Lord of the Silent Kingdom

8. Long Winter, Short Spring

Piper Hecht was enjoying a rare evening with Anna and the kids. And Pinkus Ghort, who had brought a couple of newly discovered vintages that he wanted to share. Not uninvited. Ghort being as near a friend as Hecht had – though he did get on well with his staff. But his staff were all married men disinclined to spend their free time with the people they saw all day every day at work. Nor was it appropriate for the Captain-General of All the Patriarchal Armies to become too familiar with men he expected to send into harm's way.

Pella showed off how much he had learned since entering Anna's house. He could read now, slowly. And was all excited about it. For someone of his class literacy was akin to magic.

Anna and Pinkus played chess while Pella stumbled through his reading. Hecht looked over the boy's shoulder. Vali looked over Pella's other shoulder. She was all polished and dressed like a doll. Her own doing. She was impatient with Pella's pace.

Hecht asked, "Can you do better?" And chuckled. Vali was in complete control. You could not trick her into talking. Though she did, occasionally, relay messages through Pella. Hecht now believed she was just a clever chit who had created the perfect legend to weasel herself out of a terrible situation. A stubborn pretense to muteness saved her having to explain.

Ghort moved a piece, said, "Kid already reads twice as better than I do. Maybe he's gonna jump back in time and be the Pella that wrote that damned play."

Anna asked, "You sure that's what you want to do?" But only after Pinkus took his finger off his piece.

Ghort protested, "I don't see anything."

Hecht said, "She's trying to rattle your confidence."

"I don't have no confidence to rattle. I seen what she done to you. You ever beat her?"

"No. I can't even beat Vali." In fact, Vali was the superior player. She thought far ahead and easily developed long-range strategies. "Pella, I'm impressed. You're learning faster than I did. Would you put more wood on the fire?"

Pella was cooperative in all things. He knew when he had it good. It had been a hard winter on Brothe's streets.

Anna did nothing dramatic in response to Ghort's move.

He sighed, asked, "Anna, our raids got your neighbors pissed off yet?"

Anna replied, "They haven't tried to burn me out."

The City Regiment made regular sweeps through the quarter. What was left of the force.

Anna went on, "They like having me here. You looking out for me gets them looked out for, too."

Pinkus Ghort now referred to his command as the City Platoon, though five hundred men remained on his payroll. Hecht kept cherry-picking the best for his expanding Patriarchal force. He was trying to create a unified command for all the Patriarchal garrisons.

Sublime was amenable – according to Principate Doneto. Sublime was optimistic now that he had his arrangement with Anne of Menand. He was positioning himself for a future of his own design. He would need an effective, efficient military. He expected to be able to afford the best.

Hecht noted that little of Anne's money had reached Brothe yet. Delivery arrangements remained confused.

Hecht asked, "Did you come up with anything? Ever?"

"Nothing useful to me. But we've got two or three Principates underfoot all the time. Having more fun than we were."

Anna said, "I heard you arrested some people."

"Sure. There's always bad people dumb enough to tell you their real names. With the Man in Black standing right behind you."

The Man in Black, the public executioner, was not missing many meals for lack of work. Folks who behaved badly were being hunted vigorously.

Ghort's men wanted to seem useful.

Ghort moved a piece. Anna wasted no time. "Check."

Ghort tipped his king. "I know when I'm outclassed. What do you figure is going on, Pipe? Besides me getting my ass whipped again, here."

"Where? When? Who?"

"All good questions, Pipe. I mean here, in Brothe. Ain't all these riots something less than spontaneous?"

"You think? My gut says you can thank Ferris Renfrow. But I'm not sure we ought to trust my gut."

"Uhm. I can think of a couple people who'd get more out of civil unrest here."

"That Duke out there in the Connec?"

"Absolutely."

"Not his style. He'll just wait for Sublime to die."

Anna asked, "Is that why they call him the Great Vacillator?"

"It is. I'd look at Immaculate first."

"No. Not Immaculate," Ghort said. "But maybe somebody in Viscesment who thinks that's the way Immaculate would want it if only he had enough goddamn sense. And don't write off the Connec just because of Duke Tormond. He ain't hardly in charge out there no more. That Count Raymone in Antieux, the one that squashed Haiden Backe, he's getting tough with them Society monks Sublime keeps sending."

Hecht scowled. Pinkus had better intelligence than he did. "I don't like the sound of that. Sublime might want me to go protect them. And won't believe me when I tell him I can't do it."

Anna asked, "What makes you think the riots are being provoked?"

Ghort said, "They're always drunk. Somebody keeps filling them up with wine, then giving them reasons to be mad. The wine costs money. The bullshit is cheaper than air."

"You can't claim they don't already have reasons, can you?"

"Sure, I can. They didn't need to come here without no prospects. Don't nobody here owe them nothing."

"You and Piper came here with no more prospects."

Which was true in Ghort's case. "We didn't expect nobody to give us nothing, though."

Anna rose. "Pella. Vali. Go get dinner started." She made little use of hired help, now. There were too many secrets around. "You may be rounding up a few bad men, Pinkus, but people are still worried about mystery men and night stalkers who chop out people's livers."

"There hasn't been another killing."

"Not the point. There will be. And you know it. You're catching common criminals. The real evil is laughing at you."

Hecht interjected, "That's hardly kind. Even Principate Delari says Pinkus is working miracles with half a kit of flawed tools. A remedy for that might be on the way, Pinkus, but I can't tell you about it yet. We have to get Sublime's go-ahead."

Anna snapped, "And Delari has been doing so good? He may be the great bull ape of the Collegium, but I notice that even him and his cronies have only slowed down whatever it is out there."

"She's got that right, Pipe. There ain't no concrete proof, but I'm pretty sure all we've managed is to chase him, or it, farther underground."

Hecht knew. Delari was unhappy about it, too. In the extreme. And, after a fruitless winter, was beginning to worry. Saying just what Ghort had.

In a city teeming with refugees it was impossible even to guess how many people were disappearing. Or why.

There were people willing to buy bodies, living and freshly dead. And others willing to supply them.

"It's almost… It's like there's another one of those bogon monsters. Here. A clever one. Historically, they haven't done a good job avoiding people."

"Not a bogon," Ghort countered. "Not possible. That would be something the Collegium can handle. It's what they were created for."

More or less. Though it was now the senate of the Church, the consistory of its high priests, in pagan times the Collegium had been a parliament of sorcerers created to beat back the Instrumentalities of the Night.

"That was then. They're mostly hacks today."

"Then maybe it's time to call in the Special Office."

Hecht did not say so, but the Special Office was involved already. He was not supposed to know. But he had recognized several faces amongst recent visitors to the Chiaro Palace. One was the man who had given him the courier wallet to take to Sonsa.

Muniero Delari was not happy. He loathed the Special Office. He hated Witchfinders. He had little love for the Brotherhood as a whole. He blamed them for the death of his only son.

"We don't want to have to deal with that. They're too powerful already."

"And getting more powerful fast," Anna said. "Rumor says the top Witchfinders have come over from the Castella Anjela dolla Picolena. They want to take control of the Society for the Suppression of Heresy and Sacrilege."

Hecht said, "It does look that way. And it's making a lot ot people unhappy."

Everyone in the Church, excepting the Brotherhood of War, were certain that the Brotherhood enjoyed too much power and influence already. The Brotherhood believed it ought to rule a Church Militant. A Church far more aggressive toward Unbelievers and the Instrumentalities of the Night. Honario Benedocto's commitment was too feeble for them.

Pella announced, "There's food, people."

"I swear," Anna grumbled, "I can't teach him manners at knife point."

"He does fine in public," Ghort said.

"Kind of like you," said Hecht.

"A lot like me. I'm slick as a weasel when I got an audience. The lad must be my spiritual offspring."

Anna said, "He doesn't tell as many tall tales."

"Give him time. He's only a kid. So what's on the table, Pella?"

"Lamb pie. Piper always wants mutton something whenever he's here. Like he was a Deve, or something."

"I just like mutton. And you don't get it around here much." He started to pull a seat away from Anna's low dining table.

The world began to shake.

"What the hell?"

"Earthquake!" Anna squealed.

Pella's jaw dropped. Nothing came out of his mouth. Vali shrieked, the first sound Hecht ever heard from her. She flung herself at Anna, buried herself in the woman's skirts. Terrified.

"I don't think it's a quake," Ghort gasped. "It's going on way too long." The earth did go on shaking. A deep-throated, distant, ongoing roar, punctuated by screams, came from outside.

"I don't think so, either," Hecht said. He was aware of no historical instance of an earthquake in Brothe. He headed for the front door.

Anna barked, "You don't want to go out there!"

The racket outside suggested rising panic.

Something fell in the kitchen.

"I want to see…"

"Every one of those idiots will expect you to know what's happening. And what to do about it."

The woman might have a point. She knew her neighbors. "You check it out, then. I'll see what happened in the kitchen."

Anna went outside. The kids followed her, too quick and elusive to be stayed.

Ghort said, "We're gonna got to go out there anyhow, Pipe. 'Cause whatever that is, it's big and it's our job to get in the middle of it."

Pinkus Ghort was not psychic. Anyone able to walk and talk at the same time could have made that call. They had made themselves critical cogs in the Brothen machine.

They got away without attracting attention. People were all focused on a vast, thick, dense boiling cloud rising to the north-northwest.

"What the hell?" Ghort muttered, awed.

"That doesn't look like smoke." But Hecht could not imagine how so much dust could be thrown up.

The ground still trembled occasionally, but no longer continuously.

Lightning crackled inside the roiling gray cloud.

"Sorcery," Ghort murmured. "I've never seen lightning with that greenish tint."

"I'm getting a bad feeling, Pinkus."

The lightning flashed more emphatically. The cloud lit up from inside, a flickering lilac glow that waxed and waned like a slow heartbeat. Thunder burped.

"That's got to be up by the hippodrome, Pipe. Maybe the part they're working on fell down."

The racing stadium was fourteen hundred years old. In ancient times it had been the scene of gladiatorial contests and other blood games. Renovations had been under way since the close of the autumn racing season because a small collapse had taken place during the pounding excitement of a late-season chariot race featuring champions from Firaldian cities against several from the Eastern Empire.

"It'd have to be a big part."

They were afoot, pushing upstream against a current of fugitives whose panicky reports made no sense.

The lightning in the cloud grew more excited. The cloud itself was ferociously active but contained. It was not spreading. It did rise higher with every flash. The waxing/waning light sent glowing globs climbing the vast trunk, fading as they slowed.

"It's definitely dust," Hecht said. "I can smell it already."

"Maybe we better not get any closer, then. That much stuff could drown you without water."

Particularly vicious lightning ripped through the cloud. And sustained itself.

The cloud burst.

"Shit! Look at that!"

The cloud collapsed. Moments later a churning flood swept around a turn a quarter mile ahead. It charged them faster than a man could run. Ghort swore. "Aaron's Hairy Balls!"

Hecht hoisted his shirt over his face, almost panicky.

Ghort pulled him into a tenement doorway a moment before the flood arrived. Ghort pounded on the door. "City Regiment! Emergency! Open up!"

To Hecht's amazement, that worked. A stooped crone stared at them from behind a preteen boy armed with a broken board. Her cataracted eyes were open amazingly wide.

"We ain't spooks, Granny. Get your ass in there, Pipe! You want to drown in this shit?"

Ghort slammed the door. Dust swirled in through cracks. Ghort brushed himself off enough to reveal his City Regiment officer's jacket. Which he wore mostly because of the perks it could command.

The boy recognized him. "It's the Commandant his own self, Nana. Really."

The old woman remained suspicious. Which seemed a sound strategy to Hecht.

Ghort told her, "Don't open up again before the dust settles. It'll choke you right now. Boy, is there any way to reach the roof from inside?" The tenement stood four stories tall.

The boy said, "Follow me, Commandant."

Hecht raised an eyebrow. Ghort had the title but nobody used it. Strange as it might sound, this looked like a case of hero worship.

Disturbing thought.

The roof did raise them above the worst of the dust. But did them no good when it came to betraying the source of the dust.

The boy chattered away. He had followed Ghort's career. He wanted to be a regular city soldier when he grew up.

Hecht shook his head and tried to discover the source of the dust. He could see nothing but a sinking, flattening dome of gray that hid the city immediately north. The high points of Krois, the Castella, the Chiaro Palace, various obelisks in the Memorium, distant hills, and so forth could just be distinguished beyond.

"It was the hippodrome," Hecht guessed. "But how?"

"Sorcery."

IT WAS THE HIPPODROME. AND MORE. AS GHORT AND Hecht discovered after the dust subsided enough to let them approach the scene of the disaster.

"Sorcery," Ghort said again, looking down into the vast hole full of rubble that had swallowed the racing stadium.

"Sorcery," Hecht agreed. He would rather have blamed the collapse on time and failure of strength in the catacombs helow, but had seen what he had seen earlier.

"Ever see anything like this?"

"Never." And, as an afterthought, "You were there every time I've ever had any run-in with the things of the Night."

"Hey! Don't go blaming it on me."

"This is probably something you should handle." Some of Ghort's soldiers were there already, standing around looking dazed. Along with hundreds of gawkers. "We don't want a lot of people getting hurt."

"Too late for that, Pipe. There's gonna be plenty of bodies in that mess, you can bet." Looking down into the pit.

No doubt. Craftsmen would have been doing renovations. And there were always squatters hiding in the great stadium.

Hecht could see corpses and parts of corpses already. "There may be survivors down there, too, Pinkus. You get to it. I'll muster my troops and send them over to help."

There was a brilliant flash beneath the rubble. Crackling, muted thunder followed. Then the earth shifted.

They retreated. The pavements where they had stood tilted, slowly slid into the pit. On the far side the last surviving wall of the hippodrome sank majestically into the earth. More dust roared up, less dense than before. A breeze from the south pushed it away from Hecht and Ghort. "Later," Hecht said. "And be careful."

"Careful is my new family name. You see anything around here worth stealing?"

"Huh?"

"I'm thinking my guys might have to worry more about looters than rescue and cleanup."

Hecht granted agreement, then headed for the Castella.

Hecht found his staff in place, at work, when he entered the suite provided by the Brotherhood. "Have you all heard what's happened?"

"Some kind of disaster," Colonel Smolens said. "I sent people out to investigate. So did the Brothers."

"A disaster. Yes. The hippodrome fell down. Because the catacombs caved in. Sorcery was involved. I saw it happening. It's a huge mess. I expect we'll need to help keep order."

Everyone asked questions at once.

"That's all I know. Except that there'll be casualties. Call out the soldiers. Assemble them in the Closed Ground. Weapons and kit. Do we have enough messengers?"

"We can borrow from the Brotherhood. They've got a lot of extra mouths around here lately."

"Good. Go. Titus. Who owns the hippodrome?"

"The Church. Why?"

"That's what I thought. Meaning the Church will have to clean up and rebuild."

"Sir?"

"If Sublime has to do that, he'll have less to invest in us and his ambitions."

"Oh. My. Are you talking about sabotage? A scheme to disarm Sublime?"

"No. We know people who are ruthless enough. But not smart enough to recognize the opportunity. Actually, I think the disaster could be the by-product of something much darker."

Everyone stopped work and turned.

"The sorcery involved was huge. You won't believe the eyewitnesses."

Hecht, with Titus Consent in tow, went to review the troops. The few seemed lost in the expanse of the Closed Ground. Colonel Smolens reported, "This is all we could pull together. So far."

Hecht guessed he was looking at a hundred twenty men. Something we'll have to work on."

"Sir?" Consent asked.

"Responding to the unexpected more quickly."

Colonel Smolens observed, "They'll come as soon as they get the word. We need a signal. A horn, maybe."

Hecht grunted. The slow response was his fault. He had not wanted his married soldiers living separate from their families. He had suffered too much of that when he was Sha-lug. The trouble with the horn notion was that the city was loo big.

Titus Consent said, "Company coming. Looks like Principate Doneto."

Doneto, Donel Madisetti, and several lesser lights of the Collegium. Doneto demanded, "What are you doing, Captain-General?"

"Assembling my troops in order to help keep public order around the collapse."

It would be dark soon. The looters would bloom by moonlight.

"Admirable," Doneto said. "Exactly the responsible sort of action we expect of you, Captain-General. But I have to change your plans."

"Sir?" Insanity. The Brothen people would be outraged if the Church did nothing. Loving Mother Church with her infinite charity.

Principate Doneto did one of those disconcerting mind-reading tricks Collegium sorts enjoyed so much. "We won't deliberately withhold assistance, Captain-General." He jerked his head sideways. He wanted a private word.

Hecht joined him. "Sir?"

"There's an uprising coming tonight. Possibly connected to what happened at the hippodrome."

"There hasn't been much disorder since Colonel Ghort got aggressive."

"A change of strategy by those who would misbehave, I expect."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Back up the Palace guard. The mob is supposed to hit us here."

Principate Doneto was an accomplished liar, hard to read. But Hecht thought he was being sincere but not entirely forthcoming. "This is what His Holiness wants?"

"Desperately."

Oh? The response suggested some special interest by the Patriarch's cousin.

Men continued to assemble. Smolens and the staff kept order while Hecht conferred with Doneto. The Drumm brothers arrived filthy, sweaty, and minus their tunics. The elder, gasping, reported, "There's a huge mob in the Memorium, sir. They chased us. Because of our uniforms. We almost didn't get away."

The mob could be heard outside, getting louder.

The Chiaro Palace had been built at the height of the Old Brothen Empire, when the frontiers were a thousand miles away and whole legions quartered in the city, capable of suppressing disorder instantly. There had been no need to make the Palace defensible. A bastion of bureaucracy, it remained untouched during even the ferocious Imperial civil wars.

Whoever crowned himself Emperor needed the tax rolls and a means of extorting money from the citizenry.

The mob poured into the Closed Ground. Brothens had been accustomed to do so for two score generations. These pilgrims were drunk. Some carried torches. Weapons were makeshift, cudgels, bricks, tools, knives, and, rarely, a rusty keepsake military sword purloined by an ancestor.

"Looks like mainly refugees," Titus Consent told Hecht. "I've heard several languages already that aren't native to Firaldia.

"They don't seem eager for a confrontation, though."

Some sobering up was taking place out there.

Someone whose job it was to stir trouble threw a stone. Hecht told his staff, "I don't want anyone doing anything unless they actually break in. They'll go home if they just stand around long enough for their heads to start hurting."

Voices exhorted the mob. It was not necessary to understand to get the gist.

Hecht said, "They'll be too tired and hungover to become obnoxious if we don't respond."

Captain-General Piper Hecht's Patriarchal soldiers were combat veterans. He was able to cherry-pick the very best available. Having seen the elephant up close and smelled her foul breath, his men were not eager for a bloodletting contest.

The Palace guards did not suffer a comparable level of basic sense.

"That damned fool will get us all killed," Colonel Smolens said, indicating a guard officer who was headed out with three uniformed footmen.

"Must think the livery makes him invulnerable," Hecht said. "Principate Doneto, how about you… Where did he go?" Doneto, Madisetti, and the others had vanished. "Doneto could have ordered him back." He could not. He might be Captain-General but there were a thousand exceptions to his being in charge.

Titus Consent observed, "They might deal with him too fast to get the mob fired up. Here! What are you doing?"

Hecht had started to go out. Consent's outburst stopped him.

A waving torch had revealed two familiar faces. One belonged to Pinkus Ghort's man Bo Biogna. Biogna would be right at home in a seditious mob, identifying ringleaders. It was the man next to Bo whose appearance froze Hecht's heart.

He was a little older, a little grayer, showed a hitherto unsuspected bald spot, and was less enthusiastically bearded, but there was no doubt. Hecht would know Bone anywhere, if all that was left was his skeleton. Bo and Bone. Bone and his bones. What the hell was Bone doing on this side of the Mother Sea? Let alone being here, in the front rank of a mob quickly losing all enthusiasm for an assault on the beating heart of western religion?

Hagid.

There must be a connection.

Bone, known by no other name insofar as Hecht knew, had been the leading sergeant in the special company commanded by the Sha-lug captain, Else Tage.

"Sir?"

"Bechter. There you are."

Sergeant Bechter had been forced to take a long way around. Accompanying him were the newly minted Bruglioni Principate, Gervase Saluda, and old Hugo Mongoz. Principate Mongoz appeared to be having a good day. Hecht told Saluda, "Congratulations. Finally." Paludan Bruglioni, the chieftain of the Bruglioni family, had nominated Saluda long ago, after Principate Divino Bruglioni had been discovered dead on the battlefield outside al-Khazan, scant hours before the conclusion of the Calziran Crusade.

There had been fierce opposition to Saluda. The man had not been inside a church since his christening. He had no supernatural talents. He was a strong personality. He was dedicated to the Bruglioni family fortunes. And, from Hecht's point of view, he was dangerously smart. He had held the Bruglioni together for the last ten years.

"The right always triumphs," Saluda replied, in a sarcastic tone. He was amoral, and cynical in the extreme.

"Pardon me. We have a situation here."

More than one, possibly. Osa Stile materialized back in the shadows, behind the soldiers. The catamite tried to get Hecht's attention.

Studying the crowd again, Hecht could not find Bone or Bo Biogna. The mob was dispersing, the provocateurs first to go. Those who stayed were content to taunt the Palace guards.

Hecht shuddered suddenly.

"Sergeant Bechter."

"Sir?"

"To the left, there. In the second rank. Behind the guy with the huge beard. Wearing brown."

"Got him, sir. That's the man I've been talking about. And I got the chill a minute ago."

"Cloven Februaren," Hugo Mongoz said, peering between Hecht and Bechter, hanging on to their shoulders, leaning forward and squinting. "That would be Cloven Februaren. No doubt about it. The Ninth Unknown himself."

Only Hecht understood. "The Ninth Unknown, Your Grace? But he's been dead for fifty years."

"Yes," the old man said, musingly. "He should have been. So you'd think." Mongoz looked resentful for a moment, then a shadow stirred behind his eyes. He slumped, his grip weakening. Hecht and Bechter caught his arms. He turned panicky, suddenly lost.

Gervase Saluda said, "Let me take him, Captain-General. Biggio. A hand, if you will."

The quick change was a dramatic reminder of human frailty. Hecht said, "Sergeant Bechter. Where's the man in brown?" Ninth Unknown or mundane rioter, he was gone.

Hecht nodded to Osa Stile, to let the catamite know he had been seen. He was being ignored only because of the more pressing situation.

It would be important, though. Osa did not appear in public without his protector.

The new Bruglioni Principate, about to depart with Principate Mongoz, said, "I need a few minutes in private when you get time, Captain-General. A family matter. Of some importance to Paludan."

"Of course. Sergeant Bechter can work out something that fits our schedules." In the Name of God, the All-Knowing and Merciful! What was this? He could not have imagined himself saying that a year ago. "Bechter?"

"I understand, sir."

Hecht moved to check the situation in the Closed Ground. "That idiot will talk himself into thinking he's a hero."

The mob was a third of what it had been. The deadenders had a tail-between-the-knees look and were hanging on mostly because they did not want to desert the friends with whom they had come.

Hecht remarked, "The professional agitators have taken off. Nothing but inertia keeping it going now. It's over unless somebody suffers a last-second stroke of idiocy. People. Gather round. Let's make sure there's no plague of stupidity. Feel free to deal with anybody, even on our side."

Colonel Smolens asked, "You won't be here?"

"I won't. I have another problem that needs immediate attention."

"Sir?"

He did not explain. "Once those morons clear out take the troops to the hippodrome to help Colonel Ghort."

"Yes, sir."

Hecht glanced around. The Mongoz party had gone. He was the senior man present. He could do what he wanted.

He wanted to find the catamite.

"Armand." Hecht overtook the boy halfway to Principate Delari's Palace apartment. The catamite beckoned and increased his pace. He wanted to be inside the safety of the Principate's apartment when he talked.

"What is it?" Hecht asked as soon as it was safe. Osa was too professional to take a risk unless there was a greater risk in not acting.

"He's trapped down there."

"What? Who? Start at the beginning."

"The Principate. Our Principate. Delari. He's down in the catacombs. He was supposed to come back a long time ago."

"You're still not at the beginning. Did he have anything to do with the cave-in at the hippodrome?"

Osa was puzzled. "What cave-in?"

"The catacombs under the hippodrome collapsed. The stadium fell into the hole. It's a huge mess. A lot of people got killed."

Osa turned pale. "I thought it was just another riot. We have to do something."

Hecht ground his teeth. "He's really down there?"

The boy nodded.

"Oh, damn! That is bad. We need that old man to get by. You and me both. You're absolutely sure?"

"He went this morning. He got up way early. He said he'd figured out how to deal with what was down there. Whatever that meant. He doesn't tell me nearly as much as you think. He left right after breakfast. Whistling. Said he should be back in time for a late lunch."

Hecht considered his options. And saw only one. Get Delari out.

Osa said, "I'm going, too." Before Hecht could demur, he whispered, "I am Sha-lug."

He was. Yes. Before all else. And from the Vibrant Spring School.

"All right. Wear something that doesn't make you look like a whore."

"I'll go change."

Osa did so. And looked nothing like the rouged, perfumed bed bunny who shared Muniero Delari's nights. Nor did he smell like it.

This Osa would have no trouble fading into the Brothen mob. His threadbare apparel suggested that he did so occasionally.

Osa smiled. "Part of the job, Captain. You know where we have to go. Lead on."

Hecht wondered if Stile was taking the opportunity to unearth secrets never shared by his keeper.

They encountered traces of gray dust as they approached the baths. Inside, the staff were cleaning everything and skimming the pools.

Herrin intercepted them. "It blew in from back where nobody is supposed to go," she explained. "Along with a lot of cold, stinky air. We can't bathe you today."

"Not a problem. We're just passing through."

Herrin's eyes widened.

"We're going back where nobody is supposed to go."

"Be careful, sir. Something's really wrong there."

The map room was a disaster. The dust had not yet all settled there.

Osa asked, "What is this place?"

"You don't need to know. Don't ask questions."

The priests and nuns had begun a halfhearted cleanup. Some just sat or stood, eyes glazed over. One sitting woman rocked steadily, hiding out in her own secret universe.

One senior priest intercepted Hecht. He spoke slowly, coughed a lot, and sniffled continuously. "You going after the Unknown?"

"Yes."

The priest hacked. "He went through the Old Door. He hasn't come back. We need his direction. This is a disaster. Three brothers didn't survive."

Not good. Hecht said, "We'll find him. Meantime, do what he'd want done."

"But…"

"What more, brother? Look around. What needs doing?" Hecht remained perpetually amazed that so many people would not pick up a stick unless somebody told them to do it. "You're in charge. Get to work." He pulled Osa along.

He could not make the speed he wanted. Hurrying raised dust, made breathing a pain. Breathing through cloth helped a little.

Hecht repeated the lamp instructions he had gotten from Principate Delari. "I've only done this once." He ought to be alone this time. Osa Stile did not need to know about the underworld. "The Principate was adamant about these lamps. I'm sure he knew what he was talking about. We almost ran into something that had him shaking."

"Probably what he came down here hunting, then."

"What did he tell you?" Hecht examined the massive door. It had been left unbolted. Naturally. Delari wanted to come back through. A huge wind, carrying tons of dust, had blasted it wide open. It had not closed all the way again.

"Almost nothing. I couldn't work him for anything he didn't want to talk about."

"Did he suspect you?"

"No. It just wasn't any of my business."

"Ah?"

"I've been less effective with Delari than you think. The association is useful, though. It opens doors." He grinned his winning grin.

"Let's go. Slowly. This dust may be dangerous." Slowly was mandatory. Just stumbling on tricky footing raised choking clouds.

"This probably isn't the smart way to do this," Hecht said. But did not turn back.

He was surprised that he had so much emotion invested in Principate Delari.

Avoiding deep breathing, Osa asked, "What was that place? With the old priests and nuns."

"Ask Delari. He'll tell you if he wants you to know."

"You going to keep it from our masters in al-Qarn?"

"My masters in al-Qarn have abandoned me, brother."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I. But since I left Dreanger there have been at least seven attempts to kill me. Those that I could trace all led back to the Rascal."

Osa stopped. By lamplight his wide eyes were strange, almost inhuman. "Truth?"

"Truth. And I can't get my questions or messages through to Gordimer. So how can I help thinking that I've been discarded? That I keep on breaking hearts by not lying down to die?"

"But…" Osa Stile shook his head. He seemed baffled.

"There's something bigger than me going on, too." He told Osa about Hagid's brutal murder. And that he had seen Bone in the Closed Ground only a few hours earlier.

"Hagid? Nassim Alizarin's son?"

"The same."

"That's definitely a major mystery."

"You really think?"

"Sarcasm isn't necessary. That news could cause a major power shift back home. Nassim Alizarin al-Jebal had his whole soul wrapped up in his son. He hoped Hagid would become the next Marshal of the Sha-lug."

"Knowing that, I feel more lost. There's no way the Mountain would have sent Hagid to Calzir with the whole Chaldarean west swarming over the kingdom."

"Calzir?"

"I saw some of my old company in al-Khazen. My guess is, they weren't able to escape with the other Sha-lug and Lucidians."

They were approaching the great underground cathedral. Something crashed in the darkness ahead. Rubble surrendering to the blandishments of gravity? Or something stirring?

Both men shut up. Talking was dangerous. Who might be listening? What might be? The Night itself might be eavesdropping down here.

"It gets lonely," Osa said. He said nothing more and did not need to. Hecht understood perfectly.

And Osa had been this side of the Mother Sea longer than he had.

Hecht had assumed the collapse had been into the subterranean cathedral. There could be no other voids that huge under Brothe. Could there?

Must be.

Moonlight leaked into the hall through a new gap in the overhead. Rubble lay scattered across the vast tiled floor. Bones were everywhere. A dense animal musk overlaid the odor of ancient death and modern sewage. Hecht's earlier visit had not prepared him for what he could see even by the scant light of a partial moon.

Osa murmured, "Where did all the bones come from?"

"Ancient times. Brothe used to be a lot bigger. The early Chaldareans brought their dead down here. For centuries."

"Some of them had some pretty weird bones." Osa pointed at bones that were humanoid but unlike the rest. This can't be the right place."

"Yes." Hecht stared at a clot of darkness. It had been just about there that he had sensed the something awful before. He felt nothing, now.

His amulet offered no warning. It was never inactive in the Chiaro Palace. He no longer noticed that low-level tickle.

Osa said, "We headed away from the hippodrome when we took that second turn. We should've gone the other way."

"How could you know that? You've never been down here."

"True. This is all folklore to me. But I have a perfect sense of direction."

"Oh?" Something to keep in mind. "Lead on, then."

Osa did so, returning to the cross passage where, he believed, they had gone astray. "The dust gets worse going this way."

That dust made breathing miserable. The lanterns had trouble reaching far ahead. Hecht's amulet remained quiescent, but -

He pointed, directing the strongest lamplight.

Footprints. People had passed this way.

"You good on fuel, Osa?"

"I'm fine." Whispering. Following the tracks.

"Shall I take point?"

"I'm all right. I'll bite them in the balls."

Hecht let it ride. For the moment. He did draw the short sword that served as a mark of his status. It was not much of a weapon. But it was the tool he had.

His amulet began to respond to the proximity of power. Feebly. "Stop," he whispered.

Osa froze.

"Where would we be if we were upstairs?"

"At a guess, roughly, somewhere just north of the hippodrome. Within a few hundred yards."

A squeaky creak came from up ahead. It sounded like a huge stone sliding across other stone.

Hecht focused on his amulet.

No change there.

"What?" Osa asked.

"I'm listening." True at a figurative level.

Principate Delari had come down here hunting something big and wicked. Something at least as terrible as a bogon. Maybe something darker, considering his fear last time around.

That power would be wide awake and angry if Delari had stirred it up.

"I'm point, now. I insist." Hecht eased past Stile. And wished he had a falcon rolling along behind, charged with silver and iron. "Oh."

"What?"

"Something just occurred to me. Something I knew without fully understanding what it meant. I'm going to follow these tracks."

He did so slowly. The stone sound came again. A chill crawled his spine. His amulet responded mildly. There was something there, but… They came to a pile of rubble, loose stone from the passage wall. Ages passed. The advance grew slower and slower. The dust became as much as an inch deep. Then, in a few yards, almost vanished, all blown outward.

Hecht spied a glimmer, a sliver of silvery light. It proved to be a spot of moonlight, come through a small gap high overhead. Rubble nearly blocked his path. A chamber lay beyond, dimensions indeterminate because of the collapse and lack of sufficient light.

"Obviously not the main cave-in," Osa said.

"No. We'll need to make a huge effort to find all the places like this. Otherwise, the city will keep falling in under us."

"Principate Delari," Osa said. To keep him on task.

"Yes." He was tired. It was past his bedtime.

He was getting old. And soft.

Life in the west was damnably seductive.

He heard that noise again. Closer. "What does that sound like?"

"Stone on stone. Or the lids of those big terra-cotta jars or grain storage."

"You're right. That does sound like one of those being dragged off the mouth of a jar." Those huge pottery containers forestalled mice and rats.

"Sshh." Hecht heard voices.

"I hear them." In a breathless soldier's whisper.

Hecht adjusted the shutter on his lantern till it shed almost no light. Osa did the same.

Hecht went on, thinking that he must have an affinity for the world underground. Here, now. Al-Khazen, during the Calziran Crusade. And Andesqueluz. That had been terrible. Despite there having been no living thing inside the holy mountain of the extinct cult.

His amulet tickled him as the terra-cotta on stone sound recurred.

The rattle of a small rubble slide followed.

"My point," Osa breathed. "I'm shorter."

Hecht yielded. Light flickered ahead, limning hip-high flows of rabble. Those had washed into what resembled a deep mine where large blocks of material had been left to support the earth overhead. There was almost no dust here. The little still in the air gave the light a pumpkin hue.

The voices were clearer but no words stood out. Hecht decided he was hearing a foreign language. Two men were arguing. A third added a tired whine while a fourth rambled through a "Why me?" soliloquy.

What were they doing? They could be up to no good. Not down here.

Osa stopped him with a touch. The boy set his lantern down, crept forward.

Hecht breathed hard, heart hammering. He sweated. His exposed skin grew muddy.

Stile had not lost his Sha-lug skills. Which meant there was hope for a Sha-lug captain seduced by western decadence.

Osa sank down behind a rubble sprawl. Hecht joined him, looked at six men on what might have been a tiled floor as expansive as that of the underground cathedral. Most of which was now buried. All six wore monk's robes. Their hoods were up and their faces were concealed by cloth – -because of the dust, not any desire to be sinister. Though that effect resulted.

The argument continued between two of the six. Another two kicked in randomly while a silent pair stood on the far edge of the light cast by six earthenware lamps. Those two seemed obsessively intent on something in the darkness beyond them.

Now that he could hear them clearly Hecht felt he ought to be able to understand what was being said. He had heard that language before.

He thought he should know the voices, too.

The grinding returned. It came from beyond the silent watchers. Grumbling, the whole band surged that way, into the darkness.

"I don't understand," Hecht breathed to Osa. "I don't like this."

"They have a prisoner. It keeps trying to get away. They're waiting for instructions. They've sent two messengers. There's been no answer. The argument is over whether to send another."

"You understand them?"

"They're speaking a Creveldian dialect. Hard to follow but what they're saying is pretty basic. They can't go but they're afraid of what will happen if they stay."

Another heavy groan of terra-cotta.

Osa finished, "They're Witchfinders. And they've caught something that won't let them go."

The two who entertained themselves arguing returned to the light. Which was like none Hecht had seen before. It was not just the dust that made the lamps burn an odd color.

They must do the same work as Principate Delari's lanterns.

And the more so when one Witchnnder removed his face covering to clear his nose by blocking one nostril while blowing through the other.

He was the man who had given Hecht dispatches for Sonsa when he and Ghort were about to sneak out of Brothe.

Osa squeezed his left arm fiercely, cautioning him against sudden movement.

Time passed.

The argument resumed. The whiners became more involved. They were all tired and thirsty and hungry. And nothing useful was happening.

Hecht did not need to speak the language. He had been a soldier all his life.

What to do? There was no obvious way to bypass this bottleneck. This was a fool's errand. They had no plan and no intelligence. Pure storyteller's heroic nonsense.

The argument peaked in a furious exchange.

One of the silent pair threw his hands up, frustrated, then stamped away into the darkness. The others did not catch on immediately. Then the argument became much more heated.

Osa breathed, "These five believe that six Witchfinders is the minimum needed to control it."

"It?"

Stile shrugged. "Or him. Those two want to get out of here while they still can without being recognized."

Hecht now caught the occasional phrase. He could not disagree with the catamite's interpretation.

He did not like being at the mercy of someone he trusted so little.

He smiled. Chances were, Osa did not like being at the mercy of Piper Hecht, either.

Earthenware ground against stone. The Witchfinders shut up. The one Hecht had identified took charge.

The sound grew louder and more malignant. The Witchfinders reacted with the speed of those who knew they had just one desperate chance. To the sound. Fearfully. As a babble of Old Brothen echoed all round.

For an instant Hecht thought his left hand was being ripped off his wrist.

"What?" Osa asked, startled.

"Smacked my knuckles against a rock." He had, in fact, done just that, responding to the sudden pain.

"That was dumb."

The pain faded to a throb, like a wound an hour old. Hecht had lived with that before.

Shouts of anger and fear. Groan of terra-cotta ground against stone. Shouts of triumph. Hecht's pain faded.

Osa had been about to cross the lighted area when the self-congratulations started. He dove back into shadow just in time. Two Witchfinders supported a third who was unable to work his legs. They settled in the center of the light.

The injured man passed out as soon as his associates set him down. One said something like, "We've got to get out of here! We just used up our luck."

The last two men stumbled into the light.

The Witchfinder in charge gave orders. Three men hurried back into the darkness. They began making noise.

The senior Witchfinder opened his unconscious associate's robe. The man wore little underneath. Hecht saw no obvious wounds or traumas.

"They're piling stones onto something so it can't move," Osa said.

One of the three leapt back into the light, babbling.

Osa translated: "The other two just ran away. He wants this guy to haul ass with him. This guy says they can't leave their buddy behind."

Hecht breathed, "Maybe we shouldn't be here, either."

Nobody got the chance to run.

The terra-cotta grind had a triumphant ring. The Witchfinders grabbed their unconscious comrade…

Stone flew.

Hecht and Stile embraced the cracked tile floor. Stones up to the size of a fist hurtled around, smashing into rubble and pillars. All three Witchfinders got hit.

The air filled with dust. Hecht's eyes began drying out. He fought down a sneeze. Osa did sneeze, then blew his nose desperately, but only Hecht noticed. The Witchfinders had been pounded into unconsciousness.

A little voice called, "Help." It seemed familiar.

None of the lamps suffered till the final moment of the stone storm. Then one shattered, scattering burning oil in a spray eight feet long. One Witchfinder caught fire. He leapt up and took off blindly, screaming.

"Help!" A little louder. Followed by a weak terra-cotta grind and a rattle of disturbed rubble.

Osa blurted, "That sounded like the Principate!"

Hecht thought so, too, but was suspicious of anything that happened easily.

"This is easy?" Stile asked.

"We'll check it out." Easy or not. "But there're men out there that we don't want to see us."

"Cut their throats."

"Let's see if we can't find something less savage and final."

"They're Brotherhood of War. Special Office. The worst of the worst."

"We aren't in the Holy Lands. Our work isn't tactical. Let the Principate decide what to do. If we find him."

"Help!" Louder, now.

"He knows we're here."

"Get busy."

Stile produced a wicked little knife with a slight bend at its end. He sliced strips from the cassock of the man who had handed Hecht that courier wallet, back when.

"Yes. Him first. He's the dangerous one."

Both men recovered during the binding. Hecht was not pleased. But he stuck to his decision to leave them to the mercy of Principate Delari.

His left wrist ached.

A HALF-DOZEN GRAIN JARS HAD BEEN SET INTO THE FLOOR.

Three were occupied by corpses. They had not been dead long. Another held Principate Muniero Delari. Its lid lay at an angle in the opening. Tumbled blocks lay scattered all round. The lid made that characteristic groan as they dragged it aside.

The old man was weak but in good spirits and game.

"Looks like there's been some sorcery here," Osa said. "They used no sorcery themselves, though. They just tried to keep the lid on."

Hecht hoisted the old man. "Thank you," Delari breathed. "I thought I'd made a fatal mistake this time. How did you find me?"

"Chance and reason. Armand knew you'd gone hunting down here. I guessed that would be where the hippodrome fell down."

"Fell down?"

"Collapsed. Into a big hole in the ground."

"I thought some of the roof fell in when… Oh, drat! I miscalculated seriously, didn't I?"

"I don't know. What did you do?"

"I brought a keg of firepowder…" He coughed. "Laced with silver and iron pellets. It worked. The monster charged into the trap. I fired the powder. The explosion killed the thing."

Hecht sighed. The man was being disingenuous, to say the least.

Delari continued. "Firepowder is new to me. The explosion was more violent than I expected. I set the keg against a pillar so the force would all blow toward the monster."

"It doesn't work that way."

"So I found out."

"How did you get down in that hole?" Stile asked.

"They put me there. The servants of the beast. They found me unconscious and put me down there."

"The Witchfinders?"

"Witchfinders?"

'The men keeping you here were Special Office," Hecht said. "One of them was involved with what they were doing in Sonsa, too."

"Where are they now? How did you get past them?"

"We didn't."

Stile said, "Most of them ran away. We have two of them tied up."

"Take me there." The old man was coming back.

Even so, Hecht scooped Delari up and carried him to where the Witchfinders were trying to wriggle free.

"Put me down, Piper. Turn them around so I can look them in the eye. Ah! Gryphen Pledcyk." That was the man Hecht had met on the wharf. "Explain yourself."

Pledcyk avoided the old man's eye.

Osa said, "The rest claimed they were going for help."

"Let help come. In the form of the man behind this." Delari considered the other captive. "I don't recognize this one. Show me his bare back."

Hecht did as instructed. Delari grunted.

"Sir?"

"He has the tattoo. That means this is a Brotherhood operation."

The nameless man started to protest. He shut up ,as Pledcyk gave him an ugly look.

Delari said, "Kill Pledcyk. It'll take too long to break him. The other one will talk to save his own skin."

Hecht hesitated. Osa slid behind Pledcyk, grabbed the man's hair, yanked his head back. Pledcyk did not struggle.

Delari nodded.

Stile did it. Using that nasty little knife.

Hecht jumped, surprised.

No one was more surprised than Gryphen Pledcyk.

Delari asked the other, "Can you walk?"

The Witchfinder nodded, thoroughly cowed.

"Armand. Take him to my apartment. Kill him if he gives you any trouble. Don't attract attention. I'll question him after we clean up here."

Osa beckoned the captive. "Come."

Hecht asked, "Are you sure, sir?"

"You mean, can I handle this?"

"Exactly."

"I'll manage. But if I do run dry, carry me."

"If I can find the way."

Pledcyk continued to bleed out, his eyes filled with terror.

Hecht suspected the Principate was making statements on several levels. Delari said, "I'll stay awake."

Hecht had nothing more to say. He watched Osa herd the captive into the darkness. And worried that Delari might not be as blind about the catamite as might be hoped.

"Was I too harsh, Piper?"

"About Pledcyk? I think so. Yes."

"He knew you were down here. His bunch shouldn't have been. There'd be no explaining why they threw me in that hole. Which I wasn't intended to survive."

"We found dead men in three of the others. I don't know who they were. Yes. I understand the rationale for killing Pledcyk. I'm a soldier. But he might have told us something interesting."

"He might have. Yes. That's sound soldier's thinking. But a sorcerer can follow other paths to the truth. A fact you should keep in mind. I'm going to nap, now. Wake me when company comes."

"Sir?"

The old man went out like a snuffed candle.

Hecht supposed he was right. Someone would come. If for no other reason than to get rid of the evidence.

The monster Delari claimed to have slain. What was it? Truly an Instrumentality of the Night? In Brothe? Why? How did it get here? Was it really responsible for all those horrible killings?

Whatever the facts, Delari had thought the danger sufficient that he had visited the catacombs personally to eliminate it.

Hecht jostled the Principate. "Someone coming, sir."

"Get out of sight. Jump in if it's too much for me to handle."

"You know who it'll be?"

"I have a suspicion. It's likely to get out of hand if you're seen. Go on!"

Hecht drifted back to where he and Osa had crouched earlier. He felt more positive once he reclaimed his lantern. Osa, he noted, had taken his.

Delari slumped, a man too exhausted to do anything but breathe.

Hecht crouched, lantern and blade ready, and hoped for the best. Those who were coming would not be starving refugees armed with rusty tools.

The first entered the light warily, weapon hand demonstratively empty. He considered Delari and Gryphen Pledcyk. He wore a cloth across his face to help with the dust.

Sudden concern. Tracks. They would point like an arrow… But something had erased them. The dust appeared undisturbed.

Delari had managed it with barely a tickle from Hecht's amulet.

A lesson? Certainly another point worth remembering.

A second man entered the light. Gryphen Pledcyk had more impact.

Two more arrived, men who had fled earlier.

Principate Delari transformed. A tired, slumping wreck of an ancient metamorphosed into a thing of power. He seemed taller than normal and much younger. His voice was stronger than ever Hecht had heard. "Come on into the light."

Nothing happened.

"Time to come in out of the darkness. You may not surrender to the Will of the Night."

Hecht felt a presence beyond the range of the lamps. And a man did come forward a moment later. Another Witchfinder who had fled earlier. He pretended Gryphen Pledcyk was invisible. He asked, "Where are Tomaz and Chollanzc?"

Delari gestured at the darkness. "Out there. You. There. Come in out of the darkness. It's not too late. The beast is dead. But another will come. Sooner or later, the Night will creep in. Come into the light. While you can."

Bronte Doneto stepped forward. He wore a monkish cassock like the others. He had his face covered. But Hecht recognized him even before he said, "You knew it was me."

"I suspected Honario, actually. No one else is so desperate to rewrite the world to conform to his own fantasies. Have you convinced yourself that you can manipulate the Instrumentalities of the Night with impunity?"

Doneto did not answer the question. "My cousin has a scheme. He'll destroy the Church before he's done."

"You surrender to the Will of the Night to rescue Mother Church from Sublime's insanity?"

How the devil had he made that leap? But Hecht was too stunned by Doneto's appearance to work that out – considering the fact that Delari would have observed Doneto all his life.

Delari said, "Don't be thinking what you're thinking, Bronte. You tell yourself, 'He's a thousand years old. He's got to be worn out after everything he's been through. There's six of us and one of him.' But the one of him is the Unknown. You have a touch of talent. But that's all you have. Come back into the light."

"Your own son…"

"Was a lord of the Brotherhood. And powerful before his mishap. But even in his deepest despair he never surrendered to the Will of the Night."

Hecht was not sure Delari was right about that.

"Come back into the light, Bronte Doneto. Explain what you were up to in Sonsa. Do what you need to do so you and your Witchfinders don't end up like Gryphen Pledcyk."

"You seem to have it all figured out."

"But I could have you all wrong, too. I'm thinking there might be an effort to keep Sublime from collecting his payoff from Anne of Menand. Or just to steal it. You've always been closer to Honario than you pretend to the rest of us. And you've always been less loyal than you pretend to him. Again, let me caution you against giving in to temptation. You aren't strong enough."

Hecht could see Doneto weighing his chances.

Muniero Delari made two sudden gestures. The man nearest him shrieked and collapsed into a violent seizure. A second shriek came from the rubbled darkness, from over Delari's right shoulder. A crossbow twanged. A bolt rattled around, never seen.

Everyone ducked. Except Principate Muniero Delari. He did something. Two more Witchfinders collapsed. Quietly, this time.

The old man said, "And then there were three. Come back to the light, Bronte Doneto."

Principate Doneto bowed his head in submission. Hecht considered that suspect. Principate Delari would do so, too. And Doneto would understand that perfectly.

Pretense all the way round.

Delari asked, "What have you been doing, young Bronte?"

"You figured it out. We meant to scuttle Honario's plan."

That might be, Hecht thought. But there would be more.

Doneto's feigned surrender was a fiction that would bring this confrontation to an end with no harm done. Where it went later would hinge on how committed Doneto was to his schemes. And how clever he thought he was.

Delari said, "A thousand eyes will be watching, Bronte. Now that it's no secret who to watch."

Doneto stilled a surge of rage. He knew he was at a serious disadvantage.

"Better, sir," the old man said. "Invest some time in reflection on the quality of mercy. And on the prospect of its withdrawal. Sabotage your cousin if you will. But do it without invoking the Instrumentalities of the Night."

Doneto held his tongue.

Delari continued. "One thing more. Who is Vali Dumaine? How does she fit into your plot?"

Doneto seemed honestly baffled. "Do you mean the urchin your pet general adopted last fall?"

Principate Delari stared at Doneto coldly. The power he exuded was palpable.

Doneto shook his head. "I have no idea who she is. She isn't involved."

That was not what Hecht hoped to hear but it was what he expected. Ghort would have mentioned Vali to Doneto. No doubt, Doneto had Ghort keep track of what was happening inside his life. Because he felt that Piper Hecht owed him. Maybe without Ghort knowing how he was being used. I

Maybe. Hecht trusted no one completely. Not even Anna. Anna had had other loyalties before she led him to her bed.

"You may go," Principate Delari said. "We'll enjoy opportunities to consult further in the world above."

"The wounded? It won't be safe for them down here."

"Those two are recovering now. The others won't. If you feel a need to take them out you'll have to carry them."

Hecht squeezed down into shadow to avoid being spotted by two men headed out to collect the fallen crossbowman. He was drifting off when Delari called, "You can come out now, Piper."

Hecht shook off the drowsiness, shuffled forward. The Witchfinders had left their dead.

Delari saw him staring at Pledcyk. "They'll come to get him. I'm exhausted, Piper. If they had tried again they would've had me."

"You were bluffing?"

"I used myself up early so they'd expect the worst. You'll have to carry me."

"Where's your lantern?"

"No idea. Lost. Worry about it some other time. Work out how to do this. We need to be gone before Doneto realizes how weak I must be."

"Back the way I came?"

"Of course. They'll set ambushes on their route of retreat." Question time ended. The old man slumped into genuine unconsciousness.

Sergeant Bechter wakened Hecht. It was midmorning. He had managed a scant three hours of sleep. "You going to lie in all day, sir?"

"I was out all night. Because of the disaster."

Bechter raised an eyebrow. He had not seen his Captain-General out there. But he did not challenge Hecht. "The Bruglioni Principate is here. He wants to see you. He's insistent. He talked to you about getting together last night. I suggested this morning would be good. He's been waiting for a while already."

Hecht granted. "What else is on the table today? What else am I late for?"

"We have a go-ahead for your joint unification proposal. The staff wants to get started. We have forty-three city militias used to doing things their own way. They need to be integrated into the overarching structure."

"That's a challenge I'm looking forward to." He believed he could ameliorate problems of ego and local chauvinism. "Bring Saluda in. I'll talk to him while I'm getting ready. By the way, how is Polo? Do we know?" The servant had had a long, difficult straggle with the wound he had suffered in the assassination attempt.

"I hear he's going home soon. To the Bruglioni. You and Colonel Ghort won a lot of goodwill, standing up for him."

It was a world of disposable people. But Sha-lug did not abandon their brothers, crippled or no.

Faith had to be kept both ways.

So long as that was not inconvenient for some fellow of lordly status, evidently. For Gordimer the Lion, say.

In the west they threw people away everywhere, every day.

"Remind Saluda that I can't give him much time."

The Bruglioni Principate came in quickly. "Interesting times, eh?"

"A lot's happening. The new job seems to agree with you."

"I'm enjoying it. Paludan isn't. Several of his cousins insist that they're more qualified."

"That's unlikely."

"I heard you mention Polo. He came home two days ago. Singing your praises."

"Good. But is he welcome? He won't be much use with one hand."

"He'll be taken care of. There's work he can do."

"Good. But Polo isn't why you're here."

"Before you moved to the Chiaro Palace Divino gave you a bag of coins."

"He did. Yes. It got me through an uncomfortable transition."

"Was there a ring in the bag?"

Hecht frowned. The truth was, yes. What looked like a simple gold band till you held it to the light. "Odd question. Divino asked me the same thing. But there were only some old coins. All foreign or odd. I took the bag to a goldsmith and exchanged them for modern coinage. He probably robbed me. But it saved me having to deal with a different kind of coin every time I wanted to buy something."

"There was no ring?"

"I didn't see a ring. Why is it important?"

"It's a magic ring. So Divino believed. And Paludan still does. It's been in the family for ages. It's disappeared. All anyone can figure is, it must have been in that sack."

"I didn't see it."

"Neither did Hanfelder. So what became of it?"

"Who's Hanfelder?"

'The goldsmith. We tracked him down. A slimy Deve. He didn't seem to be lying."

"Now I'm nervous. You going to all that trouble. Over an heirloom."

"It's a magic ring."

"I got that. But what does it do that makes it important?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure Paludan does. Divino probably knew. But he died before he could tell anyone. We do know, though, that one of its qualities is to make you forget it."

"Forget it?"

"More like overlook. Then not be there when you remember and start looking."

"All right," Hecht said in a slow, skeptical drawl.

Saluda flashed a charming smile, not something he did frequently. "I know. I know. But I have to do what they ask. Even if it makes no sense to me."

"If this ring knows how to hide I'd find me a sorcerer I could trust and start hunting in Divino's apartment in the Bruglioni impound. It's probably hidden under his mattress."

Scowling, Saluda responded, "I'll pass that suggestion on to Paludan. I'm sure he hasn't thought of that."

"Just trying to be helpful, Principate. Sergeant Bechter. What's on the schedule?"

"The consolidation program. There'll be local resistance."

"I think I know how to avoid some of the problems."

"Sir?"

We pander. To the local egos. If the Patriarch approves. If I sell Principate Doneto he'll convince his cousin. There. I in ready. Was there anything besides the missing ring, Principate?"

"Call me Gervase, Hecht. No. But that was important enough."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, Gervase."

"A little clumsy, eh?"

"It is. Wait. You never told me what the ring looks like. Something big, gaudy, and ugly, right? If it's got a charge of sorcery on it?"

Saluda shrugged. "I've never seen it. Paludan says it's just a plain gold band."

"That doesn't sound like much. Not very impressive."

"'There's stuff engraved on it."

Hecht waited. Saluda did not expand.

"Spells? Family history?"

"I don't know. I wasn't told. I'm not family."

"Really? From where I stood you looked more Bruglioni than anyone born to the name."

Saluda grunted. Hecht had touched a sore spot. He asked, "The old place still holding together? Madam Ristoti managing all right?"

"You done real good while you were there, Mr. Captain-General. It hasn't fallen apart yet."

"Good. I gave value for money."

"More than that, really. Paludan does take an interest nowadays. You sure you can't help with the ring?"

"You're a Prince of the Church, now. Bully some low-level witch doctor into hunting for it. It's got to be in the house somewhere. Unless it was pinched by somebody I fired."

"That doesn't seem likely."

"Is that it? There isn't anything more critical?"

"Just the ring."

"Then it must be more important than I suspected."

Saluda considered a moment before admitting, "Could be. Paludan didn't tell me why he's so interested, suddenly. Maybe he found a note he wrote to himself and decided to get after it before he forgot again."

"I see. Let me know if anything turns up." Hecht made a small gesture to Bechter. "We have work to do at the Castella. Oh. Gervase. Did the disaster yesterday hurt the Bruglioni?"

Saluda flashed a smile. "Not much. The Madisetti and Arniena took the brunt. And Cologni. A fortune in racing tackle went down with the hippodrome."

"I see. As I said, keep me posted. Sergeant, those papers you wanted me to read. Bring them once you show the Principate out."

Redfearn Bechter did as instructed. Hecht scanned reports during the walk to the Castella dollas Pontellas. Half dealt with recent events in Brothe. They were more properly Pinkus Ghort's responsibility. "Give me an opinion, Bechter. How should we deal with this disaster?" The human cost was greater than he had expected. The hippodrome had been infested with squatters.

"That's been determined already, sir. The Patriarch announced a subscription effort. As donations are made the money will be used to clean up and rebuild."

"Not going to spend any of his own, eh?"

"Hardly. Not that he has much. Most of the Arnhander bribe still hasn't arrived."

The plan was to pay unemployed refugees in food for labor.

PRINCIPATE DELARI ASKED, "DID DONETO SHOW UP AT your staff meeting?"

"Yes. And showed no sign that he thinks I might suspect lurn. But maybe he was too tired to play around. I know I was."

"Good. I was concerned." The old man poured white wine into sparkling scarlet Clearenzan stemware, pushed that across a walnut tabletop polished smoother than a sheet of glass. Muniero Delari lived an austere life but did not disdain presents when.someone wanted to butter him up. "Did you present your case?"

"I did. He told me it was ingenious. That Sublime should go along. I should get a Patriarchal Bull before the end of the week."

"I was afraid of that."

"Sir?"

"That tells me they've been looking for the kind of tool you've just given them."

"All right. I give. How did I mess up?"

"You didn't. You're doing your job. I'm in a political place where that disappoints me. Do you want to see our captive?"

"Not unless I need to. Did you get anything?"

"Of course. He wasn't at the center of the conspiracy but he knew where the Witchfinders want to go. Which is to gain direct control of the Patriarchy."

"They're not happy with Sublime? The man is obsessed with the Holy Lands and heretics and unbelievers."

"They're not happy at all. Sublime isn't at war with the Night. The Witchfinders don't care about the Connec. They don't care about reclaiming the Holy Lands, either. They believe all that will follow automatically from a triumph over the Night."

"So they're up to what?"

"Thwarting Sublime. Breaking Sublime. Positioning themselves to seize control of the Patriarchy by naming Sublime's successor. Who will forget the Connec and Dreanger and preach a crusade against the Night itself."

Hecht shook his head. "I don't understand your world. This makes no sense to me."

"Better start trying to get it. Suppose Sublime does stumble?"

"I understand that. Can I change the subject?"

"Of course."

"Look at this." Hecht produced the Bruglioni ring. "I understand it's magic."

Delari took the ring into a better light. "Where did you get this?"

"In a bag of old foreign coins I got hold of, back when we were fighting the Calziran pirates."

Delari's glance said he did not believe a word.

"If you hold it to the light at different angles you can see different lines of writing. On the inside. I've been studying them. This is what I wrote down." He pulled a strip of paper out of his sleeve.

Four lines, printed with painstaking care, had been recorded one above another. The result of hours of eye-straining work. "One must be Classical Brothen. Most of the words resemble Church Brothen. But not all of them. Plus some of the characters are different."

"You're right. It's a spell. Meant to disorient. If you spoke it while wearing the ring everyone nearby would become confused. They would forget what they were trying to do."

"That's scary."

"And useful if you spend much time around people who want to hurt you."

"I don't recognize any of the other writing."

"It's all in alphabets older than Old Brothen. The second line is Philean, a language common in the Holy Lands in antiquity. Ancestral to languages spoken there today. I know scholars who can translate it. I don't think anyone speaks it properly anymore."

"Would that be a spell, too?"

"Undoubtedly. This third line uses Archaic Agean characters but the language isn't Agean. My guess is, the spoken line would be a Dreangerean dialect. Just guessing, though, based on the distribution of consonants."

"Could the ring really be that old?"

A brief-lived Agean empire had ruled the littorals of the eastern Mother Sea when Brothe was still a modest town under the dominion of the Felscian Confederation.

"I do get a sense of great age, Piper."

"What about the last line?"

"I don't know. I've seen characters like those before but I don't remember where. I'll need to do some research. Looking for mention of the ring itself, too. If it's important at all it will have left a trail across time. Likely mile-marked by unpleasantries."

Hecht nodded. That had been his guess, based on stories about magical artifacts he had heard.

The Principate said, "One wonders how such an item falls into the hands of someone like yourself."

"Exactly the way I explained it."

"Oh, I believe that. I'm curious about the mind that made it happen. That singled you out. The way you were singled out for the attention of the soultaken, before? Who? Why? Did he have good intentions? Or is this a booby trap?"

"I have no idea. And I don't intend to dig into it, either. I'm leaving the damned thing with you."

"Piper. You never want to give up something with so much potential value."

"Why not? It's no use to me. It wouldn't be like I was turning out my pockets and tossing my money into the Teragi. All I could do is sell it for the gold."

"Or to a sorcerer for its power."

"Which you can't even tell me what it is. So even for you it's only a chunk of gold with potential."

Delari shrugged. "Life is that way. For me. Trying to winkle potential out of stubborn nuggets."

Hecht did not respond. Delari had to become more forthcoming if he was going to tap the potential in this particular nugget.

Delari seemed more amused than frustrated. "Patience is my great virtue, Piper. All right, I'll study this beast. In my copious spare time. And let you know as soon as I find out anything interesting. Who can guess? It might turn out such a dud that you can just give it back to the Bruglioni."

The old man startled him. And he let it show.

"It's common knowledge, among those who pay attention, that the Bruglioni are looking for a talisman that belonged to Principate Divino. And they suspect that said talisman passed through the hands of onetime employee Piper Hecht."

Delari, as always, was better informed than he ought to be. Which was frightening.

Piper Hecht had secrets he did not want known by even the friendliest member of the Collegium.

The old man smiled like he knew exactly what was going on inside Hecht's head.

Despite repeated assassination attempts, Hecht did not travel with a klatch of bodyguards. He hoped anonymity would protect him. He never dressed his station. That offended some at the Chiaro Palace but left him indistinguishable from other outlanders in the streets.

He headed for Anna Mozilla's place, by way of the hippodrome, where he visited Pinkus Ghort. Ghort had set up a military camp right there in the plaza. Hecht told him, "You look terrible. You need to get some sleep."

"I love you, too. Yeah, mom. I'm gonna get on that real soon. Seriously, we've got a handle on it. I can take some time, now. There ain't much chance we'll find anyone alive anymore. Thanks for sending your guys."

"No problem. I'll get some grief but they won't fire me."

"They worried about the mob? I heard you almost had an incident."

"Yes. One of your boys was right in the middle of it, too."

"Bo? He's doing good work. We get done with this shit here, I'm gonna make some moves on them rabble-rousers."

"You need him desperately?"

"Bo? Why?"

"I want to borrow him. There was another man in that crowd that shouldn't have been there. Shouldn't even be alive. I want to track him down."

"Important?"

"It might be. I want to know for sure."

"He's around somewhere. I'll talk to him after my nap."

"I'll be at Anna's house."

THE NEARER HECHT GOT TO ANNA'S HOUSE THE MORE uncomfortable he became. He could not shake the feeling that he was being watched. He tried to catch a stalker but had no luck. There were too many people in the streets.

"You look like hell," Anna said as she let him in. He gave her an edited version of recent events. She asked, "How can you expect to get along with Principate Doneto, now?"

"He doesn't know I know what he's up to."

"Don't bet your life on that. And what about Pinkus?"

He had been examining that question from every angle he could imagine. "What about him?"

"Where does he stand? He's never pretended to be anything but Doneto's man. What'll he do in a pissing contest?"

"I don't know. I doubt that he does. That's the kind of question you can't answer until you have to. I'm not even sure about me. I think I'm Principate Delari's man. I want to think I am. But the Church pays my wages. Doneto, at least publicly, will go right on being Sublime's biggest supporter."

"Just be careful."

"I will. I promise. You been out much lately?"

"Only to get water. With the children. Why?"

"What're they saying around the fountain?" As everywhere, the neighborhood women took their time getting water, indulging in gossip.

"Today they were more relaxed. And they all knew it. But not why."

"That isn't hard. The bad thing is dead." The children entered the room, Vali carrying the tea service. Pella had a book. He wanted to show off his reading skills. Hecht allowed him to do so, certain he could not have improved much in just a few days. He had not. "Good job with the tea, Vali."

Vali did not stumble. She shot him a look that said he would have to be more clever than that. He smiled and winked. Vali winked right back.

Hecht told Anna, "I'm worried about what Delari is up to."

"Meaning?"

"When we found him he told me he caused the cave-in by exploding a keg of firepowder. Which he blew up in order to kill the monster."

"And? You don't think he could carry a powder keg? Or that one keg wouldn't cause that much damage?"

"It could do the damage. The stuff is amazing. When it's made right, by skilled artificers. No. My problem is what he didn't explain. Which is all that sorcery we saw happen. After the hippodrome fell down."

"Oh. I see."

"If the explosion killed the beast, then why was there a lot of sorcery?"

Hecht glanced at Vali. The girl looked like she was about to explode. She grabbed the tea service and headed for the kitchen, dragging Pella.

Anna chuckled. "You're about to hear an interesting theory."

So. Maybe the way to lure the girl out was to engage her intellect.

Someone knocked on the front door. Hecht asked, "You expecting somebody?"

Anna shook her head. "It'll be for you. Or the kids." Even so, she went to see who was there. Pella returned from the kitchen and leaned on the back of the chair Anna had just quit.

The boy said, "The thing that died in the underworld would've been almost a god. Right?"

"A seriously powerful Instrumentality, yes. But a demon. There is only one God."

"So what you saw happening coulda just been it dying? Right?"

Death throes? All that? "Maybe." Impressed.

He tried to recall what had happened with the Old God who died outside al-Khazen. And found a hole in his memory. One that made itself evident by the fact that he knew it was missing when it ought to be there. But there remained a vague recollection of a dramatic conclusion.

Was that what happened when gods died? Even their memory fled the world? But there were a lot of ancient gods still around, lurking in myth and old stories.

Maybe remembered because they were not yet dead.

Anna called, "Piper. This must be for you."

Hecht had been easing toward the door already. He peered out the gap allowed by the heavy security chains. "It's all right. I know him."

Bo Biogna stood on the stoop, short, wide, dirty, and a bit scary.

Anna whispered, "I'm not sure I want that man inside my house."

"It's important." Though why Biogna would turn up here was a puzzle. "I'll see him in the kitchen."

"You can't take care of it outside?"

"No, darling. There might be eyes out there. I'll make sure he doesn't put anything in his pockets."

Anna was not amused.

"In," Hecht told Ghort's man. "Follow me." He led the way to the kitchen. "Pella. Find us a couple of stools. Vali. Get Mr. Biogna a cup. Assuming you'd like tea, Bo."

"Tea is fine. But I didn't come to socialize."

Anna joined them. She took over the tea preparation. While keeping a wary eye on the visitor. Biogna sensed her discomfort and suspicion. He seemed more amused than offended.

"What's up?" Hecht asked.

"Colonel Ghort sent me. Said you need my help. That you need me to get on something right away."

"It isn't that critical. You can work on it while you're doing what you're doing already. There's a man I need found and identified. He was out there in the Closed Ground right by you." Hecht described the man he had seen in the mob.

"I know the one you mean. Surprisingly enough. I noticed him because he was creepy. And he smelled bad."

"Find out whatever you can. Who he is. Where he lives. That sort of thing."

Biogna studied him from beneath shaggy brows. He had grown stocky. He looked much more like a prosperous thug than the starving refugee Hecht had met on the road to Brothe. "You got somewhere for me to start? Brothe covers a lot of ground."

"I don't. I've only noticed him a few times. At a guess, spying. My man Bechter noticed him before I did. He seems to be keeping an eye on me and my staff."

"Imperial?"

"That would be my first guess. If not that, then Connecten. Or possibly Arnhander."

"Or maybe our big boss is keeping an eye on you?"

"He has people on the inside to handle that."

"Probably. You asked for me on account of you want to keep this quiet. Right?"

"Yes."

Biogna nodded. "You got it. Good tea, ma'am. Thank you. I'll be shoving off."

Hecht did not argue. He accompanied Biogna to the door. As the man stepped out, Hecht asked, "You still see Just Plain Joe?"

"All the time. He's easy to be around."

That was true, Hecht remembered. Just Plain Joe was not much smarter than the animals he cared for but he was a comfortable companion. "Sure is. Next time you see him, tell him hello from me. And ask if he's happy where he is."

"Hell, Pipe. Of course he is. He's Just Plain Joe. Joe is happy. Wherever he's at, that's the best possible place to be."

"I could use a man who's good with animals."

"He'll be looking for a job before long. We all will. Unless something scares the Five Families so bad they figure they've got to keep us on."

"You find yourself out of work, come see me."

Biogna bobbed his head, glanced around to see who might notice him leaving, then took off.

Hecht watched him go. How much could he be trusted?

The better positioned he became the more vulnerable he felt.

"We are being watched," Hecht said when he returned to the kitchen. Where Anna seemed to be taking inventory in case Bo was a thief with illusionist's skills. "And I won't ask Biogna in again if he makes you that uncomfortable."

"Good. And next time one of your henchmen turns up, ask me before you let them in."

There it was. The root of it all.

"Absolutely."

"What about us being watched?"

He had seen a familiar face on a man lounging against a wall a hundred yards toward the sunset. A face he had not seen in years. The man's name was al-Azer er-Selim. He had been the Master of Ghosts of the special company once commanded by the Sha-lug captain Else Tage. Az was an old hand. He would not be spotted easily unless he wanted spotting.

Az wanted to make contact.

Later, though. When there would be fewer witnesses. There's a man out there who doesn't have any business around here."

"Who sent him?"

"That would be the grand question. That's the off side of being Captain-General. Everyone – including the man paying my salary – wants to track what I'm doing."

Anna nodded. She had completed her inventory. Now she dug amongst her pots and pans as she got ready to cook. "I'd as soon they stayed away from here. All of them." Her wealth in utensils declared her status in her own mind. A new pan was always a welcome gift.

"Even Pinkus?"

"Pinkus I can suffer. Barely. Titus is acceptable. If he was willing to socialize and would bring Noe and their kids. But not as business. I've got a good life here, Piper. I'd as soon forget the past."

"Little pitchers."

Pella and Vali seemed very interested. Anna said, "Don't you two go telling any of your… Any of Piper's friends that I don't like them." She was wide-eyed when she looked at Hecht again.

No one missed the fact that she had come near calling Hecht their father. Which betrayed much of what was going on inside her head.

The uncomfortable moment was shattered by another knock at the door. This one seemed urgent. Hecht said, "Pella, you go."

He stepped forward and caught Anna by the elbows, stared down into her coffee and amber eyes. He did not know what to say. She seemed unable, or unwilling, to offer any cues.

He did not get the chance to work it out.

"Captain-General. A moment."

Pella said, "I'm sorry, Anna. I couldn't stop him."

Hecht gaped momentarily, reflecting on the old saw, "Speak of the Adversary."

"Titus? What the hell are you doing here?"

"We have a situation."

"Well?"

"A world-altering situation, sir. A courier killed two horses bringing the news."

"And?" Dread crept into the back of Hecht's mind.

"Here, sir?"

"Yes. Here. Now. In front of everyone. Spit it out."

"As you will. The Emperor is dead."

"Lothar?"

"That one. Yes. Right now we're the only ones who know."

And the Devedian community, of course. And all the Instrumentalities of the Night. And anyone who had congress with them.

Hecht turned to Anna. Before he could speak, she said, "It's time to go. And waste no time. The whole world just changed."