"How much magic do you have?" I asked him. "What spells?"

He glared at the stone in my forehead and I glared back. "Just tell me," I threatened.

So he did.

They threw Sapphire into the cell some time later.

The rattling of a key in the lock woke me and I came to my feet. Tahal didn't bother. He just sat with his back to the wall, gazing indifferently at the door.

Kerral stood in the light beyond the doorway. His face was shadowed but I knew him straight away. The size of him, the way he stood. These things were familiar. He had saved my life once, I remembered. What would he do now?

He moved a little, pointing at Tahal. "You, come with me."

Tahal hesitated, then shifted reluctantly. Getting to his feet seemed an unendurable ch.o.r.e. "Well, goodbye, Sumto. Good luck." he said, and went.

I just watched him go. He had the ten carat ring and wasn't doing a thing. What could I say? There was nothing. I stared after him, dully horrified, Knowing that the stupid drunken Sumto had been tricked into giving up his one a.s.set, yet still hoping that Tahal was just biding his time.

I wished for a moment that I hadn't beaten him. Then was glad I did while I had the chance.

Kerral moved back into the light, watching me. As soon as he was sure I was watching him he shrugged and moved away from the doorway. Two husky barbarians took his place, carrying a burden between them. They threw Sapphire at my feet and closed the door without a word.

I stood in shock for a moment, looking down at him. I couldn't see much but his clothes were dark with blood and I could hear his breathing. It didn't sound good.

"Well," I said softly, "you found me."

It took a time to get him into a position where I might be able to lift him onto a cot. He was heavier than he looked and I was trying to be careful not to hurt him. Not that he would feel it. He had taken more than one crack to the head and was deeply unconscious. I was worried about his ribs, about making things worse. There was a pink blood frothing at his lips as he breathed shallowly. He had taken wounds everywhere and his clothes were drenched in blood. His left arm was broken. I changed my mind about lifting him and instead dragged the mattress off my cot and laid it on the floor, easing him slowly onto it. I tried to make him comfortable. There was nothing else I could do. I stripped his shirt and bound his wounds with care. Some were still bleeding sluggishly. He'd lost a lot of blood. When I had done as best I could I covered him with every blanket in the cell and settled down to watch him.

Tahal was gone. I couldn't believe my stupidity in coming here to rescue him. He had the stone. And Sapphire was dying. I didn't see how things could get worse.

I watched Sapphire. Listened to his ugly breathing. Sometimes he moved in his unnatural sleep, whimpered and lay still. I doubted he'd ever wake.

I wished I could sleep too. I was exhausted, but sleep had never been further away from me. I wondered what they would do with me. Wondered if Kukran would try and Turn me once more or just leave me here to rot. They hadn't brought food or even water. I suspected they would just leave me here to die. Us, I thought; they are going to leave us here to die.

The dogs had become loud in my head, and I had to fight to think through their raucous, relentless baying. They sounded close. Abruptly their tone changed to frenzied rage, ferocious growls mixed in with long ululating yelps and yammering screams chopped off abruptly. They were fighting and dying, being killed. Who would do that? Hope welled up inside me. I knew that the Alendi had retreated to the Eyrie. They must have had reason; the army of the city must threaten them. And that told me who was killing the dogs. It was an army of the city, possibly already outside the walls. My spirit roiled with mixed hope, antic.i.p.ation and fear. They would win, take the Eyrie. We would be free.

Sapphire choked in his sleep and I hovered over him, watching anxiously as I listened to the dogs fighting and dying.

I just hoped our army would be quick enough. Knowing Sapphire couldn't hear me I told him anyway. "Hold on, Sapphire," I told him. "Our army is here. Help is on the way."

Still, there was no guarantee that the enemy would let us live long enough to see freedom.

Sapphire woke once more, I was half asleep myself but listened to him anyway. He talked randomly, feverish, not knowing I was there and I think not even fully conscious. I learned some things then that I would rather not have known. Details about his childhood, if it could be called that. After he fell silent I lay barely awake myself, wondering about the kind of men who would subject a child to such horrors, put them under such extreme pressure in order to mold a tool for their own use. For him, from the age of five, every single day had been a test, with pain or death the consequence of failure. Sometimes pain was the test. 'First to cry out dies,' and then they had burned them with hot irons until one cried out. How many had he said? A thousand children, and twenty to survive. No wonder he was what he was, I thought. No wonder.

I slept, but didn't sleep well. In my dream there was mist.

I knew it was Jocasta even before I saw her.

"Sumto?"

"I'm here," I told her.

The mists cleared and there she was, beside her stood a shadowy figure I could hardly see. She was holding the shadow, as though supported by it. She was pale, swaying. Behind her was an indistinct gray backdrop. I glanced around. We were in a tent, just the two of us and the shadow propping her up.

"Are you all right?" I stepped closer. "Where are you?"

She smiled. "I am well enough, Sumto. I'm with the army. The enemy pulled out of Undralt and two days later our forces arrived. We are with the army now, safe as we can be. The army is close to the Eyrie."

"I know."

Her face went very slowly still. "Where are you?"

I pulled a face. I didn't want to tell her.

"You're there, aren't you? In the Eyrie. What are you doing there? Why are you there? Are you all right?"

I held up a hand to still the flood of questions. "I am okay for now. I came for Tahal Samant."

She hissed out a breath and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Are you insane? Why? Why did you do it?"

I shrugged. "I had to do something. I dared not stay with you. The dogs..."

"Dogs? Those dogs were something to do with you?"

I nodded, told her briefly. She didn't say anything for a while.

"Don't come in after me," I told her. "The army will take the Eyrie... it is big enough a force to do the job isn't it? They haven't sent too small an army?"

She shook her head. "Four legions. The north is going to be... well," she shrugged, "pacified."

I blinked. Four legions. Over thirty thousand men, and who knew how many battle mages. Enough to do the job and to spare. "How far away are they?"

"A few miles. Close. I think they will close at dawn and attack at once. Where are you?"

"The vaults," I answered absently. I imagined what would happen. The battle mages would bring down the walls, our soldiers would stream into the breeches. It would be a slaughter. "They know you're coming. Where are the rest of their forces?"

She shook her head, touching my lips to still them. "The Prashuli and Orduli chieftains were killed in battle at Paresh. The bulk of their forces destroyed, the rest fled. Are you alone?"

"No. Sapphire is with me but he is badly hurt," I told her. "They got as far south as Paresh?"

"Listen to me. Yes, and further. Muria was almost overrun before they were stopped. But I understand that ever since then we have been breaking them and haven't lost an engagement. At Paresh we broke them and their alliance dissolved. It's been mopping up since then. A legion or two breaking off to deal with minor armies as the rest pushed north."

"The Eyrie is the last?"

"The Orduli and Prashuli have sued for peace, offered terms. Nothing is settled yet but they won't be taking part in the fighting any more. Unless we decide to punish them."

I nodded, thinking. "And further north? Other tribes to the east and west?"

"I don't know everything, Sumto. I don't. I'm not being told." She looked fretful.

"What's wrong?"

She looked down, shrugged and looked up at me again, raising her chin. "My family are not happy with me."

"They should be proud of you. Tell them from me..."

She stopped me. "Tell them yourself, when you are free." She shook her head, smiling up at me. "My heroic fool, what were you thinking, going after Tahal?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It seemed like the thing to do. I needed to do something to redeem myself."

"I wish I could help you." It was admitting that she couldn't. "If I had known where you were I never would have let them take the greater stone from me," she frowned.

Just then the shadow moved and I heard something, clearly a voice but nothing distinct enough to understand.

"I have to go. Good luck, my love."

Well, I thought, when she had gone and I drifted through the fog back to a natural sleep. Love. She didn't mean it, of course. It was surely just a turn of phrase.

I don't know what time it was when I woke.

At once I shifted to look down at Sapphire; his breathing had changed, become almost silent. Hoping he hadn't died I peered down at him and saw instantly that he was awake. His cold eyes held mine and I didn't know what to say to him.

"I'm dying," he told me, his voice emerging not much louder than a whisper.

"No, you are hurt, but you will recover."

"I know the difference." He was lying on his side, barely moving his head to look up at me. He spat with careful deliberation, using as few muscles as possible. The blood was pink and flecked with black clots.

"The army is close. Help will be here soon."

He seemed to think about it, attention focused inward, then said. "Inside an hour?"

I shook my head. "I don't know." It was a lie even though it was true. The Eyrie might take only an hour to fall but even if they were attacking now it might be too late.

"Liar." He said without rancor. "I want you to do something."

"Anything," I told him, meaning it.

"If you get out of here, go and find the Ku Mirt." He wasn't seeing me, I could tell. He was seeing something else. Something ugly. "Go and find them," his voice was a whisper and I could barely hear him. "Go find them all, and kill them." And then he went still.

The Ku Mirt were the people who had taken him as a child and trained him to kill. He had been a child. I reflected briefly on what it must have been like for him. I couldn't imagine it. Didn't really want to.

"I will, I promise." I watched him. It wouldn't be long now. His breathing was painful to hear and each breath was longer in coming. There was nothing I could do, I had some stone but no spell I could use, never having spared the money to buy anything useful, saving it all for booze, and then I thought of something and acted without thought or hesitation.

"T'k'la," I said. "Ichalda, t'k'la!."

And, for me, she came.

Her expression had been unreadable as she looked at me, her faint radiance illuminating the cell, making it feel crowded. I had pointed to Sapphire and asked her again. Slowly, she had turned to look down at him and then it seemed that she seeped into him, that he soaked her up like a sponge. His breathing eased, he groaned in his sleep, then his eyes opened and she looked out at me. I don't know how I knew it was her but it was obvious. He sighed and his eyes closed and she was gone. After that he slept on as though nothing had changed, but when I looked his wounds were closed, his broken arm straightened, and he breathed more easily. He still looked pale from loss of blood, and I remembered Jocasta looking the same, her wounds healed but the body still weak and recovering. It might be some time before he rose and walked again; if he didn't have food and water when he woke he might still die. But at least it would not be now. And I had not done nothing.

Time pa.s.sed.

There was nothing to do so I did nothing. I wanted a drink. There was none. I was shaking and sweating, the familiar onset of withdrawal symptoms. I knew they would get worse and never seem to stop getting worse. So I watched Sapphire breathe as I shook and shuddered. I cursed occasionally. It didn't help.

I imagined four legions moving to surround the Eyrie, forming up, preparing to attack. Nothing happened so I imagined it again. I was waiting and wasting time. But there was nothing to do. I would be found here after the place was taken, freed, and then what? I'd not succeeded in my bid to do something spectacularly brave. I was doomed to my fate of poverty or exile. There was no way to change it now. Depressed just doesn't cover it. Sick, depressed, and desperate for a drink. Even so I couldn't stop thinking.

To whom did the four legions belong? Three patrons? Four? Who were they? What did each plan when the battle was over? Would they divide, some heading home in triumph while others had other plans? Too many questions. Would one or more go into the mountains and prosecute a punitive war there? Surely someone would want to find out where the Necromancers came from and take vengeance on them? I shrugged the line of questioning off. None of that would help me. I checked Sapphire, still sleeping, leaned back to sweat and shake some more.

I thought about the city; not my ignominious return there; that was something I shied away from. I had raised an army without authority, led it to disaster, they had been slaughtered to a man; and so on and so on. No. I thought about our system of government and tried to think what, if anything, could be improved. It was an abstract, something to think about. We ruled with a light hand, which was good. The patrons were more interested in their own business than the business of government and that was, on the whole, a good thing, I thought. Less bureaucracy, few inst.i.tutions, no-one meddling in the lives of others. There were kingdoms with vast armies of bureaucrats, enormous administrations, laws for every area of human activity and people to oversee them and make sure they were complied with. Madness. We understood the iron law of bureaucracy and kept our inst.i.tutions small, breaking them up and forming new organizations every half century regardless of how they were functioning. They became moribund and expensive over time, then sleek as greyhounds with no one involved but those who wanted to get the job done. It was cyclic and if a bunch of parasites who thought the bureaucracy was the purpose of the organization had to find a new living when we stripped the inst.i.tution down and formed a new one, all to the good.

I looked at each aspect of our society in turn and examined it for flaws. Seeing none worth thinking about I moved on. Only one really came to mind, that we had not held the territories taken and spread our system further.

True, there were foxes and wolves amongst the lions of the patrons, some fools who believed that they knew better than anyone else and wanted to tell everyone else what to do and how to live, but there was no way they could get exclusive power over any but their client states. Some ran social experiments with other peoples, usually with dire consequences. Our system was good, with inbuilt mechanisms for the competent to rise but something about the foxes, the patrons themselves bothered me. 'Born to privilege, what do you know of suffering?' Kukran Epthel had asked. I couldn't help thinking he had a point, but exactly what point I wasn't sure, and so, deciding what might be done about it was...

My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. I had heard nothing, not a single footfall. I sat up straighter, looking at the door as it opened. There was n.o.body there. Gooseb.u.mps rose on my arms. "What the...?"

"Be quiet," Dubaku instructed me shortly, suddenly visible as he stepped into the cell and pulled the door closed behind him.

"What...? How...?" The answers were obvious so I didn't finish the questions. What are you doing here? Rescuing me, obviously. How did you get here? Invisibly protected by his ancestors. I had seen him pull the trick before. It just hadn't occurred to me that he would do it for me or that he might be close enough to try.

He didn't make any answers to my half formed questions, instead stood intent on Sapphire. "Did she come?"

"You sent her?"

He shook his head. "I do not send, Sumto. I ask. When I felt her stirring, uneasy and dissatisfied, I could feel you had asked and so I asked that she answer, imagined you so she knew who I was asking for. She went from my awareness but she might have moved further from the world, not into it."

I nodded, knowing I didn't really understand even though what he said made sense. It was the best understanding I would achieve. He could feel the spirits that knew him, had a relationship with them that I could not understand. It didn't matter. What mattered was that she had come at my call and healed Sapphire as best she could. That mattered and I was grateful and said so.

He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment of my thanks. "Jocasta asked me to help you. So I have, and am. What do you want to do?"

I stared at him and he returned my gaze with the by now familiar lack of expression. The question was incredible. What did I want to do? Get out of here, that's what I wanted to do! "I don't know," I said. "Let me think."

"Think, then." He said, sinking to a squat, his feet flat on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees. "The attack will begin soon. Maybe there is no need to do anything but wait."

Maybe. Dubaku could move unseen but we could not. I was in no state to carry Sapphire, weak and shaky with withdrawal symptoms as I was. Tahal had my ten carat stone, leaving me with only the one carat stone embedded in my skull. Granted, a face full of hot oil would put a man out of action but I didn't see that taking down a few individuals would be enough.

"We should move," I decided. "Right now they know where to come for us if they want us."

He nodded. "There is a room nearby where they store beer. We can go there without being seen."