He darted off down the street. The admiral drew a deep breath. Somehow the craving was gone. Strange allies, he thought. A street dog, a little tailor bird, a King. And one other, the strangest of all, perhaps, if only he made it to her door.
The dog, fortunately, had no wish to be discovered. He led Isiq through abandoned buildings, gaps in fences, grassy lots. The admiral’s knee was on fire, but he kept moving, and the woken animal never left his sight. The row houses gave way to old, careworn cottages, and the sea-smell grew. Then suddenly they were passing through a gate into a dusty garden. Facing him was a little shoe box of a cottage with peeling paint. The door was shut and the window curtained, but from between them a spear of lamplight stabbed at the yard.
“Eberzam Isiq.”
The witch! He hadn’t seen her, standing there in the darkness by the garden wall. Now she came toward him, until the spear of light touched her face. The bird was perfectly right: she was not ugly, not bent and shriveled like Lady Oggosk. She was tall, and her eyes were dark and wild, and her voice had a resonance that tickled the ear. Dark hair cascaded to her elbows. A pretty witch: imagine that. All the same he knew the moment was terribly fragile. She had spoken his name with fury.
“If we have met before you must forgive me,” he said. “I have been ill. My memories were lost for months, and they are only slowly returning.”
“You would remember me,” said the woman. “And never, ever tell me what I must forgive.”
“Very well,” said Isiq, standing his ground. “All the same, I’ve heard the name Suthinia before, somewhere. And your face is vaguely familiar.”
The woman stared at him, unblinking. He could feel her rage like a flameless fire, a pit of live coals. Then she moved closer and he saw that she too carried a knife. It was naked in her hand.
“The face you know is my son’s,” she said.
“Your son, madam? Did he serve in the navy?”
She took another step, and now he knew she was in striking range. “He served your bloodsucking Empire,” she said, “after your marines burned our city to the ground. My son’s an Ormali. So was I, for two decades.”
“No you weren’t, my dear.”
Isiq whirled. A man ten years his junior stood behind him, just inside the gate. His face in shadow. His hand twirling a club.
“You tried, Suthee. Rin knows, you did try. Pitfire, one year you even canned fruit with the neighbors! But they never did let you forget you were foreign.”
“It wasn’t the neighbors who ruined us,” said the woman. “It was this one. Because of him, and his damn Dr. Chadfallow, my boy and my daughter are on the far side of the world. They’re doing my job, hunting the sorcerer I was sent here to kill. They’ve gone to my home, and I’m stranded here in what’s left of theirs. My name is Suthinia Sadralin Pathkendle.”
“Oh, come now, darlin’.” The man laughed softly. “You don’t have to keep the family name for my sake.”
“Gods below,” said Isiq. “Pathkendle! It’s you! Captain Gregory Path-”
The club moved so fast he never saw it. Isiq was down, flat, deafened in one ear. And the woman was kneeling, pinning his head between her knees, pressing the knife-point to his chest.
The dog gave a furious bark. “Stop, stop!” it cried. “You didn’t mucking tell me you planned to kill him!”
“War’s a dirty business, dog,” said Captain Gregory Pathkendle.
“You cut him, witch, and I’ll bring every spy in Simjalla to your door. I’m not a killer, damn you!”
“I understand,” said the woman to the admiral, “that you had Pazel flogged for his cheekiness. For calling the invasion an invasion, to your face. I hear his back was torn to ribbons.”
“Yes,” said Isiq.
“He admits it,” said Captain Gregory. “Incredible.”
“I didn’t order the flogging,” said Isiq. “You’re wrong about that. But I could have stopped it, yes. Rose would have done me that favor.”
“And Pazel’s ejection from the ship?”
“My fault. My fault.”
“You sat in your stateroom, and let him be sold to the Flikkermen.”
“That’s right.”
“You never thought about it.”
“My best friend was dying. And I was drugged.”
“Oh, drugged,” laughed Captain Gregory. “With what, old man? Platinum brandy from the Westfirth?”
“With deathsmoke!” said the dog, padding in circles around the three of them. “The Syrarys woman put it in his tea. The bird told me all about it.”
“Deathsmoke, is it?” said Gregory. He marched out of Isiq’s sight and returned bearing a lamp, which he placed painfully close to Isiq’s face. Then he took hold of Isiq’s lower lip and pinched it outward, beneath a callused thumb. He squinted; then his face grew very still.
“He’s an addict, Suthee, it’s no lie.” He released Isiq’s lip and stood up. “The note said so, too. Perhaps it really did come from King Oshiram.”
“Of course it did, you clown,” snapped the woman. But the knife was still pressed to Isiq’s chest. “We are safer without him, no matter what he means to the monarch of Simja.”
“Safer, but weaker,” said Captain Gregory. “We need him on that boat tomorrow. You know that.”
“How many Arquali betrayals do you have to see?” hissed Suthinia. “Why wouldn’t they use Isiq? How else could they ever dream of getting close to her?”
“To whom?” said Isiq.
“Shut up,” said the witch. “Trust Admiral Isiq? Six years after the invasion, and still dripping blood? He could doom us in a heartbeat. He could be working for Sandor Ott.”
At the sound of Ott’s name Isiq lost all control. He lashed out, one steel-knuckled hand smacking the knife away from his chest, the other catching Gregory Pathkendle in the jaw. The woman fought him but he was not to be stopped. Before he knew it he was on his feet again, standing over them, his own knife drawn and raised.
“You dare,” he said, “after that man killed my two angels, my darling Thasha, my wife.”
Suthinia and Gregory looked up at him sharply.
“I know it was Arunis!” roared Isiq. “But it was Ott who built the trap called the Great Peace-built it around them, required them to die! And you dare suggest I serve him! I would sooner serve the maggot-haired hags in the Ninth Pit of Damnation! As for you two-”
“Isiq, Isiq!” cried Captain Gregory, his tone suddenly changed. They were both gesturing, pleading. “We had to know,” said Suthinia.
“Know what, damn you? That I did not serve that fiend of a spymaster, that creature who calls himself a patriot?”
“You were a patriot, too,” said Gregory, “a famous one, same as I used to be. That’s right, man, we had to be sure, before we told you they’re alive.”
Isiq looked from one to the other. “Who?” he whispered. “Who are they?”
Suddenly the tailor bird appeared. He whirled about them, shrilling: “Get inside, inside! A posse of men is approaching! They’re at the corner of the street!”
Seconds later Isiq found himself crouched in the cottage, the door barred and the lamp extinguished, the bird hopping ecstatically about on his shoulders, the dog still as stone beside his boots. Footsteps rang in the alley; gruff voices murmured. Isiq’s knee was in agony but he did not make a sound.
Then he felt the witch’s hand. Gently, it found his throbbing knee and remained there, cool and almost weightless. And to Isiq’s amazement the pain began to subside.
The footsteps faded, the voices trailed away. Finally a match flared in the darkness. Captain Gregory was lighting a pipe.
“Have a pull, Admiral?”
Isiq shook his head firmly.
“Relax, man, it’s only tobacco. Etherhorde greenleaf, the smuggler’s friend.”
“Do be quiet, Gregory,” said Suthinia. Isiq looked up and met her great dark eyes.
“They,” she said, “are two women who will change this world. The first is your Empress, Maisa of Arqual, the one to whom you swore allegiance long before Ott put the usurper Magad the Fifth upon the throne. We will go to
