.

Cassian squinted in the sharp sunlight as he strode down the massive marbled front steps of the Conclavium. He stood a stone's throw from the First Governor's palace, its extraordinary dome glittering in the early morning glare. No matter how many times he saw it, it always sent a shiver along his spine. The entire surface was covered in fine chips of mica and marble, colored and patterned into shapes that seemed utterly abstract on the one hand, and yet suggested flying birds, dancers, airships, archers, exotic beasts, and much else besides to the mind's eye. No one ever saw the same things twice in the mystery of the dome. The magic that was woven into the sculpting had been the work of First Governor Hastiriash himself, five centuries past, or so it was said. Now, there had been a Heavenherd, to be sure, if any of the tales of that long-dead ruler were true; and, perhaps, Kanestrin— current occupier of the palace—did indeed have something of his forebear's skills. At least, it seemed to Cassian that the figures danced and sparkled more brightly than they had before the obsidiman had ascended to the Everthrone. Cassian had heard from the few wizards he knew that the life of the dome reflected the magical soul of the First Governor. If so, then Kanidris's soul had powerful life indeed.

Turning left, he gazed at the imposing spires of the Eternal Library. Perhaps going there to study the papers Andreax had given him might lay to rest his lingering apprehensions. What might have been the promise of a breeze to dissipate the stifling heat of Thera caught at his blue and silver House regalia, setting it to drifting lazily about him. After another moment's pause, Cassian rubbed his chin reflectively, then put the papers out of his mind. There would be plenty of time to study the documents on the journey ahead. With time at a premium, it might be a better idea to get that breakfast after all.

A sudden wave of suspicion crept over him, a slight edge of anxiety he was not used to. I am a pawn in something here, the thought said. Andreax is playing some game, and I am a pawn in it. He has told me little, and I still have not had any real explanation for being called before him in person. Something is awry.

His speculations dissipated as his stomach rumbled and returned his thoughts to breakfast. With a slight shrug, the elf made his way past the vast pillars of the library. Some eager young scholars and students were already arriving for their day's studies. The ambitious or desperate, he thought, and grinned to himself. Well, that's as it may be, but I am neither.

And the airship journey will be a blessing in this weather. I might even be able to sleep tonight.

2

"Pleased to have you on board, I'm sure." The troll's emphasis turned the words into the opposite of their apparent meaning. Although Cassian had not delayed Korrurg's departure one instant, he guessed that any minor disruption of the pre-ordained itinerary of the airship would irk the precise, routine-loving Captain. The troll stood glaring down at him in a posture that made him look as if he had an iron rod running up through his spine.

"Not that we have much in the way of passenger facilities ordinarily, but you will be allowed access to one of the small staterooms," Korrurg continued ungraciously. Cassian smiled despite himself.

"I'm sorry to be a nuisance. All I can say is that I was dragged from my bed at dawn and told I must go immediately to Vivane. I think we've both had our routines disturbed, and I apologize on behalf of the Arbitorium," the elf said silkily.

Korrurg seemed to unbend ever so slightly. "Hmmm.

Well, we're ready to cast off. I hope you're not prone to airsickness/' the troll grumbled, plainly more concerned for what a sick and unwanted guest might do the airship's luxurious fittings than for the health of the afflicted party.

"I have been fortunate enough to travel in airships before, although not, of course, on any as grand as the Ascendancy," Cassian said ingratiatingly, "and I am not prone to such sickness. Thank you for your concern, however." Despite his words, the slight giddiness he still felt from the levitational magic that had carried him up to the mooring point had him wondering whether he really did have problems with air travel.

Korrurg gave him the kind of look one might reserve for a rather irritating pest one cannot manage to swat or squash underfoot on account of its nimbleness. "First Mate Arcanth will take care of any requirements you have," he said finally and stomped off to the great central tower of the massive airship.

Watching a leather-armored ork come striding across from the right foretower, Cassian took in the epic scale of the magnificent vessel. Almost square in design, the ship had a circular tower at each corner, each some fifty feet in height, crafted from wood and stone and bronze. Archery slits ringed those towers, perches for the elite archers of the Eighth Legion, and a fusillade of missile fire from them could wreak devastation on any troll crystal-raider vessel foolish enough to get within range. Against land-based enemies, the archers could slay hundreds in a matter of moments. Yet even those constructions paled into insignificance against the gigantic Great Tower, twenty feet taller and a monstrous fifty feet in diameter. The stone walls around it were of colossal weight, and the magical crafting that had gone into this behemoth of the air must have been exacting and seemingly endless to the artisans and wizards who had constructed the

Ascendancy. Two hundred feet to a side the proud airship stood, wavering not at all in the breezes that cooled the air atop its mooring point, and nearly four hundred troops regularly traveled within her. In a pinch, nearly half that number again could be carried on a shorter journey. Vivane, some six hundred miles distant, would be reached just after noon on the following day. Whatever privations his quarters might offer—and Cassian thought .1 stateroom did not sound much like privation—he could easily suffer them for such a short time.

"Over there," the ork, who had finally made it to his side, said curtly. "Your stuff has already been dumped in your room. First floor, first door on the right as you go in." He turned away before Cassian could even thank him.

The lurch of the airship as it commenced its voyage was barely tangible to the senses, but Cassian could feel the billowing of welcome breezes growing stronger about his body even as he began to unpack his minimal possessions. Clutching the papers he still hadn't even begun to read through, he reflected gloomily that he could hardly risk sitting outside and having them blow away over the sides of the ship. On a rare impulse, he placed the papers carefully beneath the pillow on his bed, locked the door to his room with the small brass key left in the lock for him to find, and strode out onto the deck. Using both hands to pull the silver-threaded leather thongs from his braids, he faced into the oncoming wind and let it blow his hair around him. After the still heat of Thera, it felt like magic itself.

Then he walked over to the wooden rail on the starboard side and looped the safety rope around his waist while gazing down at the beauty of the blue-green ocean below as the island of Thera slowly receded into the distance. It is so small, he thought, yet our people have built an empire that stretches for endless thousands of miles; along the fertile rivers of Eupharel, Indrisa, and Vasgothia. Therans had sailed the world over in airships such as these, and brought wonders and marvels from every far-flung corner of the earth. For an instant, his reverie brought him imaginative glimpses of the lands he'd been taught about, with waterfalls half a mile deep, endless plains of ice, exploding geysers of mud, elemental earth and steam, of fabulous beasts displayed—as skins or skeletons—in the nooks and crannies of the Eternal Library. Not just books were to be found in that place of study. An example of almost everything the world had to offer was somewhere within its endless walls.

A hard tap on the back, given in that roughhouse way that passed for playfulness among orks, roused him from his daydreaming. He turned to see an ork skysailor gnawing on a boiled boar's foot, asking him if he wanted some "fodder." Grinning, Cassian declined, and decided to begin reading the briefing documents after all.

The long-looped handwriting told him that the political picture in Vivane was less complicated than he had feared. Of the great established Houses of Thera, only five were significantly involved in the affairs of the frontier settlement. As yet, so much of the city still needed rebuilding after the Scourge that only the more venturesome, foolhardy, or excitable had considered taking up residence there. Of course, the people of the Empire made sure they were safely ensconced behind the newly built walls of the Theran Quarter, but a good third of the rest of the city was little more than a random labyrinth of dangerous, refugee-crowded ruins. That the fierce General Crotias was of House Zanjan he already knew, but he had heard little of Provincial Admiral Tularch, and was surprised to discover that the commander of the formidable airship squadrons stationed at nearby Sky Point was a Carinci. It was not a House noted for its military prowess, and Cassian wondered whether Tularch's appointment might not be one of those political ones whereby everyone got some slice of military rank just to maintain the balance of power between the Houses. But that could not be true here; the position was too important. She must be worthy of it.

Medari, Carinci, Zanjan, Narlanth, Thaloss; familiar names. None would have any rankling grudge to hold against him. Once, years ago, Cassian's judgments had offended House Carinci because of his own House allegiance to their prime rivals, but he had atoned for that some time back in his first posting to Vasgothia. His brow furrowed to see his own House Medari on the list of names; surely it would have been better to have chosen a praetor from House Aralaith, perhaps? Then impartiality would be unquestioned. Again, the nagging sense of something not quite right tugged at him. Perhaps this is all on paper so I can't ask awkward questions, he thought.

Continuing his reading, Cassian learned that the first murder had occurred less than two months ago. Dragold, a dwarf architect involved in both city reconstruction and military projects, had been found ripped limb from limb in his own bedroom. An eyewitness account of the discovery of the body was appended, and though Cassian was not easily shocked, his sensibilities were nevertheless offended by the lurid details. The dwarf had been hanged from a ceiling hook with his own intestines. Fortunately, the details were less sensational in the later cases. The suicides, of brother and sister, looked to him like a simple domestic tragedy, and the insanity of the wizard Aralesh could surely be put down to ill-considered spellweaving. There must be plenty of places close to Vivane where astral space was polluted, making the use of raw magic dangerous. Except that the wizard had been a member of Kypros's Council of Advisors, his death would probably never have found its way into this document. What linked these events?

Well, if that was known I wouldn't be going to Vivane to find out, Cassian told himself. But it was hard to understand why anyone considered such goings-on so unusual in a place on the very edge of the Empire. But if Andreax commanded, Cassian must do as he was bid.

He looked out through the porthole in his small cabin, gazing languidly at the cloud fleece drifting in wisps past the airship's bronze fittings, which gleamed in the afternoon sun. Then he had to look away from the brilliant reflected light, squinting in discomfort. The smell of lindaran oil, used to treat the wood of even the interior fittings of the airship, was strong and beginning to make him drowsy. He rubbed his eyes, and decided to risk the irritation of the skysailors by venturing out onto the deck once more.

This morning would be a lively one, and Jerenn looked forward to the break in the usual dull routine. For days now there'd been nothing for him at his master's house outside the mundane household drudgery. Today, however, the Vanguard would return from upriver with its cargo of grain and foods to be stored against the coming winter, and Tarlanth's bored scribe, Berelas, would send the youth down to the docks with the inventory to check everything aboard. A slave who could be trusted as Jerenn could, and who could read and write and was equipped with sharp eyes and brain to boot, was valued by any Theran with any sense in his head. Jerenn had learned that soon enough, and had also learned that being trustworthy meant he didn't get beaten, got enough food to eat and clothes to keep him warm, and was even allowed his own room. That the room was a windowless hole next to the cold cellars had been more to his advantage than his master could ever have intended, since the resourceful youth had soon discovered the narrow crawlways and passageways hidden behind the far walls of the cellars— and the places to which they led.

Jerenn had barely had time to wolf down half his bowl of maize porridge, into which his charms had persuaded the cook to ladle a little milk and honey, before Berelas found him. Jerenn gave him his practiced look of one about to suffer a demanding and difficult task with fortitude as the scribe handed over the punctiliously written list of items that were expected.

"If there is anything missing, anything at all, you must make a record of it and ask the captain to sign it," the scribe droned at him. "And, likewise, if there is anything in addition to what is expected you must make a separate list of it and make sure that is signed also. If all is in order, then Master Tarlanth will not have to visit the docks himself, and he is very busy today."

Jerenn nodded, taking in the unspoken meaning: sort out anything untoward or else your master will be irked at having to sort it out himself when he has better things to do. His morning's work offered the chance of a thrashing, but also of a coin flicked his way by a grateful noble if he did it well. From what he heard when the slaves of Tarlanth's house talked among themselves, even other trusted household servitors rarely got such a reward. If one must endure slavery, Jerenn thought, one could do a great deal worse than this household. And at least he didn't have to worry every minute about ork scorchers on the road as he had on that last wretched flight from Barsaive. He didn't have to try simply to stay alive, with a half-dozen people at his back, dogging his steps, pursuing his trail. As he always told himself, one day he would escape, but for now. . .

3

He took the list and began to survey the contents.

"Be sure to be back by noon," Berelas concluded. "Master Tarlanth has a further task for you. Something rather unusual, I gather." The scribe grinned in that ambiguous manner that told Jerenn the job might be interesting and pleasant, but, if so, Berelas didn't want him to feel too good too easily.

The youth leaped up from the rickety wooden chair, almost spilling the last of the thin porridge over the floor. He tucked the tails of his thin cotton shirt into his leathered leggings, and barely managing to avoid a painful blow to the hip from a heavy kitchen table that had inconsiderately gotten in the way of the back door, he raced out into the warm, sunny morning.

Jerenn would have just begun running back almost the full length of the Grandwalk when, some small distance away to the southeast, the Ascendancy finally docked at Sky Point. Cassian was shown to the crystal-rimmed shaft leading to the ground far below by sky-sailors obviously not unhappy to be rid of him. The prae-tori were not liked by other Theran military men. Though these emissaries of Thera came from the ranks of the military, the praetori did not share the camaraderie of the ordinary uniformed men, who often felt this, however unconsciously, as some kind of betrayal, even a threat.

Descending as lazily as a feather down the column of enchanted elemental air, Cassian frowned at the sight of Barsaivian slaves being forced to descend rope ladders from the skyship platform where a slave-trading airship had docked just prior to the Overgovernor's vessel. Stupid and dangerous, he thought. After the Scourge, a slave is a more valuable possession than ever before. Don't these people realize that?

Once on the ground, he was greeted with unnecessary effusiveness by a nervous functionary who, judging by the sweat plastering his greasy black hair to his forehead, had been sweltering in his ostentatious uniform for much longer than was good for him. The elf was shown to a pompous carriage which, to his annoyance, was actually gilded. The Theran emblem shared pride of place with the badge of Zanjan. Cassian was surprised; the militaristic noble House was not usually given to such indulgences.

Once inside, his mood of disapproval was not improved by the need to climb over a landslide of elaborately embroidered, silk-covered cushions. The only good thing was that once the coachman pressed the two fine Cathay stallions drawing the vehicle into action, the passage was extraordinarily comfortable. As usual with such carriages, elemental wood and air were used to reduce the friction of the wheels against the ground to almost nothing. It gave the passenger a luxurious ride, and it also meant the horses were drawing almost no weight at all once the carriage got moving. The distance to Vivane itself could be covered in little over an hour.

Struggling with the cushions again, Cassian's left hand suddenly grasped something cool. Drawing it from its feathery hiding place, he found a ceramic bowl of chilled peaches and oranges, and a note written in an extraordinarily fine hand. Whoever had penned it had even used liquid gold ink, that alchemical masterpiece of ostentation. Cassian quickly skimmed the platitudes to find what really mattered—the signature.

Ilfaralek, he read. Now that's a name I know. Brow furrowed, he pulled out his sheaf of mostly spurious notes and began shuffling through them in search of it.

Jerenn was late getting back and he knew it. The t'skrang of the Vanguard had been in an exceptionally boisterous mood and much given to tale-telling and showing off among the dockers and traders. It had been difficult for a mere slave to persuade a haughty riverboat captain to take his requests seriously but, by dint of flattery and polite persistence, Jerenn had finally got hold of the complete ship's inventory and been able to check the contents by feigning a startled sense of wonder at how fine everything was and how venturesome and capable the t'skrang were. Jerenn had learned long ago that flattering t'skrang was a useful survival skill. They usually saw through it, of course, but they liked it all the same. Back in the filthy streets of Bartertown, where his mother had abandoned him, a child not blessed with great strength had to learn how to survive by insinuation rather than imposition. It had made him resourceful, and he had gotten his work done, but it was nearly an hour past noon by the time he dragged himself, breathless, through the l>ack door and slumped down in the cool of the kitchens. He could hardly get down a glass of cold water laced with lemon before Berelas appeared from the hall beyond.

Jerenn began instantly to babble about the inventory. And here the maize is good, but two sacks seemed to be afflicted with the beginnings of purple rust," he gasped, still not recovered from his exertions. "Perhaps the master should see it in the next two or three days before it has taken hold, and it could be saved. Then, in the first barrels—"

Berelas laughed at him, not unkindly. "It's all right, boy. We have some time in hand. We have a guest arriving, and as it happens noon was the time of his arrival at Sky Point in the Ascendancy."

Jerenn sat bolt upright at the mention of the Overgovemor's own airship. It was rare for it to ever leave I he city's Basalt Spire mooring point, where it hung as if in I he clouds, a potent symbol of Theran dominion, a dramatic statement of the Empire's intention to inhabit, dominate, and conquer all of Barsaive in due course. Anyone sent for in that ship could only be a person of uncommon importance. High-ranking guests from distant cities and lands were rare, and Jerenn was intensely curious. Perhaps the man would have exotic slaves, maybe even one of the huge mastryliths with which the first Overgovernor of Vivane was said to have shattered the city walls, a war-beast so huge it stood higher than a house and weighed fifteen tons, or so he had heard; perhaps the visitor would come dressed in Cathay finery, wafting a trail of Indrisan incense and herbal scents behind him.

"A praetor," Berelas said almost conspiratorially. Jerenn had no idea what the term meant and his blank expression said so. Berelas decided not to inform him, or not yet at any rate.

"He is from the Great City," was all the scribe would say. "It is the duty of this House to provide him with accommodation for the duration of his stay. The mistress has given over the Rose Villa for his use. You are to go there and serve him for as long as you are needed. You will not be expected to provide his meals—Shanna will also go along for that. But you'll be expected to take them to him, of course." Berelas grinned again. "Be off with you now. The maids are already at the villa, airing and cleaning. You'll be on your best behavior when he arrives. And change those filthy clothes!"

Jerenn looked down at the dust, grain husks, and smears of barrel tar that showed even against the black of his slave garment. He made for the cellars, to wash the grime from his face and arms in the bowls of cold water there, and to smarten himself up to serve this fascinating, as yet nameless and purposeless stranger to his city.

Cassian had drawn the drapes to evade the many startled glances turned in the direction of the ornate carriage as it made its leisurely way down the Grandwalk, the huge central street of the Theran Quarter of Vivane, before finally passing through the enormous fortified doors of the Southern Barracks of the Eighth Legion. The barracks were the first buildings to be constructed following the capture of the city by the Empire, and they still dominated their surroundings.

Having disembarked from the carriage, Cassian found a tall and distinguished-looking man waiting to greet him. He looked to be in his late fifties, though his gray hair was still thick and his skin not as lined and wrinkled as one might expect in a human of such an age. The man gave the elf a bow rather lower than called for by protocol, but when he straightened up Cassian saw that his eyes were bright and alert. Human and elf exchanged a glance in that moment, each recognizing the intelligence in the other and adjusting his reactions accordingly.

Ilfaralek, akarenti of Vivane, smiled cordially. "It is a pleasure to have you in our city."

"I doubt that," Cassian said honestly. "Life here would doubtless be more pleasurable if there was no need of my presence."

"It might, but it would perhaps be less interesting." Still smiling, the man charged with protecting the security of the city led his guest into an officer's room, cool and well-appointed. Cassian needed no invitation before seating himself in one of the large, comfortable, leathered chairs.

"I have it on the Arbiter-General's authority that you are a man with good knowledge of this city and one whose judgment has proven sound and fair," Cassian said. Ilfaralek was just about to demur politely, when the elf seized the advantage with a sudden strike.

"Tell me of Dragold," he said swiftly. "I have my notes, of course, but I need to learn everything I can here. He appears to have been someone of cool and pragmatic nature, and well-liked."

Ilfaralek was just a little ruffled, not expecting Cassian to plunge so rapidly into an enquiry. Protocol more usually determined that pleasantries occupy a greater part of the initial exchange.

"He was justly well-liked," Ilfaralek said, not missing a beat. "He worked hard and, as a matter of fact, you are sitting in one of his buildings at this very moment. He usually served the military as an architect, but he also worked on the extension to the Overgovernor's residence and some private homes in the city. He was also deeply involved with the reconstruction of the city walls, of course."

"Who has taken on his work now?" Cassian inquired.

"Haughrald. The two worked together for some years and had developed certain plans jointly, so not much of Dragold's work has been lost."

"How convenient," Cassian murmured.

Ilfaralek looked uncomfortable. "You may hear insinuations regarding this from certain quarters."

"Really?"

"Various individuals in the military hierarchy were known to favor Dragold over Haughrald. But that is because Haughrald is of House Thaloss, you see. House Thaloss and many of our commanders often do not see eye to eye. Thaloss is charged with keeping expenditures as low as possible, while the commanders often request extra moneys to finance various ventures."

"Such individuals must be of senior rank," Cassian probed, noting Ilfaralek's increasing discomfort with his line of query. After a pause that threatened to turn into a silence, he added more kindly, "Any information you give me will remain quite confidential, and I will seek confirmation in any event. It will not be laid at your door. But helpfulness will not be forgotten back in Thera. This you know."

"General Crotias did not care for Haughrald," the spymaster said slowly. "Though Haughrald was a dwarf, as was Dragold, he was known to have close relations with the family of Patracheus. Patracheus is the senior official in the Department of Bursaries here, and has much influence over discretionary expenditure. General Crotias has long railed at under-spending on her pet projects. Haughrald was disliked by association."

Enough for her to speak ill of the dwarf, Cassian thought momentarily. But this didn't feel like a rivalry between ambitious dwarfs. If he found evidence that both individuals were earning a good living here, it was likely that nothing but honest dwarven endeavor was involved.

Dwarfs didn't kill one another except in the case of some truly appalling crime or major feud.

"That is helpful," the elf said with an air of finality. A slight relaxation around the man's mouth said that he was ready for another rapid query; his guard would be lowered for an instant.

"I gather some enquiry was made, given the nature of the killing," Cassian pressed on.

"Well, as you can understand, it was such a vile act," llfaralek said. "The way he was murdered, I mean; a beast in a slaughterhouse would not have been treated such. I'm afraid the house servants discovered the body and they could not be stopped from talking. There were lurid rumors all over town and we could have had Horrorfear panicking the populace. So we let it be known that we were looking for a troll, driven insane by a disease of the brain, who had killed someone in the same way in Bartertown before fleeing here."

Cassian raised his eyebrows.

"Well, you see, trolls are so rare that everyone was calmed a little. They didn't have to worry that their next-door neighbor might be an insane, Horror-possessed murderer."

"I am not sure that the trolls of the town would be so pleased with the notion," Cassian said tartly.

"Almost all of them are in the army or navy, usually with skyships, and they were safe in barracks," llfaralek retorted. "They were not at any risk. Besides, would ordinary townspeople try to lynch a troll alleged to have a brain disease giving him supernatural strength—or would they leave it to the military to deal with the problem? And of course we said he came from Bartertown. That makes him a Barsaivian—a barbarian and, above all, an outsider who could be kept beyond the walls of the Theran Quarter among his countrymen in the other part of the city"

Cassian smiled. He couldn't help admiring the cleverness that had gone into the cover story, and he wondered whether Ilfaralek might have had a hand in concocting it.

"So then we went to Aralesh, given that we feared a Horror might be involved," the man said simply.

Cassian didn't twitch a muscle. His notes had not told him that the wizard, now gibbering and utterly deranged in his prison cell, had been consulted by the city authorities about the first slaying. Why not? He could only hope that Ilfaralek hadn't noticed any reaction of surprise on his part; the man did seem to pause, just for a split-second, before continuing.

"When it came to the Horrors, Aralesh was the most knowledgeable wizard in Vivane," Ilfaralek said. "If one were active here, Aralesh would have been the one most likely to discover it."

"And he must have investigated this matter for some time without coming to any conclusions," Cassian said quietly. "It was more than a month before his misfortune befell him."

"On the contrary, he informed us almost immediately that he detected no Horror within the city," Ilfaralek said, slightly surprised.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Cassian lied, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the unreliability of the advance information he'd been given. "I was suggesting that perhaps his official report was premature. The nature of his affliction might suggest as much."

"Perhaps so." The spymaster gave a thoughtful rub to his chin.

Cassian's heart sank. As an investigator, it was a praetor's job to maintain the advantage while making enquiries, but his own ignorance of certain information was giving Ilfaralek the upper hand here. He changed tack swiftly.

"I will wish to see him, though from your reports I know it may be of small value."

Ilfaralek seemed almost happy to settle for an honorable draw in this first skirmish. "Yes, yes, of course, that is easily arranged," he said, gesturing to show that it was virtually done. "But I have a more agreeable appointment for you this evening, Praetor. A small and select gathering at an informal meal. Some of Vivane's most noteworthy citizens, including some of our finest raconteurs, have been invited. House Medari has, of course, made a villa available to you and I trust it was not presumptuous of me to have arranged this little diversion."

Crafty swine, Cassian thought. He hopes I will be tired from traveling, and has arranged what will obviously be a late-night gathering. How clever of him to make sure that the high, mighty, and curious have their first chance to see me when I might not be at my best.

"Well, that was most thoughtful of you," the elf said with as much cordiality as he could summon. "I shall certainly hope to speak with you further about the other recent deaths, at your convenience, but for now I had best get some sleep before facing such a distinguished company."

"Of course," Ilfaralek replied, slightly irritated. He had apparently hoped to keep Cassian in conversation for some time, but now that must be postponed to some later date. "I will have a carriage sent for you. The villa is in the heart of town—or, rather, in the center of our rebuilt part of it! Most convenient."

"Indeed." Cassian smiled, getting to his feet and refusing to yield to the desire to yawn and stretch his muscles. This was not the moment to indulge in even the slightest display of weakness.

It took the carriage barely two minutes to arrive at the gates leading to the villa. Cassian liked the place as soon as he saw it. Its design was simple, in the classical geometric style, using local stone instead of the marbled affectations so many Therans were fond of. Large trees kept it shaded from the sun, and a profusion of flowers, vines, and other vegetation carpeted the walls. It was the house of a Medari, of course; hospitality was the duty of the House that supplied the praetor. The logic of that, Cassian had been taught, was that it helped minimize attempts to spy on the praetor’s work. Somehow, that clashed with the idea that a praetor was supposed to be objective and curry no favor, but Cassian supposed it was just a tradition from times long past. The servants were timid, and seemed almost disappointed at how little baggage he carried.

"I would very much like a bath," Cassian told one of them. She blushed, and he was still wondering whether she might have assumed this was a coded request to have her in it, when a scrawny youth, still trying to gather his black garments about him in some semblance of order, came dashing through the front door of the villa.

"All is ready, sir," the boy managed to blurt out in Theran that was only lightly tainted with the local accent. "A light meal is ready, though we can have more substantial fare prepared swiftly should you require it. And I took the precaution of drawing a bath for you, lest you were tired after traveling."

"Did you?" Cassian said with interest. "Well, you are a most resourceful fellow. Medari has provided me with a useful servant, I think."

At the time such words did not sound like a prophecy.

4

By the Passions, these people lack judgment, Cassian thought, glancing around at the guests who'd assembled at the villa for the evening's festivities. That should make my job easier.

Nonetheless, he felt almost saddened for a moment, as if oppressed by the foolishness of his fellow creatures. Though he'd watered his wine heavily, and drunk only sparingly, a number of his Vivanian guests had shown themselves delighted at the prospect of excess. They had drunk, and eaten, more than well, with indiscretion giving way to recklessness among some. He even detected the sweet scent of opara, the Indrisan drug, and a casual inspection of the crystallized, sugared fruits in one of the more elaborate ceramic bowls on the dinner table revealed the origin. Careless people, to risk being drug-addled before a praetor, he thought. Several of the males also seemed to relish the pursuit of other men's wives, as Cassian discovered when he'd stepped out into the herb and flower gardens hoping for a brief respite from the heat and noise within. But instead of a refreshing breath of the cooler night air he stumbled over a display of lustful ambitions fulfilled upon distressingly ill-conditioned flesh. It was a sight not at all agreeable to his elven sensibilities.

Still letting his gaze wander over the crowd Cassian observed those few others who had abstained as he had. The spymaster Ilfaralek, he noted, had drunk but little. A tall, auburn-haired wizard he had initially tagged as effete and foolish also kept mostly to himself, though Cassian noted how his eyes darted around. But the eyes showed keen observation and interest, not the mistrust so many wizards often developed for one or more of a thousand reasons. The handful of military Zanjan folk were either screaming drunk or very sober and simply going through the motions of socializing; relatives of the suicide twins, he imagined.

Cassian was also aware that everyone he met had been careful to limit conversations with him to the subject of Thera. They feigned hungry interest in events at the hub of the Empire, and an unwarranted curiosity regarding the sights and sounds of other lands where he had traveled. Cassian soon decided to humor them, considering it a breach of courtesy to pump his guests for information about Vivane so early in his stay. Besides, it would be easier later on after they had drunk too much of the excellent wine.

"That fellow appears to be out of his depth," he said to Ilfaralek, nodding in the direction of the solitary wizard. The man was not even taking refuge in one of the knots of folk using House allegiance to shield themselves from unwanted attention.

"Ah yes, that's the wizard Ziraldesh. Of House Narlanth." That was almost an explanation in itself, given the traits of moodiness and solitariness that typified so many of that aloof, scholarly House. "Actually, he's not a bad sort usually. But his wife is in mourning, so he's come , alone, and I think he usually relies on her to carry out the social niceties."

"In mourning?" Cassian could not conceal his interest, but Ilfaralek was almost dismissive in his rejoinder.

"His wife's father was killed in a hunting accident yesterday. Not that they were close; she was a child by a first marriage and took very much after her mother. She herself has a son by an earlier marriage, though I have seen or heard nothing of him for some time; he is abroad, I believe. I don't think she'd seen much of Daralec for some years. However, the niceties must be observed so she could hardly turn up for a party."

"If he relies on her so much, I'm surprised he came at all," Cassian observed with the slightest hint of interest in his voice.

"I'll introduce you." Ilfaralek took Cassian's arm and the two of them descended upon Ziraldesh, who was openly contemplating his options for retreat, but apparently dithered too long.

"I'll just go see about the carriages," Ilfaralek said, leaving the wizard gazing at the elf like a cornered rat.

"I must console you on your loss," Cassian said smoothly. "It was most good of you to come, given the circumstances."

"Doesn't matter a shit to me," said the wizard forthrightly. "I didn't have anything in common with him, and Shusala wasn't on speaking terms with the bastard."

Cassian's eyebrows flicked upwards. Not just at the wizard's fondness for swearing, but at his wife's name. It had a distinctly elven ring to it, yet marriages between humans and elves were rare indeed. That interested him.

"Well, then, perhaps I ought not offer sympathies if the loss is not felt. I understand why you might have been content to attend a light-hearted gathering such as this."

"Poppycock," the man replied tartly. "Light-hearted, my rear end. Everyone's here to see what they can of the inquisition before it arrives at their front door."

Cassian grinned. "You express yourself freely," he said invitingly.

The man refused the bait. "Sometimes," he said defensively. "Depends what it is. I mean, who I'm speaking to. What it's about. That sort of thing." Then he wrung his hands as if apologizing for incoherence. "Some things are better left unspoken."

"Indeed. How interesting," Cassian said inquiringly. Realizing that he was digging himself into a hole, Ziraldesh suddenly claimed a pressing need to visit the privy Since Cassian had seen him return from a prior visit but minutes ago, he made a note to track down the man at some later time.

He has something to hide, Cassian thought, and wondered whether it had any relevance to his investigation here in Vivane. If Ziraldesh already thought of him as an inquisition, it would probably bear further enquiry.

The wizard scuttled away as llfaralek returned from helping some of the more hopelessly inebriated guests take their leave. Looking around him, Cassian judged that he'd seen enough to tell which people were buffoons, which ones were worthy of further study, and which ones were simple, honest souls. Of the latter he had seen very few so far. If there were virtuous, industrious folk among the nobles of Vivane, not many of them had decided to accept the invitations llfaralek had sent.

To his delight, llfaralek had just finished a large goblet of strong, fortified wine, and was wiping his lips with a sigh of weariness. He must consider his work done, Cassian thought, and he's probably preparing to leave. Now's the time to refill his goblet and lead him off toward the study, where we can resume our conversation of this afternoon.

Elsewhere in the Theran Quarter that evening, a younger elf wrung his hands nervously as he waited at the old meeting place. He kept reviewing every aspect of his stealthy departure from his family's mansion, telling himself over and over that no one could have seen him leave. His mother had taken an herbal draught and would be sleeping deeply, and the servants were mostly exhausted from all the stress of the last few days. His eyes searched the dark for his friend. The hint of a peppery, musky scent carried on the air told him he hadn't long to wait.

"It was as you said, then," the elf breathed with relief. Even with the faint illumination from his lantern, he could only just make out the silhouette standing near him.

"It was a calculated risk." The voice, as ever, had that slightly high, singsong quality. It was almost elven itself, though its owner was not of that race. The girl who spoke was all too human. "He didn't have much choice, really. Not after what I was able to do." She sounded bored for an instant, as if it would have been more interesting had things not worked out as she'd planned. "You have the books then?"

"I do." He rummaged in the pack concealed under his cloak, and drew out the two slim leather-bound volumes and handed them to her. "I had a quick look. Just to see that they were what you wanted."

"Yes?" Her voice was sharp and urgent.

"Not in any detail," he said swiftly. "But I had to be sure I'd gotten the right ones. A deal is a deal."

He wanted to ask her how she had pushed his father's mind over the edge, how she had driven such a stolid and worldly person to suicide. The magic they had learned was surely not powerful enough to do such a thing, though their rituals offered the chance of such power in due course. Now that she was leading them, her powerful and dominating will would surely open up whatever sources of power they needed. He knew she was not someone who could be stopped. She must already have access to secrets of power he had as yet only dreamed of. He had no idea that the books he was handing her were not the first of their kind she had gazed upon, and that magic had played very little part in his father's death.

"So now you have your wealth and property," she growled. "Don't forget the rest of our arrangement."

"I won't," he said hurriedly. The problem was that his own mind was already hatching plans for evading precisely the obligations he still owed her. But if she noticed anything before vanishing back into the darkness from which she'd come, she gave no sign.

Considering what had happened to their mentor, he really should have known better.

5

"This is where it happened, sir," the huntsman said, gesturing to a spot that seemed innocuous enough. Cassian studied the site, noting that the footing was good, for it had not rained here for some time. Nor did the stand of trees from which the boar had broken seem particularly heavy. The horse had stumbled slightly, according to the distraught hunters, and Daralec had fallen, his own sword piercing his guts.

"Why was he carrying a sword for hunting? Wouldn't a spear have been a better choice?" Cassian asked politely. The men looked doubtfully at each other.

"Well, sir, there would be many that would agree with you," said their leader after some length. Behind the statement was the unspoken assertion that Daralec would not have taken kindly to anyone pointing that out to him. "But it was the master's liking to carry a sword that day."

"Something he did often?"

"No, sir. He always liked to carry a spear. . .same as we did. He was a real huntsman, sir," the man replied.

"Well, this is a sad state of affairs. Obviously no blame could possibly attach to you," Cassian said, to the men's almost palpable relief. "I'll just take a brief look around over there, I think. We can be on our way again shortly."

There was no sign of anything untoward in the woodlands; no sign of tracks beyond those of woodland animals, no blood spoor to suggest the boar might have been wounded by some other hunters, no sign of any human activity. Conversation with Daralec's servant-hunters, which Cassian would confirm as he rode back to Vivane with them on this bright, clear morning, told him that Daralec was not a moody master, prone to ill-temper, but was usually of good humor. But they also described him as a determined person and not one to change his mind once made up.

The boar hadn't charged directly at Daralec, Cassian realized from the men's account of events. The man's horse was a seasoned veteran of many hunting trips and skirmishes, and the ground underfoot was neither muddy nor rough. Only an idiot, or a total amateur, would use a sword to go boar-hunting.

Cassian's brow furrowed. I must call on the widow after lunch, I think, even though she is surely distraught. First, though, to the house of Tarlanth, to thank him for his hospitality.

"Is everything to your liking?"

Cassian had taken an instant dislike to the man, which was highly unfortunate. It was Tarlanth who'd lent Cassian the villa where he was staying, plus providing abundant food, wine, many suits of spare clothing, invitations to choral recitals and amusements, and in general the promise of a life of luxury during his stay in Vivane.

Cassian felt almost guilty for sensing the man as a tyrant from the very moment he first laid eyes on him. It was something in his posture, which was utterly unyielding, his dark and hooded eyes, his mask of a face with lines set deep from years of ill-humor. Cruelty seemed to shine from behind the mask like the rays of a malefic dark sun.

"I could not ask for anything more," the elf said pleasantly. "Your generosity is splendid, and I am most grateful."

"Good," Tarlanth said with a tinge of relief. "Well, I hope you can get to the bottom of all this nonsense. Not, in my opinion, that it ever merited the attention of a praetor."

"WThy so?"

"Well, mark my words, that dwarf was killed in some feud over contracts for work being done for the city. And as for the wizard, he was dabbling in matters that shouldn't be dabbled with. It's a pretty irony that he was driven mad by the very things the fools of the Council thought must have ripped that dwarf apart." The word "Horror" was not one many people used openly, even so long after the Scourge. "One thing led to another there."

"And the twins?"

"Nothing to do with anything. And, well now, I wouldn't be the first in Vivane to suggest that they were perhaps closer in certain ways than brother and sister should be." The insinuation was obvious. "That kind of thing is said by some people to be a little less rare with certain, er, types of folk."

"Elves, you mean."

"Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that," Tarlanth said with an apologetic shrug. Cassian had not taken offense, but he was surprised at the man's ignorance and was about to use his discomfiture to his own advantage when the lady of the house appeared.

She makes entrances carefully, Cassian thought as Cryselda glided rather than walked down the steps into the spacious reception chamber. Her dress and robe were dramatic, dark colors and metallic sheens, with only slight relief from the blue-green precious stones in her golden earrings. She is like some fantastic machine, Cassian thought, watching her approach; everything moved together but, instead of harmony, the effect was disturbingly unnatural. As she bent to kiss her husband, Cassian couldn't help thinking of the female mantis. By Mynbruje, he thought, what a pair of relatives I have here!

Turning to Cassian, Cryselda offered him her hand to kiss. "I'm afraid that our son cannot join us," she said coldly. "He is a semi-invalid and today is suffering from one of his headaches." Tarlanth looked irritated at her words.

"Poor child," she went on. "What he needs is sun and fresh air; anything to get him out of that gloom. But enough of him, anyway. Tell me, Praetor, how are you enjoying Vivane?"

Enjoyment was definitely not part of Cassian's expedience of the city so far, and he soon learned that talking with these two would win him nothing in the way of information. They had already drawn their own conclusions about the recent spate of deaths; they knew what had really happened, everyone in the Theran Quarter did, and that was an end to matters. All Cassian's attempts to demur or qualify were met with snorts verging on derision. No touch of warmth, humor, or sentiment softened their speech. They seemed to have not a good word for anyone, and Cassian found it impossible to see what lay behind the iron masks of their expressions. The whole experience was as depressing as it was unproductive.

An unhappy hour later, Cassian walked down the drive away from Tarlanth's mansion, chips of stone crunching under his boots. Mopping his brow, he was only glad that no further such audiences would be required of him. What a pair, he thought, almost grateful I hat their son's ill health had kept the young man upstairs. A visit with two of this family had been more I han enough.

Upon his return to the Rose Villa, Cassian was annoyed that his clothes had not been hung in the wardrobe of his bedchamber. Not seeing them anywhere, he began to shout angrily for the slave. The boy was there in seconds, his eyes wide with alarm.

"I need my blue robe and jacket. Where are they?" the elf snapped.

"Sir, I took the liberty of putting your clothes in the cellar, sir."

"In the cellar? Are you mad? What on earth are they doing there?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, they are keeping cool. There is an ice cellar, sir; it's just a petty magic the master paid to have put there, for comfort. I put your shoes very near to the ice, because that way they grow cool and are very comfortable for tired feet. Your clothes will just have the warmth taken out of them, sir, and it's dry there too. Did I do wrong, sir?"

Seeing the boy's fear, Cassian felt his irritation evaporate at once.

"Well, no, I suppose not," he said, grumbling more at himself than at the half-cowering lad. "But you might have told me.''

"Sir, you were gone very early this morning and I had duties about the house."

The lad was quite right. Cassian had left very early in order to investigate the scene of Daralec's hunting accident at about the time of day when it had occurred. His traveling clothes had been folded beside his bed, and he hadn't noticed the seeming disappearance of his other garments then.

"I will fetch what you ask for at once, sir." Yet the boy hesitated, just for an instant. Cassian noticed it, and he waited with some curiosity for Jerenn to return. When he did and had finished fussing with each item of apparel, Cassian put one hand firmly on the lad's shoulder and gazed unblinkingly into his eyes.

"You were about to say something just before you left." The flush on Jerenn's face told him that he'd guessed correctly.

"Was I, sir?" His pretense of innocence was only fair.

"You were." It was a statement.

"Sir, I don't want to be in any trouble. My master is good to me, and rarely has me beaten."

He does a fair impression of a harmless, naive young lad, Cassian thought, amused for a moment. But his eyes show he's smarter than that. I have a feeling he may be helpful to me. It wouldn't be the first time a slave could get into places I could not, at least not without being seen and noticed.

"Anything you say to me will be revealed to no one. Not even your master. But it is a crime to withhold information from a praetor."

"I heard something, sir."

"You overheard something, you mean."

The boy hung his head, shamefaced. "Yes, sir."

By the Passions, this is like squeezing wine from a troll, the elf thought. "Tell me."

"It's about Dragold, sir. The dwarf who was killed."

"Really?"

"The master's servants say you have come to Vivane to investigate it, sir."

News travels fast, Cassian thought. Even the servants know, and I've been here barely a day. "What about Dragold's death?"

"Well, sir, I heard someone say that old Haughrald had him done away with, sir. Or at least that that's what some folk think."

"Jerenn, stop calling me 'sir' all the time. I have a name, and you may use it."

Cassian half expected a "yes, sir" in reply, but the lad merely looked shocked for a moment. Clearly, he had never called any Theran by a proper name to his or her face. It would be gross insubordination.

"I am not a common person, Jerenn. If I say you may call me by my name, then you may do so. I have my own ways."

The boy still looked most uncomfortable, but at least he'd stopped saying "sir" for the moment. "Haughrald would never have done such a thing."

"And how do you know that?"

"Well, I know the dwarfs who work on the construction, you see. I sometimes have to take messages from my master to Haughrald or to Patracheus at the House of Works, about business. I got to know them, and sometimes I ate my bread with them. Dragold and Haughrald were the best of friends."

"Sometimes close friends end up falling out and blood can be shed."

"Not with dwarfs!"

The boy is right, Cassian thought. Not unless the feud was very long in the growing, and in that case the warning signs would be there long beforehand. This lad is smart enough to have seen them.

"You are bright, and you notice things, Jerenn. I am grateful. I had thought the same myself, though I shall talk with Haughrald at some point. I do not think you need worry for your friend, if you are friends with him.

"Now tell me: you seem to have much freedom for a slave."

The lad didn't answer at once. I wouldn't if I were him, Cassian thought.

"Well, sir, my master doesn't really care too much about me as long as I do his work well enough. I don't think he even notices me much of the time. But he is good to me."

Benign indifference, Cassian thought, would be closer to the truth. "And what of his wife, the mistress of the house?"

The boy almost shrank away from him. "I hardly ever see her. The maids and womenfolk attend to her. She has no use for me. If she needs an errand run, one of her servants will tell me of it. It does not happen often."

"Do you read or write, Jerenn?"

"I can do both, sir, and I am very swift to add up numbers." The boy looked happy about his skills for an instant and then a little fearful again, as if one in so low a position in life should not admit to such talents. Cassian reassured him.

"Your master has provided me with a useful servant, then. We shall speak again some time. But I shall be busy this afternoon and evening, and you have not brought me my black shoes. I shall need them."

The boy stretched an arm down and around the frame of the door, and hauled in the shoes he'd left just outside. "I wasn't certain if you would need them, so I had them ready to take back."

And you didn't bring them in to me in case I didn't want them, which would have spoiled your image of efficiency, the elf thought. You are bright and resourceful, young Jerenn. In a kinder world, you would have been born a Theran.

Cassian took the shoes with a smile, dismissed the lad, and prepared himself to visit a widow.

6

Cassian let his hair tumble around his shoulders and swung his long legs over the side into the sunken bath. The water was cool, and he slid into it with a sigh of pleasure, hair streaming away from his face like some fabulous growth of sea kelp drifting in the blue, pure water. It was a relief to have untied it from the stringent braid he'd favored that afternoon.

Karlanta, Daralec's widow, had been too addled for him to glean much. Her eyes glazed with grief and the sense-dulling herbs given to her, she was feigning nothing. Cassian could sense the depth of her pain. She could tell him only that Daralec's business dealt with importing stone into the city, and that most of their friends had been other members of House Thaloss who worked with him one way and another. Of her own background, Cassian could learn little without being more intrusive than seemed either tactful or judicious.

"I don't know what I'd have done if my son hadn't come back to me," she said forlornly.

"That must be a comfort to you. I am glad. Was he away long?"

"In Thebenta. He's been away almost a year, and his return was a surprise. Yesterday. I thank the Passions for him. He is my only child."

A surprise, Cassian thought. How interesting. He returns after a year's absence the day after his father dies. And now he will inherit—rather well if this mansion is anything to judge by. Those Indrisan relics, the masks and ivory idols, do not come cheap, and they're merely the items littering the entrance hall. Cassian knew they were surely bought, for this family had no history of service to the Empire in Indrisa itself. Crielle would be a wealthy young elf.

At some point I shall have to take a closer look at Daralec's affairs, Cassian decided while making his way back to the Grandwalk and his carriage. Sooner rather than later, I should think. It would be good to have an excuse for doing so before the son goes through the family papers. It sounds to me as if Daralec may well have worked with the builders, architects, and stonemasons of the city. I should pay a visit to Haughrald.

So he had; and, by virtue of assuring the old dwarf that he was under no suspicion, and winning an almost conspiratorial sympathy by asking the engineer not to reveal that to anyone else, Cassian had learned much.

Filled with relief, Haughrald had begun to talk freely about anything and everything. Daralec had indeed been responsible for supplying much of the stone used in the Theran Quarter's fine new buildings, and especially the reconstruction of the city walls, a project of prime importance. Haughrald had willingly shown Cassian the papers and records, revealing the labyrinthine complexity of who was getting a cut from transporting stone from outside the city, whose wagons conveyed it around the city, who had the labor contracts for handling it in differ-ent sites, which architects and engineers were paid by the House of Works for which projects. Cassian had come , away with enough notes to keep him occupied for the rest of the day. The dwarf and he had parted cordially, but not before Haughrald had showed Cassian the plans he and Dragold had drawn up for the construction of a secondary city wall extending almost a fifth of the way into the still to be rebuilt Broken Quarter, as yet occupied only by Barsaivian riffraff, derelicts, and unskilled wretches eking out a living one way or another.

But not this day, Cassian told himself as he drifted lazily in the waters of the bath. I'll review them in the morning. Tonight, I think I shall visit a lunatic rather than .1 widow or an architect. It will be good if the people of Vi vane get the impression that I move swiftly. That should have a somewhat intimidating effect, and at this stage of my investigations that would be useful.

After dressing himself and taking a light meal, he made his way to the sanatorium, where he was led I hrough the long, cool corridors to the cell where the mad wizard Aralesh now spent his days. As was commonplace, followers of Garlen looked after the chronically sick and unhealable. Despite their faith the sanatorium had the inevitable oppressive air of miseries delayed from the release of death by their well-intentioned efforts. Cassian always felt especially uncomfortable in such places, and had braced himself for the sight of a deranged, drooling idiot. Instead he encountered a stone-faced old man, kept more clean and well-groomed than he'd anticipated, sitting silently and rocking a little to and fro. Aralesh stared straight ahead, giving not the least sign acknowledging his visitor's presence. He spoke no word, nor did his gentle rhythm of rocking change or falter, and not even a single darted glance registered the presence of the elf. Cassian was intrigued, startled.

"There is no question of possession?" he asked the physicians. They looked at him with some irritation.

"Do you think we have not already considered that?"

"I am most sorry for my presumptuousness. Of course you would have done so. It is just that this is so unusual, is it not?"

"It happens sometimes."

"But not without warning? I am told that one day he was able to call down a hundred curses on the heads of some children playing noisily outside his window, and the next morning he was like this, though he was briefly disoriented and raving when first found."

The robed attendants looked somewhat discomfited, almost as if Cassian should not have so much information on one of their charges. The elf noted this carefully, remembering that it paid to be deferential to those who regarded their profession as too esoteric for the common man, accessible only to members of an elite cult.

"Not, of course, that I have knowledge as extensive as yours of such cases. Given the state he is in, I am wholly dependent on your skill and observations."

The flattery produced some tangible unbending of the physicians, who began to discuss the wizard's case almost among themselves, using the jargon and idiom of their trade. Cassian knew more of it than they realized, and he learned that Aralesh was important enough that some fairly powerful rituals had been attempted on his behalf. But even with the benefit of a pattern item to hand, the magic had been unable to touch the shell of a man, which was all that was left.

"And he lived alone?"

"No wife or children, and he was not greatly liked within his family, apparently," one of the physicians intimated.

Cassian drew a long, silvered pin from his robe and approached the silent figure. First holding it before Aralesh's face, he then pushed the pin into the flesh of the upper arm, driving it slowly in almost to the hilt. Not even the dulled brown eyes showed any reaction. The physicians were about to protest, until they registered that the elf knew more of their business than they'd realized, and they stared at him resentfully.

"This is not some cheap trick of a troubadour with the gift of suggestions," one of them said, not hiding his irritation.

"I didn't think so for a moment," Cassian replied sharply. "But his reflexes are obviously not normal. It isn't simply a case of a body with no soul or mind remaining within it. Most interesting."

He had left then, leaving the doctors to wonder about him and how much he knew. It was certainly magic, Cassian reflected; and it must be powerful. But he didn't think it could have been done without access to something of Aralesh's own spirit, nor did he rule out the possibility of blood magic. At this stage, the means did not concern him overly. The question was, why would someone have wanted to drive the wizard mad?

He had wandered back to his villa then, to change for the concert scheduled for late that evening. His guests of the previous night had impressed on him that the troubadour was a rarity, one with unusual gifts, and he should not miss the entertainment.

He knew it would again be an opportunity to observe those same people with their guard down, if their self-indulgence of the night before were anything to judge by.

Within minutes, he had called for his carriage. Waiting in the drive before the villa doors, Cassian glimpsed a small, shadowy figure scurrying down the road in the dusk. It had a swiftness of movement combined with a slight hesitancy of intent that seemed familiar, but then the horses were snorting and his coachman was ready for him. Drawing his robe around him, Cassian climbed into the carriage and feared once again he might literally drown in the piles of deep silken cushions.

The time Jerenn had spent with the dwarfs had turned up some unexpectedly useful surprises. Coming to the great slabs of stone and mounds of brickwork towering above the framed foundations of future buildings not far from the northern wall of the Quarter, he lowered himself into a sunken drainage shaft with his covered lantern, using as little light as possible to negotiate his way into the old passageways. They would take him under the walls, into the shabbier streets and then the ruins beyond, to the seething mass of life outside the well-ordered ways of the Theran Quarter of Vivane. He had a little silver in his pocket from the gift of his master, and some fresh and good food in a bundle under his arm, and there was someone he longed to see; to hear her words, one of the old tales perhaps or maybe the wonder and delight of a new one, stories of a world that had chased and pursued him with a knife to his throat made somehow safer in her happy endings.

The recital was a surprise to Cassian, even from the beginning. A lone elven troubadour was uncommon. Elven music was usually composed for small groups of musicians, the interplay and harmonics of varied instruments being integral to its essence, but the slight figure on the stage was framed only by a pair of incense burners giving off wisps of lazy smoke into the auditorium. She used only the stringed lystand, a long-necked, lyre-like instrument, and at first her pieces were fairly short and predictably structured, simple tales of venturing or heroism. But, at the end of the first half of her performance, after applause that was polite but no more, she unleashed a longer song that only hinted at what was to come. Her hands flew across the strings and the one instrument sounded like many as her voice began to surge with power still restrained, though incongruous with her slightness of build. She sang of the air, of skies filled with the might of airships, of the intangible and exquisite lightness of the skies joined to the power and earthiness of the vessels, an alchymical fusion of opposites in harmony, and ended with the tale of rains of fire from the might of Thera, a third element brought into the equation as her voice concluded the piece with power and grace. Roars of applause greeted her from all sides as she slipped into the shadows behind her simple wooden chair.

"I told you she was good," Ilfaralek beamed while taking a careful sip of the fruited drink, judging its strength.

"Indeed, Vivane can claim a minstrel to rival the best in any Theran land if that last song is any measure," Cassian agreed, watching the reactions of the Vivanian nobles scattered around him. They seemed pleased.

"I do not see Ziraldesh in attendance this evening," the elf noted, as if remarking upon the absence of some minor element of decor.

Ilfaralek hesitated at the mention of the wizard. "I expect he has stayed in attendance upon his wife."

"Quite so," Cassian said casually, knowing that was hugely unlikely, and knowing that Ilfaralek knew it too.

"Oh, but there's Patracheus," Ilfaralek said, looking relieved. "Over there, in the violet and green. With his lovely wife."

The man was dressed opulently, too opulently, Cassian thought, for someone whose main official task in life was to dispense Theran moneys in various directions. The woman accompanying him looked like one of the fabulous jazirinthi birds Cassian had seen in the zootorium of the Great City; emerald and turquoise, jacinth, and a dozen shades of gleaming blue. A tiny detail on the small leather bag she held almost impudently at her side caught his eye; the embroidered sigil of House Medari. Before Cassian had time to observe much about the group with whom Patracheus was chatting, except to notice Admiral Tularch hovering nearby in her finest regalia, a gong called them back to their seats.

Even for Cassian, who had taken neither wine nor worse to heighten or confound the senses, the short paeans of the troubadour's recommencing performance were disturbing. The melancholy was a little too restive, the sense of desire thwarted and incapable of satisfaction too clearly rendered. But he gripped the arms of his chair at the first of the longer songs, sensing her use of enan-tiodromia in its structure—an ending that recapitulated the beginning, returning to itself in a deeper, richer, darker set of chords and tones. She used old myths and legends skillfully in her lyrics, eschewing the obvious ones employed in the earlier songs, turning instead to more obscure and uncertain figures such as Astralen the Fisher and the Deceiver-King. Tension grew and developed within the song, and those that followed it, incapable of dissolution because of their very essence, until at last she announced, almost hesitantly, her final melody, The Pale Blooded Lilies. He was almost shocked by its beginning; a love song to a corpse, a repellent description of decay and befoulment, working through minor keys until she shifted to a major key in an instant of near-benediction. Decay and growth, death and life, are but mirrors of each other, the words said to all listening. Death, and everything feared about it, is the root of all life.

I know this damnable song in other forms, Cassian thought. Is this wretched woman one of the Raggok-fold, that she sings of such? Her song did not touch him, and the message was alien to his experience, but there was no denying its spellbinding effect on those around him. And though his heart denied her meanings, his head told him she was a consummate musician, a craftswoman of rare talent. Then her voice split, and like everyone else listening he felt as if ice had been poured down his spine.

The high voice sang in an octave of impossible purity, a descant of truly unearthly beauty, with a deep resonant baritone underpinning the melody. He was halfstunned, sitting limply in his chair, mouth half-open, his astonished senses taking in the final notes, the climax of the song, and the decaying harmonics of a melody too perfect for a mortal world. As sound decayed in a shroud of absolute silence, the tiny figure on the stage dragged herself from her chair like one drained by illness or exhaustion, and vanished.

There was no applause. Everyone was too stunned to move their hands together to clap. As one, the audience breathed out, a great sigh of astonishment and epiphany. Cassian forced himself to his feet and made swiftly for the exit.

He was disturbed by what he'd heard. The wrongness of the elf-woman's song did not come from any lament for the Elven Court, on which she had probably turned her back as wholly as he and almost all other Theran elves had done. No, it was far deeper and more fundamental than that. He had a troubling sense of some foreshadowing, an unfocused precognition. He needed to be alone, to let his intuitive sense become still and quiet while he regained his composure. He strode into the arboretum around the recitatorium and found a seat beside the small pool there. All around him, gleaming in the moonlight, were the last of summer lilies beginning to decay.

"He's away for the evening at a recital," the youth explained. "I won't be missed."

"Be sure you ain't," the old ork grumbled. "You want to look after yourself, Jerenn. Because there's no one else will, not in this world."

It hurt his feelings when she talked like that. It reminded him too plainly of the truth of his own situation, and it hurt his feeling of caring for her, as if it were a rejection of his tenderness. He had never thought of her as a mother-figure, lacking the sophistication to think in such terms, but that was part of what she was to him.

"That's not true," he protested. "Look at you. You've got me, and Taravail's always running around for you."

"I know," she said more kindly, her one good eye fixed on him. "I count my blessings for the pair of you. It's more than an old woman deserves."

She took a swig of the hard corn-liquor from the goatskin bag, and the reek of strong alcohol mixed with the damp, sweated air of the confined lair. Jerenn unwrapped the heavily fruited cake he had bought from a street peddler who had come by the Rose Villa while Cassian was away at the sanatorium, and broke off a small piece for himself while handing her the bulk of it. Hungry, gnarled hands ripped a great chunk off and stuffed it between toothless gums, softening it with more greedy gulps of strong drink. At length, she rubbed her stomach and patted him on the shoulder.

"Oh, that was good. Like the fig and breadfruit cakes of the Pale Ones, that was, almost. Did I ever tell you of how Kagrath and I sat and ate with them, and sailed on the rafts they make from the guts of some great underground snake-monster? They had war masks as big as your body, boy, and they were as pale as the grave when they sat in the moonlight all around us. Ah, but that was an adventure!"

She had not told him before. The hairs on the nape of his neck tingled with delight; this would be a new story, and it would end with her being safe and still alive since she was, after all, here to speak of it; and that made him imagine and wonder about a great wide world beyond the walls where he might, one day, wander and adventure as a grown man with a thousand places to see and a million people to meet. His eyes grew wider at her words as she began the tale.

Far above them, unseen by their dark-adapted eyes, a great yellow moon edged closer to its zenith above the city and a slight, cloaked figure slipped into the night, a flask of venom in one hand and a list of demands in the other. They would seek quarry in vain tonight, but the accounting would not be long delayed.

7

It was hardly a dawn raid and Cassian did not expect to find much; the main purpose of arriving so early was simply to catch anyone at the house of Aralesh off guard. He wanted to investigate the wizard's papers, knowing that by Imperial law someone as mad as Aralesh was deemed deceased. Jerenn was still asleep when the elf called for his clothes and boots, and he felt almost guilty at waking the bleary-eyed youth. It was, after all, a wholly unreasonable hour at which to rise.

The morning air was clear and promised the coolness of the coming autumn as he navigated his way through the tightly winding, narrow streets of what was clearly one of the Theran Quarter's more prosperous areas. It took several minutes of determined rapping at the black wooden door to rouse a servitor, who was clearly not pleased to see him.

“All of Aralesh's affairs are being handled by his cousin. If he owed you any money, go to the Treasury when they open."

"Open the door," Cassian ordered in his sternest tone, displaying his Imperial badge. "Unless you want me to bring charges against you for obstructing one of the First Governor's pmetori in his duties."

The bald head had ducked back inside the window very swiftly and within moments a red-faced man appeared at the opening doorway, buckling the belt at his waist.

"I'm awfully sorry, er, your Imperial Majesty," he mumbled. Cassian hid a smile at the absurd title. "I've only been told to keep the place clean, and to keep it all locked up. I wasn't told to expect anyone."

Cassian nodded briskly. "I understand perfectly. However, I am here on Imperial business and I shall need to investigate the premises. Your helpfulness and promptness will not be forgotten when I write my report." When a slave was suitably cowed, Cassian knew a little generosity of spirit went a long way. The man's demeanor changed abruptly. He handed over a bunch of silvered keys.

"Well, sir, here's keys to everything in the household. I can make you some kokala if you care to take some. It's as fresh as you can get, sir, with the master being a wizard and all."

The Aztlanian stimulant drink was not something Cassian favored, but with his stomach protesting a little at the lack of breakfast and a slight lethargy still in his limbs, it seemed a good idea. He thanked the man for his courtesy and unlocked the door to what turned out to be the wizard's study. It was apparent to Cassian by the time the mug of steaming dark liquid arrived that much had already been removed from among Aralesh's library and papers. He tried to gain some more information from the slave.

"You say I should seek Aralesh's cousin at the Treasury?"

"Oh, no, sir. That's where you should go if the master owed you money. He was a little careless in giving me money for all the bills, sir. No, his cousin is Master Ziraldesh, sir."

"Indeed? And has he been here to remove papers and other possessions?"

"Well, sir, seeing as how the master was without wife and had no heir, perhaps it's his duty to study such matters. I don't know anything about that sort of thing, sir; besides, I cannot read nor write neither."

Well, of course, Cassian thought; the property of any noble who died without an heir, not even a wife, or became incurably and hopelessly insane, might well revert to the Imperium rather than being retained within his family and House. Ziraldesh would need everything he could lay his hands on. But Cassian had noticed some very obvious gaps among the shelves that suggested someone might have taken more than documents related merely to issues of inheritance.

"Of course, um—I'm sorry, I did not ask your name."

"Salan, sir."

"Forgive my impoliteness." The man looked surprised, as if he were unused to Therans caring much whether he existed, let alone what his name was. Cassian had never understood such attitudes to slaves and never would. He had only glimpsed a fragment of the occult doctrine of his people regarding slavery, but it was enough for him to reject such carelessness forever. It would, after all, come back to haunt him in years unforeseeable if he did not.

"Thank you, Salan. You may go now and attend to whatever duties await you." Cassian fished in his robe pocket for an ellipse of silver and handed it to the slave. The man looked at him as if one of the more benign Passions had despatched a servitor of its own to mortal realms to bestow gifts solely upon him. He gawked for just long enough before scurrying away to leave Cassian in peace.

By the time the elf saw the sun approach its zenith he had scribed many notes on the pristine vellum Aralesh had left in abundance. And he was gleaning enough that he would probably not need to return soon. Much of the wizard's notes had been recorded in code, and some had even been inscribed in mirror-writing, and would take him time to pore over and decode. Though he had no answers, he did have enough to pose Ziraldesh some pertinent questions, but first he had a courtesy call to make.

Protocol is the bane of my life at times, Cassian thought glumly, but I could not do half my work without it.

Locking the study behind him, but retaining the keys after having ascertained that Salan had another set should he need them, he went out the front door. Squinting in the fierceness of the noon sun, Cassian roused the dozing coachman to readiness for a visit to the Southern Barracks and the legendary commander of the Eighth Legion. Dealing with Crotias was all part of the game. A praetor was not expected to call on the Overgovernor, and usually avoided it to maintain his impartiality, but a liaison with the commander of the Theran military presence in a city was expected. Cassian hoped that what he had heard of the ork's fiery nature was at least a little exaggerated.

"I am most grateful for your hospitality, Excellency," he offered as an opening shot. The hulking ork was not over-impressed.

"Don't you 'Excellency' me," Crotias replied smartly, displaying her teeth. "I think you're a damn nuisance and a troublemaker."

"Well, that is most forthright of you," Cassian said imperturbably. "However, my presence here is in part due to requests from Vivane. We both have a job to do, after all."

"Well, any requests certainly didn't come from me," the ork shot back. Though she was no taller than he, her huge physique seemed to dwarf him. "Anyway, I've said my piece and I don't see much point in having a lunch guest and insulting him to his face. As long as you know where you stand with me."

"I think I do," the elf said impassively. "You've made that most clear. However, my work here would be much more time-consuming and tedious without the results of your own investigations to hand. I do thank you for that."

"Hmmm," Crotias replied, her left hand stroking flat the long braid of fiery hair that fell over one shoulder. "Well, that's as may be, but if it were deemed to be adequate you wouldn't be here would you?"

"Come now, we both know matters are not as simple as that," Cassian demurred. "Protocol demands investigation by a praetor in such cases. It is not a question of your wishes or of mine. There is nothing personal in this." Seeing the ork unbend a little, and knowing what he said was true, he played his trump card. "General Zaroquorth sends his best regards."

"He does?" Crotias was pleased, and couldn't hide it. Zanjan orks had many skills, but dissimulation was certainly not one of them.

"He asked me to bring you this," the elf said smoothly, fishing out a badge of lacquered mother-of-pearl from inside his robe, and a wax-sealed scroll of vellum. "I gather it is a trophy from one of the Creanan campaigns, but it was not my business to inquire. His letter explains all, I believe."

The ork took the delicate thing into her huge, pawlike hands, turning it over in her palms as if holding a newborn child. She laid it carefully on the table, and ripped open the paper with a minimum of ceremony. Guffaws after scanning a few lines turned into belly-laughs, and by the time she had finished reading the missive there were tears of laughter in her eyes.

"Good times," she roared at him. "We carved through those barbarians like a hot knife through goat cheese. By Floranuus, there were two hundred and ten of us at Tachrisauz, and over three thousand of those desert bandits, and we slaughtered two-thirds of them by sunset. Lost twenty-nine men; good fighters, damn good. Zaroquorth and I were just juniors then, but you don't forget that sort of thing."

"They still speak of it, I can assure you."

"Really?"

"I was there five years ago," Cassian informed her. "They erected a monument to the battle. A splendid piece of work. All the officers' names are on it, and the name of every soldier who died. Your names are both there, of course. And the Eleventh Legion always concludes feasts with toasts to the officers of the day. You can be certain that your name will not be forgotten there in a hurry, General."

"Well, I'm damned," the ork replied, grinning broadly. It wasn't entirely a pleasant sight, since few of Crotias's teeth had survived the hand-to-hand fighting she was so legendarily fond of; even trolls were known to prefer to avoid sparring with her in drills and exercises. "And you know the place, you say?"

"Indeed," Cassian said suavely, and as he reminded her of the oases and sand, the bandit dervishes and the salt road, she grinned ever more broadly and at length patted him lustily on the back. He just managed not to end up with his face in the bronze plate set before him.

"Well, I'll tell you what, Cassian, we've some of the. finest hurlg in all of the Empire," she announced with relish. His heart sank; he hadn't expected his ingratiating to be so successful. The dark ork beer could hardly be refused now, and he would have to take care that his covert introduction of savak herb into his tankard to allay its effects was not seen. Even so, he could hardly expect to stay sober given the ferocity of the drink. He decided to abandon temperance. It was more important to keep Crotias firmly on his side, as she now definitely was, than to offend her by sipping while she was downing the stuff by the pint. Of course, since he was an elf he would not be expected to match her, or even come close, but a valiant attempt would be expected, especially since she had now more or less accepted him as a military comrade-in-arms.

Crotias bit the cork from the first flagon, releasing a powerful aroma of yeast and malt into the room, just as the platter of strakafish arrived steaming on the table. Cassian gripped his filled tankard, managed to insinuate just enough herb from the cupped palm of his hand, and drank deep. He knew he would be expected to belch just a little afterwards, for all that he was an elf.

8

"The twins. I can't seem to get them into the picture," Cassian said slowly. After four tankards of the pitch-black ale, two less than Crotias had managed, his head was swimming. He was going to have the grandfather of all hangovers later; this stuff was too strong even for savak to counter. Every word was an effort.

"Why should they have anything to do with anything? The rumors are true. Their family tried to disguise it as murder." Crotias let out a splendid belch and reached for more beer, with a slowed reflex that suggested to a hopeful elf that perhaps she had nearly had her fill by now.

"I wasn't told of that," Cassian said, and then felt annoyed with himself. He shouldn't be admitting to ignorance. Fortunately, her reply showed that a bluff on his part wouldn't have gone down at all well.

"Well, of course you weren't. We didn't tell the Arbitorium. None of their business."

"I appreciate that it was a sensitive matter, but—"

"It was my House," she said defensively. "The cover-up was laughable. They plunged a dagger into the back of the boy, and then tried to pretend they'd found him stabbed and the girl poisoned. But the body was all wrong. From the position of the knife, it would have been an instantly killing-blow, and bodies don't go down the way Parinth was found. We soon got the truth out of the parents. What would have been the point in reporting a ruse a child could see through? They committed suicide through self-poisoning."

"Of course," he said consolingly. "Well, then—"

"I hear you took a little journey out of town yesterday," Crotias said, interrupting him again. "Now what might have taken you to a hunting spot, hum?"

"Mere curiosity, General. A hunch, nothing more."

"And whom might that have concerned?" She leaned over the table. Beery ork breath streamed over his face.

"It would perhaps be premature—"

"Daralec. You were wondering about his accident," She leaned back, looking triumphant. As the person responsible for Vivane's day-to day-security, Crotias had the right to put direct questions to him. He also had the right to refuse an answer, but antagonizing her would only make his work more difficult, nor would it go well for him back in Thera if he did so.

"Certain circumstances seemed surprising."

"A huntsman with nearly a century of experience falling on his own sword? Surprising? It's bloody ridiculous." The ork slammed a fist into the table, sending Cassian's tankard flying, only narrowly missing depositing its contents in his lap.

"Sorry about that, I'll call for some more," she said thickly, but since the meal had come to its end, Cassian was able to plead for kokala without losing face. "I was suspicious myself," she said slightly lamely.

"Accidents do happen, I suppose," he said, but Crotias wasn't going to be thrown off the scent that easily.

"I'm beginning to wonder," she drawled. "Dragold was the best architect and engineer in the city. Daralec was the most reliable importer and handler of the stone the dwarfs need. Something is going on here."

Let's forget the twins, Cassian thought. What of Aralesh? How might he fit into this?

He decided to risk revealing his suspicions.

"I don't suppose Aralesh had any role in the construction of certain, shall we say, important city buildings?"

The General's sharp intake of breath told him he was onto something. His mind was forcing itself back into focus now, assisted by the first sips of the bitter stimulant drink that had arrived at last.

"After all," he pressed, "everyone seems to agree that Aralesh was one of the most knowledgeable wizards in Vivane when it came to Horrors. This city would be unusual if such skills were not put to use by the authorities."

"As it happens, you're right," she admitted. "Certain secured areas have special enchantments against attack by the Horrors. Aralesh was one of the more important inscribers of the protections.

"Damn it, someone's trying to sabotage my city from within!"

"I think we should keep this conversation to ourselves for the time being," Cassian said, vastly reassured by her fervent nod of assent. "That way, we need not arouse fear and anxiety among the population at large. It would also make my work easier; we don't want to let the perpetrator know that we suspect what's going on."

"The longer we wait, the more risk we run," she growled.

She is an ork, after all, Cassian told himself; orks always tended to haste.

"But Dragold was killed well over a month ago," he said smoothly. "If there is some plan to sabotage Vivane, then those behind it are in no rush. There's no reason to believe we're in imminent danger. Such conspirators tend to plan at length, and their plans are usually slow in coming to fruition. We have time to thwart them."

"Hmmm." She was reluctant to agree. "But I'm going to double patrols around—"

"No," he broke in. "Perhaps magical defenses at certain key places in the city, and let us be sure that the eyes and ears of paid agents—among the Barsaivians particularly—are kept open. But do no more than that. We may only hasten the saboteurs' plans if we act too swiftly and too publicly."

He had a sudden moment of feeling uncertain and almost foolish. Sabotage of the city? What was he talking about? A moment ago the idea had popped up as no more than a vague suspicion, and now they were talking about troop patrols, spies, and wizards behaving like fearful lookouts on the ramparts of some forsaken place besieged by a vast army. Damn that wretched beer!

Crotias seemed not to notice his turmoil, agreeing only reluctantly to his suggestions. He rose to his feet, trying to arrange his face into some semblance of dignity, and trying to hide his unsteadiness.

"I am most grateful to you, General," Cassian murmured politely. "This has been most informative." As his cloak was brought for him, Crotias gave the elf a mighty bear hug that almost lifted him off the floor. He winced, but managed to return her beaming expression with an uncomfortable smile.

"I like you, Cassian. I don't mind admitting I was apprehensive about one of your kind coming here, but you're a decent and honest fellow, I think."

"That's most gracious of you." Cassian straightened his robe, wondering exactly what she meant by his "kind". He was already unsure of her notion of a sabotage plot, but she regarded him favorably and that had been his goal for this meeting. As he left the barracks, the heat of the day hit him like the outflow from a smithy's forge, the light seeming to burn in his eyes. Retreating into his carriage, he rubbed his sore eyes with the weariness of one who hadn't slept for a week, and for once slumped gratefully into the soft cushions piled around him.

Cassian did not wake until dusk. Despite the quart or more of cold water he'd drunk upon returning to the Rose Villa, the elf's head throbbed painfully when he got up from his bed. The bowl of cold water on the latrawood table had apparently been refreshed with ice at regular intervals by the attentive Jerenn, and he gratefully plunged his face into it. After repeated splashing, and dressing himself in his finest robes, he felt only slightly better.

"We have some curative for—" the boy began, appearing in the doorway out of nowhere.

"Go away!" the elf spat at him. Jerenn turned and would have fled down the corridor, but Cassian called him back, annoyed with himself.

"I'm sorry, Jerenn. I had no cause to speak to you in such a manner. Please accept my apologies."

The boy was astonished, obviously unaccustomed to any Theran apologizing. He looked awkward and unsure of what to do for a moment, and then Cassian was startled to let out a most unseemly belch, the last revenge of lunch with Crotias. The boy was biting his lip hard in the struggle to keep down his mirth, but Cassian laughed first, which let the boy smile.

"Don't drink bad beer with orks, boy, if you know what's good for you," Cassian said kindly. He noticed the shadow of a momentary anxiety pass across Jerenn's face, and then the smile returned. Ah, Cassian thought, he has friends among the orks of the city. Perhaps not within the city walls either. I had best be careful what I say in the presence of this sharp-witted young fellow. Or is that just some suspicion left over from the conversation with Crotias?

"Could you find me some lemongrass water?" Cassian asked. "I'm sure I heard somewhere that it's good for settling the stomach." The lad scurried off to the kitchens. By the time he returned, Cassian was almost ready to pay his final visit of the day.

His carriage drew up outside Daralec's mansion at a later hour than was polite without warning, but Cassian did not want to delay his investigations any longer. It took a minute or two for his knocking on the front door to be answered, and the servant was surly and unhappy to be disturbed at an after-dinner hour.

"The mistress isn't to be disturbed, sir," he said, looking at Cassian's Imperial insignia with evident distaste. "She's resting."

"Yes, I know," Cassian said politely. "But I gather her son is at home?"

"Well, sort of. Sir." The man looked uncomfortable. "But he's not to be disturbed either."

"Really? Why is that?"

"There's a young lady visiting, sir."

"Oh, I see. Well, I know what I wish to examine and I will not need to disturb either your mistress or her son." He brushed past the man and headed for where he knew Daralec's study to be. "I shall require complete access, but I shall make this as swift and quiet as possible. Obviously, I wish to respect your mistress's unhappiness at this awkward time."

Verbosity usually served to confuse servants who were being surly and difficult and it worked like a charm. The man grunted and opened the study door for Cassian.

The elf was certain that Daralec's huge collection of books, ledgers, scrolls, and papers had already been visited. Just as in the house of the wizard Aralesh, the gaps on the shelves were too obvious; whoever had been here had not expected anyone else to check. The son, Crielle, it must be, Cassian thought. There seemed nothing sinister in the omissions, though. The ledgers removed were those of most recent date, and the young elf had probably been trying to familiarize himself with the family's affairs at the time of his father's death. Business must go on, Cassian thought.

Sitting at Daralec's desk, he gazed out the window overlooking the Theran Quarter. A peculiar pattern of moving light showed where an airship was gliding across the sky high over the northern wall, a glow of pearly light bigger than the moon half-hidden by clouds overhead. Bringing soldiers or slaves or exotics to Sky Point, no doubt, and for a moment Cassian's liking for reverie overcame him. He imagined the huge expanse of the Empire as a vast spider's web, airships moving along invisible silky threads like the multitudinous offspring of some huge mother-spider unseen at the very center of the web, the vessels carrying cargoes and troops to and fro, sustaining the majesty of the whole enterprise. He shook his head, and told himself to keep his mind on his work.

Turning to the desk, Cassian began to open its drawers more out of idle curiosity than serious intent, until his experienced eye noticed a concealed recess behind the bottom drawer. Crawling beneath the heavy desk, he traced his fingers around the outline of the hidden space, soon finding the mechanism at the back of the drawer.

Knowing that traps were usually present to guard such hiding places, he drew out his picks and handclaw from inside his robe and picked carefully at the tiny space that began to offer itself up to him.

A sudden click made him pull his fingers back before the discolored needle sprang out at him. Venom, he thought; something worth protecting here indeed. To his surprise, the secret compartment was empty. It was of reasonable size, big enough to hold a handful of books or scrolls—or a considerable sum in gems—but what it might once have contained he could not know.

Crielle has been here too, he thought. I had better have some words with this son who conveniently arrives back from many months abroad just in time for his father's untimely demise. He seems to work very swiftly, under the circumstances.

Sweeping out of the study, Cassian called for the servant, then asked after Crielle's whereabouts. The man insisted again that he had orders not to disturb him, but Cassian insisted even more strongly that he wished to see him now.

"With respect, sir, you can come and go as you please, but if I so much as open the door for you, I'll get a flogging or worse," the slave said, standing his ground. It was a fair point, Cassian thought. He sighed.

"just tell me where he is," he said. "Imperial business is more important than a liaison with a ladyfriend." Uncertain, the man pointed along the east wing of the house.

"At the end, sir, in the pool room."

Depressingly predictable, Cassian thought. He marched along the length of the corridor, almost knocking one of the Indrisan death masks from the wall on his way, and tapped twice on the door, first gently and then more loudly. He waited, allowing Crielle time to disengage himself from his fleshly pursuits.

"I am praetor Cassian on Imperial business and I require an audience," he announced loudly. He sounded pompous even to himself, but felt obliged to offer at least the semblance of courtesy. He got no reply. After another minute of waiting, Cassian tried the door, only to find it locked. He hammered loudly again and repeated his demand, once more without response. At the far end of the corridor, in the hall, he could see the slave lurking, a shadowy and hunched figure behind him. A hazy, drugged voice was whining for an explanation.

"I'm sorry, mistress, he forced his way in," the servant was saying.

"I'm afraid that I shall require the key to this door," Cassian said firmly. Karlanta, Daralec's widow, was so heavily drugged that she was only half-aware of what was going on. She seemed barely to recognize him from the day before. The servant almost threw the bronze key at him. Ignoring his rudeness, Cassian unlocked the door and coughed loudly as he opened it.

The pool was a magnificent testimony to the wastefulness of over-wealthy provincial Therans, gaudy with marble and rosewood and gilded decorations. The room smelt of pinewater and lemongrass, reminding him of his hangover cure, but that absurd, fleeting thought lasted no more than an instant.

Floating in the middle of the pool, bobbing up and down almost imperceptibly in the last of the ripples around him, was Crielle's body, frozen in a final rictus of horrific agony.

9

Behind him, Cassian was aware of figures in the doorway, and then a dull thud as someone fell to the floor. Spinning around quickly, he knelt to help the servant lift the stricken woman's head and shoulders. Karlanta's face was ashen from the faint, and her pulse a little weak and irregular. They lifted her and laid her down on a trestle bench in the corridor, then Cassian piled cushions beneath her legs.

“Take this," he said, handing the man an Imperial seal. "Go to the Southern Barracks of the Eighth Legion— do you know where that is? No matter," he continued, not waiting for a reply, "Take my carriage outside and tell the driver I said to take you there. Ask for akarenti Ilfaralek. Make it plain that you must speak to him personally and privately. If they try to deny you, show them this and say that the praetor has demanded this audience. Tell Ilfaralek what has happened here, and to come with only a small number of men. We must try to keep this as quiet as we can. Your mistress has suffered enough, and there must be .is little further disturbance as possible."

"Yes, sir," the man replied quietly, his former insolence evaporated. He was pale himself, shaking a little.

"And do you know where the Rose Villa of House Medari is?"

"I think so, sir."

Cassian gave him instructions for finding the place, I hen realized that was needless. He felt a bit sheepish, but everything was happening so fast. "I'm sorry," he said, "my driver will know, of course. Tell him to take you there on the way back and to fetch young Jerenn. He is the servant of Tarlanth, who owns the villa."

"I know, sir."

"Do you?"

"I often carry messages to his mansion, sir."

"Ah, I see," Cassian said, not seeing at all and becoming intrigued. "And why so, exactly?"

"He and my master, Daralec, that is, they have affairs of business, sir."

"Of course they do, I had forgotten," Cassian said, though he had done nothing of the sort. The books he'd examined had not apprised him of the connection, and his curiosity and suspicion were aroused. But this was hardly the time to try to learn the details. "Well, say nothing to Jerenn of what has happened. Simply tell him to remain in the carriage until I come out to him. Is that clear?"

"It is, sir."

Realizing that he had not even asked the servant's name, Cassian inquired after it, learning that the man was known as Pauldin. "There are other servants in the house, Pauldin?''

The man began to rattle off a list of names, but Cassian cut him short. "Before you go, find the most sensible of them, and bring him or her to look after your mistress. Understood?

"Thank you, Pauldin. We will need to make sure that mistress Karlanta suffers no more than she must."

The man nodded respectfully, the elf's use of the word "we" seeming to dissolve any lingering dislike, and he scurried off down the passageway.

Cassian thought swiftly; he might not have long before prying eyes arrived, even if it were only a servant. He lifted his robe and grasped the bronze leg bracer set firmly at mid-calf, detaching what appeared to be an ebony scarab beetle from its setting. Laying the thing carefully on the ground inside the doorway of the pool chamber, he concentrated on it for a few seconds until the enchanted object sprang to life and began to click its way with an almost imperceptible sound toward the far wall. Leaving the scarab to its work, Cassian looked around in vain for something with which to fish the body from the pool. After a few seconds, he gave up, threw off his robe and descended the marbled steps into the shallow, warm, scented water, reaching out to take the hair of Crielle's naked form in one hand. Knotting his fingers in the hair, he pulled the body to the side of the pool, clambered out, and studied the young elf's appearance carefully.

There was no visible wound, no blood in the pool— only a tiny trickle down the side of Crielle's mouth, and that was already congealing. His death must have been barely minutes ago, Cassian thought; the blood in the young man's mouth was still wet and the body was not lying face down when he first saw it. The fingers of the corpse were dug into the palms of the hands so hard that the short, bitten nails had almost pierced the skin, and the corpse showed a degree of rigor that was extraordinary given the time elapsed since death. The veins beneath the skin were dilated and seemed to stand away from the flesh, as if something had pumped them up. Cassian descended into the pool again, ever vigilant for footsteps approaching the chamber, and took the young man's head in his hands, sniffing at the open mouth. There was a faintly acidic and metallic smell, and the lips were bluish in color. Poison, he thought. In the absence of any wound, it had to be poison.

In the brief time before he heard another servant approach and apparently stop at the sight of his mistress lying in a faint, Cassian was able to inspect the room. Of the poison, or the assassin who had administered it, there was no sign. And there was certainly no sign of the young woman who Pauldin had seen enter.

The beetle had stopped in mid-track, its mandibles raised slightly as if sniffing the air. Cassian gave it enough time to complete its work, then picked it up, catching the slightest whiff of a musky scent quite different from the cloying sweetness of the perfume used to scent the chamber. He wondered whether he might not have imagined it, for the sensation was evanescent. He re-clasped the beetle to his leg, tried ineffectually to squeeze some of the water from his sopping clothes, and then heard the rapid approach of several people. Ilfaralek's voice was already audible, and when he entered with a face like thunderclouds, Cassian turned to him at once, ignoring the two uniformed guards with him. He told the spymaster everything he'd seen and learned, save for the details of his magical investigations and the strange scent he had sensed.

"I asked for you because I thought it would be well to keep this matter quiet," the elf opined. "I think that we should make arrangements for Karlanta to be cared for by members of her /r-House, preferably somewhere quiet and secluded."

Ilfaralek nodded agreement.

"Which is her fr-House, by the way?" Cassian asked. Under the circumstances, it would surely be best for the woman to be cared for by her original, pre-marriage family.

"Medari," Ilfaralek informed him. "Cuiper, go to the house of Tarlanth. He is best placed to arrange this matter." One of the guards marched smartly out the door and down the passage beyond.

"I believe that this young man has been poisoned, and dead for but a short time," Cassian said finally. Ilfaralek nodded again, obviously still pondering the events.

"I will deal with the matter of guards at this house," he said at length. "This is a bad business, so soon after his father's accident."

"It's murder,” Cassian said in a matter-of-fact way. "Unless we assume that Pauldin was lying or deluded when he tells of seeing a young woman. The fact that she is not here, and raised no alarm, suggests that she was the assassin, for Crielle hardly took the poison himself. I must get a description from the man."

"I shall make it known that the youth had an accident," Ilfaralek said slowly. "Drowned in his bath after striking his head on the side of the pool. People will talk and tongues will wag, and there may be some suspicions, but we cannot avoid that. People will be expecting Crielle to pay courtesy visits around the city and we cannot cover up his death. But we cannot have it about that this was murder. The servants must be disposed of, of course, so that they do not talk."

"They could accompany their mistress to care for her, and be kept to their quarters, wherever that may be."

"Then they'll talk to Tarlanth's own servants and word will get out. It's better to dispose of them now."

"But their disappearance will only give further cause for tongues to wag," Cassian said, keeping his tone even to conceal his anger at the man's callous readiness to kill several people for the sake of convenience. Considering Ilfaralek's position, and the many unsavory individuals he had to deal with, it was not a surprising readiness, but Cassian was instinctively opposed all the same.

"Best, then, if Karlanta is sent to convalesce on an offshore island, or perhaps to Parland," Ilfaralek said serenely. "Everyone in Vivane will think the servants will have gone with her."

"Then why not send them there?"

"Islands are visited by fishermen, traders, and the like. The truth will leak out, and we will have no control over it."

Cassian realized that he could not oppose the powerful man's decision. All he could really do was salvage some scrap for his conscience.

"Well, wherever she goes, Karlanta should not be cared for by unfamiliar faces. Let her at least have Pauldin with her, and her own personal maidservant. It is surely not beyond the skills of such as Tarlanth and yourself to prevent those two from talking too much for a while."

"Very well," Ilfaralek conceded, with a slight hint of irritation in his voice. He gave no more thought to the well-being of slaves than to the act of squashing an irksome bug, and was obviously displeased that Cassian was wasting time on such trivia. He began to give instructions to his remaining subordinate, and Cassian took advantage to sweep past and hunt down Pauldin. He found the man hanging around in the hallway, hardly knowing what to do with himself, keeping an anxious eye on his fellow servant bathing their mistress's face.

When Cassian inquired after a better description of the woman, Pauldin gave him even more than he could have hoped for; her height, her black hair, green eyes, pale skin, the color of her clothing. As the servant was beginning to run out of words, but still trying desperately to be helpful, Cassian had a sudden inspiration.

"How did she smell, Pauldin?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Was she wearing any scent? Perfume?"

The servant was taken aback briefly, and then looked more confident. "She did, sir. It was a peppery smell, sort of. A bit like burning oleanwood, but nowhere near so strong."

"Musky?"

"Yes, sir."

Cassian was itching now to get away and inspect his little magical spy, but certain anxieties kept him rooted there. "You are to take your mistress to Tarlanth," he said finally, accepting his Imperial badge back from the man. "Take her with her best maidservant over to his mansion. A messenger has already been sent to advise Tarlanth of what has happened here, but if you run into any trouble, you must insist that the household send someone to me and I will guarantee you there. Take my carriage and then send it back here for me. Ah! No, wait, Jerenn is in it. He mustn't know about any of this."

"I'm sorry, sir, but he was not at the Rose Villa." Pauldin looked miserable, as if he had failed in some final duty at a particularly unfortunate time.

"No?" Cassian tried to hide his surprise. "Ah, well, perhaps he was recalled to Tarlanth's mansion. I hardly have him twenty-four hours a day." If Pauldin suspected anything amiss, his expression conveyed none of it. Behind them, Ilfaralek was approaching.

"Shall I send Karlanta with the two servants to Tarlanth's house?" Cassian asked innocently. "My carriage is waiting outside."

"Very well," Ilfaralek replied in the slightly irritated tone that Cassian was starting to find familiar. He gestured to Pauldin to help his fellow pick up the still-unconscious Karlanta and carry her gently to the front door.

"Put her in my carriage. I'll go with them and speak with Tarlanth. You," he said imperiously to the junior officer with him, "organize matters for the servants here. Go to the gate barracks at once."

As he was about to leave, Ilfaralek suddenly realized he was leaving a house full of servants who might escape the fate he'd arranged for them. He turned to Cassian.

"You will wait a few minutes until my lieutenant returns, won't you?" The simple statement had a much deeper underpinning. Ilfaralek was demanding of Cassian that, in return for the two lives he had given him, the elf would deliver the remainder to the fate Ilfaralek deemed appropriate for them all. Cassian was unhappy, realizing that in some way this made him even more an accomplice to the crime. Then the thought was banished as he remembered something vital he should have been looking for. To keep Ilfaralek from noticing, Cassian yawned, then begged the man's pardon.

"I'm sorry," he said, sinking into a chair with an expression of fatigue. "I'm more tired than I thought. I had luncheon with General Crotias."

"Yes, so I heard." Ilfaralek allowed himself a smile for the first time since arriving.

"I'll make sure everything is in order, as I'm sure you will also," the elf said smoothly. Ilfaralek stared pointedly at him for a moment, then strode off into the darkness.

When the wheels of his carriage had glided away down the drive, Cassian got to his feet and headed up the marbled stairs leading to the mansion's bedchambers. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and the carpets and rugs would conceal the watery trail he would leave behind. Or so he hoped.

10

Jerenn got just a little careless, and almost paid for it with his life. He was excited and happy, and he didn't take his customary minute to wait and listen beneath the rickety wooden trapdoor.

When he scrambled out into the night, he ran straight into the arms of an ork as he was finishing off a bottle of some home-brewed, filthy-smelling drink. The bottle flew from the ork's hand and he cursed furiously, striking out at Jerenn with a curved dagger already in his other hand. Mercifully, the ork was off-balance and his stabbing strike missed by inches. Even more fortunately, the ork was alone; there was no shadowy accomplice waiting to grab the terrified lad from behind, dragging him down to cut his throat for whatever little he carried or striking him senseless to face a fate worse than a cut throat down in the depths of the Undercity. Jerenn had heard of the blood magicians and warped nethermancers said to haunt its darkest places and had been warned about their body-hunters more than once.

He knew exactly where he should be heading, but stark fear, and the lack of a properly lit lantern, left him unable to remember his way. As he raced across the rubble, the heavy foot-stompings of the irate ork closed in behind him. A pair of old dwarfs, ruined and almost too drunk to move, managed to get out of the way before Jerenn tumbled over them. As he did so, his foot caught on a chunk of stone and he ended up face-down in a pool of dank liquid that smelled like the dwarfs had passed some of their drink into it, and maybe worse, not too many moments before. Swallowing back the bile that rose in his throat, he managed to get to his feet with the ork barely a half-dozen strides behind him. The briefest of desperate looks behind him showed yellow tusk-teeth and the serrated blade getting closer by the second.

Jerenn ran full pelt, praying the ork would fall over before he did, veering around a knot of startled beggars and cripples, until at last he saw a tiny slice of light from under a door in a building, only half-ruined, looming at him out of the night.

It might only have been his imagination, but he could have sworn afterward that the ork's hot breath was on his neck when he flung himself at the door and prayed that it would open when he hit it, even if it knocked him senseless in the process.

Ilfaralek's lieutenant returned in a matter of minutes to find an apparently dozing elf sunk into a chair in the entrance hall. Cassian rubbed his eyes ostentatiously when the man marched crisply into the mansion and asked if he could take care of the place.

"Unfortunately, someone from House Carinci will have to be told of this," he said, thinking aloud. "They will need to make preparations for the appropriate rituals.

Karlanta can hardly do it."

"Akarenti Ilfaralek said that he would attend to such matters/' the officer said coolly, clearly wanting Cassian to leave so that he could get on with his work. Behind him, a dozen or so soldiers were already marching up the drive. Cassian obliged him and meandered out into the cooling night air, apologizing to his tired coachman for the delay. The man gawked at his sodden appearance, but said nothing.

Once back at the villa, Cassian realized he had clean forgotten to do anything about the missing servant boy. Thinking he would sink down onto his pillow and fall asleep within seconds, Cassian discovered that he was too wound up to sleep. He was desperately tired, but not sleepy. He knew that, in part, it was due to all the excitement of this night: the murdered body, the mystery, the books he'd taken from the coffer hidden in the secret alcove in the floor beneath Crielle's bed. But it was more than that too, and he knew what he should do about it. As he took his folded ceremonial robes from his bag, not having entrusted them to any servant, his heart beat still faster. He put them on, then reached down to swiftly detach the scarab from its setting and set it on the floor. Cassian then closed the door to his bedroom, wedged a chair against it, and sat on the edge of his bed, closing his eyes. Clad now in clean, dry clothes, he concentrated intently.

He saw the pool chamber from floor level, his mind's eye moving slowly across the floor and the walls, past the marble and plaster busts and pedestals until he came to the mid-section of the eastern wall. His point of view stopped and fixed itself there until a warm, pale purple glow began to appear in an area the height and width of a human body, somewhat shorter than his own. The figure was slim, tall for a female, narrow-hipped and long-legged, but there was absolutely no detail to be perceived.

Magically masked, of course, he thought as he opened his eyes and recovered the beetle, affixing it to its clasp once more. But whoever she was had walked out through the wall. The magic lingering was no illusion, of course; the scarab would not be deceived by such. Elemental magic, fairly powerful. Vivane was not likely to be knee-deep in talented young female elementalists, Cassian thought—and it must have still fewer tutors capable of imparting their skills to such a pupil. How interesting.

He would not be able to ask questions about such matters openly or easily, of course. His magical snooping was, in one sense, illegal. Long-established Imperial law expressly forbade the use of magical divination against the persons, or properties, of nobility, even in such extreme circumstances. In the past, such laws had been needed to prevent the various Houses from sinking all their magical skills into investigating and then double-crossing one another. A strange double-standard existed now; a praetor was known to use magical devices and skills in his work, but was also expected to be wholly covert about it. Any evidence he gathered in such a manner would not be admissible in his reports, nor in any Imperial court, and could only be used to glean information he would then have to confirm and prove in other ways. The subtler points of law were often difficult, likewise the touchier aspects of protocol, but Cassian had swiftly learned how to be discreet and sparing in his use of divination.

He took up the books he had recovered from Daralec's mansion and laid them on a table while he washed his face and arms in the bowl of cool water. After a moment's thought, he stripped himself and washed down the rest of his body with a wet towel, anointing himself with the clashing scents of oleanwood and clary sage, pine and myrawa-ter. Then he wrapped his mixed robes around his body, some tight around his skin, the final drape drifting loosely behind him as he took a step toward the door, his minor ritual dramatizing the dual moods he felt within. Having sent his coachman to his well-deserved resting-bed, Cassian walked out into the night, across the Grandwalk, through the Little Bowers, and on to the Floating Ziggurats.

Under the now-rising moon, freed from the cloak of clouds that had obscured its early ascent into the heavens, the resting places floated around the massive steps of the pyramid in a way that reminded him of seeds drifting down, on a windless day, from a sykara tree, as if an instant of their descent had been frozen in time and preserved here. Though summer was already giving way to fall, graceful flowers dotted the margins of the steps and the hanging bowers themselves. He strode effortlessly up the pyramid, the enchantments laid upon it making the passage up as effortless as walking downhill, reached a point near to the top, and casually stepped off into mid-air, passing over invisible supports of elemental air until he found a resting spot. Oblivious to the nearby sounds of lovers disobeying the law that forbade their exertions here, he lit the little nightlight lantern he had brought with him and opened the first of the books from Daralec's house, laying it down in his lap.

He folded his hands over the book and drifted away, his eyes still open, registering images and sights from the world around but increasingly inattentive to them. He began to wake-dream, letting images and thoughts well up from within him for a few minutes; then he scanned the first pages of the book. No human, ork, dwarf, or any other Namegiver bar another elven soul would have understood his actions. He took in the numbers and names, dates and descriptions more by empathy than by perception, though his eyes presented unto him what the books contained; and he alternated between his strange reverie and his reading, absorbed within himself and then outside himself, until the intuitions began to take concrete form and the pattern of the crime he was looking for began to appear to him.

Jerenn was yanked off his feet as he tried to get up from his knees. Fortunately, the troll had him by the collar rather than by the hair, and he had kicked the door shut behind Jerenn. A furious pounding came from outside.

In the room Jerenn had forced his way into, a dozen people sat in a circle; mostly human, but also two orks, a dwarf, and the troll who was manhandling him. The troll flung him against a side wall, and Jerenn was halfstunned, just able to register the fact that his pursuer had finally managed to force the door open himself.

The troll took one look at the ork, then snatched his knife, gripped it in bloodied hands, and snapped it clean in two. The ork gawked for a split-second before the troll caught him with a jabbing blow of appalling ferocity, right in the face. Blood sprayed from the ork's shattered nose, and one of his tusk-teeth splintered in two. He staggered backward, falling over.

Jerenn closed his eyes to the sight that followed and wished he could have shut out the sounds of the ork screaming until the troll grew bored with kicking him. He cowered wretchedly, hardly daring to look around at the others. Then an orkish hand, more like the paw of some predatory bear-like animal, gripped his jaw so hard he thought his teeth would pop out. The ork drew a knife with unmistakable intent, and for a ghastly instant Jerenn knew what it was like to be dead for sure, with no possibility of salvation. It had been long enough since the first time that had happened to him that he almost fainted, and wished that he could have, until a second ork face appeared behind the first and growled at the incipient killer.

"'Old on! I know 'im. He runs for old Mother Grishin, 'e does. 'E's good to 'er. She won't like it if 'e comes to any (rubble."

The first ork grunted, looking extremely reluctant to put down his knife. Jerenn's heart leapt wildly in his chest as he recognized the other; Taravail, the young ork with the distinctly un-orkish name that made him the butt of so many jokes from other orks. The fact that Jerenn had never mocked that name, nor even hinted at a jest about it, was something he suddenly was awfully glad about.

"He's seen us. He's got to be dealt with," the first ork grumbled, licking his lips.

"'E's not seen nuffink, no ways," Taravail asserted in a flurry of negatives. "Lerrim go."

"I was only going to see Mother Grishin," the boy wailed plaintively.

"Shut up," the ork with the knife yelled. "It ain't nothing to do with you, so keep yer trap shut." Jerenn was suddenly, ridiculously, offended. Nothing to do with him?

"Look, just kick him out and if that ork gets him, that's just too bad," a weary woman's voice said from somewhere behind the orks who were blocking the rest of the dingy, foul-smelling room from Jerenn's vision. "She isn't here anyway. He's only seen a bunch of people in a house. He'll run away."

"You bet I will," Jerenn said fervently.

Very slowly, and with obvious disappointment, the ork lowered his knife and finally sheathed it at his belt. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and had the kindness to open the ramshackle door before he applied a heavy boot to Jerenn's backside and kicked him out through the doorway.

Jerenn started to run and then slowed to a walk. He had, after all, fallen down once from running through this stone-strewn ruin, and another tumble could leave him with a badly sprained ankle or even a broken bone.

Then something strange happened to him.

Twice within a few minutes he had faced death at the hands of an ork with a knife, and the utter relief he felt from his dual escape filled him with a sense of crazed fearlessness. Very slowly, he turned back toward the house and began to sidle around it, looking for somewhere he might hide, wait, watch, and listen.

Slowly but with purpose Cassian began to put words to his notions. Supplies of stone will be threatened; a wizard and an architect who worked with that stone, securing the city, have been slain as well as the importer of the stone and his son. An elementalist is involved. This is a pattern. I do not think this is sabotage, and indeed it looks to me more like a House rivalry. Someone will take unto themselves the functions that have been removed from others. There may be House feuds underlying this; Houses Carinci and Narlanth have each lost two important members. So I must delve into the politics of it all. The Arbiter-General's notes give me some starting points, but I will have to use my own skills to discover the rivalries. Most of all, I must find out who benefits most now. It may not be one person solely, either.

He was almost disappointed. The solution was surely mundane, as it all too often turned out to be. Greedy families wanting more than their share, grasping for extra wealth for themselves, more power at the periphery, perhaps the hope of greater influence within the Conclave itself in the fullness of time. Though the Empire had evolved a myriad of rituals and procedures for minimizing House rivalries, they still floated to the surface like ordure in a watery cesspit.

An image, rising unbidden to his mind, troubled him. Something from deep within him was telling him that something more sinister, corrupted, lay beneath the veil of appearances. Appearances might not be deceiving, but they were only part of the picture. He felt queasy, a literal and physical unease in his stomach.

"Or is that just Crotias's beer?" he suddenly whispered aloud.

Then he realized that he had been wholly oblivious to the presence of another beside him.

11

She was elegant and slender, her hair dark and lustrous, and even in the faint glow of lantern light which was all that illuminated them, the moon obscured now, her skin appeared dark to him. Enough of Cassian's altered perceptions remained for him to sense that she was older than she looked, though probably no more than some eleven decades old. As with all elves, her appearance did not reveal her age easily, not even to the casual gaze of another elf.

"Forgive me," she said gently. "You were in reverie. That can be dangerous, even here. There are some people who will watch and wait for one such, and seek to kill for whatever they can take."

"Is it so unsafe? There are regular patrols here," he said, genuinely surprised.

"There are enough in the city with the skills to evade such patrols, and the night is dark now." She studied him briefly. "You must be new to Vivane and the Quarter."

"I am," Cassian said, not wishing to reveal his ori-gins, but knowing he could hardly conceal it from her.

"From the Great City, perhaps? Your robes suggest it," she said, a slight smile playing on her lips. His senses were still slightly unfocused, and he needed time to regain his composure. He could not yet trust himself to speak without giving too much away, still not knowing who she was. She sensed his hesitation.

"I shouldn't take advantage," she said almost playfully. "You are in conflicting moods, I see."

He looked at his robes. His apparel told any elf that his reverie was a divided one, needing to focus within and also to receive what was outside. He'd found the right balance point, but returning to the normal world took some time. Tension and excited nerves still clashed with the growing fatigue in his body, denying him relaxation and readiness for sleep.

She took his hand and let it rest in one of hers, offering him a tiny silvered thimble of highly scented liqueur with the other. He took it gratefully and sipped the liquid. It was fiery in his mouth, but wonderfully mellow in the throat, and warm honey and spice swirled around his taste buds, tickling at his nose. He shook his head like a dog emerging from a pool of water.

"I think I recognize this," he said appreciatively. "It isn't local, is it? Is it qualijarn?"

For a moment she hesitated, then told him it was. He had never been sent to the far coastal land from which it came, but he knew the fiery reputation of that borderland people, and her dark skin suggested such an origin. He also sensed that she did not want him to know that, or at least not so easily.

The sensations from the drink were so strong that they helped him return his focus to the world around him, the dream-like state sinking back down within. The sense of fatigue began to grow powerfully strong in his bones and muscles, and he half-groaned with weariness.

"I am most grateful to you/' he said. "Thank you for watching over me." It was only what one of the People should have done for another, but that was no reason not to feel real gratitude, and he meant what he said. Rather gingerly, he got to his feet.

"We have not even exchanged names," he said.

"I think you are perhaps praetor Cassian," she said, after another brief pause that intrigued him. "I have not heard of any other visitor from Thera in recent days. At least, none of our kin."

"Then you have an advantage over me." Though she was obviously reluctant, protocol demanded that she reveal herself.

"I am Shusala," she told him. "You will have heard of me, I think." She rose also, and walked away from him.

Indeed, he mused; indeed he had heard of her: wife to Ziraldesh, daughter of Daralec. He recalled the widow Karlanta saying that Crielle was her and Daralec's only child. Yet, he had also heard that Daralec was twice-mar-ried, and though elves did not feel the need to marry to bear and raise young, he sensed a feeling of rejection implicit in the phrase she'd used.

He wondered why that might have been?

Jerenn was aware that it was well after midnight and growing cool, with half a promise of a chill and the threat of rain hanging in the air. He clung to his perilous perch on the roof and pressed his ear even more firmly to it, close to a spot where the rafters were rotted and sound carried well but promised a bone-breaking fall if he crawled another yard forward.

He could hear a girl's voice, or that of a young woman, a melodic voice. She was speaking of stone-breaking, tearing down the walls of the Theran-controlled portions of Vivane, of the people of the Undercity and Broken Quarter pouring into the Theran Quarter, looting and pillaging, of revenge and destruction. There were roars of approval from the others, but barely any interruption in the flow of her speech. At length, another woman's voice broke in, and he recognized it as that of the one who had interrupted the orks debating whether to skewer him or let him go. A voice with a slight edge to it, world-weary and skeptical.

"There is the minor matter of the Eighth Legion, not to mention the Imperial navy at Sky Point. Let us say ten thousand trained troops. We can hardly bring down Vivane with such an enemy within it."

"You can have Vivane and anything else you want in it," came the singsong voice. "All the wealth, the gold and jewels, everything the Therans have taken from you over the centuries." There was no mistaking the anger in that voice.

"The people can hardly fight an army."

"You don't seem to understand," the singsong voice shot back slightly ominously. "When a city falls into such disorder, the Theran instinct is always to withdraw back into the citadel. If there are no walls and no citadel to withdraw to, the Therans retreat. The alternative is to lose the lives of their soldiery, and that is something the Therans find acceptable only in war. You do not understand the way we think."

We? Then she is a Theran?

"The time is coming. The celebration of Kypros's feast begins only ten days from now."

There was a silence of a few minutes, and then a querulous dwarf voice piped up. "We would all like to see this Nighthand. To see that Nighthand really exists, I mean." A low growl around the room confirmed his words.

"Nighthand exists. You've seen the work crafted by those hands. Haven't you all worked in the passages and catacombs we've restored together?"

The growl turned into murmurs of agreement. Jerenn could hear the sounds of people rising to their feet as he became aware that the roof was growing increasingly slippery, rain drifting gently down onto the thin stone. He hunched himself up into an even tighter shape and clung on with all his will.

Cassian woke only an hour after dawn, and to his surprise found that he was wide awake and alert. After the disturbances of the previous day, the drinking and the excitement, the late night, the deep reverie, he had expected to feel wretched this morning, but quite the reverse was true. He shouted for Jerenn, while leaping out of bed with unseemly alacrity.

The boy took some time bringing hot water and freshly crafted soap for him. He was bleary-eyed, and his nose was reddened. It looked like a debilitating cold coming on, and the elf told him to sit. The boy looked anxious.

"And so, where were you spying last night?"

Jerenn looked as if he'd been shot with an arrow. Fear dilated his pupils. He clutched at his knees, curling up defensively into a ball, saying nothing.

"It is very obvious, boy. You were missing last night when I sent a servant to call for you. It has rained during the night; the grass is wetter than any dew would make it. You have a cold, and you walked in here like an old man whose joints have seen many cold winters. Tell me where you've been."

Jerenn looked as if a death sentence had been passed on him. Cassian was shocked when the lad suddenly threw himself at his feet, his body wracked with sobs.

"Sir, please, my master will have me killed."

"Get up, lad." Cassian said, his tone not unkind. Whatever you tell me will not be repeated to your master. It is simply that I required your service last night and you were not here. I am owed an explanation and I will have one."

The boy got to his knees, but would not look at him. At length, after regaining some measure of composure, he managed to speak his piece. "There's an old woman, sir. Beyond the walls. I bring her food and keep an eye out for her, sir."

Afterwards, when he thought of it, Cassian speculated that what he experienced upon hearing those words at that moment must have been a lingering of his deep reverie of the night before. It felt like a shaft of hurt in his heart, a powerful empathy with the youth. He felt slightly shaky for an instant.

"You are an orphan." It was a statement, and hardly unlikely for a slave boy. What Cassian knew and didn't say was that the boy's upbringing had probably been worse than just being orphaned. He knew within what the old woman meant to the boy.

"Yes, sir." The boy's gaze was still directed at the floor. He looked like some wretchedly defeated prisoner of battle. Suddenly, a gold coin was spinning on the stone before him, flicked by the elf.

"Then take her some food tonight, and perhaps a scarf from the markets, or something to keep her warm against the winter that is coming," Cassian said gently. "But if you plan further visits I would rather know in advance, in case I need you here. I doubt your friend needs constant attention."

Jerenn looked up at him with wondering eyes. He had sometimes gotten a scrap of silver for doing his work well, but that was rare good fortune and far better than most slaves he knew; and he counted himself very lucky for that. To be given gold for wrongdoing was extraordinary.

A confusion of powerful feelings welled up in him. He was intensely relieved; still frightened and excited by what he'd heard the night before; and an old yearning came over him also. He knew that, whatever it was that this Theran did, it took him to many distant and strange lands. Jerenn longed to do the same, and though the gulfs of race and many decades of life separated them he felt an intense longing to be with the elf, to travel as his servant and companion, to be his eyes and ears in places where Cassian could not go. It was all too much for him, and he sat mute and half-dazed.

'There's a place called—Culpam's, is it? A herbalist by trade, I believe. It was among the useful places around the Quarter that I had listed for me, should I need it. You had better take yourself there and get something for that cold. If you take the right curative quickly enough and sleep this afternoon, you may get off without a fever and save yourself three or four days of sickness. You'll be no use to me sickly and feverish."

"Yes, sir. I'll go at once, sir," Jerenn said quickly, scrambling to his feet. Grateful as he was, he wanted to get away, to examine what he felt.

"And stop calling me 'sir'! How many times must I tell you?" Cassian called out after the figure disappearing down the corridor. The shouted reply of "yes, sir" was exactly what he expected. He grinned, and began to soap his face.

12

"I can assure you again, Master Haughrald, that I have absolutely no suspicions about you whatsoever. Quite the contrary. From everything I've seen I would say you are a most loyal servant to this city and the Empire. If I have heard otherwise in some quarters, and powerful ones at that, I can assure you that in my judgment those views are mistaken and the result of prejudice. I have discounted them."

It had been quite an effort to put the agitated old dwarf at ease. Cassian's second visit to inspect the recordkeeping of the artisans had aroused the architect's fears anew. What made matters worse was that Cassian could not be open about what he was looking for. He knew from Daralec's secret ledgers, the ones taken from Crielle's room, that there was a hidden partner with whom the stone merchant had been in covert alliance. Without doubt, some whiff of corruption or scandal had likely been associated with that partnership. Haughrald's records just might provide some clue to who that secret partner had been, but Cassian certainly did not want Haughrald to know that. From the dwarf's point of view, a second visit from an investigator sent all the way from Thera—this time not saying what it was he was looking for—was obviously an ominous sign.

Cassian was unable to find any help in Haughrald's records. There was only one possibility left.

"There has been a most unfortunate accident, Haughrald. Daralec's son fell and struck his head last night, and drowned in a pool. So, you see, stone supplies will have to come from some other source in the future."

The dwarf looked apprehensive, scratching at his beard. "Goodness, I don't know. House Carinci has always had a monopoly on supply. They own the mines at Balkaria, you see, where the good stone comes from. I don't have any hand in that, that's their affair. But you might try talking to K'keelifa."

"And who is he?"

"He's the master of the Carinci aropagoi."

"Of course. Well, thank you. I don't think I shall need to trouble you again," the elf said sunnily. Dealing with the t'skrang would call for a wholly different diplomatic approach. K'keelifa would be the admiral of the fleet that shipped the stone downriver, of course; it wasn't surprising that he had taken the title of admiral, though it was unlikely he was actually a soldier. It was a standard affectation of the boastful t'skrang in the further reaches of the Empire.

"I think you may even catch him if you move quickly," the dwarf said helpfully. No doubt he'll be glad to see the back of me, Cassian thought. I would, if I were him. "He's down at the niall now, but due to sail upriver to the mines at noon. If you don't catch him now, he may be gone until feast day. Those t'skrang like to live it up for days at a time before then, you know."

"Yes, I know," Cassian said. If the t'skrang were winding themselves up for a long celebration, all-out flattery would be called for, but the reptile-folk were not at their most diplomatic at feast times and should be fairly easy to interrogate. Oh, well, the elf mused. Yesterday I had to drink myself silly with a boisterous ork general. I'm sure that, today, I can handle some boisterous t'skrang.

As he walked past the markets to the river dwellings of the t'skrang, he never saw Jerenn haggling happily with the one-eyed woman, examining the mittens and complaining that the wool was too rough and no one in their right mind could possibly charge that much for them, and he was a poor child who would suffer numbing from the winter cold and how could she seek to cheat him so, didn't she have children of her own and what with him being a poor orphan and everything. . .By the time the woman had sighed and given in, Cassian was already gazing at the spires rising out of the Flamewalk. They had an iridescent quality to them, as if glazed with liquid mother-of-pearl that had run down over them in some fabulous rain of jewels and colors from the heavens. In the sunlight, they resembled the fins or claws of some great river creature, static and solid, enduring and eternal. His admiration did not go unremarked.

"Fine, aren't they? Have we not built something wondrous here?" a nearby t'skrang said proudly.

"They are as fine as any I have seen along the thousands of miles of the Indris," Cassian assured him, "and they are spoken of everywhere among the t'skrang, are they not?"

The t'skrang puffed himself up to his full height, his bright crimson and yellow garments shining as brightly as he seemed to do. "Really?"

"I am not exaggerating, I assure you," Cassian told him, the white lie gliding from his lips. "And there they have certain advantages, after all. The shell of the kalivan-ti, for one thing. It is a huge beast, able to sink a river vessel with its vast beak alone, but it can be killed and the shell treated with certain acids and unguents the Indrisans keep secret among themselves. It can be made malleable and crafted into shapes, and they use that for their constructions. This"—Cassian gestured across the muddied waters—"reminds me of their work, most definitely. I wonder whether you do not have cousins or families in Indrisa?"

It was a clever ploy. The speech complimented the t'skrang, and had a subtly conspiratorial quality to it. A t'skrang would be proud of such connections if he had them, and though he would not speak of them to other races, he would be pleased at someone being perceptive and intelligent enough to notice the quality of their craftsmanship and wonder about such a relationship. Such a query also revealed that the speaker was knowledgeable of t'skrang ways, something else pleasing to the race. Cassian's reward was a sudden tail slap, a sure sign the t'skrang was in a good mood.

From here on, it should be clear sailing, Cassian thought, and then smiled at the unintentional pun. This t'skrang mood must be infectious.

By the time he was admitted to the presence of the Admiral—and being allowed to board his ship felt like an audience with royalty—Cassian had been careful to acquaint himself with all the affiliations of the t'skrang. K'keelifa was of House Carinci, and a member of the k'kandri family of that Imperial House; and then again, of the trading House of Stone and Water. It would not do for Cassian to be uninformed about any of those matters. No blunder of etiquette would be acceptable here.

The t'skrang was a resplendent sight. His skin was mottled green and yellow, sleek and healthy, his head crest curled and wavy and close to his skull, his body clad in garments of green, light blue, and creamy yellow. He wore little in the way of adornment, but the white metal arm bracers and mastrylith-skin belt were of exquisite craftsmanship. Expecting as much, Cassian had come in his simple blue robes, allowing the t'skrang's apparel to shine in comparison. It would not do to be more resplendent than the t'skrang on his own ship, but Cassian's garments, too, were exceedingly well made. It would also not do to come wearing humble clothes, for that would have been equally insulting.

"You must be as proud of your vessel as any Admiral," Cassian said smoothly, "but I can say that I have very rarely seen one so clean and well cared-for, especially considering the arduous nature of your work. Your crew must clean away more dust in a week than some people do in a year."

"Most clever and perceptive of you," K'keelifa said smartly. "You praise all t'skrang on our pride in our ships, and you compliment me on what is, indeed, the best feature of my own. You flatter me with care and forethought. Thank you."

"It is only flattery if not true," Cassian said smoothly.

"Yes, well, enough of that," the t'skrang replied. "I intend to sail fairly soon, and I will be as helpful to you as I may. I am only a humble river admiral and I have little idea what might bring a praetor to my ship."

Cassian smiled. Humble admiral indeed! He has a sense of humor, this one. He might even be poking fun at himself, but I had best be sure not to do so. He's probably testing me out on that score.

"You must forgive me if my presumption is incorrect, but perhaps you have heard the news of Crielle's accident. I do not know how swiftly news travels in Vivane."

"That I have." K'keelifa wasn't giving anything away.

He sat back in his rich, redwood chair, hands clasped around one knee, staring intently at the elf.

"I must take you into my confidence here," Cassian said quietly. "A praetor must concern himself with the security of any city that he visits. Clearly, supplies of stone for repair and maintenance are important for such security. I had hoped that you might be able to inform me how supplies of that stone will be now secured. Who will take the role Crielle would have inherited from his father?

"I might add," he said gently, "that it would be most helpful, and something that will not go unmentioned in any report I must provide, if you would keep this conversation confidential during your well-earned celebrations prior to Kypros's coming feast day."

K'keelifa smiled slowly. He does not feel insulted, Cassian thought with relief. T'skrang talk freely, and I have asked him not do so.

"Well, praetor Cassian, you may be surprised by this, but I do not know how such supplies will be obtained. You will have to ascertain this from the provisions of Daralec's will. If there is no such document, then a conclave of House Carinci will decide the question. That will not be undertaken until after the feasting, of course."

"Would you consider expressing any views on who such a conclave might decide is most likely, or most fit, to take over the business? Assuming, just for the moment, that no will exists? Or that, if it does, gives no such specification?"

K'keelifa almost laughed. His tail swished, almost slapping on the timbers. Cassian knew enough of tail etiquette to know the t'skrang was not angry or upset.

"You speak like a scribe, Cassian. The answer is, again, that I do not know. There is no obvious candidate. House Carinci has dealt with this trade but thirty years and in that time Daralec has always had all rights in the matter. Such was the agreed division of trade."

But thirty years. . .For a moment Cassian had the awful feeling he would have to trouble poor Haughrald again, then thought better of it. No, he would try the House of Records first. If possible, he would spare the dwarf a third visit.

He got to his feet and nodded, half a bow as protocol demanded, to the wryly smiling admiral.

"I am most grateful for your openness, Admiral. If only I could count on it from everyone with whom I must deal," he said warmly.

"Thank you. Now be off with you," K'keelifa said tartly. "You've been on my ship long enough. Some of my crew are superstitious about having elves on board, you know." The t'skrang laughed and slapped his tail cheerfully as he got up to follow Cassian through the cabin doorway.

When Cassian and Jerenn crossed paths a second time that day, this time Cassian saw the boy. He was carrying a string-bound bundle of clothes, the curves of wool straining at their bindings as he scurried up the broad roadway in the direction of the Rose Villa. The elf smiled, and continued east toward the House of Records.

During his first hour there Cassian turned up even more than he'd hoped for. Daralec had come to Vivane thirty-one years past, from Marac. Within a year, an agreement had been sealed at a grand House conclave ceding rights to Carinci for importing stone. Gaining access to the minutes of the conclave was something akin to trying to catch a greased piglet, but Cassian finally imposed rank on the scribe, who then grudgingly produced the bound and buckled book, standing by him to make sure the elf read only the pages he had requested and been made to sign for. Prior to that time, House Narlanth, in the person of one Horlanth, had enjoyed the rights.

Cassian was mildly surprised. Narlanth was no trading House, and it must have been an odd state of affairs initially for one of their number to be granted such rights. Further trawling of documents uncovered the existence of a very long-standing agreement, one signed and sealed long before the Scourge. Cassian knew it was also unusual for Narlanth to provide military engineers, but that's what Dragold was. Perhaps the scions of that House are more versatile here than most other places, he mused.

His attention stimulated by this slightly surprising find, he examined records of births and deaths for some basic information on Horlanth. He discovered that his death occurred within a year of Daralec's arrival in Vivane, and the cause of death was given as failure of the heart following a fever. Horlanth was thirty-six years old when he died. Rather young for the kind of death that usually came to the old, Cassian thought, troubled now. Looking through the registers for the year, he found no evidence of an epidemic of fever at the time. That troubled him further.

"I require access to the will of Daralec of House Carinci," he told the disgruntled scribe. "I also require access to all documents lodged with the House of Records by Daralec in the previous ten years."

It was preposterous, and Cassian knew he had absolutely no reason for the latter request. He simply disliked the officious scribe and had decided to give him a bad time. The will was the usual affair; minor bequests, the normal endowment of the only son, with the normal stipulations about pre-deceasment and the rights of his wife. There was absolutely no mention of the trading rights whatsoever.

"Thank you for your help," he said to the wearied clerk, finally taking pity on him after putting him through what had been needless effort. He handed the man a coin of gold, genuinely remorseful now. Cassian knew his only excuse for making him carry great burdens of documents was a temporary lapse into meanness of spirit. The man looked grateful, and too tired to be resentful.

"Let me just confirm something for myself. No document can carry legal weight unless it is lodged here?"

"Oh no, sir, that is not so."

Cassian was stunned. This was a clear violation of Imperial law, surely He'd only asked the question out of a desire to say something at all to the poor man before he left. In fact, he'd considered it a pointless query, having said the first thing that came to mind. Now he wondered whether the hours of poring over points of legal detail might not have stimulated his awareness as much as any deep reverie.

"If a document is written here, witnessed by two members of the conclave of Houses, and an oath of agreement is sworn before a judge, then that is also sufficient."

"That is not Imperial law," Cassian said ominously. "Most peculiar. Not that any responsibility attaches to you, of course," he hurried to reassure the scribe, who was now looking very anxious. "Well, thank you doubly."

Cassian was already on his way out when something else pricked at his mind. He hurried back to the register of births and deaths, and the name that leaped out at him made him beam with delight. Here, surely, was something.

Born, fifty-five years past, a son to Horlanth of House Narlanth; an only child. Named Ziraldesh.

Within ten minutes he had discovered the very interesting absence of a certain person from Vivane, which intrigued him even more.

13

The villa was a small one, shrouded by shrubbery and small trees, hiding behind its browning cloak of leaves. Unswept scurries of gold, red, and brown leaves skipped over the lawn like waves in the gentle breeze as Cassian walked up to the front door. A servant arrived promptly to meet him, and led him into a small reception room to await his probably unwilling host.

The elf looked around carefully. The furnishings were fairly sparse, though well cared for; polish was not a commodity in short supply in this household. But the trappings spoke of a modest living, with no hint of excess income. Ziraldesh probably had to manage his means carefully, Cassian thought. But had House Narlanth still enjoyed the trading rights they'd once claimed, it would surely not be so.

Ziraldesh arrived at the doorway, clad in plain brown. His hair looked just washed, lustrous and thick for his years. The frame of the doorway seemed almost to exaggerate his height, though he was tall in any event.

I lis thin features wore a frown, but also a look of near-resignation. He had obviously expected the visit, probably sooner than it had ultimately come.

"I trust your wife is bearing up well?" Cassian inquired politely.

"She is resting after a midday meal," the wizard said carefully. Nothing in his voice suggested that he knew of Shusala's meeting with Cassian; there was little or no emotion in his voice.

"Good. Well, I shan't need much of your time. I'm sure you must be busy. By the way, may I inquire what it is exactly that you do?"

"Tutoring, mostly. Sons and daughters of the rich and some hours at the college. A little translation work now and again. Whatever I can find, more or less."

"It sounds somewhat insecure," the elf said smoothly.

"There are lean times and fatter years," the wizard replied, quite impassively.

Cassian decided to play his first card. "It must have been unfortunate for you to find it necessary to divest yourself of property so regularly these last few years," he murmured. Ziraldesh blanched and struggled to regain his composure.

"There have been expenses to meet," he tried to bluff. "My son suffered ill-health repeatedly. When he was young, I mean."

"Your son?"

"I think of him as my son," Ziraldesh said defiantly.

This is nonsense, Cassian thought. With the best will in the world, not to mention a magnanimous heart, no human could look upon a young elf as his own son. It was just not possible.

"I trust, then, that Aralesh has left you something in his will, since you are his executor," Cassian said.

"What are you suggesting?" the wizard snapped angrily.

"Nothing." Cassian held out his hands as if to say he was hiding nothing. "Simply that if Aralesh trusted you enough to name you executor, one might assume you two were reasonably close. And given also your bond of family and House—it would also suggest that surely he must have left you something."

"You know damn well what he left me," the wizard snapped. "The will is in the House of Records where anybody can look it up. Well, my family has some secure years ahead, I'm glad to say. It was the least the evil bastard could do."

Cassian was intrigued. It might muddy the waters further for him to play another card, but he had the wizard on the defensive now and he wanted to throw him off guard utterly.

"If only the matter of Daralec's will were so simple— oh, I'm sorry! Daralec, Aralesh, the names are so similar, it's easy to get them mixed up."

"What on earth are you on about?" Now Ziraldesh was shaking, there was no doubt about it. He had gone as white as the proverbial sheet.

"Who would you recommend as the better of the ele-mentalists residing in this city?"

"What?" Ziraldesh was now confused beyond rational thought, but Cassian knew the bolt had missed its mark. Whatever the man was concealing, it had nothing to do with elementalism. If he had any association with the woman who had murdered Crielle the night before, it was not a simple one.

"Well, no mind," Cassian retreated. "Let me offer some points to you. You had no love for Daralec the stone merchant, and you have just described Aralesh to me as an evil bastard. Your father lost your inheritance to Daralec, who dwelt in Marac before ever coming to Vivane. But the tax and tithing records of this city show that you were abroad for two years immediately prior to Daralec's arrival. What took you to Marac?"

"Never been there/' Ziraldesh blustered.

"Don't be a fool, man. A kedate has my orders to present himself on an airship traveling there via Thera this very evening," Cassian said firmly. "It will be only a matter of days before this messenger brings me the truth. If you have just lied, you had best make amends swiftly or I shall make formal record of your duplicity in my report. That could lead to your impeachment from the conclave, and loss of face for Narlanth. You will be an outcast in your own home."

The wizard sagged and nearly collapsed. Cassian had to get up and help him to a chair. To his credit, the man did not weep, but swallowed hard and tried to summon up his courage.

"As for—look, why did you ask me about elementalists?" Ziraldesh clutched at the one straw that might divert the praetor long enough for him to focus his thoughts and marshal his defenses again.

"That is of no matter—yet," Cassian said, emphasizing the last word. It deferred the wizard's option of pursuing that line of conversation. The elf hoped he wouldn't have to get around to it at all.

"Now, why is Aralesh an evil bastard? He is your cousin. You lived within a stone's throw, near enough, for the best part of twenty years."

"I was being unfair," Ziraldesh protested quickly. "The truth is, I suspected him of certain unwise involvements. Unwise for a wizard, that is. I believe he dabbled in certain matters he claimed only to study by reading."

"You thought he trafficked with Horrors."

"I did, yes. But I took everything.. .the best of his grimoires and books that I could lay my hands on, and I could find no evidence for that."

Cassian believed him, but he could see that Ziraldesh was still deeply anxious about something concerning Aralesh. There was obviously much more to all this. He shifted tack again, probing for a sustained advantage.

"Daralec killed your father."

"Yes, he did." Ziraldesh seemed unburdened by what he said, almost as though it were a confession of some wrongdoing of his own. That did not make sense to Cassian. "Nothing could ever be proved. I had no recourse to justice. I'm glad the swine's dead. I'm sorry, but I'm even glad his son died too. It seems like some kind of blood justice for my father's death."

"You met Daralec in Marac," Cassian pressed him.

"I met him a few times," Ziraldesh said slowly, his guard up once more.

"More than that," Cassian insisted. The relieved reaction from Ziraldesh had, just had, to be concealing more. "You knew him well enough to talk of your father's trade. Daralec must have schemed to get the rights to Vivane's stone trade in part because of what you told him." It was a wild shot, and again it missed.

"That's true," Ziraldesh said far too rapidly.

"And you have been living as husband to the daughter of a man who murdered your father?" Cassian said incredulously.

Ziraldesh hesitated and did not speak for a long time. "I love my wife very much," he said at last, quietly and with dignity.

"Yes, I think you do," Cassian said. "Enough to stay your hand against her murdering father, for her sake? Then you must." But something was desperately wrong here still, and Cassian knew it. He was stymied; the barbs he had expected to strike home had failed too often to win him the decisive advantage. Now he was truly puzzled. His only recourse would be further travels, and investigations further afield.

He had one final bolt left to fire as he got up to leave.

"Daralec was no Maracian, of course," he said smoothly. "I've seen more than one portrait of him. Far too light of skin. However, your wife does have a very definite Maracian coloring. I find that most interesting."

Hearing those words, all the blood drained from Ziraldesh's face and he remained mute, not daring to even look at the elf. So distressed was he that Ziraldesh could not even manage to rise from his chair to do the courtesy of showing Cassian out.

Most revealing, Cassian thought. The obvious conclusion was that Daralec's first wife was Maracian and that his daughter took her coloring from her mother. Nothing at all untoward about that. So why does he look as if I have struck him a mortal blow?

My kedate will find out for me. Now I had better requisition that chariot, and see if I cannot catch up with K'keelifa's ship at its overnight mooring. With any luck, I can be back here within three days.

By then, I should know a good deal more about Ziraldesh's secrets, though my kedate will not have returned in so short a time.

Jerenn puffed as he sat back on his heels, red-faced after polishing the floor. Two of the maids had been taken ill, and despite his threatening cold he'd been saddled with one of the most menial household jobs. Gazing vacantly ahead of him, a little light-headed and flushed with his high temperature, his eyes settled on a single piece of folded vellum. For once, Cassian had forgotten to seal his notes in the bound and locked slim case where he normally kept them. The fold in the paper was uneven, and Jerenn could read a few words of the tall, elegant handwriting.

"Crotias suspects city sabotage—? Premature?" he managed to make out. His heart thumped in his chest, remembering so clearly the words he'd overheard last night. He desperately wanted to unfold the paper, to read what else Cassian thought from meeting people as exalted as Crotias, but he did not dare. Slaves had been executed for far less. Remembering Cassian's gift of gold, and the clothes he had for the old ork woman, he knew it would be a betrayal to snoop, though he longed to do so. For a moment, he wondered if he didn't have a duty to read the sheaf; perhaps he could tell Cassian what he had heard, perhaps it might even help him!

His head was still spinning with that idea when he heard the elf approaching. Jerenn re-polished the last square inch of floor, going at the work with ridiculous overexertion. His timing perfect, he managed to stop, sighing as if the entire weight of the world was on his thin shoulders, just as the elf entered the room.

"Great heavens, boy, get off to bed," Cassian said, almost alarmed. "You'll be sick for a week if you do such things. Go and rest, and if any servant tells you otherwise, send them here to argue with me!"

"Yes, sir," Jerenn said in his very best pale-and-wan voice. It was the one he'd used in his days as a beggar, putting soap and water in his mouth to fake an attack of fits. Afterwards, even the most hard-hearted skinflint dwarf had been prepared to throw a copper at such an unfortunately afflicted scrap of a boy. It was not wholly affectation; he ached sorely between his shoulder blades and there was a ragged pain in the left side of his rib cage. He winced and clutched at his side.

To his amazement, the elf picked him up and carried him in his arms to the servant's quarters. Setting the boy down, he sternly told the one remaining maid to look after the youth and make sure he stayed safely in bed.

"I shall be gone three days and he must rest during that time," Cassian commanded the girl.

Jerenn stared at the elf's retreating form as he walked from the room.

He is strong, Jerenn reflected; he picked me up without much effort and I'm not that small. He is intelligent, and learned, and cultured—and kind, I think. But I know something he doesn't and, just perhaps, he will also be grateful to me if there comes a day when he needs to know that something. I will not lie here for three days. I can do some asking, and begging in the Undercity. I can keep that girl out of my room by telling her I'm infectious. By tomorrow I'll be well enough to go out.

He smiled quietly inside himself, and fell asleep.

14

Jerenn had been wrong, of course. Most of the next day was spent slipping in and out of sleep, drifting into and out of confusing half-dreams in which livid orks slashed at him with filthy claws and cloaked people whispered behind walls too quietly to be overheard. The fever was worse than he'd thought, but some of the elven gold had bought the right herbs after all and it turned out to be a thirty-six-hour rush of fever. The following night was not as bad as the day had been, and the exhausted boy managed to sleep peacefully at last.

The next morning he felt weak, but that was mostly from lack of food. He sneaked out of his bed early and raided the kitchen, gobbling bread and cold meat and then a little fruit for his dry mouth. By breakfast time he was able to get by with a bit of warmed broth, pleading with the maid to stay well away from him lest she get sick too. Since his windowless room was dark, the girl had no way of seeing that his face was no longer hot and flushed, and she fled. For a moment, he wondered if she might have locked the door like he was some kind of plague victim, but then he remembered the door had no lock.

Gathering up some clothes, rags, and a pillow, he piled them under the blankets to create a passable imitation of a sleeping body and managed to slip out of the villa unseen just after noon. He smeared his face with dirt and then realized he was wearing the same patched-up jerkin from his all-too-recent nocturnal adventure. The cloth still bore evil-smelling evidence of his fall into the pool of muck, and his nose wrinkled involuntarily at the reek.

Oh well, it'll help my appearance as a beggar, he thought with a shrug.

Jerenn made his way through the secret passages, wary of crossing anyone's path, until he came to where he would emerge into the Broken Quarter. Just before doing so, he took the package of half-rotted meat he'd rescued from the heap behind the villa and began to work on it. By the time his dexterous fingers had completed their efforts, and the meat was pressed close to his body and his clothing suitably adjusted, Jerenn had a befouled wound that would have won the sympathy of the most callous of onlookers. When he emerged blinking into the sunlight, he began to seek the right location for turning the wound into gifts of copper. He'd get some crusts and scraps too, but that wasn't what he needed; nonetheless, a child beggar should always appear grateful for anything he managed to extract.

He knew where the most aggressive beggars were, the ones who would send him packing with a kick, or far worse, if he encroached on their patch, and he avoided those. But he also knew where they turned their own coins into the forgetfulness of bad drink, and in such places one could hide in shadowy corners and hear gossip and rumor. It was only a start, but today he felt like trusting to luck.

Cassian reached Balkaria as swiftly as he'd hoped. The riverboat's stopover had been but for an hour, to pay regards and exchange greetings with an upriver t'skrang niall, and the miles had passed swiftly Not only was K'keelifa's vessel clean, it was very fast, and they reached the stone mines by early afternoon of the following day Cassian soon found who he was looking for, given the information he had gleaned from the House of Records and House Carinci's documents of rights and ownership. Daralec had assigned day-to-day control of the mines to his brother Fargresh, a standard exercise in nepotism. The man was hard-faced and exceedingly displeased to see him.

"I've got work to do," he grumbled irritably. "K'keelifa will be back here within four days and will expect everything all ready for loading. The work's been hard, and what with all the dust from this dry weather, many of my miners have the wracking cough. Some of 'em have the fever too. Now what are you here to bother me with? I've never heard of praetori anyway. It doesn't mean anything to me."

"Come now, that's hardly likely. You may not be a member of the conclave, but you're Daralec's brother and there are more mentions of you in his books than of anyone else. The two of you deposited documents in the House of Records at the same time on a number of occasions, though you work here for most of the year. Hardly coincidence.

"Now," Cassian went on, "I imagine that the document you both forswore in the House of Records was given to you for safekeeping. And I imagine it will be presented at the next conclave, when you come to Vivane for the feast of Kypros."

"What document?" Fargresh said shiftily. Got him, Cassian thought in a moment of real delight. My three days won't be wasted.

"You forget that two conclave witnesses must be present when such a document is forsworn," Cassian said blithely. The man took the bait. It was obvious that he believed, as Cassian intended, that the other witness must have told the elf what had occurred.

"I had instructions not to deliver it until the first House conclave following Daralec's death," he said miserably.

"I'm sorry to inform you that I do have the powers to inspect the document. But there is absolutely no reason for me to divulge the contents to anyone else and I shall not do so. I do not even need to take it with me," Cassian said coolly.

"Look, you may be the law, but up here that doesn't count for all that much," the man said. "If I say you don't see it, then you don't."

"Now, strangely enough, I saw a detachment of the Eighth Legion barely half a mile down the road, garrisoned to protect the mine," Cassian shot back. "If you really want me to come back here within half an hour with them at my back, and your working men and slaves to witness you dragged off in chains, I can accommodate you.

"Come on, Fargresh. You can't deny me," Cassian finished, trying to sound more reasonable.

The man retreated into the back room of his cramped hut, returning within minutes carrying a securely locked, heavy wooden box. It took two keys to unlock it, and Cassian noticed how he turned the second one in the lock with especial precision.

Dear me, but House Carinci does like to barb its secrets with dangerous traps, Cassian mused. Why so suspicious?

"You must give me something in writing," the man . pleaded. "I will have to break the seal. I must have something to show the conclave."

"I have already prepared it for you," Cassian said, handing him a signed and wax-sealed scroll of his own. "This states that you have permitted me an inspection of this document under duress, and I have taken full responsibility for that."

The man was still obviously distressed, but of course he had little choice in the matter. Cassian broke the seal on the document, unfolded it, and read the words eagerly There were two names, not at all what he had expected. The name of the man who would inherit the rights to the business was a wholly unexpected one, and it startled him. It would be difficult, and embarrassing at this stage, to confront him, though the elf knew he must do so at some stage. The other name, the second witness whose identity Cassian had not known until this moment, intrigued him for quite different reasons.

Patracheus! The man who controlled the purse strings of Vivane. Well, that is logical enough, I suppose, Cassian told himself. I shall call upon him, I think, using Ilfaralek's good offices—which ought to be about as easy as capturing a slippery snake in a swamp.

Cassian refolded the paper, returned it to Fargresh. Coming outside, he noted the blackening skies with annoyance. He would need to commandeer one of the soldier's mounts, ride to the river, and transfer to a returning river vessel. That voyage would certainly not be as comfortable as the one that had brought him here, and in all likelihood he would probably be soaked to the skin by the time he got to the river anyway. He turned up his collar and hoped for the best.

Many miles to the east of the galloping elf, Jerenn sat quietly and tried to keep the mixed stench of stale sweat, other body fluids of diseased flesh, and some spectacularly evil-looking meat pies being dumped on the serving-hatch of the drinking hole, out of his nostrils. The Broken Quarter boasted many houses and buildings that were almost sound, and many more with only one major defect; a badly leaking roof, perhaps, or a room with rotted floorboards. Many people had their own dwellings, and some traders and merchants also had their own places, but there were very few taverns or hostelries to be found. It was simply too dangerous; too much money could be found in such a place and there were far too many desperate souls ready to brave any number of guards and ruffians hired for protection. Indeed, most such hirelings would be all too happy to take a taverner's coin and then beat him to a pulp for the rest. So, such refreshment as could be found tended to be available in places like this, temporary drinking holes that tomorrow would be somewhere else in the ruins, set up for a few days in some other semi-ruin until they became too well-known and it became prudent to move on.

Jerenn remembered the young woman's words about the tunnels, and steered into the gloom close to some dwarfs. Whatever was going on in the Undercity, they would surely have heard about it. He was as fortunate as Cassian had been. He heard some places mentioned, the dwarfs surly and resentful because they hadn't been part of the work, and their people had not participated in what was afoot. Then he heard a name, and he smiled quietly in the darkness, for it was that of a man he'd also heard Mother Grishin mention. He had hidden his gifts for her carefully, and he slipped away into the early evening to pick them up and take them to her. He would surely learn something worth hearing now.

The old ork was coughing badly when he found her. It seemed to be the season for sickness in the lungs or the ribs; the sudden rains after so much heat was trailing some infection or virulence in its wake, perhaps. As usual, she tried to suffocate pain beneath blankets of hard drink, numbing her senses. She pulled on the mittens with a groan, but when he gave her the hard leather strips she was delighted, he could see that.

"I know you can make boots, you told me," he said. "I didn't have enough money to buy boots and I didn't know if they would fit anyway."

"My fingers aren't what they were," she grumbled, "but this is good leather. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, boy." She fondled the hide appreciatively, turning it over and over in hands that looked more like arthritic claws. He sat with her and they ate together, until at last he tried to sidle up on what interested him without making her too suspicious.

"Some of those dwarfs, they're talking about someone making a tunnel down at the Rat Circus," he said as casually as he could manage. Her eyes narrowed.

"And what's that to you, boy?"

"It's just that I beg down there sometimes, to get some coppers. I wasn't sure if I ought to stay away, not when I don't know what's happening."

The ork looked uncertain; the boy earned money there, and her life was going to be slightly less wretched this winter because of what he brought to her with that money. But Jerenn was over-eager, clutching at his opportunity too aggressively.

"They say there's a wizard there, a young woman; no, there's two of them they were saying, and—"

His words were cut short. With surprising speed and strength, the ork had him by the throat.

"Now you listen to me," she snarled. "You better forget anything like that you heard. Not that I know nothing anyway. But you keep your mouth shut or there'll be people who'll knock out every tooth inside it and stomp your bones into dust by the time they've finished beating you. Understand?"

He nodded, wide-eyed and shaking. She slowly relaxed her hold, and he coughed violently, his throat tender and sore from her powerful grip. It had hurt, and his eyes and nose stung now, but there was something important afoot. Mother Grishin usually heard most of what went on in the Broken Quarter, so he couldn't think it was common knowledge, but it wasn't entirely a secret either.

That means that enough people must have been told to get ready for something big, he thought.

He sat quietly until she grunted at him in a reasonably kindly way and broke off another hunk of crusty bread for them to eat.

I'll be back here tomorrow night, he plotted to himself, and I'll see for myself what's going on in the tunnels. After all, I may know some side-exits and entrances even the builders don't, with any luck.

Jerenn tended to make the natural mistake, common among overoptimistic youth, of trusting to luck just once too often.

15

The weather held good the next day, fine and clear, the crisp morning air offering the promise of a frost within a few days. After riding the ship's rail all day, Cassian was disappointed to see the vessel approaching the walls and docks of Vivane later than he'd hoped, dusk already staining the sky at his back, a spectrum of deep reds and oranges. It would be days before his messenger returned from Marac, and he was unsure whether to confront Ziraldesh again. The alternative was a much more demanding target, but Cassian felt too tired from constant travel to pit his wits against Patracheus that evening.

The t'skrang rivermen were boisterous when they finally moored their ship, and he could not get away without inviting them to a drink. It would have given offense if he'd left so cursorily, and in truth they had been very friendly to him. He had eaten well with them—their smoked river flatfish had been excellent—and it would have been rude not to return their kindness. It was not surprising, then, that by the time Cassian finally descended from his carriage and urged his weary bones toward the door of the Rose Villa, he had no thought of anything other than a warm bath and peaceful sleep.

"Yes, yes, fine, just make sure I have hot water for my bath first," he muttered to the eager Jerenn as the boy buzzed about the chambers. "No, I don't want any food. Yes, my journey was a safe one. Look, what are all these questions?"

A chastened Jerenn retreated towards the kitchens. Cassian closed the door of his bedchamber, wearily peeled off his traveling clothes and pulled the silk nightshirt over his head and shoulders. It was a plain garment, unembroidered and without motifs, a simple dark blue, but even so it had seemed something of an extravagance when he'd bought it in the market town upriver. He could, doubtless, have found better, and cheaper, in the markets of Vivane itself, but it had caught his eye and the cool feeling of the breathing fabric was easy on his skin. He wandered off to the bathchamber, bare feet padding along the cool stone floor. The solid, unmoving stones felt wonderful underneath his tired feet.

Some uncertain time later, he was startled into rude wakefulness as a hand prodded his shoulder tentatively. His sudden, alarmed jerk rolled him over in the bath and he got a mouthful of warm water before he splashed his way unceremoniously around again, coughing violently on what had gotten into his lungs. His reddened eyes took in the sight of Jerenn, who was trying to hide behind a large towel while simultaneously holding it out towards him like some kind of ceremonial offering.

"Begging your pardon, sir," the boy pleaded, "you fell asleep. It isn't safe, sir—you might have drowned."

Cassian was about to scold him, but held his tongue. No, he wouldn't have drowned. He had far better instincts than that, even when asleep, but the boy wasn't to know that. No doubt he'd been told from time to time to keep an eye out for drunken nobles falling asleep in Tarlanth's pool after a night of overindulgence.

He reached the side of the pool in a couple of swift swimming strokes and rested his elbows on the edge.

"Thank you for your watchfulness. Now I think I can get myself off to bed. A Theran praetor can manage that without the help of a servant, I think."

The boy looked crestfallen, as Cassian intended.

If he becomes overfamiliar with me, it will not go easy for him once I'm gone. One lapse into the same habit and his master might have him flogged or worse. He's a useful lad to have around, but I must keep in mind that I will not be here forever.

On the other hand, one of these times I really must follow him on one of those nocturnal jaunts of his to see what he is really up to.

Jerenn had run into enough hazards recently to be especially cautious in his approach to Mother Grishin's den this night. Unless someone specifically knew he was coming, and knew which routes he took and how long he watched and waited at various points along the way, he could not be trapped. Of course, someone knew exactly those things; or, rather, a pair of people did. Less than fifty yards from the lair, hands leaped from the darkness and a sack was over his head before he was even aware that anything was amiss. A thump over the back of the head with something heavy and blunt knocked him completely senseless.

When he came to, Jerenn was still blinded by the sack tied over his head. He was somewhere cold, and through the crude fabric of the sack he could dimly see a flickering flame, torch light perhaps. He could not keep from groaning as he woke, and when he tried to rub the lump on his head, he found his hands tied fast behind his back. Murmuring voices stopped in mid-sentence and rough hands prodded at him.

“You'd better talk fast," someone snarled at him in the rough tongue of Throal. Jerenn made deliberately obscure sounds, trying to trick them into untying the sack from his head. He wanted to see where he was, and who was imprisoning him. His reward for his efforts was a neatly placed kick to the back of his knees. He yelped and asked his unseen tormentor what he wanted to know.

"You been hearing things about tunnels, then?"

"Only what some dwarfs were saying in a drinking hole," he replied painfully. He tried to curl himself up into a ball to shield himself as best he could from further assault. "Nothing secret. They hadn't even been in them."

"You mentioned some names you heard," a second voice shot back menacingly.

Jerenn thought fast. There was no way he could get away with claiming that he'd overheard the names he'd foolishly let slip to Mother Grishin from some old dwarfs moaning over their beer.

"I heard Taravail say something," he lied. He didn't want to get the ork into the same trouble he was in, but telling the truth might get him killed here and now. He wished fervently that he'd never told the old ork, later on the previous night, of the names he'd overheard from his perch on the roof.

"Damned ork never could keep his mouth shut," one of his captors growled. "We'd better make sure this gets known about." His fellow ignored him and prodded at the boy again.

"What do you know about them then? Arlyna and Nighthand?"

"Nothing, I just heard the names."

There was a moment of silence and then the boy nearly screamed with pain. A burning sensation shot along the inside of his right leg, and a fist struck him right in the pit of his stomach.

"I said, what do you know?" The voice was angry, and Jerenn didn't wait for the blow that was sure to follow the short silence. Half-winded by the punch, he could only gasp a few syllables at a time.

"Wizards. Heard they were wizards. That's all. Honestly," he pleaded.

"Then why were you so interested in them?"

"I wasn't. I only mentioned it to someone," Jerenn was too scared to mention Mother Grishin. He didn't want her to get in any trouble. "She likes to be told what's happening. She can't move around much."

"Yes, sure," his interrogator spat at him. "You'd better come up with something better than that. Who are you spying for?"

"I'm not spying. I'm not!" Jerenn yelled the last part, trying to preempt another punching. The inside of his leg throbbed painfully. From the nature of the pain, he knew they must have burned him.

"You've been seen all over the place, you little gutter rat," the voice said, and hands clamped about his throat, threatening to strangle him. As the pressure grew about his neck, and he could not breathe, Jerenn only barely managed to gurgle a few choked-off sounds. He was on the point of losing consciousness when the hands suddenly released their murderous grip. He gasped for breath, coughing and sputtering. He was given a couple of minutes to recover before his relentless inquisitor returned to his questioning.

"I asked you, who are you spying for? Don't cover up. You're only going to die for it if you don't tell me."

"I'm not spying for anyone. I was just interested. I was scared. I heard there's some plan to get into the walled Quarter. I wanted to hear when, to make sure I would be out of the way. If any of the Therans has ever seen me go through the tunnels they'd have me killed straight away," he said, inventing a plausible stratagem. "They'd think I was involved. Maybe. I don't know, I was just scared."

"Look, let's just kill him," a weary voice said somewhere in the background.

"Not so simple," the first man said. "Even the Therans might miss a slave. He's a trusty, I've been told. Runs errands and the like. He would be missed.

"Better blood him," the voice concluded.

Jerenn felt his left arm cut with a blade. He tried not to cry out against the mounting pain; his leg was still hurting, his guts still sore, and his throat throbbing. One more assault and his whole body would be afire.

"Now look, brat," the man growled into his ear. Jerenn could feel warm, foul breath close to his face. "We've got some of your blood now. Wizards can do terrible things to you if they have a bit of your blood. You ain't coming back here, not any time. Take one step into the Broken Quarter and it'll be your last. You stay behind those walls and take your chances. And if you talk to anyone, well, after the right magical rituals them wizards do, it'll be known about. You'd be better off dead, right? You were lucky tonight. You should be dead. You just come back here, or talk, and you're going to wish you were."

"I understand," the boy said, pain, relief, and fear all mixed together in his voice.

"Get him out of here. Dump him near where we got him," one of the men said quietly. Hands grabbed at his ankles and under his arms and carried him away into the night.

Jerenn tried to patch himself up as best he could, and wore long-sleeved garments the next day. The bump on his head didn't show from the front, but the red-raw burn on the inside of his thigh was so painful he couldn't walk properly. Apprehensive, he moved very slowly into the elf's bedroom to bring him hot water for shaving and washing his face in the morning. The elf thanked him lazily and by the time Jerren had padded carefully to the doorway, Jerenn thought he'd gotten away with it. He was one stride away from safety when Cassian's voice, still very casual, drifted after him.

"Did you see your friend last night?"

"Yes, sir, I took her the clothes and some food." Jerenn nodded and was just turning to leave.

"Just a minute," the elf said with deliberate casualness. "You seem to have some rather rough friends. They don't seem to reward your gifts with gratitude. You're walking very strangely, and that's an unpleasant bang you took on the head."

Jerenn had hoped, but not really expected, to avoid the elf's sharp gaze. He had been prepared for this.

"I fell, sir, in the tunnels. The floors collapse sometimes. I struck my head and grazed my knee a little. I'm just a little stiff, sir. I'll be all right."

"I'd better see that graze. It might need healing to keep it from getting infected," Cassian replied, just the slightest edge in his tone.

"It won't need that, sir. I know how to bathe and use the right herbs. It isn't discolored and—"

"Jerenn," the elf said wearily, "take off your pants. And, no, I am not in the habit of molesting slave boys."

Jerenn was forced to comply, standing with his shift coming down to mid-thigh, the livid burn mark glaring puffy and scarlet.

"By the Passions, lad, what on earth have you been doing? That burn needs treating. That was no accident. You had better get to that herbalist's again—after you've told me what happened to you."

Jerenn did not try to lie, but he did try to get away with less than the truth at every turn. It seemed pointless after a while, for Cassian always seemed to know. Residual pain and weariness broke the youth's resistance to the elf's relentless pressing for detail. Finally, he remembered the few jotted words he'd seen on the table beside Cassian's bed. The elf was sitting up now, arms folded before his satin-skinned chest, his eyes fixed firmly on him. He looked wholly implacable, and Jerenn decided to try to turn disadvantage into a possible gain.

"There's some tunneling beyond the walls, sir. There's some plan to try to get into the Quarter. It's nothing to worry about, sir, they talk about such things all the time.''

Cassian managed, successfully, not to give away his interest. He clenched his arms more tightly across his chest.

“It would appear to me that you were treated most harshly for learning of it, and I doubt that it is just another tale."

Jerenn paused for a moment and then offered his best hope of finding favor. "Well, sir, there are some wizards involved. And one of them is a Theran." He had clean forgotten what he'd been warned of, that he mustn't speak on pain of magical reprisal from some unseen and unknown wizard with a vial of his blood from which to work.

So Crotias was right, Cassian thought. And wasn't I right to wonder whether this lad was not brighter than a slave should be?

"How do you know that?" he said aloud.

"I overheard her, sir. I didn't hear or see the other wizard."

"I think," Cassian said slowly, "that you had better tell me everything. From the beginning. Every last detail."

Jerenn had a momentary impulse to scratch the back of his head, and as he raised his arm behind his head to do so he cut the movement short, wincing in pain from the cut. Cassian immediately demanded to see his arm. Cursing his forgetfulness, Jerenn rolled up his sleeve. The wound had almost soaked the bandage now, and as he fumbled with one hand to roll up the sleeve, the soaked cloth almost fell off, leaving a bloodied trail of unwinding linen dangling in mid-air. Cassian shot out of bed like a hare bolting from cover, pushed the boy down into a chair, and ran off towards the servants quarters, shouting for a maid.

Jerenn hung his head, trying to patch up the bandage. What had he gotten himself into now?

16

By noon, Jerenn's resistance was so low that he'd blurted out his fear of the threat of blood magic. Cassian did his best to reassure him that the protections of the Rose Villa itself would prevent such reprisal, and gave him a silvered pendant for further protection. It was not magical, in point of fact, and of no value—save that it comforted Jerenn and made him feel secure. The elf made sure the boy's wounds were properly cleaned and treated, and left orders for him to be fed on good meat and a little wine, to replenish strength lost from bleeding. Noticing the sideways looks he got from some of the other slaves, Cassian knew they thought he'd taken the lad as a catamite.

Well, let them gossip, he thought. It'll keep them from wondering about anything important.

He also managed to put in a couple of hours' work at the House of Records, searching diligently for any documents that might provide a link between Ilfaralek and Patracheus. Though Ilfaralek should be as above the schemes of the city's purse-string holder as Cassian himself was, wisdom dictated that he make some such study. If Ilfaralek was involved in something underhanded, it was unlikely he'd left behind any proof, but a praetor could leave no stone unturned. To his relief, Cassian could find no such evidence; but there were many formal agreements between members of Houses Zanjan and Thaloss, and he was uncomfortable at the prospect of doing what he must do next.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," he said smoothly to Ilfaralek while being ushered into his offices in the Southern Barracks. "I'm afraid that I must impose on you for some help. I've discovered a document of some interest. I must ask you to speak of Patracheus."

Ilfaralek's pupils dilated. "He is powerful," he replied slowly, "and very influential. Very influential."

"I need to know which are his most important commercial connections. And which are perhaps less than entirely public." Cassian went right to the point, dispensing with the exchange of pleasantries that would only have wasted time and done nothing to soften up the alert and clever akarenti.

"You'd better have a very good reason for your query," Ilfaralek said. "And I had better be assured that this information will not be traced back to me in any report you compose."

"That goes without saying," Cassian began.

"Say it anyway," the man said tartly.

Cassian laughed. "I can assure you that that will be so. Come, your profession is not so very far from mine. You know that I would not be so unwise, nor so inconsiderate."

"Much of Patracheus's work these days is handled by his associate, Mordain. Patracheus has been his mentor for some years and perhaps grows a little lazy."

"Not wise for one in his position," Cassian murmured.

"Perhaps not, but on the other hand, it lets Patracheus appear to be above the common corruption of his post."

"Mordain does the dirty work now, leaving Patracheus to deal with the most powerful nobles," Cassian suggested.

"Exactly so. Patracheus retains control, but he has someone trusted to deal with the details," Ilfaralek said.

"Can Patracheus trust him?"

"I think so," Ilfaralek said slowly, after some consideration. "Mordain is still too junior to be a threat to Patracheus. Anyway, you can be sure that Patracheus has enough dirt on Mordain to keep him from doing anything rash. Should one fall, the other would go down too, I think."

"Patracheus is involved with all major city works?" Cassian said casually.

"Most certainly. He has control of all financing in such matters. Naturally, there are separate moneys for military expenditures, though never enough. It's true the Overgovemor also has his own household bursary, which is considerable. But Patracheus controls what really matters. Even if he doesn't, he's always kept up to date on work projects, not least because the planner is usually hoping for extra funds from the House of Works. I myself must go to Patracheus, hoping to persuade him of my own requirements for expenditures, and he is reasonably receptive. I have good relations with him, and we have no cause for quarrel. Thus, you might not consider my opinions entirely objective, though I've done my best to be so."

Cassian smiled and changed the course of the conversation.

"He would have had contracts with Daralec, then?"

"Come now, Cassian, you've been spending time at the House of Records. You already know that is so."

The elf smiled, deliberately trying to make Ilfaralek feel a little more in command of the conversation than he actually was.

"And then Haughrald is also a member of House Thaloss, and Dragold seems to have enjoyed Patracheus's favor," Cassian went on.

"Yes, because of his working with Haughrald. They were always in favor with the Department of Bursaries."

"Patracheus's wife is of House Medari," Cassian observed.

"She is Tarlanth's cousin," Ilfaralek told him.

"Quite so. So, then, Daralec and Tarlanth were both involved in city works?"

"Well, yes, but they weren't on particularly good terms."

That surprised Cassian, but he let nothing show on his face.

"A dislike of each other, I think. Not overly marked, but they usually avoided each other as politely as possible. Tarlanth never took much interest in the stone-importing business anyway. He is more concerned with other things: food, slaves, fabrics—well, more or less anything and everything, to be honest."

Yet messages passed regularly from Daralec to Tarlanth, Cassian recalled. How intriguing, that. Not to mention the startling fact he had learned in Balkaria, that Tarlanth was about to inherit Daralec's business, with Patracheus's implicit blessing as a witness to the elf's will.

"I see. Well, finally, I'm wondering about certain information—only of a most general kind—that might, or might not, have been filtering back to you from beyond the walls of late."

Ilfaralek was the spymaster of the city, of course; and he would have his network of spies and agents, beggar-snitches and brats, scattered among the huge throng of Barsaivians beyond the walls of the Theran Quarter.

"Indeed?" Ilfaralek said, giving away nothing.

"Matters relating to the city's security' Cassian replied smoothly.

"There are always such rumors and I hear many snippets from time to time." Ilfaralek was obviously not going to give away anything Cassian didn't ask for.

"But perhaps something a little more concrete. Involving a date, and possibly the involvement of one or two individuals who warrant more than the usual concern," Cassian said.

"Oh, the stories about tunneling. Getting into the city on Overgovernor Kypros's feast day. Get those every year," Ilfaralek said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Supposed to be some wizards involved, I hear. I would expect some kind of uprising in or around the Northern Barracks. Such saboteurs would, of course, have to deal with the center of military resistance and reprisal first. Nothing to worry about. Matters are in hand."

"You're very efficient." Cassian was reassured but also a little crestfallen. "Could there really be wizards involved?"

"Probably," Ilfaralek told him. "There must be a few of 'em out there among all those tens of thousands of worthless souls. Probably escaped from a score of different kinds of enemies back in Barsaive. It's not as if we can keep a census out there, after all. But there's no evidence of anything big brewing."

Cassian was quiet for a moment, keeping his own counsel. From Ilfaralek's reply, it was possible that the spymaster did not, indeed, know of any Theran wizard among them, and Cassian certainly didn't wish to mention any names he'd heard from Jerenn. He needed to learn more, he decided, before coming back to Ilfaralek.

Rising to his feet, Cassian shook the akarenti's hand warmly, thanking him for his helpfulness. Had he been able to see the thoughtful and curious expression Ilfaralek directed at his back as he departed, it wouldn't have surprised him one bit.

Their carriages crossed as Cassian approached the western gates, heading along the long side-stretch of the Grandwalk. He saw the swirl of colors on her, and the dark mane of hair streaming around her face. He poked his head out the open window of the carriage, shouting to the coachman to turn around and follow. The Grandwalk was easily wide enough for such a maneuver, and within moments he was after her. The opportunity to talk with Shusala without having to encounter her husband was just what he needed.

Turning back east and then northward, he trailed her to the Recitatorium, where some determined hunting found her in one of the small chambers, empty of performers or audience, sitting quietly with hands folded in her lap. She sat with her back to him, small shoulders hunched and her hair looking more spectacular than ever, truly like the mane of a Thebaran lion. Cassian made his way down the small aisle and past the handful of seats to sit beside her. She turned to look at him as if she'd been waiting for him here all along.

"I regret that your husband is concealing things from me/' he said a little sadly. "When he does so, it suggests that he's hiding something, which may be rather less important than it seems—to the listener, at the least."

She smiled sadly in return, but her composure was undisturbed. "He is a good man, praetor Cassian."

"I have no reason to believe otherwise, but his secrecy engenders suspicions that do not encourage one to be favorably disposed," Cassian replied.

"He's protecting me and my son."

"My kedate will be back from Marac before long."

"Ah," she breathed. "Then he may arrive at the truth."

"It would save time, and require no further visits from me to your husband, were I to hear it now," Cassian informed her.

"I am not Daralec's daughter," Shusala said quietly.

"That will not affect inheritance?" Cassian knew perfectly well that it would not; he'd seen both of Daralec's wills, and knew that no daughter from a dissolved marriage would have any claim on Daralec's property in any event.

"No, but that isn't the issue," she said. It was obvious she was having to drag something out of herself that she'd hoped would never need to be uttered.

"It's part of the skills of a praetor that much may be concealed, or go unmentioned, in what he reports if it is not directly relevant to his concerns," Cassian said gently.

"But it might appear to be, even if it were not so," she said querulously.

"My kedate will know," he said, opening his palms in a gesture of regret. I will know, his hands said to her, and I would like to know now.

"My son Ladamair is not aware that I am not Daralec's daughter," she began.

"It would hardly be a shaming on him if he were to learn that."

"It would be if he knew the truth of things."

"In all likelihood, he will not need to know. I will certainly not speak of it to him."

She sighed and turned her face from him. "I was one of the jaraleh in Marac," she said. "I was gotten with child, and there that is an unforgivable mistake. I hid my pregnancy from most eyes. Very few knew of it."

An ex-slave—of course! Under Imperial law, no such woman could ever inherit anything, nor could any of her offspring. In faraway Marac a jaraleh could rise to a position of eminence through serving and capturing the heart and mind of a male, and there had been several in history whose children had become powerful as rulers and warriors, their mothers basking in their glory. But beyond that land Shusala's status would be a shameful one. If the truth were known, she would be ostracized in Vivane, and still more painful to her would be the tainting of her only son by the scandal.

"I met Ziraldesh there. He loved me then, just as he always has. He came to an arrangement with Daralec, who was also in Marac at the time. Documents were purchased, the right people paid, records were altered, and Ziraldesh bought my freedom. When everything had been done he brought me here, without trace of my past. So far away, it seemed we would be secure. If the truth were ever learned—well, my husband has friends in other lands. We could be spirited away as easily as we came here."

"But you are not so very young," Cassian interjected, diplomatically. "Surely such a subterfuge could not have worked in Marac?"

"You have not been there, then," she said sharply. "In Marac, anything and everything can be changed for gold. Coins and gems buy forgetfulness or vivid recollections of that which never happened."

"Who does your son believe was his father?" Cassian asked.

"A swordmaster," she told him, "someone killed by the dervishes. I knew of such an elf, so it has not been difficult to tell him."

"Someday he will have to know the truth."

"One day, when he comes to his Path. But Ladamair is very young yet, and has years remaining to him, for all his precocity, before he needs to know."

"I understand. But why has your husband been so anxious? This secret does not concern me or my affairs," Cassian asked.

"After we came here, Daralec pressed for money to keep the secret. That was not part of the original agreement. For years he has bled us like a leech."

"Blackmail? A very good motive for murder,"

Cassian mused.

"Exactly. It is said in some quarters that Daralec's accident was not what it seemed. Now that his son has died, the questions become even more pressing. Is it so surprising that my husband has been so afraid?"

"And that is why he's sold so much of what he owned over the years," Cassian thought aloud. "Now I understand better.

"Thank you for your frankness," he said, standing up and rubbing at the dull muscular ache between his shoulders left from many hours spent hunched over documents in the House of Records. "You have, after all, told me why your husband might have murdered Daralec."

"After some thirty years? Hardly. My husband would take his own life before that of another Namegiver, anyway."

"Unless in defense of the one he loves most," Cassian said gently "After so very long?" Shusala's large brown eyes were soft and appealing, but she was asking for reasoned thought, not pity.

"Why have you never left and settled elsewhere to escape Daralec?"

"My husband is no longer young, and my son needs stability. Besides, Ziraldesh has made friends here, found good work, and we never had to see Daralec. We have grown used to life in Vivane."

"Well, I do not think your husband is a murderer," Cassian said. But he could not deny that at the back of his mind lurked the thought that the assassin had worked through magic, and that Ziraldesh was a wizard. He might not think Ziraldesh was a killer, but he could not afford to rule it out either. Perhaps Daralec had represented some additional threat, some other hold over Ziraldesh that Shusala was not aware of.

"Do you know Schavian and Andrellesse of House Zanjan?" he asked.

The query brought only a reaction of slight surprise. "Very faintly. I've not seen them in several months, not to talk to, at least. Oh, I've run into them at concerts and such, though we attend those only rarely. Why do you ask?"

"Only that I will be paying them a visit and wondered what you might tell me," he said truthfully.

"Then I can help you very little. Schavian is a skilled swordmaster and well respected in the Legion. He's been here for many years, long before I came. His wife is a jeweler. Her work is fair, though not considered special." She looked at him rather puzzled, and then more concerned.

"Their children killed themselves. Do you suspect that perhaps their deaths had something to do with Daralec?"

"I know nothing," Cassian said smoothly, "save for the fact that I'm sure you will be as silent as I about our meeting and what we have said."

She looked worried, and wondering about him, but he was gone before she could say more.

Across the city, a small and long-fingered hand, almond-nailed and very pale of skin, traced its way down a list of names; some already crossed through, four remaining. The fingers lifted and took a pen, the metal nib sunk into ink as black as moonless midnight, and then stabbed at the paper with the force of a knife plunged between ribs.

Two frightened souls had already received warning from her, but a lying warning, alerting them to a danger that did not exist. One that drew them all closer together, that whispered of terrors worse than oblivion into unknowing hearts, and drove them to see her as their only hope of warding off the terrible unseen enemy.

And delivered them into her arms, with their young flesh and warm blood and the promise of power enough to destroy all that remained.

17

Cassian's heart sank as he saw Crotias parading her men in the Barracks square. His carriage was too obvious to go unnoticed, and it had been parked within the Barracks complex for some time. The ork left her lieutenant to continue the drill while she marched over to greet him.

"Good day, praetor Cassian," she said loudly. "You have come for more hurlg, perhaps?''

"I don't think it would be wise to drink such fine beer together with one so formidably skilled in its consumption as yourself," he said carefully. "I am glad that I have been given a body as can take such punishment without fear of death, but I would not consider it prudent to subject it to such treatment twice within such a brief span."

She smiled happily at the compliment. "You've been seeing Ilfaralek, then?" She stood before him, hands on hips, in good humor but obviously expecting a straight answer.

"I have indeed," he said and lowered his voice slightly. "The matter you raised concerning the integrity of the city. It may well be that your fears were not groundless, and I hope that we might speak of this sometime. Not," he hastened to add as her face grew concerned, "that I believe we are dealing with an immediate threat, nor one that cannot be countered. But it is one I believe we must identify and learn more about before the time is right for decisive action."

Crotias looked slightly disappointed. Subtle investigations were not to her taste; a call to direct action was what she wanted to hear.

"Well, then, when that time comes I trust you will call upon me," she said, brushing a smear of reddened dust from her hip. "So you are off now?"

"Not yet, I have one further call to make." Cassian spoke as nonchalantly as he could.

"And who might you be calling upon?" She stared straight at him. He wasn't going to be able to evade her query.

"I thought I would pay my respects to Captain Schavian," he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially once more. "If I learn anything of importance, I shall let you know, of course, since one of your own men is involved. However, at times a praetor must pay certain visits, make certain enquiries, purely for the purpose of creating a distraction or to confuse certain eyes that may be upon him."

"Hmm," she said, uncertain and a little confused. Which was exactly what he'd hoped for.

"As I say, I shall certainly advise you should I learn anything," Cassian repeated. She looked happier at that, and after giving him a very smart salute indeed, Crotias stomped away, back to her warriors. Cassian headed for the officers' quarters in the distance.

"Greetings and thank you for seeing me, Master Schavian," Cassian said warmly. "I will need very little of your time. I appreciate that you might not much enjoy my presence here, so let me make this short."

"Thank you," Schavian replied curtly. He was slightly taller than Cassian, perhaps half a hand higher, and of muscular build. The long-hilted sword he carried scabbarded at his waist was beautifully crafted. The hilt, pommel, and scabbard were of excellent craftsmanship, and Cassian commented on that, partly to put Schavian at ease and partly because he honestly admired it.

The alert eyes of the other elf scanned his face. "It is a fine blade," he said, "one that has saved some lives during the many years I have had it. Well, no matter of that, I am sure it is not what brought you here. Ask what you will."

"1 might say, to begin with, that I have given no credence to certain rumors I may have heard," Cassian said quietly. The bigger, darker-haired elf stiffened a little.

"But I must inquire into certain matters, matters of some delicacy. I understand that you discovered the bodies of your children. Forgive the indelicacy, but I must ask if you can remember exactly how the bodies looked when you found them? Before any additional wound may, or may not, have appeared," Cassian said, illogically but carefully.

"They appeared to have died in pain," Schavian said with a calm that could only have been summoned through great inner strength.

"And?"

"And what?"

"What else? Think carefully. Not so much of their faces, but the limbs. Did anything strike you about the appearance of the limbs?"

"There was nothing unusual in their placement/'

Schavian said thoughtfully. "But there was something about the skin. . .it was somewhat pale. No, it isn't that." He was obviously trying to recall exactly what he had seen that appalling night. "Ah, what was it?"

Cassian longed to offer the possibility, but knew he could not, not unless Schavian really could not recall. If he rose to the bait, the evidence would be much weaker.

"I thought," Schavian said slowly, "the poison must have acted in the blood. The veins of their arms were very prominent, bulging beneath the skin."

It was exactly what Cassian had wanted to hear, but he didn't want Schavian to know that. He asked about the appearance of eyes and mouths to obscure his delight. Schavian grew more puzzled.

"What exactly are you after, praetor?"

"I cannot say at this time," Cassian replied, "except that I can confirm again that you should not fear any further revelations from me that would be upsetting to you or your wife. Thank you for your time, Master." With that Cassian turned and left, striding across the hot dusty parade ground to his carriage.

What a bloody mess, he thought. Murder taken for suicide and then the parents dress it up as murder. It would appear that the twins were poisoned by the same means that accounted for Crielle.

Cassian considered his options carefully and decided he would need to dine with Crotias after all. It would be the only way he would get to talk to the person he needed to interrogate within the barracks, since sneaking in was hardly a feasible option.

And then I have to consider a terrified slave boy's fear that he will soon be killed by a wizard's curse, and I will also have to beard Patracheus in his lair before very long. Now that is going to be something I shall need to plan carefully.

Cassian left his card and request at the House of Works and, not expecting a swift reply, decided to pay a visit to his host to inquire how the widow Karlanta was bearing up. It was some days since he'd taken wine and meat with Tarlanth, and it was courtesy to pay another call with a gift of some kind. His stay had exceeded a week, and such a gesture was called for, though it must not be something too ostentatious. Stopping off at the Quarter's markets, Cassian settled for two bouquets of the finest late-summer flowers and some squares of excellent silk, cold colors and metallics as he had seen Tarlanth's wife Cryselda wear. Paying extra for silk wrap and fine paper for the flowers, he gazed around at the swarming life of the markets.

The forthcoming feast was clearly beginning to attract traders from further afield than Vivane or its satellite towns and villages. The dark, coiled tuazaren headdresses of Creanans bobbed up and down among the crowd. To the south Cassian could also see the white headdresses of a small knot of Maracians huddled together over kokala; they took it dark and bitter and very strong, without sugar or honey. He also saw two Indrisan elf-women selling beautiful silks, more richly colored and opulent than he had sought for his hostess, and the pungent odor of incense drifted around them in the stillness of the early afternoon.

Some of Crotias's own soldiery were also gathered here, ostensibly to check the passes of all non-Therans; at the moment they were haggling with a group of burly dwarf weaponsmiths. Their work was too chunky, too heavy for Cassian's liking, but he admired the detailed handiwork nonetheless. Catching a snatch of whispered conversation between them, he thought he heard words in pure Throalic. My goodness, they're from Throal, he thought. Allegedly at war with us, and they have come to trade! Then he reconsidered and took them for Barsaivians after all. We enslave them, they curse and attack us, and here they are taking our gold and bringing us their crafts.

It will happen here too, and will be for the best, he reflected. We will conquer their lands, just as we always do, and the grandeur of the Empire will swell with more thousands of miles, more sites of wonder and magic, more power; and they will not be unhappy. Within a handful of generations they will speak as we do, will walk and eat and break bread as we do, and we will be at ease with them and our ways will mix. Having seen many of its lands, Cassian viewed the Empire as a wondrous rich tapestry flung across the world like a many-colored, patchwork quilt, growing and enveloping and warming all within, enriching everyone.

He turned around to take his wrapped gifts and walked away to his carriage.

"These are beautiful," Cryselda said. "They will look very fine in the breakfast room, I think; very warm and bright. And these, too, are splendid and show the discerning eye of a true Medari." She handled the silks with approving appraisal.

Cassian was uncomfortable. Though his gifts had been well appreciated, he did not care for his House to be mentioned. House allegiance was not a concern that a praetor had at the forefront of his mind, and anyone who reminded him of it could only have ulterior motives. But he nodded politely and murmured thanks.

"Take tea with us," she urged him. "Our pastry and sweetmeat cook is very good, as I think you know. She is practicing for the feast night, and you should not miss what she is preparing. If you do not eat some of it, we shall all grow far too fat here."

"I do not think you need fear becoming fat," Cassian said truthfully. "You have been blessed with a fine figure, if I may say so."

"You may," she said, preening like a fanbird.

Cassian disliked the woman more than ever now that she was being talkative and even a bit flirtatious. With her husband so much older than she, he wondered if Cryselda were honing her wiles on him. I doubt she has any serious intentions on me, he reassured himself. That would be wholly contrary to protocol.

An irate voice, the words muffled and unclear, came from somewhere far upstairs, and then Tarlanth appeared, striding angrily down the steps until he caught sight of Cassian. He immediately composed his expression to hide his anger.

"The wretched lad is feigning one of his faints again," he growled. "Pardon me, Cassian. You should not have to witness such things."

"I have asked our guest to take tea with us," Cryselda said, holding up an armful of flowers. "He has brought us these gifts, which is most kind, I think."

There was something in her tone that seemed to be telling Tarlanth what to do, Cassian noted. Interesting.

"Then I'll drag the brat downstairs and he can damn well behave like a young man with some sense and manners about him," Tarlanth said, stomping back up the stairs.

"I don't want to be the cause of any disturbances to your household," Cassian demurred. But Cryselda merely took him by the arm and led him into the summer room.

"You most certainly are not," she said firmly. "Don't mind Tarlanth. His growl is worse than his bite."

"Is Karlanta well?" he asked.

"She is still being given herbs and draughts to make her sleep," Cryselda said with exaggerated ruefulness. "She might perhaps convalesce better in a southern clime, now that summer is ending. There is no hurry. We shall make arrangements at the House conclave in due course."

It sounded like a discussion of what to do with an incurably sick, demented old relative—or worse, like disposing of someone. Was it just his imagination or was it really cruelty Cassian heard in her voice?

As steaming silvered pots of herbal teas and a magnificent platter of cakes, sugared fruits in syrups, and fruitice appeared, so did Tarlanth with his son, the latter being literally dragged into the room before sitting down sullenly at the table.

The boy had exquisitely pale skin, his throat graceful and almost girlish at the neck, his hands slender, his movements fluid. His blonde hair was nearly as fine as that of a fair-skinned elf, and his glittering green eyes were resentful but keen. Dark circles under them suggested that he did not sleep or rest well, and there was an air of frailty about him. Cassian felt sorry for the lad, with such a hard-hearted pair of parents, and sat next to him, almost as if to shield him from his sires. An almost effeminate scent, of lilac and lily, greeted his senses.

"I am Lyn," the boy said without looking at him. "I am supposed to be pleased to meet you."

"Watch your damned manners or I'll take a whip to you," Tarlanth snarled.

Cassian held up a hand imploringly. "Please! I see no reason why he should be glad to see me; I am no relative, and I bring nothing for him, after all. Please do not argue on my account." The boy looked at him with gentle eyes, half-thankfully. Cassian had almost turned the disagreement on himself, and his host's anger dissipated slightly.

"Hmm. Well, it's not the way a scion of this House should behave," Tarlanth growled.

"What do you do with yourself, Lyn?" Cassian asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

"Absolutely nothing, that's the problem," Tarlanth Imtted in. Cassian did not acknowledge the father's words.

"I like to paint," the boy said hesitantly in his high-pitched voice.

"It is an honorable skill, and one that is given to few to practice well," Cassian said approvingly, thinking how wretched life must be for the boy in this household. Cassian suspected that an artist son would be as welcome to Tarlanth as a terminal disease.

"Don't encourage him," Tarlanth snapped. "He'll have to learn business and money-minding, when the day comes."

"Oh, but that will not be for a long time." Cassian turned to Tarlanth with a grin. "You are a man with much life left in you yet, I think."

Even as he spoke, Cassian was not so certain. He guessed that Tarlanth was close to sixty years of age and that he had a dangerous anger about him that often struck down men of his years with violence in the heart, blood erupting into the brain, a sudden massive strike that brought instant death or enfeeblement.

"Well said," Cryselda half-laughed, clapping her hands together in an almost grotesque gesture. "May I offer you one of cook's finest?"

An hour later, Cassian escaped from the villa, thankful to be released. He had not been able to ask Tarlanth about his relations with Daralec, for the entire time had been taken up with the father berating the son, mocking his appearance and frailness, continually expressing his disappointment in him. The mother had simply ignored the whole thing, making comment about Cassian's gifts and clothes and learning and asking him of the lands he had visited. Tarlanth appeared to have business connections with most, if not all, of those places, and to Cassian and the lad's relief, mention of them had drawn his conversation away from endless sniping at his son. As a result, Cassian found himself talking increasingly of himself to spare the boy further taunts and embarrassments, instead of being able to interrogate Tarlanth as he had wished.

I will have to visit again to see if I can make any further headway, he thought ruefully.

Later, back at the Rose Villa, he found his card returned together with a larger and more ornate one from Patracheus. It invited him for a late, after-dinner meeting to take liqueurs, and expressed with regret the fact that meetings from dawn to dusk prevented any earlier hour.

A standard stratagem, Cassian mused. He'll be certain to sleep for a few hours after dinner and meet me refreshed, hoping that I will be wearier and less alert than he is. On this occasion, he is going to be disappointed.

Jerenn was dozing, Cassian having ordered a sedative for him with his afternoon meal. Looking at the sleeping boy, the elf was pleased to see that the burn looked less inflamed around the edge of the poultice and that the bandage on his arm was not blooded; the bleeding had been successfully staunched.

After the sweetened excesses of the afternoon, Cassian told the maids he would not require any dinner, then headed for his bath and the promise of a long nap afterwards.

18

It was nearly midnight when Cassian arrived at the splendid mansion of the man who was arguably the most powerful person in Vivane. The driveway was lit not with lanterns but with globes of fiery magical energy, suspended in mid-air; a truly extravagant ostentation, Cassian thought. Magical light was one thing; using elemental magic to suspend them so was another. This was not a man who denied himself any luxury life could offer him.

As he stepped out of his carriage, he found Patracheus waiting for him in person, clad in magnificent Indrisan silk of cinnamon and brown and fine silver, gold around his collar, musk and fabulously priced garlanta scent drifting around him in the air. He shook the elf's hand and bowed a little too far, before sweeping him into the marbled hallway with its riot of exotic plants and flowers. It was almost like striding through an Aztlanian jungle. Idly, Patracheus's right hand snaked out and availed itself of a ripe fruit from a miniature peach bush. It was uniformly warm in the hall, with no drafts creeping in from outside to disturb the plants.

"Do come in," he said, opening the doors to a drawing room whose appointments must have cost more money than Cassian could expect to see in several decades of Imperial service. At the man's invitation, he took a chair with exquisite silk cushions and ozarabird feathers drifting down from its arms, a trail of perfect whiteness against the veined marbled floor.

Glancing around the room, Cassian observed that all the windows were also hung with Indrisan silk, while paintings and tapestries seemed to cover almost every available stretch of wall not otherwise bearing the weight of a multitude of books. T'skrang baskets held bowls of fruit and delicate bottles gleamed with many-colored liqueurs. Though opulent, the decor did not have an air of ostentation, and Cassian was intrigued to note a simple, but starkly fine, piece of obsidiman pottery gracing the floor between the two largest bookshelves.

"Now, Cassian," Patracheus said as he finished the fruit with a slurp of pleasure, "you are doubtless wondering why a man who holds the city's purse-strings lives so very well. And if you aren't wondering whether I might have appropriated some of those funds for myself, I should be very shocked. A man of your intelligence and position would naturally conclude just that. However"— Patracheus picked up an ornate gold flask with several lengths of fine tubing hanging from it—"I inherited a very considerable sum from my father. Several millions, in point of fact. Most of this," and he swept an arm lazily around the place, "was purchased by him. My expenditure, in point of fact, has actually been quite modest over the years."

Cassian smiled, and suddenly the man came around and fixed him with his sharp eyes. His free hand pushed back his gold-blonde hair in a deliberately exaggerated gesture as the elf recoiled slightly from the directness of his gaze. Patracheus smiled cheerfully as he packed a little white dust and a chunk of a lustrous brown substance into the flask.

"Come now, your smile tells me you do not believe me wholly. Good for you. You'd be a fool if you did. I must be truthful, I do tell lies. On occasion."

I think I shall dispense with protocol here, Cassian decided. This man has wits sharp enough to sidestep any tangents or stratagems I might employ.

"Can I offer you some? It's very good," Patracheus said, using a taper to light the oil in a receptacle at the base of the flask. "Opara, of course, and some exquisitely line kokaila, true root of kokala. The smoke is drawn through doubly distilled qualifarn, which mellows and smoothes it and adds a lingering aftertaste of delicious nature."

"I think it might keep me awake beyond my accustomed hours," Cassian declined pleasantly.

"Nonsense. Well, never mind." The man took a vast draught from one tube, having carefully closed the golden clasps on the others. Then he sat down, holding the perfect intake in his lungs for a few moments before exhaling with an almost feline grace. With a huge sigh of pleasure, he relaxed visibly into the silk and satin of his chair.

"You're missing a lot," he said genially. "Well, ask yourself this: can this lying corrupt wretch I see before me be so guilty after all, when he can present himself defenseless in the arms of this wondrous and uninhibiting drug?"

"Most thought-provoking," Cassian said, unable to suppress a slight smile. The man was outrageous; he was exaggerating, to be sure, but Cassian had already warmed to him enough to doubt that he was in the presence of a murderous mastermind.

"So, what is it you want to know?"

"Obviously, you're someone who knows more about the city's commercial agreements than anyone in Vivane," Cassian began. A weary, theatrical, and dismissive wave of an arm from Patracheus cut him short.

"Look, dispense with all that. I can tell you who owes whom what and when they have to pay it. I can tell you who's thwarted whom, who has tried to bribe me over the years, which buildings have been constructed by cheating wretches, who is planning what and who beats his wife. I am powerful enough that I can speak ill of my own House and get away with it.

"On the other hand," he went on, pausing to lean forward for a more modest dose of smoke, "my own power is slightly exaggerated. Though that exaggeration is in part due to my own skill at creating the fertile ground for such exaggeration to flourish."

Cassian laughed. Perhaps the openness was an illusion, but the man was a skillful actor and he was surely due some appreciation from his audience. Patracheus exhaled cheerfully and awaited the questions.

"You witnessed a will, relatively recently."

"Whose, perchance?"

"That of Daralec, Vivane's main importer and handler of stone."

"Ah, yes," Patracheus said seriously. "Well, that all depends on what you think you've learned."

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning, have you heard that Daralec and Tarlanth didn't like each other?"

"That view has been expressed to me, yes."

"By the Passions, Cassian, you talk like a book. If you ever find disfavor back in Thera, come to me and I'll find you a job as a scribe or a judge. Well, they gave that appearance to the outside world. But they also had agreements and understandings. Nothing terribly significant as a single arrangement, but it all added up to quite a body of cooperation."

"Such as?"

"Oh, all manner of small things. Tarlanth provided I lie food for Daralec's workers. Daralec's stonemasons were always employed as builders for Tarlanth's properties. And they always wore clothing purchased from Tarlanth's businesses. That sort of thing."

"Hardly enough for Daralec to bequeath an entire business to him, surely?"

"Well, I must admit I was surprised. But as both were major figures in city works, I could hardly refuse when I hey asked me to witness the agreement. They knew I would not speak of it—though now that Daralec is dead ,ind you have seen the document, matters are different. I5een up to Balkaria, have you?"

The elf nodded.

"Wonder if Tarlanth might have had Daralec and his son disposed of to get the business, hmm? Bit embarrassing for you, Cassian of Medari."

"I am a praetorCassian said defensively.

"Well, yes," Patracheus said affably, "but it looks very tricky, doesn't it? What with your living in his villa and all. I'm sure you'd feel a slight pang of bad manners before you sent him off to the executioner's axe."

"I hardly think I'm likely to be doing that," Cassian said, feeling considerably at a disadvantage.

"No? You disappoint me. I had rather looked forward to someone high and mighty being carted off for a public beheading before too long."

"I make my report to the Arbiter-General," Cassian said, "and it is up to him what action to take on the basis of that report."

"There goes the talking book again," Patracheus smiled. "Next time you come here, make sure you spend a few hours at Syranita's first."

"I haven't been told of such a place," Cassian said uncomfortably.

"My dear fellow, how shockingly inadequate your advance information is. Just behind the excellent hostelry that rejoices in the name of Duraglim's. Catamite or concubine, it makes no difference; every form of intoxication is of the very finest. Not-—given my age—that I often visit the place myself these days. Besides, I must admit that the affair with the goats was rather disagreeable to one of my sensibilities and probably would have been to one of yours. My dear Cassian, they had them clad in silk!"

The man was so arch in his expression, and his gesture of offended nature was so outrageous, that the elf had to laugh with him. Then Patracheus suddenly stopped laughing, sat bolt upright, and fixed him again with his discomfitingly hard gaze.

"Cassian, I really have nothing to fear from you. I have no secrets that could truly compromise me and nothing of real interest to a praetor. My position in Vivane is unchallenged, and any change would be for the worse. Any enquiries you may make will only confirm that a thousandfold.

"But, then again, I have told you that I lie. On occasion."

This is a masterful man, Cassian thought. I think he's being truthful, and all I've learned so far tells me that he is, indeed, very well placed here. Then he makes me doubt him. He is clever, truly intelligent.

"You must trust Mordain implicitly," the elf said.

Patracheus's expression did not change in the slightest.

"He is my right-hand man. Very diplomatic. Very good at putting people at their ease. Very good at dealing with the details. What can I say further? In time he will take my place, when I'm too bored and old to continue." Patracheus slumped a little in his seat, self-mockingly, and put down his flask, trailing white smoke into the air.

"How involved is he with construction projects in the

city?"

"Well, usually that's something I keep more or less to myself," Patracheus said thoughtfully. "After all, that work involves dealing with some of Vivane's most powerful people. And, well, the interests of my own House are often involved."

"Haughrald, for instance?"

"Yes, and it's quite fair that I should favor him. Apart from the fact that his work is excellent, certain people have a quite irrational prejudice against him, so my influence counterbalances that."

"But Mordain has begun to get involved in contracting some of the lesser licenses," Cassian noted.

"True. He's of my House also, as you obviously know, and he must be groomed. It's all with the approval of my House conclave, of course."

"Where you doubtless have considerable influence," Cassian murmured.

"Well, obviously," Patracheus said with a slight frown. He seemed more perplexed than irked. "Look, what's this about? There's no schism between me and Mordain and I have no reason to consider him untrustworthy. If you do, I would be very anxious to hear of it. I would certainly be prepared to open any records you might wish to examine, and I could probably save you a lot of time by telling you where to look."

Cassian believed that Patracheus was telling the truth. He'd been hunting for any sign that, with nobles involved in city works contracts being doled out, Patracheus might be concerned about Mordain. An ambitious junior might go a long way to topple his master, but Cassian no longer saw any reason to pursue that theory any further.

Who is at the center of all this? he wondered. Someone must be poised to take a great deal of power unto themselves. But he still couldn't see who it might be.

"It's late," he said, extracting himself from the luxurious depths of his chair. It took some doing, since the cushions had been threatening to engulf him for some time. "Thank you indeed for your hospitality, Patracheus. I believe you have been frank and honest with me and I have found our conversation most agreeable and interesting."

Patracheus stretched an arm out to the floor beside his chair, picked up a slim book and opened and closed it repeatedly, making muttering noises the whole time. Cassian remembered his jibe about him talking like a book.

"Sorry," he smiled. "Thank you anyway."

"Can you see yourself out? Actually, there really should be a night slave around somewhere."

"I'm sure I can find the door," Cassian murmured and retraced his steps through the elegant mansion. His coachman was nodding off, half-asleep, but Cassian was awake and alert after his earlier nap and had no desire to return to his bed. Waking the man by climbing noisily into the carriage, he gave him a gold coin and asked him to drive him north along the Grandwalk. Surprised by the gift, the driver was only too happy now to extend his working hours.

"Let's take a look at the world beyond the gates," the elf said loudly. "To the Northern Barracks, I think."

19

As his carriage moved silently and swiftly through the night, Cassian made plans for the next day. Tomorrow morning, the first task was to make for the House of Records and draw up a list of every registered wizard in the city. As in any border city, Vivane would have records of every wizard dwelling within its boundaries. This was in part because of the Theran love of bureaucracy, in part because of taxes levied upon wizards, and in part because of the need to know where to find magical defense for the city in time of attack. For a moment, the elf considered disturbing the record keepers and scribes even at this preposterous hour, but decided against it. He could, indeed, force them to admit him, but inciting the bureaucrats' fury would surely make it ten times harder to get any desired information in the future.

Cassian got out of the carriage as it came to rest at the gates of the Northern Barracks and showed his seal to the officer and his troops. When he asked permission to scale the walls, the ork officer was not entirely pleased.

"Make sure you don't fall off. As a rule, we don't go out there to retrieve people at this time of night," he growled. "What damn fool reason you got for going up anyway?"

"Just curiosity," the elf said calmly, then began to climb up the wooden ladder to the battlements stretching out over the huge sprawl of the rest of Vivane beyond the walls of the Theran Quarter.

A thousand points of light, flickering and moving, greeted his eyes. Lanterns and torches, campfires and even a burning building, dotted the night. Around the southern edge, the patterns of light grew more regular, indicating the more ordered Barsaivian merchant settlements along the Flamewalk. Not far from Cassian, a pair of orks stood gazing impassively out over the scene of wreckage, crossbows in their hands, clad in the hardened leather favored by most of the Legion rank and file. Behind them, a dull cherry-red glow came from a black stone receptacle, almost egg-shaped.

"And that is for?" Cassian asked, knowing perfectly well why the elemental fire was placed there. One of the orks simply clasped his hands around a silvered badge at his chest and, with his other hand, pointed at a spot below and across the wall. A serpentine streak of elemental fire leapt from the stone and arced downward in a dazzle of burning light. The flash let Cassian see a hundred or more destitute forms huddled around the wall, before he himself was half-blinded by it. His eyes closed, he didn't see where the fire struck, but a terrible scream left little to the imagination. When he opened his eyes after a few moments, one of the orks was unconcernedly picking at his teeth with a steel pin taken from the decoration of his helmet, as if he had done no more than crush a bug.

'The security is very impressive," Cassian muttered almost to himself. "Where," he added as if in afterthought, raising his voice a little, "would the Rat Circus be out there?" He hoped he was remembering correctly the name Jerenn had given him. It wasn't one he thought it much likely to get wrong.

"There, about a half-mile out. Look, there's a couple of torches on top of Old Fatso' one of the orks said, cassian could just make out the elevated points of feeble, flickering flame.

"Old Fatso?"

The Honorable Quarique Oathstone, ruler of the city," one of the orks sneered. "Decided to erect a monument to himself to impress the locals. 'Course, those vermin out there have pulled half of it down over the years."

"Not a good place to visit, I imagine," Cassian said.

"It's called the Rat Circus because there are more rats down there than people," the ork told him. "Supposed to be catacombs half a mile down into the ground. Sometimes, in a really hot summer, they come up like a plague of locusts. Eat anyone too slow or too drunk to get away, and spread plague among the rest. They're vicious bastards too. Some as long as yer arm and teeth like mine." He grinned broadly to display his own formidable, and unpleasantly discolored, set of teeth as he picked at them again. The chunk of meat he managed to skewer f rom his molars evidently met with his approval, since he proceeded to chew it all over again.

"Right. Thank you, that's most helpful," Cassian said as he retreated from the distressing display. It didn't sound like a promising place to construct or renovate tunnels—unless, of course, the tales about the area were more lurid than the reality. There had to be a Theran elemental-ist down there somewhere, he thought. She might just know about the defenses up here. Perhaps Ilfaralek was being too complacent; perhaps he should go and see for himself. He could surely find some Barsaivian merchant group to tag along with. He would have to go in disguise, of course, and hope he didn't run into someone able to penetrate magical concealments easily.

"Drive me home slowly," he bade his driver as he climbed back into the carriage. They had begun to head south when Cassian suddenly thought he recognized a figure stepping out of a shop doorway along the great central roadway.

"Stop here!" he commanded and the coachman pulled up at once. Cassian jumped down and approached the man on foot.

"Pauldin! How is your mistress?"

"Oh, it's you, sir/' the man said without any alarm. There was, after all, a patrol of night watch barely a hundred yards down the road. "Well, sir, I've just been to Culparn's for a little extra sedative. She's still quite agitated, sir. I must be getting back."

"Of course. Just one thing," Cassian asked gently. "The messages you used to run from Daralec's to Tarlanth?"

"I did, sir?" It was obvious the man wasn't sure of what he might have said. He was defensive and anxious.

"You most certainly did. Quite often."

"That must have been bad recollection, sir. I only took messages there on rare occasions. Nothing of importance, sir."

"Really? Thank you. I must have been mistaken," Cassian said politely and let the man to go on his way.

Either someone had been having words with the slave, or his mind had been magically changed in some way, the elf mused. But why would anyone wish to do that?

"Now, I think, we actually will go home," he said to the coachman.

The next morning's trawling through the House of Records took longer than Cassian would have liked. Even with his Imperial badge, he had to get signed permission from Kypros's office itself to gain access to the wizard lists. He noted that several names carried the simple entry of "wizard", and thought it likely that the military kept more detailed lists. Another bout of drinking with Crotias threatened to loom large on the list of future engagements.

Then, to his surprise, one name appeared among the list of elementalists, a name with some connection to what he'd learned and observed so far: Cryselda, Tarlanth's wife. No details of her skills or talents were recorded, of course.

By the Passions, she's the right size, he thought. Her body could have been the one he'd detected at Daralec's house the night Crielle was killed. Surely, if it were her, (hen Jerenn would have recognized her voice when he was perched on the roof of that house in the Broken Quarter. But why would such a woman wish to go beyond these walls, leave the luxury of her life to scheme among the pits and gutters of the Broken Quarter, to break down and trample everything that kept her pampered and spoiled?

I'm missing something, Cassian thought ruefully Maybe he was spending too much time talking to people and reading papers. But he still had time to figure out what it was. Several days still remained before the feast of the Overgovernor's birthday.

Stepping out on to the Grandwalk, his eye caught a flurry of activity to the south, beyond the imposing concert halls and the steady trickle of robed scribes entering and leaving the House of Works. The distinctive blue-plumed helms of the elite soldiery of the Legion were in evidence, and he began to walk, and then run, towards the scene. Guards and no few townsfolk were clustered around the end of a small cul-de-sac with half a dozen driveways leading off to secluded villas and fine houses.

Cassian was challenged by the guards as they threw up a rope barrier to warn curious onlookers away, but he soon pushed past by virtue of his Imperial badge. Then he hurried up the short road to the door of the villa, where a knot of guardsmen stood about impassively. Another display of the badge got him inside.

Ilfaralek was standing there, grim-faced and muttering to a lieutenant. He did not seem pleased at the sight of the elf.

"You got here damnably fast," he growled. "You always seem to be awfully close to the scene of murders, Cassian." There was no innuendo in the comment, but it made the elf uncertain.

"Murder? What murder? I was simply coming out of the House of Records, and when I saw the guards, I came over to see what had happened."

"It's Darnius, Mordain's son. It's something of a mess. I suppose you will want to see for yourself." Not waiting for Cassian's reply, Ilfaralek stomped off through an archway to the right. Cassian followed dutifully.

It must have been a delightful room before the blood and tissue had bespattered every surface. Most of it was crafted of glass, with angles of construction that focused the light of the sun in cunning ways, flooding it with illumination without being blinding. Colored wedges of blue and yellow glass created pools of cool, soothing hues that seemed to bathe the many plants growing in pots and urns. Cassian was not, however, taking in the beauty of the scene. His mouth half-dropped at the sight in front of him, and all about him.

"I've never seen even a wild beast do such to a body," he said softly after a few moments. "Can you be sure—"

"The head was mostly intact," Ilfaralek said, picking up a length of cane and pushing a draped cloth away to reveal it. Darnius had been decapitated, raggedly and awfully. Mercifully, the disembodied head was lying face down. Cassian had no desire to see the expression on its face.

"I see." The carnage reminded Cassian all too horribly of his rare encounters with the work of Horrors. He saw no point in prolonging the ordeal, and said so.

"I think I can leave it to you to search and examine the area," he murmured. "Have you had time to make any enquiries?" There would be no opportunity here for him to employ his scarab; Ilfaralek's men were all over the house, and such espionage would not be tolerated even in these circumstances.

"Mordain should be back shortly. I've spoken to the slaves and servants. No one has seen anyone enter or leave the house, save for a few slaves bringing food and fruit this morning. And they were known to the servants. I've sent men for them, obviously."

"How could this have happened without anyone hearing anything?"

"Quite." What was unsaid was obvious. Magic had to be involved in this atrocious slaughter.

"We can hardly hope to keep it quiet, as with Crielle."

"Indeed. Unfortunately, the slave who discovered the body ran straight out into the road screaming her head off and there were fifty onlookers trying to get in when guards arrived from the House of Works. This time I won't able to spirit the servants away and keep the matter confidential."

Well, at least that means only one death and not a dozen or more, Cassian thought grimly.

"How is your investigation proceeding?" Ilfaralek asked casually. Cassian was at once put on the defensive; this killing brought home to him how little he'd really accomplished since arriving in Vivane.

"I have learned some things." He shrugged. "I do not think I shall need many more days."

"Just as well," Ilfaralek replied tartly. "There's a limit to how many corpses public order can withstand, you know."

"I assume you are also making enquiries and investigations of your own," the elf said pointedly. "I shall be interested to hear of them sometime."

"Certainly. Let us meet tomorrow to discuss this matter. I don't mind telling you that the Overgovernor will most certainly get rather heated about this. And, in due course, I imagine that he will himself despatch some message back to Thera, which will not be helpful for you, I think."

Cassian smiled. "We both serve demanding masters," he said. "Shall we take supper? I may have some time-consuming studies to make before then, and it will give us a few more hours to learn what we both may."

They agreed on a time, and then made their way gingerly out of the carnage into the hallway. Just as they were taking leave of one another, a burly man forced his way past the guards and stood wild-eyed before them, staring crazily about him.

"Mordain," Ilfaralek said gently, "I'm afraid that—"

"Where is he? What has happened?" the man halfscreamed. Involuntarily, Ilfaralek's eyes turned in the direction of the glass room. Before he could be restrained, Mordain ran into it and let out a howl that would have chilled the spine of a ghoul.

Rushing after him, they found him on his knees, blood and ordure staining his fine silk clothing, cradling the horribly severed head as if it were a baby.

"For the love of Garlen, man, come away from this," Ilfaralek hissed. The man was oblivious, crying to himself.

"They said it would be done. By the Passions, why didn't I listen? If only I had confessed! Ah, my son, my son!"

They did not see what he intended until it was too late. Mordain fumbled inside his robe and drew forth a dagger, then plunged it into his guts with a choked-off grunting sound. Cassian reacted with lightning speed. With a flying leap, he gripped Mordain's wrist like a vice and clung on for dear life, preventing the knife from penetrating any deeper. Heavy footfalls announced the arrival of soldiers as the stricken man and the elf rolled around in the grisly remains.

Cassian got to his knees as Mordain was being helped to a chair and a desperate attempt made to staunch the ragged, copiously bleeding gash in his belly. The elf's hands were greased with blood and human remains, and foul stains covered his clothes. A slick of half-dried blood was smeared down the left side of his face and hair.

Ilfaralek was barking orders to fetch a healer, and guards were already racing for the front door. Cassian looked down with distaste at his hands, besmirched and filthy.

So, who were they—and what was it that had to be confessed?

20

Cassian should have cleaned himself up at Mordain's house, but wanted to get out of the place as quickly as possible. Arriving back at the Rose Villa, he grabbed some clean clothes from his room and had almost made it undetected to the bathchamber when Jerenn appeared. The boy's eyes almost stood out on stalks.

"Sir, are you all right? Have you had an accident?" The lad came rushing towards him, stopping a few steps short, inadvertently blocking his way. Seeing the elf standing normally and showing neither wound nor sign of pain, Jerenn became less concerned and more curious.

"I am not harmed. There's been an accident, of sorts," the elf said.

"What has happened? Is it someone I know? Is there—"

"It will be all around town soon enough and you will doubtless hear of it from others," Cassian said. "Meanwhile, I shall want these clothes cleaned as best possible. But make sure the water used for the silks isn't too hot."

"We are always very careful about that," Jerenn said at once, still unwilling to leave without satisfying his curiosity. "But, sir, who was it? Did you see what happened? Were you there when—"

"Will you promise to go away and leave me in peace to my bath if I speak to you of it afterwards?" Cassian said wearily. "I shall have a job for you, also."

The lad looked excited, torn between satisfying curiosity now or later—not to mention the prospect of another interesting errand and a chance to earn more coin from the elf. He backed away and mumbled about anything Cassian might want.

"Just warm water, a great deal of soap, plenty of towels, and some peace," the elf replied sharply, emphasizing the last word. The boy scuttled off into the kitchens. When Cassian finally emerged after the best part of an hour scrubbing himself and then relaxing in scented warm water, he wondered whether the lad might have been waiting outside the chamber door all the while. He found Jerenn looking like an eager, excited young puppy in need of training.

"Bring some cold wine," Cassian requested. "I think I need some." While the boy rushed off to fetch the drink, the elf went quickly to his room and found his leather bag. Deftly slipping his hand into a layer of lining that would have given no sign of any recess within to an onlooker not familiar with magical concealment, he drew out a tiny vial of liquid, no bigger than a thumbnail, and flicked the tiny glass stopper into the palm of his hand. I don't want to do this to him, the elf thought, but I really can't afford to take the chance.

When Jerenn brought the flask of the excellently chilled white wine he had learned that Cassian liked, the elf poured two glasses with his back to the youth, slipping the tasteless and colorless herbal liquid into one. It was a potion for truth. Taking the other for himself, he bade the surprised boy drink with him. Looking a little confused, but pleased with the prospect of drinking with the elf, Jerenn tried to make himself take only small sips so that he drank more slowly than Cassian. Such a thing would be inconceivable with his own master and he had no idea of the etiquette required for such an occasion.

Cassian told him of Damius's death without going into any of the gruesome details. As he spoke, watching Jerenn's eyes carefully, he could see the dilatation of the lad's pupils by the time he'd drunk barely half a glass.

"So there you are, an assassin had called and there was no sign of him," the elf concluded. "Anyway, no more of that now. I have something I wish you to do for me."

"Anything, sir," the boy said fervently.

"Don't call me sir," Cassian said for what seemed like the hundredth time. The boy's response would be a good indication of whether the drug was having the desired effect.

"If you say so, Cassian." It was the first time the boy used the elf's name without any sign of embarrassment.

"I want you to go to the markets and buy garments suitable for someone of my size and build. The kind of garments a Barsaive elf would wear," Cassian requested. "And also clothing for yourself, as if you were a traveler. Practical things. Stout leather leggings and jerkin, rough cottons, that sort of thing. I shall require boots also."

"Are we going somewhere?" the boy asked.

"Into the Broken Quarter. I wish to see the Rat Circus for myself," the elf said coolly. The boy's eyes widened.

"But, Cassian, if the people there knew who you are, they would cut you into a thousand pieces and take a week over doing it!"

"They will not know who I am. You wouldn't tell them, would you?" This was the acid test.

"Of course not," Jerenn said fervently. Now I know I can trust him, Cassian thought with quiet satisfaction. "Hut won't it be dangerous?"

"You don't know the area?"

"The Rat Circus—everyone keeps away from it! There .ire the rats, of course, but there's worse. Only the most desperate people live in the Undercity there. They'll kill for a copper, or just because they're drunk, crazy, sick of life. It will be dangerous!" This time the boy was insistent.

"Perhaps, but we'll have certain protections. Anyway, tell me of your life before you were taken into slavery. I imagine someone like you must have been able to take care of himself?"

So, the elf got many minutes on the art of staying alive as an orphan; the tricks of begging and feigning injury, fits, and afflictions of mundane sorts and the need to be careful lest anyone should think the beggar was I lorror-marked; the rudiments of thievery and getting into—and staying in—places one should not be; of how to prowl around homes and houses and use a simple hooked wooden pole to fish out anything from a box of coins to a hot roast for one's supper; and much more besides. Jerenn was about to begin an impassioned recital of a windling traveling song when the elf bade him stop.

"That's enough," he laughed. "You are resourceful, I think. We shall travel together. We go tomorrow just before dusk, and I expect to be back by midnight."

"But I am not allowed outside the gates," Jerenn protested. Cassian raised an eyebrow. "But that's different, I mean, I don't have to deal with the guards at the gates."

"We could take your route."

"That's how I was captured last time," Jerenn pointed out.

"Then through the gates we must go. I will have no problems with the guards," Cassian replied.

The boy pondered that for a moment. "What shall we be looking for?"

"If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't need to go at all," the elf said logically.

"We'll need some money."

"Hardly a problem."

"Lanterns too. And we should take some good food. For many people, that's a better bribe than money."

"I'm sure we can buy something at the markets."

"We'll also need oil and marble balls in case we're pursued," the boy added.

"Ah, you know those tricks," the elf said approvingly"And a bag of pepper, and some flour, and some of that filthy catspaw glue." Not even Cassian had heard of that, and said so. "It's supposed to be made from dead cats. It stinks like nothing you've ever smelled. Throw some of that about and no dog will come anywhere near. Some of the people out there, they've got dogs—big ones. To protect themselves. They're bigger than dwarfs, some of them, and they're trained to kill people."

"I think the easiest thing," Cassian said, beginning to realize that the boy was a better tactician than he could ever hope to be in the unfamiliar surroundings of the Undercity, "is for me to give you enough money to purchase whatever you think will be useful." He had devices and subterfuges of his own, but it would do no harm to ally the boy's ingenuity to those resources.

"Not all at once," the boy said readily. "Too easy to be spotted. I can go buy the clothes you asked for, but I can purchase some of the other things in Vivane today and the rest in the Broken Quarter at night. I'll go in different disguises each trip."

Then Jerenn looked confused again. "I'm not allowed to wear ordinary clothes," he said dispiritedly. It was true, of course; slaves had to wear black, and could even be executed summarily for anything else.

“You can if you are with me," the elf pointed out. "So just stick close."

"But, but.. " The boy was troubled. He was trying to puzzle something out in his mind. "Why would you take me with you out there? I could betray you."

"You've already said that you will not."

"But that's not the point," Jerenn said. "I mean, I could. Most slaves would. In fact almost all of them would."

I know the truth of his heart, Cassian thought, but now his head needs some logic to support what he feels.

"There are also people out there who have your Wood," the elf reminded him quietly. "While I live and you are with me, you are safe from them. The protections I carry will ward us both. If I die, then you are no longer so protected. And even if you wished to betray me to those who have your blood, you could not be sure that I hey wouldn't kill us both. Indeed, in their place I would certainly dispose of any Theran and his accomplice. I suspect that has already crossed your mind."

Jerenn nodded. "I didn't think exactly that," he said slowly, "but I thought there must be some way you would have some hold like that. It's just hard for me to imagine a Theran taking me to the Broken Quarter at all."

"When I need to call guards, I call guards. When I need a kedate—a messenger—I call for one. When I need someone who knows an area better than anyone else, then that is the person whose help I must seek. This is not the first time I've called upon a slave to help me to get into places I could not otherwise go."

The boy nodded. He still seemed surprised, and perhaps slightly apprehensive. Cassian shared the latter emotion, at least.

"Now go to the markets," he said, giving Jerenn a small pouch of gold coins. "And be sure you give me a complete accounting of everything you buy there."

"I will, Cassian," the boy said eagerly. "I'll get you prices you won't believe!"

"I don't doubt it," the elf grinned. As the boy got up and left, he pondered what to do in the meantime.

Back to the House of Records, he thought, for more trawling through obscure papers. He would surely find something there eventually.

And so he did; but not as he might have expected. On the way, Cassian ran into the ubiquitous Ilfaralek, who marched purposefully toward him. There were extra patrols already making their way up and down the Grandwalk. The official excuse would be additional security prior to the great feast celebration, but it was a little early for that, and as word of Darnius's bloody demise got around the city, it would be good to have extra soldiers on hand.

"A word, please," the akarenti said firmly, taking Cassian by the arm and leading him up the grand marble steps. Ilfaralek virtually commanded one of the scribes to give up his office, and shut the door firmly behind the startled man as he shuffled away down one of the labyrinthine passages.

"Mordain has talked. Well, not much, but enough," Ilfaralek said curtly. "I thought you ought to know." By now, Cassian had taken in the fact that the man carried a dark brown leathered book, slim and small, with a slight staining on its back. "He told us to find this."

Cassian took the book and sat down at the paper-strewn desk to examine the text. It was written in some form of cipher, and also written right to left; hardly an uncommon ruse, and he used his small hand mirror to begin decoding it.

"Peruse it at your leisure," Ilfaralek said. "What is clear is that Mordain was much less honest than we all thought. It's been very cleverly done. From public records, one would never have been able to trace anything."

The elf quietly murmured agreement. Ilfaralek had obviously moved swiftly to examine Mordain's affairs, and Cassian wondered whether he might also have learned that Cassian had investigated his own involvement, among others. He also knew, now, with whom Mordain had been associated. The cipher and the mirror-writing he had seen before. Protocol didn't demand that he inform Ilfaralek, but he wanted to stay on the man's good side, and decided to be forthcoming.

"I've seen this coding before," Cassian said quietly, "at the house of Aralesh." Ilfaralek stood impassively, arms folded, gazing at him.

"There is an initial that repeats itself, W," Ilfaralek said. "Considerable moneys appear to have been divided between Mordain and this 'W'".

"Mordain has not said who it is?"

"He is unconscious now and may not survive."

"Then I can tell you that you have nothing to fear from this mysterious W," Cassian smiled.

"How can you be so sure?" Ilfaralek frowned, and then smiled himself. "Ah, I see. Our friend W is no longer among us."

"That would be a correct presumption."

"The cipher is not difficult. For the third letter from the end of the alphabet, substitute the third letter from the beginning."

"I see. But who in the name of the Passions is benefiting from all this, given that Daralec is dead?" Ilfaralek wondered aloud. "And why has it needed so many deaths?"

"I rather think that's what I was sent here to find out," Cassian said diplomatically.

"I can only hope you do so before we have more corpses littering up the homes of the rich and powerful," Ilfaralek returned with feeling. "Overgovernor Kypros has demanded to see me tomorrow morning. Sooner than I'd expected. I think that, under the circumstances, we ought to defer our meeting. I'm going to be busy."

I'd wager you will, Cassian thought. Trying to call in a favor or two in case the Overgovernor gets difficult.

"Let me know what else you may discover," Ilfaralek said, though Cassian knew he was not obliged to do so. The elf owed an accounting only to the distant figure of the Arbiter-General, but Ilfaralek's problems were a great deal closer to hand.

Cassian nodded. "I'm grateful to you for showing me the book. I may keep it a while?"

"As long as you can get it back to me by this evening. Oh, and I wouldn't mind having a look at whatever it was you took from Aralesh with the same codes in it. Showing those two to Kypros might deflect at least some of his wrath."

Cassian smiled slightly. "A reasonable exchange. . .and thank you again."

"You had some business here?" Ilfaralek asked casually as the elf was opening the door to leave.

"You just preempted it," Cassian grinned, walking through the door and quickly out into the street.

21

In the early afternoon, Cassian called at Tarlanth's house, to inquire after Karlanta. He had still not had a chance to speak with her, and given what he now knew about Daralec's will and his affairs, it was a meeting he could not defer much longer. It took several knocks to gain admittance, and when a servant finally ushered him in, he found himself in the presence of Tarlanth's son. Lyn looked at him shyly and quizzically.

"Hello. I'm afraid my parents are not here," the young man said in his gentle voice.

"It was Karlanta I was hoping to see."

"She's not here either. They've taken her upriver," the boy said.

"Why?" Cassian was taken aback.

"Well, she didn't want to stay here. Not now that she's recovered—well, she's better, anyway. She wanted to convalesce outside the city. Not surprising after what happened to her family."

"I suppose not," Cassian said thoughtfully. "Where is she making for?"

"Sendernis," the youth said without further explanation. Then, in response to Cassian's request for more, "It's a town west of here. Old and sick people go there to be healed or fade away quietly. It's full of healers and the waters are supposed to have magical properties. So I'm told, anyway."

"I take it you've never seen the place."

"I don't leave here much," the boy said, slightly pathetically. "My health isn't much good either, I'm afraid."

"What exactly is wrong with you?"

"I'm just sickly." Lyn managed a weak smile. "I was a sick infant, then a sick child, and now I'm not exactly a well adult."

Hardly an adult at all, Cassian reflected, looking at the lad. His posture was slightly hunched, and his loose and shabby clothing contrasted sharply with the finery of his parents' apparel and, in particular, his mother's rigidly disciplined brilliant good looks and dress sense.

"You paint, I recall," Cassian offered pleasantly, not having much to do before his planned evening jaunt. "May I see?"

The boy seemed uncomfortable. "It's nothing," he mumbled. "Just something I do in my spare time. I'm useless at it, really."

Cassian laughed softly. "Well, you needn't worry about me. I'm no expert, though I've always enjoyed sampling the various styles in the places where I've traveled. It would be my pleasure to look at what you've been doing."

Reluctantly, the boy shambled up the stairs, leading the elf into a light and airy upper-floor chamber. It was entirely bare, save for trestles and benches and a couple of rickety chairs. The room and its walls were bare stone, except for some splashes of paint on the floor. To his surprise, Cassian saw no mounted paintings. Even the easel set up near the window had nothing leaning against its frame. The only paintings visible were a heap of them almost thrown into a corner, with a length of dirty, streaked cotton mostly obscuring them.

He had to lift the first painting up and turn it around to face him to make it out. It was a night scene, difficult to render well, showing the garden of a villa, with a deep pool the central feature. At first the painting looked like a slab of blackness, until he began to detect nuances and timbres in the black and blues, hints of shadowy presences gathering; or at least his imagination conjured up such a scene. It was an ambiguous piece of work, but it was subtle, and demanded more from the viewer than an ordinary or mundane theme. Cassian did not in all honesty know just how good it might be, but it certainly showed promise. He gazed at it with interest for a minute or so and then replaced it with the rest.

"You do yourself a disservice," he said. "I've seen work not as good as yours in certain places in the Great City itself. Have you a tutor?"

"For what?" the boy asked anxiously.

"Painting, of course," Cassian said, still gazing at the pile of paintings, recalling the subtleties of the one in his mind's eye.

"Oh, no," Lyn replied. "I just do it to pass the time. As 1 said."

"You should get proper tuition," Cassian said, turning back to Lyn. "You might become a well-known artist in time. Who knows?"

The boy just shook his head and stood gazing down at the floor. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and wrung them ineffectually. He was clearly embarrassed and unhappy.

"It might not be a bad idea," the elf insisted. "Somehow, I don't imagine you will enjoy inheriting your father's businesses."

"Why do you say that?" Lyn said querulously.

"People who have success with money usually have hard business heads and a readiness to put feelings aside most of the time, which is not the kind of person you seem to be," the elf said smoothly. "At any rate, I won't take up any more of your time. Thank you for giving me the news of Karlanta. Good day."

As Cassian walked past the boy, he caught the faintest floral scent about him; an effeminate perfume, very subtle but clear to his heightened senses. He did not pause, but pondered that the boy's life in his father's household must be a wretched one. He probably took refuge in illness to avoid his father's wrath, and would likely remain a semi-invalid until Tarlanth died. The elf cast the morbid thought aside, and descended the stairs.

Lyn stood watching him go, his face an impassive mask.

Jerenn was still away, making his purchases, when Cassian returned to the Rose Villa. It was, however, obvious from the pile of clothes and equipment on his bed that the boy had already put in an industrious morning's work. The clothes were plain and simple, well made, with a degree of ornamentation that showed the craftsman's pride in his work without any degree of ostentation. Judging by some of the Barsaivian elves he'd seen in the markets and streets of the city, Cassian was confident the attire would allow him to pass for one of them easily enough. A small pack contained a whole plethora of other items Jerenn had considered useful: oil, preserved food, a small lantern, rope, a leather pouch that rattled with marble spheres when Cassian gave it a shake, a waterskin, a small knife with a hooked end to the blade, a twist of leather thongs, and much besides.

It looked more like Jerenn was supplying them for a lengthy trip into the wilderness rather than a short sojourn just outside the walls of the Theran Quarter. The elf smiled. Perhaps, he thought, I could simply have alerted Crotias and had a division or two—maybe a whole cohort—of the Legion sent out into the Broken Quarter to see what's going on in the Rat Circus. But a foot-stamp-ing, marching cohort would have scared away anyone I might want to know about down there; it would be self-defeating. And I can always see if Crotias wants to send in the Legion after I've dug up some more evidence—if there's more to be gained.

Cassian's reflections were interrupted by a knock at the door, and he called permission to enter. A maid poked her head around it, then came in to deliver a plaque of fine vellum with gilded borders on a silver tray. Picking up the vellum, Cassian turned it over to find that Overgovernor Kypros himself had requested an audience with the elf at noon the following day. A brief postscript informed him that no response was necessary. Dismissing the maid, Cassian smiled again as he sat down and turned the unwelcome invitation over and over in his long fingers.

The Overgovernor is getting rattled, he thought. That probably calls for a change in plans. Jerenn and I will have to brave the Undercity by night. I only hope he comes back soon so we can get started and find a group of travelers to join for the short time that will be useful to me. Kypros cannot interfere with my work, but he can be subtly obstructive and I can do without that.

Almost on cue, a second knock at the door announced the boy's arrival. He carried a bagful of bulging objects and wore a broad grin on his face.

"I think we may need to venture forth this evening/' the elf said casually. Jerenn's eyes took in the plaque the elf still held in his hands and he looked startled. Cassian gave him a knowing look and the boy inched backward slightly.

"I'm sorry, I've seen one of those before when I had to take it to my master when Berelas was ill," he stuttered. "I didn't read it or anything, but—"

"Spare me your explanations," Cassian replied. "So you know who this invitation is from. You're a knowledgeable fellow."

"I don't want to get into any trouble," Jerenn said timidly.

"Then let us not speak of it further," the elf returned reasonably. "We should begin preparations, I think."

"We need passes," Jerenn said doubtfully.

"Hardly a problem," the elf smiled. "I have them from someone who will keep this quiet." He was not going to mention Ilfaralek's name. Going to Crotias to request gate passes for a Barsaivian would have aroused too many questions.

"Are you sure I don't have to wear black?" The boy was obviously most anxious about that. After all, it was a capital crime under certain circumstances. Slaves were recognized by their attire, and dressing otherwise was assumed to be an admission of dishonesty and pretense bordering on subversion or sedition.

"I've left a signed statement with a very senior and trustworthy city official, in case anything should happen to me and you are wrongly accused," Cassian said.

"Who is it?" Jerenn asked. Then, when the elf did not reply, "If anything does go wrong I must know who to tell the guards to talk to."

"No," Cassian demurred. "I can only assure you he will know." At the back of the elf's mind was the fact that the boy might be less trustworthy if he knew where to gain such legal absolution. Though the drug Cassian had given Jerenn had reassured him of the lad's honesty and likely loyalty, there was no point in taking more chances than was absolutely necessary. Jerenn looked unhappy, but when the elf asked to see the other purchases, he dumped the contents of his bag on the bed and told proudly of his haggling prowess.

As Jerenn looked happier and began to babble on, Cassian realized that it was all still a game to him. An adventure. He would have to make sure the lad was capable of more.

From a cloth cover laid on a table, he drew out a curved scabbard of plain leather and extracted from it a knife nearly a foot in length. The blade was keen, and the workmanship excellent. He offered it to the boy.

"Do you know how to use such a weapon?" To his great relief, the boy didn't bat an eye.

"I do, sir. When I was in Bartertown, I had to learn. I was too small to use a sword or axe and so I always kept a knife or dagger about me for protection. Anyone who doesn't won't survive for long."

"Then take this," Cassian said, "and hope that you will not need to use it."

Early evening saw an elf and his young traveling companion, utterly transformed in appearance, approach the northern gates of the Theran Quarter together with a ragtag group of Creanan men heading for Bartertown. Knowing the tongue of these foreign folk, Cassian found it easy to persuade their leader to let them join the group for a short time. Perhaps even more persuasive than his words was the transfer of a small sum of gold. This had seemed wiser than traveling with Barsaivians, who were likely to be more suspicious and to betray them to their own fellows beyond the gates. Passes were inspected by a patrol of orks at the gates, and Cassian saw a small handful of gold transferred from the dark hands of the Creanan leader to the inspecting officer. The group was ushered through the small side-gate, and their mounts through the larger horse-gate at the left.

When they had passed through onto the broad, but hardly well-repaired, road that wound northeast into the sprawl of the Broken Quarter and on into the wider lands around the city, eventually into Barsaive itself, an ork among the Creanans tried to engage Cassian in conversation. He seemed uncomfortable with the idea of traveling companions he did not know and had not laid eyes on until an hour or so earlier. But Cassian was able to calm the man's fears with a tale of the ancestor statues of Creana, which he had actually seen on their once-yearly walk around the old tombs of the plateau. An extraordinary sight, the giant, faceless stone monoliths animating under the moon and striding in a complex geometric pattern that some sages fancied was a symbolic representation of the paths of the planets in the night skies. The ork was obviously superstitious at first, but his uncertainty changed to deep curiosity mingled with respect for Cassian, and no little fear and awe. The elf was pleased to see the odd Barsaivian face along the way glance at the two of them in deep conversation, probably assuming the ork and the elf were fellows. By the time the two had to take their leave, Cassian was almost disappointed.

"We'll be back this way by the last week of Borrum. Will you be in Vivane then?" the ork asked plaintively. "I'd like to hear more. I've been away from home six years now and I've never seen the statues."

"I'll look for you in the markets," Cassian said. To his surprise, the ork seized him by the shoulders and gave him the well-judged neck bite that most orks used as a greeting. In return, Cassian spat carefully to his left, a gesture of respect to his newfound acquaintance. The ork grinned broadly before he and the rest of the group trudged ahead along the road, their mounts clinking with the sound of their harnesses and the goods they carried.

Jerenn was quietly urging Cassian away from the road and toward a dimly lit building to the left. The boy was hardly recognizable now. His hair was lightened with light brown flecks and his eyebrows almost auburn in color. He had cut his hair shorter, and bore a distinctive small triangular scar on the left side of his chin. Thanks to some deft work with his footwear, he was also more than an inch taller than a few hours ago, and a chunky bronze bracelet on his left wrist added to the detail. His knife was well concealed, and he had the look about him of someone at ease with his surroundings, one who knew what he was doing, and was able to take care of himself.

"Here," he said firmly. "This is the safest place in the area, though it used to be a real pit. I've only been here once and that was six months ago. It's probably much changed since the dwarf took it over. And the beer's supposed to be quite good now."

"You told me," Cassian reminded him. "Now let's go in and find ourselves a nice, quiet, secluded corner where we can wait until it gets properly dark."

22

After spending the best part of two hours trying to stay inconspicuous, two figures emerged from the drinking den and crossed the rubble of the street in the last shadows of dusk. Cassian had agreed to Jerenn's ingenious idea of playing mute to keep from having to respond to any unwanted queries from drunken and overcurious souls. Since the boy had much better knowledge of many areas of Barsaive and the city beyond the walls, and since Cassian's Throalic was both a little stumbling and delivered in a distinctly Theran accent, Cassian had been grateful for the subterfuge. Some of the drinkers had probably assumed that the elf's mother had been cursed while he was still in the womb for him to be so afflicted, which again helped keep other folk at bay.

"Here," jerenn hissed. "There's a shaft leading down to it here." To Cassian's elven eyes, able to see much more easily in the last of the day's light, the hole in the ground was apparent. They walked carefully towards it.

"It seems amazingly obvious," the elf puzzled.

"It's said to be full of rats, plague rats," the boy reminded him. "No one in his right mind would go down there. Deep down there are said to be tombs, too, and Deadwalkers. People are too scared even to try to cover up the hole. The last person who tried never came back. Mind you, I don't think it was rats got him. More likely he got waylaid by someone who wanted what he had."

Cassian knelt a short distance from the aperture and pressed his head to the ground. Though there were shouts and the sounds of feet crunching their way through the rubble in the distance, the elf's keen senses could distinguish vibrations from below ground from such distractions.

"I don't hear much sound of movement down there," he whispered. "This shaft—will we need ropes?"

Jerenn was lying down on his belly now, hands exploring the top of the shaft. "There are iron rungs set into the stone," he whispered back.

"You'll need a lantern to see by," the elf pointed out.

"Not to begin with. It's too dangerous. If you go first I should be safe following," the boy said rather doubtfully. "But once we're down there I'll need light."

"So will I in pitch darkness," the elf grinned. "But let us be certain of our footing first." In the darkness, the boy did not see him reach down to his leg and detach the little black scarab beetle, and set it on the ground close to the shaft entrance. After a minute's silence, praying that no nocturnal wanderer would come upon them, Cassian was satisfied there were no traps laid for the unwary; at least, none in the shaft itself.

He lowered his legs carefully into the shaft and tested the first two rungs, pressing more weight upon them until he was convinced they wouldn't give way. Gripping the top of the shaft with his hands, he began the descent.

Though not lighting their way had seemed a wise precaution, Cassian began to regret it by the third time Jerenn's feet struck his head. The boy was eager to get down, and unlike Cassian he knew he could trust the next step of his descent since someone else had already tested the way down. Finally, Cassian's feet touched solid stone and he stood in pitch blackness, helping Jerenn the last few feet. They stood absolutely silent for some seconds, hearing nothing save for the faintest sound of dripping water in the distance.

"We'll need light now," Cassian said, hearing the youth already rummaging in his pack. "We may be seen—but then anyone approaching will also need light, so we aren't likely to be taken by surprise."

Unless there's a wizard about, of course, Cassian thought; we could be sensed and some attack made upon us. He fished out his pocketed scarab and laid it on the stone as Jerenn lit a lantern, hooding it to keep its circle of light as small as possible while still being of use to them. The boy noticed the beetle when he heard its soft scratching, and lowered the lantern to look at it. For a moment he thought it real. Cassian, concentrating hard, simply put a finger to his lips and waited for the impressions the scarab could convey.

There was magic at work in the distance, to the west; elemental magic shaping the place. Looking that way, Cassian could see only a disused passageway, long unrepaired, with crumbling stonework. But the floor looked safe enough, at least. To the east, the view looked exactly the same, but there was not the same aura of magic that beckoned to the west.

"This way," Cassian whispered, picking up the scarab. Jerenn prodded the elf and handed him three twists of leather thong and some ragged cloth. The elf remembered the boy's suggestion during their planning, and fastened the cloth under the soles of his boots, tying it fast with the thongs. With footing seeming safe, this would help silence their footfalls. When they were done, they edged westward. After twenty yards of travel, the passage abruptly changed appearance. There was a point at which some rockfall or obstruction must have been cleared away, for marks of stonework were evident on the walls and what looked like the chipping of mining axes was visible on the floor. Beyond that point, the walls were clean and looked far more recently excavated than the passageway they'd just navigated.

“New work," the boy whispered, craning his neck to speak into the elf's ear. Cassian smiled and laid his scarab back on the ground again. Shortly he knew what had been fairly evident anyway; new work, indeed, but not crafted by hands and tools alone. The aura of magic was stronger here.

"Be careful," he said softly, drawing his own long knife—virtually a short sword—and repossessing the precious scarab before striding very cautiously forward.

Afterward, Cassian was angry with himself for making the obvious mistake. Intent on the danger ahead, he'd given no thought to something approaching from behind. In fairness, his senses were still re-attuning after being locked to the scarab's detections, but before he was fully aware of what was happening he heard screams and shouts in the distance to the east and spun around sharply. Jerenn's eyes were brilliant with fear in the lamplight.

"Something coming," the boy said wholly needlessly. They moved forward, almost at a trot, as swiftly as they dared. Running was out of the question; a snare as simple as a pit could mean a broken limb or neck. Behind them, the furious yells got louder and the sounds of running were growing near.

"Nowhere to hide," Jerenn said wretchedly. He gripped his knife and readied himself.

Cassian laid a hand on his shoulder and said firmly, "Press yourself against the wall. We may be unseen even if they run right past us. Put that lantern out!" He touched something about his neck, something hidden by the gloom and his garments.

Jerenn was panicky, but realizing the elf must have some magical defense, he obeyed his command. Knowing little of such things, but having seen illusionists earn considerable sums by entertaining the curious and superstitious in Bartertown, he pressed himself as hard as he could against the wall and prayed for the magic to work.

"Just don't move. Not an inch," the elf hissed into his ear as a rumbling, shambolic horde appeared from the east, the light of lanterns creating bizarre shadows as they swung in the hands of the approaching retinue.

A single ork was a few yards in front of the pack, his face perspiring. He carried no weapon, and the dirty right arm of his jacket was covered in fresh blood. His eyes rolled in his head, and he was clearly on the point of collapse. He ran crazed, jerkily, like some poorly made mannequin. Behind him was another creature, as filthy and shambolic as the ork, and Cassian at first took it for a man also running ahead of the pursuing group of orks. The orks bore a variety of hand weapons, from swords to crude clubs, and they screamed and cursed in fury.

The lead ork was a few yards away from them when everything happened at once. Cassian saw in a horrified glance that the thing pursuing him was not human at all, though it probably had been once. Neither did all the shadows come from the illumination of the lanterns; Cassian needed no wizard's sense to feel the palpable aura around the undead thing. Arms shot out from the animated corpse, and they seemed impossibly long for those of any real body. Filth-encrusted talons sank into the ork's spine, just below the vertebrae, and the ork screamed piteously. He staggered straight into them as the cadaver leapt onto him.

Cassian could not maintain the illusion of invisibility, his absorption broken by the physical contact. He heard Jerenn groan with pain; the ork had struck him full in the guts, while the elf had taken only a glancing blow from the ork's outflung arms. He readied his knife and hoped that the protections of his amulet and the girdle he wore at his waist would be sufficient.

The pursuing orks were obviously confused and paused for a split-second. Where there had been a wall, they could see an emergent elf with a long dagger and their companion fallen. Undisturbed by such matters, the cadaver-thing clawed at the ork and, with impossible strength, wrapped its hands around his neck. Iron claws dug into him so hard that the back of the ork's skull split like a rotten fruit. Convulsing, the body began to fall. The cadaver held its grip and, further demonstrating its power, whipped the ork's body around and flung it into the mass of other orks. Two of them fell, blood and spattering brains showering over them.

One ork stood shivering with terror, his sword held before him like some relic of protection. The corpse-crea-ture shambled toward him, the impetus of its movement carrying it forward. Reflexively, Cassian pointed between its shoulder blades, and his enchanted dagger bit deep into rotting flesh and putrid bone. The stench of the thing, now that he was close to it, was overwhelming and he nearly gagged.

Unbelievably, it almost ignored him. It paused for a fraction of a moment before it bore down on the ork and smashed the weapon from his hand, breaking the ork's forearm in the process. The ork recoiled with a scream of pain. Behind him, the fallen orks were blocking the way of any help. Cassian hung on tight and drove the blade upward to the vertebrae.

The corpse's claws were on the ork's torso and Cassian could hear him screaming. He summoned up all his strength and drove inward and upward, until he gave a final twist that almost sprained his own wrist. The blade tore through the side of the monster's neck, ripping away half an ear as the enchanted blade arced round to the throat and dug into the windpipe. Now the thing had let go of the ork and was thrashing about madly. It began to fall, and Cassian released the blade with a final skewering stroke. Black blood gouted over the stone as the creature howled, kicking its legs in a demented frenzy, the shadows around it dancing crazily. The elf leapt back as the thing hit the stone, still howling and thrashing wildly. The ork it had gripped was staring down stupidly at his useless arm, shaking and disbelieving. After what seemed an endless instant, the gruesome thing jerked in one final, stupendous spasm and then lay still.

Cassian had no idea what the creature might have been. It was certainly stronger than the cadaver men he had once faced in those distant Myternean caves, and the shadows flickering out into the light now were like those of a demi-wraith, but there had been none of the deathly chill of such a creature about this wretched monster. He looked down and behind for an instant, seeing that the first ork was beyond any hope of help. Not relaxing his guard, he returned his gaze to the wounded ork before him. The ork spat nervously to his left.

"It would have killed me," he said simply, nervously pushing a boot at the stinking corpse.

"'ere," came a growl from behind him, "I know that elf. I've seen him in the city."

"So what? He--"

"e's snooping, 'e's a Theran."

Six pairs of eyes stared at Cassian, and someone spat out a curse of hatred. Weapons were raised. Cassian gripped his blade hard, and in that instant realized Jerenn had deserted him. The boy was nowhere to be seen.

Six to one. Not good odds, he thought with sinking heart, and nowhere to flee. If he had to die, he'd surely never have chosen a place as miserable as this.

23

Everything went instantly dark as Jerenn fell. There was no resistance behind him, suddenly, and he landed on his back, arms flailing behind him. He heard something crunch, perhaps break, in his pack. In pitch blackness, he felt carefully for the lantern and found to his intense relief that it was still sound. He could see or hear nothing, the furor around him having suddenly vanished. Not even muffled sounds could be detected.

Where had everyone gone?

Fumbling to light his lantern, he found himself at the end of a passage cut perfectly and recently. Rubbing at his guts, trying to get his breath back, Jerenn got painfully to his knees and hunched himself up against the pain. His eyes had closed against the impact of the heavy ork tumbling against him, and now everything seemed to have disappeared. In a brief instant of hope, he wondered if Cassian's magic might have moved them both away from danger; then he realized there was no sign of the elf and when he risked whispering Cassian's name, there was no reply.

Suddenly he heard a muffled sound, a hideous screaming yowl from his left. He pressed his ear against the wall and the sound grew a little louder, then all was silent. Mere moments later, he heard animated voices and an ork's voice unmistakably saying, "Kill him."

He scrabbled frantically at the wall, looking for the sliding panel or door that must surely be there; how else could he have fallen into this other place? He was about to bang on it when there was a silence on the other side, and he realized that discovery could mean instant death. But there had been no sound of a battle or slaying after those ominous words, and he wondered whether Cassian might somehow have survived, though he would surely be in great danger.

I've got to do something to help him, he thought frantically, his scratching hands unable to find any sign of a door, hinges, or other means of access.

Trusting to the footing, for the stonework of the floor looked safe enough, Jerenn raced along the passageway, not caring in which direction it led him. His breath came in ragged gasps, his abdomen still painful and bruised. He ran as if for his own life, and finally found a shaft leading upwards from the otherwise endless straight passage. To his immense relief, there was an iron-rung ladder set into the side of it. He scrabbled up as fast as he could and pushed hard at the grating above. It had a rock laid above it, and he groaned as he pushed with all the force he could muster. Managing to wedge it open just a little, he pushed it agonizingly slowly to one side. When he had a couple of inches space to work with, Jerenn risked both his hands in the crack, and pushed the grating far enough for him to squeeze his narrow frame through.

There was a very faint scent lingering around, as if someone had waited there and only just abandoned a vigil, but the musky aroma did not impress itself on the youth's senses. He looked around in all directions, gulping in the warmer air beyond the subterranean coolness. Though he didn't recognize this exact spot, he knew the gates of Vivane lay not too far to the west and south of him and he sped toward them, praying he wouldn't fall and twist an ankle on the way. He ran straight through a bunch of drunken orks squatting by a fire among their tents and, still running full-pelt, left their curses to enrich the cooling night air. By the time he reached the gates, Jerenn could hardly breathe. A pair of amused ork guards looked down at the ragged youth gasping to get even one syllable out.

"Bugger off," one of them said with a leering snarl. "Go back to whoever wants your backside, you little runt."

Wheezing, the boy showed his pass and managed to get the word "spy" out.

"You're a spy, are you? Well, it's good of you to tell us," the ork laughed unpleasantly. "That's worth fifty lashes or maybe even a beheading, if you're lucky."

Jerenn looked at him with all the hate he could muster. "If you don't"—gulping for air—"let me in. . .Ilfaralek will. . .have your guts." He added a medium-offensive insult just for measure. If he'd hoped to intimidate the ork, Jerenn was quickly disillusioned. The ork grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground.

"Listen, you little squirt," was the snarling response. "We're paid to know who is who coming in and out of these gates. You ain't one of them." He dumped the boy on the ground and was about to lay a kick into his already-aching ribs when Jerenn managed to roll to one side and came up showing the glint of gold in his hand. He had saved some money from his day's purchases, and having to enter the Broken Quarter by night had deprived him of the chance to spend it. It was now his only hope.

The second guard, less angry than the first, tapped his fellow on the shoulder and grunted. Jerenn's assailant restrained himself.

"Why don't we just kick the hell out of him and take the money anyway?" the guard said reasonably. The first ork hadn't thought of this, and looked as if the idea was very pleasant to him. His features creased up in a malefic smile.

"Look, just take it," Jerenn said wearily. "I've come from a Theran praetor. He's in big trouble. I've got to get to Ilfaralek to tell him what's happening." No subterfuge or bribe was of any use now. The boy had to hope the truth would work. It didn't, usually.

At the mention of the word praetor, the expression of the orks changed. They muttered a few words in an ork-ish dialect Jerenn couldn't understand. They were obviously undecided, and Jerenn knew that making up their minds on any matter requiring thoughtful consideration was often a time-consuming process for orks. The same was true for soldiers, so for ork soldiers it could take forever.

"Every second I'm late is another second he may be killed," the boy pleaded.

"Better not take any chances," the less aggressive of the orks muttered.

"Look," Jerenn said, on a sudden brainstorm, "I've got to get to the Southern Barracks. Fast. Put me on a horse with a lieutenant or somebody. Then I won't be running around free in the city, so you won't have anything to worry about, will you?" The orks stared at each other. "Look, even better," continued the emboldened youth, "I'll say it was your idea. You could get a commendation."

"Cheeky little bugger, ain't he? Bit too smart. Could be a spy we don't know about," the friendlier ork said. To his immense relief, Jerenn saw the paw-like hand of his fellow held out, and he dumped the gold into his palm.

"'Ere! Grundertz!" the ork yelled over his shoulder, into the shadows behind the huge gates. "Get an 'orse out and look sharp about it!"

Jerenn stood his ground doggedly, faced with the ork officer. He feared that an underling might not alert anyone of importance until it was too late, and the officer's assertion that Ilfaralek was dining and could not come in person worried him even more.

"It's the praetor," Jerenn repeated. "If we wait any longer he'll be cut into pieces. He told me," he lied fluently, "that I must see Ilfaralek and no one else." Summoning up all his courage the boy stood as tall as he could, challenging the overweeningly greater stature of the ork. The ork's reply was to grab him by the collar and push his face into Jerenn's. It wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Now you look here," the officer growled, virtually hauling the boy off the ground, "you tell me what all this murder and mayhem and nonsense is or I'll—"

"What's going on?" came a sharp query from behind the knot of soldiers surrounding Jerenn. By fortunate coincidence, Ilfaralek had decided some fresh air would do his digestion—never one of life's more reliable processes—some good after an over-rich meal. His temper was not of the best at such times.

"Nothing, sir, just a slave lad," the officer said casually. "'Night to you, sir."

Ilfaralek was just about to turn away when Jerenn cried out after him.

"Are you Ilfaralek, sir?" He thought—hoped—that he recognized the man from the evening entertainments at the Rose Villa the night Cassian had arrived. It was dark, and by the torchlight outside the barracks buildings he could not be certain. The figure paused in mid-stride and turned around, staring at the youth.

"It's Cassian, sir. He's been captured. In the Rat Circus. Sir, he'll be killed!" Jerenn tried to add a decent touch of drama without being too excessive about it. The man's jaw dropped a little and he marched over to the gathering of soldiers.

"There are tunnels there, sir, and orks with armor and swords and a dead thing and—"

"Cassian sent you?" The man was incredulous.

"Yes, sir. I had to show him how to get into the Circus, sir. Please, sir. He'll be killed!" The boy's voice was plaintive, and Ilfaralek was not inclined to doubt him. When the boy showed him his gate pass, which no slave would be likely to obtain—such things cost a considerable sum on the black market, being a passport to escape, and this lad would never have such money—he was persuaded to believe him.

"How many? How many orks did you see there?"

"A dozen or so, sir," Jerenn exaggerated.

"Your name, boy?"

"Jerenn, sir." Ilfaralek frowned. Earlier that day, Cassian had despatched to him a note that was meant to be opened and read only if a slave from Tarlanth's household should fall afoul of the authorities for any reason and if Cassian himself was not able to act on that person's behalf. Curious, Ilfaralek had read it and learned the lad's name. Now he had to take his claim seriously.

"Darisharg, get twenty men now and we will ride. There's no time to lose. And you, boy, you will stay here and, if this is a trap of any kind, you'll die under torture. Very painfully indeed," Ilfaralek threatened. "Oh, and dig out Harrishaz. We'd better have some magic with us in case matters get stickier than we expect."

"You must take me, too," Jerenn protested. "I must show you where we got in so you know where to look."

"He's right, sir," the lieutenant pointed out. "It's a nest of mazes down there."

"Damn it all, we'd better take fifty then. No, you lot come with me, and Darisharg, you round up another forty and drag that worthless wizard out of bed and away from whichever kitchen maid he's with at the moment." There was an unbidden snigger at the reference to Harrishaz's legendarily unfussy carnal habits, which Ilfaralek silenced with a single hand gesture.

"I promise you," he suddenly snarled at Jerenn, "if you've lied to me you will pay for this very dearly indeed. You will pray to die before I finish with you."

The boy flinched a little, but he stood his ground and met the man's gaze with his own.

He's not lying, Ilfaralek thought, but whether he's telling the truth is another matter entirely.

As the horses whinnied at being disturbed from their night rest, the spymaster of Vivane readied himself to find out.

24

As the largest of the orks took a determined step forward with a ragged-edged sword, one of his fellows laid his bloodied, but still good, hand on his shoulder and restrained him. The ork with the broken arm growled a warning to the others.

"I don't care who he is. He just saved my skin. I ain't going to let anyone kill him like this."

"Get out of the way, you fool," one of the orks at the back snarled. "He's a Theran, ain't he? That's enough."

"I don't care if he is a Theran," the first ork retorted obstinately. "He saved my hide. He didn't have to. He could have run away. Plenty might have done just that," he said pointedly.

"Meaning what?" spat a one-eyed ork looming from the flickering shadows at the back of the horde. "What are you trying to say, Rashurg?"

"Meaning I haven't forgotten that time when you left me to the Deadwalkers while we were looking for the jade tomb," the ork named Rashurg spat back.

"You stinking—"

"For pity's sake," the ork with the ragged sword said, slapping a hand to his warty forehead. "This is no time for ancient bloody history. We've got a Theran to kill. Look, if we let him go he'll go straight back to his Quarter and tell the Legion what he's seen. We've got to kill him."

There was a general murmur of agreement. Cassian knew it was no use pointing out that, truthfully, he'd seen remarkably little so far. He considered running, but the crossbows two of the orks bore on their backs looked dangerous enough and the elf had no idea what lay to the west in any event. He needed a screen for an escape, and that would require time for subterfuge. Clearing his throat to speak, Rashurg took two steps forward and stood with his back to the elf.

"No. I won't have it," he said. "Blood is blood. If he saved my life I won't take his, and I won't let you do it in cold blood."

"Who said anything about cold blood?" the ork with the rough-edged sword said in a tone of fake innocence.

"You bastard, we all know that thing's got venom on it," Rashurg spat. "That's no fair fight. Neither is six to one. You'll have to get past me first."

I don't think he's actually going to fight for me, Cassian thought. It's a bluff, but it's buying time. Shielded by the ork, he was able to twist the end of his scabbard and deposit a fine plume of yellow-green powder into the palm of his hand from the cavity at the base of it.

"Close your eyes," he yelled to Rashurg as he suddenly sprang to one side of him and flung the fine metallic powder into the air, turning away as he did so. The tiny particles exploded into a choking and blinding cloud of fiery sparks and smoke, enveloping the orks and leaving them coughing and helpless. For seconds, a trail of miniature falling stars seemed to burn arcs into the air as they crackled and hissed, sparking and giving out long plumes of gray, foul-reeking smoke.

The elf sped away into the darkness to the west. He had to risk running a hundred yards or so, to give himself some distance advantage, and then he had to waste precious seconds with the sound of cursing orks regaining their composure, balance, and sight behind him. The green gem-eyes of the serpent amulet around his neck gleamed suddenly and cast an aura of light around him, enough for him to see where his next footfall would land. Even so, he could not risk running so, and dared no more than a trotting half-run, halfwalk, long-striding and as fast as he could, but the orks— with the benefit of lanterns—would surely catch him soon.

To his despair, he found himself at a dead end. Desperately, he checked the walls for any sign of a hidden portal or sliding panel. When the orks were almost upon him, and he could see their bodies shrouded in lantern light bearing down upon him, the wall beneath his scrabbling hands virtually gave way and Cassian half-fell into an alcove set off from the dead end.

To his amazement, he could see the orks as they came to the end of the passage, and it took a few moments and what seemed like twenty heartbeats before he realized they could not see him. He'd not reassumed his invisibility magic, and cursed himself for not having done so, but there'd been no time. Now, it appeared, he was in a place where such magic cloaked him anyway. He risked looking away from the orks who were just standing there, staring stupidly around them.

The alcove was almost like a linen cupboard in size; tiny, with room for no more than two or three bodies at most. A tiny table and chair were the only decoration here. A simple silver flask stood on the table, and a plain gray robe hung on a metal hook hammered into the wall opposite the passageway. He just had time to pocket the flask, intrigued by the serpentine design etched into it, before he heard the orks muttering.

"He's got to be here somewhere," one of the bemused orks was saying. "This is where she comes. Maybe he's found out where she comes in and out and he's gone that way."

"Well, where the hell is it then?" an irascible ork yelled.

"I don't know, do I? It's magic. Wizard's stuff. Look, if we hadn't been shown how to find the way to the tunnel end back there"—he jabbed a finger in the direction from whence the orks had come—"I'd never be able to find it."

The orks began to tap the walls with hammers and the hilts of weapons. Cassian was certain they would find him. One particularly heavy hammer-thump hit the wall he had somehow walked through, and as he recoiled reflexively, it sounded as if the tool had struck solid stone. After an extended search, the orks stood scratching their heads.

"This is your fault, Rashurg, you damn fool," the one-eyed ork growled. "Now he's got away and there'll be half the Legion down here any minute."

"We don't know that," Rashurg protested as his fellows gathered around him.

"Arlyna will kill you," a shadowy ork yelled. "If you've ruined everything, you elf-loving—"

The sentence did not get completed. From the wall opposite the alcove where Cassian was observing events, a dark-cloaked figure seemed to emerge from the stone. She was tall for a woman, with short raven-black hair. Her green eyes gleamed in the lantern-light, truly like those of some feral cat in a dark forest. She was young, elegant, and Cassian caught a peppery and rich scent about her even from where he stood. She looked oddly familiar, though he couldn't place her face.

His jaw dropped as he realized she was looking at him. She could see him, unlike the orks, and she drew back like a cornered cat, spitting fury. She pointed to him and screamed some words in a dialect or tongue Cassian could not understand. The orks turned and stared as if cataracts had fallen from their eyes. They drew their weapons and took a pace forward. Cornered as he was, Cassian knew he had no hope of escape. The young woman was already reaching to her neck, and he knew at once she had some magical object she would use to attack or disable him. There could be no escape from this.

The ork with the poisoned sword was halfway through the wall-portal when the left side of his neck suddenly erupted into a fountain of blood. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward, the crossbow bolt that had felled him sticking out at a crazy angle. Cassian just managed to pin himself against an alcove wall and avoid being felled by the dropping corpse. A second ork was already staggering, a pair of like bolts having mined most of the left side of his rib cage. The orks with crossbows of their own had no time to return before a glowing-yellow serpentine creature erupted in their midst and began to expand and envelop them even as Cassian looked on.

What began its existence as a snaky form, with definition and elegance, grew in a few instants into a bloated shape with sticky, slippery tentacles flailing around in every direction. Limbs were ensnared and throats wrapped in the strangling, enfeebling magical strands. Within moments not a single ork was left standing to attack Cassian. Then, as he was almost ready to step out himself and look for the woman, a red spot appeared in the center of the magical fluxes and mushroomed in an instant to fill the entire area.

Even shielded by the magical barrier, Cassian could feel the intense heat as the sphere expanded and filled the cul-de-sac. It did not stop even then, but began to expand back eastward along the lengthy passage. If anyone was there in the way of the magical firestorm, Cassian could neither see nor hear. The screams of orks being burned alive and the appalling stench of burning flesh consumed his senses. He reeled backward, away from the heat and light, trying not to gag. With one hand firmly over his mouth, he reached into his pack and dragged out the waterskin, showering the contents over his head and drenching his clothes as best he could. He sat down and pulled a soaked area of cloak over his face and hands, trying to avoid burns from the heat beyond.

As the red glow faded through the cloth of the cloak, and he felt the worst of the baking heat dissipate, he risked a side glance out of the alcove. A pall of filthy black smoke hung over a pyre of charred bodies barely even distinguishable as individual corpses now. The heat must have been unbelievable to reduce living flesh and bone to such a ghastly mound in so short a time.

The elf had no desire to leave his place of safety, but the air around him was growing fouled and smoky even through the magical barrier he had penetrated, and he knew he would suffocate if he remained here much longer. After carefully emptying his second waterskin over his cloak, the elf, almost soaked to the skin now, drew in a deep breath and took a determined step out of the alcove.

The residual heat was still extreme and Cassian could feel heat from the stone of the floor burning away the cloth tied under the soles of his boots. Had he looked down, he would have seen them smoking as he stepped forward, but he had no time. It was impossible to avoid stepping on a body, and his foot crunched through crackly, charred skin remains, briefly burying itself in half-roasted flesh and slippery internal tissue. The sensation was one of the most disgusting Cassian had ever known. This time he knew he would not be able to keep his revulsion down.

He held his breath and ran east the instant he'd stepped out of the wreckage. He managed to get a good thirty yards down the passage before the rebellion of his guts became impossible to repress any longer, and he vomited copiously against a wall. Gasping with disgust, he realized that the terrible heat had abated a little here, though the stink must surely fill the tunnel almost end to end. Sweat was already pouring from his face and brow.

Wiping a hand across his mouth, he looked up redeyed to see a hard-faced and familiar form in full military uniform staring down at him as he stooped, almost to support himself against the wall. Behind that form stood another familiar figure, shorter and slighter, quavering with fear and looking almost as much in a state of shock as Cassian himself.

"It would appear that your slave boy was not lying to me," Ilfaralek said smoothly. "Now this is interesting. I had not learned of this"—he gazed around as if at the whole tunnel area—"at all. I think we had best have a nice long discussion, Cassian."

"Of course," Cassian said, making a mighty effort to regain his composure. "By the way, what kept you?"

"Very droll," the man shot back, but Cassian could see a faint smile on his face.

"Look after Jerenn," the elf said, breathing heavily now as the shock and disgust began to abate slightly. "He brought you here?"

"He did," Ilfaralek said with a slight air of surprise.

"Then make sure he gets properly fed, some good wine, and a comfortable bed." After thinking Jerenn had deserted him, Cassian now realized that but for the boy's intervention he'd have been bludgeoned and cut to ribbons by ork weapons by now—or worse.

He turned around sharply and forced himself to look at the bodies. Though he could not be certain from the evidence of his senses alone, he was sure that no human woman's body lay among them.

It was she who had crafted that firestorm, he realized. She killed all those orks, who'd trusted her, just to make good her escape.

But then, that just raised the murder tally into double digits.

25

The arrival of fifty mounted troops at any point within the Broken Quarter could hardly go unnoticed. Soon, swarms of people had poured from the ruins and hovels to cluster around the area, not daring to get too close to the phalanx of soldiers standing guard above the entrance lo the tunnels from which Ilfaralek, Cassian, and their retinue had just emerged. There were murmurs of surprise at their appearance; Ilfaralek was dressed in his full general's regalia, and Harrishaz, his wizard, dressed flamboyantly even by the standards of the vainer wizards of the city. Clearly, something important was afoot.

"Better get a whole damn division down here," Ilfaralek growled to his lieutenant. "Seal off the area. You," he added, turning to Harrishaz, "go back with Tenshen here and a dozen men and start mapping out the place. There's no telling how many magical barriers and portals there are. I had no idea anything so complex was involved."

The red-faced wizard looked unhappy but could hardly argue with his superior. Grumpily, he reached into the folds of his cloak and was about to take a hefty swig from a silvered and bronze-stoppered flask when Ilfaralek almost knocked it from his grasp.

“And don't drink that stuff, idiot," Ilfaralek yelled. "I want your senses about you when you're searching the place. By the Passions, why do I have to deal with such people?"

An angry wizard stumped off towards the chute leading back into the depths, taking out his annoyance on a foot soldier who nearly got himself kicked down the aperture for just being in the right place at the wrong time. Cassian grinned and scratched his scalp. His skin was hot, sweaty, and dirty and before he did any talking, he wanted a bath.

"I've got to see Kypros tomorrow and—"

"I'll be less than an hour. I'm sorry, but I feel absolutely disgusting and I'm not talking to you until I look and feel more presentable," Cassian insisted. "And be sure that Jerenn is well cared for. I absolutely insist."

"By Thystonius," Ilfaralek muttered irritably, "next you'll be asking me to send a kedate off to the brothels to fetch him half a dozen wenches."

"If that's what he wants, I'll pay for it," Cassian replied through clenched teeth. They stood glaring at each other for a moment and then both broke into half-apologetic grins. Tension and anxiety were draining out of them, not least through sheer fatigue.

"It's important," Cassian said. "There have been wizards at work down there; and one of them may have some of the boy's blood. He needs to be kept in a place of safety-"

Ilfaralek slapped the elf on the shoulder. "I'll make sure. Can I see you in an hour's time?" he said more cordially.

"Of course," Cassian smiled back. "Can I borrow a horse to get back to the Quarter? I didn't exactly come by carriage."

Ilfaralek laughed and shouted an order to one of his soldiers. Already, reinforcements were arriving from the barracks just inside the Theran Quarter and the throng of curious onlookers was being steadily pushed back as the area was roped off. Cassian turned away, climbed into the saddle with a groan of tiredness, and rode slowly off toward his villa and the promise of hot water, soap, scent, towels, and tension unknotting from his muscles.

At first, the boy thought he was going to be flung into the barracks' jail cells. Everyone in Vivane knew what they were for: they held prisoners prior to execution, and those awaiting trial on charges carrying pain of death for conviction. By the time he was back at the barracks, he was petrified with fear and had to be helped out of the saddle. It was ridiculous, and wholly irrational, but Jerenn had never seen magical might like that which had flared and blazed around the tunnels and passages beneath the Rat Circus, and he was quite unsettled. An unsmiling captain led him into the barracks and through a nest of branching passages, until they came to a stout, featureless wooden door. The captain unlocked and opened it to reveal utter blackness beyond. Jerenn felt as if he had done something terribly wrong and could not for the life of him figure out what it was. Head hung low, he followed the captain like a convicted murderer headed for the executioner's axe.

Then the flare of lantern light showed him a wholly different scene than the one he'd expected. Dominating the chamber was a huge bed plumped up with silken cushions, and a sunken bath was filled with warm and clear water, beautifully inviting. Platters of fruit, bottles, goblets, and a tray of cold meats met his astounded gaze.

"General Ilfaralek says you must be available for questioning at any time," the captain said; there was a clear edge of disgust in his voice at the very notion that a slave should be treated in such fashion. "You are to remain here. I shall lock you in." Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel and locked the door behind him.

Jerenn could hardly believe his good fortune. He stripped off his dirty clothes and half-dived, half-slid into the bath. Bubbles rose continuously within the water, so that he bobbed and floated effortlessly. Scents and unguents made the water and air smell deliciously clean, light, and wholesome. Bobbing at the side of the pool, he was able to stretch out a hand and pluck a bunch of grapes from a tray, which he then wolfed down like a furtive beggar fearing someone might suddenly snatch them away again. But after some minutes he became emboldened and realized that he was meant to be here, and surely they would not have provided things if he was not to be allowed to have them.

Ten minutes later, clad in a yellow silk gown of exquisite design and pattern, the boy began to investigate the best of the Vasgothian wines from its magically and permanently chilled flask.

Cassian was late for his meeting. He spent a good hour washing his hair repeatedly to get the reek of burned flesh out of it. Then it felt dry and tight, so he decided to apply a light scented oil. Fastidious at the best of times, he became obsessed with removing every last trace of the night's befouling from his body. His clothes he'd already ordered burned.

When he finally joined Ilfaralek, the man was obviously irritated at Cassian's tardiness, but with several hours still to go before the dawn, he bit back his annoyance. Cassian then proceeded with a carefully edited account of events in the Undercity, not wanting to give away the fact that Jerenn had provided the information that led him there. The spymaster was sharp enough to spot the omission.

"I cannot say who gave me the information," Cassian said regretfully. "I came upon it during my enquiries. I have not yet completed them."

Ilfaralek did not insist, but sat fidgeting with his hands, thinking from the facts to possible conclusions.

"I've been collared by Crotias more than once," he told Cassian, "and she thinks there's some plot to sabotage the city. Depending on exactly what that useless wizard finds down there, I'd say her suspicions were right."

"Indeed, we must await Harrishaz's findings," Cassian said cautiously.

"It makes sense," Ilfaralek insisted. "House Carinci's stone-importing business attacked. The city loses both its best architect and the wizard vitally concerned with building barriers and wards into key buildings. Corruption within the House of Works has been uncovered. This is clearly a pattern."

"Those facts would seem to fit the theory," Cassian agreed.

"So who's involved?" Ilfaralek thought long and hard. "The tunnels were being built by Undercity people. But those ruffians could hardly have done away with Daralec and his son, Dragold, and the others. They had help from within the city—or were allied with someone in it."

"The city—you mean the Theran Quarter?"

"Of course. What exists outside our walls is for the most part so dilapidated and home to such rabble that it barely merits inclusion. But yes, I mean the Theran Quarter of Vivane."

"The idea of help does seem plausible," Cassian agreed.

"Not just plausible, it's probable," Ilfaralek retorted. "But who would want to help those vermin overrun the Quarter? It just doesn't make sense."

"My thoughts exactly," Cassian said. He was happy to let Ilfaralek voice his speculations aloud and to keep his own cards close to his chest. Then the man looked thunderstruck.

"Unless, of course, there was no such intention."

"What do you mean?" Cassian was genuinely puzzled.

"Think about it. Security within the Theran Quarter is obviously heavy, especially prior to Kypros's feast. Building a tunnel into the Quarter and then breaking out in the midst of the feast would cause a major nuisance, but the culprits would never succeed in taking over the Quarter."

"Agreed."

"So the goal cannot have been an insurrection in the Theran Quarter."

"That seems logical," the elf agreed. He was beginning to see where the line of reasoning was headed.

"Given that, two possibilities come to mind. First, the conspirators want to create a major embarrassment for Kypros. Since his guests will include visiting nobles from several other Imperial cities of note, he would lose a great deal of face. The tale would be all over the Empire within weeks."

"And First Governor Kanidris would be sure to hear of it much sooner than that," Cassian put in.

"Indeed. But that goal alone would hardly explain all the murders. It explains the tunneling, but nothing else."

"And so the second goal is?"

"There is clearly magic at work in those tunnels. An insurrection allied with magic could inflict significant structural damage on the Theran enclave. A lot of important buildings could be harmed, damaged. Especially if there are tunnels built directly underneath them or close by them. We'll have to wait for the details, but that's a strong possibility."

"And the reason someone would want to do that—" Cassian began.

"—is because there would be so much money and prestige at stake in rebuilding the bloody things," Ilfaralek said. "The contracts would be worth a virtual fortune."

"I see," Cassian said thoughtfully. "Then it becomes a matter of who would get those contacts and moneys."

"That's what puzzles me," Ilfaralek said. "With Daralec gone, his end of the work would go to a relative within House Carinci. After all, Carinci controls the rights to stone-importing. But who that will be must be decided by a House conclave and no one can be certain of the outcome of that—not judging by what I know of them—and I'm where I am because I do know them. There's no obvious candidate."

"Not only that, but House Carinci is going to lose face over the corruption business with Mordain," Cassian observed.

"Yes, that too. Whichever Carinci noble is behind it is taking a big chance."

"Unless, of course, the stone-importing rights are not to be retained by Carinci," Cassian said carefully. He couldn't deny Ilfaralek this information. The man had, after all, recently saved him from being hacked to death, and besides, the truth would come to light soon enough anyway.

Ilfaralek looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Daralec left a commercial will with a close relative," Cassian informed him, "though I have little doubt a copy has been retained elsewhere—more than one, in all likelihood."

"There's no such document in the House of Records."

"It was sworn out there with a suitable noble witness," Cassian continued.

"By the Passions," Ilfaralek said, looking genuinely startled. "So, who gets the business? And who is the witness?"

"Patracheus witnessed the document," Cassian said slowly. The spymaster looked as if he'd been struck with a hammer. "And Tarlanth is the inheritor of the business."

"Tarlanth!" Ilfaralek groaned, slapping one hand to his brow in a gesture that would have seemed theatrical if not for the genuinely explosive nature of the revelation. "Haughrald is Tarlanth's pet architect and engineer. He's taken over almost all of Dragold's commissions. How very, very convenient for Tarlanth."

"His wife is an elementalist," Cassian observed casually.

"So she is, so she is. . .well, I never," said Ilfaralek, lapsing into vernacular. "So she can bring the house down—or a whole lot of buildings, rather—and Tarlanth has the whole show to himself. Bring in the stone, hire, feed, clothe, and commission the laborers, design everything, build it all and get paid at every stage. Make sure Daralec and Mordain are totally disgraced and Houses Carinci and Thaloss will not have the political strength to oppose Tarlanth.

"Cassian, my dear fellow," Ilfaralek said, with a sudden change of tone, sounding genuinely concerned, "this puts you in a rather difficult position."

"Tarlanth and House Medari may be my hosts, but I am a praetor in part because such considerations do not influence me," the elf said a little stiffly. "Be that as it may, perhaps it would be more seemly if I found a place to stay other than the Rose Villa."

"Maybe not," Ilfaralek said slowly. "I think I can have an Imperial warrant drawn up after I've presented the facts and our suspicions to Kypros in my meeting with him. Tarlanth may not have his property much longer."

"Nothing's proven," Cassian reminded him.

"Of course not. But Kypros has powers of confiscation pending enquiry. Of course, he could only use them under extreme circumstances. But if we do have a nest of tunnels built into and under the Theran Quarter, that would certainly amount to extreme circumstances. I shan't act at once, obviously. It's for Kypros to make the final decision."

"Surely there must already be some points of access," Cassian protested.

"Yes, and that's exactly the point." Ilfaralek grinned, rubbing his hands with real satisfaction. "Anyone merely wanting to get in and out can do it, more or less, anyway.

I know most of the routes and I have them watched. No one cares about the odd two-legged rat sneaking in to illegally buy or sell trinkets worth a copper or two at the markets. But to build new tunnels, now that has to be for another purpose, does it not?

"I would be prepared to bet you the price of an ounce of opara, Cassian, that whoever recruited those Undercity wretches was intending to use them as no more than a decoy or as slave labor. They'd have been told that the goal was to get into the Quarter and take it over. That was just a story to get them working down there, to build those tunnels for the one purpose existing ones would not serve—to undermine structural foundations and allow a sudden magical strike to collapse enough of the Quarter to make rebuilding it very, very profitable. And Tarlanth would make money at any and every stage of that operation.

"By the heavens, Cassian, if Kypros were sufficiently disgraced, Tarlanth might be in position to become Overgovernor. If not the next one, surely the one after— and having dragged one down, another would not present too much of a problem, would it?"

Ilfaralek sat back, delighted with himself.

"But Daralec and Tarlanth had quite a complex relationship," Cassian said, again trying to sort out details for himself. "They appeared to be rivals in public, yet cooperated in private."

"Daralec would hardly have made out a will in Tarlanth's favor otherwise."

"So why the public enmity? Or coolness at least?"

"I shouldn't think you'd need that pointed out for you, my dear praetor." Ilfaralek's tone suggested that he was suppressing a strong urge to finger-wagging. "They did not cooperate. They communicated; that's different. Messengers simply traveled from one to the other now and again."

"Yes, I've learned of that," Cassian said, recalling his conversation with Daralec's servant.

"Blackmail. It must have been. Tarlanth got wind of the way Daralec and Mordain were conspiring to defraud the city. One of the first things you did when you got here was to take a close look at the scene of Daralec's 'accident'. That was no accident. He committed suicide."

"Killed himself because of a man to whom he was handing over his business?" Cassian said doubtfully.

"Yes. At least that way his son would keep the family house, property, and wealth. Otherwise, if the full extent of the disgrace were known—and we're getting some more details from Mordain now—the House conclave might confiscate the family's possessions. Not to mention avoiding the disgrace to House Carinci if Daralec simply died and Tarlanth quietly got what he wanted. By the Passions, Cassian, Daralec's wife is of /r-House Medari."

"That much would seem to make sense," Cassian agreed, remembering how unexpected Karlanta's rapid departure from the city had been and how both Tarlanth and his wife had accompanied her. "But just how did Tarlanth find out about Mordain and Daralec? I mean, no one seems to have suspected their connivances at all. That seems extraordinary."

Ilfaralek pondered that for a moment and then turned distinctly pale. He pulled the glass stopper from a decanter of fine brandy on the table before them, filled a glass to an indecently high level, and proceeded to drain most of it.

"Patracheus. Patracheus is the one man intelligent enough to have known. No—more than that. He's so smart that it could surely not have been kept from him. And who is the witness to Daralec's will?"

"Ah," Cassian said slowly, drawing the syllable out to an inordinate length.

"Which leaves Tarlanth to pick up all the commercial commissions, with you-know-who handing them out. The alternative is the destruction of the reputations of House Carinci and Thaloss, which will leave Medari supreme in Vivane anyway. You will doubtless have noticed, Cassian, that of those killed and exposed in Vivane, not one has been of House Medari."

"I have indeed just realized that," the elf said dryly. "However, one thing does trouble me, one point of detail."

"Which is what?"

"Schavian's children."

"Oh, that," Ilfaralek said off-handedly. "Killed themselves, of course. An incestuous relationship, by all accounts. What do they have to do with anything?"

Well, quite, Cassian thought, keeping his thoughts to himself for the moment. Except for two things. First, it was true that all of Vivane's noble Houses except Medari had suffered deaths—but the twins had been the only loss to House Zanjan. A symmetry was lost if they were not viewed as part of the pattern. And Cassian did not like non-symmetrical patterns.

Second, there was the fact that those two elves were killed with the same poison used to kill Crielle, unless he was much mistaken. Cassian had studied poisons for many years, for they were, after all, a standard feature of House treacheries when matters got out of control. The venom that took the twins' lives was a rare and distinctive Indrisan poison, extracted from the fangs of a yellow- and copper-striped snake no longer than a man's forearm.

Then, of course, he had, barely more than an hour ago, found a flask of just this poison in the alcove room within the Undercity tunnels beneath the Rat Circus. No, Cassian was not at all sure he could dismiss those murdered elves so easily.

But what could they possibly have to do with the scheming and plotting that permeated the commercial life of this city?

26

Ilfaralek yawned and held up a hand in apology. "It grows late, Cassian. I think we should go to see Kypros together tomorrow, if that meets with your approval."

"I would be grateful," Cassian admitted. "It can be a little, well, tricky dealing with an Overgovernor, and doing it together might make it somewhat easier."

"We should present a common front," Ilfaralek said. "Not that we want to force any conclusions upon him, but if we appear at odds over anything of substance he will not think so well of us."

"Agreed. For myself, I find nothing in your reasoning with which I disagree." But then, Cassian thought quietly, I do know one or two things you do not, after all.

"Kypros may not be terribly pleased with our report," Ilfaralek reflected. "House Carinci will come out of this better than the others because they will appear to be victims. Admiral Tularch is of Carinci, of course, and Kypros is not exactly enamored of her."

"I see," Cassian smiled, forewarned of this by Andreax's notes. The wily Overgovernor of Vivane was known to wish to promote one of his own sycophants to Tularch's position as provincial admiral and was always looking out for any chance to discredit her.

"There's also the problem of Patracheus," Ilfaralek mused. "Like Kypros, he is of House Thaloss. Kypros has always regarded him favorably. His favorite saying is that while everyone else brings him problems, Patracheus offers solutions."

"Perhaps we might tactfully suggest that Patracheus's witnessing of Daralec's will was merely a matter of protocol," Cassian suggested rather lamely.

"It won't wash, but if we gloss over it quickly we can doubtless keep from making Kypros bristle too much," the other man mused. "Oh, come on! We might have saved Kypros from being undermined—in the most literal sense—at his own birthday parade. If he isn't grateful to us for that, he's not going to respond to tact, reason, or diplomacy anyway."

There was a loud knock at the door and then Harrishaz was admitted. Bags were already forming under the wizard's eyes, and at the sight of them Cassian realized the birds were beginning to sing outside. It was much later than he'd thought. The wizard took one look at the elf and glanced meaningfully at Ilfaralek.

"Don't worry, Harrishaz. The praetor is the one who alerted us to this menace, after,all. Speak freely."

"The tunnel network is fairly extensive, akarenti. There are several locations where magic has been used to obscure portals to other tunnels, quite skillfully. We have rounded up perhaps a dozen Undercity people in the tunnels. It appears that each of them knew of only a small area of the whole complex. They refer to a woman, Arlyna, who was the mastermind for it all. They also refer to a wizard named Nighthand"—he sniffed derisively— "although none of them claim to have seen this individual. We've turned them over to the ghareez."

Cassian barely smiled at the mention of the expert windlings who would be present secretively in Vivane as in any other Imperial city, though virtually never seen. The ghareez were skilled and knowledgeable in the study of the body's workings, and small hands allied to exquisitely crafted instruments of torture could inflict a maximum of pain with a minimum of damage to other parts of the body. Relatively few outside the hierarchies of the Empire even knew of their existence, and most people no doubt imagined that the torture dungeons of Imperial prisons were stocked with brutal trolls ready and eager to tear bodies apart on racks or the hook-frames still used for public executions in some provinces. Those who were unfortunate enough to find themselves given over bound and helpless into the hands of the ghareez never returned to tell others of their fate.

"Very good," Ilfaralek said as Harrishaz handed over a preliminary sketch of what had been uncovered so far. He whistled through his teeth, a most untypical expression, as he displayed the map briefly for Cassian to take in the superficial details.

"The planning and the excavations must have been going on for some little time," he mused. "Well, take some rest, Harrishaz. Have Alkatur roused to continue the work and get to your bed. You've done well."

"Thank you, akarenti," the man beamed with an oily smirk. "I will see to it myself that he is wakened."

"I'm sure you will," Ilfaralek said knowingly as the wizard trooped off. "Blasted wizards," he half-whispered to Cassian. "They squabble like five-year-olds from morning 'til night.

"Now, where were we?"

"About to get some sleep ourselves," Cassian said. "We have an Overgovernor to see before many more hours have elapsed."

"Indeed," Ilfaralek replied, stretching and stifling another yawn. He poured himself a generous brandy to assist the process of falling asleep.

"I'd like to look in on Jerenn," Cassian said, and Ilfaralek told the elf where to find him.

Using the key he'd been given to unlock the door, Cassian found the room nearly dark. A small lamp was flickering low now, its supply of oil almost wholly consumed. The boy lay on the bed, snoring loudly, a silk gown covering him. Approaching him quietly, Cassian could smell the last of the wine in the flask dumped unceremoniously by the bedside. He smiled as he looked down at the recumbent figure.

You did not desert me, he thought. If Tarlanth falls from grace, and his property is disposed of or impounded for the Imperial coffers, then the least I shall do is to purchase your freedom for you.

Then he turned and left the room, locking the door gently and quietly behind him.

Having gone to bed thinking he would sleep only fitfully, Cassian was surprised to waken suddenly from deep slumber. Rubbing his eyes, he realized from the position of the sun in the sky that it must be near noon already. He leapt from his bed and made his habitual way to the pool chamber, opting for some minutes of brisk swimming rather than his usual relaxed, lazy reclining. After fifteen minutes or so, refreshed and fully alert, he dressed in his finest formal Imperial robes and made himself ready to face the Overgovernor.

When his carriage drew up to the great gates of the Imperial palace, he was astonished to find his way blocked by a large gathering of city folk. They were huddled around the tall iron railings that ringed the palace grounds, gawking at some military exercises taking place within. Cassian climbed out of his carriage only to find that Ilfaralek had already arrived.

"A display for our friends from abroad," the spymaster grinned, "so that they can go home and tell everyone what a magnificent retinue the great Overgovernor of Vivane has."

"I see," Cassian replied. After showing invitations to the t'skrang gate guards, he was disappointed that the great iron gates of the palace were not opened, but, rather, they were ushered through a gatehouse and into the grounds.

Walking at a steady pace along the long drive leading to the palace buildings, Cassian had plenty of time to observe the drills. He had seen many fine warriors of the Empire; Creanan dervishes entrained into Imperial service, the renowned Bear Legion of Vasgothia and its fearsome Great Bear Striders, huge troll infantrymen who seemed to dwarf even obsidimen in stature, the dreaded Stormriding Legion of Myternea, "plague riders" to the rebellious people of that faraway land who visited their pillaging and destruction on any community as wholly as the most virulent of plagues. But Kypros, too, had a fine Household Division of his Eighth Legion and, showy though their display was, there was superb skill to admire.

The Captain of the division was a t'skrang sword-master, resplendent in crystal plate and one of the lighthelms Crotias had described to Cassian at some point during their endless, drunken luncheon. Moving with speed and grace, the t'skrang employed short parrying swords in his left hand and tail—more effective than any shield—while making deliberate, perfectly calculated and incisive thrusts with the long, narrow, gleaming silvered sword in his right hand. His men, t'skrang and orks preeminent among them, wore crystal ringlet mail that gleamed in the sunlight and seemed to change hue depending on the angle from which one perceived it.

Enchanted for camouflage purposes, Cassian thought: now that was rather needless for a Household division. Still, everything about them was efficient, rapid, and graceful, and when an admiring cheer came from some impressionable youth—or even one not so young— among the crowd, they did not turn their heads to acknowledge the admiration but merely continued with their drilling.

"They are good," the elf admitted.

"Not bad," Ilfaralek agreed. "Not just for show either. Any real trouble around Vivane and Kypros usually has half of them sent out as an elite vanguard. Anyway," he continued as they finally reached the front doors of the palace itself, having long passed by the stable buildings with the one hugely tall and striking building housing the Overgovernor's own mastrylith, "let's go in and see what he has to say." High above them, the Ascendancy hung in the sky, motionless at its anchoring point high on, the Basalt Spire. Together, the praetor and the akarenti prepared to face the endless phalanx of guards, secretaries, and guardians of the Overgovernor's sanctum.

Kypros was a more imposing figure than Cassian had expected. From what he'd heard, most Overgovernors were desk-bound bureaucrats, usually pale and running to fat in their middling years. They were not military men, for distinguished generals usually did their best to avoid the often-poisoned chalice of an Overgovernorship, preferring the role of a Crotias or a Tularch in a great city of the Empire. But Kypros was a little over six feet in height, his gray hair cropped short and as yet receding little from his forehead, his gray eyes sharp and alert. His handshake was also firm and strong, without the excessive pressure that often suggested anxiety or an insecure desire to impress. His voice was firm and even, and he wore plain gray and silver robes. Cassian noticed the lack of any jewelry on the man; he wore no scent and his fingernails were neither dirty, bitten down, nor stained with the telltale signs of inhaling one of the several intoxicants in which so many nobles took refuge.

"I gather there has been some excitement in my city," Kypros observed dryly. "I had not asked you to come together, but I am given to understand you have both had some part in it. So it is as well that you are here together before me. I dare say it has also given you time to discuss a common approach."

Kypros ignored Ilfaralek's half-hearted gesture of protest. "You would hardly be worthy of your posts if you had not done so. Praetor Cassian, do forgive me. I am aware that an Overgovernor should not be seen to interfere with the duties of such an esteemed servant of the Imperium. I also fully expect you to refuse to reveal any information you consider confidential for diplomatic reasons, and I shall not take offense. However, given the possible gravity of the situation, I felt entitled to request an audience with you."

Cassian hid his surprise. Overgovernors were not in the habit of requesting anything from those in their cities and provinces. The word "request" did not usually exist in their vocabulary, except when dealing with the offices of the First Governor himself.

"That is most gracious of you, Your Excellency."

"Good. That's the pleasantries dispensed with. Now tell me what the hell is going on, with so many nobles being killed and half my bloody Legion beyond the gates!"

That's more like it, Cassian thought, smiling to himself.

Kypros contented himself with listening quietly for the best part of an hour, interrupting only when he wished for some clarification on a particular point.

Cassian learned much of the man's mind from the few questions he asked. He was exact and meticulous, and often noted detail others had missed. He had, above all, a very logical mind; but he was often too concerned with points of minor detail instead of the bigger picture. Cassian thought that, at the end of this, Kypros would be overcautious.

As they had planned, Cassian and Ilfaralek were careful to present observation alone, divorcing speculation from those observations, except when a provisional conclusion was necessary to make sense of later observations. Kypros seemed to appreciate this. At length, when their speaking was almost done, four rather luridly attired slaves entered bearing gilded platters of sumptuous foods. Cassian was amused to see the Overgovernor personally adopt the role of master of ceremonies, preferring not to have the slaves cut up and serve for him but choosing to do so himself.

"Lakara tongue pie," Kypros said happily, "a local delicacy. Very finely done, if I may say so. My chef has been with me for three years and I have lost only one food-taster during that time. An outstanding record of contribution to the Empire on her part." Cassian soon found himself holding a plate bearing a wedge of the deep pie, the flaky buttered pastry barely holding the mass of tiny bird's tongues set in the herbed jelly within. Steaming vegetables, simply and perfectly cooked with very light sauces or herbs, were piled up beside it.

"Excellent," he commented truthfully after a first mouthful.

"Stay for the feast day and there will be plenty more where this came from," the Overgovernor told him. "The ox-pits have already been fired. We do things well here. Including subversion, if all you tell me is true."

"We are certain of all our facts, Excellency. I had a continuing report less than half an hour ago on the tunnel networks. They extend in total for over two miles, and there have been lacunae excavated beneath the House of Records, the Recitatorium, the Ziggurats, and the architects' workshops adjacent to the House of Works."

"Fortunate, then, that my wizards have ensured that no such tunnels could possibly be excavated beneath the palace itself," Kypros said spiritedly.

"That's true, Excellency. But they have been excavated beneath the point at which you give your birthday address to the people," Ilfaralek replied tartly.

"Well, now, akarenti," Kypros said carefully, "that puts me in a slightly difficult position. If one goal of this exercise has been to do away with me, I must be careful that I do not overreact from personal motives of anger."

Exactly as I expected, Cassian thought. A nice rationalization too.

"What troubles me," Kypros continued, "is that all this activity went undetected until so recently."

Ilfaralek had expected this implicit criticism. It was, after all, his job to ferret out such schemes and conspiracies.

"There are several reasons for this, Excellency. First, we believe that many of those who worked in these tunnels knew nothing of the scale of the work. Some may even have had their minds tampered with to prevent recollection of any detail. Second, it is early yet, but there must have been powerful magical masking of this work.

Such skills are hardly unknown to the nobles of the city, Excellency."

"Indeed. Which is why you are paid to uncover them, Ilfaralek."

"The masking is very powerful, Excellency. That much we do know."

"Hmmm." Kypros drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table, setting aside his fork and reaching for a linen square to wipe at his mouth with the other. "And we know only the assumed names of the wizards apparently responsible.

"So who are they?"

"I cannot be certain of that," Ilfaralek said hesitantly. "However, we think there is a strong case against a certain individual."

"Good," Kypros said with relish, carving a generous slice of a fruit-filled iced sweet and ladling clotted cream over it. He poured himself a small glass of a honey-yellow dessert wine and passed the ornate crystal decanter to Cassian. "This is exceptional. A very fine vintage.

"Now, tell me."

Kypros listened to Ilfaralek's theory carefully, with no sign of either persuasion or impatience. Consuming his food with deliberation, he neither nodded his head at any point nor cast his gaze away from a single point.

He's learned how to give nothing away, Cassian mused. A useful skill for one in his position, especially if he plans to occupy it for any length of time.

When Ilfaralek had concluded his piece, Kypros wiped his lips with an air of finality, and sat back with hands folded on his stomach.

No sign of a paunch there, Cassian observed; he eats well but he is fit and takes care of himself. An interesting man. Under other circumstances I would like to know more of him.

"Well, it's persuasive enough. The will is very odd indeed," the Overgovernor mused. "Most irregular. Which is what troubles me."

"Your Excellency?" Ilfaralek said.

"I grant you that Tarlanth is going to come out of all this richer, more influential, and perhaps, as you so carefully failed to point out to me, he would be in a very good position to become Overgovernor if I had fallen into the tunnel so lovingly crafted for me," Kypros said wryly. "Not immediately, though. Perhaps the one after next. He'd probably have had that idiot Tularch installed and she'd have managed to foul everything up within a year and then he'd be in an excellent position. Thank you for having the tact and grace to leave that unsaid, Ilfaralek— you must have known it might have prejudiced my viewpoint."

Cassian could not help but smile. Kypros was indeed shrewd.

"However, this will. . .it's too irregular. It's going to cause an awful lot of people to look askance at Tarlanth," Kypros mused. "I'm not happy about that. I suppose you want me to issue a Writ of Suspension so you can go over everything he possesses at your leisure while he enjoys a week or two as my guest in the palace dungeons?"

"That is a matter for your discretion, Excellency," Ilfaralek demurred.

"Well, I don't think so," Kypros said quietly. "I don't think you have much evidence, Ilfaralek."

"A Writ of Suspension only requires good grounds for suspicion. The will alone provides such grounds," Ilfaralek pointed out.

"Happy man the Overgovernor who issues such a writ and finds that those grounds were not as firm as he thought," Kypros retorted in tones of withering sarcasm.

"Now, some people might say that a Carinci Overgovernor using his power to imprison the leading noble of House Medari, with his evidence being a will that allows Medari to take over some of Carinci's business, might be acting just a trifle dubiously. Wouldn't you say, Cassian?"

"It is not for me to judge the positions and actions of the nobles of Vivane in such matters," the elf said diplomatically.

Kypros let out an objecting obscenity with some vigor. "Nonsense, Cassian. Don't give me that 'I'm a praetor and I couldn't possibly comment' stuff. I can't throw Tarlanth into the cells, just like that. Bring me one piece of evidence that links him to the tunnels and I'll have his head hung on the palace railings tomorrow morning, but this will isn't enough.

"You," he concluded, stabbing a finger in the direction of the hapless spymaster, "get to work on finding something like that."

"The problem is," Ilfaralek persisted, "that whoever was behind the tunnel-building now knows the game is up. That person will work swiftly to hide all traces of his involvement."

"All the more reason to get your backside out of that chair and to work before they can manage it," Kypros retorted. "And you, praetor Cassian; well, it is not for me to tell you your job, but perhaps you should take a closer look at Tarlanth's affairs and household. He is your host, after all."

"I had considered that," Cassian replied coolly. "Unfortunately, if I happen to arrive showing a hitherto-undemonstrated interest in his affairs within half a day of the discovery of those tunnels, he will know that he is under suspicion."

"A fair point," Kypros admitted. "Well, do you have other avenues of enquiry?"

"I may," the elf said cautiously. Kypros smiled and did not ask for anything more.

"You have three days and another half," he said. "That brings us up to the eve of the feast day. During the celebration it will be very difficult, I think, to investigate anything or anyone, given the revelries. You should have the job done by then anyway; you've been here long enough," he added, addressing the elf. If it was a jest, it was but half a one, Cassian thought.

"And as for you, Ilfaralek, I may have to request a replacement if you haven't found out what is happening by that time. And I really would prefer not to have any more bodies littering the streets."

"They have hardly been littering the streets, Exc—"

"Littering the homes, pools, and hunting grounds then, you idiot," Kypros cried. "You've got three and a half days. At most. Thank you, akarenti. It is always a pleasure to see you."

The two visitors rose and left the Overgovemor to the pleasures of the tray of cheeses. In the antechamber directly outside the room, a small gaggle of overdressed flunkies were brushing crumbs and dust from the portly figure of Quarique Oathstone, the Barsaivian puppet-govemor of the city. When the door opened he slapped their hands away and tried to recapture some of his precious dignity, but the two Therans barely noticed him as they strode past.

Storming his way down the drive to the gates with Cassian in tow, Ilfaralek could hardly speak.

"I don't think that went quite as well as we'd hoped," the elf said quietly. Something had to be said before they went their separate ways at the gates.

"Bastard," Ilfaralek said venomously. "Save his skin, and the swine threatens me with dismissal. I'm going to tell Harrishaz to forget delving into those tunnels and to get an elite division of the Legion down there to finish one of them up, just beneath his platform when he gets up to speak."

Cassian laughed and put an arm around the man's shoulder. "Come now, you might find something in those tunnels."

"I doubt it. The first thing any House wizard among these nobles learns is how to cover up, conceal, and disguise. It's how they've managed not to cut each other's throats all these years, after all, keeping all their secrets to themselves. I doubt even my people will trace anything. But I'll keep trying."

"So will I," Cassian said, "and I'll make sure you're informed of what I learn."

"I'm grateful," Ilfaralek replied with real feeling. "He will do it, you know."

"I know," the elf said sympathetically. "But three and a half days is a long time."

Longer than he thought. . .

27

Cassian allowed Ilfaralek to depart and then made his way independently to the Southern Barracks. Hoping to consult Crotias, he soon learned that he hardly needed to go looking for her. She stood commanding troops on the parade grounds, and had just broken off when he arrived. She gave him a boisterous wave and marched over with her ground-eating stride. She was clearly in good humor.

"A good job, Cassian; well done. My men are very happy about it."

"I'm sorry?" he queried.

"Well, normally they'd have to put up with days of extra patrols and drills and meaningless parading up and down, being gawked at by all the visitors for the Overgovernor's feast. Now they've got something to do. Good for morale."

"I see," Cassian said doubtfully.

"Who are you here to see, anyway? Akarenti Ilfaralek is being carpeted by Kypros, I think," she grinned.

"Yes, I believe so. Actually, I was here to ask your advice," Cassian said quietly, adopting a slightly conspiratorial tone. Exaggeratedly, the ork advanced to within whispering range. After a hard morning's drilling—and Crotias was a legendarily early riser—she smelled of heat, dust, leather, and sweat.

"Which of the other officers knows Captain Schavian best? I'm not thinking so much of his commanding officer, but more of a close colleague. Someone he's fought with in several campaigns, for example. A long-standing personal friend."

"Hmmm." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Captain Ildrissta, I would say. They had joint command of a cohort ambushed by scorchers at Hildingrist Crest and did well there, earned commendations. I believe they shared service in Thebenta some years ago as well. They often dine together, joined by their families on occasion. If you want to speak to Ildrissta you'll find him in the officer dining hall. He's taking a late meal after a morning of overseeing the guards at the gates. Everyone entering the Quarter is being searched from head to foot now, you know."

"Most commendable," Cassian murmured and thanked her for her help. Relieved at not receiving another invitation to sup with her, he headed toward the scent of army food. It wasn't pleasant. As he entered the long, gloomy dining hall, a quiet query of the servants at the door soon told him who he was looking for.

The t'skrang was unusual, and a little set apart from his fellows, mostly by virtue of his armor. Though Theran officers in the same cohort would normally be expected to wear identical armor, the t'skrang had obviously enjoyed some good fortune in life, possibly before being accepted into Theran military service. His skin rippled with a dull, metallic sheen; covering his body was what appeared to be a living skin of thin metal, studded with blood-red pebbles. Over it he wore a leathered breastplate and metal leg bracers, but that was doubtless just for the sake of conformity. The magical armor was a finer protection than any mundane Theran equipment, no matter how well made. Cassian asked the t'skrang's permission to sit beside him, and the t'skrang nodded indifferently as he plunged a long-handled silver spoon rather disconsolately into his gray and unappetizing soup.

"Thank you for speaking to me," Cassian said rather presumptuously. "I am praetor Cassian, by the way. From Thera."

"I know," said the t'skrang gloomily, as if he could not bring himself to care a whit about the subject.

"I am told that you and Captain Schavian are good friends."

"Yes?" The t'skrang was more alert now, slightly suspicious. The tip of his tail swished ever so slightly on the ground behind his chair.

"Please do not be concerned," Cassian said soothingly, glancing around to make sure the few other officers present—for most had taken their repast before now— were out of hearing range. "I have no suspicions of Captain Schavian and I know how he and his family have suffered. There have been certain disgraceful rumors fomented, but I want to assure you I have paid them no heed."

"Really?" The t'skrang was still suspicious, though a little more at ease, prepared to meet the elf's gaze now.

"I am following other lines of enquiry, Captain lldrissta. I have yet to learn that Schavian had any enemies."

"No," the t'skrang said firmly. "He is a good comrade. His first thought is always the safety of the men he leads. There are many who are less considerate."

"Indeed," Cassian replied. "So, you do not know of any feuds or other malice directed at him."

"Most certainly not. Go and talk to his men. They'll vouch for him, every last one of them."

"Your word is quite enough," Cassian said calmly. The t'skrang was looking less suspicious by the minute. "Very well, then. Has he any business involvements in Vivane?"

"Are you joking? Of course not. Schavian lives in the barracks with the rest of us. He's not some fancy general with a mansion stuck away behind leafy trees and beds of flowers over in town. Like me, all he has is his monthly pay."

"Well, that's what I thought," Cassian said, omitting to mention that he'd verified that fact during one of his many stints at the House of Records. "And his wife?"

"She's an enchantress," the t'skrang said. "Works in the Maracanium."

"If that's a specimen of the work done there," Cassian said, nodding at the captain's pebble armor, "they are fine artisans."

"It's not for me to discuss how powerful the wizards of the Maracanium are," the t'skrang said sharply. "This is mine, anyway. Took it in Thebenta before I joined up."

"It is very fine/' Cassian said admiringly. The t'skrang was still defensive and all too ready to react adversely to anything other than mundane queries. "Tell me, Captain, did the twins take after their father or mother?"

"Can't really say." The t'skrang was obviously clamming up again.

Cassian was in a bind. He could hardly try to make the reluctant solider more forthcoming by saying he suspected that the young elves had, indeed, been murdered. Any forceful and persistent questioning would only make him even more defensive and uncooperative. He decided to call it a day.

"Well, thank you," he said, standing up and pushing his chair back under the table. "I can only assure you again that your friend has my sympathies and I appreciate your concern for him. He is indeed fortunate to have such a loyal colleague."

"Hmmm," the t'skrang mumbled as he investigated the fishy blobs at the bottom of his soup bowl. The slightly gelatinous liquid bathing them had grown tepid now, and the overall effect was far from appetizing. He stirred the blobs around, cast the bowl aside, and stood up suddenly, apparently going off in search of the main course.

Cassian left him to it, pondering his options on the way back to the parade ground. The last division was marching off to the barracks now, and he was left alone with the warm sunshine and dust for company. I have to discover who those wizards are, he thought. Arlyna and Nighthand.

Something else in the pattern of events also had him worried. Someone was striking at individuals through their children, possibly as a form of vengeance. Killing Daralec wasn't enough, his son was murdered too. Mordain was struck at through the slaughter of his son. Schavian's children were killed. This was disturbing. It didn't feel like part of some careful plot to sabotage the city and make a grab for power and money. Somehow, Cassian felt the whole matter was deeper and murkier than Ilfaralek's rational theories allowed. Something was still missing.

He could wait to see what Mordain had to say when, or rather if, he ever recovered from his self-inflicted wounds. He could wait for Ilfaralek's wizards to plot out every last yard of the tunnel system they'd uncovered. But, somehow, Cassian didn't think he was going to find the answers there.

Ziraldesh. Some intuition brought the wizard's name into his conscious mind. Wizards, children. . .Ziraldesh was a tutor of the young.. .a wizard.. .blackmailed for the sake of his adopted son. . .somehow, Cassian sensed he could learn something from him. His instincts told him the man was not part of the murderous scheming in this city, but there was something—or perhaps many things— he'd held back until now, things that Cassian needed to know.

Cassian had to knock loudly on the doors of Ziraldesh's house for several minutes before a harassed-looking slave finally appeared to open them. He inquired none too politely after the master of the house.

"He's not here," the man said defensively.

"Where is he then?"

"I'm not sure," the man muttered.

"Look, my good fellow, what you mean is that you're not supposed to tell anyone. That's different. You know who I am, and you'd better tell me now."

"Sir, he'll be furious if I do."

"And I'll be furious if you don't, and I'm here now and he isn't," the elf insisted.

"He's gone to Sky Point, sir."

"What for?"

"I don't know, sir. Really I don't."

"Well, then, is the mistress of the house here?"

"No, sir. She's gone with him."

"Fine," Cassian grumbled. "His son, then— Ladamair?"

"He isn't here either," the man said miserably.

"Wonderful," Cassian said. "When do you expect your master back?"

"He didn't say, sir."

"When did he leave?"

"An hour or so after rising, sir."

He'll have reached there long ago then, Cassian thought. If Ziraldesh planned to escape the city, he could be a hundred miles away in the skies by this time, and his entire family gone with him. This was the last thing Cassian had expected from Ziraldesh. Why had he done it?

"If he returns, you are to send a message to me at the Rose Villa of House Medari immediately," the elf commanded angrily. "And you will not tell your master that you have done so."

"But sir—"

"If you do not, you will be very sorry," Cassian said grimly. He knew that what he was asking was unfair, and that it put the slave in an impossible position, but he had no choice. He could hardly have the place watched day and night for Ziraldesh's return, especially since he had no reason to suspect the man of wrongdoing and absolutely no evidence of such. To do so himself was out of the question; there was so much else to attend to. Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode furiously off to his carriage.

I could follow him to Sky Point, but that would waste most of the rest of the day, he thought. I cannot risk sending Jerenn. The boy feared that he was still under the threat of blood magic, and perhaps he was. He would have to commandeer another kedate from Ilfaralek.

Returning once more to the barracks, he found the ukarenti's offices buzzing with activity. That he had expected. What he had not expected was to find Ilfaralek in such good humor. The man was almost manic, a gleam of triumph in his eyes.

"You've learned something?" Cassian inquired of the obvious.

Ilfaralek brandished a document bearing the seal of I louse Thaloss in his hands. "I've got the bastard!" he crowed happily. "Kypros can give me the writ now."

"And what is it you've got there?"

"A will. A will, my dear fellow."

"Mordain's will?"

"Better than that. Darnius's will!"

"That of his son?" Cassian was more than startled.

"We found it among his papers and effects."

"Not at the House of Records, then."

"Indeed not. It must have been sworn out there, of course. Our friend Patracheus is the witness."

"By the Mynbruje!" Cassian exclaimed with genuine surprise. It was the last thing he'd anticipated.

"And guess who inherits the property and business."

"Tarlanth."

"Absolutely."

"But this will be complicated legally. By Imperial law, the son can inherit even if he predeceases the father, provided it is by less than seven days," Cassian mused. "But it so rarely happens the law is rarely invoked."

"Well, you can be sure Tarlanth planned to do so," Ilfaralek said grimly.

"Is there any doubt as to the authenticity of the document?"

"It is indisputably the boy's handwriting," Ilfaralek said. "There is also no doubt of the signatures of Tarlanth and Patracheus either."

"Have you asked Patracheus about this matter?"

"Yes. He denies it. He denies ever having seen or heard of it, but he's lying, obviously."

"Wait a moment," Cassian said. "It's not so difficult to perfect a forgery by magical means."

"Look, he's admitted witnessing Daralec's commercial will. Says he did it as a personal favor to Daralec. Frankly, if he did one, he did both."

"Odd that he should admit to one and not the other," Cassian said. This was not as clear-cut as Ilfaralek's obvious elation had made it seem at first.

"It's good enough for me and I dare say it will be good enough for Kypros."

"What of Mordain? What has he to say about it?"

"He died less than an hour ago." Ilfaralek lowered his head as a mark of respect.

"How very inconvenient," Cassian murmured. "Something seems not quite right here, akarenti. Not right at all."

"Now look, praetor. . ." Ilfaralek's displeasure was evident in his use of Cassian's formal title. "I was given some eighty hours to save my neck. After saving Kypros from being killed at his own feast the swine threatened me with dismissal and disgrace. I can take this to him and it'll be good enough for him. What do you want me to do? Sit on my hands and say, 'oh no, this isn't good enough, let's just sit here and wait and see what happens?' Don't be absurd. I have an appointment with His Excellency in an hour and I'm going to come out of all this as the savior of Vivane. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to."

Returning disconsolately to his carriage, Cassian had completely forgotten the original purpose for his visit. Then an insight struck him, clear and bright as noon, and lie stopped dead in his tracks.

Of course. Of course!

28

Cassian needed to think, so he ignored his carriage and headed south toward the river, making for the southernmost portion of the markets. This was a rougher area of the Theran Quarter, a place where he'd never have gone had he been carrying much money. But what little he had in the way of precious possessions was disguised and concealed beneath his clothing, so he sat down in the open air and paid for some kokala and a little plate of small, sweet fruited cakes from an eager, dirty-faced young scrap of a girl. Sipping the dark, hot, bitter liquid, enjoying the contrast of the drink and the sweetness of the cakes, he assembled his thoughts.

This entire business did appear as if Tarlanth were poised to profit hugely from events. Financially, he would gain enormously. And, politically, the death of Kypros while giving his speech would have opened the door to Tarlanth himself rising to the post of Overgovernor. The scheming had been careful and extensive. Just not careful enough.

It wasn't that House Medari, and Tarlanth, would benefit. It was that House Medari and Tarlanth had been made to appear to benefit.

Whoever had plotted all of this intended for Tarlanth to appear as the spider at the center of the web. They guessed, probably rightly, that the time was perfect for just that conclusion to be drawn. It was close to Kypros's feast day. Ilfaralek and the military were jumpy and nervous and under great pressure to discover why so many nobles had been murdered and who was—it appeared— intending to kill Kypros himself. Under such circumstances, most people would jump to the obvious conclusion. Just as, indeed, Ilfaralek had. If the spymaster had doubts, he would swallow them because of the need to save his own skin. And someone had taken all this into account.

So, if Tarlanth had been framed here, who could be responsible? Whoever it was had both wide and intimate knowledge of the workings of this city. One part of the puzzle was incontestable—Daralec's will. Someone must have known of that. It was likely, indeed, that Tarlanth had schemed that part at least. He'd had some hold over Daralec. Perhaps he knew of Daralec's corrupt dealings with Mordain and had compelled Daralec to make a will in his favor. He might also have had Daralec killed. He might even have arranged for the murder of Daralec's son, just to make absolutely certain that Daralec had not swindled him with some other document that negated the will. Possible; but somehow, Cassian didn't think so. Nonetheless, the way Tarlanth had spirited Daralec's wife out of the city suggested that he'd played some guilty part in what had befallen House Carinci.

It was true Cassian had not seen the will Ilfaralek had been waving about, but he was sure the akarenti was wrong! That will made it too obvious that Tarlanth was supposed to be behind the mysterious and terrible events occurring in Vivane. Far too obvious. But that might not matter. If whoever was at the bottom of it all knew Vivane politics well enough, he might judge that the obviousness presented no problem. Like any powerful man, Tarlanth would have enemies, people who'd be glad to see him brought down and wouldn't look too closely at the pretext. And there would be plenty of other opportunists only too ready to become jackals at the feast. The schemer had calculated very shrewdly indeed. Cassian hadn't been fooled, but the schemer might not have known that a praetor would be called in. And now that matters had come to this point, Cassian's quarry might calculate that the praetor’s voice would be drowned out by the chorus of other voices here in Vivane.

But who might it be? Cassian's whirling thoughts kept coming back to that question. Who was Tarlanth's enemy? Who would benefit from his fall? It was hard for him to reflect accurately on that. After all, he'd been puzzling about the exact reverse problem for days. To overturn his conclusions so suddenly was very difficult, and he gave up the unequal struggle. Frustrated, but excited nonetheless, he greedily assembled the crumbs from the cakes in a line with his index finger and brought them to his mouth, licking his lips over the last of the fruit and honey.

It was time to pay another visit to his host. After all, it might be the last opportunity he would have before Kypros had Tarlanth flung into jail. And he might just be able to manage an acceptable pretext.

"I may, of course, be worried needlessly," Cassian said smoothly "However, there is something of a pattern here. Powerful men, deeply involved in the commercial life of the city, have had their sons struck down. I assume that you have taken precautions against being attacked yourself, but it might be as well to consider having your son removed to a place of safety."

Cassian had thought out this line of conversation carefully. It gave him a natural lead-in to an enquiry about Karlanta, it would show concern for Tarlanth's family and thus not arouse the man's suspicions, and it would seem logical and perceptive. All in all, Tarlanth should have thought well of him for it. The man's response was whol ly unexpected.

"Absolutely out of the question." Tarlanth seemed lurious at the mere suggestion. "I wouldn't even think of it."

"I'm terribly sorry if I've given some offense," Cassian said, taken aback. "I was only concerned for his well-being and that of your family and House."

"Yes, well," Tarlanth blustered, clearly at a disadvantage now and unsettled for some reason, "I won't hear of it. My family stays in this household together. We are well guarded and you can be sure that we can look out for ourselves, thank you, praetor."

"As you wish. I believe I am correct in saying that Patracheus has a son?"

"What of it?"

"He is also, perhaps, a potential target for violence. I will offer him the same advice I have offered you, though, ol course, his response may be the same."

"That's his business." Tarlanth had regained his composure now, but was impatient, obviously wishing the elf would leave. But Cassian had to press on, having so little time.

"Is Karlanta being well cared for?"

"Look, what business is that of yours?"

"My business is whatever I choose it to be, and you would do well to remember that when I am making an enquiry motivated by concern," Cassian said sharply, thinking Tarlanth's rudeness totally uncalled for.

Though still looking grumpy Tarlanth seemed to relax slightly.

"I'm sorry, Cassian. Forgive the rudeness. I'm so busy I forget my manners on occasion. I have men in and out of here every hour of the day, what with Kypros's feast day so close. I have so much to arrange, you know. Hundreds of people to organize, supplies to obtain and deliver and pay for and distribute and a thousand and one other things to worry about. Well, as to your query, Karlanta is being well cared for and is in good hands. We expect her back in two weeks or so, though that depends of course on how well she recovers. The loss of her husband and son has, after all, been an appalling shock to her."

"She will presumably inherit Daralec's properties, which should be some comfort. She will not have to worry about penury."

Tarlanth's eyes grew narrow⁷ and his body tense. "Medari would take care of her in any event," he growled. "She need not fear. We made that very clear to her. All her needs will be met. That is our duty."

"Indeed so. It is well for her that Medari is so conscientious about such matters," Cassian said glibly. "And of course the House will be enriched itself."

"Meaning what?" Tarlanth's venomous emphasis on the second word was tangible.

"Meaning that Daralec's commercial will is known of," Cassian said flatly "That is a matter between Daralec and myself," Tarlanth said. "The document is wholly in order. It was witnessed by—"

"By Patracheus, I know. A figure of unimpeached integrity and a man with much political power. Not someone whose word could be readily opposed." Cassian looked Tarlanth full in the face, locking the other man into a battle of wills. "Nonetheless many people will be surprised by it."

"It will be none of their damn business," Tarlanth half-shouted.

"Perhaps Darnius's will will interest even more people," Cassian replied, quietly. This was his parting shot, planned in the hope of making even Tarlanth crumble. The man's response both surprised and gratified the elf.

"Darnius? Mordain's son? What on earth does he have to do with anything?" Tarlanth looked totally mystified.

"Ah, well, perhaps I should not have let that slip," Cassian said in a mollifying tone. "A little indiscreet. Well, it is nothing of real importance. You will hear of it in due course, I dare say. I'm sorry to have taken up your time when you are so busy, Tarlanth. Forgive my intrusion."

Leaving the man gaping open-mouthed behind him, Cassian smiled to himself as he left the opulent villa.

Tarlanth doesn't know, Cassian reflected, certain that the man's reaction had not been feigned. He really knew nothing of the will. He may or may not have murdered I )aralec, or arranged for him and his son to be killed, but lie had nothing to do with the misfortunes of House Thaloss. Which is exactly what Cassian would have expected of him. No noble worth his salt would risk , assaulting the scions of two noble Houses at the same time. Not unless he was supremely daring and arrogant; and though Tarlanth was arrogant, daring was not a quality of a man of his age. At least, only very rarely was it so.

Cassian glanced over his shoulder toward the villa even as he heard the footfalls of an approaching division. Perhaps it was just a routine patrol, perhaps Ilfaralek already had his Writ from Kypros, the elf mused. Then a window opened on an upper floor of the great house, the glint of sunlight reflected from the angled glass catching Cassian's eye. He gazed up to see Lyn standing there, his face and shoulders framed by the window, a frail figure with a pale face looking down at him.

Poor boy, Cassian thought with sympathy; what will become of him? If his father is stripped of all he owns, he will be cast into poverty; his House will not care for him, being an outcast tainted by the sins of his father. The youngster did not seem to possess the will to survive alone in the world. Cassian's own suggestion that Tarlanth should send the boy away for safekeeping had been meant in earnest.

The sun was beginning to sink in the sky now, the longer days of summer receding into the past, and the evenings drawing in. Cassian recalled with a jolt that he'd forgotten to send a kedate after Ziraldesh and, as he thought of the barracks and the need to go there yet again, he suddenly remembered Jerenn.

That boy should be over his hangover by now, he thought with a grin. I'd better see how he's doing. He, at least, I can save when the legion arrives to strip Tarlanth's household bare.

Behind him, the one he was not able to protect stared long and hard at the elf as he climbed into his carriage and disappeared in a trail of dust down the drive.

29

Tomorrow, if I go anywhere I shall make a list of all the things I need to do when I get there so I don't forget, Cassian reflected as he showed his pass to the guards at I he barracks gates yet again. Fortunately, the guard had been changed so at least he didn't have to put up with disrespectful looks from soldiers who would have wondered whether he might have developed a case of terminal forgetfulness.

He made his way to the room where Jerenn was locked up and had himself let in. The boy looked pale, but lie stood up easily enough when the elf entered and didn't look too much the worse for wear.

"I think you may go whenever you wish," Cassian told him. "The soldiers have rounded up nearly three hundred people now—everyone anywhere near the tunnels. You should be safe from any magical threats hanging over you. Stay if you wish, though."

"My master may be wondering where I am, sir," the boy said doubtfully.

"Ah," Cassian said. "I wouldn't go too near Tarlanth's home at the moment if I were you. Best not to be seen there, I think."

"What's happened?"

"I'll tell you of it tomorrow," the elf replied, regretting the admission.

"I think I might feel more comfortable away from here," Jerenn confessed.

Leaving here will also allow you to go snooping around Tarlanth's, Cassian thought at once, and said so. Jerenn looked down at his boots.

"Really, don't go there today," the elf insisted. "You'll be safer well away from there. Please, Jerenn, take my advice on this."

The boy looked surprised to be presented with a request rather than an order. Slave life was not supposed to be like this.

"I promise not to, sir."

"Good. Well, actually I must say I think the Rose Villa could do with your presence to keep those maids in order," Cassian said with a grin. "I may also have a visitor or two, I suspect, and having you on hand might be useful. Collect your things and I'll take you back with me."

While the youth got together what few belongings he had, Cassian found the busy akarenti and inquired as to his progress.

"Tarlanth should be on his way here now," Ilfaralek said happily. "Together with his wife, of course. I have little doubt she must have taken charge of matters magical during their schemes."

"If one supposes his guilt, that seems like a plausible assumption," Cassian said smoothly, ignoring the man's frown. "But it's doubtful that he'll confess. Proof may be difficult to obtain."

"Well, I can hardly hand him over to the ghareez,"

Ilfaralek admitted. "Not without permission from a full Conclave, and getting that could be difficult, given that Tarlanth has his fingers in every pie in the city. However, what I can do is search every last inch of his house from top to bottom and I'm sure we'll find something."

"Apart from cobwebs, I trust," the elf said sweetly "Well, I wish you luck and good hunting. Actually, I was here to request a kedate from you for the remainder of the day."

"I think that's possible, but with all the preparations for the feast, roping off half the damn Broken Quarter, and now having to send men to search Tarlanth's, it's a bit difficult," Ilfaralek replied. "Is it absolutely urgent?"

"Hmmm. No, well, perhaps I can go myself," Cassian ruminated. He reasoned swiftly that he should be able to get back to the city well before nightfall. "It's nothing of any real importance. Chasing shadows, probably."

"An occupational hazard, I shouldn't wonder," Ilfaralek said wryly.

"Indeed, and for an akarenti too," Cassian returned lightly. "Well, I shall be going. Thank you for taking care of Jerenn."

"Thank you for taking him away. I have some important visitors arriving shortly," Ilfaralek said, and right on cue a trio of sonorous raps on the door announced the arrival of one of them. Cassian took one look at the black-helmed Vasgothian emissary and excused himself from the company.

Hard-faced men, those, from hard lands, Cassian thought. The Scourge is something they still live with even more than we do, with another kaer found every day, it seems—or at least it did during my brief time among them. Girls are married off there as soon as they can bear young, and if there are no suitable young men for marriage—and there often are not—they will bear young anyway. So many die in that gray land that it's the only way they can survive, by having as many children as possible as swiftly as possible. It shows on their faces; happiness doesn't seem to be a feeling that even exists among them. Cassian had disliked Vasgothia and found his sojourn there very depressing. Indeed, he'd done his best to avoid Vasgothian company at all times ever since.

Jerenn was loafing about outside, waiting for him. Together, they walked slowly to the elf's carriage and set off at a leisurely pace for the Grandwalk, and then on to the Rose Villa.

Upon arriving, Cassian decided not to just drop Jerenn off, but to make sure that the boy got up to as little mischief as possible. He began rattling off a list of tasks. "I shall require a bath when I get back, and supper. One of the maids, Shalstra, is it?"—the boy nodded—"she has a fever. Ate a boiled pig's foot that had apparently not been sufficiently well-cooked," the elf continued, grimacing at the thought. "So you may have to do some shopping and even some vegetable-peeling and the like. Make sure whatever is required is all done in readiness for me when I return."

"I will, sir," Jerenn said faithfully. Cassian gave him a meaningful look and headed back towards his carriage, leaving the boy standing at the front door, waving him farewell as the carriage headed back out into the thoroughfare.

It took Jerenn five minutes to ascertain that Hysilde, the second maid, had everything ready for supper, as he'd expected. She was not intelligent, nor comely, but she worked hard enough for two people and Jerenn had always liked her for that. It made his own life less arduous. Shortly afterwards, he began to consider what disguise he would need.

The journey took Cassian longer than he'd planned, because of so many visitors to Vivane headed in the opposite direction. Many people had obviously decided to arrive well in advance of Kypros's feast day, to sample the markets, spend time with relatives, enjoy the fine weather, and swim in one of the few rivers that offered nothing more hazardous than overexcited t'skrang sailors, or for more nefarious or debauched purposes. Their caravans, slave-carried biers, entourages, mounts and beasts of burden seemed at times to blanket the entire road.

Drumming his fingers on his knees in annoyance, Cassian managed not to yell to the coachman to go faster, since the delay could not be helped, but he fancied the beginning of cramp in his legs by the time he was able to stretch them out of the carriage door and head for the guards of Vrontok, the city settlement beneath Sky Point. It took nearly half an hour before he could get through, even with his pass; the number of people thronging for admission or, more commonly, egress was enormous and the guards were overworked and harassed. Cassian made for the offices of Admiral Tularch. Not that Tularch would be there, of course, but that was where he would find records of travel.

"I shall need to inspect lists of departures for today," he said sweetly to an overworked captain. The dwarf looked at him with fury until he saw Cassian's Imperial badge and then sighed loudly

"Praetor, I cannot be absolutely certain that we have everyone," he admitted. "We had to make two entirely unexpected searches of arrivals from Marac and Indrisa. We confiscated nearly half a ton of contraband during our work. We cannot be everywhere at once."

"Of course not," Cassian said soothingly. "Not under such circumstances." He turned around the ledger the dwarf passed to him, to take in the meticulous writing the right way up. Double-checking it took him the best part of half an hour, seated quietly amid the mayhem of the office, but by the time he came to the last name he still had found no sign of what he was seeking.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I'm afraid not," Cassian said.

"Oh dear." The dwarf was obviously alarmed, no doubt fearful that he'd be held to blame for any omission, whatever Cassian might have said. "Someone specific, was it?"

"A man named Ziraldesh, from Vivane."

The dwarf's eyes lit up. "Well, why didn't you say? One of our young wizards here knows him well. He's been inspecting all departures from Sky Point today, ever since nine in the morning—if your man would have left after then?"

"Definitely."

"Right you are, then," said the dwarf with evident relief. "Oi! Belrundi, go and fetch Akalar. Tell him it's important and he must come now. There's nothing left for him to check at this time anyway."

One of the junior ranks trudged off and returned in some ten minutes with a willowy young man whose complexion suggested he might be allergic to sunshine. The unfortunate odor about him suggested that he might also be allergic to baths. Cassian tried to remind himself to make allowances for the occasionally unworldly nature of wizards. Mercifully, given his sensibilities and the proximity of the young man, it took only a few moments to ascertain the truth.

"He was here earlier today," Belrundi said thoughtfully, "but he wasn't where I was. I saw him when I was on my way to answer the call of nature; he was walking about staring at everything and nothing in particular, if you know what I mean. I said hello, but he didn't seem to notice me."

"When was this?"

"About mid-morning, sir. I'm not sure exactly when, but I can check the departure times and—"

"That won't be necessary, so long as you're certain he hasn't left?"

"Oh, definitely not," the young man said confidently, a smile betraying a mouthful of teeth in which decay had been running amok for some time. "I didn't see him. And I saw everyone. I even see people who can't be seen."

"He means people who try to get on board invisibly," the dwarf captain put in.

Passions preserve me, Cassian thought. Being sent to work here must be a sign of severe disfavor.

"Well, thank you for your time. You've been most efficient."

Taking his leave, Cassian thought hard about what he'd just learned. Ziraldesh had been here, but not to leave. So what had he been doing? Waiting for someone to arrive, most likely, Cassian thought. But take his wife and son as well? That was unusual. If he'd come to meet a relative, why bring his wife along? After all, it was but a short journey home. Puzzling.

Well, doubtless he has returned to Vivane now, Cassian told himself, and there seems little point in my slogging all the way through the list of arrivals to guess who his friend or relative might be. It will be simpler to find out for myself.

Jerenn was torn between curiosity and fear. He feared Mother Grishin had been taken away by the soldiers, so he wanted to find out whether or not she was safe. He also wanted to hear all the scraps of gossip around the Broken Quarter about what had been occurring at the Rat Circus. In part, he wanted to know if the wizard who had his blood had been captured, certain that he wouldn't learn of it from any soldier or from Cassian. He also wanted, slightly vainly, to hear whether there was anything about him in rumors and tales; the unknown slave boy who'd run back to the city and saved his friend from being murdered by the orks and the woman-wizard. Finding out called for a disguise rather better than his normal one.

A swift raid on the maid's chambers, assisted by Shalstra's absence, provided him with what he needed. Jerenn had dressed as a girl before, when fleeing Bartertown and trying to elude the half-dozen people who pursued him, ever asking whether a boy had passed this way or that way. The ruse had saved his life, he had little doubt of that.

He didn't feel too happy about doing it now, older and more self-conscious, but he also recalled that passing for a girl had allowed him to overhear some of the things girls said about boys and men, comments that had been as enlightening as they'd been embarrassing.

He still had some of Cassian's gold, and his gate pass; the elf had neglected to ask for their return. He would have to be sure the guards at the gates weren't those who'd inspected his pass the night before last and knew him for a boy, but he'd be able to observe them first and make sure he wasn't detected. He certainly couldn't risk his old route through the small passages accessed through the cellars; that would be far too dangerous. Stooping to conceal his height, which was that of most full-grown women rather than the girlish figure he attempted to make himself, he pulled a silk wrap about his short hair and stepped carefully out the back door, leaving Hysilde to the cooking pot.

Within half an hour, allowing himself plenty of time to observe the guards, Jerenn was back in the Broken Quarter. By attaching himself to the tail end of a huge rank of laborers, washerwomen, and drudges who earned a daily pittance working for Theran households not wealthy enough to maintain a full retinue of slaves, he got through with his pass hardly inspected at all by the phalanx of dwarfs and human soldiers who'd apparently had to check thousands of the things during the day and were probably sick enough of it to get careless. Jerenn did notice, though, that they were considerably more attentive concerning people coming in. If he spent any time at a drinking hole in the Broken Quarter, he'd have to be careful to drink only a very little. He would need his wits about him when he tried to get back in behind the walls.

Finding himself a spot to take a little bad beer and a crust, Jerenn deliberately adopted the air of one looking about for someone, his head moving this way and that and his eyes darting hither and thither. Eventually, the trick had the desired effect. A burly ork, half-spilling his tankard of what claimed to be hurlg but was closer in taste and viscosity to something the vendor's dog had contained inside itself earlier in the day, leered at Jerenn and asked who she was looking for.

Jerenn waved a handful of leather thongs around. "I was looking for Taravail," he said in a voice considerably higher-pitched than his normal one. "These are for Old Mother Grishin. I can't find where she's gone, and I can't find him either."

"Wharra they?" the ork demanded to know, attempting to focus his eyes on the waving strands of leather.

"For making boots," Jerenn said sweetly.

"Oh yer, I 'urd she was doing that," the ork said with his best impression of thoughtfulness. It wasn't a very accurate impression. "Well, you can forgit 'im. They took 'im away."

"The soldiers? Oh dear," Jerenn said sadly. Taravail had, after all, never done him any harm, and had possibly saved him from a distinctly unpleasant fate on at least one occasion. Jerenn knew that people taken away from the Broken Quarter by the soldiers rarely came back. If they did, they had bits of them missing.

"Dunno 'baht Grishin," the ork said, the last syllable vanishing into a gut-rumbling belch. "They say she ran off when the soldiers went down. They say she's down with the Deadwalkers now." He grinned evilly. "Anyway, bugger 'er. Silly old fool. Come and sit on me knee and 'ave a drink." He raised his eyebrows in what was supposed to be a suggestive gesture, but since he went rather cross-eyed at the same time the effect was much more comical than offensive. Jerenn could not help but laugh, and had to beat a hasty retreat before the ork's ire roused itself to violence.

A hundred yards or so safely out of the way, Jerenn looked about him. He was really unsure of what to do. If Grishin had fled down beneath the upper tunnels it would be a desperate risk to follow her. Soldiers, vengeful vestiges of the tunnel-builders, the remnants of tomb occupants, and worse might be waiting for him there. There seemed little he could do now.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw two figures disappear through the doorway of a dwarf's hut to his left. That the building had been made for dwarfs was obvious to him from its height; but the figures were not dwarfs, that much was evident from the way they had to bend almost double to enter. One was a conspicuously well-dressed male elf, young and strong in appearance, dark-skinned and lithe; the other a dark-haired young woman, clad in black and brown. Something about them reminded Jerenn of someone or something, though he had no idea what or who it was. Yet something told him it was important. He also knew that, in broad daylight, he could hardly just walk over and try to hear what they were saying.

If I want to know more I'll have to stay until dusk, he thought miserably. Cassian will kill me if I stay out late again.

No he won't, his curiosity said. It's only two days and a night since I saved him from those orks. He'll let me off this one time. Really he will. After all, he's not going to go without his supper, is he?

Jerenn grinned and began to look around for a position from which he could keep watch until he could risk creeping closer, or until the pair emerged and he could follow them. He still had no idea why it was important, only that he had to do it.

Within ten minutes he'd found a perfect spot, a wedge in the corner between two mostly demolished walls, from which he could watch the house while remaining inconspicuous. If anyone noticed him, they would assume he—or rather "she"—was claiming early a warm corner for the night to come. He did not know that there was already no one left alive within the small house's shadow-stained walls.

30

Cassian had grown used to the fact that it took some minutes of knocking at the door to gain admittance. He waited patiently, and at length the same unhappy-looking slave appeared to answer his loud rapping. The man looked even more apprehensive than usual.

"I don't wish to be told that your master isn't at home' Cassian told him.

"Well, he is not," the man replied sulkily, "but my mistress is. I suppose you had better come in."

The elf walked straight past him and found Shusala in the sitting room, gazing absent-mindedly at a portrait of a young male elf. He was dark-skinned, handsome, with a willowy frame and a fine facial bone structure. The resemblance to her was clear. Cassian cleared his throat to announce his entry.

"I was hoping to see your husband," he said politely.

"He's not here," she replied slightly vacantly, not turning to look at him.

"What were you doing at Sky Point today?" Cassian asked bluntly. "I see no sign of any arrivals in the household." That made her turn to face him. Her eyes were sad, her posture slightly slumped.

"Looking for my son," she said unhappily.

"He's gone away?"

"He said that he had. Or, rather, he left a note. We went looking for him. He didn't give any real reason for it, you see."

Cassian hadn't expected this. "I'm sorry," he said, rather embarrassed. "I would still like to see Ziraldesh, though. Where is he to be found?"

"Somewhere in the city," she said, waving a hand ineffectually. "He's gone to ask some friends if they know anything about Ladamair. Where he might have gone, anything, any sort of clue. He won't be back until the early hours, I shouldn't think."

"Is that him?" Cassian inquired, pointing to the portrait. She nodded her head. "He's a handsome young man. You must be very proud of him."

Shusala said nothing, but Cassian's gaze slipped past the portrait, which was encased in what was clearly a new frame and recumbent against the wall, awaiting hanging. Next to it was another, showing two young elves, one male and one female. The resemblance between them was astounding. Both had long, dark hair braided in almost identical fashion, and the young male was slightly effeminate, with a gracefulness that mirrored what had to be his sister.

"Who are they, may I ask?"

"Parinth and Insensora. Their mother and I are friends. After the tragedy, she did not want to have this portrait. It was too painful to her. She was going to throw it away, but I asked for it. I thought that, perhaps, when time has healed her wound she might be grateful if she could have it back as a keepsake."

"She is fortunate to have such a thoughtful and compassionate friend/' Cassian said sincerely. "These are finely rendered portraits. I would have expected only an elven artist to create them. But somehow the workmanship doesn't appear to be elven. The fine detail isn't what I'd have expected from such hands. Who is the artist?"

"Lyn. Tarlanth's son. He was a pupil of my husband's for a short time, until it became apparent that he had no gift. Then, after one of his bouts of illness my husband was not called upon to tutor him again."

"They were all Ziraldesh's pupils?"

"Not really. As I say, my husband only tutored Lyn for a short time." Her tone of voice changed. "I worry about that boy Lyn. You must have heard about Tarlanth, of course."

"I have only just returned to the city," Cassian replied. "But I imagine he's been taken away?"

"The city is buzzing with rumors about it," she confirmed. "No one knows, of course, but after Mordain's suicide there are a thousand tales on the tips of wagging tongues."

"I dare say," Cassian said with a wry smile. "Well, I do wish to see Ziraldesh. He has nothing to fear from my queries, I assure you. I regret that he's always felt obliged to be so much on the defensive when I've talked with him."

"Not surprising when a man who blackmailed us for so long and could have ruined our lives suffered a sudden death/' Shusala pointed out.

"Indeed. Well, I have no reason to think Ziraldesh had anything to do with that," Cassian told her. "I have no actual firm purpose, as such, for my conversation with him. I just have a strong intuition that he can be of help to me. I'd be grateful if he could send a message to me upon his return. If he is very tired and the hour is late, tomorrow will be soon enough. I hope you have news of your son. Has there been trouble?"

"No, that's what surprised me," Shusala said. "He lias seemed rather highly-strung of late, but he never spoke to me of anything special. That's why I'm worried."

"I'm sure he'll be safe," Cassian wished he could have sounded more convincing. "Good night to you. Thank you for your help."

Dusk was beginning to approach, the sun dipping between the crenellations of the distant city wall. Jerenn was tired and bored now. No one had entered or left the small house, and there had been nothing out of the ordinary to see. Though he would have liked better cover of darkness to sneak closer, a diversion some little distance .t way gave him hope of evading scrutiny if he did so. Two Irolls had disagreed violently over some trifling matter and, with drink fueling their tempers, were rolling in the dirt, fighting furiously. A crowd had begun to gather .1 round them, with voices yelling encouragement to each to rip the other into tiny pieces. All eyes were on the vicious fight, so Jerenn decided to risk sidling up to the house.

The front door was shut and it looked solid and firm. So many homes in the Broken Quarter had broken or warped doors or frames, but this looked stout enough. A very gentle prod did not suggest that it would give easily. the windows were shuttered, and Jerenn could see nothing through them. Flicking his eyes around to make sure no one was watching, he drew his knife and pushed the door hard.

The reek inside was dreadful. Befouled air was drawn into his nose and mouth and bit at the back of his throat. The stench was acrid and acidic, mixed with the unmistakable smell of blood. It was dark inside, with only the remains of daylight filtering in through the shutters.

Jerenn could see almost nothing, even with the chink of light from the door he'd almost closed behind him. Having no lantern with him, he risked pushing the door open to see what the room contained.

An elf lay on the floor. His shirt had been ripped apart to reveal his chest, and the veins on his exposed torso, face, and arms bulged beneath his skin. A very precise cut had been made in his throat, from ear to ear, with a secondary cut made with equal precision from forehead to windpipe. His throat had been laid open, and the head lay in a pool of blood like some expanded scarlet halo. The hands of the corpse seemed to be clutching at something, and Jerenn saw shards of crystal apparently hammered into his palms and even beneath his fingernails. His face bore an expression of piteous horror and fear rather than the agonies of a painful death.

Consumed with terror, Jerenn's senses returned and screamed to him to get out of there. He could not see all of the room, and it was possible the killer still lurked within or beyond the door opposite him. Closing the door firmly behind him, he began to walk away as fast as he could without running. When he was some twenty yards away, he threw caution to the wind and ran like crazy, caring not whether anyone noticed him. He would just be some girl fleeing from a rapacious or overeager pursuer, after all; that was an everyday sight. Not that such a reasoned thought crossed his panic-filled mind. He made for the gates at full pelt.

Tarlanth's house was crawling with soldiers searching everything. They'd already begun to pile vast stacks of books and papers into crates to be examined by Ilfaralek's legions of functionaries at their leisure. As Cassian entered, he heard desperate pleadings from upstairs. Striding swiftly up the marbled steps, he found a tearful youth pleading with two dwarf soldiers whose faces showed malicious pleasure. Lyn gave Cassian a look of desperate appeal.

"Please, they're trying to take everything I have," he cried pitifully.

"For heaven's sake," Cassian said firmly to the dwarfs, "this boy is all but an invalid. He is ill and he is distressed. You have no warrant to persecute him and, indeed, you should be placing him under your protection. Or haven't you noticed that the sons of certain city nobles have been murdered lately?"

"Yes, and we know who did it too," one of the dwarfs snarled back.

"You think that you do. I would remind you that nothing has been proven. Leave this boy alone. He has absolutely nothing that you need to take. You've already ransacked enough things to provide material for a dozen trials by conclave, let alone one—if you know what you're doing," Cassian shot back. The dwarfs scowled but finally retreated, grumbling as they did so.

Afterwards, Cassian did not know why his reaction had been so strong. Some intuition told him that Shusala's son was probably already dead, and Lyn might be next. By some strange emotional logic, he rebelled at the notion that the boy would have to face death so wretched and alone.

Lyn slumped into a chair, rocking slightly to and fro. In a shocking gesture, he actually began to suck his thumb. Part of Cassian felt angry with him for behaving so childishly, but mostly he felt pity for the wretched youth.

"I will speak with Ilfaralek," the elf said firmly. "I will make sure you have rooms to yourself and that the soldiers will leave you alone."

"Thank you," the boy said with infinite weariness and sadness. He looked crushed.

"Do you have someone to take care of you?" the elf inquired. "You should not be here all alone."

"I have a nurse," the boy said uncertainly.

"I was thinking of family," the elf said. "Your father's cousin perhaps? I'm sure you would be better cared for in Patracheus's household."

"Not judging by what I overheard from some of them," the boy said, pointing a thumb back in the direction of the soldiers outside. Ah, so Ilfaralek has been really ambitious, Cassian thought. Dear me, but this is a mess indeed.

"Well," he said slowly, "there must be someone."

"Not really," Lyn said. "I will be all right with my nurse. As long as they leave me alone."

"They will," Cassian replied firmly. "Leave them to me."

Cassian should have returned to the Rose Villa, for it was growing late and his stomach was protesting his failure to consider its needs. But he was a little on edge, excited, feeling that matters were coming to a head now and almost that he could not afford to waste time on luxuries like eating or sleeping. For no good reason, and indeed it was somewhat impolite to do so, he had his coachman take him back to Ziraldesh's house. Shusala had not budged from the sitting room.

"I apologize for another visit, most unwarranted," Cassian said. "I shall not trouble you again." His eyes settled on the portraits once more. His intuitions were working overtime and he felt in the mood to run with them.

"I know this is most unreasonable, but could I borrow this?" he requested, picking up the portrait of the elven twins. "I will return it tomorrow. It will be absolutely safe with me, I assure you."

Shusala looked up blankly. "What do you want it for?"

"I'm not truly certain," he said. Then, again for no good reason, he laid a hand on her son's portrait. "This also. I realize its importance to you. I can only beg your indulgence. I have no real right to ask and I shall not be at all offended if you tell me to mind my manners and not make such unreasonable and foolish requests."

She smiled wearily at him. "By all means, though I cannot see what good it will do anyone. Please take care of the portrait of my son. I have only one other."

"Thank you," Cassian said, divesting himself of his cloak and wrapping the portraits very carefully in it. He carried them as if they were a newborn child. "They will be returned to you by dawn tomorrow."

"It does not have to be so early," she said.

"Somehow I feel as if I shall not see sleep between now and then." Cassian smiled wanly. "I can see myself out. Thank you again."

At last he gave the weary coachman the order to take him home. The man yawned and mumbled something about supper. Cassian laid the wrapped portraits down inside the coach and fished into a pocket, handing the man a golden coin. The coachman looked startled and very grateful.

"You've been the most reasonable and polite servant anyone could have wished for," Cassian told him. "And I have been most inconsiderate, asking you to drive me this way and that without notice and at all hours of the day and night. And I suddenly realize I don't even know your name."

"Kendreck, sir."

"Well, Kendreck, that is but little recompense, but it is all I have with me at the moment. Now let us be off home and I shall make sure you get some wine with your supper."

The coachman smiled happily. "That would go down awfully well, sir."

"Indeed it will," Cassian said with feeling.

Jerenn took some time to arrive when Cassian called for him. By the time the boy appeared the elf had almost finished unwrapping the portraits he'd brought back with him.

"Where have you been, lad? I told you I'd want supper and I'm late anyway, so—" He paused in mid-sen-tence. Jerenn was pale and had a fine tremor in his hands. He looked distinctly unwell.

"Do you have a fever again?" the elf asked solicitously.

"No, sir, I am quite well," Jerenn lied. He had no wish to speak of what he'd seen, nor to recount the trials and tribulations of having to talk his way past some extremely uncooperative guards at the gates to get back into the city. He was glad the elf had been delayed.

"Hmmm," Cassian said suspiciously. "Well, anyway," as he unwrapped the portraits and held one of them up to look at it in better light, "is my bath ready?"

There was a noise behind him. The elf turned around to find Jerenn lying on the floor, having fainted clean away.

31

A bowl of iced water brought Jerenn back to the land of the living. He coughed and sputtered, his gaze swimming into focus to reveal a very concerned elf standing over him.

"You are ill, foolish boy," Cassian said, not unkindly. "Why didn't you say? You had best get to bed now."

"It isn't that, sir." Light-headed and giddy, Jerenn looked uncertainly around him.

"Then what is it?"

"That picture, sir."

The elf abandoned any hope of getting Jerenn not to call him "sir". "What of it? It's Ladamair, Ziraldesh's son. Do you know him?"

"No, sir."

"You've seen him visiting Tarlanth's household, then?"

"No, no." Still trying to focus his thoughts, Jerenn waved a hand feebly to stop Cassian's presumptions getting in the way of his attempts to answer and explain.

"Well, I hadn't seen him. Not until recently, that is."

"How recently?" Cassian asked suspiciously.

"Less than an hour ago," Jerenn said. "He's dead."

"I had feared as much," Cassian said. "So why don't you tell me how you managed to lay your eyes on him, then? The last I'd heard he'd already left the city on an airship out of Sky Point."

"Oh no, sir," Jerenn said firmly. "That's the last place he is. He's lying murdered outside the walls, sir." Words began to tumble out, and Cassian waited patiently for the boy's account of his unsanctioned wanderings to be completed.

"The walls of the house, you mean?"

"No, sir, I mean the walls of the city—out in the Broken Quarter, I mean."

"And no one left the house?"

"I'm absolutely certain. I kept my eyes on it all the time. I didn't go away even for a minute and no one bothered me."

"I believe you." It was possible someone might have sneaked away from the house without Jerenn seeing, but Cassian knew the boy to be both sharp and stubborn, and not one to let his attention wander easily. The murderer could have escaped unseen through a trapdoor in the floor, or possibly even escaped under cover of magic. He? Cassian thought. No, much more likely a she.

"Well, you shouldn't have gone, of course," he said at length, having heard the boy's excuses for disobeying him. "But I can hardly scold you for having done so." Cassian sat down and thought carefully for some time, chin cupped in his hand. Jerenn did not interrupt his thoughts, still looking somewhat unwell.

"You should rest now. You've had enough shocks and surprises for one day."

"Will you go to see the body?" Jerenn asked slightly morbidly.

"I think not," Cassian mused, gesturing to the portrait. "As long as you're absolutely sure it was him."

"I have no doubt at all, sir," Jerenn said fervently. "It's that little scar on the forehead as much as anything."

Cassian looked carefully at the portrait. Sure enough, there was a small dimpling right in the center of Ladamair's forehead just below the hairline. He hadn't really paid it much heed when looking at the portrait previously. That the boy should note the detail when he himself had not was proof enough of Jerenn's powers of observation. He was perceptive, and not only truthful but accurate.

"What will you do now?" Jerenn asked.

"After seeing that you are put to bed and remain there I think I shall have a word with akarenti Ilfaralek," the elf said grimly.

Back at his offices in the barracks, Ilfaralek was jubilant about Tarlanth's arrest. He was in no mood to worry about Cassian's misgivings.

"So we have the word of a witness whose identity you will not reveal," he began. Cassian was annoyed with the man. Ilfaralek knew perfectly well that he couldn't give Jerenn's name lest he get the boy into trouble; he had, after all, used a gate pass which was illegal without Cassian accompanying him. Ilfaralek knew that, and also knew perfectly well that Jerenn must have been the witness; and he was happy to keep the elf in his bind. Cassian did not think well of him for it.

"Who makes this claim about someone he's never seen," Ilfaralek concluded. "Not very impressive, is it?"

"You can at least send men to examine the place," Cassian said, trying to sound more reasonable than he felt.

"Oh, I will," Ilfaralek said. "However, you know as well as I do that every soldier in the city has enough work to keep him occupied for forty-eight hours in the day. Still, I will have the matter looked into."

You'd be a lot more eager about it if Ziraldesh were a noble with enough money and influence to have some say in who is appointed to your position, Cassian thought, and then dismissed the notion as being too small-minded.

"Of course. And I trust that your men have not unduly troubled Tarlanth's son since his father's arrest. The lad is an invalid, Ilfaralek. He knows absolutely nothing of his father's business affairs."

"One cannot be sure of that," Ilfaralek replied rather pompously. Resplendent in the formal attire of a general, wearing medals and awards that had surely not been earned on any field of battle, his demeanor was beginning to resemble his appearance.

, "Come now," Cassian protested. "You must have met the lad. He has as much idea of business and the scheming of nobility as you or I do of nethermancy."

Ilfaralek's face showed that he agreed, with some reluctance. "Oh, very well then, I'll make sure he has three rooms for himself and his wet nurse and that my men keep out of the way. We've already got enough to go on with," he admitted.

"Has Tarlanth admitted to anything yet?"

"Are you jesting? He's a hard nut to crack. But he'll sing a pretty song before too long, don't you worry."

"Doesn't it bother you that hours after he is arrested another noble's son is found killed?"

"Ah, but as you told me, the boy disappeared before Tarlanth was taken into our custody," Ilfaralek pointed out with a broad grin. "In any event we can be certain that Tarlanth didn't commit any killings himself. If he's involved in this, he'd surely have hired someone else to do the filthy work for him. He could have given the order for Ladamair's death at any time in the recent past. I've already said I'll have this looked into, Cassian." He shuffled some papers on his desk and began to unroll a scroll with the Overgovernor's seal. Cassian took the hint and left.

There is little for me to do now until I can see Ziraldesh, he thought, gratefully breathing in the cool night air outside the brightly lit offices. The sounds of whinnying from the stables, yells from sailors singing, fighting, drinking, and generally living their lives down at the riverside, and laughter from the ordinary soldiers' quarters washed over him. I could go to the Broken Quarter myself, but there's no need to do so. Jerenn told me exactly what I would see. It's a job for Ilfaralek and his men now. The elf knew that between his intuitions and what he'd been told there was nothing for his senses to apprehend that he didn't already know. He was left with an abundance of nervous energy and nothing much to do with it.

You could keep watch over Lyn, something in the back of his mind whispered to him. I do not need to, he thought at once, again trusting the strength of his intuition. He's at no risk tonight. The killer will not strike twice in the same day and the same night.

You could tell Shusala her son is dead, the thoughts whispered to him. I do not need to, he reflected. She already knows. I realize that now.

Cassian had come here on foot tonight, leaving Kendreck the coachman to the well-earned luxury of an early night in his bed for once. He walked briskly to the barracks gates and drifted out into the night, mixing with the throng of well-patrolled people moving up and down the Grandwalk under the watchful eyes of the Legion. Feeling no hurry, he began to make his way north to the place he sought.

Admission was limited now, given the popularity of the place and the number of visitors who would want to experience the Ziggurats for themselves. Showing his Imperial badge gave him permission to ascend the steps and, after some hunting, Cassian found a place where he could sit and let himself go. He knew this was a time to be quiet and wait, that receptivity was what was needed, and he let his reveries and imaginings run away with him.

Somewhat to his surprise, what came to him were recollections of anything but the recent past. He remembered his days in Kamand, the relics far below the perilously shifting multi-colored sands, said to be stained forever with the blood and bile of legendary and fabulous beasts that had fought and died thousands of years before the Great City was even a glimmer in someone's eye or a hope in a beating heart. He had only needed to venture into some of the surface tombs, thank the Passions; the deepest-lying ones harbored menaces and perils that even the magical skills of a Heavenherd would not prevail against. It had been the one time he'd faced a Horror alone, and though he'd taken his magical girdle from the tomb, that had been quite incidental to the task to hand. From confronting the Horror Cassian had learned of the possession and madness that had all but destroyed House Carinci in Karnand and, if learning the truth had been bittersweet, it had been the making of him. He had earned much repute for his entirely successful investigation, and having faced and survived a fate worse than death, he was stronger for it.

Why does this come to me? he mused. So long ago. There is no Horror at work in this city. I will not be confronting any such evils, nor will I be put in such a desperate situation as I was then. He shrugged and rubbed his eyes.

To his amazement the first streaks of day were appearing on the horizon. A ring of dark blue with the first faint suggestions of a rising sun was clearly visible. I must have been here five or six hours, he thought, astonished. He wasn't sleepy, more refreshed by the reverie than by any sleep.

Walking back down the steps, his muscles a little tired from the slight edge of cold the deepest hours of the night had brought, he met Shusala heading upward. She waited for him patiently.

"I thought I would find you here," she said simply.

"Your husband has returned, then?"

"He has. He's very tired but he says he will see you now, if you wish to come," she offered meekly.

"That is very good of him. I really did mean that he has nothing to fear from me," Cassian reassured her.

"He hasn't been able to find my son."

"No," was all Cassian could manage to get out. He was unsure now of his earlier intuition. He didn't want to be the one who told her the truth and, besides, he clung to the fact that he hadn't actually seen the body for himself.

"You know that he's dead," she said sadly.

"I fear that may be so," Cassian said, eyes cast down, keeping a step ahead of her. He did not wish to look at her face.

"My husband is still determined to find him and will wear himself out trying," she said even more sadly than before, but sounding resigned. She had known for some time; perhaps even since the discovery of the note. And yet, Cassian felt certain she had absolutely no idea why Ladamair had met his end.

"I will say nothing," he confirmed. "I regret I cannot offer you my carriage, for I came on foot. My coachman deserved some rest," he said with a wan smile when they reached the foot of the steps. It was a relief to have anything to say other than words to do with the fate of her son. Especially the manner of it, if Jerenn's description was accurate, which Cassian had no reason to doubt.

"Then come with me," she said, taking his hand and leading him to her own.

"I have no idea why you wish to see me. Let's get this over and done with and let me be rid of you so I can get some sleep," the red-eyed man said rudely. Ziraldesh was clearly not in good humor.

"I don't have any specific queries," Cassian began carefully. "And I assure you I have no—"

"Yes, I know all of that," Ziraldesh said wearily. "There's nothing for you to be suspicious about anyway. I've no idea what half those people did and care even less. I'm no business person. I've no head for figures at all."

"I'm interested in the fact that someone strikes at the young. Daralec's death is followed by the death of his son. Mordain's suicide is brought on by the slaying of his son. The killing of Schavian's children seems senseless."

It was hardly the most diplomatic of questions, given that Ziraldesh had just been out searching for his own missing adopted son, but the man seemed to ignore that.

"So?"

"You are a tutor for many of the brightest noblemen's sons. You tutored Schavian's children, I believe."

"And Daralec's boy, as a matter of fact. But I had no dealings with Mordain's lad. Do you take for me for a child-murderer?" The man's voice was shrill.

Cassian was beginning to lose patience. "I have already said not," he retorted sharply. "I merely wondered if you had observed anything unusual. Anything."

"I don't know what you mean," Ziraldesh said clumsily. It was at that moment Cassian knew the man must be concealing some secret.

"You are a wizard," he said slowly. "Some of the murders have obviously been committed with the aid of magic. Ilfaralek was able to bring a nethermancer to the scene of Crielle's death quickly, but the man could learn nothing from the body. I too have used certain techniques which have revealed to me not only the use of magic but that someone had been able to mask the nature and use of it."

Ziraldesh looked surprised. "I did not take you for a wizard," he mumbled.

"I have many talents," Cassian said. The pomposity of the remark might have been tempered by his slightly self-mocking tone, but that was lost on a man weary after many hours of travel and a night without sleep.

"Well, then, you've learned what you have," Ziraldesh said. "And so?"

"I'm puzzled now about the wizard Aralesh," Cassian said. "I've found nothing whatever to link him to the other deaths in Vivane. With the twins, there is at least the connection with the deaths of the other young people. The case of Aralesh and his sudden madness stands alone."

"And?"

Cassian did not fail to see the shadow of apprehension cross Ziraldesh's face.

"And I believe it is most likely that he was disposed of—or rendered wholly incapable—by someone who must have had dealings with him. Who may have acquired skill, or learning, from him. Who may have been putting that skill to use, and feared that perhaps Aralesh might suspect who was behind the mysterious events occurring in the city," the elf said smoothly.

"Tarlanth's already under arrest," Ziraldesh muttered.

"For the time being," Cassian said quietly. "However, I do not believe he is behind the murders."

"The man's a bastard," Ziraldesh spat. "I hope his head rolls from the executioner's block when the time comes."

Cassian found that reaction illuminating. What possible reason could Ziraldesh have to so detest Tarlanth?

"You knew Aralesh reasonably well," he persisted.

"I've already told you that we saw very little of each other."

"But you would have known if he'd had a pupil of importance, or worked regularly with someone. If, perhaps, he was engaged in activities that were in any way questionable." Cassian saw the wizard bristle visibly at these words. "Come, Ziraldesh, he was a nethermancer. It's a profession where certain disreputable practices may be overlooked by the authorities on occasion."

"I don't know what you mean," Ziraldesh said stiffly.

"Don't be foolish," Cassian barked back. "It would have been surprising if Aralesh had not meddled with the dead, collected grimoires of dubious sort, engaged in dangerous rituals. We both know that. I've sensed all along that part of your evident anxiety has been a fear of such a discovery because you might be tarred with the same brush."

The man began to rise from his seat, but Cassian gestured him to stay put.

"Please, Ziraldesh. I'm not concerned with transgressions of that sort. I am only concerned with the eight deaths that have already occurred and whether there may be more."

The man looked away for a moment. When he finally turned back to Cassian, his face was stark with fear.

“Eight deaths?"

Cassian realized at once what he had just let slip.

"My son has been killed," the man screamed, seeming to lose all control. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I cannot be certain of it," the elf said lamely.

"You knew," accused Ziraldesh, flying for him. Cassian easily overpowered him, gripping the man's flailing hands firmly and forcing him back down into his chair. Ziraldesh struggled for a time, and then burst into wracking sobs, head held in his hands, his face almost on his knees. Cassian knelt by him, an arm around his shoulders, saying nothing.

The man's sobs, quieting now, had nonetheless roused his wife. She stood in the doorway looking down at the two of them.

"I didn't mean to tell him," Cassian said regretfully. She walked over quietly, and Cassian moved aside to let her put her own comforting arms around her husband.

"I think it's time to confess," she told him quietly.

32

For an endless and incredulous second, Cassian thought he was about to hear Ziraldesh confess to the killings in the city. It would have been the last thing he'd expected in coming here. Then his mind rebelled and knew it could not be so. Whatever Ziraldesh was about to admit, it was surely not that. The man was terribly torn, and it was a long few moments before he could collect himself enough to speak.

"The young ones that have been killed. I taught them all, you see."

"No, I don't see," Cassian replied.

"Even Darnius. Well, only for a short time, because he wanted to know the wrong things for the wrong reasons."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's not simply a matter of tutoring in the basics of wizardry," Shusala said quietly, prodding her husband to say more.

"My wife tells me you have sent a kedate to Marac,"

Ziraldesh said sadly.

"He should be back here soon, perhaps the day after tomorrow."

"Then, you may find out anyway so I may as well tell you," the man went on. "I used to be a member of the Brotherhood of the Flesh."

Cassian's eyes narrowed. He had come across the cult more than once. It was dedicated to the Mad Passion Raggok, revering that infernal entity in its sybaritic aspect. The Brotherhood was an affectation of debauched nobles, jaded people seeking greater and more unspeakable self-indulgences, and most of them ended their lives in delirium, inadvertent suicide from excessive doses of drugs or excitatory venoms, diseases, or worse. It was hard to imagine the slender, almost ascetic man before him as part of such a fraternity. Officially, the Brotherhood was proscribed, but it was often sufficiently influential in high places that membership could go undisclosed and undetected for a lifetime.

"And you indoctrinated those children with that poison?" Cassian asked incredulously.

"No! Wait, you do not understand," Ziraldesh protested. "There may be different reasons why different people join the Brotherhood. You know that they have certain knowledge, like any secret and forbidden cult."

Cassian thought he knew where the wizard was leading. Devotees and questors of the deranged Passion made a specific point of studying Horrors; Raggok was said, more than any other Passion, to serve them. Sometimes a man might join a Raggok cult in the hope of learning more of such matters, trying to keep his sanity and balance while gaining forbidden lore. Usually, that man would end up as debauched and wretched as the most unhinged of its members.

"And that is what you passed on to them? Knowledge of the Horrors?"

"It wasn't me," Ziraldesh began to protest. Already, Cassian was ahead of his confession.

"Aralesh. You passed them on to Aralesh. If you had a student who seemed to have an interest, and enough skill, you passed him or her on to learn more."

"Yes." Ziraldesh looked wholly defeated. "But you don't understand. They were sensitive children. They were curious and intelligent. I believed that they would follow that path anyway and that by learning of such things from Aralesh, at least they would be guided in the right direction."

"But perhaps things did not turn out quite as you hoped."

"No. . .Perhaps. . ." Ziraldesh blurted out. "I don't know. I may have misjudged him."

"He was a member of the Brotherhood also?"

"Yes, he was. But don't forget, he used his knowledge often enough to protect the city. It was reasonable to think he would guide the children along the right lines. I thought I was helping everyone; both the children and the city. I thought I was doing my duty."

It would have sounded self-righteous, save for the man's obvious sincerity. Still Cassian pushed him.

"But you knew something. You had some reason to believe that Aralesh was corrupting them in some way."

"I didn't know until recently," Ziraldesh said. "I still have no reason to believe that Aralesh corrupted them into service of the Horrors, or anything like that."

"Then what was it?" the elf demanded.

"Aralesh had certain indulgences. With respect to matters of the flesh. I. . . I didn't know," Ziraldesh said wretchedly. "He was very cunning, very careful. I think he used magic, and possibly drugs, to suppress any recollections, any evidence. He always appeared firmly opposed to such things and almost wore his membership of the Brotherhood with pride."

"It was known that he was a member? By the powers in this city?"

"Of course it was known. Kypros knew; Ilfaralek knew; Patracheus knew. The Passions alone know how many of them knew. They weren't stupid. They knew that a wizard with such knowledge got it from somewhere and it's a common enough cult among such men."

"And what else did they know?" Cassian wondered aloud, "They knew what he did. With children. And they didn't care. I confronted Ilfaralek with the matter and he just laughed. Told me I was a foolish old man and that when I had firm evidence he would do something about it."

Cassian could imagine the akarenti saying those very words.

'This does not explain why these children have been murdered," Cassian mused. "Nor why their deaths seem to be linked to their parents. By the Passions! Are you telling me that—"

"Yes and no," Ziraldesh said, uncertain. "I am certain that Schavian was not a member of the Brotherhood. He would never have treated his children so. The only case I am sure about is Tarlanth. And his son has not been killed."

For an instant, Cassian wondered if Ilfaralek had not found the right man after all. If Tarlanth had engaged in an orgy of killing to ensure silence, it would explain why his own son still lived. But somehow that still did not feel right.

"Your own son—" he began, but Ziraldesh looked at him, enraged.

"What? You suggest that I abused my own son?"

"No!" the elf said hurriedly. "I just wondered how much he learned from you of the matters Aralesh was teaching the others. Or if Aralesh, indeed, taught him?"

"For a short time," Ziraldesh admitted, "before I had any suspicions about Aralesh. Of course, as soon as I did, I put a stop to it at once. I interrogated him thoroughly. He denied ever having been assaulted by the man. I did not use any covert methods to ascertain the truth from him, though."

Cassian felt momentarily ashamed as he remembered administering the herbs to Jerenn to reassure himself of the boy's truthfulness. Ziraldesh had apparently not been ready to resort to such methods.

"But, to my surprise, Darnius was tutored by him, for some time," Ziraldesh mused. "I had not thought the boy to have any real talent or skill. But I have learned from Aralesh's books that he continued to instruct him. He records payments from Mordain for his tutorage. Likewise, Lyn, Tarlanth's son. That must have been in secret, or at least there are no records of Tarlanth having paid him anything for his time. It was after Tarlanth told me he would not require my services any longer."

"Then that boy is in danger, it would seem," Cassian thought aloud. "Which others were there?"

"In that particular group, none. Schavian's children; Darnius; Lyn; Crielle, though that was some time ago and it just overlaps with the beginning of tutorage for the rest. And Ladamair. Before I put a stop to it."

"And now all of them are dead save for Lyn," Cassian said. "But what of the young woman?"

"What do you mean?"

"I have seen the murderess," Cassian said. He did not mention that Jerenn's description of the young woman who'd walked almost hand in hand with Ladamair into the house where the young man had been slain was identical with the green-eyed figure he'd seen for himself in the Undercity tunnels. "A young woman. Green eyes, with short black hair, fairly tall. I cannot be certain of her age, but she is not long out of her youth."

"I have not seen or heard of such a person/' Ziraldesh said.

"Nighthand and Arlyna," Cassian mused. "Aralesh could have been Nighthand, I suppose. Though I cannot be sure that such a person ever existed. Perhaps it was a useful invention, I don't know. Not that I need bother you with this," he said to the disconcerted wizard, who look baffled at the mention of those names. "There has to have been another. Another pupil. I also believe it's someone who must have had a powerful grudge against Tarlanth, for I remain convinced that the murders of the adults have been organized to point the finger of blame at him. That someone has skills in elementalism and, I suppose, in forgery also. What magical skills did Aralesh possess?"

"He was knowledgeable in the ways of elementalism as well as in the habits and powers of Horrors," Ziraldesh admitted.

"Then who was his seventh pupil?"

"I have no idea," Ziraldesh whined. "Do you not think I would tell you if I knew? Knowing now that my son has been murdered? He was my son," he said desperately as his wife held and hushed him. "As if he had been my own flesh and blood." He clung to Shusala as a drowning man to his last hope of staying afloat.

"Yes, I believe that," Cassian said quietly. He could see the pain of guilt on the man's face as well as the wretchedness of his grief. He will carry the former forever, even if time heals the latter, the elf thought. He is not lying to me.

"I must go," Cassian said suddenly. "I must make sure that Lyn is taken to a place of safety. He must surely be next. Thank you for your frankness."

"If I had only spoken sooner,", the man said wretchedly. "I was afraid that something might happen to me if I told you. Powerful people in this city might not approve of my revealing the Brotherhood to you. I feared for my family!" He clung tight to his quietly weeping wife.

I'm sure you did, Cassian thought; and now look what has happened. He sighed inwardly. As ever, I learn that silence is my greatest enemy.

"Tell me, did Aralesh have knowledge of poisons and venoms?"

"Nothing exceptional, but he did have a good working knowledge," Ziraldesh said, surprised. "Why do you ask?"

"No matter," Cassian said with a shrug. He found his own way out, leaving the grieving pair to console one another as they could.

He made for the markets, just beginning to open now, and took breakfast with hot kokala and a little salted and boiled bacon with fresh, warm bread and superb yellowed butter. Finishing his meal with some of the lightly sweetened stewed fruit that beckoned him from huge, ornate glass sealing jars on a vendor's cart, Cassian wiped at his lips and then set off toward Tarlanth's mansion. Upon arriving, he was surprised to find Lyn already awake, though obviously very fatigued. The boy had dark circles under his eyes, which were reddened as if from prolonged crying. He looked appalling.

"Lyn, I've come to say that I believe you must be removed from here immediately to a place of safety," the elf insisted.

"I don't want to go," the boy whined.

"I have spoken with Ziraldesh," Cassian began. The boy looked dully at him.

"I know about Aralesh," he went on.

Lyn's eyes flared brilliantly with rage. "Lies! It's all lies! What has that wicked old fool told you? I—"

Cassian took hold of him and shook him by the shoulders. The boy was even lighter than he looked, and felt as if he had no strength in his body. But he threw off the elf's hands furiously and stepped away from him.

"There's no point in denying it," Cassian insisted. "All the others have been murdered. Crielle, Parinth, Insensora, Darnius, now Ladamair. You're next, perhaps saved for last because you may be the one the murderer most wants to kill."

The boy's demeanor changed suddenly. Anger seemed to evaporate from him. Instead of fear, a look almost of resigned calm seemed to come over him.

"I won't go," he said stubbornly.

"Who was Aralesh's seventh pupil?" Cassian asked, changing tack in the hope of defeating Lyn's stubbornness.

"What on earth do you mean?" the boy asked, clearly startled.

"A girl. A young woman, at the least. I believe she may be the murderer," Cassian said. He was unsure whether he should be revealing so much, yet he owed it to the boy to warn him of what his potential assassin might look like.

"I don't really remember," the boy said thoughtfully. "There were one or two others, sometimes. But I was ill from time to time and I don't remember. I don't remember!" The voice became a whine again.

"It's all right," Cassian said, taking care not to lay hands on the boy again. "But you absolutely must go. Ilfaralek could put you up somewhere safe at the Southern Barracks. No one could get at you there."

The boy visibly retreated, shrinking back. "Not there, I won't go!"

"You must, you fool," Cassian snapped. "Stay here and you will be killed for sure."

"Shut up," the boy shrieked with a sudden violent emphasis. "I've been imprisoned here by my father all my life. For the first time ever I have some freedom, for all that the soldiers only allow me part of the house. I don't want to be put in prison."

"You wouldn't be in prison," Cassian pleaded.

"It would be as good as," the boy said defiantly.

In truth it would, Cassian admitted to himself. Not only that, but he had just been told that Ilfaralek knew and ignored knowledge of the mistreatment of the children. Ilfaralek's care was not the best into which he could deliver this young soul, was it?

"Very well," he said, calming down. "But I will have the guards doubled and I shall request that a wizard be posted here for your protection. You are, I believe, in extreme danger. Tell me, Lyn. . .surely your father has properties away from the city," he suggested as a final gambit. "Can't you go away for a few days until we discover who is responsible for what's been happening?"

"My father's properties have all been confiscated."

"Ah, indeed." Cassian rubbed at the back of his head. "Well, I suppose I've done everything I can." He would have to talk to Tarlanth about the magical protections laid on the house. "I will instruct the soldiers that absolutely no one is to be admitted into this house as a visitor. Unless there is someone you are expecting?"

"Like whom?" the boy said. When Cassian didn't answer, he added quietly, "There is nobody."

"No, perhaps not," Cassian said, feeling desperately sorry for the friendless youth. Perhaps he had sought companionship in Aralesh's circle of pupils, only to have that cruelly betrayed. For a moment the elf considered asking the boy's cousin to look in on him, and then thought that Patracheus would hardly be well-disposed to the problems of Tarlanth's household under the circumstances. Until his mother returned to take charge of the household, the boy was alone here, but Cassian consoled himself that Ilfaralek would not detain her too long.

He had Tarlanth, and he was the one Ilfaralek wanted.

He left and made his way back south, through the rapidly growing number of people in the streets. Construction was now going ahead at all due speed on the podiums and nested benches and platforms around the Ziggurats, preparing for Kypros's annual self-indulgent celebration of the joys and splendor of Vivane as he considered them to be. At length, Cassian arrived back at the barracks, and was shown into the room where an obviously exhausted Ilfaralek was grappling with an increasingly dense pile of papers on his desk.

"Half the city seems to consider itself under imminent threat of being swamped by burglars, pickpockets, tinkers, and the like," the akarenti grumbled. "Damn it all, take this rubbish away." He pushed a huge pile of papers in the direction of a hapless lieutenant. "Take it to Lieutenant Ak'kajkriss. I've decided to delegate this."

"It was only yesterday that you requested I make sure that—" the officer began.

"Yes, yes, I know," Ilfaralek snapped. "And now I've changed my mind, so get out of here and do what you're told."

He turned to Cassian. "Now what do you want?" he growled. "Look, before you ask, yes, I did send men outside the walls. No, we didn't find any body. But we did find a great deal of blood and I dare say something happened. Unfortunately the place has been broken into and ransacked. There was a small pile of burned wood, so someone probably used the furniture to keep away the cold of the night. And there are plenty of people out there who would be only too happy to strip the clothes from a corpse and no few of 'em evil enough to sink low enough to actually eat one as well."

"I have come on another matter," Cassian said.

"What now?"

"Do you plan to detain Cryselda much longer?"

"Perhaps another twelve hours. It's necessary for protocol in such matters. I doubt I shall get more than a few corroborating details from her," Ilfaralek said offhandedly.

"Twelve hours? Then I urgently request additional security at Tarlanth's home. I must also request that a wizard be deputed to keep a permanent watch on the place. I do have the powers to insist on this, akarenti," the elf added hastily, seeing the man apparently about to protest. "I have good reason to believe that Tarlanth's son may be killed next unless we protect him. I have learned that he and the other young victims"—and he listed them-—"were members of a certain group. I do not wish to divulge the nature of that group nor where I learned of it. However, I must insist on this matter. And I will put it in writing here and now if necessary."

Ilfaralek looked at him, annoyed. He knew perfectly well that the praetor could make such a demand and that anyone refusing could be held responsible for obstructing him in the course of his duties, and that would mean automatic dismissal from his post. He could not refuse to comply because it would weaken the security of the city, the one escape clause to which he might have had recourse.

"You'd better have a damned good reason," Ilfaralek growled.

"Thank you, akarenti." Cassian smiled sweetly and departed. Back outside, he found the day already growing unseasonably warm. The sky was cloudless and the sun shone down fiercely, promising a bakingly hot afternoon. He yawned and stretched, realizing that he was quite stiff after his sojourn at the Ziggurats.

I would do well to take a warm bath and rub these muscles with methara oil, he thought. I'm more tired than I thought. From here he would walk back to the Rose Villa, which might help loosen some of the kinks in his tense body.

After relaxing in his bath he let the warm, light oil flow over the skin of his back and felt the stinging sensation burn into the knotted muscles, its absorption eased by the bathing. He yawned again, his eyes tired by the brilliance of the morning sunlight and his legs heavy and leaden. He needed a nap, an hour or two, nothing more, he thought.

So, after toweling the last of the excess oil from his skin, Cassian wrapped himself in his silk robe and wandered back to his bedroom. Pulling only a single sheet over his body, he settled his head on the pillow and fell almost instantly asleep.

33

Cassian woke just once, not long after falling sleep, disturbed by an image of Ziraldesh, sitting alone before his wife had come to him, distraught as he learned of the death of his son. The image filled Cassian with sadness and a sudden jolt of fear that awakened him momentarily.

Though his sleep was not broken again, his dreams disturbed him nonetheless. Afterwards he most vividly recalled the image of the two young elves, so alike, the brother and sister preternaturally similar even for twins. Cassian felt something wrong with the effeminacy of the boy, a lurking sense of unnaturalness that had nothing to do with any deep-rooted prejudice on his part. At last, he woke with a residual foreboding and an unsettled feeling bordering on anxiety. He was cold too, shivering slightly as he hurriedly pulled on his clothes. He wanted to check on young Lyn again.

Downstairs, he walked into the kitchens and found one of the maids lifting a roasted joint of meat from the stove. He sniffed appreciatively at the odor.

"A bit heavy for the midday meal, but I think I could manage it," he said cheerfully. She looked at him askance.

"It's dinner time, sir."

His jaw dropped. Opening the back door to the win-dowless kitchen, he saw it was dark outside.

"Good heavens! How long have I been asleep?"

"About ten hours, sir. Jerenn said not to disturb you. He said you needed sleep."

"Did he? Presumptuous little wretch, where is he? Not out for the evening again, is he? I'll give him a—"

"No, sir. He's around somewhere."

"Well," the elf went on, angry with himself now, "just give me a slice of that in some bread. I shall have to be going out." The cook looked rather crestfallen, and Cassian hastily assured her that he'd much rather stay and eat. In truth, it was difficult not to look at the juicy haunch without some regret at not being able to sit down and enjoy a hearty serving.

Still chewing the last of his improvised snack, Cassian was heading out the door when he bumped into Jerenn.

"Do you need anything, sir? I—"

"Yes. Come with me," he said. If something went amiss, he might need to send a messenger to Ilfaralek, who knew Cassian trusted Jerenn.

"Perhaps you might also bring that knife you bought," he said.

"Will there be trouble?" Jerenn was obviously torn between half-wishing there would be and half-hoping there would not.

"I don't know," Cassian said quietly. "No, no, I shouldn't think so. Just to be on the safe side."

The coach drew up at Tarlanth's house shortly afterwards. Though the soldiers ringing the front and back entrances looked bored, Cassian saw to his relief that the place was well guarded. He paused to speak to the captain outside the front door.

"There's only a couple of men inside, sir," the captain said. "That brat said he didn't want the place crawling with soldiers. Stubborn little bugger. But Tashiri, that's one of the Legion wizards, sir, he's in there with several of my best men right outside the lad's rooms. Nothing's getting in or out of there, sir."

"Well done," Cassian said. "Very good. I'll just have a word with Tashiri if that's all right with you."

"Be my guest, sir," said the captain, relieved. Cassian opened the front door and made his way up the stairs to the rooms Lyn had been occupying. The landing area was poorly lit, but he could see the three guards sitting above him. Judging by their size, the captain had reinforced the wizard's presence with two orks of quite exceptional proportions.

But it was not till he neared the top of the stairs that he realized all of them were dead. Each one sat with a facial expression of contorted agony, veins bulging beneath skin, poisoned by the same snake venom—the devastating effects of which Cassian had seen before, all too often. His heart thumping in his chest, he pushed open the door to the room where Lyn's paintings were scattered.

There were signs of a desperate struggle. Canvases were flung hither and thither, most of them torn to shreds in what had plainly been a frenzied orgy of destruction. Cassian screamed the boy's name, but the only answer was silence. After drawing his enchanted dagger, he took out his magical scarab and lay it on the ground to do its work. He barely heard Jerenn's gasp behind him; the boy had been following some steps behind and had only just seen the corpses.

Cassian flung open the doors to Lyn's bedchamber. A huge mirror mocked him with his own reflection, and a musky, peppered scent hung in the air. Clicking after him, the scarab made its way slowly to the far wall and Cassian soon began to see the telltale evidence there. The form of a body began to appear in the position in which it had walked through the wall.

"He's been taken," Cassian said wretchedly. "Damn it all—where?"

"Who might know, sir?" Jerenn was shaking, standing behind him.

"Ziraldesh," Cassian said. "I think he must know. He's still keeping something from me, I'm sure of it. Curses! I should have thought to take Aralesh's books from him. I could have found out, surely." He sheathed his dagger and paused for a moment's thought.

"I can stay here and let you know if anything happens," Jerenn said dubiously. "No, wait. I can look in the secret places in the cellars. The young master may have hid down there. He did know of those passages. He caught me down there a couple of times and made me show him."

"Are you sure?" the elf said rather doubtfully, but the scarab showed him that the magically exiting figure had departed some minutes before. Jerenn would not be at risk now, and he did, after all, know the place well. "Very well, then. I won't be long."

Cassian raced down the stairs and past the guards, not even bothering to answer their queries. He virtually flung himself into his coach and yelled "Ziraldesh" to Kendreck. The man whipped the horses into action and, with a jolt that flung the elf against the back of the coach so that he struck his head on the panels, the carriage shot away into the night.

Cassian almost hammered down the door when they reached the house of Ziraldesh. When the door opened, he would probably have knocked down the servant who did so, but the man quickly got out of the way when he saw the look on the elf's face.

“He's in the study," Shusala said with some anxiety when he met her just beyond the hall. "What is it, what—

Cassian headed straight for the door, preparing to launch into a verbal assault on the wizard. He was sure Ziraldesh had been keeping something from him and time was very short. But the words never got out of his mouth. He was struck utterly speechless by what he saw in the flickering light of the candles guttering in the room.

What remained of Ziraldesh covered perhaps a quarter of the floor area. He had been very precisely quartered, his limbs removed with surgical precision and exactness from their sockets. His head was placed on his desk, held firm by murderous hands that were just completing a long cut from his forehead down the length of the face. Blood saturated everything, but not a single drop showed on the killer's hands or body. She stood there holding a bizarre relic, an elliptical orb of bone with an inlaid, silvered, hooked claw she was using to make the cuts. Blood seemed to be absorbed into the thing as she cut, and it pulsed with a visible scarlet aura.

He recognized her at once. The brilliant green eyes were unmistakable; he had seen her in the Undercity, where he'd nearly been consumed by her blazing magical fire. Not one of the protections he carried would withstand it if she had any time to use such power now. He leapt at her at once, hand reaching for his dagger. Her face, wreathed in black curls, broke into a fearful snarl, her lips drawing back from her mouth to reveal perfect white teeth.

She evaded him with feral, feline speed and dexterity, retreating like a hunched and cornered animal to the far wall, and then she simply backed straight through it, her body melding into the stone like a diver disappearing into water. Desperately, the elf looked around him, then crashed through the drapes close to where she'd disappeared. They fell around him as he smashed his way through the glass-paneled door into the garden. The figure was racing at impossible speed into the night, barely visible even as a shadow, fleeing northward.

He could not possibly keep up with her and by the time he reached the Grandwalk, she was gone. As he stood staring into the distance, Cassian suddenly realized that he'd left his scarab at Tarlanth's. He was furious with himself; if he'd had it to hand, he could surely have found a trail, no matter how strong her disguises and illusions or protections.

Well, there's nothing else for it, he thought glumly. Picking up his heels, he ran toward the mansion from which the person he'd thought to be the killer's last victim had been taken so recently.

Jerenn made a cursory check of the cellars, but he was beginning to think better of his offer to remain in the house. The guards outside showed no signs of being terribly eager to enter. He thought of leaving, and then a sudden rush of curiosity and foolhardiness got the better of him and he returned to Lyn's bedroom. Perhaps he would be able to find something there, some clue, which Cassian had missed. Standing in the doorway, he saw the little scarab the elf had left behind him and picked it up.

At least, he thought, I'll be able to give this back to him. It must be magical, or valuable; he wouldn't hide it on his person if it wasn't. Cheered by the thought, he put the beetle on the bed table and began to poke around the room for anything else of interest. His eyes settled on a wardrobe, and he opened it idly to see what he might find.

The clothes were finely made; he had seen Lyn wear them often enough, silks and cotton, cool and comfortable. For a moment he wondered about trying on one of the fine jackets or shirts and then scolded himself.

Then, quite suddenly, he realized his hands were in a place that didn't exist. The wardrobe was shallow, without any real depth to it, and yet his hands had reached not quite to the back of it. Intrigued, his hands closed around some silk and he drew the garment out. Puzzled by what he'd found, he was about to reach in and see what else he could discover when he caught a shimmering out the corner of his eye on the far wall. He closed the wardrobe door hurriedly and dived beneath the bed, the disarrayed coverlet hanging down just far enough to offer a viable hiding place.

He heard the figure enter, breathing hard, and terror rose in his heart.

Jerenn could not risk pulling the coverlet down further, or he would surely be seen. But the cloth covered the bed at a slight angle, and from where he lay he could see a little into the room. He realized that he could just, perhaps, be seen in the mirror and yet he dared not move. He could only hope that the girl would not notice. She seemed almost entranced in herself, while his face was barely visible in the shadows cast by the hanging coverlet.

She wore green and brown, leather and cotton, sturdy garments better suited to a laborer, though no laborer could have afforded clothing of such fine make. Her head was covered in thick black curls, and she stood before the mirror making a strange, high keening sound, in some terrible lamentation. He wanted to close his eyes, but he could not.

She pulled off her brown boots and then her jerkin and shirt, until she was standing before the mirror clad only in loose trousers. Jerenn could see her back clearly, her pale skin and the bones of her spine, and he could see part of her face in the mirrored reflection. The face was afire, green eyes brilliant with some violent emotion. Her breasts were small, and though she was tall enough for a full-grown woman there was something deeply childlike about her. Horrified fascination mingled with the fear inside him.

She yanked off her trousers and stood naked before the mirror for a moment, then she padded on her small and nimble feet to the wardrobe and reached into the back, taking out a scarlet dress and pulling it on over her head. She gazed at herself in the mirror again, and then her hands reached to her face and head.

Jerenn almost cried out loud as he witnessed what happened next. Before his horrified gaze she seemed almost to be ripping her head asunder. Her right hand seemed to tear into her flesh, which came away in a thin, torn sheet like the skin of some fabulous and exotic reptile. Meanwhile, her left hand pulled at her hair, and it too came away in a single lifeless mass.

With whatever had been the material used to assist the illusion gone, and the wig removed to complete the transformation, Lyn stood absolutely still, gazing at himself in the body-length mirror. Then, very deliberately, he drew something out of the jerkin he had been wearing upon first entering and gripped it firmly in one hand while pulling the dress over his head with the other.

The body is a girl's, Jerenn thought, his mind in turmoil, but the Passions alone know what soul is within it.

Then he saw the twisted instrument in her hands, an orb of bone with a skewering talon of silver within it. Holding the bone part firmly, Lyn drove it firmly into the pit of her stomach and sank screaming to her knees. Jerenn made an incipient movement to abandon his hiding place and save her, but his instincts roared at him to stay still. It saved his life.

The scream settled into a gurgling moan, and then back to the terrible keening sound, exultant now. Jerenn suddenly realized that there was no blood to be seen. What should have been an appalling, mortal wound showed no sign that it even existed. Hands still firmly balled into her abdomen, the girl rose slowly and stood before the mirror. To his horror, Jerenn could see her pulling the serrated silver claw slowly out of her body, grimacing with pain all the while, the withdrawal being an obscene ceremony of some kind. A little blood seemed to fleck her lips, and she licked at the sides of her mouth with her tongue.

There was the sound of footfalls outside, someone unmistakably headed for the room. The girl's demeanor changed utterly. She half-fell back on her haunches, gripping the fully withdrawn claw, hands cupped around it with fingers that seemed like claws, like an organic outgrowth from the cruel fusion of metal and bone. The door opened.

Cassian stood there, his face a mask of amazement. He saw bright green eyes, discarded clothes, and then his dagger was in his hand. The clawed orb was already raised and what seemed to be a ball of whirling metal flew from it. As Jerenn watched, it divided into four parts, each a metal blade the length of a hand, two aiming for the elf's armpits and two at his hips. Cassian reeled back as the blades struck, but though there was pain on his face Jerenn could sense from the girl's reaction that the attack failed to achieve the desired effect. The magical girdle the elf wore saved him, though Jerenn could not know that.

Desperately, he began to slither out from his cover.

The girl had a knife now, a long discolored blade grabbed from somewhere beyond his vision, and as she sprang at the elf a ruby aura flared about her and Jerenn could sense the heat even as she moved away from him. Cassian gripped her blade-holding wrist with one hand and struck at her with the dagger in his other, but it was as if the metal of the enchanted blade struck a formidable unseen barrier. It was like driving his hand into a wall, and he cried out with pain. Worse still, the elemental fire around her was beginning to wither even his protections. The carpet beneath her naked body was beginning to smoke.

She surprised him, her free hand slamming at his forehead and burning deeply into it, the flesh charring beneath her touch. Cassian screamed and writhed beneath her, unable to maintain his grip on her other hand now, his senses swimming with pain. She dragged her arm free of his hold and held the orb aloft in both hands with a desolate wail of triumph.

But the blow never came. Jerenn had sprung from his hiding place and his knife did its work well. Metal bit down hard through skin and sinew and bone, magical protections unable to sustain against it.

He reeled back himself as the figure of Lyn jerked backward in a convulsion so severe he thought the girl's spine would snap in two. Her magical barrier had been entirely frontal, woven to deny the elf any opportunity to strike at her; she had no inkling that an enemy lurked behind her as well. The naked body thrashed on the floor before going still for a moment. Then, to Jerenn's horror, it slowly began to rise, blood dripping from the shoulders onto the floor. Jerenn stood helpless, paralyzed with fear, the bloody knife fallen from his hands as the vengeful creature rose to its knees.

As he stared, unable to take his gaze away from the hate-filled, insane visage, the girl took the orb in both hands again and slashed her own throat from ear to ear. Jerenn felt himself beginning to gag and vomit as then, impossibly, the girl drew out the silvered claw and plunged it into her forehead, cutting down in the same move, slashing a bloody cleft down the length of her face and through the sideways cut to form a ghastly suicidal cross of blood. Strength disappeared from her fingers and she slumped forward, her blond head falling at his feet. Blood was still running in rivulets down her narrow, pale back even as a pool of it began to form a dreadful halo around her head. Cassian meanwhile was struggling to his knees, a blackened stigmata of flesh on his forehead, pale and shaking. Jerenn fell onto the bed and was helplessly sick.

Then the elf's hands were on his shoulders, helping him up as he coughed and spat the last of the bitter taste from his mouth.

"Come now. It's over," Cassian whispered gently.

34

Cassian laid down his pen for a moment and tried not to scratch at his forehead. The salve was very good, and had taken away all the pain save for a residual prickliness that still caused him a troublesome itch at unpredictable moments. It was an annoying distraction.

Tarlanth appears to have fostered the deception for reasons of inheritance, he read back to himself. A daughter would not have inherited his property nor continued the family line. His wife would have acquired his property and her ir-House would have gained the riches and influence of House Medari. So, when a daughter was born, Tarlanth and his wife proclaimed the birth as that of a son and they raised the child as a boy.

It may seem surprising that Tarlanth's wife agreed to cooperate with this subterfuge. But she has recently confessed that her plan was to await her husband's death and then do away with the child, permitting the woman herself to inherit. Obviously, the Lyn-girl would not have been able to marry as a man and bear sons to deny her that, though I suspect Tarlanth may even have arranged some stratagem for simulating such a contingency. Most likely, after a "grandson" had been arranged for, Lyn would have been killed off.

There seems little doubt from the few surviving notes in Lyn's hand that she believed so. She has known all her life that the form in which she'd been born was worthless to her parents, and that their plans included destroying her as soon as was practically feasible and politically convenient. There must be added to this the strong likelihood of abuse at the hands of her father, though I have no conclusive evidence of this. Please consult the second of the codicil statements with respect to this matter for supporting circumstantial evidence.

Under such extreme circumstances, the development of a dual personality and dissociative madness are entirely unsurprising. There is evidence of considerable sensitivity in her artistic creations, which suggest both an intensity of suffering and a predisposition to a disintegration of her personality.

Not much of an epitaph, he reflected. Cool and official words to sum up what must have been an unimaginable hell of a short life. Cassian had sensed from the moment he saw the mother that the woman was a monster, he'd known that, and yet never looked at it closely enough. He'd realized far too late that the plot to destroy Tarlanth used his business connections only because that was convenient. The man was away at his work often enough. It would have been simple for Lyn to learn all she needed to know from creeping into his rooms and studying his ledgers and books. She could easily have found enough there to send the letter that drove Daralec to his suicide, and to have composed the threat to Mordain. Yet she had to do it.

She could have killed her baneful father and mother easily enough, but she needed all of what she learned to destroy Tarlanth. Destroying his power and influence and leaving him in penury would have been far worse than death for him, and she knew and desired that. If, at the last, she went too far and overreached herself, it was likely because the weight of all those deaths began to hang heavy on even her heart and impair her judgment. After all, she ended her own life when she could still have killed Cassian and Jerenn. Perhaps all that was left of what must once have been a gentle and quiet soul had rebelled and decided that there was enough blood on its hands.

And also I took the absence of a mind within Aralesh too readily at face value, Cassian told himself. He was destroyed from within. Somewhere inside him, I think, is the remains of a soul. He inducted the Lyn-girl into that group, where I have no doubt she learned of blood magic. I do not know what indignities he subjected her to, but they must have echoed what her father did to her and so death was not enough for him either. Only sheer destruction would do. Which is why he lives as a shell when all the rest are corpses.

Why did she kill the others? Those of her group of what were, after all, fellow-sufferers? I believe that the elven children were the key. They were the first of them to die. I think they were too much for her to look upon; brother and sister, as alike as two petals on a rose. Perhaps the rumors of their incest were true, after all. If so, that must have tortured her, a vivid image of her own torn and divided self, and she simply could not bear for them to live. After their deaths, perhaps she realized she could draw the power of each dead soul into that wretched clawed relic, and a chain of murder began. That their deaths would strike at their parents, and further her goal of destroying her father, must have been an irresistible attraction.

And Ziraldesh? Ah, but I fear I killed him, the elf thought wanly. It was I who went to Lyn that morning and told her I knew of the group that he and Aralesh had tutored, and she must have thought that Ziraldesh had betrayed her—or was about to do so. Having taken the life of his son, perhaps she feared what Ziraldesh might know. Perhaps he had learned something from Ladamair, and she had to kill him before he told me any more.

This will make for a discursive report, he reflected. But Kypros is safe now, and will not need to worry about his feast. He will be able to boast of how his akarenti was able to thwart dastardly plans to sabotage the city, and will doubtless dress this up to impress his visitors. He may, if he feels generous, mention me in such a context. So even I may emerge from this desperate tragedy looking good.

Cassian worked through the night to finish the first draft of his report. He wanted to get out of Vivane as quickly as possible, and there was a regular airship departing that evening. He would be able to sleep long hours aboard it and waken with little space and time keeping him from Thera itself. He badly wanted to get back.

At breakfast he took some light porridge and fruit, not having the stomach for anything more substantial. The livid mark on his forehead drew the maidservants' stares, but Cassian offered no explanations. Then he discovered that he no longer had his scarab and knew he must set off once more for Tarlanth's house to recover it. The last thing he wanted was to re-enter that cursed place, but there was no alternative. The useful device might be lost if he did not recover it swiftly.

He entered Lyn's rooms with real reluctance. The blood was reduced to a faint stain that even determined scrubbing had not been able to eliminate. Carpets, bedding, all had been stripped. The room was almost wholly bare, with almost nothing left to show that a living, breathing soul had once passed most of its tortured life inside its four walls.

Checking around the floor, he finally tried behind the wardrobe, clutching in the narrow space with his fingers. He did not find what he was looking for, but there was something very thin and frail there and he drew it out.

It was a painting, crudely worked by a childish hand, but it had some beauty in it and the work was pleasing to the eye. A little blond girl sat by a pool of placid water, on a grassy bank, with flowers all around her. Above, clouds scudded in the sky above trees gently waving in the breeze. The clouds were reflected in the blueness of the water. Studying the painting, he suddenly saw that where there should have been something more, there was nothing: there was absolutely no reflection of the child in the water, nothing to show her face. I am not here, the image said to him: I do not exist.

It was so pitiful that Cassian sat down on the bare bed and wept with his head in his hands. He had seen many things to harden him in his years, seen innocents torn asunder by unspeakable and nameless creatures from a realm of nightmare, but here a sensitive and gifted child had been destroyed over time by her parents, without help or hope or anyone to turn to. Changed from an innocent into a tortured, pain-wracked killer with all the venom and implacable hatred of any Horror, but unlike them, with the remains of a soul still within her. All around him was silent as he struggled to regain his composure.

His eyes finally settled on the little scarab, still sitting on the table where Jerenn had set it. He replaced it in its clasp and disconsolately turned to leave. Heading downstairs, Cassian came face to face with two men walking in together. Ilfaralek and Tarlanth. He was astonished.

"Please leave my house," Tarlanth sneered. "I am under no Writ as of this morning and your presence here is unwarranted and most definitely unwanted."

Cassian almost gasped at the audacity of the man. "Are you satisfied?" he cried at them. Wanting to hurt him, even if only a little, for he felt he could do no more, he said, "Your family will not inherit now. Medari will not benefit from your wickedness."

"You have taken that from me, I admit," Tarlanth said, a steely edge to his voice. "She would have given me an heir."

"Impossible," Cassian said flatly. "Not even you could have found a 'wife' for your 'son'. Not even you could have arranged such a marriage, and no child could have been begotten."

"I think you will find that Patracheus has a very enfeebled niece," Tarlanth said evenly, "with terrible bad health. A marriage of invalids. Most convenient."

Cassian's mind moved one step back and one forward. He had only just realized what Tarlanth let slip a moment before.

"And she, Lyn, would have given you an heir. Then it's true!" He grabbed the man by the throat, shouting, "You unspeakable bastard."

Ilfaralek grabbed his arm and forced him away.

"Enough of that. Tarlanth is a free man," he said ominously. Cassian stared at the akarenti speechlessly. In the doorway, a fourth figure entered the tableau. Cassian took one look at her and then stormed to the doorway, turning only to deliver a final barb for her benefit.

"You know," he said to her in a low, malevolent voice, "I have a very definite feeling that a precedent has been set for House Carinci. One of definitely reduced life expectancy. That monster you married will have a son, and if you are too old to give him one you will not live long."

Her cruel and cold eyes met his only in a mocking, almost bored way. She had clearly made plans against such an eventuality.

Feeling helpless and impotent, the elf hurried to his carriage and had himself driven away as if from some Horror-haunted ruin.

"I have lodged this writ with you officially now, and provided I receive acknowledgment and suitable guarantees, I will leave at once," Cassian said stiffly to Ilfaralek. He had completed all his business, packed everything, and had one thing only left to attend to.

"Payment will be required within seven days," Ilfaralek said.

"You will have it," Cassian promised him. "I will send a kedate."

"Then I see no reason why the boy's freedom should not be purchased. There is no record of any crime on his part and indeed he can be said to have acted in the best interests of the security of the city." Ilfaralek drew out a pre-written sheet of vellum from a desk drawer, added a name and a date to it, and stamped it with his seal and signature.

"If payment has been obtained within seven days, then you can take this to the House of Records and get the second seal, making everything final and official." Cassian picked up the document and left without another word.

Outside, he gave the vellum to Jerenn. "I will be back as soon as I have delivered my report to the Arbiter-General,” he said. "There is a small chance that he may have some other task for me that will keep me from returning in person. If that happens, I shall send a kedate. However, you can be assured that I will make absolutely certain the necessary money is paid. You will be a free man. You will not have the rights of a Theran, of course, but you will be a free Barsaivian, able to live freely in the city, so long as you carry the right passes with you. You won't have to wear black anymore." He grinned.

"Why are you doing this?" the boy asked.

"You ask me that when I probably owe my life to you twice over? Once in the Undercity and again at the end of things?" Cassian did not want to be more exact about the latter occasion. "You have richly earned this."

"But it hardly comes cheaply," the boy protested, "and I was treated well enough in Tarlanth's household."

"You wish to return to it?"

"Oh, no." Jerenn seemed to shudder at the very thought.

"Then this should help you to start a new life here." Cassian handed him a small silk-lined leather pouch that chinked with coins. "You should be able to find a room or two to rent. I've already made some enquiries about that, and I have little doubt that someone with your talents will find gainful work." He handed Jerenn a folded sheet of vellum with his own Imperial seal set upon it. "If you need it, give this to any prospective employer as a reference. I speak fairly of you here, and quite highly, for you are intelligent and resourceful." The boy blushed.

"I hope I shall see you again," he said falteringly.

"I do also," the elf said earnestly. "Come, let us go and take some wine. I have two hours before I must leave for Sky Point."

So, miraculously, they found somewhere reasonably quiet in the huge throng of people already gathering to celebrate the forthcoming feast, and Jerenn asked all the thousand and one questions he had always wanted to ask, and Cassian answered most of them; and the boy's head spun with the tales of a huge wide world of savants and soldiers and mystics, dervishes and Stormriders, shapeshifters and beastmasters and more; of vast monoliths and endless subterranean glooms, of the standing waterfalls of southern Indrisa and the Gloamoaks of Vasgothia, higher than any tower yet built by man; of the fabulous creatures Cassian had seen either at first hand or in the zootorium of the Great City. Then, when he still had a thousand more questions, the time had gone impossibly quickly and Kendreck was urging Cassian to get into the carriage now.

"I hope very much to be back," the elf said, embracing the boy.

"And I hope so too," the boy replied, fighting hard to keep a tear from his eye. No one had ever treated him as Cassian had and, if they had skated on very thin ice at times, it had been all the better for that. He could live as he wished now, and there were plenty of other cities where he could survive far longer on the gold given to him before he would need to find himself some work, and there was always begging. But he would miss the excitement and the elf's placid and kindly nature and his intelligence.

Cassian said some words in a tongue Jerenn knew but did not understand, and his blank expression told the elf so.

Cassian grinned. "It is Sperethiel. It means 'Bright mornings be upon you/ It is a blessing of sorts. Farewell, Jerenn."

The boy watched sadly as the elf walked out the door and climbed into his borrowed carriage one last time.

35

"This is a fine report, Cassian. You have done very well. I do not think you need reproach yourself in the least for the deaths that occurred after your arrival. This was a very difficult case, and yet matters have turned out pleasingly. Overgovernor Kypros himself has sent a congratulatory despatch. You have an eye for true seeing in darkness."

The Arbiter-General was almost glowing with pride. Cassian watched as a tray with two glasses of exquisite Torinachian frostwine, chilled to perfection, was brought in. That meant things had gone well. Indeed, that a full crystal bottle of the unbelievably precious liquid stood beside the glasses meant things had gone unbelievably well. Cassian was very surprised, and a little apprehensive. He had heard of praetori getting the whole-bottle treatment before but had never received it himself. Surely, he had not resolved matters so well?

There was still the matter of the relic, the magical clawed orb that Lyn had possessed. It was a pattern item from the group of Aralesh's pupils, but it also had older and more malign and powerful magic within it, and doubtless that would need time to understand and identify. Still, that was hardly a pressing problem now.

"I believe it is a relief to the powers in Vivane that this matter did not involve any infestations, sir." Even here, the word "Horror" was not used lightly.

"Hmm, yes, I'm sure," Andreax deferred, with a studied casualness. "Well, Cassian, we have another task for you shortly. However, you surely deserve some leave after this difficult investigation. I think, also, that we shall have to give serious consideration to a promotion. A commendation is a matter of formality, I think. I am surprised to learn," he said with an archly raised eyebrow, "that General Crotias seems to have taken a very definite shine to you. If you can get on her good side, then we must use your talents as much as we possibly can. So it will be a busy life for you in the future, I think."

"There is the matter of Tarlanth, sir," Cassian said hesitantly.

"And what of him?"

Cassian missed the sharp tone, and persisted. "There is the matter of incest law, sir," he said.

"We cannot prove any accusations relating to that. It cannot be established that he was the father of that unfortunate girl's child."

Cassian went absolutely pale, deathly white. "What? You mean—"

"Oh no, no child was given birth to," Andreax said smoothly "Nothing to worry about there, I can assure you."

By the Passions, Lyn's father had made her pregnant already, Cassian realized. Something clicked into place in his mind; yet another piece of the jigsaw. I don't believe it: nothing is to be done about him!

"But there are unresolved matters of corruption, as I have clearly laid out in my report, sir," he said uncertainly. "Not to mention that the planned 'marriage' between Lyn and Patracheus's niece suggests the distinct possibility of corruption on the part of Patracheus. After all, sir, he is head of the Department of Bursaries. This could still be very serious."

"That will be enough, Cassian," Andreax warned. "You have done what we sent you to do and Vivane is now back to normal. With several days of feasting and revelry to come, no one will be terribly preoccupied with this business afterward. Life will go on. Now, if that is all?"

Cassian excused himself and headed for his quarters. He found the Bursar, and withdrew sufficient of his accumulated pay, saved over many years, to return to Vivane and pay what was needed at the House of Records. For some hours he wandered through the city, barely attentive to the sights and wonders and miracles around him, trying to think through more and more.

At last, he could bear it no longer and he found, to his surprise, that he was permitted to re-enter the Arbiter-General's office without needing an appointment, when he had expected to have to wait a day or two at the least.

"Very well, what is it now?" Andreax's voice was again a warning, but this time Cassian was alive to that. He also chose to ignore it.

"It was known about here, wasn't it?"

"We had certain lines of circumstantial evidence, yes. We had to send a praetor to be sure. It is also the case that certain appeals were made to various Imperial offices regarding Tarlanth. He had made many enemies in a short time. He was considered a very disruptive influence."

"Kypros."

"Among others. The Overgovernor's reputation for lacking intelligence is somewhat undeserved, you know.

When it comes to protecting himself he is extremely alert and bright."

"It was known that I would, eventually, come to the conclusion that someone was attempting to discredit him and then I would be spurred to find out more."

"Yes, certainly. Which you did, and excellently so. Now—"

'The stage was set for me. Did the girl even kill all those victims?"

"That is a very dangerous question to ask," Andreax said with infinite chill in his voice. "One which the wise might definitely not inquire too closely about."

'The twins," Cassian breathed aloud. "They never did fit. Their father wasn't part of the web of intrigue and corruption. Oh, they knew. They knew what she really was. She trusted them because of their nature and they were all she had. The one place where she could rest her heart. And they were killed because of it, to make her do what she did. So that Tarlanth would be discredited in the end. Who knew of this? Who could have known?"

Rage boiled up inside him. "Tell me!"

"No, Cassian." The voice was firm and unshakable. "That is not for you to know. You have done what you were sent to do and a suitably edited version of your report has been lodged in the appropriate places."

Suitably edited. Oh, I'll wager it's been suitably edited, Cassian fumed.

"I shall take my leave now," he said stiffly. "I return to my duties in ten days. I shall take a holiday, I think. I have ten days' allowance coming to me."

"You do indeed," Andreax said rather less apprehensively. Ten days should be enough for the elf to get over it.

Cassian went back to the Bursary. By good fortune, there was an airship that very evening.

36

"Here is the remainder of the payment," the elf said to the functionary inspecting the document at far greater length than was necessary. He put the wooden seal in the man's hand, gripped it, and stamped it himself, leaving the astonished little man behind as he swept out with Jerenn in tow.

"We will meet at the north gate in an hour," the elf said to the boy. "If you wish to accompany me, that is. If you want to remain here in Vivane, you are certainly free to do so."

“I want to go," the boy said fervently.

"Then go and buy us what we need." Cassian grinned and gave him a little in the way of coins. He was carrying considerably greater wealth, but most of it was in the form of gems, less bulky to carry and easier to conceal about him. The hollow heel of his left boot alone contained sufficient for them to eat and drink well for some months to come.

"Where are you off to?" the boy said innocently.

"No matter of that," Cassian said. "Just don't be late. Not a minute late. I won't wait for you."

"I'll be there," Jerenn said enthusiastically and shot off down the Grandwalk.

Cassian never expected to find himself at the doors of that house again. There was a new servant to offer him admittance, and he didn't recognize any of the slaves here now. There was little doubt in his mind that the old staff had all been disposed of, lest they say anything that might have been compromising. More deaths. The figure stood at the top of the stairs, and Cassian ascended them slowly. He stood two paces or so before her.

"You cannot see my husband," she said imperiously.

"I will do so," he said implacably.

"I said you cannot," she smiled. "He is dead."

"What?"

"This afternoon. Such a tragedy. The sorrow of loss was too much for him. That and the shameful rumors and lies some people have been whispering about the city."

"Ah, I see," he said calmly. "I made one other visit before I came here, to be certain. I learned that you had, sometimes, been seen at Aralesh's house. The children learned something of elemental magic there, I would hazard. Tell me, did Nighthand ever exist?"

She laughed. "Only on one or two occasions."

"And so now your daughter is dead before Tarlanth could proclaim his incestuous heir, and no scion of the House will ever be produced. Carinci will benefit indeed."

"And I hear that Patracheus's wife has been suffering poor health," she said, again with a small laugh. "He will be so happy to have a new, second wife to warm his bed when her trials and tribulations come to an end, as they surely will before too long."

"You killed Schavian's children, knowing that would push Lyn over the edge. You knew how to direct her and steer her, and perhaps you even had the magical skill to plant thoughts in her mind," Cassian mused.

"Not a difficult skill even for an elementalist, if one knows the correct procedures," Cryselda sneered, a pitying look on her scornful face.

Cassian looked up at her, triumphant and splendid, her lustrous dark hair cascading around her shoulders now, her face flushed with excitement and her lips red and rich.

"You will never be able to prove anything, and I have already read your report," she said mockingly. "You did so well for me, praetor Cassian. Things could really not have worked out any better."

She turned to walk away, and as she did Cassian's hand flashed to his side. Then she was clutching at the marbled rail, her hands clawing at rich, thick carpeting, bubbles of blood escaping from her perfect mouth instead of the cry for help she'd tried to utter.

When he was certain she was dead, Cassian withdrew his dagger from her body and wiped the blood from it meticulously on the carpet before sheathing it. He walked casually out into the daylight and, as he heard the first cry from the first servant coming down from the bedrooms to find the corpse of her mistress, he shrouded himself with invisibility and made quickly for the northern gate of the Theran Quarter.

Cassian resumed his normal form in a quiet corner just before he reached that point. He had little time left to escape and he couldn't take any chances. As he had arranged earlier in the day, two horses were waiting for him, together with a stable-boy and the horsetrader's son. He gave the animals a quick check to make sure they were the sound, strong stock he had bought and not substituted old nags. When he was satisfied, he settled up the account and dismissed the two young men. Right on cue, Jerenn came running up behind him, out of breath and lugging two huge bags bulging with the Passions knew what.

"You told me you could ride, boy," the elf said imperturbably.

"I can, sir. Not massively well, but I can."

"Good, because we have about five minutes before all hell breaks loose," Cassian said with absolute calm.

"Where are we going?" Jerenn asked.

They were half an hour's gallop away from the city now. It was a long way behind them and Cassian now felt safe enough to let the tired horses regain their strength. He walked along, leading his horse by the reins, with Jerenn beside him doing the same. The elf paused only a moment before answering the boy's question.

"I don't know. You come from Barsaive, do you not?"

"I do, sir."

"Then I was rather hoping you might tell me."

They laughed aloud. The boy had seen the blood streak on the elf's left sleeve, just above the intriguing little crescent-shaped scar on his wrist. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the elf had killed someone, and he was waiting for the right moment to ask who and why. That the victim had deserved his or her fate, Jerenn felt no need to question. He would be told soon enough, and there was a long road stretching ahead of them.

The elf turned to him and asked if he had a small pocket knife. Jerenn handed his over.

"There's one for you, too, in your pack, sir."

"Look, Jerenn," Cassian said as he undid a metal chain from around his neck, "there is absolutely no conceivable reason for you to call me 'sir' even once more. I am plain Cassian now." He fiddled with the serpentine amulet and pried the tiny green gem from the eye of the snake. As he did so, the amulet crumbled into dust in his fingers, and fell through them onto the ground under their feet.

"What was that, sir? I mean, Cassian?"

"About fifty years of my life, Jerenn. Now my feet are set upon another Path. Let us be gone."

GLOSSARY

ARALESH: A wizard of House Narlanth, tutor to the young of many noble families; an expert on Horrors and adviser to the Overgovernor of Vivane on astral menaces.

CASSIAN: Theran praetor (investigator), an elf of House Medari.

(GENERAL) CROTIAS: Commanding general of the Eighth Legion of Vivane, most senior army officer of the city; a female ork of House Zanjan.

CRYSELDA: Wife of Tarlanth; originally of House Carinci, a beautiful and calculating woman of business, very worldly and urbane.

DARALEC: Senior noble of House Carinci, owner of vital stone mines northwest of Vivane. Karlanta is his wife and Crielle his son.

DRAGOLD: A dwarf architect and military engineer of House Narlanth, responsible for much rebuilding work within Vivane.

HAUGHRALD: Dwarf architect of House Thaloss, who works closely with Dragold (qv) on city construction, design, and repairs.

ILFARALEK: Akarenti of the city, senior military official responsible for spying, surveillance, and all manner of underhanded and covert activities by Theran spies, especially in the non-Theran parts of the city of Vivane. Of House Zanjan.

JERENN: A Barsaivian slave boy, the property of Tarlanth (qv). KYPROS: Overgovernor of Vivane.

MORDAIN: Second-in-command to Patracheus (qv) at the Department of Bursaries. Of House Thaloss. Isilda is his wife, Darnius his son.

PATRACHEUS: Government official in charge of the Department of Bursaries; enormously influential and powerful, of House Thaloss. Jandel is his wife.

TARLANTH: Senior noble of House Medari, a man of many business interests and considerable influence and power. Cryselda (qv) is his wife, Lyn his son.

ZIRALDESH: Cousin of Aralesh (qv), a wizard who makes his living from teaching. Of House Narlanth. Shusala is his wife, and he has adopted her son Ladamair.