HIS GREAT-MATARH FROWNED as he struggled to breathe on the bed. "Get up, boy," she told him. "The Kraljiki can't lie there weak and helpless. The Kraljiki must be strong; the Kraljiki must show he can lead his people."

"But, Great-Matarh," he told her. "It's so hard. My chest hurts so much. . . ."

"Kraljiki?" Seaton and Marlon entered the bechamber from the door to the servants' corridor. The two of them struggled with a heavy wheeled easel draped in gold-brocaded blue cloth.

"Ah," Audric said. "Good." He pointed to the painting over the fireplace. "You see, Great-Matarh? Now you may come with me wherever I go." He supervised as his attendants took down the painting and placed it carefully on the easel, making certain it was secured to the frame of the device so it couldn't fall. Audric watched, and thought that Marguerite looked pleased. "It must have been boring, having to stare at the same room all day and night. It would have driven me mad . . ." He looked at Seaton. "Have they come as I ordered?"

"Yes, Kraljiki," Seaton answered. "They're waiting for you in the Sun Throne Hall."

"Then we shouldn't keep them waiting. Bring the Kraljica with us."

"And you, Kraljiki? Should we call for a chair?"

Audric shook his head. "I no longer require that," he told them, told Marguerite. "I will walk."

Seaton and Marlon glanced quickly at each other and bowed. Audric took as deep a breath as he could and led them from the bedchamber.

He thought perhaps he'd made a mistake by the time they'd walked nearly the length of the main wing of the palais. He was panting rapidly from the effort and could feel sweat dampening the back of his neck and beading on his forehead. He dabbed at the moisture with the lace of his sleeve as they reached the hall gardai. When they started to announce them, Audric stopped them. "A moment," he said. He closed his eyes, trying to regain his breath.

"You can do this," he heard Marguerite say, and he nodded to the gardai. They opened the doors for them. "The Kraljiki Audric," one of them intoned into the hall.

Audric heard the rustling as the seven people inside came to their feet, their heads bowed as he entered: Sigourney ca'Ludovici, Aleron ca'Gerodi, Odil ca'Mazzak . . . all the appointed members of the Council. He could also see them desperately trying to glance up to see what was making such a racket as Seaton and Marlon wheeled in Marguerite's portrait behind him. "Kraljiki," Sigourney said, lifting from her bow as he stopped in front of her. "It's good to see you doing so well."

Her gaze slipped past him to the painting, and he saw her struggle to keep the puzzlement from her face.

"The reports of my illness have been exaggerated by those who wish to do me harm," he told her. "I am well, thank you, Councillor." He nodded to the others in the room. For a moment, he was frightened, like a child among a forest of adults, but then he heard Marguerite's voice in his ear, whispering to him: "You are superior to them, boy. You are their Kraljiki; behave as if you expect their obedience and you will get it. Act as if you are still a child and they will treat you that way."

With a nod to his attendants, Audric strode to the Sun Throne, forcing down the cough that threatened to double him over. He sat, and the Throne bloomed into light around him, the crystal facets gleaming. The e-teni stationed around the room relaxed as the glow surrounded him. Audric closed his eyes briefly as the easel was moved to sit at his right hand. His great-matarh could see them now, all of them.

They were staring at him, at Marguerite. "See the greed on their faces. They all want to sit where you're sitting, Audric. Especially Sigourney; she wants it most of all. You can use that to get them to agree. . . ."

"I won't keep you long here," he told the Council. "We are all busy people, and I am looking strongly at ways to bring Nessantico back to prominence against our enemies to both West and East. That is, I am certain, what each of us want. I vow to you now; I will reunite the Holdings."

The speech nearly exhausted him, and he could not keep away the cough that followed, smothering it in a lace handkerchief. "The Council of Ca' isn't all present, Kraljiki," Sigourney said. "We are missing Regent ca'Rudka."

"I was aware of that," Audric told her. "He is missing for good reason: the Regent was not invited."

"Ah?" Sigourney breathed questioningly as the others murmured.

"See the eagerness-especially with Cousin Sigourney? They are all thinking about where they would stand if the Regent fell, and calculating their chances. . . ."

"Yes," Audric said before any of them could voice an objection. "I called this meeting to discuss the Regent. I won't waste your time with diversions and small talk. For the good of Nessantico, I am asking for two rulings from the Council of Ca'. One, that Regent ca'Rudka be immediately imprisoned in the Bastida a'Drago for treason-" the uproar nearly drowned out the rest, "-and that I be elevated to rule as Kraljiki in truth as well as t.i.tle." The clamor of the Council redoubled at that statement. Audric sat back and listened, letting them argue among themselves. "Yes, use the opportunity to rest, and to listen. . . ."

He did that. He watched them; he especially watched Sigourney. Yes, she kept glancing over to him as she spoke to the other councillors. He could see her weighing him, judging him. "This is what I desire," Audric said at last, when the hubbub had died somewhat, "and it is what my great-matarh desires as well." He gestured to the portrait, and was gratified to see her smile in return. They stared, all of them, their gazes moving from him to the painting and back again. "The Regent is a traitor to the Sun Throne. Ca'Rudka wishes to sit here where I am sitting now, and he is plotting to do so even at the expense of our success in the h.e.l.lins and against the Coalition."

Aleron cleared his throat noisily, glancing at Sigourney. "Councillor ca'Ludovici has mentioned to all of us here your concerns, Kraljiki, and I wish to a.s.sure you that we take them seriously," he said. "But proof of these accusations . . ."

"Your proof will come when ca'Rudka is interrogated, Vajiki ca'Gerodi," Audric said, and the stress of speaking loudly enough to interrupt the man sent him into a spasm of coughing. They watched him, silent, as he regained control. "Don't worry. This works to your advantage, Audric. They're all thinking that with the Regent gone, and you ill, that perhaps the Sun Throne will be quickly vacant, and one of them might take it. Sigourney, Odil, and Aleron had all heard the outlines of what you're asking already, so they know what you'll say. Look at Sigourney-see how eagerly she regards you? See how she's a.s.sessing you for weakness. She has ambition . . . use it!" Audric glanced over gratefully at his great-matarh, inclining his head to her as he wiped his mouth.

"I am convinced," Audric told them, "that Regent ca'Rudka was responsible for Archigos Ana's a.s.sa.s.sination, that he intends to abandon the h.e.l.lins despite the tremendous sacrifice of our gardai, and that he is conspiring with those in the Firenzcian Coalition against me, perhaps intending to place Hirzg Fynn here on the Sun Throne if he cannot sit there himself."

"Those are serious accusations, Kraljiki," Odil ca'Mazzak said. "Why isn't Regent ca'Rudka here to answer them?"

"To deny them, you mean?" Audric laughed, and Marguerite's amus.e.m.e.nt rose twined with his own. "That's what he would do. You're right, Cousin: these are serious accusations, and I don't make them lightly. It's also why I believe that the Regent must be removed from his position. Let those in the Bastida rip the truth from him." He paused. They watched him as he smiled at his great-matarh. "Let me rule as the new Spada Terribile as my great-matarh did, and bring Nessantico to new heights."

"See? They look at you with new eyes, my great-son. They no longer hear a child, but a man . . ."

They did watch him carefully, appraisingly. He sat up in the chair, holding their gazes regally as he imagined his great-matarh had, looking at the shadow of himself the gleam of the throne cast on the walls and ceiling. "I know," he told her.

"You know what, Kraljiki?" Sigourney asked him, and he shook himself, his hands tightening on the cold arms of the Sun Throne.

"I know that you have doubts," he answered, and there was a susurration of agreement, like the voices of the wind in the chimneys of the palais. "But I also know that you are the best of Nessantico, and that you care as deeply as I do for her. I know that you will discuss this, and you will come-as you must-to the same conclusion that I have. My great-matarh was called early to the throne, and so am I. This is my time, and I ask the Council to acknowledge that."

"Kraljiki . . ." Sigourney bowed to him. "A decision this important can't be taken easily or lightly. We . . . the Council . . . must talk among ourselves first."

"Show them. Show them your leadership. Now." "Do that," Audric told her. "But I ask that you send ca'Rudka to the Bastida while you deliberate. The man is a danger: to me, to the Council of Ca', and to Nessantico. That is the least you can do for the good of Nessantico."

He stood, and they bowed to him. He left the room and the Sun Throne dimmed behind him. Behind him, Seaton and Marlon escorted Kraljica Marguerite from the chamber in his wake.

He could hear her approval. He could hear it as easily as if she walked alongside him.

Sergei ca'Rudka.

THE GATES TO THE BASTIDA were already open and the gardai saluted Sergei from the cover of their guardhouses set to either side. The dragon was weeping in the rain.

The sky was sullen and brooding, glowering over the city and tossing frequent sheets of hard rain down from slate-gray ramparts. Sergei glanced up-as he always did-to the dragon's head mounted over the Bastida's gates. In the foul weather, the white stone had gone pallid as water streamed over the midchannel of its snout and cascaded in a small waterfall to the flagstones underneath-there was a shallow bowl worn in the stone there from decades of rain. Sergei blinked into the storm and shrugged his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Raindrops struck his silver nose and splattered. The weather had seeped into his bones; his joints had been aching since he woke up this morning. Aris cu'Falla, Commandant of the Garde Kralji, had sent a messenger before First Call to summon him; Sergei thought that he would stay for a bit after the meeting, just to "inspect" the ancient prison. It had been a month or more since the last time-Aris would frown, then look away and shrug. However, even the antic.i.p.ation of a morning in the lower cells of the Bastida, of the sweet fear and the lovely terror, did little to ease the soreness that came from simply walking.

A shame his own pain didn't have the same allure as that of others'. "A miserable day, eh?" he asked the dragon's skull, grinning up at it. "Just think of it as a good washing."

Across the small, puddled courtyard, the door to the main office of the Bastida opened, throwing warm firelight over the gloom. Sergei saluted the garda who had opened the door and entered, shaking water from his cloak. "A day best suited for ducks and fish, don't you think, Aris?" he said.

Aris only grunted without smiling, hands clasped behind his back. Sergei frowned. "So what's this important matter you had to see me about, my friend?" he asked, then noticed the woman seated in a chair before the fire, facing away from him. He recognized her before she turned and the dampness on his bashta turned as cold as a midwinter day and his breath caught in his throat. You're truly getting old and clumsy, Sergei. You've misread things, and badly. "Councillor ca'Ludovici," he said as she turned to him. "I didn't expect to see you here, but I suspect I should have. It would seem that I've not been paying enough attention to rumors and gossip."

He heard the door close and lock behind him. It had the sound of finality. "Sergei," cu'Falla said softly, "I require your sword, my friend."

Sergei didn't respond. Didn't move. He kept his gaze on Sigourney. "It's come to this, has it? Vajica, the boy's mind has become unhinged from his illness. We both know that. By Cenzi, he's conversing with a painting. I don't know what he's told the Council, but surely none of you actually believe it. Especially you. But I suppose belief isn't the issue, is it?-it's who can gain something from the lie." He shrugged. "You don't need this charade, Councillor. If the Council of Ca' wishes my resignation as Regent, it can have it. Freely. Without this charade."

"The Council does want your resignation," Sigourney answered. "But we also realize that a deposed Regent is always a danger to the throne. As Commandant cu'Falla has already informed you, we require your sword."

"And my freedom?"

There was no answer from Sigourney. "Your sword, Sergei," Aris said again. His hand was on the hilt of his own weapon. "Please, Sergei," he added, a note of pleading in his voice. "I don't care for this any more than you, but we both have our duty to perform."

Sergei smiled at Aris and began to unbuckle the scabbard from around his waist. The sword had been given to him by Kraljiki Justi during the Siege of Pa.s.se a'Fiume: dark and hard Firenzcian steel, a beautiful warrior's blade. He could use it if he wished-he could parry Aris' strike and thrust past into the man's belly, then turn to the garda behind him. Another cut would strike the head from Vajica ca'Ludovici's neck. He could gain the courtyard and be away into the streets of Nessantico before they began to pursue him, and maybe, maybe he could stay alive long enough to salvage something from this mess. . . .

The vision was tempting, but he also knew it was something he could have done twenty years ago. Now, he wasn't so certain his body could obey the mind. "I wouldn't have taken the Sun Throne had it been offered to me," Sergei told Sigourney. "I never wanted it; Justi knew that and it's why he named me Regent. I thought you knew it as well." Sergei sighed. "What else does the Council require of me? A confession? Torture? Execution?"

He could feel his hands trembling and he clenched them together around his scabbard, sliding his hand closer to the hilt. He would not let Signourney see the fright inside him. He knew torture. He knew it intimately. Aris watched him carefully; he heard the garda slip close behind him and slide his sword from its sheath.

I could still do it. Now . . .

"Your service to Nessantico is long and noteworthy, Vajiki," Sigourney was saying. "For the time being, you will simply be confined here, until the facts of the accusations against you have been resolved."

"Of what am I accused?"

"Of complicity in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Archigos Ana. Of treason toward the Sun Throne. Of conspiring with Nessantico's enemies."

Sergei shook his head. "I'm innocent of any of those charges, Councillor, and the Council of Ca' knows it. You know it."

Her gray eyes blinked at that, her lips tightened in the rouged face. "At this point, Regent, I know only that the charges have been heard by the Council, and that we have decided that for the safety of the Holdings, you must be held until we have made a final decision on them." She inclined her head to Aris. "Commandant?"

Cu'Falla stepped forward. He held out his hand to Sergei-I could . . .-and Sergei placed his still-scabbarded weapon in Aris' palm. Carefully, slowly, Aris placed it on the commandant's desk-the desk behind which Sergei himself had once sat. Aris then patted Sergei down, taking the dagger from his belt. There was another dagger, lashed to the inside of his thigh. Sergei felt Aris' hands slide over the strap, saw Aris glance up at Sergei. He gave Sergei the barest hint of a nod and straightened. "You may escort the prisoner to his cell," Aris told the garda. "If Regent ca'Rudka is mistreated in any way, any way, I'll have that garda in the lower cells within a turn of the gla.s.s. Is that understood?"

The garda saluted. He took Sergei's arm.

"I know the way," he told the man. "Better than any."

Varina ci'Pallo.

"VARINA?"

She was with Karl, and he looked so sad that she wanted to reach out and touch him, but whenever she stretched out her arm, he seemed to recede from her, just out of reach. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but now it was dark where she was, so dark she couldn't even see Karl, and she was confused.

"Varina!"

With the near-shout, she came awake with a start, realizing that she was at her desk in the Numetodo House. Two gla.s.s globes sat on the table in front of her as she blinked into the lamplight. She could see a trail of saliva pooled on the desk's surface, and she wiped at her mouth as she turned, embarra.s.sed to be found this way. Especially to be found this way by Karl. "What?"

Karl stood next to her desk in the little room; the door was open behind him. He was peering down at her. "I called; you didn't answer. I even shook you." His eyes narrowed; she wasn't sure if it was concern or anger, and she told herself that she didn't really care which.

"I was working on the Westlander technique late last night. It exhausted me so much I must have fallen asleep." She brushed her hair with her fingers, angry with herself for letting herself succ.u.mb to her weariness and angry with him for having caught her in this state.

Angry at both herself and him because neither of them had apologized for their words the last time, and now it was too late. The words still stood between them, like an invisible wall.

"Are you all right?" She could hear concern in his voice, and rather than satisfying her, it made her feel even more angry. "All this work, and these spells you're attempting. Maybe you should-"

"I'm fine," she snapped, cutting him off. "You don't have to worry about me." But she felt physically sick. Her mouth tasted of something moldy and horrible. Her bladder was too full. Her eyelids were so heavy that they might as well have iron weights attached to them, and her left eye didn't seem to want to focus at all; she blinked again-that didn't seem to help. She wondered if she looked as horrible as she felt. "What did you want?" she asked. The words seemed slightly slurred, as if her mouth and tongue didn't want to cooperate. The left side of her whole face seemed to sag.

"I found him," he said.

"Who?" she asked. She wiped at her left eye; his figure was still blurred. "Oh," she said, realizing who he meant. "Your Westlander. Is he still alive?"

The words came out more harshly than she meant them to, and she saw him lift a shoulder, even if she couldn't quite make out his expression. "Yes, but the man attacked me magically. Varina, he had spells stored in his walking stick."

"Doesn't surprise me," she said. "An object you can carry around with you each and every day, that no one would think a second time about . . ." She wiped at her eyes again; his face cleared somewhat. "Are you all right?" She realized the question was tardy; from his expression, so did he.

"Only because I managed to deflect the worst of it. The houses near me weren't quite so lucky. He took off, but I know about where he lives-in Oldtown. His name's Talis. He lives with a woman named Serafina, and there's a young boy with them-his name's Nico. It shouldn't take long to find exactly where they live. I'll ask Sergei to help me find them." He seemed to sigh. "I thought . . . I thought you might be willing to help me."

"Help you what?" she asked. "Do you know this Talis was responsible for Ana's death?"

"No," Karl admitted. "But I certainly suspect it. He attacked me as soon as I made the accusation. Called her his enemy, said he considered himself at war." Karl's lips pressed together grimly. "Varina, I don't think Talis will let himself be caught without a fight. I'm going to need help, the kind of help the Numetodo can provide. We all saw what he could do in the temple, and a few Garde Kralji with swords and pikes aren't going to help much. You . . . You're the best a.s.set we have."

Yes, I'll help you, she wanted to say, if only to see a smile brighten his face or to chip away at the wall between them. But she couldn't. "I won't go after someone you just suspect, Karl. I especially won't do it when there's potentially an innocent woman and a child involved. Sorry."

She thought he'd be angry, but he only nodded, almost sadly, as if that was the answer he'd expected her to give. If it was, it still wasn't enough for him to apologize. The wall seemed to grow taller in her mind. "I understand," he said. "Varina, I want to-"

That was as far as he got. They both heard running footsteps in the corridor outside, and a panting Mika came to the open door. "Good," he said. "You're both here. There's news. Bad news, I'm afraid. It's the Regent. Sergei. The Council of Ca' has ordered him to be taken. He's in the Bastida."

Eneas cu'Kinnear.

SO FAR BELOW HIM that it looked like a child's toy on a lake, Stormcloud rode at anchor in the sunlight, sitting easily on the startlingly blue water of the deep harbor of Karnmor. Eneas walked the steep, winding streets of the city, reveling in the feel of solid ground under his feet again and enjoying the wide vistas the city offered. He wished he were a painter so that he could capture the pink-white buildings bright under a cloud-dappled sky, the deep azure of the harbor and the white-capped green of the Strettosei beyond it, the brilliant hues of the flags and banners, the flower boxes that hung from every window, the exotic clothes of those in the streets-though a painting could never capture the rest: the thousands of smells that flirted with the nose, or the taste of salt in the air, or the feel of the warm westerly breeze, or the sound of his sandals on the finely-crushed rock that paved Karnor's streets.

The main city of Karnor-Eneas had never understood why Karnmor's capital had been saddled with such a similar name-had been built on the rising flanks of the long-slumbering volcano that overshadowed the harbor, many of its buildings carved from the rock itself. Beyond the arms of the harbor, the Strettosei stretched unbroken out to the horizon, and from the heights of Mt. Karnmor, one could look eastward over the green expanse of the huge island and see, faintly, the blue band near the horizon that was the Nostrosei. Not far beyond that narrow sea lay the wide mouth of the River A'Sele, and perhaps thirty leagues up the river: Nessantico.

Munereo and the h.e.l.lins seemed far away, a distant lost dream. Karnmor and its smaller sister islands were part of North Nessantico. He was nearly home.

Eneas had to admit that Karnmor was still foreign in many ways. Its original inhabitants were mainly sea-people: fishermen and traders, their skin darkened by the sun and their tongues soft with strange accents, though they now spoke the language of Nessantico, their original tongue nearly forgotten except in a few small villages on its southern flank. The interior of the island was still largely wild, with impenetrable jungles along whose paths beasts of legend yet walked. In Karnor's streets, one might find spice traders from Namarro, or merchants from Sforzia or Paeti, and the goods of the h.e.l.lins came here first. If you can't find it in Karnor, it doesn't exist. That was the saying, and to a large extent, it was true-though he had heard the same claim of Nessantico. Still, Karnor was the true nexus for sea trade throughout the Strettosei.

Not surprisingly, the markets of Karnor were legendary. Spreading along what was called the Third Level of the city-the second of the terraces sculpted into the mountain-one could walk all day among the stalls and never reach the end. That was where Eneas found himself drawn, though he didn't quite know why. After the long voyage, he thought he would have wanted nothing more than to rest, but though he'd reported to the garrison of Karnor and been a.s.signed a room in the offizier's quarters, he'd found himself restless and unable to relax. He'd gone walking, winding up the levels to the Third, and moving from stall to stall curiously. Here there were odd purple fruits that smelled like rotten meat but tasted-as he nibbled with wrinkled nose at the sample the vendor gave him-sweet and wonderful, or herbs guaranteed, according to the seller, to increase a man's vitality and a woman's s.e.xual appet.i.te. There were knife sellers, farmers with their vegetables, bolts of cloth both local and foreign, papers and inks, charms and jewelry, carved toys, fine woods, musical instruments plucked or blown or hammered upon. Eneas listened to a drab gray bird in a wooden cage whose plaintive song sounded eerily like the voice of a young boy, the words of the song perfectly understandable; he touched furs softer than the finest damask when stroked one way, and yet whose tips would pierce skin if rubbed in the other direction; he examined dried, framed b.u.t.terflies whose glistening wings were wider than his own spread arms, dusted with iridescent, powdery gold and a blood-red skull drawn in the center of each wing.

Eneas eventually found himself standing before the stall of a chemist, the colored powders and liquids arrayed in gla.s.s jars on dangerously teetering shelves. He leaned close to a jar of white crystals, letting his forefinger run across the label glued onto the gla.s.s. Niter, the coppery handwriting proclaimed. The word seemed to crawl on the paper, and p.r.i.c.kles like tiny lightnings ran from his fingertip up his arm to his chest. He could barely breathe with the feel of it. "It's the finest you'll come across," a voice said, and Eneas straightened guiltily and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back, seeing the proprietor-a thin man with discolored skin dappling his face and arms-watching him from across the board that served for a table. "Gathered from the roof and walls of the deep caves near Kasama, and as pure as you can get. Are you afflicted with bad teeth, Offizier? A few applications of this and you can drink all the hot tea you like and your teeth will give you no complaint at all."

Eneas nodded. He blinked. He wanted to touch the jar again, but he forced his hand to remain at his side. You need this . . . The words came wrapped in the deep voice of Cenzi. He nodded in answer; that felt right. He needed this, though he didn't know why. "I'd like two stones' worth."

"Two stones . . ." The proprietor leaned back, chuckling. "Friend, does the entire garrison have sensitive teeth, or are you preserving meat for a battalion? All you need is a packet . . ."

"Two stones," Eneas insisted. "Can you do it? How much? A se'siqil?" He tapped the pouch tied to his belt.

The chemist was still shaking his head. "I can't get that much of the Kasama, but I have a good source from South Isle that's nearly as good. Two stones . . ." One eyebrow raised on his thin, blotchy face. "A full siqil," he said. "I can't do it for less."

At any other time, Eneas would have haggled. With persistence, he no doubt could have purchased the niter for his original offer or a few folias more. But there was an impatience inside him. It burned hot in his chest, a fire that only Cenzi could have started. He prayed silently, internally. Whatever You want of me, I will do. The black sand, I will create it for You . . . Eneas untied his purse, brought out two se'siqils and handed the coins to the man without argument. The chemist shook his head, frowning as he rubbed the coins between his fingers. "Some people have more money than sense," he muttered as he turned around.