Tennetty was still talking. "See that dark spot on the rug? It'sa""

Jason stood, swallowing heavily, and tried to summon up a command voice. "Tennetty, shut up. Right now."

"a"what's left of your father, anda""

"Shut up."

Her eyes met his for a long moment.

There was a taste of bile in the back of his mouth. Wasn't she going to back down?

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason could see Bren Adahan and Aeia slowly moving their chairs back, but he didn't dare drop his gaze. "Put the gun away, Tennetty," he said. "Right now."

Fire flared in the courtyard outside; the dragon roared. *Put it away.*

Jason didn't turn to look. He kept his eyes on Tennetty's. "Now."

Swearing under her breath, she unc.o.c.ked the pistol and holstered it. "You do his voice very well," Tennetty said. "But he wouldn't have used it like that on me, not when I was backing him. So maybe one day we'll see just how well you walk in his footsteps. Maybe real soon, one way or another."

With that, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

Jason found that his knees really didn't want to support him; he sat down heavily. "My apologies, everyone. Tennetty was devoted to my father, and she misses him. And my particular apologies to you, Baron Derahan. While it was your father who issued the challenge, my father should have given him a chance to reconsider."

Derahan didn't look mollified.

*Why should he? You've now implied that his father was a fool for challenging yours. He was, mind, but that doesn't make it politic to say so. Now sit back and let Thomen change the subject.*

"In any case," Thomen was already saying, "this does suggest that the Heir ought to travel to Home, in the company of Ellegon and perhaps a few others. Clearly, it would be wrong for the Engineer to give out the secret of gunpowder to the elves, no matter what the pay to Home. With the Emperor dead . . ."

" . . . I'm the best amba.s.sador you've got," Jason said.

*Smile, and repeat after me . . .*

Jason smiled.

*"Unless you think there's another who outranks me?"*

"Unless you think there's another who outranks me?"

"I've got an idea." Bren Adahan chuckled. "Whoever thinks they outrank Jason gets to tell Tennetty."

"You've made a good point." Nerahan pursed his lips judiciously. "Gunpowder is the advantage that Home and the Empire share; it's valuable to both, but only as long as it is secret. Perhaps the Heir can persuade Lou Riccetti of that."

"Yes, yes, yes," Baron Hivael put in. "But why this other trip? This one to Endell?"

Jason opened his mouth to answer, Because Walter Slovotsky told me to.

But, actually, that wasn't true. Walter had told them to have Ellegon bring Kirah and the children to Holtun-Bieme as soon as possible. He hadn't said that Jason ought to go along.

But it was Jason's job to do it; it wasn't something he felt right about a.s.signing to somebody else. Part of it would be to tell Kirah and Slovotsky's daughters that their father and Ahira were still missing. He just couldn't delegate that.

"Because I promised I would," he said. That was truthful, even if it wasn't the whole truth. He'd promised himself another trip away, before he settled down as prince of Bieme and emperor of Holtun-Bieme.

Jason rose. At the near end of the room stood the slightly raised podium, where the richly carved throne of the prince of Bieme stood. Next to the throne was a locked strongbox. Taking a large bra.s.s key from his belt, he knelt and unlocked the box, pulling from it a simple circlet of silver, the beauty of the mirror-polished metal more enhanced than overshadowed by the rubies, diamonds and emeralds that studded it.

"Warriors swear on swords. I've sworn on this," he said, adding privately, as of now, "that I'll take this trip, before I even consider a.s.suming the crown and my full responsibilities. Who here would make me a liar?"

Surprisingly, at least to Jason, the murmurs ceased. Thomen gave him an admiring nod.

As the meeting tapered off, Jason turned to Thomen. Relay, please: Well, how'd I do?

Thomen frowned.

*He says, "Pretty poorly, actually. The admiring nod was for my audience, not for you. But perhaps you didn't do too badly, for a beginner."*

Jason put the crown away in its cloth bag, and then looked out in the courtyard.

And I suppose I'm going to be graced with your opinion, whether I want it or not.

*Good guess.* Below, the dragon was settling in for the night, neck stretched out so he could rest his chin on the ground, his legs tucked catlike underneath his body. *Me? I think Thomen was half right. The first half.*

Well, at least it was settled that Jason was going. Now, all there was to do was decide on a team. Best to talk that over with Tennetty; her judgment about these sorts of things was better than his. Even if she was ticked at him.

INTERLUDE.

Laheran and the Dead Men

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

a"Thomas Kempis The wind came across the Cirric, blowing across the guildhall and the kennels, which, oddly enough, didn't smell of anything. That was strange; slave kennels always smelled of s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s and fear, and sometimes death.

There were a dozen people standing on the hot stones of the courtyard of the Erifeyll guildhall, and most of them smelled of fear.

Fear wasn't the only thing that the two ragged men and the girl stank of; there were no baths to be had in Erif's dungeon. The foolsa"didn't know how to handle merchandise. There was no way for them to run, and nowhere to run if they did.

Not only were all three chained at the wrists, throat and ankles, but a half dozen of Lord Erif's armsmen stood by, armed cap pied.

Erifeyll, just two days away from glorious Pandathaway.

"The entry was through the rear," a guard said. "Somebody pulled the bars right out of the wall," he added. "But at least they didn't get away."

Laheran ignored him. The idiot seemed to think that because some of the slaves were recaptured, this wasn't a horrible defeat. The details didn't matter. This was Erifeyll. Did that mean that Pandathaway was next? Probably not. That was too obvious. So, probably Pandathaway was next, because they'd think that the guild would think not. So probably not, so probably, soa"

Laheran sighed. One thing he had learned as an apprentice was that when you didn't know how to solve a whole problem, it made sense to solve what you could while you were thinking. He turned to the slaves.

The girl whimpered and squirmed as Laheran examined her collar. Not guild work. There was a reason that most guild collars were dipped in gold, despite the cost. Gold didn't rust.

The iron of these collars was rusty, and like sandpaper. The rust had worn her neck raw underneath; at Laheran's nod, two of his men gripped her with practiced hands so that he could inspect her more closely. His probing finger came away with blood and a greenish pus.

"Idiots," he said. And: "Key."

The guard sergeant thought about protesting for a moment, then shrugged and pulled a key out of his pouch. Laheran quickly unlocked the collar and dropped it to the dirt.

The wound was festering badly.

Amateurs. As though the only way to treat slaves was with beatings and chains. The girl was twelve, perhaps thirteen. Her round eyes and sharp chin proclaimed her of Shattered Islander stock, clearly, possibly Klimosian or Bursosi. She could be almost presentable, quite attractive in a year or two, and might well respond better to kindness than the whip if she wasn't to be brutalized into scarred ugliness and sullen tractability.

Practiced fingers felt at her foreheada"she was running a fevera"then dropped to feel at the rest of her. Hmm . . . perhaps sooner than a few years.

He turned to Kelimon. "Take the three of them to the ship. A bit of healing draughts on the neck should be enough, but examine them all thoroughly; she may need more." Laheran turned to the guard sergeant. "They are all property of the Slavers' Guild; all were caught as fugitives."

But the majority of the dozen or so slaves in the kennelsa"Laheran would have to check the records in order to be sure just how manya"had escaped, taking with them what horses and what money the guild had had here.

Still, there was nothing more that these three could tell him. They'd only seen the dwarf, who had hustled them outside through the rear window of the slave cage.

The guard shook his head. "I think Lord Kuryila"he's the keeper of the dungeona"expressed an interest in her."

"Then he should have had the sense to see that her health was attended to," Laheran said from between taut lips. "She is not for sale here. Take them away, Kelimon, take all three of them away. We'll drop them off at guildhall in Pandathaway."

Normally, Laheran would have taken the guard's comment as an opening for a negotiation. But if Kuryil was deliberately degrading the girl's condition in order to lower her price, he ought to be taught a lesson. Besides, Laheran was irritated with all of them. He was honest enough to admit to himself that that was the real reason he was rebuffing Kuryila"not to educate the lord, or even because he suspected that a bath, some healing, and a few tendays of gentle but firm handling might increase the girl's value.

The gray-robed wizard and his apprentice stood to one side, twin masks of indifference on their bearded faces. The apprentice looked like a painting of the wizard as a young man; Laheran could see where the squint-lines were beginning to form, tracks of a buzzard around the eyes.

"Shall I open it now?" the wizard asked. "Or shall we all stand out in the hot sun all day?"

Laheran stood in front of the door. As before, there were those awkward Englits scrawlings and the signatures were symbolsa"a sword, a knife and an axa"but the final words were in Erendra.

The warrior lives, they said.

And: Don't open this door. A surprise for slavers waits inside. Preserve it for them.

Laheran looked at the wizard and at the guards. "You take orders from Karl Cullinane, do you?" he asked, more rhetorically than otherwise.

One of the guards bit back a response.

"Well?" Laheran snapped. "Out with it."

"It cost Lord Erif a goodly amount of money to have it preserved for you, Master Laheran," the guard said. "He did it for you, as a gesture of cooperation with your guild, not because he takes orders from Karl Cullinane, or anyone else."

Laheran nodded. "There's truth in that. My apologies." He set his palm against the splintered wood of the door, but it didn't move. He pushed harder, and harder, but still there was no motion, not even the slight give of a bolted door.

He walked to a shuttered window, worked his fingers in between the overhang of the shutter and the wall, and pulled.

Again, nothing happened; the spell of preservation had kept the building sealed, just as the murderers had left it.

He sighed. Enough; it had to be done sometime.

"Release the spell," Laheran said.

The wizard stepped up to the door and lightly touched it with a split-nailed finger, quietly but carefully p.r.o.nouncing three syllables that could only be heard and forgotten, not remaining on the tongue or the mind.

The shutter released and swung violently open, barely missing Laheran's nose. The slam of it against the wall sent hands reaching for swords.

He drew his own sword and, standing carefully to one side of the window, stuck it inside and waved it around.

Nothing happened.

One of the guards stepped forward. "I don't understand why all the delay," he said as he took a step forward and pushed on the door.

Laheran moved quickly, catching the guard across the waist in a leaping tackle, just as the door swung wide.

Thwup.

A feathered bolt bit into the guard's shoulder; the heavy man dropped his weapons and screamed.

Laheran rolled easily to his feet, brushing himself off. "Best take your man to the Spider," he said to the other guards, as one knelt over the pale form of the idiot who had opened the door. "There's nothing to interest you here."

Laheran stepped inside. It was as he'd thought: one of the dead men was Daviran. He'd apprenticed with Daviran years ago; Davi was one of Laheran's few friends.

And now clever Davi sat in a chair, his face pale in death, his throat slit from ear to ear.

There was nothing alive inside the kennel. He could see one body spread out on the floor, and there was another dead man sitting in a chair, and yet another tied upside-down to the top crosspiece of the slave cage, but a live man hadn't fired the bolt; a crossbow had been nailed to an open closet door opposite the entry, and an improvised rope and pulley arrangement set up to make it fire through the opening door.

Laheran knelt to examine the body under the table. The right hand was crushed, splinters of bones peeking through the b.l.o.o.d.y flesh, as if someone had run the hand through a wine press.

That hadn't killed him, though; his chest was crushed, the breastbone smashed inward, probably killing the man instantly.

That smelled of the dwarf, Ahira, and Davi's slit throat spoke of Walter Slovotsky.

And the poor, dead b.a.s.t.a.r.d tied upside-down to the cage was pure Karl Cullinane. Laheran let his hand rest on the short length of spear that projected from the dead slaver's chest.

He could just see the monster tying the guildsman upside-down, and then taking his time hefting a spear, only to throw it almost through the slaver.

The three of them would die, and that was all there was to it.

Laheran drew his knife and considered the edge. Was it really possible to cut a man ten thousand times without killing him? Ahrmin had been right: Cullinane was too much of a threat to be allowed to live. He had to die. And his friends with him.