me!'
'Bugger you!' Luka whispered. 'We're in the right. You are most grievously wrong.'
'Who cares?' Kalasariz hissed. The spy master didn't have to reflect on Fari's warning. He too, sensed danger. 'New truce. Quick!'
'And let you be the first to stab me in the back?' Luka replied. 'Bugger you as well!'
'Trust me!' Fari urged. 'Or all is lost!'
'Truce, dammit! Truce!' Kalasariz said.
Iraj rode up before Luka had a chance to answer. On horseback Iraj towered over them, his crown sparkling with jewels and rare metals. Shoulders squared, head uplifted, that knowing, scar-twisted smile playing across his lips, making his face unreadable.
The king raised his sword to Luka in salute. 'It is you who should be congratulated for this victory, my good and loyal friend,' he said. 'Your bravery is an example to us all.'
As the demon prince bowed in humble thanks the sense of peril became so strong his skin pebbled and began to itch as if he were about to molt.
'I am not worthy, Your Majesty,' he murmured.
'Don't be so modest,' Iraj said. 'It is you and you alone who deserves full credit. And to reward your great deeds I will give you the honor of leading my army onward to even greater glories.'
Not far away Kalasariz' assassins were roaming the battlefield cutting the throats of the enemy fallen with magical knives. Making certain no Guardian would never rise again. Luka heard the tell-tale hiss of ghostly life fleeing the temporal world and reconsidered.
'Modesty has nothing to do with it, Your Majesty,' he said. 'The fact is, at this time it would be imprudent of me to assume such an honor.'
Iraj let his eyebrows rise as if he were surprised at this statement. 'Is there some problem?'
'Only one of indecision, Your Majesty,' Luka said. He gestured at his companions. 'At this moment we were debating the merits of what to do next.'
Out of the corner of his eye Luka saw Fari and Kalasariz visibly relax. The truce was on.
'What's this?' Iraj said. 'A disagreement? At such a crucial moment for us all?'
'Only a small one, Majesty,' Fari said, wringing claws of humility. 'My brothers think we should continue on until we reach the end of this pass. And, presumably, come upon Lord Timura waiting for us in Caluz. I, on the other hand, believe that some sort of trick has been played on us.'
Further down the pass they heard a chorus of frustrated howls from a pack of sniffers. Fari nodded toward the sound. 'Safar Timura doesn't wait for us there, Majesty,' he said. 'At least that is my opinion. I think we will only find the machine that has been bedeviling us since we entered the Black Lands. If I am right, many of us will die before we have time to turn back. And once again Lord Timura will most certainly be laughing up his sleeve at us as he makes his escape.'
Iraj peered down at Kalasariz. Although he was smiling, his eyes were deadly. 'And you, my lord?'
he asked. 'Where do you stand?'
'With Prince Luka, Majesty,' Kalasariz said. He nodded at Fari. 'No disrespect intended, of course.
Only an honest disagreement among brothers who wish to serve you well.'
Iraj already knew the substance of their disagreement. But he didn't know the reason. He brought himself up short. There were many perils in the double-think necessary to this game he played. Above all things, Iraj reminded himself, you have to remember that Safar must come first. Once that game was won, the end of these traitorous bastards would quickly follow. Before he shifted his attention, however, he made special note that once again his three opponents had overcome their personal animosities to oppose him as one.
Then he had another thought and his belly crawled. But what of his dream? The one that had been bedeviling him when he came upon these deadly conspirators. He gritted his teeth, remembering his terror. Yes, the dream. A dream within a dream so complicated it defied rational interpretation. And yet it was the sort of dream a man could relive in its entirety in the blink of an eye.
Iraj blinked.
And relived the dream…
He was only a boy, too young to be alone in the mountains. His name was Tio and he had spent a sleepless night guarding the goat herd against imagined horrors. Now he slept the sleep of the exhausted, the gentle dawn rising over the peaceful Kyranian mountains.
Iraj was a wolf, a great gray wolf, slipping across the meadow, leading his ravenous spell brothers to the kill. His plan was to slay the boy but leave the herd untouched. A coldly calculated murder intended to strike terror in the hearts of the Kyranians and undermine their faith in their vaunted hero, Safar Timura.
During Iraj's time with these people, who in his youth had shielded him against his enemies, he'd learned that wolves killed goats, not people. So poor little Tio, defenseless Tio, a child who whose death would wring pity from the hardest of hearts, would be his meat that day. He and his spell brothers would gut him, ravage him, and when the villagers came to investigate they'd find the goats bleating over the child's remains.
Then Kalasariz howled a warning, 'Interlopers!' and Iraj spotted Graymuzzle and her starving pack descending on the goats. His rage was immediate and uncontrollable. How dare these wizened creatures plot to spoil his carefully wrought plan? His pent up shape changer's fury exploded and he charged into the pack, scattering them. All he could think of was 'kill, kill,' and so he killed and kept killing until there was nothing left alive on the meadow except Graymuzzle, trapped against a rock outcropping.
But as he went for her, instead of cowering and meekly accepting death, she suddenly roared in a fury as wild as his own. She leaped at him, slavering jaws snapping to do whatever damage she could before she died. Iraj caught an image of pups whining in a cave and knew the reason for her blind, suicidal attack. It made her death all the more delicious and his spell brothers crowded in close beside him to lap up her torment.
Ordering the others back, Iraj went to the little stone shelter alone, eager to feed on the child who waited there asleep. He rushed into the shelter, every nerve firing in delightful anticipation. Tio bolted up, screaming in terror, raising his puny goatherder's staff to protect himself.
Iraj bit the staff in two, then killed the boy.
Suddenly the child was sitting up again, but this time instead of screaming, he was smiling, and it wasn't Tio's face he was looking at. It was Safar's! A young Safar, the Safar he'd known long ago with those gentle blue eyes that could see the good in him.
Shocked and frightened to his core, Iraj reeled back.
Safar said, 'So tell me, brother. How do you like being king?' And then he laughed.
Iraj recovered, more furious than ever, hysterically so, thinking how can this be, how can this be? Safar smiled the whole time he was killing him.
But he wouldn't stay dead. He kept rising, calling Iraj brother, his laughter becoming more mocking each time he died.
Finally, it was over and the corpse lay still under his paws and Iraj knew it would rise no more.
Exhausted, emptied of all emotion, Iraj stared down at the body.
But when he saw the youthful face staring up at him the horror came full circle.
For the face was his own!
'Majesty?' Fari was murmuring. 'Is something wrong?'
Iraj blinked and he was back in the Caluzian Pass, his spell brothers looking at him anxiously.
'No,' he said, shaking off the dream. 'There's nothing wrong. I was only considering our problem.' He turned to Fari. 'I've heard all sides of the dispute,' he said. 'Save one thing.'
'Yes, Majesty?' Fari asked.
Iraj said, 'What do you propose we do? Luka and Kalasariz say we should continue on through the pass. You say we shouldn't. But you haven't said what we ought to do instead. We can't just sit here scratching our heads forever in dumb amazement at Safar's latest trick. If, as you say, it is a trick.'
Fari drew himself up, confidence restored. He said, 'Majesty, if you we allow me two hours-three at the most-I think I can solve the riddle of the vanished Lord Timura.' He pointed at a rock outcropping bulging from a nearby canyon wall. 'His trail ends there. Our sniffers have searched and double-searched the area in all directions.
