'He's the superior practitioner, Piper. He'd spank me.'
'Do something, Grandfather. Piper is right. We'll be at this all night, otherwise.'
The old man turned grim. And pale.
The hallway lit up suddenly, bright as day.
The man in brown, hair standing straight out, eyes bulging, lunged out of a doorway a dozen feet ahead. He croaked, 'What have you done?'
Delari said, 'Come meet my grandchildren.'
The man in brown regained his aplomb. 'Took you long enough.'
From distress to calm to seriously irritated took scarcely a dozen seconds. Hecht growled, 'Don't do that!' when he thought the man in brown was likely to respond unpleasantly. The man stopped, startled. Hecht asked, 'Is this really Februaren?'
'It is. Looking pretty much the way he did the day I became his apprentice. I thought you were dead, Grandfather.'
'You were supposed to, Muno. Along with everyone else.'
'Why?'
'It's easier to roam around and stick your nose in when people think you're gone. So. You've found me out. Come on in. We'll talk about what needs doing.'
Hecht said, 'Not everyone thinks you're dead. Principate Mongoz recognized you in the mob in the Closed Ground.'
'Hugo was born a pain in the ass. He was half the reason I went missing. He built his career on trying to reduce my funding. And it was all personal. He stopped being an asshole as soon as Humberto took over.'
'My father,' Delari clarified. 'His son.'
If there was any truth to the lineage proclaimed tonight, Hecht was just the latest in a long line of bastards.
At least he had avoided becoming an Episcopal priest. And a sorcerer. Thanks be to God and his mother, he supposed.
Cloven Februaren led them into small but comfortable quarters with a lived-in look. There were no seats. 'I don't have company,' he explained without being asked. 'And you wouldn't have caught on, Muno, if this boy didn't make it so damned hard to protect him. When some seriously deadly people want him dead.'
'Name two,' Hecht challenged. 'And tell me why.'
'Er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. Why isn't clear, even with my insight. Something dark is stirring in Dreanger. Something neither Gordimer nor the Kaif are aware of.' Hecht did not demur. That fit his own suspicions. 'Then you have Immaculate II, Anne of Menand, Duke Tormond in the Connec, and everyone else who'd prefer a Patriarchy with no power to enforce the Patriarchal will. You frighten people everywhere.
'Finally, there would be Rudenes Schneidel in Artecipea. Whose motives are as opaque as those of er-Rashal. He's hiding deep in the High Athaphile, at Arn Bedu, in country never completely tamed by the emperors. It's impossible to spy on him. While Schneidel's motives may be opaque, recall that sorcerers like Masant el-Seyhan and the woman Starkden also tried to dispatch you.'
'All right. I'm not sure I buy all that…'
'There are more. The queue seems endless. And none of the would-be killers know why you're needed dead.' Februaren added, 'For every attack that came close enough for you to notice I've foiled a dozen.'
'Why?'
'You're family.'
'Don't start…'
'Stop! That isn't all of it. But it's a big part. And none of your fabrications change a whit who you are.'
Principate Delari asked, 'You're certain, Grandfather?'
'There is no doubt. Excepting in his own mind, possibly. Because he doesn't want it to be true.'
Delari asked, 'Did they know who he was when they sent him over?'
'No. They still don't. They sent him because they wanted shut of him. Gordimer feared his popularity with the soldiers. Er-Rashal feared him because of what he knows. He couldn't silence him there because questions would be asked.'
Hecht didn't argue. 'The world is full of fools.'
'One named Piper Hecht,' the Principate said. 'I can figure it out third hand. It would be about the truth concerning the brothers who raided the haunted burial ground.'
The man in brown said, 'Young Piper, you need not fear betrayal. We three alone know who you really are.'
'Really? You just mentioned the Rascal. What about a half-dozen Deves who helped me early on? Or Anna? Or Ferris Renfrow, the Imperial spymaster?' He chose not to mention Osa Stile or Bone and his band of the betrayed.
Cloven Februaren stared. He wore a small, knowing smile. 'I was the Ninth Unknown, Piper. More powerful than the Patriarch. I gave that up so I could study the world through naked eyes instead of the lens of the Construct. Thus, I've wasted the best part of fifty years. Mostly trying to deflect inimical fortune. The raid that ushered you children into slavery was a complete surprise. Had there been the least likelihood of slavers striking so far from the usual places, neither of you would have been taken. But even the gods themselves don't post guardians against the impossible.'
The man seemed much less than Collegium legend declared. He did not stand nine feet tall and fart lightning. He was just a middle-aged man so used to power that he could not imagine being disobeyed. Nothing about him suggested any supernatural power or congress with the Night.
Nothing suggested that Muniero Delari was a big bull sorcerer, either. But Hecht had seen what he could do. And he, in his seventies, was still intimidated by his grandfather.
The man in brown said, 'Muno, you and Heris can go, now. You've solved your mystery. I'll join you for breakfast.'
Delari started to say something.
'In the morning, Muno. Right now I need to talk to Piper privately.'
Heris was a biddable child, though a grown woman who was Hecht's senior. She went to the doorway, her eyes unfocused.
'Use the other door, please. Over there, Muno. In the interests of efficiency. That opens onto the interior hallway. Easier for you.'
'As ever, I must defer to your judgment.'
'He doesn't like that,' Februaren said after Heris and Delari left.
'And you'd be pleased if you were in his shoes?'
'I wouldn't be thrilled. Stipulated. I went through it with my own grandfather. He wouldn't lie down and stay dead, either. But there's a method to my madness, to dust off a cliche. First, get Muno out of here. There's work to do. Now. The emotionalism and long explanations would just get in the way.'
'Let me confess to complete ignorance of whatever the hell it is you're talking about.'
'Clever. Excellent. Borrowing your attitude from your friend Pinkus Ghort.'
'If there's something so time-critical that the Principate has to be hustled out…'
'Where was I an hour ago? Right here. But undiscovered. Just the fact that you're onto me changes the equation. Now I can't be the ghost in the walls who's your guardian angel. You knowing I'm real and here, and Muno doing the same, changes your attitude toward everything. I'm about to be hauled out of the realm of legend into a world where somebody besides that asshole Hugo Mongoz can see me.'
Hecht did not understand. He was disinclined to pursue enlightenment.
Februaren said, 'We've failed to examine one whole class of would-be assassins. The Instrumentalities of the Night.'
'What?'
'The soultaken you defeated at al-Khazen were neither the beginning nor the end of your war with the Night. Their reasoning is fallacious. It's too late to stuff the djinn back into the bottle. But the Night doesn't see time the way we do. They think in centuries. They don't often recognize individuals. But you they know. You're a threat. You're the Godslayer. You have to be stopped. Despite the obvious fact, from our viewpoint, that a lot of other
