Southern Fire

Chapter Fourteen

There's nothing to be done about it. Admit it, you're awake. Still, scant sleep's better than nothing.

Kheda opened his eyes, got to his feet and began pacing back and forth from cell door to window, stretching the stiffness out of his legs and back. That scrap of sky paling above him, he listened to the distant sounds of the rousing fortress. A handful of shadows passed the grille, sentries' feet slowing towards a brief meal and then the sleep they'd been warding off all night. Others went in the opposite direction, pace quickening, low voices bright with greeting. Kheda could hear speculation about something in their tone.

I doubt they're discussing the weather.

A voice replied to an unheard question. 'He'll get what's coming to him and never you mind. You check the roster of ships due and departed.'

Any further discussion was lost beneath the sound of sandalled footsteps. The rattle of keys heralded whoever had been sent to fetch him out of this hole. Kheda stood below the grille as the lock snicked and the door swung open. The same jailer as before stood on the threshold, lantern raised to see where the prisoner might be before risking the cell.

His nose wrinkled with distaste as he took in the early-morning consequences of the overripe lilla fruit. Careful to avoid that corner of the cell, he tossed a plain cotton tunic and trousers on to the floor. The draught scattered the dry lilla seeds in all directions. 'Clean and dress yourself.' He stepped back to allow a younger man to enter with a bowl and ewer of water.

'Thank you.' Kheda couldn't quite hide his surprise. Stripping off his foul rags, he tore the cleanest patch from the tunic to use as a washcloth. More surprises followed. The water in the ewer was warm and a small vial of liquid soap sat in the bottom of the bowl. Even without the chance to wash his hair and beard, this was still a vast improvement on sluicing himself in the sea. Seeing the jailer raise a quizzical brow at him, he concluded his ablutions. Deciding against trying to dry himself with the foetid remnants of his tunic Kheda dragged the clean clothes over his damp body and walked through the door, head held high.

'No nonsense now,' said the jailer perfunctorily as they climbed the steps to the inner courtyard.

We both know there won't be. I don't suppose you're unhandy with those gem-studded swords you're wearing today and even if you were, you should be able to hold your own against a defenceless beggar.

Then his step faltered as the old familiarity of an armed man walking one pace behind tripped him with a treacherous memory.

Are you recovered, Telouet, and guarding my son?

'Open up.' The jailer called ahead to a younger man guarding the gate. 'On you go.' He sounded a little impatient, pushing Kheda from behind.

I don't suppose one question can worsen my predicament.

He turned to his captor. 'Where are we going?'

The man's smile showed gapped teeth in the grey of his beard. 'My lord wishes to see you.' He spoke with all the courtesy of a respectful retainer greeting a privileged guest.

Kheda looked again at the man's swords. Braided with silken cord to ensure a solid grip, the end of the matched hilts were golden hawks' heads with emeralds for eyes; not talisman gems but still imbued with the same virtues of heroism and fidelity.

'I am mindful of the honour he does me,' Kheda replied with a deliberate suggestion of the authority he'd thought left dead behind him.

What do you say to that?

'Then let's do my lord the honour of not keeping him waiting.' His jailer's mouth quirked with a sardonic grin though there wasn't so much as a twitch in his shoulders to suggest the bow that any privileged guest would expect.

I don't think I have anything prudent to say to that.

Kheda obediently walked up the slow curve of the path leading towards the upper compound. He lifted his chin, ignoring the mildly curious glances of those Shek islanders already up and about their dawn chores. At first the path seemed endless; the ominous black gates staying as far away as ever with every step. Then all too soon, the forbidding grey wall of stone loomed over him, barely a shade darker than the cloud-filled sky above. Beneath the shadow of the fortress, the morning cool was enough to make him shiver.

'Open in the name of Shek Kul!' His captor looked up at the mighty watchtower, hands braced on his sword hilts.

Kheda clenched every muscle in his body to quell a bone-deep tremor that threatened to shake his resolve to pieces. A distant rumble of thunder did nothing to help.

A warning. For good or ill? What arc of the compass did that come from? What other omens might be rising in whatever quarter of the sky I should be looking at?

A thin-faced man with circumspect eyes opened the smaller door set into the implacable iron-bound wood. 'Be welcome in the house of Shek Kul.'

Kheda acknowledged him with a nod somewhere between a warlord's condescension and a suppliant's gratitude before stepping through the gate.

You're no common guard either, not wearing that finery. Whose body slave are you?

The swordsman standing watchful in the shadow of the tower wore finely wrought chainmail polished to a high sheen and belted with a wide leather strap all but invisible beneath its silver-mounted gems and the four daggers sheathed across his belly. Each had the serpentine blade that was so prevalent in these domains and a pommel of opaque green stone evidently carved by the same hand into a different animal's head: jungle cat, water ox, hook-toothed hog and loal. Swords of equal magnificence hung on either hip.

The man stood, waiting for Kheda to finish his candid examination, expression faintly bored. 'This way.'

Silent and any curiosity well hidden, the lesser guards around the gate and along the inner walk of the wall watched them go. Kheda followed the impressively weaponed body slave and his jailer fell into place behind, matching his every step. They passed the single-storeyed dwellings that lined the compound's walls, for Shek Kul's slaves and his household servants. Strange yet familiar scents and sounds all around him, a curious calm came over Kheda.

Quarters more extensive and more luxurious than anything Daish retainers can boast, though the bustle over breakfast and murmur over the day's prospects seem much the same. Are they wondering what Shek Kul wants with you; nondescript palm reader brought before such a mighty lord? Presumably he's not to hang you out of hand; he could have done that any time since you were seized. That good fortune will suffice for the moment. Though I wonder how far this courteous jailer's patience will stretch.

Kheda slowed slightly, taking his time to look around Shek Kul's extensive gardens, lavishly planted with carefully nurtured bushes and trees. Kheda recognised redlance, firefew and all three varieties of penala. None of the shrubs had so much as a twig out of place, not a leaf marring the smoothly raked perfection of the rich black earth beneath them. The paths between the beds were pale in contrast, lined with creamy pebbles brought from some distant beach. They reached a fork and the turn the well-armoured slave took led past an airy aviary of gilded lilla wood. Tiny brown vira finches scuffed and squabbled in the dust and Kheda slowed still more, watching for as long as he could though none of the birds were doing anything that might conceivably indicate an omen.

Ahead, the slave preceding him had slowed too, never looking back but plainly attuned to the pace of whoever was following him.

A very well-trained body slave.

The man behind him coughed meaningfully and Kheda's smile faded. They took another path past the wide white bowl of a fountain with a marble canthira tree glistening at its heart. The central keep of the compound lay ahead, each floor marked by serried rows of shuttered windows.

The heart of Shek Kul's power, the fortress where his might is supported by the guile and subtlety of his wives, where their children grow in understanding of their inheritance and all that comes with it.

Kheda braced himself and was promptly wrong-footed when the slave ahead took an abrupt turn to skirt the solid square. Beyond, the gardens stretched out in artless curves and delightful arbours refreshed by the kiss of the rain and blooming in a riot of grateful colours. The scene had been masterfully designed to soothe and enchant, though the slave seemed oblivious to its charms, heading for a long and lofty building set in a sea of white pebbles. Kheda's throat tightened, blood racing in his veins.

The well-armoured slave opened the door and stood aside to let Kheda precede him. With his erstwhile jailer at his heels, he went inside. The slave pulled the door closed and stood in front of it, hands thrust through his belt.

You won't be leaving unless that mans own lord gives him the word.

The older slave, his jailer, swept past Kheda without a backward glance. He strode down the central aisle of the great, empty hall, measured tread on the polished black marble echoing back from the walls. Swirls of green stone marked his path, ending in a complex, interlaced circle below a dais of three broad steps. The slave climbed the steps to stand beside a throne of black wood inlaid with silver and patterned with a criss-crossing lattice of green stones and diamonds.

Jade and malachite, neither very common in the southern isles. Jade can be pale as mother's milk or dark as a rainy-season sea but any shade is a talisman to link you to all the wisdom of past lives in your domain. Malachite is a stone for truth and self-knowledge and of course the silver will promote cool and balanced judgement.

Kheda's jumbled thoughts stilled to wariness as the man seated on the throne beckoned him forward with one slowly crooked gold-ringed finger. Shek Kul, warlord of this sizeable and strategically significant domain was a burly man dressed in a long tunic of black silk and green trousers tied at the ankle in the northern style. The loose cut of his clothes did nothing to disguise the powerful muscles of his arms and thighs, just as their informality did nothing to lessen the authority of his stern face. Dark eyes looked down a hooked nose, heavy brows just hinting at a frown. His skin was darker than many Kheda had seen so far in this domain though still appreciably lighter than his own. Shek Kul wore his coarse black hair long and swept back from his face with oil that glistened as well in his long, meticulously trimmed beard. Grey was spreading through both hair and beard, at his temples and beneath his full-lipped mouth.

Daish Reik would have been much this age, had he lived.

'Who are you?' Shek Kul's words echoed through the empty hall, voice as imposing as his face, deep and resonant from his barrel chest.

Kheda halted in the middle of the green-stone circle. 'A traveller.'

Shek Kul sat, elbows on his knees, staring down at Kheda. 'I hear the southern reaches in your voice.'

'I have come from the south,' Kheda agreed cautiously.

'Far from home,' observed Shek Kul sharply. 'Where would that be?'

Kheda took another careful breath. 'I have no home.'

'None that you may return to, perhaps.' Shek Kul's thick black brows knitted into an unmistakable scowl. 'Answer my question. What domain nourished your ungrateful, unworthy youth?'

'I was neither ungrateful nor unworthy.' Kheda paused and moderated his tone. 'But my youth is past and may not be revisited.'

'You chop your answers finer than my cook chops pepper pods. Very well,' Shek Kul continued with surprising silkiness, 'I will play this game until I tire of it. You may not revisit your past yet we are each and every one the sum of all we have experienced. Everything we have done forms a link in the unseen chains that tie past to future. Where are your chains?'

'Back in the fortress on your shore,' Kheda said boldly. 'Your men did not think them necessary this morning.'

'I trust their judgement in many things.' Shek Kul smiled but it was not an expression to inspire reassurance. 'Though they'll load you with enough chains to force you to your knees if I wish it.'

'As is only right and proper, for men in service of so great a lord.' Kheda tried to sound suitably humble.

Unexpectedly, Shek Kul laughed. 'Don't seek to flatter or grovel, traveller. It doesn't become you.'

Kheda ducked his head submissively.

'A traveller from the south,' Shek Kul continued thoughtfully. 'That's something in your favour, at least.'

Kheda couldn't help himself. He looked up.

Shek Kul was no longer smiling. 'You arrive on my shores, alone. No one knows where you've come from and you certainly don't care to share that information with anyone. You say you're looking for passage onwards but no one sees you talking to newly arrived shipmasters. No one knows which domain you're trying to reach. All I hear is that you read palms to fill your belly, which I find sufficiently curious to want to know more. You make safe enough predictions, I hear, nothing too outrageous, no promises of startling good fortune just beyond the turn of the stars. Any inadequate preying on men who prefer to work their way through life can do as much.' The warlord paused, eyes keen. 'Yet such parasites are far keener than you to spread word of their talents, hoping to bleed more victims dry with promises and blandishments. They don't, as a rule, insist on sufficiently unfavourable readings to be left abused and hungry. How will you win the reputation to keep you in idle luxury?'

Kheda kept his face impassive and his mouth shut.

'Still, you've avoided gloomy prognostications of general doom,' Shek Kul continued. 'As far as I've been able to ascertain, you haven't predicted death by disease or starvation or even drowning for anyone, though by all the stars, those travelling between the domains can fear that fate. My thanks for not casting such shadows over my domain with your skills.' The warlord's sarcasm cut like a lash.

'You might care to be grateful in return. If you were sharing your skills with an eastern accent, had your insights promised ill fortune for those drifting through my waters, you'd have vanished from my beach before the tide had washed away your footsteps. I'll not have my enemies sending false augurs to spread ill feeling in my domain, stirring up dissatisfaction and dissension where they may. I find even the cleverest, most treacherous tongue can be stilled by decapitation.'

Shek Kul paused to let the threat hang menacing in the empty hall. 'I have to ask myself though, are you merely biding your time before setting rumblings of disquiet along my beaches, rumours casting doubts over my future and that of all who stay loyal to me?' He leaned back, face hard. 'I'll have your answer to that, traveller, or my men will beat it out of you.'

'I am no soothsayer to speak ill of your domain.' Kheda shook his head vehemently. 'I only read palms and those can show no more than the life of one person.'

'So say all the sages,' agreed Shek Kul, voice cold. 'And those books that none outside a domain's inner circles generally ever see. There's another puzzle for me.

'You're a man of many puzzles, traveller. You deny you're a soothsayer yet you wear a dragon's tail around your neck. Granted, a galley rat might wear such a trinket, if he had won it in trade, but he'd just as readily trade it for a full belly and a night out of the rain. You won't give it up, preferring to chance the mercy of the skies and grubbing up weeds in a reckal patch for the sake of a meal.'

Shek Kul leant back in his throne, folding his formidable arms. 'More puzzles. You'll scrabble in the earth willingly enough but you show more interest in healing plants than those that'll fill a hungry belly. You're also a slow and clumsy worker. Do you realise what a poor bargain you offer? Is that why you can't accept what you earn with dignity?'

Kheda was stung into replying. 'I offer the best bargain I can.'

Shek Kul nodded as if the younger man had confirmed something. 'Ah, but you are just not accustomed to trading your labour. You're not in the habit of fleeing a domain's swordsmen either. Sezarre tells me you plainly had no expectation that they might be coming for you, until they were all but on you.' Shek Kul nodded beyond Kheda to the slave guarding the door and smiled.

'Everyone else on that beach ran, either from knowledge of their own guilt or, to be fair, from simple prudence. There are lords in these reaches who'll beat everyone friendless on a trading beach, for the supposed sins of one or two. Indai Forl tells me it helps keep the innocent honest as well as rebuking the guilty.' He raised a hand. 'But I am straying from the question. Other puzzles hang around you, traveller. Your workmate yesterday might be more used to trading his labour but he's not in the least accustomed to dogs. Few travellers are. Why else do you think I keep those particular islanders so well provided with the largest and most intimidating hounds I can breed? Though you didn't find them in the least unnerving. I ask myself this: where would you have learned such familiarity with dogs other than inside a warlord's compound? So I ask you once more; where is your home domain?'

Kheda swallowed. 'I have no home.'

'You've your own jewels safe between your legs, I'll say that much for you.' Shek Kul sounded more curious than approving. 'Do you realise what you risk by defying me like this? Do you want me to turn you over to Sezarre, to Delai, to have them wring the truth from you?' The warlord nodded again towards the door and then jerked his head towards his own bodyguard, Kheda's erstwhile jailer. 'Of course you don't. Then why are you prepared to run that risk?'

This was plainly no rhetorical question. Kheda chose his words with exquisite care. 'For the present, I have no home. I have no domain. I did once, obviously. There are those I left behind. I would not see them suffer for my sake.' As soon as those words left his mouth, he regretted them.

Shek Kul bent forward in one swift movement. 'You've done something that warrants punishment?' Delai clapped a hand to a sword hilt before he could restrain himself and a shiver of chainmail from the door suggested Sezarre had done the same.

A guilty quiver ran down Kheda's spine. 'I have nothing to answer for in your domain,' he managed to say.

Not as long as Godine sailed north as he said he would.

'You seem to speak the truth and yet not all of the truth, if I am any judge.' Shek Kul relaxed in his throne again. 'You have remarkable eyes, do you realise that?'

Kheda was startled by the abrupt change of subject. 'I'm sorry?'

'There's no question over your southern origin,' mused Shek Kul. 'Your skin makes that plain, as does your speech. You're recently come north too, no local dialect's coloured your words. But those eyes show mixed blood, there's no question of that.' He waved a ring-laden hand in an airy gesture. 'Hereabouts, that much closer to the barbarians, we see all shades of skin, hair and eye, thanks to slaves traded down from the unbroken lands. Plenty get traded further on south. Are you some slave's get? Are you some slave? That would explain your familiarity with the ways of a warlord's compound. Should I be sending word south to enquire if any of my brother rulers seek a runaway of your description? Such a runaway must have committed a grave crime, to be fleeing so far north. I am not inclined to shelter such a guilty man, even if he has done nothing to warrant punishment in my domain.' His words were chilling.

'I am no slave.' Kheda lifted his chin and stared defiantly at Shek Kul.

Read the truth in my eyes if you can.

'No, you'd have had that arrogance beaten out of you, if you were.' A slow smile curved Shek Kul's generous lips. 'So where did you get those curious green eyes? Hereabouts, our wives heed their duty to bring new blood into the domain and many choose their own body slaves to do the honours. Is that the way of the southern reaches? Let's consider that notion. If you'd been born into a warlord's household, that would solve a great many puzzles. It might even answer the greatest mystery of all. Just how is it that you know how to draw the entire compass of the heavens from the barest squint at the skies? Come now, you don't imagine I would imprison you and not have someone keep a watch on you? Delai was quite fascinated, especially when you set your dragon's tail in the circle. He knows enough to recognise such things, though he would never presume to try them himself. That does incline me to believe your assurance that you are no slave.'

Kheda felt as cold as the marble beneath his feet. A tremor began in his legs and he couldn't stop it shaking the rest of him. He stared at the green swirls in the black floor and tried to think what to say. He came up with nothing.

'Mixed blood from the south, where it's comparatively rare among the free islanders, yet most assuredly no slave and as well versed in star gazing as any man I know' Shek Kul heaved a sigh. 'What else could you be? You're not some zamorin set adrift to safeguard an elder brother's rights. A second son acknowledged lest some disaster befall the heir apparent perhaps? Are you a son raised to support an elder sister born to rule by right of age and suddenly superfluous now that she has married a man to rule her swordsmen for her? No, I cannot bring to mind any domain where any such circumstance applies.' The warlord fell silent.

Noises floated through the high windows set just beneath the eaves of the imposing hall. Someone ran up a gravel path, followed by laughter. A single fluting call prompted a liquid torrent of bird song. Breezes stirred the banners hung high in the ceiling and the silk pennants made soft snapping noises. The bird song took on a wary note. Another distant rumble of thunder sounded. Within the great hall, all was hushed expectation. Kheda looked up to find Shek Kul studying him intently.

'Daish Kheda is dead,' Shek Kul said in measured tones.

'I have heard that said. 'Kheda found he was no longer shaking. 'Though his body has not been found.'

'No man of such stature could return from the dead.' There was warning in the Shek warlord's words. 'An islander, a fisherman or hunter given up for lost in a storm or an earth tremor, they might return and such good fortune would be celebrated. For a ruler declared dead to return and challenge the right of his son's succession, that would be a calamity to blight a domain for a full cycle of stars.'

'That would depend on the circumstances, surely, and such portents as were observed,' said Kheda forcefully.

'The Daish year thus far has been all disaster,' Shek Kul observed bluntly. 'The loss of their lord in such ill-omened circumstance would have been calamity enough, yet they're assailed with magic as well, if all I hear is true.'

'The Chazen domain was all but lost to savages with wizards' magic backing their attacks,' said Kheda grimly. 'The Daish domain still held out when I came north. I don't know how long they can last. The most powerful lords of those reaches couldn't see beyond their own squabbles to the necessity of joining forces against a menace that could destroy them all.'

'Such bickering played a part in Daish Kheda's untimely demise?' Shek Kul looked thoughtful.

'I have heard that said, 'Kheda replied evasively.

'Dawn will always follow the darkest night.' Shek Kul looked him straight in the eye. 'My sources tell me Ritsem Caid, Redigal Coron, Sarem Vel and Aedis Harl have all massed substantial numbers of heavy triremes at their southernmost outposts. At the first signal from Daish Sirket that these invaders are coming north, they will sail in his support.'

'That is indeed good news, for that domain.' Kheda didn't mind letting Shek Kul see his relief, not, in truth, that he could have concealed it.

Shek Kul watched him closely, discreet amusement deepening the crow's feet around his eyes. 'I hear there is some rift between Ulla Safar and Viselis Us, though I've yet to hear what's caused it.'

The warlord spoke as one equal to another and Kheda replied in kind. 'I imagine Ulla Safar would turn greedy eyes to the northern isles of Sarem if Vel was sending his forces south. Aedis and Sarem have been allies since -since their warlords' great-grandsires' day. Safar would doubtless suggest Viselis Us move against the Aedis islands at the same time.'

'Viselis Us would not be interested in such conquest?' enquired Shek Kul.

'Without the threat of magic in the south, he would be tempted.' Kheda pursed thoughtful lips. 'It must have been Redigal negotiation that persuaded the Aedis and Sarem lords to ready their forces. Viselis Us will not want to fall out with Redigal Coron.'

Shek Kul nodded. He looked down and rubbed some smudge from a sparkling diamond ring. 'You're plainly well versed in the intricacies of southern diplomacy. More than that, you appreciate the wider interests of those reaches, rather than the narrow pursuit of a single domain's advantage. I am surprised that such a man would turn tail and flee north, when danger threatened his people.' If Shek Kul wasn't looking at Kheda, the faithful Delai was watching him closely.

'Triremes, warriors, every defence that the Daish domain can muster is drawn up against the savages and those that wield their magic. One sword, my sword could add little to that strength.' Kheda folded his arms, challenge in his stance. 'There are other weapons and one of the most important is knowledge of your enemy. We in the southern reaches know little of wizardry, still less of how it may be defeated if force of arms proves inadequate in the face of magic. You in the north live constantly on your guard against barbarian wizards. One man could carry such lore to the south and bring more help than an entire domain's invasion fleet.'

Shek Kul slowly raised his face. 'How does that search bring you to my domain?'

'I have heard that your wisdom and resolve rescued your people from the peril of magic some years since.' Now Kheda looked Shek Kul in the eye.

'That's what they're saying on the beaches and across the galley decks?' The warlord's question was harsh.

'It is. Any soothsayer hinting otherwise would find scant belief filling his bowl,' Kheda added boldly.

'I wonder that my neighbours fail to read such wisdom in the skies,' Shek Kul muttered sourly. 'You seek lore to counter magic? There are those who'd beat you bloody merely for that curiosity. Others would drive you into the sea, just on suspicion that the magic plaguing the south might have touched you. Has it?' he snapped.

'No.' Kheda hesitated. 'I have seen the foulness wrought by magic. I have seen those it has burned alive and done my best to tend their hurts. I— That is, I was with those who went to discover Chazen Saril's fate. We found sorcerous monsters made from the very beasts of the domain and we killed them. We burned the isle their tread had contaminated to black ashes,' he emphasised.

Shek Kul said nothing. The silence lengthened. All at once, the Shek warlord rose from his throne. 'I must think on this.' He swept past Kheda, striding for the far door. Delai kept one pace behind him, the warrior's hand on his sword hilts. 'Sezarre. See him fed and kept secluded. He is to speak to no one.' Shek Kul left the great hall, the slam of the door echoing through the empty vastness.

Kheda turned slowly to look at the swordsman Sezarre and ventured a reassuring smile. 'I give you my word I will not go against your lord's wishes.'

Sezarre looked back, still aloof. 'Come with me.' He opened the door and stood waiting for Kheda to go through. After the cool of the great audience hall, the gardens outside were warm and humid. Sezarre nodded towards a distant bower. 'That way.'

Kheda walked where he was bidden, Sezarre close behind him. The bower was an arch of fretwork laced with nerial vines whose dull green buds were just splitting to reveal white and purple petals furled within. Kheda was disappointed to note the quality of the woodcarving was nothing compared to the finesse of the Ulla domain's wares.

'Wait here.' Sezarre gave Kheda a stern look.

He sat obediently in the middle of the marble bench, itself a green and white stone that mimicked the vine's leaves. 'I gave you my word,' he reminded the slave with some asperity.

I'm hardly likely to break it with Shek Kill's fist ready to close around me and crush me to oblivion.

Sezarre didn't respond, turning to take the white gravelled path towards the central keep. As Kheda watched him go, he saw three women in bright dresses appear around a tall stand of swaying afital grasses.

'Sezarre!' The tallest of the women called out to the slave and he hurried to bow low before her. She asked him something and he replied with gestures that clearly indicated Kheda's presence. All three women looked down the path towards him, all dressed in the lightest of velvets, intricate patterns scored through the richness of the nap to give the fabrics a lacy sensuousness.

The tallest was a big-boned woman with darker skin than most in these reaches set off by the whiteness of her gown. The fine, close curls of hair dotting her scalp denoted blood from the most distant western domains. She had a broad face with a wide smile now turned to the baby she carried wrapped in a shawl bright with silken flowers. Looking up again, she spoke with Sezarre and a little boy appeared from behind her ivory skirts, taking a few steps down the path to stare at this newcomer with undisguised curiosity.

'Nai,' the woman warned, with easy authority in her tone. The child scampered back, raising one little hand to the reassuring grasp of his mother's body slave. That man made his mistress look positively diminutive, heavily muscled and stern-faced as he gazed at Kheda.

Don't worry, my friend. I would truly have to have a death wish to even offer an insult to Mahli Shek, first wife of this domain.

The woman's rebuke didn't dissuade a second, younger child from wriggling between the adults to see what her brother was looking at. The little girl's head was a luxurious riot of loose black curls and her skin was markedly paler than her mother's, who skirted past the first wife to scoop her daughter up. She settled the little girl on her hip, quelling her squirms with a brisk admonishment before turning to look at Kheda herself.

If Shek Kul had looked for abiding intelligence rather than superficial beauty in his first wife, his second or whoever she might be boasted a luscious prettiness that would grace any warlord's audience chamber. Rounded of hip and bosom, she wore her close-fitted dress of azure velvet with a conscious seductiveness even secluded thus within the Shek compound's walls.

No wonder that tall dark body slave hovering at your shoulder has such an expression of fatuous adoration, my lady. Not that I would feel inclined to fight him for your affections, when he stands with such an expert swordsman's balance. Shek Kul's wives' body slaves are plainly acquired for more than warming their lady's bed when her husband is otherwise engaged.

Sezarre concluded his explanations to the woman and bowed low. Mahli Shek nodded before turning her head to say something to the second wife. The two women took another path, their attendant slaves close behind them, the little boy and girl scampering ahead, giggling.

As they disappeared beyond a stand of dark-leaved berry bushes, the third woman hung back by the feathery afital grass. Slightly built with coppery skin, her long black hair was simply tied back and her dress was a plain orange shift, unbelted given her advanced pregnancy. Sezarre caught her hands with an impulsiveness that startled Kheda and bent to kiss them. The woman pulled away and Kheda saw her brushing away a tear. He also noted that where the other women had boasted rings, necklaces, anklets and bracelets of intricate twisted silver, this woman wore only a single gold chain of lozenge links around her neck.

'Gar, we are waiting.' Unseen, the second wife called out with a hint of impatience.

'Coming, Laio.' The pregnant woman hurried away down the path, leaving Sezarre looking after her. A moment later he left down the other fork.

So, Sezarre, I'd say it looks very much as if you are, formally speaking, that wife's body slave. Now, Janne or Rekha would blister my ears with their scolding if I ever tried to usurp their authority over Birut or Audit. Even Sain would be roused to protest, albeit with her endless excruciating apologies, if I started giving Hanyad orders. Not that I would dare to, and certainly not while she was so close to childbed. What have you done, my lady, which prompts Shek Kul to deprive you of your body slave's support at such a time?

Well, that's a curiosity that I had best let go unsatisfied. I doubt such questions would be welcome.

The little girl's giggles rang through the gardens with that unique quality indicating a child doing something it knows full well it should not. Outraged chirping burst from an unseen aviary, the disapproval of the heavily built body slave rumbling beneath it. The children's voices rose; the girl offering some hasty excuse while the boy self-righteously proclaimed his own innocence.

A pain that Kheda had thought safely locked away deep in his heart pierced him like a knife.

Would Shek Kul's excellent sources have told him whether the baby born to a minor wife like Sain Daish is boy or girl? Will he know how any other children of such a distant domain fare, those below the ages of reason or discretion that make them pieces to be played in the games between warlords and their wives? There's no reason to suppose he interests himself in such irrelevancies for the Shek domain. Even if he does know, how could you ask about such things without confirming his suspicions of your true past? As long as he can say he does not know who you are, you may be safe. Once he cannot deny the truth, all wagers are off the table.

But he was threatened with magic, wasn't he? He found a path through the danger and if his first wife's brush with magic did him no credit among his neighbours, his domain prospers. He may have lived long without an heir because of her but he's wasted no time filling his quiver with a sheaf of children to safeguard the Shek domain's future. That's what you must discover, how he did it, and then you can return to enjoy your own wives and children and look to the stars for a better future for all of Daish.

Between determination to find out just what secrets Shek Kul hid sitting in his stomach like cold dread and painful longing for his own family hot behind Kheda's eyes, he found he had little appetite when Sezarre reappeared some while later carrying a tray of covered bowls.

'My master bids you eat.' Sezarre set the tray down on the marble bench, his gaze not on Kheda but irresistibly drawn to the sounds of the women playing in the garden with the children. Kheda saw both sympathy and resignation behind the slave's carefully maintained mask of indifference.

Does that mean your mistress has merited the snubs her fellow wives and her husband seemed intent on dealing her?

To distract himself from inadvertently betraying such curiosity, Kheda lifted the lids off the bowls. The selection of food, as fine as anything Janne Daish's cook would deign to set before an unexpected breakfast guest, did in fact remind him of just how hungry he had been lately. Pale curds of fresh cheese nestled in dark honey and were dusted with crushed afital seeds. Purple berries glistened atop a bowl of pink-tinged sailer grain moistened with a sweet, aromatic wine. Cloud bread, still warm from the oven, was wrapped in a snowy cloth beside a gold-rimmed pot of quince preserve. A goblet of many-coloured glass matched a ewer of clear spring water.

'Will you eat with me?' He looked up at Sezarre. The slave hesitated.

Of course. He heard what I told Shek Kul.

'Forgive me, I know I've been too close to magic for comfort.' Kheda hid his chagrin by busying himself with the ewer. 'You should not risk sharing my food.'

Sezarre surprised him by sitting on the other end of the bench and tearing himself a piece of cloud bread. 'We had a slave here once—' He paused, as he scooped up some cheese and honey. 'A good man, even if he had been born a barbarian. He denounced her that was killed for suborning magic. He knew her enchanter for what he was, because he'd encountered wizards in his earlier life. He was still a good man, even if he had been touched by such things.'

A good man but one firmly in the past tense.

'What happened to him?' Kheda reached for a spoon and began eating sailer and the unknown berries, which proved to be refreshingly tart.

Sezarre shook his head. 'That's for Shek Kul to tell you.'

The slave took the other spoon and joined Kheda in eating the moist sailer grain. They had nearly reached the bottom of the bowl when Delai crunched down the pebble path towards them.

'My lord Shek Kul would speak with you again.'

Kheda rose and Sezarre gathered up the dishes and tray. As the slave vanished, Kheda felt oddly bereft.

'This way.' Delai did not take the path to the audience hall but instead led Kheda towards the central keep. They skirted the vast edifice again and Kheda saw he was being taken to the watchtower above the gate.

'Up the steps,' Delai grunted. 'To the top.'

Kheda complied and found himself in a room that took up the whole width of the tower's upper level, wide windows on every side with slatted wooden shutters fastened back. Shek Kul was waiting, looking out over the strait.

'Thank you for the breakfast,' said Kheda politely.

'Delai, guard the stairs. I want no one within earshot.' As the slave closed the door behind him, Shek Kul moved to sit on one of the benches that ringed the room below the windows.

'Events that I do not propose to discuss taught me not to condemn a man merely for the misfortune of meeting with magic' He smiled without humour. 'If that were so, I would have to condemn my wives, my firstborn and myself. But I know the depth and extent of enchantment's malice and I have watched ever since for any omen that suggests that hateful episode has blighted our futures. My neighbours may not agree but I have seen no such sign, so my concern lessens with each turn of the heavens.'

He looked at Kheda thoughtfully. 'I understand your concerns for the Daish domain. I don't know if I'd have had the courage to follow the path that I suspect has brought you here. Nor do I see any clue as to where your future path may lie, and that concerns me. You do realise that setting yourself against these wizards may well see you shunned by other domains, for even daring to risk the taint of magic, even if you save the southern reaches as a result?'

'Unwelcome as such a destiny would be, it would be a worthwhile trade,' Kheda said quietly.

Shek Kul's non-committal noise was an echo of his slave's. He twisted a thick silver ring around his thumb. It was set with an uncut polished emerald that could only be a talisman gem.

'I cannot tell you how to defeat magic that openly stalks the land and sows destruction in its path,' he said abruptly. 'Good fortune as much as good counsel saved this domain from the disaster that ill-starred woman would have brought down on us all. I can set you on a course that may lead you to the lore you seek, though I make no promise of that. I will tell you what I can, if I have your word, your oath to the death, that you will never make it known to another living being that I set you on this path.'

'I swear it,' Kheda answered fervently. 'By the skies that greeted my birth.'

Shek Kul frowned at some memory, not at Kheda. 'The magic threatening this domain and other malice besides was unmasked by a barbarian slave, newly come from the unbroken lands. He was being used somehow, in some plot of the enchanter who had beguiled Kaeska that was my wife with promises of the child she longed for. I don't know quite how this slave was involved and I made it my business not to enquire. That much alone would have warranted his death if there had not been omens in his favour. He was alone on the shore when a sea serpent showed itself in the strait. Any such appearance is a most powerful portent for my domain.' Shek Kul's scowl deepened. 'If it had eaten him, we'd all have known where we stood. As it turned out, the sea serpent passed him by. Just to complicate any interpretation, that was the day of Shek Nai's birth.'

Complication hardly seems an adequate description.

Kheda stayed silent, waiting for Shek Kul to resume.

'As the accuser, this slave was set to trial by combat against the foreigner Kaeska had brought here, the man accused of actually working the magic. She was irrevocably condemned when the wizard used his evil first to try ensnaring the slave and when that failed, to flee unseen.' Anger undimmed by the passage of time thickened Shek Kul's voice. 'So as well as the portent of the sea serpent, I saw this barbarian slave was somehow proof against wizardry, and in denouncing it had done my people and me great service. That should have won him his freedom and my order that some village of the domain provide for him for the rest of his life.' The warlord paused again.

'I gave him his freedom but wasn't about to see him enjoy it within my islands. I took his oath that he would never return and I judged him a man of honour, for all that he was a barbarian. Even so, I made sure I had word of his travels, until he departed the entire Archipelago,' Shek Kul added grimly.

'He did so in the company of a man whom I have long suspected of ill-dealings. He's a vice peddler, trades in intoxicants and pleasures of the flesh, sometimes with willing girls, sometimes not.' Shek Kul shrugged.

'There are always such parasites to batten on the strong. This man is different though and not just because he's barbarian born. He trades dreamsmokes and liquor for information and shares information in turn for goods and services, as he needs them. He's not alone in that but from what I've learned, his ledgers never quite balance and, believe me, I have made it my business to learn all I can about this man since my slave took up with him so readily. What this vice peddler does do is disappear to the north from time to time and not just to replenish his stocks of barbarian vices. He trades information to someone beyond our seas but not in any of those mainlander ports that our galleys deal with, that much is certain.'

Shek Kul twisted the talisman ring around his thumb.

'Vice traders generally only enjoy their rewards until some fellow degenerate sticks a dagger in their back or their offences warrant sinking by a warlord's trireme. Several rivals have tried to kill this man and failed. One died in his sleep of no cause that any healer could determine. Another was knocked from his own deck by a spar that was as sound as any other yet suddenly broke for no reason. This particular man often traded his skills in diving and swimming to repair ship's hulls yet he drowned without lifting a hand to save himself. After that, his enemies went after this vice peddler in several boats together, only to all wreck themselves in an unseasonable fog.'

Kheda saw Shek Kul looking expectantly at him. 'You suspect this vice peddler of working magic himself?'

'I don't know what to think. I wouldn't have spared him more than passing contempt had his path not crossed this barbarian slave's in a meeting that looked suspiciously contrived.' Shek Kul shrugged. 'Now I learn that as soon as rumours of this magic loose in the southern reaches drifted north, this vice peddler pursued them like a shark scenting blood in the water. He sailed south into the teeth of the rains and the fiercest storms of the season, so plainly has no fear of magic but rather some all-consuming interest. If I were you,' Shek Kul loaded his words with meaning, 'I would want to talk to this man.'

You're not telling me all you know. You have some definite reason to suspect this man of ties to barbarian wizardry. You cannot pursue him yourself though, not without doubling and redoubling the whispers that plague you.

'How would I find him?' Kheda wondered aloud.

'I make it my business to know where this man is.' Shek Kul's smile was predatory. 'I don't ever want him entering my waters unseen if I can help it. He stopped to take on water and food at the southernmost trading beach of the Jahal domain some days ago.'

Kheda's heart sank. 'That is a long way. He'll be long gone before I can travel so far.'

'Take passage as an itinerant galley rower.' Shek Kul narrowed his eyes at Kheda. 'A fast trireme could do it in half the time.'

'Wouldn't your neighbour domains question you sending such a ship so far south?' Kheda tried to restrain his hope.

'I can find reason enough to satisfy the curious,' said Shek Kul with grim finality. 'As for my true purpose, my travelling friend, you're not the only one keen to protect the domain of his birth from the ravages of magic. Repay me by sharing whatever you learn of the man and his true nature. His name is Dev and his ship is the Amigal,' He startled Kheda by pulling the ring from his thumb and tossing it over. 'If you're the man I think you are, you'll find the cipher key in that. Someone with a similar ring will make themselves known to you. That'll be the person keeping track of this Dev for me. That's the person to trust with your letters to me.'

'You honour me with your confidence,' Kheda said soberly. The ring was too big for his own thumb so he pulled the leather thong over his head and began picking at the knot.

'Do not betray my trust,' warned Shek Kul quietly. 'Do so and I will be avenged, even if it takes me or mine a full course of the Topaz through the heavens to find you.' He stood up. 'Delai will fetch you when the ship is ready to leave.'

'I cannot thank you enough,' Kheda said impulsively. 'I only hope I may one day repay you fittingly.'

'I'm glad to hear it, traveller.' Shek Kill's laugh surprised Kheda. 'There's a little more to tip the scales in my favour. I made it my business to find out about these barbarians tied to the magic that led Kaeska to her death. I looked for other lore besides, in case such a disaster should ever threaten us again. It turns out various warlords over the ages have wondered how to frustrate the malice of magic. Walk with me in the gardens and we can discuss their theories while we wait for Delai. I don't know if they'll be of use to you…' He shrugged and let the sentence hang unfinished in the air.

But it won't harm you, for any spies who've insinuated themselves through your gates to hear your commitment to defending your domain against magic, even as you send a ship to the south where it's abroad.

'I will be honoured to walk with you.' Kheda bowed low and followed the warlord out of the lofty tower room.