1

Nobody seemed to be thinking about lunch, except Ylo.

White Impress rolled gently on the slate-gray waters, heading from nowhere to nowhere, and he sat alone and neglected in a corner.

At the far end of the deckhouse the politicians were at workthe imperor, the king of Krasnegar, Sagorn, Acopulo, and Ionfeu—all clamoring like a verbal smith’s shop as they heatedly shaped a new protocol to rule Pandemia for the next few thousand years. When the scholars’ bickering became too personal, then king or imperor would crack a joke. The others would laugh respectfully and calm down. Old Ionfeu spoke less than anyone, but the others always seemed to agree with him when he did. It was an exercise in dreaming, but perhaps dreams were all that remained now.

Hardgraa had gone below and was undoubtedly catnapping, being a veteran campaigner who knew how to take sleep when it was available. Off by themselves, impress and countess chatted quietly, watching over the child dozing on a nearby sofa, under a blanket. The Jarga woman was still steering the ship, her iron endurance more confirmation that she had occult power to sustain her. The dwarf stood outside in the cold, resting his forearms on the rail and staring stonily underneath it at the horizon.

He might be taking a last occult look at the fishermen’s smack now fading into the skyline mist. Lord Umpily had departed an hour or so ago, borne off in that cockleshell at the price of a gold crown. With him he had carried a magic scroll and many false good wishes. As soon as he had been out of earshot, Shandie had said, “How long do you suppose he’s got?”

King Rap had shrugged. “A week if we’re lucky.”

So everyone was busy except Ylo, who had nothing to entertain him except the realization that it was almost twenty-four hours since he last ate. Of course he could ask one of the sorcerers to magic up a meal for him, but he wasn’t going to. He would get himself laughed at for oversleeping and missing breakfast.

The best way to take his mind off his stomach was just to study Eshiala. Guard her? Oh yes, he would guard her most jealously! That would be his role in the war! She was listening intently to Countess Eigaze, her profile showing the perfect classic beauty of the statue in the Imperial Library, with an expression as inscrutable. He remembered her happy smile in the pool’s preflection. He would make her smile like that, often. All the time! The pool had promised her with daffodils, but that did not mean he could not have her now, at midwinter, and still be her lover at daffodil time. He’d never tried a really long relationship like that before. It would be an interesting experience, and she was certainly worth it.

The door slammed as Warlock Raspnex came in. Countess and impress looked up briefly; no one else seemed to notice. The little man clumped across to a table near Ylo and then glowered at him. “Come here, lad.” He laid his elbows on the table, and had no need to stoop to do so.

Ylo felt shaky as he rose to obey the order—not from the motion of the ship, just from lack of food. But he was certainly not going to beg from a dwarf, not even a warlock dwarf. “Your Omnipotence?”

“Bah! I told you that rigmarole’s defunct! You know my name; use it. ”

“Of course, Raspnex,” Ylo said. “Do please call me Ylo.” He rested fingertips on the table and smiled down at unfriendly gray eyes colder than pebbles on a shingle beach.

“I’ll call you anything I want. Now, I need your help.”

In return for a snack, perhaps? “Help?” Ylo inquired uneasily. ”What help can I give to a great sorcerer?”

“Well, not much.” Raspnex ran fingers like chisels through his iron-gray hair. “And I’m not a great sorcerer, I’m a middling-good sorcerer. What I meant is I need to use your memory. I’d rather you agreed to let me do it than make me use force on you, but I will if I must. We need a conferral.”

“Huh?”

“A deed, a charter. Something imposing-looking with the imperial seal on it, transferring land. Shandie said you’d handled a thousand of them recently.”

“Er, yes. But I’m no scribe! And it takes days to do all that lettering and illumination and—”

“No, it doesn’t. Can you remember one where a sizable estate was gifted directly from imperial domain?”

Feeling very uneasy, Ylo said, “Emshandar deeded the Honor of Mosrace to the Marquis of—”

The dwarf slapped an oversize hand on the table. “Look there!” He removed his hand. “Now, think of that document. Pretend it’s lying there and you’re reading it.”

“I haven’t got that kind of memory!” Ylo felt panic rising. ”Yes, you do, you just don’t know how to use it. Keep looking. Think about the deed. Don’t think about anything else.” Ylo was shaking and sweating. He didn’t want this ill-shaped little monster prying around in his mind, seeing things he shouldn’t, secrets like the preflecting pool and—

“For Evil’s sake get your mind off that woman!” Raspnex rumbled. “Can’t you at least wait until her husband’s gone? Your skull sounds like elk pasture in rutting time. Now think about that deed or I’ll make you think about it.”

Gods preserve us! Wasn’t this the sort of misuse of sorcery the new protocol was going to stamp out?

“I expect it is.” Raspnex sighed roughly. “But we don’t have it in place yet. You’ve got a mind like a butterfly, know that? No control, no discipline. I’ll give you one more chance. How does it begin?”

Ylo closed his eyes and thought. We, Emshandar the Fourth, by . . . He opened his eyes. Yes! Very faintly, he could see the big historiated capitals and the black text following like smoke. He began to read the words aloud, and even as he did so, they flowed and solidified on a sheet of vellum congealing underneath. Incredible! He would never have believed he had remembered so much of something he had merely glanced at months before. He stumbled a few times when he came to the finer print, but that was mostly a description of Mosrace itself, which would not be important to the warlock, who only wanted the general pattern and would obviously change the details to suit his own . . .

“You’re daydreaming again,” Raspnex growled. “But it’s good enough. I can tidy it up.” He snatched the parchment and began rolling it.

“That’s quite a trick,” Ylo said admiringly. “You could deed me title to any estate in the Impire!”

“Can’t think why I d want to.”

“Of course, you’d have to put a matching copy in the Imperial records. ”

The little man looked up at him sourly. “I won’t risk it at the moment, because of the Covin, but it’s been done often enough.”

“What! You’re serious?”

“You ever heard of a dwarf joking?” Raspnex stamped off to join the male discussion party, leaving Ylo with his mouth open, wondering how many of the papers in the state archives were occult fakes.

At that moment, Eshiala rose and headed for the door. She glanced at him as she went by. He thought she was going to speak, then she changed her mind and swept by him as if he did not exist, being the Ice Impress. She seemed unaffected by the sudden stress of becoming an outlaw, but then she was probably under much less strain now than she had been the day before, playing for an audience in the Rotunda.

Gorgeous creature! Maybe even worth a dukedom. He knew if he were offered a clear choice now, he might yet take the woman. Even if he could enjoy only one long, lingering session of lovemaking he might. The very thought of her made his flesh burn. And Shandie was going to go off and fight his impossible campaign and leave his signifer to guard the royal family in his absence. From now until the daffodils bloomed—there was a challenge to speed a man’s heart!

Now the countess was alone, minding Maya and quietly munching candies. Well! She must have asked one of the sorcerers to produce those for her. Trust Eigaze! His mouth watered. He went across to the shabby armchair Eshiala had just left.

“May I join you, Aunt?” 

Her plump face creased in a smile. “Of course! Have a chocolate?”

He accepted eagerly. “You are bearing up very well, if I may say so.”

“Oh, but this is exciting! I have never seen history being made before. I’m old enough, of course, but I’ve never been involved.”

“Not that old,” he countered automatically. He hoped that it was history that was being written in this grubby saloon, and not farce. “The historic Conference of the White Impress?”

“Winterfest, 2998!” She chuckled.” `Who was present at the conference? Why was it held on a ferryboat? Discuss how Emshandar’s Protocol differed from Emine’s.’ Generations of school children will curse us for adding to their labors!”

“Can you tell me where we’re going?” he asked.

She looked surprised and automatically reached for another candy. “I suppose so—now Lord Umpily’s gone. Rap said it was better if he did not know . . . just in case. It’s not that they don’t trust him, of course.”

“Of course.” But Ylo wondered if that was true. Umpily’s loyalty was unquestionable, but he was not the most discreet of men. In a war against the Covin, one careless word would bring disaster.

“Have another chocolate. Not his fault, you understand, but no one can keep secrets from sorcerers.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Eigaze moved back to safer conversational territory. “As to where we’re going, you know the place.” Her eyes twinkled. “In fact, it probably belongs to you! It’s called Yewdark House. Remember it?”

“Vaguely.” He recalled sunny childhood days and misty memories of ponies and sailboats.

“That’s why Shandie wants you to accompany us, I think. You can be our host.”

“One of my aunts lived there?”

Eigaze nodded wistfully. “Lady Onnly. She and I were at school together. I visited her a few times at Yewdark. I remember you and your mother there once, when you were very small. But she didn’t live there very long, Onnly didn’t. It has rather a bad reputation, you know.”

Aha! More memories surged to the surface. “What sort of reputation? ”

“Er . . . It’s supposed to be haunted.” Eigaze chuckled and quickly ate two chocolates.

No, not haunted. Ylo recalled his oldest brother telling him certain stories about Yewdark, but Yyan had not been spinning a ghost yarn. He had spoken of omens, magic, prophecy, and Ylo himself. Yyan would have been about fifteen then, perhaps, and Ylo about nine, a good age for baiting. Naturally, Ylo had rushed off to complain to his father, and the consul had reluctantly confirmed the tales, while insisting that they had no importance. He had then forbidden all his sons to discuss them and given Yyan the thrashing of a lifetime to emphasize the point. It was that thrashing that had fixed the episode so firmly in Ylo’s memory.

“Haunted by whom? Or what?”

“Oh, I have no idea. It’s been empty for years, because of some fantastic lawsuit. Such a shame, because it used to be such a beautiful place.”

Dear old Lady Eigaze was trying to change the subject, and normally she was far too skilled at conversation to get herself trapped like that—curious! What had she remembered?

Chairs scraped over in the comer. The conference was breaking up. The light was too poor for writing. Beyond the windows, the shore was drawing closer.

“Ion and I called in there a couple of weeks ago,” Eigaze said, in suspiciously vague tones. “On our way back to Hub, you know. One of the horses went lame practically at the gate. The weather was bad, and it was late. We called in to see if anyone we knew lived there now and might offer us a bed for the night.”

“And who does live there now?”

“No one. Well, remember Ukka?”

“No.”

“Onnly’s housekeeper. She’s still there. Old as the Protocol.” Eigaze took another candy so that she could chew and not say more.

“Living there alone?”

“Apparently. Mad as a cornered badger. Ah, Ion!”

The old count sank onto the sofa, carefully not disturbing the sleeping princess. “Yes, my dear?”

“Tell Ylo about that lawsuit. Yewdark must already belong to him, mustn’t it?”

The gaunt old man’s stoop showed even when he was sitting—he leaned forward, always. He seemed to peer at whomever he was speaking to, which gave his conversation a sense of urgency. He smiled wearily at Ylo under his snowy eyebrows. “Well, it certainly belonged to the Yllipos, and Shandie told us he was going to restore their properties to you. So I suppose it is yours, lad. Or it will be, when this mess is cleared up.”

Some mess! That bloodthirsty old scoundrel Emshandar was barely a whole day dead, and how things had changed since then!

“But the lawsuit?” Eigaze said quickly.

“Oh, that? Well, even the closest-knit families have their squabbles, you know. Apparently there was disagreement over who owned Yewdark, and it went to court.”

“So?” Ylo recalled vaguely that the estate had been in the family for a very long time, which meant several centuries by Yllipo standards. Records could become very confused in such cases. There were no family quarrels now, with only one Yllipo left alive.

“Well, when the Yllipo Conspiracy . . . I mean, three or four years ago, when . . .” The old man floundered.

“When Emshandar murdered Ylo’s family,” Eigaze said firmly.

“Well, yes. Most of the property was attaindered, you know. Consequently, the crown succeeded to all existing legal actions. Which meant that the imperor was suing himself in this case.”

“That’s absurd!” Ylo said.

Ionfeu smiled sadly. “But lawyers love such absurdities! The defendant claimed that the imperor could not be sued without his permission, and the plaintiff insisted that the imperor could sue anyone he liked—stalemate! I’m sure the barristers expected to build careers out of it. Anyway, the estate sank into a legal swamp, and it’s just sitting there, deserted. When Shandie asked if anyone knew of a good bolthole for us, Eigaze thought of Yewdark. It’s perfect! Shandie agrees.”

A country mansion on the shores of Cenmere, about a day’s ride from the capital? Ylo nodded thoughtfully. “Isn’t it a little too close to Hub?”

“That was discussed,” the proconsul said, “but King Rap thinks it’s a good idea to stay fairly close, and the warlock agreed. They should know how Zinixo’s mind works, if anyone does. Nowhere is really safe, you know. ”

“But . . .” Ylo felt oddly uneasy at the idea of holing up in Yewdark, and he was not sure why. “This Mistress, er . . .”

“Ukka,” Eigaze said, beaming bravely. “She was your aunt’s housekeeper, and she was left in charge, and she’s still there.”

“Mad, you said?”

“Well . . . odd. She’s lived alone a long time. But she was quite delighted when we told her there was one Yllipo left alive. She’ll be overjoyed to see you.”

“Did she mention the Sisters?”

Eigaze shot a brief glance at her husband. “She . . . she may have done. Who were they, do you know?”

“They were sorcerers,” Ylo said. “At least, I think they were. Sorceresses, I mean. They lived at Yewdark—before Aunt Onnly.” He wished he could remember more of Yyan’s stories. “They prophesied.”

“Prophesied what?” the count demanded.

“Disasters.” Ylo racked his brains. “Disasters that I might or might not be going to survive.”

“What sort of disasters?”

“The destruction of the family.”

“Oh! Well, that did sort of happen, didn’t it?”

“And the overthrow of the Impire.”

Eigaze and Ionfeu turned to each other in shock. That seemed to have happened, too, didn’t it?