Mort

The container was silver, decorated with small crowns. There was hardly any sand left.

Mort, feeling that the night had thrown everything at him and couldn't get any worse, turned it around carefully to get a glimpse of the name. . . .

Princess Keli awoke.

There had been a sound like someone making no noise at all. Forget peas and mattresses — sheer natural selection had established over the years that the royal families that survived longest were those whose members could distinguish an assassin in the dark by the noise he was clever enough not to make, because, in court circles, there was always someone ready to cut the heir with a knife.

She lay in bed, wondering what to do next. There was a dagger under her pillow. She started to slide one hand up the sheets, while peering around the room with half-closed eyes in search of unfamiliar shadows. She was well aware that if she indicated in any way that she was not asleep she would never wake up again.

Some light came into the room from the big window at the far end, but the suits of armour, tapestries and assorted paraphernalia that littered the room could have provided cover for an army.

The knife had dropped down behind the bed head. She probably wouldn't have used it properly anyway.

Screaming for the guards, she decided, was not a good idea. If there was anyone in the room then the guards must have been overpowered, or at least stunned by a large sum of money.

There was a warming pan on the flagstones by the fire. Would it make a weapon?

There was a faint metallic sound.

Perhaps screaming wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. . . .

The window imploded. For an instant Keli saw, framed against a hell of blue and purple flames, a hooded figure crouched on the back of the largest horse she had ever seen.

There was someone standing by the bed, with a knife half raised.

In slow motion, she watched fascinated as the arm went up and the horse galloped at glacier speed across the floor. Now the knife was above her, starting its descent, and the horse was rearing and the rider was standing in the stirrups and swinging some sort of weapon and its blade tore through the slow air with a noise like a finger on the rim of a wet glass —

The light vanished. There was a soft thump on the floor, followed by a metallic clatter.

Keli took a deep breath.

A hand was briefly laid across her mouth and a worried voice said, 'If you scream, I'll regret it. Please? I'm in enough trouble as it is.'

Anyone who could get that amount of bewildered pleading into their voice was either genuine or such a good actor they wouldn't have to bother with assassination for a living. She said, 'Who are you?'

'I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you,' said the voice. 'You are still alive, aren't you?'

She bit down the sarcastic reply just in time. Something about the tone of the question worried her.

'Can't you tell?' she said.

'It's not easy. . . .' There was a pause. She strained to see in the darkness, to put a face around that voice. 'I may have done you some terrible harm,' it added.

'Haven't you just saved my life?'

'I don't know what I have saved, actually. Is there some light around here?'

The maid sometimes leaves matches on the mantelpiece,' said Keli. She felt the presence beside her move away. There were a few hesitant footsteps, a couple of thumps, and finally a clang, although the word isn't sufficient to describe the real ripe cacophony of falling metal that filled the room. It was even followed by