"There are magicians who do it, certainly," Emmis said. "My mother consulted a witch once, named Sella, who did that – the minute she stepped into the shop, before she could say a word, Sella was there with her answer ready."

"Knock again," Lar said.

With a sigh, Emmis obliged.

This time, though, someone answered; they heard a voice call faintly,

"I'm coming!"

The two men waited, and a moment later the lock rattled, the latch lifted, and the door opened.

"Come in, come in!" said the young man inside, swinging the door wide and standing aside.

Cautiously, Lar and Emmis stepped in.

"Have a seat, please!" their host said, gesturing toward a maroon-upholstered couch.

"You're Kolar the Sage?" Emmis asked.

The wizard looked down at himself, then smiled at them. "Yes, I am," he said. "I hope you'll pardon my appearance; I was just helping my wife put the twins to bed."

Emmis supposed that did explain why he was wearing an ancient homespun tunic with an impressive collection of stains on it, rather than any sort of wizardly robe, as well as why his hair was a tangled mess, and why he had been slow to answer the door. It was perfectly reasonable, really. Still, Emmis would have had far more faith in the man's ability if he had been waiting at the door, in a proper robe – or if he were a decade older; the man wasn't much older than Emmis himself.

"Twins?" Lar asked.

"A boy and a girl," Kolar said with obvious pride. "A year and a half old."

Lar nodded, and settled onto the couch.

Emmis did not sit, but took up a position beside the couch, instead.

Kolar pulled a chair up and sat down facing them across a small, dark wooden table. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"I have a question I want answered," Lar said. "Well, several, really, but we'll start with one."

"Yes?"

"Can you answer it?"

"Almost certainly," Kolar said. "At a price, of course. The exact means used, and the exact price, will depend on the nature of the question."

Lar hesitated, then said, "This is the question: What made the hum that Vond the Warlock heard when he came to Semma, and exactly where is it?"

Emmis glanced at Lar. He had no idea what that meant.

Kolar stroked his close-trimmed beard. "That may be two questions," he said. "And the answers to both of them may be ambiguous. Where and what is Semma?"

Lar grimaced. "Semma was one of the southernmost of the Small Kingdoms, the one that Vond conquered and used as his base in creating the Empire of Vond. The empire's capital is still there."

That answered some questions Emmis had had. He had wondered why Lar had told Ishta he was from Semma, rather than Vond; presumably he was simply being more precise.

"Ah, I see," Kolar said. "And that answers my next question, as well, about who Vond was. Now, about the hum..."

"I can't tell you that," Lar said, cutting him off.

"Nothing? Not even whether you know whether there was only one?"

"There was a hum that Vond heard in Semma that no one else heard, and he heard it for almost his entire stay there. That's the hum I mean."

"That only he heard? Interesting."

"You would do better not to ask much more," Lar said. "Can you answer the question?"

Kolar frowned. "Vond the Warlock, you said? Has he been Called?"

"Yes."

"Then we can't use necromancy; Called warlocks don't leave ghosts. And we can't ask him as if he were alive, so all the dream spells and compulsions are out of the question. I can't quite see how the Spell of Omniscient Vision would help, either. That just leaves Fendel's Divination – well, of the spells I know; there may be others I'm not aware of. Hmm."

"Fendel's Divination?" Emmis asked.

Kolar nodded, still stroking his beard. "I have the ingredients, and the spell itself only takes a little over an hour, but the exact wording of the question is crucial. I'll want to work on it overnight. Can you both read?"

Lar and Emmis exchanged glances. "Yes," Lar said.

"Forgive me, but – you read Ethsharitic? I can't help noticing your accent."

"Yes, I read Ethsharitic. Not very fast, but I can read it. It's the official tongue of the Empire of Vond, you know, even if none of us grew up with it."

"Good. Then you might want to be here for the spell itself – the answer will be written in smoke, in mid-air, and it'll be easier for me if you read it yourself, and I don't need to worry about writing it down before I forget."

"You're sure it will be written in Ethsharitic?" Emmis asked. "Lar, here, speaks Semmat as his milk tongue."

Kolar blinked. "Well, it always has been before," he said. "I believe it depends on what language I used in my book of spells, not what the client knows."

"And you're sure that it will work?" Lar asked. "It will answer the question?"

"If the spell works properly, and the question has an answer, and there's nothing interfering, then it will answer the question."

"And will the answer be useful?" Emmis asked.

"Oh, that I can't say," Kolar said, spreading his hands. "I have no idea what this is about. Your master here says Vond heard a hum, but I don't know whether he really did, or whether it's significant. If the spell says the hum came from an insect lodged in Vond's left ear, will that be useful?"

"It would be an answer," Lar said. "Better than nothing."

"All right, then. For a round of gold, I will devise as foolproof a phrasing of your question as possible tonight, and perform Fendel's Divination in your presence tomorrow to give you an answer."

"A round of gold?" Lar stood up. "No."

"Six bits."

"Two rounds of silver."

"Seven."

"Four."

"Six."

"Five."

"Done. Five rounds of silver. Three in advance, two on completion."

"One in advance."

Kolar sighed. "All right. One in advance."

"It may not be both of us who come," Lar said, as he reached for his purse. "One of us may have business elsewhere."

"As you please."

"You understand that I am not asking about the nature of the hum, but about its exact source, and I will not pay for information about its nature."

Kolar nodded. "You want to know the nature and location of the source, not of the hum itself. Yes." He hesitated. "Do you want to know about its duration? Might it still be going?"

Lar blinked. "Oh, it's still going. We know that. We just want to know the source."

"Ah. I see."

"I hope not. It would be better to not ask more than necessary about this."

With that, Lar and Emmis took their leave.

"That went well," Lar said, as the wizard's door closed behind them.

"I suppose," Emmis said. "You did bargain him down by half."

"I meant that we were fortunate to find someone who could perform the spell I need."

"You're assuming he actually can," Emmis said.

"So is he," Lar said, "or he wouldn't have agreed so quickly to only one round in advance. He's so sure it will work and he'll get the whole payment that a day's delay doesn't matter."

"Or he just wants us to think that."

Lar looked annoyed.

"So some time tomorrow, if Hagai is following us again, we'll split up?"

Emmis asked. "And whoever he doesn't follow will come back here for the spell."

"Yes."

"And if no one's following us, we'll both..."

"No," Lar cut him off. "Then I'll come alone. There are some other questions I may want to ask."

"Oh." Emmis nodded. "I need to talk to my contact at the Palace tomorrow, in any case."

"You can do that first. We have all day."

"Oh," Emmis said again. "Are we going back to the house now?"

"Yes."

"Good."

It had been a very long, wearing day, and Emmis was looking forward to putting it behind him – not that tomorrow would be entirely free of problems, he was sure, what with the divination spell and talking to the guardsman. For the next several minutes he walked quietly beside his employer, pointing out the correct direction when they reached Arena Street.

The streets of the Wizards' Quarter were mostly empty now; the few stragglers were hurrying along, most of them wrapped in their cloaks against the fresh breeze blowing from the northeast. Emmis had no cloak or coat, but the wind was not so very cold, really – just enough to keep them walking briskly, not dawdling. Emmis folded his arms across his chest for warmth, hugging his woolen tunic to himself.

Lar, of course, was wearing his red velvet coat and fancy hat; he was fine.

Several of the torches on the street corners were beginning to gutter and die; the shops were almost all dark, while many of the rooms upstairs showed lights. The lesser moon shone brightly pink among the stars overhead; the greater moon was not visible.

"Will you be able to find the right shop tomorrow, if Hagai follows me?"

Emmis asked as the pair turned the corner onto Arena Street.

"I think so," Lar replied. "Left from Arena onto Wizard Street, then it's on the right. Kolar the Sage."

Emmis nodded. "This hum Vond heard – it has something to do with his magic? Or with his empire?"

"Don't ask," Lar said.

Emmis frowned. "If it's such a secret, why did you bring me along?"

"In case I needed advice. I'm a stranger here, remember?"

"Do you really have a grandson named Kelder?"

"Not that I know of, named Kelder or anything else."

"You just wanted to know whether there was some reason warlocks don't go to Vond?"

"Yes."

"You're lucky that warlocks can't tell lies from truth the way witches can."

"Yes, I am."

"So do you think that's all it is? That the Small Kingdoms killed their warlocks on the Night of Madness?"

Lar turned up an empty palm. "It might be. I don't really remember any such killings in Semma, but I did hear about some in Ksinallion, and maybe elsewhere."

"Semma never had any warlocks? No one was affected?"

"A few people disappeared on the Night of Madness, just as they did everywhere," Lar said. "But I never heard of any warlocks after that, until Vond came." He glanced at Emmis. "Do you remember the Night of Madness?"

Emmis snorted. "I was still in my mother's womb. No, I don't remember it."

"Ah, you're younger than I thought."

"So you're here to find out about this hum, and why warlocks haven't been fleeing into your empire to escape the Calling – why did that need an ambassador, instead of a trader?"

"Because I'm also here to make an alliance with the overlords, if I can," Lar said. "That's not just for show."

Emmis nodded.

"Is Ethsharitic really the empire's official language?" he asked. If it was, he thought, it was odd how many holes there were in Lar's vocabulary.

"Well, officially, yes. It was Vond's native tongue, and he didn't want to bother learning any others, and after all, we had seventeen or eighteen languages to deal with. In practice, Semmat and Ksinallionese and Trader's Tongue are probably used more."

"I see." That did explain the matter. "That should make it easier to deal with the overlord, I suppose."

"I suppose," Lar said.

They walked on without further conversation. Emmis glanced up at the lesser moon as it sank behind the rooftops, then lowered his gaze and hunched his shoulders against the north wind.

Chapter Nine

Emmis slept late, and barely had time to make a trip to Cut Street Market to stock the pantry before he had to head for the plaza to find the palace guard he had spoken to.

He wasn't entirely sure that Cut Street was the closest market square; he did not know his way around Allston yet. He did, however, know where it was, and what he could expect to find there. That was enough to send him hurrying across the New City, his purse at the ready.

He got several sacks of provender back to the kitchen on Through Street, but had no time to do more than set them on the shelves before hurrying to the Palace. He had eaten a few tidbits at the market, but not had a proper breakfast, so he was hungry, but he tried not to think about that as he trotted down Arena Street.

The outer guards let him pass, and the guard at the door waved. "There you are!" he said, as he began fumbling under his breastplate.

"Here I am," Emmis agreed, as he came to a halt.

"Here," the guard said, handing him a folded parchment.

Emmis accepted it, and looked it over.

It was large and stiff, folded and sealed with red wax. Ornately-drawn runes on one side read, "To his Excellency the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Vondish Empire."

"What is it?" Emmis asked.

"I don't know," the guard said. "I asked the captain who you needed to talk to, and he said he didn't know but would find out, and this morning he told me to expect a paper, and an hour later a messenger gave me that, said it was from Lord Ildirin, the overlord's uncle."

"The overlord has an uncle?"

Emmis regretted the words as soon as they left his lips; he remembered watching the funeral rites when the old overlord, Azrad VI, had died, five years before, and he remembered asking his mother who those old people standing around the pyre were, and being told that some of them were Azrad's brothers and sisters. She hadn't known which was which, or any of their names except Lady Imra, and Emmis hadn't been close enough to really see their faces in any case, but she had been quite sure they were the dead man's siblings.

Which meant, of course, that they would be the present overlord's aunts and uncles.

The guard did not seem troubled by Emmis's apparent ignorance, though.

"Two of them, actually," he said. "Lord Clurim and Lord Ildirin. There used to be a third, Lord Karannin, but he died eight or nine years ago, before the overlord's father."

"So is this Lord Ildirin in charge of ambassadors, then?"

"As I understand it, old Lord Ildirin is in charge of whatever he wants to be in charge of that no one else is handling. I think the captain called him a minister without portfolio, whatever that means."

Emmis looked down at the parchment.

He had no idea what it said, but if it came from the overlord's own uncle then it deserved respect. He peered at the wax seal, which was stamped with the three ships at anchor that were sometimes used to represent the city, encircled by what were probably intended to be bay leaves. There were no runes, no name.

Still, it looked very official.

"Did he say anything?" Emmis asked.

"Just to give you that when you came back."

Emmis still hesitated. He was tempted to open the parchment right then and there, but it wasn't addressed to him, it was addressed to Lar. He would deliver it to the ambassador still sealed.

"Thank you," he said, and turned away.

Back at the house he looked up and down the street, but saw no sign of Hagai or the other Lumethans. He was unsure what that meant. He took a final glance around before stepping inside, then closed the door carefully behind him.

He found Lar rummaging through the kitchen, putting some of Emmis's purchases in the cabinets and setting others aside to make lunch. He glanced up as the younger man entered.

"Do I have an appointment with the overlord?" he asked, as he set a loaf of bread on a cracked cutting board and looked around for a knife.

"I don't know," Emmis said. He held out the parchment. "This is for you."

Lar turned, paused, then accepted the document. "What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," Emmis said again. "Lord Ildirin sent it in response to your request for an audience."

"Lord Ildirin? Not Lord Azrad?"

"Lord Ildirin is the overlord's uncle. He handles certain matters for Lord Azrad."

"Ah." Lar studied the inscription and the seal, then broke it open and unfolded the parchment.

Emmis stood and watched as the ambassador read. As he had told Kolar, Lar read Ethsharitic slowly; once or twice he seemed to stop completely, and his lips moved as he worked out a difficult word.

At last he finished and looked up at Emmis.

"Well," he said.

"Well, what?"

"Did anyone tell you what this is?"

"No," Emmis said, slightly annoyed, and wanting to tell his employer to get on with it.

"This is a request for credentials and a protocol," Lar said.

Emmis frowned. "What's a protocol?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Lar said with a grimace. "For that matter, what are credentials?"

"Oh," Emmis said. "That's... that's the papers that prove who you are. A letter from your regent, maybe?"

"Oh, I have those! That's right, I had forgotten – Lord Sterren did teach me the word. That's all right, then. But a..." He squinted at the parchment. "...a written protocol for the establishment of relations between our nations?"

"May I see it?" Emmis asked, reaching for the parchment.

Lar handed the document over.

Emmis puzzled over it; the runes were unnecessarily florid, as was the language. Still, he thought he understood it. He read it through twice, then folded it up and handed it back.

"He wants you to write up an explanation of what you want from the overlord," he said. "You're to send that, along with your address here and some proof that you really were sent by the Empire of Vond, to the Palace, and once Lord Ildirin is satisfied that you are who you say you are, and that you're here as a friend, he'll see you in person. If that goes well, then you can see the overlord."

Lar considered that, then nodded. "It's a start," he said. "It's reasonable." He turned back toward the counter. "Have you seen a bread knife around?"

In the end they hacked the bread into chunks with Emmis's belt-knife, as the kitchen had not come equipped with any cutlery at all. They ate an improvised lunch while standing at the counter – the kitchen had no intact chairs, and eating in the dining room seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

As they ate they planned out the afternoon, and discussed what would go into Lar's protocol. Lar, it was decided, would go back to the Wizards'

Quarter and observe Kolar's spell, assuming that Hagai or another Lumethan had not turned up, and would then return to the house and begin writing out his explanation for Lord Ildirin. Emmis would go back to Shiphaven to collect the rest of his belongings from his rented room, and to let his family know where he was now living. He might also make sure that Hagai had gotten back to the Crooked Candle safely, and when that was done he would then return to the house and set about putting it in order and supplying it with such essentials as bread knives and kitchen chairs. A theurgist to inspect the doorway shrine could wait a day or two; Lar was fairly certain they would be making further trips to the Wizards' Quarter.

"You could find one yourself when you're there today," Emmis said.

"I would prefer to have my guide with me for that," Lar replied.

Emmis nodded. "All right." Then he stood and brushed crumbs from his tunic. "I'll go now, if you don't mind," he said.

"Go," Lar said, with a wave.

Emmis went. There was still no sign of anyone watching the house.

He reached his old residence behind Canal Square without incident, argued with his landlady for half an hour before finally agreeing on how much he would pay to settle his account, gave her the agreed-upon sum, and then climbed the narrow stairs for one last time.

He did not really have much to collect here; he had lived simply, and had never really intended the room to be his permanent home. His clothes could all, with moderate effort, be stuffed into a duffel bag that could easily be carried over one shoulder; his food supplies and such personal belongings as quills and candle-stubs all fit in a second and final bag, this one a fold-top leather satchel. The furnishings, including the linens, had all come with the room, and would stay with it.

He took a final look around, to be sure he had everything he wanted, and the window caught his eye. He crossed the fraying bit of rag rug and opened the casement, then leaned out cautiously.

The cry of seagulls reached him, faint and distant, as did the salt smell of the sea. Wood smoke, spices, and decay were a stronger scent. Off to the left he could see through a gap between the houses to sunlight sparkling on the New Canal; below him was the muddy courtyard where the neighborhood well stood at one end, the privies at the other, and half a dozen unbreeched children played between. Strings of laundry hung from the eaves of a house in the southeastern corner, providing a little bright color to the courtyard –

most of the houses here were roughly two hundred years old, and darkened by centuries of smoke and weather.

This hadn't been a bad place to live, he told himself. Did he really want to give it up for the back bedroom on Through Street?

He had never expected to live in Allston. He had always assumed that if he ever left Shiphaven it would be for somewhere exotic, like Tintallion of the Isle, or someplace luxurious, like the New City. A big yellow house in Allston, just off Arena Street, had not been anything he considered.

But that room was no more permanent than this one had been. It was a place to stay while he earned money, until he knew what he wanted to do, and where he wanted to live. It was somewhere out from under his parents' roof, to prove he could stand on his own feet.

This room had been somewhere he could bring a Spicetown whore, or that drunken sailor woman who had taken a fancy to him, or the chandler's daughter who had shared his bed for a month before running off to Ethshar of the Sands; it wasn't somewhere he would bring a wife or raise a child.

The room on Through Street – well, any whore he brought there would probably come from Camptown rather than Spicetown, but otherwise, it was much the same. The sights and smells outside the window might be less familiar, but that didn't really matter.

Eventually he wanted a place of his own, a place he could settle in for good, but this wasn't it, and neither was the house in Allston. The ambassador's money, though, would bring him that much closer to someday finding it.

He closed the window, hoisted the duffel onto his shoulder, picked up the satchel, and left, closing the door behind him for one last time, and dropping the key in the landlady's waiting palm.

He trudged out of the alley, then across Canal Square and up Twixt Street. He turned left on Olive Street and made his way west a few hundred yards. There he paused, looking at the house his parents shared with two other families.

He had grown up here, with his two younger sisters, and with the seven kids of the other two families, though most of them had moved out now. The ten of them had all played together as children, and had been almost like a single family, instead of three. When he had been younger everyone took it for granted that he would eventually marry Azradelle the Tomboy, from upstairs, officially merging two of the three.

It hadn't happened, and no one still called her that. Now she was Azradelle of Shiphaven, married to Pergren the Pilot, and the mother of twins.

They lived in a flat on Cinnamon Street, over in Spicetown, and had for a couple of years.

His behavior at their wedding was one reason he had moved out and found himself the room behind Canal Square – living in the same house as Azradelle's parents and younger siblings had been too uncomfortable after his spiteful drunken speech and... well, and other things.

It had been foolish, really; he hadn't wanted to marry Azradelle himself, and Pergren was a nice enough fellow, but somehow he hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. He had felt cheated when she chose Pergren. It was completely unreasonable, and he knew that, he had known it at the time, but all those years of taking her for granted, combined with too much oushka, had somehow made him lose interest in being reasonable.

It was probably just as well Lar didn't know about that little episode.

He shifted the duffel, then climbed the stoop and knocked on the front door.

His father would probably be working over at the warehouse, and his mother was probably in the courtyard out back, but he was hoping one of his sisters would be within earshot. Sharra was in and out, despite her new husband, and Imirin had moved back after completing her apprenticeship.

Sure enough, the door opened, and Imirin peered out.

"Emmis!" she shrieked. "And you have luggage – are you coming home to stay?"

"No, no," he said. "I'm moving to Allston, and I wanted to let everyone know where I'll be living. Who's here?"

"Just me in the house. Mother's out back. Allston? What are you doing in Allston? There aren't any docks there!"

"Let me come in and put these things down, and I'll explain."

Imirin jumped aside. "Come in, come in!"

A few minutes later he was in the courtyard, explaining his new job to his sister, his mother, and half a dozen of the neighbors.

"Is he a warlock?" Kluréa the Seamstress from next door wanted to know.

"I heard that everyone in Vond is a warlock."

"No, he's not a warlock," Emmis assured her. "I don't think he's any kind of magician, and I know he's not a warlock. He says there aren't any warlocks in the empire any more."

The question got him thinking, though – might Lar be a magician of some sort? He hadn't said so, had shown no sign of magic, but that didn't necessarily mean much, given his secrecy on certain subjects. Emmis was fairly sure the Lumethans were using magic of one variety or another, so why wouldn't the people of Vond? He would ask Lar about that when he got back to the house.

When at last he had answered everyone's questions about his new job, his new home, and his new employer – most of the answers were variations on, "I don't know yet" – the women took turns bringing him up to date on the local gossip. Imirin was trying to raise enough money to open her own shop, but so far was making do with operating a small still in the basement and selling her products to the local inns; Sharra was still furnishing her new home and living on her dowry and her husband Radler's earnings. Azradelle was expecting another child in a few months, her brother Kelder was keeping company with a merchant's daughter from Westgate, their sister Irith was still apprenticed to the old sailmaker on Shipwright Street but not happy about it, and so on.

Imirin insisted on giving him a sample of her latest batch, which seemed to make some of the neighbors nervous; presumably they remembered what a few cups of oushka had done to him at Pergren and Azradelle's wedding. Emmis limited himself to drinking perhaps half the small sample, just so no one would worry.

He had to admit that it was excellent oushka. Imirin's master had taught her well.

"Imirin the Distiller," their mother said proudly. "Doesn't that sound fine?"

Emmis agreed that it did, and carefully didn't mention any of the cognomens his youngest sister had had as a girl, before she lost her stammer and baby fat.

Finally Emmis was able to pry himself free, collect his baggage, and depart, making his way around to the west, then down Captain Street to Shiphaven Market, and along Commission Street to the Crooked Candle.

He stepped inside, and was immediately spotted.

"There you are!" Annis cried. "Come here, Emmis, and talk to me!" She pulled out a chair.

She was seated alone at a table in the back corner, facing the door.

There was no sign of the Lumethans.

He hesitated. He had come here to see her, but he had not been prepared for quite so loud and enthusiastic a greeting. Gita the tavern wench was watching from the kitchen door, Annis' shout having caught her attention.

Somehow, Emmis had expected spies to behave with a little more circumspection. Still, this was why he had come, to talk to the foreigners. He crossed the room, and settled into the chair Annis had indicated, lowering his two bags to the floor by his feet.

Annis smiled at him. "So you've come to tell me what the Vondishman is up to?" she asked.

"Something like that," Emmis acknowledged.

She dismissed it with a wave. "You needn't bother," she said. "We already know all about it."

Emmis blinked at her. "You do?"

"Yes, we do. We talked to that warlock, that Ishta, this morning – Hagai took me down there to translate. She told us all about Lar's grandson."

"Oh. Yes."

"And we're agreed on what we'll have to do. It's drastic, but we don't have any choice."

Emmis did not like the sound of that at all. "Drastic?"

"I would say so, yes." Her smile vanished. "You don't object, do you? It will save hundreds of lives in the long run. I know he's paying you, but you don't owe him any loyalty, really. Not with something like this."

"Object to what?" he asked warily.

Annis stared at him, then looked to either side.

The inn's taproom was largely deserted; it was too early for the supper crowd. Emmis and Annis sat at one table, three sailors sat at another at least twenty feet away, and a man in a blue tunic was apparently passed out drunk in one corner. Gita was out of sight, presumably in the kitchen. No one else was visible.

Still, Annis leaned forward and whispered.

"Assassination, of course."

Chapter Ten

For a moment Emmis desperately hoped that Annis did not speak Ethsharitic as well as she thought, that she had said the wrong word. There was something very strange about coming here after visiting his family, abruptly going from happy gossip about weddings and babies and jobs and apprenticeships to this foreigner cheerfully talking about assassination.

"You want to kill him?" he asked. "Why?"

"Because he's building an army of warlocks!"

Emmis stared at her in astonishment. "He is?"

"Yes!" She looked baffled by his surprise. "You were there, you heard him talking to Ishta – he wants to send his grandson to Ethshar to learn warlockry, then bring him back to Vond. And I'm sure it's not just the one grandson; he probably has a dozen children ready for training. If it were just one, wouldn't he have brought the boy with him? No, he's making arrangements for several, we're sure of it."

"Even if he is..." Emmis stopped. Lar wasn't making arrangements to provide his empire with a dozen warlocks, so why argue about what it would mean if he did?

"Why else would they want warlocks? They're going to expand again.

They're probably going to try to conquer all the Small Kingdoms!"

"I don't think so," Emmis said, but he didn't sound convincing even to himself.

He was trying to remember what Lar had said about revealing this. Was his real reason for consulting Ishta a secret? He remembered that Lar said these people wouldn't believe the truth even if they heard it, and Emmis thought that was probably right, but shouldn't he at least try?

No, he was fairly sure that Lar had said it was secret.

"He hasn't said anything to you about this plan for conquest?"

"He hasn't said anything about any plan for conquest!" Emmis replied.

"He said the Empire of Vond was big enough as it is, and they aren't planning to expand any further."

"Then he's lied to you."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, what else would he want these new warlocks for?"

"I don't know – building roads, maybe, or healing the sick. What makes you think warlocks are only good for fighting?"

"Because that's how the empire used Vond, of course."

"I think you mean that's how Vond created his empire, don't you?"

"It's the same thing. The empire is still there, even if Vond himself isn't – and you know, we still don't know where he went, or whether he might come back. Maybe this ambassador is recruiting Vond's new staff, for when he returns."

"He isn't going to..." Again, Emmis stopped in mid-sentence. He didn't really know whether Vond might come back someday; no one did. While no warlock had been known to return from Aldagmor at any time in the last twenty-two years, no one knew why, or what was really going on. For all Emmis knew, they might all come home tomorrow.

But that wasn't the way he would have bet it.

"Why do you keep assuming he wants several warlocks? How do you know this isn't just personal business, trying to find his grandson an apprenticeship?"

"Even one would be too many! Besides, he treated it as official business. He brought you along. We think it's clearly part of a war plan."

"But isn't it a tradition in the Small Kingdoms not to use magic in your wars?" he asked.

"It was before the Great Warlock came along, yes. He ruined that." The bitterness in her voice startled Emmis. "The empire uses magic."

"They did before, yes, but Vond is gone."

"Why would that matter? The Imperial Council is his heir. If they didn't intend to follow his path, why haven't they broken up the empire, and let the seventeen provinces go back to being seventeen kingdoms?"

"Well, but that's hardly the same thing!"

"That's what their envoys say, but why should we believe them?

"This is ridiculous. One man talked to a warlock about an apprenticeship for his grandson, and you're convinced it's the first step in a campaign to conquer the World!"

"Probably just the Small Kingdoms," Annis said. "They know they couldn't fight the Hegemony – you have thousands of magicians here."

"There are magicians in the Small Kingdoms!"

"Some, yes, especially in the north, along the Great Highway – but an army of warlocks could defeat most of them, and the rest would probably flee.

Don't forget, Emmis, we saw what Vond did. He smashed entire armies. He summoned storms out of a calm sky, and built his palace by pulling stone out of the ground with a wave of his hand. A dozen warlocks like that would be enough to defeat Ashthasa and Lumeth in a day, all the Small Kingdoms in a year."

"But most warlocks aren't like that! They hear the Calling before they have that kind of power!"

"Vond didn't."

Emmis frowned. "So he was a freak..."

Annis shook her head. "No," she said. "We think it's something about Semma that's different. Warlocks are more powerful there."

"That doesn't make any sense," Emmis said, but as he spoke he remembered what Lar had asked Kolar. That hum that Vond had heard – was that somehow related to his abnormally powerful magic?

Was that why the empire really didn't want any more warlocks?

"Listen," he said, "we have hundreds of warlocks here in Ethshar, and they don't cause any trouble. Why are you so sure they'd be a problem where you live?"

"You have all the other magicians to keep them under control," Annis said. "You have the Wizards' Guild, and the witches and sorcerers and demonologists and the rest. And for that matter, you have the other warlocks; they aren't all united in a single cause."

"So why do you think..."

"We can't risk it!" she snapped. "If the nobles of the empire have their own children trained as warlocks, that's completely different from anything anywhere else!"

"So you're going to kill the ambassador? How do you even know that will stop them?"

"We're going to kill this ambassador, and anyone else from Vond who tries to talk to warlocks, or to make an alliance with the Hegemony. The empire is quite strong enough without Ethshar's help."

Emmis blinked. "You know, I don't think the overlord would like that,"

he said.

"Why would he care?"

"You mean aside from generally not approving of murder? You're trying to cut off his communication with another country!"

"But he hasn't had any communication with the empire – why would he care when that doesn't change? After all, isn't he called Azrad the Lazy?"

Emmis stared at her. "No, he isn't," he said. "That was his father.

Azrad VI was called 'the Sedentary,' yes, but he died five years ago. The present overlord is Azrad VII, and he doesn't have an agreed-upon cognomen yet

– my sister Sharra calls him 'Azrad the Hard to Classify.' But he isn't lazy."

Annis looked distinctly disconcerted at that, but quickly regained her composure. "Still, why would he care what happens to troublemakers from the far side of the Small Kingdoms?"

"Because they're trying to talk to him, and he doesn't like being interrupted!" This didn't seem real to Emmis, talking like this. He had heard people talking about killing someone on occasion, but it had always been in a fit of anger, over a theft or a woman or some personal wrong, and it had usually been when they were very drunk. He had never heard someone calmly explain that someone was to be killed over politics, as if murder weren't important. It was hard to believe she was serious.

If she was serious, though, he would have to do something to stop her.

"So what sort of assassination are you planning?" he asked.

"Planning? It's done. Or happening, anyway. I wouldn't have told you otherwise – I don't trust you that much. Neyam hired someone."

"What?"

"Well, yes! Hagai couldn't do it, he's a theurgist, and I wouldn't know how to find an assassin, but Neyam..."

Emmis leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair. "Where are they?"

"Where are who?" Annis asked, startled.

"Neyam and his assassin! I have to stop them!"

"No, you don't," Annis said. "Sit down. Don't be silly."

"Yes, I do," Emmis said. "It's murder! Where are they?"

"I don't know. The Lumethans are doing this, it's not my idea – well, mostly not..."

Emmis turned away and ran out the door onto Commission Street, where he turned left and headed for Shiphaven Market at a trot. If he had been certain where he was headed he would have run, but he wasn't sure yet. Should he just go to the house in Allston and warn Lar?

That assumed it wasn't already too late. He hoped it wasn't already too late. He had sat there listening to the Ashthasan madwoman far longer than he should have, he told himself. He should have run to help as soon as she mentioned assassination.

But it hadn't seemed real. People didn't talk openly about such things!

Hadn't she realized that Emmis worked for Lar, that he liked Lar? Did she think that just because he had taken her money, he had no loyalty at all to his employer, not even the basic consideration he would give any human being?

He couldn't imagine thinking like that.

The market was uncrowded this time of day, and he was able to make it through and onto Twixt Street quickly. He picked up his pace; he still didn't know whether he was heading to Allston or the Wizards' Quarter, but either way, he would have to cross the Old Merchants' Quarter and the New City to get there.

A little belatedly the possibility of recruiting help among friends and family in Shiphaven occurred to him, but he immediately dismissed the idea; there might not be time, and it would just sound so ridiculous to them, running halfway across the city to stop an assassination!

He broke into a run, even though he knew he couldn't maintain it all the way to Allston.

He was almost to Canal Square when he realized he had left all his belongings on the floor of the Crooked Candle. He cursed, but did not slow down.

He did slow down in Canal Square, though, as the crowds were thicker here. He almost tripped over a small child, brushed awkwardly against a woman, and had to slow to little more than a walk as he squeezed past a clump of people at the south end.

Kolar had said his spell would take an hour, and it was perhaps half an hour's walk each way between Through Street and the wizard's shop; allow a little time for other matters, and the ambassador still would have needed no more than three hours to complete his errand and return to the house to begin writing his protocol. Emmis glanced up at the sky, trying to estimate how long it had been since he had headed back toward Shiphaven. The sun was hidden behind rooftops to the west as he jogged down Commerce Street. How long had he spent at the rooming house? How long with his family? The walk back had taken almost an hour all by itself...

He was fairly sure he had been in Shiphaven for hours. Lar might already be dead.

This might be partly his fault, he thought as he trotted up the slope toward High Street. If he hadn't talked to Annis, she and the Lumethans might not have been so quick to decide Lar had to be killed.

Or they might have been even quicker – who knew? They had been following Lar in any case. He hadn't told them anything about planning conquest. He hadn't told them anything about apprenticing to warlocks; they had heard that from Ishta. It wasn't his fault.

Still, he felt somehow responsible. He turned the corner onto High Street and broke into a run again.

As he crossed Merchant Street into the New City he began worrying about what he would do if he encountered the assassins. He was big and strong, but he had no training in how to fight, no weapon except his belt-knife. He glanced at the headquarters of the Council of Warlocks as he passed, and wished he had a warlock to help him – or any kind of magician, really.

And he hoped that the assassins Neyam had hired were just thugs, and not magicians. There were magical assassins, he knew that; some demonologists were said to specialize in assassination. Warlocks could kill without a trace, and it was rumored that some of them would do that for a price. Wizards were picky about who they killed, but they, too, had lethal magic at their command.

Witches never killed anyone, so far as he knew, and he had never heard of ritual dance causing anything much worse than a headache. To the best of his knowledge the gods no longer answered prayers to kill people under any circumstances, so priests and other theurgists couldn't be assassins.

Herbalists had a wide variety of poisons on hand, everyone knew that, but he couldn't see how anyone could use those against Lar. Scientists, well, who knew what scientists could do?

And sorcerers – during the Great War, Northern sorcerers had been the subject of nightmares and terrified whispers. No one knew how many of the horrible old weapons modern sorcerers might still have hidden away.

Emmis tried to remember all the other kinds of magic he had ever heard of. Most of them seemed harmless – prestidigitation and prophecy and the rest had no obvious lethal applications – but who knew what a clever magician might do? He estimated that at least half the schools of magic could definitely be used for assassination, and except for theurgy he couldn't be sure any of them were entirely safe.

Annis had said Hagai was a theurgist, so he was relatively harmless; he might have used his magic to help find Lar, but beyond that, Emmis didn't think Hagai was anything to worry about. Neyam, though – was he a magician, too? If so, what kind? Or the third Lumethan, whatever his name was – he could be anything.

Morkai, that was it.

He made the turn onto Arena Street, and almost collided with a woman eating a sausage. "Sorry," he said, a little breathlessly, as he pushed past her.

If the Lumethans had hired magicians to kill Lar, Emmis didn't think there was anything he could do. It took magic to fight magic. That was why the Small Kingdoms had banned using magic in their endless little wars; it would have made their regular armies useless, and you couldn't trust magicians. They weren't reliable. They might change sides, or decide they wanted to be in charge themselves, or they might simply die, and then where would you be, if your entire military depended on their magic?

The sun was almost down, the shadows stretching the full width of the avenue, the sky starting to darken when he turned onto Through Street and slowed to a stop, panting.

The yellow house was still there, unchanged. The door was closed. The street was largely deserted; a cat sat in a neighbor's window, a woman several doors down was puttering with her doorway shrine, and a man sat slumped against a stoop, apparently asleep.

There were no obvious assassins to be seen, no ominous sword-wielding figures in black cloaks. There was no brown-robed Lumethan, either. But there were dozens of places where they might be concealed, in doorways and alleys or behind corners – not all the houses were built directly against one another, or with their facades aligned.

Cautiously, Emmis crossed the street to the door of the rented house. He fished the key from the purse on his belt, thanking whatever gods or fates might be responsible that he hadn't left that on the floor of the Crooked Candle with all his other belongings.

The door was locked, just as it should be, and the key turned in the lock, just as it should. He opened the door slowly and carefully, and looked inside before stepping through, making sure there was no assassin lurking there.

Then in a sudden moment of inspiration he turned, and found the man from the stoop not asleep at all, but on his feet, belt-knife drawn, and hurrying across the street toward him.

Emmis snatched his own knife from his belt and stepped backward into the house. He slammed the door in the other man's face, but before he could latch it he heard footsteps.

He whirled, the knife in his right hand raised, just in time to duck a swinging blow from a walking stick. The stick smacked into the wall above Emmis's head, and he heard plaster crack.

There was a stranger in the house, a tall, thin man in a dark blue tunic and black wool breeches, his black beard trimmed to a point, his raised hands wielding a black and silver cane like a club. As Emmis took this in, a wooden cap fell from the end of the stick, revealing a sharp steel blade at least six inches long – the weapon was now as much a sword as a club.

Emmis dived at him, keeping his head down, below that sword-stick, and butted the intruder hard, sending them both tumbling backward onto the bare wood floor. They landed with Emmis on top, and he reached out his left hand, fingers spread, and grabbed his opponent's face, shoving it back so that the stranger's head hit the floor hard.

Then he scrambled over his dazed opponent, got back to his feet, and ran toward the back of the house.

He was not here to fight; he didn't know how to fight, not really. He had been in a few brawls in bars or on the docks, but he was no fighter, not really. The one thing he knew which had stood him in good stead here so far, was to do the unexpected – if someone came at you, go at him as well, don't retreat. Don't hesitate – better to do the wrong thing quickly than the right thing too late.

And the other rule he used in fighting was that when you get the chance, put anything you can between yourself and your foe – doors, furniture, or just distance. Don't try to beat anyone, just try to get away.

With that in mind, he didn't look for a weapon, or turn to face the man with the stick; he just ran to the back door and out into the courtyard.

A few of the neighbors were there, and glanced at him as he ran out of the house, stumbling across the little back porch and down the single step onto the hard-packed earth. A half-formed thought of shouting for them to call for the guards crossed Emmis's mind, but he let it go unheeded as he sprinted toward one of the narrow passages leading out of the courtyard to the streets.

Lar was not dead yet, he was sure. The assassins wouldn't have been lingering in and around the house if they had already murdered their target.

He wouldn't have been hiding from them. That meant he hadn't yet returned home. The assassins had been lying in wait, expecting him any moment, expecting their unprepared victim to walk in, completely unaware of any danger.

At least, Emmis hoped that was what it meant.

And they had gotten Emmis instead, a younger, stronger, more prepared opponent, and he had survived their initial attack.

But that meant that the would-be killers would be more prepared now, as well. It was more important than ever that Emmis find Lar first, and warn him.

The more heroic thing might be to stay and fight, to try to take the assassins out of action somehow, but Emmis was no hero. He had no idea how he might single-handedly defeat two men, especially not when one of them had that diabolical sword-stick.

He didn't even know whether there were just the two. After all, neither of them was Neyam of Lumeth. There might be a whole gang lurking around Through Street.

Emmis squeezed through one of the narrower alleys and emerged onto an unfamiliar street; he paused for only a fraction of a second to get his bearings, then turned and headed for Arena Street, hoping that he had enough of a lead that the two assassins would not be able to follow him to the Wizards' Quarter.

Chapter Eleven

Emmis saw no sign of pursuit. He attracted a few stares as he ran headlong down Arena Street, but no one seemed to be following him, or taking more than a casual interest.

Still, when he reached the Arena district he turned left onto Camp Street, as if he were heading for Camptown to fetch guardsmen. Once he was around the corner he slowed to a walk and straightened his clothes, trying to look like an ordinary townsman out on business, rather than a fleeing lunatic.

He was not going to Camptown, though; he turned right on Hawker Street, past the Arena, and picked up his pace, hoping as he did that Lar was not walking down Arena Street, a few blocks to the west, as he did. He was assuming that the ambassador was still in the Wizards' Quarter, that his business there had taken longer than expected, or he had decided to do something else after Kolar's spell was done. Emmis he was hoping he could find him before he went home and ran into the assassins.

It was a good thing that Lar was so easy to spot, with that red coat and big hat.

Emmis turned right again, across the entry plaza at the south side of the Arena, past the notice boards – and no, Lar was not there reading the notices, nor was he visible in the crowds on Arena Street.

Emmis frowned, and then ran and jumped, pulling himself up on a cornice on the face of the Arena so that he was hanging from the stone three or four feet off the ground, his feet braced against a pillar, as he peered up and down Arena Street.

There were hundreds of people in sight, male and female, young and old.

Dozens of them wore hats, from the bright little caps of the fashionable ladies to the battered, broad-brimmed straw hats of farmers in town for the day, but nowhere did he see a big black hat with a red satin band and a curling white plume.

He also didn't see a tall man in a blue tunic, carrying a black and silver stick; that was a relief. He wished he had gotten a better look at the other assassin, but his only clear impression was that the man had been nondescript, wearing tunic and breeches of some ordinary color like brown or gray.

He dropped back to the ground, hoping he hadn't drawn too much attention, and hurried on along Arena Street.

Ten minutes later he was on Wizard Street, knocking at the door of Kolar's shop.

This time Kolar was wearing a proper wizard's robe when he answered the door, a flowing floor-length black garment with bands of midnight-blue velvet on the sleeves. A rather elegant blue velvet cap adorned the wizard's head.

"Ah, the assistant!" he said, before Emmis could catch his breath. "Did Lar forget something?"

"He was here?" Emmis demanded. "But he's not now? When did he leave?"

Startled, Kolar said, "I don't really know. Some time ago. Is there a problem?"

"Yes," Emmis said. "Did he say where he was going? Because he didn't go back to the house."

"Well, no – he was going to try another wizard first, and if that didn't work out, perhaps a witch."

"What?" He blinked. "Why does he need another wizard?"

Kolar sighed. "Because the spell didn't work," he said. "I performed it twice, with the wording we agreed upon, and both times it felt just fine, but there was no answer to his question."

Emmis frowned. "How do you mean, no answer?"

"I mean, the smoke didn't form runes, just meaningless swirls. It certainly wasn't any sort of writing I know, and I'm reasonably fluent in three dead languages, as well as Ethsharitic. Lar said it wasn't anything he knew, either, and he apparently knows half a dozen tongues."

"But how can that happen?" Emmis asked. "The spell went wrong?"

Kolar shook his head. "I don't think it did," he said. "I told you last night that Fendel's Divination would answer the question if there is an answer and nothing interfered. It didn't answer, so if there's an answer, then something interfered."

"But what? What could have interfered?"

Kolar turned up an empty hand. "How should I know?"

"Because you're a wizard! Knowing these things is your job!"

Kolar shook his head again. "It's not like that," he said. "Knowledge isn't free. Magic interferes with other magic, and trying to find out exactly which magic is interfering can be difficult and dangerous. Nobody's paying me to make the effort or take the risk."

This was frustrating, but Emmis realized it wasn't really important.

"All right, fine," he said. "Then you don't know what went wrong, but you sent the ambassador somewhere else. Where did you send him?"

"I suggested he try Imrinira of Sabar, over on Stopped Street," Kolar said, pointing vaguely in a direction Emmis thought was east.

Emmis had never heard of Stopped Street, and its name did not make its location obvious. "How do I find her?" he asked.

"Turn left at the next intersection – well, it's Stopped Street in both directions, but Imrinira's shop is to the left. There's a very long block, then you'll cross Flight Street, and it's the fourth shop on the left."

"Thank you." He turned, and hurried up the street.

Kolar's directions were simple enough, though they hadn't mentioned how much Stopped Street curved, and a few minutes later Emmis was knocking on the shop door beneath a sign that read "IMRINIRA THE MAGNIFICENT: Truths Uncovered

& Fantasies Made Real."

Only while he was waiting for a response did he glance at the broad shop windows on either side; he almost wished he hadn't. The creatures milling about in the displays were no part of any fantasy he had ever had, except perhaps in nightmares – multi-colored, many-legged things that flickered and shimmered in very discomforting ways. Some of them were undeniably beautiful, particularly the winged ones, but they still weren't anything he cared to encounter.

He looked up, to avoid watching the things in the windows and to be sure he had not imagined that the lanterns illuminating the sign were still lit, and noticed how big the building was. Four stories high, and wider than most –

if Imrinira owned the entire place she was obviously doing well for herself.

He knocked again.

The door finally opened, and a young man peered out – a youth, really, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. "May I help you?" he asked.

"I'm looking for my employer," Emmis said. "I was told he came to consult with Imrinira of Sabar, at this address."

"Your employer?"

"Shorter than me, red velvet coat, fancy hat? I'm not sure what name he would have given."

"Oh, yes. He called himself Lar the Ambassador. Speaks with an accent?"

"Yes. He's Vondish. Is he still here, by any chance?"

The youth shook his head. "No, I'm afraid he and my mistress went to consult with Zindré the Pale."

Emmis wanted to scream with frustration. He had been hoping that they were in a back room somewhere. "When?"

"Oh, I couldn't say exactly. Less than an hour."

"Where can I find this Zindré, then?"

"In Witch Alley, of course. You go back that way, turn right on Flight Street, then take the first left. I'm not sure which shop is hers, but the alley isn't that long."

"Thank you." Emmis turned and ran – he did not want to give Lar time to look for yet another magician after this Zindré.

He found Witch Alley easily – he had seen it once or twice before, though always entering from the other end – and Zindré's name was plain enough on a signboard, but the shop was dark, the curtains drawn. He stared at the locked door, then stepped back to look up, hoping to see a light in the witch's rooms upstairs.

"If you're looking for Zindré, she's talking to Sella," someone said.

Emmis turned and found a man perhaps twice his age standing behind him, leaning on a stick. Not a slender black-and-silver stick, but a rough wooden one, little more than a tree limb trimmed to the right length.

"Thank you," he said. "Where...?"

The man pointed down the street.

As Emmis trotted farther down Witch Alley, looking at the signs, he took comfort in the fact that Lar had still been alive and unharmed when he and Imrinira left her shop an hour or so ago, and that if he, Emmis, was having this much trouble catching up, then any assassins would have an equally difficult time of it.

"SELLA THE WITCH, Diviner & Seer," he read, and this shop had lamps lit and the door open. He hurried up to it.

Before he could cross the threshold, though, a thin, black-haired girl of fifteen or sixteen appeared in the door.

"Hello, Emmis," she said. "I'm Teneria of Fishertown, Sella's apprentice. Come in, please; we've been expecting you."

Emmis stumbled in surprise. "You have?"

Teneria didn't smile. "We have," she said. "Diviner and seer – it says so right on the sign. Would you like a cup of tea?"

Emmis's mouth twisted wryly. "You don't already know?"

"I'm just the apprentice, not the seer," she replied. She stepped aside.

"Come in."

Emmis obeyed, and found himself in a cheery shop that could have belonged to either a witch or an herbalist – dozens of bunches of dried plants hung from the overhead beams, and the shelves along the back wall were cluttered with bowls, mortars, alembics, glass balls, jats, and bottles. A teapot and sugar bowl stood on a small table in the center of the room, surrounded by cups; the table in turn was surrounded by half a dozen overstuffed chairs, most of them occupied.

Lar was sitting in one of the chairs, a teacup in his hand; his hat and coat hung on a coat-rack by the fireplace.

Three women sat in the other occupied chairs. One was a plump, rosy-cheeked woman of fifty or so, in a green tunic and flowered skirt; she was seated facing the door and smiling broadly at Emmis and Teneria. To her right sat a tall white-haired woman in a dark red wizard's robe; to her left was a tiny little woman in black.

These were presumably Imrinira, Zindré, and Sella, but Emmis was unsure which was which, though he supposed the women in red was probably Imrinira.

"Come sit down," the woman in the green tunic said. "I know you don't want any tea yet, but honestly, Emmis, you don't need to be in that much of a rush. Sit down, and we'll explain matters to you. They won't find you here."

"Go on," Teneria said, giving him a gentle shove.

"Don't your feet hurt, after all that running?" the middle woman asked.

Emmis had not allowed himself to notice that, but now that she mentioned it he became aware that yes, his feet were a little sore. He was accustomed to doing plenty of walking and lifting, but not so much running. Reluctantly, he shambled to one of the two empty chairs and lowered himself into it.

This whole performance was exactly the sort of thing he had half-expected from Kolar, and not received. Now that it was actually happening, though, he found it very uncomfortable.

"You know why I'm here?" he asked, as he settled onto the worn upholstery. There was a faint click behind him, as Teneria closed the front door.

"You're here to warn the ambassador here about people who are looking for him," the middle woman said. "They're trying to kill him, I think?" She set down her cup. "I'm Sella, by the way. This is Zindré, and you've already guessed Imrinira."

"It's good to see you," Lar said. "Now, who's trying to kill me?"

Emmis glanced at Sella. "She hasn't already told you?"

"I didn't know," Sella said. "All I know about the matter is what I've seen in your mind. I knew you were coming because every morning I use my magic to learn who will walk through my door in the course of the day, but I can't see every detail of what will happen, only who will come. Until you arrived and I heard your thoughts, I had no idea just what warning you were so eager to deliver."

Emmis gave a nod, accepting her explanation, then turned back to Lar.

"The Lumethans hired assassins," he said. "Annis of Ashthasa told me they had, and I hurried back to warn you. Two of them were waiting at the house when I got there, one inside and one outside, but I managed to get away, and I came here to find you."

He might ordinarily have hesitated before revealing all this in front of strangers, but Sella had already made clear that she could hear everything he thought, so there was no point in trying to keep secrets. The other two might not be quite so gifted, but they were magicians themselves, and could undoubtedly find out if they wanted to.

"They hired assassins?" Lar replied, visibly shocked. "Why?"

"Because they believed what you told Ishta," Emmis said. "They think you're sending your grandson to be apprenticed to a warlock. And they think there must be others, as well, and you're going to create an army of warlocks, to replace Vond and expand the empire."

"I don't have a grandson!"

"That's not what you told Ishta, remember? Hagai followed us there, and then went back with Annis as his interpreter and talked to Ishta, and they all believed your story about a grandson."

Lar frowned thoughtfully. "Oh," he said. "Did you tell them the truth?"

"No! I didn't tell them anything! I didn't know what I was allowed to say. And I only spoke to Annis, the Lumethans weren't there, and they'd already hired the assassins."

"They really hired assassins?"

"They really did. A tall man with a blade in his walking stick, and another one I didn't get a good look at."

"And they're waiting back at the house we rented?"

"They were last I saw, yes."

Lar looked at the magicians. "I didn't expect anything like this! Do you have any suggestions?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the wizard said. "Who is Ishta, or Annis, or Hagai? What does this have to do with Vond the Warlock, or the Lumeth Towers?"

"Does it matter?" Zindré asked. "Obviously, you need to tell the city guards. They'll take care of these assassins."

"And don't go back to the house until after you have spoken to the guard," Sella added.

"But my sword is there," Lar said.

Emmis and Imrinira said in unison, "You have a sword?"

"Get the guard first," Sella told him. "Then get your sword."

"There were just these two?" Zindré asked Emmis.

"I only saw two," Emmis said. He was oddly reassured by how swiftly the witches had accepted his story. Everyone knew that witches could tell truth from falsehood – well, at least the witches who were good at their job – and Sella and Zindré clearly thought he was telling the truth.

"Any sign of magic?" Zindré asked.

"Not that I saw. The outside man pretended to be sleeping, and the inside man had that stick with the blade on the end, but I didn't see any magic. Nothing glowed, or moved in ways it shouldn't."

"Do you think they were Demerchan?" Lar asked.

"What?"

"Demerchan is a cult of assassins that operates in the Small Kingdoms,"

Sella explained. "I've never heard of them doing anything here in Ethshar of the Spices, though."

"How could I tell if they were this... whatever it is?"

Sella and Lar exchanged glances.

"I don't know," Lar admitted.

"It sounds to me as if the Lumethans just hired a couple of thugs from the Hundred-Foot Field," Imrinira said.

Emmis shook his head. "The one with the stick was too well dressed for that. The other one, maybe."

"How would anyone from the Small Kingdoms know how to find assassins to hire here in Ethshar?" Zindré asked.

"Annis said Hagai is a theurgist," Emmis said. "Maybe he asked a god."

The others exchanged frowns. "Would a god tell him that?" Lar asked.

"I don't think so," Zindré said. "But I'm no priestess. If he phrased his question right, maybe he could get an answer."

"They've been paying a tavern wench for favors," Emmis said. "Maybe she knew of someone."

"That could be," Zindré agreed.

"Does it matter?" Sella asked. "As long as there's no magic involved, and the assassins aren't working for the overlord, the guards ought to be able to handle it. Just go to Camptown or the Palace and tell someone."

Emmis nodded. "I think she's right."

"For now," Lar said. "But if they really want me dead, they'll hire someone the guard can't stop. The stories say ordinary guards can't stop Demerchan, or they could hire a magician."

"Well, we'll just have to convince them they have no reason to kill you!" Emmis said.

For a moment no one spoke; then Lar asked, "How?"

Chapter Twelve

The conversation trailed off after that, and a few minutes later Lar and Emmis were turning the corner onto Games Street, bound for Camptown to talk to the guards. On either side they saw broad, open doors into gaming halls or card rooms of one sort or another; the murmur of voices and the smell of oushka reached them.

"Is it far to Camptown?" Lar asked.

Emmis turned up an empty palm. "I don't know," he said. "I've never been there."

Lar glanced at him. "Never?"

"Never. If I needed a guardsman, I could find one in the shipyards or the markets, or the towers at Westgate, or the Palace. Camptown's the far end of the city from Shiphaven."

"Then why are we going there?"

"Because it's closer to here," Emmis said. "We aren't in Shiphaven, we're in the Wizards' Quarter. We could have gone up to Southgate, but that's the opposite direction from the house. If there were a show at the Arena, we could find guards there, and it would be right on our way, but there's no show. So Camptown seemed best. Or we may just find a guard along the way."

"Maybe I should just buy another sword and defend myself," Lar muttered.

"You could," Emmis agreed, "but the guards are paid to protect the city, and that includes you, so why not?" He pointed. "Besides, it looks like we won't need to go all the way to Camptown."

"Hm?" Lar followed the pointing finger. "Is that a guardsman?"

Emmis threw his employer a baffled glance. "He's wearing a helmet and breastplate, isn't he? Of course he's a guardsman!"

"But his kilt is bright red, and he doesn't have a sword!"

The man in question was standing in front of one of the shops, holding a smaller man against the wall by the front of his tunic. He wore the yellow tunic, red kilt, and polished breastplate and helmet of the city guard, and a businesslike truncheon hung from his leather belt.

"Well, of course it's red," Emmis said. "What other color would it be?"

"Green. Don't Ethsharitic soldiers wear green kilts?"

"Not that I ever saw. I think the idea is to have them stand out in a crowd."

That was certainly happening in this case; a small crowd was gathering around the guardsman and his prisoner, though they were being careful to stay well out of reach. The guardsman's bright uniform definitely stood out – as did his height, as he was a very large man. Emmis was a big, strong man himself, but he did not think he would be any match for this fellow.

"They did in the old pictures."

"They haven't in my lifetime. And they hardly ever carry swords on the street."

He and Lar kept walking as they talked, and were now drawing within earshot of the soldier.

"...won't mind if we take a look in your purse, then?" The guard's voice was a low rumble, but not angry or hostile.

"I had that money when I came in!" the man pinned against the wall protested.

"Would you care to tell a magistrate that? With a witch in the room?"

"I don't... why should I? I just stopped in to see what the game was like! You have no business making these unfounded accusations!"

"Well, if I'm wrong, I'll apologize very politely, and give you two bits from the beer fund for your trouble. If I'm right, and these two young men who pointed you out to me are telling the truth, well, then you'll be right there in front of the magistrate, who can decide whether to make additional charges for wasting his time and costing him the witch's fee."

The pinned man stared up at the guardsman's smiling face, then slumped.

"You'll let me go if I pay back the money?"

"Hai, I don't want to waste the magistrate's time any more than you do," the soldier rumbled. "I'm sure these players will be reasonable. I do understand the temptation, believe me – they should know better than to leave their stakes out in plain sight, unguarded, like that. They probably thought that it would be safe enough there in a respectable gambling hall, with me standing by the door, and as it turns out it was, but still, it was asking for trouble. Which I would tell the magistrate when he figured up his fee."

"All we want is our money," someone called from the door of the shop.

"If we get it back he can go."

"There, you see?"

The thief lifted his purse. "I had seven bits of my own," he said miserably.

The guardsman released his grip on the man's tunic. "We'll leave you four, if that's all right." He reached for the purse.

"Three bits to avoid a flogging?" someone called from the crowd. "What a bargain!"

"Good enough," the thief said. He handed over the little leather pouch.

"You should probably stay out of this gaming house for a few sixnights," the guardsman said, as he spilled coins out onto his hand – mostly copper, but Emmis saw the unmistakable glint of silver, as well. The soldier plucked one triangular copper piece from the little pile and popped it into his own purse, then counted out four more and returned them to the bag, which he handed back to its owner. "In fact, I'd be careful about this whole block.

I'm sure you understand."

"Yes."

"Then you can go."

The guard straightened up, and watched as the thief turned and ran, past Emmis and Lar. Two young men burst from the shop door and trotted over eagerly. The soldier turned and dumped the remaining coins into the first man's outstretched hands. "You two split that up," he said. "And I'd recommend playing somewhere else tonight."

"Yes, sir," the pair chorused.

That business attended to, the guardsman started to turn away, but Emmis reached out. "Excuse me, sir," he said.

Startled, the soldier turned, one hand falling to the truncheon on his belt.

"I'm Emmis of Shiphaven," Emmis said, "and this is Lar Samber's son, from the Empire of Vond, and we could use your help. Someone's trying to kill us."

The guard frowned. "Why?"

"It's a political thing, from back home," Lar said. "I never thought they would dare try anything here in Ethshar!"

The guard studied Lar's hat, which was definitely not anything he would normally see on the city streets – certainly not on Games Street, at any rate.

"You're sure?"

"Sure of what?" Lar asked.

"That they're trying to kill you."

"Yes!" Emmis said. "They broke into our house, and one of them took a swing at me with this... this sword-thing."

The guardsman stared at him for a moment, then glanced back at the door of the gambling hall. He sighed. "Wait here," he said. He turned and marched to the door, where he bellowed inside, "Hai, Kelder! Send someone up to the camp and tell the Lieutenant I'm investigating a break-in. You're on your own until either I get back, or he posts a replacement – but don't worry, I'll take it as a personal insult if anyone tries anything while I'm gone. A very personal insult. And you all remember what happened to Terrek when he insulted me."

There was a muffled chorus of acknowledgment; then the guard turned back to Lar and Emmis. "Let's go," he said.

Lar hesitated, looking up at the guard's face, then over at Emmis, as if asking him a silent question.

Emmis had no idea what the question was, so he merely looked impatient, and gestured for them to go.

They went.

The three of them headed west on Games Street at a brisk pace; as they made the turn onto Arena Street, Emmis could not resist asking, "What did happen to Terrek?"

"They think he'll be able to walk again by Festival," the soldier said.

"Sooner, if he can afford a magician to heal his legs. Which he can't, after paying for the other damage."

Emmis decided he didn't need further details.

"As long as we're telling each other things, suppose you two tell me what happened to make you think someone's trying to kill you."

Lar and Emmis exchanged glances. Then Lar said, "I think this one is for you to tell."

Emmis sighed. "Lar, here, hired me as his local guide, right on the Shiphaven docks, as soon as his ship tied up," he said. "I found a house he could rent, in Allston – that's where we're going. He's here representing the Empire of Vond in... well, in things I don't know about, as they aren't my business, but apparently some of Vond's neighbors aren't happy about it. I met these four foreigners at an inn over in Shiphaven, and they paid me to tell them what he was up to, and I didn't see that it could do any harm." He hesitated.

"I didn't mind," Lar said. "He didn't know anything secret."

"So I talked to them, and then I saw one of them following us when we were in the Wizards' Quarter last night," Emmis continued. "And today I was back at the inn, the Crooked Candle on Commission Street – I'd been visiting my family in Shiphaven, and stopped in, and there was one of the foreigners, the Merchant she said her name was, from Ashthasa, and she told me they'd hired an assassin to kill Lar. I ran back to the house to warn him, even though I thought it was probably too late, but it wasn't, because his business in the Wizards' Quarter took longer than anyone had expected. And when I got to the house, these two men were waiting for me, one on the street out front, and one already inside the house, and when I opened the front door they both came for me. I got inside and slammed the door before the one on the street could get in, and then ducked when the one inside swung his walking stick at my head. And the end came off the stick, and it had a knife-blade inside, but where I'd ducked under it I was able to knock him down before he could stab me and run out the back door and slip away. Then I came to the Wizards' Quarter to find Lar, and then we started along Games Street to Camptown, and found you."

"You said the house is in Allston?"

"On Through Street, half a block northeast of Arena."

"So how long ago did this attack take place? That's a bit of a walk."

Emmis suddenly realized he had no idea what time it was. He looked up; the sky was dark enough for the first stars to be appearing, but neither moon was visible, so he couldn't use the lesser moon's crescent to estimate the hour. "The sun hadn't set yet when it happened," he said.

"Then it's been a good hour, at the very least," the soldier said.

"Chances are that whoever it was fled the place long ago."

"Oh," Emmis replied. He had to admit that the man was probably right.

"But they might come back," he said, "or they might be watching the house."

"That's true, and one of your neighbors might have seen something, so I'll come take a look, but I'm not expecting much to come of it. If it's true your foreign friends have hired assassins, I'd suggest you keep a very good watch. Hire yourself some bodyguards, perhaps. Maybe sleep somewhere else for a few nights."

The three walked on in silence for a moment as Lar and Emmis considered this. As they neared the Arena Lar said to Emmis, "Maybe we should find you a sword."

"What? I'm a dockworker, not a soldier!"

"You've got the build of a fighter," the guardsman remarked.

"A brawler, maybe, not a swordsman! I've never held a sword in my life!"

"No one's expecting you to take up fencing," Lar said. "I just thought it might discourage intruders."

"You do look like a fighter," the guard agreed. "Usually, that's all it takes. No one wants to take on a man with a sword – you can't tell by looking whether he knows how to use it or not."

"You aren't carrying a sword," Emmis pointed out.

"That's because I don't want to kill anyone," the soldier replied calmly. "If the red kilt and breastplate aren't enough to warn someone off, a sword probably wouldn't do it, either." He patted his truncheon. "A whack on the head with this will take a man down, but he'll probably still be able to get up the next morning, and I won't have to apologize to his grieving family.

Not to mention I'm less likely to get blood everywhere. And it's easier to use in a crowd."

"You could carry both," Emmis pointed out.

"Then I'd have to think about which to use, and there are occasions when taking time to think about anything is a bad idea."

"Not to mention the cost," Lar said.

"Not to mention that," the guardsman agreed, with a nod and a smile.

"Or worrying about bumping into things with it, or whether someone might get it away from me while I'm using the truncheon. If I were posted along the wall, at any of the city gates, I'd have a sword, but on Games Street it just isn't a good idea."

For a few paces the conversation dropped, but then Emmis said, "The man in the blue tunic has a sword. Or a stick with a blade, anyway."

"Blue tunic? You got a good look at this fellow, then?"

"Reasonably good," Emmis said. "It was a bit shadowy and it all happened quickly."

"So what did you see?"

"Curly hair, pointed beard, blue tunic, black breeches, black boots, tall, thin, a bit hollow-cheeked. That's about all."

"What about the other one?" Lar asked.

Emmis shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Brown tunic, I think, but it might have been gray. Hair and beard could have used trimming. That's all."

"Any idea how one of them got inside the house?"

Lar cleared his throat. "I may not have locked the back door," he admitted.

The soldier grimaced.

"He's a foreigner," Emmis pointed out.

"You aren't," the guardsman said. "You should have warned him!"

Emmis accepted the criticism silently.

"Were your attackers foreign?"

Emmis spread his hands. "I have no idea," he said. "They didn't say anything, so I didn't hear any accents, and they didn't dress any differently than we do. They could have been brought in, or they could have been hired here, I don't know."

The soldier cast a quick glance at Lar's velvet coat and elaborate hat, but did not comment Instead he asked, "You said you talked to the foreigner who hired them?"

"Well, I talked to a foreigner. She said it was one of the others, a Lumethan named Neyam, who did the actual hiring."

"Could you find either of them again? The woman you spoke to, or the one who did the hiring? Would you know them if you saw them?"

"Oh, I'd definitely recognize her. Neyam, maybe not – I only saw him once, and he had a hood up. But Annis the Merchant, the Ashthasan, absolutely, I'd know her if I saw her. We spoke at the Crooked Candle, in Shiphaven, north of the market; I don't know whether that's where she's staying." He frowned. "If she isn't there, I wouldn't know where to find them."

"How determined to you think these people are?"

Emmis turned up a palm. "I don't know," he said.

"How much money do they have?"

"I don't know that, either. Some. They paid me generously, but they dickered about it."

"So if this first attempt fails, do you think they'd try to hire a magician to finish the job?"

"Oh," Emmis said, feeling his guts twist.

"They might," Lar said. He and Emmis exchanged glances.

"Then you'll need to talk to a magician yourselves about some protective spells," the guardsman said.

"That would be reasonable," Lar agreed.

All three fell silent for the next few blocks, in fact none of them spoke again until they turned onto Through Street.

When they rounded the curve, though, Emmis said, "Oh."

Lar said something long and nasty-sounding in Semmat.

The guardsman grinned broadly. "Well, it's been awhile since I've seen a real torch-bearing mob!" he said.

It wasn't really much of a mob, Emmis thought. There were only a little more than a dozen people standing in the street in front of the yellow house, and only four or five of them had torches.

"In the name of Azrad VII, overlord of the city and triumvir of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, what's going on here?" the guardsman bellowed, striding forward. Lar and Emmis hastened to follow him.

A dozen voices replied at once as the entire mob surged toward him.

The guardsman held up a hand for silence, then chose a man in the crowd.

"You," he said. "What's going on?"

"We don't know!" the man answered. "Earlier today someone came running out the back of that house, and then a man with a sword came running out after him, and another man was at the front, and they all left the doors standing open and ran off. Someone got the landlord, because we couldn't find the tenants..."

At this point he was interrupted by several voices as various people pointed at Emmis and Lar and shouted, "Those two!" or "There they are!" or similar phrases.

"I'm the landlord," someone else said, stepping forward, and Emmis was relieved to see that it was their landlord, and not some further complication.

"We thought one of my tenants might have been murdered, or kidnapped."

"We searched the house," the first speaker said, "but we didn't find anyone in there, or any blood or anything, so we talked it over and sent someone to fetch a guardsman from the Palace, and then we were waiting for you, and here you are."

"Except I didn't come from the Palace," the soldier said. "These two found me on Games Street." He turned and looked at the house.

The front door was still standing open. Emmis wondered how many of Lar's possessions had disappeared so far. His own, of course, were probably all gone, left on the floor of the Crooked Candle.

"That's the place?" the guardsman asked.

"Yes," Emmis said.

"Show me what happened."

Emmis nodded. He borrowed a torch from one of the neighbors, since of course no one had lit any candles, and led the soldier inside.

"I was right here when they came at me," he said, pointing. "I slammed the door behind me, and ducked, and the man's stick hit the wall..."

He held up the torch, illuminating a small gash in the plaster of the wall, right at head-height.

"Then I ran into him, and got up and ran out the back, and around through the alley, and then I went to find Lar."

The guard looked at the damaged plaster, then at the floor. He bent down and picked up a black wooden cylinder with a silver cap on one end; it was split lengthwise on one side, a narrow crack that was still fresh, judging by the color of the wood. "What's this?"

"That's off his walking stick," Emmis said. "It hid the blade on the end. It must have come off when it hit the wall."

"He didn't retrieve it? Sloppy."

Emmis turned up an empty palm.

Just then there were shouts from the street; Emmis and the guardsman turned and peered out the door.

Two more guards had just arrived, accompanying one of the neighbors, a woman Emmis vaguely recognized from the courtyard. Lar and the landlord were going to greet them.

"Well," the soldier from Games Street said. "We're all here now, I'd say. Shall we have everyone in for a cup of tea?"

Chapter Thirteen

It was almost midnight by the time the last question had been answered and the last visitor herded out the door. The three soldiers had all read Lar's credentials with interest, and shown him great respect thereafter. Lar had declined their offer to post a guard overnight, on the grounds that no one would be stupid enough to try again after all this fuss, but he had closed the shutters very firmly, and checked the locks on the doors very carefully. He had also unpacked his sword from the bottom of a trunk, and inspected it carefully before sheathing it and hanging the scabbard on his belt.

Emmis had been interested to see that this was not a fancy nobleman's sword intended for display; it was a serious, workmanlike weapon, with a blade of smooth gray steel and a simple black leather grip.

Finally everything was secured, leaving only Lar and Emmis in the house, looking at one another.

"I'm going to bed," Lar said.

"What about the protocol?"

"It will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm exhausted."

"And what happened in the Wizards' Quarter today? Did Kolar give you your answer?"

"That can wait until tomorrow, too. Good night, Emmis."

"Good night, sir."

He watched as the ambassador shuffled wearily to his room, entered, and closed the door behind himself. Then he stood in the hallway by the head of the stairs, listening to the faint sounds of the city outside – even at this hour, it was not entirely silent.

This was his city, even if it wasn't Shiphaven. This was still Ethshar of the Spices. People here did not casually hire assassins to kill their enemies, and then admit it to strangers. What kind of place was Lumeth, or Ashthasa, that those foreigners would even consider assassinating someone who had done them no harm? What kind of people were they, that Annis would admit her part in this crime to him, and apparently expect him to do nothing about it?

Emmis wasn't a fool, and he didn't consider himself particularly naive.

He knew that people sometimes murdered each other in Ethshar. He had seen a few of them hanged for it. He knew that thieves sometimes stabbed people to death in dark alleys, that burglars sometimes killed victims who woke up at the wrong time, that the poor homeless beggars in the Hundred Foot Field sometimes killed one another over nothing, that drunken brawls sometimes ended in a death or two, that feuding magicians sometimes went too far, that even lovers' quarrels could turn lethal.

But to hire a team of killers because someone talked about apprenticing his grandson to a warlock – that was insane.

At least he knew he hadn't imagined it – the neighbors had seen his attackers, and there was the mark on the wall, and the broken cap from the sword-stick. The guards had believed him. They took word back to their superiors at the Palace and in Camptown. They would look for Annis and the Lumethans, and when they found them they would see to it that the foreigners didn't try anything like this again.

And it might help get Lar his appointment with the overlord. This incident would demonstrate that the ambassador was someone important enough to worry about.

He still hadn't written that protocol, of course.

He would write it tomorrow. Emmis frowned slightly; what would he do, while Lar was writing that thing? Did he need to stay around, to correct Lar's Ethsharitic? The ambassador usually seemed capable enough with the language.

Emmis paused. Did he need to stay around at all? He hadn't signed on to fight off assassins. He could just quit, and go back to Shiphaven, and work on the docks. He could find another room somewhere.

But all his belongings were lost; landlords would look on that with great suspicion. He could get his sisters and neighbors to vouch for him, but still, it wouldn't look good.

Besides, what would happen to Lar if he did that? And the Vondishman paid better than any shipowner or merchant who had ever hired Emmis.

And Emmis wanted to know what in the World was going on, with these magicians and assassins and mysteries!

He would stay, he decided. At least for now.

And with that settled, he finally went to bed, leaving his clothes carefully draped across the furniture to air out, since he had no others to wear.

The world looked very different in the morning sun, after a night's rest, and Emmis was almost cheerful as he dressed. His tunic hardly smelled at all, despite the sweat-stains, but he still told himself he would have to wash it soon, and he would want to buy another at the first opportunity. Tailor Street was just three blocks to the east; he had never bought anything there, but earning ten bits a day in silver, he could afford it now.

He ambled down to the kitchens, seeing no sign that the ambassador was out of bed yet, and set about assembling a suitable breakfast. He had the fire hot and had just put the teakettle on when Lar appeared in the doorway.

"What do we have?" he asked.

"Boiled ham," Emmis replied. "Or sardines, if you prefer."

"Ham will do fine."

A few minutes later they were sitting in the dining room with mugs of tea and plates of ham; there were still no chairs in the kitchen.

"Good tea," Lar remarked. "Much better than the herbal stuff Sella makes."

"What happened in the Wizards' Quarter yesterday?" Emmis asked. "Did you get your question answered?"

Lar shook his head. "No. Kolar's spell just made a... a nothing, a mess."

"Swirls, he called it. But what about Imrinira?"

Lar set down his mug and turned up a palm. "She couldn't help much," he said. "She tried a few things. Mostly the Spell of the Eighth Sphere."

"What's that do?"

"It makes runes appear in a black crystal sphere," Lar said. "But it can only answer yes-or-no questions, and not all of those. It did tell us that strong magic was interfering with Fendel's Divination, that it wasn't anything Kolar did wrong, but any time we tried to ask it a question about... about the hum itself, rather than about Kolar's spell, the reply was so hazy we couldn't read it. The magic was interfering again."

"Ah."

"So we went to see Imrinira's friend Zindré, to see whether witchcraft might work where wizardry didn't. They have an agreement – when Imrinira needs witchcraft she goes to Zindré, and when Zindré needs wizardry she goes to Imrinira. But Zindré couldn't do anything with this, so she took us to Sella, who was expecting us. She said that witchcraft wasn't going to help very much, but that other magicians could answer all my questions, and some of them were wizards – I just had to ask the right people the right questions. But then she called her apprentice in and whispered to her, and said that you would be along in a moment, and then you were, and you know the rest."

"Oh." Emmis considered this for a moment. "So what did Imrinira say, when Sella said that magicians could answer your questions?"

"She said that she couldn't, but that if the interference came from a protective spell of some kind, then the wizard who cast it could probably tell me why it's there."

"Does it come from a protective spell?"

"I don't know." Lar picked his mug up again. "I didn't get a chance to ask her about that."

"So are you going to go back and ask more questions?"

"Not right away," Lar said. He sipped tea. "I need to think about what questions to ask. And I need to write that protocol."

Emmis nodded.

"Besides, my first trip to the Wizards' Quarter got assassins sent to kill me," Lar added. "Who knows what will happen if I keep going back?"

"What more can happen?" Emmis asked. "They're already trying to kill you."

"They might do a better job of it."

"How?"

"Hire magicians. Or Demerchan."

"Perhaps you should get some protective spells of your own," Emmis suggested. "Talk to a theurgist about that door shrine – it might be useful."

"It might. But first I need to write my letter to Lord Ildirin."

Emmis sighed. "Please yourself. I suppose I could see about buying some decent furniture while you do that, and I do need more clothes."

"You left yours at that inn in Shiphaven?"

"Yes. So I'm sure they're long gone."

"Not necessarily. Might the innkeeper have kept them for you?"

Emmis frowned. "I doubt it," he said.

"I think you should go back and ask. I'd be interested in knowing just how quickly Annis disappeared after you ran out of there, too."

"I still can't believe she told me they were going to assassinate you!"

"Oh, they think everyone in Ethshar is a cold-hearted mercenary. I'm almost surprised she didn't try to hire you to kill me."

Emmis's mouth opened, then closed again.

"Really, people in the Small Kingdoms have no idea how a place like Ethshar can exist," Lar said. "It's too big for them to comprehend – the stories say there are a million people in Ethshar of the Spices alone! I don't think there's a one of the Small Kingdoms with more than thirty thousand people in it; the Empire of Vond might have a quarter of a million, at most.

And there's all the magic here, and three overlords instead of a king or council..."

"People mind their own business," Emmis said. "It all works out."

"Yes, exactly! People mind their own business, so Annis thought you wouldn't care about me. I'm not one of your countrymen."

"But you're my business," Emmis said. "You pay me. You live here."

"But I have no family here, no connections. You haven't sworn fealty to me, we don't serve the same king."

Emmis stared at him, baffled. "So what?"

"You see? We think differently in the Small Kingdoms!"

"But you said she thought I wouldn't mind because I'm Ethsharitic!"

"Yes. She doesn't understand Ethshar. She sees that you people here don't have the family ties and hereditary positions and binding oaths that connect people in the Small Kingdoms, so she thinks you don't have any connections. I know better – you have your neighbors and your friends and your family and the people you do business with, masters and journeymen and apprentices are all linked, there are the guilds and districts, and when all is said and done you're all Ethsharites together. You have far more connections than we do; they just aren't as strong or as obvious, but they're strong enough. That guardsman we brought here last night – he came with us just because you asked. You aren't a nobleman, or any of his kin, or a member of the guard yourself, you're just an Ethsharite, and that was enough."

"Well, yes, of course," Emmis said. "That's their job, to guard the city and keep the peace."

"In Ashthasa, where Annis is from, a soldier's job is to do as he's told by the prince and his officers," Lar explained. "Helping out an ordinary citizen isn't something he does without orders."

"Barbarians," Emmis muttered under his breath.

Lar heard him, and smiled.

"They think you are barbarians, with your messy, disorganized way of doing things and your lack of a proper hereditary hierarchy."

"'They'? Not 'we'?"

"Oh, I know better than that. I might have never set foot in Ethshar a sixnight ago, but I'm not stupid. I've talked to Lord Sterren, and other travelers, and I know no place could be as big and rich and powerful as the Hegemony if it was really disorganized and barbaric."

"But this isn't obvious to everyone?"

"No, it isn't. You'd be surprised."

"Barbarians," Emmis said again.

"Different," Lar said. "And you should go back to the inn and see whether anyone can tell you anything about Annis. Maybe you can find out whether there are any more assassins on their way, or where she found the two you met last night."

"Why does it matter where she found them?"

"It's a useful thing to know where one can hire assassins."

Emmis didn't like that; the clear implication was that Lar might want to hire a few himself. "Who were you thinking of assassinating?" he asked.

"No one," Lar replied cheerfully. "I just like to know what's possible."

"I don't work for people who hire assassins."

"I'm pleased to hear that."

Emmis glared at his employer. Lar finished his tea.

"I'll order furniture," Emmis said.

Lar shook his head. "Visit the inn. Seriously. You might learn something useful. And if your belongings are still there, you'll save yourself a great deal of effort and money."

"Would they still be there in the Small Kingdoms?"

"They might be, they might not. It would depend on the inn. Try to be back by early afternoon, to take my papers to the Palace."

"I can do that," Emmis acknowledged. He started to rise.

"And while you're doing that, I can go back to the Wizards' Quarter and try to find a good theurgist."

"About the door shrine?"

"That, too."

"About your mysterious hum."

"Yes."

"Someday I'd like to know what that's about."

"So would I – but I know what you mean. Eventually I may tell you."

"But not today? Not now?"

Lar studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, "All right."

Emmis sat down again. "You will?"

"I will. It may help you know what to ask at the inn."

"I'm listening."

"You understand that if you tell anyone, I will have you killed? And I won't waste time with street thugs; I'll hire a demonologist."

Emmis hesitated. "You will?"

"Yes. If a warlock, any warlock, finds out what the Empire is worried about, there will be deaths, and yours will be one of them."

Emmis considered that.

It wasn't fair, really – making it clear just how important and dangerous this was made it irresistible. His curiosity was going to drive him mad if he didn't ask.

He would just need to be very, very good about keeping his own mouth shut.

"Go on," he said.

Lar sighed, and began.

"Four years ago," he said, "Sterren, Ninth Warlord of Semma, came to Ethshar and hired some magicians to help defend Semma against her neighbors, Ophkar and Ksinallion. King Phenvel of Semma was an idiot, and had managed to antagonize both his bigger, more powerful neighbors at a time when Semma's own army was in terrible shape, and Sterren thought the only way he could survive the coming war was by breaking the tradition against using magic."

"All right," Emmis said. So far this didn't sound like any great secret.

"Well, as you might guess, most of Ethshar's magicians weren't interested in going to fight a war at the far end of the Small Kingdoms, but he found a few, and one of them was a warlock named Vond, who had started to hear the Calling and was desperate to get farther away from Aldagmor."

Emmis nodded.

"Semma was so far from Aldagmor that at first Vond wasn't much use. In fact, he was stricken with headaches. He said they were caused by a buzz, or hum, that he heard constantly, that never went away."

That seemed mildly odd, but not like any great dangerous secret. "So you want to find out why he had headaches?"

"No, no, no!" Lar waved that absurd notion aside. "You know something about warlocks, yes?"

"A little."

"You know that their power comes from a sort of voice they hear in their heads?"

Emmis frowned. "Well, not exactly a voice..."

"No, not exactly a voice. Vond called it a whisper, and said that the Calling began when you started to understand what it was saying."

"Really? I hadn't heard it that way."

"That's what Lord Sterren told me," Lar said, turning up a palm. "That there was this sort of whispering, muttering voice, or collection of voices, that warlocks drew their power from, and when they drew too much power, the whisper began to gain power over them."

"It could be," Emmis admitted. "But it isn't really a voice. There are images, aren't there?"

"I'm no warlock, but I think so, yes. Still, it's like a voice, sort of."

"Magic," Emmis said, with a wave. "It doesn't have to make sense. So it's a whispering voice that makes images, and that they draw power from. All right."

"And in Semma, Vond got headaches because of a horrible buzzing in his head that never stopped. Can't you guess what happened?"

"No." Emmis had an uneasy suspicion where this was going, but he wanted it spelled out.

"Vond discovered he could draw power from the hum, instead of from the whisper. And he thought he could use all the power he wanted without worrying about the Calling, because the buzz didn't have any words or images in it, it was just this constant flow of energy he could tap into."

A second source of magic that warlocks could use – that was a secret worth worrying about, Emmis had to admit. But it still didn't seem all that terrible. "But he got Called eventually, didn't he?"

Lar nodded. "Yes. Eventually he used so much magic, and grew so powerful, that the whisper could get at him right through the buzz. But the buzz, or hum, or whatever it is, never tried to affect him."

That would make it more appealing for a warlock, certainly. "Was this hum coming from Aldagmor, too?"

Lar shook his head. "No," he said. "We think it comes from Lumeth of the Towers."

This was beginning to fit together. "So you really do want to conquer Lumeth, to control this power source?"

"Gods and demons, no!" Lar said. "Didn't you hear me tell you that we don't want any warlocks in the Empire? We don't want to control this second Source.

"We want to destroy it."

Chapter Fourteen

Emmis ambled along High Street, mulling over what Lar had told him.

It all made sense, really. Vond the Great Warlock had been as much a menace to his own people as to anyone else, and the Imperial Council really didn't want anyone taking his place. They liked being in power, with no emperor to answer to – apparently Lord Sterren, the Regent, was an easy master to deal with.

So they didn't want any warlocks in the Empire, and most particularly they didn't want any warlocks who might be able to hear the Lumeth Source, as well as the Aldagmor one. That explained why Lar had gone to see Ishta, why he had asked what kept warlocks out of Vond.

They wanted to know exactly what and where the second Source was, so they could destroy it. And they didn't want any warlocks to know anything about it, because they assumed, with reason, that warlocks would want access to this second source.

The Source in Aldagmor was obviously more immediately dangerous; everyone near it had simply vanished on the Night of Madness. Apparently they had all heard the Calling, man, woman, and child. A little farther away there had been survivors initially, but they had all become warlocks, and were either murdered by frightened neighbors, or Called not long after. Even now, anyone venturing too deeply into that area would be Called, even if he or she had not been a warlock. The southeastern half of Aldagmor was now uninhabited, as a result.

Lumeth wasn't depopulated. There were no warlocks there. There were no areas where people vanished, or where people acquired magical powers. It wasn't obvious exactly where the second Source was, or how Vond had been able to "hear" it when no one else had.

So Lar had asked Kolar where Vond's "hum" originated – and Kolar hadn't been able to tell him.

Lar was interested in where one might hire thugs and murderers because the Empire might want to hire a few and send them into Lumeth to smash that mysterious source, wherever and whatever it actually was.

He was also worried that the Lumethans might have found out that they had an immensely powerful source of magic in their country, and might be looking for ways to use it against the Empire. The Empire was just as worried that Lumeth might invade them as the Lumethans were worried that the Empire might invade them. That the Empire had at least a dozen times the population really wouldn't matter if the Lumethans learned how to use that magical power.

That was one reason Lar had insisted Emmis return to the Crooked Candle

– to find out anything he could that might tell them what the Lumethans knew, or didn't know.

That was pretty much all that Lar had actually told him, but Emmis thought he had picked up hints that there was another element at work. He remembered that Lar had said there had been two warlocks in Semma since the Night of Madness, and there had been vague implications that Lord Sterren took a personal interest in this whole situation.

Emmis could see two ways this might work. Lord Sterren might be the second warlock, and hiding it, or he might know who the second warlock was and be afraid of what he or she might do. The second warlock might be a family member, or a close friend, or a sworn enemy – or perhaps the princess Sterren was reportedly planning to marry.

If it was Sterren himself who was a warlock, would he really want the Lumeth power source destroyed?

He might; after all, Vond had come to a bad end.

But if he had the same sort of unchecked magical power Vond had had, why didn't he use it? Why keep it concealed? Was he that afraid of the Calling?

Or was he, perhaps, that frightened of the Wizards' Guild, which had forbidden magicians to hold high office?

That made sense. And if the Lumeth source was destroyed, well, Vond was so far from Aldagmor that he'd hardly be a warlock at all, would he?

It could be any of those; Lar hadn't said, and Emmis didn't know. Lar might not know either, for that matter. Emmis did believe, though, that Lar intended to track down the Lumeth source and see that it was destroyed.

Emmis thought that was probably a good idea. He was no geographer, but if there was a previously-unknown and unused source of warlockry in Lumeth of the Towers, its range presumably extended in all directions, just as the one in Aldagmor did. Lumeth of the Towers was northwest of Semma and the Empire of Vond.

And Ethshar of the Spices was northwest of Lumeth. Emmis was not at all sure of the distances involved, but he thought it was possible that the Lumeth source might be entirely too close for comfort if warlocks all learned how to use it.

Better for all concerned if no warlocks ever heard about it.

He turned from High Street onto Commerce Street, and noticed a few interesting shops – the house in Allston really did need more furniture, and kitchen supplies, as well as ordinary things like candles, lamps, and oil.

Perhaps he would go back by way of Bargain Street, rather than High, and see what he could find. Then at least this entire trip wouldn't be wasted.

The truth was that he did not expect to find anything useful in Shiphaven. He was sure his belongings must have been stolen; if they hadn't been he would almost be disappointed, as it would mean the thieves of Ethshar were not living up to their reputation. And surely, the foreigners must have all fled by now, and there would be nothing worth learning at the Crooked Candle.

But Lar had sent him to check, so he would check. He was being paid to do what he was told.

He pushed quickly through Canal Square without stopping to look at any of the merchandise on display. This was not much of a market; the better goods wound up in Shiphaven Market or the shops of the Old Merchants' Quarter, and Canal Square got the leftovers, the bits of this and that that had been discarded by the successful merchants and salvaged by scavengers, the items pilfered from cabins and cargo holds by sailors, the things that thieves had been unable to fence elsewhere.

It occurred to Emmis when he was three blocks down Twixt Street that perhaps he would have found some of his own former possessions offered for sale there – most of what he had had was not likely to bring any real money, which meant it was just the sort of merchandise that someone might try to sell for a few bits in Canal Square.

Well, it wasn't worth turning back at this point. He strode on, across Shiphaven Market, past the farmers, fishmongers, and recruiters, into Commission Street.

And there he stopped, twenty yards from the Crooked Candle.

There were guards at the inn door, two of them, trying to look casual, as if they just happened to be lounging there.

Emmis didn't believe that for an instant. Guards did not lounge on Commission Street. It wasn't on the way from any of their usual posts to anywhere they would need to go. If guards were needed on the Shiphaven docks or at the shipyards they would be sent from Westgate and would come down Shipwright or Captain Street, not Commission. If there had been a disturbance in Shiphaven Market, as sometimes happened, they would lounge in the market itself, not on Commission Street. If it were evening, and the guards were planning to get a drink when they went off-duty, it might have just barely been possible, but in the morning?

So they were watching the Crooked Candle.

Which meant there was no chance at all that Annis or the Lumethans or the assassins would be there. The foreigners weren't that stupid.

Why were the guards being that stupid? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a few men out of uniform inside the inn, ready to pounce if one of the foreigners or assassins came in?

Well, that wasn't Emmis's problem. He already knew coming here was pointless, but Lar had told him to go to the inn, so he would go to the inn.

He marched forward.

At the door of the inn he paused; the two guards were watching him closely, but neither of them had said anything or reached for a weapon. These two, he noticed, were wearing swords, as well as bearing truncheons, which meant they were definitely not simply ordinary guards varying their patrol.

"Is there something going on?" Emmis asked, pointing to one guard's sword.

"Nothing that concerns you," the soldier replied.

"It's all right if I go inside?"

"We won't stop you, but mind your own business."

Emmis nodded, and stepped through the door into the inn's common room.

A third guard looked up at his entrance, and Emmis was startled to realize that he recognized this one. This was one of the two who had come up from the Palace last night to investigate the attempted assassination.

A white-haired old man was seated at a table just behind the guardsman, speaking intently with someone Emmis recognized as the innkeeper, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table. The innkeeper's face was toward Emmis, and he looked worried; the old man was facing away.

A few customers were scattered about – very few; Emmis counted four.

Gita was serving one of them a mug of beer. No one was else was in sight.

The familiar guard looked at Emmis, then tapped the old man on the shoulder. "My lord?" he said quietly.

The old man cut off whatever he was saying to the innkeeper in mid-sentence and looked up. "Yes?"

"My lord, Emmis of Shiphaven just came in."

So much, Emmis thought, for any hope that he might be able to get a quiet beer and slip away unnoticed.

The old man turned and looked at Emmis. Emmis stood where he was and smiled politely. He had no idea who the old man was, but anyone addressed as

"my lord" was not someone he wanted to antagonize.

"Ask him to join us," the old man said.

The guardsman stepped forward, and Emmis came to meet him. "I heard,"

he said.

"I'll have to ask you to give me your knife," the guardsman said.

Startled, Emmis drew his belt-knife and handed it over, hilt first.

Whatever was happening here, the soldier was taking it seriously; ordinarily no one even thought of a belt-knife as a weapon. Disarmed, he approached the table cautiously, and took a chair under the watchful gaze of the guard and the old man. The innkeeper was too busy looking confused and miserable to pay any attention to Emmis; he just stared ahead blindly as the young man settled into his seat.

"Hello," Emmis said. "I'm Emmis of Shiphaven."

"My name is Ildirin," the old man said. He did not offer a hand or make any other polite gestures, but his gaze remained focused on Emmis.

Ildirin. The guardsman had addressed him as "my lord." The age was about right. Emmis swallowed. "The overlord's uncle?"

"Yes."

That explained why the inn was being guarded. "I am honored."

"We have been discussing your contention that this man has allowed people to hire assassins in his inn."

"Oh." Emmis threw the innkeeper a quick glance. "Well, I don't know that the actual hiring took place here, but one of his guests did tell me her companion had hired assassins, and sure enough, I was attacked in my employer's home as soon as I got back there."

"I can't possibly be expected to know everything that people do here!"

the innkeeper burst out.

"So you said," Lord Ildirin replied dryly. "And I have acknowledged the truth of your claim. Nonetheless, it would behoove you to tell me everything you have ever known, every whisper you have ever heard, about the four foreigners who slept under your roof."

"But I don't know anything," the innkeeper wailed. "They paid every day, in good coin, and then yesterday afternoon they all departed hurriedly.

They settled their bill and took their things and they were gone!"

"And you can't tell me anything they said, anything they ate, anything they drank, anyone they met, anyone they declined to meet."

"No! I mind my own business and let my customers mind theirs!"

Lord Ildirin nodded, and turned to Emmis. "And you? Can you tell me any more?"

"A little," Emmis admitted.

"Then do."

Emmis blinked, then began describing how Gita had first brought him to meet Annis and the three Lumethans.

Lord Ildirin stopped him.

"Gita?" He glanced at the innkeeper.

"My niece," the innkeeper said.