"Why such a mob?"

"Most of them can be ransomed. The men insisted. But there are some interesting ones, too."

"Them?" Hecht indicated the men in the pen.

"Artecipeans. Every one. Probably useless for anything but Society food."

"Uhm?"

"They're not just heretics, they're Unbelievers. Trying to bring back the Old Gods. Virulently dangerous. Unlike those ones back yonder in the other pens. That whole clutch there are Khaurenese we picked up at Mohela ande Larges. One of Immaculate's bishops, a Praman priest of some kind, and a Deve elder. A couple days later, we found a Perfect Master hiding in some brush. Wouldn't have known it. He wasn't in costume. But the ones from Khaurene knew him. One of them said something before his brain checked in."

Hecht considered the Artecipeans. They avoided his gaze. "I've seen some of these men before." One face, in fact, he recalled from the crowd of gawkers outside Anna's house the night they moved her to Principatè Delari's town house. "I'll work up a list of questions. Whoever answers them honestly won't get turned over to Archbishop Farfog. Show me what else you've got."

The captured soldiers were not impressive. Prisoners of war seldom were.

Biogna said, "This might be the best catch. Bernardin Amberchelle. Count Raymone's ugly cousin. In the top five on the Society's wanted list. He killed a bunch of their thugs. That's the Perfect Master over there, with the girl. He was traveling with Amberchelle. Says the girl is his daughter. He was trying to get her to safety in Khaurene. He's lying. She has a different accent. They're both very careful to protect her. She's got to be somebody important."

"Pity Ghort's gone. He might be able to use the cousin to get to Raymone."

"Send a messenger. He can use the information."

"Good work. Keep after these people. Use Farfog as leverage." Hecht considered the old man and the girl. The girl appeared to be about twenty, possibly not unattractive under the grime. She had a ferocious look.

"The Amberchelle person. Was he wearing or carrying anything we can send to Antieux? To prove we have him?"

"I'll find out." Skirting the certainty that the soldiers who caught him had relieved him of everything of value.

"Do that."

Hecht avoided Morcant Farfog for two more days. By which time he had Castreresone under control. It was not a pleasant interview. Those who had reported the Archbishop's failings had not exaggerated. Hecht endured what he had to endure and gave the minimum in response to demands. The Archbishop went away thinking he had won several major points. In fact, Hecht had yielded little.

He told Titus Consent, "That man must be beloved of God. He's too stupid, venal, and opinionated to survive otherwise."

Farfog had been vigorously obnoxious from the moment he entered the White City. Local Brothen Episcopals fed him names where they wanted plunder or vengeance.

It was one of the most interesting days Piper Hecht ever enjoyed. In the morning, while reviewing a force of two thousand moving west to add to pressure on the Khaurenesaine, he received word that his troops had engaged enemy mercenaries in a series of skirmishes and small battles and had overcome them in almost every instance. Numerous towns and fortresses had sent surrender offers as a result.

More good news arrived early in the afternoon. Count Raymone Garete seemed inclined toward reason, suddenly. Having been apprised of his cousin's situation. He was now willing to talk, though apparently unwilling to yield.

Immediately afterward came news that Sublime V had gone to his reward. Brothe had begun the monthlong series of ceremonies and rituals that would end with a conclave to choose a successor. Hecht ordered the appropriate shows of mourning—but instructed his officers to avoid allowing their opponents any advantage from the news. "I want our men seen everywhere. In bigger groups. They're to hit back hard at any provocation. I won't let Castreresone fall apart now." Yet it almost did.

Archbishop Farfog responded to the news from Brothe by surrendering to his obsessions.

First reports were confusing. No one was sure what was happening. Violence had erupted but was not directed at the soldiers. First guesses suggested factional fighting between the two strains of Chaldarean Episcopals. Hecht kept sending small bands to establish order. Each conflict extinguished seemed to spark two more somewhere else.

Consent came to report. "It's Farfog. Out to do all the damage he can before a new Patriarch shuts him down."

"He foresees a shift in the direction of the Church? Does he know something we don't?"

"Inside his idiot mind, maybe. In the real world? Who knows?"

"It'll be a month before we get a new Patriarch."

"Then we have a month, ourselves. Not so?" Hecht grinned. Exactly! He had that long to write whatever future he might inscribe.

Madouc arrived. "Sir, you might want to go up on the wall. See if you're inclined to intercede in what the Society is doing."

The view from the wall was a horror show. "How many?" Hecht demanded.

A junior officer said, "Over three hundred, sir." Hecht stared. Some wore the yellow tabards the Society forced on convicted heretics. But not many. He recognized men he had met since taking control of the city. Men who had been perfectly cooperative. Men who happened to have had money left after Castreresone paid its fines.

"Madouc. Take Starven's company and break that up."

"Sir? The Archbishop…"

"I'll deal with the Archbishop. Bring him."

Madouc did not save all the prisoners. The first score were given to the flames before the soldiers arrived. The more fanatic Society members resisted. The soldiers showed unprecedented restraint. Hecht watched Madouc and several of his lifeguards—all Brotherhood of War, the Captain-General suspected—take Archbishop Farfog into custody.

The soldiers did not release the prisoners back into the wild. Some might well deserve execution. But not by Farfog's brigands.

Hecht returned to the keep to await his confrontation with the Church's hellhound.

Time passed.

More time passed.

"Somebody! It's getting late. Where the devil is that idiot Farfog? Why isn't he in here? He's had time to go bald. Titus! Where are you, Titus Consent?"

Consent did not materialize. Nor did Redfearn Bechter, nor Drago Prosek, nor any of the others whose presence around him could be taken for granted. Nervous, he pulled his weapons within reach.

Madouc the lifeguard did materialize. Eventually. Twenty minutes after he should have done. He was bleeding. He had suffered a dozen wounds. More than one might qualify as mortal. He was going on by willpower and the insane sense of duty of a Brotherhood warrior.

"Sir. We were ambushed. By local partisans. They killed the Society brothers. They were after the Archbishop. They cut him to pieces. They took his head with them."

"This isn't good, Madouc. The Society…" But the Society might not be around much longer. Nor the crusader army and its Captain-General.

The course of history hinged on the choice of Sublime V's successor.

The uprising in Castreresone lasted one evening and night and focused entirely on the Society for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy.

In a whisper next morning the Captain-General confided to his spy chief, "I'm not going to miss any of those villains."

"But Morcant Farfog's murder…"

"Will cause a lot of trouble. How much depends on our next Patriarch."

Hagan Brokke reclaimed his honor in a series of fierce little engagements that stripped Queen Isabeth and Duke Tormond of their mercenary strength. His light cavalry harassed Isabeth's Direcians continuously, deliberately targeting one knight or noble at a time. Because they were who they were, each death or capture would have a significant impact in Direcia.

The Queen of Navaya withdrew to the shadow of her brother's capital city.

From elation about events in the west Piper Hecht fell into a depression over news from the east. Count Raymone Garete had resumed his stubborn defiance, with a more punishing daily cost now that Bronte Doneto had gone. Piper Hecht reviewed the whys and wherefores. What strange, small change had reanimated the Count's stubborn insolence?

"Those prisoners Brokke brought in," Titus Consent said. "Some got away, probably with help, while we were running in circles because of Farfog's murder."

Hecht scowled. He grumbled a question about who he needed to have stoned or drowned.

"That would be a waste of time and emotion. Focus on those who didn't get away. Bernardin Amberchelle, for example."

"Tell me."

"Count Raymone's cousin. The man we thought he wanted back when he showed a willingness to talk. But he's gone back to being stubborn while Amberchelle is still down in the prison pens."

"Uhm? What changed?"

'The old man and the girl who came with Amberchelle," Consent said. "I'd bet she's the fiancee we've heard about. An upcountry girl who stole Raymone's heart. Socia something. Who is supposedly chaperoned by the Grand Masterest of all Maysalean Perfect Masters."

"And that would be the grayhair." The Captain-General did not finish. "You exult over little triumphs while big defeats sneak up."

Patriarchal crusaders now owned the eastern half of the End of Connec—excepting only Antieux. They threatened Khaurene from three directions. Lesser forces, featuring impassioned Society brethren determined to see Archbishop Farfog's great vision fulfilled, had begun probing the Altai, discovering the incredible mountaintop fortresses of the Maysalean heretics. And snow choked much of the rural world, not only in the Connec but in Tramaine, Ormienden, Grolsach, Arnhand, and even much of Firaldia. The Grail Empire was blanketed. Artecipea saw heavy, temporarily incapacitating snows for the first time since antiquity. The war there dwindled into the doldrums of winter. As did wars all round the Mother Sea.

Wherever snow fell there arose dreadful rumors of Kharoulke the Windwalker, the god before gods from the age before antiquity. Kharoulke the Windwalker, before whom the great modern Instrumentalities must quail. But Kharoulke needed deep snow, deep ice, before he could supplant the gentler Instrumentalities of the present. Kharoulke needed millennial cold before he could rise above the vague lost deities who had supplanted his kind—before being shoved aside by the powers of today. Those vague lost deities beloved of secret cults devoted to resurrecting the lost lord Instrumentalities of antiquity.

18. Interlude at Runjan in the Reigenwald

The Marquesa va Runjan's sister the Empress insisted that she take up her rights in that remote town in the heart of the Empire's wildest, most remote hill country. Helspeth could not refuse.

The fury of the Council Advisory, of the Imperial court, of the Church, and especially of Empress Katrin herself could be described only as beyond reason. Nobody told the Princess Apparent how she had rendered herself criminal by opening that sealed mountain pass.

Almost no one would speak to her, let alone explain. She was a pariah and it might be catching. She was a prisoner now, in all but name, confined to the crumbling hilltop tower overlooking Runjan. The village, in its prime, had produced barely enough turnips, cabbage, and grain to sustain itself, with a small charcoal-burning industry taking advantage of the surrounding forest. Runjan was no longer in its prime. The iron industry had shrunk since Hansel's death, there being less demand for weapons metal. If the smelters were closed there was little demand for charcoal.

The tower had not been occupied since the last lord of Runjan passed on, childless, leaving the fief to his beloved Hansel. Its shutters were gone or broken. The drop gate could not be closed. Someone had taken the chain. There was no resident staff.

Helspeth came with a party of eight. Two were cruel old women who hated her. They were determined to punish her. Nothing Helspeth did could ingratiate her. Not that she tried to win them over. She had to work to mask her loathing.

The rest of the party were all one family. Harmer Schmitt. His wife Greta. Their daughter Grunhilde and three sons: Hansel, Fulk, and Fritz. The boys were named for Harmer's favorite emperors, the girl for Greta's great-aunt. Grunhilde was sixteen. And not attractive. The boys were sixteen, fourteen, and nine. Hansel was Grunhilde's twin. Not identical, of course, but every bit as homely as his sister.

The Schmitts were quietly sympathetic toward the Princess Apparent but dared not show it. It was a flawed sympathy, anyway, based more in dislike of the harpies assigned to be Helspeth's warders: the Dowager Grafina Ilse-Janna fon Wistrcz, the harridan mother of the Graf fon Wistrcz, and Dame Karelina fon Tyre, spouse of the Grand Admiral. Neither woman ever liked Helspeth. Both hated her now. It was her fault they had to chaperone her here in her rustic hell. The women hated one another as well, and had done so for fifty years. Both were petty and spiteful and had been chosen because they could be counted on to take it out on Helspeth.

Each had her own small household follow her. Just people enough to maintain her in reduced misery. The Schmitts were supposed to maintain Helspeth but often worked for her keepers instead. They put in long hours but failed to make the tower fit for human habitation. Then the heavy snows came. Never warm, never properly fed, Helspeth became gaunt, subject to fits of the shakes and prolonged periods of withdrawal.

She did not expect to see the coming spring.

She wrote letters to the Empress but they came out almost illegible. Not that there was any point to pleading. There was no one to carry the letters away. Even had she been able to get them past Tooth and Fang, as she thought of those horrid old women.

She had felt alone and been afraid in Plemenza. But in Plemenza she had had Algres Drear. She had no bodyguards here, nor any patient ear to bend. Captain Drear had been sent east, to a garrison ever threatened by pagan savages. The other Braunsknechts had been scattered elsewhere. And the girl who was the author of their distress still did not grasp what she had done to earn such draconian retribution.

Ferris Renfrow arrived during a snowstorm. He did nothing to conceal his horror. Saying little, he went out again. He returned with the entire population of Runjan. He started giving orders.

Dame Karelina challenged him. "This isn't any business of yours!" Voice heavy with scorn. Though her own antecedents were questionable.

Renfrow stared into her eyes. She wavered, but only momentarily. She was the wife of the Grand Admiral.

Renfrow said, "Pick up a tool and help. Or go away. If you insist on being part of the problem you'll be corrected with the rest of the problem."

Dowager Grafina fon Wistrcz got hold of the Dame's arm and dragged her away. Still within earshot, Ilse-Janna snarled, "Don't cross Ferris Renfrow! Ever! No good comes to anyone who does that! No telling why he's here. But he will go away."

Renfrow said, "He'll go away. But he won't forget what he's seen."

The villagers got a blazing fire going. Greta Schmitt brought a blanket. She placed it around Helspeth's shoulders, settled the girl close to the fire.

Renfrow stalked around, tossing off orders. Villagers went to work improving and weatherproofing. A single hour's work provided a dramatic improvement.

"Schmitt. Show me the account books." He knew exactly where the harridans would be vulnerable.

Warmth penetrated Helspeth deeply enough for her shakes to subside into an intermittent problem. She surfaced in the present reality for moments at a time. She recognized Ferris Renfrow. And experienced a flood of joy and hope so profound that she plunged into unstoppable crying.

"Schmitt's woman. Stay close to the Princess."

Elsewhere, Dame fon Tyre tried to bully her own small household into evicting Ferris Renfrow from the tower. She refused to hear warnings from the Dowager Grafina. Her people did not. They knew the Renfrow reputation. That had been dark and deadly since long before the accession of Emperor Johannes.

The Grand Admiral's wife had lived fifty-eight sheltered years. She had known little but her own indulgences until Empress Katrin, in a moment of high pique, rid herself of an annoyance by ordering the woman to Runjan to babysit her sister. Making Runjan a cauldron of rustic exile.

In one day's time Renfrow's will made the ground floor of the tower over into what it should have become with Helspeth's arrival. Helspeth stopped shaking before the villagers went away. She regained her composure. Softly voiced, she told Renfrow, "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Princess. You are the heir of empire. What they were doing is unconscionable." He said no more. Helspeth began to understand how deep her danger had been. And might be once Renfrow went away again.

Renfrow told her, "You won't be comfortable, here. You can't be the Helspeth Ege you were before your brother died. But no one will try to make you die by natural causes anymore, either."

Helspeth lost control of her bladder.

Renfrow told her, "I promised your father."

She pulled the blanket around her again and stared into the flames, wanting to go away again. Hansel Schmitt brought more wood. He seemed obsequious. The way people do who want not to be noticed by someone held in high terror.

"Helspeth. Listen. You must pay attention. Your life could depend on you actually hearing me."

Greta Schmitt brought hot broth. Helspeth responded to the aroma with more enthusiasm than she did Ferris Renfrow's voice. Renfrow said, "I'll take some of that myself."

The Schmitt woman's lips tightened and lost color but she held Ferris Renfrow in no less high terror than did her son. When she brought the broth for Renfrow he slipped her a small purse. "Tell no one. Use it on the Princess's behalf. And keep a close account. You may keep a fourth for yourself." He looked her straight in the eye. "Tell no one. Not either of those hags. Not your husband. Not the Princess herself. Understand?" Greta nodded.

In a voice barely audible, Helspeth told Renfrow, "I'm listening. Thank you. For coming."

"I repay my debts. And I do what serves the Empire. Letting the heir to the ermine be murdered by neglect is not in that interest."

Helspeth eased her grip on her blanket. The ache went out of her fingers almost immediately. The fire had begun to have an effect. At last.

"Listen closely. Your life will improve going forward. But you must not attract attention. Be pliant. Do as you're told. Offer no offense, however unreasonable the dons at Alten Weinberg become. Be your sister's strongest supporter, regardless of your private opinion. Her reign won't be one of the memorable ones. Unless she surrenders to the Council Advisory or she goes completely mad. Which could happen."

She murmured, "Greta put something in the broth."

"Are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

"Good. I'm hoping you've learned something. The lesson being that a princess's actions directly impact many other people."

Tears slid from the corners of Helspeth's eyes as Renfrow reviewed the current situation of her Braunsknecht lifeguards and Lady Hilda Daedal, whose husband had required her to go into a convent. "This doesn't make sense. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Why are you here, then?"

"But…"

"You knew you'd irritate people in Alten Weinberg. Admit it. You could've saved everyone misery by staying in Plemenza while your hired men dealt with the monster. They would've censured you for employing foreigners but you'd still be there. However, you wanted to tweak their noses. In fact, you scared hell out of powerful people who saw way too much Johannes Blackboots in Hansel's youngest daughter."

"I know, Ferris. I know. I've thought about that so much."

"On the good news side, you won't be marrying anytime soon. If that's a positive."

"I'm not going to get married, ever."

Renfrow smiled. "As may be. But one more reason you're in bad odor is, your adventure cheapened you as marriage bait. Every court in the Chaldarean world was interested. Your portrait was making a progression from capital to capital. You were quickening hearts. Then word went out that you'd gone off into the wilderness for a month with a band of common soldiers."

Helspeth sighed and drew her blanket around her tighter. Renfrow was getting excited. She had not recovered enough to handle the pressure.

He eased up. "There is a humorous side. One court remained interested. Jaime of Castauriga himself came all the way to Alten Weinberg to meet you personally. Castauriga being under heavy pressure from Navaya, he's in desperate need of allies. When he presented himself to Katrin it was, for her, love at first sight. Despite the age difference."

Helspeth's brain began to move again. "And he wouldn't mind being the consort of the Empress of the Grail Empire."

"Especially after she has a few children."

"When will they marry?"

"Springtime. Ironically, after the Remayne Pass opens."

Helspeth sighed. "Have the crones heard?"

"They'll be told. The news will ease your situation. And the wedding should mark the end of your exile. Unless you do something else to frighten the councilors."

"I still don't understand all that."

"Certain people have elevated themselves dramatically by orbiting your sister closely, Princess. Most of them Brothen Episcopals. They know the majority inside the Empire are strongly indisposed toward the Brothen Patriarchy. When you show the initiative you did, even bringing in specialist operators, you remind them that you're Johannes's daughter. The Princess Apparent who could step in and change their world."   

Helspeth began to get a glimmer. "But I'm not interested, in any of that." She made a soft, squeaky noise as the Captain-General popped into mind.

"Yes?"  

"Just a random thought. It startled me."

"I see. Tell me. Have you heard anything I've been saying?"

"Yes." Sigh.

"Katrin's marriage isn't set in stone. Negotiations are still going on. Jaime is making demands that no one on our end will meet."

"So I'm not off the hook?"

"Not till Katrin gives birth to a male heir who survives long enough to have sons of his own."

"God help me."

"As I said, it should get easier once I speak to your keepers. Then easier still after Katrin weds. That should end your rustication. Behave and you could be back in Plemenza before winter comes round again. In Alten Weinberg at the least."

Sadly, feeling shame, she asked, "And my Braunsknechts?"

"There'll be no pardon for them. They failed their trust."

Helspeth did not meet Renfrow's gaze. But at that moment she decided to rescue Algres Drear and the others. They did not deserve such cruel punishment for having been browbeaten into compliance by the daughter of the Ferocious Little Hans.

She awarded herself a small sneer. She was in a spot so weak she could not save herself. Her one hope was this mysterious Renfoew, who dashed around shoring up the creaking foundations of the Empire.

"Someday…"

"Yes?"

"Someday I'd like to find out who you really are."

Renfrow was startled. Then he smiled. "Your father said the same thing, once."

"And did he?"

"Sadly, Fate caught up first. Quiet. Listen. I've cautioned you. I've cautioned you again. I've changed your situation to one you can survive. If you think before you talk or act. If you avoid being your father's daughter."

"I get it, sir!"

"I hope. I sincerely hope. I have my doubts. Blood will out. I won't be here in the morning. I have to go to Brothe. Please take care."

"Why doesn't anybody… ? Why do you keep saying the same thing over and over?"

"Experience. It takes immense perseverance to get an idea through an Ege skull."

"But I…"

"You aren't who or what you think you are, Princess. You're what the world thinks you are. Your great task is to convince the world you are what it wants you to be. You have to be a chameleon. A timid, retiring chameleon. In the eyes of your enemies."

"Enemies? But…"

"You see? Not listening. Again."

A sharp pain of the soul. No one cared what she thought. She was a piece on a chessboard. Truly, she would have to wear masks to avoid sacrifice to the advantage of the Queen.

"I just grasped the full message, Ferris. Thank you."

"Excellent. When next we meet, then, it should be in better circumstances. Drink some more broth. Rest. The Schmitts will put you on a better diet tomorrow."

Helspeth wanted to ask something else. The question sort of slid out of her mind sideways. Renfrow shimmered.

She did not recall her dreams. They felt portentous. The Captain-General was there. Katrin was there. So were scores more, known and unknown, in a time of great stress.

She wakened feeling better than she had in months.

Ferris Renfrow was gone. He left the tower refurbished in plant and attitude. Helspeth had no more trouble with Tooth or Fang. She became perfectly pliant in turn.

19. Khaurene, in the Time of Bleakest Despair

Brother Candle and Socia Rault clung close for warmth. Also in the cluster were Michael Carhart, Hanak el-Mira, and Bishop Clayto. Above them were two ragged blankets taken from a dead man found alongside the road. No one knew which side he had served. No one cared.

The clump of misery huddled inside a stand of brush. The blankets had accumulated enough snow to conceal their color and keep body heat confined.

Though miserable and hungry, no one wanted to risk the road. There was a lot of traffic headed west. Ducking into hiding would leave tracks in the snow.

Brother Candle wondered if escape had been smart. Their captors had shown no inclination to abuse them, nor any to turn them over to the Society. They had been warm and fed regularly. Of course, their captors had recognized Bernardin Amberchelle. It would not have taken long for reason to lead them to Socia's identity.

There was a search on, prosecuted with minimal enthusiasm. It was cold out. Why be out in it when nobody really knew what they were hunting? Refugees? Those were everywhere, many young women trying to get somewhere safe from God's laborers. Many were Maysaleans desperate to escape territories where failure to acknowledge Brothe's primacy might become a capital crime.

Socia murmured, "We need to reach friendly territory before they realize who I was. There'll be a reward, then."

Brother Candle nodded, careful not to disturb the blankets. "But Patriarchals aren't the only danger. Duke To-mond's defeated mercenaries are out there, too."

Bishop Clayto muttered, "We have to move. This flesh is too infirm to withstand this for long." He was shaking. He could not stop. Fear, malnutrition, and cold all contributed.

El-Mira whispered, "Get a grip, Clayto. Brother Candle has a decade on you."

"He's used to this. I'm a bishop." Clayto snickered, still able to joke at his own expense.

The weather never cooperated. On the other hand, the Night and Patriarchal patrols proved harmless. Michael Carhart, el-Mira, and Clayto all claimed their success reflected the favor of their gods. Claimed without sharp conviction.

Like Brother Candle, they feared good fortune might be by the grace of Instrumentalities associated with the Adversary. Hard not to suspect special favor when Patriarchals were running wild during the interregnum in Brothe.

It took sixteen days to reach Khaurene, a distance of less than eighty crow-flight miles. That sixteenth dawn saw them still fifteen miles from the city itself. They fell in with a strong patrol led by Sir Eardale Dunn. Dunn put them onto borrowed cogs and hurried them westward. They could help steel the will of their respective religious communities.

Brother Candle clung desperately to his mount. He was no skilled rider. But he did have attention left for his surroundings. And did not like what he saw.

He saw devastation. The Patriarchals had decided to destroy the regional economy. But he was more troubled by what looked like preparations for a showdown battle. By his own side.

"You don't think that's a good idea?" Socia asked.

"I think it's insane. Any Connecten army will be a rabble with little prospect of success. Unless they outnumber the enemy badly. Or catch him unawares. Can our people manage that?"

"I think if Raymone Garete was in charge…"

"Yes. If Count Raymone was in charge the rivers would run red. The revenants would feast. And the Connec would become a desert. Because Count Raymone would burn it barren before he let it fall into the hands of Brothen invaders."

Socia had no problem with that, he knew. She would joyfully scour the earth to destroy her enemies.

What a horror it would be once she took her place in the shadows behind Count Raymone.

Sir Eardale did not lead Brother Candle up to Metrelieux. "Tormond doesn't want to see you, Brother. He's made up his mind at last and doesn't want you whispering counterarguments in his ear."

The Perfect was surprised by the hurt he felt. Those few words declared a ripened disdain for the voice of reason. Henceforth, Duke Tormond IV would wear blinders.

"You blame me… ?"

Wrong approach.

"Not personally. Your faith. Two generations of passivity and pacifism… Decades of weak leadership… We have invaders among us by the tens of thousands. And haven't the skills or backbone to do what needs doing. Because we've been bedazzled by the Maysalean Heresy. Or whatever you want to call it."

"I suspect centuries of peace and prosperity have more to do with it." Brother Candle was startled by the strength of his emotions. He had to put the world aside and find his way back to the Path. He drifted farther from it by the minute.

The streets of Khaurene were crowded with Seekers from farther east. Some would go on to the strongholds in the Altai or to coastal provinces now under the protection of King Peter. Or even into Direcia itself. Peter welcomed Seekers. Most were tradesmen with useful skills.

They were welcome in Praman Platadura, too.

Tannery stench seemed thicker than ever, down where Raulet Archimbault lived. Socia observed, "I sure missed a lot, growing up in the country."

"Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"

"Each city we run to is bigger than the last. And is more crowded and smells worse."

"You'll like the Archimbaults." He hoped. But sparingly. Socia Rault remained deeply conscious of class and station. "If you don't, keep your mouth shut." She had had the chance to move into Metrelieux and had refused.

The streets were particularly crowded in this neighborhood, where local Seekers welcomed countless refugees into their homes.

Raulet's daughter Kedle answered Brother Candle's knock. He said, "Wow! That didn't take long." The girl was prominently pregnant.

"It can be difficult, trying to ignore the demands of the flesh." Kedle did not sound interested in denying the flesh. Nor was she pleased to find the Perfect on the family doorstep.

"You're not at work?"

"My work is here while this is going on." She patted her stomach. "The fumes at the tannery. Not good for the unborn. We don't have room here, Master. Soames and I have to live here. Because his father's brother's family are staying with them. See Scarre the Baker. His sons have gone to be soldiers."

Kedle stared at Socia but was too polite to ask.

"As you wish. Tell your father that I came by. He can trace me through Scarre's bakery."

Kedle donned a scowl worthy of the most guilt-ridden Episcopal or Devedian. Brother Candle turned away, pleased and shamed at having left the girl feeling bad about turning him away.

Socia asked, "What was that all about?"

"I've known Kedle since she was born. It's taken her longer than most young people, but she's in her rebellious stage."

"She's pregnant."

"Very. She was getting married last time I was here."

"She's younger than me."

"True. By several years."

"I thought you Seekers put sex aside."

"We Seekers?" The Raults were Seekers themselves. "Some manage. Once they get old."

"Weird. Where are we going?"

"Kedle is still too young. We're going to Scarre the Baker's."

Socia changed topic. "I don't believe in any of that stuff. Only in things that can bite me."

"The countryside is swarming with Instrumentalities wearing really big teeth."

Their little band had spent more time shivering in fear of the Night than from the cold during their flight. Out there, in the country, revenant Night prowled everywhere. And sometimes left pale, drained bodies alongside the roads.

Another reason for crowding in Khaurene.

Darkness was gathering as they entered Scarre's bakery. Scarre worked in a ferocious heat, sweat rolling off him as he scooped fresh loaves out of his huge oven. He was naked to the waist, like a blacksmith. His wife, wearing padded gloves, stacked the hot loaves. Scarre grunted a greeting.

Brother Candle observed, "There must be a huge demand for bread."

"You looking for a job? I can't keep up. I need somebody to work the dough."

"Not looking for work but we'll work for bed and board while we're here."

"Absolutely. But why aren't you staying with Raulet? You staying with him makes him feel like the big… Sorry. We're supposed to be beyond petty competitions."

"Kedle says there is no room there."

"Marriage hasn't agreed with that girl. She should've waited. Raulet should've waited. In one year she's gone from wide-eyed child of wonder to complete harpy. Raulet fears for her soul."

"I see. We can address that in our evening meetings. What is it?"

"We don't have many meetings, Brother. Society spies are everywhere. They keep records for after they take control."

"Once upon a time Seekers had the courage to stand behind their beliefs."

"Once upon a time they didn't used to burn us."

"They don't do that much, now. More members of the Society get killed, one way or another, than Seekers do."

Scarre shrugged. Plainly uninterested in the tribulations of Brothen Episcopals. "If you stay with me I'm going to expect some help. The girl can do the household cooking while you work in here."

Brother Candle chuckled. "I don't think so, Scarre. Not if you want to avoid being poisoned. She can help in here. Like an apprentice. Only, you'll have to keep your hands to yourself."

Scarre bobbed his head, getting the message.

Socia did not like being discussed. But the world outside Caron ande Lette had hammered her long enough to teach her to manage emotion. For minutes at a time.

"Long as she earns her keep."

"She will. She's a good woman. She just needs to be shown what to do."

Madam Scarre was not convinced.

Scarre was not the best host. He worked his guests hard. Which explained why no refugees stayed with him. Most Maysalean households had a refugee family squeezed in. Brother Candle and Socia were exhausted when they joined the Archimbaults for their late meal.

Socia had complained just once. Brother Candle offered, "I'll take you up to the castle."

"No."

"No bread kneading. No Madam Scarre barking at you for being young and attractive."

"That woman is mad. Has she actually looked at him? All sweaty and covered with hair, like a bear? And fat? But I won't go up there. They'd use me to manipulate Raymone."

She had a point.

Which sparked a fresh worry.

The Society was strong in Khaurene. Those fanatics would have no reservations about using the girl as a weapon. And Raymone had shown weak that way already.

Brother Candle said little during supper, except to answer Kedle's questions about his adventures. Afterward, the leaders of the Seeker community began to arrive. Brother Candle found himself a place out of the light. He wanted to catch up. There had been changes. Despair and pessimism ruled.

Spiritual issues never arose. That was the most dramatic change.

Talk was iron-hard practical. Should the Seeker community emigrate now, before Patriarchal forces made escape impossible? Heading into winter, fleeing to fastnesses in the Altai that might not be adequately provisioned? Should they stay and hope that Patriarchal politics and Duke Tormond's stiffened backbone would make it possible to get through the winter here?

Brother Candle heard nothing to inspire faith in the Duke's steadfast determination to defy the invaders. Nor anything positive about the probable results. And little confidence in the friendship of Peter of Navaya.

"Peter needs the Brothen Church behind him to pursue his ambitions in Direcia," someone insisted when someone else suggested that Peter might send an army to enforce his rights in Castreresone.

Another someone said, "Peter can't turn his back on the princes of al-Halambra. And he has troops committed in Artecipea."

"Nothing will happen anywhere while there's no Patriarch in Brothe."

"The Captain-General isn't sitting on his hands."

"Duke Tormond will make all these worries moot."

"Excuse me," Brother Candle said. Silence fell. "These discussions remain speculative only until after the battle."

A puzzled Raulet Archimbault asked, "What battle, Master?"

"Sir Eardale Dunn is trying to engineer a decisive confrontation. Which, I think, the Patriarchals would rather avoid. They've done well with a pinprick strategy. But there will be a battle. And the passion of the Khaurenese won't be enough. My advice? Be ready to travel but wait on the result of the fight. If Sir Eardale is successful, there's no need to suffer winter in the mountains. If it's defeat, the Patriarchals will need time to pull themselves together and move against the city. That would be time enough to go."

A spirited discussion followed, a dozen people talking at once, all arguing with one another but all agreeing with Brother Candle. Though a few still heard the siren call of the Altai.

Brother Candle said, "I have carried the message through the Altai on occasion. I spent a winter there once. Not up in one of those drafty old ridgeline strongholds but down in a valley where the people know how to handle the weather. And it was still curdled misery."

More discussion. All the men had spent time in the Altai last summer, readying strongholds for the day when the failure of the weak Connecten state left Seekers at the mercy of a merciless, rapacious Brothen Episcopal Church. They were not ignorant of the harshness of the mountains. It was that harshness they had embraced when they chose the Altai as their final refuge.

"SO THAT WAS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION," SOCIA SAID AS she and Brother Candle walked back to Scarre the Baker's.

"It was, yes."

"I see why it's an uncommon way of making decisions."

"Some would say that the fact that nothing gets done is the strength of the process. People get too busy arguing to go make trouble."

The girl expressed her opinion with a contemptuous snort.

Day after day the men of Khaurene marched out of the city. Eventually, the streets seemed naked. Those who stayed behind remained in their homes, praying, suffering from escalating tension.

Brother Candle felt more tension than ever he had before. Duke Tormond had decided to do something. At last. And no one cared if it was the right thing. An entire country exulted because it was something.

He did not go out where he could hear rumors and misinformation from the field. He could imagine it. Inept bands of poorly trained men, under inexperienced captains, would rush around trying to catch enemy scouts and foragers and would get beat up in the process. Skirmishes between larger units would carpet the fields east of Khaurene with fallen heroes. The truth would not be seen because the little disasters would be scattered. At some point, the Khaurenese mob would force the Captain-General to choose between withdrawal and showing Khaurene the truth about warfare.

Brother Candle was not without hope. Isabeth's knights could provide experienced leadership. The Connectens would enjoy a big advantage in heavy cavalry. Plus, Tormond had reenlisted thousands of mercenaries and had found knights willing to serve for pay. Numbers would not favor the Patriarchals.

SOCIA WAS DISTRACTED. SHE COULD NOT DO THE WORK Scarre demanded. Fortunately, there was less call for Scarre's product. But he anticipated a spike in demand when the hungry soldiers returned.

Brother Candle worked dough and roamed his memories, revisiting a thousand regrets. When the time came he knew there had been a battle before anyone brought the news. And he knew that it had not gone well. "Socia. Time to go. Get your things."

The streets were no longer empty. Everyone seemed to be pressing to the northeast, desperate to learn the fates of those they held dear. Wailing and panic were endemic. If the disaster was a tenth of what rumor claimed, Khaurene would never recover.

Those coming in now were men who ran before the fighting started. They had to tell stories that made their cowardice appear less foul. Rumor fed off that.

Though Brother Candle had spoken to no one but Socia he found himself at the head of a column of Seekers including all the regulars from the Archimbault meetings. The Archimbaults brought Kedle. They were not open to arguments about leaving her behind. In just days they had become convinced that Khaurene was doomed and the Society, backed by the Patriarchal army, would purge the city of heretics, Unbelievers, and adherents of the Viscesment Patriarchy.

Brother Candle told himself he was worried about the pregnant woman's welfare, not the chance that she would slow the party's flight. Told himself and wondered.

Fear stalked him. Gnawing, rationality-devouring fear. Partly because of his fall from Perfection. But just as much because of the presence of things of the Night.

They were always there, now. Always just round the corner, or just out of sight over the shoulder. For some, that was no problem. Those of a deeply superstitious nature lived in that reality always. But for those who wanted to live in a rational, orderly universe the waxing influence of the Night was an aggressive spiritual slime mold gnawing the mortar from between the foundation stones of existence.

Kedle's husband did not join the exodus. Soames was one if those excited thousands who had marched out confident that righteousness must prevail. Without being eager to go. He had gone because it was expected.

Kedle was sure she would not see him again. That if only one Khaurenese fell out there, that one would be her Soames.

Brother Candle told Socia, "Here's your chance to be a big sister. Help the girl handle this."

Raulet Archimbault's attitude was as bright as his daughter's was bleak. "The boy will catch up. He'll be fine. He knows the evacuation plan. Hell, he may get there before we do."

Getting there was an exercise in profound misery. More so than the flight from Patriarchal captivity. Though enemy patrols were fewer, the risk of butchery at their hands had worsened. The Khaurenesaine would suffer terribly for its defiance.

The band of Seekers was large enough to defend itself from brigands and small troops of Patriarchals. And had several times. A third of the company perished on the road. Night things tracked them all the way, first to Albodiges beside frozen Lake Trauen, then onward along the precipitous trail up the Reindau Spine to the fortifications called Corpseour.

News overtaking the band was disheartening. Connectens in general had plunged to the bleakest, most hopeless of despair.

Kedle's baby came early, while they were on the road. It was not an easy birth. The women feared she would not survive the bleeding. There was a worse fear among the men.

The birth drew the Night like a corpse draws flies. Even the learned, like Brother Candle, could not fathom why. He suspected, though, that it was just curiosity about intense pain and emotion.

The baby, named Raulet after his grandfather, was healthy enough. And arrived without birthmarks, a caul, deformities, teeth already developed, or other evil portent. To the great relief of the travelers.

Corpseour had been built along a knife edge of a ridge. Near vertical drops fell away to both sides. The path up from Albodiges was the only approach. That was watched over by outworks capable of laying down heavy missile fires. Corpseour had existed as an ultimate refuge since before man learned to write. It had been used a hundred times across the ages, though not since the disorders following the collapse of the Old Empire. Maysaleans had been refurbishing the fortifications for some time. Defenses had been improved. Stores had been laid in. Most of all, cisterns had been deepened and expanded. Each time an Altaian stronghold had fallen in the past, the cause had been thirst or treachery. Little could be done to prevent treachery. That last tiny seed of lust, greed, or terror hidden deep inside a man's secret self, that made him willing to betray, just could not be known till it quickened. It might exist in every soul, awaiting the right conditions to sprout.

The overarching strategy of the Seekers was to outlast their enemies. Sublime V had passed away. Without a Patriarch of his obsession driving a Connecten Crusade the wider interest should fade. Arnhand and Santerin were preoccupied with one another. Santerin had the upper hand. Charlve the Dim was said to be in the early stages of dementia. Meaning there should be little threat from the north.

The Patriarchal Office for the Suppression of Sacrilege and Heresy ought to wither and die, too. It had no backers amongst the leading candidates for succession.

Cold and miserable as he might be, Brother Candle thought hope might return with the distant but inevitable spring.

Practicing his secondary profession of watcher atop the wall, Brother Candle stood in the highest lookout of Corpseour and surveyed his harsh new world. Mist filled the valley to the east. Snow clouds concealed everything beyond. That direction showed nothing but unreadable gray. Visibility was little better to the west. What was not covered in snow was weathered gray stone or scattered, weary green vegetation. A couple of villages lay partially obscured by wood smoke not moving because the air was deadly still.

Socia joined him. The girl looked tired and older than her years. Incessant dejection had ground her down. "What are you looking at?" There had been nothing different to see since they arrived. Just a little more snow every day.

"The future."

"Pardon?"

"All our tomorrows look like that."

"You do need to go off to one of your Masters' secret places for a spell."     

"Want to know a secret, Socia? There are no secret places. Unless you count hideaways like this. They exist only in imaginations of those who fear the Path."

"There's somebody down there."

Specks  of humanity  marked  the  trail.  Maybe refugees. Maybe someone bringing news. Maybe just men who made the climb each day to clear the trail of ice and to bring yet more water up to the cisterns.

"There's still spring," the old man said. "A new year always holds promise."

There was the hardest part, these days. Encouraging others when he had so little optimism left himself.

20. Artecipea: The Unanticipated Crusade

The Captain-General was reviewing inventory lists payrolls. Scut work was the biggest part of his job. "How the hell do one hundred fifty-eight crossbowmen use up eight barrels of bolts in one engagement?"

"They kill a lot of people," Titus Consent replied. Sounding mildly amused.

He was, Hecht knew. Consent thought he was becoming a miser.

"Sure. But you'd think they'd get more of the bolts back after the dust settled."

"They probably missed twenty times for every hit. Those bolts aren't going to be recovered. Unless you put a thousand men out to glean the battlefield."

"Phooey. I'll make the Khaurenese buy me fifty new barrels when we take the city."

Consent smiled without being amused. It was an open secret: The Connecten Crusade had run its course. When elected, the new Patriarch would discontinue the war gainst heresy.

Reports had the balloting deadlocked. None of the Five Families could muster even a significant minority backing for their Principatè. All they could agree on was unity against the non-Brothen candidates. Neither the Brotherhood of War nor the Society had backed a candidate yet.

Principatè Delari had garnered the second biggest plurality in the initial poll, to his complete consternation. Hugo Mongoz was the front-runner, a compromise candidate who could be counted on to die soon. An interim figurehead to fill a role while the Collegium worked out a real succession. The Five Families could stomach Hugo Mongoz for a year or two.

"Messenger from Antieux," one of Hecht's lifeguards announced.

"No doubt Ghort whining for more money. Send him in."

A road-weary, dirty, damp courier entered, accompanied by Redfearn Bechter. The room was the warmest in the fortress, Camden ande Gledes, which stood a scant twenty miles from Khaurene. It commanded both old roads from the east.

Bechter presented a one-sheet estimate of the damage suffered by the Khaurenese and their allies. The fallen numbered more than fifteen thousand. Thousands more had been captured. The fools had fielded an army with no centralized command. Hecht had given them no chance to overcome that disadvantage.

"Good, with the Navayans. Some important catches there."

Bechter nodded. Hecht turned to the courier. "Yes?" The man behind the mud was one of Ghort's most trusted.

"The Colonel wants you to know he's been recalled. The City Regiment has been ordered back to Brothe. Never mind that they're in pay. The orders came from the city senate but were signed by Bronte Doneto. Colonel Ghort says the senators are scared there'll be major disorders after the election."

Hecht surveyed his staff, saw raised eyebrows. "Does that mean they expect another foreign Patriarch?"

"Colonel Ghort said, 'When he asks if they're going to pick a non-Brothen, tell him the guy in Viscesment, Bellicose or whatever, is running a strong fourth. And he's ex-communicate.'"

"I see." Hecht reflected. "How soon will he move?"

"He's already started. The orders gave him no wiggle room

Doneto knew Ghort.

"Do the people inside Antieux know?"

"Of course."

"Any idea how much longer the election could take?"

"Maybe ages. There isn't much bribe money floating around. Extra funds got burned up financing the Calzir Crusade."

"Get some hot food and some rest. I'll have something for you to take back when you go."

Bechter led the courier out. Hecht asked the air, "What does this mean to us?"

Consent said, "You'll have to reinforce Sedlakova. Leaving us too thin here."

True. Losses had not been great and desertions refreshingly few but, still, there had been a sizable turnover. Hecht had little reason to trust the locals and defeated mercenary who wanted to join up.

Consent said, "We have to decide what we want to get done before a new Patriarch comes in. Everything will change once he does. He won't share Sublime's obsessions. He may fire us all to save money so he can afford to commission monuments to himself."

That was the future Hecht feared and expected. Few in the Collegium shared Sublime's obsession with eradicating heresy and recapturing the Holy Lands.

Hecht said, "We've been on borrowed time since Sublime died. Being aggressive hasn't gained us much. Sure. A blood triumph. Heroic in proportion. It'll be talked about for years. But it wasn't decisive. It just taught the Khaurenese to stay inside their walls. Send somebody over there tomorrow. Demand a huge fine and a commitment to root out the heretic What we've been asking for all along. Tell them they have no time to talk about it. Start pulling in the patrols, foragers, and raiders, so it looks like we're going to attack. Let it out that we have Society friends inside waiting to help us."

"Your point being?"

"Maybe they'll bite. Maybe they'll bribe us to go away. But once we have everyone together we'll move back to Castreresone."

Duke Tormond did not surrender. Did not offer to accept terms, despite Khaurene's suffering. The Captain-General was not surprised. Even the hotheads over there should see that their best course would be Duke Tormond's traditional strategy. Just sit and wait.

The Patriarchal army had exceeded the easy reach of its logistical support, in country desolated by fighting, in the midst of the worst winter the Connec had ever known. It lacked the backing of a distant, obsessed Patriarch. Its commanders were not driven by fanaticism, which was not lost on the snoops and note takers of the Society.

Khaurene had only one worry. Treachery.

Plots failed regularly. The plotters were, usually, outsiders who had entered Khaurene to escape the Patriarchals. So they claimed.

The Captain-General faded quietly, taking valuables but doing no great damage to homes or fortresses or public works.

Madouc asked, "You want something to happen to that asshole?"

He meant a Society bishop who had just left, after raging at the Captain-General for not furthering the Society's agenda.

"Not at all. I just turned it all over to him. He can do whatever he wants, any way he wants, now. I won't interfere."

"You figure he'll get shit on. Right?"

"The Connectens are a patient, long-suffering people. But they've passed the point where they'll tolerate him and his kind."

"Good. Those crows need a lesson in humiliation."

"You had a reason for seeing me?"

"I need to put more men around you and keep them closer."

"Please! I've already got men unlacing my trousers for me when I need to use the latrine. Why?"

"The last courier brought a letter from your uncle. He told me to be especially vigilant for the next two months. There will be a serious effort to destroy you."

"My uncle?"

"The author said. Lord Silent? Or is someone playing tricks?"

"Possibly. I'm never sure how to take him. He's actually more like a great-grand-uncle. If he says be more although, we have to pay attention. Like it or not."

"I didn't know you had any family, sir." A hint of suspicion, there.

"I don't. In a blood sense. Lord Silent is a distant, secretive relative of Principatè Delari. He's part of that family's adoption of me."

"One must confess a certain curiosity about that."

"One must, mustn't one? I don't get it, myself. I think somebody saw something in a chicken's entrails."

Hecht had just sunk into sleep, in his down bed in the keep of the Counts of Castreresone, first night back. Titus Consent burst in, accompanied by four of Madouc's lifeguards.

"What the hell? It can't wait till morning?"

"I don't think. The populace may have heard by then. It could cause trouble."

"All right. Let's have it."

"We have a new Patriarch. Pacificus Sublime."

"Huh?"

"I don't know why he chose that reign name. He used to be the Fiducian, Joceran Cuito."

"A front-runner before Sublime died but not a name we've heard much since. What happened?"

"King Peter showed up. And spread a lot of money around."

"The Five Families are fit to be tied, I'm sure."

"I don't know about that. There wasn't much more to the message. But this could mean trouble here. Castreresone belongs to King Peter."

Hecht avoided the obvious counterargument. "Put patrols out. Tell them not to start anything but to be ruthless if they're provoked."

"Letting that word out should do wonders." Hecht treated everyone fairly, by his lights. But he was not merciful toward those who defied him. The Castreresonese would understand. "Can I get some sleep, now?"

There was a definite change in the White City. Anticipation filled the air. Positively, not as a premonition or foreboding. The Castreresonese were willing to bide their time.

The officially sealed message wallet from the Patriarch arrived nine days later. His staff assembled while he reviewed the messages. "Nothing unexpected here. A formal announcement that the Connecten Crusade is over. A list of Connectens who are being restored to the bosom of the Church. Including Duke Tormond and Count Raymone Garete. The siege of Antieux is to be abandoned. Castreresone should be turned over to agents of its rightful master, who are on their way. We are to withdraw down the Laur and assemble at Sheavenalle for transport."

Redfearn Bechter said, "That makes no sense. Why wouldn't he just tell us we're fired? Just leave us where we are?"

"We aren't fired. Obviously. Maybe we're needed in Brothe. People there won't be happy having a Direcian Patriarch. It would be Ornis of Cedelete all over again."

There was more to the letters but little of immediate import. Hecht told the staff to make ready for movement. To finish getting ready. The order to abandon Castreresone was no surprise.

Titus Consent was last to leave. He observed, "Have you noticed who the big winner was in this crusade?"

"Navaya? King Peter?"

"Exactly. At small cost he's become the power in the Connec. He's been using his gains in the last crusade to take over Artecipea. Now he owns the Patriarchy. He's letting other people build him an empire."

"Clever."

Inasmuch as there had been no Patriarchal instruction otherwise, Hecht left a garrison in Castreresone's keep. They would guarantee access if he decided to come back. They would keep order. They received instructions not to resist Duke Tormond or Queen Isabeth.

Buhle Smolens prepared quarters. Despite losses, desertions, and the absence of the City Regiment the army numbered more than ten thousand. There were no forty-day men attached, either. The last of those had gone before the weather turned really ghastly. Hecht had won outside Khaurene with a third of the numbers he had had when crossing the Dechear, westbound.

Hecht assembled his senior officers and staffers.

"I wanted to thank everyone. We did well. Probably too well. The new people are afraid of us. Which leaves me suspicious of their gathering us here. They're up to something."

Sedlakova stood. His handicap lent no strength to his argument as he made an impassioned appeal for men of faith to enter the Brotherhood of War.

Hecht stopped listening. The others all talked about what they might do with their lives, now. The Connecten Crusade was over. Nothing had been concluded. They were not distraught, though. That was not a new experience. Castles and cities fell. Death and misery walked the earth. Little changed in the broader picture.

He sank into a reverie about Anna Mozilla and the children. Thoughts of home had had a powerful impact on him these past few months. Never had he been drawn that way back when he was Else Tage.

He had developed new dimensions here in the west.

Everyone was distracted by concerns about tomorrow, forgetting that today still harbored dangers more deadly than the nuisance perils lately offered by the Night.

Hecht and some staff went to the harbor to watch the ships come in. Peter of Navaya's ships, mainly fat traders flying the banners of Platadura. A few lean triremes boasting Navayan colors larked around the flanks of the convoy. Hecht studied those ships and wished Pinkus Ghort was handy so they could brood over shared suspicions. He noted that several older, more weary-looking ships flew Sonsan standards and resembled vessels he had seen falling into ruin along the wharves of that city.

Shrieking birds wheeled and dove where the ships churned up the water. Though it was winter, the harbor reek was thick. The chill had reduced the insect population to a tolerable level.

Clej Sedlakova, seated on a cask, said, "Them tubs is riding high in the water. They must figure on really loading them down." Sedlakova was in a permanent foul temper lately. He was sure that, given just a few more weeks, maybe just a few more days, he could have reduced Antieux. Even absent Bronte Doneto and the City Regiment. People inside the city had begun to put out feelers, looking for rewards.

"Put Antieux behind you," Hecht told him. "We get paid the same sitting here as we do risking our behinds in the field."

Colonel Smolens said, "It isn't the risking that bothers me. It's the freezing and starving."

Sedlakova said, "Listen to that shit. What's he had going, this whole war? Hanging out in Viscesment. Then hanging out here. Check him out. He's gained fifteen pounds."

Smolens said, "I confess. The food is good. I'll miss it."

Hecht said, "You may not have to leave."

"What? What's this?"

"I haven't heard anything about us giving up Sheavenalle. If King Peter is running the new Patriarch, you can bet he won't give up control of a city this important. My guess is, they'll try to make it over into a free city, like Sonsa or Platadura. Allied to Navaya."

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Sounded like a giant bumblebee."

Twenty yards out on the mucky bay gulls dove to examine a small splash.

Madouc, always close by, still moving gingerly because of his wounds, said, "That was no bumblebee, sirs." Then he howled, flung back against Hecht, clawing at a crossbow bolt that had penetrated the left shoulder of his leather body armor.

Another bumblebee struck the cask that served Sedlakova as his throne. Sedlakova had vanished. Most everyone had. Madouc was down and trying to drag Hecht along.

Hecht refused to be dragged.

He headed for the source of the bolts. Not thinking, just reacting. With controlled anger. Grabbing half a broken oak stave abandoned by some dock walloper. The wood was old. Probably older than he was, Hecht thought, having one of those irrelevant thoughts that surface in times of stress, when everything seems to be happening in slowed motion.

People yelled behind him, telling him to get his dumb ass down.

Someone else yelled out front, right where the assassins ought to be. He jerked to the right. A bumblebee hummed on by, headed for the harbor.

He burst into a crowd of snipers. Two were desperately spanning crossbows. The third abandoned his weapon and took off. Which made no sense to Hecht.

He clubbed the first man he came to.

The second stopped wrestling his crossbow. He produced a short sword, then a dagger in his off hand.

Hecht drew his own blade. But kept the broken stave in his right hand.  

He hit the man who was down several times so he would not help his associate.

Help arrived. "There's one more, headed that way. Dressed the same." He dropped onto a small bale of cotton that must have been smuggled out of Dreanger. Distracted by irrelevant thoughts again, he stared at his broken stave, imagining it being used to lever cargo before its mishap.

Buhle Smolens settled beside him. "What the hell was that, Piper? You could've gotten killed. Which was probably the point of the exercise."

"I didn't think. I just acted."

"Those boys are Artecipeans. You notice?"

"I'm not surprised. But how can you tell?"

Smolens said a blind man could see it.

"I didn't grow up around here, Colonel. Everybody from around the Mother Sea looks pretty much the same to me."

Smolens shook his head in disbelief. "Let me talk to these guys. They'll get cooperative once they understand the alternative."

Hecht began to shiver but not because he was cold.

"That was a stupid thing to do."

The words were a whisper so soft no one else heard. Hecht glanced aside. And saw Cloven Februaren. No one else noted the old man. Who said, "Something to worry about. Could someone else do the things I do?"

For sure.

"You have to be more alert, Piper. Those who want to destroy you never sleep."

"I can't live that way."

'Then you won't live at all." Februaren turned sideways.

Titus Consent asked, "Who were you talking to?"

"I said I can't stand to live this way. With somebody always after me."

"I heard another voice."

"I don't think so."

Consent did not believe him. But did not contradict him. "You don't want to keep on like this, find out who's sending the assassins. Deal with him. Or her."

"I know who's doing it. I wish I knew why."

"Who?" As Hagan Brokke wearily plunked himself down on a nearby bale, Hecht wondered why the bales were so small. Because of how they were smuggled out of Dreanger? 

"Rudenes Schneidel. It's always been Rudenes Schneidel." He looked to Brokke. Brokke had not been there to watch the ships come in. Brokke was recovering from wounds suffered in the battle outside Khaurene, where his quick thinking had kept Queen Isabeth's Direcians from getting through the boggy ground to the unprepared troops on the Patriarchal left. "You feeling chipper enough to go back to work?"

"No. A courier boat brought some men in from the fleet. They want to see you."

"Some men?"

"A Principatè I don't know who speaks only Direcian and Church Brothen. Some functionaries from the Mother City. And a big wheel Direcian."

"And they want?"

"To talk to you."

"I figured that part out. What about?"

"They wouldn't say. They didn't seem very patient."

"Get your strength back. Then go tell them I'm tied up in another assassination attempt. As soon as I survive I'll hustle over there to see them. Where were we, Titus?"

"Rudenes Schneidel."

"Ah. So what have you found out about him, intelligence chief?"

"His name is Rudenes Schneidel. And he holes up in the High Athaphile, the mountains that form the spine of Artecipea. He has a castle up there. Arn Bedu. A legendary place on top of a mountain. He may be a pagan priest of some kind. His name comes up every time there's any serious talk about Weaver, Hilt, or any of those Instrumentalities trying to make a comeback."

"That's it?"

"Yes. He's a shadowy guy. And a scary one, according to his assassins."

Hecht's party had begun gathering before Hagan Brokke appeared. Madouc's men wanted to hurt some people. Hecht wished they would all go away so he could talk to Cloven Februaren. But he could not run them off. They would not go, now.

Buhle Smolens was last to rejoin. "I've made a few contacts here. I put out word that we're interested in Artecipeans. Dozens of them have shown up since Sublime died. And they have no friends here."

Hecht was not going to get a chance to talk to the old man in brown. "We came down to watch the ships come in. So let's watch the ships."

Everyone, of course, argued against taking the risk. And Titus Consent insisted on reminding him that there were important men who wanted to see him.

Colonel Smolens had established himself in the home of a wealthy Praman who had fled Sheavenalle ahead of the approaching Patriarchals. Hecht felt a mild melancholy nostalgia there. The place showed strong Praman architectural influences. Entering, he spun off orders for dealing with prisoners and wounded. His visitors from the fleet heard the hubbub and came outside.

Redfearn Bechter had collected every man Hecht had ever suspected of being Brotherhood. They were arrayed around the newcomers suggestively, only a few of whom understood that they were surrounded.

Hecht read it fast.

These people had arrived with an attitude problem. And had failed to make themselves beloved. Someone had said something unflattering about the Brotherhood of War.

The Brotherhood did not care if you were a king. They were a kingdom unto themselves.

Hecht had seen only one of the newcomers before. He was a Witchfinder who knew his way around the Brothen catacombs. He was extremely uncomfortable right now.

The Principatè, too, understood and was thoroughly unhappy, but mainly because he was not in control.

The ingredients were there for a nasty pissing contest.

Hecht was tempted. He had reason. But the long game compelled him to be amenable. "Sergeant Bechter. Have these gentlemen been made comfortable?" He told the outsiders, "We're in a difficult situation, here. But we can protect you if you don't wander around. We've swept up a lot of villains since they tried to kill me this afternoon."

Hustle was the critical tool, here. Moving the outsiders around fast. Implying that a swift response, if not thoroughly effective, was better than any alternative.

Hecht asked, "What did you gentlemen want to bring to my attention, now that we're safe?"

Hecht kept moving, maneuvering the outsiders into the sprawling ground-floor space he had chosen for his center of operations in Sheavenalle.

He settled into a heavy oak chair. "Gentlemen. Again? You hurried in here, ahead of the fleet. You must have something you want to discuss before God's enemies find out that you're here."

The Witchfinder seemed ever more uncomfortable. He searched his surroundings constantly. Cloven Februaren? Sobering thought. "Well?"

The Principatè took control. "I am Hernando Ernesto Ribiero de Herve, Patriarchal legate assigned to bring peace to the End of Connec. Too, I've been directed to crush paganism on Artecipea. Pacificus Sublime believes Rudenes Schneidel and his revenant Instrumentalities are a greater threat than the pacifist, dualist Connecten heretics."

Hecht exchanged glances with his staff. De Herve noticed. "I see you agree."

"I never understood why Sublime was so adamant about exterminating them."

"Did you ask?"

"I did. I got a rambling answer that made no sense. But I'm not paid to ask questions. I'm paid to get things done." The Witchfinder made a startled squeak and spun. Everyone stared. He said, "Must have been a flea." But he did not believe that.

"Knock it off, old man," Hecht said.

Now everyone stared at him, the Witchfinder with abiding suspicion.

De Herve said, "Pacificus Sublime wants the crusade shifted to Artecipea."

"Which explains the fleet."

"Yes."

"You can't manage Artecipea with the troops you have there now?"

The Principatè managed to appear baffled.

"King Peter has put several thousand soldiers in there. Sonsa is involved, too. And wasn't there a significant victory not long ago?"

"Each victory makes it more difficult to manage the survivors."

The Witchfinder said, "We're convinced that the chaos in the Connec has Artecipean influence behind it. That it was meant to be a diversion from what's going on over there. What we found in Calzir, especially at al-Khazen, has led some of us to believe there's a greater threat than Praman ambition. We first encountered the name Rudenes Schneidel there. We think that Schneidel developed his dread of the Captain-General after seeing what happened there. For some reason, the Night has decided that Piper Hecht is a walking, talking doom destined to destroy it. Unless he's destroyed first."

"What?"

De Herve nodded agreement. "Brother Jokai puts it plainly. All who commune with the Night know the Instrumentalities fear you irrationally and excessively."

Hecht felt a chill. Those who communed with the Night might learn more about the Godslayer than he wanted known. "I don't understand."

Jokai said, "You don't have to, Captain-General. None of us do. We accept what is and deal with that reality."

A man from the Special Office of the Brotherhood of War talking about accepting the Night as it really was?

De Herve said, "That's neither here nor there. The Patriarch wants to know if you'll stay on if the crusade shifts to Artecipea, Rudenes Schneidel, and his corpse birds, these Asparas of Seska."

That startled Hecht. Asparas were Sky Dancers. Minions of Kharoulke the Windwalker. Seska, the Endless, was an Instrumentality of the same ancient age and dark dominion, but from the pantheon that had preceded all other pantheons in Dreanger. "Seska? Asparas I understand. For the Windwalker they were like the ravens who brought rumors and whispers to Ordnan."

Jokai explained Seska. Great Old Gods must be his specialty. He concluded, "Seska is something like an older, darker Adversary. Some think Seska has survived into modern times, in reduced circumstance, hiding parts of himself in the devils of our age."

"All right," Hecht said. "I don't get it. But I don't have to. I'm a soldier. I get paid to get things done. Principatè, are we supposed to ship over to Artecipea right away?"

"Yes. Sorry. The campaign hasn't gone well, lately. The thinking…"

"Excuse me. Titus, see what that man wants."

The meeting would not be interrupted for trivialities.

Consent came back. "He didn't say how the information came. There's been some big sorcerous event in the catacombs in Brothe. Not as destructive as the one that destroyed the hippodrome, but Principatè Delari's house fell into a hole. The catacombs collapsed underneath it."

The temperature dropped suddenly and dramatically. Hecht's ears popped.

De Herve asked, "What just happened?"

Jokai said, "Something left us. I felt it before. Now I don't." He seemed more worried than ever.

Hecht asked, "Could that be connected with this?"

"What happened in Brothe?"

"Yes." Hecht watched closely. The Witchfinders were close to Bronte Doneto. Though Cloven Februaren claimed that Hecht and Principatè Delari had misinterpreted events in the catacombs badly. That those Witchfinders had not been in league with the monster Delari slew under the hippodrome. The animosity between Doneto and Delari was, however, real. And there had been congress between the Witchfinders
and Rudenes Schneidel, the latter unaware that he was dealing with the former. Schneidel thought he was manipulating ordinary Special Office sorts, his goal the destruction of the Godslayer. The Witchfinders wanted to worm deeply enough into Schneidel's scheme to get at the man trying to resurrect the horrors of antiquity. Hecht's walk-through in Sonsa, with Pinkus Ghort, had started all that unraveling.

The Ninth Unknown had reported all that in snippets during the Connecten campaign. He had discovered no real significance to Vali Dumaine, however. He could not even confirm old Bit's claims about the girl's origins.

"Probably. The Artecipeans have been active there. As you know."

"Yes."

"You seem particularly disturbed by this news."

"I've been close to Principatè Delari. He's been especially kind to me and mine." In truth, though, what troubled him was confirmation that Cloven Februaren could move from one place to another without setting foot to the ground between.

There was much to learn about his guardian angel.

Principatè de Herve asked, "How long will you need to get ready for transport?"

"I could start some units loading tomorrow. But our animals might be a problem."

De Herve said, "Transport won't be any trouble. These crews know how to move troops and animals, both. Loading in this port could become an adventure, though. Sea levels have dropped so far that only smaller vessels can warp in to the wharves and still have water under their keels at low tide if they're loaded. The pilot who brought us in said the dredges can't take any more mud off the bottom. Sheavenalle's senate
has talked about building new wharves farther out. But if the Mother Sea keeps getting shallower they'll have the same problem again in a few years."

"They should build floating wharves that can be pushed out as the shoreline moves." That seemed obvious enough.

"But they aren't there now. It's now that we need to load."

Hecht made himself unpopular by talking about loadmasters and cargo other than human. His force came with an immense amount of duffel, weaponry, equipment, and animals. A lot of technical, dull business stuff had to be managed so the men with sharp steel could show up where they were needed, with tents to sleep in, food to eat, and horses to ride.

His lifeguards and the Brothers were relaxed, now. They no longer expected a head-butting contest.

Once he had bored the newcomers cross-eyed witty workaday details of army management, Hecht said, "Colonel Smolens, assemble the officers. Explain what we've been asked to do. Be clear. I want them to poll the troops. Find out how many will stick with us." There had been a lot of talk about seeing Brothe again, at all levels.

Smolens said, "I don't think many will drop out."

"We need hard numbers. We have ships to load. We have a new war to plan." In a land almost completely unknown.

The Captain-General was tired. He was seeing double. It was deep in the night. He was studying bad maps with men from the transport fleet, none of whom had been to Artecipea. They knew only that the new Patriarch wanted them to land on the west coast of Artecipea, near Homre, a fishing port on the north lobe of the island.

Artecipea consisted of two distinct land masses joined by an isthmus at one point only slightly more than a mile wide. The northern mass was a third the size of the southern. The northern people spoke a language not unintelligible to the folk of the End of Connec. Those from the south could make themselves understood to outsiders only with difficulty. According to Principatè de Herve Artecipea strongly preferred the Seska revivalists, other pagans, Pramans, and several varieties of primitive Chaldareans, to the Brothen Episcopal Church. Brothen Episcopals controlled only a few port cities. God and the Church had a more solid grip up north, though the mountain peoples there were all pagans, too, and lately devoted to Rudenes Schneidel.

All the fighting, so far, had occurred on the southern lobe.

Pacificus Sublime wanted to land an army behind an enemy focused south and east. A powerful, veteran army commanded by a man who had scores to settle with Rudenes Schneidel.

Hecht understood the thinking. He could not find fault with it. He could not imagine Schneidel having anticipated what was about to happen.

A change of Patriarchs changed the world.

Titus Consent, scarcely able to keep his eyes open, brought news Hecht would have waited, willingly, years to hear. "It's a day for harsh news, boss," Titus said.

"Give it to me. I'm numb enough to take anything, now."

"King Charlve suffered a massive stroke and died. It looks legitimate. Anne of Menand was nowhere around when it happened. But she was ready to go. She got hold of the instruments of power before anyone could catch their breath. That's just in from Salpeno."

"What's it mean for us?"

"Not much. It may mean a lot for Arnhand and the Connec. Despite her loose behavior, Anne is very religious. And ambitious. The Connec, with its heretics, has already given her excuses to express the one through the other."

Hecht frowned. "Oh? Which is which?"

"Write it yourself. It doesn't matter."

"We're out of it now, though, aren't we?"

"We should be."

"Are you going home? Or are you coming with me?"

"I'm going to Artecipea. Reluctantly. I have a child I've never seen."

"Noë deserves sainthood. On a throne in Heaven right beside Anna."

"Anna is more used to being her own mistress."

"Do you wonder about the Night determining times of drastic change? About what forces might be in motion?"

"You just lost me, Captain-General."

"In an historically minuscule time span we've lost a powerful Grail Emperor, a driven Patriarch, and the sovereign of the most militantly religious Episcopal Chaldarean kingdom. All harbingers of dramatic change. Especially considering the advance of the ice."

Titus grunted indifferently. He was too tired to worry about it. "I'm going to bed. Court-martial me if you want. Execution is starting to smell sweet."

"So waste your life on sleep, weakling." Hecht settled into a chair, out of the way, and tried to relax, rest, and recuperate while he eavesdropped on his deputies and the men from the fleet.

Hecht's ears hurt suddenly, briefly. For one instant the air. seemed dense and oppressive. He did not care. He was too tired.

"False alarm," someone breathed into his ear. "Muniero is fine. Heris is fine. Anna and your children are fine. I've brought letters from all of them. There was some damage to the town house. Likewise, certain other properties. There is little likelihood of further problems. In the short run. Joceran Cuito has a new vision for the Church."

Piper Hecht pretended he heard the voices of distant ancestors, out of nowhere, all the time. "What will the new situation in Arnhand mean?" Hoping to catch the Ninth Unknown out He did not. "Misery for the End of Connec. In time. You'll be able to throw up your hands and say it wasn't your fault You were gone before the real wretchedness started."

Hecht had no idea what the ancient was babbling about. He did have brainpower enough to realize that his mutterings were attracting attention. Jokai, in particular. The Witchfinder had that constipated look again. Hecht said, "Gentlemen, I need to go lie down. I've started talking to myself." His staff could see what needed doing and could get on it without detailed instructions.

Hecht removed his boots before lying down. Nothing more. "I meant what I said about resting. There's nothing that needs talking about so desperately that it can't wait till I'm able to uncross my eyes."

"I brought letters."

"They'll be there in the morning. Go away." He closed his eyes. Briefly, he wondered how Februaren accomplished so much in so little time. Then his lifeguards were rousting him out. One told him that Madouc would survive his wound. Again. "The man needs to retire. You can't win, you keep throwing the bones with Death."

That got him some looks.

Despite obstacles and confusion, a dozen loaded ships warped out next day. To Hecht's surprise, most of the Patriarchal soldiers had chosen to stay. He blamed that on the harsh times.

Those who had become part of the army during its progress through the Connec were those most inclined to leave. Men with families did not want to leave them behind.

HECHT WAS ABOARD SHIP AND EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTable. He did not like travel by ship. And this ship in particular disturbed him.

Titus Consent joined him at the rail, in the waist of the vessel, where he stared back at Sheavenalle. "It's official, sir. The ships will have to make two trips. We're moving more people and animals and stuff than I would've thought possible."

"It's pretty impressive when you lump it all together." Hecht caught a glimpse of a man in brown trying to avoid notice on the crowded deck. That was good for a boost.

Consent asked, "Why the bleak look?"

"Ever been out on the Mother Sea?"

"No."

"You'll figure it out."

"When were you ever out?"

"When Ghort and I sneaked off to Sonsa." Sonsa? The wrongness about the ship hit him. He had been aboard her before, coming over from Staklirhod.

"What now?" Consent asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"I just remembered how awful it got when we hit bad weather. Pray there aren't any storms. Are there storms sea this time of year? Do you know?"

"No. Of course not."

Hecht caught a passing deckhand. "Are there storms out there this time of year? What's this ship's name?"

Head cocked, not quite sure about the Captain-General's sanity, the deckhand said, "Not so many storms this time of year, sir. In another month, month and a half, maybe. Her name is Vivia Infante, sir."

Consent asked, "Why does the name matter?"

"Where I come from people worry about the names of ships. Crewman, do we have a veteran crew? Men who have been aboard a long time?"

"Yes, sir. All experienced hands. We'll get you there safely, sir. I promise." He got away from the crazy man as fast as he could.

Consent said, "Sir, you'd better get hold of yourself. You're being watched. The men have never seen you show fear or a lack of confidence. Headed into a war with a sorcerer of the apparent stature of Rudenes Schneidel is no time to strain their faith."

"You're right. Of course. You always are." He had meant to mask his interest in the possibility that there might be someone aboard who could recall a down-on-his-luck, homeward-bound crusader named Sir Aelford daSkees. "But I can't help thinking about what's swimming around down there, waiting to eat me."

"It's good to see you have a human side, sir."

"Sarcasm duly noted, Lieutenant. In your intelligence capacity, find out why Sonsa is suddenly best pals with King Peter. They've been in a halfhearted war with Platadura for the last hundred years."

"That one's easy. Economics. Sonsa lost. They've joined the winners. It's their alternative to economic extinction."

Probably true, Hecht thought. But… was there still some hidden connection with the Brotherhood of War?

Good thing it was Pinkus Ghort and the City Regiment who occupied Sonsa. Otherwise, these sailors might see a chance to pay off a grudge.

THE CROSSING WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO TAKE LONG. A little voice in Hecht's ear promised him good weather all the way. He stayed out from underfoot and, when opportunity afforded, dipped into the letters from Anna and the kids. Over and over. Anna was stoically living the life of a woman whose man had a career that kept him away, a sort of benign, resigned, artificial widowhood. The children were living the excited lives of kids who had no wants and few fears. Pella's letter was, in the main, a vehicle for showing off his rapid grasp of learning. Hecht was impressed but thought Pella needed to improve his penmanship.

Vali's letter was brief and clearly a work of obligation. She was well. She hoped the war would be over soon so he could come home and make Anna smile more. Anna worried too much. There was a lot of rioting in the city, lately. She did not understand. She liked Lila, the girl he had sent.

And that was that. Except for the missive from Principatè Delari, which just told him to take care. To be prepared to undergo an intense educational experience once he returned to the Mother City.

Half of Hecht's staff was aboard Vivia Infante. Colonel Smolens had been left behind. Hecht hoped to keep him in Sheavenalle, in control, indefinitely, as a logistical root for the Patriarchal forces in Artecipea. Rather than having that support come out of Brothe, at the mercy of whatever political wind happened to be blowing there.

Staff work proceeded, as best it could with limited information. Hecht could not find anyone who had visited the area where he was expected to land. Some genius in Brothe had picked it off a map because it looked like a handy place to get behind the pagans. Brother Jokai—full name Jokai Svlada, from Creveldia—assured him that a Brotherhood team had crossed over from the Castella dollas Pontellas to explore the region. Quietly. They would be waiting for the fleet.

"That's good thinking."

"The Brotherhood has a lot of experience at these things."

"What are the chances they'd be spotted by the enemy and captured? I wouldn't want to show up and find an army waiting for me."

"They're good. They're used to operating inside Praman territory in the Holy, Lands. Those who don't learn how to do it don't live to try it again."

"I look forward to meeting these paragons."

Clej Sedlakova came round. "Stomach all right, boss? You don't seem as rattled as you were."

"I'm fine. Too busy obsessing about the deep trouble we could be in after we get there to worry about being seasick." Seasickness was troubling him not at all. Might Cloven Februaren be to blame?

He wished he could talk to the old man. But that could not happen. In his most private moments two lifeguards were within touching distance. Always. Even now. To them every Sonsan crewman was a potential assassin.

None of those men recognized Hecht. He wore his hair shorter now, affected a small goatee beard, and dressed like a Brothen noble. He bore no resemblance to the ragged, hirsute Sir Aelford daSkees. He did recognize several deckhands. None paid any attention to him.

Hecht consulted Drago Prosek often. Just three falcons remained functional. He wanted them instantly available for any confrontation with a major Instrumentality. He was sure something would come from the deeps to attack the fleet. There were old thalassic Instrumentalities uglier than any revenants stirring ashore.

A little voice told him he was wasting his worry. This enemy had no traffic with gods of the sea, nor with any lesser Night thing living on or under the water. Hecht refused to be reassured.

The first day the fleet followed the Connecten coast eastward, barely making headway. It was ninety miles from Sheavenalle to the mouth of the Dechear River. The fleet reached that around noon the second day. It hugged the coast thirty miles more, then turned directly south. The sailors expected to spy Artecipea before sundown the third day. Winds permitting. They would then follow Artecipea's western coast to the landing site.

Piper Hecht experienced it as a far longer journey ihan the actuality. The first day was intense, the second more relaxed. There was nothing to do but talk. He pulled rank and forced himself on the ship's master. He wanted charts showing the land he had to invade.

Horatius Andrade was cooperative. So much so that Hecht became suspicious. But he trusted almost no one lately, Consent reminded him.

The charts were reliable, Andrade insisted, but concentrated on the waters off Artecipea, noting only those land features useful as navigational aids. Hecht asked, "Have you been this way before? Have you seen these coasts?"

"A long time ago. On another ship. It's never been a friendly coast."

"You know Homre?"

"Only by repute. It's a glorified fishing village at the mouth of the Sarlea River. I haven't been past in over twenty years. Sea levels have dropped. But even then we couldn't have brought any of these ships into that harbor."

"Are there beaches we can use?"

"Not there. Farther south. Do I know you? Your voice sounds familiar. Have you been aboard Vivia Infante before?"

"No. But I did sneak through Sonsa on a secret mission last year. Caused a big stir around a sporting house with galleons in the name."

"Maybe. Strange. I remember voices better than faces."

"I used to not have the beard and wore my hair in the Brotherhood style. Thanks for your help. I don't think we'll land at Homre."

Clej Sedlakova joined Hecht late the second afternoon, after what little information anyone had about Artecipea had been talked to death. "Sir, I don't know how, why, when, where, any of those damn things, but when I dipped into my locker to dig out something for supper, I found these under my stuff. Sergeant Bechter says he thinks we have a guardian Instrumentality."

Vivia Infante had scores of lockers on her main deck, in places out of the way, there so travelers could stow their possessions.

"An interesting find, Colonel. An interesting find indeed. And so conveniently timed."

"Maybe Bechter is right. Maybe not all the Instrumentalities are our enemies."

"That occurred to me, too. Let's hope it's true." Sedlakova had discovered copies of several ancient maps. The commentary on them was in Old Brothen. Not the Church version, either. They showed Artecipea as two islands. In modern times an isthmus joined them. Titus Consent said, "Sea levels have really dropped since classical times. Which means the changes in the world have been going on for a long time."

The Unknowns had been following the process for centuries.

There were too many secret things going on. And too many perfectly banal, openmouthed evils driven by ambition or fanaticism distracting everyone from the creeping apocalypse.

Hecht saw no man in brown that day. Februaren must have polished his turn sideways trick. Neither Jokai Svlada nor Redfearn Bechter was particularly uneasy, either, so it might be that the old man was no longer aboard.

The Ninth Unknown had skills more frightening than those boasted by er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen. And the man was his ancestor? How deep did this madness run? What had he stumbled into?

"Who are you talking to?" Consent asked.

"Huh?"

"You're muttering. You do that a lot these days. How come?"

Hecht told the truth. 'Trying to get advice from my grandfather's grandfather." Titus would not believe him.

"All right. That might be useful."

"Tell the captain I want to talk. We're definitely going on down the coast." Would the Direcian Principatè accept that? How would he get word to the other ships?

The sailors were more clever than Hecht expected. They used signals and fast boats to communicate between ships. They had done this before.

The Principatè did not object. He asked Hecht to explain his thinking. The Captain-General did so. Ships forced to lighter cargo ashore needed beaches more congenial than the dangerous, rocky coast around Homre, where sea levels had dropped a dozen feet since Andrade's most recent charts had been drawn. The boats would be too easily broken up in the pounding surf.

Landfall came the third day, just after noon. Soon pillars of smoke arose inland. Hecht said, "They were watching for us. So much for surprising them."

Brother Jokai observed, "Surprise shouldn't be necessary. There can't be two hundred thousand people on all Artecipea. A lot live in the cities and are good Brothen Episcopals."

"Or Deves, or Pramans, or Dainshaus, from what I hear. But I also hear that Rudenes Schneidel has found a lot of followers back in the mountains."

Another reason Hecht had moved the landing. The northern lobe of Artecipea featured an almost complete circle of mountains forming a vast natural fortress. Someone seemed to have thought he should fight through that and dispose of the Unbelievers there. Hecht saw no point. The soul and center of the problem lay inside Arn Bedu, in the western mountains of the larger southern lobe.

"Why are they fighting?" Hecht asked. "Any of them?"

"To restore Seska," the Witchfinder said, shuddering. "To resurrect one of the darkest, oldest Instrumentalities."

"I get that. But, why? The pagans in the mountains, maybe they've fallen under the spell of a glib talker. But what's in it for Rudenes Schneidel? What is he promising them? What does he get for opening the way?"

Jokai cocked his head, considered the coast. "Immortality? Power? The things that turn up in all the stories about wicked sorcerers? Ascension? That sort of went out of fashion after Chaldareanism and al-Prama began promising an eternal afterlife."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"In ancient times a clever, powerful man, unencumbered by any concern for his fellows, could ascend to Instrumentality status. Could become a god. Which explains those old Dreangerean gods with the heads of animals and bodies of men. They started out as real priests who elevated themselves by preying on the rest of Dreanger. Facilitating their own ascension through alliances with older Instrumentalities. Seska was a particular favorite."

"Is that what Rudenes Schneidel is up to?"

"I think so. The Special Office thinks so. We've had no luck convincing anyone else. This expedition isn't about that. This is Pacificus Sublime paying off King Peter for making him Patriarch. Peter wants Artecipea for its location and resources. And because it will make him lord of more lands than any Chaldarean but the two emperors."

"Things to think about."

The fleet raised Homre late in the afternoon. Too late to land. The shoreline was inhospitable. The bottom was muddy and not far down. The vessels closed up and anchored. The charts showed the mouth of a small river, the Sarlea, which was not obvious to the eye. There was none of the brown outflow common at the mouths of major rivers.

Brother Jokai went ashore to find his Brotherhood compatriots. He returned with six lean, hard men within hours. Only one was injured.

Jokai said, "You're right to move the landing site. There are thousands of pagans in the hills up there. They mean to swoop down while we're landing tomorrow."

"Ah. So not only did they know we were coming, they knew where we were supposed to come ashore."

Jokai's ripe henchmen nodded. They did most of their communicating by gesture. Their mouths were busy eatin.

"Interesting. You have to ask yourself how they managed that."

"Their great sorcerer leader can spy on people from afar."

Hecht thought Rudenes Schneidel had agents spying for him.

Jokai continued. "They tell me the sorcerer is desperate and frightened. He believes that Piper Hecht is the only thing that can thwart his ambitions. He believes that powers greater than you are using you to block every effort he makes to relieve himself of your threat."

"Good to hear. Though every time I turn around, here comes another Artecipean assassin."

One of the recon brothers paused long enough to say, That's how come the sorcerer thinks you got allies inside the Night. Clever things never get near you. Clumsy assassins do. Schneidel's followers were convinced that some great, grim sea Instrumentality would devour you during your crossing. It didn't happen. Nothing even tried. Now they're all terrified that you might be a revenant yourself. Maybe one of the old war gods who infested the lands around the Mother Sea in pagan times."

Hecht shook his head. "We've stumbled into a superstitious age, haven't we?"

Jokai and the recon brothers eyed him narrowly, themselves not entirely sure that he was not more than just a man.

Hecht said, "It's dark enough. Time to move on."

Men began making a racket all through the fleet, singing to mask the sounds of capstans hoisting anchors. Carefully, showing stern lights that could not be seen from ashore, ships drifted southward.

Silence returned. Though silence was never complete where wind moaned through rigging and timbers creaked as a vessel rose and fell upon the seas. Hecht rejoined Jokai. "On a completely different tack, do you know anything about people called the Unknowns?"

"Librarians for the Collegium, I think. I've heard that they keep a big map of the Chaldarean world. Why?"

"I'm not sure. I heard some talk when I was working at the Chiaro Palace. Principatè Delari had a connection with someone he called the Eleventh Unknown. I'm not sure why that got to nagging me right now. I never thought much about it before."

"A long time ago, the Special Office thought the Unknowns were an unholy cabal inside the Chiaro Palace. I suppose they found out differently. This is the first I've heard them mentioned since I was a student."

It was a tense sea passage, that night. The move was supposed to deceive people ashore. Would it?

Hecht slept only fitfully.

Dawn came. The right number of mastheads were visible. None had gone missing. Andrade guessed they had moved them thirty miles down the coast.

Signal smokes rose ashore. Hecht thought they seemed panicky.

He was thirty miles from where he was supposed to be. The rising breeze would push him along faster than his enemies could run.

Unloading began shortly after noon. Only a handful of men were ashore when friendly locals pointed out that just a mile back north the ships could move closer inshore and dramatically shorten the landing process. These people were Brothen Chaldareans. They had been persecuted lately. The arrival of the fleet had deluded them into believing that the Patriarch wanted to rescue them.

The Captain-General went ashore as soon as his lifeguards permitted. Earth underfoot, he sighed, said, "This is pure chaos. There must be a better way. If there was anyone here to resist us we'd be getting slaughtered." He spoke to no one in particular, though Redfearn Bechter, Drago Prosek, Titus Consent, and Jokai Svlada were all close by. 'Titus, talk to these people. Get a feel for the ground. Hire some guides. I expect to have to fight off a major attack. Will we need to include the Night amongst the enemies we expect? Keep Prosek in the know."

By nightfall the ships were headed back to Sheavenalle. A solid camp had been established, in the Old Empire fashion. It had a timber wall with a ditch at its foot. Scouts with local guides crawled all over the surrounding countryside.

Two miles up the coast, on the south bank of a creek the locals called a river, was a fishing village cleverly named Porto. It had been called something else in Imperial times and had been bigger then, anchoring the north end of trade across the narrow strait that had existed at that time. The villagers were proud of their history, religion, and dialect, which resembled Old Brothen more closely than did modern Firaldian. They had suffered numerous turns for the bad since the fall of the Empire, as Artecipea passed through the hands of frequent conquerors. With, always, the hinterlands' pagan storm just over the horizon.

Piper Hecht spent his first night on Artecipea as a guest of the leading men of Porto. They insisted that he was a deliverer. He wasted no time disagreeing.

The people of Porto delivered intelligence enough to show Hecht what he must do to withstand the approaching pagan storm. In numbers that astonished everyone. Somehow, Rudenes Schneidel had gathered almost eight thousand men to throw the Patriarchals back into the Mother Sea.

The local chieftain's son, going by the unlikely name Pabo Bogo, told Hecht, "You destroy this bunch, you've won your whole war, Lord. There can't be many more down south. They say the Sonsans and Platadurans and King Peter's soldiers have cleared two-thirds of the High Athaphile. Only the evil sorcerer's witchcraft keeps them from complete success."

"I'll do what I can." Hecht hoped to use the lay of the land to get the better of an imbalance in numbers.

The transports were gone. Two Plataduran warships anchored close inshore, to be artillery platforms.

The first pagans arrived in the afternoon. They were a wild and ragged lot, reminding Hecht of Grolsacher refugees seen in the Connec. They were overheated from their rush south, and were tired, thirsty, and hungry. Hecht had positioned his visible force with the afternoon sun behind them. The pagans saw only a few men between themselves and the food and water inside the Patriarchal camp.

More and more pagans arrived, as families, clans, and tribes instead of as an army. Some tried rushing in to throw javelins. They met missiles from crossbowmen and archers. The crossbowmen, though few, were very good at what they did.

More pagans piled up. They made a disorganized charge. They suffered scores of casualties and enjoyed no success whatsoever. Even so, they tried again a quarter hour later.

Hecht watched in disbelief from inside the camp, atop a low tower infested by lifeguards. The pagans seemed compelled to do things his way.

"Looks like their big chiefs are arriving, Captain-General." The speaker pointed. A mob including standards and banners had appeared. Followed by a vast mass of pagan humanity. That settled down briefly after some horns blared. When the horns sounded again the pagans all roared and charged as though determined to see who could be first to die. Their sheer weight almost broke the Patriarchal line. Hecht muttered, "I didn't leave enough men out there." He had not anticipated such numbers, so soon.

His modest heavy cavalry force, hidden in some woods to the enemy right, saw the danger. They charged. The warships discharged their ballistae, an effect expected to be more psychological than actual.

The heavy cavalry were supposed to smash through, break free, then wheel for another charge. They lost their momentum instead. The pagans were too densely gathered.

Hecht's best infantry had hidden in ravines behind the heavy cavalry. They came out, in order, as the line protecting the camp did start to give.

Hecht ordered his infantry reserve out. He told his lifeguards, "The fools think they're winning. They don't see how badly they've been trapped. I'm being sarcastic!" he snapped at one puzzled bodyguard.

It looked like even the reserves would not suffice. Pagans kept arriving and rushing into the melee. But the later they showed, the more exhausted they were already.

An hour after the fighting began the pace of the struggle slowed. Hecht's fighters were tired, now, too.

The last of the Patriarchal infantry left cover south of the fighting, double-timing into blocking positions across the enemy's escape route. They went unnoticed till they set on a band of very late arrivals.

The pagan chieftains panicked. Not unexpectedly. Tribesmen were fierce, sturdy fighters individually but lacked team discipline. They did not train to fight as an army.

Hecht signaled light cavalry waiting inside the camp. The pursuit phase was about to begin.

Hecht left the tower. He had no desire to watch the slaughter.

More disaster awaited the pagans if they chose to flee to southern Artecipea. More Patriarchals awaited them where the land narrowed into that tiny, low isthmus.

"A FEW GOT AWAY," CLEJ SEDLAKOVA SAID. HE HAD GOTten into the fight briefly, with the light cavalry, tied into a saddle. "They always do."

"Let's hope we took the fight out of them for this lifetime." The men had counted near five thousand dead. They were still finding bodies.

The chieftain of Porto was aghast at the magnitude. "It's going to be a hard winter in the mountains."

"It'll be a hard rest of their lives with so many hands not there to do the work anymore," Hecht said. "It's bound to be a better world once we get this Schneidel beast. I'm going to walk through the camp and talk to the men."

A lifeguard said, "That wouldn't be wise, sir. If there's a counterattack, there'd be no better time than tonight, when the men are worn out. You should stay here, with the falcons around you." He was worried about the Night.

"I'm going walking through the camp." He needed to burn off nervous energy.

"As you wish, sir." With great unhappiness.

"Yes."

Hecht visited the hospital tents first. The army's few surgeons were hard at work. So were any veterans who could manage minor field surgery. Hecht found everyone cheerful. Some of the wounded seemed grateful as puppies that he had come to visit.

"What are these men doing here?" He meant men from Porto who were being treated, but by gesture expanded the question to include a dozen pagan captives. Why waste resources on men who had been trying to kill him only hours before?

"The locals got hurt helping hunt down fugitives. The pagans are supposedly men of standing. They say they might be willing to change sides."

Hecht's inclination was to have them killed. But if northern Artecipea could be pacified… That would be useful. "Good for now. If they show willing, and aren't lying, we'll work something out. Has anyone seen the Principatè? I can't find him."

"The Direcian?" Redfearn Bechter asked.

"Preferably. If we have another one underfoot, he'd do."

"Principatè de Herve left with the fleet."

"He did, did he?"

"I assumed you knew."

"And the Witchfinder? Svlada? What about him?"

"Here, Captain-General," Svlada said from the far side of the tent. "Sewing men back together."

"Good. Tell me. Why did de Herve run away?"

"I don't know. Maybe he thought his work was done."

That matched Hecht's suspicions.

Minutes later he reached the area where the animals were tended. He heard a familiar voice. "Bo? That you?"

Biogna jumped as though ambushed by a ghost. "Oh! Sir." He looked at the bodyguards. "You startled me."

"What're you doing out here?"

"Helping Joe. This's when he needs a friend. It breaks him up when the animals get hurt."

"It bothers me, too." Beyond Bo Biogna's small fire Hecht saw Pig Iron, Just Plain Joe's signature mule. Strictly speaking, Joe had broken the rules by bringing the mule to Artecipea. Pig Iron did no work.

"Pipe." Just Plain Joe came into the light. He carried a big copper bowl full of surgical instruments and bloody water.

"Joe. How bad was it?"

"I'm only glad you're not a cavalry type. We haven't had to put too many of them down. But even one is cause for tears."

Hecht felt the sorrow rolling off Just Plain Joe, potent enough to make his own eyes water. He rested a hand on Joe's shoulder while the man cleaned his instruments. Items he had less business having than he did Pig Iron. There would be complaints. The Captain-General would ignore them when they came. "You keep on, Joe. You're the truest man I've got." He left the man to his calling.

Nowhere did Hecht find cause for complaint. The work of recovery was under way everywhere.

He climbed his observation tower, considered the moonless night. To seaward the stars shed just enough light to give hints of breakers rolling in. Elsewhere, torches floated through the woods like will-o-the-wisps. A mortal shriek explained that. Chaldareans from Porto were sending their pagan countrymen to their rewards in order to grab loot not worth whatever they called their fractional copper here.

Fires burned in Porto. Were they celebrating?

He stared at the town. Something had come to mind during the fighting, a question he wanted to ask those people, but he could not now, for the life of him, remember what it was.

Another squeal from the woods sapped the last of his energy. Exhaustion hit like a boulder falling. "All right, men. I'm over it. I can sleep, now."

One of the falcons barked. Just once. "Must be a false alarm."

But one side of his shelter was smoldering when he arrived. Kait Rhuk looked him in the eye and made a dramatic showing of letting a little egg thing clunk into a small iron box. One of a dozen such that Drago Prosek had acquired in Sheavenalle.

Nobody said a word. Everybody looked at Hecht.

"I get the point. Everybody. Good night."

He refused to let the lifeguards inside.

His dreams were terrible.

Someone shook Hecht's shoulder. "Wake up, boy."

Hecht surged up, not quite aware that he was not in the grasp of the thing that had stalked him through his nightmare. He did not rise too high. The Ninth Unknown possessed surprising strength.

"Calm yourself."

Hecht did so. With an effort. "I was having a bad dream."

"Probably not. They know what happened. They're hunting you. They can't find you because of the amulet. And the ring. The thing they sent forgets what it's supposed to do when it gets close."

"They?"

"Rudenes Schneidel. And the thing he's trying to resurrect. Seska."

"Through my dreams?"

"They can't get to you in the wakening world, day or night."

"Then I should stay awake?"

"No. You're safe. I won't be far off. Trust the amulet, the ring, and me. And your lifeguards. You'll be all right. Your suspicions are on the mark, by the way."

"Which suspicions?"

"About you and your army being sent here mainly to keep you from intervening in Firaldia."

One candle burned inside the shelter. It was all the light and heat the Captain-General enjoyed. "I suspected that?"

"Or the like. The Patriarch expects you to be chasing Rudenes Schneidel for years. He doesn't know about me. He doesn't plan to bring you out of Artecipea once you do bring Schneidel down. Though King Peter might salvage you."

"He would? Why?"

"While we were preoccupied in the Connec, and while Brothe was getting a new Patriarch, al-Halambra gained a new Kaif. Not a Direcian Praman, this time, but an old-fashioned, hard-core Believer from beyond the Gebr al Thar. Something Sabuta Something al-Margrebi. Who's preaching a holy war to recover the lost provinces in Direcia. And more. Thousands of warriors have crossed the Gebr al Thar already. The news is spreading on our side of the Mother Sea. Pacificus will have to preach a real crusade, if he doesn't want Peter overrun."

"A big war in Direcia should show us just how grand a champion King Peter really is."

"And how strong his hold on his Praman allies is."

"And my part would be?"

"No part. You'll be here, trying to exterminate Rudenes Schneidel. But if things go bad for King Peter you can expect to see Direcia before long."

"I have family in Brothe. My men have families."

"Next time you see the Patriarch ask him how much he cares."

"Should I ask what his problem with us is?"

"You have the power to make kings. You have a large force of skilled, experienced soldiers who are loyal to you. He judges you by what he would do if he had what you have. It's a common weakness."

"What's your advice?"

"Send people to Brothe to see what's what. There are plenty of local boats. Finish Schneidel fast. Then cross over to the mainland yourself. You'll be safe. Pinkus Ghort still runs the City Regiment. Which has gotten a renewed lease on life and a fattened budget since a foreigner managed to become Patriarch. You'll have Muno and me behind you, too."

"Sounds good. You think Rudenes Schneidel might turn up tomorrow morning, ready to give up?"

"No. You'll have to lead these men into the High Athaphile and root him out of Arn Bedu. Which should be easier than it sounds. I'll be along."

"You. Yes. I've seriously begun to wonder. What are you, really, great-great-grandfather?'

"That. And the Ninth Unknown. Go back to sleep."

Hecht had an angry question but sleep snatched him quick as a shark's strike.

The dreamstalker did not get close again.

The pagans learned, first disaster. No more confrontations. Their guerrilla efforts were ineffectual, however. The Patriarchals had learned the cure while in the End of Connec. Any village or fastness that caused trouble ceased to exist. Villages and fastnesses that did not resist suffered nothing more than disarmament. In each such Hecht made it known that his sole target was the sorcerer Rudenes Schneidel.

The Captain-General's advance into the High Athaphile was inexorable. And grew stronger with the arrival of the rest of his troops from Sheavenalle.

Resistance faded. Schneiders rebellion—if that was what it could be called—collapsed. Eighteen days after he landed near Porto Piper Hecht stood on a mountainside looking up at the sorcerer's final stronghold, Arn Bedu. The Mother Sea was an amazing blue expanse behind him, stretching away forever. Looking east, he could just make out Pramans serving King Peter making camp at the far foot of the mountain. His successes had eased their difficulties dramatically.

"What's so amusing?" Redfearn Bechter asked.

"Look. Good Pramans out there. Men we fought not that long ago. And good Chaldareans here. All of us about to get together to go up there and exterminate that pagan who got all uppity."

"I don't see the joke. But I'm told I have no sense of humor."

"You won't get an argument from me. How about you let Brother Jokai know I'd be ever so appreciative if his scouts took a real good look at this mountain. Tell him they should be careful. Not just because of the pagans but because King Peter's troops will be scouting, too. Hell, we need to get together with them and coordinate. Work it out so they can get most of the glory by doing most of the dying."

"You're a cynical bastard. Sir." That was Clej Sedlakova.

"I am. I'm thinking, based on what we've seen in the towns and villages, that nothing up there will be worth plundering. So why not let somebody else get busted up getting there first to claim it?"

"Somebody heading this way from yonder camp," Bechter said.

Sedlakova observed, "Looks like Colonel Smolens is about to catch up, too," indicating people climbing the mountain from the west. Smolens had been evicted from Sheavenalle by Principatè de Herve.

Smolens arrived first. "Sorry I couldn't stand up to the Principatè, boss. I just didn't have the horses." He found himself a place to lie down. He surrendered to exhaustion instantly. Madouc was part of Smolens's party. He collapsed just feet from the Colonel. Hagan Brokke still labored up the slope with other invalids also expelled from Sheavenalle.

There would be regrets, someday.

The allied party halted, awaited a response. Hecht looked around for a flash of brown. He did not find it. "Prosek. One falcon team with me. Plus four lifeguards. And Brother Jokai."

Jokai started to protest. Hecht told him, "We're supposed to cooperate with them. For now. You're no good at disguising yourself. So it won't hurt to show you off. Let them know how serious we are. We need horses. Somebody. We can't meet them on foot. It wouldn't look right."

Moving at last. Two lifeguards out front. Two back behind Drago Prosek, Kait Rhuk, and another two falconeers. Jokai Svlada beside Hecht. Hecht wishing that Titus Consent were there instead of having sneaked into Brothe. Jokai asked, "Is us bringing the smaller party a statement?"

"No. I wanted to come alone. But the lifeguards would have revolted."

"You feel safe? You don't know these people?"

"I'm safe. As long as the man on top of the mountain is still up there."

"The wind's got a bite to it around here."

True. There was snow on the slope where shade lay most of the day. Local guides said snow was new this winter.

The other party resumed moving toward a grassy shelf not far away. Hecht caught the flash of brown he hoped to see. Cloven Februaren was the company he did want.

Hecht halted once his people were all onto the grassy shelf. The falcon team set up, trying not to look threatening as they did.

"Here's a ridiculous mix," Hecht whispered to Brother Jokai.

Ten men came forward. Four were Direcian. One of those was a Chaldarean bishop. Two were heralds or squires. The other looked to be a noble of standing. Hecht did not recognize his colors. Brother Jokai was no help.

Hecht was not interested in the Direcians. He focused on the Pramans behind them. Bone and Az watched from beyond the edge of the grass. Not so big a surprise. He had known they were over here trying to unravel the Rudenes Schneidel puzzle. But he had not expected to see Nassim Alizarin al-Jebal on this side of the Mother Sea. He locked gazes with the Mountain briefly.

The Direcian Bishop urged his mount closer. He scanned Hecht's companions, recognizing the lifeguards as Brotherhood of War but not comprehending Prosek and Rhuk at all. Brother Jokai rated barely a glance. Then he saw something behind Hecht that left him with his mouth open.

"Bishop?"

The man could not talk.

Wait! Everyone had frozen. As though time had stopped. But it had not. Yonder, birds swooped over the Direcian camp. To one side Cloven Februaren perched on a boulder like an anchorite on his pillar. The old man grinned, gave him the thumbs-up, then pointed.

The Mountain, baffled and disturbed, looked around carefully.

"Sorcery," Hecht said, trying his voice.

Nassim's gaze fixed on him. Confused.

Hecht got it. Februaren had frozen everyone but himself, Hecht, and the Mountain. But that would not last. "What are you doing here?"

"They killed Hagid. That word did get through. Thank you."

"You know who?"

"The one up there. Rudenes Schneidel."

"And?"

"Yes. I know that, too. The Rascal. His turn will come."

"They must be missing you in al-Qarn."

"They could be. And they may never understand. Neither Gordimer nor er-Rashal have sons. The Lion knows nothing but feeding his own vices, these days himself. The Rascal has some secret scheme going that only he understands."

"Gordimer is a puppet. And doesn't know it. Er-Rashal's scheme involves Seska and making himself immortal. He has no love for the Faith. There is no other explanation for the last several years."

"No other explanation that makes sense," Nassim agreed. "Why did he want those mummies?"

"I don't know. They must be part of his quest for ascension."

"What?"

"He's trying to turn himself into an Instrumentality. There's no time to explain. This spell won't last. We need to go up there and exterminate Rudenes Schneidel, who is the Rascal's partner."

"Looks likely to be difficult."

"I don't want to just sit here."

"You have somewhere else to be?"

"I do." Inasmuch as Pacificus Sublime meant him to perish on this island.

"Prisoners say they didn't expect a siege."

"We still might starve ourselves out first." Hecht explained his situation.

"There are ships here. Artecipea is an island. Not so?"

"Yes. The men behind you, though, are beholden to King Peter and the syndics of Platadura. And Peter made this Patriarch."

"I understand. The spell is starting to slip."

Hecht saw an eye blink slowly. "Anything more? Fast. We won't have this chance again."

"One thing. Rudenes Schneidel is mine. Whatever else he's done, I stake first claim."

"Done. But manage those others…"

Cloven Februaren made a warning sound.

The air shimmered. Everyone resumed moving. Universally adopting baffled expressions. Several, in lockstep, blurted, "What just happened?"

Brother Jokai said, "We were hit by a spell of some kind. Check yourselves. See how it affected you."

No one found anything unusual. Which only heightened the tension.

Hecht said, "You're our top sorcerer, Jokai. Guard against it happening again." He faced the Direcian party. "Gentlemen. I'm Piper Hecht, Captain-General for the Patriarch. His Holiness wants this fortress overcome and its tenants compelled to pay the penalty for apostasy. I assume King Peter wants the same. None of us gets to go home till we finish it. So why don't we figure out what we ought to do?"

"Hercule Jaume de Sedilla, Count of Arun Tetear," said the Direcian who was in charge. "King Peter's viceroy on Artecipea." The Count seemed to be having trouble with his eyes. Nevertheless, he forged ahead, naming his companions. Nassim he introduced as Shake Malik Nunhor al-Healtiki. Shake Malik was a survivor of the Calziran Crusade. Having no better prospects, al-Healtiki had raised a company of veterans to serve King Peter for pay.

Clever Nassim.

His company included Bone, Az, and the other survivors of Else Tage's special company.

Shake Malik was a minor captain amongst the Pramans. The overall commander was a surprisingly fat man from Shippen who used no name but Iskandar.

The siege of Arn Bedu proceeded traditionally, though the fastness squatted atop one of the tallest and bleakest mountains in the High Athaphile. Iskandar and Count Hercule operated on the eastern slope. The Captain-General and Patriarchal forces operated on the less congenial western face. Each did what besiegers do—at a leisurely pace. They did not mind waiting. The pagan rebellion had fallen apart everywhere else.

Hecht worried about Titus Consent as the days and weeks turned into months. Where was the man?

The great monster sorcerer cornered inside Arn Bedu never deployed his vaunted power.

Hecht had Sedlakova try to undermine. The decomposed, soft stone on the surface gave way to hard, living stone too soon. Work went ahead anyway. The men had to be kept busy doing something.

Mining became an industry.

Hecht left that to his staff. He went down to the coast and hired ships to bring supplies over from Sheavenalle. He put spies aboard those ships. Those men brought back news of the broader world. Big changes were going on. The Church had abandoned the Connecten Crusade completely. Sublime Pacificus kept issuing bulls calling on all Episcopal Chaldareans to join King Peter in a crusade in Direcia. Anne of Menand had pledged the manhood and wealth of Arnhand to help repel the anticipated Praman offensive. Knights from Arnhand, Santerin, and Santerin's continental possessions were on the move. So were Brothen Episcopal knights from the Grail Empire, encouraged by Empress Katrin.

There were hints that Anne of Menand's men might give the Connec special attention returning home from obliterating the Unbeliever.

Other news was less exciting. The new Patriarch had subdued his enemies inside Brothe. Unlike Ornis of Cedelete before him. And managed without bringing home his Patriarchal army. Which said something about Pinkus Ghort's ability to work under pressure.

Hecht seldom got to talk to those he knew in the other camp.

Titus Consent finally returned. With a small fleet. "Thanks for sending me," he said. "I got to see my new son. Noë named him Avran. I wasn't there to remind her that we converted. So Avran he'll be." Consent handed over a case of letters. Some were from Anna and the children. Others were from Principatè Delari and several men of standing who wanted to get his ear.

"How were Anna and the kids?"

"I only got to see them once. I had to keep my head down. You're a lucky man. They miss you more than my bunch missed me."

"Did anyone notice you?" Dumb question. Of course they had. Otherwise, there would be no letters. "Did you get my new falcons and firepowder?"

"First instance, probably not till after I left. By anyone we worry about." He frowned, remembering something. "I did bring the stuff. All that I could lay hands on. Way more than you asked for. To keep anyone else from getting them. Those in the business kept working. They knew somebody would pay a lot for a more efficient way to kill people."

"It isn't people I want to kill. I can do that now. My concern is the Night."

"The Night is at our mercy. So let's see what we can do about its servant on the mountain."

Madouc, recovered enough to work now, and several other lifeguards all frowned over Consent's suggestion. They were quite willing to take it easy as long as there was food and drink and their pay came on time—though there was nothing to spend it on in the High Athaphile.

Hecht asked, "What about our situation here? Will there be problems if we try to come home?"

"Who could stop you? If you come up with the transport?"

"I don't know. I can't make sense of the political situation." He watched the men dragging up the new falcon batteries, kegs of firepowder, cases of ammunition, and other weaponry. Most of those men would rather be working the mines under Arn Bedu. That did not necessitate climbing the mountain carrying a hundred pounds. Men from the Direcian camp watched, too, obviously troubled. They suspected Hecht was about to pull something.

"There's more news."

Hecht caught the edge in Consent's voice. "Do we need to talk about it privately?"

"It wouldn't stay secret. I didn't make the trip alone. It's a question of caring, really."

"I'm likely to care more than most?"

"Precisely."

"Then get to it, since it won't matter to any of these dunderheads."

"Hey!" Madouc protested.

'Titus?"

"King Charlve is dead."

"And? We've known that for months."

"There have been a lot of changes in Arnhand because of it. And now it looks like Anne is trying to buy the new Patriarch, too."

"Meaning?"

"She has Sublime's letters of blessing. She's put Regard on the Arnhander throne."

Hecht chuckled. "She paid enough. To our profit."

"Now she wants something more. She's called out the entire feudal levy to help King Peter stop the Almanohides."

"The what?"

"The who. The Almanohides. Praman tribal fighters from the other side of the Escarp Gebr al Thar."

"Oh." Hecht had not heard that name for those people before.

"The new Kaif of al-Halambra summoned them."

That Hecht did know. The process had begun before their departure from the Connec.

"He's determined to crush Peter before he can be any more successful. He means to keep on moving north if he breaks King Peter. He sees nothing to stop him now that we've moved over here to Artecipea."

Hecht understood the hidden message.

A new storm was coming. It was time to keep an eye on their backs, in case the uneasy alliance here fell apart.

Hecht said, "Let's put the fear of God in our friends. We'll let them see the firepowder weapons at work. Speaking of which. You need to find Drago Prosek right away."

"The situation in Direcia had another interesting effect. The Patriarch himself postponed the marriage between Empress Katrin and Jaime of Castauriga."

Hecht had not thought much about events inside the Grail Empire. "Interesting."

"Want some more interesting? You were invited."

"Say what?"

"Anna showed me the letter. With the Imperial seal. Signed by the Empress herself. Requesting the presence of the Captain-General at the celebration mass. And so forth."

"I don't understand."

"Don't ask me to explain."

Was it Helspeth? "One more puzzle to keep me awake at night, then."

"Plenty of puzzles to keep me up."

Hecht frowned. Consent sounded unhappy. "How so?"

"There have been a couple more suicides amongst my Devedian relatives and acquaintances."

"And? I'm not understanding. Were they that upset about you converting?"

"No. None of them believed I meant it. I was the Chosen One. How could I run out? They're only now starting to believe it. But they're still cooperating. They still think they can profit from the connection."

"And I'm still confused, Titus."

"My problem is, these men who killed themselves, I've known them all my life. I can't believe any of them would become that hard a slave of despair. Devedians and despair are intimates. Life partners. Soul mates. They wouldn't kill themselves."

"So what's going on?"

"I don't know! That's the horrible part! Men who wouldn't kill themselves at the worst times did it in front of witnesses."

Hecht sighed. He sensed Consent's pain. But what could he do? "I can pray for them, Titus. That's all. I didn't know them. I don't know what drove them."

"Never mind me, Captain-General. The new falcons are here, including the ones Prosek designed. Along with tons of firepowder and ammunition. If you want to provoke the Night, now is the time."

"Which is why you need to get together with Drago Prosek."

The pagan stronghold had not suffered much from traditional artillery. The besiegers had not been able to build many engines. Lumber was scarce. What little there was had to be hauled a long, hard way before it could be used.

Ammunition was plentiful, though. There were rocks everywhere.

The falcons could do little damage, either. They did not have the power. But those that Prosek had redesigned could be fired faster than the others.

The powder and shot for the new generation were preloaded into a cast-iron pot that seated into a breech in the reinforced base of the falcon. A protruding thumb rotated into a notch, holding the pot in place. That rotation brought a drilled hole into view. Firepowder dribbled into the hole would be fired with a slow match. The pot could be replaced quickly. The spent pot could be reloaded at leisure while the weapon itself went through subsequent firing cycles.

Hecht now felt better about his chances for surviving the interest of the Night. But the new weapons and ammunition and firepowder had cost enough to leave the Patriarchal army strapped. Despite successes in the Connec and intercepted specie shipments from Salpeno, there would not be enough money to carry on past midsummer.

Hard work in the mines helped keep the soldiers out of trouble. And they needed distraction. Disaffection had begun to appear amongst the rank and file. Some thought their Captain-General was not forceful enough with Brothe. They thought their commander should have told the Patriarchal legate to use his new assignment for a suppository.

Titus Consent suggested, "A few bordellos down the mountain would be more useful than making these guys work fifteen hours a day on mines and approach curtains. Especially when those people around the other side aren't doing anything."

They were not working because Count Hercule and his Praman associates were as nervous about each other as they were about Arn Bedu. Both told the Captain-General, individually, that there was no reason to work. That time was the best weapon in their arsenal.

Hecht told them, individually, "I want to go home. And my men aren't in a patient mood."

The Mountain and Az, or Bone, were always close by when Hecht talked to Iskandar and Count Hercule. He got few chances to visit. Nor did the Ninth Unknown create many opportunities for communication. Yet the man in brown was often there, in the corner of Hecht's eye.

Redfearn Bechter reported sightings every day. Bechter was troubled. Bechter was no longer convinced by his Captain-General's protestations of ignorance.

Cloven Februaren did manage when he cared enough. Usually deep in the night, when sleep was more precious than rubies. Employing one of those time-stopping spells. Freezing the lifeguards on duty. Who panicked when the spell wore off. They always knew that something had happened. They never came close to guessing the truth.

"Piper!" The old man spoke softly but insistently. "Wake up, Piper."

Piper Hecht grunted and rolled away. It seemed he had just gotten to sleep.

"Come on, boy. Wake up and listen. Or you're going to be dead. Real soon now."

That moved him. Some. He cracked an eye. And found himself nose to nose with Cloven Februaren. "What?"

"There's going to be an attack. By the Night. Soon. You need to get ready."

Hecht said something rude and tried to turn over.

A bee sting pain hit his right buttock. He almost cried out. Boyhood training stopped him.

Tears did flood his eyes.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"The Night will come. Your great enemy has told it where to find you. That's always the Night's great challenge when it reaches into our world. Finding the right man in the right moment. The Night sees our world through nearsighted eyes."

"So I've heard." Tone suggesting that Februaren make his point.

"You must prepare."

Hecht believed he was prepared. "I'm listening."

"It's time to use the ring."

"Uh? Ring?" What was the man blathering about, now?

"The ring you appropriated from the Bruglioni. The one you forget about. The one you wear on a chain around your neck, along with your silver dove and iron pomegranate." Symbols from the earliest days of the Chaldarean faith—in metals the Night most despised.

Hecht rooted beneath his shirt and brought out his symbolic disguise. A gold ring hung between the pomegranate and dove. "Where did that come from?"

The Ninth Unknown was disinclined to waste time reeducating him. The old man touched his left temple. He remembered.

"Put the ring on."

"Uh?"

"Pick a finger. Any finger. The one that it fits tightest. Put it on. Then put this on behind it." Februaren extended a gaudy silver thing encrusted with small gems.

Hecht fumbled the gold band a couple times getting it off the chain and onto the middle finger of his left hand. It felt like the damned thing was trying to get away. Cloven Februaren helped herd it, then forced the garish bauble on after it.

"That's your safety lock. It won't come off till I release it. So the other will stay where you need it until I do."

Hecht did what he was told, thinking the ring could still get away. If it could get his finger amputated. He asked, "Why are we doing this?"

"We're denying the Night the focus that Rudenes Schneidel and er-Rashal have tried to give it. The nearer it comes to you the more distracted it will get. Distracted? That's not quite right. But I'm too tired to find the perfect word."

"You seem chipper enough to keep me awake all night."

"You've done what I came to get you to do. You have the ring on. You still wear the amulet. I can fade away and you can get back to wasting your life on sleep. All before these dedicated boys of yours can wake up and be terrified because they almost did something that might have put you at risk."

What in the name of the Adversary did he mean by that?

The old man touched him again.

Sleep came instantly.

Sleep ended, sudden as the man in black's sword stroke, slain by the bark of falcons.

Waking with mind fuzzy, Piper Hecht tried to recall the name of the goddess of sleep. That seemed terribly important for a dozen seconds. Until he understood. That was not thunder, never heard up here anyway, but the crude speech of weapons designed to thwart the Will of the Night.

Drago Prosek and his henchmen were on the job, as alert and ready as they had been told to be.

The Captain-General shook off the slut sleep and got his feet under him. With the assistance of lifeguards who insisted they had to be right there beside his rude mattress even while he was unconscious. The same lifeguards who had failed to notice the earlier visit of the Ninth Unknown.

Sobering realization. They could be circumvented easily.

The moon was almost full. It splashed Arn Bedu with ghost light. And made it possible to see Drago Prosek's crews doing their cleanup while most of the Patriarchal force watched and babbled in awe.

The egg the falconeers came up with beggared the one found after the destruction of the bogon in Esther's Wood, a seeming eternity ago. What had died here, tonight, must have been a minor god. Eliminated quickly and efficiently by men just doing their jobs, using munitions designed for the task.

This was why the Night dreaded Piper Hecht. Destroying Instrumentalities was about to become no more special than any other death stroke.

Whole new realms of warfare would open up once men understood that they could butcher one another's gods.

The night lighted up when an immense flash appeared against the base of Arn Bedu's northwest mural tower. A roar like all the thunder in the world at once followed a moment later. That was so loud it deadened the ear. There was no hearing the crash and grind of stone as the tower and nearby wall surrendered to gravity and came down, but it felt like an earthquake.

Nearly a ton of new, refined, more potent firepowder had been packed into the mine under that tower. The fuse trail had been lit off by sentries with orders to do so whenever Rudenes Schneidel tried to use the Night against the besiegers.

The Captain-General stared up at the moonlighted pillar of dust leaning westward above the wreckage. He wished that he had had storm troops ready to go while the rubble was stabilizing.

Troops did push into Arn Bedu soon. Many carried portable firepowder weapons, after the fashion of the capture of the Duke of Clearenza. But this time the men were armed against the Night. Their attack was disorganized but they did know what needed doing.

Titus Consent asked, "Any idea how much this is costing?"

Hecht said, "I can't imagine. But I see ordinary guys like you and me grinning from ear to ear because we just murdered a midget god of some kind and we're about to take a fortress that's been considered invincible forever. And we hardly had to work at either one. Because we knew what we wanted to do and we worked hard to make sure everything was ready to make it happen when an opportunity popped up."

Exhaustion claimed Hecht before the sun rose. He left Arn Bedu to the mercies of his associates. His preparations had proven out. His veterans had done their work completely indifferent to the Will of the Night.

Hecht began to think that even he now had an inkling why he had gained the enmity of the Night.

He was sound asleep before his messengers reached the camp of his allies. They offered King Peter's partisans the opportunity to complete the capture of the pagan fortress.

That assault might be costly despite the horrible shocks already suffered by Am Bedu's defenders.

The most shaken and enfeebled of those proved to be the dreaded sorcerer Rudenes Schneidel himself. The man offered no resistance whatsoever when discovered.

Hecht's lifeguards convinced him that it would be politic to appear in full ceremonial dress to recognize his allies for having successfully cleansed Arn Bedu.

The Mountain passed him with a prisoner in tow, a man bound and gagged in a way that made it clear he was important, powerful, and dangerous. The man's face was locked into an expression of utter, possibly eternal disbelief. This could not be happening!

Iskandar, Shake Malik, and Count Hercule had conquered their disbelief. Publicly. But they kept glancing at Hecht as though certain he must be more than what they could see, or that another shoe had yet to fall. He wanted to yell at them. He had not done anything special. His sappers had packed firepowder in under the wall. Drago Prosek's falconeers had overcome those Night things that tried to interfere with God's soldiers.

The same weapons lubricated the assault.

Arn Bedu's defenders were dead or captured. Including even Rudenes Schneidel, whom Hecht had not expected to see in the flesh, ever. He had assumed the man would escape in the final confusion, as er-Rashal had done when al-Khazen's defense fell apart.

Titus Consent murmured, "Things have changed again. Reality definitely shifted when that wall came down."

Hecht understood. This time he saw the future as he had not after destroying the bogon in Esther's Wood.

It should have taken months more, if not years, to reduce Arn Bedu. He had brought it down in days once his new firepowder and weapons arrived.

No fortress would be invulnerable ever again.

It would take time, though. He knew. People did not like change.

He started up the mountainside.

Madouc demanded, "Where are you going?"

"Up there to look around."

"You think you're suddenly safe?"

"I'm hoping." He glanced toward where an argument simmered between the Mountain, Iskander, and Count Hercule. Each wanted Schneidel. Hecht said, "See that Nassim gets the prize."

"What?"

"A random thought. The chief of that band from Calzir. He came here because Schneidel was behind his son's murder. So I've heard."

"Schneidel tried to kill you and your family. Why don't you take him?" Brother Jokai asked.

"Because I don't want the Special Office tempted by the evil that surrounds him. And only the Special Office could manage him. So let the Pramans punish him."

The Praman Nassim would put an edge on Schneidel and use him against er-Rashal. And right now er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen was the most dangerous man in the world. In Piper Hecht's mind.

"You could be right. Unbelievers they may be. But they tolerate wickedness and truck with the Night less than do our own true believers."

Hecht knew better but did not say so. He was just a bright boy from the far north who got lucky.

He climbed the mountain. His lifeguards tagged along. Madouc complained all the way. Ahead, Prosek and the falcon crews warily recovered shot expended during the assault. Several dark things flapped through the breach in the wall. Falcons dispatched them in seconds.

Prosek came to meet his Captain-General. "The loading pots worked perfectly, sir. As did the falcons. Not one blew up. You got to hand it to them Deves. They know what the hell they're doing when it comes to casting brass."

"That's why they got my contract."

"I hear there's some bad feelings about that."

"No doubt. Nobody likes an elitist."

Prosek frowned, puzzled.

Madouc told Prosek, "He's determined to go poke around. Get some of them damned thunder busters up there with us. He's got no fucking idea what the hell is still hiding inside that rock pile."

Hecht paused at Arn Bedu's open gate. He had not thought of that. And there was definitely a tingle round his left wrist.

All his thoughts had been focused on Cloven Februaren. What part had the old man played in Arn Bedu's fall?

There was no way it should have gone so smoothly and quickly. The Ninth Unknown was the only explanation for Rudenes Schneidel turning so meek in the end.

What the hell was that old man?

He said, "Arn Bedu was never meant to be anything but a refuge. This gate isn't big enough to launch a sortie."

Prosek said, "The guys found a lot more store than we expected. The pagans could've held out for ages. Except that their water went bad. The prisoners thought something in the stone used to line the cisterns was leeching out."

"What?"

"The captives say it was slow poison. Arsenic, or something. Guys sometimes suffered convulsions. Most of them didn't have much strength left. And nobody was thinking clearly. The guy in charge dealt with that by drinking nothing but wine."

Rudenes Schneidel was a drunk? That might have something to do with his passivity.

Bad water and too much wine might mean that the Ninth Unknown had not been the key.

Hecht was not ready to buy it. Not whole. The Ninth Unknown was huge in everything. He was totally sure.

Hecht did not move again until Drago Prosek brought up all his falcons.

Arn Bedu was a sad, barren shell. Evidence that it had been occupied by real, living human beings was limited. And there had been fewer prisoners taken than expected.

Arn Bedu was no standard castle. The wall did not shield inner courts. It was the outside wall of a building occupied by a rich, deep darkness. The interior was mazelike as well.

Piper Hecht lost his compulsion to prowl and investigate seconds after entering the fortress. The place was haunted by a bleak despair so deep it recalled the creeping fractions of fallen gods reawakened in the End of Connec. By a despair so deep it had become a part of Arn Bedu's stone.

Cloven Februaren's doing?

Was there any chance that old man was that powerful?

Just could not be. Had to be because of what Rudenes Schneidel had been trying to do.

Hecht really did not want that old man to be something that much more than an ordinary man.

The lifeguards gabbled suddenly. Drago Prosek and Kait Rhuk babbled, too. Firepowder exploded an instant later, in the darkness ahead. The flash illuminated a passage pretty much standard for the bowels of a stone-built fortress. But there was something in that passageway. It struck every mortal with a fear of the Night of the sort known so intimately when men huddled round campfires and willingly did whatever was necessary to push the terror away.

"Seska!" Hecht gasped.

The face he saw in that flash was the face of Seska portrayed on the most ancient bas-relief murals within the timeless structures of al-Qarn. That face could not be described nor be immortalized by mortal artisan, yet it could not be mistaken.

Godslayer. Come to your end.

A falcon barked. Light and smoke rolled down the passageway.

Another falcon spoke.

Pain. Stunned, uncomprehending, incredulous pain, accompanied by fear of a sort unknown for ages.

The first falcon reiterated its declaration.

The second barked again.

Prosek and Rhuk had brought weapons capable of rapid speech.

Godslayer. You have won nothing! Fading. Surrender to the Will of the Night!

The falcons spoke again. And again. Shot rattled and whined off the walls of the passage, searching for the mystical flesh of the Old One, Seska. The revenant, the Endless, who must be but a shadow of the original.

The insane, shrieking something surged forward, psychically far more powerful than any of the bogons that had crossed Hecht's path. But Drago Prosek's falcons grumbled their basso profundo aria, proclaiming the passing of an Instrumentality of the Night.

The tide of Night reached Hecht. It tried to devour him. His amulet burned. It froze. He cried out. The pain!

The revenant screamed inside minds, continuously, incoherently, its only discernible thought a driving need to destroy the Godslayer. It struck like a cobra, over and over, its aim never true.

The Bruglioni ring burned colder than the coldest ice. Hecht was sure he would lose the finger.

Hands grabbed him. He fought. Thunder rolled overhead. His cheek stung from the heat of a falcon's breath.

Darkness. Unconsciousness. A sojourn within the realm of the Night, hiding in plain sight amongst hunting Instrumentalities who snuffled through space and time alike in their search for the thing they were convinced could destroy them.

He wakened inside his own shelter. The transition from deep down in the darkness to waking came suddenly. He tried to jump up.

He could not. He had been placed in restraints.

His attempt to shout failed completely.

Reason set in. He noted that he was not alone. A priest from one of the healing orders hunched over a charcoal brazier. Madouc and Titus sat near the entrance, still as battered gargoyles.

"You made it." Cloven Februaren.

"I did."

"How deep did you go?" The voice came from behind him, from out of sight.

"I don't know. I don't know what you mean. I was out. I had nightmares. Now I'm awake."

"It never got its claws into you. Lucky you, you were wearing that ring."

"Why am I tied down?"

"So you can't hurt yourself. They'll cut you loose after I leave."

"What happened?"

"You found Seska. Then Seska found you."

"And?"

"You survived. Seska didn't. It might have done if everything hadn't been in place ahead of time."

"Everything? In place?"

"You with the proper amulet. You with the ring. You with the falcons behind you. And me behind the falcons. You need to leave this place, now. The Night is in chaos at the moment. But it does know where the Endless was before it was ended."

"It wasn't really the Endless, though. Was it? Wasn't Rudenes Schneidel building himself an imitation Seska?"

"It was Seska, Piper. The Seska. The real thing. Almost fully reborn. Almost ready to step back into the world where it was first imagined. Where it would have rewarded Schneidel and er-Rashal richly for having given it back its reality."

The old man had grown ferociously excited. "You definitely filled the role of Godslayer this time. You've won the attention of all the Instrumentalities of the Night, now. The human race is lucky that the wells of power have weakened so much."

Hecht had trouble following the old man. His mind had not yet fully cleared.

And his amulet had begun to itch. And more. "Something is coming."

"I feel it. I'll deal with it."

Time resumed as Hecht sank back down. He fell asleep vaguely aware that Madouc and Titus had begun a troubled
analysis of why such a sudden chill had developed inside the boss's shelter.

The Captain-General had no strength in his legs. He was on crutches. The healing brothers assured him he would recover. He needed to be patient.

Patience was not a virtue he had had to observe much since Sublime V loosed him on the End of Connec.

Jokai Svlada and some Special Office henchmen finished scourging Arn Bedu. Piper Hecht had come to the great hall there to witness the last Special Office purification ritual. That included Just Plain Joe and a big-ass sledgehammer. Drago Prosek placed an egg-shaped object the size of a toddler's head on an anvil captured with the fortress. The biggest man in the army swung his hammer. The shimmering egg shattered into a million fragments, most as fine as talc. Larger fragments returned to the anvil for further attention.

A voice in Hecht's ear whispered, "Once this dust washes down into the Mother Sea, there'll be no chance ever of pulling Seska together again." Which Hecht took to mean that there was no way to be rid of any Instrumentality eternally. That the Godslayer had not, really, slain the Endless. Not the way he left mortal men forever slain.

He murmured, "Seska is gone. Negated. The power it used to suck up is now available to Instrumentalities as yet undefeated."

"Clever boy."

Jokai Svlada and friends swept up dust, mixing it with acids or corrosives.

These Witchfinders definitely meant to end the rule of the Night.

Ceremonies done, Hecht commenced the long descent to the coast. On crutches, with lifeguards round about threatening to drive him crazy with their fussing. Wishing he had had more opportunities to talk to Nassim, Az, or Bone. But those men had gone as soon as they got hold of Rudenes Schneidel.

"If wishes were sheep."

"What?" Redfearn Bechter asked.

"Condemning myself for wasting time on wishful thinking. I know better."

"I see." Clearly meaning he had no idea.