the Order.”
“What? Your lord has to be joking! I won’t do it!”
“Why not?”
“Why not? It’s impossible. Not only does he want me to break into the Tower of the Order, he wants me to steal the Rainbow Horn! There’s a magician every yard in there!”
“Now you listen to me, Harold. You’re going to get that artifact. And get it today, before midnight. And not just because you accepted a deal. You’ll
“And what has happened?” As far as I was concerned, the moon could fall from the sky, and I still wouldn’t go and get that Horn of my own free will.
“The Player has betrayed the Master.”
“I don’t get the connection.”
“The Player has betrayed my Master and now he serves another. It’s a great night tonight, Harold. You can’t even imagine just how great. This round of the Game is being decided. If the Player follows the instructions of our opponent, the balance will collapse and a certain someone will escape from the Palaces of Bone. If that happens, Siala will go back to the start of the Dark Era. My Master really doesn’t want to have to create everything all over again. The Rainbow Horn is the thing that can disrupt the balance.”
“All right, all right. Start from the beginning. What have the Horn and this Player got to do with everything?”
“If the Player uses the Horn, then the Game will be lost.”
“Then don’t let him get hold of the Horn.”
“He already has.”
“Oh!” I said, trying to think. “Then kill the Player.”
“Because he is the Player, the Masters have no right to kill him.”
“I thought I heard you say the Master knew how the Game would go? Surely he could have foreseen that the Horn would fall into the wrong hands? Stop. Just who is the Player?”
“Good thinking, Harold. Good thinking. The Master figured everything out, but everybody makes mistakes, especially when they have to rely on people. People are weak, and the Player has proved to be no exception to the rule. The Master knew that the Horn would end up with the Player, but he didn’t expect the old fox to go running off to another den. I’m talking about Artsivus.”
“No. It can’t be!”
“Why not? The Master knew you would definitely give the Rainbow Horn to the Order, which means to Artsivus.”
“But why him?” I could believe anything at all, but not that the fine old man Artsivus was the influential figure who wanted to kill me.…
“Why are you so surprised? The Player has to be a magician. The Master offered him knowledge and power for his services.”
“And what did the other Master offer him?”
“Youth and immortality.”
“Then it all makes sense.”
And the Messenger started telling me things. It was Artsivus who had suggested I should go on the expedition to get the Horn. He thought I wouldn’t manage it, and the artifact would stay in Hrad Spein.
Then, when the stars told a different story, he decided to kill me. Only at this point the Master intervened and personally forbade the magician to touch me. But then Artsivus found Paleface—it was the archmagician’s ring that the two master thieves showed at the Royal Library, and that was why they killed poor old Bolt.
It was Artsivus’s people who stole the Shadow Horse. The archmagician needed the magical object that could control the demons for his own purposes (by this time he had already been recruited by a Master from another world), and he didn’t want to share it with the Order. But then the ubiquitous Harold put in an appearance, and old Artsivus had to save the Shadow Horse in order not to arouse the suspicions of the Dancer of Siala.
When I went for a ride in the carriage of the Master of the Order after that free-for-all over the Shadow Horse, my life was hanging by a thread. Old Artsivus had no intention of taking me to the king, he was listening to my story to see if I’d guessed that the Master of the Order was mixed up in the shady business with maps of Hrad Spein and the Shadow Horse, and taking me for delivery into the caring hands of a gang of killers. What saved me was that I said I didn’t have the papers with me. Artsivus let me go and set the killers on For, quite reasonably assuming that he might have the papers.
“I could go on, thief, but time is short. You have to steal the Horn.”
“Even so, there are too many things in your story that don’t fit,” I said. “The Horn has already been in Artsivus’s hands for more than a month. Why does it have to be tonight? He could have done everything as soon as he got it. While the city was under attack, when everybody was busy with other things and no one would have bothered him?”
“Yes, he could have used the Horn at the very beginning, but he wouldn’t have got the result that his new Master is expecting. It is only tonight that the Shadow Horse and the Rainbow Horn can be combined together.”
“I bet that your Master has known the Player was a traitor for ages. And he definitely foresaw what was going to happen tonight. Right?”
“That could be so.”
“Then, in the name of Sagot, why couldn’t I have stolen the artifact sooner? Why today? Why didn’t you tell me about this a week ago? A month ago?”
I thought I heard him chuckle.
“Then there wouldn’t have been any risk. No edge to the Game. No interest. You are the Master’s trump card. He wanted to see how well you could deal with things at the very last moment.”
The world was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and the Master was still playing his silly little games!
“Then why did Artsivus let me go? Take the leash off?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Harold. Yes, he knows you’re a Dancer in the Shadows, but he doesn’t know a thing about your deal with the Master, and he thinks you have no idea who he is. So will you get the Horn?”
“I don’t really have much choice, do I?” I said with a bitter laugh.
“I’m afraid not. Either the Rainbow Horn has to be removed from the hands of the Player or … you simply have no idea what that magical item is capable of if it’s combined with something like the Shadow Horse! The scales of the balance will collapse, the Houses of Siala will fall, and there won’t be much left of your … that is, our world. The Game will be lost. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
“I’m not interested in your Game. But I will try to get the Horn. What’s the deposit on the deal?”
“Your life. How does that suit you?”
“Just fine. And the payment?”
“Get the Horn, and you’ll never see me again.”
Well, nothing could have suited me better than that arrangement.
“I request Shadow Harold to accept my Commission.”
“I accept the Commission.”
“I have heard you, thief. Now, in conclusion, let me advise you to get it done before midnight. At midnight the Player will commence the ritual, and then you probably won’t be able to steal the artifact from right under his nose.”
“I doubt that I’ll even be able to get into the Tower of the Order. I can hardly expect the magicians not to ask any questions when they notice me.”
“None of the magicians are in the Tower. Artsivus has sent them all away.”
“That doesn’t change things much. I still have to get in.”
“I can’t help you there. I cannot enter the Tower of the Order.”
“Listen, what’s the point in him doing all this? Doesn’t the Master of the Order realize that after he does this, it will be the end of everything?”
“Why wouldn’t he understand? Of course he does. But there are many worlds, he’ll have somewhere to
