"She needs a good spanking."

"Likes the kinky stuff, does she?"

"Wolf!" Hogwood took two strides to the fireplace and lifted down a small greenish carving. "Look at this!"

The men joined her. Grand Master had called it a "somewhat sinister-looking cat," but it was only a kitten.Yet ...was that a subtly malign look in its eye? Yes, this might be a very tricky feline when it grew up.The style was by now unmistakable.

"Which of you is Sir Wolf and how may I assist you?"The man in the doorway was no better dressed than his butler and not much less bulky, although he was carrying muscle, not fat. He seemed around forty, weathered and dark, not especially tall, but with a self-assurance that did not appreciate uninvited guests meddling with his possessions. He held Grand Master's letter. Although he did not look like his father, Wolf recognized the glare.

He bowed."I am Wolf, my lord.Your honored father sent me to ask you where you got this cat."

The scowl darkened.

"May I present Inquisitor Hogwood . . . Sir Lynx of the Blades.We have ridden for four days to ask you this. My commission-"

Roland took the writ, raised his eyebrows at the royal seal, glanced over the text, then returned it with a half-bow. "My father is clearly 124.

THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS.

P.

not the only one who holds you in high regard, Sir Wolf. How may I help you?"

Wolf held up the kitten.

The farmer's laugh had a solid, trustworthy sound. "You were seri-ous? Sigisa. Don't tell my father, but I won it in a dice game in a tavern."

Sigisa? That meant nothing.Wolf said, "Where-"

"But it came originally from Tlixilia."

Hogwood said, "Oh, ofcourse!" as if that explained everything.

2.The Hence Lands were discovered about forty years ago by some Dis-tlish sailors blown far to the west by a storm.. . ."

The Baron had suffered no argument-business could wait, the vis-itors would spend the night at Ivywalls, and his home would be hon-ored by their presence. He offered every comfort, even dry clothes kept on hand for travelers, there being only so much that one could pile on a horse.

Wolf found himself bedecked in a burgundy brocade jerkin finer than anything he had ever worn. Later, enjoying a superb meal, and sip-ping seductive wine from a crystal goblet, he decided this was how all swordsmen should go adventuring. Hogwood shimmered in a jade silk gown belonging to Baroness Maud herself, who was an ivory figurine, gracious and aristocratic. Small children romped somewhere in the background in the care of servants.

Magnificently fed and dry for the first time in days, three grateful travelers settled down in the library with their host. A couple of their bags had been brought in and set down in a corner to reek of horse. The Baron swore the oath of secrecy without demur, knowing that he would learn nothing at all if he didn't.

"Distlain," he said, "managed to keep the discovery quiet for a few years, long enough for its men to establish that there were scores of is- 125.

Dave Duncan P.

lands involved, some of them very large. Finding that the people there were defenseless against properly armed and trained soldiers, the Distliards claimed the territory for their king. Other nations learned what was happening and failed to see why King Diego should own all that terri-tory. Distlain established bases in the area and tried to keep the rest of Eurania away by force. Times got exciting. They still are, from what I hear."

Obviously he was enjoying a ray of excitement in the drab bore-dom of winter."Once or twice, I even found myself fighting my King's friends in the company of his foes. Baels, no less! Father never knew that, fortunately."

He stopped to smile inquiringly at Hogwood. Men always smiled at her, but in this case she had indicated by a minute readjustment of an eyebrow that she wanted to ask a question.

"I've often wondered, my lord," she said,"why Baels didn't discover the Hence Lands first."

"I'm sure they did. Many of the spices and dyestuffs they traded that were supposed to be from the distant east had really come from the west, but they kept the secret. The Hence Lands offer little for Baelish tastes, though. Most of the islands are small and have little or no water. When there arenaturales on those, they're starving primitives, living on fish and roots and any visitors they can get their hands on."

He chuck-led heavily."When they say you will stay for dinner, they really mean it. The Distliards take them for slaves, but the Baels never bothered. Slaves don't travel well and Baelmark could always pick up better slaves closer to market.

"Then there's the big islands, and some of them are enormous, big-ger than Chivial. They're jungly and mostly mountainous: Fradieno, Mazal, Condridad, and others.Their culture is primitive, better than the small islands had, but producing nothing worth stealing from a Baelish or Distlish point of view.The Distliards have colonized them, setting up plantations for cotton and spices and so on, none of which would have any appeal to a Bael. Baels don't farm.Thenaturalesstill hold out in the interiors in many places, raiding the Distlish towns.

"Finally there's the mainland.We had several names for it in my day, 126.

THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS.

P.

but now it seems to be one big continent. Leastways, no one's found a way around it yet. It has huge mountains near the coast in places. And it has real cities.The greatest of those is Tlixilia."

Roland paused, studying the wine in his glass. "That's properly the name of the imperial city, but it got applied to its empire, which in-cludes many lesser cities, and sometimes people extend the name for the whole mainland. Now the Distliards have taken to calling the city itselfEl Dorado , the place of gold. It is reputedly bursting with gold and art and precious things, magnificent buildings. Those who have seen it rave about it, but they're allnaturalesof one tribe or another. I don't think any Euranian has seenTlixiliaCity itself and returned to tell of it. The Distliards claimed sovereignty overEl Dorado , too, and sent armed expeditions inland to explain to the Emperor that he was now King Diego's vassal.The Tlixilians disagreed then and haven't been convinced yet."

"Good fighters?" Lynx asked, picking his teeth with a fingernail.

"Yes and no. I've never met them. From what I heard, they have no iron, no bronze, just gold, silver, and a little copper, so their weapons are edged with stone.They make armor from cotton padding, and it's more effective in that climate than steel plate, but most of them scorn to wear it.They fight for odd reasons, in odd ways.They try not to kill their op-ponents.They prefer to take prisoners-for slaves, and also for food, be-cause they have no cattle or other large livestock, and a man tires of beans.That hampers them, because it's harder to overpower a man than it is to kill him. One-on-one in an equal contest, they're fighters as fierce as any in the world, but put fifty Euranians against fifty Tlixilians with their own styles of fighting and the Euranians will win every time. Luckily the odds weren't even.The naturalesoutnumbered the Distliards by a thousand to one, and blotted them. The Distliards regrouped and began organizing the Tlixilians' local foes against them.Things started to get bloody.

"But the Tlixilians are still independent and the Distliards daren't set foot on that part of the mainland.They maintain a few trading posts on offshore islands, notably Sigisa. That's where I picked up the cat. It had come from the mainland, but I don't know how-looting being more 127.

Dave Duncan P.

likely than honest trade.Battle honors, perhaps. I got a gold lip stud the same way. Did Father mention that?"

"I saw it at Ironhall,"Wolf said. "A serpent."

Roland nodded."Mother had been a White Sister and detested that thing. She couldn't say why, just that it was evil."

"You haven't mentioned Tlixilian conjury, my lord," Hogwood said.

"Sir Wolf hasn't asked me to." He tempered the remark with an-other not-fatherly smile at her before looking to Wolf. "Relevant?"

"Very."

"I'm no expert." He pulled a face. "I do know it's different from ours. It's reputed to be extremely powerful, but that may be just the Dis-tlish excuse for their battlefield disasters. Tlixilian conjuration is largely or entirely devoted to warfare, and it involves human sacrifice. All their conjurers belong to one or other of two great military orders.You ever heard of thejaguara?"

Hogwood frowned; the Blades shook their heads.

"It's a pard, a huge spotted cat, very deadly.That carving represents ajaguaracub.The Tlixilians are reputed to name their conjurer-knights after thejaguaraand the eagle, the night hunter and the day hunter.

There are wild stories about feats of conjury in battle. If you believe them, their spiritual power comes from ripping the beating hearts out of sacrificial victims."

Hogwood and Wolf exchanged glances.

Lynx snorted. "Pig wallow! What sort of conjury would that be?"

"Very potent!" Hogwood said. "But limited in scope. I can't see doing a healing that way, because you would be invoking death, not re-voking it, but you could summon some of the elementals in immense strength. The heart itself combines five of the eight: earth because it is a solid, water and fire from the blood it pumps, plus time and love. Add deliberate death and you have gathered power to fashion massive con-jurations. And chance!" she added quickly."You said they used captives taken in battle?

That supplies the element of chance. Seven out of the eight! Only air is missing."

The Baron chuckled."They commit their atrocities on top of tow-ers.That would bring in air elementals, wouldn't it?"

128 THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS.

P.

"Of course!" Dolores looked pleased.

Wolf shuddered. "But what do they do with this foul ritual?"

"Well," said the Baron, "for example, I've heard tell of an enchant-ment called 'the Serpent's Eye' that turns whole companies of troops into slobbering idiots-conscious, but unable to use their arms even to defend themselves. There's tales of sentries found impaled with their own pikes and tents full of sleeping men where every second man had his throat cut without the others hearing a sound. And ambushes galore-armies rising out of the dust. I'm just repeating hearsay, you un-derstand. Distlish propaganda."

"Believe it."

Roland raised eyebrows expectantly. It was time to pay the piper.

"Ten days ago,"Wolf said,"several hundred Tlixilians came ashore atQuondamCastle . They probably arrived by conjuration, but we can't prove that.They stormed the fortress, carried off the castellan's wife, and then disappeared.We lost thirty dead and about half that wounded; their death toll was over fifty. It took less than an hour.They departed by con-juration, ritually slaying two young men in the process."

Roland's face had gone slack with shock. "Here?InChivial?"

"Not far from Ironhall."

"That is incredible.What for?"

"We don't know. A warning? A threat? Retaliation? Is it possible that Tlixilians don't know the difference between Distlain and Chivial?"

"Very possible. The distance is enormous. It takes months to . . . They came inSecondmoon?"

"In bare feet in Secondmoon, some of them. We collected feather cloaks, labrets, gold, jade. Lynx, here, was almost massacred by one of your jaguar knights. We have his corpse-half man, half jaguar.

Proba-bly some of the eagle knights you mentioned were present also."

The Baron shook his head in amazement."The Council must be se-riously concerned."

"The Council is going out of its mind,"Wolf said with relish."For-tunately your father was available to take over. He did a wonderful job. It was he who identified the unknowns' gear as having come from the same place as your cat and the serpent head. Inquisitor, if you would be 129.

Dave Duncan P so kind as to open the bags? I want to show you some artifacts, my lord, and ask you to confirm his opinion. I am sure His Majesty will reward you well."That was a lie. "Lynx, show his lordship your pendant."

The doublet provided for Lynx was strained across his chest, so the neck laces were already loose. He reached into his shirt and brought out the mosaic plaque of the jaguar. He pulled it up for the Baron to see. The Baron held out a hand for it. Reluctantly Lynx took it off and passed it over.

Roland examined it with interest. "I've seen some of this mosaic work before. Definitely Tlixilian style. I won't swear it's fromEl Dorado itself, but somewhere very close by. Horrible thing, isn't it?"

Eventually he returned the image to Lynx, who put it on quickly, without looking at it. Hogwood was still working on the bags, so she hadn't seen it either, and apparently Wolf managed to control his face enough that the other men failed to notice his shock.The jaguar's eyes were now open.

3.Later they sang songs while Lady Maud played on the virginals; they drank a nightcap with a toast to His Majesty, and they trooped upstairs to bed. Ivywalls was old, built to the antique plan of rooms laid out in sequence. Thus Hogwood's clothes, cleaned and dry, were tidily set on the dresser in the first,Wolf's in the second, Lynx's in the third, and the host and hostess continued on beyond that, since they would naturally use the most private chamber at the end.The others must just remem-ber to draw their bed curtains.

There were no fires in the fireplaces, but in Wolf's room a pretty chambermaid was running a long-handled pan of hot coals back and forth under the covers. He gave her a farthing, thanked her, and bade her good night. She curtseyed as best she could without dropping the pan or meeting his eye.

130.

THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS.

P.

She caught Lynx's though. "Could touch up your sheets again, sir? Was just about to."

He beamed. "Please do. I like my bed snug."

She hurried into his room. He followed.Wolf waited for her to leave.

She didn't.

The door closed. Evidently she had agreed to warm the bed personally-either on the promise of a larger tip, or just because Blades were so cuddly.

Wolf marched in before things went too far. There was no sign of the girl, but the bed curtains were closed and the warming pan had been safely placed on the hearth. Lynx had his shirt off and was just about to blow out the candles. The thong was still around his neck, which must mean he wore the plaque both day and night.

He turned to scowl.Wolf scowled back, but less at him than at that hateful thing snarling amid his brown chest fuzz. His scars were as grue-some as ever.

"I want that pendant now, please."

"Tonight? Why tonight?" His refusal was worrisome but not sur-prising.

"I don't need it but you certainly don't. Have you noticed how it's changed?"

"What of it?"

Aware that the girl would be listening,Wolf said,"Lynx, that's a po-tent conjuration, the symbol of a jaguar knight. It's active. It'salive.Re-member the thing that wore it? You want to change into one of those? Take it offnow!" Wolf reached for it.

Lynx slapped his hand away."No." "Lynx! I'm your brother. And if you won't trust your brother, then I order you in the King's name." "Right of conquest, remember?" He folded his arms.Ratterstill hung on his belt and the move put his hand closer to her hilt.

"No.Heconqueredyou. Please give it to me."

"No." Lynx grinned, little-boyish. "I'm a bound Blade, Wolfie, which means I'm as proof against conjuration as any man can be. Can't a lynx carry Mommy's picture next his heart?"

131.

Dave Duncan P.

"It belongs to the King. Hand it over!"

"No! I have taken a fancy to my pussycat. I won't go to jail for it, but it means more to me than it does to Athelgar. So no. I will not hand it over.Want to fight me for it?"

"You are crazy!" Wolf left before they terrified the girl out of her wits. Back in the good old days, Lynx had done anything he said with-out a blink.