Tol saw the torches in the plaza had been lit, as twilight had fallen. With hasty politeness, he took his leave. “My thanks for all your advice and wisdom. I must go. The crown prince expects me to dine at his table tonight.”
When Tol had departed, Oropash rubbed his sweating palms together. “Will he do it?”
Yoralyn said, “No, I do not think so.”
“He’ll suffer then,” Helbin said darkly.
“Yes, he will.” Yoralyn glanced at the towers of the Imperial Palace, jutting above the darkening trees. “But if that young man manages to keep his artifact a secret, he will transcend his suffering, and one day he may sit upon the throne of Ergoth.”
“Tol has no such ambitions,” scoffed a voice from the deep shadows. A black-garbed figure moved out from the trees. He wore a close-fitting hood.
“Why are you lurking there?” Yoralyn demanded angrily.
“You asked me to come, lady,” the hooded man replied.
“What do you know of Master Tol or his ambitions?” asked Oropash contemptuously.
The masked man put a hand to the back of his neck and untied the string there. With a flourish, he whipped off his hood, revealing ebon skin and closely trimmed curly hair. “Tol and I were boys together in Juramona. We were friends once. I know him as well as anyone.”
Yoralyn’s hand gripped her staff tightly. “Crake, is it true-did you kill in our service?” she said, voice grating harshly.
“A necessary act, lady.”
“Necessary!” Oropash’s round face reflected his obvious disgust.
Crake looked from the horrified face of one mage to another, and he shrugged. “I did it to preserve the secret of our relationship.”
“I made a mistake to hire you,” Yoralyn said. “You are released from our service. Never come here again!”
She departed with haste. Oropash followed her, but Helbin lingered.
“You say you were once a friend of Tol’s, yet you’re willing to fight him, kill him, perhaps. Why so, Crake?”
“That’s my business. I didn’t become what I am by giving away advantages,” Crake said.
“What are you? A soulless spy? A mercenary?”
“We all must live as the gods decide.”
Helbin gave up trying to understand. Shaking his head, he followed his compatriots.
The sky had darkened to dusk. Crake watched the stars emerge for a moment, then brought his attention earthward again, looking the way Tol had taken only moments before.
No, his old friend was not ambitious. But Crake himself certainly was.
Tol strode along the pebbled path, his thoughts racing in many directions. The fear that something might have happened to Valaran had ordered his thoughts at last. He would declare his love to her, tonight. He would find her father and ask permission to wed her. As for the Irda nullstone, he would not destroy it. No, it would be his secret forever. Only a few people back in Juramona even knew he had it: Egrin and Felryn hadn’t recognized it, and no one else had seen it, not even Narren.
A shadow slid out of the shrubbery ahead. It ghosted to the middle of the path, blocking his way.
Neither moon was up yet, but by faint starlight Tol could see that the person wore a cloth hood, completely covering his head. Immediately, Tol drew his saber.
“Very good,” stated the hooded man. “You never were one for useless banter.”
“This time you won’t get away so easily. I owe a debt to the man you killed.”
“Old, forgotten history. We have new business, you and I. The artifact, please.”
He held out his hand. Tol swung his blade at it, but cut only air.
“Betraying your masters now?” asked Tol, inching closer.
“I live by what I know,” the fellow replied. His hand dropped, then rose again gripping a long thin dagger, like the one he’d used on Gustal. “I’d rather not have to use this. Give it over.”
“Never!” Tol cried, lunging.
The man twisted out of reach of Tol’s blade, then flipped his dagger at Tol’s face. Tol batted it away with his sword hilt. By the time he recovered his stance, however, the black-garbed killer had melted into the darkness.
Tol cut a swath through the air in a complete circle, striking nothing.
“Would you really skewer me, Tol?”
He stiffened.
The killer emerged from the shadows to one side of Tol. He tossed the hood at Tol’s feet, lifting his face to the feeble starlight.
“Crake?” It came out as a gasp. “By Corij, I thought I recognized your voice-is it really you?”
“Been a long time, Tol,” he said with heavy irony.
Tol’s head reeled. “So you’ve become an assassin?”
Crake’s dark eyes narrowed. “Not an assassin-a man of work. Your soldier friend shouldn’t have laid hands on me.”
Tol shouted, “Gustal was drunk! You could have brushed him aside! You killed him for nothing, Crake!”
“We’re not boys anymore, Tol, and Daltigoth isn’t Juramona.” Crake shot back with equal heat. For a moment Crake’s eyes grew distant, as memories flickered there. He presented the point of another dagger.
“Last chance,” he said. “Give over the millstone.”
Tol couldn’t believe he was facing Crake with a sword in his hand. Crake and Narren were his oldest friends, starting from the very day he arrived in Juramona. When Crake fled town under a cloud for having killed a man at the tavern, Tol never doubted it had been done in self-defense. Now, two years later, the man facing him seemed an utter stranger. A deadly, intent stranger.
“I won’t hand it over,” Tol said tersely. “Not while I live.”
In answer, Crake flung a dagger. Caught unaware, Tol couldn’t even get his sword up in time to deflect the knife. It thudded hard against his breastbone, but no blood appeared. The dagger fell to the gravel with a metallic clang. His mail shirt had saved him.
Tol brought his saber down in a long, wide cut. Crake fell back with a grunt, a diagonal slash on his chest. Blood welled from a shallow wound.
Tol had no time to celebrate. Crake commenced a whirling, two-handed attack, a long dagger in each fist. Tol parried shakily, then gave ground to avoid the flashing blades.
By now he was off the garden path, on the dewy grass. Crake stopped his windmill attack and came on, daggers held low.
They traded cuts and parries, Crake’s lightning moves against Tol’s strength and longer blade. Still, the young soldier was forced to retreat.
But Tol had a second blade, too. Breaking contact just long enough to step back a few paces, he drew Amaltar’s gift dagger with his left hand.
“You’re good,” said Crake, voice steady. He wasn’t even winded. “I thought you’d have given it up by now.”
“Foot soldiers must stand and fight. Can’t outrun horses, you know.”
Crake’s hands came up and he threw both daggers at the same time. Tol knocked down the one whizzing at his face, but couldn’t prevent the other from burying itself in his left thigh. Crake drew another dagger, advanced a step, then stopped, dumbfounded.
Tol showed no signs of going down. In fact, while holding his saber at full extension, he grasped the handle of the dagger and yanked it from his leg.
Crake folded his arms, tapping the point of his last dagger against his chin. “I see this task calls for more iron,” he said. “Another time.”
“No,” Tol said through gritted teeth. “One of us will not leave this garden alive!”
Crake shrugged, turned, and ran. Tol pursued, leg wound or no. Blood sluiced down his injured leg, staining the grass. By sheer force of will, he kept up with the fleeing man. Crake knew of the millstone. He couldn’t be
