wonder if you’ve kept up appearances, Fulbreech. Does Sandor Ott still consider you his agent, or has he seen through your mask?”
“He relies on me utterly, sir,” said Fulbreech, with a hint of pride. “It was he who sent me in pursuit of Thasha to begin with, as you know.”
“Then what is the great Arquali spy telling you?”
“Master, he knows nothing of Olik’s plan to take the Nilstone.”
“Sandor Ott is awake, fool! Rose is awake! I smelled their nervous brains the moment I stepped from my chambers! Why are they nervous, Fulbreech? What are they waiting for?”
“Your death, sorcerer. These many years-but no longer.”
It was Hercol. The swordsman rose from a crouch between two gun carriages. With a gliding step he moved to block their way, Ildraquin loose in his hand, murder in his eyes.
The sorcerer’s face convulsed with rage. “My death,” he managed to scoff, but there was fear in the spiteful voice.
“I think,” said Hercol, “that you have taken an interest in this blade, since last we met. Certainly your creature here saw fit to question Thasha about it-in the most unassuming way, of course.”
“You must satisfy his curiosity, Stanapeth,” said a second voice.
Arunis and Fulbreech whirled. Sandor Ott had appeared behind them, a Turach sword in hand, wearing his savage smile.
Arunis turned and seized Fulbreech by the throat. “Maggot! Your death shall be the first of many!”
“Snap his neck and you’re doing him a mercy,” laughed Ott. “My own punishment for traitors would take several minutes just to describe. But you’ve got it wrong, Arunis. I was the one he betrayed, not you.”
Arunis turned Ott a look of hateful suspicion. All the same he let go of Fulbreech. The youth fell to the floor, wheezing in agony. Arunis kicked him flat, then held him still beneath his boot.
From the corner of a bruised eye, Fulbreech saw Ott draw something from his belt: a short, cylindrical device of wood and iron. The old spy raised an eyebrow at him. “Remember this, do you, lad?”
Fulbreech did remember. The thing was a pistol: a sort of handheld cannon, the first of its kind in all the world. It was clumsy, inaccurate, fragile and useless without a match. But on Simja, Ott had shown him how the device could fire a lead sphere through an armored chest. Fulbreech had thought: The Empire that could build such a thing cannot be opposed. That’s the winning side, my side. And until he’d met Arunis, he’d been right.
Ott began to circle the pair, slowly, casually. “Well, Stanapeth,” he said, gesturing at Fulbreech, “you promised this would be worth my time, and I’m happy to admit you spoke the truth. A traitor in the Secret Fist! If we were in Etherhorde I’d be submitting my resignation at Magad’s knee. But why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“For the same reason I told almost no one,” said Hercol, starting to circle as well. “Because this mage has been listening to our thoughts. He cannot probe below the surface, maybe, but when our minds turn to killing and betrayal, the surface is enough. It was all I could do to keep myself from brooding on Fulbreech, and thus giving everything away. And of course there were appearances to maintain in front of the Simjan himself.”
Arunis turned where he stood. He looked suddenly like a cornered animal, his gaunt lips drawn back from his teeth.
“Deceiving the deceivers,” said Ott. “You always were the best in your class.”
“We had a strong incentive to succeed,” said Hercol.
“We?” said Ott.
“Yes,” said another voice in the shadows, “we.”
It was Bolutu. He walked up quickly in the moonlight on Hercol’s left. He looked at Arunis, and his face, usually so placid, was transformed by rage. “Twenty years have I given to your downfall. Twenty years-and two hundred. I lost my family, my whole world. The only friends left to me were my shipmates, those who had sailed North with me, and them too I watched you hunt down and kill. You are depravity incarnate, mage. But you have not managed to kill us all.”
“Then let us amend that,” said Arunis, and leaped at him.
“Ah-ah-ah!”
The voice was Lady Oggosk’s. Arunis was suddenly floundering, as though he had collided with an invisible curtain, or a net. There was the old woman, hobbling around the edge of the tonnage hatch, leaning heavily on her walking stick. At her feet slithered the Red River cat, Sniraga, all her fur on end.
“I warned you, sorcerer,” she said, “that if you boarded the Chathrand she would be your tomb. Do you remember that day, in the Straits of Simja? Do you remember how you laughed?”
“I am laughing still,” said Arunis.
“Liar,” she cackled, “you’re scared to death, and well you should be. I have done little witchcraft since we met-very little these past forty years, truth be told, and I’ll do little more in the time I’ve left. But I saved my strength for tonight, and that’s more than you can say. Your power’s been squandered of late, hasn’t it? Dream- journeys, thought-spying, healing the cracks in the Shaggat’s arm. Above all, burrowing like a ferret into weakened minds, and then throwing them at the Nilstone to see how fast it would kill them. What did those experiments teach you, eh? Were you going to claim the Stone at last?”
Arunis let the mace fall from his hands. He struggled: it was as if cottony walls enclosed him, tightening the more he fought. “The witch’s web,” he sneered. “A charm for island pranksters, for tripping the town drunk when he steals eggs from your henhouse. The most primitive magic in Alifros!”
“So primitive I doubt you’ve bothered to learn a counter-spell,” said Oggosk.
“Witless hag. This charm will not hold me.”
Oggosk kept her blue eyes fixed on the sorcerer. “Not for long, no,” she said. “But long enough. And when I wish to-”
She pinched two fingers together. Arunis ducked his head and hissed, as though the walls had just closed tighter.
“-I’ll bind your arms to your sides, for just half a minute, maybe: plenty of time for one of these men to step forward and harvest your head. Fight on, bastard! Give me a reason to do it now! Do you really need proof that I can?”
“Old woman,” growled Arunis through clenched teeth, “I am going to roast you to slow death, over a pit of coals and fire-weirds. Release me. You do not know whom you are toying with.”
“Neither do you.”
This time the voice was Thasha’s, from the ladderway behind the spymaster. Out she stepped, armed and armored, and the hatred in her eyes made Ott himself look up with respect. Ensyl rode upon her shoulder. Behind her came Captain Rose.
Fulbreech lifted his head to gaze at Thasha. A small sound of terror escaped him.
“Yes, Greysan,” said Thasha, “I know who you are.”
“But you’re wrong, girl,” said Arunis. For the first time a gleam of craftiness returned to his eye. “You see, I know all of you, quite well. But you still do not know one another.”
He kicked at Fulbreech. “You, for instance, may have known what this worm had in mind for you from the start. But do you know what he did to your father?”
Thasha’s hand tightened on her sword-hilt. She looked at Lady Oggosk. Now, her eyes seemed to say.
“Do you know that your suitor here delivered him personally to Sandor Ott? And that this diseased old spy, this abomination, tortured your father to madness in a dungeon under Simjalla City?”
“Kill him, Hercol,” said Thasha quietly.
“And the noble Tholjassan!” cried Arunis. “The one you’ve always trusted, worshipped, adored. The first man whose touch you ever dreamed of, isn’t that so?”
“Bind his tongue, witch!” said Rose. Oggosk glared at him sidelong, as if to say, How much do you think I can manage?
“He told you how he served Ott for years, but did he ever elaborate? Did he mention how he doted on your father’s torturer, like every lackey in the Secret Fist, like Dastu and Fulbreech himself? Did he name the deeds that made him Ott’s right-hand man? Did he confess who really killed the children of Empress Maisa?”
Rose, Bolutu and even Ensyl looked shocked. Hercol’s face was grim. Thasha’s, however, did not change. She merely stepped close to her old mentor and touched his arm. “Yes,” she said, “he told me. And I love him. Will you end this now, Hercol?”
