brought the Brotherhood to Chessenta, the man to whom our fortunes are still tied, is a spy and a traitor?”
“No! It’s not like that. Skuthosiin never asked me to do anything that was clearly a disservice to the realm. And I wouldn’t have. It’s just that he was willing to reward me for … information and various favors.”
“Wait. Is this the same Skuthosiin who used to live in Unther?” Aoth asked.
“So he says,” Nicos said.
“How did he survive the Spellplague, and Tymanther more or less falling out of the sky on top of his country?” Aoth asked.
“I don’t know,” Nicos said. “He boasts that the Dark Lady favors him. Maybe she protected him.”
“Where is he now?” Aoth asked. “Chessenta, Tymanther, or someplace else?”
“I don’t know where he spends his time,” Nicos said. “He taught me a spell to talk to him from far away. That’s why I burn the gum.”
Aoth grunted. “I’ve done a little studying since Tchazzar returned. Supposedly he and Skuthosiin were allies in the old days. So I take it you ordered me to look for him because your secret master wanted him found.”
“Yes, but there’s more to it. From the start he wanted you and your sellswords in Chessenta, and he somehow knew in advance that your company would meet with defeat and disgrace in Impiltur and need a new employer. That’s how my messenger reached you at just the right time.”
Aoth’s eyes seemed to burn brighter. “ ‘Somehow knew in advance’ is the mush-mouthed way of saying, ‘Made it happen.’ That’s why that whoreson Kremphras and his company didn’t show up to support us, and why there were dragonlike creatures helping the demon-worshipers. They were all working for Skuthosiin, just like you.”
“I don’t know that for a fact,” said Nicos, “but I think it’s likely.”
“How many agents does he have, anyway?” Aoth asked. “Over how wide an area?”
“I don’t know,” said Nicos.
Aoth drew breath to make a reply-an angry one, to judge from his scowl-then caught himself and paused to take a drink. “Well, what else do you know? There had better be something.”
“Looking back, I can at least speculate,” Nicos said. “Skuthosiin somehow knows about your eyes. He initially wanted you here because he thought they might enable you to unmask the Green Hand killer.”
“Which arguably hurt Chessenta more than it helped. So, if Skuthosiin knew what we’d find, maybe he’s no friend to your country,” Aoth said.
“If he knew,” Nicos said, “there were easier ways to steer the city guards in the right direction.”
“Well, possibly,” Aoth said. “You truly have no idea why he wants what he wants? What his ultimate purpose is?”
“No.”
“Or if he’s even let Tchazzar know he’s still alive?”
“No. Are you going to denounce me?”
Aoth scratched his chin, and his fingertips rasped in the beard stubble. Nicos had the wholly irrelevant thought that he would have heard the exact same little sound if the Thayan had scratched his shaved scalp.
“I don’t especially want to,” Aoth said after a moment. “You didn’t cause the debacle in Impiltur, and I haven’t known many lords who weren’t involved in secret dirty dealings of one kind or another. I’d rather stay your friend and do what you and the Crown are paying me to do. But it’s not going to be that easy unless I find Cera. And nothing you’ve said so far points me in the right direction.”
“I told you, I don’t know what happened to her!”
“But you’re the damned spy and the damned courtier too. You keep track of everything that happens in the War College and the city at large. Think of something.”
Nicos did. He thought that if he called for help, the servants might respond quickly. And if they all attacked Aoth together, they might conceivably overwhelm him.
But when he took another look at the man on the other side of the low little table, the hopeful fantasy withered. At the moment the Thayan might not have his enchanted spear or his griffon either, but even so it was impossible to doubt that he could handle anything his unwilling host could throw at him.
Then a more useful thought occurred to Nicos. He sat up straighter, and Aoth said, “What?”
“The Church of Tchazzar,” Nicos said.
“What about it?”
“Tchazzar promised Halonya that a priesthood would form around her, and it did with remarkable speed. You’d think it would be mostly the same commoners who marched with her in the streets, seeking to rise along with her. But quite a few of them aren’t. Before the coronation she’d never even seen them before, and they seem at home in their new roles. Like educated men accustomed to ritual and protocol.”
“And Halonya doesn’t think it odd that these strangers came out of nowhere to attend her?”
“Halonya is a half-mad pauper moving through a dream of pomp and glory. Everything that’s happening seems miraculous, and so nothing seems peculiar. But here’s my point. At one time Tchazzar was widely regarded as Tiamat’s champion or even her avatar. So, if trained priests have come to officiate at his altar, who do you think they might be?”
“Wyrmkeepers,” said Aoth. “And there are wyrmkeepers all through this tangle. Gaedynn and Jhesrhi ran into them in Mourktar, and another tried to murder me in Soolabax.”
“If Cera Eurthos knew that, and if she made the same guess we just made, then that’s where she might have gone for answers.”
Oraxes had the urge to pace. Instead he and his fellow mages were expected to stand still and at least pretend to listen while Gaedynn Ulraes ran over their instructions-Oraxes refused to think of them as orders-another time.
The archer’s coppery hair was gray under the night sky, and he’d traded his usual bright, foppish attire for a black brigandine and clothes to match. “I know it will be difficult to cast a veil over so many,” he said. “But you only have to hide the skirmishers. We’re moving up in advance of the rest. And the dark should help.”
Meralaine-a diminutive, snub-nosed girl whose pixielike appearance belied a considerable talent for the sinister art of necromancy-nodded and said, “It will. And we’re good at concealment spells. The way Luthcheq treated us, we had to be.”
“When I give the word,” Gaedynn continued, “you’ll light up the enemy and keep them lit. The rest of us can kill them if we can see them.”
“Right,” said Meralaine. It seemed like she was trying to impress Gaedynn, maybe because she hoped to replace Oraxes as interim leader of the mages. Not, of course, that he cared one way or the other.
“As soon as you can,” Gaedynn said, “get behind men with shields and stay there. There’s no target so important that it’s worth one of our only four wizards taking unnecessary chances to strike at it.”
“We understand!” Oraxes snapped. “We understood the first time. You’d do better giving us a moment of peace to clear our heads.”
Gaedynn studied him for a moment, then grinned. “Don’t go out of your way to remind anybody, but I’ve never done this before either. Led a whole army, I mean.”
Oraxes sneered. “Then maybe Hasos should be in charge.”
“Maybe,” Gaedynn said, “but then the garrison would still be bottled up inside Soolabax when Alasklerbanbastos himself shows up to perch his bony arse atop the baron’s keep.”
“We trust you,” said Meralaine, sycophantic bitch that she was.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Gaedynn replied. “My talents are plain for all to see. As are yours. I realize that none of you has been in a full-scale battle before, and night fighting’s not the most comfortable way to begin. But keep your heads and you’ll do fine. Now go take your positions.”
Said positions were at intervals among the vanguard of bowmen, all members of Aoth and Gaedynn’s Brotherhood. Oraxes recited a rhyme, and for a moment the cool night air grew positively frigid. A blur rippled across his portion of the loose formation, and the darkness thickened around it.
He surveyed his work and felt a twinge of pride. He’d like to see Meralaine’s necromancy do better than that.
He somehow missed the signal that started his neighbors moving, and had to trot a couple of paces to catch up. As the archers advanced, he wished he could skulk as quietly as they did. He was an accomplished sneak thief,
