your superiors about this.'
Ap Owen continued as if he'd never been interrupted. 'We've been here some time,
my lord, searching the house. Among your belongings we discovered—'
'You searched my room? How dare you! I have diplomatic immunity from this sort
of petty harassment!'
'Among your belongings, hidden inside the handle of one of your trunks, we found
a quantity of the super-chacal drug.'
'A lot of things made sense, once we found the drug,' said Fisher. 'We knew the
drug tied into the Talks somehow, but we didn't have a connection, until we
found you. And once we started looking at you closely, all kinds of things
became clear. You gave away the location of the house, because you knew you'd be
safe inside the pocket dimension. When that didn't work as well as you'd hoped,
you used your sorcery to open a door into the dimension, knowing your sorcery
would protect you from the creatures you'd summoned. And of course you were able
to close the door once it became clear the creatures were getting out of hand
and might pose a threat to you. Finally, you've been subtly using your magic all
along, influencing the delegates to make sure nothing would ever be agreed.
You've gone very quiet, my lord. Nothing to say for yourself?'
'I admit everything,' said Lord Nightingale calmly. 'I'll admit anything you
like, here, in private. It doesn't matter anymore. You can't prove any of it,
and even if you could, I have diplomatic immunity from arrest. And I'm afraid
the whole matter is academic now, anyway. My fellow delegates have just drunk a
glass of wine from a decanter I dosed rather heavily with the super-chacal drug.
My sorcery protected me from suffering any effects, but we should begin to hear
the results on them any time now. They'll tear each other to pieces in an animal
frenzy, and that will be the end of the Peace Talks. Evidence is already being
planted in the right places that this was the work of certain leading factions
in Haven, to express their opposition to the thought of peace with Outremer.'
'Why?' said Hawk. 'Why have you done all this? What sane man wants to start a
war?'
Lord Nightingale smiled condescendingly. 'There's money to be made in a war,
Captain. A great deal of money. Not to mention political capital, and military
advancement. A man in the right place at the right time, if properly forewarned,
can rise rapidly in wartime, no matter who wins. Whatever the outcome of the
war, my associates and I will end up a great deal richer and more powerful than
we could ever have hoped to be under normal conditions. The super-chacal was my
idea. I helped fund its creation, and oversaw its introduction into Haven. You
can think of this city as a testing ground for the new drug. If it does as well
here as we expect, it should prove an excellent means of sabotaging the Low
Kingdoms. We'll introduce the drug into selected foods and wines, poison some
strategic wells and rivers, and then just sit back and watch as your country
tears itself apart. All we'll have to do is come in afterwards and clean up the
mess. It could be the start of a whole new form of warfare.
'I hope you've all been listening carefully. It's so nice to be appreciated for
one's work. And it's not as if you'll ever get a chance to tell anyone else. My
fellow delegates should see to that.'
He reached to open the study door, and then hesitated, listening. Hawk smiled
coldly.
'That's right, my Lord. Quiet in there, isn't it? Like ap Owen said, we've been
here for some time. Mistique's magic revealed that one of the decanters had been
drugged, so we switched it for another one. The original should make good
evidence at your trial. As for your citywide test of the drug, you can forget
that, too. We got it all back before it could hit the streets, and it's
currently being protected by some very trustworthy Guards. Morgan is dead. So is
Burns. You're on your own now, Nightingale.'
'You can't arrest me,' said Lord Nightingale. 'I have diplomatic immunity.'
'I think your people can be persuaded to waive that,' said Hawk. 'You'll be
surprised how fast they disown you, to avoid being implicated themselves. After
all, no one loves a failure. They'll probably let us hang you right here in
Haven, if we ask them nicely.'
Lord Nightingale suddenly raised his hands and spoke a Word of Power, and
halfway down the hall the air split open. A howling wind came roaring out of the
widening split, carrying a rush of thick snow and a bitter blast of cold. Within
seconds, a blizzard raged in the narrow hallway, and the temperature plummeted.
Ice formed thickly on the doors and walls, and made the floor treacherous
underfoot. Hawk raised an arm to protect his face as the freezing wind cut at
his exposed skin like a knife. The cold was so intense it burned, and even the
shallowest breath was painful.
Hawk glared about him into the swirling snow, trying to locate Lord Nightingale,
but he and everyone else had become little more than shadows in the roaring
white. From behind him, he could hear something howling in the world beyond the
gateway that Nightingale had opened. It sounded huge and angry and utterly
inhuman. More howls sounded over the roaring of the blizzard and the buffeting
wind, growing louder all the time, and Hawk realised the creatures were slowly
drawing nearer. He staggered forward, head bent against the wind, until his
flailing arms found the nearest wall. Nightingale would be just as blind in this
storm as everyone else, so he had to be following the wall to find his way out.
All Hawk had to do was make his way down the wall after him—assuming he hadn't
got so turned around in the blizzard that he'd ended up against the wrong wall…
Hawk decided he wasn't going to think about that. He had to be right.
And then his heart leapt in his chest as a door suddenly opened to his right,
revealing the startled faces of the other delegates. The force of the storm
quickly threw them back into the study, where they struggled to close the door
again, but Hawk took little notice. He knew now that he'd found the right wall.
The howling of the creatures came again, rising eerily over the sound of the
storm. They sounded very close. Hawk ran down the corridor, slipping and sliding
on the ice, his shoulder pressed against the wall. A shadow loomed up before
him. Hawk threw himself forward, grabbed the figure by the shoulder, and slammed
it back against the wall. He thrust his face close up against the other's, and
smiled savagely as he recognized Nightingale's frightened face.
'We've got to get out of here!' shouted Nightingale, his voice barely audible
over the roar of the blizzard. 'The creatures will be here soon!'
'I've got a better idea,' said Hawk, not caring if the Outremer lord heard him.
He took a firm hold of Nightingale's collar and dragged him kicking and
struggling back down the corridor towards the gateway he'd opened.
Hawk had to fight the force of the storm with every step, as well as hang on to
Nightingale with a hand so numb he could barely feel his grip anymore, and he
thought for a while that he wasn't going to make it. But then suddenly he was
close enough to make out the split in the air, stretching from floor to ceiling,
