one saw only a silver chain.
'It's so beautiful,' she whispered.
'That was hers, your mother's,' said Isiq. 'She loved it very much, hardly ever took it off.'
Thasha looked from her father to Syrarys, barely trusting herself to speak. 'But you gave it-'
'He gave it to me, years ago,' said Syrarys, 'because he thought he had to. As if I needed him to prove his feelings! I only accepted it as a guardian-keeping it safe until you came of age. Which, as you've just finished saying, you have.' She took the necklace and put it around Thasha's neck. 'Breathtaking!' she said. 'Well, Eberzam, perhaps you'll consent to wear a dinner jacket tonight? Nama has lost all patience with him, Thasha. Puffing on sapwort cigars in his dressing gown. Rambling the garden in his slippers.'
Isiq's eyes twinkled as he looked from one to the other. 'You see how I am persecuted. In my own home.'
He tossed the blanket aside and swung to his feet: an old man's imitation of military quickness. Thasha almost took his arm, but his hand waved her gently away. He leaned on no one, yet.
Thasha greeted the servants in the kitchen-Nama especially she had missed-washed her hands and ran upstairs to her old bedroom. Nothing had changed: the short, plush bed, the candle on the dresser, the table with the mariner's clock. She closed the door behind her and turned the key.
'Ramachni!'
There was no reply.
'It's me, Thasha! Come out, the door is locked!'
Silence again. Thasha rushed to the table, lifted the clock, looked behind it. Nothing.
'Blast and damn!'
She had spent too long in the garden, and Ramachni had left. He was a great mage; he could travel between worlds; Hercуl had even seen him call up storms. He had causes and struggles everywhere. Why had she expected him to wait while she dawdled below?
'You're not going to spring out at me, are you? Like Hercуl?'
Although he sometimes looked like an ordinary man, Ramachni usually visited her in the form of a mink. A jet-black mink, slightly larger than a squirrel, and he was not above nipping her if her attention wandered during their studies.
But there was no black mink in her room tonight. He was gone, and might not reappear for days, weeks, years. She could not even blame Syrarys, for the simple reason that Syrarys did not know Ramachni existed. Feeling a perfect idiot, Thasha flopped down on the bed. And froze.
Words burned on her ceiling in a pale blue fire. They were magic beyond any doubt, and her heart thrilled, for Ramachni very rarely let her see his magic. Even now she had only an instant to enjoy it, for as soon as she read a word it flickered and died. It was like blowing out candles with her mind.
Welcome out of prison, Thasha Isiq! I do not say Welcome home, for your notions of home are about to change, I think. Don't worry about missing me: I shall return before you know it. But Nama comes in and out of this room every minute, making sure it is ready for you, and I am tired of hiding under the dresser.
Hercуl is quite correct, by the way: someone is prowling your garden. Your dogs swear to it. Jorl is so anxious he barely makes sense. When I ask about the intruder, he responds: 'Little people in the earth! Little people in the earth!'
By prison you may think I mean the Lorg. Not at all! The prison you are escaping is a beautjful one: beautiful and terrible, lethal even, should you remain in it much longer. You shall miss it. Often you will long to retreat to it, to nestle in its warmth as you do now in that bed you've outgrown. Brave soul, you cannot. It is your childhood, this prison, and its door is locked behind you.
At dinner, Thasha's father spoke of his ambassadorship. In every sense an honor. Simja was a Crownless State of tremendous importance, lying as it did between Arqual and her great rival the Mzithrin. The two empires had kept an uneasy truce for forty years, since the end of the horrific Second Sea War.
But battles or not, the power-struggle continued. The Crownless Lands knew the peril surrounding them, for the last war had been fought in their waters, on their shores and streets.
'They look at us and see angels of death, as Nagan put it,' said Isiq. 'You remember Commander Nagan? Perhaps you were too young.'
'I remember him,' said Thasha. 'One of the Emperor's private guards.'
'Right you are,' said Isiq approvingly. 'But on this trip he will be protecting us. A fine man, a professional.'
'He used to visit,' said Syrarys. 'Such a careful man! I feel safer knowing he'll be aboard.'
Isiq waved impatiently. 'The point is, the Crownless Lands fear us as much as they do the Mzithrin. And now they've gone clever on us, with this damnable Simja Pact.' He bit savagely at the dinner bread. 'Fine footwork, that. Don't know how they managed it in just five years.'
'What is a pact?' asked Thasha.
'An agreement, darling,' said Syrarys. 'The Crownless Lands have sworn to keep both Arqual and the Mzithrin out of their waters. And they've promised that if one Crownless State is attacked, the rest will all come to their aid.'
'But I thought Arqual had the greatest fleet on earth.'
'She does!' said Isiq. 'That fleet bested the Mzithrin once, and could do so again. Nor could all seven Crownless Lands defy us, should we be so cruel and stupid as to make war on them. But what if the Crownless Lands and the Sizzies fought us together?' He shook his head. 'We should be hard pressed, hard pressed. And the Mzithrin Kings have the same fear: that those seven States could one day turn on them, with our own fleet alongside, and lay their empire to waste. That is what the Simja Pact guarantees: utter annihilation for either empire, should they try to seize the least barren islet of the Crownless Lands.'
His hand slapped the table so hard the dishes jumped. 'Obvious!' he shouted, forgetting Thasha and Syrarys entirely. 'How did we not see it? Of course they'd flirt with both sides! Who wouldn't prefer a quiet wolf to one baying for your blood?'
'Prahba,' said Thasha quietly, 'if we're the wolves, does that make Simja the trailing elk?'
The admiral stopped chewing. Even Syrarys looked momentarily shocked. Eberzam Isiq had wanted a boy, and Thasha knew it: someone to build model ships with, to read his battle-logs to and show off his wounds. A boy to set up one day with a ship of his own. Thasha could never be an officer, nor wanted to be. Her models looked like shipwrecks, not ships.
But she had a knack for strategy that unsettled him at times.
The admiral reached unsteadily for the wine. 'The wolves and the trailing elk. I remember telling you that parable. How a wolf pack drives and harries a herd until it identifies the slowest, the weakest, then cuts it off from the rest and devours it. I do remember, Thasha. And I know what you're thinking: that the old man knows how to fight wars, but not make peace. You forget that my life did not begin when I joined the Imperial navy. And perhaps you also forget that I have hung up my sword. When I sail west it will be in a merchant ship, not a man-o'- war.'
'Of course,' said Thasha. 'I've spoken foolishly. Silly ideas come to me, sometimes.'
'More than silly, in this case. Did you not hear what I said about the Pact? If we move against any Crownless State all the rest will turn against us, and the White Fleet of the Mzithrin will join them.'
'Eat your salad, Thasha,' whispered Syrarys.
'War on that scale would make the Second Maritime look like two brats squabbling in a bathtub,' said the admiral, his voice rising. 'Do you think I would be party to such madness? I am not a spy or a military messenger, girl! I am an ambassador!'
'I'm sorry, Father.'
The admiral looked at his plate and said nothing. Thasha found her heart pounding. She had rarely seen him so upset.
Syrarys gave a consoling sigh, and poured them each a cup of coffee. 'I know so little of the world,' she said, 'but it occurs to me, Thasha darling, that such a remark-it's very clever, of course-'
