Moving toward the crack, Hecht asked, "Can you manage?"

"Just don't ask me to run."

The ground nearer the grub gash was still hot. It hurt through Hecht's soles. Defunct sheep and goats spotted the slope. With their herd dog.

Delari gasped, "There's your mutton."

"We'll eat well tonight." He looked down. And saw what he expected. "There. The egg-shaped thing. Still glowing."

"Yes?"

He had to force it. "I've seen one before. In the Holy Lands. I don't know what happened to it." Which was as forthcoming as he could be. He glanced at the curious tide approaching. Most were distracted by distorted falcons, dead men and animals, and the gross impact of the god grub's demise.

From on high the devastation was appalling. Though mainly confined to nature. The abandoned castle was the only human construct to suffer extensive damage. The near countryside looked like the flank of a green and black zebra, the verdant stripes persisting wherever uneven ground provided protection. The breeze was removing the soot. Hecht asked, "What do you think?"

"It's too hot down there. And we need to keep anyone else from acquiring it. Tell me what the other one was like."

"A big amber egg. With shot from the falcon trapped inside."

"Interesting."

"You know what it is? What it means?"

"No. Suppose I intercept those two Principatès and redirect their curiosity." Instead, though, he tipped his head slightly and scanned the blackened hillside. "What?"

"Checking for Grandfather. These two should be too young to recognize him. But why take a chance?"

Hecht had the feeling things were happening that he could not see. Too often he felt like a blind beggar in the streets of intrigue. "All right. Here comes Kait Rhuk, too. I can't imagine how he survived." The engine of his mind was turning again, as though fresh lard had been thrown on its wooden roller bearings.

There would be a lot to do. First and foremost, a muster to see who had survived and who had not.

Principatè Delari headed toward his brethren from the Collegium. Hecht went to meet Rhuk.

"Mr. Rhuk. I can't say as I've ever seen such a demonstration of courage."

Rhuk had a heavy accent. His speech was hard to follow. "I don't know, sir. Meaning, I didn't know. Maybe did I before, I wouldn't a even come set up, let alone stood my ground and kept firing."

"Everyone probably feels that way."

"Yer old sorcerer, there. He have any idea what we just run into?"

"I'm not sure I believe him. A son of the Adversary. Trying to enter the world the way a butterfly does." Most people had observed the cycle of the butterfly as children.

"Interesting times," Rhuk understated.

"You all right?"

"Got a few splinters from a firepowder keg that went up. Otherwise, I'm fine. God loves me. I fell in a hole just in time."

"If you can operate, then, I declare you lord of the falcon artillery. You're in charge of finding out how bad we were hurt. How many weapons survived? How much ammunition? We need work parties to recover as much spent shot as we can."

Rhuk scowled.

"Success never goes unpunished in this army, Mr. Rhuk. I survived, too. So I get to do without sleep at all for the next few days."

Rhuk managed a weak grin before he bowed slightly and headed back downhill. Hecht was surprised to see how many artillerymen had survived.

That was the way, though, usually. Even the most horrific events turned out less terrible than the mind anticipated.

He thought he caught the Ninth Unknown in the corner of his eye but saw nothing when he looked. What was the old man up to now?

He had chosen his officers well. Despite the magnitude of the event, they had begun to restore order. The commanders of the smaller units seemed to be gathering their men for a head count—even before his order reached them.

What could he do about what might lie in the gash?

He moved a few steps farther into the black at the crack's rim. The soil crunched underfoot. A paper-thin layer had melted and hardened. The earth beneath was dryer than desert dust. And those few steps were all he could take before the residual heat became too intense.

He spied Madouc, a hundred yards toward the mill, in a ferocious sulk. "I forgot again. They'll have to kill me so I'll start staying where they can protect me." No excuse to avoid it, he marched down and apologized.

"I'm going to put bells on you. Sir."

The man was truly, richly angry.

Hecht was not contrite. If the bodyguards had been around he would not have gotten near the god grub.

Officers' call was over. Order had been restored. But morale was severely stressed. None of the men believed the monster had appeared coincidentally. Even long-service professional soldiers did not want to face surprises of that sort.

Hecht could neither argue nor reassure. He feared he had been targeted again. And he had survived by using the weapon the Instrumentalities so feared.

Lessons learned. On all sides.

This had been a close run, with ten falcons barking. It would take bigger weapons to fell… Don't even think that. Pray, instead, for Drago Prosek, who would have only two weapons when he met the monster in the Jagos.

The staff meeting following officers' call was glum. No one had much to say. Titus tossed in, "The news from Brothe isn't good. Apparently we're not sitting still because of negotiations but because the Patriarch is deathly sick."

Hecht figured his staff began rooting for Death. "Who might replace him? How would that affect us?"

Not something anyone had thought about. Including the Collegium. Sublime was young.

"We're a forward-thinking lot, aren't we?" Hecht said. "Get some sleep. We're looking at long days ahead. Titus. Stay. You know you don't need to sleep. You're not old enough."

"Yes, sir." Resigned.

Once the others cleared off, excepting Principatè Delari, Hecht asked, "What became of our assassin from Viscesment? I didn't get to question him."

"Funny you should ask. He had the great misfortune to be the only rear echelon fellow to suffer a fatal event during the excitement."

"Titus."

"Somebody cut the asshole's throat."

"Principatè? Wasn't he in your keeping?"

"In theory." Delari was angry. "I'd better check on Bit and her daughter. And the hostages. You'll find them very useful soon."

Consent told Hecht, "You don't seem surprised."

"I don't have much capacity for surprise left, Titus."

The Principatès all showed up next morning, Delari arriving first. He presented a heavy ring, its inside stamped with the birdlike trident. "Not much else to say. If he hadn't been beaten half to death I'd let Armand find some other benefactor."

"Bit and the others?"

"Bit is dead. The daughter is worse off than Armand. There was a lot of blood." After a pause, "The boy did put up a fight. He marked them. They'll be found and dealt with. The hostages weren't harmed."

Gorin Linczski and Gervase Saluda arrived. They brought messages from the Collegium. In a shaky hand Hugo Mongoz wanted to know what the hell Hecht was doing, attacking Sonsa? That was the oldest letter. Another, from the Patriarch himself, in a hand shakier still, was enthusiastic about the capture of Viscesment and the Pretender Patriarch, but otherwise lacked substance.

Letters from various Principatès ranged across a spectrum of attitudes. Hecht read them out of courtesy only.

Then Bronte Doneto appeared. "I didn't know you were back," Hecht said.

"I got in late. I should've left sooner. I missed the ruckus."

"Be happy you did. What happened with Immaculate?"

Doneto's story did not vary from what Hecht already knew. In the end, Immaculate II was dead. By the hand of someone not serving the interest of the Brothen Episcopal Church.

"I came back, though," Doneto explained, "because of a letter from my cousin. Spirited out of Krois, to me, because 'they' were censoring all his messages to you." Doneto handed Hecht a letter. The handwriting was less shaky than what he had seen earlier. It was dated before the missive about Viscesment.

"The sneaking out took a while."

"Yes. One of his sons finally managed."

"One of his sons."

"He has three. It isn't common knowledge."

For sure. Though Honario Benedocto had had a reputation for whoring around in his youth.

"I guess that's irrelevant."

"I'd say so."

"I'm supposed to have acted on this a month ago."

"It's never too late, Captain-General. My cousin understands that messages go astray. It's why we go redundant with important communiques. When we can."

Hecht was in no mood for low-level philosophical musings.

The letter had included the orders he had been awaiting, hoping they would not come. Had they arrived in a timely manner Antieux would be invested now. Likewise, Sheavenalle. The main force would be giving Castreresone attention it did not want. And Antieux would not have had time to evacuate so many of its most valuable people.

Persons with skills were resources, too, and prize commodities for the successful conqueror. Which was why Devedians could be found all round the marges of the Mother Sea.

Hecht reflected briefly on the fact that even the children of slaves were not loath to participate in the slave trade.

And the grandfather of the grandfather of a slave was not loath to punish slavers for their daring cruelty. Nor cared that he himself must have slaves amongst his own ancestors. Everyone did. Somewhere, far enough back.

Piper Hecht was angry about the tardiness of the go order. He was excited about the challenges, real and potential. All but a tiny portion of him had become Piper Hecht, Captain-General of the Brothen Episcopal Chaldarean Church.

"Hecht?"

"Sorry, Your Grace. I was eye to eye with the fact that I'm going to make history. The kind remembered long after the misery ends."

Doneto paused. As though this unconsidered thought had an impact now that it hung there in front of his face. "Real history. You could be right. When this army crosses the Dechear it will step into the rolls of history as far more than a footnote about a skirmish. A successful Connecten Crusade will define the future of the west."

"True. But there's no time to speculate about futures quickened or aborted by what we do. I'm a month behind, now." He wondered if the timing of the belated war order had more to do with hidden agendas than with difficulties in transit.

Hecht shouted downstairs. He wanted a staff meeting immediately, with an officers' assembly to follow. And he wanted the ferrying of troops increased.

Despite having received no orders earlier, Hecht had sent three thousand men across already. Their presence yonder would simplify the crossing for the rest. There would be no resistance.

An embarrassed Pinkus Ghort admitted, "They were my men, Pipe. Again." He meant the murderers, who had been betrayed by wounds they could not explain, then identified by Osa Stile and Bit's daughter.

"I assume you'll protect them till they've been questioned?"

"Yes, Pipe. I'm doing it!"

Hecht's anger subsided. Some. "Have they said anything yet?"

"Only that they don't know anything. They got offered a good bounty. The guy who hired them took off when he saw that the killings hadn't taken. His name was Ingram Five. Him and his brother Anton crossed the river right after the attacks. They didn't report in over there. They just kept on going."

"This stuff keeps happening. And we keep reacting. How do we get ahead of it, Pinkus? These villains don't work in a vacuum. People have to notice them. How do we get them to warn us before somebody gets killed?"

"You're on your way. The soldiers are more loyal to you than to Sublime. Give them a victory and you'll have them. They'll winkle out the villains on their own."

Armies deified successful commanders. Too many commanders let that go to their heads.

"I want to take it back to the source. Smash some skulls there. Throw some people in a fire pit. Be an altogether unpleasant guest."

"We'd need to invade Artecipea first. The threads all lead there."

Pinkus Ghort seldom seemed thoughtful. This was one of those rare times. "That don't make sense, Pipe. None of us ever had nothing to do with nobody from out there. I don't think. You? So how come somebody from there is hot to put you under?"

"I ask myself all the time. All I can come up with is, the Instrumentalities of the Night don't love us."

"Sure you ain't getting a bit of a swelled head, there?"

"Just brainstorming. Based on what Principatè Delari has said. I might do something someday that will inconvenience the Instrumentalities of the Night. So they want to stamp me out before I can."

Hecht believed he had done what the Night feared already. He had turned up a tool that mortal men could use to end the Tyranny of the Night. Whatever the Night and its black agents did now would be throwing the bones with futility. The djinn was out of the lamp. And the lamp had melted down.

Hecht asked, "Has Bo finished?" Bo Biogna and his select thugs had been punished for their good work by being given the chance to collect materials of interest from the crack where the god grub surfaced. A gash vigorously sealed off by troops chosen by Titus Consent. Who were watched in turn by Brotherhood members supervised by Redfearn Bechter.

"He isn't finding any more amber pieces. His guys are still sifting pellets out of the dirt. They have to break the layer of glass to get it. They aren't finding enough silver to justify the work, though. Most of it burned up killing that thing."

Ghort drifted off into awed recollections. Then he shuddered. "Interesting times, Pipe. Interesting times."

Hecht sighed. "They are. But we're eating regular. I have a job for you. If you want it."

"You know me. A glutton for punishment. What?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"It's possible. Just don't tell me anything I can sell for enough to retire on."

"This might be that."

"So. What've you got?"

"I want you to recruit men from the levies willing to stay on for pay."

"Not hard to come up with those. If you can pay them."

Hecht smiled tightly. "I can."

"How?"

"That's the secret you need to keep."

"You talked me into it, you sweet-talker."

"Smolens was in the right place at the right time. He picked off the latest specie shipment from Salpeno."

Ghort looked startled, then astonished. Then amused. "You're going to rob your own boss?"

"Isn't the money supposed to support this army? If I let it travel down to Brothe, then come back, how much will disappear along the way?"

"Most, probably."

"There you go. So, how about you take over the volunteer brigade?"

"We are going over the river, right?"

"Soon."

"I'm in. Bound to be something left worth stealing over yonder."

"Could be. You'll go to Antieux. You and Doneto. With Clej Sedlakova in charge. Keep Doneto from going totally berserk."

Ghort raised a questioning eyebrow. Hecht noted the gray there.

"I'd rather not be remembered for turning the Connec into a desert."

Ghort gave him a narrow look. "What'll you be doing?"

"I'm going to Castreresone. Smolens will try to take Sheavenalle."

"Castreresone? Even after Roger died?"

"Yes." It could not hurt to have Sublime V and King Peter nose to nose and fuming. "The confusion there should work to our advantage."

"Wish we'd gotten going sooner."

"So do I. So do I. Go on. You've got work to do."

As Ghort neared the head of the stairs, Hecht asked, "Is that daughter of Bit's still healthy?"

"She's recovering."

"Keep her safe. When you have trustworthy men going back to the city, send her along. I'll warn Anna that she's coming."

"You think you ought to ask her first?"

Hecht shrugged. "I should." But… "Principatè Delari will want his plaything to go back, too. If he can travel." He would love to have Osa Stile out of the way.

"That kid gives me the creeps, Pipe. They's something stone wrong with him."

"Then you better be careful he doesn't sneak into your tent."

"Not funny, Pipe."

Hecht did wonder, sometimes. Ghort seldom talked about women. That was not right in a soldier.

The Captain-General watched the marching troops from a hillside that had been a vineyard once. "Pinkus would be disappointed if he knew," he told Cloven Februaren. The old man had turned up while Hecht was observing the force Sedlakova, Ghort, and Doneto were taking to Antieux. The Captain-General's lifeguards had yet to notice Februaren. The old man showed no sign of the pummeling he had suffered.

"The vines? Yes. I see. Those men seem healthy, trained, and modestly motivated. You've done well."

"Really? You walked up and none of these men noticed."

"Not to worry. They'll frustrate mundane dangers. I'll do the same to the Night."

"You weren't much help with that worm."

"You weren't paying attention, then. Why did it surface where it did, instead of under your mill?"

Hecht did not know. He shrugged.

"It surfaced where your old amulet was being worn by an unlucky goat. Somewhere, there's a very worried Dreangerean sorcerer." The old man chuckled.

Hecht did not know how to respond. Februaren had no reason to sidle round the truth.

The Ninth Unknown said, "You recall me saying that fools might ally with the elder Instrumentalities in hopes of gaining power and favor?" He surveyed Hecht's lifeguards. They were getting nervous.

"Yes."

"Those fools already exist. The trident ring is their emblem. Rudenes Schneidel is their western chieftain. Lieutenant to er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. Who seems to be dedicated to restoring the Dreangerean gods of antiquity."

Hecht was not surprised. "There was always a suspicion that the old religion hadn't been expunged. Er-Rashal was marginal in his devotions at best, but too useful to punish."

"Your brothers in the Sha-lug band have worked this out for themselves. The man Bone has returned to Dreanger. He hopes to warn Gordimer by going through Nassim Alizarin."

"If Bone convinces the Mountain I foresee a difficult life for the Rascal."

"Don't forget what er-Rashal is."

The bodyguards heard ghost voices. They talked about it. But they could not see the old man, nor did they note their charge holding a conversation with something invisible.

"No doubt. They're getting nervous. You need to go soon."

"Yes."

"What did er-Rashal want with those mummies?"

"I don't know. But no good will come of him having them. Maybe he wants to conjure the shades of the sorcerers they used to be. Though he'd have to be atop one of the Wells of Ihrian to have enough power. And he'd need the support of the Night. Unless he prepared with extreme discretion, then moved too fast for the Instrumentalities to notice."

"Not likely, if they see threats two hundred years ahead."

"He could be in for a painful surprise. If he hasn't made the right alliances inside the Night." But that was the story of most sorcerers, including those who had infested Andesqueluz. They began to overvalue themselves and underrate the Instrumentalities of the Night. Then the Night devoured them.

The lifeguards were thoroughly unsettled now. None could stand still. But none had yet discovered the ancient in brown.

Hecht said, "What changed when we crossed the Dechear?"

"What do you mean?"

"We had no trouble with the Night east of the river. Just the mischief you get anywhere. But once we crossed over we started getting pestered. Bad. Like the spirits of rock and brook and tree are more offended by our presence than Count Raymone and his friends. Principatè Delari seems indifferent. Or maybe he just can't explain."

"Might he be preoccupied with more pressing matters?"

"Sir?"

"The Night may be more active but it's still just a nuisance. Precautions you learned while you were crawling will head off most of the monkey business. Expect it to intensify. Yes. The land itself feels threatened. Because it is. And now it's time to go. Yon lad with the fine blond hair just caught something from the comer of his eye. He's going to mention it to someone."

The old man did a snappy about-face. And vanished as he finished. "No," Hecht muttered. "You don't just disappear."

"Sir?" Madouc had crossed twenty yards of abandoned vineyard in a blink.

"Thought I saw something. Out of the corner of my eye. But it wasn't there when I looked. Are they coming out in the daytime? Can they?"

"I don't know, sir. You should ask the Principatès about that. But I think we should move you down where you'll be less exposed."

"Maybe so. Lead on." Hecht wondered why the Night would harass Patriarchal invaders but not those from Arnhand or Grolsach.

"That isn't true," Principatè Delari said when Hecht made the point. "Arnhanders and Grolsachers alike have encountered a range of significant revenants. Rook and Hilt have been underfoot from the start. Weaver and Shade have turned up more than once. Others are stirring. Death. Skillen. Kint. Someone is freeing their bound fragments. Some may have pulled themselves together enough to start feeding on lesser spirits."

"I've never heard of those before. Death, Skillen, Kint?"

"Death is death. Personified. A reactive rather than a proactive. Not a claimer but a proclaimer."

"Huh?"

"Death shows up when it's time for somebody to die. Like a herald. Rook, Hilt, and the others come in to clean up."

"Skillen? Kint?"

"Misfortune. Despair."

"Did the ancients have any happy gods?"

"Does anyone? Today's gods range from unpleasant to psychotic. The God Who Is God, the All-Powerful and Merciful, when He bothers to show Himself—and note that He hasn't for several hundred years—only dispenses disasters, plagues, and pestilences. Likewise, the Devedian God and our Chaldarean deity, as currently edited. The Dainshaukin deity is a freak out of pre-history, always in an insane rage. None of them can fend for themselves. They need people like the Society to put words in their mouths and break bones in their names."

"I'm seeing a new side of you here."

"The Connec is upsetting my sense of discretion. God ought to be able to look out for Himself. If He doesn't like your heresy He can smack you down Himself."

"Pardon me. I'm going to move a few rods downrange so a stray lightning bolt don't pick me off by mistake."

"You just sealed your own doom, Piper. By definition, God can't make a mistake."

"He doesn't seem to mind sarcasm, either." Madouc moved in and out of hearing as the road climbed, descended, and meandered. He seemed appalled by what he heard.

Delari suggested, "Those of His minions who feel He needs occasional assistance could be anywhere, Piper. Maybe even among the lifeguards of the Captain-General of His Living Voice."

Hecht wanted to protest the absurdity. But it was not absurd. He had not chosen the bodyguards. Surely one would belong to the Brotherhood of War. The Society might have placed a spy, as well.

He did not respond. Aloud.

Delari added, "We're never so invulnerable that there isn't one worm who can bring us down."

"Not even you?"

"Not even me. They haven't forgotten me, Piper. They're biding their time. There'll come a day." There would. Of course. Those coals never burned out.

BUHLE SMOLENS CAME DOWN FROM THE NORTH. HE passed behind the main Patriarchal force. He turned over the captured Arnhander specie and records of all that he had done, investigated, and learned while in Viscesment. He picked up an additional two thousand men.

The material named and described several men he hoped to meet.

Witnesses in Viscesment believed them to be Artecipean. They fled into the End of Connec when Smolens arrived. Immaculate's more ardent supporters had done the same. Most were now in Antieux.

The Artecipeans had done nothing blatant while in Viscesment. Even so, the locals believed they were up to no good. Men with such ugly personal habits could only be villains.

The Night made itself more felt with each darkfall. Though never more than malicious mischief, the harassment sapped morale. Pinkus Ghort had trouble recruiting militiamen. When, despite their Chaldarean faith, every imaginable demon and malevolent sprite seemed possible, most wanted to relocate to where interaction with those entities was less likely.

There were few desertions from the Patriarchal force. And plenty of natives were willing to help the Church tame the heretics of the Connec.

The weather turned. Rains came. Not just the occasional shower whose misery faded in a few hours but frequent violent thunderstorms featuring high winds, massive lightning, and, often, accompanying barrages of hail. In calmer hours the sky remained overcast.

The wet did no good for equipment, clothing, boots, feet, or the hooves of the animals.

"It's natural," Principatè Delari assured Hecht when he asked if the gods themselves were conspiring to destroy the army with mildew, mold, foot rot, and rust. "There's just more of it this year than normal. So the locals assure me." The sky seldom shone through.

The weather was inhospitable the day they sighted Castreresone. Its walls were as dreary as the sky. The folk of city and surrounding countryside were astonished to find a crusader army going into camp astride the broad old bridge over the Laur. There was never any contact with enemy scouts or skirmishers. The vedettes met no one but startled peasants and amazed travelers.

Hecht kept asking, "How could they possibly not know we were coming? No infantry force moves faster than the news of its coming."

Titus Consent opined, "They heard. They didn't believe. It isn't possible. Peter of Navaya is their shield now. Not even Sublime V is crazy enough to offend King Peter."

The Captain-General set his main camp across the river from the White City, with a strong force beyond the broad bridge, fortifying the Inconje bridgehead. The bridge itself was a glaring reminder that war was alien to the Connec. It should have been fortified at both ends. Its main span should have been designed to be demolished easily.

The east end of the bridge was surrounded by the low buildings of an unfortified suburb, Inconje, inhabited by prosperous Deves, Dainshaus, and others who could not find a place inside the city or its attached, walled suburbs, the Burg and the New Town. The population had all fled. They had left little worth stealing.

"Those are some impressive walls," Hecht said. "We won't be going over them. And we don't have enough men to lock them in and starve them out." Half the army had gone to Antieux or Sheavenalle. The capture of the port city was critical to the success of the campaign. "We'll just harass them till we come up with a few traitors willing to help us get in. I should've kept Sedlakova. He might see something I couldn't."

Consent suggested, "Talk to Hagan Brokke. He works harder than anyone. And he's maybe a little disgruntled because a one-legged man got first chance at Antieux. He thinks you take him for granted."

Hagan Brokke had been close through most of Hecht's Brothen career, in the City Regiment for the Calziran Crusade and now with the Patriarchals for the Connecten Crusade. Hecht had, indeed, taken one of his more talented officers for granted. "Does he know anything about siege work?"

"Talk to him."

15. Plemenza: Tooth to Tooth with the Son of the Night

Princess Helspeth snapped, "You've been here six weeks, Mr. Prosek! When can we expect you to do something?"

Algres Drear caught her left elbow, squeezed, pulled.

Prosek had taken his orders to heart. "When I'm ready, ma'am." Always "ma'am," instead of honorifics due the Princess Apparent of the Grail Empire. "Or you can go try it yourself if you can't wait."

Helspeth fumed. Drear had trouble restraining his temper. He did so because he understood Prosek's response. The man was testy because he was being harassed.

Helspeth loathed Prosek because he failed to be impressed by her in any way—except as an annoyance.

Drear squeezed her elbow again. "Remember. Brotherhood of War."

Helspeth held her tongue. She watched Prosek's men make additions to a map of the high Jagos. Recon work had been slow and difficult. Few people were getting through to report and fewer were willing to go scout.

Something like a brown stain had been added to the crude chart.

Prosek tapped the map. He checked his team leaders, someone Varley and a man whose name Helspeth could not remember despite having been told a half-dozen times. Varley nodded unhappily. The other sighed hugely and unhappily. Forcing a smile, Prosek said, 'This is why they pay us like princes. Buck up, Stern. We'll leave beautiful corpses."

Helspeth thought that might be a joke. Stern was the ugliest men she had ever seen.

"We've determined our ambush site, ma'am," Prosek said. "Captain Drear. Did you make up the charges I asked for?"

Helspeth ground her teeth. The man knew perfectly well that they were ready. He was reminding everyone of the professional pecking order. Unaware that what shielded him was not his expertise but his association with the Captain-General.

She would not ask the question Prosek was prodding her toward.

Drear touched her elbow again, lightly, to remind her he thought her problems with Drago Prosek were of her own manufacture and, probably, existed entirely inside her own imagination. Drear believed Prosek was so wed to his work that he was unaware of any conflict.

Drear said, "Six charges, prepared according to your specifications."

"Excellent. Then we're all set. We can leave in the morning. Weather, manpower, and drayage permitting."

Weather between the Ownvidian Knot and the Jagos was not benign lately, though good days still outnumbered the bad.

Prosek said, "Alert the people who'll go with me. Have everyone eat a big meal and get a good sleep. We're not likely to have either again soon."

Another annoying characteristic of the man. He believed he could better endure hardship than any effete Imperial. Drear would happily teach the man respect once his Princess had her use of him. But that pleasure would never be his. The girl would stray from her agreement not one inch.

"I'm sorry I'm giving you so many gray hairs, Captain."

Helspeth told Drear. "Someday, perhaps, it will prove worth having endured my whimsy."

"I've endured worse servitude than here with you, Princess. It's the people around you who make the job difficult."

"In the morning, then, Captain."

She saw suspicion begin to cloud his thinking.

Stupid. She should not have given him that much warning.

Drear was livid when he found Helspeth among the men accompanying Prosek. She had donned the arms and armor she had demonstrated at al-Khazen. And wore a heavy cloak that concealed her sex and slight stature.

Weapons and armor had been confiscated during Lothar's reign but she had been clever and persistent and had gotten them back. The Empire enjoyed no shortage of corrupt functionaries willing to lose track of items in their care.

Lady Hilda joined the adventure, though she was supposed to keep the Princess Apparent under close control. She was bored to excruciation by the Dimmel Palace.

Captain Drear discovered them while taking a head count. There was truth in Prosek's notions about Imperials. Some were intimidated by the weather, which had turned cold and damp. It should get worse in the high Jagos.

Drear came up two long on his count. But by the time he isolated the ringers Drago Prosek was barking at the teamsters manning the wagons carrying the expedition's stores and equipment.

Helspeth told Drear, "I won't stay here voluntarily. If you force me, there'll be hell to pay."

"And yet, hell to pay if I don't. I should throw myself on my sword and save the Empress the cost of feeding me till she gets around to hanging me."

"So dramatic, Captain. I promise, I won't be any trouble."

"God, save me! Princess, you're trouble curdled just by being here."

"Lady Hilda will protect me."

"God, give me patience. Princess…"

"I'm going. Fix that in your head, Captain. Adjust to it. Console yourself with the knowledge that this will almost certainly be the last time I'll draw a deep breath without prior approval from my sister and the Council Advisory."

There might be a monster in the Jagos, interfering with traffic, but news did get through. There was strong sentiment in Alten Weinberg for cloistering the Princess Apparent somewhere where she could be controlled more completely. Not that she had done anything to offend anyone. No one complained about her efforts as the Empire's legate south of the mountains. But she was a valuable commodity. And a potential rallying point for those who disdained the Brothen Patriarchy.

Katrin was concerned. Her letters seldom demonstrated any warmth.

Helspeth repeated herself. "I'm going, Captain. We're wasting time and falling behind."

Algres Drear committed the sin for which he never forgave himself. He acquiesced. It was easier than fighting. He was tired of squabbling, especially with the girl. She never yielded.

It did not take long for others to figure it out. Helspeth knew little about the daily business of the march. Things had always been done for her. Lady Hilda was of only slightly more use.

Helspeth did work to win the men over. She convinced them they were about to perform wonders.

Drago Prosek was not restrained about forecasting disaster due to the presence of women.

Six days of cold misery and cold emotional truce brought the party to the point Prosek had chosen for his staging camp.

Prosek and his crews, Algres Drear, and Princess Helspeth crowded the larger campfire. Everyone wanted a look at the map that Prosek had prepared. "Here and here," Prosek said. "Perfect sites for the falcons. This lower one has a clear line of fire a hundred fifty yards long and is shielded by boulders. This other is under an overhang and has a cave behind it. It's thirty feet up the mountainside. You can tell it's been a lookout post since prehistoric times. Stern, you're up there because you aren't smart enough to get scared or nervous. You take the second shot, once Varley freezes the thing with his. If you have to take off, just fall back into the cave. It isn't big enough for the monster to get into."

Helspeth started to remind Prosek that the devil was a shapechanger. Algres Drear pinched his lips. Just to remind her that she had promised to keep her big mouth shut.

"We have one problem," Prosek said. "Other than this damned weather." It was cold. The heavens delivered infrequent but unpleasant bouts of freezing rain. "How do we lure this thing in?"

Helspeth wondered what drove her to put herself in her present position. She was miserable physically, at risk of life and soul, and the adventure would stain her marital value. It would leave her more disliked and distrusted in Alten Weinberg.

She was not disturbed by any potential collapse of her value as a commodity.

Prosek asked, "Anyone know anything about this beast that they haven't told me? Is it likely to know how many of us there are or the nature of our mission? It used to be human, according to the Captain-General. Does it still have a human ability to reason? Right. Nobody has anything. All sink or swim for Drago. Princess? You were at al-Khazen."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Prosek. I can't help you. I was occupied elsewhere when whatever happened to the man happened. I know less than you."

"Pity we don't have a wizard. But if wishes were fishes. The Captain-General told me I could handle this. Maybe he knows me better than I do. Drear. You look like a man who's done some hunting. How would you draw this thing?"

"I've only hunted deer and mountain goat. You go to them. Or ambush them."

Helspeth could not keep her mouth shut. "You've been to the Holy Lands, haven't you, Mr. Prosek?"

"I have. Five years. Actually saw Indala al-Sul Halaladin close enough to tell the color of his eyes. They're gray. Not what you'd expect. Your point?"

"The Sha-lug, the Peqaad tribesmen, Indala al-Sul Halaladin, even the H'un-tai At, all use the false flight tactic. And their enemies fall for it more often than not."

Reluctantly, Prosek granted, "Unfortunately true. A lot of Crusader commanders, new to the Holy Lands and eager to make a name, never believe the Unbeliever is as smart as they are. And veteran besides. So?"

"The man the monster was before he was soultaken lived in Andoray two hundred years ago. That will shape his thinking now. Won't it?"

"Seems likely. So?"

"Heroic individualism was a big thing back then. If somebody put on full armor and went up there like Red Hammer challenging the Midwynd Giant…"

Prosek's eyes glazed. He sucked spittle back and forth between his teeth. "Here's an idea. Why don't we…" He repeated Helspeth's suggestion word for word. As she neared the boiling point he winked at her, grinned. "Just one problem. Picking a hero. And I have a bad feeling about that. You're the only one here equipped for the role. Captain Drear, is anyone small enough to wear her armor?"

"There is no way…"

"I agree. But nobody else brought a convincing costume."

Lady Hilda volunteered, "I'm small enough…"

Helspeth said, "That isn't going to happen, either."

TWO DAYS OF DRIZZLING MISERY PASSED. BOTH FALCONS were positioned, their crews rehearsed. Drear and Prosek had scouted the pass as far as the ruin of the next way station. They had felt the monster stirring. They planted small, standard wards to keep smaller Night things from scouting for the monster.

Three of Drear's Braunsknechts returned with armor fit for a grown man. They brought two long couch lances as well, complete with pennons.

There were no volunteers to don the armor and spring the trap.

Prosek grumbled, "It's too damned cold out here, anyway. Stern, Varley. Let's pack it up. These people aren't really interested."

Drear took the longer lance. "We'll see if I can still stay on a horse wearing all this plunder."

Helspeth kissed the knuckles of Drear's left glove. "Don't do anything stupid."

"You want me to do this? Or not?"

She stepped back, silent. He did not expect, or maybe even want, to survive this. He would suffer no end of grief if he did.

He had no business letting her be here. And no business leaving her to draw the monster into a position where it could be destroyed. That was not his job. That was not his mission.

Guilt pierced her down to the anklebones of her soul.

Drago Prosek followed Drear at a distance, still making measurements. Still making arcane preparations.

Helspeth pulled Lady Hilda close. "When we hear Drear coming back I want you to distract the other Braunsknechts."

"Princess?"

"Whatever it takes. Just get me a few seconds."

Algres Drear was up the pass, out of sight. The weather had turned more benign, though the wind still sounded like ghosts quarreling amongst the boulders and stunted trees. The falcon crews waited, ready.

Drago Prosek put no faith in matches or punks where there was no margin for failure. A charcoal fire burned near each weapon, warming the crew and heating an iron rod that could not be blown out by the wind nor extinguished by a raindrop. Prosek himself remained in constant motion between the weapon sites. He was nervous but not for the reasons everyone else was. He was worried about things working right when he needed them to work. The rest were worried about surviving.

The Braunsknechts had no familiarity with Prosek's weapons. They expected nothing good. The falcon crews did not know what to expect, either. They had yet to be in this position.

"Princess?" Lady Hilda whispered. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to pray. I'm not very good at it." Nor good at being a leader, either, she feared. This was what happened when you let personal desire overrule your need to be responsible. People got hurt.

A noise rolled down the pass, indefinable after battering back and forth between the canyon walls. It was loud.

Lady Hilda understood what was bothering her. "Like everybody else in the world, you're doing the right thing for the wrong reason."

Algres Drear appeared, low on the neck of his mount. The animal was fleeing but making no speed because it could not use its right hind leg. Drear no longer carried a lance. He had lost his sword, too.

A heaving something appeared behind him. It was the source of the echoing noises. Drear's broken lance protruded from what might be called a left shoulder. At eye height, as though the monster had dodged to avoid being blinded.

Helspeth started forward, meaning to snatch up the second lance. Drear's men seized her. She struggled weakly. As she did, she noted that the monster's lost claw had grown back.

The thing was in a mad rage. And gaining on Drear. Who was injured.

One of the Braunsknechts took the lance. He started forward. Prosek smacked him. "Let it unfold the way it was designed." But the man from the Brotherhood moved forward himself.

Drear's mount spied friendly folk ahead. She found some last reservoir of will and picked up the pace for the last fifty yards.

Drear's men swarmed round her once she passed between the last few boulders shielding the lower falcon.

The monster in pursuit sensed danger at the last instant. Limbs flailing, it stopped. Its hideous head rolled back and forth. Antennae waved, tasting the air. But the wind was blowing down the pass. The monster oozed forward, seeking a better taste of what had fired its suspicions.

Helspeth told the Braunsknechts to stop making a racket. Unaware that hearing was the monster's weakest sense.

Drago Prosek kept moving forward. He made no effort to avoid being seen. He carried a yard of burning slow match. The very thing he did not trust his falconeers to depend on.

The monster scooted forward a dozen yards, alert for danger. Had it not been excruciatingly wary it would be feasting already.

Its head rolled. Its antennae sampled the air.

It found something. It stiffened, then collected itself for flight.

Prosek stepped aside, between boulders.

The lower falcon discharged, hitting the monster's underside as it reared to turn. It rose yards higher, shedding noises describable only as painfully loud. It fell back and stumbled a few yards. Stunned.

The upper falcon discharged. Some of the thing's limbs flew away. Chunks of chitin flew out of the monster's back. Pale yellowish green liquid splattered the surrounding rock.

Then the thing's smaller wounds began shrinking. It began to regain control. Began to examine its surroundings. An antenna brushed the smoke trailing from under the overhang sheltering the second falcon.

The monster started to strike.

The lower falcon spat poison again. The impact shoved the monster back. The beast made horrible noises. Helspeth's thoughts entangled with its madness as it entered her mind briefly. Everyone experienced the phenomenon. Now the beast rushed the lower falcon, all reason fled. Sudden serpents of fire scurried along the walls of the narrows. First from the right, and two seconds later from the left, explosions savaged the monster's flanks.

What? Helspeth had seen Prosek fiddling around out there but… What was this?

The blasts near tore the monster in half. But it persevered. The upper falcon barked again. Then the lower weapon exploded. Its crewmen shrieked.

Prosek materialized, running. He was pale, his face contorted by horror. He glanced back to see if the monster was gaining.

It no longer cared about anything but getting away. Its wounds were not healing. It had a huge problem turning without tearing itself in two. Steam the shade of its ichors rose from its injuries.

"It's not going to die," Helspeth murmured. "We did all that and it's still not going to die!"

Prosek stopped amidst the rocks piled round the lower falcon. He called for help. The higher falcon drowned him out. Its charge lashed the monster's side, destroying more legs but doing little more damage to the body proper. The thundering echoes faded. Prosek began yelling at Stern's crew.

A couple of Braunsknechts went to help the falconeers. Prosek zipped out of the position, staggering under the weight of a cask of powder and the charges Varley's weapon had not expended. He clambered up to the overhang.

Drear, though injured, managed to regain his aplomb. "Cheated death again " he muttered as he fumbled at the ties on a bent piece of shin armor, the name of which Helspeth could not recall. "But this leg may be broken. Somebody needs to run down to the teamsters' camp. Have them come take away the wounded." Braunsknechts brought Varley and his falconeers to the fireside. None were dead. Varley might prefer death, though. Only a massive growth of beard had kept the left side of his head from being torn off. That side of his face would become a mass of scars.

One of Varley's assistants explained, "We used a double charge of powder, second shot. It must've cracked the falcon, inside. Leaving a place for burning wad to hide. The next charge exploded when we were ramming it." He accepted water from Lady Hilda. "Get the falcon. We can't leave it."

Stern's weapon barked again, louder. The least injured gunner muttered, "Overcharged it. They'll be sorry."

Helspeth crept forward far enough to see the monster. It lay still, now, surrounded by pale green mist. Her bodyguards were not paying attention. She crept farther forward, to Varley's falcon. The blast had opened a break in its side. The stench of firepowder was strong. It would have been impossible to see had the wind not driven the smoke down the pass.

Pebbles rattled around a few yards out front. Prosek and Stern bringing the second falcon down. Cursing the thinness of the air, Prosek told Helspeth, "It's too far off, now. The charge scattered too much, last shot. We're going to go blow one up its… We're going to hit it point-blank."

"Mr. Prosek."

"Uh… Ma'am?"

"False flight. Watch out." She could not be sure because of the mist but thought the monster might have resumed healing.

"Good thinking," Prosek said. "Never take the Night at face value." He and his falconeers made sure the weapon was ready. Then they moved it toward the ascended Instrumentality.

Helspeth was right. It was less severely injured than it pretended. It would have destroyed Prosek, Stern, and the others had they not been ready.

Prosek had risked another overcharge. Some of the shot passed all the way through the monster.

Echoing thunder faded. Out of the ensuing silence came Drago Prosek's continuous cursing. He and his men came back down fast. 'Time to leave, ma'am," he said as he reached Helspeth. "That last one did for this falcon, too."

The mouth of the tube had peeled back like the petals of a lily. "If that thing gets up again there ain't a lot more we can do." He did not keep running, though. He barked at his own men and co-opted two of Drear's. He got the damaged falcons moving downhill, then collected the remaining firepowder. "The thing knows the scent of its pain, now. It'll smell the powder and not want to get too close. That was why I planted those torpedoes. To teach it to fear unspent firepowder. Go back to your lifeguards. Get out of here. I couldn't forgive me if you got killed, now." He got busy with the powder. "Go, woman! Go."

Helspeth retreated. She found Algres Drear on his feet. "You said your leg was broken."

"I was insufficiently optimistic, Princess. It's just a bad bruise. Ouch!"

Helspeth had prodded his calf with her toe. "Be stubborn and manly all you want, Captain. But don't expect the rest of us to hang back because you can't keep the pace."

"In that case, I'll get a head start now."

The teamsters had arrived, bringing litters. The Braunsknechts sent the wounded down first. No one rode. Not even the Princess Apparent. Whose attitude scandalized some and made a lot more love her because she did not set herself beyond those who served her.

That news would not set well when it reached Alten Weinberg. "Hilda, my days of independence are definitely numbered. Even if this is a howling success."

"More probably, especially if this is a success. A girl your age conquers a monster none of the grand old farts of the Empire even dared attack? The daughter of Johannes Blackboots? Not good, Helspeth. Your sister will be afraid of you, now. So will the blackhearts who whisper wickedness in her ear. And her foes will all want to use you. Arguing that you're the truer daughter of the Ferocious Little Hans."

Algres Drear, injured leg in a splint despite his protests, observed, "No good deed goes unpunished, Princess. And the loftier your intentions, the worse the unintended consequences." He took another long drink of distilled painkiller.

Helspeth wanted to argue but was too tired and emotionally spent.

Brilliant light flashed above the pass they had recently deserted. Smoke or dust rose to be painted orange by the setting sun. Pale green threads wormed through it.

The roar of the explosion tumbled down the pass, arriving only after the light faded.

"Can we run?" Drear asked.

Helspeth said, "It's never come this far down."

Drear reminded, "It did on the other side of the Knot."

The teamsters were not too tired to run. And their teams were fed and rested. They loaded up and moved out, all the injured fighters riding.

"He'll catch up," Stern promised his fellow falconeers. But Drago Prosek never did.

Neither did the terrible ascendant Instrumentality.

That suited everyone perfectly.

Traffic through the Jagos resumed almost instantly.

16. Castreresone: Siege

"I'm an observer," Brother Candle told Socia Rault. "I belong here, doing what I'm doing." The ferocious young woman tried to glower but failed. She was in a good humor, confident the Patriarchals had made a fatal error by coming to besiege Castreresone.

As had become their custom, the two were atop a wall, watching the unfriendly folk outside. This time including the Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies himself. Accompanied by an impressive armed gang.

Impressed, Socia said, "There sure are a lot of them."

"The Captain-General has strong backing from Sublime and the Collegium."

"But those are forty-day men. Right? If we hold out for a month, they'll go away."

She was whistling in the dark. Wishful thinking. The backbone of Sublime's crusade were the professional, full-time soldiers raised and trained by the Captain-General. A huge anomaly in an age when army commanders were not professionals. Not in the Chaldarean world, outside the fighting orders.

"Some of them," Brother Candle said. "I'd guess some forty-day levies have cycled in and out already. But the majority of those men will stay till they starve or succumb to disease." Brother Candle was no fierce patriot, yet the notion of successfully besieging Castreresone was outside his Connecten conception. Roger Shale had rendered the White City proof against any attacker.

The Patriarchals arrived in a businesslike manner. They established their camp and saw to its safety before doing anything but put out patrols. No herald came to demand surrender, offer terms, or suggest any other interaction. The invaders began to dismantle the undefended Inconje suburb, using the lumber to build their engines and camp and the stone to erect towers at the ends of the bridge, and as ammunition.

The professionalism of the Patriarchals preyed on the imaginations of the Castreresonese. They went about their work like it was, indeed, just a job. They ignored the city until their first artillery pieces began lobbing stones at the outer wall—concentrating on exactly those points the Castreresonese knew were weakest. And on the carpenters belatedly trying to install hoardings.

Socia opined, "We should've kept on going to Khaurene. Or even into the Altai." She watched a siege engine loft a huge stone almost directly toward them. This crew were not yet expert in their craft. They had not scored a solid hit yet. This stone flew way long. When it landed it shattered like a thrown dirt clod.

Local field stone was soft and broke easily.

"You may be right," Brother Candle said. The absolute confidence of the besiegers troubled him. This was no mob of Grolsachers, nor an undisciplined mix of fanatics and adventurers like the Arnhanders who had come and gone. These men all had jobs, knew how to do them, and worked hard at them. And their efficiency and competence were being shown deliberately.

"They can't last," Socia decided. "There isn't enough food and fodder. We just need to hang on."

Food and fodder were likely to be problems inside Castreresone, too. Every refugee from farther east had been allowed into the city, where the Maysalean partiality for sharing was strong. Useless mouths would consume stores better reserved for fighting men.

Uncharitable of him, to think such things.

He should put the world aside and go into retreat. He was no longer Perfect. Not even close. The mundane had insinuated itself too deeply into his being.

The people of the White City mocked the Patriarchals. Their confidence in their walls remained high. And the enemy had not surrounded the city. For all his numbers, he was not that strong. Round to the northwest and southwest, where new suburbs had been added on, people came and went as they pleased. The enemy did not interfere. Both suburbs, the Burg in the northwest and the New Town down south, had their own walls, extending from the older main walls. Theirs were lower and thinner.

"They may not be entirely serious," the Perfect Master mused one afternoon. "This could be a show of strength meant to awe the city into giving up. They do say this Captain-General is niggardly with the lives of his men."

"They say he's pretty clever, too."

News of the extermination of the god grub on the Ormienden side of the Dechear River had reached Castreresone shortly before the Patriarchal vedettes. People did not want to believe that the Captain-General had faced down and destroyed a major Instrumentality. But he had captured Sonsa easily. Had taken Viscesment and Immaculate II by surprise, so quickly that Immaculate's bodyguards had offered only a token defense. His sub-commanders were at Antieux and Sheavenalle, now, the latter chieftain enjoying unanticipated success.

A week after the Patriarchal army arrived the White City's mood began to turn. The enemy had begun systematically capturing nearby towns and fortresses. The swiftness of their fall was frightening.

The mood blackened further when news spread that the darkest brethren of the Collegium accompanied the invaders.

Sorcery explained the failure of so many strongpoints.

Sorcery and treachery.

The Patriarchal Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy had people planted everywhere. Those traitors worked their wickedness.

Bernardin Amberchelle was a crude, cruel man, not without cunning. His agents had penetrated the Society. On the eighth day of the siege one of those betrayed a plan to seize and open a hidden postern. Amberchelle's status ballooned after the traitors had been thrown off the taller barbican tower. Seventeen priests and lay brothers. Including an otherwise innocent Brothen Episcopal priest who had the nerve to beg mercy for the captives.

There was no central power in the city. Roger Shale had not been replaced. The magnates could agree on nothing. Isabeth was en route from Navaya with a hundred of Peter's knights and all their train. Having planned to land at Sheavenalle, then march up the Laur. But much of Sheavenalle was in the hands of the Patriarchals already. An attempt to land would be risky. So the ships were back at sea. They might put in at Terliaga, two-thirds of the way back to Platadura, whence they had sailed.

Wind and rain returned. The bee-busy Patriarchals had created their own rude city by then, employing local labor. The Captain-General had done the same during the Calziran Crusade.

Though the Patriarchal army had arrived without a tail of camp followers, it was acquiring them now.

People did what they must to survive. And most country folk did not care who occupied the castles and cities. The ruling class were all the same, seen from a charcoal maker's hut.

Bernardin Amberchelle summoned Socia Rault and Brother Candle on the fifteenth day. Amberchelle seemed pensive. Unusual in a short, wide man best known for smashing his way through puzzles.

Several of Amberchelle's odd associates were in the background. Likewise, a dozen leading Castreresonese, including Berto Bertrand, Roger Shale's longtime companion and deputy, now castellan till Isabeth arrived. Brother Candle surveyed the assemblage with a jaundiced eye. There was not a leader among the locals, evidently. Else why defer to half-mad outsider Amberchelle? Simply because the man had the nerve to commit mass murder?

What about those lurking, dusky men with the odd accents, now believed to be Artecipean?

"Thanks for coming," Amberchelle said, proving he could find manners when he wanted.

"At your command," the old man replied. "Though I'm baffled. What can I possibly contribute?"

"Advice."

"If I'm able. Though you have more practical minds here than mine."

"Back to you in a moment, Master. We have a question for the Count's betrothed."

Socia was learning. She had not yet blurted something irrelevant just to establish her presence. She awaited Amberchelle's question.

"Miss… Did you get any replies to your requests for help?"

Socia sneered. "Not one. Though King Peter is sending Isabeth to assert his rights."

"We feared as much. Master. The enemy won't talk. They've ignored every proposal for negotiations."

"Sublime says there's nothing to negotiate."

"We have spies moving in and out of their camp. They don't seem interested in Sublime's opinions, either."

The Captain-General would expect his local laborers to include spies. Evidently he did not care what they learned. "And?"

"The enemy are confident that they can stay the winter— if the city refuses to yield. We may have to if they cut off communications completely. And they have started harassing anyone bringing in food or supplies."

The old man repeated, "And?"

"We're consuming food much faster than it can be brought in."

"That happens during a siege."

Socia said, 'Turn out the people who don't contribute. Let the enemy have to deal with them."

Brother Candle said, "We'd better pack, then, hadn't we, girl?"

Socia glared.

The old man said, "She does have a point, though. Seeker refugees could slip out and go to Khaurene. Or into the Altai."

"Assuming the enemy lets them."

"Assuming that." The Captain-General might decide that overcrowding and starvation were useful weapons. Or he might want terrified refugees to carry panic to the rest of the Connec. "But you have something else on your mind, don't you? You don't need me to tell you that."

"The Night," Amberchelle murmured, like a boy caught doing something he should not. "The Night is… isn't… Whatever happened on the Dechear, the Night now seems to be afraid of those people. Despite being ten times as active as it was only a year ago."

Brother Candle frowned. What he knew about that event was limited to exaggerations heard in the street. Why was Amberchelle concerned? Or was it his odd friends who were? Those friends, he had learned, had taken flight from Viscesment after the surprise appearance of Patriarchal troops.

"I have no intercourse with the Night. I'm a philosopher, not a sorcerer or priest. If the Night shuns the Patriarchals, it stands to reason that they're afraid they could share the fate of the thing that perished on the Dechear."

Amberchelle sighed. "I didn't think you'd tell us much. But I hoped." He shook his head vigorously. That did no good. "They've got Principatès with them."

That was no secret. "They're substantially overrated, I suspect," Brother Candle said.

"He's right. We are."

The voice came out of nowhere. Socia squealed. The Connectens gaped and gabbled panicky questions. Some thought it was a practical joke. But Amberchelle's dusky friends panicked. Several produced weapons they should not have been carrying. They slashed empty air. Others fled the chamber.

"Master," Socia said in a scared little-girl voice. "Something just touched me. It put this in my hand." She held up a ring.

Brother Candle took the ring to the brightest lamp. Two outsiders nearby blanched when they saw it. The shorter staggered as though suddenly faint. "What is it?" the old man asked.

He got no reply. The chief foreigner herded his gang out of there. Berto Bertrand, Bernardin Amberchelle, and Socia crowded Brother Candle.

He said, "It's a signet ring. Like none I've ever seen. Uhn." That looked like specks of dried blood. "I've seen these symbols somewhere before." In the mountains north of Khaurene, the Altai, come to think. Back in the dark woods, where Eis, Aaron, and their fellows were come-lately and the Old Gods, though no longer worshiped, were not forgotten.

"Bernardin. Find out why your friends are upset." He wanted to quiz Socia about how it had come into her possession.

He did not want to accept her claim. Even he might panic if he believed there were invisible men afoot in Castreresone.

Amberchelle growled, no longer as pleased with his associates. Berto Bertrand said, "I'll spread the word that people who have somewhere else to go should do so."

Bernardin Amberchelle was not in charge. The consuls of the city, its magnates, and its urban nobility listened only because he was Count Raymone's cousin. They nodded politely, then did things their own way. Rejecting the presence of a large enemy army as any reason to create a strong central authority.

The sixteenth morning word spread that the enemy was doing something new. Several thousand forty-day men had arrived from Firaldia. The Captain-General meant to take full advantage. Later that same day a messenger from Sheavenalle brought word that the port city had surrendered.

Observing from the wall when he heard, Brother Candle mused, "That's what they've been waiting for. They can barge supplies up the Laur, now." He wondered about the fate of the Seekers of Sheavenalle. And of its Devedian and Dainshau minorities. The Captain-General's men were not fanatics, but the Society followed right behind them.

The seventeenth morning the invaders assaulted the Burg and the New Town, surprising defenders who had been warned that an attack was coming. The attackers got over the New Town wall and captured a gate immediately. Fighting spread across the suburb. The defense collapsed by nightfall. The Patriarchals immediately began using tall buildings as vantages from which to hurl missiles into the city.

In the northwestern suburb, the Burg, the defenders held the top of the wall but failed to prevent two breaches created by clever masons. The defenders recaptured those and closed the gaps under a hail of missiles from wooden towers the besiegers put up with astonishing speed. Heavy ballistae atop those flung blazing spears deep into the suburb.

Brother Candle told Berto Bertrand, "I'm no soldier, but I don't think a sally would be wise." Small raids had been attempted almost daily. None had turned out well.

"We'll counterattack in the New Town tonight," Bertrand said. The consuls and magnates had decided. "And go after the towers bombarding the Burg, too."

Only light defensive artillery had been mounted on the walls of the suburbs. None of Castreresone's defensive weaponry had done any good yet. The stone throwers still lacked ammunition. Those who made decisions remained confident in the White City's wall.

Brother Candle feared Roger Shale's improvements would go to waste.

Bertrand added, "We'll hit their main camp tomorrow. They won't expect that. We'll push them back across the river and capture the towers they've built to control the bridge."

There was more. It was a grand and complex scheme. The enemy's unseasoned levees would be trapped this side of the river and destroyed…

Beyond ignoring the certainty that any complicated plan will stumble, those who had created this one had forgotten that voice out of nowhere.

Brother Candle thought chances of surprising this enemy were nil. He did not stay awake to watch the disaster unfold. He did not want to live with the pain.

SOCIA COULD NOT CONTAIN HER EXCITEMENT. SHE BURST into Brother Candle's cell. She bounced up and down while he collected himself.

"It isn't seemly for a woman of your station to be here." Count Raymone had made little provision for her other than to trust her to the wisdom of the Perfect Master. "But you're here, now. Pull yourself together. Try to make sense."

"Everything is going the way they planned! They've retaken the New Town. They pulled those towers down that were shooting into the Burg." Her excitement faded. "They haven't put all the fires out, though."

Brother Candle slept on a reed mat. He sat there now, his ragged blanket pulled around him. It had turned cold during the night. 'There was an actual surprise?"

"Completely!"

He was unprepared to believe that was not an enemy ploy. "Back out of here for a minute. Let me get dressed." Soda's life at Caron ande Lette had been rude, simple, and relaxed. That would not do in Castreresone. The Count of Antieux could not have his betrothed acquiring a tail of rumors.

"Come on!" Socia enthused as the old man left his cell. "I want to see!"

He refused to be hurried. He stopped to break his fast: bread smeared with a dark, heavy, almost bitter honey. By the time the girl chivvied him forth from the keep there was light in the east as well as the north, where the Burg continued to burn. "I suppose we should head for the eastern wall."

The streets were filled with nervous men, all under arms. The arsenals had been emptied out. These men were supposed to capture the Laur bridge and its defenses.

Brother Candle believed he was looking at walking dead men.

The families were out and underfoot as well. Their fear was thick. They knew some of these fathers and husbands would not be coming back.

Would any? Brother Candle dreaded the answer.

He offered a blessing when requested, for anyone who asked, Maysalean or otherwise. Most Episcopals were not unwilling to take what they could get where they could get it. Though priests loyal to Viscesment would be waiting near the gate, to bless the faithful as they streamed past.

Brother Candle doubted that Sublime's priests would reveal themselves, though devout Episcopals of the Brothen stripe were among those about to fight for their city.

They had their doubts and fears, as men do in the hour before battle. But they had faith in the righteousness of their cause.

Brother Candle suffered the doubts and fears while enjoying none of the confidence of unquestioning faith.

"Socia. Dear girl. Once we're done here I fear I must leave you."

"Don't be… What are you talking about?"

"I've forgotten what I am, child. I'm lost. I have to put the world aside and find myself again. I'm losing my soul."

Socia used his own past remarks to argue with him.

The soldiers began their sally before the pair reached a good vantage. The rush through the gate almost caught them up. Socia's lack of manners saved them that unexpected adventure.

They did not get a good place among the observers. The best spots had been occupied long since.

The Castreresonese descended the hill to the Inconje works in a roiling mob, tripping over one another. They were too numerous and disorganized to march. Brother Candle groaned. "What a waste! This city is run by idiots."

He did not care that several idiots were within earshot— instead of out with the men running to their deaths.

Soon it seemed the consuls and magnates were not fools after all. Something could be said for terrified enthusiasm and overwhelming numbers.

By sheer bodyweight the Castreresonese breached the palisade shielding the Inconje bridgehead. They drove the Patr-archals back. Cut a great many off. Some swam the Laur to get away. The raiders captured the unfinished guard tower at the western end of the bridge: They charged the tower at the eastern end.

That tower held out for two hours. The enemy used the time to bring up artillery and crossbowmen. They laid steady missile fire on the bridge. The artillery included something that made loud noises and belched sulfurous smoke. Despite their losses, though, the Castreresonese captured the second tower and prepared to defend it.

The Patriarchals did not counterattack.

They built wooden towers that, by day's end, let them lay plunging fire on the lost towers and anyone crossing the bridge.

The watchers on the walls cheered themselves hoarse.

Brother Candle did not join in. Nor did Socia Rault.

The girl understood. The Patriarchals had not suffered crippling reverses.

The day's work meant little in the long run. Especially if Castreresone's losses left it unable to defend its entire circumference against surprise attacks.

Only after night fell did the cost become apparent. The wailing inside the city had to hearten the enemy camp. The fallen numbered more than a thousand, the injured and wounded many times more. Some families had lost all their men. More would do so once sepsis had its way.

Brother Candle would have bet gold that the enemy had not suffered a tenth as badly as the bold fools of the White City.

He wept. And was not ashamed to be seen doing so while the city consuls proclaimed a triumph.

Brother Candle told Bernardin Amberchelle, "They haven't gone away. And, guaranteed, we'll hear back from them soon."

"Soon" came quicker than even the Perfect Master anticipated.

The counterstroke fell before sunrise. The Captain-General had men swim the Laur, and cross over on boats, above and below the bridge. No pickets had been posted to watch for that. The men who crossed upstream joined those already caught on the west bank. The downstream force attacked the Inconje defenses. They routed the poorly armed citizens, excepting those shut up inside the two towers. Dawn revealed the slope below the new barbican carpeted with newly fallen. No mercy had been shown.

Fugitives from nearby towns and castles all reported the same thing. The Patriarchals were merciless when they encountered resistance. So towns were falling as fast as the Captain-General's troops could accept surrenders. Few found the backbone to fight.

While the city was distracted by the slaughter on the fore slope, the enemy attacked the New Town again, bursting through the poorly repaired breaches. They drove the defenders out almost as fast as those could run. By midmorning the Patriarchals were undermining the main wall and building artillery towers so they could shoot down onto the ramparts.

Here the confidence and procrastination of the Castreresonese betrayed them again. Shelters had not been set up to protect defenders from plunging fire. Hoardings had not been installed, making it more difficult to counterattack the masons undermining the wall. It was no longer possible to counterattack through the posterns. The enemy knew where they were. He buried them systematically. The main gateway from the city into the New Town got heaped with brush and timber and set afire.

This living history was written under continuously heavy gray skies, often in drizzling rain. With the full attendance of the Night.

Brother Candle was deeply troubled. Even the most fanatic Brothen Episcopals feared the Night, now, as a thousand awful stories circulated. Rook's slime trails painted the fore slope, where so many had died. Death himself had been seen outside the barbican, tallying in his Book of Hours. A thousand people claimed their cousins or uncles had seen Hilt. Fragments of Kint lurked in every alleyway.

Brother Candle saw nothing. Nor did anyone else he spoke with. The reports were all hearsay. But their cumulative impact was potent.

Socia wanted to know, "Why would the Old Ones help the Brothen Usurper? The Church wants to destroy them." She asked over a weak noontime meal of hard cheese and harder bread, taken in a small room off the kitchen in the keep of the Counts of Castreresone.

"Only speculation, mind," Brother Candle replied. "But I'd bet those people out there are asking how come the Old Ones are helping us when nobody over here wants to see them back."

The girl started to say something but had a thought. She shut her mouth.

"The Night doesn't take sides. We only think it does because all we know is what we see and hear with our own eyes and ears." Considering events on the east bank of the Dechear, the Night might, indeed, have a definite preference in the current mortal squabble.

"They have members of the Collegium to help."

"They do," Brother Candle conceded. "Possibly some of the best." The enemy was not hiding that fact. Some of those Collegium members had no particular reputation. But Muniero Delari came wrapped in dread rumor. And Bronte Doneto, at Antieux, might be the most powerful Principatè of all. Doneto had spent his adult life hiding his real strength.

"We have no way to balance that."

"No. So all the advantages are on their side of the balance."

Bernardin Amberchelle showed up. He was depressed. "They've recaptured the tower on the far end of the bridge. And they've started building a floating bridge. We'll try to wreck it tonight. But I don't expect we'll have much luck. There aren't many citizens willing to go out there again."

There was more on Amberchelle's mind. Brother Candle made a little rolling hand gesture, inviting him to continue.

"The Patriarchals still can't manage a complete encirclement." With forty percent of their strength at Antieux or Sheavenalle and half the rest ravaging the countryside, the Patriarchals outside numbered no more than eight thousand. Still the largest concentration of troops seen in the Connec in generations. "We should consider leaving before the situation deteriorates any further."

"I thought Castreresone was impregnable." The Perfect was aware, though, that fugitives had been leaving since the Patriarchals appeared. Who were content to let them go. They would become an economic burden elsewhere.

"It could be. If it had leaders determined to defend it. The consuls and magnates aren't willing to deal with a real siege. Nobody wants his property demolished for stone and lumber. Let the other guy go first. And, of course, they'll get help from Khaurene and Navaya before it gets that bad."

Brother Candle nodded. He knew. He saw it all the time. People could not believe that Tormond IV could go on being the Great Vacillator, now. Nor that King Peter was unlikely to send more men than were with Isabeth already. If he weakened himself any more the princes of al-Halambra would seize the opportunity to blunt the Reconquest.

Nor would there be direct help from Santerin, despite any wishful thinking. Though King Brill's transgressions along Arnhand's borders did now have Charlve the Dim and Anne of Menand distracted.

With invaders just sixty miles away Duke Tormond began, for the first time, rehearsing his military options.

Brother Candle hoped Tormond would defer to Sir Eardale Dunn. "You're the man Count Raymone put in charge. I'm here to keep an eye on everybody."

Amberchelle was disappointed. Of course. He had hoped to be told what to do. "We'll wait and see, then. If the magnates here go on pretending the situation isn't desperate, we will act. Just be ready to go on short notice."

Brother Candle went up onto the wall south of the barbican two days later. A hundred fires burned outside, providing light for the Patriarchal artillerists. Their engines worked day and night. The troops manning them worked in shifts. Local people brought the stone and firewood.

Part of the barbican had collapsed a few hours ago. The main wall had begun to creak and groan and shift.

The Patriarchals had begun building floating wharves on the east side of the Laur, below their pontoon bridge. A dozen barges and boats were tied up already, unloading by night. Buildings were being erected to warehouse incoming cargo.

The besiegers were living far better than the besieged.

Though the siege might not go on much longer. The New Town had been lost. Now it looked like the crusaders meant to hit the Burg suburb again, soon.

Despair had found a home in the narrow, shadowed streets. Few people now believed this city, that had not been overcome in five centuries, would remain inviolate. They invested their hopes in Queen Isabeth and Duke Tormond.

Isabeth and her knights were twenty miles away. The Great Vacillator had sent out a call for volunteers to go help the Connec's second city.

Brother Candle suspected little would come of that. A new, small hope came with news from Viscesment. Immaculate's supporters had assembled after the departure of the Patriarchals. They had elected a successor to the murdered Anti-Patriarch. An unknown bishop, Rocklin Glas from Sellars in the Grail Empire, had accepted the ermine and assumed the inauspicious reign name Bellicose. He promised a vigorous campaign against the Pretenders of Brothe. Not the traditional resistance but an aggressive countercampaign. He had sent out a call for crusaders. Though he was not taken seriously outside Viscesment, the Society in those parts faced savage persecutions already. Reaping what they had sown.

Bellicose promised to execute a member of the Society every time a non-Brothen Episcopal suffered at its hands. He and Sublime were bee-busy excommunicating and publishing Writs of Anathema against one another. More insanity, Brother Candle thought. Maybe the sides could exterminate each other. Leave the world to the Unbelievers, the Seekers, and those whose harsh old deities had begun slithering in out of muck and shadow.

The Perfect Master grew increasingly dismayed as he watched the besiegers. He realized he was looking at something unseen since the collapse of the Old Empire.

Professional soldiers led by professional officers, chosen for competence rather than noble lineage, veterans all, were going about their business with the dispassionate skill of butchers and bricklayers. However much the nobility on either side disdained them, they represented sudden, efficient death.

How would they stand up to a massed heavy cavalry charge?

Bernardin Amberchelle found him there, in his pessimism. "Brother? I just left another meeting of the consuls and magnates."

"Let me guess. They can't agree on a sensible course of action."

"You should be a professional gambler, Brother."

"I am, in a way, nowadays. Risking my soul chasing earthly illusions."

Amberchelle's short, wide frame shuddered. "I've decided. They won't do the needful things. The Patriarchals should go after the Burg in the morning. Tonight may be our last chance to get out."

"I feared as much. I am, of course, ready to go."

"Good. Good. There'll be enough moonlight. We should be well away before sunrise." Amberchelle sounded shaky. Frightened and trying to hide it.

"Something out there worries you?"

"Rumors. Horrible things in the dark."

Brother Candle nodded, though the horrible things he had heard of were awful mainly on an intellectual level. Rook. Hilt. The other revenants. They were disgusting but nothing he feared. Not at the strength they possessed now.

They barely qualified as ghosts of the gods they had been.

Brother Candle said, "Very well. I'll get my things and chivvy the girl."

"I've spoken to her already."

"Excellent. We might get out of here before sunrise."

It was midnight. Socia Rault and Brother Candle, accompanied by Bernardin Amberchelle and his associates, eased out a sally port in Castreresone's north end. They had waited half an hour for their turn. A human river was headed out.

Those Brother Candle made out by feeble moonlight were Seekers and other minorities. Those who had most to lose if Castreresone fell.

They made less than a mile before the clouds masked the moon permanently. The chill breeze picked up, growing colder. The darkness became oppressive.

A mile farther on the path rounded a hill. The darkness deepened. The fugitives now moved in a slow shuffle, feeling the way. There was talk of torches. Nobody had one. Then someone with a clear head observed that a torch would attract enemy pickets. Who were out there somewhere. Who would cheerfully rob and murder them all. The Patriarchal city levies did most of the scouring of the countryside. The Captain-General did little to restrain their greed.

It stood to reason that if they killed everyone who resisted soon enough few Connectens would show any inclination to fight.

This darkness was not friendly. It hid them but also blinded them. The path wound between rolling hills. Eventually, it split. The right-hand path led to the old Imperial highway, which could be followed easily even in darkness. Bernardin Amberchelle had hoped to be on it a dozen miles west of the White City by first light.

That did not happen.

First light came. They had not found the old road yet.

There were delays, not only because of the darkness.

Things moved in the night, pacing them. Things that stank. Things that laughed foully. Things that raced across the path, triggering screams, apparently just for the hell of scaring people.

Brother Candle's band never reached the Imperial road. Word came that it was occupied by Patriarchals moving west to keep an eye on Queen Isabeth. They thought she might do something when she heard about the new assault on the Burg.

The band joined the rest of the fugitives, heading back to find another way. Snow began to fall.

"NO REST FOR THE WICKED," THE PERFECT MUTTERED TO Socia. He had had no intention of joining the Queen's camp. He had gone there only because the road ran past Mohela ande Larges. And because the Navayans would make a nice block in the path of any pursuit. He followed the man who had recognized him among the refugees. "Michael Carhart, why must you do this to me?" He was amazed that the Devedian philosopher would be found outside Khaurene.

Carhart chuckled. "Relax. Isabeth just wants to talk about Castreresone. She's harmless."

"So is an adder. To those wise enough not to sup with serpents."

Michael Carhart did not like that. "Watch your tongue, old friend. The nobility have no patience for that sort of jest these days."

"Yes. I recall those times when the jongleurs roamed freely, like wild chickens, cackling that seditious nonsense to anyone who would listen."

"Make light if you like. But you know what I mean. Take care."

Brother Candle did understand. The mighty were not happy. They wanted someone else to hurt.

There were more familiar faces in the great hall of Mohela ande Larges, the little castle Isabeth had appropriated. She was accompanied by a half-dozen darkly handsome men, none of them her husband. King Peter must trust them indeed. Or the several women in shadow behind Isabeth were harsh enough chaperones to provoke Peter's absolute confidence.

Michael Carhart joined others whose presence startled Brother Candle: Hanak el-Mira and Bishop Clayto. Friends. Or as much so as could be amongst men of such diverse backgrounds. Only Bries LeCroes was missing.

What had become of LeCroes? He should ask. He had heard no final disposition of the poisoner's case.

The handsome men said nothing. They stared at the Perfect Master with a feigned indifference bordering on disdain. The Navayan nobility were dedicated Brothen Episcopals, their faith tempered by worldly convenience. King Peter had more allies among Direcia's Pramans than among rival Episcopal princes.

The Queen was courteous. "Be seated, Master. Your companions will be cared for. I understand they're rather ragged."

Brother Candle inclined his head. "Socia Rault and I have spent months staying ahead of Arnhanders, Grolsachers, revenant demons, and now the Usurper Patriarch's Captain-General."

"Tell me what you've seen since last our paths crossed."

Brother Candle did so. In detail. Duke Tormond's little sister was more patient than the child he remembered. The handsome men became restless long before he finished. She did not.

Isabeth observed, "The Night would seem to be more active in the east. We hear a thousand rumors from that direction but almost nothing from farther west."

"The things stirring are Instrumentalities associated with conflict and chaos. Peace seems to have settled in everywhere but around Antieux and Castreresone."

Isabeth nodded. Having known the child, Brother Candle found it hard to believe the rowdy storm of flying limbs had matured into someone regal. He wondered about her son. Where was the baby Prince? Was he well? Domestic gossip got little attention these days.

Isabeth asked, "Is Castreresone truly in danger?"

"Imminent."

"But those walls…"

'The walls are magnificent. The people behind them are the weakness. Half still believe there's no real danger. The Captain-General does what he wants, when he wants, where he wants. And those people won't do what they must to resist effectively. Their strategy is to wait for you and your brother to rescue them." He spent a few minutes cataloging the shortcomings of Castreresone's leading men. "Berto Bertrand drives himself to exhaustion but has no luck getting anyone to listen."

"God is a cruel practical joker. He could have left us Roger Shale for another half year."

Brother Candle did not respond. Their views of God need not clash just now.

Isabeth said, 'The situation sounds bad. Count Alplicova." One of the handsome men stepped forward. "You know, in general, my thinking, and that of the King, in regard to our Connecten dependencies."

The handsome man bowed slightly. "I do, Your Majesty."

Brother Candle detected a hint of romantic worship. There would be nothing to it. Direcians, always at war and of necessity less relaxed than their Connecten cousins, did not indulge in the courtly love games promoted elsewhere by jongleurs.

The Perfect Master reflected. Count Alplicova. Could there be more than one? Diagres Alplicova was called Sword of the Unbeliever by the warlords of al-Halambra. His blade hammered out King Peter's great victories. Why was he here when there were Praman castles to conquer in Direcia?

"Your Majesty." Daringly, speaking unbidden. Though the Perfect often flouted such rules. "The gentleman you've named shouldn't be named aloud—if he's the gentleman famed for that name." He reminded Isabeth of the invisible intruder in Castreresone.

Isabeth replied, "I understand your concern. But we've made no secret of our cousin's presence. My husband believes it will give us additional leverage. As to your invisible man, you give the lie to his existence yourself when you report the successful attacks on the Laur bridgeworks. You were the victim of a practical joke."

"Oh, he was. But not by me."

The voice seemed to come from amongst the smoke-blackened beams overhead.

Laughter followed. The Queen and her people began muttering about sorcery.

"Oh, yes. Sorcery in the highest. But not nearly so foul as that coming off the island of Artecipea."

Count Alplicova, Brother Candle noted, had shown no superstitious response. He and his companions studied the shadows while moving to control the exits.

Queen Isabeth yelped. She stared aghast at something in her lap.

The men surged toward her. Blades rang as they cleared scabbards.

Sidelong, Brother Candle caught a glimpse of someone in brown sliding out of the room. The man tossed him a mocking salute. And was not there when the Perfect turned for a better look.

He had seen that man before, in the streets of Castreresone and on its wall, among the watchers. "He just left." He described the man.

The others were not interested. They were focused on Isabeth.

The thing in her lap was a hand. With rock salt crusted on it.

"It's the ring," Brother Candle said. 'The ring is the message."

"Explain," Count Alplicova said. With no stress in his voice.

The man had a reputation for being unshakable.

'The invisible man in Castreresone slipped a similar ring to Count Raymone's fiancee. Men from Artecipea were there at the time. They reacted as though they'd just gotten news of a disastrous defeat."

Isabeth recovered. "This hand isn't human."

It was an odd bluish black. The fingers were overly long, with less bluntly shaped nails. The flesh under the nails was yellow. The nails themselves were cracked and broken.

The Direcians were not convinced. One said, "The Pramans bring strange breeds of men across the Escarp Gebr al Thar."

Isabeth said, "It looks like an ape's hand."

Brother Candle asked, "Does it matter? It's more likely the hand of a demon incarnated. The invisible man is getting away." He described the man he had seen. "I've seen him before, always at the edge of crowds."

A frantic search enjoyed no success whatsoever.

Once Isabeth exhausted Brother Candle's store of information, she told him, "We don't want you whispering any Maysalean nonsense in the camp. Take your charge to Khaurene. I'll give you letters to my brother. He'll see to your care. Nag him. His people are being murdered in the name of a God that most of them disdain."

He smiled gently. Isabeth's faith would not fill a thimble. Even leaned toward his own. But she could not show that to her husband's men. Politics trumped faith. As always.

Brother Candle observed every royal formality. Peter's men watched with faces of stone, fiercely disapproving.

The Perfect departed sure that he had missed something important. An argument started before he left the room. Some of the Navayans were concerned about the invisible man. Those who did not think it was all trickery by the devil-worshiping heretic.

The heretic left with letters to his Duke and a handful of silver to get him and his ward through the forty miles to Khaurene.

His small camp was in a turmoil when he arrived.

Socia babbled, "The Queen's men arrested Bernardin's foreign friends! They dragged them into the castle! They would've taken Bernardin, too, if one of them didn't recognize him from somewhere before. What's going on?"

"I don't know. We can ask Bernardin. After we're on the road to Khaurene. Which is where we've been ordered to go."

"Khaurene?" the girl whined. "Right now? We can't stay for even one day?"

"She wants us gone. From the looks of things back that way, it might be a good idea to give her what she wants."

Smoke rose to the east. Dark dots moved on the face of a distant hill.

The Captain-General was moving more troops closer.

Socia stared. She lost color. "You think…" She could not articulate her fear.

"No. Antieux won't fall till they've eaten each other. Until the last man left, Raymone Garete, goes down. Taking a dozen Patriarchals with him."

That was what she wanted to hear. And it might be true. Unless Raymone fell victim to treachery.

Socia started to say something. She let out a yelp of outrage instead. "Somebody just grabbed my bottom!"

From the edge of his eye Brother Candle saw that old man in brown. Grinning, the man saluted him, turned, and became invisible.

The days became more terrifying than the nights. Every town and castle had been taken by the enemy. But the people themselves had not gone over. They would hide small parties from the invaders and the Night. But by day Brother Candle's band had to move. They covered little ground. Patriarchal soldiers and Society hounds were everywhere, patrolling every road. They broke up into smaller and smaller parties, till Brother Candle was accompanied only by Socia Rault and Bernardin Amberchelle.

The invaders changed behavior suddenly after abandoning Mohela ande Larges and suffering a severe reverse at the hands of Queen Isabeth's men. Travel became easier.

The Perfect surrendered to the girl's impatience. And had the opportunity to regret that before day's end.

17. A New Dawn and a New Night

Each day the staff selected two promising prisoners. The Captain-General took time to interview them while Madouc and his lifeguards hovered. "Titus. I'm suspicious."

"Sir? About what?"

"These prisoners. Are they being chosen to tell me what I want to hear?"

"You need more bad news? Or more defiance?"

"Never mind. How much longer will this take?"

"This being?"

"Castreresone."

"That's up to them. Isn't it? If you're determined to limit casualties and damage." The staff insisted that the White City could be taken whenever the Captain-General ordered it. But thousands would die and the city itself might be destroyed.

"I'm not in a hurry. Yet."

"You could offer terms. Sublime isn't here."

"Still no respect for our master?"

"Not in our lifetime."

"Don't be too public about it. Society types are everywhere. Popping up faster than these Connectens can murder them."

"I have trouble remembering that the rest of the world runs different than our little slice here."

"Don't. You have a family. Where's Bechter? I haven't seen him for days." Bechter was always underfoot when that was inconvenient.

"Making the rounds of the siege works. He has experience from the Holy Lands."

"Have you reeruited any solid sources? Anywhere?"

Consent shook his head. Looked vaguely defeated. "The Devedian and Dainshau communities won't talk. They're getting out. Going to Terliaga, Platadura, anywhere where the Society won't be able to follow."

Hecht was baffled. Peter of Navaya, Lion of the Chaldarean Reconquest, openly accepted Unbelievers into his dependencies. And insisted that they be treated well.

Consent said, "Peter saw what you accomplished in Calzir."

"If so, he saw in it an affirmation of policies he had in place. He had a lot of Pramans with him in the Calziran Crusade. Now he's recruiting in Shippen and Calzir. And getting a good turnout." He heard that two thousand Pramans from Shippen had been ferried to Artecipea to further Peter's ambitions there.

Hecht felt a little thrill of apprehension. Bone and the company were on that island.

"I see Bechter. You still want him?"

"Yes."

Lifeguards orbiting him, Hecht moved a dozen yards, to gain a different perspective on the barbican protecting Castreresone's main gate, doing its job now as a mountain of rubble. Work gangs hauled the rubble off for use as ammunition.

Only the more ferocious of the expanding community of Society hangers-on dared complain about the Captain-General's efforts to reduce the White City. And they did. He tempered their fury by offering them weapons and the privilege of leading the assault wave. No takers so far.

"Captain-General, you wanted to see me?"

"Sergeant. Yes. I've been wondering. The man in brown. Seen him lately?"

"Not in weeks, sir. Is it important?"

"No. I just hadn't seen him either, myself."

"Have you ever figured him out?"

"No. I do think I know who he is, now. Or was."

"Was, sir?"

"He might be a ghost." Or a minor ascendant. A notion Hecht was not ready to loose into the public domain.

Bechter frowned. That failed to conform to his Brotherhood vision of how the world should work.

"Yet another conflict between what we want to be true and what we have to suffer," Hecht said. Those conflicts tormented everyone but the Patriarchal Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy, these days. Faith had begun to creak under the strain.

The Society thought God was testing faith by dealing contradictory evidence.

Piper Hecht wondered why God—anybody's God— would bother. The God of the World ought not to be so petty.

Bechter said, "Prosek is back."

"Tell me."

"He was just coming in when I heard you wanted me. I just had time to say hello. And make sure he didn't attract attention."

"I thought he was dead." There had been little communication with Plemenza. That little had not been optimistic. The falcons had been destroyed, their crews injured, and Prosek lost. The pass was open but the fate of the monster remained uncertain. It might be lying up somewhere, recovering.

Princess Helspeth's having opened the pass had generated a political storm inside the Grail Empire.

Hecht suffered troubled nights.

"I need to see him as soon as he's able."

Gervase Saluda and the Principatè from Aparion, with minimal courtesy, demanded an audience. After lurking in the background for weeks, acting as Collegium spies. Hecht expected an argument about access to Drago Prosek.

The Principatès surprised him.

Saluda, never warm since he had assumed the Bruglioni seat in the Collegium, said, "We've received a suggestion from Brothe that it may be time to be a little more aggressive toward Castreresone."

Not subtle, Gervase Saluda, hinting that Sublime had grown impatient. "Really? I think he'd let me know directly if he was. He hasn't been shy about that yet."

Saluda observed, "This siege can't go on forever."

"Nor will it. In fact, I'm authorizing you to go up there and talk them into giving up. Right now."

Both were startled. There had been no negotiations whatsoever, even sub rosa. "Terms?"

"I trust you to be sensible." He just wanted them gone. Bechter had Drago Prosek ready to report. Anyway, Hecht was sure that the White City did not yet despair enough to contemplate surrender.

Queen Isabeth remained poised just twenty miles away. And her brother had begun to stir behind her.

Gervase Saluda gave Hecht one long, penetrating look as he departed.

Hecht shrugged.

"Rough trip?" he asked Prosek.

"Yes, sir. Not attracting attention. Especially after I crossed the Dechear. We're not popular out there."

"Where anyone cares. Sit. Be comfortable. Sergeant, bring the man whatever he wants. So. Tell the tale."

Titus Consent entered as Bechter left. He made Prosek uncomfortable. But Prosek began after an encouraging gesture from his commander.

"Why didn't you go back to the others?"

"I didn't trust them. That Princess. She was probably straight. The ones around her… I figured they'd do what they did. Once we took care of their monster."

"That being?"

"They locked everybody up. Gonna force them to explain firepowder and how the falcons work. And how to make them."

"I see." Hecht smiled. "And you're the only one who could tell them anything."

"Pretty much, sir. Those guys aren't ignorant. They know the theory—just not the practical knowledge."

Typical of soldiers. Indifferent to why something worked, so long as it did when the arrows started flying.

Prosek continued. "On the up side, sir, they'll get decent medical care. Which most of them needed. Both falcons committed suicide. I made sure the firepowder was used up."

"The monster. The Instrumentality. What about it?"

"We didn't kill it. But I don't think it'll be a problem again. It can't be much more than what it was when it was still a man. And it's badly crippled. It could barely crawl."

"Good. Good. I'll ask Principatè Delari what it all means. Then we have to figure out how to make these confrontations go our way faster."

"I had a lot of time to think while I was traveling. I had some technical and tactical ideas."

Hecht listened patiently. Prosek amazed him. "Stunning. And expensive. Godawful expensive."

"Not my money, though. And worth it if you really want to break the Tyranny of the Night."

"Lieutenant Consent. Work some financial sorcery on these ideas. The rest… The way to speed the firing cycle… That'll have to go to the foundry people. Traps, though… We'll get to work on those. We can experiment right here. The Connec has become an Instrumentality-rich environment."

Consent said, "I don't have to do a lot of calculating to tell you there isn't enough silver in the world. So long as the wells of power keep producing. A vigorous push against the Night could even be counterproductive."

"Explain."

"The wells are fading. Which is cyclical. This time looks like the worst ever. For us, that means more people pushed into smaller territories having to survive on dwindling resources. Fighting over those makes things worse because much of the resources are destroyed in the fighting. Right here, we can see how that works. You see people worried about where food will come from—for the first time in centuries."

"And that connects with the Night how?"

"The wells of power produce the food and wine of the Night. Again, dwindling resources. If we remove an entity from the competition, there'll be more resources for the rest."

"I think I see."

"I didn't make that as clear as I should have."

"Clear enough. Don't the big ones feed on the little ones? Like bugs and fish?"

"In a sense. I think."

"Would destroying the little ones starve the big ones?"

Consent shrugged.

Hecht said, "Prosek, stay out of the way. Get back in shape. And keep thinking. I may put you in charge of figuring out better ways."

Prosek looked to Redfearn Bechter for a cue. Bechter did not offer one.

Delari asked, "Have you seen Cloven Februaren?"

"There was a rumor about an invisible man spying on the leadership inside Castreresone. If that was him, he hasn't bothered letting me know what they're saying."

"I'm worried."

"Oh?"

"Not by what he's doing. He's like the weather. All you can do is live with it. No. I think there's trouble in Brothe."

Politics. Certainly. Hecht wished he did not have to suffer that side of the human condition. But if people could get along he would be unemployed.

"Could that be why we've seen so little of Saluda, Linczski, and Doneto lately?" Pinkus Ghort had visited twice and was expected again. Principatè Doneto had not visited once.

"Could be," Delari admitted. "Doneto not wanting to draw notice. The other two are here mainly to keep an eye on us."

"I let them go up to the gates today. To offer Castreresone a chance. Evidently, the wealthy haven't suffered enough."

"And aren't sufficiently frightened."

"Letting the city levies run wild wasn't intimidation enough."

"They won't surrender while Isabeth is sitting there barely a day away. I know you don't want King Peter for an enemy. But to finish here you need to end any hope of relief. Before Church politics yanks the rug out from under you."

Engaging Queen Isabeth would support the mission he had been given in Dreanger. Particularly now that Sublime had an accommodation with the Grail Empire.

"I wanted a minimum of death and destruction."

Hecht was not unprepared to assume a more aggressive strategy. Plans had been made. That was what he and his staff did while artillery pounded the walls, patrols kept the Burg and New Town cleared, and pickets harassed anyone trying to get in or out of the White City. While the engineers continued undermining and overtowering, trying to overawe but preparing for an assault as well.

"I'll deal with Isabeth first, I suppose."

"Not going to be easy."

"I know. Peter won't have sent her without his best men to protect her. She has between eight hundred and a thousand men now, maybe half of them men Duke Tormond raised."

"Heavy cavalry."

Yes. He had to find a way to diminish that fierce advantage. Numbers meant little if unprepared infantry had to face men in armor, atop warhorses running shoulder to shoulder.

"I know. We have ideas." Which would not work. These Navayans had survived all the traps and trickery of the Pramans of al-Halambra.

He wished he had Buhle Smolens and Pinkus Ghort with him. They managed to execute the strategies he chose to employ.

It was time to find the limit of Hagan Brokke's talents.

Probing attacks found the White City in a state of excitement. Its defenders swarmed to every assault site and made themselves thoroughly obnoxious if the crusaders persisted.

Hecht did not sustain any assault for long. He was taxing the enemy. Wearing his will to rush hither and yon.

The artillery never stopped. Even the dimmest and most devoted Castreresonese could foresee the inevitable end to that.

One day the Captain-General would decide there were breaches enough and order a general assault. The Castreresonese could not resist everywhere at once. But hope remained. Encouraging messages did get through.

"I know," Hecht told Consent. "There's no way to stop everything. Given time, though, those messengers will bring despair instead of hope."

Troops filtered out of camp after dark. For the benefit of spies they were sneaking off to reduce towns and fortresses to the northwest, where colonies of Maysaleans and adherents of the Viscesment Patriarchy were common. And they did make life miserable wherever the locals had not yet yielded to Sublime's forces. But their mission was to collect on the upper Laur, along the northern road to Khaurene, two dozen miles from Duke Tormond's capital. Whence they could go forward against the Khaurenesaine or ease down behind Isabeth's position at Mohela ande Larges.

Hagan Brokke would command. He would make enough noise to be considered a clumsy sneaker. What he did later would depend on how Duke Tormond and Queen Isabeth responded to his presence.

Patriarchal forces east of Queen Isabeth would build up clumsily enough to be noticed, too.

Hecht told Consent, "These people have made a career of war. They're probably eager to teach us not to challenge our betters but smart enough to see the dangers. They won't charge into a trap."

"So you're doing what?"

"Creating options. Options they'll see clearly. If they sit, I'll gradually surround them. Their only hope will be Duke Tormond. Unless they fight."

"And Tormond does nothing but talk."

"He hasn't done anything else so far."

"They'll have the interior position. If they go after Brokke we won't know in time to help."

"We'll know. We have scouts camped in their saddlebags." He had a roster of the Navayans in Queen Isabeth's force.

"Where can you fight them? There's no good place out there."

"Too true. The best strategy looks like attrition. While waiting for them to do something stupid before I do."

"Is that likely?"

"Titus! Sarcasm? I like that. I think." Smile gone, Hecht said, "You could have a point. I'm feeling some time pressure. Things are happening in Brothe. And people there are trying to keep me from hearing about it."

"Did it occur to you to ask me?"

After a moment, "No. My spymaster? Why consult him? Because I've been too focused on what's in front of me? What do you know?"

"My contacts in the Devedian community aren't what they used to be. But some still think being friendly could pay dividends. They tell me when there's something they think we should know."

"And?"

"Most Brothens think Sublime is dying. The gang around him want to make sure they can name his replacement. The Fiducian, Joceran Cuito, looks like he'll be their candidate."

The Direcian. Peter of Navaya's man. That could lead to interesting times. "A Navayan? We're still not over the last non-Brothen who won a Patriarchal election."

Consent shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I hear. They say Peter wants it. And has the money to make it happen."

"I see. And I'm being kept isolated because?"

"Because you have an army. You could veto the outcome of an election. If you had the inclination. Like a general from Imperial times."

Hecht chuckled. What would Gordimer and er-Rashal think? Their throwaway agent was in a position to influence the selection of the next main enemy of the Kaifate of al-Minphet.

Consent asked, "You thought about who you'd rather have take over if Sublime went away?"

Hecht assayed tone and expression. Was he being felt out? He decided not. "Something else to worry about."

"Always plenty."

"Where is Principatè Delari? I don't see him around anymore."

"Nor do I. But he's out there. Maybe missing Armand."

"Maybe." Hecht did not miss Osa Stile even a little.

Seeing the diminution of the besieging forces, the magnates of the White City launched another desperate night sortie. The Captain-General saw it coming. Every sally had been presaged by the gathering of watchers on the city wall.

A lot of dead men decorated the slopes when the sun rose. Few were Patriarchals.

The revenant Instrumentalities were busy all night. There were numerous reports of encounters in the form of sound or stench, but only a few had seen anything.

Hecht asked his staff, "Are they rattled enough to fall apart if we attack?"

Consent said, "Our men are exhausted, too. Those who were away from the main action wore themselves out mounting diversionary attacks."

And had gained several footholds inside the main wall. >

"I'll let the Principatès give them one more chance to surrender. What's this?"

A courier. With news that Queen Isabeth was moving. Her whole force was headed east, two hundred fifty knights, their associated sergeants, squires, and infantry, and nearly eight hundred Sevanphaxi and Terliagan mercenaries Tormond had conjured somehow. Nearly two thousand men, almost all veterans.

Hecht scanned the message again. "They're coming straight at us. To see what we'll do, I imagine. They're in no hurry. That's good for us." Otherwise, they'd be right behind the news. He sent messengers flying. To Hagan Brokke. To the scouts watching Isabeth. To those whose job it was to watch Mohela ande Larges.

An intricate dance began. It developed slowly. Each dancer waited for the other to misstep.

Isabeth halted after traveling twelve miles. She occupied the common farmland outside the town Homodel. Hecht's scouts reported the ground looked good for cavalry.

"Let them sit. Let them get colder." He thought it looked like there would be a more serious snowfall sometime soon. "Chase their scouts. Ambush their foragers. We'll let Brokke upset them."

While he waited, though, he kept on filtering men out of camp.

The bombardment of the White City went on.

Hagan Brokke feinted toward Mohela ande Larges, the attack the Captain-General supposed the enemy expected. Once Brokke saw that the Queen's headquarters could not be taken quickly, he headed toward Khaurene. As always, his troops crushed resistance ferociously. In two days they captured six towns and fortresses and accepted the surrenders of three more.

The Patriarchals from around Castreresone established a camp three miles from Isabeth's. Making no offer of battle.

The nights became filled with the bark and chatter and numbing stench of the Night, worsening fast. The Connecten Instrumentalities were gathering, tormenting the sons of men not nearly so much as one another.

So said Principatè Muniero Delari, more in evidence now that a collision might be coming.

The old man assembled a team of falconeers whose weapons had been lost in the confrontation with the god grub. They built and tested traps, some as imagined by Drago Prosek, most designs handed down from early Old Empire times.

The smallest Instrumentalities were easily caught, often because they were desperate to escape larger predators. Delari hoped to use the small captives to lure the large.

"What kind of sorcerer are you?" Hecht asked. "I thought, as a class, that was your high purpose. To round up a bigger, nastier herd than anyone else has."

"You aren't sufficiently well informed." Delari said that deadpan. And did not explain. His sense of humor was hard to detect. "You need to spend more time with your grandfather."

The Navayans were patient. Hecht went out to the camp and took charge. It was an excuse to get away from Castreresone. He tried provoking the Navayans with nighttime harassments. His men could not penetrate their picket lines. He had his surviving falcons fire stone shot toward the fanciest pavilion. Their accuracy was foul, one exploded, and the noise frightened the crusaders' own animals. There was no evidence the Navayans were impressed.

Hecht began a process of encirclement, having his men pick off anyone who strayed from the enemy camp. His patrols watched for couriers. Those from the White City were allowed to get through. Messages coming out were intercepted as often as possible. Those were in cipher. Even Titus Consent had no luck breaking the code. The couriers themselves, naturally, had no clue.

Hecht said, "I don't mind if they just sit there. Except that it's cold. We have food. They don't. Not enough to wait us out." While they sat, they would be hammered by increasingly desperate pleas from Castreresone.

The Captain-General refused to engage an enemy with such a heavy cavalry advantage.

Four days into the standoff news came that Patriarchal troops had gotten a solid foothold inside Castreresone. Several leading men had been captured.

It looked like the beginning of the end for the White City. That same day word came that Hagan Brokke's men had shown themselves to watchers on the wall at Khaurene. They had burned villages and manors within sight of the city, concentrating on properties belonging to Duke Tormond. A huge, angry response from the city forced them to withdraw. But the message had been delivered.

Titus Consent materialized at Hecht's elbow as the Captain-General tried to pry advice out of Principatè Delari. The old man was depressed for no obvious reason. Hecht told him, "You don't have to be here. I can send you down to Sheavenalle. You could get passage across to Brothe. You could be back loafing in the Chiaro baths in a week."

"That won't change the future. Nor the past. Lieutenant Consent has something urgent. Spend your empathy on him."

"Titus?"

"The Navayans are up to something over there. Scouts are heading out."

Soon afterward the Navayans left camp. The knights headed toward the Patriarchal camp. The mercenary infantry marched out eastward. Their own infantry followed the horsemen. Knights, sergeants, senior squires, and whatnot, those numbered almost three hundred. More than Hecht had expected.

The horsemen stopped outside bowshot, dismounted, began an advance on foot, each armored man backed by two foot.

Hecht did not know what to do. Crossbowmen being at a premium, he had left his at Castreresone.

"We have to go. Now. Lay down some kind of harassing fire. Burn some firepowder for the smoke. The breeze is blowing their way."

It was close but the Patriarchals escaped. The Navayans evidently had no enthusiasm for their tactics and so did not move forcefully. Nor did they show any desire to enter the foul firepowder smoke.

Prosek caught up with Hecht. "You saw how the smoke bothered them? Sir?"

"Of course. It was my idea."

"Make some with more sulfur in it. For that purpose."

"Do it. Add captain of chemical warfare to your job description."

The Patriarchal forces reassembled farther east. Infantry there had been skirmishing with the mercenaries all afternoon. The mercenaries were waiting on their paymasters. Hecht did not press them.

The Navayans were not inclined to be drawn in, either. Titus Consent opined, "This could be a long, nasty war if there are never any battles."

"It's long and nasty now. These people have been crippling each other by ruining one another's agriculture for several years."

"We can turn the country into a desert."

"And God will love us more. Apparently." Redfearn Bechter scowled the whole time. He was a cynical old man himself, but this talk smacked of heresy. He sent a look of appeal to Madouc. The chief lifeguard shrugged. Doctrinal indiscretion was not his problem.

The Captain-General said, "Sergeant, disrespect for the intellect of the Patriarch isn't heresy. It isn't sacrilege, either. It's not even insubordination. We're doing what he tells us. We're just not sure he's hearing what God is whispering in his ear."

No explanation would comfort the old soldier. He had lived his life for God and the Church. He said, "The men we have hidden in the hills are having a lot of trouble with Night things."

"For example?"

"Just little things. So far. But always something wicked. Spoiling wine. Making beer go skunky. Stirring up hornets. Spooking horses."

"Where's Principatè Delari gotten to? He should've been here long before us. I started him off early."

Bechter said, "I kept him going back to Castreresone. Assuming you didn't want him exposed to misfortune out here."

"Of course. Damn! No, you did right. It's just inconvenient. I wanted to ask him why the Night is ganging up on us all of a sudden."

Consent asked, "Is it? I'd bet it's being just as obnoxious to those people back up the road."

The skirmishing ended at nightfall. The Navayans withdrew into a tight encampment. Which suggested that the Night was, indeed, being impartially obnoxious.

Something big came after midnight. Something that made Hecht's amulet burn his wrist. Something that reeked and birthed terror with its stench. The animals nearly revolted.

The Captain-General summoned Drago Prosek. "There's work for the falcons." The first weapon barked ten minutes later. There was no need for a second to comment.

Instantly there was an absence of any sense of supernatural presence. The falconeers reported a vast, panicky rustle a moment before the falcon spoke.

Then there was excitement to the west. Fires blazing up. Distance-muted shouting.

Nothing more happened. Hecht told Prosek, "Keep a crew standing by. They don't need permission to fire but they better not waste charges on their imaginations."

Prosek nodded, expression grim. Knowing perfectly well the nervous falconeers would fire first and worry about weathering the Captain-General's displeasure once they had survived.

Hecht headed for the shelter his lifeguards had thrown together. And discovered that he would be getting no sleep anytime soon.

Cloven Februaren sat in a corner, barely discernible. Hecht said, "I thought we'd lost you."

"I'm always around. Somewhere. You're getting comfortable with destroying Instrumentalities."

"It's easier than killing people. Emotionally."

"You should keep yourself inside a circle of ready falcons. From now on."

"Yes?"

"The Night sees you finding it easier than killing people, too. The Night doesn't understand that the djinn can't be shoved back into the lamp. It hasn't gotten over Man having gained the secret of fire."

Hecht nodded. He was exhausted. Dawn would come sooner than he liked. "You always turn up when something awful is about to happen. What will it be this time?"

"Not this time. Just passing through. Wanted to caution you to be careful with Isabeth. She's in a tight place. She has to be seen trying to do something. But neither she nor her captains know what. This war is nothing like what they're used to in Direcia, where they know who the enemy is. And people don't change sides when the whim strikes."

Hecht knew of no fickle, shifting allegiances, except during the little county wars that faded once the Grolsacher and Arnhander incursions began. "I haven't seen any of that."

"You will. All those towns and castles you're taking, that have sworn fealty to Sublime and the Church. They'll turn in an instant if they sense any weakness."

Hecht had not thought about that. It sounded true, though. Those people were not joining the Brothen cause for love of Sublime V. "Makes sense."

"I have further advice. Whatever you hope to accomplish here you'd best get done soon. Big changes are coming. And round up any Artecipeans you can. They're behind the resurgence of the Night. They're a third side in this war. They aren't friends of the Connecten factions but they're helping them because they're your worst enemies."

"Why?"

The old man bowed his head as though in contemplation. He said, "They want to destroy you for the reason they've always wanted to destroy you. A conviction on the part of certain Instrumentalities that you could become the mechanism of their destruction."

"Every encounter I've suffered has been initiated by the Night."

"Amusing, isn't it? Them bringing on what they dread by trying to get even first?"

"Isn't the same thing happening every day, somewhere?

This prince, that duke, a random count, strikes before some enemy can carry out a potential attack?"

Februaren chuckled. "Every day. And half the time it's a damned good idea. Hitting them back before they can hit you back first."

"I'm tired. And, as usual, you're just being vague. So I'm going to sleep. You can get back to watching over me."

"Sarcasm? Interesting." The old man grinned. Despite his antiquity, he had a full set of teeth. "Go ahead. I'll hover like a guardian angel."

News came early. A fresh contingent of forty-day men from Firaldia, not told not to, had attacked the White City through breaches from the New Town. The defenders were unprepared for a heavy assault. The invaders were running wild in Castreresone's streets.

Hecht said, "We have to go get a bridle on this before the officers go loot-crazy, too."

Titus Consent asked, "What about those people over there?"

"They'll hear about it. They'll have to make a decision. Let Castreresone go? Or charge in where their prospects are grim?"

"We'd have the hammer by the handle if we caught Isabeth."

"We would. Yes. But don't expect it to happen."

Hecht withdrew toward the White City. The mercenary infantry remained in contact but avoided serious combat. The knights followed on, still looking for that opportunity to exploit their advantage. The wind picked up in the middle of the morning. A drizzle began soon after noon. That turned to freezing rain. Shortly afterward the Patriarchals reached hastily prepared defenses meant to break a cavalry charge.

The Navayans attacked, without enthusiasm, because the situation compelled them. Their appearance stiffened the resolve of the city's defenders.

Freezing rain turned to light, steady snow.

Come nightfall, the Queen's men withdrew. The Captain-General launched several nighttime counterattacks. He suffered the heavier losses. Come morning, though, the Navayans resumed moving toward Mohela ande Larges. Which they might find held against them, Hagan Brokke having taken the garrison by surprise the morning before.

Brokke would give the castle up uncontested, though. If instructions from his Captain-General got through.

Brokke reported taking prisoners that might be of interest to his commander.

Cannon fire wakened Hecht. Three roars from three directions. The excitement was over before he caught up with Drago Prosek. Prosek's crews were digging up the muddy little eggs left by the deaths of the Instrumentalities.

"Changes coming fast," Hecht muttered. Using the falcons against the Night had become routine.

Prosek said, "Sorry we woke you, sir. Couldn't do it quietly." He brushed snow out of his hair.

"I thought they'd let us alone. After what we've done."

"You can't beat stupid, sir. I put some of the new traps out tonight. We'll see what good they do."

"Carry on, then. Make sure those eggs get to Principal Delari." He turned to go back to his tent.

"Sir, we need more ammunition. We have nine rounds special left. Four of those I made myself from shot we'd already used once."

"We'll do something. Good work, by the way." Hecht was halfway to his shelter when several blazing spears leapt off Castreresone's walls, barely discernible through the falling snow.

Excitement raced through the Patriarchal camp. Sleeping soldiers came out to see what the racket was this time. They added to it once they understood. Patriarchal forces had captured Castreresone's main gate from inside. The soldiers raced off to sack the White City.

Hecht did not try to stem the tide. That could get him trampled. As dawn came, he told Titus Consent, "Sometimes you have to let chaos sort itself out."

"Not everyone has gone crazy. A few men stuck to their posts." Consent indicated Hecht's lifeguards, all of whom looked like they were constipated. Even lifelong members of the Brotherhood of War wanted a share of the plunder.

"Good. Somebody needs to keep us from being caught with our trousers down. What's this?" Riders were crossing the Laur bridge, looking around warily.

"Messengers."

"Gutsy guys, too, if they've been traveling in the dark."

"I'll get them."

PlNKUS GHORT WAS ON HIS WAY FROM ANTIEUX. SOMEthing big was afoot. Bronte Doneto had, with explosive suddenness, abandoned the siege that had been the center of his life for months.

"Sergeant Bechter, we want to move into the Count's keep as soon as possible. You need to figure out what we need for a permanent headquarters."

"Yes, sir. Colonel Ghort's party is on the down slope across the river now."

"Hope he doesn't mind the mud."

"He'll be distracted by the damage to the vineyards."

Hecht laughed. "No doubt. Have you seen the Principatè?"

"Which? The Bruglioni and the Aparionese fellow are leaving, I hear. Going to leave us to our fate."

"Delari. The only one who ever interests me."

"He's in the city. Keep an eye on the Bruglioni. Madouc tells me he looks like a man nursing a secret grudge."

"Paludan Bruglioni and Gervase Saluda have never forgiven me for abandoning them to go to work for the Patriarch."

Bechter scowled. He did not believe that for a moment.

Redfearn Bechter seldom said anything not involved with getting on with work. But he had eyes and a brain. Hecht feared the man was picking up more than he needed to know. Which was why the Brotherhood had him next to the Captain-General in the first place.

If Gervase Saluda had developed a true grudge, he might be putting things together, too.

There were always people who knew uncomfortable things. Some could not resist gossiping.

"It's time we went up there and saw this gem we've added to the Church's crown. Right after I see Colonel Ghort."

Bechter was not pleased.

"There's a problem, Sergeant?"

"Madouc won't let you go without a full complement of lifeguards. But that would tell the Castreresonese you're someone important. They might attack you."

"I doubt it. They've had enough. They don't want us to do the White City the way we did the lesser towns."

"Even where the troops were merciless we've had trouble with ambush and murder. The Society brethren won't go scourge the rustic heretics."

"Gosh, Sergeant. Imagine that. People who resist opportunities to be robbed and burned alive. How un-Chaldarean of them."

"Have a care, sir. The Society grows stronger every day. They might enjoy the opportunity to pull down somebody important, just to feed the fear surrounding them."

"Good point. Tell Madouc I intend to move into the keep." He should be safe there. That fortress within had been built to provide a refuge from the Castreresonese themselves, not as a place to make a last stand against invaders.

"As you will, sir." Bechter making his disapproval amply clear. "One point more. I saw that old man in brown. Be careful."

Once Bechter left, the Ninth Unknown asked, "How does he do that?"

Hecht squeaked. "How do you do that? Popping out of nowhere?"

"He shouldn't be able to see me."

"You have a special reason to scare the pants off me?"

"No. Except to reinforce what Bechter said. Don't irritate the Society. They'll get thick as flies now. There's been a battle on Artecipea between Pramans King Peter recruited in Calzir and some Artecipean mountain people. Your former associates participated. A great deal of sorcery was involved. Peter's forces were victorious. The point of it all, though, remains obscure."

Februaren seemed cocky. Like he had had a hand in assuring that outcome. But that could not be. Could it? The Lord of the Silent Kingdom must be powerful, but not so much so that he could cross long distances in no time. Could he?

Februaren revealed a small smile. Hecht suspected that the man knew his thoughts. Whereupon the smile became a smirk. Februaren startled him by asking, "Why would Gervase Saluda become your enemy? You did well by the Bruglioni when you worked for them. Set their feet solidly on the road toward restoring their glory."

"Principatè Divino Bruglioni. The only thing I can think of. Some rumor may have gotten out of the Arniena family. And the ring." A recollection of which took Hecht by surprise. He had not considered the Bruglioni ring for a long time.

"Ring?"

Even the Ninth Unknown could not resist the ring's power to elude memory.

"Polo knows I had it. I forgot that for a long time. He may have remembered and told somebody."

"Polo. That's the one who was your manservant when you were with the Bruglioni? Crippled in the ambush meant to kill you and Ghort."

Hecht nodded.

"Time to turn around. Bechter is back."

Februaren turned. And vanished. Leaving Hecht feeling that he was truly gone, not just hidden from the eye.

"Enter," he responded to Bechter's appeal.

The sergeant peered into shadows. He had heard something. "The lifeguard is assembling. Colonel Ghort should be here in time to join us. Apropos my earlier caution, Morcant Farfog is with Colonel Ghort's party."

It took Hecht a moment. "Bishop of Strang?"

"Archbishop, now. Head of the Society in the End of Connec. Convinced that he's the most powerful churchman after Sublime. I heard he may have one eye on the Patriarchy."

"You're kidding."

"Competence is seldom the leading qualification for succession."

"But…"

"Not to worry, Captain-General. He wouldn't get the votes."

PlNKUS GHORT DID NOT LOOK WELL. "EXHAUSTION," HE explained. Barely putting one foot in front of the other as he climbed the hill with Hecht. "That Raymone Garete is a stubborn bastard. Then I got Doneto barking in one ear and that pile of monkey shit Farfog howling in the other. That prick don't know how lucky he is to be alive."

"That could be more true than you realize."

"Eh?"

'The Brotherhood doesn't love him, either. Sooner or later, they'll butt heads. If Sublime doesn't rein them in."

"Man, you wrecked this place. It'll take years to fix these walls."

"How's your bombardment?"

"There's gotta be sorcery involved. Or something. We keep pounding away. And the rocks keep bouncing off."

"There must be a way."

"Starvation."

"What about mining?"

"Working on it. From half a dozen directions. Antieux is built on the hardest damned limestone I've ever seen. We'll get there eventually. If our bosses are patient enough."

"Principatè Doneto hasn't been any help?"

"Debatable. He's ferocious about tearing the place apart. But he never did anything useful. If he's really some heavyweight sorcerer, he does a damned good job of hiding it."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Uhm?"

"If he really is. You hear it all the time, he's one of the great bull sorcerers in the Collegium. But he never does anything." That fight under the hippodrome might be an exception. Though that had not been public and there should have been no survivors.

"Is he behind his own rumors?"

Hecht shrugged. "We're here." At the keep of the Counts of Castreresone. Madouc led them to a large, poorly lighted room where several dozen locals waited nervously. Hecht's most trusted soldiers lined the walls.

"The vultures didn't take long to gather." Black-robed Society brothers were much in evidence.

Hecht said, "Bechter, clear those crows out. This isn't religious business."

Ghort whispered, "Be careful. They have Sublime convinced that religious law trumps civil and martial law."

Hecht understood. The Church meant to follow his hammer strokes by insinuating its agents into every facet of Connecten life, intent on making everything subservient to the Brothen establishment. Soon enough, the Captain-General would have to be replaced with someone less competent but more ideologically dependable.

Bechter went to work with enthusiasm.

"Hope you see what I'm seeing," Ghort said.

"Which would be?"

"How much the Brotherhood resents the Society."

"Useful to know, down the road."

"I'm thinking so."

Ignoring the protesting Society brothers, Hecht assumed the role of Captain-General. "Let's have some order. Pay attention."

Silence. The Castreresonese were intensely interested in the victorious general's comments.

Hecht presented Sublime's directives, which had not changed. He presented a list of heretics and enumerated steps to be taken to suppress, convert, or evict Unbelievers. Their properties were forfeit to the Church. The city was expected to raise funds for repairs to its defenses and public works. Leading men were to be fined for their obdurate behavior.

Those fines would fall into Hecht's war chest.

Once Castreresone was settled he would move against Khaurene.

Castreresone, not Duke Tormond's home city, was the key to control of the Connec, in Hecht's estimation. He owned the key, now.

He took the seat reserved for the ruling count. His officers introduced locals of standing, starting with the consuls, the manager-senators who handled the daily business of city government. Castreresone retained many of the appurtenances of its youth as a city-state. With layers of feudal law and obligation laid on over the centuries.

The eight senators present were eager to please. Three more were absent, all on the Society's wanted list. Hechi asked. One supposedly died in the fighting. One had suffered a stroke. And one had fled the city.

Heeht picked names at random. "You three will speak for them to the Society."

The magnates were introduced next. They were the rich men of Castreresone. Many belonged to the urban nobility disdained by traditional nobility because they were more interested in commerce than warfare.

Another round in the ancient contest between city and country.

The Captain-General found a total lack of defiance in the defeated. The excesses in the towns and villages had beet useful. Once the introductions had been made and the oaths of fealty administered, Hecht made a brief speech. He would forgive the sins of the past. In return, he expected thos oaths to be fulfilled absolutely. Rebellion would be dealt with harshly.

The Captain-General went through the motions, tired. But he studied the Castreresonese closely.

He did not identify a single potential troublemaker.

Titus Consent approached, grim as he weaved between Hecht's lifeguards. He whispered, "Bad news from Hagan Brokke."

"I'll finish as soon as I can."

Now that he had seen the human face of the city there was little more he wanted to do. Plans for the occupation had been made long since.

He what?" Hecht asked.

"In the vernacular, he got his ass kicked," Consent said. "He slid out of Mohela ande Larges, as directed. He made a show of threatening Khaurene again, then headed east. And ran into Isabeth's mercenaries. An encounter engagement. Which escalated. Both sides seeing an opportunity that wasn't really there. Brokke had the advantage till the Navayans arrived."

Hecht said nothing. There was no point. Things happened. There were no guarantees. Genius was not infallible. And… things happened. Finally, "How bad?"

"Not sure yet. Pretty bad. But he didn't lose his prisoners."

"Good. Torturing them will make me feel better about losing those men."

"You're in a fine mood."

"I don't take misfortune well. As you see. And I want to go home. I haven't seen Anna or the kids in half a year."

"You are unique in your exaggerated pain, sir. Why is Colonel Ghort blessing us with his company?"

"I'm not sure. It must have to do with Principatè Doneto and Morcant Farfog. But he isn't as forthcoming as he once was."

"It couldn't be just that he needs to relax with someone he's known since before the responsibilities started piling on?"

The Captain-General closed his eyes. He drifted into a fantasy realm where he, Ghort, Bo Biogna, Just Plain Joe and the mule Pig Iron, and a few comfortable others surrounded a campfire, swapping tall tales. The good old days, when they were hungry but had the luxury of being able to relax.

"Could be, Titus. How scattered are we? How disorganized? How long to pull it all together to march on Khaurene?"

"I don't want to get above myself. But these guys need some rest. They need to relax. They need to get in out of the Night. Which won't get any better because we took Castreresone. Despite Prosek's efforts."

"What's that?"

"The racket? Probably Archbishop Farfog insisting on seeing you so he can give you your orders."

"Here are some orders for him. Go away. Stick to robbery and saving souls. I'll handle the war business."                        

"Sure you want to offend him?"

"I don't mind. Do you?"

"Sir?"

"They say he keeps records. On everyone. I'm sure you're one of his favorite suspects."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"It won't be a happy world if Farfog is running free. Maybe we ought to help him become Patriarch." He enjoyed Consent's startled response. "The Patriarch gets so isolated he has to drill through layers of hangers-on to have much impact outside Krois. Farfog isn't a leader. He's a pusher. He'd drown in the bureaucratic swamp."

Consent chuckled. "Interesting idea. Disarm the idiots by putting them in charge, then let their own incompetence destroy them."

"Something like that." Hecht did not think Farfog would destroy himself. But he was venal and corrupt enough to render the Church a cripple, incapable of undertaking another massive religious offensive. "When you tell him to go away, feel him out about how much the army's support might be worth to him." 

Consent did not like that. But he did not question it.

PRINCIPATÈ DELARI WAKENED HECHT. WHO WONDERED how the man had gotten past his bodyguards. "Problems in Brothe, Piper. I have to leave."

"What is it? Saluda and Linczski have gone already."

"And Doneto. He has a big lead."

"What is it?"

"Sublime is gone. Or going. His gang is trying to keep it secret."

"We've been hearing that for months."

"It's true, now. All the Principatès away from Brothe will be moving that direction. Like flies to a cow flop. Wanting to reach the Chiaro Palace in time to get in on the first vote."

Members of the Collegium not on hand for the initial vote could not participate in subsequent polls. The rule helped keep the Patriarchy in the hands of members of the Firaldian primates.

"You've been sharing wine with Pinkus Ghort."

"With my grandfather. I don't see him often enough." Nor sounded like this opportunity had gone that well.

"I'll miss you. I'll feel naked, having you go just when the Night has begun this escalation."

"You'll be protected. He'll be out there somewhere. Hovering. Trying to make the world run according to his own weird prejudices."

"I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about the other twenty thousand men…"

"Talk to him about that. I need to get busy. I'm way behind."

"Take a boat down to Sheavenalle. Then a ship across to Brothe. You'll get home weeks ahead of everybody. You can fix it up to be the next Patriarch yourself."

"I don't want it. Wouldn't take it if it was handed to me."

"If you get a chance, see Anna and the kids. I think that would mean a lot to them." He did not know what else he could do. "I'll give you a letter for them before you leave."

Hecht told Ghort, "I liked it better down in Inconje. This place is dark, dank, and smells bad." He exaggerated. The keep had not been built for comfort. The offending smell was the result of generations of cooking with unfamiliar spices.

They were alone except for a couple of lifeguards. Ghort was sampling local vintages.

Hecht asked, "What's really on your mind?"

"I don't know if we can take Antieux. An assault would just get a lot of people dead. They aren't getting hungry in there. They aren't getting thirsty. The walls won't come down. Winter is closing in. We're starting to see sickness in the camp. Probably brought in by all the hangers-on we've  accumulated. And we're having trouble with Night things. Trouble that looks like it could get bad."

"We have that here, too. I've got a man, Drago Prosek, who seems to be on track to controlling it."

"I heard the falcons."

"That's for the big ones. I've got more falcons being cast, including a test kind that can be fired faster. But that's in Brothe. Which doesn't do us any good here. Where he is doing good, here, is with traps. You should see the things he's caught. A whole menagerie of stuff that should've been extinct since the Old Empire. Stuff no one's ever seen before."

"But not dangerous?"

Hecht shrugged. "I don't know. I'm short my adviser on those things."

"Delari? Yeah. Doneto was useful that way, too. When you figure on moving west?"

"It'll take a week to get organized. Then it depends on the weather. Much more snow and mud, I may just sit down here and keep warm. May just wait to see what happens in Brothe." If Sublime went, would all his lunatic drive to rid the Chaldarean world of heresy and Unbelievers go with him?

Should Sublime's successor be indifferent to goals set by the present Patriarch, what would become of the Captain-General and his army?

"My guys aren't going to like winter… Oh! This is awful!" Ghort shoved an earthenware bottle away.

"Have you been getting ready?" Pinkus Ghort, Hecht suspected, had let things slide on the assumption that long-term thinking was a waste of time for a soldier.

"Probably not enough," Ghort confessed. "Sedlakova, more than me."

"Then you know what you need to do."

"Winter is coming. We don't have a lot of stores. Count Raymone cleared the countryside."

"You're on a river, Pinkus. And there's a road to Sheavenalle. I have no trouble supplying my people." That Ghort was less than fully prepared was no surprise. He was not a born manager. Which was why Clej Sedlakova was in charge at Antieux. Sedlakova recognized his own weaknesses and chose under-officers to deal with them. "Is Sedlakova having trouble? Are you managing things separately?"

"I've got to, Pipe. Even working for pay, I'm City Regiment, not Patriarchal."

"Point. But the fact remains. You need to do the scut work. Or find yourself a Titus who can."

Admonished, Ghort nodded. Understanding the message behind the message. Friendship could not trump the welfare of the soldiers. Not with Piper Hecht. Who stared pointedly at the wine in front of his friend.

He had reason to believe that Pinkus spent too much time sampling the vintages at Antieux. Time better spent preparing for winter.

Ghort asked, "What do we do if Sublime does die?"

"We may have to look for work. If Joceran Cuito succeeds."

"The Fiducian? Why him?"

"I don't know. I've heard he's the front-runner. Backed by King Peter."

Madouc, the lifeguard captain, entered. "Hagan Brokke has arrived, Captain-General. You asked to be informed."

"Thanks. I'll see him as soon as he feels up to it."

"He isn't in good shape. He may need time with the healing brothers."

"Then I can go to him." He shifted to Ghort. "Any chance you'll take Farfog with you when you head back?"

"You don't have muscle enough to bully me into that, Pipe. That guy is the worst asshole I've ever met. He makes old Bishop Serifs look like a fairy-tale princess. It's too bad the Connectens didn't kill his ass when they had the chance."

"I've avoided him so far. I won't be able to forever."

"Something to look forward to, then. If we're lucky, the next Patriarch will get rid of him. Hell, if we could just get him up in front of the Collegium… He'd make such an ass of himself, they'd appoint him chief missionary to the Dreangereans. Or something bad. You got anything for me to take back when I go?"

"Just find Prosek. Have him tell you how to handle your Night things. If you need to, tell Sedlakova he should bring in people from the Special Office. I'm sure he knows a few."

"If he isn't one himself."

Cloven Februaren appeared as Hecht was crawling into bed. The feather bed being the one thing he found positive about having moved into the keep. He groaned. "I was hoping to get an extra hour tonight."

"I'm only here to tell you I won't be around for a while. You'll need to stay closer to your lifeguards."

Hecht suspected that Februaren had a severely inflated notion of his own importance. Yet the old man might have stopped any number of attempts to assassinate the Captain-General. How would he know about attempts that failed? "I'll try to remember."

"They only need be successful once. It's important that they not be."

"I'm glad you share my viewpoint."

"I worry that you aren't serious enough about sharing mine. Very worried. It's important that you survive."

Hecht agreed. But he and the old man were not talking about the same thing. It was not personal with Februaren. Februaren was a man with a plan. And that plan hinged on a supposed remote descendant.

Again, "I won't be out there. So you have to think about your own safety whenever you choose to do something. Every single time."

"I've got it. Really."

Februaren did his turn-around thing. Hecht snuggled down into the warmth of the feather bed. He fell asleep wondering if he had it in him to be paranoid enough to satisfy the Ninth Unknown.

Three thousand of the best-rested troops headed west. Hecht hoped to provoke Duke Tormond into doing something unwise now that he had invoked his feudal right to summon his dependents to war. Hecht was not eager for a fight. But a fight would stir the political cauldron. And he did want that kept bubbling, whether or not his most secret self remained faithful to the mission given him by his first master, Gordimer the Lion.

The review of the departing troops done, Hecht went to see Hagan Brokke. Brokke was apologetic about his failure to handle the Navayans. He had paid the price of failure, physically. He would not have survived long had he not come into the hands of the healing brothers.

From Brokke's bedside Hecht went to see the prisoners Brokke had brought in. He expected a handful. There were more than forty, the majority being knights and minor nobility. Those had been given comfortable quarters in Inconje. Those of more immediate interest, though, had been driven into a stock pen.

"Bo. I haven't seen you for an age."

"Been too busy to socialize. Sir." Biogna scowled at all the bodyguards. Madouc must have had a dream visit from Cloven Februaren. He had increased the protection significantly.

"Are you involved in this?"

"I was out there with Brokke. Being his Titus Consent. Keeping him convinced that we needed to take a few prisoners."