Storm Warning

'Quite.' Charliss frowned. 'In fact, that Hulda creature was once one of my freelance agents in the Valdemar capital. I was rather dubious about using her again, despite her abilities, until I realized just how cursed difficult it is to work in Valdemar. As it was, her progress there was minimal. Most unsatisfactory. She was never able to insinuate herself any higher than a mere court servant's position, and she had more than one agenda and more than one employer at the time.'

The corner of Tremane's mouth twitched again, but this time it was downward. Charliss knew why—Tremane never knowingly worked with someone who served more masters than he.

'Why did you trust her in Hardorn, then?' the Grand Duke asked in a neutral tone.

'I never trusted her,' Charliss corrected him, allowing a hint of cold disapproval to tinge his own voice. 'I trust no agents, particularly not those who are as ambitious as this one was. I merely made sure that this time she had no other employers, and that her personal agenda was not incompatible with mine. And when it appeared that she was slipping her leash, I sent an envoy to Ancar's court to remind her who her master was. And to eliminate her if she elected to ignore the warning he represented. That was why I sent a mage, an Adept her equal, with none of her vices.'

'Your pardon,' Tremane replied, bowing slightly. 'I should have known. But—about Valdemar?'

Charliss permitted his icy expression to thaw. 'Valdemar is peculiar, as I said. Until recently, they've had next to no magic at all, and what they had was only mind-magic. There was a barrier there, according to my agents, a barrier that made it impossible for a practicing mage to remain within the borders for very long.'

'But how did Hulda—' Tremane began, then smiled. 'Of course. While she was there, she must have refrained from using her powers. A difficult thing for a mage—use of magic often becomes a habit too ingrained to break.'

Charliss blinked slowly in satisfaction. Tremane was no fool; he saw immediately the solution and the difficulty of implementing it. 'Precisely,' he replied. 'On both counts. And that was why I continued to use her. In business matters, the woman's self-discipline was remarkable. As for Valdemar—though they have begun again to use magic as we know it, the place is no less peculiar than before, and many of the mages they seem to have invited into their borders are from no land that my operatives recognize! Well, that is all in the past; what we need to deal with is the current situation. And that, Grand Duke Tremane, is where you come in.'

Tremane simply waited, as any good and perfectly trained servant, for his master to continue. But his eyes narrowed just a trifle, and Charliss knew that his mind was working furiously. A current of breeze stirred the tapestries behind him, but the flames of the candles on the many-branched candelabras, protected in their glass shades, did not even waver.

'Your Duchy borders Hardorn; you will therefore be familiar with the area,' Charliss stated, his tone and expression allowing no room for dissension. 'The situation in Hardorn grows increasingly unstable by the moment. I require a personal commander of my own in place there—someone who has incentive, personal incentive, to see that the situation is dealt with expeditiously.'

'Personal incentive, my Emperor?' Tremane replied.

Charliss crossed his legs and leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his hip joints. 'I am giving you a unique opportunity to prove, not only to me, but to your rivals and your potential underlings, that you are the only truly worthy candidate for the Wolf Crown. I intend to put you in command of the Imperial forces in Hardorn. You will be answerable only to me. You will prove yourself worthy by dealing with this situation and bringing it to a successful conclusion.'

Tremane's hands trembled, and Charliss noted that he had turned just a little pale. How long would it take for word to spread of Tremane's new position? Probably less than an hour. 'What of Valdemar, my Emperor?' he asked, his voice steady, even if his hands were not.

'What of Valdemar?' Charliss repeated. 'Well, I don't expect you to conquer it as well. It will be enough to bring Hardorn under our banner. However, if during that process you discover a way to insinuate an agent into Valdemar, all the better. If you take your conquests past the Hardorn border and actually into Valdemar, better still. I simply warn you of Valdemar because it is a strange place and I cannot predict how it will measure this situation nor what it will do. Valdemar can wait; Hardorn is what concerns me now. We must conquer it, now that we have begun, or our other client states will see that we have failed and may become difficult to deal with in our perceived moment of weakness.'

'And if I succeed in bringing Hardorn into the Empire?' Tremane persisted.

'Then you will be confirmed in the succession, and I will begin the process of the formal training,' Charliss told him. 'And at the end of ten years, I will retire, and you will have Throne, Crown, and Empire.'

Tremane's eyes lit, and his lips twitched into a tight, excited smile. Then he sobered. 'If I do not succeed, however, I assume I shall resume nothing more than the rule of my Duchy.'

Charliss examined his immaculately groomed hands, gazing into the topaz eyes of the wolf's-head ring he wore, a ring whose wolf mask had been cast from the same molds as the central wolf of the Wolf Crown. The eyes gazed steadily at him, and as he often did, Charliss fancied he saw a hint of life in them. Hunger. An avidity, not that of the starving beast, but of the prosperous and powerful.

'There is no shortage of suitable candidates for the Throne,' he replied casually, tilting the ring for a better