I shook my head reflexively. It didn't mean no. It meant I don't care, I was too despairing and dispirited to answer.

He walked over to the bed where I was huddled in my misery. Popping the cap of the small flask he held it out. Whiskey. The smell flooded my senses. I wanted it. There was no way I could survive without it. It would make all the bad things go away. I didn't reach for it but didn't resist when he touched it to my lip. He didn't say anything. If he had I might have been able to resist. But I had something to teach. One thing. And suddenly I had a plan. The plan is what tipped me over. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the flask out of his hand and gulped.

I would have to cast the spell. I had no idea what it did. But that didn't matter. If it was good, I would take advantage of it. If bad I would just change the spell form randomly on the second casting and see what happened.

I didn't say it was a great plan. Anything could happen with an untried spell form. It is what makes research such a dangerous and solitary practice. All habitual spell researchers kill themselves. It's just a matter of time. Sometimes they learn something useful first. Sometimes they remember to teach someone else what it is that they have learned.

"Feeling better?"

I was. I had drank a couple of beers for breakfast. I'd even eaten something, though it was a ch.o.r.e and my stomach felt like a lead balloon afterward.

"Good," Larner oozed, "Glad to hear it. This afternoon, you will begin teaching. I'll come and fetch you."

I nodded acceptance. I had a plan. Everything would be fine. Or not. But it would be something other than this, and anything that wasn't this was good.

"You will see that the master is fair and just, Sumto. You won't regret serving him."

I nodded easily and sipped my beer. The snuffling and growling of the dogs had faded slightly. "I don't."

He nodded happily, headed for the door and opened it. On an impulse I asked him who I would be teaching.

He turned back, holding the door open. "Kukran Epthel, of course. There is no one else here who needs to learn."

"But there are others?"

"Do you think he would be alone? Do you think his wisdom would have gone unnoticed? Of course there are others. He is one of many. Though few have attained immortality. That learning is a rare privilege, rarely earned. There are a handful of others. He is not the oldest, but he is the best. Not the greatest, but the wisest. Anything else? Should I stay?" His voice had become animated, his eyes bright.

I shook my head. No, I don't want you to stay. Go away Larner. Just go away.

He did and I spent a few brief moments thinking over what he had said. One of many. Not the oldest, not the strongest. And there were more, not all like him, not walking corpses, but more Necromancers. Many more, by implication.

I turned away from the door just in time to see Sapphire drop to the balcony with a m.u.f.fled thump, tuck into a roll and come to his feet inside the room, eyes alert, body taut and ready to move. He looked better than the last time I had seen him. No blood, no bleeding. The bruising on his face had subsided somewhat. His eyes were more widely opened, I noticed as the cold blue of them focused on me.

"Dammit you made me jump," I hissed.

He smiled. "Sorry. Are you here?"

"Of course I'm here, are you blind?"

"Yes," Dubaku said from just behind me.

I spun like a top. "What the h.e.l.l... will you stop doing that both of you? Is there anyone else here?"

Sapphire snorted as he came by me. "Do you have it?"

"Yes." Dubaku held out a shortsword, sheathed.

"Good." Sapphire took it and tucked it into his belt. "This'll help."

"What are you both doing here? And how did you get in?"

Dubaku shrugged his thin shoulders. "My ancestors helped me. And so did you; I couldn't get through the door the first three times but this time he stood and talked for a while. It helped. This is for you."

I took the silver ring he held out to me. "What is it?"

"Put it on."

I hesitated, pointed at the shortsword. "And what was that?"

"Mine," Sapphire said succinctly.

I let it go. Doubtless Dubaku had stolen it, or reacquired it more accurately.

"How did you know Dubaku would be here?"

"Jocasta sends vivid dreams. We fixed the time last night. If that works you are leaving now. I'll make a diversion."

"How have you managed to stay free so long? How many have you killed?"

"Twenty-three," he grinned. "And I am way way better than them at this. Better training. More practice. They're just barbarians. Nothing. You slip behind them and they think you have disappeared. Superst.i.tious fools. If I am not under their noses it's like I don't exist."

It was the longest speech I'd ever heard him make. "Could you teach me?"

"Are you five years old?"

"No."

"Training starts at five. No exceptions," he grinned.

"You are enjoying this," I accused him even as I admired him.

"Absolutely. Try the ring. Time to go."

"No."

He shrugged. "Ruins the plan to get you out if you don't leave."

"They are taking me to Kukran Epthel this afternoon. I'm going to kill him."

"I like your plan better. How?"

"I have a knife for that, for the rest I'm making it up as I go."

His snort of humor was tinged with approval. "Spontaneity. Confound the opposition with unexpected actions. Good. But we are allies. Tell us what you have in mind."

"They want me to teach him. I'll try for as large a stone as I can get. I am planning to start with the spell Jocasta showed me, it may be enough, if not I will generate a random spell form and see what happens."

He shrugged, glanced at Dubaku. "Do you know what he means?"

Dubaku nodded. "I've been learning about spell forms. A random form can have any effect, just as you might expect. Any effect at all. It is very dangerous thing to do."

"Hmm. Risky. But if we all move at once it might work." He shrugged. "Or not."

"Keep Jocasta out of it."

"Why?"

"I mean it. Look, if this goes sour then I don't want her in his hands. She has too much knowledge and too much stone to risk him controlling her." It was a blatant rationalization and I suspected they both knew it. Sapphire's next words confirmed it.

"If necessary I'll kill her to keep those weapons out of his hands," he said, far too casually.

"No!"

"I was joking. But listen, we would have a better chance with her. Think about it. I'll be around." He nodded to Dubaku and headed back out the window. He gripped the balcony, pulled himself over and disappeared from sight. I listened for a moment, heard a shout, and then others as he was spotted and the chase was on again. I shook my head in wonder. Twenty-three. Not for the first time I wondered where my father had found him, and where he was from. Training begins at five, he had said, training to be an a.s.sa.s.sin? Where did they train a.s.sa.s.sins from age five? And what did they begin to teach them at that age?

"This is rash," Dubaku said.

"Yes, but I am going to do it anyway."

"A knife won't kill him."

"I know. It was a joke. For Sapphire. I have another idea for that. I plan to set him on fire. I figure he is dry and will burn pretty good."

"He will be guarded."

"I know. I'll a.s.sess it when I see him."

"We are not idle, Sumto. Things are happening. Sapphire is not alone in addressing the numbers of the enemy."

"What are you doing?"

"Raising the populous. The army is gone. There is only a small garrison here. It might be wiser to wait."

I shook my head. "I won't wait. I know my own limits. If I obey him it will get to be a habit. I think that is what happens to all of them, regardless of how he makes them obey him the first time. I've been thinking about it. Pretending to be him. Working out what he thinks, how he thinks, what it would be like to be dead and yet alive, how he would 'feel' and what would amuse him. I think all the torture and trickery just amuses him and the secret is that he has a spell that reinforces obedience. He will order me to show him a spell today, not ask me. I know it."

Dubaku was silent. "And if you obey once, will it be enough for him to own you?"

"I won't obey, I'll push power into an unknown spell form, knowing that whatever happens cannot yet be called a spell by any sane being. I won't cast a spell, I'll unleash chaos."

After a moment he nodded. "Shankara."

"What?"

A faint luminescence grew into the form of a tall woman who stood behind him and wrapped him in her arms, fading into nothing as she did so, and taking him with her.

After a moment I stirred back to life and went to the door. I waited to be sure he was ready and then opened it.

The guards became instantly alert. "What do you want?"

The door had not been locked once since I was put in the room. I hadn't found it odd at the time but why take the chance, I wondered? Part of a game? Or were they so sure that I could not get out? Over-confidence. They had been overconfident with Sapphire and that had cost them twenty-three men so far.

"What? Oh, food. I'm famished."

"And some more beer, eh?" The other piped up.

"Yes. More beer. Good idea."

"Shut the door. We'll see if it is possible."

I nodded. "Right. Good."

I realized that I was still holding the gifted silver ring in my hand and wondered what it did. Without another thought I slipped it on. Nothing happened.

Well, that was unlikely. Jocasta was no fool. I looked at my hands and saw it after just a second, a tattoo on the back of my left hand, near the wrist. I pulled back my sleeve to reveal a brawnier arm than I now possessed. The tattoo ran up my arm. It was an illusion. A ring that made me look like... who? A barbarian soldier almost certainly. I looked at the ring. There was no stone. The only way to make such an item was to sacrifice a stone in the making, putting it into the metal. The ring would never do anything else but cast this illusion on the wearer. The cost was high. It might well be useful. If I caused enough chaos and yet had to flee this might make the difference.

Taking off the ring, I slipped it in my pocket and took a turn around the room, pacing. How much time? Too much. I didn't want to think. The plan, such as it was, was laid. This afternoon I would be brought into the presence of Kukran Epthel. If there were too many with him, I would have to change my plan, if few enough I would act. He would command me to show him a spell, and with the sorcerers' loupe in his eye socket he would watch. I would need stone to do the casting. I would use the form Jocasta had shown me as a base, change it and cast randomly, and as strongly as the stone allowed. It would achieve something, if not something good enough then I would change it again and cast again. Anything could happen. But one way or another I would end this today. I couldn't stand it any more, and perhaps it was as simple as that. I had hit my limit and it was time to end it.

Stepping through the ward made me wince, but I had become accustomed to the pain. Fewer guards responded to the alarm than ever, and with less enthusiasm. They watched me. I watched them. It would have been simpler to put me in a room without windows. To lock the door. But that had not happened. Something about that bothered me and I worried at it until I saw that Kukran Epthel would not change the terms of the game once they were set. I remembered the nameless girl who had tried to catch me in her fantasy; the door had been unlocked then. The guards outside guarding me in that fantasy, not keeping me from escaping. The orders had been given to set the fantasy and they had not changed. No one had changed them. Kukran Epthel was guilty of rigid thinking. Perhaps, I thought, it is a price paid for his existence. An inability to change his mind, to issue new orders when the situation changed. And underlings tend to mimic the thinking of their master. Inertia, coupled with the tendency to forget that the routine itself is not the purpose.

Thoughtfully, I wondered back into the room. Could I use this to my advantage? What decisions had been made that he would not think to change? The room I was in, the unlocked door, what else did I know? I thought about the audience chamber, remembering details. Imagining myself there again, trying to recall every detail. Two guards on the door. Were there two guards on every door, no matter the circ.u.mstances? It didn't matter now, but yes, there were two guards at the door of the audience chamber. The undead that he kept with him or who were always there, waiting. Did he go anywhere, do anything, without strong motive? His body was dead, it had no needs to be fulfilled. Did he lack purpose? Was inertia part of his nature? Probably. Yes. That fit. It made sense, he needed no exercise, no food or drink. He need not move or act to fulfill the desires of his body as he had none. If that seeped into his thinking then he would be slow to react to anything new. His servants would be the same. All of a sudden it made sense that Sapphire had been able to roam freely, killing as he willed and disappearing and never being tracked down. What was it Sapphire had said? 'If I am not under their noses it's like I don't exist.' The barbarians had lost the ability to respond to change, the culture of inertia seeping into their thinking. They did not band and perform methodical searches in numbers sufficient to deal with the problem. They reacted sluggishly, a stirred nest, then returned to routine as soon as the immediate threat was gone. The new servants, the mages and healers, they were not so moribund in their thinking. Larner had put the ward at the balcony, embedded the stone in my skull, created his monstrous dogs to hunt me should I escape. Ferrian had thought to wonder how I had been found, and sought until he found an answer a the attuning of my stone and that of Jocasta. These were more dynamic minds, not yet steeped in the culture of obedience and inertia. If I was right, Larner would come to fetch me into the presence of the lich, who would still be in the audience room where I had encountered him before. My two doorkeepers would come with us. If I was right there would be two guards on the door outside. The undead would be there, but no one else. Their presence was enough to intimidate. Larner, two guards inside, two outside, and the undead. Plus whatever spirits Kukran Epthel could summon to his aid. And, of course, whatever he had learned from the battle mages in the meantime.

My short list of enemies suddenly seemed impossibly long. Four guards, eight undead, one battle mage and Kukran Epthel himself.

Set patterns, inertia, slow to react. To deal with that, do what? Sow the seeds of chaos? How did it advantage me to let them set the pace, to work within the rigid framework Kukran Epthel had set? How had Sapphire put it? 'Spontaneity. Confound the opposition with unexpected actions.' Suddenly I laughed. What was I waiting for? Why was I letting them dictate the pace?

I fished out my knife from its hiding place. The stone set in my forehead wasn't much, enough for cantrips and little more. But Larner had fixed a weapon in my head and it might be enough.

Time to act. Chaotically, randomly, spontaneously, to be everything that Kukran could not be. Time to be alive. Time to be creative.

I was done with waiting..

"Where's my drink?!" I bellowed the question as I strode boldly across the corridor and came nose to nose with a surprised guard. His arms rose instinctively to push me away and I slipped my knife hand around under his elbow and jerked it hard toward my own chest. It sank deep and must have hit a kidney as he didn't make a sound, eyes widened, face shocked, breath stilled. Not a sound came out of him, his body gone rigid as every muscle contracted, back arched slightly. I let go the knife and dropped my hand to the hilt of his sword, stepping back and pulling it clear.

His partner had not been completely taken by surprise. "What the.." he had started to say, shutting up when he saw his soon-to-be-dead companion's reaction. He knew what a killing thrust looked like and was pulling his own sword free at the same time as my stolen blade cleared.

Cantrips are useless but if your beard suddenly ignites it can be a bit distracting. An all over body flinch was enough of a reaction to allow me to stab him in the throat, knocking the emerging shout of surprise right out of him.

And there I was. A man alone in hostile surroundings, somewhat tipsy, with a sword in his hand, looking up and down the corridor and knowing that he was absolutely doing the right thing. As long as I kept moving, kept sowing the seeds of chaos, kept the enemy reacting to my actions, everything would pan out. Or not, as Sapphire had said. For the second time I had an insight into his thinking and grinned happily as I strode boldly down the corridor looking for someone to make react to me. Just like pain, winning doesn't matter. Just as life is pain, so too is life action.

So act!