of an inch and then fading into nothingness with a ghastly slurping and crunching; Ahan snatched his hand away, spilling the rest to the floor, and Emmis thought he saw blood on the guard’s fingers.
The candies rattled and bounced on the floor, and then something unseen shoved Ahan aside, Lar’s chair jerked the other way, and the honey drops vanished, one by one, from where they had fallen. Each disappearance was followed by an obscene sucking sound.
Ahan made a wordless noise of pain and unhappiness as he clutched at his hand; Emmis could definitely see blood seeping between the fingers now.
“Impatient, isn’t it?” Ildirin remarked. “Ahan, go see to your hand, and we’ll want to have a healer look at it, very soon, to make sure the thing’s claws weren’t poisoned.”
Lar was twisted in his chair, looking around; it seemed to Emmis he was having a great deal of difficulty with the idea that the monster was really completely invisible.
“What about the ambassador?” Emmis asked. “I mean, yes, I’m concerned about Ahan’s hand, but it’s my employer the thing intends to kill!”
“Well, he doesn’t need to worry about a thing so long as he stays awake,” Ildirin said. “It has orders to kill him in his sleep. So as long as he’s awake, it won’t hurt him.”
“It hurt Ahan,” Emmis pointed out.
“Only by accident,” Ildirin said. “It had earned its pay, and we weren’t fast enough in delivering it.”
“I was!..” Ahan began, then stopped, obviously deciding it wasn’t worth the argument.
“Go tend to your hand,” Ildirin told him again.
“There’s clean water in the kitchen,” Lar said. “Some of it should still be warm from making the tea.”
“Thank you,” Ahan said, and turned. He walked unsteadily out of the room.
“Maybe I should go with him,” Emmis said uncertainly.
“He’s a grown man,” Ildirin said. “And a strong one with a good wit. He can manage, I’m sure.”
“But if it’s poisoned...”
“Yes.” Ildirin tugged at his beard, then leaned back in his chair. “Creature, we gave you honey,” he called at the ceiling. “Is your touch poisonous?”
“Sharp, oh so very sharp, but not poison,” the hideous voice said. “A hand will heal cleanly.” After a moment’s pause, it added, “More honey?”
“Alas, we have no more,” Ildirin said. “Thank you, though, for your cooperation.”
“No honey?”
“No honey.”
“Wring his neck as he sleeps.” It tittered horribly.
Lar shuddered.
“I wouldn’t think you’ll find it easy to sleep any time soon,” Ildirin remarked.
“But I must sleep eventually!” Lar shouted, his voice cracking.
A thought popped into Emmis’s head, but he caught himself before speaking aloud. The creature was listening, after all.
“So we’ll have to find a way to send this thing away before you do,” Ildirin said.
Emmis could not restrain himself further. “What if he dies first?” he asked.
Both older men turned to stare at him.
“What?” Lar said.
“What if you die before you go to sleep?”
“I hardly see how that would be an improvement,” Lord Ildirin remarked dryly.
“Creature, what would happen if the ambassador died without going to sleep?” Emmis asked the air.
“More honey?”
“I don’t have any, but I can fetch some by tomorrow noon,” Emmis said.
“You swear? Honey, for me, by noon?”
Emmis was uncomfortably aware of how many things might go wrong, how many ways he might be prevented from abiding by his promise, what horrible things the creature might do if he failed to deliver, but he said, “Yes, I swear. My oath on it.”
“Then I tell you, one cannot kill the dead. When he is dead, whether by my hand or not, I am free,” the monster’s voice said. “Honey, by noon.”
“Emmis, what are you doing?” Lar demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Emmis ignored him for the moment, and addressed the overlord’s uncle. “Lord Ildirin, you said you had powerful magic available. Magic that can turn a man to stone?” He carefully did not add, “And back?”
Lord Ildirin stared at him for a moment, then smiled.
Lar, uncomprehending, looked back and forth between them.
Chapter Nineteen
Ithinia of the Isle, senior Guildmaster in Ethshar of the Spices, was startled by the knock at her window. She looked up to see a gargoyle’s familiar face beyond the glass, peering in at her upside-down. “Fang?” she said. “What is it?” She rose and opened the casement, letting the lamplight from her study illuminate the creature’s carved gray features. It was hanging down over the eaves, dangling from the roof.
“You have visitors,” the gargoyle said, in a voice like stone grating on stone. “Half a dozen of them are standing in the street, outside your door.”
“At this hour?”
“Three of them are soldiers.”
Ithinia frowned. “Was the overlord there? Or anyone in wizard’s robes?”
“No, mistress.”
“I haven’t heard the bell.”
“They did not ring. I saw them standing there arguing, and I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Fang. Return to your post, now.”
“Yes, mistress.” The stony creature turned and pulled itself up into the darkness, on its way back to its perch on the southeastern corner of the roof.
Ithinia set aside the letter she had been reading, straightened her robe, and strode out into the corridor — and then the bell did ring. Whoever was at the front door had finally gotten up the nerve to announce themselves.
She swept down the front stairs, wishing that she had some sort of spell ready to make her entrance a little more impressive, but she hadn’t been expecting anyone and hadn’t prepared anything. She waved and spoke a certain word, and the front doors swung open.
As the gargoyle had said, there were half a dozen people standing on her little porch, all of them male — three guardsmen, two strangers, and one familiar face.
“Lord Ildirin,” she said, as she reached the entry. “What brings you to my door at this hour?”
“Oh, it’s not so late as all that, Guildmaster,” the old man said. “We’ve come directly from our supper to ask your aid.”
“I hadn’t thought it was a social call,” Ithinia said tartly. “Would you care to come in, and introduce your companions?” She stepped aside, and gestured for them to enter.
“Before I do, Guildmaster, might I ask how many you see in our company?”
Ithinia stopped and looked the little group over carefully. “I take it ’six’ is not the correct answer?”
“While I cannot be entirely certain, I believe there is a seventh,” Ildirin said. “Are there protective spells on your home that would prevent Fendel’s Assassin from entering?”
“There aren’t any such spells anywhere,” Ithinia snapped. “Not any practical ones, anyway. Do you mean you have one of those things with you? Who is its target?”
“I am,” the stranger in the fancy hat said.
“I trust you have put your affairs in order?”
“No,” the man said. “I hope it won’t be necessary.” He spoke with the accent of the southern Small
