Orfuin took another meditative sip of tea, then rose and walked to the edge of the terrace.
There was no rail, and no wood or garden beyond. There was only the sheer stone edge, a few vines curling up from below, and beyond them a roaring darkness, a torrent of rising wind little illuminated by the club’s lamplight. Orfuin leaned out expertly, gazing down into the void, and the blasting air held him up. When he pulled himself back from the edge, he had not even spilled his tea.
“She is here,” he said.
Even as he spoke three figures shot past the terrace from below. They were spectral, blurred; but when the gale had carried them fifty feet above the terrace they spread their arms and slowed, and descended weightlessly, like beings of cinder. Arunis watched them with an expression of nonchalance, but his body was rigid from head to foot. The three figures alighted without a sound.
They were ghastly to behold. Two bone-white women, one black man. All three were tall-one might even have said stretched-with long, gaunt mouths and cheekbones, staring eyes like dark searchlamps and grasping, spindly hands. They wore finery fit for court, but it was tattered, filthy, with an air of the tomb. The nearest woman trailed yards of faded lace. She pointed a lacquered nail at Arunis and shrieked: “Where is the Nilstone, traitor?”
“A delight to see you again as well, Macadra,” said Arunis. “The centuries have left you quite unchanged.” He turned his gaze on the other two: a stocky woman clutching a dagger in each hand, and a black man, coldly observant, fingers resting on the pommel of a sword. “Your friends are younger, I think? But not too young to have heard of me.”
“Oh, you’re not forgotten,” said the black man. The woman with the daggers sneered.
“They must depart at once, of course,” Arunis continued. “You promised to come alone.”
“Promised!” said the tall Macadra. “That word should burn your tongue. Ivrea and Stoman are here as witnesses. Though if you forget whom you serve, your punishment will be too swift for trial.”
Then Arunis walked forward, until he stood one pace from the woman. “I serve no one-or no one you dare to contemplate,” he said. “You may have gained power over brittle Bali Adro, but your Order has stagnated. I have not. Think of that before you speak of punishments again.”
Macadra’s upper lip curled incredulously. Arunis let the silence hold a moment, and then continued in a lighter tone, “But if you refer to my cooperation-well, really, Macadra, how could I have done more? You dispatched me to Northern Alifros without gold, or guardians, or allies of any kind. Yes, you helped me escape the old regime. But at such a price! You bade me shatter two human empires, to prepare the world for its grand reunification-under the Ravens, of course.”
“Under Bali Adro,” snapped Macadra. “The Ravens are merely advisers to His Majesty.”
“And a conductor merely advises his orchestra to perform.”
For a moment the woman checked her rage. She looked rather pleased with the analogy.
“You have not yet killed the girl,” she said. “Are you that afraid of her?”
“Afraid of Thasha Isiq?” said Arunis, and this time he won a smile of amusement from all three of the newcomers. “No, Macadra, I do not fear her. She will die at the appropriate time, as will all of her circle. But why should I rush to kill my greatest accomplice?”
Macadra laughed aloud. “You have not changed either, Arunis Wytterscorm. Still working with puppets, are you? Painting in their faces, tying your invisible strings.”
“Shall I tell you something, madam?” said Orfuin suddenly, looking up from his tea. “Life is finite. That is to say, it ends. Why not spend it pleasantly? There’s gingerbread fresh from the oven. Leave off this scheming and be my guests. Hear the music. Warm your feet.”
His gaze was mild and friendly. The newcomers stared at him as if unsure what sort of creature he was. Then Arunis went on, as if Orfuin had never spoken:
“I have been splendid, Macadra-that you cannot deny. I took a harmless madman and built him into the Shaggat Ness, a slaughtering messiah, a knife upon which both Arqual and the Mzithrin are preparing to throw themselves. And I managed to let the Arqualis believe the entire affair was in their interests-indeed, that they had devised the plot, alone. What general with legions at his fingertips ever accomplished so much? Either Northern power could mount a fight to try the strength of Bali Adro-together, they might even have bested you. Instead they think only of killing one another, and will soon begin to do so with more determination than you have ever seen.”
“Your Shaggat is dead!” screamed the woman with the daggers. “A peasant boy turned him into a lump of stone!”
“The Pathkendle boy may have started life as a peasant,” said Arunis, “but he is now a Smythidor, magic- altered, blood and bone. The great Ramachni entrusted him with Master-Words, and one of these he used against the Shaggat. But Ramachni’s gamble was a losing one, for in so arming Pathkendle he exhausted himself, and had to abandon his friends. And for what? They wish to kill me; they cannot. They seek a new and safer resting place for the Nilstone; they will not find one. And the Shaggat-he is not dead, merely enchanted. He will breathe again, mark my words.”
“Suppose he does,” said Macadra. “Suppose you complete this journey, hand him back to his faithful on Gurishal. Suppose we help you to that end.”
Arunis bowed his head, as though to say he would not spurn such aid.
“What will we gain for our efforts? All I see ahead is the self-destruction of the Mzithrin in a civil war. And afterward, the total victory of the Arqualis. You will leave us with one giant foe in the North, rather than the smaller pair we face today.”
“Not if you do as I suggest,” said Arunis.
Macadra smiled. “I saw that coming ere our feet touched the ground. Show it to me, wizard. I have waited long enough.”
When Arunis said nothing, Macadra swept toward the doorway of the club, never glancing once at the proprietor. She gazed into the warm firelight. A hush fell over the patrons; the musicians ceased to play.
“Where is it?” she demanded. “Is someone holding it for you at one of the tables?” She turned him a searching look. “Is it on your person?”
“My dear lady,” said Arunis, “we must have words about the Nilstone.”
“Are you saying that you have come here without it?”
“How could I do otherwise? You offer me no assurance that you speak for the Ravens. I do not even have proof that yours is the same Order that dispatched me to the North so long ago.”
“But how dare you leave it unguarded! What possible excuse-”
She broke off, a new thought writing itself in a frown upon her colorless face. With a sharp sound of rage she drove both hands, nails first, into Arunis’ chest. Her fingers sank to the first digits; then she ripped her hands apart. The mage’s flesh vanished briefly, obscured by a sudden haze. Arunis stepped back, and the woman’s fingers emerged unbloodied.
“I told you!” said the woman with the daggers. “We make the dark journey in person; he sends a dream- shell, a mirage! He’ll never give up the Nilstone! He means to use it, Macadra, to use it against us all!”
“As you have just observed,” said Arunis, “I could not very well leave the Stone unguarded aboard the Chathrand. And why not come in trance to the Orfuin Club, this place where all worlds meet so easily-even the worlds of our dreams?”
“You should have come in the flesh to hand over the Stone,” growled the stocky woman, “as you swore to do two centuries ago.”
The black man looked at Arunis with contempt. “If you do not track this mage to his ship and kill him, Macadra,” he said, “you are the greatest fool who ever lived.”
“We would not be talking at all if he had already mastered the Stone,” said Macadra. “Say it, monster. What is it you want from the Ravens?”
Arunis walked to the table and took the parchment from beneath the paperweight. “You are quite right,” he said. “I cannot yet use the Nilstone, any more than you or Ramachni or any other since the time of Erithusme. But you have misunderstood my purpose. I have never wished to make it mine. No, I seek only to finish what I have begun, what you sent me to accomplish so long ago-the ruin of Arqual and the Mzithrin, so that when Bali Adro’s ships next assault the Nelluroq, they will find the whole of the Northern world hobbled and broken, and ready for their conquest. And you Ravens, the true power behind Bali Adro-why, you shall shape this world to your liking. One
